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Table of Contents
1. The Story Of Billy Mansfield & Secrets Hidden In The Green Bus
2. Gay Encounter Costs Priest His Life
3. Torture Murder In The Swamp
4. A Christmas Rabbit Hunt Became A Night Of Murder
5. Shootout In Sumter County
6. He Killed The Pretty Young Women
7. Murder To Be Popular
8. A Gunman’s Intent: She’s As Good As Dead
9. Rumble At The Old Publix
10. They Killed For A Hunk of Crack
11. Granny Killer On The Loose
12. Killer Left Body For The Dogs
13. She Awakened To A Gunshot In The Night
14. Killers Claim Rock Star & Bodyguard Fame
15. Couple On The Run: Caught With Gun In Her Panties
16. She Listened To Kidnappers Plot Her Murder
17. Mother & Daughters Dumped In The Bay
18. Cop Log I
19. Cop Log 2
20. Cop Log 3
21. Epilogue
1. The Story Of Billy Mansfield & Secrets Hidden In The Green Bus
2. Gay Encounter Costs Priest His Life
3. Torture Murder In The Swamp
4. A Christmas Rabbit Hunt Became A Night Of Murder
5. Shootout In Sumter County
6. He Killed The Pretty Young Women
7. Murder To Be Popular
8. A Gunman’s Intent: She’s As Good As Dead
9. Rumble At The Old Publix
10. They Killed For A Hunk of Crack
11. Granny Killer On The Loose
12. Killer Left Body For The Dogs
13. She Awakened To A Gunshot In The Night
14. Killers Claim Rock Star & Bodyguard Fame
15. Couple On The Run: Caught With Gun In Her Panties
16. She Listened To Kidnappers Plot Her Murder
17. Mother & Daughters Dumped In The Bay
18. Cop Log I
19. Cop Log 2
20. Cop Log 3
21. Epilogue
| Local slayings recounted in "Murders in the Swampland" |
| Writer visits McNairy County By Micah Smith From the Independent Appeal Selmer, TN |
| Books by Patricia Lieb |
| Book Reviews |
This is a review from the Citrus County Chronicle (Florida) written by
Chris Van Ormer
"Murders in the Swampland"
Many people move to the Nature Coast knowing little about the region.
Certainly, they've been enticed by the climate and the natural beauty of the countryside, the Gulf of Mexico
and the lower cost of living. Yes, the Nature Coast is an attractive place.
What almost no newcomer to the region does is check the crime files. Perhaps the newcomer will look up
the statistics and see fewer hard crimes here than in the place they are leaving and be reassured.
However, a higher crime rate reflects a larger population than that of the Nature Coast. And statistics never
put a face to crime.
Putting a face on big crimes in the Nature Coast is what Patty Shipp (Lieb) has
done in her book, "Murders in the Swampland." She chronicles 17 murder cases
from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Some of these cases Shipp covered while
she was the crime reporter for the Sun_Journal in Brooksville, from 1987 until
the newspaper shut down in 1991.
Shipp mentions her editor, Ken Melton, who now works for a sister newspaper of the Citrus County
Chronicle, and credits Melton with encouraging her to publish her book.
Each story could be fiction, if the facts and characters were not so real. The scenes of murders, the roads
traveled by the murderers and the lawmen who caught them exist. Many of the lawmen are still at work and
are well known the communities. Most of the crimes are set in Hernando County, but adjacent counties
figure in as well.
Each story has a horrible uniqueness, but all the murders are amateurs, even the serial killers detailed in
the book. Many mistakes are made that lead the lawmen to the killers. It is refreshing to see the entire
crime put into one document, rather than revealed in the installments of newspaper reports.
These stories read like accounts in detective magazines, for which many of them were written. Thus the
reader learns about the serial killer, Billy Mansfield, who in the late 1970s and early 1980s picked up young
women hitchhikers on U.S. 19, took them back to his mother's trailer in Weeki Wachee for some hours of
rape and torture before murdering them and burying them in the back yard. I have lived near Weeki
Wachee for more than seven years, I had never heard about the Mansfield murders.
What is unusual about those murders and several others in the book is that so
many people at the time knew about them and said nothing. Indeed, the sheriff
said he would have to build a wing on the jail to detain all the people who had
withheld evidence about Mansfield's crimes. But those folks knew about the
murders after the fact.
A more surprising crime happened Aug 3, 1990, in Floral City, when many people were aware of the plot to
murder Joanne Sanders. The gang at a car repair business in Melrose would get together and talk about
how it should be done, priming the murderer-to-be, John Barrett.
This case was perhaps the most bungled of the 17 in the book, because Sanders
never got murdered at all. But four m,en who entered her house before she did
were killed, while Barrett was waiting for her.
Barrett was gone when Sanders came home and found the bodies. One thing this story does not tell the
reader is why Barrett left before Sanders came home. Perhaps he lost his nerve, or perhaps he thought of
something else to do.
A striking similarity in may of these cases is the randomness of the violence. Many of the victims were not
safe in the security of their own homes, where the killer broke in through the screen door in the back or
just knocked on the front door and asked to use the phone or bathroom.
In the case of the serial killer Mike Kaprat, the Granny Killer of Spring Hill, who murdered several elderly
women between August and October in 1993, some of the victims had one thing in common--they had
written checks to the same handyman who was Kaprat's relative whom Kaprat occasionally worked for as a
helper.
Kaprat's motive was hard to determine. He would break in, rape and torture the elderly female victim, tied
her to her bed, then set fire to it. When the law enforcers picked him up, Kaprat expressed loathing for the
crime. Although Kaprat was an odious person, likely on one loathed him as much as he hated himself.
Kaprat was tried, convicted and sentenced to the electric chair, but never made it to "Ol' Sparky." He was
murdered by a fellow inmate. However these were not all acts by strangers. Murders killed friends,
relatives and spouses. They killed for money, for a car, for a tire, for a rock of cocaine or for the thrill of it.
The reader gains a heightened sense of paranoia, that at any moment a knock at the door or a trip to the
kitchen can mean death. All of these cases really happened, in a neighborhood near yours or even next
door.
Chris Van Ormer is a desk editor at the Chronicle.
Chris Van Ormer
"Murders in the Swampland"
Many people move to the Nature Coast knowing little about the region.
Certainly, they've been enticed by the climate and the natural beauty of the countryside, the Gulf of Mexico
and the lower cost of living. Yes, the Nature Coast is an attractive place.
What almost no newcomer to the region does is check the crime files. Perhaps the newcomer will look up
the statistics and see fewer hard crimes here than in the place they are leaving and be reassured.
However, a higher crime rate reflects a larger population than that of the Nature Coast. And statistics never
put a face to crime.
Putting a face on big crimes in the Nature Coast is what Patty Shipp (Lieb) has
done in her book, "Murders in the Swampland." She chronicles 17 murder cases
from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Some of these cases Shipp covered while
she was the crime reporter for the Sun_Journal in Brooksville, from 1987 until
the newspaper shut down in 1991.
Shipp mentions her editor, Ken Melton, who now works for a sister newspaper of the Citrus County
Chronicle, and credits Melton with encouraging her to publish her book.
Each story could be fiction, if the facts and characters were not so real. The scenes of murders, the roads
traveled by the murderers and the lawmen who caught them exist. Many of the lawmen are still at work and
are well known the communities. Most of the crimes are set in Hernando County, but adjacent counties
figure in as well.
Each story has a horrible uniqueness, but all the murders are amateurs, even the serial killers detailed in
the book. Many mistakes are made that lead the lawmen to the killers. It is refreshing to see the entire
crime put into one document, rather than revealed in the installments of newspaper reports.
These stories read like accounts in detective magazines, for which many of them were written. Thus the
reader learns about the serial killer, Billy Mansfield, who in the late 1970s and early 1980s picked up young
women hitchhikers on U.S. 19, took them back to his mother's trailer in Weeki Wachee for some hours of
rape and torture before murdering them and burying them in the back yard. I have lived near Weeki
Wachee for more than seven years, I had never heard about the Mansfield murders.
What is unusual about those murders and several others in the book is that so
many people at the time knew about them and said nothing. Indeed, the sheriff
said he would have to build a wing on the jail to detain all the people who had
withheld evidence about Mansfield's crimes. But those folks knew about the
murders after the fact.
A more surprising crime happened Aug 3, 1990, in Floral City, when many people were aware of the plot to
murder Joanne Sanders. The gang at a car repair business in Melrose would get together and talk about
how it should be done, priming the murderer-to-be, John Barrett.
This case was perhaps the most bungled of the 17 in the book, because Sanders
never got murdered at all. But four m,en who entered her house before she did
were killed, while Barrett was waiting for her.
Barrett was gone when Sanders came home and found the bodies. One thing this story does not tell the
reader is why Barrett left before Sanders came home. Perhaps he lost his nerve, or perhaps he thought of
something else to do.
A striking similarity in may of these cases is the randomness of the violence. Many of the victims were not
safe in the security of their own homes, where the killer broke in through the screen door in the back or
just knocked on the front door and asked to use the phone or bathroom.
In the case of the serial killer Mike Kaprat, the Granny Killer of Spring Hill, who murdered several elderly
women between August and October in 1993, some of the victims had one thing in common--they had
written checks to the same handyman who was Kaprat's relative whom Kaprat occasionally worked for as a
helper.
Kaprat's motive was hard to determine. He would break in, rape and torture the elderly female victim, tied
her to her bed, then set fire to it. When the law enforcers picked him up, Kaprat expressed loathing for the
crime. Although Kaprat was an odious person, likely on one loathed him as much as he hated himself.
Kaprat was tried, convicted and sentenced to the electric chair, but never made it to "Ol' Sparky." He was
murdered by a fellow inmate. However these were not all acts by strangers. Murders killed friends,
relatives and spouses. They killed for money, for a car, for a tire, for a rock of cocaine or for the thrill of it.
The reader gains a heightened sense of paranoia, that at any moment a knock at the door or a trip to the
kitchen can mean death. All of these cases really happened, in a neighborhood near yours or even next
door.
Chris Van Ormer is a desk editor at the Chronicle.
| True Crime Florida's Central Swamplands |
Patricia Lieb recently published her true crime book , after spending many years in the writing
business as a journalist.
"Murders in the Swampland" contains 17 true crime stories that took place in the Brooksville, FL, area
while Lieb was a reporter for the Daily Sun-Journal. The stories are sometimes gruesome and shocking,
especially since they are all based on fact.
Her stories of events that include serial killers, kidnapping, murders and murders for hire show a blend
of styles.
They are written in a journalistic style, which brings the reality of the crimes home, but they also have
the narrative approach of a work of fiction to add an emotional edge to the horror of many of the stories.
Lieb also mixes in her own notes on some of the cases and ends the book with a series of cop logs
relating humorous briefs of events that happened into he area.
"I had a regular beat and at night I had time to go to the library and research the records for police
stories at the courthouse," said Lieb. "All the information in her is from reading court depositions and
talking to police officers, public attorneys and prosecutors. I had a lot of friends in the county so it was
easy to just call them."
Lieb is an experienced writer, she freelances for several papers and magazines, has worked full-time at
several papers in Illinois and Florida and has published several collections of poems including
Captured and Catholics and Publics.
Lieb recently quit her job working for the Suncoast News in New Port Richey, FL, to come to Selmer and
stay with her parents, Walter and Rachel Reeves.
" My parents were both sick," related Lieb. "Pop had prostate cancer. They did surgery on that and it
appears he is clear. Mother has another biopsy so I am here indefinitely."
Lieb said her parents decided to move to Selmer in 1989 because they have numerous relatives wo
already live in the area.
Lieb said she is planning to not take another full-time job to focus on other writing projects. "I´m gonna
get back into it and now I don´t plan to get another job," said Lieb. "I´m glad I´m going to free my mind
up to do what I want to with my writing."
One of her projects is a novel titled Across the Red River to her Mysterious Heritage that Lieb
describes a "really weird but very good." Set in California in the early 1970s and in Louisiana in the
20s-40s, the book is a flashback novel about a black girl who does not fully understand her strange
heritage. It involves many cultures and stories that slowly bring the reader into an understand of the
girl´s past and gives the reader a better understanding of race relations in the "old" south.
She also had freelanced for Vocational Biographies based in Sauk Centre, MN. The magazine is
published seven times a year and is used in places such as vocational centers, high schools, libraries
and online to help people decide what career path to follow. Lieb said that the magazine focuses on
different individuals in every possible vocation imaginable. It describes a person´s career path, what
all the tasks of their job are, how they chose the career, other jobs they have had and advantages and
disadvantages of the job.
In Selmer, Lieb has written a biography on Christina Hawkins, who works for home Health and one on
Smiley´s Towing. She is planning to do another on a car salesman and three doctors.
Another of life´s former projects is an online magazine titled Write on Magazine, founded and published
by Lieb and friend Evelyn Manak. It includes columns, contests, information and writings of many styles
by all different levels of writers from novices to professionals.
Lieb shows her support for writers in general in describing her own writing style.
In creative writing, I let my mind do the writing and I think that´s what other people do too," said Lieb.
"So I guess everybody´s style would be different. I jut write what comes in my head and everybody´s
head is unique."
"Murders in the Swampland" is available online at Xlibris.com.
Write On Magazine can be viewed at www.geocities.comevmanak. Other writings by Patricia Shipp Lieb
can be viewed on her personal website at www. geocities.com/patsylieb and liebbooks.com.
business as a journalist.
"Murders in the Swampland" contains 17 true crime stories that took place in the Brooksville, FL, area
while Lieb was a reporter for the Daily Sun-Journal. The stories are sometimes gruesome and shocking,
especially since they are all based on fact.
Her stories of events that include serial killers, kidnapping, murders and murders for hire show a blend
of styles.
They are written in a journalistic style, which brings the reality of the crimes home, but they also have
the narrative approach of a work of fiction to add an emotional edge to the horror of many of the stories.
Lieb also mixes in her own notes on some of the cases and ends the book with a series of cop logs
relating humorous briefs of events that happened into he area.
"I had a regular beat and at night I had time to go to the library and research the records for police
stories at the courthouse," said Lieb. "All the information in her is from reading court depositions and
talking to police officers, public attorneys and prosecutors. I had a lot of friends in the county so it was
easy to just call them."
Lieb is an experienced writer, she freelances for several papers and magazines, has worked full-time at
several papers in Illinois and Florida and has published several collections of poems including
Captured and Catholics and Publics.
Lieb recently quit her job working for the Suncoast News in New Port Richey, FL, to come to Selmer and
stay with her parents, Walter and Rachel Reeves.
" My parents were both sick," related Lieb. "Pop had prostate cancer. They did surgery on that and it
appears he is clear. Mother has another biopsy so I am here indefinitely."
Lieb said her parents decided to move to Selmer in 1989 because they have numerous relatives wo
already live in the area.
Lieb said she is planning to not take another full-time job to focus on other writing projects. "I´m gonna
get back into it and now I don´t plan to get another job," said Lieb. "I´m glad I´m going to free my mind
up to do what I want to with my writing."
One of her projects is a novel titled Across the Red River to her Mysterious Heritage that Lieb
describes a "really weird but very good." Set in California in the early 1970s and in Louisiana in the
20s-40s, the book is a flashback novel about a black girl who does not fully understand her strange
heritage. It involves many cultures and stories that slowly bring the reader into an understand of the
girl´s past and gives the reader a better understanding of race relations in the "old" south.
She also had freelanced for Vocational Biographies based in Sauk Centre, MN. The magazine is
published seven times a year and is used in places such as vocational centers, high schools, libraries
and online to help people decide what career path to follow. Lieb said that the magazine focuses on
different individuals in every possible vocation imaginable. It describes a person´s career path, what
all the tasks of their job are, how they chose the career, other jobs they have had and advantages and
disadvantages of the job.
In Selmer, Lieb has written a biography on Christina Hawkins, who works for home Health and one on
Smiley´s Towing. She is planning to do another on a car salesman and three doctors.
Another of life´s former projects is an online magazine titled Write on Magazine, founded and published
by Lieb and friend Evelyn Manak. It includes columns, contests, information and writings of many styles
by all different levels of writers from novices to professionals.
Lieb shows her support for writers in general in describing her own writing style.
In creative writing, I let my mind do the writing and I think that´s what other people do too," said Lieb.
"So I guess everybody´s style would be different. I jut write what comes in my head and everybody´s
head is unique."
"Murders in the Swampland" is available online at Xlibris.com.
Write On Magazine can be viewed at www.geocities.comevmanak. Other writings by Patricia Shipp Lieb
can be viewed on her personal website at www. geocities.com/patsylieb and liebbooks.com.
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| Book's murder stories send chills up spine of the Nature Coast |
| She's As Good As Dead One of 17 true crime cases covered in MURDERS IN THE SWAMPLAND |
| Sea Grass at Bay Port in Hernando County FL photo by Patricia Lieb |
Article appeared in Hernando Today
Former reporter to discuss book Saturday at Brooksville Golf and Country Club
Written by Lara Bradburn
Brooksville--In the winter of 1976, a young girl disappeared from the KOA campground west of Brooksville.
A friend had seen the girl the night before with a young man named Billy Mansfield--a man who would later
become the most notorious criminal in county history.
Over the course of four years, three other women linked to Mansfield would disappear in the night.
Witnesses would later recall hearing the screams of women emanating from the woods of Weeki Wachee.
Years later, police would dig up the bodies of four women who died at the hand of Mansfield.
It was the end of innocence for this sleepy, rural county of Hernando. Mansfield had stolen its small town
security.
"Billy Mansfield didn't get caught in Florida. He got caught in California where he killed another girl,"
explained former crime reporter and author Patty Shipp Lieb. "It was during another man's trial where he
mentioned Billy Mansfield burying bodies in his backyard. That's when they started looking for bodies. It
was 1981."
"The scary thing is," Lieb added," he could get out soon. He's already been up for parole."
The years since have not dulled the gruesomeness of Mansfield's killing spree, which seemed to set off a
barrage of bizarre killings in and around Hernando County. Nor has time dulled the public's fascination with
them.
As a crime reporter, Lieb was able to follow many of these cases first hand, becoming intimately familiar with
the cases and those involved. Her experiences led Lieb to record her impressions in the criminal
anthology, "Murders in the Swampland."
Those who remember the crimes and newcomers interested in learning about the region's tainted history
can hear Lieb recount the tales during Saturday's author luncheon at the Brooksville Gold and Country Club.
The noonday event is hosted by the Spring Hill Service League and the United Way of Hernando County.
Tickets are $20, which includes lunch and a chance for door prizes.
Many local residences will remember Lieb as a reporter for the Daily Sun-Journal and the Suncoast News.
When ot working the local crime beat, Lieb would put her experiences to work by publishing stories in
national detective magazines. That, in turn, led to publishing the book.
There are 17 cases in all contained in this book. Some stories were uncovered first hand. Others had to be
painstakingly knitted together by combing through court documents and police files.
But all of them are true. All of them terribly grizzly. All of them ripped from the front page headlines of area
newspapers.
Besides Mansfield, there is a story of John Barrett who killed four people in a murder-for-hire scheme that
went awry. Barrett was presumably hired by Dorsey Sanders Jr. To kill his former wife Joanne.
As he waited for her to arrive home, four other men haplessly wondered into the wrong place at the wrong
time. He killed the all, never reaching his original target.
Lieb said it was the most interesting case she had covered as a reporter.
"Before Joanne came home, he got tired of waiting for her and left," Lieb said. "Her son, dowries III, was
convicted of conspiracy. Sanders former husband was tried and acquitted. (Accomplice) Scott Burnside fled
to the Christmas Islands. He was brought home and convicted.
"John Barrett was sentenced to death," Lieb said. "He's the one who killed the four meant, very brutally, I
might add."
Other stories recount the killing of Father Jon, the Episcopal priest in Brooksville who was beaten to death
in 1979 during a homosexual encounter, and the mother and her two daughters who were killed during a
vacation to Tampa. Their bodies were found in 1989 tied to concrete blocks and floating in Tampa Bay.
Former reporter to discuss book Saturday at Brooksville Golf and Country Club
Written by Lara Bradburn
Brooksville--In the winter of 1976, a young girl disappeared from the KOA campground west of Brooksville.
A friend had seen the girl the night before with a young man named Billy Mansfield--a man who would later
become the most notorious criminal in county history.
Over the course of four years, three other women linked to Mansfield would disappear in the night.
Witnesses would later recall hearing the screams of women emanating from the woods of Weeki Wachee.
Years later, police would dig up the bodies of four women who died at the hand of Mansfield.
It was the end of innocence for this sleepy, rural county of Hernando. Mansfield had stolen its small town
security.
"Billy Mansfield didn't get caught in Florida. He got caught in California where he killed another girl,"
explained former crime reporter and author Patty Shipp Lieb. "It was during another man's trial where he
mentioned Billy Mansfield burying bodies in his backyard. That's when they started looking for bodies. It
was 1981."
"The scary thing is," Lieb added," he could get out soon. He's already been up for parole."
The years since have not dulled the gruesomeness of Mansfield's killing spree, which seemed to set off a
barrage of bizarre killings in and around Hernando County. Nor has time dulled the public's fascination with
them.
As a crime reporter, Lieb was able to follow many of these cases first hand, becoming intimately familiar with
the cases and those involved. Her experiences led Lieb to record her impressions in the criminal
anthology, "Murders in the Swampland."
Those who remember the crimes and newcomers interested in learning about the region's tainted history
can hear Lieb recount the tales during Saturday's author luncheon at the Brooksville Gold and Country Club.
The noonday event is hosted by the Spring Hill Service League and the United Way of Hernando County.
Tickets are $20, which includes lunch and a chance for door prizes.
Many local residences will remember Lieb as a reporter for the Daily Sun-Journal and the Suncoast News.
When ot working the local crime beat, Lieb would put her experiences to work by publishing stories in
national detective magazines. That, in turn, led to publishing the book.
There are 17 cases in all contained in this book. Some stories were uncovered first hand. Others had to be
painstakingly knitted together by combing through court documents and police files.
But all of them are true. All of them terribly grizzly. All of them ripped from the front page headlines of area
newspapers.
Besides Mansfield, there is a story of John Barrett who killed four people in a murder-for-hire scheme that
went awry. Barrett was presumably hired by Dorsey Sanders Jr. To kill his former wife Joanne.
As he waited for her to arrive home, four other men haplessly wondered into the wrong place at the wrong
time. He killed the all, never reaching his original target.
Lieb said it was the most interesting case she had covered as a reporter.
"Before Joanne came home, he got tired of waiting for her and left," Lieb said. "Her son, dowries III, was
convicted of conspiracy. Sanders former husband was tried and acquitted. (Accomplice) Scott Burnside fled
to the Christmas Islands. He was brought home and convicted.
"John Barrett was sentenced to death," Lieb said. "He's the one who killed the four meant, very brutally, I
might add."
Other stories recount the killing of Father Jon, the Episcopal priest in Brooksville who was beaten to death
in 1979 during a homosexual encounter, and the mother and her two daughters who were killed during a
vacation to Tampa. Their bodies were found in 1989 tied to concrete blocks and floating in Tampa Bay.