In the winter of 1977, Beverly Wortmann, a 24-year-old reporter for the Jackson County Sentinel-Tribune, was living in Kansas City, Missouri. On the evening of December 7th, she told her roommate she was stepping out to buy some cigarettes. She returned to her apartment, but she was not alone. A man had followed her, slipping into her residence to commit a brutal and senseless act of violence.
Inside her own home, Wortmann was savagely attacked, being stabbed nineteen times before her
throat was slashed. The scene, discovered later, showed no signs of a forced entry or a struggle, and nothing of value had been taken from the apartment. Her body was found in her bedroom, still in her coat. The tragic event marked her as the ninth young woman to be murdered in Kansas City that year, sending a chill through the community.
In the immediate aftermath of the discovery, police attention turned to a 25-year-old man who was found sitting on a stairwell outside her apartment, clutching a Bible. He had been seen in the vicinity of another recent murder as well. He was taken into custody for questioning, but after a thorough investigation, no evidence could be found to connect him to the killing, and he was released without any charges being filed.
The case remained unsolved for years until a breakthrough came with the arrest of Anthony Joe LaRette Jr. on August 7, 1980. LaRette, a serial killer and rapist from Topeka, Kansas, eventually confessed to the murder of Beverly Wortmann, providing details that convinced prosecutors he was responsible. His confession was part of a larger admission to a string of 31 murders across several states during a crime spree that lasted from 1976 to 1980. Fifteen of these cases were closed based on the information he provided. LaRette was convicted of capital murder for Wortmann's death and was sentenced to die. On November 29, 1995, he was executed by lethal injection at the Potosi Correctional Center in Missouri, bringing a final, grim closure to the violent end of a young reporter's life.
