Crime Spree | FULL EPISODE | The FBI Files

a pair of serial killers roamed the midwest preying on adults and children alike always a step behind agents had no choice but to follow the trail of bodies [Music] as the crime spree raged out of control pressure mounted to stop these killers [Music] [Music] they swept through six states like a plague thrill killers acting without rhyme or reason they targeted adults in young girls kidnapping murdering then moving on to kill again and in their rampage they left plenty of clues but moving targets are the hardest to hit i'm jim calstrom former head of the fbi's new york office the hunt was on for these killers with a knack for eluding authorities we hoped a nationwide dragnet would bring them to justice in kenosha wisconsin a community close to the illinois border single mother juanita wheat arrived home with her nine-year-old daughter vernita and their new friend robert knight it was getting late on the evening of may 29 1984 when they returned from a day of fun at a local carnival robert told juanita that he had a belated mother's day present for her at his place just a few blocks away he asked if vernita could help him carry it back he promised it would only take an hour [Music] reluctant at first juanita gave in to her daughter's excited please great all right thank you all right we'll be right back [Music] as it approached midnight robert and vernita had not yet returned juanita was anxious about leaving her apartment to look for her daughter if vernita arrived to an empty home the young girl might panic but the worry became too great juanita decided to go and find her daughter she went to the address robert had given her [Music] when she arrived her panic melted into horror the building that robert knight claimed was his home was abandoned not knowing where else to turn juanita went to her friend ellen reeves for help [Music] concerned for the safety of her friend's daughter ellen insisted it was time to contact the police juanita told the officer that her happy outgoing daughter would not have run away the officer's focus turned to robert knight juanita said she had met robert a month earlier he introduced himself while riding through the neighborhood on his bike they had become friendly and robert had become fond of young vernita the police didn't have a robert knight on record the officer asked juanita to check mug shots for anyone who might look like him juanita scanned two books of photos finally she pointed to a picture of a man she was sure was robert knight officers determined that the person juanita had identified as robert knight was really named alton coleman investigators called the fbi special agent berdina passinelli of the fbi's kenosha wisconsin office was assigned the investigation but the fbi always gets involved when children of tender years disappear under unusual circumstances and this was clearly one of those investigators wasted no time in obtaining a search warrant for coleman's last known address his grandmother's house in waukegan illinois just a few miles across the state line from where the wheats left [Music] a young woman answered the door when questioned by the detective she identified herself as deborah brown coleman's girlfriend [Music] at first brown was reluctant to answer any questions about coleman or his whereabouts she said she had been living at the residence for a year providing home care for coleman's nearly blind grandmother [Music] the investigators persisted they finally convinced debra to cooperate [Music] she told them that coleman had been gone all night but came home alone at about eight o'clock in the morning he had come by to change into a suit for a court appearance later that morning coleman had been charged with raping a 14 year old girl at knifepoint brown also admitted that coleman had told her he had done something really bad the night before but he did not explain what [Music] investigators waited at the house for coleman's return while other officers canvassed the area [Music] he was nowhere to be found [Music] the fbi joined forces with local investigators detectives from kenosha and nearby waukegan illinois already knew coleman's reputation he was a violent criminal of a disturbing past as i learned about coleman i realized he was extremely dangerous because the waukegan police department had an extensive arrest record on him he had been arrested almost 10 years previously for the rape of a 40 year old woman and he had a number of other arrests mostly for assault for molestation rape of a child and as you looked at these cases and you listened to the detectives who were familiar with him you saw a picture of an increasingly violent person the task force enlisted every available officer and agent to help in the search for coleman and vernita our strategy that night was to find alton coleman we sat down then at the police department and assembled everything we knew we came up with information that a lot of times rode the train he took taxis because he didn't have a car what happened then is we split up into teams and went out and started interviewing people [Music] on the streets investigators talked with drivers at various taxi stands everyone was familiar with alton coleman the cabbies agreed that if they saw him they would notify the police the task force offered a five thousand dollar reward for information leading to coleman's arrest the promise of a reward caught people's attention but didn't draw out any useful leads as quickly as the investigators hoped investigators feared that time may be running out for frenita wheat on may 31st two days into the investigation a cab driver in waukegan who knew coleman from the neighborhood called in to report he was picking coleman up a squad car conducting surveillance in the area responded [Music] coleman was dropped off at his sister terry's place he saw the approaching officer and took off he disappeared into the neighborhood he knew so well the investigation was only two days old and their suspect was within their grasp investigators speculated coleman was probably hiding out in the abandoned warehouses that ran along lake michigan hoping that coleman might respond to his sister's voice the detective summoned her buckeagan police man please open up hey i'm detective hanson though she was coleman's own flesh and blood she was also a mother of a young girl the agents convinced her to help [Music] talking to her brother through a bullhorn she pleaded with him to turn himself in you need to come on out and give yourself up meanwhile officers and agents fanned out and searched the area but even in such a confined space finding coleman would not be easy lieutenant mark hanson of the waukegan police department was a lead investigator for the task force this area has a lot of abandoned buildings a lot of abandoned apartment complexes it's heavily heavily brushed it was at night time easy to escape in there and not be seen again this was 1984. you know we didn't have helicopters with searchlights we didn't have infrared and we didn't have the resources to uh fully encircle an area of that size the search continued through the night but after eight hours it seemed their suspect and their best chance of finding nine-year-old vernita had slipped through their fingers desperate to generate leads investigators saturated the local media with details surrounding the abduction tv and newspapers ran photographs of vernita wheat asking anyone with any information to contact the task force the news spread quickly investigators were flooded with sightings of coleman from the public most were dead ends one cab driver who saw vernier's picture on the news contacted the task force he remembered picking up coleman and the little girl on the night of her disappearance he had assumed they were father and daughter the cab driver dropped them off around midnight near a scrapyard in the industrial section of waukegan that one particular night where did you take investigators approached the night manager at the scrap yard sir i'm detective hanson he told them that he had in fact seen a man with a young girl on the night in question he recalled that close to midnight the two had walked hand in hand through the side gate he couldn't really see the man's face but he did notice that the man had an unusual rolling gate to his walk a feature that acquaintances of coleman had described the night manager identified the little girl as vernita wheat the sighting was enough to allow the fbi to issue a federal warrant for alton coleman he had taken vernita across state lines it was also the last time anyone saw vernita wheat alive the task force responded with another massive search we had about 150 fbi agents and detectives from both kenosha and waukegan we did a methodical search where coleman was last seen with frenita this included using dogs going through the junkyard house to house and abandoned building searches all in this downtown area and we found nothing investigators knew she was alive at midnight on the evening she disappeared they also knew that coleman was alone the next morning at 8 am as he prepared for his court appearance the question was what happened to vernita during that eight-hour gap fbi special agent jeff showers was on the task force he struggled to fit the pieces together how far is he going to travel with this girl the girl may not even be in waukegan she may be in another town but we knew that the longer that we waited it was getting dimmer and dimmer coleman and vernita seemed to have vanished on the night of june 19th three weeks after vernita's disappearance investigators received a call from a man in waukegan who was looking through an abandoned building for scrap metal to sell [Music] on the second floor of the wrecked apartments he made a horrifying discovery the body of a child lay on the bathroom floor halton coleman the fbi's prime suspect in the abduction of nine-year-old vernita weak from her home in kenosha wisconsin remained at large as the hunt for coleman intensified a man scouring for scrap metal in an abandoned building in waukegan illinois came across the lifeless body of a young girl the forensic team arrived at the building beneath a blanket wrapped in a man's corduroy jacket the investigators found the young girl her hands feet and neck were bound by a television cable she was too badly decomposed to confirm her identity but special agent jeff showers believed they had found the body of vernita wheat the clothing matched the description that we had from the mother she was still wearing the uh the barrettes in her hair that that matched from what her mother had described her as being last known to be wearing she was wearing the green nylon jacket in the pocket of the jacket were carnival tickets and we knew from an interview of her mother that the night in question alton coleman had taken vernita wheat to a carnival while the investigators suspected the body was vernita wheat it was up to the forensic team to prove that the remains were hers they also needed to find evidence that could conclusively point to the killer [Music] starting from the location of the body they worked their way out in concentric circles collecting anything that looked like it could be used as evidence investigators swabbed walls and door frames in an effort to find prints [Music] figuring whoever moved the body into the room had to come in contact with the door they removed it from its hinges and sent it to the fbi labs in washington dc under the lab's microscopes fbi examiners discerned a thumbprint on the door comparison to samples they had on file were conclusive the thumbprint came from alton coleman [Music] examiners also compared prints taken from the little girl's hands to those lifted from vernita wheat school books that had been retrieved from her home that comparison was also positive the search for vernita was over [Music] investigators now had enough evidence to issue another warrant for alton coleman this time it was for the murder of vernita wheat we knew then that alton coleman was responsible for the for the death of this child and now we've got not only a kidnapper but we also have someone who's committed murder while at the autopsy to determine vernita wheat's exact cause of death a television news broadcast caught the attention of agent showers and detective hanson the first news that a little girl had been found murdered in gary indiana agent showers i think immediately thought that there could be some connection to coleman the report also mentioned something that investigators found disturbing there were two killers and the second suspect was described as being a black female investigators immediately suspected coleman's girlfriend deborah brown who had not been seen in weeks if investigators were right alton coleman and deborah brown had traveled 90 miles from their hometown neighborhood they were on the move and they were leaving bodies along their way at the hospital in gary indiana local police officers questioned nine-year-old mary james about the afternoon of june 16th mary told the officers that she and seven-year-old janice clay were walking to the store when they were approached by a man and a woman on bikes the couple introduced themselves they told the little girls that they had some clothes that the girls might like [Music] to retrieve the clothes mary and janice followed the couple into the woods [Music] mary was close to death when she managed to drag herself to the street she was able to identify coleman but could not identify brown from photographs sent by the fbi however the girl's description matched brown exactly now investigators were dealing with two killers we looked at deborah brown up until that point in time as a witness because she had cooperated with us in waukegan she told us about alton telling her that he had done something wrong she showed us the clothes that he had been wearing the night he had come back when he'd been out all night and when he came back in the morning so we had looked at her as a witness we now knew from the investigation in gary that she was likely assisting him investigators struggled to figure out some way to predict coleman and brown's next move both murders occurred in largely black communities communities where the two could easily blend in and they were quick to gain people's trust these were street people they had that charm they didn't have to do any armed twisting it was always a very easy thing with them searching for anything that might help them locate and stop the killers investigators consulted an fbi behavioral profiler for the profiler the escalating pattern of violence was caused by coleman's legal problems back in waukegan he saw the fact that he had taken vernita the night before a court appearance on the rape of a 14 year old and that he had abducted her yeah and then murdered her as an indication that he was responding to the stress of the court appearance and so that he would continue to murder out of anger and stress and rage investigators had reason to fear that the two murders were only the beginning of a ferocious crime spree to capture a serial killer the profiler suggested a massive national media campaign aimed at the black communities so we started a publicity campaign releasing his photograph releasing pictures of brown to the media press releases uh everything we could to get his picture out in the forefront our hope was that somebody would see him and turn him in but the task force was always a step behind on july 8 agents received information from local ohio detectives about an elderly woman named rose wiggins who reported her daughter missing rose explained that earlier in the day she had come by to check on her daughter and found the door locked her young grandson james was too frightened to open the door the detective convinced him they were there to help now he had nothing to fear officers immediately started to search the house for the boy's missing mother while looking they found three-year-old johnny afraid like his older brother meanwhile james told the detective about the man and woman who had been at their house he showed the eight-year-old photos of the suspects coleman and brown [Music] james positively identified them as the couple who were there the night before you're absolutely sure searching the house for the boy's mother the police found blood smeared throughout the kitchen it led down to the basement not knowing who or what awaited them the investigators followed the grizzly trail in ohio police responding to a missing person's call made an alarming discovery the young son of the missing mother had identified fugitives coleman and brown as having been in their home blood stained the walls they proceeded cautiously not knowing if their suspects could still be lurking in the darkened basement the trail stopped where the bodies of mother and daughter virginia and kimberly blake were discovered shoved into a crawl space beneath their home coleman and brown we didn't know where they were and the mur and the violence connected with the murders and the crime scenes was beginning to intensify the officers continued their search still believing their suspects could be somewhere in the family's home but they seem to have slipped away leaving behind unmistakable evidence clippings of jerry curled hair [Music] james recounted for investigators that his mother virginia had met coleman and brown earlier in the day we just moved to the area down the street the couple stopped by the house and played with the kids virginia invited them to stay for dinner it was just like any other summer evening in the neighborhood virginia cooked while the kids hung around and chatted with their new friends eight-year-old james saw coleman take a knife from the counter and slip it into his back pocket [Music] after enjoying dinner together coleman brown james and his younger brother settled into the living room to watch television at the top of the evening news the story of a pair of killers on the loose flashed across the screen [Music] coleman immediately turned off the television and shuffled the boys off to bed [Music] while kimberly and virginia washed the dishes [Music] aware of the growing media attention coleman realized he and deborah needed to change their look he found some scissors and cut off his [Music] hair [Music] coleman with brown at his side approached the little girl and her mother just upstairs james and johnny were asleep what are you doing [Music] what are you doing what are you doing they dragged the slain woman and her daughter downstairs and stuff them into a crawl space the pressure was mounting it was becoming increasingly stressful because here we were for the fourth time catching up with him when we found more bodies coleman and brown's mo was designed to catch their victims off guard when someone comes up to your house on a bicycle you figure them to be local if they're walking you may be a little bit suspicious but if they're riding a bike they're from the neighborhood your guard is automatically down news of the murdered mother and daughter horrified the community the savage nature of the killings caused the fbi to add an 11th position on their 10 most wanted fugitives list it was a rare occurrence the number 11 ranking was reserved for particularly vicious killers a description fitting coleman and brown the magnitude and the importance of it that you know you've already got 10 that are bad but here's one that's so bad but we don't have room to put anybody else on we're going to make an exception and put him on anyway even though he's number 11. with the national media spotlight focusing on the couple it would be difficult for them to remain anonymous and in solving fugitive cases fighting people there is nothing better than publicity because all you need is the one phone call from one person saying i saw this picture and i know it's this individual phone calls poured in with more frequency and speed than ever before any crime that matched their suspect's mo was funneled back to the task force headquarters hopefully they would be able to get one step ahead of the fugitives investigators were sure that coleman and brown would tire of a life on the run and return to familiar territory agents contacted everyone the two associated within waukegan we would contact them and let them know that we're still looking for them we would go out and tell them that alton and deborah had been involved in another murder case hoping that that would get them a little bit more on our side on july 13th local investigators responded to a frantic 9-1-1 call from a suburb of cincinnati ohio michelle stone told the officers what had happened that day a couple arrived at the stone's house earlier that morning [Music] they told michelle's father jack stone that they were interested in buying his camper which was for sale in the driveway jack's wife anna joined them on the porch as jack and anna chatted with him michelle left for work i'll see you guys when she arrived home later that day michelle noticed the bikes the couple had arrived on were still in the yard and her father's car was missing [Music] inside she found her parents home had been vandalized mom she had called out to her mother and father hearing no response her mind began to race as she stepped through the shattered glass and overturned furniture littering the room [Music] as she called 9-1-1 michelle could hear a weak voice calling out from another room next to the basement door she noticed a bloody palm print dad [Music] she walked down into the dimly lit room not knowing what or who she might find lying next to each other motionless on the floor she discovered her parents her father jack was barely alive as she reached to take her mother's pulse she lifted the sheet her mother anna was dead michelle waited by her father's side for help to arrive her parents had been bludgeoned and bound michelle's description of the couple that had stopped by her parents house earlier that day matched the fugitives coleman and brown a forensic team went to work collecting evidence among the items was a pair of plastic shoes next to anna stone a recent sighting of the suspects included a description of brown wearing these same shoes [Music] crime scene technicians also retrieved other bloodied tools found around the body later forensics confirmed the crowbar was used to kill mrs stone coleman's prince were all over it he made no attempt to conceal his crimes but there was nothing to suggest where the couple had gone [Music] it was all dead ends every time we'd find a body they were gone you don't have anything as to which way they're going you have no indicators as to who their next victim is going to be depends if they wanted sexual gratification they may snatch a child if they need a vehicle they may snatch an adult just don't know we've got a couple of mad dogs out there the crime against the stones showed the couple was able to gain the trust of people from outside the black urban centers where they had found their first four victims this realization only complicated the investigation coleman could fit in anywhere where they would come up on a bicycle and start chatting and he would be looking to play in a card game or sometimes they would respond they wanted to buy something or they had something for sale he was an extremely glib person a real con man and people trusted him plus he was traveling with a woman and so people were not nearly as suspect of him as they should have been though coleman's rage continued to intensify his ability to charm more victims remained consistent and he was showing no signs of growing tired of the kill [Music] a month and a half had passed since alton coleman and deborah brown embarked on a killing spree that had left five victims dead in cincinnati coleman bludgeoned a husband and wife leaving the wife dead and the husband barely clinging to life their car was missing napb was immediately put out on the vehicle [Music] two days later a farmworker discovered the abandoned car on his property in lexington kentucky 105 miles away from the crime in cincinnati [Music] in less than two days the fugitives had traveled hundreds of miles across two states the fbi media blitz was leaving them with few places to hide but the couple appeared to be heading further away from their home in illinois not closer as investigators had hoped when you're talking about alton coleman and deborah brown they are not a normal killing machine normal killing machine is going to be one person we've now got two out there they're working together they're feeding off each other and one's giving support those are the problems how do you we couldn't separate them we couldn't talk to one we couldn't talk to either one of them knowing coleman would eventually need to steal a car the fbi saturated the lexington kentucky area [Music] they did not have to wait long for signs that he was still in town in a hotel parking lot professor erline carmichael was assaulted and his car stolen a couple forced him to hand over his cash and car keys [Applause] leaving the professor wounded but still alive they sped away after receiving medical attention police asked carmichael to look at mug shots that included the fbi's most wanted fugitives without hesitating he pointed to coleman brown the fbi were now only a few hours behind the fugitives an apb was issued for carmichael's car in a matter of hours they received a response it came from police in an ohio town close to the kentucky border the professor's car was found abandoned behind some vacant buildings coleman and brown however were nowhere in sight for the experienced agents finding the car in ohio meant coleman and brown were probably on their way home god instinct is going to tell you he's going to come back home he may not come back to waukegan but he's going to come back to some place that he feels comfortable with he'd never been to gary indiana he'd never been to detroit he had never been to toledo had never been to cincinnati dayton ohio lexington kentucky at some point he's going to get tired and he's going to want to get back to comfort some place that he feels comfortable he knows the streets he knows the people he's going to feel comfortable he's coming back the fbi immediately set up a dragnet agents and police officers from across several states joined forces to track coleman and brown as they headed home to illinois reports of stolen vehicles or assaults were to be given immediate attention an officer in dayton ohio responded to a report involving an assault and a stolen car the call came from an elderly couple reverend and mrs gay reverend gay had been badly beaten mrs gay told the officer that a young couple who they had met weeks earlier broke into their house after beating them the attackers demanded the keys to their station wagon according to the description the attackers were coleman and brown new leads were coming in at a furious pace coleman and brown were still just out of reach but the fbi was starting to close the gap the day after the attack in ohio detectives involved in the fbi's dragnet discovered a station wagon that had been abandoned near a car wash in indiana it belonged to reverend gay [Music] later in the day some road crew workers on the edge of interstate 65 outside of zionsville indiana made a gruesome discovery it was the body of an elderly man who had been reported missing from his home in indiana he was found on his 77th birthday evidence left at the scene was unmistakable coleman and brown had claimed another life the body was found less than 20 miles from the couple's home turf the country's most wanted fugitives had come home and the fbi was waiting for them for seven weeks coleman and brown assaulted and killed victims in six different states while investigators worked the crime scenes scores of local officers and agents organized a dragnet to trap them as they headed back home to illinois the aggressive media campaign was having an impact on july 20 in evanston illinois a man spotted alton coleman with deborah brown in mason park while he waited with the car running his friend called the police yes it was the one phone call investigators have been hoping for he went to school with alton coleman he knew without a shadow of a doubt that the man that crossed the street in front of him was alton coleman evanston police responded [Music] only a couple of yards stood between the law and coleman and brown with surprising ease they were able to corner coleman he insisted they had the wrong man a second pair of officers surrounded brown when asked she gave a different pair of names for herself and coleman what's having found a knife and a false identification the officers brought alton coleman to the police station four other units being devised when you pick up the female she might have a weapon and a purse make sure you check if you stand here the search of brown's handbag uncovered a 38-caliber pistol the weapon was all they needed to handcuff her and take her in [Music] two of the fbi's most wanted were apprehended without incident [Music] after nearly two months the violent rampage was over coleman continued to insist he hadn't been in any of the places where the murders happened but the forensic evidence collected over the past seven weeks proved otherwise alton coleman was charged with the federal crime of kidnapping vernita wheat followed by murder charges in three other states deborah brown was also charged for her role in the murders as investigators from the task force looked on a strip search uncovered a bloody steak knife it would be linked to yet another murder a 15 year old ohio girl alice myers illinois state's attorney matthew chancey was given the task of prosecuting alton coleman in his mind the motive was simple vernita wheat he crossed the threshold and once he crossed that threshold it was easy for him and and i think that he enjoyed it and it wasn't just easy anymore it was it was something he liked he did he liked doing and so he looked for every opportunity he could to repeat that together coleman and brown had stolen seven lives three states sought to take theirs brown stood trial separately she was sentenced to life in prison until the end she was committed to coleman at coleman's sentencing hearing uh for that murder she testified on his behalf that she had committed the murder and he had not in an obvious attempt to to try to save him it didn't work coleman and brown's rampage had covered over 1300 miles in six states for special agent berdina pessinelli the intensity of the fbi's hunt prevented more needless murders because of the massive investigation that we did and the publicity that we did that he was caught within seven weeks of when he started had we not done that had we not gotten on this right away who knows how long he would have gone on killing people in the end alton coleman was sentenced to death four times he went to prison in ohio where he was executed on april 26 [Music] 2002. [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The FBI Files

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Keywords: FBI, FBI Files, FBI Documentary, Documentary, Crime, Crime Documentary, Crime Patrol, True Crime, True crime daily, Unsolved, Crime Stories, Crime Documentaries Full Episodes, Full Episode, unsolved true crime, fbi files full episodes, we got him, mystery, solved, investigation, police, criminal, prison, jail, Alton Coleman, Debra Denise Brown

Id: qGsBua9qvBk

Length: 49min 54sec (2994 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 18 2020