The Kansas City Star from Kansas City, Missouri • 70

A-1 8 The Kansas City Star Saturday May 16 1992 Robin Fuldauer Sarah Lynn Blessing Indianapolis murder set pattern Normal day turns fatal THE INTERSTATE MKUH! By PAULA BARR Slatl Writer By PAULA BARR Staff Writer did not find much money in the store Fuldauer 26 was a manager at Payless Shoesource on Pendleton Pike about a half-mile west of Interstate 70 Her district manager had tried to call the store for 45 minutes that Wednesday afternoon in April and finally called the gas station next door Attendant LuCretia Gullett went to the shoe store saw the cash register open and called police Fuldauer was found dead about 2 pm She had been shot twice in the right side of the head according to news reports Indianapolis police had little to go on They hoped to find the person who bought two pairs of shoes one for a man and one for a woman According to the cash register tape Fuldauer made the sale her last at 1:15 pm 6 workers in small stores are victims of gunman Robin death appears to be the first of a series of murders but it set a pattern the killer followed closely Fuldauer an Indianapolis woman worked at a small store in a small shopping center near an interstate in Indianapolis She was alone the afternoon of April 8 when the killer entered the store She died in the back room of the store shot in the head twice The gun used to kill her was the same 22-caliber weapon that killed five others in similar settings the next month At the time police said robbery was a motive although one woman from the area told reporters that the killer probably May 7 began as a typical Thursday for Sarah Blessing of Kansas City She rose at 7:30 am fed her cat Eclipse and her dog Tammy then enjoyed a breakfast of fresh fruit Although she preferred to sleep late every Thursday she went to Karen Mission home where she manipulated feet in order to ease her pain or relieve tension That morning the two talked about people who had died heaven and spirituality Winney gave Blessing a tape about a woman who had talked her abductor out of killing her by reading the Bible Blessing had to open the Store of Many Colors at noon and she arrived home too late to eat lunch with her husband before she went to work got home about 1 1 :00 or 11:30 and packed herself a Patricia Smith Patricia Magers Killer let witness go in Wichita murders By SCOTT CANON Mid-America Correspondent never worried about the money She wanted to make people happy She just loved helping people She got a lot of self-satisfaction out of that" Mark Magers It was the start of the busy season at and Sir Knight Tuxedo adjoining shops in a strip mall on busy Kellogg Street Proms were just around the comer June weddings were in the works was a threat to the darkness and evil out Sonny Blessing Michael McCown Gunman may have mistaken ceramics shopkeeper for woman By PAULA BARR Staff Writer Investigators said the relatively small amount of cash to be found at such a business made the robbery look almost like an afterthought a lot about this that make said Wichita police Lt Ken Landwehr For instance why did the killer leave behind someone who could identify him by letting the customer bolt from the store? appears that he did not attempt to stop the witness in any violent Landwehr said explain The whole thing is certainly inexplicable to Evelyn Trendel She understand why anyone would want to hurt her 23-year-old daughter Patricia Smith never had a bad thing to say about the mother said Patricia Smith had worked at for a little over a year while she attended Wichita State University in pursuit of a nursing degree She had been married for less than a year to a man she had been dating since she was 1 8 wanted to work with her mother said loved babies and little animals" Patricia Magers 32 had bought the tuxedo and bridal shops in February 1991 and put in an alarm system shortly afterward never worried about the money" Mark Magers her husband told The Wichita Eagle wanted to make people happy She just loved helping people She got a lot of self-satisfaction out of that" It was a Saturday night April 1 1 about 6 pm quitting time A customer called about picking up a garment Could they stay open a little longer to accommodate him? Sure When the customer arrived he thinks it was between 6:15 and 6:25 pm he was not greeted by the pleasant smiles of store manager Trish Magers or bridal consultant Patricia Smith Instead the after-hours customer walked down an aisle in the dal shop until he was stopped is tracks by a man carrying appeared to be an Uzi-type lutomatic weapon gunman was white short rim about 5 feet 6 inches tall i 150 pounds 33 to 40 years id He had reddish-blond hair and two to three days stubble of a reddish beard He wore black shoes and a waist-length jacket Police said the two men had a brief confrontational conversation The customer backpedaled to the front door and ran Scared and unsure of what he had happened upon he waited until 7:30 that night to call police When police arrived at the bridal shop they found the two women face down on the floor in a room in the rear of their store They had been shot one time each in the back of the head One woman was declared dead at the scene The other was declared dead at a hospital Some money was taken from the cash register but police say how much the shot that killed his son A woman who arrived in the store at 4:30 pm found body He was probably killed an hour to 90 minutes earlier McCown wore his dark brown hair in a short ponytail and also wore an earring Police said the killer may have mistaken him for a woman But at 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighing 170 pounds McCown did not resemble a woman his father said lived music and was concerned about his father said someone had a gun probably try to talk him out of using it but never turn his back It appeared he was leaning over a shelf and was completely unaware was not a violent person or someone who would be mixed up with Ceramics The store named after his mother was a quarter-mile north of Interstate 70 he came back he worked for Philip McCown said was tired of being on the road And when we got tired of working he said run it himself He did a fine After his appointment shortly before noon McCown stopped by his house to pick up his house payment book His four-room house was nearly paid off He went back to the store A car rental shop and a grocery flank the shop but father think anyone heard Michael McCown folded his lanky form into the tan Dodge Colt station wagon early April 27 and headed for his ceramics store in Terre Haute Ind He was off to meet a customer who was picking up an order His back hurt from the heavy work of making the ceramic goods he sold so McCown went to a chiropractor after meeting the client said his father Philip McCown McCown who was 40 had toured the country with several rock roll bands and he never married although he came close a couple of times About six years ago McCown decided to settle down He started working at his store Sonny Blessing recalled was probably some almonds a cucumber or sprouts Her whole life was nature and natural The Store of Many Colors is an eclectic shop at the north end of a strip mall in Woodson Village Shopping Center in Raytown The store a joint venture by several women opened about a month ago It sells vitamins jewelry rocks American Indian goods and books and magazines dealing with topics such as yoga and herbs Blessing an herbalist sold encapsulated herbs clean-water machines and miniature trampolines designed for safe exercise Sonny Blessing said She also counseled people on nutrition At 2:12 pm before he left for work Sonny called Sarah seemed he said That was the last time he spoke to her According to police and witnesses Blessing was alone in the store about 6: 1 5 pm when a man dressed in a gray sports coat slacks and dress shoes walked across the parking lot toward the store His actions drew attention because most people at the shopping center pull their cars up to the store fronts instead of walking a store owner said The man was calm and a witness said He smoothed his hair back in the wind and continued into store About 6:30 pm there was a loud pop that sounded like a gunshot said a witness who called police Police think the man forced Blessing into one of the two back rooms where he shot her in the back of the head He then left the store turned the corner of the building and walked northeast probably up a steep hill to Woodson Road Witnesses think they saw the man briskly walking north on Woodson and east on 59th Street about 10 minutes after? the shooting Sonny Blessing thinks beliefs led to her death believed in the natural way of life that gotten away he said lifestyle was moving out of darkness and ignorance toward the light She was a threat to the darkness and evil out Nancy Kitzmiller Working in strip mall store gave victim sense of safety was robbed in March A witness may have seen the killer according to Morici A customer walking between stores saw a man go into the Boot Village and has been able to give a description to officers all the places you figure something like this well this was said Jane Walling a clerk in a nearby store and I used to talk about how it was nice to work in one of these small shopping centers away from the big malls and all thought it was safer ballistics and other evidence it became clear we were dealing with a serial killer roaming across the Officers now are certain the two St Charles events related Boot Village just off Interstate 70 in St Charles is a Western shop crammed with cowboy boots and rodeo posters Kitzmiller 24 had worked at the store about 18 months since graduating from Oklahoma State University with a degree in geography She played soccer in college and had organized a local soccer club in St two clerks were forced into the back room and sprayed with Mace Officers immediately tied the two crimes together seeking a single suspect for two robberies and murder found out quickly however that it was much bigger than said Sgt Pat Morici of the Major Case Squad the By TOM MILLER Jefferson City Correspondent I Teams of police swarmed over Boot Village in St Charles Mo on May 3 after the body of manager Nancy Kitzmiller was found in the back room been shot once in the back of the head with a 22-caliber pistol A card shop in Bogey Hills Plaza the strip shopping center where the Boot Village store is situated had been robbed only a few weeks earlier In that robbery Louis Kitzmiller was alone in the store when the robbery occurred and officers say she was killed between about I and 2:30 pm when a customer found her body in the storeroom The cash register had been emptied although it is thought only a small amount of money was taken purse was left untouched said no one would rob Boot Village because never much money said Colette manager of Hallmark store which Strange similarities in murders led police to links in cases Continued from A-1 believe that the inexplicable nature of the crime might be its telling clue He thought murder itself might be the motive And he thought it might be happening elsewhere He put out a notice on a teletype system linking police departments across the country But so much comes out over the teletype investigators always bother to read through it all So Dotson made some phone calls took! a map and started drawing larger and larger circles around Wichita" Scantlin said shell casing to Raytown another match was made An officer from Wichita remained with the Metro Squad on Friday but officers from the other cities where the killings have occurred have returned home Pilgrim said As of Friday Pilgrim said police had followed more than 250 leads with no breakthroughs not getting discouraged in this said still waiting or that right Staff writer Matt Campbeh contributed to this report at each murder scene and police in Indiana and Missouri decided to share and compare The casings matched Wichita was the only city that quite fit unlike the other cities it was not on Interstate 70 And they were still thrown off track by the assumption that the weapons the same Scantlin said about the earlier discussions regarding the casings realize they had a Some officers in Wichita still believed the killings were all linked And when they brought a Finally that circle stretched to Indianapolis A Payless Shoesource clerk had been shot there on April 8 in much the same way as the women in Wichita got Scantlin said But for a moment the effort to come up with a link between the killings stalled Firearms experts from the two cities talked by telephone and concluded different weapons were used But by that time Indianapolis police had begun to notice similarities between the murder in their city and recent fatal rob beries elsewhere: April 27 Terre Haute Ind May 3 St Charles Mo the St Charles killing word started to get around between these different places that we have something like that Pilgrim said Police finally had a pattern On May 7 the same day Sarah Blessing was killed in Raytown police in Indianapolis and St Charles Mo first spoke of their one-killer theory What they needed now was some hard evidence The killer had left shell casings robbery said Wichita police George Scantlin kind of stores are hardly primary targets for armed There were plenty of dead-ends For instance Wichita police decided to contact Kansas City investigators Three people were shot to death in the back room ol Sir Knight Formal Wear at 1501 Grand Ave in 1986 The cases seemed similar But the facts match Meanwhile homicide detective Lt Paul Dotson had begun to.