Thomas Francis Edwards, the Bethesda Butcher, was convicted and sentenced to death for murdering a young girl in California in 1981. After his death, he was linked via DNA to two additional unsolved murders in the Washington D.C. area. Edwards was born in Bethesda, Maryland on January 26, 1944. He was adopted as an infant to a wealthy family who had one biological son named Terry. His stepfather worked for the government and passed away in 1957. Edwards's mother Helen then moved the family to a residence on Manning Drive, in a postcard middle class 1950s suburb.Edwards, who had just turned 14, developed a reputation as an aggressive bully who walked around the neighborhood with a bullwhip and using it on younger children. A large, physically strong youth, he could easily intimidate others with his size. Edwards later began toting a shotgun and bow--somehow no injuries resulted from any of his escapades. The neighbors initially rationalized his behavior as the result of emotional stress caused by the loss of his father and because Helen felt confident that she could control her stepson.
One summer evening in 1962, members of a Girl Scout troop were camping out in the backyard of the Boesch family, including 15 year old Barbara Smeak. While Smeak was standing outside one of the tents, 18 year old Edwards, wielding a knife, grabbed her from behind, clapped his hand over her mouth, and cut off her ponytail. He then cut a slash in the tent and took off, but the girls soon identified him and he was arrested when Smeak's mother called police. Edwards was put in Springfield State Hospital for a psychiatric exam and evaluated as sane, however two months later it was decided not to charge him with anything. No official reason was given, but a possibility is that no one was hurt in the incident aside from Barbara Smeak getting a few scratches on her face.On January 22, 1963, Edwards and two other teenage boys attacked Richard Robins, a bowling alley manager, as he was leaving work. One of the boys tried to hit him over the head with a blackjack, but Robins ducked and instead they merely hit his shoulder. He fell over and the boys stole a bag he was carrying; to their disappointment there were no receipts inside, just some bowling shoes. The robbery went unsolved until September, when one of Edwards's accomplices was arrested for an unrelated incident and confessed everything. All three teens were put in a juvenile reformatory in Hagerstown where Edwards was frequently bullied.
In January 1964, Edwards was transferred to Patuxent Institution for psychiatric treatment and spent four years there. The facility did not disclose information about his time there due to patient confidentiality rules, but they reported that his treatment was "successful" and he was paroled in 1968 to a halfway house in Baltimore, where he befriended a man named Martin Salisbury. Salisbury considered Edwards a lovable and intelligent individual, but that he also had a psychotic anger towards women.
On January 16, 1970, Sherry Kennedy, 14, was walking to a friend's apartment near Montgomery Mall Shopping center. The two girls had an argument over use of the telephone and Kennedy decided to return home. Kennedy encountered Edwards near the Cabin John Creek Regional Park. He grabbed her, stabbed her in the head with an ice pick, cut her throat, and shot her in the head with a Ruger .22 pistol. Edwards dumped the body under a bridge near the intersection of Cabin John Parkway and Clara Barton Parkway. Kennedy was found several hours later, the ice pick still stuck in her head. Despite the extreme brutality inflicted on the girl, she was fully clothed and had not been sexually molested. It was a damp, wet, and foggy winter day in the Baltimore area and it was thought that Kennedy had been trying to hitchhike. A reward of $5,000 was offered for any information leading to the arrest of her killer.On January 28, Cathy Kalberer, a 33 year old schoolteacher, was found dead in the back seat of a neighbor's car outside her Bethesda apartment. Her throat was cut and she was stabbed more than 100 times in the chest and legs. The apartment had dried blood all over the place and a bloodied knife was found in one of the rooms. Kalberer was reported missing the previous day when she didn't show up to work at her new job in Takoma Park Junior High in Washington D.C. Autopsy of Kalberer concluded that she was probably hit in the back of the head while coming home from the grocery store, then dragged into the apartment where her throat was cut. After that, the killer stabbed her in the stomach and chest, causing her to bleed out. He then dragged Kalberer's body to the bedroom where he continued hacking away at it.
On February 2, Donna Oglesby, an 18 year old file clerk at the FBI's headquarters in D.C., was found stabbed to death in her Alexandria, Virginia apartment. She was nude and been stabbed numerous times, a pair of sewing scissors sticking in one of the wounds. Although the M/O for the murders of Kennedy, Kalberer, and Oglesby seemed similar, police did not try to link them.In November, it was reported that an unnamed suspect was arrested after his fingerprints were found at the Kennedy and Kalberer crime scenes. It would be revealed later that the suspect was Thomas Edwards, who was then working at an area service station. Police found assorted knives and firearms in his Bethesda apartment. He was not supposed to possess these and was sent back to Patuxent for violating his parole terms. Edwards couldn't be linked to any of the murders and was not charged with them, but nevertheless he spent the next six years in Patuxent. The state of Maryland then passed a new law banning inmates with mental issues from being detained longer than their designated sentence, regardless of whether they were considered dangerous or not. Edwards and 39 other inmates were released on July 1, 1977 despite the protests of staff at the hospital and Edwards's own admission that he became irrationally angry at women, especially brunettes.
A year later, Edwards got married to a woman named Lisa and moved across the country to Huntington Beach, California. His mental issues kept him from holding down a job and he suffered a serious workplace injury to his hands. His wife filed for divorce and Edwards increasingly leaned on Martin Salisbury as someone who he could talk to about his issues. Salisbury recalled that Edwards liked to take long hikes in the woods with his dog to "get away from it all", especially when his psychoses started acting up, and often undertook camping trips. He ultimately converted this hobby into a job as a forest ranger at South Coast Gun Club in Irvine. Soon after beginning this job, Edwards was found to act erratically and spy on women and girls at the campground, sometimes surreptitiously photographing them, but none of these acts were illegal and nobody could do anything about them.On September 19, 1981, Edwards was cruising around Cleveland National Forest and spotted two 12 year old girls, Vanessa Iberri and Kelly Cartier. He stopped his truck and asked the girls to come over as he wanted to talk to them. They did so and Edwards pulled out a gun, shot them in the head, and took off. A passerby witnessed the whole thing, caught his license plate number, and reported him to police. Edwards was suspected and a manhunt launched to identify him. The girls were taken to a hospital. Iberri did not survive, but Cartier recovered after undergoing emergency surgery.
Knowing he was a wanted man, Edwards got on a bus and headed back across the country to Maryland. He arrived in College Park, checked into a motel, and called Martin Salisbury and a former cellmate of his. He told them where he was and in a short time a phalanx of police surrounded the motel. Salisbury was brought into serve as a negotiator and eventually talked Edwards into surrendering. Edwards claimed to have migraine headaches and blackouts that impaired his memory, but this was considered a ploy to try and plead insanity--Salisbury knew that he was good at manipulating the system from all the psychiatric terminology he learned at Patuxent. Despite Edwards's public defender's protests, he was extradicted to California to stand trial for murder and attempted murder.The jurors were unable to agree on a sentence and a new sentencing trial with a new jury was scheduled. At the second trial, Edwards fired his public defender and was found guilty and sentenced to death. Just prior to sentencing, Edwards asked for a new public defender - Deputy Public Defender Michael Giannini was chosen, and managed to convince the court to have a third sentencing trial. At this trial, evidence was presented that he had engaged in role playing sex games with his former wife where he would pretend to tie her up and cut her throat. He was once again sentenced to death.
He spent the rest of his life on death row in San Quentin, repeatedly appealing his sentence. In 2008, Vanessa Iberri's father Joe said that he was upset at the recent moratorium on capital punishment in California and that Edwards deserved the chair. Edwards passed away from lung cancer on February 14, 2009, two months after being transferred to California Medical Facility in Vacaville. Joseph Iberri said he was glad that Edwards was dead, but wished he could have been executed years earlier.In 2012, Maryland authorities announced that Edwards was posthumously linked to the murders of Sherry Kennedy and Cathy Kalberer as some of Kennedy's blood was found on a jacket found in his apartment back in 1970. The blood was considered a close enough DNA match to Kennedy, and police considered the two murders solved and the cases closed.
ok...
>>18504301>>18504303>>18504310another day another boomer who had his brain melted by leaded gas fumes and extreme mommy issues
>>18504303>>18504301the heckin' based wholesomearino 1950s, just like my based trad Coca-Cola ads
>>18504301>and because Helen felt confident that she could control her stepsonThe atomic bombings of Japan, the Holocaust, and the Cambodian killing fields put together didn't do as much destruction as single moms have caused.
>>18504307Donna was cute, but she was a glownigger so would not date.
>>18504307>>18504310why did boomers gotta do this shit, man?
>>18504380Leaded gas fumes.
>>18504315>In 2008, Vanessa Iberri's father Joe said that he was upset at the recent moratorium on capital punishment in California and that Edwards deserved the chairthe state's responsibility is to ensure fair and equal justice not abet your revenge fantasies/bloodlust. unless you live in Texas, i guess.
>>18504301>Thomas Francis Edwards, the Bethesda ButcherTodd had it coming for not making Skyrim 2 in over 15 yearsAin't gonna read but I hope Thomas made him suffer
From one of Edwards's appeals. I had to laugh at the commentary here.>This is a death penalty appeal by California state prisoner, and crack marksman, Thomas Francis Edwards. Edwards' disturbed behavior and mental problems were apparent from early childhood. Expelled from numerous residential schools, he was committed to Maryland's Patuxent Institution For Defective Delinquents at the age of nineteen and was confined there for fourteen years. More than a decade of psychological treatment at the Patuxent Institution failed to help him. Although Patuxent staff believed Edwards still to be dangerous, Maryland changed its indeterminate sentencing laws and released Edwards in 1977.
>>18504560and at this point they still had no idea that he'd brutally killed three other people
>>18504310>A year later, Edwards got married to a woman named Lisa and moved across the country to Huntington Beach, Californiatf is wrong with women?>marrying a guy who'd been in mental prison for years
>Kelly Cartier recalled that Edwards pulled up in his red truck with a white camper shell. He called out "Girls!" Cartier and Iberri turned their heads. Edwards fired two shots. Iberri was hit between the eyes and fell to the ground like a stone. Cartier instinctively turned her head; the second shot just grazed her skull. She also fell to the ground, but witnessed Edwards running to the back of his truck, slamming the camper door shut, and getting back behind the wheel and flooring it. A party of campers heard the shots and thought someone was poaching deer. They arrived and found the girls on the ground, initially thinking they'd been the victims of a hit-and-run.>Two of the campers went to find the culprit while a third tended to the girls. They spotted Edwards's truck and got its license plate, but he managed to escape. Police found that the red '78 F150 was registered to Edwards, but despite an extensive manhunt, he could not be found anywhere. Vanessa Iberri was beyond all medical intervention and died after life support was removed; autopsy found that the gunshot wound was non-survivable. Kelly Cartier managed a full recovery.
>Edwards was apprehended in Maryland on September 28. His motel room had four days' worth of bus tickets in it, from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. Edwards's truck was found parked near a Los Angeles bus station. In the camper were two handguns, two shotguns, and two pistols, all unloaded, and more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition. Two rifles and a pistol were also found in his storage locker at the South Coast Gun Club. Edwards was an excellent shot, reportedly able to hit a chicken from a distance of 50 yards.>Two .22 casings were found at the crime scene, but none of them matched the weapons in his truck. A SCGC member named Bob Pamplin said that he sold Edwards a .22 Ruger semiautomatic pistol in about the first week of September. This weapon was possibly used to shoot the girls. Edwards reportedly confessed to a police officer shortly before his trial opened in 1983 that he shot them, had no idea why, and he felt terrible for what he must have put their families through. He did not deny shooting them at his trial; the defense noted that his divorce from his wife had been finalized on August 11, 1981 and that he was in a state of deep depression since then. However, no mental health expert testified for the defense.
>Barbara Smeak, now a married mother of two, testified at Edwards's trial regarding the attack on her camping party 21 years ago, along with her mother, who was also named Helen. Smeak said that the Girl Scout troop had planned to camp somewhere else, but for reasons she could no longer remember, were unable to arrange that and had to set up their tents in her backyard instead. She was standing outside the tent around 5:00 AM, a little before sunrise, and it was still dark out when Edwards approached, grabbed her, and lopped off her ponytail with his knife. "The whole incident was bizarre," Smeak remembered. She sustained some scratches to her face from struggling against his grip.>Helen Smeak said that she filed a complaint with police, who arrested Edwards and "They assured us he wouldn't come around anymore." He was confined to a mental facility, evaluated, and judged sane and fit to stand trial. On September 12, about two months after the incident, Montgomery County DAs, without any explanation, decided they were not going to charge Edwards with anything.
>>18504649>On September 12, about two months after the incident, Montgomery County DAs, without any explanation, decided they were not going to charge Edwards with anythingwhat were they supposed to do? the girl wasn't really harmed at all and it's not a crime to chop off someone's hair.
>>18504308>>18504307dude clearly had major woman issues, though none of the victims were raped so doesn't really seem to have been sexual
>>18504301>>18504307He's white, OP. We don't care. If he was black and did this we'd have a thread.
