On Apr 7, 1987 the groundskeeper at Fairview Cemetery reported a car that had been parked there for 4 or 5 days. Police came and found the body of a young woman covered with a brown blanket.
In the car they find partial fingerprints, a dog hair on the blanket, and a piece of paper with the name Lisa and a phone number. The car is Vicki Lee Ross’s and she lives 35 blocks away.
Vicki’s family says she works nights at a local supermarket trying to save up for a newer car. She disappeared after work on Apr 2.
The coroner determines she died after 9 pm on Apr 2, strangled to death. She has broken fingernails so she put up a fight. Her killer has also shaved her pubic hair with an electric shaver.
Police learn that Vicki had problems with drugs and her ex-boyfriend Hyun was abusive, so they question him. He was working at a restaurant the evening she disappeared. Six coworkers confirm this so he is released. But Hyun does give them a list of drug dealers and their street names that Vicki associates with.
Her drug friends say Dave has been threatening Vicki that she owes him money. Meanwhile they reach the “Lisa” on the piece of paper found in the car. She tells them Vicki was with a black male going to a party. The description of the black male matches Dave.
Police question Dave. He has no alibi, but claims Vicki dropped him off at home before she went to the party. Since friends claim Vicki came to the party alone he is off the hook. There were no black males at the party. Vicki was there for about an hour or two. She left with Norman, in his 30s, who dated Vicki before. They left around 10:30 or 11:00 pm. Norman Weigand was the last person to see her alive.
Norman has an extensive criminal history, all sexual assaults on women. His ex-wife says he was crazy when he was high on cocaine. He also had a fetish for shaving women’s pubic hair. Norman’s girlfriend Theresa says he was behaving oddly. She saw blood on his sheets and the normally filthy Norman, had cleaned his apartment and done his laundry. He also had scratches on his back. Norman’s apartment is most likely the crime scene.
Police search Norman’s apartment, which is 2.5 blocks from the cemetery, and find a plastic baggie with pubic hair. Luminol shows blood on the wall. His waterbed liner has one of Vicki’s fingernails.
Police bring in Norman and question him. He claims he brought Vicki home and they watched TV for a couple of hours then she went home. His time frame leaves two hours left before her murder. Kenda asks him to lift his shirt. There are no scratch marks.
In order to match the torn nail found in Norman’s waterbed to Vicki’s hand, they must exhume Vicki’s body.
While waiting for the nails to be matched, police question Norman’s neighbors trying to find the dog on the brown blanket. Norman’s immediate neighbor, Mrs. Johnson, shares storage area with Norman. Her brown electric blanket was in that storage and it is missing. She has a cat. So they take hair samples from Muffin. The blanket matches the model and serial number of the controller in Mrs. Johnson’s possession. Her cat Muffin’s hair is a perfect match to the animal hair on the brown blanket wrapped around Vicki’s body.
The fingernail matches up perfectly with Vicki’s nail as well as the two layers of fingernail polish.
Norman Wiegand is sentenced to 46 years in prison.
Bibliography
Homicide Hunter, Season 1 Episode 2: Six Feet Under, air date: Oct 31, 2011.
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