How the Jenner Beach Murders Went From Cold to Solved
In 2006, Michelle McNamara wrote about the murders of a pair at Jenner Beach. Here's how the cold case were given solved after a destroy in 2017.
By her own admission, the overdue true crime writer Michelle McNamara was obsessed with cold case murders. Though she didn't are living to see the solution to her largest fixation, the Golden State Killer, she did get to see a few of the instances that saved her up at evening go from cold to solved. One of those cases involved a double murder at Jenner Beach in 2004.
Article continues under advertisement
The Jenner Beach murders first of all appeared like they might be part of a series.
On her blog, True Crime Diary, Michelle McNamara followed the murders of Lindsay Cutshall and Jason Allen at Jenner Beach in Sonoma County, Calif. The couple, who had been tenting on the deserted stretch of beach, had been discovered zipped up in their slumbering bags, and each have been shot in the head with a .45-caliber Marlin looking rifle.
Article continues underneath commercial
In 2009, Michelle covered every other murder across the nation that had so many similarities, she began to speculate whether they have been connected. The 2nd murder befell at a campsite in Virginia's Jefferson National Forest. The couple, like Cutshall and Allen, have been shot in the head at shut vary. That wasn't the place the similarities ended though. Both couples were younger and have been devout Christians.
The instances additionally reminded Michelle and investigators of a double murder dedicated on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada in the 1970s. In that case, the suspect used to be a known fugitive named Joseph Henry Burgess who were MIA for over 30 years. The stoop was once a good one as a result of Burgess, a religious enthusiast opposed to premarital intercourse, could have sought after to take revenge on other folks he perceived as hypocrites, since they have been single Christian couples tenting together.
Article continues beneath advertisement
While the connection appeared like a solid one, it became out Burgess used to be not responsible for the Jenner Beach murders. In 2009, Burgess was killed in a shootout with police in New Mexico, and when his DNA used to be run against DNA discovered at the scene of the Jenner Beach double homicide, he was once eliminated as a suspect in that slaying.
Article continues below commercial
A destroy in the Jenner Beach case came in 2017.
The case remained cold for more than a decade until May of 2017 when government concluded the murders have been performed via 38-year-old Shaun Gallon. Gallon had recently been arrested for murdering his brother of their Forestville, Calif. house, and he were an individual of passion at the time of the Jenner Beach murders who was once by no means cleared of suspicion.
While they'd Gallon in custody for killing his brother, government puzzled him on the murders of Lindsay Cutshall and Jason Allen. "He had information about the killings that no other person could have known and we have located evidence that corroborates his information," stated Sonoma County Sheriff Steve Freitas in a remark.
Article continues below commercial
In 2004, Gallon were arrested for an unrelated guns price now not long after the Jenner Beach murders. He referred to as his father, David, from prison and asked him to get rid of his firearms at the house, which his father did. One of them used to be the weapon that killed Cutshall and Allen in accordance to the Press Democrat.
Article continues below commercial
David Gallon admitted he did this, no longer to help his son duvet up a crime but as a result of he feared his son was once unstable and a threat to himself. However, he lied to investigators about the place he had dumped the guns. In 2013, David Gallon died by means of suicide, and his son acknowledged that his father's suspicion of his guilt in the Jenner Beach murders most probably contributed.
As for his purpose in killing the couple, Gallon used to be vague. It appeared the avid hunter noticed the couple as prey, not anything like the religious motivation that possibly drove Burgess.
Article continues under advertisement
While two of these murders of tenting couples are in the end solved, unfortunately a lot of the others Michelle believed may have a not unusual suspect remain cold. The Virginia murders of David Metzler and Heidi Childs are still unsolved.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pbXSramam6Ses7p6wqikaKhfn7KvusSrZJudkZi1brnUq5ueqqM%3D