OH OH- Mary Petry, 20, & William J. Sproat, 22, bound w. metal coat hangers, S.A., stabbed & bludgeoned w, bowling ball, OSU, 28 Feb '70, *DNA, REWARD*

[Betty P]

Thanks for the links, within one of them is this case below (started thread) which reminded me somewhat of the one on this thread.
Religious Catholic girl, a student, who was not raped, but SA and shot several times in the face(Mary Jane's head pulverized with a bowling ball).

D

OH Thread 'OH- Mary Margaret “Peggy” Andrews, 19, accountant secretary & student @ OSU, SA & fatally shot 3x in the face, body found in garage, 20 Sep; 62,*DNA*'

Jul 12, 2025

2014 rbbm.
''Detectives have been hunting him since 1962, when he shot the 19-year-old business school student in the face and left her body in a garage near the Ohio State campus. Thanks to good evidence storage and advances in technology, police have the key to his identity. Now they just have to find him''

''The palms of her hands were dirty, but her short nails were clean. There was black dust on the soles of both her feet, even though her left shoe was still in place. Both her girdle and underwear had been ripped, and her garter had been torn off. Her slip had been...

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Interesting find on Mary Margaret Andrews. I read through the local Columbus Dispatch archives back then and was surprised at how many murders, rapes and other violent crimes were happening around the OSU campus back then. That seemed much more than average. In the campuses I attended and knew well in the early to mid 70s, there were no murders at all, nor had there been in previous years. There was at least one, if not more killers preying on OSU students during the late 60s, early 70s.

The MO seems different, too. Whereas many campus rapists will attack coeds outdoors, in shadowy areas, dimly lit stairwells, etc, this killer was not shy about going into the victims apartments to attack them. That’s risky considering it’s cramped student housing with lots of students coming and going at all hours.

 

[Richard]

Potential Suspect?


Eugene Gall

LINKS:

The story of a sordid life - The Times Gazette

Hillsboro is a seemingly quaint town in rural Southwest Ohio. The rolling pastures outside of town and the historic downtown buildings make the town appear to be a place unlikely of producing someone who would commit violent crimes. What many residents don’t know is that a serial rapist and...

www.timesgazette.com

Beth Ann Mote - Block Parole

Remembering Beth Ann Mote and Lisa Jansen A Monster Unleashed A beast. An animal. Evil incarnate....

www.blockparole.com

Horrific child killer who brutally murdered two young girls up for parole (petition online)

Beth Ann Mote was abducted, raped and murdered by a paroled serial rapist

www.blockparole.com

 

[Betty P]

Where did Columbus Police come up with a composite sketch of a suspect? There is no mention of an eyewitness or of any description of a suspect.

The photo of coat hangers used to tie up a victim, the kitchen knife, and mention of a bowling ball used as a weapon seems to indicate a disorganized and unprepared perpetrator.

There should have been fingerprints and probably blood of the killer left at the scene. If he didn't think to bring something to tie up his victims and didn't bring his own weapons, then he probably also left his gloves at home.

The kitchen knife is a rather cheap and flimsy one. I can tell from the location of the rivets that the knife blank doesn't go all the way to the back of the handle. Stabbing someone over 20 times with it would almost guarantee that the killer would have cut his own hand, since there is no hilt and the victim's blood would have made the handle quite slippery. A dull knife would stick causing the hand to slide forward on to the blade, cutting his hand.

Thus, with fingerprints and DNA, the police could have the evidence they need.

As I recall, someone saw a man briefly standing at the door of Bill’s apartment around the time the murders took place. I think they also said music was playing inside the apartment. The composite sketch probably came from that witness.

ETA: This article linked above stated the composites were based on victim descriptions of a man who had recently raped them.

The Lantern 3 March 1970 — Ohio State University Newspaper Archives

Ohio State University Newspaper Archives

osupublicationarchives.osu.edu

 

[nhmemorymaker]

Interesting find on Mary Margaret Andrews. I read through the local Columbus Dispatch archives back then and was surprised at how many murders, rapes and other violent crimes were happening around the OSU campus back then. That seemed much more than average. In the campuses I attended and knew well in the early to mid 70s, there were no murders at all, nor had there been in previous years. There was at least one, if not more killers preying on OSU students during the late 60s, early 70s.

The MO seems different, too. Whereas many campus rapists will attack coeds outdoors, in shadowy areas, dimly lit stairwells, etc, this killer was not shy about going into the victims apartments to attack them. That’s risky considering it’s cramped student housing with lots of students coming and going at all hours.

I was a student at OSU at that time... late 60s til 71. I just don't remember all that bad stuff at all.. so this has been very interesting to read. More time concentrated in the riots, protests.
There were two 23+ story dorms referred to as Sodom and Gomorrah .... that memory does remain.

 

[Betty P]

There were two 23+ story dorms referred to as Sodom and Gomorrah .... that memory does remain.

That seems a little extreme for the times, don't you think? It was probably pretty tame compared to college students today. Birth control wasn't easily accessible to young single women back then.

In the mid 70's (thanks to Women's Lib) our Uni was much more pro-active in letting women know about rapes happening on or near campus. They didn't reveal names of victims, etc., but they stressed caution walking on and off campus at night and told us where the rapists were trolling.

They also had guy students who volunteered to walk girls from the library to dorms, etc. They even began offering women students self-defense classes. I took one of the classes as a phys ed credit one semester. It had good, common sense advice that's still taught today, e.g. situational awareness, spotting trouble in behavior of men around you, places to avoid, how to injure someone and quickly get away, etc. I'll always remember how to use the old "key fist", too.

It's a shame if these predators were preying on people in those neighborhoods and people like Bill and Mary were unaware. Is it possible one of the predators was living in Bill's building or somewhere nearby?

 

[Betty P]

Just re-posting a link to the excellent podcast from 2023 about Bill & Mary's murders.

The podcast was produced and hosted by Justin Glanville, whose parents were both students at OSU at the time and knew the victims.

https://www.npr.org/podcasts/1185803905/mary-bill-an-ohio-cold-case

Episode 3 of the podcast has a discussion of a paper boy who was collecting fees for newspapers around 8 pm the evening Bill and Mary were killed.

He went into Bill's apartment building to collect from another person living there. As he left, he noticed a man standing on the front porch. He was a stranger, someone the paperboy had never seen at the apartments or in the neighborhood. He said the man told him to "get the he** out" of there. Around 10 pm that night, one of Bill's neighbors in the apartment building noticed Bill's apartment door was slightly ajar. He said it was dark inside the apartment and there was a radio playing.

 

[Betty P]

Notes from Ep. 3 of the above podcast (cont.)

Bill's apartment building was in the center of the area where the rapes had been taking place. It was an area where men might not have felt unsafe, but women would.

One of the habits of that rapist was getting into apartments by asking a favor, like using the phone to make a call. He would also cover the windows of the apartment, etc. of his crime scene to prevent anyone from seeing inside. In Bill's apartment, the killer had pushed an armchair up against a window in order to keep the curtains behind it closed.

Aside from small amounts of money stolen from Bill and Mary, the only other thing taken from the apartment was a gold-fringed rug. It was found a few days later in the back of a bakery truck parked in an alley about 8 blocks south of the apartment building. Police seemed to think it had been kept somewhere else, then dumped into the truck just before it was found. Might help to take another look.

 

[Richard]

Bumping this thread up. This unsolved murder is now over 55 years old.

 

[Richard]

These five coat hangers and a 12-inch knife were used in the slayings of Mary Petry and William Sproat.

The evidence in the above photo shows that the killer took the time to untwist at least five metal wire coat hangers by hand. This would have required him to use both hands, all the time subduing his two victims. It is very likely that he did this by intimidation with a gun, keeping them at somewhat of a distance while he worked the coat hangers.

The knife is a cheap, thin kitchen type rather than a sturdy hunting or combat knife. You can tell this by the two rivets in the handle which are close together - an indication that the knife blank only goes that far back into the wooden handle. A knife of this sort, if used to stab, would become slippery from blood and the blade could bend, causing the assailant's hand to slip forward onto the blade to be cut.

While these items, along with the bowling ball mentioned in the summary were already in the apartment (indicating possibly a crime of opportunity and a somewhat disorganized perpetrator), it begs the question of why the victims would just sit and watch him mess with coat hangers - unless he had them already subdued, perhaps by showing them a gun.

This case has some very similar elements to another double murder which occurred 6 months later in Michigan - that of Linda Wright, 18 and Gary Kasco, 27.

LINK:

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MI Thread 'MI- Linda Wright,18, & roommate, Gary Kasco 27, Bound, gagged, blindfolded @ "executed" w. single bullet to head, 31 Aug. 1970 *New Initiative*'

Oct 4, 2022

Oct 3 2022

Cold case executions: who killed Linda Wright and Gary Kasco over 50 years ago?

Linda Wright and Gary Kasco were tied up, blindfolded, gagged, and then executed inside a home five decades ago. The killer, or killers, have never been caught.

www.fox2detroit.com

''BINGHAM FARMS, Mich. (FOX 2) - It's been nearly half of a century since Linda Wright and Gary Kasco were brutally murdered inside a Bingham Farms home. It's been 50 years of evidence and clues and dead ends as the Michigan State Police have investigated - but despite the passage of time, they're not done searching for the person responsible.

Detectives with MSP are giving dozens of cold cases a fresh look in hopes of finding answers and making...

• dotr
• Replies: 15
• Forum: Cold Cases

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[Richard]

Bumping this thread up.

 

[Ladyotm]

There definitely seems to have been one of two criminals operating at the same time in that area. They have the DNA, just test it already.

Related to DNA-I recently served as a juror in SC. A SLED agent testified that their lab did not routinely test DNA submitted by police departments UNLESS the department had given them a potential person to match it to. I took that to include running it through CODIS or any other databases. I was appalled!