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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.
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Covering crime was new to me when I moved to Florida's west coast and started working for the Daily Sun-Journal.
For a couple years prior to giving up the north for the Sunshine State, I wrote for a newspaper in Kankakee, Illinois. Before that, I was a
co-editor/co-publisher of a literary magazine, wrote feature stories and a newspaper column about children, and had stories and poetry
published here and there. That was it. Zip. A far cry from crime.
I had been living in Florida for three weeks when I returned to my apartment after a photography job interview and noticed the light blinking
on my telephone answering machine. That is when I got the most rewarding call of my career as a journalist.
The recorded voice was that of Ken Melton, a man I didn't know but one who would become my boss and friend.
Introduction:
About the author Patricia Lieb
Order from Asylett.com
Ken was editor of the Daily Sun-Journal and needed to replace his crime reporter who was leaving for a bigger newspaper in another
county. A copy of my resume had crossed Ken's desk. Needless to say, I returned the call immediately.
I reported to Ken the following morning, was hired and remained with the newspaper for the next three-and-a-half years, until the
newspaper went to a weekly and along with more than half the staff, I got the ax. Ken's eyes were teary when he said, "We're family here."
On that sad day in 1991, the Daily Sun-Journal had started to fold--a process that would take a year to complete.
The memories of working at the Daily Sun-Journal are lasting. Daily briefings in Sergeant "B" Frank Bierwiler's office were nearly always
fascinating. Sergeant B and some of the five reporters from local medias would usually come out with jokes or funny remarks that would
bring humor to the morning. We sat in Sergeant B's office and read sheriff reports, sometimes with a chuckle, repeating aloud and
commenting about off-the-wall incidents, like somebody picking mushrooms out of cow manure with the intentions of boiling them and
drinking the juice to get high. But there were many reports far from the light side.
While a lot of incidents reported as criminal seemed somewhat ridiculous, the amount of hard crime in the small county was
inconceivable. Recently, some of the former Daily Sun-Journal staff gathered on Ken's patio to talk about the old days. He said that when
he first arrived at the Daily Sun-Journal from a newspaper in the north, he was told Brooksville was a "lousy news town," a place where
nothing ever happened. In the early-to-mid 1980s the county's population stayed pretty much at 20,000. "You used to really have to
concentrate to find this place," Ken said, jokingly, of the area some 55 or so miles north of Tampa.
"Then bodies were being dug up in Billy Mansfield's back yard. I thought, 'My God!' Come to find out, Billy would take these girls home,
rape them, kill them, and bury them in his mother's back yard. They (family) talked about hearing people screaming back there. Of course,
nobody ever did anything. They'd say, 'Oh, that's just Billy.' It's amazing to me how his family didn't turn him in. I don't think there was any
question whether they knew what was going on. It was like they thought: 'He's just killing somebody in the back yard--don't worry about it.'
Mansfield was kind-of scary, like Charles Manson."
Ken recalled a jailbreak when Mansfield was locked up in the "old jail" in downtown Brooksville. Mansfield thought guards had arranged
the jailbreak and were waiting for him to try to escape so they could kill him. A "bunch" of prisoners left the jail, but not Mansfield. "He
stayed right in the cell. He actually thought the ordeal was a plot so somebody could shoot him if he left."
In an unrelated incident a few years later, four men showed up at a house for various reasons at different times and were murdered. One
man, later convicted of the crime, ran off to a far-away island in the South Pacific. A couple years later, detectives followed his mother when
she went to visit her son. "Now why would a killer have his mother fly in for a visit, as if he weren't being hunted anymore?"
Putting murder aside, some wild happenings in the county covered everything from a horse drinking too much wine to a man attempting to
drown his wife in the waterbed because he didn't like her new hairdo. And there was the time, during one of the jailbreaks at the new jail,
when a couple prisoners actually kicked a hole in the jail wall and escaped through it. Laughing, Ken said, "Didn't they consider when they
were building the jail that there might be people locked in who want out?"
Ken recalled hilarious happenings occurred in the old days, too. Deputies in cruisers were chasing a car and the driver got away. When
cops found him a little later, after he had smashed up his car, he was beside a garbage bin on the parking lot at a convenience store
having sex with a woman he had just met. "It is the funniest story I've ever heard and it happened here."
The man got away from officers again. "I think the cops must have been laughing so hard that night they couldn't even catch the guy. Now
what are the odds a man would meet a woman who would do that," he said, laughing.
"They told me Brooksville was a lousy news town. Then they started digging up bodies in Billy Mansfield's yard and another guy got beat to
death with a rock--then all hell broke loose. Brooksville was no longer a sleepy little town."
In this book, I am sharing with you some of the criminal acts that have occurred in Central Florida's once far-removed swampland
adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico. The "swamp" collection also includes extensive accounts of lawmen and their search for clues in one of the
most horrific cases in Tampa Bay history after the boater's sighting led to the discovery of the bodies of a mother and her two teenage
daughters weighted with concrete blocks and floating in the bay.
As well as covering most of these murders for the Daily Sun Journal, I wrote accounts of the cases for the various true-crime magazines
over a 10-year-period. In some stories, the names of witnesses and defendants' families have been changed; some have not. Several
cases in this collection occurred before and after my tender with the newspaper. But they are of crimes that still haunt folks who
remember. Be forewarned, some details herewith are gruesome.
I used literary license in writing these stories. Some quotes are assumed, as nobody really knows what was said during the crimes.
Many quotes were taken directly from court records, including police reports, depositions, confessions, and trials. The happenings and
moods are as close to truth as I could detect while studying the cases.
For a couple years prior to giving up the north for the Sunshine State, I wrote for a newspaper in Kankakee, Illinois. Before that, I was a
co-editor/co-publisher of a literary magazine, wrote feature stories and a newspaper column about children, and had stories and poetry
published here and there. That was it. Zip. A far cry from crime.
I had been living in Florida for three weeks when I returned to my apartment after a photography job interview and noticed the light blinking
on my telephone answering machine. That is when I got the most rewarding call of my career as a journalist.
The recorded voice was that of Ken Melton, a man I didn't know but one who would become my boss and friend.
Introduction:
About the author Patricia Lieb
Order from Asylett.com
Ken was editor of the Daily Sun-Journal and needed to replace his crime reporter who was leaving for a bigger newspaper in another
county. A copy of my resume had crossed Ken's desk. Needless to say, I returned the call immediately.
I reported to Ken the following morning, was hired and remained with the newspaper for the next three-and-a-half years, until the
newspaper went to a weekly and along with more than half the staff, I got the ax. Ken's eyes were teary when he said, "We're family here."
On that sad day in 1991, the Daily Sun-Journal had started to fold--a process that would take a year to complete.
The memories of working at the Daily Sun-Journal are lasting. Daily briefings in Sergeant "B" Frank Bierwiler's office were nearly always
fascinating. Sergeant B and some of the five reporters from local medias would usually come out with jokes or funny remarks that would
bring humor to the morning. We sat in Sergeant B's office and read sheriff reports, sometimes with a chuckle, repeating aloud and
commenting about off-the-wall incidents, like somebody picking mushrooms out of cow manure with the intentions of boiling them and
drinking the juice to get high. But there were many reports far from the light side.
While a lot of incidents reported as criminal seemed somewhat ridiculous, the amount of hard crime in the small county was
inconceivable. Recently, some of the former Daily Sun-Journal staff gathered on Ken's patio to talk about the old days. He said that when
he first arrived at the Daily Sun-Journal from a newspaper in the north, he was told Brooksville was a "lousy news town," a place where
nothing ever happened. In the early-to-mid 1980s the county's population stayed pretty much at 20,000. "You used to really have to
concentrate to find this place," Ken said, jokingly, of the area some 55 or so miles north of Tampa.
"Then bodies were being dug up in Billy Mansfield's back yard. I thought, 'My God!' Come to find out, Billy would take these girls home,
rape them, kill them, and bury them in his mother's back yard. They (family) talked about hearing people screaming back there. Of course,
nobody ever did anything. They'd say, 'Oh, that's just Billy.' It's amazing to me how his family didn't turn him in. I don't think there was any
question whether they knew what was going on. It was like they thought: 'He's just killing somebody in the back yard--don't worry about it.'
Mansfield was kind-of scary, like Charles Manson."
Ken recalled a jailbreak when Mansfield was locked up in the "old jail" in downtown Brooksville. Mansfield thought guards had arranged
the jailbreak and were waiting for him to try to escape so they could kill him. A "bunch" of prisoners left the jail, but not Mansfield. "He
stayed right in the cell. He actually thought the ordeal was a plot so somebody could shoot him if he left."
In an unrelated incident a few years later, four men showed up at a house for various reasons at different times and were murdered. One
man, later convicted of the crime, ran off to a far-away island in the South Pacific. A couple years later, detectives followed his mother when
she went to visit her son. "Now why would a killer have his mother fly in for a visit, as if he weren't being hunted anymore?"
Putting murder aside, some wild happenings in the county covered everything from a horse drinking too much wine to a man attempting to
drown his wife in the waterbed because he didn't like her new hairdo. And there was the time, during one of the jailbreaks at the new jail,
when a couple prisoners actually kicked a hole in the jail wall and escaped through it. Laughing, Ken said, "Didn't they consider when they
were building the jail that there might be people locked in who want out?"
Ken recalled hilarious happenings occurred in the old days, too. Deputies in cruisers were chasing a car and the driver got away. When
cops found him a little later, after he had smashed up his car, he was beside a garbage bin on the parking lot at a convenience store
having sex with a woman he had just met. "It is the funniest story I've ever heard and it happened here."
The man got away from officers again. "I think the cops must have been laughing so hard that night they couldn't even catch the guy. Now
what are the odds a man would meet a woman who would do that," he said, laughing.
"They told me Brooksville was a lousy news town. Then they started digging up bodies in Billy Mansfield's yard and another guy got beat to
death with a rock--then all hell broke loose. Brooksville was no longer a sleepy little town."
In this book, I am sharing with you some of the criminal acts that have occurred in Central Florida's once far-removed swampland
adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico. The "swamp" collection also includes extensive accounts of lawmen and their search for clues in one of the
most horrific cases in Tampa Bay history after the boater's sighting led to the discovery of the bodies of a mother and her two teenage
daughters weighted with concrete blocks and floating in the bay.
As well as covering most of these murders for the Daily Sun Journal, I wrote accounts of the cases for the various true-crime magazines
over a 10-year-period. In some stories, the names of witnesses and defendants' families have been changed; some have not. Several
cases in this collection occurred before and after my tender with the newspaper. But they are of crimes that still haunt folks who
remember. Be forewarned, some details herewith are gruesome.
I used literary license in writing these stories. Some quotes are assumed, as nobody really knows what was said during the crimes.
Many quotes were taken directly from court records, including police reports, depositions, confessions, and trials. The happenings and
moods are as close to truth as I could detect while studying the cases.
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Often when I speak to a group about my true crime book titled "Murders In The
Swampland" I am asked many questions on how I went about writing the collection, how I
got my information and how I put it all together. In my Crime Beat column here, I hope to
answer some of your questions. I covered the crime beat for a newspaper for several
years and wrote for the true detective magazines for a decade.
Swampland" I am asked many questions on how I went about writing the collection, how I
got my information and how I put it all together. In my Crime Beat column here, I hope to
answer some of your questions. I covered the crime beat for a newspaper for several
years and wrote for the true detective magazines for a decade.
For those of you who read The Story Of Billy
Mansfield and Secrets Hidden in the Green
Bus are likely anxious to know just what the
heck is going on with this man who killed girls
and buried their bodies in his parents' back
yard. Well, I'm telling you right here and now.
Just got the latest and I'm giving it to you.
Thanks for reading,
Patricia
Mansfield and Secrets Hidden in the Green
Bus are likely anxious to know just what the
heck is going on with this man who killed girls
and buried their bodies in his parents' back
yard. Well, I'm telling you right here and now.
Just got the latest and I'm giving it to you.
Thanks for reading,
Patricia
| MURDERS IN THE SWAMPLAND CONTENTS Introduction 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 |