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In April of 2001, St. Louis, Missouri authorities had a rising suspicion that a serial killer was on the loose as mutilated bodies of female sex workers began turning up one after another.
For over a year, authorities continued to discover these scattered remains along St. Louis city streets with little other evidence to provide any leads.
However, in May of 2002, St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a story about one of the mutilated victims, Teresa Wilson, and just days later, the reporter, Bill Smith, received an unusual envelope in the mail. It was adorned with an upside-down American flag stamped into the corner and had a return web address instead of a real address that redirected to a masochistic website
The inside of the envelope contained bizarre graphics of flowers, rakes, and a beehive. And underneath these graphics were two sheets of paper. The first sheet of paper had a note, typed in red: "Dear Bill, Nice sob story about Teresa Wilson. Write one about Green Wade. Write a good one, and I'll tell you where many others are. To prove I'm real, here's directions to number 17. Search in a 50-yard radius from the X.
put the story in the Sunday paper like the last. The second sheet contained a map of West Alton, Illinois that was marked with an X. Bill Smith reported the note to the police who went to investigate the X-marked spot. Hidden in the weeds in West Alton, Illinois, police found a woman's decomposed corpse. The note ultimately led to the discovery and arrest of Maury Travis, otherwise known as the St. Louis Strangler. Part one, the murderer.
Maury Travis was born on October 25, 1965, in St. Louis, Missouri. Little is known about his childhood, but from what the police did discover, Travis didn't seem to display any early warning signs that many serial killers typically display in their childhood. There was no evidence of arson or animal abuse, nor was there any evidence that Travis was a victim of abuse from either of his parents.
Those that knew Maury Travis in his younger age characterized him as a quiet and respectful boy. One of his old neighbors said that Maury would sometimes voluntarily mow her lawn and described him as a pleasant child with a soft heart that she didn't believe could kill a fly. Additionally, Travis's old English teachers recognized him and disclosed that he was an incredibly quiet and withdrawn teenager. After graduating high school in 1985 at 20 years old,
Maury Travis served for two years in the Army Reserve, working as a medical and dental assistant. Following his time in the military, Travis worked a variety of jobs with local trucking companies and also volunteered in local nursing homes in his free time. A few years later, Maury attended Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia, where his trouble with the law began. Part two, trouble with the law.
While in college, Maury Travis's downfall began when he developed a crack addiction. Costing Travis roughly $300 a day, the future serial killer had to find a way to finance his deadly addiction. In 1988, when he was home for spring break, Travis robbed five shoe stores in St. Louis over the course of eight days.
Shortly thereafter, he was arrested for stealing shoes and the detective was surprised of how respectful and quiet Maury was, stating that Travis wasn't your typical type of criminal. During his trial for the shoe robbery, Travis stated that he had used a plastic gun and hadn't intended to hurt anybody, claiming that he was on so much crack that he barely even remembered the robberies.
Despite his respectful disposition, Maury Travis was ultimately convicted of all five counts of armed robbery and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Maury Travis struggled in prison and he wrote a letter to the judge just a few years into his sentence begging for a lighter sentence. The letter described the conditions of the prison, the rapes, cramped quarters, and an abundance of drugs. He wrote, "'At any given moment, I think of taking my life,'
The conditions here are excruciatingly tormenting, to say the least. Staying in my cell and crying myself to sleep most every night will not help. But it's so very hard to believe this has happened to me. This whole situation is horrid. If it weren't for such a caring cellmate, I'd have committed suicide after my first day here at this institution. You, sir, are my last hope. Please give me another chance in society. Please."
Alongside his letter, he worked in the janitorial and food areas in an attempt to sway the judge. However, Travis was given 13 minor conduct violations. Ultimately, Maury was granted parole in June 1994 after five years and three months in prison. After prison, the St. Louis Strangler moved into a duplex in Ferguson, Missouri.
Even after his time in prison, the woman who lived in the next unit to Travis's said she never had any problems with him. She pointed at a time when Travis startled her while she was doing laundry in the basement of the building, stating that he was very apologetic. The woman further recounted that Travis started humming when he entered the basement, so he didn't startle her again.
Travis's freedom was short-lived though, as a few years later, he returned to prison for one year for violating his parole by possessing drugs. Several years later, he once again returned to prison for violating parole. When he was released, after spending almost a fifth of his life in prison and being given multiple chances to be part of society, the mutilated bodies started turning up across St. Louis. Part three, the hunt for the St. Louis Strangler.
After the police followed the strange note to the X-marked spot and discovered the decomposed body, they finally had their lead. When the Illinois state authorities tracked down the source of the West Alton map, they discovered it had been downloaded from Expedia.com. As a result, they issued a subpoena to Expedia.com requesting records of any maps made of West Alton in the days between the newspaper story about the mutilated victim and the day the letter was postmarked.
Expedia.com gave detectives the relevant internet service provider, Microsoft. Authorities continued to follow the online trail and issued another subpoena to Microsoft. The company was able to pull up the IP address of every user who had searched the West Alton map in recent days. There was only one.
FBI agent Melanie Jimenez stated that the user had zoomed in on the map of the West Alton, Missouri area approximately 10 times in a chronological order to end with an exact match of the map sent to the post dispatch. However, the company could not provide the name of the user, so authorities had to translate the IP number to find the user's identity.
In order to do so, the FBI used a company called WorldCom Inc. that provides local telephone numbers to connect internet services to their dial-up customers. They had to determine who used the relevant IP address at the time in question. The following day, WorldCom's internet division provided the username of the person in question. With the name of the user uncovered,
The FBI returned to Microsoft, which disclosed that the customer was Maury Troy Travis, a man with a history of drug abuse who had spent much of his life in and out of prison. Authorities promptly discovered the address of their suspect and applied for a search warrant. On June 7th, 2002, the FBI searched the home of Maury Travis and found some nauseatingly disturbing surprises. Part four, the arrest.
Early in the morning of June 7th, Detective Sergeant Tim Sachs from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department joined FBI agents to Maury Travis's home to carry out the search warrant and speak with the suspect of the string of murders. Travis answered the door and had a woman in the house with him. Detective Sachs reported that the suspect was not in a good mood. He was mad. He was in a pair of boxer shorts. The first thing out of his mouth was, "It's seven o'clock in the morning."
Detective Sacks replied, "You're right. It is seven o'clock in the morning and we're serving a federal search warrant." Travis asked why the authorities were at his house. And when the detective said, "You know why we're here." The St. Louis Strangler hung his head in response and agreed. "Yeah, I know why you're here." Investigators walked into the home to begin searching. While the police searched the home, the FBI agents and other investigators questioned Travis in his living room for two hours.
Travis told them that his mother owned the home and was letting him live there, but he refused to admit or deny anything. He was primarily interested in how the investigators and authorities had discovered his identity. Allegedly, the St. Louis Strangler became infuriated when he learned that the map he included in the letter he sent to the reporter, Bill Smith, had led to his discovery. After they questioned him in his home, the police took him downtown for further questioning.
Meanwhile, the police searched the home. The main floor was allegedly tidy and well-kept. They asked the woman if she'd been in the basement. She told them she hadn't. They made their way downstairs and uncovered a gruesome torture chamber. Blood stains were splattered across the walls and ceiling. It was stained onto all of the carpet and furniture. Trophies from his victims like women's shoes, underwear, and wigs were scattered across the chamber as well as a stun gun.
Inside of the file cabinet, police discovered a knapsack filled with his torture weapons. It contained items like duct tape, belts, rope, and gloves, all smeared with blood. Investigators also found a crude diagram of plans for a basement extension. St. Louis Police Captain Harry Heger disclosed that Travis was going to build two cells in there where he could chain the women
He was planning to install air vents out of the basement. And since there would be no bathroom facilities, he made a list of things that he needed. And one was adult diapers so he could keep these women captive for some time. In addition to searching the premises of the home, computer forensics experts showed up to search through Maury Travis's computer and found drafts of the anonymous letter that the reporter received. Along with the letter drafts, investigators found several videotapes in the basement.
Part 5: The Videotapes Police took the tapes to review as evidence. One of the tapes was labeled "Your Wedding Day". The first hour and a half of the video was a recording from a wedding ceremony. This proved to be a cover for the content in the rest of the film, which was a series of video recordings of Travis with various women in the basement. In each recording, Travis would torture, abuse, and rape each woman.
Frequently, the strangler would force his victims to partake in absurd routines in which the women would dance in white cloth or sunglasses with blackened lenses so they couldn't see. During these routines, the women often were not yet aware that they were in danger until Travis would restrain them, cover their eyes with duct tape, drag them down to the torture chamber, chain them to a beam in his basement, and imprison them for days at a time.
One of the recordings of the film showed the St. Louis Strangler with a woman named Cassandra Walker. Her hands and legs were restrained behind her, and she was chained to a wooden support beam in the basement. The recording shows Travis approach the defenseless woman, wrap a belt around her neck, and strangle her. When Cassandra Walker's body went limp, indicating her death, Travis is heard saying, "'This is first kill. "'First kill was 19 years old. "'First kill was nice.'"
On top of abusing his victims physically, he would also verbally abuse them by ordering them to call him master and taunting them for going home with him for crack. In one part of the recording, Travis gagged his victims or wrapped masking tape around their faces. One of his victims was filmed being ridiculed for getting into a car with a stranger. He first forced the sobbing woman to say, "You are the master. It pleases me to serve you," over and over and over.
You sorry? Travis asked the woman softly. His tone would sometimes dramatically shift from being soft and gentle to irate and violent. When his victim replied yes, he asked what she was sorry about. She said, the St. Louis Strangler angrily chastised. For jumping in a car with a man you don't even know? You sorry? In the video, the woman tries to explain that she's raising a child with the help of her parents. Travis cut her off. You ain't raising shit.
You're over here on your back smoking crack. You ain't going home. Keep you about a week. The content of Maury Travis's home films was so disturbing that the St. Louis police chief, Joe Mokwa, ordered every detective who watched the tapes to undergo psychological therapy and counseling. Part six, back in prison. In addition to the incriminating and disturbing videos,
Investigators were able to match tire tracks located near two of Travis's suspected victims to Travis's vehicles, confirming his involvement in their deaths. The detectives also realized that there was a pause in the killings during a time when Travis had a prior prison stint in 2001.
While detectives and authorities determined their options for criminal charges, the St. Louis Strangler was placed on 24-hour suicide watch in St. Louis County Jail. Suicide watch entailed round-the-clock observation with guards checking him every 15 minutes. The case took a turn, however, when guards failed to check in for two consecutive observation periods. When the guards returned, they found the St. Louis Strangler hanging from a makeshift noose in his cell.
He had toilet paper stuffed in his nostrils, a gag in his mouth, a pillowcase over his head, and he had managed to tie his hands behind his back. In the time that the guards were gone, Maury Travis had enough time to restrain himself and thread a strip of his braided bed sheet through an air vent above the toilet and use it as a noose. He left a suicide note addressed to his mother. "Dear mom, I'm sorry for the pain this caused you and the family.
My death seems to be the only way out and a fast end to all the publicity. You are the best mother a man can have, but I've been sick for a long time. Sick in the head since I was about 14. I don't know why. I was just sick. I've never felt normal or happy at any time in my life. I think about the life I led and what's ahead of me.
This seems the best solution for all involved, especially me because I won't spend the rest of my life locked up or worse, let them kill me with a needle. Tell grandma, Marina, James and everybody I loved them dearly. I love you the most, but you know that. Forever your son, Toby Travis. Maury Travis, the St. Louis Strangler, passed without ever confessing.
He never expressed any remorse for his actions and never gave any hints as to his motivation. The St. Louis police chief expressed that Travis had a lot of disdain for prostitution. He had a lot of disdain for women who didn't supervise their children properly and got a lot of self-esteem out of humiliating, degrading, and murdering people. Police found the remains of 12 women, but Travis, who claimed to have killed 17, was never formally charged for any of the murders.
A report was written up on his case and turned over to federal authorities who now use it for training cadets at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Part seven, the house. The story of the St. Louis Strangler did not die with Maury Travis in prison. 12 years later, a woman named Katrina McGaw from Ferguson, Missouri sat comfortably on the couch in her rented house one afternoon watching a TV documentary on A&E about the St. Louis Strangler.
As the documentary went on discussing the details of his house and his basement torture chamber, Katrina McGaw grew unsettled as she glanced at the house around her. When a picture of the outside of the house was shown, the woman made a grim realization. She was renting the house of the St. Louis Strangler. She thought about her two-year-old daughter who sometimes played on the pole in the basement where Maury Travis chained women up.
She quickly called her landlord and begged to be let out of the lease only to discover that her landlord was a woman named Sandra Travis, Maury Travis's mother. Travis's mom refused to let Katrina out of the lease, insisting that the tenant was still responsible for the rest of the lease term. Sandra Travis claimed that she had told her tenant, Katrina McGaw, about the house's disturbing history
But Katrina refuted this claim and was furious that the crimes were not disclosed to her when she was signing the lease. Unfortunately for Katrina McGaw, regardless of whether the crimes were disclosed, Missouri landlords are not legally obligated to inform applicants of crimes that have been committed on the property. So there was no potential legal action Katrina could take. McGaw had to seek outside help from the St. Louis Housing Authority to negotiate the lease.
and the St. Louis Strangler's mother eventually agreed to rescind the lease. Katrina McGaw successfully escaped from the dark house, unlike so many other women before her that entered the house of the St. Louis Strangler.
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