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Murder on the Run · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

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  Dispression on the sixth of November nineteen fifty five. Alton Coleman was born in
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  Illinois. Because his mother was working three different jobs to support herself, Alton
• 0:47
  grew up in the care of his grandmother. From an early age, he
• 0:51
  was antisocial and he did not get along with others, and those traits only
• 0:56
  got worse as he grew older. When Alton was eighteen years old, he
• 1:00
  was charged with his first sex crime. Over the next decade, he was
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  charged with a total of five more similar crimes. He pled guilty to two
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  of them, was acquitted of two more, and the final two were dismissed.
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  One of the two cases that was scheduled to go to court was the
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  sexual assault of a fourteen year old girl, But before the nineteen eighty four
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  trial began, Alton decided to go on the run. But Alton did not
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  flee from the law all by himself. Deborah Brown, a woman with an
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  intellectual disability, came with him. Deborah and Alton had met the previous year
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  when she was engaged to a different man, but she quickly decided to leave
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  her fiancee and move in with Alton. As well as her intellectual disability.
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  Deborah suffered from dependent personality disorder, giving her an irresistible urge to be looked
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  after by other people. She relied on Alton and was willing to do anything
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  he asked, no matter the consequences. So when Alton told Deborah that he
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  was going on the run, she did not hesitate to come with him.
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  Unlike Alton, Deborah didn't have any criminal charges. In fact, she had
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  never been in trouble with the law ever. But when Alton started abducting,
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  assaulting, and murdering young children, Deborah didn't just stand back and watch.
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  In fact, she was a willing accomplice in the violence. The couple's first
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  victim was a nine year old girl named Vernita Wheat, whose mother Alton had
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  become friends with before they kidnapped her from Wisconsin on the twenty ninth of May
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  nineteen eighty four, and her decomposed remains were found in an abandoned building almost
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  a month later. She had been sexually assaulted before she was strangled to death.
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  Shortly before Vernita's body was found, Alton and Deborah abducted two more children
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  in Indiana, Annie Turks, who was nine, and Tamika Turks, who
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  was seven. Both girls were sexually assaulted. Tamika died during the attack,
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  but Annie managed to survive. That same day, Alton and Deborah kidnapped twenty
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  five year old Donna Williams. Just like Vernita Wheat, Donna was assaulted and
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  strangled to death, and then her body was dumped. After attacking Annie and
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  Tamika and murdering Donna, Alton decided that he needed a different vehicle to avoid
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  being recognized. In Michigan, he and Deborah broke into a house and attacked
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  the owners, Mister and Missus Palmer Jones. After beating the couple and then
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  destroying their phone to delay them and calling for help, Alton and Deborah stole
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  the car and drove off to Ohio. During their short time staying in Toledo,
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  Ohio, Alton made friends with a single mother, Virginia Temple. After
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  a few days, Virginia's loved ones became concerned when she ceased all communication and
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  arranged for a welfare check. When authorities arrived at Virginia's house, they initially
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  saw no signs of her or her oldest daughter, nine year old Rochelle,
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  but all of the younger children were still in the house, uncared for and
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  appearing traumatized. A search of the home revealed that both Virginia and Rochelle had
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  been strangled and their bodies hidden inside a small cross space under the house.
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  Straight after killing Virginia and Rochelle, Alton and Deborah changed their car again.
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  Once again, they broke into a random house and robbed the owners, taking
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  cash and their car, before eventually making their way to Cincinnati. Three days
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  after their arrival in Cincinnati, fifteen year old Tony's story vanished. The following
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  week, her body was found, and it was lying on top of a
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  bracelet that belonged to Virginia Temple. Alton and Deborah weren't covering their tracks as
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  well as they believed they were. The string of interstate murders had begun shortly
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  after Alton went on the run, and authorities were able to link several of
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  the crimes together. On the same day that Tony was kidnapped, the FBI
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  made an announcement they had added an eleventh name to their ten most wanted list,
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  including Alton Coleman as a special addition. On the thirteenth of July,
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  Alton and Deborah decided to briefly change their mode of transport, using bicycles to
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  travel to Norwood, Ohio. They quickly attacked a couple, Marlene and Harry
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  Walters, sexually assaulting and fatally beating Marlene, beating Harry to the point of
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  unconsciousness, and then stealing the couple's car. Alton's fingerprints had been left at
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  the crime scene on a shattered glass bottle, and both Alton and Deborah had
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  left their footprints behind in blood. Moving through Kentucky, Alton and Deborah kidnapped
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  a college professor, Oleen Carmichael Junior. They stole Olean's car, but they
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  kept the professor locked inside the trunk while they did it, keeping him inside
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  throughat their drive back to Ohio. Once they got back, they ditched the
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  car with him still in the trunk. Authorities located the abandoned car, and
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  he was rescued and unharmed. Alton and Deborah then stole another car and drove
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  off to Illinois, trading their vehicle on the way. After they killed an
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  elderly man and took his car. Three days after this final murder, Alton
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  and Deborah were recognized by a motorists who called the police and they were arrested.
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  They were carrying an enormous bag full of different shirts and caps, which
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  they had been using to change their appearance several times throughout the day, hoping
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  that it would prevent them from being noticed. When Alton was being strip searched
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  at the police station, officers discovered that he was wearing two thick pairs of
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  socks and had hidden a stake knife in between them. The following week,
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  a group of more than fifty different investigators and law enforcement officers from throughout the
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  United States met up trying to plan the most successful stretchrategy for prosecuting Alton and
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  Deborah. The group agreed on seeking the death penalty and decided that the best
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  way to achieve this result was to prosecute the duo in Ohio. First US
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  Attorney Dan Webb summarized the decision, saying, quote, we are convinced that
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  prosecution in Ohio can most quickly and most likely result in the swiftest in position
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  of the death penalty against Alton Coleman and Deborah Brown. Sure Enough, the
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  couple were convicted in Ohio, found guilty of assaulting and murdering Tony's story and
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  Marlene Walters and sentenced to death. Another twenty year sentence was added on for
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  kidnapping because Alton and Deborah locked olding Carmichael in the trunk of his own car
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  and then had driven him across state lines. Alton repeatedly claimed that his sentence
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  was unconstitutional, but every time the case was sent before the Supreme Court,
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  the sentence was upheld. When the time for Alton's execution came along the Ohio
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  Supreme the Court was aware that many people who had survived outon in Deborah's crimes
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  wanted to be there to witness his death. Alton's lawyers claimed that allowing so
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  many people to be present would turn his death sentence into a spectator sport,
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  but instead of reducing the number of witnesses to the execution, the court created
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  a separate viewing venue to accommodate them all. Shortly before his death, Alton
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  wrote a letter in which he apologized for the crimes he committed. He had
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  a lavish last meal, which included filet mignon, fried chicken, french fries,
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  onion rings, salad and corn bread, and a cherry coke to drink.
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  He was executed via lethal injection on the twenty sixth of April two thousand
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  and two. At the time he died, he was the only person in
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  the US to be sentenced to death in three different states, Ohio, Illinois,
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  and Indiana. While Alton's attempts to fight against his death sentence were unsuccessful,
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  Deborah was luck Here. Governor Richard Celeste agreed to sentence Deborah to life
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  imprisonment instead, stating that he was doing so because Deborah had been in a
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  master slave relationship where she would do anything that Alton asked, and because she
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  had consistently low IQ scores, showing a lack of critical thinking and understanding of
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  the consequences of her actions. Although Deborah had no history of criminal activity before
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  going on the run with Alton, she didn't show any remorse for her crimes
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  during the early days of her imprisonment. In fact, while being sentenced during
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  one of her trials, she wrote a note for the judge which said,
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  quote, I killed the bee and I don't give a damn. I had
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  fun out of it. That's ten minute murder for today. Brief and bingeable
• 10:00
  true crime. I'm Joe, I'm the host, and I appreciate you listening.
• 10:03
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  catch up on all the back episodes, never miss any of the new ones.
• 10:09
  Connect on social media, see the pictures, what we talk about.
• 10:13
  It's never a gross and graphic stuff though. And speaking of social media,
• 10:16
  I guess TikTok that's considered social media. I don't know, but I posted
• 10:20
  a TikTok some time ago talking about how wife and baby killer Scott Peterson has
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  now a ponytail in jail. That video seemed to get a little bit of
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  tension and in the comments. Rule number one if you're a content creator,
• 10:39
  you don't read the comments, and I usually tried not to when it gets
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  crazy, but I couldn't help but wade into some of the things that people
• 10:46
  were saying in the comments of that TikTok video. Way more people than I
• 10:50
  thought believed that Scott Peterson is innocent, that has nothing to do with his
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  ponytail, which looks ridiculous. But I was kind of shocked. I knew
• 11:00
  that there was a certain group of people out there that thought Scott Peterson could
• 11:03
  be innocent, probably might be innocent, because they watched the documentary that his
• 11:09
  side put out. I get that. I mean it was a pretty persuasive
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  documentary if you ignore the fact that his side put it out and it's not
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  completely vetted. However, I don't know. Like I said in the video,
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  I don't know if he's guilty or innocent. I do believe that he
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  is guilty. He was convicted by a jury of his peers with the evidence
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  presented in court. I do believe he's guilty. However, Wow, there's
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  a lot of people that believe he's innocent. Anyway, I have a ten
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  minute Murder TikTok account in case you were wondering. You can go and follow
• 11:39
  it there. Thank you for listening to another ten minute Murder Podcast episode.
• 11:43
  I will see you on the next one. Bye.