User:GeeJo/Sandbox/Gary Taylor (serial killer)

Gary Taylor (1936 – 19 April 1982), also known as the Royal Oak Sniper or the Phantom Sniper was an American

Michigan born in 1936, Gary Taylor spent his early years in Florida, launching his first attacks on women there, when he was in his teens. His standard M.0. involved loitering around bus stops after nightfall, waiting for solitary women to disembark, assaulting them with a hammer. Confined as a juvenile, Taylor returned to Michigan on release, in 1957, and there became notorious as the "Royal Oak Sniper," shooting women he found on the streets after dark. Thus far, none of his victims had died, and Taylor was shuttled from one psychiatric hospital to another over an eleven-year period, assaulting several Detroit women during ill-conceived furloughs. Despite his continuing violence and a self-proclaimed "compulsion to hurt women," Taylor was rated a safe bet for out-patient treatment, "as long as he reports in to receive medication." Tiring of the game in late 1973, he stopped showing up at the hospital, and authorities waited fourteen months before listing his disappearance with the National Crime Information Center in Washington, D.C. By that time, Taylor had murdered at least four women in three different states. A pair of victims from Ohio -- 25-year-old Lee Fletcher and 23-year-old Deborah Heneman -- were buried in Taylor's back yard before he abandoned his home in Onsted, Michigan, moving west to Seattle. There, on the night of November 27, he abducted and killed a young housewife, Vonnie Stuth. Officers traced him to Enumclaw, Washington, where he sat still for interrogation but refused to take a polygraph exam. In the absence of an NCIC listing, homicide investigators did not know he was a fugitive , and they were forced to set him free. By the time Michigan authorities plugged Taylor's name into the national computer, he had vanished again, bound for Texas. On May 20, 1975, Taylor was picked up in Houston on a charge of sexual assault, swiftly confessing his role in four murders. Victims Fletcher and Heneman were unearthed in Michigan on May 22, and Taylor signed confessions in two other cases, including those of Houston victim Susan Jackson, 21, and Vonnie Stuth, found buried near his former home in Enumclaw. Further investigation cleared him of six other Washington murders, now blamed on Ted Bundy, but officers in Texas, Michigan, and California suspect him in as many as 20 unsolved homicides. Convicted on the four counts he confessed, Taylor was sentenced to a term of life imprisonment.

An Ann Arbor mother of three disappeared from her Braeburn Circle residence on October 1, 1973. Sandra Horwath put her three children to bed and left her home, her family never seeing her again. Sandra was employed at the University Hospital in the accounting department. She was divorced from her husband and dated occasionally.

On the night she disappeared, she put her children to bed, then it appeared that she was preparing for bed. For reasons unknown, she got dressed, took her purse and left the home, leaving behind her three children, ages 9, 7, and 6.

From all accounts she was a devoted mother and the disappearance was puzzling. Initial questioning with her ex-husband, friends and coworkers, revealed nothing suspicious.

Detectives investigated the case tirelessly but were stumped as to why Horwath disappeared. Detectives continued to investigate the case and had no new leads for nearly three years. After investigating dead ends for three years, detectives received a call from the Houston, Texas police department, in April of 1976.

Houston detectives had arrested a subject named Gary Taylor for sexual assault. While he was in jail, his wife told authorities that he had killed and buried three women and a man outside a rented house in Onsted, Michigan, which is in Lenawee County. Based on their investigation, it was believed that Horwath's body was one of those buried.

Due to this information, Michigan authorities dug up the site and discovered two of the bodies, both of whom had been shot. Horwath's body was not one of the two, but it was believed she was buried somewhere nearby. It was found that Horwath had dated Taylor when she worked at the university, while Taylor was on leave from the Center for Forensic Psychiatry at the Ypsilanti State Hospital.

Taylor had a bizarre background, spending 13 years in a mental institution beginning in the 1950's for shooting a trio of women in Royal Oak. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity, telling authorities he “had a compulsion to hurt women”. You might think this crime would have kept him in the psychiatric hospital, but unfortunately it did not.

After being released, Taylor then went on to Washington and Texas where he was allegedly involved in numerous rapes and murders. He was accused of a murder and rape in Seattle and three charges of sexual assault in Texas.

Obviously it was suspected that Taylor was involved in the Horwath disappearance, but police could find no body and with no evidence, the case remains unsolved. I happened to speak with Lt. Tieman about the case when doing research and he stated, coincidentally, that he had read the Horwath file and was thinking of re-opening it.

It is still believed that Horwath's body is buried at the Onsted site and Taylor is responsible for her disappearance. In recent years the Onsted property has been excavated on two different occasions in the search for Horwath's body. Both of these searches have been unsuccessful, but it is still felt she was killed and buried in the area.

referenced in Criminal Minds series 3 episode 3