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Thaddeus and Gary Lewingdon, the .22 Caliber Killers

Intro

Thaddeus (1936-April 17, 1989) and Gary Lewingdon (1940-October 2004) were an American serial killer duo. The two brothers, dubbed the ".22 Caliber Killers" by the media, murdered ten people between 1977 and 1978 in the state of Ohio. The “Blood Brothers,” another common name for them, chose their victims at random. They used more than one type of .22 caliber weapon in the commission of the murders, but the sense of brutality in all the cases remained constant. Thaddeus and Gary Lewingdon were convicted in 1979 and sentenced to several life sentences. Both brothers spent the rest of their lives in prison and died of natural causes.

Early Life

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Very little is known of the Lewingdon brothers' early years. Gary served for a short time in Vietnam and was discharged from the Air Force in 1962. Over the years, he was arrested for a number of crimes like petty larceny, possession of criminal tools, concealed weapon, and indecent exposure charges. Gary later moved in with his mother in an attempt to escape his crime ridden past. In 1977 he married a local nightclub waitress and moved to an apartment in Kirkersville, Ohio and got a job as a repairman for Rockwell International Tool Division in Columbus Ohio.

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When the police investigated the brothers, they discovered that Thaddeus lived not far from his brother in Glenford, Ohio. Thaddeus was a graduate from the Cleveland Institute of Electronics and held a Federal Communications Commission engineers license. He was divorced with three children and at the time employed at Columbus Steel Drum as a maintenance man. Not unlike his brother, Thaddeus also had a lengthy rap sheet consisting of mostly petty offenses. A note in his file also stated that he had been investigated in the past for ties to an organized crime syndicate in Chicago. ref name="test">[2],

Murders and Known Victims

The .22-caliber killings began on December 10, 1977 with the murders of two women at Forker's Cafe in Newark, Ohio, in Licking County. The victims were 37-year-old Joyce Vermilion and 33-year-old Karen Dodrill. Both women had been shot multiple times at around 2:30 a.m. The crime scene was covered with .22 caliber shell casings. Two months later, on February 12, 1978, nightclub owner Robert "Mickey" McCann; his mother, 77-year-old Dorothy Marie McCann; and 26-year-old Christine Herdman, a dancer at McCann's club, were found dead in McCann’s home just outside the city of Columbus, in Franklin County. All the victims suffered multiple gunshot wounds from a .22 caliber weapon. Within weeks of the murders, law-enforcement officials got a break when a sometime go-go dancer and waitress, Claudia Yasko, met two Columbus Police officers in a local 24-hour restaurant and told them she'd been with two men when they committed the murders. The officers subsequently contacted the Franklin County Sheriff's Department, which found her story so convincing that they arrested her and the two men she implicated—her boyfriend, Robert "Ray" Novatney and an associate of his, Deno Politis. The Franklin County Prosecutor, George C. Smith, instructed his office to move forward and obtain indictments against the three; the Sheriff's Department considered the case solved. However, the killings continued across a three-county area of central Ohio. On April 8, 1978, 77-year-old Jenkin T. Jones was found gunned down in his home in Granville, Ohio, in rural Licking County. This murder, like the others, shared an aspect of overkill with Jones suffering from six close-range gunshot wounds. Also, as with the previous murders, .22-caliber casings were discovered at the crime scene. On April 30, Fairfield County Sheriff Dan Berry discovered the body of Rev. Gerald Fields, a Berean minister who moonlighted as a security guard at the Wolfe Industries complex in Fairfield County. Fields had been shot multiple times with a .22 caliber, just as in the previous homicides. Berry submitted forensic evidence to the Ohio BCI for analysis. Three weeks later, on May 21, the bodies of the eighth and ninth victims—47-year-old Jerry L. Martin and his wife, 50-year-old Martha—were discovered. The couple had been shot in the head numerous times, and several .22-caliber shell casings were collected. Law-enforcement officials across central Ohio began to consider the possibility of a serial killer and began to work together, sharing evidence and reviewing old case files searching for a possible link. Casings and bullets recovered from the various homicides were sent to the BCI and a match was found. On June 8, 1978, all charges against Claudia Yasko were dropped; the indictments against Novatney and Politis were subsequently dismissed. Even though Yasko confessed, the three suspects had been in custody while the other murders were committed. Although law-enforcement officials were now on the right track, the murders had stopped. The killer had not surfaced in nearly six months and since investigators were unable to establish a motive or any solid leads, the case went cold. On December 4, 1978, the case received renewed attention with the murder of 56-year-old Joseph Annick in Columbus. In this killing a different .22 caliber weapon was used, but the style of close range, overkill was the same as the previous murders. However, given the lack of matching forensics, Columbus Police detectives initially considered it the work of a copy-cat killer. Subsequent events would change their view.ref name="test">[3],

Arrest and Trial

A few days later, on December 9, Cheryl Young, a cashier at Woolco Department Store in Columbus, noticed that a customer’s credit card was on a list of stolen cards posted in the store. A manager trainee at the store detained the man who tried to use the stolen card until the police arrived. Gary Lewingdon was taken into custody for attempting to use a credit card that belonged to Annick, the latest victim. The police interrogated Gary Lewingdon and he subsequently confessed to the murder of Joseph Annick and implicated himself and his brother Thaddeus in the nine other murders. Shortly after Gary's confession, police arrested Thaddeus Lewingdon and brought him in for interrogation. Like his brother, Thaddeus admitted to the killings and described the murders in detail to investigators. He confessed that Gary selected the “targets” and then they would disguise themselves, apply a silencer to their .22 caliber pistol, and shoot their victims at close range. Thaddeus told police that everything was going as planned until after the Martin killings. He said that he and his brother began disagreeing about targets and had a falling out. Thaddeus claimed to have no knowledge of Annick's murder, stating that his brother carried that one out alone. Later a search of the brothers' homes revealed several weapons and personal items belonging to their victims. On December 14, 1978, Gary and Thaddeus Lewingdon were indicted. Gary faced 20 felony counts, including 10 counts of murder, while Thaddeus looked at 17 counts, including nine counts of murder.ref name="test">[4],

Imprisonment

Thaddeus faced two trials for a total of nine murders. On February 19, 1979, he was convicted of the Vermillion, Dodrill and Jones homicides and received three life sentences. A month later he was convicted of the McCann and Martin murders, and was sentenced to an additional six life sentences. Gary went to trial for all 10 homicides on May 14, 1979, and was convicted on eight counts. He was sentenced to eight consecutive life sentences plus a $45,000 fine. Shortly after his trial, Gary became psychotic and was transferred to the state hospital for the criminally insane. In March 1982, Gary Lewingdon was caught trying to escape from the Lima State Hospital. He and another inmate were captured within 20 minutes of their initial escape. About a year later Gary Lewingdon petitioned a Hamilton County court for permission to commit suicide, which was of course denied.ref name="test">[5],

Aftermath/Miscellaneous

Several years after the .22-caliber killings were solved, Claudia Yasko tried to explain to detectives why she had implicated herself and two others in the first murders. Claudia was a known schizophrenic and undergoing treatment. The Lewingdon brothers refused to comment on her story, but the evidence and the confessions of the Lewingdon brothers cleared Yasko and the other two men. Police concluded that her confession was nothing more than the delusions of a mentally ill woman. On April 17, 1989, 52-year-old Thaddeus Lewingdon died of lung cancer. Gary Lewingdon was eventually transferred out of Lima State Hospital to Southern Ohio Correctional Facility at Lucasville. He became eligible for parole in 1998 but the large push by the local population and the prosecutor's office to recommend denial of parole ensured his continued incarceration until his death in October 2004.ref name="test">[6],

Lohr, David. "BLOOD BROTHERS: GARY AND THADDEUS LEWINGDON - Crime Library on TruTV.com.” TruTV.com: Not Reality. Actuality. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. A Time Warner Company. Web. 16 June 2010. Retrieved from http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/partners/lewingdon_bros/4.html