William Dean Christensen was arrested in a Philadelphia bar on December 4, 1983, minutes after a 51-year-old man, Joseph Connelly, was shot to death outside another bar. He told the police his name was Jeffrey Shrader, and under that name a Philadelphia jury convicted him of Connelly's murder. Only after the verdict did investigators learn that "Shrader" was a Maryland man with a record of violent attacks on women going back to 1969, a man who had walked out of a Canadian prison early in April 1982 and had been sought in two countries ever since.
By the time the Washington Post profiled him after the Philadelphia conviction, fingerprints had tied him to the man who, witnesses said, had picked up Michele Angiers, 23, who was stabbed to death in Dickson City, Pennsylvania, in September 1982; he had been charged in another Pennsylvania slaying; and Canadian authorities had issued fugitive warrants naming him in the deaths of two women in Canada. Police in several jurisdictions were also investigating him in connection with at least a dozen killings of young women in Canada and along the East Coast between 1980 and 1983. Of all these deaths, the Connelly killing is the one for which a jury convicted him.
Christensen grew up in Bethesda, Maryland, the youngest of three children. His father, a Mormon from Utah who studied law at Harvard, had headed the Army's Criminal Investigation Division by the end of the Second World War and later worked as an intelligence official. His mother, whom his father met at Harvard, was the Irish Catholic daughter of a Boston city councilman. An older brother died of cancer at 23. The family's longtime lawyer, Victor Crawford of Rockville, told the Washington Post that the loss focused the parents' attention on their younger son and made them overprotective of him, his mother especially.
He went to Our Lady of Lourdes grammar school in Bethesda and graduated in 1962 from Our Lady of Good Counsel High School in Wheaton. Former classmates remembered a quick, violent temper and a boy who reacted badly to teasing. One schoolmate recalled him wearing large galoshes on rainy days and carrying his books in his father's old leather briefcase. Witnesses told the Post that in the early 1960s, after a friend threw a saltshaker at his father's car, he rammed the friend's car at a Bethesda drive-in.
He married in 1966 and had two children. He worked at various times as a postal clerk, a sales clerk and an auto mechanic. His wife divorced him in 1972, after he had twice been arrested for assaulting her.
His first serious arrest came in 1969, when he was 24. He attacked a young woman in Georgetown, in Washington, D.C. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but a jury convicted him of assault and battery, and he was sentenced to five years. He was paroled in August 1970, after about six months. In April of that year Dr. Harold M. Boslow, director of the Patuxent Institute, had written that Christensen was "a distinct danger to society" and that under stress he "can become extremely dangerous."
In July 1972 he was charged in Montgomery County, Maryland, over an attack on a woman to whom he and a friend had offered a ride. The indictment charged kidnapping, assault with intent to rape, attempted rape, assault and battery, and assault. A jury in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County acquitted him of kidnapping and of assault with intent to rape and convicted him of attempted rape, with a recommendation of mercy. The conviction did not stand. In 1975 the Court of Appeals of Maryland ruled in his favor on the use of the "missing witness" rule at trial (the prosecution had not produced the accomplice as a witness) and sent the case back for a new trial. On November 9, 1976, the Court of Special Appeals held that the attempted rape count was itself defective, because it charged an "attempt to commit an assault", and ruled that his motion to dismiss it should have been granted. The opinion, by Chief Judge Gilbert, rejected his separate argument that the earlier acquittal barred a retrial.
About two months after the July 1972 incident, while he was free on a $5,000 bond, he and another man abducted a young woman in Georgetown and took her to Montgomery County. In that case he pleaded guilty to rape charges. The Court of Special Appeals recorded a sentence of sixteen years, later reduced to twelve. The Post reported that he served seven years and eight months, and he was paroled on April 1, 1980.
Less than three months later, on June 28, 1980, he was arrested in Montgomery County for assaulting a woman at a bus stop and was released on personal bond. On July 18, 1980, a man matching his description offered a ride to a woman waiting for a bus in Montgomery County and took her away, and, the Post reported, she was raped. He was accused, not convicted, in the Post's account. A warrant was issued for Christensen's arrest, but he could not be found. According to court documents cited by the Post, his parents at first said they did not know where he was, then agreed to help law enforcement.
He next surfaced in Canada. On April 16, 1981, a man identified as Christensen pleaded guilty in Montreal to attacking a woman and received three concurrent sentences of 18 months. A later Post report described the Montreal case as a rape conviction similar to his Maryland one. Montgomery County authorities learned that he was in Canadian custody and filed a detainer, asking that he be handed over to them when his sentence ended.
That handover never happened. On April 2, 1982, Canadian authorities released him after he had served about a year of his 18-month term. They blamed an "administrative error." By the Post's count he had spent about nine years in custody, though his sentences in Maryland and Canada added up to more than 22 years. Speaking from prison after his Philadelphia conviction, Christensen told the Post a different story: "I've had very little time on the streets," he said, claiming that he had been institutionalized for 16 years.
Police later said that less than three weeks after his release in Montreal he began a killing spree that lasted 21 months. He moved through Canada and through Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Kentucky, Georgia and Florida, using false names and changing his hair, his facial hair and the frames of his glasses.
Evidence found in a Philadelphia house where he had been living later led Canadian authorities to issue fugitive warrants for him in the deaths of two women in Canada. The Post's profile of him after the Philadelphia conviction described him as charged in those deaths; a later Post report, after his mother's trial, described the two Canadian killings as ones in which he was suspected.
Michele Angiers was 23 and lived in Dickson City, Pennsylvania, a town of about 5,000 people. She worked in nearby Scranton. On September 23, 1982, she was stabbed to death in Dickson City.
Witnesses told police about a heavyset man with a pockmarked face who had bought her a small gift the night before and had picked her up. He went by the name "Stanley Holl." The Post reported that fingerprints later identified "Stanley Holl" as Christensen. After his Philadelphia conviction he was charged, the Post reported, in "another Pennsylvania slaying", and a later Post report described him as indicted for "another murder in Scranton".
Joseph Connelly was 51 and lived in Philadelphia. On December 4, 1983, he was shot to death outside a bar in the city. Police found Christensen in another Philadelphia bar minutes later and arrested him.
He gave his name as Jeffrey Shrader and kept to that identity. The case went to trial under that name, prosecuted by Jack McMahon, a Philadelphia assistant district attorney, and a Philadelphia jury convicted "Jeffrey Shrader" of Connelly's murder. He faced a mandatory life sentence.
Ten days after the verdict, investigators in Montgomery County, Maryland, followed up an address they had found in the trash outside his parents' home in Bethesda. It led them to Philadelphia, and they told the city's homicide detectives that the man convicted as Shrader was William Dean Christensen, the man wanted in Maryland since 1980.
Philadelphia detectives then searched a run-down row house where he had been living. His mother had bought it in September 1983 for $10,000 in cash, using her maiden name. Evidence found in the house, the Post reported, linked him to the deaths of the two women in Canada, and Canadian authorities issued their fugitive warrants.
McMahon told the Post that Connelly would be alive if the justice system had caught Christensen sooner. "Every time there was a little crack, Jeffrey, or Christensen, slipped through," he said, "and as a result a lot of people are dead." He asked how Christensen could have been free all that time. Joseph Brignola, a Philadelphia homicide detective, said that investigations of Christensen were under way "along the entire East Coast, ranging from Florida to Washington."
On Valentine's Day after his conviction, Christensen gave a rare interview at Holmesburg Prison in Philadelphia. The reporter described a man six feet one inch tall and over 200 pounds who kept a half-smile but flared into sudden anger, insisted on steering the conversation, spoke of women in demeaning terms and said that he loved women.
He spoke of psychological problems and of a dependence on alcohol that, he said, set off different personalities. "I have a thing where I'm insane, but it's latent," he said. "Alcohol can trigger it." He objected to the charges against his parents and said he kept away from them so as not to be "a lightning rod for all this trouble." Asked again whether he was the serial killer that officials described, he did not answer directly. "I've been zapped out and drunk a lot of times," he said. "How can you say what you do when you're zapped out and drunk?"
Shortly after the interview, prison authorities said, he attacked a fellow inmate and beat him severely.
His parents were charged in Montgomery County, Maryland, with conspiracy and harboring a fugitive. Prosecutors said they had sent him money while he was wanted and that his mother had bought the Philadelphia row house. Both pleaded not guilty. At a hearing before Judge Edwin Collier, FBI agents and police from Philadelphia and Montgomery County testified. His father told a reporter, "They're cooking up a lot of murder charges," and would say nothing more.
His mother was tried before Judge Collier in District Court and convicted of harboring a fugitive and of conspiring with her husband to protect their son. She was 77. The prosecutor, Robert Dean, told the court that in May 1982 she and her husband had been told "in no uncertain terms" that their son was wanted. Judge Collier said there was a "strong probability that one or more persons would still be alive today." He sentenced her to one year in jail on each count, with all but 60 days suspended, and fined her $2,000. "I feel as though I'm not guilty, is all," she said at sentencing. Her lawyer, Victor Crawford, said the parents believed their son was innocent and that he planned to appeal to the state's highest court on jurisdictional grounds.
Her husband, then 79, had suffered a heart attack during a court proceeding in March and three more since, and was bedridden at home; he did not attend the verdict. What became of the charges against him has not been reported. The Post added that the parents had had no contact with their son since his conviction.
Several claims about Christensen go beyond what any court decided.
The Canadian deaths. Canadian authorities issued fugitive warrants for him in the deaths of two women in Canada, and one Post report described him as charged in them, a later one as suspected. They are attributed to him by Canadian authorities in that sense only; no court has ruled on them.
The wider investigations. Investigators in several places looked at him in connection with at least a dozen killings of young women in Canada and along the East Coast between 1980 and 1983. Those investigations did not produce a conviction.
The Angiers killing. Fingerprints, the Post reported, identified him as the "Stanley Holl" whom witnesses described in the Angiers case. He was later charged in a further Pennsylvania slaying and indicted for a murder in Scranton; the victim in those charges has not been named, and no verdict has been reported.
His own account. He never admitted any of the killings in the interview he gave the Post, and he answered the central question only by pointing to his drinking.
1962: Graduates from Our Lady of Good Counsel High School, Wheaton, Maryland.
1966: Marries; the couple have two children.
1969: Attacks a young woman in Georgetown, Washington, D.C.; convicted of assault and battery; five-year sentence.
April 1970: The director of the Patuxent Institution warns that he is "a distinct danger to society."
August 1970: Paroled after about six months.
1972: Divorced. In July, charged in Montgomery County over an attack on a woman; later convicted of attempted rape.
About September 1972: With another man, abducts a young woman in Georgetown; later pleads guilty to rape charges and is sentenced to sixteen years, later reduced to twelve.
1975: The Court of Appeals of Maryland sets aside the attempted rape conviction and orders a new trial.
November 9, 1976: The Court of Special Appeals rules that the attempted rape count should be dismissed.
April 1, 1980: Paroled after seven years and eight months.
June 28, 1980: Arrested in Montgomery County for assaulting a woman at a bus stop; released on personal bond.
July 18, 1980: A woman is raped in Montgomery County; a warrant is issued for his arrest.
April 16, 1981: Pleads guilty in Montreal; three concurrent 18-month sentences.
April 2, 1982: Released early by Canadian authorities, who cite an "administrative error."
May 1982: His parents are told he is wanted, according to the Maryland prosecutor.
September 23, 1982: Michele Angiers, 23, is stabbed to death in Dickson City, Pennsylvania; fingerprints later tie Christensen to the man witnesses knew as "Stanley Holl".
September 1983: His mother buys a Philadelphia row house for him under her maiden name.
December 4, 1983: Joseph Connelly, 51, is shot dead outside a Philadelphia bar; Christensen is arrested minutes later and gives his name as Jeffrey Shrader.
Later: A Philadelphia jury convicts "Jeffrey Shrader" of Connelly's murder; ten days later, Maryland investigators identify him as Christensen. Canadian fugitive warrants follow.
Later: His parents are charged in Montgomery County with conspiracy and harboring a fugitive.
February 16, after the Philadelphia conviction: Charged in another Pennsylvania slaying; interviewed at Holmesburg Prison on Valentine's Day.
Later: His mother is convicted of harboring a fugitive and conspiracy and sentenced to 60 days' jail time plus suspended terms and a $2,000 fine.