True Crime Collection

Gypsy Hill Killings

Victims
On 8th January, 1976 the body of 18 year old Veronica Cascio was discovered in a creek on the grounds of the Sharp Park Golf Course in Pacifica. She had been stabbed 30 times. A transient was arrested but was released for lack of evidence.
A few weeks later, 14 year old Tatiana Blackwell was reported missing after leaving her home in Pacifica to run an errand. A body, later identified as hers, was discovered off Sharp Park Road in the Gypsy Hills section of the city on 6th June. She had also been stabbed multiple times.
Paula Baxter, 17 years old, went missing on 2nd February, leaving her car behind. Her nude body was found on 2nd February in Millbrae behind the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on Ludeman Lane. She had been stabbed 4 times, sexually assaulted, and hit on the head with a piece of concrete. Her killing was forensically linked to Veronica's.
On 1st April, 19 year old Denise Lampe of Broadmoor was found dead after a search in the parking lot of the Serrmonte Centre. She had been stabbed 20 times.
Carol Booth, 26, was reported missing by her husband on 15th March, and was discovered in a shallow grave near Colma Creek on Grand Avenue in South San Francisco on 6th May.

Potential victims
Michelle Mitchell, 19, was last seen alive in Reno, Nevada on 24th February, 1976, when her VW Beetle broke down at the intersection of 9th Street and Evans Avenue. Witnesses reported seeing someone help her push her vehicle into the parking lot across from the UNR agricultural building on Evans Street.
Her body was discovered that evening in a garage on East 9th Street with her hands bound and her throat slashed. 3 years later, Cathy Woods, a mental patient at the Louisiana State University Medical Centre, confessed to having murdered a woman named Michelle. Cathy was charged and convicted of murdering Michelle. 35 years later she was released from prison in 2015 after DNA evidence cleared her.

Idell Friedman, 21, an employee of an import firm, was found assaulted and stabbed to death with an 8 inch knife in her apartment at 116 Fairmount Street in San Francisco. She was murdered on 17th March, 1976, only 2 days after Gypsy Hill victim Carol Lee Booth was reported missing.
Idell's nude body was lying on the kitchen floor of her ransacked apartment. She was found by a co-worker who became concerned when Idell did not show up for work.

Investigation & arrests
Investigators have connected some of the homicides to each other. All the women were young brunettes and most had experienced car trouble prior to being murdered. All the bodies were found in wooded area.
A lack of witnesses and forensic evidence stalled the investigations.
In March 2014, the FBI established a task force to re-examine the murders, after new DNA evidence case doubt on the conviction of Cathy Woods, now 64, for Michelle's murder. The DNA taken from a cigarette butt found at Michelle's crime scene matched DNA taken from semen found at related crime scenes in San Mateo, California. This DNA was that of a man and therefore might exonerate Cathy.
On 8th September, 2014, the FBI named Rodney Halbower as a person of interest in the Gypsy Hill Murders. Cathy was released from prison on 11th September, pending a new trial to take place on 13th July, 2015. In March 2015, prosecutors dismissed the charges against Cathy.
On 22nd January, 2015, Rodney was charged with 2 of the murders, Paula Baxter and Veronica Cascio. DNA evidence linked him to both. On 8th November, 2017, Leon Melvin Seymour was charged with the murder of Denise Lampe, based on DNA evidence. On 18th September, 2018, Rodney was convicted of the murders of Paula and Veronica. On 10th October, 2018, Rodney was sentenced to 2 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole for the murders of Veronica and Paula.
Cathy Woods, 68, is the longest ever wrongfully imprisoned woman in US history, records show. She was released from prison in 2015 when fresh evidence linked the 1976 murder of Michelle Mitchell to suspected serial killer Rodney Halbower.
Rodney will most likely face a trial in Nevada for the murder of Michelle Mitchell in the near future.
The murders of Tanya Blackwell and Carol Lee Booth are both believed to have been committed by Rodney Halbower, but there was not enough evidence to charge him for their deaths.