Gary Addison Taylor

Names

Gary Addison Taylor

Background

Gary Addison Taylor was born in 1936 in Michigan. He spent his early years in Florida and launched his first attacks on women there while he was in his teens. He became notorious in Michigan as the “Royal Oak Sniper.” He was described as an itinerant Michigan machinist. His criminal career spanned two decades.

Taylor was confined as a juvenile, then returned to Michigan on release in 1957. Over an eleven-year period, he was shuttled from one psychiatric hospital to another, assaulting several Detroit women during ill-conceived furloughs. He continued violence and was described as having a self-proclaimed “compulsion to hurt women.” He was rated for out-patient treatment “as long as he reports in to receive medication.” In late 1973, he stopped showing up at the hospital.

Taylor was later released under Michigan law. The material stated that a person acquitted of a crime by reason of insanity could not be kept indefinitely in a mental institution, and had to be periodically certified mentally ill and dangerous to himself or the community. The psychiatric center’s director, Dr. Ames Robey, diagnosed Taylor’s condition as a character disorder and not a treatable mental illness. Robey did not think Taylor was dangerous as long as he took medication and did not drink.

Soon after his release, Taylor married. He and his wife Helen, a secretary, moved first to Onsted, Michigan, and later to the Seattle suburbs. The material also stated that last December after separating from his wife, Taylor settled down in Houston. When news of Taylor’s arrest in Houston reached his estranged wife in San Diego, she said Taylor had once told her that he had killed four people in Onsted.

The offence

Taylor’s standard modus operandi involved loitering around bus stops after nightfall while waiting for solitary women to disembark, then assaulting them with a hammer.

In later accounts, Taylor was described as having robbed, raped, stabbed and otherwise brought mayhem to at least a dozen women in three states. The material also described him as having a “lust for violence” and said his violence took “bizarre forms.”

The material stated that Taylor abducted and killed a young housewife, Vonnie Stuth, in Seattle on the night of November 27 (year not stated in the material). It also stated that Taylor’s victims Lee Fletcher and Deborah Heneman were buried in Taylor’s back yard before he abandoned his home in Onsted, Michigan, moving west to Seattle.

The material included a set of allegations and suspected murders across multiple jurisdictions:

• Texas, Michigan, and California authorities suspected him in as many as 20 unsolved homicides.
• Further investigation cleared Taylor of six other Washington murders, now blamed on Ted Bundy.
• The material stated that by the time Michigan authorities plugged Taylor’s name into the national computer, he had vanished again, bound for Texas.

Investigation

Authorities waited fourteen months before listing Taylor’s disappearance with the National Crime Information Center in Washington, D.C. By that time, Taylor had murdered at least four women in three different states.

On May 20, 1975, Taylor was picked up in Houston on a charge of sexual assault, and he swiftly confessed his role in four murders. Victims Fletcher and Heneman were unearthed in Michigan on May 22. Taylor signed confessions in two other cases, including those of Houston victim Susan Jackson, 21, and Vonnie Stuth, found buried near Taylor’s former home in Enumclaw.

The material stated that officers in Texas, Michigan, and California suspected him in as many as 20 unsolved homicides, while further investigation cleared him of six other Washington murders.

The material also included details of discoveries prompted by authorities:

• Investigators in Onsted found the bodies of two Toledo girls, wrapped in plastic bags, buried outside the bedroom window of the old Taylor home.
• In Enumclaw, Washington, authorities found the body of a missing woman behind a house where Taylor had lived. The material stated that Taylor was charged with the killing.

In Washington, officers traced Taylor to Enumclaw, where he sat still for interrogation but refused to take a polygraph exam. In the absence of an NCIC listing, homicide investigators did not know he was a fugitive, and they were forced to set him free.

Arrest

On May 20, 1975, Taylor was picked up in Houston on a charge of sexual assault.

After news of his arrest in Houston reached his estranged wife in San Diego, she was quoted as saying Taylor had once told her that he had killed four people in Onsted.

The material stated that Taylor insisted to a Houston justice of the peace that the police had beaten confessions out of him; the police called the charges nonsense.

The material also stated that he was indicted in Houston last week on three counts of aggravated sexual abuse, one count of attempted aggravated rape, and the rape of a 16-year-old pregnant girl. It further stated that he was also likely to be indicted for the murder of a 21-year-old go-go dancer.

Trial

The material stated that a jury acquitted Taylor of an earlier charge at age 18. It also stated that Taylor was declared insane and committed to Michigan’s Ionia State Hospital, and three years later was transferred to the Lafayette Clinic in Detroit.

The material described two incidents that did not go to trial:

• Out on a pass to attend a welding class, Taylor talked his way into a Detroit woman’s home, then raped and robbed her.
• By the next year, out on another pass, he threatened a rooming-house manager and her daughter with an 18-inch butcher knife. The material stated that he was not put on trial in either incident and was sent back to Ionia.

The material further stated that in 1972 Taylor was released from the Michigan Center for Forensic Psychiatry in Ypsilanti under the described Michigan law.

In Houston, Taylor insisted that the police had beaten confessions out of him. The police called the charges nonsense.

Sentencing

The material stated that Taylor was convicted on the four counts he confessed and was sentenced to a term of life imprisonment.

The status field stated: Sentenced to life in prison on one count in Washington, April 1976.

Appeals

No appeal information was included.

Outcome

The material stated:

• Taylor was convicted on the four counts he confessed.
• He was sentenced to life imprisonment on one count in Washington in April 1976.
• Further investigation cleared him of six other Washington murders, now blamed on Ted Bundy.

Aftermath

The material included statements about how earlier opportunities to confine Taylor might have prevented later tragedies. It also stated that the state supreme court upheld a law requiring cases involving the mentally ill, including criminals, to be reviewed every six months.

The material described ongoing debate among psychiatrists in recent Michigan homicide cases about whether those who committed the crimes should be confined, mentioning a man who had killed seven persons for hire who was set free and a month later stomped his wife to death.

Other details

• Taylor was rated for out-patient treatment: “as long as he reports in to receive medication.”
• The material included a psychiatrist’s testimony that: “he is unreasonably hostile toward women, and this makes it very possible that he might very well kill a person.”
• The material included a quote describing a psychiatrist’s role in Taylor’s earlier finding: Taylor was declared insane and committed to Michigan’s Ionia State Hospital.
• The material stated that Taylor had murdered at least four women in three different states by the time he was listed after his disappearance.
• Victims named in the material included:
  • Lee Fletcher, 25-year-old.
  • Deborah Heneman, 23-year-old.
  • Vonnie Stuth.
  • Susan Jackson, 21.
  • A 16-year-old pregnant girl (rape victim named only by description).
  • A 21-year-old go-go dancer (murder likely; not named).
• The material stated that Taylor abducted and killed Vonnie Stuth on the night of November 27, and that he abandoned his Onsted, Michigan home before moving west to Seattle.
• The material listed suspected victim counts and scope as “20 suspected” and described him as a “Rape-slayer of women in at least three states.”
• The material included an identification of additional suspected links: six other Washington murders were cleared as being blamed on Ted Bundy.
• The material stated that officers in Texas, Michigan, and California suspected him in as many as 20 unsolved homicides.