Tracy Housel

Housel's first notable crime occurred on March 16, 1984, when he attempted to rob 27-year-old Sophia Love Lewis in Salinas, California.[1] He had invited her over to a motel, where he then threated her with a knife and stole $100 and left. Lewis was able to give a detailed description of him and his vehicle, leading to his arrest only hours later.[1] However, it is unclear if he was ever imprisoned for this crime.

During his six-week crime spree, Housel, using his job as a truck driver, would travel across various states and visit Western-themed bars or gas stations, presenting himself as a cowboy or member of a biker gang. He would befriend both men and women, whom he would attempt to kill in isolated locations, either after robbing, sexually assaulting them, or both.

His first confirmed murder with a known date occurred on February 20, 1985, when he picked up South Dakota truck driver Troy Smith somewhere in Texas.[2] After spending most of the night drinking together, he sodomized and then bludgeoned Smith to death with a hammer, before dumping his body at a Union 76 outside Rose City.[2]

On March 30, Housel was at a truck stop in Council Bluffs, Iowa, when he came across 45-year-old Gary Lee Kennedy, who was hitching for a ride to Atlantic.[3] Housel offered to drive him there, but on the way, he pulled out a knife and stabbed Kennedy four times, cut his throat and then left him to bleed out in a ditch near the I-80, stealing his car and wallet beforehand.[3] Kennedy was found by a passer-by and driven to a hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, where he survived his injuries. His car would later be found abandoned in Spartanburg, South Carolina.[3]

On April 3, Housel picked up an unnamed 18-year-old woman from a bar in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, then drove her to an isolated spot near the Freeman School, where he bound, raped and robbed her.[4]

Just three days later, on April 6, Housel found himself at a Union 76 in Lawrenceville, Georgia, where he began conversing with 44-year-old Carolyn Jean Dellinger Drew, a local woman who sometimes sought to speak to strangers to alleviate her loneliness.[5] After leaving the bar together, Housel brought Drew to a driveway in Norcross, where he proceeded to rape, strangle and then beat her to death with a stick. He then stole Drew's credit card and 1981 silver Ford Mustang, and drove to Daytona Beach, Florida, where he would be arrested on April 15 after attempting to pay a bill using her credit card.[6] While inspecting his belongings, officers noticed that Housel was missing a ring he was known to wear on one of his fingers, which was later found next to the body of Jean Drew.[7]

Soon after his arrest, investigators from states around the country began inquiries to see if they could connect Housel to any recent unsolved crimes in their area. As he was last known to reside in Tulare, California, authorities initially suspected that he might be involved in the murder of 44-year-old Dixie Lee Ricks, who had been sexually assaulted and strangled in Visalia on January 28.[8] While the murder shared similarities with that of Drew, investigators were unable to place Housel in the vicinity of the crime and the case went unsolved at the time.[8] In 2010, sex offender Steven Walter Gomez would be linked to the Ricks case via DNA, convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.[9]

Two other murders for which Housel was investigated took place in Tulare: the 1981 murder of Michael James Morgan and the 1983 murder of Eligio "Eli" Zamorano.[10] On December 30, 1981, the 31-year-old Morgan, a truck driver from Lakeside, was resting at a Travelodge when he answered a knock on his door and was then stabbed once in the heart by an unknown individual, the blow proving to be fatal. The latter murder took place on October 31, 1983, when the 29-year-old Zamorano, the head cook of a local Vejar's, was stabbed and beaten to death under unclear circumstances.[10] Authorities at the time noted that both killings shared similarities with the later murder of Troy Smith, but Housel was never officially connected to either killing, both of which presumably remain unsolved.[10]

Housel was at one time considered to be a possible suspect in at least two of the Redhead murders, one of them being that of Espy Pilgrim, but he was presumably ruled out shortly afterwards.[11]

For the next seventeen years, Housel attempted to appeal his death sentence, but was ultimately unsuccessful. As his execution date was scheduled for March 2002, he was visited by John Latty, a deacon and ex-police officer who was one of the people who found Drew's body.[7] He approached Housel with a plea for him to confess to the full extent of his crimes, as in 1986, during an interrogation between the two of them, Housel had broken down in tears and told him that he had killed seventeen people throughout his lifetime.[5] His claims were not without merit, as in 2001, Latty had helped the police in Los Angeles solve the 1985 murder of a transvestite after providing them with testimony from Housel, but no specific details about the case were disclosed.[7]

When notified about his impending execution, Housel's relatives and British officials pleaded with the authorities in Georgia to commute his sentence.[15] Among them were Labour MP for Redcar Vera Baird, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and attorney Clive Stafford Smith, who argued that Housel - a dual British-American national born in Paget Parish, Bermuda - should be spared because of his abusive childhood, severe case of hypoglycemia and his lawyer's many mistakes during his original trial.[15]