POLICE CHECKING CLAIM SUSPECT KILLED OTHERS: OGDEN STANDARD-EXAMINER, DECEMBER 4, 1980

Carroll Edward Cole had been asking to be stopped for twenty years, and in Dallas in the first days of December 1980 he said it again. A homicide investigator named Gerald Robinson was questioning him about the death of Wanda Fay Roberts when Cole told him, "I need some help." What followed, as United Press International reported it and the Ogden Standard-Examiner printed it on December 4, 1980, was a list: his wife, Diane, in San Diego, two more women there, two in Las Vegas, one in Casper, Wyoming, and two more in Dallas.

Police charged him on Wednesday with Roberts's murder and held him on $100,000 bond. He was 42, out since October from a prison in Springfield, Missouri, where he had served time for mail fraud, and he told Robinson he had been in and out of mental institutions since the early 1960s, growing "progressively more violent." He could not say why he killed. He had, he said, homicidal tendencies.

Robinson was careful in one sentence and less careful in the next. "Although he admitted to the other eight, we're only sure so far of this one," he said, and then he said he was "fairly sure ... that there's something to all nine of them." Calls had gone out to California, Nevada and Wyoming, where some of the deaths had never been called homicides at all, and a detective from Las Vegas was already on his way to Dallas.

The story was written within days of the arrest from what one Dallas detective told reporters; the eight other killings were confessions, not charges. It spells the victim's name Wanda Fay Roberts, given elsewhere as Wanda Faye, and calls his wife Diane; she was Diana Faye Younglove Pashal. Cole was later convicted of five murders: Sally Thompson, Dorothy King and Roberts in Dallas, where he got life in April 1981, and Kathlyn Blum and Marie Cushman in Nevada, where he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death. He was executed at Carson City on December 6, 1985. His other admissions, which grew far past nine, were never tried.

This UPI story ran in the Ogden Standard-Examiner on December 4, 1980, with no staff byline. Utah Digital Newspapers, at the University of Utah's J. Willard Marriott Library, holds the scan and rates the issue "In Copyright (InC)." It is not in the public domain. No copyright notice was found on the article or in the issue's masthead; the one notice in the issue belongs to a furniture advertisement. The citation and the library's rights statement are given below the scan.

The type is sharp and the transcription follows it word for word, with nothing marked illegible and no printer's errors to preserve. Words split at the ends of lines by the column setting have been rejoined. The whole story sits in two columns on page 17A and does not continue on another page.

Transcription

Transcribed word for word from the page scan. Original spelling, punctuation, capitalisation and typographical errors have been kept exactly as printed. Unreadable words are marked [illegible]. Nothing has been modernised or corrected.

Police checking claim suspect killed others

DALLAS (UPI) — Police who charged a 42-year-old man with murder in the strangulation of a Dallas woman are investigating his claim that he killed eight other women, including his wife.

Carroll Edward Cole was charged Wednesday in last month's death of Wanda Fay Roberts and jailed in lieu of $100,000 bond.

Police said they were checking with authorities in California, Nevada and Wyoming about the other deaths, some of which had not been classified as homicides.

Homicide investigator Gerald Robinson said he was questioning Cole Tuesday about Miss Roberts' death when the suspect told him "I need some help."

Cole, who was released in October from a Springfield, Mo., prison where he had served a sentence for mail fraud, said he had been in and out of mental institutions since the early 1960s, becoming "progressively more violent," Robinson said.

The officer said Cole told him he had strangled his wife, Diane, in San Diego, Calif., and had killed two other women in San Diego, two in Las Vegas, Nev., and one in Casper, Wyo. He also reportedly admitted two Dallas slayings in addition to Miss Roberts.

"Although he admitted to the other eight, we're only sure so far of this one (Miss Roberts)," he said. "Cole told us he didn't know why he killed her and the others, just that he had homicidal tendencies."

Robinson said he was "fairly sure ... that there's something to all nine of them."

Robinson said all the out-of-state deaths had been confirmed but he had not learned whether all were ruled homicides. Of the dead women, the name of only one — Cole's wife, Diane — was released.

A homicide officer from Las Vegas was en route to Dallas to question Cole, Robinson said.

Notes: Readability is good. No printed errors were noted. No words were illegible.