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Flat-Tire Murders
"Even in the daytime I'm scared."
During the mid-1970’s, a number of women went missing in Dade and Broward Counties, who were later found dead. Although some of these deaths were attributed to accidental drownings, most would be attributed to the work of one or more killers. These crimes became known as the Flat Tire Murders, after it was discovered the perpetrator had used this method to ensnare his victims.
At the time, local media referred to several of these cases as the Canal Murders, because a majority of the victims were found floating in canals throughout the counties of Dade and Broward. It was soon determined that the killer was incapacitating victims cars, rendering them helpless and in need of assistance, using the same method serial killer Ted Bundy had used to kidnap his victims.
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The Flat-Tire Murders: The Murder of Judith Oesterling
The first indication that a killer was stalking Miami Dade County came on January 26, 1975, then the body of 19-year-old Indiana native Judith Oesterling was found floating face-down in the Snake Creek Canal east of Highway 27 in Broward County, Florida.
She had been beaten with a rock in the nearby woods, before being stripped naked and dragged to the canal bank and thrown into the water when she drowned. Her father told police she had left her Rushville, Indiana home to head to Florida in the summer of 1974, and the last knew she was living in Orlando.
When she last spoke to her father in December 1974, she told him she got a job at a printing company, but refused to tell him where she was. Detectives said it was unclear when she arrived in the Miami area.At the time of her death she had been working in a massage parlour.
Investigators interviewed 22-year-old Sue Jane Walter, owner of Tiger’s Health Spa in Miami, where Judith had reportedly been working as a massage therapist and sex worker. She claimed she fired the young woman on January 25, the day of her disappearance, but said she didn’t know what happened to her after that.
Witnesses reported seeing her alive at 9:00pm as she left work. Oesterling was known to use hitchhiking as her primary means of transportation, and it was surmised she got into the wrong car and was murdered.
During the mid-1970’s, a number of women went missing in Dade and Broward Counties, who were later found dead. Although some of these deaths were attributed to accidental drownings, most would be attributed to the work of one or more killers. These crimes became known as the Flat Tire Murders, after it was discovered the perpetrator had used this method to ensnare his victims.
At the time, local media referred to several of these cases as the Canal Murders, because a majority of the victims were found floating in canals throughout the counties of Dade and Broward. It was soon determined that the killer was incapacitating victims cars, rendering them helpless and in need of assistance, using the same method serial killer Ted Bundy had used to kidnap his victims.
During the early to mid-1970’s, there was a rash of homicides and suspicious deaths of teenaged girls and young women in Dade and Broward Counties. Of these, nine of approximately 172 deaths have been variously attributed to the work of a single killer, while others have connected other cases as being associated with a perpetrator that has been dubbed the “Flat-Tire Murderer”.
During the initial investigation, this nickname was not used by the police or media, who instead referred to these unsolved cases as the “Canal Murders”, and although there is some evidence to link at least some to the work of a lone serial offender, it is generally believed that these murders were committed by more than one killer.
The Flat-Tire Murders: The Murder of Judith Oesterling
The first indication that a killer was stalking Miami Dade County came on January 26, 1975, then the body of 19-year-old Indiana native Judith Oesterling was found floating face-down in the Snake Creek Canal east of Highway 27 in Broward County, Florida.
She had been beaten with a rock in the nearby woods, before being stripped naked and dragged to the canal bank and thrown into the water when she drowned. Her father told police she had left her Rushville, Indiana home to head to Florida in the summer of 1974, and the last knew she was living in Orlando.
When she last spoke to her father in December 1974, she told him she got a job at a printing company, but refused to tell him where she was. Detectives said it was unclear when she arrived in the Miami area.At the time of her death she had been working in a massage parlour.
Investigators interviewed 22-year-old Sue Jane Walter, owner of Tiger’s Health Spa in Miami, where Judith had reportedly been working as a massage therapist and sex worker. She claimed she fired the young woman on January 25, the day of her disappearance, but said she didn’t know what happened to her after that.
Witnesses reported seeing her alive at 9:00pm as she left work. Oesterling was known to use hitchhiking as her primary means of transportation, and it was surmised she got into the wrong car and was murdered.
The Flat-Tire Murders: The Murder of Barbara Stephens
The following month another body was found. 23-year-old Barbara Stephens left her parents home southwest Miami, Palmetto, Manatee County, Florida, at around 7:00pm on February 12, 1975. She told her father she was going to visit a friend in Coral Gables, and on route there she stopped by a Gold Triangle store across from Dadeland Mall, where she bought a couple of rock ’n roll records.
After that she disappeared. The following afternoon, one of her co-workers found her abandoned Camaro in the parking lot of the Gold Triangle with the doors unlocked, keys in the ignition, and most worryingly traces of blood were found on the steering wheel. Officers noticed someone had deliberately let down one of her tires.
There are conflicting reports regarding the location her body was found, with some stating she was found murdered in her home. On February 20, her body was discovered in a patch of woods behind a grocery store at the corner of Southwest 87th Avenue and Sunset Drive.
Barbara was still wearing the same she had on when she vanished, but her slacks were pulled down and one of her shoes was lying a short distance from her body. She had suffered numerous stab wounds to her abdomen. It was the theory of detectives that the killer had used her vehicle to transport her body to the dump site, because of the blood, dust, and grass found in and on her Camaro, before returning it unnoticed to the Gold Triangle.
The Flat-Tire Murders: The Murder of Arietta Tinker
In April another young woman suffered a similiar fate to that of Judith Oesterling some three months previously. On April 9, 1975, at around 1:00pm 17-year-old Arietta Marie “Renie” Tinker was dropped off by her husband at the Hippopotamus lounge on Hollywood Beach. Although they were married, Arietta was separated from her husband at the time, and they had a 1-year-old son together.
When he asked her if she wanted a ride home, she declined, saying she would find her own way back. Witnesses reported last seeing her at the Lum’s restaurant near Young Circle, a little over half a mile from her home. When she failed to return home, her husband reported her missing.
Some three days later, her body was found floating in the Snake Creek Canal about half a mile east of Highway 27 in Miramar, just north of the Dade-Broward line. Reports at the time conflict regarding the nature of her discovery.
Some indicate she was discovered by four Miami teens who were out on a fishing trip, while others state she was found by an off-duty police officer riding his bike. The coroner stated his belief Arietta had drowned, and although there were no obvious signs of foul play, detectives suspected she had been murdered because there was no explanation of how she could end up dead so far away without her own car.
Her death immediately drew parallels with Oesterling’s brutal murder, because the body was found in approximately the same area where Judith was found less than three months earlier, but the similarities were few and far between, and the nature of their deaths could not be more different.
The Flat-Tire Murders: The Murder of Nancy Lee Fox
19-year-old Nancy Lee Fox was last seen alive on the night of June 13, with various newspaper articles reporting that she was seen walking to a local laundromat, hitchhiking, or had left her work a waitress at a Taco restaurant early because she felt ill, and was walking back to her apartment when she mysteriously disappeared.
Fox had moved to Fort Lauderdale from West Palm Beach in early 1975, after the end of a relationship. It was reported she was involved in an unhappy love triangle involving her sister and a young man named William Moore Jr. Just two days later her body was found floating in the canal parallel to Highway 27 in Broward County.
This was the same canal where Judith Oserterling’s body was found, and she was murdered under similar circumstances, having been stripped of her clothing, sexually molested and her head had been struck with a blunt object and choked before her body was thrown into the water
The investigation into Nancy Lee Fox’s murder focused on two primary suspects. One was a man named Walter Wirth, a convicted rapist, who had abducted 18-year-old Cheryl Ives from a laundromat just over a mile from Nancy’s apartment.
This occurred only 24 hours after her body was found in the canal. Wirth had slashed Cheryl’s throat with a razor blade when she tried to escape, but she managed to survive and provided officers with information that led to his arrest shortly after the attack. With no evidence linking him to the murder of Fox, Wirth was no charged with her murder.
Another suspect was reported by the Miami Herald in January 1976, and who had been involved in the love triangle with her and her sister. Although the report does not include the name of the suspect, it can be surmised this was William Moore Jr., however it is unclear is he was ever questioned as the case remains unsolved.
The Flat-Tire Murders: The Murders of Barbara Schreiber and Belinda Zeterowe
Just three days after the body of Nancy Lee Fox was fished out of the Broward County canal, two young friends were planning to stay over a friends. 14-year-old’s Barbara Joy Schreiber and Belinda Darlene Zetterower left the Schreiber family home in Hollywood on the evening of June 18, after telling Barbara’s mother that they would be going to spend the night at their friend Valerie’s house.
The next morning, a family friend discovered their bodies lying side by side along the canal parallel to Highway 27, approximately four miles north of Andytown. They had both been shot once, one in the head and the other in the chest, with a large-caliber bullet, most likely a .453, and due to the large amount of blood at the scene, investigators suspected both had been killed on the spot.
They were found fully clothed, but there are conflicting reports as to whether they were sexually assaulted. Some reports indicate they were, others disagree and one mentions that one of the girls was found wearing her underwear backwards.
When detectives investigated their whereabouts the night they were murdered, they discovered the girls had lied to their parents. When they contacted Valerie, she told them the girls never made plans to sleep over and that they often used this excuse when they wanted to go somewhere without their parents knowledge.
There are conflicting reports about the girls movements that night, but newspaper accounts at the time seem to indicate they were last seen near the intersection of Route 441 and Hollywood Boulevard, and according to Broward County investigators, were allegedly trying to catch a ride north so they could buy drugs.
The immediate concern among law enforcement was these deaths were connected to the murder of 19-year-old Nancy Lee Fox, whose body was pulled from the same canal just four days earlier and only 100 to 200 yards from where the two 14-year-olds were discovered.
The Flat-Tire Murders: The Death of Robin Leslie Losch
The fear that a serial murderer was loose became heightened on July 10, when a family vacationing from Fort Myers visited a rest stop on Highway 27 and spotted what appeared to be an arm sticking out of the canal, roughly ten miles south of where Schreiber, Zetterower, and Fox were found.
It was the body of another teen, 15-year-old Robin Leslie Losch, who had drowned in the same canal and was located just 200 yards from where the bodies of Oesterling and Fox were found. When she was found Losch was fully clothed, wearing her multi-coloured blouse, blue jeans and a sterling silver ring.
She had been reported missing just two days earlier by her parents when she failed to return home from summer classes at Stranahan High School. At about 3:00pm, she was asked by the owner of the Magic Market a few blocks from her home to leave his property because she appeared to be high on marijuana.
An assistant manager would later tell police that they saw her leave the store and walk south in the direction of Riverland Road. The autopsy determined she had likely drowned, but investigators resolutely disagreed over whether she was the victim of a murder or an unfortunate accident.
This theory was questioned by the fact that she was found fully clothed and there were no marks on her body to suggest any violence had occurred. The only wound found during the autopsy had been a small bruise near her right ear that was not thought to be the result of a beating.
A small baggie of marijuana was tucked inside her pocket, and detectives were told of an incident that allegedly took place at a party one week earlier, in which Robin, high on marijuana, became convinced that she could walk on water and subsequently had to be pulled out of a canal by her friends.
Losch was known to be an accomplished, award-winning swimmer, and her death left many unanswered questions. Detectives were unable to explain how she had come to end up so far from home, or her whereabouts in the 17 to 29 hours between the last known sighting and her likely time of death.
On July 11, the Broward County Medical Examiners Office stated that she may have died under “suspicious circumstances”, and Broward County Sheriff Edward Stack commented that her death could have been accidental, but was later quoted as saying that he was “inclined to think it’s murder”.
Meanwhile Robin’s parents believed that there were young people who knew more about her death than they were willing to say. For some, the likelihood of four teenaged girls ending up dead along the same 10-mile stretch of canal in three weeks seemed too much of a coincidence.
The Flat-Tire Murders The Murder of Ronnie Gorlin
During the early afternoon of July 22, 27-year-old respiratory therapist Ronnie Sue Gorlin stopped at the Asthmatic Children’s Foundation in North Miami Beach to catch up with some of her old co-workers. Ronnie, a lifelong resident of South Florida, had been working at Latrobe, Pa. and was planning to get married to her boyfriend Thomas Philips the following February.
She had been living with her fiancé in Pennsylvania for about a year, and returned to Hallandale to visit her parents for a few weeks while she planned her upcoming wedding. She happily told her co-workers about her wedding plans, and said she was going to pass by the 163rd Street Shopping Center before heading to Parkway General Hospital at around 2:00pm to see her mother, who was being treated for a stomach bug. But she never arrived at the hospital.
That same night, a North Miami shopping mall security guard called the North Miami Beach police department to have her rental car towed after it was found abandoned with a flat tire, blocking traffic in the parking lot of Burdines. The next morning, a surveying crew came across her nude body floating in the Graham Canal in northwest Miami-Dade County.
Her body was found in much the same circumstances as some of the previous victims, face down in the canal with her clothes removed, except for her sandals. The county’s deputy chief medical examiner, Dr. Ronald Wright, performed the autopsy, which revealed that she had been raped and sexually mutilated before drowning in the canal. The police believed the killer felt comfortable in the area because he continued to return and dump more bodies only short distances apart.
The Flat-Tire Murders: The Murder of Elyse Napp
Some eight days later another bdy was found. On the evening of July 30, 21-year-old Elyse Rapp headed out to do some shopping at the now-defunct Hollywood Mall. Rapp was a New York native who had moved to the Miami area for work in June 1975. The next morning, a man grading a dirt road spotted Elyse’s body floating in the Graham Canal, just ten blocks from where Ronnie Gorlin was found dead the week before.
Only one item was left on her body, a necklace bearing a small charm, the Hebrew symbol for “Life”. It was determined that she had been sexually assaulted before she was struck over the head, which would have cause concussion, and drowned in 10 to 12 feet of polluted water. Dr. Wright examined the body and noted that she was sexually mutilated in a very similar, but reportedly more vicious, way to Ronnie Gorlin.
Her death was so similar to Gorlin’s that investigators immediately linked the two to the same perpetrator. Rapp, who worked as a secretary for Kelly Girl Services in Broward, came to Florida for the summer, and had reportedly left her Hallandale apartment on July 30, and was last seen at the Hollywood Shopping Centre. This is where her car was located and was found to have a flat tire.
On August 1, the day after Elyse’s body was found, Dade County officials made a statement that they were now hunting a single suspect in Gorlin and Rapp murders, and that they were looking for possible connections to the Stephens murder as well as those in Broward County. The search for a serial killer targeting the women of Dade and Broward Counties was now under way.
Initially only some of these murders were thought to be committed by the same person and was due to the similarity of the crime scenes, the Modus Operandi of the killer and the signature used. Others believed these murders were committed by a much more prolific serial killer. The initial theory was proposed by Sonoma County Sgt. Erwin Carlstedt.
Ted Bundy: The Flat-Tire Killer?
He believed they were the work of the same person who was also responsible for the deaths of young women in the states of Washington and Utah. Carlstedt believed this killer was bi-coastal and travelled from east to west committing over 30 murders throughout the country. However, on August 16, 1975, a breakthrough was made in connection with the murders in Utah.
Ted Bundy was arrested after he attempted to evade a Utah policeman for a routine traffic stop. He was later linked to other murders in Washington, Idaho and Colorado. Florida investigators dismissed Carlstedt’s theory, and concentrated their search for an individual who had a very clear M.O. He would deflate the tires of his victims in commercial parking lots and then offer them assistance, before kidnapping and later murdering them.
During questioning, Bundy would admit that before he started killing, he stalked women and experimented on different ways of rendering their vehicles immobile so he could offer his assistance. He tried pulling the rotor device out of their motor’s distributors and also deflated the tires but these tactics failed on the university campus, which were his stalking grounds, as there were always plenty of guys around to help a damsel in distress. Although Bundy confessed to the majority of his murders in 1989, just before his execution, he did not admit to the murders associated with the Florida Flat-Tire case.
The Flat-Tire Murders: The Murder of Esmeralda Chaviano Gordon
On August 17, 1975, the day after Bundy’s arrest, the body of another woman was found in a rockpit near a canal. It was the wife of Seth Gordon, an administrative aide to Senator Kenneth Myers. According to Seth Gordon, the couple left their home to see a garage sale in southwest Miami at around 11:00am on August 17, and then returned home early in the afternoon.
At around 1:00pm, Esmeralda decided to go the 163rd Street Shopping Center while her husband stayed at home in case anyone called about an ad they had recently placed in the paper. Less than two hours later, her body was found by a passerby lying near a canal by SW 56th Street and 135th Avenue, with a bullet wound in her forehead. Her car was found abandoned at the shopping center the next day.
Mrs. Esmeralda Chaviano Gordon’s bronze Vega was found in the same parking lot that Ronnie Gorlin’s was, however her tires were not deflated. Unlike previous victims Gorlin and Rapp, Mrs. Gordon was still fully clothed when her body was discovered, and she had not been sexually assaulted or mutilated. Meyers described Mrs. Gordon as “a petite, very quiet, demure person.”
Investigators determined it was likely Mrs. Gordon had been shot to death inside her own vehicle, and her husband Seth was considered a suspect in the case. Although it is not known if law enforcement has conclusively ruled out Mr. Gordon as a suspect, as the crime remains unsolved, but by now most investigators were actively pursuing the serial killer theory.
Dade Sgt. Gary Miniuum said that the killer may have altered his methods of operating in an effort to disguise himself due to the publicity surrounding the murders. For most investigators the general consensus was that a different killer was responsible for the death of Mrs. Gordon. The law enforcement telecommunications system, which is a nationwide information network had singled out up to thirty-three murders in California, Washington and Utah that are strikingly similar to the Dade-Broward murders.
The majority of these murders would later be attributed to Ted Bundy, however a dozen committed in California and fitting a similar description ended in December 1973, just before Bundy began his murder spree in Washington State.
The assistant medical examiner of Dade County announced on August 29, 1975, that it was his belief that five of the killings, those of Stephens, Schreiber, Zeterower, Gorlin and Napp were committed by the same perpetrator. These crimes all shared similar traits, with the murders all involving white women under 30, with long hair and pierced ears.
Wade medical examiner Dr. Ronald Wright commented on the frustrations in catching a sexual psychopath, saying that the perpetrator had no former contact with his victims until the time of the murders. The sudden rash of murders had generated an atmosphere of fear within the Miami area, and authorities were offering a reward of $6,000 for information that led to the capture of the killer.
Female clerks who work in stores at the same shopping center where Mrs. Gordon and Miss Gorlin’s cars were found admit they are scared. One woman said, “I’ve never been a really brave person, but now I just don’t go out to my car along at night. Even in the daytime I’m scared.”
One of the investigators working the case said he had given his own wife advice and to “run screaming” for safety if she saw she had a flat tire. In September it was reported in the Sentinal Star that each of the victims cars were found with one flat tire, parked in shopping centre parking lots and that each of the victims drove rental and/or lease cars with “E” tags.
It was also stated that each of the victims were Jewish, and this meant the killer was extremely selective in his victim choice and that each were found stripped of their clothing except for a single item. The rest of the clothing was never found and had presumably been taken by the killer as a souvenir.
Investigators explained this by suggesting the killer was perhaps a fetishist who kept the victims clothing as part of his sexual fantasy. The medical examiner believed the victims were killed using a variety of methods including, shooting, stab wounds from an ice pick and blunt force trauma from the use of a hammer.
There was some belief that the deaths of other women are connected with the South Dade murder investigation. Dr. Wright stated his belief that the five murders were connected to the murders of two women several years previously. 14-year-old Joanne Weiss left her Miami home at 6:30pm, on September 20, 1973, to visit a friend of hers who worked at an ice cream parlor on Biscayne Boulevard.
She was last seen by witnesses walking back home a short time later, but she never arrived. When she wasn’t home by 9:30pm, her father called the police to report her as missing. Ten days later, an anonymous caller alerted police to a body in a canal behind Miami International Airport. The autopsy found that Joanne had been beaten and sexually assaulted before her body was tied to a concrete block and thrown into the water. The coroner was unable to pinpoint an exact cause of death, due to the level of decomposition.
Homicide detective Jerry Strickland noted that the stretch of Biscayne Boulevard where Joanne was last seen was known as a popular place to pick up prostitutes, and it was his theory that her murderer may have propositioned her for sex, and lashed out when she rebuffed his advances.
Dr. Wright also believes there is a connection between the murder and the discovery of an unidentified female skull on August 28, 1974. The human skull was found lying in the coral rocks along the Aerojet Canal about two miles north of the Dade-Monroe County line. Dr. Wright had performed the autopsy, and determined the skull belonged to a teenaged girl.
He said it she was likely between the ages of 14 and 18-years-old, who had apparently been shot in the back of the head. It is unknown if the Jane Doe was ever identified, or if her murder was connected to those of Barbara Stephens, Barbara Schreiber, Belinda Zetterower, Ronnie Gorlin, and Elyse Rapp.
The Flat-Tire Murders: The Death of Mary Ann Coppola
Despite the ongoing investigation, yet more bodies were found. On the morning of September 2, 1975, 15-year-old Mary Ann Coppola was dropped her off by her mother for an appointment at Genesis Outreach, a counseling center for troubled youths, but it is unclear if she actually met with her counselor that day and she was reported as missing.
For several months her family knew nothing about her fate, until New Year’s Day 1976, when a group of snake hunters found her scattered remains about 20 feet from a canal in a remote part of Homestead, Miami-Dade County. Due to the length of time her body had been exposed to the elements, the cause of death was undetermined.
Coppola was described by friends and counselors as a sweet, well-liked girl who was struggling with personal issues but who rarely confided in others about her problems. Her counselor at Genesis Outreach said she was “troubled over all the usual things a teenager is bothered by, such as peer pressure, friends, her parents, drugs”.
One friend told the Miami Herald that Mary was a “real straight girl” until she started dating an unnamed 27-year-old man who sold drugs at her school, and was trying to get her addicted to drugs too. No one has been publicly named as a suspect in her case, which like the others remains unsolved.
The Flat-Tire Murders: The Murder of Marlene Joy Annabelli
On October 26, 1975, the body of 27-year-old Marlene Joy Annabelli was found lying in the bushes in a remote area west of Cooper City, partially covered with sheets of discarded plywood. It was determined she had been beaten and strangled to death, likely on the same day she disappeared. Her estranged husband was quickly ruled out as a suspect, because he was still in Pennsylvania at the time of her death.
Marlene was tourist from Pennsylvania, who had arrived in Florida on October 15, and met up with some friends in Sunrise, who helped her check into a beachfront hotel in Fort Lauderdale. She was described as a petite blonde with blue eyes, and was last seen on October 22, by a maid who saw her leave her room and immediately went inside to clean it.
The maid proceeded to clean the room routinely for the next three days, even though it appeared that no one ever returned to it. On the October 25, Marlene’s friends in Sunrise became concerned and called the hotel after not hearing from her in three days. Meanwhile staff also reported her as missing to the police.
Detectives stated that she was “actively seeking male companionship” in the days leading up to her death, and they learned she was trying to get in touch with a married friend who lived in the area. This man said he had been avoiding her for some time before her death, and he was eventually cleared as a suspect after passing a polygraph test. On October 30, 1975, detectives announced that that Annabelli’s case was unrelated to the other Canal Murders.
The Flat-Tire Murders: The Jane Doe Murders
Other murders during late 1975 were considered to have at least some connection with the Canal Murders. On December 13, 1975, a man found the remains of a young brunette woman in Southwest Ranches in Broward County.
The body was too badly decomposed to determine the cause of death, but detectives suspected foul play, and noted the crotch of her red slacks had been torn open, suggesting a possible sexual assault. It is unknown if this victim was ever identified, or if her death was attributed to the Flat-Tire/Canal Murders.
Ten days later, on December 23, the body of a young woman was found floating in a canal about 1/5th of a mile north of Southwest 28th Street and 154th Avenue in Davie, Broward County. Her identity could no be confirmed and she was nicknamed Puka Shell Jane Doe by Broward County authorities.
She was described as a white female between the ages of 15 and 30-years-old, with medium-length auburn or brown hair, roughly 120/125 pounds, and about 5’5″ in height. She was wearing a green midriff blouse with flowers, flared blue pants, and dark blue platform shoes. Due to the level of decomposition, her cause of death could not undetermined, and investigators suspect foul play in her case.
The Flat-Tire Murders: The Murder of Michelle Andrea Winters
17-year-old Michelle Andrea Winters was last seen by her friends at about 1:00pm on December 30, 1975. She told them she was going to see someone, but never mentioned any names, and would take the bus to meet them by the beach on South Atlantic Boulevard in a couple hours, but she never arrived.
She failed to meet up with a family friend visiting from Canada on December 31, but called her boyfriend on January 1, to apologize for missing a date with him on New Year’s Eve. Two days later her wallet was found discarded by a canal in Broward County. On January 10, two men looking for firewood spotted her body in the Snake Creek Canal in Pembroke Pines, about 1 1/2 miles away from where her wallet was found.
The autopsy determined she had been strangled to death with a purse strap, which was found wrapped around her neck twelve times. There were also lacerations on her face, which some have speculated could have occurred post mortem. The autopsy also revealed that she had likely died three or four days after her wallet was discovered, but it is not known where she was during the period between January 1, and her estimated date of death on either January 6 or 7.
Her case was considered similar to that of Marlene Joy Annabelli, as both women were described as petite blondes with blue eyes, and both had been strangled and were found fully clothed but missing their shoes. At the time of her death, Michelle was living about 1 1/2 miles from the hotel where Marlene was staying, and they were both known to be “standoffish” with men they didn’t know. No suspects were identified or arrests made in either case.
The case of the Flat-Tire Murders or the Canal Murders is a complex and convoluted one. Many aspects of the case are unknown, and the investigation failed to identify any leading suspects in the connected cases of Barbara Stephens, Barbara Schreiber, Belinda Zetterower, Ronnie Gorlin, and Elyse Rapp. These were believed to have been committed by the same individual, who was possible the perpetrator in other murders such as Joanne Wiess and the unidentified woman found in August 1974.
The method used by the killer was widely different in each case, and it is likely that more than one killer was involved in the deaths of the women of Dade and Broward Counties. One seemed to employ using the flat-tire method to kidnap his victims, while the mutilations present in two of the murders indicate an escalation in the killers signature.
The murders stopped abruptly in late 1975, and no other crimes were reported with enough similarities to form a connection to the Canal Murders. The fact that so many of the victims were found in the county canals, might have provided a killer with an opportunity to conceal their crime under the serial killer investigation.
Indeed several of the crimes appeared to be the work of a completely unrelated killer, such as the death of Mrs. Gordon, who was shot to death in her own car. The use of the flat-tire method would seem to indicate a predator similar to that of Ted Bundy, who used that ruse to make women vulnerable to his approaches, however the Miami-Dade Killer seemed to be more elusive than Bundy, and managed to elude capture for his crimes.
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