Herbert Coddington murdered two elderly women in South Lake Tahoe, California in 1987 after abducting two teenage models and was sentenced to death. He is also a suspected serial killer. Coddington was born in Morristown, New Jersey on October 13, 1959. Unlike the typical murderer, he was from a well-off middle class home and not poor, low IQ, or abused. His father Herbert Sr. was a General Electric engineer whose job included working on clandestine projects for the military and his mother Genevieve was a part-time dental technician. The Coddingtons lived in a tidy suburban home on Woodlawn Drive in Brewerton. Herbert was once estimated to have a 140 IQ and a photographic memory. He remembered his SAT scores--640 verbal and 670 math, and he could recall the exact date he lost his virginity--Monday June 23, 1975.
Coddington was known at school for being smart, but weird. He hung out with oddballs and misfits and preferred neat, well-ironed clothes--he hated to look sloppy. Once in the 3rd grade he sold homemade Creepy Crawler toys he took to school in a briefcase. Coddington thought about becoming a lawyer or journalist, but realized the market for those fields was oversaturated. He graduated from Paul V. Moore High School in 1976 and could have graduated early, but the school had no accelerated classes. Coddington felt that high school offered him no useful preparation for adult life and he worked various service jobs after graduation, including selling cars, shoes, cooking fast food, and at a department store. None of his teachers suspected he'd someday end up on death row--a former gym teacher recalled that there were kids you knew were trouble, but Herbert wasn't one of them.Coddington recalled that his parents were extremely uptight people who never discussed sex around others and discouraged open displays of emotion, which he thought eventually came back to haunt him. He also despised smoking as his parents both smoked and he found it disgusting. "I can't stand cigarette smoke. It makes me sick. My parents smoked. When I was a kid I'd be in the back seat of the car and the windows would be up because my mother didn't want to mess her hairdo--you remember the hairdos in the '60s, and I'd be dying." Coddington's mother was also a strongly religious woman who dragged him to church any chance she got and continued to treat him like a 5 year old when he was in his teens, never allowing him any kind of responsibility.
One of his closest childhood friends was a girl named Joanne Garner and they often spent the summers hanging out at Oneida Lake. They played board and card games and although only children, were already quite smart and interested in world events, often discussing topics such as the Vietnam War and how ridiculous hippies looked. Herbert and Joanne dated briefly in high school, but she just couldn't move their relationship past being childhood friends and into a romantic one. Coddington enrolled in Oswego State College, but found the courses too difficult after finding high school too easy. One roommate was a bad influence and encouraged him to skip classes, an idea that had never occurred to him before. He thought if he'd been able to have a steady girlfriend everything would be ok, but he had anger management issues that prevented him from having a love life.Tired of minimum wage burger-flipper jobs, Coddington enlisted in the Marines in 1978. He dreamed of eventually joining the FBI or CIA, but after finishing basic training was assigned to a desk job. An indignant Coddington went AWOL and returned home, after which he was deemed mentally unfit for service and granted an honorable discharge.
Ok
He moved to Las Vegas in 1980. There Coddington did date some women. For a while he had a live-in girlfriend named Kelly Cluff, who found out about his unusual sexual fetishes. This included shaving her pubic hair off and telling her she looked like a 10 year old. Sometimes he would spank her and tell her she was a bad little girl. One day in August 1981, Cluff announced that she wasn't going to have sex with him anymore. On August 17, Sheila Keister, 12, was hitchhiking near a trailer park in Vegas when she disappeared. Her partially nude body was found some hours later near Sunrise Mountain by some men out target shooting. Keister was raped and strangled, her left nipple bore bite marks.Coddington was employed at two different casinos shortly after arriving in Vegas and in April 1984 he was arrested for operating a cheating scam and released on $500 bail. At the time of his final arrest in 1987, the scam case was still pending.During this time, Coddington became a professional gambler at the Vegas casinos and proved so adept at gambling that he earned $200,000 in winnings from blackjack tables in five years. Sometimes he even flew over to Europe to gamble in Monaco and he also authored books on how to win at blackjack. Coddington's luck began to change in 1986 when he became increasingly mentally unhinged, interpreting insignificant motions by the dealer as messages. He went from a pro blackjack player raking in the cash to a complete loser in a year and a half, losing $150,000 and being forced to borrow money from his parents and he looked for other signs when making any other life decisions--about business, shopping, his romantic life, etc.
Coddington moved to South Lake Tahoe, California in January 1987. He seldom interacted with his neighbors, who considered him a weirdo. That spring, he began visiting modeling agencies, looking for teenage models to shoot a drug awareness video. Most of the agencies thought there was something "off" about Coddington and refused to rent any models to him. Eventually he found a taker when Maybelle Martin, the owner of Showcase Finishing & Modeling School in Reno, agreed. Martin, a Louisiana native, was 69 and had been in the modeling business since the 1950s--she had operated her current studio for the past 12 years. She had two models, Alecia Thomas, 14, and Monica Berge, 12, and said Coddington could use them for his project, but due to their young age they would have to be chaperoned by her and her friend Dorothy Walsh, 77. He agreed to the plan. Martin was pleased with Coddington's proposal to shoot an anti-drug PSA because she was in Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The trip to South Lake Tahoe was scheduled for Saturday May 16.The day prior to that, Martin was working in her flower garden with her son Jim Whiting. Jim well remembered how when he was a child, she used to tell him to be careful because there were a lot of crazy people out there. Coddington told Martin he'd meet her and the girls at The Nugget, the first casino she'd see as H-50 brought them into South Lake Tahoe. The car trip in Martin's '85 Chrysler 5th Avenue took longer than expected. The winding curves of the Sierras made Monica Berge carsick and she had to puke, so Martin stopped to let her out and toss up her breakfast. At The Nugget, the girls sat in the casino's restaurant with Dorothy Walsh while Martin went looking for Coddington, who told her his name was "Marc." She found him in the parking lot and all five got into her car.
"Marc" said they would head over to a mobile home in California to wash up, then they would shoot the commercial at a nearby park. He got in the back seat of the Chrysler sedan with Alecia and Monica. At the audition he was neatly groomed and wearing a suit and tie. Now he had a shirt and sweatpants on and generally looked dirty and unwashed. Alecia complained about his smell. Martin pulled into a carport in the Tahoe Verde trailer park and they all went through a side entrance. Coddington motioned his visitors into a room he said the girls could change their clothes in. He followed behind.Coddington had spent the last few weeks bringing plywood and carpet to the guest room, where he constructed a soundproof sex chamber. The four females didn't feel that this was any kind of dressing room they'd ever seen. They said nothing, but gave Coddington a puzzled "Well...?" look. He then wound up his fist and pummeled Alecia in the jaw. Coddington then began punching the two old women, striking their torsos and knocking them over--he'd been training with a punching bag for the last few weeks. He tied up the girls and covered their heads with their jackets so they couldn't see what was going on. Alecia was still able to see some of it. She watched as Coddington tied up Martin's hands and feet and placed something around her neck. She begged him to stop as she couldn't breathe. Alecia heard her choking and saw her fall over. The septuagenarian Walsh held her purse in her hands and begged him to let her go as she had a heart condition. Coddington tried to pry her purse from her hands but she held onto it for dear life. He continued to beat her over the head until she was bleeding all over the carpet. Walsh vomited. Coddington left for a few minutes and came back with an electrician's flexcuff, which he tightened around her neck.
With the old women out of the way, Coddington put their bodies in trash bags and dragged them into the master bedroom. He left the house to move Martin's car to a shopping center. When he came back to the soundproof room, he asked the girls if they were ok. Coddington was concerned that they might lose their fingers or toes from circulation loss. He went into the living room and watched MTV for a bit. When he came back, he had a .45 handgun with a silencer and a laser scope. Coddington told the girls he could easily kill them if he wanted to. A little while later, he brought them some fruit and a jug of water for dinner. The girls went to sleep.They awoke some time later and heard cars driving by outside, so they assumed it was morning. They could hear noises as Coddington was working out in the living room. They called to him and he arrived--the door had two peepholes cut in it. Coddington replied that they could join his workout shortly. When he came back to the room he had on a red ski cap and a turtleneck shirt pulled up in such a way as to hide his face. He also dyed his hair orange. Coddington let Thomas and Berge out and the three of them exercised to a Jane Fonda workout video. He put them back in the room and tied pillow cases over their heads, telling them he was going to make a sex video with them for distribution in Europe, adding that he had a little boy he'd kidnapped who could act with them.
Thomas asked a semi-obvious question: Was he going to rape them? Coddington replied absolutely not, but if the boy hurt them, he was going to pay for it. He went back to the living room and spoke in a deep voice, pretending a director was out there directing a boy. Coddington turned on a cassette player. "Now everything's cool, all right? You don't say a word, you understand me? You don't say a word. Now, pull the bed out into the middle of the room. Clean up the area. All right. Now, you make sure these girls are comfortable. You are not going to hurt them, you understand? You are not going to rape them, even though you couldn't get it up, we know. Cause you're too fucking scared yourself, you little piece of shit. You just give 'em a massage and relax 'em."The girls felt hands massaging and then fondling their privates. Alecia began crying and begging not to be killed. In a little boy voice, Coddington said "I'm not going to kill you. I have to do this. I'm sorry."
The families of the four females by now had filed missing persons reports after they didn't come home on May 16. Lake Tahoe detective Steve O'Brien got a phone call from his supervisor telling him they had four missing people and the FBI had been contacted and was joining the search. Another model had seen Coddington walk to his car the day of the audition. She thought his license plate read "TV TEEN." That plate came up black when police ran it. Someone then suggested it really said TVETEN, the name of a used car dealer in South Lake Tahoe who put promotional places on cars he sold. The owner, Joe Tveten, had given Coddington a plate to use on his '84 BMW 325i. At 11:30 AM on May 18, police showed Tveten a composite sketch of the suspect. He said that was indeed Coddington and he gave them his home address.The cops didn't know what to expect when they got to the house, so they decided to be careful about it. Two FBI agents would knock on the door and speak to Coddington while local police waited outside. The agents approached the house. The lights inside went off and they became unnerved and retreated. A police negotiator called Coddington's phone number at 9:19 PM. While he was talking, the cops bum-rushed the house and found him in the hallway near the kitchen. He quickly surrendered and was taken into custody. The cops found three handguns and two rifles inside. Coddington protested "I'm sick! I don't want to go to jail, I'm sick!"
The girls were quickly found and rescued; both were in a nervous panic. The police also found the bodies of Mabel Martin and Dorothy Walsh in the plastic bags. Coddington was shaking and in tears. "I'm sick," he said. "I didn't hurt the girls. I had to kill the women. I put them in bags so they didn't make messies." On the way to the police station, he calmed down and seemed eager to tell them everything. Coddington said he had to kill Martin and Walsh because they were too noisy and hard to control, and he did the crime to protest against smoking and drunk driving. He was charged with two counts of first degree murder, four counts of kidnapping, and four counts of rape. Thomas and Berge were handed over to a psychiatrist for counseling before being returned to their parents.In the house, detectives found a number of personal notes Coddington had written down, including one that read "Young chicks smell, taste, feel better, even if not quite as built." Another note read "I need to find out if young chicks are what I need." He also recorded his masturbation habits, sometimes multiple times a day. Coddington was also a fan of the Martin Sheen TV movie "Sweet Hostage" in which Sheen plays a mental patient who kidnaps a woman and they fall in love.
Coddington was later linked to the death of Sheila Keister six years ago when a medical examiner concluded that he had produced the bite marks on her body, but he denied having killed her. He plead insanity and his trial was moved to El Dorado County in June 1988. His attorneys argued that the murders of Martin and Walsh were unplanned and he had deluded fantasies about keeping the girls as permanent sex slaves and them bearing his children. He was foung guilty after a two month trial, but the judge ordered him to undergo a psychiatric exam before sentencing. Psychiatrist Bruce Kaldor believed he had abnormal tendencies, but exaggerated his mental issues. The jury ultimately asked for the death penalty and he was sentenced to death on January 21, 1989. Coddington was not charged in the murder of Sheila Keister, which remains officially unsolved.Monica Berge wrote a note to the court saying she didn't have any particular opinions on whether he deserved the death penalty or not, although she felt kind of sorry for him because his life had been "completely wasted." Coddington's former childhood friend Joanne Garner said she used to support the death penalty, but admitted that it would be a shame to kill someone with his high intelligence and felt he could still contribute to society. Garner also said she never remembered any violent or sociopathic behavior from him when he was a child.As of 2025, Herbert Coddington is 66 years old and remains on California's death row in San Quentin awaiting execution.
>>18577898>>18577904why were boomers like this?
>>18577904>>18577901this guy clearly had some unresolved issues from not getting a date when he was in high school so he hadn't gotten the whole thing out of his system. also the old women reminded him of his mom, whom he hated so they had to die.
>>18577891he was about 30 years too early for pube shaving to become normalized
The Coddingtons were evidently one of those old line WASP families from colonial times and fairly prominent in New Jersey.
>>18577885>>18577911what disturbs me is that i'm on a website full of people exactly like this guy
>>18577968Nah he still got laid and had money, a car, flew to Europe to gamble, etc. That's more than anyone here has accomplished.
>>18577885all serial killers can be boiled down to unresolved mommy issues
>>18577892yeah man, two women with a combined age of 146 are really a good idea to chaperone the girls and be alone with a buff 20-something guy they've never seen before. perfect idea what could possibly go wrong?
>>18577904>just felt them up a little>no rapeTalk about a lame serial killer. That's on the level of BTK just jerking it to his victims' bodies.
>Autopsy of Martin and Walsh found that their necks had been compressed so tightly that they were the approximate width of someone's wrist.[4]
>In the three weeks prior to May 16, Coddington had contacted several modeling agencies in Reno either in person or by phone. He called Barbizone Modeling School and Agency on the 14th under the name Mark Bloomfield and had a business card with the name "Parrot" on it, claiming he was from a Georgia-based outfit called Parrot Communications. Coddington had his hair slicked back and dyed black, he had a mustache and thick eyeglasses. He looked nervous. The owner of the agency thought there was something suspicious about this and refused to rent him any models. Coddington had also called Aviance Modeling Agency on the 13th, sporting dark brown hair, a mustache, and eyeglasses. He said he was looking for the location of Avalon Modeling Agency. He called Avalon the same day to ask about teenage models for an anti-drug PSA video.>Around the same time, Coddington called Candice Smith, a blackjack dealer in Stateline, Nevada, who knew him as a regular player who claimed his name as Gary Sorno. He'd told another blackjack player that he heard Smith had a "pretty cute little daughter." Coddington phoned her at 3:00 AM and talked in a Southern drawl, saying his name was John Parrot, he was from Georgia, and he heard about her from Avalon and wanted to use her in a beer ad. He also brought up her daughter. Smith wasn't interested and also asked why in the hell was he bothering her at this time of night? Coddington said he'd played at her table before and knew a lot about her. Smith hung up the phone.
>Coddington called Smith again at 9:00 AM, again telling her he was John Parrot. He said he just wanted her to know the call was legitimate. He offered to let her speak to his partner. A voice she thought was the same person then said "Hello." Using the prior voice, he said he wanted to meet her for lunch. She hung up.>On the 15th, Coddington auditioned girls at Barbizone. That evening, he auditioned a model named Jennifer, a student at Showcase Models. Jennifer was 17 and old enough to drive her own car. She pulled up in the parking lot and noticed a BMW sedan there with a plate that appeared to read TVTEEN. They talked for a bit, Coddington looked at her portfolio, and told her they'd be going to Regan Beach. He talked about the drug PSA and told her to bring a swimsuit and short shorts. Jennifer knew Mabel Martin planned to drive other girls to the site, but she wanted to drive separately as she had to go with her family to Sacramento on the weekend. Martin and Coddington objected to that idea. He wanted everyone to drive to Tahoe together and to meet at the Nugget casino. Martin arranged for Jennifer to meet Martin on Saturday morning and drive with Martin to the meeting. Martin called Jennifer later that evening and told Jennifer that Coddington didn't need her. His photographer said she was too old. Martin called Alecia and Monica, and told them that they had won the parts and would be paid $50 per hour.
>Circumstantial evidence showed that Coddington had planned his crime for a long time. A friend named David Hacker and his brother Allen remembered how back in 1983, Coddington had read to them from a booklet about assassinations, describing various ways to kill people, including using the plastic tie from a garbage bag as a ligature. During the early months of 1987, he also purchased various materials to construct his soundproof sex dungeon.
>After the two old women were dead, Coddington claimed he didn't want the girls, he wanted Martin and Walsh and that he was paid to get them, but he might be able to collect ransom for Aleica and Monica. The latter asked if he planned to kill them. He showed them a .45 pistol with a silencer and said he could have already done it if he wanted to. He later brought them fruit and water and some magazines to read. One of the magazines had an address sticker on it for Herbert Coddington. Aleica took the sticker and later gave it to police.>They asked if he planned to rape them and he said no, the boy he was using to film his sex video had better not do that or he'd get him. Coddington climbed in bed with Monica and, affecting a boy's voice, said he didn't think they were going to be killed, even though "they" had guns. He removed her clothing and kissed her all over her body including her privates. Aleica could not see what was going on but could hear. She called out to Monica and asked if she was ok. Monica replied yes. After half an hour she asked Coddington to stop. He agreed and she got dressed. Coddington then undressed Aleica and said in a boy's voice that he was sorry he had to do this and hoped he didn't have to kill them. He massaged Aleica all over her body and kissed her lips, breasts, and vagina. After 20 minutes she asked him to stop.
>After Coddington had finished molesting the girls, he let them watch TV. They wanted to call their parents, but he said they could tape their voices and he'd play it over a pay phone. He finally let them get some sleep. On Monday morning, appellant told the girls that he was going to release them someplace and call the police so they could be taken to Reno. He instructed them to say they had been kidnapped and taken to a blue two-story house in Sacramento, warning them that if they did not follow those instructions the girls' families would be in danger. He did not release them, however. They were rescued that night by FBI agents and South Lake Tahoe police who had identified appellant as the suspect from composite sketches based on witness descriptions of the man who had been interviewing teenage models.>The TVETEN plate on Coddington's car was from the Tveten used car dealership in South Lake Tahoe. Coddington had bought a Porsche from Tveten's dealership in March because his BMW was a gray market import from Europe and he was not allowed to register it in California due to that state's strict emissions laws. He then explained that he would register the BMW in Nevada instead and didn't need the Porsche. Tveten took the Porsche on consignment to sell for Coddington. About two weeks before the crimes with which he was charged, Tveten had given appellant paper license plates from his dealership so he could drive the BMW to Nevada for registration.
>Mabel Martin's body was bound with rope and had a part of a FlexiCuf around her neck, as did Walsh's. Both women had died of ligature compression to the neck and they had various lacerations and contusions. Walsh had bruising to the vaginal wall and Martin's vagina had a tear outside the hymenal ring. Walsh additionally had a brain hemorrhage caused by a blow to the head.>Aleica had a fresh bruise on her right thigh and on her cheek, swelling and bruising in the vaginal area, and torn dead tissue inside. The doctor could not identify the instrument used to inflict the injuries, but they were consistent with a finger. Monica also had reddened tissue in the vaginal area.
>Joanna Garner, one of Coddington's close childhood friends, remembered that he was well-behaved, well-dressed, intelligent, and meticulous. He was a teacher's pet and even played chess with his 4th grade teacher. When Coddington was interested in a subject, he devoted himself to learning everything he could about it. He was never violent and never started a confrontation with anyone. Although they dated for a bit in high school, Garner just saw Coddington as a friend rather than a romantic partner and he accepted this. She never remembered him displaying any abnormal or deviant sexual tendencies. Garner was "completely baffled" to hear about his crimes.>Another childhood friend, Vladimir Grigorew, had known Coddington since grade school although they only had sporadic contact after Coddington joined the Marines (Grigorew did visit him at least once in California). Grigorew remembered Coddington to be highly intelligent, intellectual, and mature, well above the average for his age, and read a lot--he was not an outdoorsy type. He was an ace at nearly any board game and also a health nut who ferociously opposed alcohol, drugs, smoking, and junk food. The few times Coddington had a drink he would space it out over the evening. One time when they were adults and in a car together he complained that Grigorew drove too fast and wasted gas.>Coddington was depressed because he had few friends at school--most of the kids thought he was a know-it-all and disliked his tendency to talk loudly and out of turn.
>>18577908>Two FBI agents would knock on the door and speak to Coddington while local police waited outside. The agents approached the house. The lights inside went off and they became unnerved and retreated.the FBI are and have always been desk jockeys they're not real cops. no surprise they shit themselves and ran for it the moment they thought they could be in danger.
another guy who was ruined by overly controlling parents who didn't let him have healthy normal adolescent development
