Skip to main content

The El Paso Desert Murders



The El Paso Desert Murders was a series of 6 homicides, along with one living victim.  All of the murder victims were female prostitutes aged 14-28.  Judith Brown, the final victim and a living witness, was kidnapped and sexually assaulted.  Her statement was not only critical in getting David Wood into prison, but also in the eventual solving of the murders.  Wood’s name came up as a suspect with the El Paso Police Department during the course of each of the murder investigations.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have enough the proof needed to link him to the murders.  Wood was already in prison, due to the sexual assault of Judith Brown.  Brown gave a very detailed account of the night she was kidnapped and assaulted, including street names of places where Wood drove her and assaulted her.  Police were able to solve the murders by using this living witness to link the sexual assault site with burial sites of the murder victims, along with forensic evidence from the sexual assault compared to forensic evidence from each burial site.  Wood also bragged to cell mates about the murders he committed.  All of this evidence helped solve the case and convict Wood of the murders (Keppel & Birnes).






Works Cited
Keppel, Robert D., and William J. Birnes. The Psychology of Serial Killer Investigations The Grisly Business Unit. Academic Press, 2003.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Scott William Cox

In November of 1990 and February of 1991, two prostitutes were murdered in the Portland area.   These two murders were solved due to the realization of a possible serial killer in an unrelated assault and different law enforcement agencies working together.   In May of 1991, another prostitute in Seattle was severely sexually and physically assaulted and thrown from the cab of an 18 wheeler truck.   The victim had to be hospitalized as a result of the attack.   Even though the victim did not want to prosecute the case, the detective in charge realized that this attack showed signs of a current or future serial killer.   Police were able to track down a man by the name Seth Scott Cutter through the employer, the trucking company.   Police felt that Cutter could be the person responsible and information about Cutter was disseminated to neighboring agencies.   An officer from a different police department recognized the suspect as a local man named Scot...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Granny Killer

The Granny Killer, John Wayne Glover, was a serial killer in Australia.   He molested and killed older women in their 60’s to 90’s.   Glover bludgeoned the women, groped them, then tied and strangled them with their panties.   Glover was a local pie salesman and he would go to the nursing homes where many of his victims resided in the course of his work selling pies.   Based on incorrect profiling, police were looking for a teenaged offender.   Glover, however, was middle aged and appeared to be very friendly and respectful.   He had a wife and family, did charity work, and socialized with senior groups.   Glover had committed some sexual assaults about 25 years prior to him starting to kill.   Killings started after a series of stressful events in Glover’s life.   First, Glover and his wife moved into his wife’s parents home.   Second, Glover’s mother moved into the house with them as well.   Living with his in laws and mother ca...
Post a Comment
Read more

Male or Female? Issues Transgender People Face

            In “Aligning Bodies,” Judith Lorber and Lisa Jean Moore bring to light the burdens endured by people in our society that don’t necessarily fit into preconceived notions of sex and gender.   On a daily basis there are issues they must consider:   when filling out forms that ask for their sex, when going to the restroom and when showing legal documents that may not match the gender they identify with.   Transgender people may or may not have surgery on their chest and/or genitalia and/or face or other surgery and may choose to use hormone therapy.   Some people are born with ambiguous genitalia or with genitals or chromosomes of both sexes.   Yet others may identify as a gender different than their birth sex and choose to not alter their body physically.   There is a wide spectrum of people in our world that don’t neatly fit into the “F” and “M” boxes.   Society and individuals need to ...
Post a Comment
Read more