Flutterby80
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Here are some other articles I have about it:
News-Sentinel, The (Fort Wayne, IN)
February 7, 1984
Brutal killings leave another neighborhood in fear's grasp
Author: Dave Haynes of The News-Sentinel
Edition: FINAL
Section: LOCAL NEWS
Page: 00
Index Terms:
MURDER HOMICIDE
Estimated printed pages: 3
Article Text:
The headlines in the Denver newspapers are haunting and familiar:
``Three in family slain; girl clings to life.''
``Police want to question three in deaths.''
The stories report the brutal beating deaths of Bruce, Debra Lynn and Melissa Bennett of Aurora, Colo. The family was bludgeoned to death three weeks ago.
Aurora police have no suspects and few leads in the grisly case which has shaken the Denver suburb's 202,000 residents.
They do have a case study: Details of the Bennett slayings bear striking resemblance to the September beating deaths of three members of the Dan Osborne family in Fort Wayne.
While there is not apparent connection between the two incidents, the similarities are eerie.
Consider these comparisons:
* A mother, father and child were slain, while a younger child was attacked, left for dead, but survived. Dan Osborne, 35, his wife, Jane, 34, and their son Ben, 11, all were killed with a blunt instrument - believed to be a baseball bat. Two-year-old Caroline Osborne also was sexually molested and beaten. She survived and wandered through the house for two days before the bodies of her mother, father and brother were found on the morning of Sept. 19.
A co-workers discovered the bodies when Dan Osborne didn't report for work at The News-Sentinel.
The Bennetts - Bruce, 27: Debra Lynn, 26: and their 7-year-old daughter Melissa, were killed by blows to the head with a blunt instrument, possibly a hammer. Melissa was sexually molested. A younger daughter, 4-year-old Vanessa, was critically injured and is recovering in a Denver hospital. Bruce Bennett's throat also had been cut, possibly with the family's butcher knife, which was found in the snow outside, covered in blood.
The bodies were discovered about 10 a.m. Jan. 16. A relative went to the home when co-workers noticed the parents didn't report to work at a wholesale furniture warehouse.
* Both the Osborne and Bennett slayings occurred in upper-middle class neighborhoods where the families had only resided a short time. The Osbornes moved into their Harrison Hill neighborhood home less than four months before they were slain. The Bennetts moved from another part of Aurora to their new home over Thanksgiving.
* Both neighborhoods had recently begun organizing crime-watch programs. Fort Wayne Police Chief David Riemen was speaking to residents in the Harrison Hill neighborhood Sept. 17, just hours after the Osbornes are believed to have been killed. Aurora Police Public Information Officer Mike Sellman said the neighborhood where the Bennetts died had been organizing a crime-watch when the slayings occurred.
* Other violent crimes in the area were investigated for possible links with the murders. The Osbornes allegedly were murdered by Calvin D. Perry III, who was linked by police to a spree of 15 violent incidents, including several rapes and another murder. Sellman said Aurora police are investigating three other incidents in the Denver area in which people were attacked with hammers, possibly the weapon used against the Bennetts. In a Jan. 10 hammer attack, a woman in the Denver suburb of Lakewood died.
* Reactions by residents and investigative techniques by police were similar. As in Fort Wayne, lock, gun and home security system sales increased. So did the response to police crime prevention efforts. A reward fund has been established for the arrest and conviction of the slayer, and a second fund has been established to defray Vanessa Bennett's medical expenses.
As in Fort Wayne, Aurora police called on the FBI to outline a psychological profile of the slayer. The profile has not been released to the public. A profile was drawn of the Osbornes slayer, although details were released.
Aurora police also have established a information hotline phone number and are considering creating a task force.
Fort Wayne Police Public Information Office Tom Engle said he has discussed the cases with a friend who works for the Greeley, Colo., Police Department, but is not aware of any official contact between Fort Wayne and Aurora police. Greeley is about 50 miles north of Aurora.
Aurora police have little reason to contact Fort Wayne authorities because the day the Bennetts' bodies were discovered Calvin D. Perry III was charged with the murders of the three Osborne family members in Fort Wayne.
The next day - as the murder investigation was in its embryonic stages in Colorado - Perry, 18, was found dead in his cell at the Allen County Jail. Officials have ruled he committed suicide and have closed the file on the Osborne case.
Although 26 police officers have been assigned to the Aurora case, there has been little progress, Sellman said.
Caption:
The body of one of the murdered Bennett family members is removed from their Aurora home Jan. 16. Photo By the Denver Post.PHOTO
Memo:
Clip Files
Copyright (c) 1984 The News-Sentinel
Record Number: 0203130020
This is so odd. I lived in Fort Wayne when these murders occured and was just 4 years old. Before Calvin Perry killed this family, he committed other horrible, horrible crimes. I went to a KinderCare daycare center and there was a little girl in my class named Amy. She was a beautiful little girl with long red hair..she was my buddy. One night while her dad was at work, Calvin Perry broke into their house and attacked Amy and her mom. He was viscious, raping them and beating them both badly. Amy's little sister was asleep in another room when it happened. He also broke into other homes and robbed and raped other people. He was a true monster. I remember the adults talking about it for years afterwards, although I only have very vague memories during the time it was actually happening. And even those might be just from things I've heard since. It's hard to tell.
Calvin Perry was actually given some sort of ridiculous award after he died because the conspiracy theorists blamed the murders on the police, saying that the father was the editor of the newspaper and had some dirt on the mayor. They say Calvin Perry did not commit suicide in jail, but was framed and killed by the police. I don't buy it, but whatever.
Here is the weird thing...this case has haunted me for my entire life. I have periodically researched it online through the years and came across a Topix forum about it awhile back. I signed up for email alerts if someone posts, and I got one the other day. I went to the site and read that Amy's daycare teacher had posted. She would have been my daycare teacher as well.
The reason I am posting all of this here is because I remember my mother saying that she had been convinced of Perry's guilt until she read a little blurb in the newspaper not long afterwards about an almost identical murder happening in Colorado. This case HAS to be the one she was talking about. She said it gave her a little bit of doubt about Perry being responsible for the Fort Wayne murders, and chilled her to the bone to think that whoever did this got away with it and went on to commit the same crime in Colorado.