Bruce Shreeves

Background

Bruce Shreeves was a 22-year-old sailor who was absent without leave from Patuxent Naval Air Station since September 1972. Authorities issued an all-points bulletin on him on January 31, 1973.

The offence

Shreeves had only made the shift to violence recently and participated in a string of unprovoked attacks that spanned the past nine days. He was armed with a rifle and two pistols. He abducted a Maryland real estate agent and unsuccessfully tried to extort $9,000 from the victim. After releasing the hostage unharmed, Shreeves shot and wounded a deputy sheriff.

Shreeves then murdered John Szasz, a construction worker, near Spencerville on January 28. Three days later, stopping over in a small community between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., he slaughtered three more victims in what police described as a ritualistic bloodbath.

The three male victims included Frank Meszaros, a beauty shop proprietor, and Laverne Miles, an employee of the U.S. Patent Office. They were discovered in the living room of a house fifteen miles from the nation’s capital. All were lying on their backs, and each had been shot with two different guns, with the latter rounds administered as a coup de grace.

Investigation

Ballistics tests and other evidence linked the massacre to the death of John Szasz, and Shreeves was named as the suspect in warrants seeking his arrest. Captured by FBI agents and local police in Washington on February 2, Shreeves could offer no rational motive for his crimes.

Arrest

Shreeves was captured by FBI agents and local police in Washington on February 2.

Trial

Shreeves was held over for trial and convicted of all counts in August 1973.

Sentencing

In August 1973, Shreeves was consigned to prison for life.

Aftermath

Michael Newton - An Encyclopedia of Modern Serial Killers - Hunting Humans listed Shreeves as an AWOL sailor who shot male adults in unprovoked attacks.