On August 2, 1974, 15-year-old white female Karen Beth Amabile was tragically murdered in Onslow County, North Carolina. Karen and another 15-year-old girl, Cindy Howard, had gone to mail a letter at the local post office when they encountered Debra Ann Brown, the 16-year-old stepdaughter of Marcus Shrader. Brown, who knew Karen from school, offered the girls a ride home.
Unbeknownst to them, Shrader was waiting in a van nearby.
According to later testimony, once the girls entered the vehicle, Marcus Shrader handcuffed them, gagged them with pantyhose, and taped their eyes. He then sexually assaulted both girls before strangling them to death. Their bodies, clothed only in their underwear, were later discovered in the Bear Creek area of Onslow County.
Marcus Shrader, a Navy corpsman stationed at Camp Lejeune at the time, was already under suspicion for other violent crimes. He had previously kidnapped and murdered 23-year-old Ginger Rader and, just two weeks after Karen Amabile's death, abducted and killed 19-year-old Cheryl Potter Boyd. Shrader forced Boyd to assist in a bank robbery before shooting her in the face and leaving her body in a parked car.
Shrader was arrested on August 18, 1974, after a military corpsman recognized him from a wanted poster—specifically identifying the freckles around his eyes despite the ski mask he wore during the crimes. Police raided his home in Cedar Point within hours of the tip. Although Shrader was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Cheryl Boyd, he was never formally tried for the killings of Karen Amabile, Cindy Howard, or Ginger Rader. He died of natural causes in prison decades later.
