Irving Plaisted, 78, male, Caucasian, was passing through Albuquerque on October 8, 1980, when a simple request for directions set in motion a fatal encounter. On the outskirts of the city, after offering what seemed like help, a stranger turned on him—robbing Plaisted and shooting him, then taking his vehicle and leaving the quiet Minnesotan’s journey to end on a lonely edge of town.
Investigators soon connected the killing to Thomas Wayne Crump, a drifter whose brief, violent spree stitched together New Mexico and Nevada that fall. In Plaisted’s case, accounts describe Crump entering the victim’s car under the guise of assistance before driving him away from the city and firing the shots that ended his life. The details—direction-seeking turned trap, the robbery, the gunfire to the chest and head—formed a grim pattern that matched other crimes then under review.
Crump did not remain at large for long. Police arrested him on November 16, 1980, after a motel fight drew officers who recognized the wanted man. Pressed by investigators, he confessed to the spree, and within the following year he was convicted in New Mexico for Plaisted’s murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. The case against him closed the questions of suspect and arrest with courtroom finality, placing Plaisted’s death among the crimes that would define Crump as a serial killer in the region’s history.
