Have been gathering the Travis serial killer info for the crime map, I stumbled upon another case. Specifically, prior to LE naming Travis the primary suspect for Mary Shields death, LE named Donald E Younge, Jr (
who is now serving time for murder in Utah, of all places!). Also, while looking into the Travis murders I was reminded of the Slavemaster, who trolled inet for Vics. In the process, I ran across this Radford University Psych paper on the man (
pdf link), that, among other things, mentions an alleged group (
they call it a cult):
International Council of Masters. While LE appears to think there is some validity wrt said "
cult" (
sex trafficking by any other name), the "
cult" claim could be nothing more than grandiosity on Robinson's part. With the aforementioned in mind, following are excerpts from three articles regarding the St Louis area murders.
Three days later, without being questioned by police again, he was dead - a pillowcase pulled over his head and his hands tied behind his back - in a hanging that Clayton police and the St. Louis County medical examiner agreed was very odd but a suicide nonetheless.
[...]
July 31, 2000: The body of Mary Shields, 61, is found in East St. Louis.
Police now believe she may have been Travis' first murder victim.
Full Article:
click here
Mary Shields' strangled body was found July 31, 2000, within four blocks of the other four women. She was 61.
For weeks, there wasn't a break in the case.
Police then connected a sadistic sexual assault that happened two weeks before Johnson and House's bodies were found.
Antonina Brummund escaped from her attacker on Dec. 29, 1999, after being beaten and raped after her hands and feet bound with electrical tape.
The front porch of a home at 1955 Central Ave. searched by police in August 2000 overlooked the dump sites where the women's bodies were found.
The home's occupant -- Donald E. Younge Jr. -- became the prime suspect.
[...]
Brummund testified before the grand jury as a prosecution witness.
[...]
Three weeks before Younge was set to go trial, Brummund's body was found in an abandoned warehouse 15th Street and Bond Avenue in East St. Louis.
Full Article:
click here
Misner says he urged Younge to take the deal, but Younge refused. A week or two later, Misner says, he received the evidence from prosecutors that male DNA in Quinton’s apartment was not Younge’s.
[...]
In March 2004, Brummond was stabbed to death in an incident unrelated to Younge. Illinois prosecutors immediately dropped the rape charge against him and announced they would no longer seek the death penalty in the triple-murder case.
[...]
In February 2009, after Younge had spent nearly seven years in an Illinois jail without a trial, prosecutors there dropped the murder charges against him, citing questions about the honesty of a lab technician and the loss of Brummond.
[...]
After an evidentiary hearing, Himonas ruled Dec. 8, 2009, that a “preponderance of the evidence” shows the statute of limitations tolled beginning March 1999, which implies that Younge had left Utah several months before Quinton was murdered.
Full Article:
click here
All things considered, imho, the whole thing seems... well... odd. And, any way you look at it, the concentration of BDSM-like murders in the St Louis area certainly raises more questions than have already been raised in this rather odd case. And yes, and fwiw, I do think there is some connection between Ricky McCormick and the above murders. A person without a car ending up dead in a serial killer dumpsite in the middle of nowhere is just ten shades of... well... not exactly coincidental. Just more stuff that makes you go, hmmm... So, again, thank you RiverGuide & Bessie for bringing up the Travis murders.
