Lawrence Dalton

Victims

4 - 1 conviction in Wisconsin and 3 guilty pleas in Illinois. THE ILLINOIS PLEAS ARE UNDER CHALLENGE: he has argued they were not knowing and voluntary, and the Seventh Circuit remanded for an evidentiary hearing after finding the state had destroyed his court record while he was in psychiatric confinement. The outcome of that hearing is not established here

Years active

1977 - 1978

Location

Wisconsin/Illinois, USA

Method

Not recorded - one victim was handcuffed, gagged and buried near his home

Status

Convicted on October 31, 1979 in the Circuit Court of Kenosha County, Wisconsin, of first-degree murder, kidnapping by deceit and SECOND-degree sexual assault, and sentenced to life imprisonment WITH ELIGIBILITY FOR PAROLE. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals affirmed in 1980. THE STATE FOUND THAT HE HAD "MENTAL AND PHYSICAL ABERRATIONS AS TO SEXUAL MATTERS" AND COMMITTED HIM TO CENTRAL STATE HOSPITAL, where he repeatedly attempted suicide, refused food for extended periods and had to be restrained and force-fed. Still a patient there, he faced murder and rape charges in Cook County, Illinois; TWO DAYS AFTER ARRIVING IN ILLINOIS ON AUGUST 23, 1981 HE ATTEMPTED SUICIDE AGAIN and was admitted to Cermak Hospital. On November 20, 1981 he pleaded guilty in Illinois to three counts of murder and one of rape, receiving seventy years on each murder count and thirty on the rape count. HE LATER CHALLENGED THAT PLEA AS NOT KNOWING AND VOLUNTARY. Illinois destroyed the remainder of his state court record in November 1995, shortly after the circuit court refused him an evidentiary hearing, and THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT HELD THAT THE FACTUAL BASIS OF HIS DUE PROCESS CLAIM WENT UNDEVELOPED THROUGH NO FAULT OF HIS OWN, remanding for a hearing. Reported held at the Oshkosh Correctional Institution.

Lawrence Dalton was born in 1945. Four deaths in Wisconsin and Illinois across 1977 and 1978 were laid to him: Blanche Penna, twenty-three, Lisa Slusser, twelve, Shirley Taylor, and a fourth victim who has never been identified.

The Wisconsin case is the one that produced a trial, and the appellate judgment sets it out. He lured Blanche Penna to the house he was living in, handcuffed and gagged her, raped her, and killed her. He buried her body near the house. He was convicted of first-degree murder, of kidnapping by deceit, and of first-degree sexual assault, and sentenced to life imprisonment on October 31, 1979.

He appealed on two grounds and lost both. The first was that he had not intended to kill her, and that the trial court should have allowed psychiatric evidence that he lacked the specific intent at the time. The Court of Appeals held the exclusion correct, following a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision of the same year.

The second concerned his wife. Karen Dalton gave evidence that he had admitted to her that he had killed Blanche Penna and buried her by the house. He argued that this was a privileged communication between husband and wife. The court did not have to decide whether it was private, because he had said it in front of his four children, who were then between about three and five and a half years old. The judgment records that the four were by three different women, one of whom was named Kathy Penna; whether she was any relation to the victim is not stated in anything available here.

He was arrested on April 23, 1979. On November 20, 1981 he pleaded guilty in Illinois to three counts of murder and one count of rape, and was given seventy years on each of the murder counts and thirty years on the rape count.

Two limits on this entry. Beyond what the Wisconsin judgment says about Blanche Penna, the method in the other three deaths is not recorded in any accessible source, and it is left unstated here rather than guessed at. And because one of the four victims was never identified, the figure of four rests on the convictions and pleas rather than on four named deaths.

The victim's forename appears in this archive as Blanchie. The court record gives Blanche.