CARTLON GARY: THE HOUDINI OF SERIAL KILLERS

Article BY Joel Melton

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Harry Houdini made a living as an escape artist extraordinaire.  Thousands watched as he entertained them by extricating himself from handcuffs, chains, and all sorts of restraint devices.
 
In the late 1970's deep in the south, located some 100 miles south of Atlanta, a brutal series of events took place in Columbus Georgia.  Eight elderly women were raped in their homes. One woman survived; the other seven were raped and strangled to death. Seven of the victims lived in an upscale neighborhood, Wynnton, of Columbus. the eighth victim lived two miles away, but had attended choir practice in Wynton the evening she was murdered.
 
An attractive, bright, talented black man would eventually be arrested some years later for these incidents.  This  man who enjoyed his tall lean good looks and even made money at times modeling and entertaining musically would gain fame from none of these obvious gifts.  

It was his criminal life that superseded any aptitude he displayed in the arts.

This life of crime proved somewhat similar to the famous Houdini, especially his talent for escape.  
His name was Carlton Gary.
 
Born December 15, 1952, from the age of thirteen this magician of escape had run afoul of the law with a criminal career that included; breaking and entering, theft, drug use, and even firebombing a grocery store.  At the age of sixteen he moved to Ft. Myers Florida and eventually was convicted of his numerous offenses.  The penal system of Florida was happy to provide the young Carlton accommodations.  

It was at this point, that a repeated curiosity began, his ability to evade punishment and extended capture.  
 
If escaping from jail is a serial killer trait, Carlton Gary displayed it in spades, leaving the comfort of his imprisoned surroundings in Florida, without permission, he fled to the north east part of the United States.  

(This was escape number 1)
 
After his initial experience of into the trickery of evasion, Carlton's next few years involved moving around in the Connecticut area fathering two children, performing music in local night clubs, and eventually settling in Albany New York; all the while entertaining his inclination for theft with unbridled fervor.  
 
It was at this time, in New York, that his propensity for crime took a turn to the more serious and brutal. Carlton Gary became involved in criminal acts of extreme cruelty that involved raping three elderly white women of which only one survived the horrific attacks. Tossed around like rag dolls by their hair, this trio of retired women endured violent beatings to the face and body, with articles of clothing stuffed into their mouths while the attacker took whatever was left of their dignity by sexual ferociousness.
 
While being interrogated by Albany police, after being picked up for mugging another elderly woman in her home, Carlton Gary using the name Carl Michaels, readily confessed that he had been in the apartment of one of the three rapes after his fingerprints were found there.  Interestingly he explained his accomplices did the rape and murder while he waited unknowingly outside.  Testifying against his partner in court proved for the second time, Gary's ability to escape any punishment, of rape and murders in this instance, by throwing suspicion on an acquaintance.

(This was escape number 2)
 
Upon release from a short prison term shortened by the fingering of his partner, who later was acquitted after further investigation, Gary moved to Syracuse, New York.  Once again, shortly after his being in the area two more elderly woman were attacked, raped and strangled in their homes.  Both attacks occurred within four days of each other.  As per his recently developed modus operandi, the crimes involved vicious rapes, beatings and in this instance, something new that would play heavy into the serial killing spree in Columbus Georgia later, a strangling with a scarf.  
 
One of the elderly women survived the ordeal and was sure that her attacker was a black male.   Although this incriminating tidbit of information agreed with Carlton Gary's race, he was never charged for these two crimes. He was sent back to prison for parole violation and robbery after he was caught trying to sell coins stolen from same apartment building as one of the surviving Syracuse victims.
 
His time in the low security prison facility lasted only a little over a year when in August of 1977 Gary escaped from his low security prison by taking a page from every old western movie on the silver screen; by sawing through the bars of his cell.

It was at this point Carlton Gary decided to make his way back to where he spent the first thirteen years of his life, Columbus Georgia.

(This was escape number 3)
 
It was during this time period, of August 1977 and June 1978, when Carlton Gary was back in his home town, the upscale community of Wynnton was jarred and terrorized by a serial rapist and murderer.  
Interestingly they resembled the same brutal cruelty of the three in New York a few years prior that Carlton Gary had admitted to being, at least, involved in and at the apartment of one of the victims.
 
This violent spree of the rape and killing of older white women for a period of eight months left the local police and all investigating authorities puzzled with few leads.  All these horrors had a similarity to them.  Rape and death by strangling.
 
On September 16, 1977, Mary Willis, "Ferne" Jackson, an attractive white 60-year old was found with a nylon stocking knotted tight around her neck and strangled to death in her home.  She had been brutally raped, abused, beaten and finally suffocated.  

Just nine days later, September 25th a few blocks away from Jackson's home, Jean Dimenstein, a friendly, 71-year-old woman was murdered, dragged, hit numerous times, and sexually brutalized in exactly the same manner.

(This was escape numbers 4 and 5)
 
On October 21st, Florence Scheible an 89-year-old, just ten days away from her 90th birthday, was forced into her own bedroom, punched endlessly in the face, raped, and strangled to death.  
The fact that Florence was nearly blind and also had trouble with mobility using a walker to assist with her movements, was one of the reasons her son checked on her regularly.
What he found this day was his precious mother dead with a pillow over her face and a one of her own nylon stockings tightly knotted about her neck, legs spread wide with evidence of carnal brutalization.

(This was escape number 6)
 
At this point the Wynnton area, in fact the entire city of Columbus was on high alert.  Marked and unmarked patrol cars combed the upscale neighborhood regularly. Undercover police officers were hidden inside the homes of elderly residents who were thought to be the most likely targets.  
This did not slow down the rampage of the recently media named, "Stocking Strangler," in the least.
 
Two days later, on October 23rd, a dark haired 69-year-old former elementary school teacher who lived alone became the next casualty.  Martha Thurmond had discussed frequently with her elderly female friends concerns about the terrible events mentioning that they all "...pray it won’t be us next.”
Her prayers fell on the apparent deaf ears of a God who had no interest, when she was found by police, bruised, beaten, murdered by strangulation, and raped, after her niece had attempted to check on her and there was no answer at the door and called authorities.

(This was escape number 7)
 
In a short period of just thirty-seven days, the city of Columbus had lost four citizens, all elderly white females who lived alone to the wrath of a soulless unfeeling mysterious monster.  A beast who derived sexual pleasure from feeling the life of helpless female seniors flicker and dim by his own hands around their fragile necks.
 
Female victim number five, of the Columbus Georgia spree, followed seven days after; Kathleen Woodruff a 77-year-old wealthy socialite whose husband had been a prominent businessman in the community.  Kathleen was raped, beaten, and manually strangled at her home without the usual nylon stocking around her neck.  Apparently her slayer forgot his traditional method in his haste to elude capture.

(This was escape number 8)
 
“Woman of the Year” in Columbus 1966, Ruth Schwob, who was not only well known but a retired woman of some note who had been the president of Schwob Manufacturing Company after her husband passed.  Upon selling her interest, she lived in a nice brick home that had a homemade security alarm system.   The simple alarm had a button that, when pushed, alerted her next door neighbor.
On the cold night of February 11, 1978, the beastly male had climbed through a window and attacked Ruth. She awoke to see him with his hand around her throat. The desperate woman pressed her homemade alarm button. While she struggled and fought against her assailant, without speaking a word, his muscular hands wrapped a stocking around her neck.

Ruth Schwob's alarm worked and the police arrived within two minutes of the alert, disturbing the murderer and leaving the elderly woman vomiting from the strangling but alive.  Ruth told authorities her attacker was a black male.

Ambulance personnel summoned for the crime, noted seeing a black male running across a road just before they got to her address.  Authorities were now looking for a black man who was raping and killing elderly white women in the Wynnton area.

(This was escape number 9)
 
This fact, an eyewitness account of a black male being the attacker, injected a tense racial overtone that electrified the southern white community.  

While most would be dissuaded from further horrors because of the near capture and the last elderly victim alive and furiously talking to police, the "Stocking Strangler" would attack another old woman within 24 hours of the assault on Ruth Schwob.

This time, he would succeed and kill her.
 
A 78-year-old widow Mildred Dismukes Borom struggled and put up a valiant fight on the night of February 12th leaving her bedroom in a torn and broken mess.  This only served to inflame the rage of the killer to a heightened degree as he abused her fragile body sexually while chocking her with a Venetian-blind cord cut from a window of her home.

The crime scene was so disturbing that it left a local detective in a state of tears and hospitalization after he saw her torn, broken, and devastated body.

(This was escape number 10)
 
On the night of April 19, 1978, Janet Cofer a 61-year-old a first grade teacher became the last casualty of the serial killer that shook the Columbus neighborhood.  She was found by her son strangled with the usual stocking knotted around her neck, in bed, viciously abused by the lustful deviant who had managed to elude all capture during this rampage.

(This was escape number 11)
 
Carlton Gary, while not captured at the time, his finger prints were found at four of the crime scenes.  He moved to South Carolina a week after the last rape and murder in Columbus, curiously the attacks on the elderly women of Wynnton abruptly stopped. 

He was accruing escapes in rapid fashion.  In a period of a few months, he had miraculously evaded capture eight times bringing his evasions and prison dodges to a total eleven.
 
Carlton Gary was displaying his Houdini mantle with regard to criminal endeavors with uncanny aptitude.
 
Beginning April 27, 1978, South Carolina experienced the first in a series of armed robberies by the "Steakhouse Bandit," a gunman who invaded restaurants near closing time robbing both the workers and stealing the days monies from the business.

Now Carlton was moving freely up and down Interstate 85 between Greenville South Carolina and the Atlanta Georgia area traveling the 146 miles with impunity.  The fact that the media had bestowed two monikers, the "Stocking Strangler" and the "Steakhouse Bandit," did not stop him from continuing his Houdini type ability to slither out of capture.
 
Back shortly in an Atlanta suburb, Hapeville, in the early morning hours of June 19, 1978 this evasive wizard was caught scaling the balconies of a local Inn.  On his person was a gold-colored bag that when the authorities investigated found the contents totaling $1,478.25 dollars.

Easily making the small bail required for the charge against him, Carlton Gary headed back to Greenville South Carolina area to continue his restaurant burglary endeavors.

(This was escape number 12)
 
Eight months passed before Carlton Gary was arrested in nearby Gaffney, South Carolina following a similar holdup.  He confessed to the entire series of robberies as the "Steakhouse Bandit," bringing that mystery to a close.  His confession earned him prison sentence of 21 years for armed robbery.

Once again Carlton Gary visited prison, would he stay caught?  

Of course not.

Transferred to a minimum-security facility in Columbia, South Carolina four years later, on March 15, 1983, once again he escaped from custody. 

(This was escape number 13)
 
On April 18, 1984, an undercover officer saw Carlton Gary sitting in a parking lot smoking marijuana. While not recognizing him as an escaped "Steakhouse Bandit" on the run for burglary, the officer tried to arrest him but Carlton pushed him away, running into the woods behind the parking lot.

The officer gave chase and took him into custody.  Carlton Gary gave his name as "Michael David" when arrested on charges of possession of marijuana and resisting arrest. Again he easily posted the modest bond on these charges and was freed.

(This was escape number 14)
 
Another 13 months would pass before Gary's ultimate arrest, on May 3, 1984, at a motel in Albany, Georgia. Held as a fugitive from South Carolina, it was the very next day his Houdini days began to come to a close.
 
The police and detectives of Columbus Georgia had no viable suspects in the horrific elderly murder rape serial spree of the late 1970's until Carlton Gary on May 4th 1984, after his re-capture in South Carolina was linked by fingerprints to a burglary in the Wynnton area from 1977.

A gun had been stolen and turned up curiously in Michigan with Carlton Gary's cousin.  The cousin readily admitted Carlton had sold it to him.

Upon a closer review his finger prints also matched those taken from the scenes of four of the rape strangling murder scenes.
 
In a throwback to an alibi Carlton had used years prior in 1970 while in Albany, New York, in cases of rape, murder and strangulation of elderly women, he admitted to law enforcement officers that he was present at seven of the crime scenes but claimed he was only a burglar. 
 
It did not take long after his final arrest for Carlton Gary to be tried and convicted of killing Florence Scheible, Martha Thurmond and Kathleen Woodruff. He was sentenced to death.  A jury convicted him of all counts in August 1986, deliberating for only three hours before his penalty was fixed.
 
It seems this the Houdini serial killer had run out of tricks but would he escape his death sentence?  
To date he has proved as elusive to kill as he was to capture.  On December 16, 2009, Carlton Gary received a stay of execution from the Georgia Supreme Court, which ordered a hearing to determine whether DNA tests should be conducted. 
 
On December 13, 2010, DNA results came back negative for one of the crime scenes of which Mr. Gary was convicted and sentenced to death but came back positive for another.
 
The real Houdini entertained crowds by extricating himself from handcuffs, chains, and all sorts of restraint devices; Carlton Gary's slippery evasiveness of capture has served only to frustrate attempts to stop his wide variety of criminal behaviors.
 
He currently sits on Georgia's death row devising his next escape.