Robert Carl Hohenberger

Name and background

Robert Carl Hohenberger was a former California sheriff’s deputy and an ex-convict.

Hohenberger was a drifter after his release from prison and found temporary employment around Morgan City.

Investigators theorized that Hohenberger had served as a sheriff’s deputy in California before fleeing a rape charge there.

FBI agents described sex as the motive for slayings committed by Hohenberger.

The offence

Hohenberger was linked with the abduction, rape and murder of five Morgan City, Louisiana teenagers over a three-month period of 1978.

Two victims were discovered on May 25. Their bodies were secured to weights and dumped in a septic tank.

A third victim was found two days later. The three reportedly were strangled after sex.

Still missing at the time of Hohenberger’s identification were:

• Bertha Gould, 14 years old, who vanished from a high school fair on May 11
• Leah Rodermund, 16 years old, who was lost on a trip to the neighborhood drugstore

As an afterthought to the case, city councilmen passed an ordinance requiring all transients to register and have their fingerprints taken by police, in an effort to "discourage the criminal element from coming down here and looking for a job."

Investigation

Investigators theorized that Hohenberger used his badge to induce his victims to accompany him.

Profilers from the FBI helped local investigators in that case.

The break police needed came from Hohenberger’s penchant for public abductions. Several men reportedly saw Hohenberger’s last two victims, 14-year-old Martha Gould and 15-year-old Judy Adams, talking with a strange man and followed him.

Duval Arthur said:

"Everybody was pretty much afraid to go out in the evenings."

Arrest and death

Hohenberger fled to Washington state after a killing spree in spring 1978.

Doug Rodermund said:

"We didn't want him to die. We had a lot of unanswered questions"

When officers tried to arrest Hohenberger in Tacoma, Washington, he struggled with one of them and his gun “went off,” killing him.

Hohenberger died before investigators could gather additional information about his crimes.

Victims and outcomes

The body of 16-year-old Leah Rodermund was never found.

Rodermund disappeared in March of 1978 while on her way to a drugstore in Morgan City.

Michael Newton wrote about Robert Karl Hohenberger’s victims:

"No one ever learned for certain what made Robert Karl Hohenberger kill."

Mary Leah Rodermund disappeared on her way to a Morgan City drugstore in early March. Her captor called her parents demanding money and let her tell them she was all right. The Rodermunds never saw Mary Leah again.

Duval Arthur said:

"He had been a policeman. He knew what it took to get control of someone"

Duval Arthur also said:

"It was always in public."

Duval Arthur said:

"It was always on Thursday evenings, just after dark."

Other details

Hohenberger’s obsession with kidnapping and victimization was described as beginning long before he arrived in Morgan City. He had kidnapped and raped at least four people in California and escaped prison before fleeing the state.

A quotation from Doug Rodermund included uncertainty about what happened to Leah:

"Like what he did with my sister."

Hohenberger took his victims from public places like shopping centers, convenience stores and Morgan City streets.

Investigators believed that Hohenberger may have used his badge to allow him to capture his victims.

California authorities believed Hohenberger left victims in the wake of a prison escape there and were fairly certain that he was the perpetrator of numerous violent attacks in California prior to traveling to Louisiana.

The families of Hohenberger’s victims were described as never learning what drove him to the violent killings that left South Louisiana in utter shock in 1978.

Hohenberger was described as torturing his victims before taking their lives.

He disposed of their bodies in ways including in a septic tank.