HARVEY CARIGNAN: HARV THE HAMMER

Article BY Nash Azarian

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Few times do the police have the ability to stop a serial killer from progressing to that status, as they did with Harvey Carignan.

Harvey Carignan was born on May 18, 1927 in Fargo, North Dakota. From a young age, Harvey suffered at the hands of his mother. As the illegitimate love child of a medical intern, he faced the pain of abandonment by his father at the age of four. There are conflicting reports in regards to the type of relationship Harvey and his mother had, fluctuating between sexual attraction and pure hatred for her. 

Harvey was firm in his belief that he was the target of sexual abuse from many older women at a very young age. He had an imaginary friend named Paul and suffered from chronic bedwetting, in most cases a sign of childhood sexual abuse. As a result of the bedwetting, he was sent to live with an aunt and uncle in Cavalier, North Dakota after his mother and stepfather gave birth to a second child when he was 8 years old. He felt that he was blending in nicely in his new home and was surprised when his aunt and uncle told him he could no longer stay after only a short time. Harvey was then sent back to live with his mother. He only lasted a few months with his mother before being shipped off to his grandmother. His grandmother, too, was disgusted by his bedwetting and shipped him off to another aunt. Harvey then ran away and went back to his mother. After returning to his mother and stepfather's home, he started dabbling in petty theft. 

At age 11, Harvey was sent to a reform school in Mandan, North Dakota for seven years. At the same time, he was diagnosed with Chorea, a nervous disorder resulting in muscular twitching of the arms, legs and face. 

At 18, he left the reform school. Having spent so many years under the control of an institution, he wasn't sure what to do with his freedom. He immediately enlisted in the Army, in 1949. He was stationed in Anchorage, Alaska at Fort Richardson. The structure of the Army wasn't enough to keep him out of trouble, though.

On July 31, 1949 a man named John Keith was walking through a park and heard a woman making strange noises. As he got closer, he saw a man on top of a woman. The man yelled, "move on!" as Keith neared their location. Keith, embarrassed, assumed that he had interrupted public sex and left. The next morning, Keith was walking by the park and felt the urge to stop near the area he saw the man and woman the night before. When he did, he saw the same woman and she was dead. Keith immediately called the Anchorage police. He was brought in for an interview and to give a description of the man he saw. The cause of death was from blows to the head as a result of human fists. The woman was identified as 57 year old Laura Showalter. The police believed she was killed during an attempted rape.

On September 16, 1949 a young woman named Dorcas Callen was approached by a soldier on a street in Anchorage. The solider asked her to come in the car for a ride, to which she declined. He pretended to know her, a ruse to get close to her. She shut him down and tried to walk away. The soldier, angered, grabbed Dorcas by the hair and dragged her away. Dorcas and the man fell into a ditch beside the road. Harvey was tearing her clothes and grabbing her breasts, preparing to rape her. Dorcas was able to fight him off enough to get away. Dorcas was able to give enough detail that the police were able to find the soldier and arrested him later that same day. The man was identified as 22 year old Harvey Carignan. 

The police connected the two crimes based on the M.O. Keith was able to pick Harvey out of a lineup as the man seen with Laura Showalter the night she was killed. Harvey admitted to the attempted rape of Dorcas Callen, but refused to talk about Laura Showalter. Eventually, Harvey admitted to murdering Laura Showalter too. 

He was tried and convicted of the murder of Laura Showalter and the attempted rape of Dorcas Callen. Harvey was sentenced to death by hanging in 1950. Harvey's lawyers immediately filed an appeal. The Supreme Court were disturbed that an over zealous sheriff promised Harvey he would not get the death penalty if he confessed. His death sentence was reversed in 1951 as a result of the sheriff's violation of the McNabb Rule. He still had to serve time for the attempted rape of Dorcas Callen. He was transferred to Alcatraz where he served the rest of his time, a total of nine years, and was paroled on April 2, 1960. 

A few months later, Harvey was arrested in Minnesota. This time, the charges were burglary, assault and attempted rape. The attempted rape charge was dropped for lack of evidence. He was sentenced to two and a half years in a Minnesota State Prison and 2,86 days in a federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. 

On March 2, 1964 he was released and moved to Seattle. He was then arrested on November 22, 1964 for second-degree burglary and sentenced to fifteen years in the Washington State Prison in Walla Walla, Washington. It was in this prison that he obtained his GED and took several college courses. He was released on parole in 1968, at 41 years old, for good behavior. 

In 1969, he married a widow named Sheila Moran and moved in to her house in the Ballard area of Seattle. Their fairy tale marriage did not last long. Harvey started leaving the house in the middle of the night, taking long drives "to be alone and think". His wife was not happy about this and felt something was off, leading to their marriage falling apart soon after it began. 

Harvey married Alice Johnson on April 14, 1972, and moved in with her and her two children. The marriage soon faced the same strains as Harvey's first marriage. On top of his middle of the night drives, he paid more attention to his teenage step daughter, 14 year old Georgia, than his wife. Sexual comments and suggestions were constant, making the teenage stepdaughter extremely uncomfortable. Eventually, she ran away as a result. 

On October 15, 1972, 19 year old Leslie Laura Brock from Bellingham, Washington body was found. The cause of death was blows to the head. Several witnesses reported seeing her get into Harvey's silver truck, though it has not been confirmed that he killed her. 

A year later, in 1973, Harvey's second marriage fell apart. 

Harvey placed a want-ad in the Seattle Times seeking help at his service station on 75th and Aurora Ave North in Seattle. The ad was answered by 15 year old Kathy Sue Miller on May 1, 1973, who was calling to inquire about the job for her boyfriend, Mark. Kathy decided to pursue the job for herself after the owner, Harvey, told her he hires girls as well. Kathy scheduled to be interviewed the following day. 

Kathy's mother called the Seattle Police Department and reported her missing the following afternoon. One month later, while hiking, two boys found her body in Everett on an Indian Reservation. She was naked and wrapped in a plastic sheet, her cause of death was a result of being bludgeoned with a hammer. There were holes in her skull the size of nickels.

Detectives began to piece together information that Kathy's mother provided them with, leading them to believe Harvey was responsible for her death. More importantly, they were certain Kathy was not his first victim. Evidence included speeding tickets from Solano County, California, that put him in the vicinity of 6 other murdered women in the past 2 years, all with the same M.O.'s, all of them unsolved. The Police were hounding Harvey so much that he fled Seattle, finding safety in Minneapolis away from the Seattle PD. 

On June 28, 1973, Marlys Townsend, age 47, was attacked from behind at a bus stop. When she woke up, she was inside Harvey's car, realizing she had been knocked unconscious with a blow to the head. Harvey tried incessantly to force Marlys to touch him, not taking no for an answer. Marlys jumped out of his speeding vehicle and escaped. She immediately reported the attack to the Police.

On September 9, 1973 Harvey picked up 13 year old Jewry Billings as she was hitchhiking to her boyfriend's house. Once securely in the car, Harvey threatened Jewry and forced her to fellate him while he rammed a hammer inside her. For whatever reason, Harvey safely released Jewry, but she was too ashamed of what happened to her to report it. For months, she kept the secret to herself, allowing Harvey to continue to attack other girls.

About a year later, in May 1974, Harvey met a woman named Eileen Hunley. Eileen was a women of the Church, a religious lady that had very firm morals and values. In the beginning of their courtship, Harvey was a perfect gentleman. This very quickly changed and he turned to his typical controlling behavior. Eileen tried to see the good in Harvey, to no avail. She had been telling her friend's that she was sick of the negative relationship she found herself in and that she planned to leave Harvey. Within days of voicing this to friends, on August 10, 1974, Eileen was reported missing. The day after she went missing, Harvey tried to cash her paycheck.

Five weeks later, her body was found in Shelbourne County with severe blows to the head as the result of a hammer.

On September 8, 1974, Lisa King and June Lynch, both age 16, were hitchhiking when Harvey saw them. He pulled over and asked if, in exchange for a ride, they could accompany him to pick up a stranded vehicle. They agreed, probably assuming that they would be safe since there was two of them and Harvey was rather charming. Throughout the car ride, Harvey made lewd comments towards the teenage girls, before finally pulling over in a rural area. He told Lisa to stay in the car while he brought June to the stranded vehicle. On the side of the road, he began beating June over the head and face. Lisa heard the screams and turned to see what was happening. She immediately jumped out of the vehicle and ran for help, causing Harvey to fear being caught. He got back in his car and fled, leaving a brutally beaten June on the side of the road. 

Just a week later, on September 14, 1974, Harvey found his next victim. Gwen Burton and her car were at a stand still in a Sears parking lot. Her car was experiencing engine trouble when Harvey approached her, offering her a ride to get help. Once he had her in his car, he drove her to a secluded area where he ripped her clothes off and choked her until she was semi unconscious. He grabbed his hammer and began jamming it inside her, over and over again. He finished her off with one final blow to the head and left her body on the side of the road to die.

What Harvey didn't know is that Gwen was not dead. She miraculously was able to crawl to the side of the local highway where a passing motorist noticed and saved her. 

On September 18, 1974, the same day that Eileen's body was found, Harvey picked up Sally Versoi and Diane Flynn. He used the same tactic as he did with Lisa King and June Lynch, that he needed to pick up a stranded vehicle. Once they were in the car, he started with the vulgar comments and eventually assaulting them when they refused to comply with his sexual requests. The girls were able to escape when Harvey, too focused on the girls, ran out of gas and was forced to stop for fuel. Luck was the only reason they made it out alive. 

Three days later, 18 year old Kathy Schultz's body was found by hunters in a corn field forty miles from Minneapolis. Her skull was completely destroyed as a result of blows of a hammer.

At this point, Minneapolis Police and the Seattle Police were sharing evidence and compiling witnesses to use for a suspect line up. Within days of Kathy's body being discovered, several survivors picked Harvey out of a line up.

A Police search of Harvey's possessions turned up a road map with 181 red circles drawn. The circles were of isolated areas of the United States and Canada, mostly in Washington, California, Minneapolis, North Dakota and Vancouver, BC. The Police connected some of the circles to locations of jobs that Harvey applied to or bought a car. Others, however, became links to unsolved murders, some of which would not have been linked to Harvey without this piece of valuable evidence.

One red circle corresponded with the location that Laura Brock disappeared from in Coupeville, WA. Another was the location of a woman in Vancouver at a bus station that was hit from behind with a hammer. One circle even led Police to the discovery of a girl murdered in Medora, North Dakota in April 1973.

Harvey's lawyer attempted to use an insanity defense that Harvey himself argued with. The defense was a major failure. Harvey was convicted and received the maximum of forty years in prison as per Minnesota law. He was convicted of several other murders, but they would have no affect on his sentence as he had already received the maximum sentence possible in the state of Minnesota.