Myrlene “Teepee” Hamer, a 43-year-old Native American woman, died on August 7, 1975, in the Casper, Wyoming, area. Later accounts of the case identified her as a victim of Carroll Edward “Eddie” Cole, a transient offender who would eventually become known as a serial killer responsible for murders in several states. Cole was in Casper during the summer of 1975 after leaving Nevada and was reportedly working on oil rigs when he encountered Hamer.
Cole met Hamer at a local bar, and the two spent hours drinking together. According to accounts based on Cole’s later admissions, they eventually left the bar and drove away together in search of privacy. During the encounter, Cole strangled Hamer inside the vehicle. He then drove her body to an isolated area outside Casper, left her on a grassy hillside or field, and covered her with an old sleeping bag in an effort to conceal her. Hamer’s body was not discovered immediately. Police found her remains on August 9, two days after the recorded date of her death.
By the time Hamer was discovered, Cole was preparing to disappear from the area. Accounts of his movements indicate that he left Casper the following day and traveled west, eventually returning to California. There is no indication that investigators in Wyoming identified Cole as Hamer’s killer at the time of the homicide, and he was not arrested in connection with her death during the original investigation. Hamer was buried at Highland Cemetery in Casper on August 12, 1975.
The connection between Hamer and Cole emerged years later after Cole was arrested in Dallas, Texas, in November 1980. He had been linked to a succession of women who had been strangled after encounters with him in bars. After his arrest, investigators initially faced difficulties because some deaths had not immediately been recognized as homicides. Cole then began confessing, acknowledging the Dallas killings and describing additional murders committed as he moved across the country. Among the older killings he admitted was the strangulation of Myrlene Hamer near Casper. His confession reportedly provided the first substantial connection between him and Hamer’s previously unsolved death.
Cole was prosecuted in Texas for the murders of Dorothy King, Wanda Faye Roberts and Sally Ann Thompson. In April 1981, he was convicted of the three murders and received three life sentences. His admissions, however, extended well beyond the crimes for which Texas authorities prosecuted him and included murders in California, Nevada, Wyoming and elsewhere. Hamer was not one of the victims included in those Texas convictions.
Nevada authorities later brought Cole back to face additional murder charges. He pleaded guilty to the killings of Kathlyn Blum and Marie Cushman, both of whom had been strangled. He ultimately received a death sentence for Cushman’s murder. Court records later noted that Cole admitted killing at least 13 people and openly acknowledged his repeated acts of violence. He refused efforts to prevent his execution and was put to death by lethal injection at Nevada State Prison on December 6, 1985.
Although Cole confessed to killing Hamer and her death became part of the documented history of his murder spree, available records do not show that he was separately tried or convicted in Wyoming for her murder. His convictions were for five other women in Texas and Nevada. As a result, Hamer’s case is best described as a homicide attributed to Cole through his own confession rather than through a Wyoming murder conviction. His admission nevertheless provided an explanation for a killing that had remained disconnected from its perpetrator for years and placed Myrlene Hamer among the victims of one of the most widely traveled serial killers of the 1970s.
