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Serial Killer Gary Muehlberg Faces His Victim’s Family in Court | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis

Published

2 years ago

March 7, 2023

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click to enlarge RYAN KRULL Sandy Little’s half sister Geneva Valle-Palomino and stepsister Barb Studt.

The surviving family of Sandy Little, who was murdered more than 30 years ago at the age of 21, confronted the man who took her life and the lives of at least four other women in St. Charles court this morning.

Last year, 73-year-old Gary Muehlberg confessed to murdering five women between 1990 and 1991. He picked them up on the city’s southside and then strangled them back at his home in Bel-Ridge. After killing the women, he put their bodies in various containers, which he left along roads and highways throughout the region. The macabre MO caused some to refer to Muehlberg as the Package Killer.

The cases remained unsolved for 30 years until last summer when O’Fallon Police Department Detective Jodi Weber connected Muehlberg’s DNA to physical evidence from the 1990s. When confronted with this evidence, Muehlberg confessed to the murders. He was already in prison at the time, having been given a life sentence in 1995 for murdering Kenneth “Doc” Atchison.

Muehlberg previously expressed an eagerness to plead guilty to the crimes and be sentenced by the courts as quickly as possible. He told the RFT in November that he’s in an honor wing of Potosi Correctional Center, and he worries that if has to spend time in a county jail, he might lose his cell.

Muehlberg got his wish today in St. Charles. He entered his plea via video link, appearing in his prison grays with a bruise underneath his left eye. He fidgeted with a pen. Muehlberg, who recently suffered a brain bleed as well as a fall that left him with bone fractures, said he has been taking muscle relaxers and pain pills.

Over the course of a 75-minute hearing, Judge Daniel Pelikan accepted Muehlberg’s guilty plea and sentenced him to another life sentence in addition to the one he is already serving.

Courtesy photo Gary Muehlberg being interviewed in prison.
After Muehlberg’s guilty plea but prior to his sentencing, Little’s stepsister Barb Studt and half sister Geneva Valle-Palomino had the opportunity to confront Muehlberg for the first time.

“Sandy was only 21, and, regardless of the path she was on at that time, she didn’t deserve to die,” Valle-Palomino said, referring to the fact that her sister was a sex worker at the time Muehlberg abducted her. “The lack of remorse you have shown is a shame. How can you sleep for 33 years knowing what you did?”

“She was a mother, a sister, a daughter,” Studt added. “She left behind a baby who was less than a year old. And the impact on that child growing up without a mother has been tremendous. He has been on his own.”

Several times in her statement, Valle-Palomino called Muehlberg a monster. “What happened to my sister Sandy, to all the victims, will forever be undeserved and forever will be an act of a monster.”

“You’ve had 33 more years than any of your victims, with no remorse. It will be a blessing to this world to know you’re gone, and I hope you rot in hell.”

If Muehlberg was affected by any of these statements, he didn’t show it. He listened with his gaze straight ahead, only hanging his head for a few moments after both women finished speaking.

Prior to handing down his sentence, the judge asked Muehlberg to recount facts of the crime to which he’d pled guilty. Muehlberg spoke in a clinical, detached way that Studt later said sounded like he was reading details from a magazine.

“I picked up this young lady in south city and took her back to my home in Bel-Ridge,” Muehlberg said. “We had a relationship, and then I strangled her until she was deceased.”

When Pelikan handed down the life sentence, a bystander who happened to be in the courtroom on other business spontaneously clapped and said, “That’s what you get.”

Pelikan ended the hearing by telling Muehlberg, “May God have mercy on your soul.”

click to enlarge
In total, Muehlberg has confessed to murdering five women between 1990 and 1991. In addition to Little, his victims include: Robyn Mihan, 18; Donna Reitmeyer, 40; and Brenda Pruitt, 27. Earlier this year, he revealed to detectives that he had killed a fifth woman, whose name he doesn’t remember — if he ever knew it at all — and whose body he says he left in a steel barrel at a Ram-Jet self-service car wash. That victim is still unidentified. Muehlberg is expected to plead guilty to those murders in St. Louis County and Lincoln County courts later this month.

Studt, who lived with Little for several months in the 1980s, said after the court hearing that she was bothered both by Muehlberg being allowed to appear via video and by his being so unforthcoming about the facts of his crime.

“There was zero emotion there,” Studt says. “And he didn’t even mention why he kept her in his house for eight months.”

Studt says she knows it’s macabre, but she can’t help but wonder about the final moments of her stepsister’s life.

“What I imagine in my head could be worse than what it was, could not be as bad as what it was,” she said. “I do think about it.”

This story has been updated.
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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

7 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.

Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.

The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.

The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.

This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.

As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.

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Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

Published

7 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.

“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”

He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”

The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”

Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”

The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.

Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”

In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”

Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”

Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.

“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.

Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)

One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.

Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.

“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”

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St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

7 months ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

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The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.

The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.

The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.

The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.

To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/

“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”

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