Richard Grissom

Case record: Richard Grissom Jr.

Status

Richard Grissom Jr. was sentenced to life in prison on November 20, 1990.

The offence

In the summer of 1989, three young Johnson County women vanished and were never seen or heard from again.

Despite the women’s bodies never being found, a Johnson County jury found Richard Grissom Jr. guilty in the first-degree murder deaths of Joan A. Butler, 24, Overland Park; Theresa Brown, 22; and Christine Rusch, 22. Butler, Brown, and Rusch were roommates living in a Lenexa apartment.

Background

Richard Grissom Jr. liked to hang out at Lawrence discos.

When he was 16, he beat and fatally stabbed an elderly neighbor woman, Hazel Meeker, near his family’s home in Lansing. Court records were sealed because he was a juvenile, but two years later he was on parole.

Authorities later referred to a fourth woman connected to Grissom’s background and the surrounding investigation: Terri Maness. She was found dead in her Wichita apartment 11 days before Butler disappeared, and her body had been mutilated after she was dead. Although Grissom was named as a suspect in the Maness killing, charges were never filed.

Investigation

In August 1999, a team of scientists, academics, and homicide investigators searched a grassy field off of Douglas County Road 458 southeast of Clinton Lake dam for the bodies of the three women killed by Richard Grissom Jr. The search was unsuccessful.

The field had been searched because a resident recorded a license tag on a vehicle seen there at the time of the murders. It turned out to be a stolen tag later found to be in Grissom’s possession.

Lenexa Police Lt. Pat Hinkle led the investigation of the Brown and Rusch murders and multiple searches of the field near Clinton Lake. Hinkle wondered whether Grissom would ever tell police where the women’s bodies were hidden, and he said:

"He's just your typical con man," Hinkle said. "He won't say anything unless there's something to be gained for him."

Hinkle also had visits with Grissom in prison.

Grissom never admitted his guilt and thus did not tell police where the women’s bodies were hidden.

Arrest and related movements

Grissom, a house painter and maintenance worker, was found at a Lawrence apartment complex with the car leased by Butler.

He ran from a police patrolman trying to question him and then eluded a police search.

Grissom was later tracked to Texas and was arrested at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

Evidence and links to the missing women

Ten years after the women vanished, their fates remained a mystery, with the secret of their fates kept in a Kansas prison cell.

On June 28, authorities found Richard Grissom Jr.’s car packed with his belongings outside of an apartment in Grandview, Kansas. Theresa Brown and Christine Rusch’s jewelry and credit cards were in the vehicle, as was the key to their apartment and the apartment of another local missing woman, Joan Butler.

The material also stated that Grissom operated a painting company and, as a result, had master keys to many apartment complexes in the area.

Telephone activity before disappearance

The material stated that the following day, Rusch called Brown’s employer and her own to state they would not be appearing at work because both of them were feeling sick. Neither woman was heard from again after that call.

Other details

It was stated that Grissom’s first chance at parole would be in 2071, when he would be 110 years old.

The material stated that Grissom’s prediction to police, "You'll dig them up," remained unfulfilled.

The material also stated that the bodies were never found: "The bodies of the three young women have never been found."