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Serial Killer Documentary - Billy Mansfield Jr. · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:07
Speaker 1: In 1981, a search at Billy Mansfield Jr. 's sprawling
0:12
Speaker 1: rural property in Florida turned up the bodies of four
0:16
Speaker 1: young women.
0:17
Speaker 2: He would drive and look for girls hitchhiking and abduct them.
0:21
Speaker 3: Or he'd hang out at malls.
0:24
Speaker 1: A serial killer by his early 20s, Mansfield Jr. 's
0:28
Speaker 1: abuse of women had begun in his teens.
0:31
Speaker 4: Mansfield Jr. is someone that was raised in the world
0:34
Speaker 4: of violence and wreaked havoc and violence on anyone he
0:37
Speaker 4: came into contact with.
0:39
Speaker 5: His sexual crimes escalated over time, both in terms of
0:42
Speaker 5: how violent they were to eventually resulting in murders.
0:45
Speaker 1: Convicted of killing five victims, no young woman who crossed
0:50
Speaker 1: paths with Billy Mansfield Jr. was safe.
0:53
Speaker 3: He sees women as evil. He doesn't value life at all.
0:58
Speaker 6: Mansfield could be approachable, charming, but that was the mask.
1:03
Speaker 6: over this much more malevolent, depraved human being.
1:08
Speaker 1: Billy Mansfield Jr. 's short but deadly spree was brought
1:12
Speaker 1: to an end in 1980 when he was exposed as
1:15
Speaker 1: one of the world's most evil killers. In 1980, when
1:40
Speaker 1: a woman was found dead the morning after leaving a
1:43
Speaker 1: bar in Watsonville, California, with 24-year-old drifter Billy Mansfield Jr.,
1:49
Speaker 1: detectives were shocked at how little the killer had done
1:52
Speaker 1: to cover his tracks.
1:54
Speaker 3: That kind of chutzpah, if you will, speaks to his
1:59
Speaker 3: feeling that he was more clever than anyone else and
2:03
Speaker 3: that he could do whatever he wanted to do. He
2:06
Speaker 3: acted with complete impunity. He just, he did not care.
2:09
Speaker 5: Sometimes he even boasted about his crimes and kind of
2:12
Speaker 5: derived joy out of being able to recollect his crimes
2:16
Speaker 5: and what he did, almost like these were accomplishments that
2:18
Speaker 5: he should be rewarded for.
2:19
Speaker 6: I don't believe he ever showed remorse, and I don't
2:23
Speaker 6: think he even feels remorse. I don't think he's capable
2:25
Speaker 6: of it.
2:27
Speaker 1: This killer's story begins in a shack on the edge
2:30
Speaker 1: of Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1956. He had.
2:37
Speaker 3: A troubled childhood. He was bullied and was bullied.
2:41
Speaker 1: Billy's parents were William Mansfield Sr. and Virginia Mansfield. He
2:46
Speaker 1: was their first child. They would have four more after him,
2:50
Speaker 1: three boys and a girl.
2:53
Speaker 6: You could say it was a completely dysfunctional family on
2:58
Speaker 6: the edge of the law at all times. The boys
3:02
Speaker 6: were encouraged to fight amongst.
3:04
Speaker 3: Each other by.
3:05
Speaker 6: their father.
3:06
Speaker 4: He was reared in a world of violence. At one point,
3:09
Speaker 4: the father was seen chasing some of the kids down
3:13
Speaker 4: the street with a gun.
3:18
Speaker 5: So this is the first instance that Billy is learning
3:21
Speaker 5: about the rules of life, and all of this is
3:23
Speaker 5: coming from his father, who was, this is a way
3:25
Speaker 5: that Billy is learning, even from a young age, that
3:28
Speaker 5: this is how you solve problems when people don't agree
3:29
Speaker 5: with you. And the family was actually very well known
3:33
Speaker 5: to the police because there were a number of different charges,
3:36
Speaker 5: both violent and nonviolent, between the men and the boys
3:40
Speaker 5: of the family.
3:42
Speaker 1: Bringing did not prepare Billy Mansfield Jr. for a successful
3:46
Speaker 1: school life.
3:48
Speaker 4: Mansfield Jr. attended school in Grand Rapids and was often
3:52
Speaker 4: described as a social misfit and often got into trouble
3:55
Speaker 4: in school. By the age of 14, Mansfield Jr. was
3:58
Speaker 4: already charged with larceny, which is stealing. In effect, it's
4:01
Speaker 4: an additional allegation against Mansfield Jr. was that he sexually
4:05
Speaker 4: assaulted a 14-year-old girl on her way home from school.
4:12
Speaker 1: His father, William Mansfield Sr., had been tried for a
4:15
Speaker 1: similar offense some 20 years earlier while still in his teens.
4:19
Speaker 1: He was acquitted, but it was the first of many
4:22
Speaker 1: such trials for the family patriarch.
4:26
Speaker 3: It served time for rape in both Michigan and in Nevada,
4:31
Speaker 3: and an armed robbery up in Michigan.
4:35
Speaker 5: His father had been charged with multiple nonviolent and violent crimes,
4:39
Speaker 5: including sexual molestation of multiple individuals who were underage. So
4:44
Speaker 5: perhaps even from that, just watching his father recognizing that
4:48
Speaker 5: this is something that people do, perhaps, or maybe even
4:50
Speaker 5: his father explained those incidences away as things that were
4:54
Speaker 5: OK to do. So this is the first instance that
4:57
Speaker 5: Billy is learning about the rules of life.
5:00
Speaker 1: Already on a dark path by the age of 14,
5:03
Speaker 1: Mansfield Jr., known to his family as Billy, decided that
5:07
Speaker 1: formal education wasn't for him.
5:11
Speaker 3: He dropped out of school when he was 14. He
5:15
Speaker 3: altered his birth certificate, which back in those days was
5:19
Speaker 3: much easier to do than it is now, and wound
5:22
Speaker 3: up joining the army.
5:25
Speaker 4: During his time in the Army, Mansfield Jr. was assigned
5:28
Speaker 4: to places such as Germany. But after about 14 months
5:31
Speaker 4: of service, they determined that he really was not of
5:35
Speaker 4: age and that he had lied about his age to enlist,
5:38
Speaker 4: and he was discharged.
5:40
Speaker 6: Mansfield maintained that that Army career is where he became
5:46
Speaker 6: an alcoholic and first experimented with drugs, which made him volatile,
5:52
Speaker 6: extremely volatile.
5:54
Speaker 1: Despite his troubles, at the age of 17, Mansfield settled
5:58
Speaker 1: down with his childhood sweetheart, Phyllis. The couple had first
6:02
Speaker 1: met at school in their early teens. By the time
6:05
Speaker 1: they married in 1973, they already had a child together,
6:10
Speaker 1: and five months later, a second baby followed.
6:15
Speaker 5: The marriage became very turbulent very quickly. Whenever his wife
6:21
Speaker 5: threatened to leave or when they would have a fight,
6:23
Speaker 5: He would threaten aggression on her and threaten that he
6:26
Speaker 5: would kill her. And at one point when she was
6:29
Speaker 5: holding their baby, he put a gun to her head.
6:35
Speaker 1: Phyllis would later tell investigators about her husband's sexual proclivities.
6:44
Speaker 3: She talked about how Billy was bisexual. He would pick
6:47
Speaker 3: up men in gay bars, bring them home, make her
6:51
Speaker 3: watch him have sexual encounters.
6:56
Speaker 6: In 1974, when Billy Mansfield Jr. was 18, he was
7:00
Speaker 6: brought to trial for sex offenses. In fact, forcing two
7:06
Speaker 6: women to perform sex acts on him. And at the
7:10
Speaker 6: same time, it goes to trial and the jury find
7:15
Speaker 6: it impossible to believe that one man coerce two women
7:20
Speaker 6: to act in ways they didn't want to act.
7:23
Speaker 1: It was around this time that the family took the
7:26
Speaker 1: opportunity to leave their legal difficulties in Michigan behind them.
7:33
Speaker 4: After a fire at the Mansfield property in Michigan, the
7:36
Speaker 4: Mansfield clan purchased a five-acre plot in Spring Hill, Florida.
7:40
Speaker 4: It was surrounded by dense grove. It was rural. It
7:43
Speaker 4: was rustic. And it had several trailers on the property
7:47
Speaker 4: in different places.
7:49
Speaker 3: Property was overgrown. It had junk cars. refrigerator parts, all
7:54
Speaker 3: kinds of things on it.
7:57
Speaker 1: Local Hernando County Prosecutor Jimmy Brown quickly became well acquainted
8:03
Speaker 1: with the family.
8:04
Speaker 3: During the course of my time knowing the Mansfields, I
8:09
Speaker 3: prosecuted the dad and Billy and his brother Gary and
8:12
Speaker 3: his brother Robbie and his brother Terry. Billy's family and
8:16
Speaker 3: another local family here, we refer to them as the
8:19
Speaker 3: Hernando County version of the Hatfields and the McCoys. They
8:23
Speaker 3: had an animosity toward each other. They feuded. They got
8:26
Speaker 3: into fights. They beat each other up. They stole things
8:29
Speaker 3: from each other.
8:30
Speaker 7: I think it would be fair to describe the household,
8:35
Speaker 7: the family, as utterly lawless. There's no doubt that that
8:41
Speaker 7: lawless atmosphere that they were living in would have shaped
8:46
Speaker 7: their relationship with the legal system on the outside of
8:51
Speaker 7: that house.
8:54
Speaker 1: Far from starting afresh in Florida, the Mansfield family continued
8:59
Speaker 1: their criminal pursuits. In fact, Billy Mansfield Jr. was about
9:05
Speaker 1: to escalate, with catastrophic consequences for any young woman who
9:12
Speaker 1: crossed his path. By 1975, the entire Mansfield clan had
9:20
Speaker 1: settled on the sprawling plot of land, including Billy Mansfield Jr.
9:24
Speaker 1: and his wife and children. That winter, at a campsite
9:30
Speaker 1: 13 miles away in Brooksville, teenager Elaine Ziegler went missing.
9:38
Speaker 6: Elaine Ziegler was a 15-year-old girl on holiday with her
9:42
Speaker 6: mother and stepfather. They came from Ohio.
9:46
Speaker 3: Her family had been down here in 1975 for Christmas,
9:51
Speaker 3: staying at the KOA campground.
9:54
Speaker 1: Elaine had been looking forward to seeing in the new year,
9:58
Speaker 1: but around 10.30 that evening... evening, she was seen talking
10:01
Speaker 1: to a dark-haired man in his 20s with a beard
10:05
Speaker 1: and piercing eyes.
10:08
Speaker 3: She was seen getting into a blue, light blue Ford
10:11
Speaker 3: Fairlane with him with Florida plates, and that was the
10:14
Speaker 3: last that she was seen.
10:18
Speaker 4: On New Year's Day, 1976, her parents made a frantic
10:22
Speaker 4: phone call to the police telling them that Elaine is missing.
10:29
Speaker 4: The police respond by reaching out to the community and
10:32
Speaker 4: giving descriptions. There's a reward of $ 500 placed for information
10:36
Speaker 4: leading to her recovery.
10:38
Speaker 3: I remember her going missing. We did an extensive search,
10:42
Speaker 3: and we were concerned from the beginning that she had
10:45
Speaker 3: met with... Foul play.
10:50
Speaker 1: Jimmy Brown was, at this time, the deputy state attorney
10:54
Speaker 1: serving Anando County.
10:56
Speaker 3: The only thing that we had was a statement. He
10:59
Speaker 3: had very striking eyes, and they were described as mesmerizing.
11:04
Speaker 3: And so he had a very striking appearance.
11:07
Speaker 1: Police officers canvassing members of the public for information had
11:11
Speaker 1: come across a young man who matched the description in
11:14
Speaker 1: the vicinity of the campground.
11:16
Speaker 3: Showed him a picture and he said, oh yeah, I
11:18
Speaker 3: talked to that girl, she's from Ohio and I saw
11:22
Speaker 3: her New Year's Eve and she said she was leaving
11:25
Speaker 3: and heading back home to Ohio because she had people
11:29
Speaker 3: she needed to see and things she needed to do.
11:30
Speaker 3: Her parents swore she would not have left. She was happy,
11:38
Speaker 3: she wasn't having problems, she wasn't the type of person
11:43
Speaker 3: who would run away. They stuck around for, I think
11:48
Speaker 3: it was like six weeks before they finally went home.
11:52
Speaker 3: They stuck around for a long time.
11:54
Speaker 1: Elaine Ziegler's disappearance remained unsolved. In early 1976, Billy Mansfield Jr.
12:06
Speaker 1: moved with his family back to Michigan, where he spent
12:10
Speaker 1: the next four years in and out of prison.
12:15
Speaker 4: In 1976, Mansfield Jr. is arrested for being drunk and
12:19
Speaker 4: disorderly and he's put in jail. Upon being released from
12:23
Speaker 4: the drunken disorderly arrest in October of 1976, he's immediately
12:28
Speaker 4: re-arrested for the rape of a 16-year-old Michigan girl. He
12:32
Speaker 4: pled guilty to a lesser charge and he went back
12:35
Speaker 4: to jail. In 1978, Mansfield Jr. is accused of sexual
12:41
Speaker 4: assault and the attempted rape of two other women.
12:46
Speaker 3: Was sentenced to one year because he flipped on his
12:50
Speaker 3: cellmate who had committed murder.
12:53
Speaker 4: And at this point, his wife uses the opportunity to
12:55
Speaker 4: file for divorce while he's away from her so she
12:58
Speaker 4: can start the proceedings.
13:00
Speaker 3: He got out in 1980 and came back down to Florida.
13:05
Speaker 3: He and his dad and his brother Gary were working,
13:10
Speaker 3: doing refrigeration repair work and installation work, heating and air
13:13
Speaker 3: conditioning things.
13:16
Speaker 1: Now a single man, in March 1980, 24-year-old Billy Mansfield Jr.
13:22
Speaker 1: was back in the bosom of his dysfunctional family. Just
13:27
Speaker 1: a month later, a 21-year-old Tampa woman went missing.
13:32
Speaker 4: Sandy Graham was out drinking and playing pool at a
13:37
Speaker 4: local establishment that she frequented.
13:40
Speaker 5: She was known to be this very outgoing, recently divorced
13:44
Speaker 5: young adult who really was comfortable speaking to different people.
13:49
Speaker 4: She started playing pool with a guy who was not
13:51
Speaker 4: a regular at the bar. She took a break and
13:53
Speaker 4: started talking to another guy at the bar, at which
13:56
Speaker 4: time the guy she was playing pool with, who people
13:59
Speaker 4: didn't seem to know at the bar, got very upset.
14:03
Speaker 5: Observers described the man's eyes as being very scary looking
14:07
Speaker 5: and piercing.
14:09
Speaker 6: The stranger threw her car keys in the trash, but sadly, nevertheless,
14:16
Speaker 6: was seen leaving the bar with this stranger. Well, her
14:20
Speaker 6: friends who'd been there with her absolutely expected her to
14:23
Speaker 6: return because everything was there. Her glasses were there, everything.
14:28
Speaker 6: So what happened? Well, the answer was no one knew.
14:32
Speaker 6: She literally disappeared into thin air.
14:35
Speaker 1: A month later, a 16-year-old girl called Theresa Fillingham moved
14:40
Speaker 1: to Tampa.
14:41
Speaker 5: She had gone off the rail in her teens, had
14:43
Speaker 5: some difficult and complicated family relationships, but appeared to be
14:47
Speaker 5: starting over, trying to start fresh and clean slate.
14:51
Speaker 1: In May 1980, Teresa left her foster home in Washington
14:55
Speaker 1: state to move in with her older sister, Margaret.
14:59
Speaker 2: Somehow she convinced me to take her to Florida with me.
15:04
Speaker 2: And so I brought her back with me and we
15:07
Speaker 2: rented a place. It was going to be a temporary
15:10
Speaker 2: place for a while and she was going to get
15:12
Speaker 2: her GED and get a job.
15:15
Speaker 1: Teresa had only been in Tampa for a few days
15:19
Speaker 1: when she vanished.
15:20
Speaker 2: She told me that evening that she had a job
15:23
Speaker 2: interview at University Mall in Tampa. This girlfriend of hers
15:28
Speaker 2: was going to go after a job too and they
15:30
Speaker 2: were going to go together.
15:32
Speaker 4: I said, okay.
15:34
Speaker 2: So I went to work that night. I got home
15:36
Speaker 2: probably about 10 o'clock and she still wasn't home and
15:43
Speaker 2: she had never showed for the job interview.
15:46
Speaker 3: She didn't show up.
15:51
Speaker 5: And when Margaret told the law enforcement about it, because
15:54
Speaker 5: she had a history of running away, they thought maybe
15:56
Speaker 5: she was just running away again.
15:57
Speaker 2: In the course of things over the next few months,
16:00
Speaker 2: she still didn't turn up. All of her belongings were
16:03
Speaker 2: left behind intact. Her suitcase, her clothing, any jewelry that
16:10
Speaker 2: she had, she never came back for it. The Tampa
16:14
Speaker 2: Police Department had me come out and identify some Jane Does.
16:18
Speaker 2: So I had to go down and none of them
16:20
Speaker 2: were her. And then the case just got colder and
16:24
Speaker 2: colder and colder and colder.
16:28
Speaker 3: And she never came back.
16:36
Speaker 1: In June 1980, 40 miles north of Tampa in Hernando County,
16:41
Speaker 1: William Mansfield Sr. fell foul of the law once again,
16:45
Speaker 1: and this time on even more serious charges.
16:49
Speaker 4: Our Mansfield Jr. 's father was charged with over 40
16:53
Speaker 4: counts of sexual abuse of children.
16:55
Speaker 3: We sent him away for 56 years for sexually molesting
17:00
Speaker 3: children from age 3 to age 15, multiple times.
17:05
Speaker 7: Billy's father was a serious and prolific sexual offender of
17:13
Speaker 7: the worst kind. He was a very manipulative individual as well.
17:19
Speaker 7: and he would manipulate women, as some sex offenders do,
17:25
Speaker 7: to facilitate access to children. This is a lawless.
17:30
Speaker 4: Man with not a moral.
17:33
Speaker 7: Molecule in his body.
17:36
Speaker 1: Five days after William Mansfield Sr. 's arrest, a young
17:41
Speaker 1: woman was attacked in Brooksville, not far from the camping
17:44
Speaker 1: ground where Elaine Ziegler had gone missing five years before.
17:48
Speaker 4: 18-year-old Pamela Sherrill was walking home along a road in Brooksville, Florida,
17:53
Speaker 4: when a man pulled up next to her in a car,
17:56
Speaker 4: dragged her into the car, drove her to a nearby
17:58
Speaker 4: mobile home.
18:00
Speaker 5: Tried to force sex on her, and when she refused,
18:02
Speaker 5: he dragged her around the trailer by her hair.
18:06
Speaker 6: And she fought back in a most remarkable way. She
18:10
Speaker 6: attacked him with a knife from the kitchen. And as
18:14
Speaker 6: she left the mobile home, she threw the knife at him.
18:18
Speaker 3: She ran immediately to the sheriff's department, called and reported
18:24
Speaker 3: what had happened and gave absolutely perfect descriptions.
18:28
Speaker 1: The local law enforcement officers immediately recognized Pamner's description of
18:33
Speaker 1: a man they'd had plenty of dealings with before, and
18:36
Speaker 1: a warrant was issued for Billy Mansfield Jr. 's arrest.
18:41
Speaker 3: He found out that the warrant was in existence, and
18:44
Speaker 3: he and his brother Gary took off in a van,
18:47
Speaker 3: headed north, went up toward Ohio, through Illinois, down through Texas,
18:52
Speaker 3: and Nevada, and wound up in Santa Cruz, California.
18:56
Speaker 5: Appears that he was trying to start a new life
18:58
Speaker 5: to try to evade the police, was using a new alias,
19:01
Speaker 5: was trying to make himself look different, and try to
19:04
Speaker 5: leave no trace of his crimes behind.
19:06
Speaker 4: The Mansfield family members settled at a campground in the Watsonville,
19:11
Speaker 4: California area where Mansfield Jr. got a job as a
19:16
Speaker 4: maintenance man at a local mushroom farm. He took the
19:19
Speaker 4: persona of a man named Tom. The local people there
19:22
Speaker 4: described him as creepy.
19:25
Speaker 1: Despite using an alias, the local sheriff's department got wind
19:29
Speaker 1: of Mansfield Junior and discovered the Hernando County arrest warrant
19:34
Speaker 1: on him.
19:36
Speaker 6: And yet again, that charm comes into play. He's arrested formally,
19:42
Speaker 6: charged with the attack on Pamela, but he gets bail.
19:48
Speaker 1: In November 1980, Billy Mansfield Jr. was released and continued
19:53
Speaker 1: living at the campground in Watsonville along with his younger brother, Gary.
19:59
Speaker 1: Two weeks later, another woman, Renee Sailing, had the grave
20:03
Speaker 1: misfortune to cross paths with the Mansfields.
20:07
Speaker 4: On 6th December 1980, Renee showed up at a bar
20:10
Speaker 4: in Watsonville, California, looking for her husband.
20:14
Speaker 5: Billy and his brother Gary happened to be there at
20:17
Speaker 5: the time. It was observed that Mansfield Jr. came on very,
20:22
Speaker 5: very strongly to another woman that was at the bar
20:25
Speaker 5: and worked.
20:26
Speaker 1: Finding no success with a woman he'd been harassing, Mansfield Jr.
20:30
Speaker 1: turned his attentions to 29-year-old mother of three, Renee.
20:35
Speaker 5: Eventually, Renee was seen walking towards the parking lot with
20:41
Speaker 5: Mansfield Jr.
20:45
Speaker 4: A short time later, Mansfield Jr. comes back in the
20:48
Speaker 4: bar and talks to one of his associates, asks him
20:51
Speaker 4: if he wants to meet the chick. He gives him
20:53
Speaker 4: the keys to his car and tells him she's out
20:56
Speaker 4: in the car, at which point he tells him, don't
20:58
Speaker 4: let her go, keep her locked up.
21:02
Speaker 5: This acquaintance did go to the car and look in,
21:06
Speaker 5: but because he couldn't understand Renee and she was intoxicated,
21:09
Speaker 5: he then left.
21:11
Speaker 4: Just hours later, on the 7th of December, 1980, she
21:13
Speaker 4: was found dead.
21:18
Speaker 1: Renee's sailing was found face down in a drainage ditch
21:21
Speaker 1: at the side of Buena Vista Drive, a road that
21:24
Speaker 1: ran from the bar in Watsonville to the campground where
21:28
Speaker 1: Mansfield had been staying.
21:30
Speaker 3: Her pants had been pulled down to around her ankles.
21:34
Speaker 3: Her shirt was up over the top of her head.
21:37
Speaker 4: When a member of the public found her, they noticed
21:40
Speaker 4: a black cord wrapped so tightly around her neck that
21:42
Speaker 4: it was embedded in her flesh. She had obviously been strangled.
21:47
Speaker 1: There were many features of the crime scene that police
21:50
Speaker 1: would see repeated again and again, not least the calls
21:54
Speaker 1: of death.
21:55
Speaker 4: Mansfield Jr.
21:56
Speaker 5: 's preferred method of killing was strangulation, and this involves...
22:01
Speaker 5: The person being very up close to you, your victim,
22:03
Speaker 5: basically having their last breath being choked out of them
22:07
Speaker 5: by your bare hands. And individuals who kill in this way,
22:11
Speaker 5: there's a sense of wanting to overpower their victims and
22:14
Speaker 5: maybe deriving some sense of pleasure from that and feeling
22:18
Speaker 5: more powerful than ever that you're taking a human life.
22:22
Speaker 1: A number of witnesses identified Billy Mansfield Jr. as being
22:27
Speaker 1: the man Renee Saling had left the bar with. But
22:30
Speaker 1: when police arrived to arrest the 24-year-old, Mansfield was long gone.
22:36
Speaker 4: Mansfield Jr.
22:36
Speaker 5: And his brother, Gary, they fled the campsite that they
22:39
Speaker 5: were at, and they eventually found their way to Las
22:42
Speaker 5: Vegas to try to evade charges.
22:46
Speaker 3: I think it was four days later, he got caught
22:48
Speaker 3: in a place called Winnemucca, Nevada. Winnemucca is not a
22:53
Speaker 3: very large place, and Billy and Gary were distinctive. Billy
22:58
Speaker 3: had a beard, Gary had a beard, had long hair.
23:01
Speaker 3: Billy's was parted in the middle, and the police in
23:05
Speaker 3: Winnemucca got lucky and saw them. Billy was charged with
23:12
Speaker 3: murder in the first degree, and Gary was charged with
23:14
Speaker 3: being an accessory to the murder.
23:16
Speaker 7: It appears that he did nothing really to hide his
23:22
Speaker 7: crimes or protect himself from being caught. I'm not sure
23:28
Speaker 7: that he was taught that you try to get away
23:30
Speaker 7: with your crimes, you just do them.
23:33
Speaker 1: Extradited back to California, the brothers were sent to jail
23:37
Speaker 1: in Santa Cruz to await trial for the murder of
23:40
Speaker 1: Renee Saling. Then Mansfield Jr. 's former wife Phyllis told
23:45
Speaker 1: Hernando County law enforcement an extraordinary story, one that had
23:50
Speaker 1: nothing to do with Renee.
23:54
Speaker 3: Once Billy was safely behind bars, Phyllis came forward and
23:58
Speaker 3: contacted us down here. with information that she thought could
24:03
Speaker 3: be relevant.
24:05
Speaker 4: So in early 1976, while they were back in Michigan
24:09
Speaker 4: for a short time, Mansfield Jr. told his wife that
24:12
Speaker 4: he had killed a woman. Now, the wife actually didn't
24:16
Speaker 4: believe this. She took it as a threat to her
24:18
Speaker 4: that he could be a killer if she ever left him.
24:23
Speaker 3: We then got some corroborating information, found out that Billy
24:26
Speaker 3: frequented the KOA campground here. He partied quite a bit,
24:30
Speaker 3: and he liked the younger women.
24:34
Speaker 1: The campsite in Brooksville, Florida, was the very place that
24:39
Speaker 1: 15-year-old Elaine Ziegler had vanished from on New Year's Eve 1975.
24:45
Speaker 1: There was hope at last that the mystery of the
24:48
Speaker 1: teenager's disappearance might be solved. In March 1981, investigators finally
24:55
Speaker 1: had the go-ahead to act on the information Mansfield Jr.
24:59
Speaker 1: 's ex-wife had given them.
25:02
Speaker 3: March 16th of 1981 got the search warrant. Somewhat different
25:07
Speaker 3: from an ordinary search warrant because of the nature of
25:09
Speaker 3: the property with the abandoned cars and the refrigerator parts
25:13
Speaker 3: and the air conditioning parts and all the junk that
25:15
Speaker 3: was there and just general trash. It was, a lot
25:19
Speaker 3: of the ground was covered and there was a lot
25:22
Speaker 3: of vegetation on it too. So we commandeered units from
25:25
Speaker 3: the city of Brooksville Public Works Department, the Hernando County
25:29
Speaker 3: Public Works Department. We had bulldozers, we.
25:31
Speaker 1: Had Excavating the five-acre site looks set to be a
25:38
Speaker 1: daunting task. But within 24 hours, the first grisly discovery
25:44
Speaker 1: was made.
25:47
Speaker 3: On March 17th, we found the first bones. Once they
25:54
Speaker 3: found the bones, then we had a team, a forensic
25:56
Speaker 3: archaeology team from the University of South Florida that came
26:00
Speaker 3: up and helped with the excavation. She had multiple blunt
26:05
Speaker 3: force trauma to the head. There was also wire, electrical wire,
26:10
Speaker 3: which was found in the vicinity of her neck and
26:13
Speaker 3: also her hands. She was found in a fetal position
26:17
Speaker 3: and the cause of death was strangulation and the immediate
26:21
Speaker 3: cause of death, the blunt force, multiple blunt force trauma.
26:26
Speaker 1: The discovery of a female body was not a surprise
26:30
Speaker 1: to the search team, but the forensic archaeologists soon realized
26:35
Speaker 1: this was not 15-year-old Elaine Ziegler.
26:39
Speaker 3: Ultimately, they recovered the skeleton, full skeleton, of a 22-year-old,
26:44
Speaker 3: estimate 22-year-old, white female.
26:49
Speaker 1: Detectives got to work on identifying the remains of the
26:52
Speaker 1: body uncovered at Billy Mansfield Jr. 's Florida home, while
26:56
Speaker 1: the 24-year-old remained in custody 2,800 miles away in California
27:03
Speaker 1: for the murder of Renee Saling.
27:06
Speaker 3: We had a facial reconstruction expert take the skull, ultimately,
27:10
Speaker 3: and rebuild a face and then publish the face throughout
27:13
Speaker 3: the country.
27:15
Speaker 1: While they waited to find out if a match would
27:18
Speaker 1: come back for their Jane Doe, detectives tried to find
27:21
Speaker 1: out where else their suspected serial killer may have struck.
27:27
Speaker 6: The investigators in Florida circulate a picture of Billy Mansfield Jr.
27:33
Speaker 6: to other police forces, and the police in Tampa recognize
27:42
Speaker 6: the picture and suggests that he looks very like the
27:45
Speaker 6: man they're searching for in the disappearance of Sandy Graham.
27:50
Speaker 1: Mansfield Jr. was officially named as the main suspect in
27:54
Speaker 1: Sandy's disappearance, but the body found at his property on
27:58
Speaker 1: March 17th was not hers, and investigators were only beginning
28:04
Speaker 1: to scratch the surface of Billy Mansfield Jr. 's career
28:08
Speaker 1: of murder. Nine days into their search, detectives made another discovery.
28:14
Speaker 3: Fairly close to the location of the first body and
28:18
Speaker 3: also shallow. And she was a white female, age 15.
28:26
Speaker 4: This one is naked with a cord wrapped tightly around
28:30
Speaker 4: its neck in a fetal position.
28:33
Speaker 3: She had multiple blunt force trauma to the head and
28:35
Speaker 3: had electrical wire. near her head and her neck and
28:41
Speaker 3: her hands. She was ultimately identified by dental charts and
28:47
Speaker 3: by the jewelry that she was wearing. She was identified
28:51
Speaker 3: as Elaine Ziegler.
28:53
Speaker 1: The 15-year-old Ohioan girl had been missing from the nearby
28:57
Speaker 1: campground for over five years.
29:00
Speaker 7: Her parents were told and they had waited six years
29:04
Speaker 7: to find out what had happened to their daughter. And
29:09
Speaker 7: I think the really sad thing is that when they
29:11
Speaker 7: found out what did happen to her, it was that
29:13
Speaker 7: worst case scenario. It was the thing of their nightmares.
29:28
Speaker 3: The third victim we found was shortly after that. It
29:32
Speaker 3: was April 3rd, as I recall. She was about 75
29:36
Speaker 3: feet from the back door. of the mass field house.
29:43
Speaker 1: The body looked to be that of a white female
29:46
Speaker 1: in her late teens.
29:48
Speaker 3: She had multiple blunt force trauma to the head and
29:52
Speaker 3: also had electrical, heavy electrical wire around her neck and
29:56
Speaker 3: around one of her wrists. did a facial reconstruction on
30:01
Speaker 3: her and published her newspaper and photograph and no one
30:06
Speaker 3: came forward.
30:10
Speaker 1: The bodies of three young women had now been found
30:14
Speaker 1: on Billy Mansfield Jr. 's property. All had suffered violent deaths.
30:19
Speaker 1: While Mansfield Jr. remained in jail thousands of miles away
30:23
Speaker 1: in California, the search continued. And on April 7th, 1981,
30:29
Speaker 1: a fourth and final set of remains was recovered from
30:33
Speaker 1: the Mansfields' Florida property.
30:37
Speaker 3: She likewise was found strangled with wire and with a cord.
30:43
Speaker 3: She had her pants pulled down to around the ankle
30:46
Speaker 3: area and her shirt pulled up over her head.
30:50
Speaker 1: The woman had dark hair and was still wearing jewellery
30:54
Speaker 1: similar to that of missing 21-year-old Sandy Graham.
30:59
Speaker 6: The detective from Tampa goes to look at the remains
31:04
Speaker 6: and notices, for example, that Sandy Graham was wearing a
31:09
Speaker 6: very distinctive serpent bracelet. But he also notices that the remains,
31:15
Speaker 6: the teeth, are perfect. And Sandy Graham's teeth were perfect.
31:22
Speaker 3: She had last been seen at a bar down in
31:24
Speaker 3: Tampa with someone matching Billy's description. Just like Renee Saling
31:30
Speaker 3: was last seen alive leaving a bar in Santa Cruz
31:33
Speaker 3: with someone matching Billy's description.
31:40
Speaker 1: The search of the property concluded on April the 17th, 1981,
31:45
Speaker 1: and investigators were able to tell two families what had
31:49
Speaker 1: happened to their loved ones.
31:52
Speaker 3: I've always felt that the worst thing in the world
31:55
Speaker 3: is not knowing. It is, at the same time, a
32:00
Speaker 3: horrific experience because you're telling someone that someone that was
32:05
Speaker 3: their family, someone they loved and had spent their lives with,
32:09
Speaker 3: has been murdered, but it does give a chance for closure.
32:15
Speaker 1: Two of the bodies found at the Mansfield family property
32:19
Speaker 1: remained unidentified. In July 1981, 25-year-old Billy Mansfield Jr. stood
32:27
Speaker 1: trial in Santa Cruz, California, for the murder of Renee Salink.
32:35
Speaker 4: But that trial ended with jurors not being able to
32:37
Speaker 4: determine whether he was guilty or not because there was
32:40
Speaker 4: not enough evidence. But later that year, Mansfield Jr. 's brother,
32:47
Speaker 4: who was also facing charges in the murder as an
32:49
Speaker 4: accessory after the fact, agreed to testify against his brother
32:52
Speaker 4: in the murder.
32:54
Speaker 3: So we cut a two-state deal with Gary that he
32:58
Speaker 3: would cooperate both in California and in Florida against his brother.
33:03
Speaker 3: in exchange for immunity from prosecution in Florida and in
33:07
Speaker 3: exchange for charges being dismissed in Santa Cruz.
33:13
Speaker 5: This is a family that would bond together when it
33:16
Speaker 5: was convenient, but when it came time for self-preservation, they
33:19
Speaker 5: also did not have any reluctance in abandoning one another
33:24
Speaker 5: just so that they could save themselves.
33:26
Speaker 1: In February 1982, Billy Mansfield Jr. was back in front
33:31
Speaker 1: of judge and jury, this time in Marin County, California.
33:37
Speaker 4: The retrial takes place, and this time it only takes
33:39
Speaker 4: two weeks.
33:41
Speaker 5: Mansfield Jr. was sentenced to 25 years to life for
33:45
Speaker 5: the murder of Renee Saling.
33:48
Speaker 1: In May 1982, Jimmy Brown brought Mansfield Jr. back to
33:53
Speaker 1: Florida to face charges there. The six-hour flight was the
33:57
Speaker 1: first time the prosecutor had properly chatted to the convicted killer.
34:03
Speaker 3: He came across as friendly. He was able to strike
34:06
Speaker 3: up conversations with people. It just struck me that he'd
34:10
Speaker 3: already been sentenced to life in prison for murder on
34:14
Speaker 3: Rene Saling. He was indicted for four murders. here in
34:18
Speaker 3: Hernando County, and it was like none of it was real.
34:22
Speaker 3: None of it bothered him at all.
34:25
Speaker 1: Through the summer of 1982, prosecutors in Hernando County prepared
34:31
Speaker 1: to put Billy Mansfield Jr. on trial for the murders
34:35
Speaker 1: of Elaine Ziegler, Sandy Graham, and the two unidentified women
34:40
Speaker 1: whose remains had been found on his property. The killer
34:44
Speaker 1: faced the stiffest of penalties if found guilty.
34:49
Speaker 3: Florida's statute for first-degree murder provided for two penalties, either
34:53
Speaker 3: death by electrocution or life in prison but eligible for
34:58
Speaker 3: parole after serving 25 years of the sentence. My feeling was,
35:02
Speaker 3: at that point in time, with everything we knew about Billy,
35:06
Speaker 3: that he should never be in a position where he
35:08
Speaker 3: could be released, ever. And Billy was still quite young
35:14
Speaker 3: at the time, 26, I think. Billy getting out of
35:23
Speaker 3: prison and being able to go back and hurt other
35:28
Speaker 3: people was just something I could not bear thought of.
35:35
Speaker 4: In August 1982, on the eve of trial, Mansfield Jr.,
35:39
Speaker 4: in order to avoid the death penalty in Florida, decided
35:41
Speaker 4: to plead guilty to the murder of the four victims
35:45
Speaker 4: found on the Mansfield property.
35:48
Speaker 1: Mansfield also pleaded guilty to snatching and attacking Pamela Sherrill,
35:53
Speaker 1: the teen he'd taken to his mobile home near Brooksville
35:56
Speaker 1: in 1980.
35:57
Speaker 4: Based on his plea, Mansfield Jr. was sentenced to four
36:01
Speaker 4: life sentences plus five years for the kidnap and attempted
36:05
Speaker 4: rape of Pamela Sherrill. Mansfield Jr. was then returned to
36:09
Speaker 4: California to serve out his remaining sentence in the murder
36:13
Speaker 4: of Renee.
36:17
Speaker 1: Billy Mansfield Jr. remains incarcerated at the California Healthcare Facility
36:23
Speaker 1: in Stockton. He became eligible for parole there in 1997,
36:28
Speaker 1: but has not yet met the conditions that would allow
36:31
Speaker 1: him to be released, and is perhaps unlikely ever to
36:36
Speaker 1: do so.
36:38
Speaker 5: This is somebody who you can't say is likely to
36:42
Speaker 5: be rehabilitated because it doesn't really seem like he even
36:45
Speaker 5: cares that he took the lives of these people.
36:49
Speaker 7: He was cold and relentless and could have at any
36:55
Speaker 7: minute committed another murder.
36:58
Speaker 1: It is believed that Mansfield's killing spree did not begin
37:02
Speaker 1: or end with the five women whose murders he'd been
37:05
Speaker 1: convicted of. After his sentencing in 1982, Mansfield Jr. approached
37:12
Speaker 1: prosecutors with a deal.
37:14
Speaker 3: He didn't like the idea that his father was in
37:17
Speaker 3: prison for 56 years, and he offered that if we
37:21
Speaker 3: would let his dad out of prison and if we
37:23
Speaker 3: would give him immunity in each of the states involved,
37:27
Speaker 3: that he would provide details so the families of about
37:31
Speaker 3: 80 victims would have closure. which of course we couldn't do,
37:38
Speaker 3: so we still don't know. We do know that they
37:41
Speaker 3: stopped in KOA campgrounds all the way from here to
37:45
Speaker 3: Santa Cruz, and KOA campgrounds were Billy's favorite.
37:51
Speaker 4: Hunting ground, if you will, for victims.
38:02
Speaker 1: In 2020, 38 years after Mansfield's Florida convictions, there was
38:08
Speaker 1: a major breakthrough in identifying one of the two unnamed
38:12
Speaker 1: bodies found buried on the Mansfield property.
38:15
Speaker 6: Advances in DNA technology meant that they could extract DNA
38:19
Speaker 6: from the remains they discovered. And then they gave that
38:23
Speaker 6: DNA to a forensic genealogist who constructed a family tree.
38:29
Speaker 1: The forensic genealogist found someone on an online database whose
38:34
Speaker 1: DNA profile suggested they were related to the unnamed teenager.
38:39
Speaker 1: The expert then used this to start building the family
38:43
Speaker 1: tree of this individual, which led to the realization there
38:47
Speaker 1: was a young woman in the family whose birth was registered,
38:51
Speaker 1: but no further records existed for her. The information was
38:56
Speaker 1: handed to a cold case detective in Hernando County, Florida,
39:00
Speaker 1: who called Margaret Johns with a question.
39:04
Speaker 2: Do you have a sister that went missing in 1980?
39:07
Speaker 4: And I was speechless.
39:09
Speaker 3: I couldn't, I could hardly answer him.
39:12
Speaker 2: I said, he said, yeah, I think that we have
39:16
Speaker 2: identified your sister who went missing in Tampa in 1980.
39:23
Speaker 1: Margaret gave a DNA sample and six weeks later, the
39:27
Speaker 1: remains were positively identified as belonging to her younger sister,
39:32
Speaker 1: Teresa Fillingham. 16-year-old Teresa had disappeared in Tampa some 41
39:38
Speaker 1: years earlier, just after moving in with Margaret.
39:43
Speaker 4: I felt guilty.
39:44
Speaker 2: I took her away from where she was safe and sound.
39:47
Speaker 2: into Florida with me, I failed to protect her or
39:52
Speaker 2: take care of her or watch over her. And so
39:55
Speaker 2: over the years, I just blamed myself. And nothing ever
40:03
Speaker 2: happened until the day I got the phone call saying
40:08
Speaker 2: that they may have identified her.
40:13
Speaker 4: So it took a year just to get the.
40:18
Speaker 2: Once the positive identification happened, just to get her remains back.
40:23
Speaker 3: And that was it. That was the end of it.
40:27
Speaker 2: So now I have it.
40:34
Speaker 7: Knowing is something you can then process and deal with.
40:39
Speaker 7: Not knowing is an emptiness, a chasm, a black hole.
40:45
Speaker 7: inside you of just worrying about all of the different scenarios.
40:50
Speaker 7: Not knowing, I think, for people is much worse than
40:54
Speaker 7: anything they might come to know.
40:59
Speaker 1: The identification of Teresa Fillingham offers hope the remains of
41:04
Speaker 1: Billy Mansfield Jr. 's final unidentified victim may one day
41:09
Speaker 1: be returned to her family.
41:11
Speaker 2: My message to people who do have loved ones still
41:14
Speaker 2: missing maybe is don't give up. Anything's possible.
41:23
Speaker 1: As with so many serial killers, the question of whether
41:26
Speaker 1: Billy Mansfield Jr. was born evil or was the product
41:30
Speaker 1: of his violent, dysfunctional upbringing may never be fully answered.
41:35
Speaker 1: But few would disagree with investigators who described him as
41:39
Speaker 1: a man without a soul, a remorseless, calculating killer who
41:44
Speaker 1: placed no value on the lives he took. And as
41:48
Speaker 1: revelations about his crimes continue to this day, Mansfield will
41:53
Speaker 1: forever be remembered as one of the world's most evil killers.