The murder of Billy Lavaco and Judith Straub
Norton, Summit County, Ohio · 1977
Overview
William "Billy" Lavaco, 21, of Doylestown, and Judith "Judy" Straub, 18, of Sterling, were found dead on August 8, 1977 in Silver Creek Metropolitan Park in Norton, Ohio, south-west of Akron. Each had been shot point-blank in the neck. The case stayed open for thirty-three years. In July 2009 Edward Wayne Edwards, a 76-year-old former FBI Ten Most Wanted fugitive turned motivational speaker, was arrested in Louisville, Kentucky after DNA linked him to the 1980 killings of Tim Hack and Kelly Drew, a teenage couple who vanished from a wedding reception in Wisconsin where he had worked as a handyman. In April 2010, while he waited for trial in a Wisconsin jail, an inmate wrote to prosecutors in Akron to say Edwards had bragged about a double homicide, and Edwards himself wrote to the Summit County prosecutor offering information. A Norton detective and a prosecutor's investigator went to Wisconsin, and he told them he had killed the couple. Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh announced the statement on May 4, 2010. Under a plea deal covering both states, Edwards pleaded guilty in Wisconsin on June 9, 2010 and, before Judge Thomas Teodosio in Akron on June 11, to two counts of aggravated murder, receiving two consecutive life terms, the most the law allowed for a 1977 killing. He later confessed to murdering his foster son in 1996, was sentenced to death for it in March 2011, and died in an Ohio prison medical center on April 7, 2011.
How it was solved
The Ohio case was solved by Edwards's own words, not by forensics. Wisconsin had found him first: in 2007 investigators there sent DNA from semen on Kelly Drew's clothing to state analysts, in June 2009 it matched Edwards, and in July 2009 he was arrested at home in Louisville, Kentucky and charged with the 1980 murders of Drew and Tim Hack. Nothing physical tied him to Norton. According to court documents reported by the Associated Press, on April 9, 2010 an inmate wrote to prosecutors in Akron claiming Edwards had bragged about a double homicide. Edwards then wrote to the same office himself, saying he understood they wanted to question him about a 1976 double killing, that he had been in the area at the time, and inviting investigators to come and talk. There had been no double killing in Norton in 1976, but his letter contained details that had never been made public, and investigators concluded he meant 1977. A Norton police detective and an investigator from the Summit County Prosecutor's Office went to the jail in Wisconsin. Norton Police Chief Thad Hete said Edwards told them he had killed the couple and gave a reason, which the chief would not disclose. On May 4, 2010, Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh announced that she had a statement incriminating Edwards, said evidence was being sent to the state crime laboratory to corroborate it, and asked the public for anything more. Walsh said Edwards confessed because, facing life in Wisconsin, he wanted to serve his time in Ohio. A Summit County grand jury indicted him on two counts of aggravated murder on June 9, 2010, the same day he unexpectedly pleaded guilty in Wisconsin. Two days later, handcuffed in a wheelchair, he pleaded guilty before Judge Thomas Teodosio and answered the judge in one or two words. Because a Supreme Court ruling had voided Ohio's death penalty between 1974 and 1978, the maximum was life with parole eligibility after ten years on each count, run consecutively. In a jailhouse interview with the AP that month he described the night: he confronted Lavaco after the bars closed, Straub walked over, and he shot them both with a shotgun. Then, he said, he went home as if nothing had happened.
Sources
- Accused Killer Fingered In Another Chilling Double Murder (May 4, 2010)
“In 1977, Judith Straub and Billy Lavaco were shot to death in Silver Creek Park. It has been an unsolved murder for all of these years.”
- Kentucky man awaiting trial in slayings of 2 Wis. teens also investigated for 2 Ohio homicides (May 5, 2010)
“Norton Police Chief Thad Hete said Edwards told them he killed the couple. Court documents said there were no double slayings in 1976 in Norton.”
- Ky. con man admits he murdered 4 in Wis., Ohio (June 9, 2010)
“He confessed last month to shooting both victims in the neck at close range in a park in Norton, Ohio.”
- Man pleads guilty to killing Wisconsin couple in 1980 (June 10, 2010)
“Edwards also agreed to plead guilty Friday to fatally shooting a young Ohio couple in 1977. Wisconsin investigators submitted DNA taken from semen found on Drew's pants to state analysts in 2007.”
- Aging con man pleads guilty to 2 Ohio murders (June 11, 2010)
“In April, he confessed to Ohio authorities that he also shot Lavaco and Straub. Edwards was sentenced to two life terms in Ohio.”
- Edward Edwards Guilty of Four Murders from '70s and '80s (June 14, 2010)
“In June 2009, the DNA results confirmed a match to Edwards. In April, Edwards confessed to the Ohio murders.”
- Man convicted of killing 4 says he killed 1 more (June 17, 2010)
“"Each time he talks, we get a sliver more." "There is nothing else," he said. "His is the last one."”
- APNewsBreak: Ky. man convicted of killing 4 in Wis., Ohio, confesses to killing 1 more (June 2010)
“"I went on home as if nothing had happened," Edwards said nonchalantly from a wheelchair in Jefferson County jail.”
- Kentucky con man receives 2 life sentences for killing Wisconsin couple in 1980 (June 21, 2010)
“He shot each of them in the neck in a Norton, Ohio, park. He was sentenced to two life terms for those slayings and under a plea deal will serve his prison time in Ohio.”
- Convicted Killer Pleads Guilty to Slaying a Norton Couple in 1977 (July 2010)
“I am glad that Edwards admitted his guilt today for murdering Billy and Judy 33 years ago. Bottom line, he isn't ever leaving prison.”
- Edward Wayne Edwards: the serial killer whose daughter turned him in
“In April 2011, while awaiting execution, Edwards died in prison of natural causes at the age of 77.”
- How An Elderly Serial Killer Confessed His Way To The Death Penalty
“On March 8, 2011 Edward Wayne Edwards was sentenced to death for the murder of Danny Boy Edwards.”
- Edward Edwards (serial killer)
“Edwards was found dead in his jail cell at the Corrections Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio, on April 7, 2011.”