Sentenced to life in prison August 17, 1999. Below is the infamous phone call to the Howard Stern Show. [2], On February 13, 25-year-old Stephanie Murray's body was found in a small pond near the Bonnet Carr Spillway. While the accusations had some meritthe FBI having actually ended their involvement with the task force so that they could investigate Rushings misconductthe jury was unconvinced, and in August 1999, Ellwood was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Cheryl Lewis. On May 4, 1995, less than a week after the formation of this task force, Gant was formally called in for questioning at the New Orleans Sheriffs Office. [10] Diane Gilliam, a former prostitute, told the court that she had known Ellwood since the early 1990s and had dated him periodically. Imagine youre driving to work one morning, or youre at home making breakfast, and you turn on the radio for some background noise. "Yesterday a guy called in and said that he had killed 12 prostitutes. The treads on her shoes definitively matched a shoeprint found next to a dead body that had been discovered only three hours earlier and only a mile awayand the victim had been Sharons best friend. According to her testimony, she had boarded the car of an unknown man in Algiers sometime in July, and after having a conversation with him, the man strangled her into unconsciousness and dropped her off on the streets. When questioned by investigators, Ellwood claimed he was changing the oil on his taxi and had chosen the remote location to dump the used oil without being seen. An autopsy deduced that she had been strangled, and prior to her death, had taken a large dose of cocaine, which could have caused an overdose. "Clay the Serial Killer" As he has been dubbed calls into the Howard Stern Show to admit to 12 slayings of New Orleans area prostitutes. A subreddit dedicated to the unresolved mysteries of the world. During the test, Rushing was unable to answer a series of questions regarding the missing receipts, but the result was inconclusive, casting doubt on Ellwood's guilt. Eventually, Ellwood was released again, and in January 1998, he returned to New Orleans. 5" and "John Doe No. Did your mom spank you? After his disciplinary hearing, Gant complained to the press, saying, A lot of other people who have been charged worse than that are still on the job. When Sharons sister, Teri, and a group of supporters arrived at the scene to confront Gant, he spit tobacco juice at them before walking off. Almost immediately, the FBI became aware of a dirty open secret within the New Orleans Police Departmentseveral officers were involved with or straight-up leading prostitution rings while on duty. Clay quickly, and almost with a sense of pride, callously answers "Twelve". Dennis Rader, also known as the BTK killer, murdered 10 people during his 16-year killing spree. A mother of three, she had a criminal record for drug possession. [5] One of them, Stan Hill, contacted the county prosecutor's office and claimed that Ellwood had described to him in detail how he had driven the women to outlying areas of the city, offering them large quantities of drugs that caused overdoses, then strangled and dumped their bodies. I'll look it up later. He then dumped her dead next to Louisiana's Highway LA 3160 in Hahnville. [6] In the early 1990s, Gant gained a reputation for being corrupt after a number of informants reported that he, along with a few others, were running racketeering operations against pimps and other criminals. You might have heard about Clay the Serial Killer and his controversy on The Howard Show. He said that he was 27 and the girl was 32. The victims were later identified as Karen Ivester and Sharon Robinson, 30 and 28, respectively. For more information, please see our As a result, he was convicted and sentenced to spend 85 days in the county jail. Next to the print matching Sharons shoe was a spit out wad of chewing tobacco. The call remained virtually absent from public discourseand even the internetuntil 2019, when fans of Stern began posting about the segment on Reddit, reigniting interest in the incident. Howard asked Lee what he used to cut the head off. At this point, nothing has been disclosed of Gant's fate afterward; whether or not there was a DNA match to the two aforementioned murders and/or the other 22 victims of the serial killer is unknown. Woods retired less than a year later while facing the suspension of his police license, and was eventually replaced by R.J. Collins, who apparently later hired Victor Gant. He was one of the two main suspects in a series of murders of women in New Orleans, Louisiana. The NOPD never released that information to the public, but somehow Clay knew about it, and he was right. Most were forcibly drowned or strangled. The phone call starts out a bit rocky as Stern goes to the phone call and asks "Is this Ed? Rainey was able to escape, but did not report the attack due to her criminal lifestyle. Ellwood himself denied knowing any of the victims or committing any murders, although he could not provide an alibi. He dumped her body in Behrman Park, within one mile of the spot where Danielle was found. She recounted an incident in which Ellwood forced her into his car at gunpoint, then drove her to an underpass where he beat, raped and robbed, threatening to kill her during the ordeal. His m.o. While this propelled the case to a national audience, the case remained unsolved. On January 16, he was stopped by traffic cops for speeding and was scheduled to appear in court, but failed to appear on time and was subsequently arrested for contempt of court. One Suspect Is A Cop", "Police Officer Is Suspect In New Orleans Killing Spree", "Dial 911 and speak to the prime suspect", "Murder case moves to Lafayette for trial", "Investigator denies destroying evidence", "One charge against Ellwood will be dropped", "Investigation of 26 killings concludes with one sentencing", "Appeals court upholds deputy's dismissal", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Storyville_Slayer&oldid=1152510708, Violence against women in the United States, CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 30 April 2023, at 17:38. Cheryl Lewis on February 1, 2, and 3, 1993 (drowned; found on February 21; it is unknown if the charges against Ellwood were dropped). This subject matter may be disturbing to some readers. An autopsy determined that she had been beaten and strangled. The link to a police officer was made last April when Sharon Robinson, a casino coin-changer, and her friend, Karen Iverster, were murdered. Russell Ellwood went on trial in 1998 for the murders that he committed in 1993 of Cheryl Lewis, age 30, from Bridge City, and Deloras Mack, age 40 . As he returned to the crime scene, as other serial killers do, it can be assumed that he was, but as far as is known, no information on the matter has been made public. This image shows a police sketch released to the media in 1992, after one woman survived an attack and provided a description to police of the man she said choked her and left her for dead. Each time 'Clay' answered a question he responded in a calm, matter-of-fact manner. The Zodiac vanished into quiet oblivion sometime in the mid-1970s and Weill committed suicide in 2006. The interview's tone slowly took a turn after Clay's response. Lewis' murder began a series of killings of at least 26 prostitutes spanning from 1991 to 1996 that authorities believe Ellwood is responsible for. The trial began on June 8, 1999, in Lafayette. Original music created by Micheal Whelan through Amper Music, Theme music created and composed by Ailsa Traves, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/new-orlea-murders-cold-case_n_581730c2e4b0390e69d1070c, https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/New_Orleans_Serial_Killer, https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/la-new-orleans-serial-killer-storyville-slayer-1991-1995.320712/, https://www.nola.com/news/crime_police/article_7c5a64cc-64ca-5f46-9491-074bc8f7de68.html, https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/dial-911-and-speak-to-the-prime-suspect-1581988.html, https://govsalaries.com/gant-victor-5361263, https://ultimateunexplained.com/clay-the-serial-killer/, https://www.reddit.com/r/howardstern/comments/c73ydc/sternthology_recently_had_on_clay_the_serial/, http://murderpedia.org/male.E/e/ellwood-russell.htm, https://criminalminds.fandom.com/wiki/Russell_Ellwood, https://criminalminds.fandom.com/wiki/Victor_Gant, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUE1yiMditE, https://www.newspapers.com/image/470203793/, Kimberly Riley & Jeremy Britt-Bayinthavong, Paul Skiba, Sarah Skiba, and Lorenzo Chivers, June & Jennifer Gibbons (The Silent Twins). [2] She remains unidentified, as is referred to as "Jane Doe No. [8] A number of other inmates witnessed a fight between Ellwood and another inmate, during which he allegedly said "Yeah, I killed that nigger bitch. With no confession or hard evidence to charge him with, detectives had no choice but to let Gant go. He began killing for unclear motives, taking the life of Cheryl Lewis, his first known victim, by drugging her and drowning her in a canal on February 1-3, 1993. When not imprisoned, he spent most of his time among fellow vagrants, with acquaintances describing him as an outsider who constantly sought to make get-rich-quick schemes, but consistently failed in his endeavors. 1. Camden later testified that Ellwood also confessed to him that he had killed a black girl, whose corpse he had dumped in the canal. [8] Officers found none of the items required for the fixes, not even a flashlight, which would be necessary to perform such repairs in an unlit area at night. "Clay" goes into graphic detail about some of his alleged kills, and gives details about cases not publicly known. Read full article on original website. He said it was a knife from what he was told. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Even if Clay the Serial Killer was not, in fact, Russell Ellwood, there is still a strong possibility that this caller was telling the truth. This was refuted by Ellwood's receipts, which show a puzzling two-week break in February. She was later identified as 39-year-old Lola Porter, who had gone missing from New Orleans in 1992. The single biggest issue, however, is thisClays self-professed favorite mode of murder was bludgeoning his victims to death with a hammer. To me, that's definitely a red flag as to what kind of guy we're talking about here. Weill had also photographed The Beatles final live performance before a paying audiencetheir famous August 1966 Candlestick Park concertand was now apparently obsessed with the Zodiac Killer, along with lawyer to the stars, attorney Melvin Belli, who was working with the Rolling Stones at the time. Replies analysing and speculating over the mystery and possible explanations are encouraged. The next day, Stern said on the show that the FBI came to the studio asking for a tape of the call. The Serial Killers Who Invented America. Was it real, or was this just another one of Stern's lowbrow stunts that he's famous for?Cla. [3] As a young man, he was a boxer and regularly went to the gym and did weightlifting, and closely matched the 1991 suspect sketch based on "Brenda"'s testimony. She was an impoverished mother of three who engaged in prostitution and had several previous arrests. He was a cab driver in Nola that raped & killed prostitutes. His explanation for stopping was to apparently change the oil and repair the brake pads of his car, and willingly allowed his vehicle to be searched. This policy was apparently the work of Carver College PD's first chief, Joseph L. Woods, who had been fired from five different police departments before finding work at the school in 2006. They got him iirc. Ellwood worked for a while as a freelance photographer in New Orleans and eventually worked as a cab driver. FBI agent John Fleming told the press in November 1995, "A common thread in the victims was their membership of prostitution rings that seem to have been connected with a group of NOPD officers. Well, thats exactly what happened on the morning of Wednesday, August 13, 1997, during a live broadcast of WXRKs landmark radio program, The Howard Stern Show. Did a notorious-a possibly uncaught-serial killer call the most popular radio show in America? In addition to Gant, another resident of New Orleans, Russell Ellwood, soon came under police suspicion. - The majority of known victims were sex workers. Clay hesitates for a few seconds before saying he actually used a hammer during most of his murders. - The known victims were killed between 1991-1995, with a gap lasting almost exactly one year in between February 1993 and February 1994. One of the people Collins gave a second chance to was Steven Wayne Turner, a Georgia police officer who had been fired for exposing his penis to a woman he had pulled over while working for the Lithonia Police Department. Clay told Stern he took a break for a year. She too had been strangled, but was had no known history with either drugs or prostitution. Russell Ellwoodis the man many believe to be "Clay the Serial Killer", the man who called The Howard Stern Show in 1997 and confessed to killing 12 women. With the 29th Pick in the NFL Draft, The Saints Select Bryan Bresee, Nate Diaz, Former UFC Fighter, Chokes Out Logan Paul Look-A-Like on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, The Worlds Largest Bounce House Heading to New Orleans April 21-23, Reopening Date Announced for Audubon Aquarium in New Orleans, 2023 New Orleans Jazz Fest is Going Cashless, Recall of New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell Falls Short, Official Numbers Show, Company Behind Popular Mobile Games Opens Hub in New Orleans, Louisiana, LSU Wide Receiver Malik Nabers Arrested in New Orleans on a Weapons Charge, New Orleans, Louisiana Accounts for 5 Percent of Mass Shootings Nationwide in 2023. The dramatic arrest in 2018 of Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. was all the more astounding because of how detectives said they caught . In 1993 he reportedly began killing "claiming the life of his first confirmed victim, Cheryl Lewis, by drugging her and then drowning her in a canal on February 1-3 of 93" according to criminalminds.fandom.com. COPYRIGHT_WI: Published on https://washingtonindependent.com/russell-ellwood/ by Jaya Mckeown on 2022-07-18T05:09:07.471Z. But then, just as he is answering, Clay suddenly leads the conversation by volunteering a piece of information that had not been previously discussed the fact that he knows some of his victims have not been found yet. According to her, Lewis had told Henry that she and Ellwood were on their way to a suburb of New Orleans, where her body was later found. and our Realizing the call could be real, that the man on the phone could actually be a dangerous serial killer, Stern and Robin began carefully grilling Clay in hopes of getting a few solid leads for authorities. Another complication is thisBaton Rouge, the possible Jimmy Swaggart town referenced by Clay, is over 80 miles away from New Orleans, where nearly all the bodies were found. I mean, he's a multi-millionaire and arguably the most recognized name in broadcasting, so clearly he's kind of good at his job. Jaya Mckeown - Jaya moved to Boston from New York to pursue a master's degree in corporate communications at Emerson College.
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