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Serial Killer Gary Muehlberg Pleads Guilty to First Known Slaying | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis

Published

2 years ago

March 31, 2023

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click to enlarge COURTESY KORKY SANDERS Robyn Mihan was abducted from the Southside Stroll in March 1990.
Thirty-three years ago, serial murderer Gary Muehlberg discarded 18-year-old Robyn Mihan’s dead body along a stretch of rural Highway E in Lincoln County. Muehlberg abducted Mihan from the Southside Stroll in St. Louis on Thursday, March 22, 1990, before murdering her in his home in Bel-Ridge. That Monday, he tied her lifeless body between two mattresses and in the early morning hours left her along the roadside to be found by a commuter. This afternoon, 33 years later, Muehlberg pleaded guilty to Mihan’s murder via video feed in a courthouse in Lincoln County. This was the first of Muehlberg’s six known killings and the last, for now, that he has pled guilty to. Prior to Muehlberg being sentenced, Mihan’s mother Saundra had a chance to confront her daughter’s killer. “I don’t quite understand, Mr. Muehlberg, how you are not able to be here face to face,” she said. “The murders weren’t done by Zoom call.” She called Muehlberg “a monster,” telling him he created a hell on earth for Mihan and his other victims but that he was just at the beginning of his hell. However, despite the tough words, Saundra said that ultimately she was compelled by her faith to forgive the man. Between 1990 and 1991, Muehlberg abducted five women from the Southside Stroll, St. Louis’ then-red light district. He murdered them all in his home and then left their bodies in conspicuous containers along roads and highways throughout the region. The grim M.O. earned him the name the “Package Killer.” In 1993 he murdered a male acquaintance, Kenneth “Doc” Atchison, a crime for which Muehlberg received a life sentence in 1995. He was in prison in Potosi last summer when cold case detective Jodi Weber with the O’Fallon Police Department cracked the three-decades old murders via DNA evidence and confronted Muehlberg who confessed to the crimes. click to enlarge Lincoln County Prosecutor’s Office Crime scene photo of mattresses in which Muehlberg discarded Mihan’s body.
After the hearing today, Weber told Saundra that as she worked on the cold case for years she regularly drove on Highway E, past the spot where Mihan was found. “I’d talk to the girls,” Weber said. “And say, ‘Give me something. Give me something.'” All this month, Muehlberg has been on a courtroom tour of sorts, pleading guilty and receiving life sentences for his crimes. On March 6 in St. Charles County Circuit Court, he confessed to the murder of 21-year-old Sandy Little. In St. Louis County court on March 21 he admitted via video link he murdered Donna Reitmeyer, 40, and Brenda Pruitt, 27. In all cases, Muehlberg struck a deal with prosecutors that he would plead guilty to the murders in exchange for them taking the death penalty off the table. Lincoln County Prosecutor Mike Wood called Muehlberg’s crimes, “gruesome and horrific.” “I cannot imagine the pain that was inflicted on the victims and their families,” Wood said. “I hope today provides some closure so that Robyn’s family can begin to heal and that Gary Muehlberg can be held accountable for his actions.” This afternoon’s plea brings an end to Muehlberg’s pending business before the court. However, two mysteries still hang over his crimes. The first, which is likely to never be solved, is Muehlberg’s motivations for committing the murders. In a letter to his victims’ families, Muehlberg described the period during which he committed the murders as a “dark time” in his life. In a previous conversation with the RFT from prison, Muehlberg said, “Somethings cannot be explained as a why.” He added, “Even when all this is over in court, you cannot use an eraser and eliminate from your mind things that are there.” click to enlarge Missouri Department of Corrections, Police Booking Photo Gary Muehlberg, revealed to be the so-called Package Killer, in March 2020 and in 1993.
The other lingering mystery, which investigators hope can still be solved, is the identity of Muehlberg’s fifth female victim. When he confessed to Weber that he’d killed Mihan, Little, Pruitt and Reitmeyer, Muehlberg also said there was a fifth woman who whose body he discarded in a metal barrel at the Ram Jet self-service car wash, though there is uncertainty about the specific Ram Jet location where Muehlberg left the victim’s body. Muehlberg says he doesn’t remember the woman’s name, if he ever knew it to begin with. According to Weber, Muehlberg has said the unidentified woman was white, with shoulder-length dark brown hair. Muehlberg says he may have picked the woman up from the Wedge bar at the corner of Bates Street and Virginia Avenue in the Carondelet neighborhood. Authorities have repeatedly asked the public for their help identifying the unknown woman. If anyone knows anything about a woman who disappeared in the south city area in 1990 or 1991, they are encouraged to call the O’Fallon Police Department. In the meantime, Muehlberg will remain at Potosi Correctional Center where he has been for almost 30 years. The 74-year-old is in bad health, has fallen repeatedly in recent weeks and appeared this afternoon in a wheelchair. “I prayed the good Lord would let me live long enough for the monster, whoever it was, to be caught and convicted,” Saundra said. “I said that even if they had to bring me in on a gurney, I’d come to court.” We welcome tips and feedback. Email the author at [email protected] or follow on Twitter at @RyanWKrull. Coming soon: Riverfront Times Daily newsletter. We’ll send you a handful of interesting St. Louis stories every morning. Subscribe now to not miss a thing.Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

10 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

10 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

10 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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