William Mansfield

Personal details

William Mansfield was born in 1956. He was the oldest son of a Florida child molester.

Background

In line with family tradition, he boasted a police record that included a one-year sentence for sex crimes in Michigan. He had a history of mental illness. He was paroled in March 1980 and returned to the family home, a six-acre junk yard at Weeki Wachee Acres near Tampa.

The offence

Mansfield abducted and raped females aged 15 to 30. A rape-slaying involved females aged 15-30.

Rene Sailing, age 30, was last seen alive when she left a California tavern with Mansfield on December 6, 1980. The next morning her bullet-punctured body was recovered from a drainage ditch.

Two additional victims were also the subject of the investigations at the Weeki Wachee Acres property:

• Sandra Graham, age 21, of Tampa, whose remains were identified after excavation.
• Elaine Zeigler, age 15, a tourist from Ohio who disappeared from a nearby campground on New Year’s Eve 1975.

Authorities later continued to look at other Florida homicides for which Mansfield was a suspect:

• Melinda Harder, age 21, a neighbor of Mansfield in St. Petersburg, who disappeared on July 27, 1980.
• Carrol Barret, abducted from her Daytona Beach motel room in 1980, shot to death and dumped beside a highway near Jacksonville.

Investigation

A June 19 incident saw Mansfield charged with battery and false imprisonment of a young woman.

Mansfield departed for California in early September. He was arrested in Santa Cruz on November 23 and was released on $1,500 bond.

After the death of Rene Sailing, warrants were issued for Mansfield's arrest. He was captured days later in Winnemucca, Nevada, together with his brother, 23-year-old Gary Mansfield.

On March 16, 1981, Hernando County deputies descended on the Mansfield home at Weeki Wachee Acres bearing warrants for a search of the premises. Tipsters informed them that a missing woman, 21-year-old Sandra Graham of Tampa, might be buried on the property, and officers came prepared for full-scale excavation.

The excavation findings included multiple skeleton discoveries:

• On March 17, the first female skeleton unearthed was identified only as a white woman in her twenties.
• Number two was discovered a week later: Elaine Zeigler, a 15-year-old tourist from Ohio who disappeared from a nearby campground on New Year’s Eve 1975.
• Another “Jane Doe” surfaced on April 3.
• Four days later, authorities identified the remains of Sandra Graham.
• Two of the junkyard victims remained unidentified today.

No further skeletons were found at Weeki Wachee, and the excavations were abandoned by police in mid-April 1980.

Police also maintained that William Mansfield, Sr., who was serving 30 years on a plea bargain to charges of child molestation, was not implicated in the series of murders. Police also indicated that Mansfield's mother claimed total ignorance of the corpses planted within 40 feet of her home.

Eyewitnesses could make no positive identification in the case involving Carrol Barret.

Arrest

Mansfield was captured days after warrants were issued for his arrest, in Winnemucca, Nevada. His brother Gary Mansfield was captured with him.

Trial

Mansfield was held on charges of first-degree murder. Gary Mansfield was accused as an accessory after the fact.

Sentencing

Mansfield was sentenced to concurrent life terms in California and Florida.

Other details

Mansfield was also a suspect in other Florida homicides, including those involving Melinda Harder and Carrol Barret.