VA VA - MONTE RISSELL, Alexandria, 1976-77

daves_daily

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I grew up in Alexandria and left when I joined the Navy in the mid 70s. Shortly after, sometime between Class A School in Great Lakes and the time I transferred to my second ship in San Diego (1975-76) there was a series of murders in Alexandria that made the national news. I really don't remember much else, the victims were male adolescents, and my recollection there were three at the time these crimes made the news; leading police to conclude a serial killer was at large. The murders were in the SoCal news because they appeared similar, in victimology, to a series of strangling murders around Long Beach CA. I had been stationed there for a short while on a reserve ship. Later, the L.A. County murders were connected to the gay community and I can't even tell you if those were solved. But the victims in Alexandria were just kids, like I was before I left, pre-teens or teenagers. What got my attention was that one of the bodies was discovered in the vicinity of a tunnel that pretty much every kid used to use as a short cut between Beauregard and North Van Dorn, when Holmes Run was high it was the dry way under 395, comes out around Brookville, Northeast of Landmark.

I never heard if those crimes were solved. There's nothing on the Alexandria Cold Case website. That and the Gwen Ames case in Reston always stuck in my head. One of the kids in my circle moved out to Reston just prior to that murder and we used to see the posters, especially around Lake Ann. In fact, those posters stayed up for years afterward. It was so out of sorts with Reston at that time, it was, at that time, the coolest place to hang out. Matter of fact, it was out of sorts for Alexandria as well. If you're not from there it's hard to explain to anybody who is familiar with Alexandria today - but back then it was very provincial. I was at Hammond High School when the whole, "Remember the Titans" integration thing happened and every junior/senior from Seminary Valley was transferred to T.C. Williams. I was in the class of 73.

Having been so close to a killer in those two cases, and again bar crawling around the strip in Long Beach convinced me that I wanted to be a cop and fight crime for a living. Both joining the Navy (though Alexandria has a strong Navy tradition, ala "Hammond Admirals" et al) and deciding to be a cop were out of character for most kids growing up in the D.C. metro area in those days. As it turned out, by the time my enlistment was coming to an end in 78 I decide to make the Navy a career. Got into the intelligence world, never looked back. I retired in the late 90s and work for the government now. My wife being from SoCal I never left.

Does anybody know anything about the Alexandria murders? Was it serial, was anybody ever arrested? You have to wonder, even though it's a fairly big town now, it wasn't then and the chances I crossed paths with a killer are fairly high. Not long before I left, in the summer of 72 my friends and I all got into high powered slingshots. Just a goofy phase, a fad, like Beatle Boots - if you're from Northern Va and reminded of the times by this post - you remember these things. Bass Weejuns, Swank medallions, Flag Bro. Beatle Boots - the whole nine yards.

Anyhow, one day I was out shooting my slingshot in and around Holmes Run and the trail in the woods between the Beauregard side of what was 95 and Seminary. I lived in Seminary Towers at the time. As I emerged from the woods to walk up Beauregard a late model sedan pulled up at the corner of Beauregard and Sanger. The creep inside was trolling me and exposing himself. I was wearing the ubiquitous army field coat and had the sling secured to the handle of the slingshot up my sleeve, so I took my hands out of my pocket and drew the sling back to my cheek, pointing the 30 caliber steel ball right at this guy's, uh, most apparent object and he peeled out.

About a year earlier we lived in that area, in some garden apts, where I could literally walk out my front door and cut under 95 through that tunnel. One day, at dusk, as I entered the tunnel a dark figure seemed to appear from nowhere at the opposite end, framed in that light I couldn't make out any features, but it was a male adult, about six feet 200 lbs. On many occasions I would pass other fellow travelers in that tunnel, for some reason I got creeped out this time and decided to turn back. Likewise, we were all over Lake Ann. Between Golf Course and Lake Ann there's a path that goes over a little wooden foot bridge to the lake. I've always had the creepy feeling we passed a killer on that path some summer's eve. And just maybe, I turned away from one that evening in Alexandria. The guy never came out on my side, and when I went back to look, he was gone.
 
Dave,

Welcome to Websleuths.

I am not sure if I know of the cases you refer to, but you might look at the featured case section at the case of the missing Lyon sisters, Sheila and Katherine. They went missing on 25 March 1975 and their disappearance was very well covered in the Washington DC Metropolitan area news media. There was also some coverage in papers around the country when they ran AP releases.

The Lyon Sisters threads also discuss other similar cases and possible links and suspects. Perhaps the cases you mention are discussed there.

You could also try running a search of Websleuths cases using key words.
 
Bumping this thread up. Does anyone have any further information on this subject?
 
could i have been this. read through because the reporting of this differed through time.
LINK
As I interviewed the patron to ascertain what hard facts she had to go on, some vague memory nagged at me. Two children were allegedly murdered by a local hermit for trespassing, and their bodies left hanging from a covered bridge.
 
Wow. I grew up in Alexandria, right on North Armistead...so I know the Holmes Run tunnel surrounding area very well. I have never heard anything about these murders. I was born in 83...but around the time I maybe 10-11, I had heard about several abductions (possibly just attempted) in the area...I've never heard anything else about it to this day.

I'd love to know more about this though. I'm amazed I had never heard about it before. I must admit that I have had strange things happen to me while I growing up there. I used to walk to Hammond Middle School and everyday for a week, I would pass this strange car just parked up by the Hamlets and there was a man in it reading a map, facing Beauregard Street. But who does this everyday for a week? I've also had random men try to get me into their cars and one even got out and tried to pull me in. Very scary. I can certainly believe that more sinister things have been happening there. I remember in high school reading about a body that was found in the creek in Holmes Run, closer to Duke Street. After that, nothing else was ever released. It seems that a lot of things have been kept quiet around there.
 
When I was around 9 I lived in the Hamlets, until I was about 13. One day I was talking to one of the security gaurds when he got a call. He left in a big hurry. I over heard the call and followed him. He went down to the big creek. There was a body of a woman on the side of the creek. I am not sure if this is the same story luci's_mom is talking about, but she was one of five women found in the same spot. They did catch the guy who did it. All of the women lived in the apartments on the other side of the creek. He would hitch hike and these woman reconized him so they picked him up. I am not sure what his sentence was, but I have wondered over the years if he is still in prison. I cant find him in the Virginia penal system. It bothers me to think that he could be out of prison. I guess seeing that body has had a profound impact on my life.
 
this thread is old but the answer if you haven't already learned is Monte Rissell - caught/convicted and (unfortunately) recently released- how he was ultimately linked to the crimes had something to do with his fingerprints on the back of one of the victims car. The weird part, I was told, is that when he left the prints he was helping push her disabled/stuck car weeks before he killed her. Of course they couldn't use the prints at trial but once they focused on him there was lots of other evidence apparently.
 
Hi, nosleuth. Welcome to the board.

It looks to me like Rissell is still incarcerated at Pocahontas, thank goodness!

You have to enter 1113794

http://vadoc.virginia.gov/offenders/locator/results.aspx

And here, if you scroll down and look for 1113794 in the left hand column, it shows his parole was denied in August 2012.

http://vadoc.virginia.gov/resources/vpb/decisions/2012/decisions-aug12.pdf


But I'm really glad you posted because it brought my attention to this thread. I've added his name in the title. :tyou:

Hope to hear more from you!
 
The murders all occurred in the Landmark area of Alexandria where Rissell lived with his mother.

Aura Marina Gabor, 26, masseuse, lived in Rissell's apartment building. Strangled with her bra. Body found in a creek off Shirley Hwy in August 1976.

Gladys Bradley, 27, post office clerk, resident of Holmes Run Apts. She was found drowned in a creek off N. Beauregard, April 30, 1977.

Jeanette McClelland, 24, proofreader, resident of Holmes Run Apts. Stabbed 24 times. Body found in a culvert near Shirley Hwy, May 5, 1977.

Aletha Byrd, 34, department store employee, resident of Holmes Run Apts. Stabbed 14 times in the chest. She went missing April 4, 1977. Body found May 18 in a wooded area near Polk and Pegram Sts.

Ursula Miltenberger, 22, manager trainee at a McDonald's near the Holmes Run Apts. Stabbed to death. Her body was found March 6, 1977, near Burke in Fairfax County. Rissell was questioned and cleared, but later confessed and was convicted on all five murders. He was only 19.

A few links

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=H-FNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MYsDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4233,2481919

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=0wIzAAAAIBAJ&sjid=2AcGAAAAIBAJ&pg=5290,1637356

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=G-FNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MYsDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4768,1799645

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=N1ZOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9PgDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6637,1170087
 
The murders all occurred in the Landmark area of Alexandria

where Rissell lived with his mother.

Aura Marina Gabor, 26, masseuse, lived in Rissell's apartment building. Strangled with her bra. Body found in a creek off Shirley Hwy in August 1976.

Gladys Bradley, 27, post office clerk, resident of Holmes Run Apts. She was found drowned in a creek off N. Beauregard, April 30, 1977.

Jeanette McClelland, 24, proofreader, resident of Holmes Run Apts. Stabbed 24 times. Body found in a culvert near Shirley Hwy, May 5, 1977.

Aletha Byrd, 34, department store employee, resident of Holmes Run Apts. Stabbed 14 times in the chest. She went missing April 4, 1977. Body found May 18 in a wooded area near Polk and Pegram Sts.

Ursula Miltenberger, 22, manager trainee at a McDonald's near the Holmes Run Apts. Stabbed to death. Her body was found March 6, 1977, near Burke in Fairfax County. Rissell was questioned and cleared, but later confessed and was convicted on all five murders. He was only 19.

A few links

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=H-FNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MYsDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4233,2481919

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=0wIzAAAAIBAJ&sjid=2AcGAAAAIBAJ&pg=5290,1637356

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=G-FNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MYsDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4768,1799645

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=N1ZOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9PgDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6637,1170087




I RECENTLY LEARNED OF THIS STORY AND WAS WONDERING IF ANYONE KNEW IF AURA GABOR HAD ANY FAMILY OR WHERE SHE MIGHT BE BURIED AT? I noticed there wasn't a whole lot of info about her. It's a sad and horrifying story. I feel bad for everyone involved minus 1 person of course.
 
Welcome, dbmg2005! Personally, I don't know anything more about Aura Gabor other than what is in the links posted previously. If others have more information, I hope they will post it.
 
> looking to speak to the person who wrote this message in the fairfaxunderground.com site. Looking for information that may possibly help me in my research.

Monte Rissell killed my cousin in 1977. I was a seven year old child at the time... <modsnip>
 
no, no,

The post I posted was a copy and paste from another site that was posted March of 2014. Sorry, I can see now how you may interpreted that.

I pasted it here hoping that someone would recognize the comment or possibly know the persons this comment is about.
 
I'm sorry, but no copy and paste from other sites.

Thanks.
 
Thank you Bessie, I saw that link a few days ago. I have been trying to contact the person who wrote that post. I think that is the same post that I had copied and pasted on this site. I did not know I was not allowed to do that by the way. I am sorry.

I am determined to talk to this person for he or she may hold some answers to my long lost mystery of a life.






Link to post referenced by dbmg. Scroll to March 31, 2014.

http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/read.php?2,927442,927731,quote=1


 
Aura was my best friend at the time. In fact I attempted to visit her on the day she died. She was an beautiful, friendly , fun loving spirit that died horrifically. She is buried in Silver Springs, Md at the Garden of Heaven Cemetery. She had no local family..they lived in Guatemela. Here is a picture of her named so scammers hopefully can't use it...
attachment.php
 
I grew up in Alexandria and left when I joined the Navy in the mid 70s. Shortly after, sometime between Class A School in Great Lakes and the time I transferred to my second ship in San Diego (1975-76) there was a series of murders in Alexandria that made the national news. I really don't remember much else, the victims were male adolescents, and my recollection there were three at the time these crimes made the news; leading police to conclude a serial killer was at large. The murders were in the SoCal news because they appeared similar, in victimology, to a series of strangling murders around Long Beach CA. I had been stationed there for a short while on a reserve ship. Later, the L.A. County murders were connected to the gay community and I can't even tell you if those were solved. But the victims in Alexandria were just kids, like I was before I left, pre-teens or teenagers. What got my attention was that one of the bodies was discovered in the vicinity of a tunnel that pretty much every kid used to use as a short cut between Beauregard and North Van Dorn, when Holmes Run was high it was the dry way under 395, comes out around Brookville, Northeast of Landmark.

I never heard if those crimes were solved. There's nothing on the Alexandria Cold Case website. That and the Gwen Ames case in Reston always stuck in my head. One of the kids in my circle moved out to Reston just prior to that murder and we used to see the posters, especially around Lake Ann. In fact, those posters stayed up for years afterward. It was so out of sorts with Reston at that time, it was, at that time, the coolest place to hang out. Matter of fact, it was out of sorts for Alexandria as well. If you're not from there it's hard to explain to anybody who is familiar with Alexandria today - but back then it was very provincial. I was at Hammond High School when the whole, "Remember the Titans" integration thing happened and every junior/senior from Seminary Valley was transferred to T.C. Williams. I was in the class of 73.

Having been so close to a killer in those two cases, and again bar crawling around the strip in Long Beach convinced me that I wanted to be a cop and fight crime for a living. Both joining the Navy (though Alexandria has a strong Navy tradition, ala "Hammond Admirals" et al) and deciding to be a cop were out of character for most kids growing up in the D.C. metro area in those days. As it turned out, by the time my enlistment was coming to an end in 78 I decide to make the Navy a career. Got into the intelligence world, never looked back. I retired in the late 90s and work for the government now. My wife being from SoCal I never left.

Does anybody know anything about the Alexandria murders? Was it serial, was anybody ever arrested? You have to wonder, even though it's a fairly big town now, it wasn't then and the chances I crossed paths with a killer are fairly high. Not long before I left, in the summer of 72 my friends and I all got into high powered slingshots. Just a goofy phase, a fad, like Beatle Boots - if you're from Northern Va and reminded of the times by this post - you remember these things. Bass Weejuns, Swank medallions, Flag Bro. Beatle Boots - the whole nine yards.

Anyhow, one day I was out shooting my slingshot in and around Holmes Run and the trail in the woods between the Beauregard side of what was 95 and Seminary. I lived in Seminary Towers at the time. As I emerged from the woods to walk up Beauregard a late model sedan pulled up at the corner of Beauregard and Sanger. The creep inside was trolling me and exposing himself. I was wearing the ubiquitous army field coat and had the sling secured to the handle of the slingshot up my sleeve, so I took my hands out of my pocket and drew the sling back to my cheek, pointing the 30 caliber steel ball right at this guy's, uh, most apparent object and he peeled out.

About a year earlier we lived in that area, in some garden apts, where I could literally walk out my front door and cut under 95 through that tunnel. One day, at dusk, as I entered the tunnel a dark figure seemed to appear from nowhere at the opposite end, framed in that light I couldn't make out any features, but it was a male adult, about six feet 200 lbs. On many occasions I would pass other fellow travelers in that tunnel, for some reason I got creeped out this time and decided to turn back. Likewise, we were all over Lake Ann. Between Golf Course and Lake Ann there's a path that goes over a little wooden foot bridge to the lake. I've always had the creepy feeling we passed a killer on that path some summer's eve. And just maybe, I turned away from one that evening in Alexandria. The guy never came out on my side, and when I went back to look, he was gone.

I am trying to picture the tunnel you are describing under 395. Is the tunnel in this photo one and the same as the creepy tunnel you were describing?
 

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