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The Halloween Killer · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

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Discretion is advised. This is ten minuted murder. In nineteen seventy three,
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many American families believed it was safe for their young children to wander the streets
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alone. Neighborhoods were considered to be a safe space, full of trustworthy people
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who looked out for one another. It was a year before Ted Bundy and
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BTK started killing, giving the seventies a reputation of being the start of the
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Golden Age of serial killers, and still several years before parents would truly begin
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teaching their kids about stranger danger. All of this meant that during Halloween of
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nineteen seventy three, nine year old Lisa Ann French's parents didn't have any reservations
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about letting their daughter go trick or treating alone. The fourth grader had initially
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planned to spend the night with her friend Anne Parker, but Anne got grounded
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by her parents, leaving Lisa to make her way to the neighborhood party alone,
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trick or treating as she went along. Just before six pm, Lisa
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left her house. She was proud of her costume. She dressed up like
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a hobo, wearing a green jacket and black hat and had painted freckles on
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her face. She stopped by several houses before she decided to knock on the
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door of another neighbor, a man named Gerald Miles Turner Junior. Lisa wasn't
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visiting the houses of complete strangers. She'd knocked on the doors of one of
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her classmates and a teacher from her school, and had stopped by to chat
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with both people before collecting her candy and going on her way. Erald Turner
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also wasn't a stranger to Lisa. He and his girlfriend Arlene had recently had
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a child together, and Lisa loved to say hello to the baby whenever she
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saw him. That night, she rang Gerald's doorbell, and after he opened
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the door, she walked into the doorway to collect her candy. Nobody else
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was home with Gerald that night. He began talking to Lisa and managed to
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convince her to come inside the house and into his bedroom. At about seven
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pm, Gerald's girlfriend, Arlene arrived at the house. She noticed that he
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was acting weird. He was only dressed in a bathrobe and kept repeatedly visiting
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the bedroom, saying that he needed to lie down because he was feeling sick.
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Arlene spent about an hour at home before leaving again to visit her mother.
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Lisa French did not return home that night. Her curfew was at seven
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pm, and when there was still no sign of her, her mother alerted
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the neighborhood. Over the next few hours, a group of concernedness neighbors were
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out searching the streets for any sign of Lisa. The search grew quickly over
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the next few days, and the authorities became more and more concerned for Lisa's
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well being, and eventually the entire county was searching. There were more than
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five thousand volunteers involved in the search, as well as the police and the
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US National Guard. On the third of November nineteen seventy three, at eleven
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thirty a m. A local farmer was driving its tractor when he saw two
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plastic bags that had been left in a field. He looked closer and saw
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that the naked body of a young girl had been stuffed into one of the
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bags, while the other one contained a halloween costume. The body was identified
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as Lisa and French. Lisa's automsy revealed that she had two potential causes of
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death, asphyxiation and shock due to the brutal sexual assault she had experienced shortly
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before she died. Her funeral was held three days after her body was found,
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and two days later a ten thousand dollars reward was announced for the arrest
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of the killer. Early in the investigation, police already had a key suspect,
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Gerald Turner, but despite repeated questioning, he continued to insist that he
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was innocent. Almost a year after Lisa's death, Gerald performed a polygraph test
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which came back as having inconclusive results. He refused to repeat the test,
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but finally he did confess to everything. Shortly after luring Lisa into the house,
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Gerald said he attacked her, removed her clothing, and assaulted her.
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Either during that assault or immediately afterwards, Lisa died, he noticed that she
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was no longer breathing. Gerald listened to her chest and believed that she still
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had a heartbeat. During the process of trying to resuscitate Lisa, Arlene arrived
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home and Gerald panicked, knowing that he had to hide Lisa's body as soon
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as possible. While Gerald had been pretending that he needed to lie down in
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the bedroom, he had actually been in the bathroom where he left Lisa's body.
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Immediately after Arlene left the house that night, Gerald rushed to dispose of
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Lisa. He placed the remains and clothing into bags and drove into a field
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where he then dumped the bags. Throughout the disposal process, he wore socks
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on his hands, hoping that he would not leave any fingerprints behind. Shortly
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after Lisa's death, Gerald wrote a letter which was found by investigators. In
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the letter, he wrote quote, I doubt that I could ever fully realize
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the terror you experienced at my hands. I can still see you standing in
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the doorway with that felt hat, beaming at having recognized me. Then I
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see the delight in your eyes turned to fear as I closed the door behind
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you. For as long as I can remember, I've had bouts with keeping
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on my to do list. That day, doing this podcast, being a
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last forever, so go try it today. After his confession, Gerald was
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convicted of second degree murder, acts of sexual perversion, and enticing a child
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for immoral purposes in February of nineteen seventy five. He received a sentence of
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thirty eight and a half years behind bars, but after only seventeen years,
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in nineteen ninety two, he was paroled for good behavior. His release caused
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an uproar in the Milwaukee community where he was set to live during parole.
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In November of nineteen ninety three, Gerald's parole ended after the Department of Corrections
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stated that his release for good behavior had been miscalculated. The protests and outrage
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about his release led to the creation of Turner's Law, a law that meant
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criminals who had been released from prison could be legally detained in mental health facilities
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if they were believed to be likely to continue criminal activity. But despite the
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law being named after the case, the jury at Gerald's nineteen ninety eight parole
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hearing found that he wasn't eligible for being detained at a mental health facility.
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In fact, despite Gerald's conviction for being a violent sexual predator, the jury
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concluded that he was not a violent sexual offender after all, so there was
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no reason for him to be detained. The ruling meant that Gerald's second parole
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could begin later that year. During July of that year, the state tried
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to revoke Gerald's parole again after an incident in his half way house where he
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brandished a butcher knife while yelling at his caseworker. Despite a psychiatrist assessing Gerald
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and ruling that he was still a danger to others. The judge ruled that
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Gerald's parole should go ahead. On parole, Gerald still struggled to get a
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job due to his crimes. When the waste management company refused to hire him
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after finding out about Lisa's murder, Gerald filed a complaint where he accused the
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company of discret dominating against him. In the settlements, the company was forced
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to hire Gerald after all because of a law in Wisconsin at the time stating
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that businesses should only take criminal convictions into account if the crime was substantially related
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to the job they were hiring for. Because Gerald wouldn't be working with children
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at the company, there was legally no reason that they could refuse to hire
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him. That law was eventually repealed, allowing employers to refuse to hire felons
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at their own discretion, but it didn't matter to Gerald for long. In
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two thousand and three, he violated his parole by possessing what was described as
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an abundance of pornography and spent another fifteen years in prison. He was set
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to be released from his sentence in February of twenty eighteen, but as that
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date grew closer. Lisa's mother created a petition against his release, which gathered
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more than thirty thousand signatures. On the twenty third of February twenty twenty two,
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a judge decided that Gerald's release should be denied, and the decision was
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made to detain him at a high security psychiatric facility instead. From the early
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days of the case, Gerald was nicknamed the Halloween Killer because of the night
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when the crime had coincidentally taken place. A holiday where creepy things were used
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in a fun way had become genuinely scary for Wisconsin residence, leaving a lingering
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shadow that made people look at their own neighbors in a different light. Gerald
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Turner himself believed that Lisa's murder only attracted public attention because it had taken place
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on Halloween night. Quote if it had happened on some other day like Valentine's
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Day, he said, nobody would have gave a damn. That's ten minute
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murder for today. Brief and bingeable true crime. I'm Joe the host,
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and I really appreciate you listening. And Joe, why did you choose December
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to do this episode when and it's the Halloween killer. You could have done
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this in October. That's an excellent question, and the answer is I forgot.
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Someone requested that I cover this story back in October. I totally spaced
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out, thought I had I didn't, so here it is now my bad.
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Hey. If you're new to ten Minute Murder, welcome, make sure
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you go back and listen to all of the back episodes that there are available,
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new ones when they come out. If you do subscribe to ten Minute Murder
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and are not following the show on social media, first of all, quick
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Though. If you liked this episode, leave a rating and review on
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things related to ten minute Murder Now. Quick listener email, Hello, Joe,
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I'm an og listener from way back, and I think I've actually seen
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you in person or I saw someone that looked just like you. Either way,
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obviously, I didn't say anything at the time, but I tell my
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friends I met you, so don't tell on me. My question is it
13:07
has been too long since you mentioned what's bothering you or your current pet peeve?
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So what is it? I heart your show, Megan and Florida.
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Hello Meghan in Florida. It is possible you saw me in Florida because I
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have been there, and just in case your friends are listening, it was
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very nice meeting you in Florida, Meghan. So what's bothered me lately?
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People that announce on Facebook that they are taking a break from Facebook that just
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go have a break. You don't have to tell anyone. A Facebook break
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honestly, is probably pretty healthy, it feels like to me, and I
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could be wrong, but it feels like when I see that, they want
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people to say no, stay stay here, or they're just trying to on
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the low get someone to message them and say, hey, since you're taking
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a Facebook break, give me your numbers so I can still talk to you.
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But again I could be wrong. Also, people that say espresso that
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bothers me. All Right, that's it, Thanks for listening to another ten
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minute Murder Podcast episode. I'll see you on the next one, Bye,