MI Rudy Bladel, "The Railway Sniper" killed from 1963 to 1978, MI and IN

[Richard]

Rudy Bladel

A.K.A.: "The Railway Sniper"

Classification: Serial killer
Characteristics: Shot railroad employees to avenge loss of job
Number of victims: 3 - 7
Date of murders: 1963/1968/1976/1978
Date of arrest: March 22, 1979
Date of birth: 1933
Victims profile: Engineer Roy Bottorf and his fireman, Paul Overstreet / Engineer John Marshall / James McCrory, conductor / Robert Blake, flagman; William Gulak, conductor; and Charles Burton, railroad fireman
Method of murder: Shooting
Location: Michigan/Indiana, USA
Status: Sentenced to three consecutive life terms in Michigan. Died in prison on November 15, 2006

Between 1963 and 1978 in both Michigan and Indiana, this laid off railroad worker used a shotgun to kill railroad employees.

Rudy Bladel (73) man convicted of murdering three Michigan railroad employees in 1978 and suspected in the deaths of four others. A railroad fireman, Bladel was angry about a 1959 merger between a freight yard in Niles, Michigan and the one where he worked in Elkhart, Indiana. A union agreement and court decision resulted in periodic layoffs and a loss of seniority for Bladel and his coworkers. He was serving three life sentences when he died of thyroid cancer in Jackson, Michigan on November 15, 2006.

Rudy Bladel was dubbed “The Railway Sniper” for his string of shooting throughout the mid 60’s and 70’s...

LINK:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Blad

 

[Richard]

The link in my original post does not work here are some better ones:

Rudy Bladel - Wikipedia

True Crime XL: Rudy Bladel

BLAKE v. CONSOLIDATED RAI | 176 Mich. App. 506 (1989) | happ5061622 | Leagle.com

 

[Richard]

Rudy Bladel
BIRTH 1933
DEATH 15 Nov 2006 (aged 72–73)
BURIAL Unknown

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No tears likely shed for railroad man's death
Job issue suspected motive behind Rudy Bladel's spree.

Most likely, his passing didn't generate any tears. Instead, the death last week of 73-year-old Rudy Bladel from thyroid cancer prompted thoughts of good riddance. At least, that was the guess of Gerald Rand, a retired detective with the Jackson, Mich., police department. "He was probably the coldest-hearted person I ever met in my life. He won't be missed,'' Rand said.

"Probably a lot of families rested well the night he died.'' Thomas Hutton, also a retired police detective in Jackson, described Bladel as "absolutely the worst ... stone (cold) killer'' he had ever encountered. "Mr. Bladel was proof there are monsters among us,'' he said.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the imposing figure of the hulking, 200-pound plus Bladel was the worst nightmare for railroad workers in southwestern Michigan and northern Indiana. Employees living in Michigan feared him the most because, as Bladel saw it, they had robbed him of his chance to move up through the ranks and become a Conrail engineer.

An Elkhart resident who worked for the railroad as a fireman, Bladel's hatred of Michigan railroad workers began to fester in 1959 when the freight yard in Niles was merged with the one in Elkhart. A union agreement and subsequent court decision allowed Michigan workers to follow their jobs, resulting in periodic layoffs and a loss of seniority for Indiana workers like Bladel.

The slayings began in Hammond, Ind., in 1963, when two railroad workers were shot and killed. Five years later, Niles resident John "Wesley'' Marshall, 51, died of a shotgun blast at the rail yard in Elkhart. The shooting of New Buffalo railroad worker John Sayer at the Elkhart rail yard followed in 1971. Sayer, the lone survivor of the attacks, managed to wrestle the gun from Bladel and return fire, wounding him in the stomach. "I shot him in the belly because that was the biggest target,'' said Sayer on Tuesday. He now makes his home in Pahrump, Nev. Bladel was fired by the railroad in the wake of the Sayer shooting and served 33 months in prison.

It probably was no coincidence that, shortly after his release, Niles' railroad employee James McCrory, 51, was gunned down at the rail yard in Elkhart in 1976.

It was only after three more railroad employees were shot and killed at the Jackson train depot on New Year's Eve 1978 that police obtained the necessary evidence to prosecute and convict Bladel.

Still, an appeals court granted him a new hearing, and a retrial was necessary in 1987 to put him back behind bars for good. Bladel's anger with the railroad union and Michigan workers came across loud and clear in a January 1979 Tribune interview. Although he stopped short of admitting involvement in any of the slayings, he seemed to make a telling comment regarding his feeling about the slain railroad workers. "These people are trying to be difficult ... OK, let's be difficult,'' he said....

... It wasn't until Jackson residents discovered parts of a disassembled shotgun in the bushes of a Jackson park that police were able to link Bladel to any of the slayings. A check of the serial number revealed Bladel had purchased the weapon at a Kmart store in Indiana. Rand said Bladel had made no attempt to disguise the purchase, signing his own name when he purchased the weapon. That surprised detectives, Rand said, based on his previous attempts to cover his tracks. Bladel had gone so far as to personally fashion the bullets used to shoot Sayer, apparently so they couldn't be traced...

LINK:
Rudy Bladel (1933-2006) - Find A Grave Memorial

 

[Richard]

It would seem a rather strange misnomer to call this guy "The Railway Sniper". It would make someone think that as a "sniper" he shot his victims from long range with a rifle, when the very opposite is the case.

Bladel shot his first three victims at close range with pistols and his last four with shotguns at close range.

He was a complete liar, and although he came short of admitting his killing all the railroad men, he had a ready justification for their deaths. He felt he was getting even with the railroad for his loss of employment many years before. Still, one has to consider the fact that this guy was crazy and may well have committed other murders that he did not admit to, or were not readily connected to the "revenge on the railroad" scenario.

Bladel was somewhat of a migrant who lived in several places in Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois. How many other murders did he commit before his first "railroad" killing? And how many others?

 

[Richard]

... ''The Michigan men,'' investigators would later determine, were the seat of one man`s fanatical grudge against the railroad industry....

Here is a link to a 1986 Chicago newspaper story which describes Rudy Bladel very well:

MURDER CROSSING

 

[Richard]

It would be useful to know Rudy Bladel's actual geographic locations for various time frames.

At different times he lived and traveled in Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. He was at times "homeless" staying at shelters. He killed men in Indiana and Michigan, and was known to travel around to attend union meetings in various cities. He was incarcerated at least twice for a number of months.

While some feel that Bladel targeted only middle aged, male Railroad employees because of his grudge against a certain RR line, it is also possible that he killed others as well.

Knowing more about him could help to solve some cold case homicides.

 

[Richard]

Peek through Time: Jackson's Amtrak Station is still going strong after 137 years

A drawing of the Jackson Train Depot in Jackson by Mary Hertler Tallman.

... 1978 -- Three Conrail railroad workers were murdered at the Jackson train station on New Year's Eve. Rudy Bladel, an obsessed loner from Elkhart, Ind., was arrested. He blamed Michigan trainmen for taking work from Indiana railroad workers. He was convicted in 1979 and sentenced to life in prison. The conviction was overturned on appeal, but Bladel was convicted again in 1987. He died in prison in 2006 of thyroid cancer...

LINK:
Peek through Time: Jackson's Amtrak Station is still going strong after 137 years

 

[Richard]

RUDY BLADEL

• Aliases:AMTRACK
• Date of Birth:12-08-1932 00:00:00
• Arrest Date:12-31-1978 12:00:00
• Age:81
• Sex:Male
• Race:White
• Ethnicity:
• Height:6' 0"
• Weight:225 lbs.
• Hair:Gray
• Eye:Brown
• Place of Birth:Michigan
• Address:
• State:Michigan
• Summary: Arrested on December 31, 1978 was 81-year-old Rudy Bladel who is 6' 0" tall, weighs 225 lbs. and has brown eyes. Michigan County Law Enforcement is charging Bladel, but He is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Police and district attorneys near Statewide, Michigan found here may provide more information about this incident: Michigan Law Enforcement.

LINK:
Search for Rudy Bladel Police Arrest Reports Online

 

[Richard]

My previous post might appear a bit misleading because it was taken from a site which mixes in a person's age as it would be today with historical information.

Rudy Bladel is dead. He was 46 years old when he was arrested in 1978 and charged with the murder of three men in Jackson, Michigan. He was subsequently tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison. So he can pretty much be "assumed guilty" of those murders now. It is also a pretty safe bet that he killed the other men murdered in Indiana.

Law enforcement has habit of just closing a case when their main (or only) suspect is convicted of another case for which he received the maximum sentence. However, there also seems to be a tendency to sometimes narrowly define the motives and crimes of such a criminal.

Bladel has been defined as someone who had a grudge against middle aged men from Michigan who worked for the Railroad. While that seems very true in regard to the above mentioned murders/attempted murders, it should not rule him out as a potential suspect in other equally heinous murders which do not fit all the parameters of the narrow definition of Bladel.

Just because his known victims are all middle aged men, what would prevent him from killing teenagers? or women? The fact is that Bladel didn't care about anybody but himself and he showed absolutely no remorse or feeling toward any of his victims.

 

[Richard]

Here is a chronology of Rudy Bladel's known crimes.

3 August, 1963, 1:05 am, at Hammond, Indiana. Engineer Roy Bottorf, 60, and his fireman, Paul Overstreet, 45, were found dead in the cab of their train, in the Harbor Belt rail yards. Each man had been hit by two rounds from a .22-caliber weapon.

6 August 1968, 4:38 am, engineer John Marshall, 51, of Niles, Michigan, was killed by a shotgun blast as he climbed aboard his train in Elkhart, Indiana. He was shot once in midsection once in the side, twice in the head with a 12 gauge shotgun. Witnesses described a hulking stranger, glimpsed in silhouette, who waddled from the murder scene with a distinctive, almost ape-like stride. Again, police were left without a suspect or substantial clues.

30 March 1971, 3:55 am, in Elkhart, Indiana, Rudy Bladel drew a .357 magnum revolver in the railroad yard and shot another engineer. Louis John Sayne, 46, of New Buffalo, MI survived an attack. He was shot twice in the back, but managed to get the gun away from Bladel and shot him in the stomach. Rudy plead guilty to aggravated battery and drew a prison term of one to five years. He served eighteen months, and was paroled in 1973.

On April 5, 1976, James McCrory, 51, of Niles, Michigan, was seated in his locomotive, in the yard at Elkhart, when a 20 gauge shotgun slug crashed through the window, shattering his skull and killing him instantly. This time, Bladel was an instant suspect, and police secured permission for surveillance.

In January 1978, Bladel was arrested as he left a South Bend gun shop, carrying a brand-new .357 magnum revolver. Ownership of firearms is forbidden for convicted felons, and he served eleven months on weapons charges, but police could not connect him with the string of murders then spanning thirteen years.

On New Year’s Eve, 31 December 1978, Bladel carried a shotgun into the rail yards at Jackson, Michigan, surprising flagman Robert Lee Blake, 42, of Southgate, MI, and conductor William Gulak, 50, of Lincoln Park, MI, in the depot. They were waiting for a train when at 6:44 pm, Bladel cut them down with close-range shotgun blasts. Moving to the outer platform, Rudy shot and killed fireman Charles Lee Burton, 42, of Jackson, MI , as he came to work. Each man was shot twice with 12 gauge deer slugs.

The depot’s ticket manager, responding to the sound of shots, described the gunman for police.

 

[Richard]

New York Times article
24 March 1979

JACKSON, Mich., March 2.3 — A three month search for the missing shotgun linked to the murder of three Conrail employees here on New Year's Eve has ended with the accidental discovery of the weapon under some park bushes.

As a result of that discovery earlier this week, detectives journeyed yesterday to Elkhart, Ind., where they arrested Rudy Bladel, a 45‐year‐old part‐time laborer and onetime railroad worker.

Charged with three counts of murder, Mr. Bladel stood mute at his arraignment today. He is being held in the county jail without bond.

“I just don't know what to say,” Mr. Bladel told reporters at the arraignment. Then he smiled and posed for pictures...

... Police here say the investigation is still far from over because Mr. Bladel is considered a suspect in the murders of four other Conrail employees since 1963.

In each instance, the police have established that Mr. Bladel was in the city where the killing occurred and at the time it occurred. In five of the slayings, witnesses have told of seeing a man who matched Mr. Bladel's general physical description at the scene of the killing shortly before or just after it occurred...

... Mr. Bladel was questioned by the police here a few hours after the three Conrail crewmen — William Gulak, Charles Lee Burton and Robert Blake — were shot to death on New Year's Eve at the train depot. lie denied the killings and said he had come to Jackson to look for work.

Police officials said Mr. Bladel conceded that he went to the depot on the afternoon of the shootings to wash his hands, but they were unable to place him there at the time of the killings. He was released after two days and returned to his home in Elkhart.

Shortly after the Jackson killings, investigators in other cities disclosed that Mr. Bladel had been a suspect in four other unsolved shooting deaths of railroad employees...

LINK:
Suspect in 7 Conrail Slayings Is Charged With Murdering 3 in Michigan

 

[Richard]

On Friday night, 3 July 1964, two teen-aged boys, Sheldon Miller (14) and Pat Brown (17) were shot to death in a school playfield in Northwest Detroit. Their murders remain unsolved.

No one was ever charged with their murders, however, some of the details of their deaths are similar to the type of murders that Rudy Bladel is known to have committed before and after they were killed.

The killer of these boys was out after dark walking in the park. He encountered them about 10:30 pm and emptied a .22 revolver into them. He then walked away for 78 feet, ejected 8 spent shells and one live round on the ground, reloaded and returned to shoot them again, each boy was shot behind the right ear with a killing shot.

Walking alone at night was a trait of Bladel. He also had a hatred for "Michigan Men". Although he used a different pistol or shotgun in each of his known murders, his first (in August 1963) was done with a .22 pistol much in the same manner as Pat and Sheldon were killed. All of Bladel's known murders were committed in the hours of darkness.

 

[Richard]

One of the characteristics of Rudy Bladel's "known" crimes involving firearms is that he used a different weapon in each incident. Here is a list of the guns he used:

3 August, 1963, .22-caliber weapon (probably a handgun)

6 August 1968, 12 gauge shotgun.

30 March 1971, .357 magnum revolver

On April 5, 1976, 20 gauge shotgun with rifled slugs

January 1978, illegal possession of a brand-new .357 magnum revolver.

31 December 1978, a new (different) 12 gauge shotgun with rifled slugs.

An attempt to tie Bladell with other murders or attacks would have to take this "use of a different gun" into account as his usual mode of operation. However, a study of other factors would indicate that his MO also included the following:

- All shootings were at close range
- All involved multiple shots and overkill
- He favored head shots to ensure death
- Except for the first attack, all gun choices were very high power weapons which would ensure maximum injury
- All shootings were in the hours of darkness
- All attacks were committed alone (without accomplices)
- Victims were chosen singly or in close pairs. The final three were actually a pair, followed by a single, separate murder.
- Ambush at close quarters, without warning or talk was his MO
- All or most victims were Michigan residents
- All victims were male.

 

[Richard]

• 
• Rudy Bladel

Links:
True Crime XL: Rudy Bladel

Railroad Killer Dies of Cancer in Prison

 

[Richard]

One factor that was common in all of Rudy Bladel's known murders was that all were committed in the hours of darkness. Bladel was known to spend his nights just walking around in the dark.

The 1957 song "Walkin' after Midnight" by Patsy Cline takes on a different meaning all together when one hears it with Bladel in mind.

 

[Arnie M]

• 
• Rudy Bladel

Links:
True Crime XL: Rudy Bladel

Railroad Killer Dies of Cancer in Prison

I had read the article back in August when you posted it and it says he was originally investigated but released on lack of evidence until they traced the gun back to him. I consider that a lucky break because there was no gun registry and a person could buy them anywhere no question asked.

Your Patsy Cline song reminds me of my teenage years .... my parents listened to her and I couldn't stand it ... had to be Beatles or Elvis for me. Now that I am older I like her very much. Thanks.

 

[Richard]

I had read the article back in August when you posted it and it says he was originally investigated but released on lack of evidence until they traced the gun back to him. I consider that a lucky break because there was no gun registry and a person could buy them anywhere no question asked.

Your Patsy Cline song reminds me of my teenage years .... my parents listened to her and I couldn't stand it ... had to be Beatles or Elvis for me. Now that I am older I like her very much. Thanks.

Gun laws have changed over the years, and they differ from state to state. In the case of Rudy Bladel, he was tried and convicted of attempted murder when he shot and wounded a fellow railroad man with a .357 magnum revolver. The other guy managed to get the gun away from Rudy and shot him in the stomach with it. Rudy went to prison for a couple of years for that felony conviction.

When he was released from prison, he illegally purchased another pistol (illegal because he was a convicted felon) and for that he was arrested and sentenced to more jail time.

It does seem that Rudy was always able to come up with a different firearm whenever he wanted one. His favorite choice was a shotgun - and the one he buried was only one of several that he used to murder people. It was indeed a stroke of luck that the hikers who found it, turned it in and that it could be used to provide solid evidence that Rudy Bladel had used it to murder three men.

It is known that he murdered several other railroad workers, but evidence was not available to take him to trial. One wonders how many other people he attacked, wounded, and murdered at other times and places which were not seen as connected to his "railroad killings".

 

[Richard]

Rudy Bladel was an oddity among serial killers in that he only targeted railroad employees. For an astonishing span of fifteen years, he terrorized railways with numerous random sniper murders. Disgruntled at being laid off from his job as a railroad worker, Bladel took out his frustration on the various people who worked in the Indiana rail yards for over a decade before he was finally caught. Why did it take so long to catch him?

LINK:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/rudy-bladel-railway-killer

 

[Richard]

The popular nickname "The Railway Sniper" is certainly a misnomer when used to describe Rudy Bladel.

A sniper is a person who shoots people from long distances using a rifle. Rudy Bladel always attacked his victims at close range, using either a pistol or a shotgun.

I wonder also about the claim or statement of all his victims being railroad men. While it is true that Bladel DID target railroad men on several occasions, in a series of connected violent murders, he could just as easily have murdered other victims who were NOT connected with the railroads.

 

[Richard]

Rudy Bladel (1933-2006)
Serial Killer of 7 Michigan Railroad men - possibly others?