In December 1969, a night that began with the simple social pleasures of a local bar in St. Louis, Missouri, ended in a senseless act of violence that took the life of Laura Griffin. A 52-year-old female resident of the city, Laura’s life is now primarily remembered for the tragic circumstances of her death, a fate she met at the hands of a man who would go on to kill again. That evening, she met a 26-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran named Donald Jay Beardslee.
After drinking and dancing for a short while, the two left the bar and went to her apartment.
Two days later, concern grew when Laura could not be reached. Her son-in-law went to her apartment to check on her and made a devastating discovery. Laura was found deceased in her bathtub. An investigation quickly revealed she had been choked, stabbed, and drowned. The crime was brutal, and the motive was entirely unclear, leaving a void of understanding in the wake of such a violent loss. The search for her killer, however, did not last long.
Wracked with his own conscience, or perhaps some other internal pressure, Donald Beardslee sought the counsel of his minister and a lawyer. Following their advice, he walked into a police station and confessed to killing Laura Griffin. He described the murder as a senseless act for which he had no motive, later telling a psychiatrist and social worker that he must have been confused by alcohol. His confession closed the case swiftly, providing an identity to the person responsible but no real answers for the horrific act itself.
For the murder of Laura Griffin, Beardslee pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. He was sentenced to 18 or 19 years in a Missouri prison. The justice served, however, was tragically temporary. After serving only seven years of his sentence, Beardslee was released on parole in 1977. He moved to California to be near his mother, and for a time, lived a seemingly normal life, even securing a job as a machinist at Hewlett-Packard where he received positive performance reviews. The peace was not to last.
While still on parole for Laura's murder, Beardslee’s life took another dark turn. In April 1981, he became entangled with a group of drug-dealing associates and participated in the murders of two young women, 19-year-old Stacey Benjamin and 23-year-old Patty Geddling. He shot one victim and slit the other's throat. As he had in Missouri, Beardslee quickly confessed to his role in the California murders and became a key witness in the trials of his accomplices.
This time, the legal system would not be so lenient. The special circumstance of committing murder while on parole for a previous murder made Beardslee eligible for the death penalty. He was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and, in 1984, was sentenced to death. The memory of Laura Griffin played a significant role in the prosecution's argument against sparing his life. Her daughter, Sandra Curry, later wrote a letter detailing the devastating ripple effect of the 1969 murder, noting that her husband, the man who found Laura's body, later died by suicide, a death she believed was linked to the trauma of his discovery. After decades of appeals, Donald Jay Beardslee was executed by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison on January 19, 2005.
