In the late summer of 1982, the life of a 23-year-old female go-go dancer named Michelle Angiers was tragically cut short. On the night of September 23, she was in Scranton, Pennsylvania, when she was picked up by a man who drove her to the nearby community of Dickson City. There, in a tavern parking lot, she was subjected to a horrific assault, being raped and brutally stabbed 30 times. Her body was later discovered, leaving a community in shock and a violent crime for investigators to solve. The perpetrator was a man who had been drifting across the country, a fugitive with a history of violence who had managed to evade law enforcement in multiple jurisdictions, leaving a trail of victims in his wake.
The man responsible for Michelle's death was William Dean Christensen, a serial offender with a criminal record stretching back to 1969. A native of Maryland, Christensen had been in and out of prison for violent crimes, including the stabbing of a teenage girl and the rape of another go-go dancer. After being inadvertently released by Canadian authorities, where he had been convicted of assault and was a suspect in two gruesome dismemberment murders in Montreal, Christensen fled back to the United States. Using aliases like "Stanley Holl," he lived in the Scranton area, a predator hiding in plain sight. His flight from justice was a multi-state affair, but his violent spree continued, culminating in the savage attack on Michelle Angiers.
Christensen remained at large for more than a year after Michelle's murder. His eventual capture was the result of another homicide in Philadelphia on December 4, 1983, where he shot and killed a man outside a bar. Following his arrest for that crime, for which he received a life sentence, investigators began to connect him to other unsolved cases. A search of his residence uncovered incriminating evidence, including a bloody hacksaw. By early 1985, authorities had formally linked him to the murder of Michelle Angiers. His trial began in July 1987, and on August 5, a jury found him guilty of third-degree murder. He was sentenced to an additional 10 to 20 years in prison. Christensen, who was suspected in at least a dozen other killings and once claimed to a cellmate to have killed 24 people, never regained his freedom. He died of natural causes while incarcerated on October 31, 1990, closing the final chapter on a violent history that brought a tragic end to Michelle Angiers' young life.
