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The Sick Ripper · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

• 0:25
  Let's begin this story by shedding some light on the dark past of William Devon
• 0:30
  Howell born March twenty seventh, nineteen seventy in Hampton, Virginia. Howell had
• 0:36
  a happy early childhood, but by the age of twelve, Howell's mother became
• 0:41
  sick, and this started spiraling him out of control. He was depressed and
• 0:46
  started drinking very young. He had multiple incarcerations for drunk driving and began picking
• 0:52
  up sex workers in the middle of the night. Even eventually, when he
• 0:56
  became married and had children, he continued higher sex workers for their services.
• 1:02
  During this time, his view of women became pretty binary. He only saw
• 1:07
  good girls like his mother and bad girls like these sex workers, and seemingly
• 1:14
  because of this, he crossed the line and jumped off into the deep end.
• 1:18
  In a gruesome spree that spanned two thousand and three to two thousand seven,
• 1:23
  Howell claimed the lives of seven people. He saw each of his victims
• 1:27
  as helpless, at risk, and vulnerable objects to be easily discarded. He
• 1:34
  never saw them as real human beings who were loved or cared for. Majority
• 1:38
  of his victims came from either addiction or street working, or both, which
• 1:44
  made him see them as worthless, and that in particular seems to be a
• 1:49
  pattern in the minds of serial killers who need a reason to go about their
• 1:53
  predatory ways. This was the same emo of another serial killer I recently told
• 1:57
  you about in the construct Killer episode of Samuel Little. Both of these men
• 2:04
  targeted women that they felt didn't matter to society. They wouldn't be missed because
• 2:08
  they probably didn't have a family that cared for them. In both cases,
• 2:14
  they were wrong. Melanie Ruth Camelini, a twenty nine year old single mother
• 2:19
  of two from Seymour, was the Sick rippers first known victim. According to
• 2:24
  her family, she was known to have a substance abuse problem and would disappear
• 2:29
  sporadically, and so when Melanie left to work on the streets one evening and
• 2:34
  did not return the next day, it didn't automatically raise any flags. However,
• 2:38
  instead of her usual disappearances, this time she'd met Howell and couldn't escape.
• 2:46
  Howell assaulted her multiple times over the course of twelve hours before strangling her
• 2:50
  and disposing of her body. Camelini is the only victim Howell claims to have
• 2:54
  struggled with murdering and that was all due to her being a mother. His
• 3:00
  spree continued after Melanie to Maryland Gonzalez, another mother with a drug problem who
• 3:06
  worked the streets. By his second killing, Howell knew when he picked up
• 3:09
  Gonzalez one evening that he would be killing her. Gonzalez disappeared on the evening
• 3:15
  of May fifteenth and was reported missing by her mother thirteen days later. Like
• 3:21
  his first victim, Howell spent the first twelve hours with her, assaulting her
• 3:25
  in the back of his van until he was finished and disposed of her.
• 3:30
  After Gonzalez was Janice Roberts, a forty four year old transgender woman. Roberts
• 3:36
  was last seen alive June eighteenth, two thousand three, when she was seen
• 3:39
  getting to Howell's blue van in Weathersfield. Only a few days later, she
• 3:45
  was reported missing. Howel's routine was consistent with each victim. He'd abduct them
• 3:51
  and one way or the other, sexually assault them, and then dispose of
• 3:55
  their strangled body. Janice Roberts was different, and Howell realized she was transgender.
• 4:01
  He didn't continue with the assault and torture. He just ended her life
• 4:06
  right then and there. Nilsa Arismindi was the fourth victim of the Sick Ripper.
• 4:13
  On July thirty first, two thousand and three, Arismindi was reported missing
• 4:16
  almost immediately. Her absence was of high concern for her family, and it
• 4:21
  helped launch the police into action even quicker. During the report, her sister
• 4:27
  said that she was a frequent drug abuser and sex worker in the Weathersfield area,
• 4:30
  and drug abusers normally fell off the radar when it came to the police
• 4:34
  following through with missing reports, but because of her family, that wasn't the
• 4:39
  case this time around. The murder of Arismindi wasn't one he had planned on.
• 4:45
  Howell had no plans on killing her at first. It was only after
• 4:47
  her refusal to finish off a sexual favor did he impulsively decide to dispose of
• 4:53
  her. It was quick and that gave her no room to potentially escape,
• 4:59
  and the police were all over this one. In his personal life, by
• 5:02
  this time, Howell's wife had petitioned to have full custody of their children.
• 5:06
  The entire legal debate launched Howell deeper into his own darkness, and at once
• 5:13
  he was more disassociated from his own moral compass. His killings became more frequent.
• 5:18
  During a ten week frame in early fall, he took the lives of
• 5:21
  Mary Jane Menard, Diane Cusack, and Joy Villene Martinez, all of which
• 5:27
  happened in the back parking lot of a McDonald's, located extremely close to his
• 5:31
  selected burial ground. All of his victims struggled for hours against this monster with
• 5:36
  no conscience. For years, these seven disappearances were just that disappearances. Yet
• 5:45
  the investigation into Howell's crimes finally reached a breakthrough in two thousand and seven when
• 5:49
  police discovered the remains of three victims buried in a shallow grave behind the shopping
• 5:55
  plaza off the Berlin Turnpike. They found all the evidence they needed to put
• 6:00
  an end to what he was doing. A guy walking through the woods came
• 6:03
  across a skull. After a call to the police, the entire area was
• 6:09
  blocked off for investigation. At first, they only found the evidence of those
• 6:13
  three bodies, all unidentified Jane does. In two thousand and nine, two
• 6:17
  New Britain detectives took two of the skulls, Jane Doe number one and Jane
• 6:21
  Doe number two, to Quantico Virginia, A specialized unit there used the remains
• 6:28
  to create models of what they believed the victims to look like. Once completed,
• 6:31
  the images were released in hopes of a family member or friend recognizing the
• 6:36
  faces and coming forward. From this, Jane Doe number one was identified as
• 6:42
  Diane Cusack. Soon after Jane Doe number two was identified as joy Velin Martinez.
• 6:48
  Police still believed Howell too have committed more murders than just those, so
• 6:53
  they continued to search in that area for more remains, but nothing came up.
• 6:59
  In a stroke of luck, Howell had been charged in the disappearance of
• 7:01
  Arasmendi due to the seizing of his van. Inside the van, they discovered
• 7:06
  DNA evidence linking him to her, even though her body was yet to be
• 7:11
  found. He was sentenced to fifteen years behind bars, and during this time
• 7:15
  he confessed to an inmate, Jonathan Mills, about murdering Joyveling Martinez and six
• 7:20
  others. He bragged about it, even going so far as drawing him a
• 7:25
  map of the shopping center and his burial grounds behind it, marking the exact
• 7:30
  places where the victims were buried. By now, it was twenty fourteen and
• 7:34
  the burial sights of the remaining victims had been announced to the public, it
• 7:39
  only took a few weeks to positively identify each one. The police put their
• 7:44
  case together one step at a time, going through rounds of evidence, interviews,
• 7:48
  and timelines in order to secure the tightest case against William Devon Howell the
• 7:55
  Sick Ripper, and in two seventeen, a judge sentenced him to six consecutive
• 8:01
  life sentences after he pleaded guilty to the murders of Cusack Martinez, Menard Gonzalez,
• 8:07
  Camelini, and Roberts. During his sentencing, he cried and apologized for
• 8:13
  his monstrous ways. He went on to beg for the death penalty, but
• 8:18
  his request was not honored. To this day, he is still incarcerated and
• 8:22
  expressed remorse for his own predicament, but no remorse for the victims and their
• 8:28
  families. That's ten Minute Murder for today, brief and binge able true crime.
• 8:43
  I'm Joe, I'm the host, and thank you so much for taking
• 8:46
  the time to listen to the podcast today. If you're new to Ten Minute
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• 9:35
  feedback is very much appreciated. Very quickly, let's read an email question submitted
• 9:41
  to me if you'd like to, by the way, email me a question
• 9:43
  or anything at all, literally anything. Joe at ten minute murder dot com
• 9:48
  is my email address. Hi Joe, my friends and I stumbled on your
• 9:52
  podcast and have been hooked ever since. We were wondering if you do an
• 9:56
  episode about the bedsit murders. It's a very interesting case. I think others
• 10:01
  would think so too. Btw, I'm one of the weirdos that used to
• 10:03
  ask what you like to drink while doing episodes. I haven't asked in a
• 10:07
  while, So, Hey, Joe, what are you drinking? You're the
• 10:11
  best? Lisa Michelle and Michelle in Wilmington's thank you for the email. Lisa,
• 10:16
  Michelle and Michelle in Wilmington. I don't know what state that's in,
• 10:20
  North Carolina Delaware. Those are the two that I know about. There could
• 10:24
  be another one that I'm not sure, but I really appreciate you taking the
• 10:26
  time to email. And I've been sitting on this one for a little while
• 10:30
  because I've been taking time to look up bedsit murders and how to approach that
• 10:35
  story. And the good news is coming next the next episode should be that
• 10:41
  story. And I totally forgot that people used to ask what I was drinking
• 10:43
  while doing this podcast. And yeah, I think you are the original person
• 10:48
  that started asking me, and then more people ask me. But it was
• 10:50
  around the time when coke zeros that used to be my favorite drink, they
• 10:56
  switched to red cans, and I decided in a very petty move on my
• 11:00
  part not to buy the red cans, And then I realized that diet pepsi
• 11:05
  was usually like a dollar cheaper, so I started buying diet pepsi. So
• 11:09
  that trend has continued to now. I'm not drinking that right now, right
• 11:11
  this minute, I'm drinking a Canada dry ginger ale zero sugar. And me
• 11:16
  and a friend of mine were talking a few days ago about ginger rale.
• 11:20
  I was talking about how much I like just drinking ginger ale and he was
• 11:22
  like, that's not a drink, that's an ingredient. You put ginger ale
• 11:28
  in things, And maybe that's true, but it's fine on its own.
• 11:31
  There's no caffeine in there. And I do eventually need to go to sleep.
• 11:35
  Okay, that's gonna do it. That is today's ten minute Murder episode.
• 11:39
  Thank you so much for listening.