William Dean Christensen: The "American Jack the Ripper"
Overview
William Dean Christensen was an American serial killer, rapist, and violent fugitive whose criminal history stretched from Maryland and Washington, D.C., into Canada, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Born on September 24, 1945, in Bethesda, Maryland, Christensen accumulated a long record of sexual assaults and other violence before becoming connected to a series of murders during the early 1980s. He repeatedly used false names, including Richard Owen, Stanley Holl, John Robert Schrader, and Jeffrey Shrader, allowing him to move between jurisdictions while authorities in several places were looking for him.
Christensen became known in the press as the "American Jack the Ripper" because of the mutilation associated with two Canadian homicide investigations and the possibility that he had killed additional victims while traveling through the eastern United States. Although investigators examined him in connection with numerous unsolved murders, he was convicted of two killings in Pennsylvania. Two additional Canadian deaths were historically attributed to him, although neither resulted in a Canadian murder conviction and at least one of those cases remains officially unresolved.
A History of Violence
Long before the murders for which Christensen became notorious, he had demonstrated a pattern of extreme violence toward women. In 1969, he attacked a young woman after picking her up in the Washington, D.C., area, stabbing her numerous times. She survived. Christensen received a five-year sentence but was released after serving only a small portion of it.
In 1972, Christensen was again accused of sexual violence. One attempted-rape conviction was eventually overturned on appeal. Later that year, Christensen and another man abducted a young woman, sexually assaulted and beat her, and held her for hours. During the assault, Christensen reportedly threatened to cut her into pieces with a hacksaw. He pleaded guilty to charges arising from the attack and received a 16-year prison sentence. He served approximately seven years and eight months before being paroled on April 1, 1980.
His freedom was short-lived without further violence. In 1980, another woman reported being taken from a bus stop and sexually assaulted at a house associated with Christensen's family in Kensington, Maryland. Authorities obtained a warrant, but Christensen disappeared before he could be prosecuted. Years later, after his eventual capture, he was returned to Maryland and convicted in connection with the 1980 attack.
Flight to Canada and the Richard Owen Identity
Christensen eventually surfaced in Canada using the name Richard Owen. In 1981, he was arrested in Montreal after sexually assaulting a woman and received an 18-month sentence. American authorities wanted him returned to Maryland when his Canadian sentence was completed, but an administrative failure resulted in his release on April 2, 1982.
Within weeks, Montreal authorities were dealing with a particularly disturbing homicide. The victim was 27-year-old Sylvie Trudel. Her dismembered remains were discovered on April 27, 1982, inside a Montreal apartment connected to the name Richard Owen. Investigators determined that Trudel had apparently been dead for roughly 20 to 30 hours when she was discovered, placing her death at approximately April 26. Her killing quickly placed Christensen at the center of the investigation.
The Murder of Sylvie Trudel
Trudel's body had been decapitated and dismembered. Investigators focused on Christensen because the apartment in which she was discovered had been associated with his Richard Owen identity. Reports from the investigation described the use of a saw in the dismemberment. By the time authorities began searching for Christensen, however, he had already fled Montreal.
The timing was particularly alarming. Christensen had been released from Canadian custody only weeks earlier despite the outstanding interest from American authorities. His disappearance after Trudel's killing began a prolonged period in which he moved repeatedly, adopted new names, changed his appearance, and appeared in several states.
The Unresolved Murder of Murielle Guay
On the same day that Trudel's remains were discovered, April 27, 1982, another dismembered woman was found in a wooded area near Mille-Isles, Quebec. She was Murielle Guay. Numerous older accounts identify Guay as being 26 years old, but Quebec's official unresolved-case information identifies her as 19.
Guay had last been seen on April 17, 1982, at the Bar América on St-Laurent Street in Montreal, reportedly in the company of a man she had recently begun seeing. Her remains were discovered ten days later. An exact date of death has not been publicly established with certainty.
Christensen was historically investigated and widely reported as a suspect in Guay's murder, and contemporary reports associated him with both Canadian mutilation cases. However, Guay's death should not be presented as a conclusively proven Christensen murder. Quebec authorities have continued to list her homicide as an unresolved case. For that reason, she is more accurately described as a suspected or historically attributed victim rather than a confirmed victim.
Michele Angiers
After leaving Canada, Christensen traveled through several states while using different identities. By September 1982 he was in northeastern Pennsylvania, where he was known to people as Stanley Holl.
On September 23, 1982, 23-year-old Michele Angiers, a dancer who worked under the stage name "Sister Sarah," was murdered in Dickson City, Pennsylvania. She was attacked outside her apartment and stabbed approximately 30 times. Witnesses connected a man known as Stanley Holl with Angiers shortly before her death. Investigators eventually determined that Stanley Holl was William Dean Christensen.
Christensen was formally prosecuted for Angiers' murder years later. In August 1987, a Lackawanna County jury convicted him of third-degree murder. He ultimately received an additional sentence of 10 to 20 years for killing her.
The Trenton Shootings
Christensen's violence was not limited to homicide. On June 29, 1983, two men were shot during an incident at or near the railroad station in Trenton, New Jersey. Both survived. Christensen was eventually convicted in New Jersey of aggravated assault arising from the shootings and received a lengthy additional prison sentence.
By this period he was using variations of the surname Schrader, including John Robert Schrader and later Jeffrey Shrader. His constant use of aliases contributed to the difficulty authorities experienced in linking arrests, warrants, and investigations in different jurisdictions.
The Murder of Joseph Connelly and Christensen's Capture
Christensen's time as a fugitive ended on December 4, 1983. That day, 51-year-old Joseph Connelly was shot and killed outside a bar in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, following an argument. Witnesses were able to provide police with information about the gunman.
Christensen did not immediately flee the city. Police located him only a short time later in another bar. He was arrested while claiming to be Jeffrey Shrader. Remarkably, his true identity was not immediately discovered, and he was prosecuted for Connelly's murder under the Shrader name.
A Philadelphia jury convicted "Jeffrey Shrader" of first-degree murder for killing Connelly. Christensen received a mandatory life sentence. Only after the conviction did investigators conclusively determine that Jeffrey Shrader was actually William Dean Christensen, the Maryland fugitive wanted in connection with violent crimes and the Canadian homicide investigations.
Victims and Suspected Victims
- Michele Angiers, 23 - Died September 23, 1982, in Dickson City, Pennsylvania. She was stabbed approximately 30 times outside her apartment. Christensen was convicted of third-degree murder for her killing in 1987.
- Joseph Connelly, 51 - Died December 4, 1983, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was shot outside a bar following an argument. Christensen, then claiming to be Jeffrey Shrader, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
- Sylvie Trudel, 27 - Estimated to have died approximately April 26, 1982; her dismembered remains were discovered April 27, 1982, in Montreal, Quebec. The apartment was associated with Christensen's alias Richard Owen. Christensen was charged or sought in connection with the Canadian mutilation killings but was never tried in Canada for Trudel's death.
- Murielle Guay, 19 - Last seen April 17, 1982, in Montreal; her remains were discovered April 27, 1982, near Mille-Isles, Quebec. Her exact date of death has not been publicly established. Christensen was historically investigated in connection with her murder, but the case remains unresolved and she should be regarded as a suspected rather than conclusively confirmed victim.
Evidence and the Expanding Investigation
Following Christensen's identification, investigators searched property connected to him and recovered disturbing evidence, including a hacksaw bearing human biological material and quantities of hair. The discoveries intensified suspicions surrounding the Canadian mutilation cases and caused investigators in several jurisdictions to compare Christensen's travels with unsolved homicides.
Police investigated him in connection with murders and other violent crimes in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Georgia, Kentucky, Florida, and Canada. During the mid-1980s, law-enforcement officials publicly stated that he was being investigated in connection with at least a dozen killings. Those investigations did not establish that every homicide examined was actually committed by Christensen.
Claims of Additional Murders
The true number of people Christensen killed remains uncertain. Near the end of his life, a prison inmate claimed that Christensen had confessed to as many as 24 murders, allegedly including killings in the United States, Canada, and England. Investigators examined the claim, but no evidence established a verified list of 24 victims.
Because Christensen traveled extensively, used numerous aliases, and had a documented history of extreme violence, authorities considered the possibility that he was responsible for additional unsolved homicides. Nevertheless, there is an important distinction between being investigated for a crime and being proven responsible for it. Only Michele Angiers and Joseph Connelly resulted in murder convictions against Christensen. Sylvie Trudel's killing was strongly associated with him but never tried, while Murielle Guay's homicide remains unresolved.
Additional Convictions and Sentences
Christensen continued facing prosecutions even after receiving his life sentence for Connelly's murder. In New Jersey he received a lengthy sentence for the 1983 shootings in Trenton. Maryland authorities also eventually prosecuted him for the July 18, 1980, sexual assault that had helped send him into hiding years earlier.
In July 1989, a Montgomery County jury convicted Christensen of second-degree rape and battery. The following month he was sentenced to two consecutive 20-year terms, adding 40 years to the enormous amount of prison time he was already serving or awaiting.
Death in Prison
William Dean Christensen never returned to freedom. He died from cancer on October 31, 1990, while incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution at Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. He was 45 years old. His death did not become widely reported until the following year.
Legacy
Christensen's case became an example of how failures between separate criminal-justice systems could allow an extremely dangerous offender to remain free. He had survived earlier prosecutions, received parole despite warnings about his violent behavior, escaped immediate prosecution for later crimes, was mistakenly released in Canada despite American interest in taking him into custody, and repeatedly concealed himself behind false identities.
The label "American Jack the Ripper" reflected both the brutality associated with the Canadian cases and investigators' fear that his known crimes represented only a portion of his violence. What can be stated with certainty is that Christensen was a repeat sexual predator and murderer whose documented offenses extended across international and state boundaries. He was convicted of murdering Michele Angiers and Joseph Connelly, was closely associated with the killing of Sylvie Trudel, and was historically investigated in the unresolved murder of Murielle Guay. Claims that he killed dozens of additional people remain unproven.
