Edward Edwards

Case record: Edward Edwards

Background

Edward Edwards (June 14, 1933 – April 7, 2011) was a convicted American serial killer. He was abused physically and emotionally in an orphanage while he grew up primarily as an orphan. He joined the US Marines for a brief time and then returned to his criminal lifestyle. He lived most of his life, when not incarcerated, in Louisville, Kentucky.

He was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list in 1961. He was arrested in Atlanta on January 20, 1962, after being captured with his wife, Marlene. Edwards escaped from jail in Akron, Ohio in 1955 by pushing past a guard and fled across the country, holding up gas stations for money. He did not wear a mask because he wanted to be famous.

Edwards wrote in his 1972 autobiography “Metamorphosis of a Criminal” about being beaten by nuns in an orphanage. When a nun asked what he wanted to be, he told her:

"'Sister, I'm gonna be a crook, and I'm gonna be a good one.'"

Edwards was an ailing man later described as being confined to a wheelchair and often appearing at court hearings hooked to an oxygen tank. He had diabetes and other illnesses, and his health was described as having improved since he had been locked up. He had lost weight and no longer required and oxygen mask.

He had lived in Doylestown, and later police said he moved into a trailer park on the outskirts of town in 2000. Edwards also had diabetes and was receiving medical treatment at a state prison in Waupun.

Other details

The case record discussed multiple allegations and placements of Edwards in US cities where unsolved murders had occurred, including:

• Portland, OR (1960 double homicide)
• Great Falls, MT (1956 double homicide)
• San Francisco, CA (1968–1970)

The case record also stated that some investigators believed Edwards was responsible for the Zodiac killings, West Memphis Three, and the murder of Jon Benet Ramsey.

The offence

Between 1977 and 1996, Edwards murdered five people. The record described two murders in 1977, two murders in 1980, and one murder in 1996.

Edwards was described as having confessed to killing his foster son, Dannie Boy Edwards, and two young couples, and having admitted to the 1977 and 1980 killings as well as the 1996 murder.

1996 murder of foster son

Dannie Boy Edwards (25) was Edwards’s foster child who regarded Edwards as family. Edwards persuaded Dannie Boy to go AWOL from the Army in May 1996 and to return home to Troy Township. Under the ruse of arranging a way to elude the Army, Edwards took Dannie Boy to the woods near Edwards’s home and fired two gunshots into Dannie Boy’s face. Skeletal remains later identified as Dannie Boy were found by a hunter in a shallow grave just behind Troy Cemetery, less than a mile from Edwards’s Troy Township home.

Investigators said Edwards killed Dannie Boy to collect on a $250,000 life insurance policy. At the time, Edwards had been questioned about Dannie Boy’s murder, but no charges were filed.

Edwards made no apologies and offered no explanations for why he fired the two gunshots.

1977 murders

Edwards was sentenced in Summit County court to life in prison for the 1977 murders of Billy Lavaco, 21, of Doylestown, and Judy Straub, 18, of Sterling.

Their bodies were found Aug. 8, 1977, in Silver Creek Park in Norton. Both were shot in the neck with a shotgun. Edwards lived in Doylestown from 1974 to 1978.

The case record included a reaction from Lavaco’s older brother, Tom Lavaco (62) of Wooster:

“He said a day has not passed that he did not think of his younger brother.”

1980 murders in Wisconsin

Edwards was described as having admitted the 1980 slayings of Tim Hack and Kelly Drew, both 19, in Wisconsin. Their bodies were found after they attended a wedding reception at a hall where Edwards worked as a handyman. The record stated that Drew was raped and strangled and that Hack was stabbed to death.

Edwards was living in Kentucky when DNA evidence linked him to the Wisconsin murders. When confronted by police, Edwards started talking and confessed to the five murders.

Investigation

DNA evidence linked Edwards to the Wisconsin murders. Wisconsin investigators submitted DNA taken from semen found on Drew’s pants to state analysts in 2007, and the record stated that it matched DNA from Edwards in June 2009. Police had not said what led them to obtain DNA from him.

Edwards pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and robbery earlier in the day of the March 8, 2011 sentencing for Dannie Boy’s killing.

A grand jury in Ohio indicted Edwards on two counts of aggravated murder in Lavaco and Straub’s deaths. The record described that he signed a deal agreeing to plead guilty to all four homicides and entered his plea to Hack and Drew’s deaths in a Wisconsin courtroom. Ohio prosecutors planned to seek two consecutive life sentences, and then he would be sentenced for the Hack and Drew homicides in Wisconsin, where he faced two mandatory life sentences, and then he would return to Ohio to start serving time.

Edwards also contacted Ohio investigators about other cases after pleading guilty.

Arrest

Edwards was arrested in Atlanta with his wife, Marlene, on January 20, 1962.

He was arrested in Louisville, Kentucky in July 2009 for the 1980 murders of Timothy Hack and Kelly Drew.

The record stated that he was later transported to Summit County, Ohio, where he was to enter guilty pleas.

Trial

Edwards pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and robbery earlier in the day of the March 8, 2011 sentencing for Dannie Boy.

For the March 8, 2011 sentencing in Geauga County Common Pleas Court, a three-judge panel issued the sentence after Edwards declined to present any evidence in his defense or ask for mercy. Edwards sat stoically in a wheelchair during the day-long proceedings in Chardon. He said he did not want his sentence appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court and repeatedly said he welcomed the death penalty and would not appeal the sentence to die by lethal injection on Aug. 31.

The panel that sentenced Edwards consisted of Forrest Burt and David Fuhry, with visiting judge Walter Wyatt McKay. The record stated that they accepted his guilty plea and sentenced him.

At the sentencing hearing, Dannie Boy’s half-sister, Jai-Dean Copley (of Garden City, S.C.), urged the judges to spare Edwards’s life:

“It's what my brother would want,”

She also said:

“Do not give this man (Edwards) what he wants. He's taken and taken his entire life.”

During a break in the proceedings, Copley said:

“The worst hell for him would be life in prison.”

After Edwards died, Copley said:

“I feel like if we murdered him we would have been as bad as he was,”

and:

“It would have been suicide by the justice system. I know my brother would not have wanted him to be executed and neither did I.”

At the sentencing, Copley urged the judges to deny Edwards’s request for a quick death:

“Do not give this man what he wants. He's taken and taken his entire life.”

The record also included a statement from Edwards’s lawyer, Greg Meyers:

“Mr. Edwards has nothing to say,”

and:

“A man should not be measured by his worst deed.”

During sentencing proceedings in Geauga County, Edwards was described as saying he did not want his sentence appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court and that he was content, even bored, with the proceedings.

The record included statements from Patrick Hack, brother of Tim Hack, about Edwards’s confessions:

“It's just one more step on the way to hell for him,”

and:

“If he told you something, would you believe him?”

The record also included a statement from Mike Drew, Drew’s brother:

“I was hoping it would come to this,”

and:

Edwards’s attorney, Jeffrey De La Rosa, said:

“I didn't know if more details ever would become known.”

The record stated that Edwards declined to present any evidence in his defense at the March 8, 2011 sentencing.

Sentencing

On March 8, 2011, Edwards was sentenced in Geauga County Common Pleas Court to death by lethal injection for the killing of his foster son, Dannie Boy Edwards. The record stated that he had pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and robbery earlier in the day.

The record stated that Edwards was to have been executed by lethal injection on Aug. 31.

The record also stated that in Summit County court, Edwards was sentenced to life in prison for the 1977 murders of Billy Lavaco and Judy Straub. For those two murders he received life sentences.

For the 1980 slayings of Tim Hack and Kelly Drew, the record stated that he was sentenced to life in prison as well, and that the punishments were mandatory life sentences in Wisconsin.

Appeals

Edwards said he did not want his sentence appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court, and he repeatedly said he would not appeal the sentence to die by lethal injection.

Outcome

Edwards died in prison on April 7, 2011 at the Corrections Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio, of natural causes. The record described him as having been 77 years old at the time of death. He had previously been scheduled for execution by lethal injection on Aug. 31 after the March 8, 2011 death sentence, but he died before that.

Timeline

• June 14, 1933 — Born in Akron, Ohio.
• December 1935 — Mother committed suicide.
• 1940 — Sent to orphanage in Parma, Ohio.
• 1948 — Sent to reform school in Pennsylvania.
• 1950 — Returned to Akron, started committing burglaries; left juvenile detention to join the Marines; went AWOL from Camp LeJeune, N.C.; arrested in Jacksonville, Fla.; dishonorably discharged from the Marines.
• April 1952 — Sentenced to a federal reformatory in Chillicothe, Ohio, for two years for impersonating a Marine and interstate transportation of a stolen car.
• April 1955 — Broke out of Akron jail while being held on burglary charges.
• 1956 — Caught in Montana after a series of armed robberies; sentenced to penitentiary in Deer Lodge.
• July 1959 — Released in Montana; taken to Portland to stand trial for two armed robberies in 1956; sentenced to five years of probation.
• 1960 — Broke out of jail in Portland, where he had been arrested for turning in a false fire alarm; questioned in connection with a double murder of a young couple; traced to Colorado and cashed checks on a Portland Bowling Club of which he was a member.
• Nov. 10, 1961 — Added to FBI’s 10 Most Wanted fugitives list.
• Jan. 20, 1962 — Captured in Atlanta with wife, Marlene.
• May 18 1962 — Sentenced to 16 years in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary.
• 1967 — Transferred to Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania; paroled from federal prison.
• September 1980 — Left Wisconsin after being questioned about the Hack/Drew murders.
• December 1982 — Incarcerated in Pennsylvania prison for arson.
• July 1986 — Released from Pennsylvania prison.
• July 30, 2009 — Arrested in Louisville, Ky., for 1980 murders of Timothy Hack and Kelly Drew.
• June 9, 2010 — Pleaded guilty to Hack and drew murders and agreed to plead guilty to two 1977 Ohio murders.
• March 8, 2011 — Sentenced to death in Geauga County Common Pleas Court for the 1996 murder of Dannie Boy Edwards.
• April 7, 2011 — Died in prison at the Corrections Medical Center of Columbus, Ohio.

People mentioned

• Edward Edwards — defendant and convicted serial killer.
• Dannie Boy Edwards (25) — foster son and murder victim.
• Jai-Dean Copley — half-sister of Dannie Boy Edwards.
• Billy Lavaco (21) — murder victim.
• Judy Straub (18) — murder victim.
• Tim Hack (19) — murder victim.
• Kelly Drew (19) — murder victim.
• Tom Lavaco (62) — older brother of Billy Lavaco.
• Mike Drew — brother of Kelly Drew.
• Patrick Hack — brother of Tim Hack.
• Forrest Burt — Geauga County Common Pleas judge.
• David Fuhry — Geauga County Common Pleas judge.
• Walter Wyatt McKay — visiting judge.
• Greg Meyers — Edwards’s lawyer.
• Jeffrey De La Rosa — Edwards’s attorney.