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.
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 rediculous, 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 thcounty 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
convenicence 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.
"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 studyng the cases.
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.
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 rediculous, 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 thcounty 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
convenicence 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.
"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 studyng the cases.
Book's murder stories send chills
up spine of the Nature Coast
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 Patricia 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 Lieb covered whileshe was the
crime reporter for the Sun-Journal in Brooksville,
from 1987 untilthe newspaper shut down in 1991.
Lieb 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
the communities. Most of the crimes are set in
Heranado 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.
Thuse 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.
Patricia Lieb is now a freelance writer.
Chris Van Ormer is a desk editor at the Chronicle.
up spine of the Nature Coast
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 Patricia 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 Lieb covered whileshe was the
crime reporter for the Sun-Journal in Brooksville,
from 1987 untilthe newspaper shut down in 1991.
Lieb 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
the communities. Most of the crimes are set in
Heranado 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.
Thuse 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.
Patricia Lieb is now a freelance writer.
Chris Van Ormer is a desk editor at the Chronicle.
Local slayings recounted in
"Murders in the Swampland"
Article appeared in Hernando Today
Former reporter to discuss book Saturday at
Brooksville
Golf and Country Club Written by Lara Bradburn
Brooksville--In the winter of 1976, a young girl
disappeared from the KOA campground west of
Brooksville. A friend had seen the girl the night
before with a young man named Billy
Mansfield--a man who would later become the
most notorious criminal in county history.
Over the course of four years, three other
women linked to Mansfield would disappear in
the night. Witnesses would later recall hearing
the screams of women emanating from the
woods of Weeki Wachee.
Years later, police would dig up the bodies of
four women who died at the hand of Mansfield.
It was the end of innocence for this sleepy, rural
county of Hernando. Mansfield had stolen its
small town security.
"Billy Mansfield didn't get caught in Florida. He
got caught in California where he killed another
girl," explained former crime reporter and
author Patty Shipp Lieb. "It was during another
man's trial where he mentioned Billy Mansfield
burying bodies in his backyard. That's when they
started looking for bodies. It was 1981."
"The scary thing is," Lieb added," he could get
out soon. He's already been up for parole."
The years since have not dulled the
gruesomeness of Mansfield's killing spree,
which seemed to set off a barrage of bizarre
killings in and around Hernando County. Nor has
time dulled the public's fascination with them.
As a crime reporter, Lieb was able to follow
many of these cases first hand, becoming
intimately familiar with the cases and those
involved. Her experiences led Lieb to record
her impressions in the criminal anthology,
"Murders in the Swampland." Those who
remember the crimes and newcomers
interested in learning about the region's tainted
history can hear Lieb recount the tales during
Saturday's author luncheon at the Brooksville
Gold and Country Club. The noonday event
is hosted by the Spring Hill Service League and
the United Way of Hernando County. Tickets are
$20, which includes lunch and a chance for door
prizes.
Many local residences will remember Lieb as a
reporter for the Daily Sun-Journal and the
Suncoast News. When ot working the local
crime beat, Lieb would put her experiences to
work by publishing stories in national detective
magazines. That, in turn, led to publishing the
book.
There are 17 cases in all contained in this book.
Some stories were uncovered first hand. Others
had to be painstakingly knitted together by
combing through court documents and police
files. But all of them are true. All of them terribly
grizzly. All of them ripped from the front page
headlines of area newspapers.Besides
Mansfield, there is a story of John Barrett who
killed four people in a murder-for-hire scheme
that went awry. Barrett was presumably hired by
Dorsey Sanders Jr. To kill his former wife
Joanne. As he waited for her to arrive home,
four other men haplessly wondered into the
wrong place at the wrong time. He killed the all,
never reaching his original target. Lieb said it
was the most interesting case she had covered
as a reporter.
"Before Joanne came home, he got tired of
waiting for her and left," Lieb said. "Her son,
dowries III, was convicted of conspiracy.
Sanders former husband was tried and
acquitted. (Accomplice) Scott Burnside fled to
the Christmas Islands. He was brought home
and convicted. "John Barrett was sentenced to
death," Lieb said. "He's the one who killed the
four meant, very brutally, I might add." Other
stories recount the killing of Father Jon, the
Episcopal priest in Brooksville who was beaten
to death in 1979 during a homosexual
encounter, and the mother and her two
daughters who were killed during a vacation to
Tampa. Their bodies were found in 1989 tied to
concrete blocks and floating in Tampa Bay.
"Murders in the Swampland"
Article appeared in Hernando Today
Former reporter to discuss book Saturday at
Brooksville
Golf and Country Club Written by Lara Bradburn
Brooksville--In the winter of 1976, a young girl
disappeared from the KOA campground west of
Brooksville. A friend had seen the girl the night
before with a young man named Billy
Mansfield--a man who would later become the
most notorious criminal in county history.
Over the course of four years, three other
women linked to Mansfield would disappear in
the night. Witnesses would later recall hearing
the screams of women emanating from the
woods of Weeki Wachee.
Years later, police would dig up the bodies of
four women who died at the hand of Mansfield.
It was the end of innocence for this sleepy, rural
county of Hernando. Mansfield had stolen its
small town security.
"Billy Mansfield didn't get caught in Florida. He
got caught in California where he killed another
girl," explained former crime reporter and
author Patty Shipp Lieb. "It was during another
man's trial where he mentioned Billy Mansfield
burying bodies in his backyard. That's when they
started looking for bodies. It was 1981."
"The scary thing is," Lieb added," he could get
out soon. He's already been up for parole."
The years since have not dulled the
gruesomeness of Mansfield's killing spree,
which seemed to set off a barrage of bizarre
killings in and around Hernando County. Nor has
time dulled the public's fascination with them.
As a crime reporter, Lieb was able to follow
many of these cases first hand, becoming
intimately familiar with the cases and those
involved. Her experiences led Lieb to record
her impressions in the criminal anthology,
"Murders in the Swampland." Those who
remember the crimes and newcomers
interested in learning about the region's tainted
history can hear Lieb recount the tales during
Saturday's author luncheon at the Brooksville
Gold and Country Club. The noonday event
is hosted by the Spring Hill Service League and
the United Way of Hernando County. Tickets are
$20, which includes lunch and a chance for door
prizes.
Many local residences will remember Lieb as a
reporter for the Daily Sun-Journal and the
Suncoast News. When ot working the local
crime beat, Lieb would put her experiences to
work by publishing stories in national detective
magazines. That, in turn, led to publishing the
book.
There are 17 cases in all contained in this book.
Some stories were uncovered first hand. Others
had to be painstakingly knitted together by
combing through court documents and police
files. But all of them are true. All of them terribly
grizzly. All of them ripped from the front page
headlines of area newspapers.Besides
Mansfield, there is a story of John Barrett who
killed four people in a murder-for-hire scheme
that went awry. Barrett was presumably hired by
Dorsey Sanders Jr. To kill his former wife
Joanne. As he waited for her to arrive home,
four other men haplessly wondered into the
wrong place at the wrong time. He killed the all,
never reaching his original target. Lieb said it
was the most interesting case she had covered
as a reporter.
"Before Joanne came home, he got tired of
waiting for her and left," Lieb said. "Her son,
dowries III, was convicted of conspiracy.
Sanders former husband was tried and
acquitted. (Accomplice) Scott Burnside fled to
the Christmas Islands. He was brought home
and convicted. "John Barrett was sentenced to
death," Lieb said. "He's the one who killed the
four meant, very brutally, I might add." Other
stories recount the killing of Father Jon, the
Episcopal priest in Brooksville who was beaten
to death in 1979 during a homosexual
encounter, and the mother and her two
daughters who were killed during a vacation to
Tampa. Their bodies were found in 1989 tied to
concrete blocks and floating in Tampa Bay.
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MURDERS IN THE SWAMPLAND
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