On September 5, 1976, Peter Joseph Halm, a 26-year-old White male, was killed while visiting a remote area in Pacific, Missouri. He had been lured to the location near a cave under the guise of a casual outing with his wife, Carmen Miranda Halm. As the couple stood together in the wooded surroundings, a sniper hiding in the brush fired a single shot from a rifle, striking Peter in the back.
His wife screamed and fled the scene, feigning shock as witnesses arrived, but the young man died from the wound before he could reach a hospital.
The investigation eventually unraveled a sinister plot orchestrated not by a random assailant, but by a St. Louis dentist and serial killer named Glennon Edward Engleman. Authorities discovered that Carmen Halm, a former dental assistant for Engleman, had conspired with her former employer to murder her husband for financial gain. The scheme was driven by a life insurance policy valued between $60,000 and $75,000. Engleman had instructed Carmen to marry an unsuspecting individual and insure his life, a method he had employed in previous killings. After two aborted attempts at other locations, the trio, which included an accomplice named Robert Handy, finalized the plan at the Pacific site. Handy had purchased the murder weapon, while Engleman served as the triggerman, concealing the rifle under leaves after the fatal shot.
Federal and state authorities built their case against the conspirators with the help of wiretapped conversations in which the dentist boasted about his crimes. Glennon Engleman was arrested and subsequently convicted of capital murder for Peter Halm s death, receiving a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for 50 years. He was also convicted on federal charges of mail fraud and conspiracy alongside Robert Handy. While Handy received a prison sentence of 20 years for his role in the plot, Carmen Halm testified against Engleman and was granted immunity from prosecution for her cooperation in securing the conviction of the mastermind behind her husband's murder.
