MI Gary Addison Taylor, attacked women 1940's thru 70's in several states: MI, FL, TX, WA

[Richard]

Gary Addison Taylor (born March 1936)​

It's believed that Gary Addison Taylor, now 87 and incarcerated at Washington State Penitentiary, didn't start killing women until 1972, but he started attacking them when he was a teenager.

Taylor moved from Howell, Michigan to Florida with his family after he was born, where he committed "the bus stop phantom attacks," bludgeoning about a dozen women at bus stops during the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Taylor was arrested but acquitted, then moved back to Michigan.

In late 1956 and early 1957, while living in Southfield Township, Taylor shot 16 women and girls over a three-month period in and around Detroit, earning the nickname "the Phantom Sniper of Royal Oak."

None of the women died, and Taylor was arrested in February of 1957, after "a wild shooting spree," according to coverage in The Herald Press.

Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor William Lang said Taylor confessed to the shootings, the paper reported.

"I just had an urge to shoot at women," Taylor told Lang.

According to author Michael Newton's book, "Hunting Humans: An Encyclopedia of Modern Serial Killers," Taylor spent more than a decade in psychiatric hospitals before being released. In 1973 he stopped showing up for mandated medical appointments.

Between 1972 and 1975, Taylor murdered at least four women, burying two in the backyard of his home in Onsted before moving to Washington.

After he was arrested in Houston, Texas for sexual assault in May of 1975, Taylor confessed to killing four women in three states.

Carpenter said some of Bundy's victims were, at one point, blamed on Taylor, who police believe killed at least 20 women.

"He hated, hated, hated women," Carpenter said. "That was his motive. It's what he told police."

Custody Detail Washington State Penitentiary
Book Date May 04, 1976 12:00 AM PDT

LINKS:

'The worst of the worst.' A look at five Michigan serial killers and their crimes

From Aileen Wuornos and John Norman Collins to East Lansing's Don Miller and Lansing's Matthew Macon, a look at 5 of Michigan's serial killers.

www.lansingstatejournal.com

https://vinelink.vineapps.com/person-detail/offender/349824

 

[Richard]

LINK:

Gary Addison Taylor | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers

Murderpedia, the free online encyclopedic dictionary of murderers. The largest database about serial killers, mass murderers and spree killers around the world

murderpedia.org

Freedom to Kill
Article from Time Magazine
Monday, Jun. 09, 1975

In a criminal career that has spanned two decades, Gary Addison Taylor, 39, an itinerant Michigan machinist, has robbed, raped, stabbed and otherwise brought mayhem to at least a dozen women in three states. Incredibly, courts and psychiatrists time and again have declined to keep him confined. Last week Houston police were holding Taylor on serious charges that may finally put him behind bars for good.

Taylor's lust for violence took bizarre forms. At 18, he was charged with attacking a woman with a wrench as she stepped off a bus in St. Petersburg, Fla. A jury acquitted him. At 21, he drove through four Detroit suburbs firing a gun at women. He wounded two, and was billed by local newspapers as "the phantom sniper."

A psychiatrist testified in court that "he is unreasonably hostile toward women, and this makes it very possible that he might very well kill a person." Taylor was declared insane and committed to Michigan's Ionia State Hospital, and three years later was transferred to the Lafayette Clinic in Detroit.

Out on a pass to attend a welding class, Taylor talked his way into a Detroit woman's home, then raped and robbed her. By the next year, out on another pass, he threatened a rooming-house manager and her daughter with an 18-inch butcher knife. He was not put on trial in either incident; instead he was sent back to Ionia.

In 1972, Taylor was released from the Michigan Center for Forensic Psychiatry in Ypsilanti. Reason: under Michigan law, a person acquitted of a crime by reason of insanity cannot be kept indefinitely in a mental institution; he must be periodically certified mentally ill and dangerous to himself or the community. The psychiatric center's director, Dr. Ames Robey, diagnosed Taylor's condition as a character disorder and not a treatable mental illness. Robey did not think Taylor was dangerous as long as he took medication and did not drink.

Soon after his release, Taylor married. He and his wife Helen, a secretary, moved first to Onsted, Mich., later to the Seattle suburbs. Last December after separating from his wife, Taylor settled down in Houston. There he was indicted last week on three counts of aggravated sexual abuse, one count of attempted aggravated rape, and the rape of a 16-year-old pregnant girl. He is also likely to be indicted for the murder of a 21-year-old go-go dancer.

When news of his arrest in Houston reached Taylor's estranged wife in San Diego, she said Taylor had once told her that he had killed four people in Onsted. Meanwhile Taylor began to talk. But last week he insisted to a Houston justice of the peace that the police had beaten confessions out of him; the police called the charges nonsense.

Tipped off by Houston police, investigators in Onsted found the bodies of two Toledo girls, wrapped in plastic bags, buried outside the bedroom window of the old Taylor home. And in Enumclaw, Wash., authorities found the body of a missing woman behind a house where Taylor had lived. Last week he was charged with the killing.

Phantom Sniper.

The tragedies could have been averted if "the phantom sniper" had been locked up years ago in Michigan. But last year the state supreme court upheld the law that the cases of the mentally ill, including criminals, should be reviewed every six months. The problem comes in defining mental illness. In several recent Michigan homicide cases, psychiatrists have disagreed on whether those who committed the crimes should be confined. One man, who the police learned had killed seven persons for hire, was set free—and a month later stomped his wife to death.​

Gary Addison Taylor
AKA: "Royal Oak Sniper"
Date of birth: March 1936
Serial Killer
Characteristics: Rape
Number of Victims: 4 - 20
Dates of known murders: 1972-1975
Date of Arrest: 20 May 1975
Victims profile: Lee Fletcher, 25 / Deborah Heneman, 23 / Susan Jackson, 21 / Vonnie Stuth
Method of murder: Hitting with a hammer / Shooting
Custody Detail Washington State Penitentiary
Book Date May 04, 1976 12:00 AM PDT

​

 

[Richard]

Sandra June Horwath, 33, Missing

Taylor is mentioned in another thread as a potential suspect in the 1 October 1973 disappearance of an Ann Arbor, Michigan woman Sandra June Horwath, age 33.

MI - MI - Sandra June Horwath, 33, Ann Arbor, 1 Oct 1973

New entry in NamUs; 46 years is a looong time to be missing :( The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) MP51934 Sandra June Horwath Female White / Caucasian Date of Last Contact: October 1, 1973 Missing From: Ann Arbor, Michigan Missing Age: 33 Years Current Age: 78 Year...

www.websleuths.com

 

[Richard]

Serial killer’s crimes unearthed at Loch Erin 40 years ago​

Dennis Pelham Daily Telegram Staff Writer

A gruesome discovery 40 years ago today at Loch Erin began the unraveling of a serial killer’s crimes in Michigan, Washington and Texas.

The bodies of two Toledo women were unearthed in the backyard of a secluded house where Gary Addison Taylor lived for a year. A search for additional bodies at the house on Kingsley Drive was followed by television news cameras for several days. Taylor became a suspect in as many as 20 unsolved murders across the country.

He was convicted of murdering two women in the state of Washington and sentenced to life in prison.
“That was a huge case,” said retired Lenawee County Sheriff Richard Germond.

Taylor’s Loch Erin connection came to light after authorities in Houston, Texas, contacted the Lenawee County Sheriff’s Department on May 22, 1975. Taylor was arrested in Houston a day earlier for a sexual assault. Taylor’s estranged wife then went to police with a story about him once telling her he murdered and buried four people in Michigan.

After getting the telephone call from Texas, trusty workers from the jail were quickly driven to Taylor’s former Loch Erin home to dig for bodies that might be buried there.

“Once we got on the scene and started digging, it didn’t take an hour to come across the first body,” Germond said.
“If there were no tips, it’s hard telling how long it would have gone before we discovered the remains,” he said.
Michigan State Police crime lab technicians were called in to process the scene and remove the bodies from shallow graves just outside a bedroom window. The victims, later identified as Lee Fletcher, 25, and Deborah Heneman, 23, were wrapped in plastic bags and tied with rope and electrical cords.

A Toledo man who said he knew the women said they arranged to meet someone in the parking lot of a Toledo restaurant in March 1974. They were never seen alive again.

Television crews and news media arrived the day after the discovery was announced to watch the search continue for two more bodies thought to be buried there... The search ended with no further discoveries...

It was left to authorities in Texas to interrogate Taylor about the murders, rather than have him returned to Michigan. Police in Washington developed a stronger case against Taylor in two murders there. ... it was decided there was no need to bring him back to Lenawee County for trial.

Taylor had a long history of violence against women. He was ruled insane and hospitalized after being arrested in 1957 as the “phantom sniper” who shot at women in Royal Oak, wounding several. He was released from the Michigan Center for Forensic Psychology in Ypsilanti in 1973 as an outpatient. He later married and moved to Loch Erin, then the Seattle area and eventually California and Texas...

LINK:

Serial killer’s crimes unearthed at Loch Erin 40 years ago

A gruesome discovery 40 years ago today at Loch Erin began the unraveling of a serial killer’s crimes in Michigan, Washington and Texas. The bodies of two Toledo women were unearthed in the backyar…

www.lenconnect.com

 

[ilovewings]

I met Gary Addison Taylor when I was 18 years old- I did not have any relationship with him--
I won't go into any details of how I met him- All I can say is I am glad I never engaged in any relationship with him -----I had no idea of his murderous history.

 

[Richard]

Taylor confessed to killing four women in Michigan and investigators were able to find two of them buried next to his house. It would be interesting to know who the other two women were that he claimed to have killed and any specific details he gave investigators.

Since he is still alive (at age 87) cold case investigators might consider interviewing him again to try and close some unsolved cold cases.

 

[Richard]

Hazel Alice Cross, age 26
Missing since 1 May 1973 from Toledo, Ohio

Two of Taylor's known victims, whose bodies were found buried next to his Loch Erin, Michigan house were abducted in Toledo Ohio in March of 1974.

Could Hazel Cross be another victim of this serial killer?

LINK:

OH - OH - Hazel Cross, 26, Toledo, 1 May 1973

Hazel Cross Lucas County, Ohio 26 year old white female Hair: Brown, long Eyes: Blue Height (inches) 62.0 Weight (pounds) 110.0 Pierced Ears Tip of finger had been cut off...

www.websleuths.com

 

[Richard]

From post #2 this thread:
"In 1972, Taylor was released from the Michigan Center for Forensic Psychiatry in Ypsilanti. Reason: under Michigan law, a person acquitted of a crime by reason of insanity cannot be kept indefinitely in a mental institution; he must be periodically certified mentally ill and dangerous to himself or the community. The psychiatric center's director, Dr. Ames Robey, diagnosed Taylor's condition as a character disorder and not a treatable mental illness. Robey did not think Taylor was dangerous as long as he took medication and did not drink."

The Michigan law mentioned was actually a court decision which led to the emptying of Michigan mental institutions and releasing many criminally insane individuals into society.

Well, he said he was cured and would never do it again... How did that work out?

 

[ilovewings]

From post #2 this thread:
"In 1972, Taylor was released from the Michigan Center for Forensic Psychiatry in Ypsilanti. Reason: under Michigan law, a person acquitted of a crime by reason of insanity cannot be kept indefinitely in a mental institution; he must be periodically certified mentally ill and dangerous to himself or the community. The psychiatric center's director, Dr. Ames Robey, diagnosed Taylor's condition as a character disorder and not a treatable mental illness. Robey did not think Taylor was dangerous as long as he took medication and did not drink."

The Michigan law mentioned was actually a court decision which led to the emptying of Michigan mental institutions and releasing many criminally insane individuals into society.

Well, he said he was cured and would never do it again... How did that work out?

It didn't work out so well for the women he murdered- that's for sure.

 

[Brightchaser47]

The Michigan law mentioned was actually a court decision which led to the emptying of Michigan mental institutions and releasing many criminally insane individuals into society.

RSBM
This has been done in other places, and it  never ends well.