Terror in East Lansing: The Tale of MSU Serial Killer Donald Miller (4 page)

Though Tamika's aunt was raped and severely
beaten till she passed out, Annie Hilliard managed to survive her
ordeal. She went on to identify her attackers as Brown and Coleman
in a photo lineup. Yet the mental and physical trauma she was made
to endure has had a lasting impact. "She will get to screaming and
crying like someone is hitting her on the back of the head," her
mother, Mary Hilliard, was quoted as saying.
⁶
And the
economic costs left on the family were also felt. Hilliard
indicated that Annie's injuries amounted to medical bills totaling
$15,000, some of which their insurance did not cover.

* * *

The same day that Tamika Turks' body was
discovered, Alton Coleman had turned his attention to
twenty-five-year-old Donna Williams. She went missing, along with
her car, after agreeing to drive to Boston with what seemed like a
nice and trusting couple whom she had met in church.

On June 24th, Brown and Coleman forced their
way inside a twenty-eight-year-old woman's car at knifepoint in
Detroit, Michigan, insisting that she drive them to Toledo, Ohio.
But the kidnapping victim, likely fearful for her life, decided she
liked her chances better by crashing her vehicle into approaching
traffic, where she managed to successfully escape her abductors.
Warrants for Coleman and Brown were issued for the woman's
kidnapping as well as robbery.

On June 27th, Donna Williams' abandoned
vehicle was found in an alley in Detroit, Michigan. Inside was a
forged identification card that had Debra Brown's photograph on it.
Locals indicated that the car had been there since June 19th. There
was no indication as to where Williams was, though the assumption
was that she was no longer of this earth as a living being.

But Alton Coleman and Debra Brown were still
very much alive and on the loose as serial killers. On June 28th,
having stolen the crashed vehicle of their abductee, they drove to
Dearborn Heights, Michigan. There, Brown and Coleman broke into the
home of Palmer and Maggie Jones. The elderly couple was seriously
beaten with a club and Palmer was handcuffed before the pair robbed
them of a net total of $86 and stole their car.

On June 30th, Coleman and Brown continued
their path of violence when they robbed two men in Detroit. Later,
Brown and Coleman would add to their trail of violence and auto
theft by beating and robbing a woman and her friend before stealing
their 1975 Buick.

* * *

The elusive and deadly duo of Coleman and
Brown had now committed serious crimes in several states and, as
such, were being aggressively sought by the authorities in each of
them. The fact that they had proven to be difficult to apprehend
was frustrating to authorities, who believed they understood the
way the killer pair was operating.

According to FBI Special Agent John Anthony,
"We've come to the conclusion that Coleman and Brown are staying
with people they meet. They spend a day or two with the people, get
a little money gambling with them, and then assault and rob them
and steal their car."
⁷

Having made their way to Toledo, Ohio,
Coleman and Brown hardly missed a beat in picking out victims at
random, some unsuspecting that the facade of friendliness would
prove deadly. This was the case for Virginia Temple, who had a
number of children, including nine-year-old Rachelle, her eldest.
On July 5, 1984, after lowering her guard to the killer couple by
allowing them to stay overnight in her home, Temple paid the
ultimate price for her kindness when she and Rachelle were brutally
raped, beaten, and murdered by Coleman and Brown.

Virginia and Rachelle's bodies were crammed
into garbage bags by their killers the next morning. Then Coleman
and Brown moved on to locate new victims, as their murder spree
seemed unrelenting.

In the meantime, relatives became concerned
after not hearing from Virginia Temple. Arriving at her house, the
youngest of Temple's children were found hungry, alone, and
terrified, with no sign of Virginia or Rachelle.

Their corpses would later be located in a
crawl space. As with other victims of the serial killers, the cause
of death for Virginia and Rachelle was strangulation.

* * *

On the very day that Coleman and Brown
disposed of their latest victims, Virginia and Rachelle Temple,
they forced their way into the house of Toledo residents, Frank and
Dorothy Duvendack. Once inside, they tied up the couple, using
appliance cords and phone cords that they had cut. For some reason,
the Duvendacks' lives were spared. However, they were still
terrified, had been robbed, and had their car stolen by Brown and
Coleman.

On the run, but still crafty and confident,
Alton Coleman and Debra Brown arrived in Dayton, Ohio, where they
ended up spending a few days with the Reverend Millard Gay and his
wife, Kathryn. They actually attended a religious service with the
unsuspecting couple on July 9th. The following day, the apparently
unharmed Gays dropped off Brown and Coleman in Cincinnati's
downtown area, where they once again stayed on the move and one
step ahead of the law.

* * *

On July 11, 1984, the worst fears about Donna
Williams were realized. Her badly decomposed remains were found in
Detroit close to Wayne State University in an abandoned house about
a half mile from the spot where her vehicle was located. In what
was a familiar pattern of killing, the cause of her death was
ligature strangulation.

Needless to say, the parents of Williams,
Robert and Zenota Williams, were beyond despair knowing that their
daughter had died in such a terrible way. They are still left with
unanswered questions years later. "I will always wonder what,
exactly, happened," Zenota Williams stated in an interview with the
Detroit Free Press
.
⁸
Such haunting thoughts
typically plague the loved ones of homicide victims who are often
never able to come to terms with the tragedy.

* * *

As misfortune would have it, also on July
11th, fifteen-year-old Tonnie Storey of Cincinnati, Ohio, became
Coleman and Brown's next victim. Having left home that day for a
junior high school computer class, Storey was reported missing when
she did not return home after school.

Eight days later, the bound, partially
decomposed remains of Storey were located in an abandoned building
on May Street. The autopsy determined her cause of death to be
homicidal asphyxia.

A classmate of Tonnie Storey's would later
testify to seeing Alton Coleman conversing with Storey the day she
vanished. Coleman's fingerprint was found at the scene of the crime
and a watch was discovered underneath Storey's body. The watch was
later identified as belonging to Dorothy Duvendack, an earlier
victim of Coleman and Brown who lived to talk about it.

* * *

On July 17, 1984, with the increasing number
of rapes, robberies, and homicides across the Midwest attributed to
Alton Coleman, though with a clearly willing accomplice, the FBI
placed Coleman on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List as a "special
addition." In the process, Coleman became only the tenth person to
be named a special addition to the Top Ten List since the list's
inception on March 14, 1950, joining infamous and "toughest
guys"—or those thought to be a "particularly dangerous menace to
society"—such as James Earl Ray (Martin Luther King's assassin),
Ramzi Ahmed Yousef (mastermind behind the 1993 bombing of the World
Trade Center) and, more recently, Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin
Laden.

In spite of being in such notorious company,
Coleman and his partner in serial murder, Debra Brown, continued to
leave a trail of victims in their wake.

On the morning of July 13, 1984, the pair
brazenly rode bicycles into Norway, Ohio. They went to the home of
Harry and Marlene Walters pretending to be interested in their
travel trailer, which was for sale. After conning their way inside
the couple's house, Coleman and Brown were quick to overpower them,
inflicting terrible punishment before strangling them. Marlene
Walters was hit as many as twenty-five times and her face and scalp
were mutilated with a pair of vise grips. She died during the
ordeal. Though her husband Harry was able to survive, he suffered
brain damage from the vicious assault.

Harry Walters would later testify that after
inviting Coleman and Brown into their home to talk about buying
their trailer, Coleman lifted a wooden candlestick and smashed it
hard against the back of his head as he sat on the couch, breaking
the candlestick from the powerful blow. It pushed a mass of bone
against the brain of the powerless victim.

According to the Walters' daughter, Sheri
Walters, she arrived at the house after work at around 3:45 p.m.,
finding her mother deceased and her father clinging to life in the
basement. Both parents had "ligatures around their throats and
electrical cords tied around their bare feet. [Marlene's] hands
were bound behind her back and [Harry's] hands were handcuffed
behind his back."
⁹
A blood-soaked sheet covered the head
of Marlene Walters. The coroner reported that "the back of her
skull was smashed to pieces," with portions of her skull and brain
missing.
¹⁰

Alton Coleman's fingerprints were found on
pieces of a broken bottle in the living room and bloody footprints,
left by two different types of shoes, were discovered in the
victims' basement.

* * *

After what Coleman and Brown believed were
two more dead victims to add to their ruthless, murderous crimes,
they stole money and jewelry from the Walters home, took their red
Plymouth Reliant, and fled the scene. The vehicle would be found in
Lexington, Kentucky two days later. But the serial killer couple
remained on the loose and as dangerous as ever.

They made their way to Williamsburg,
Kentucky. On July 16, 1984, political-science college professor
Oline Carmichael Jr., forty-five, was abducted by the fugitive
killers as he walked to his car and forced into the trunk. Coleman
and Brown drove the vehicle to Dayton, Ohio. The police discovered
the abandoned car the next day with Carmichael in the trunk. He was
shaken, but still alive.

Two other Dayton couples were intimidated,
beaten, robbed, and/or had their car stolen by Coleman and Brown,
who were getting desperate in their attempt to continue to evade
the law.

* * *

Upon returning to the home of Reverend
Millard Gay, the serial killer couple confronted Millard and his
wife Kathryn with guns. This prompted Millard, who clearly
recognized the fugitives that they had befriended, to ask angrily,
"Why you want to do us like that, like this?"
¹¹

Coleman reportedly answered, "I'm not going
to kill you, but we generally kill them where we
go."
¹²

This likely gave the Gays little comfort, but
apparently they were not harmed physically. Brown and Coleman stole
their car and drove it in the direction of Evanston, Illinois.

The next person they accosted was not so
fortunate. Seventy-seven-year-old Eugene Scott was murdered by the
serial killers in Indianapolis, Indiana, after which they stole his
vehicle and headed toward their final destination of Evanston,
before the reign of terror would finally come to a halt.

* * *

On July 20, 1984, in Evanston, Coleman and
Brown were recognized by someone who was casually acquainted with
Coleman. The wanted fugitives were on foot, crossing the street.
The citizen drove to a nearby gas station to contact the
authorities.

Having managed to dodge law enforcement
through six states for fifty-three crime-filled days, including
fourteen armed robberies, at least seven sexual assaults, three
kidnappings, and eight murders, among other felonies, Alton Coleman
and Debra Brown, no doubt believed this was just another stop along
the way until they were ready to move on to other random targets of
opportunity to commit violence.

Just before noon, the couple took a break
from their crime spree to watch a pickup game, sitting in the
bleachers at Mason Park, located on the city's West Side.
Unbeknownst to them, undercover police officers had honed in on
them and were ready to make their move, leaving nothing to chance
in the killer duo escaping yet once again.

Alton Coleman and Debra Brown, apparently
suspicious that something was going on, split up. Authorities were
quick to surround Coleman as he tried to walk away. With a
different, shorter haircut than the Jheri curls he had been
photographed with, and no identification, Coleman, who was used to
conning his way out of difficult situations, insisted, "You got the
wrong man."
¹³
He tried to bolster his argument by giving
two aliases, to no avail.

In the meantime, other police arrested Brown
before she could leave the park, finding a loaded gun in her
handbag. She called herself "Denise Johnson."

Both suspects were taken into custody without
incident and subsequently identified through their fingerprints at
the Evanston Police Department.

During a strip search of Alton Coleman, a
steak knife was found hidden between two pairs of sweat socks he
wore. When arrested, Coleman and Brown were also in possession of a
shopping bag that contained various tee shirts and caps that the
couple apparently used to frequently change their appearance in an
attempt to avoid detection.

Bail was set for Alton Coleman at $25 million
and for Debra Brown at $20 million, assuring that there was no
chance the serial murder suspects would be able to flee on bail to
kill again.

* * *

Given the multiple states and many
jurisdictions that Coleman and Brown had perpetrated their numerous
offenses, more than fifty members of law enforcement from Illinois,
Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin got together to
decide the best plan for prosecuting the deadly serial
offenders.