Michael Bruce Ross

Serial Killer

Michael Bruce Ross: The Connecticut Serial Killer

Background and Escalation

Michael Bruce Ross was an American serial killer and sexual predator who murdered eight girls and young women in New York and Connecticut between 1981 and 1984. Born on July 26, 1959, in Putnam, Connecticut, Ross grew up on his family's chicken farm in Brooklyn, Connecticut. He was intelligent, performed well academically and later attended Cornell University, where he studied agricultural economics. Behind this outward appearance of achievement, however, Ross developed increasingly violent sexual fantasies and began stalking women. Ross later described experiencing powerful compulsions that he called an uncontrollable force within himself. His crimes generally followed a recognizable pattern: he approached young women who were walking alone, hitchhiking or otherwise vulnerable, forced or persuaded them into his vehicle and drove them to isolated locations. He sexually assaulted most of his victims and killed them by strangulation. Their bodies were abandoned in fields, wooded areas, roadside drainage sites or other secluded places where discovery might be delayed.

Known Victims

• Dzung Ngoc Tu, 25 May 12, 1981 Ithaca, New York: Tu was a Cornell University student who disappeared from the university's Warren Hall. Ross later admitted that he attacked and strangled her before placing her body in Fall Creek Gorge near the Cornell campus. Her remains were discovered on May 17, 1981. Because of the location in which she was found, her death was initially classified as a suicide. Ross confessed years later, but he was never prosecuted for her murder.
• Tammy Williams, 17 January 5, 1982 Brooklyn, Connecticut: Williams disappeared while walking home from her boyfriend's residence in the rural community where Ross had grown up. Ross abducted her, sexually assaulted her and strangled her. Her body was left in an isolated area. The murder demonstrated that Ross was willing to hunt for victims in familiar surroundings and near communities where he could potentially be recognized.
• Paula Perrera, 16 April 2, 1982 Wallkill, New York: Perrera was hitchhiking when Ross encountered her while traveling from the Cornell area toward Connecticut. He picked her up, drove her away from the road and sexually assaulted and strangled her. Ross discarded her body near Interstate 84. Her remains were found approximately eighteen days later. In 2001, Ross pleaded guilty in New York to first-degree manslaughter in connection with her death and received a prison sentence of eight and one-third to twenty-five years.
• Debra Smith Taylor, 23 June 15, 1982 Danielson area, Connecticut: Taylor and her husband experienced automobile trouble and separated to search for assistance. While Taylor was alone, Ross encountered and abducted her. He sexually assaulted and strangled her before concealing her body in a wooded area. A jogger discovered her skeletal remains about four months later. Ross was eventually convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for Taylor's murder.
• Robin Dawn Stavinsky, 19 November 19, 1983 Norwich, Connecticut: Stavinsky was hitchhiking when Ross picked her up. He transported her to a secluded wooded section of the former Norwich State Hospital property, where he sexually assaulted and strangled her. Her body was discovered approximately one week later. Stavinsky's murder became one of the four Connecticut cases for which Ross ultimately received death sentences.
• April Brunais, 14 April 22, 1984 Griswold, Connecticut, and Exeter, Rhode Island: Brunais was walking with her friend Leslie Shelley when Ross offered them a ride. He took the girls across the state line to the Beach Pond area in Rhode Island. Ross sexually assaulted Brunais and strangled her. He then transported the victims' bodies back toward Connecticut and abandoned them inside a roadside culvert near Preston.
• Leslie Shelley, 14 April 22, 1984 Griswold, Connecticut, and Exeter, Rhode Island: Shelley was abducted along with April Brunais while the two friends were walking together. After driving them to the isolated Beach Pond area, Ross murdered both teenagers. He placed their bodies in his vehicle and later concealed them in a culvert near Route 12 in Preston, Connecticut. The joint abduction and murder of the two 14-year-olds became one of the most disturbing episodes in Ross's series of crimes.
• Wendy Baribeault, 17 June 13, 1984 Griswold and Lisbon, Connecticut: Baribeault disappeared while walking along Connecticut Route 12 toward a convenience store. Ross forced her into his vehicle, sexually assaulted her and strangled her. Her partially concealed body was discovered in a field in Lisbon two days later. Witnesses had noticed Ross and his vehicle in the area, providing investigators with information that helped direct suspicion toward him.

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Confirmed Victims: (8)

Dzung Ngoc Tu Age: (25), Date of Death: 1981-05-12

Michael Bruce Ross - Wikipedia