Grandparents Took Her In and Helped Raise Her. Then She and Her Boyfriend Did the Unthinkable Heidi Dutton was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of her grandparents, who she confessed to killing at the age of 17. An Oklahoma teenager convicted of murdering her grandparents appeared in court for her sentencing. Heidi Dutton, 19, entered a guilty plea in May to two counts of first-degree-murder, conspiracy, and two counts of desecration of a human corpse in the deaths of Deborah and Larry Dutton, who were her biological grandparents and adoptive parents. On June 6, a Washington County Court judge sentenced Dutton to life in prison on the recommendation of the jury in the case. That comes on the heels of Dutton's boyfriend and accomplice in the murders, Lucas Walker, being sentenced to 35 years in prison after a federal trial. Walker's case was tried at the federal level because he is a member of the Cherokee nation. Deputies with the Washington County Sheriff's Office did not launch an investigation into the deaths of Deborah and Larry until a month after the murders, according to a copy of the criminal complaint. On Jan. 20, 2023, deputies responded to a welfare check at the couple's residence in Dewey, a city located approximately 130 miles southeast of Wichita. Dutton, then 17, and Walker were at the residence when deputies arrived that day, and later left the residence in handcuffs after detectives discovered blood that had seeped under the baseboards of Deborah and Larry's bedroom. Once in custody, both Walker and Dutton confessed to the murders, according to the complaint. Walker told police that he hid out in Dutton's bedroom on the night of Dec. 19, 2022 after taking a .22 caliber pistol from the garage, and then lay in wait outside the door to her grandparents' bedroom once the two were asleep. Deborah died first, according to the complaint, which says that when she "opened the door to the main bedroom, Walker shot her in the face and slit her throat." When her husband "got out of bed and rushed him, Walker attempted to shoot Larry Dutton but the pistol jammed," according to the complaint. Walker said that he decided to repeatedly stab Larry in the face with a knife. Walker and Dutton then dragged the couple out on bedsheets and buried them in the backyard — an act that was captured by the home's Ring Camera — according to a copy of a search warrant request. Two days after that welfare check the bodies of Deborah and Larry were exhumed from the backyard. Larry Dutton, 73, was a retired Master Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force and former manager of Lt. William M. Milliken Airport in Eureka, Kan, per an obituary for the couple. He "had a big heart and would give anyone the shirt off his back," one friend of his remembered in a funeral guestbook entry. His wife Deborah was a retired Staff Sergeant in the Air Force and had also worked as a chef. A lawyer for Dutton did not respond to a request for comment. #Murder, #Crime, #Prison,

On May 4, 1976. Young woman and her married lover arrested for killing her family. Patricia Columbo and Frank DeLuca are arrested for the brutal slaying of Columbo’s parents and brother in Elk Grove, Illinois. Twenty-year-old Columbo had left her family home two years earlier to live with DeLuca, a 36-year-old married man. The pair later killed Frank, Mary and Michael Columbo in order to receive the family inheritance, unaware that the Columbos had written Patricia out of their wills years earlier. As a 16-year-old, Columbo worked in a suburban coffee shop where she met pharmacist Frank DeLuca, who managed the pharmacy next door. He soon hired her to work in his store and the two began an unusual sexual relationship; Columbo showed classmates pictures of her having sex with DeLuca’s dog. In April 1974, DeLuca brought Columbo to stay in his own home, despite the fact that he still lived with his wife and five kids. Her parents were relieved when she later told them she was going to move into her own apartment, and even provided her with money. However, they soon learned that DeLuca had left his wife and moved in with their daughter, prompting Columbo’s father to beat DeLuca severely. On May 4, 1976, Patricia Columbo, then 19, and Frank DeLuca, 39, decided to carry out the plan themselves. They crept into the Columbo family home and shot Columbo’s parents. They then bludgeoned Mike with a bowling trophy and stabbed him nearly 100 times with scissors. Police questioned Patricia but had no reason to suspect her until the following week. Inspired by the promise of reward money, a friend led police to the men who had discussed killing the Columbo family with Patricia. After the couple was arrested, DeLuca’s employees revealed that they had seen him washing and burning bloodstained clothes on the day after the murders. Apparently, he had kept them silent by threatening their families. While in jail, DeLuca attempted to have these witnesses killed by a cellmate, but another inmate thwarted the plan by telling the police. The jury convicted Patricia Columbo and Frank DeLuca, and they were each sentenced to 200 to 300 years in prison. But Columbo managed to keep herself in the spotlight: In 1979, it was reported that she had assisted in organizing sex orgies involving guards and wardens at her prison in Dwight, Illinois. High-ranking officials at the prison, including the warden, were forced to resign in the wake of the scandal. #True Crime, #Murder, #Prison, #Sex,

Andrew Cunanan continues murder spree. The body of William Reese, 45, a cemetery caretaker, is found in rural Pennsville, New Jersey, on May 9, 1997. He had been shot in the head with a Golden Saber .38-caliber bullet. Police soon determined that the killer was Andrew Cunanan, a 27-year-old man already wanted for three murders. It appeared that Cunanan had killed Reese in the process of stealing his Chevrolet pick-up. Cunanan spent most of his adult life as the kept companion of wealthy older men, living a very expensive lifestyle in San Diego, California, that was far beyond his own means. In April 1997, Cunanan told his friends that he was moving to San Francisco. However, he actually bought a one-way ticket to Minnesota after begging his credit card company to extend his credit limit. In Minnesota, Cunanan met up with David Madson, whom he had briefly dated in the past. Apparently, Cunanan went there in an attempt to continue the relationship. On April 27, Jeffrey Trail, an acquaintance of both Cunanan and Madson, met the two at Madson’s apartment, but the details of what happened there are still unknown. Authorities know only that Cunanan killed Trail with a hammer and then went to East Rush Lake, where he killed Madson two days later with one shot to the head. Cunanan then took Madson’s jeep and drove to Chicago where he found his next victim: 72-year-old millionaire Lee Miglin. Miglin was bound by duct tape, stabbed with gardening shears, and then killed when Cunanan cut his throat with a saw. Cunanan then drove east to New Jersey in Miglin’s Lexus, where he killed Reese and escaped with his car. A massive manhunt ensued when the FBI placed Cunanan on its Ten Most Wanted List. The press ran with the story, and Cunanan was featured multiple times on television’s America’s Most Wanted. Police believe that Cunanan spent a few days in New York City’s Greenwich Village before driving south to Miami, where on July 15, he killed famous fashion designer Gianni Versace outside his South Beach mansion On July 23, Fernando Carreira, the caretaker of a houseboat in Miami, found an intruder on the boat and called police. Apparently sensing his capture, Cunanan shot himself in the head, but police, unaware, engaged in a five-hour standoff with the already dead killer. No solid motive for Cunanan’s murders has emerged. In the end, Cunanan lived up to his high school classmate’s billing as the student “most likely not to be forgotten.” #TrueCrime, #Murder, #FBI, #Killer,