"We'll
do some stripping, some poses nude and a progressive bondage scene."
Positive
that he had his man, Wier placed the suspect under arrest.
It
had been the killer's signature, he used cash to lure homeless men or
drifters to the woods for nude photographs and for a chance to tie them to
trees and kill them, according to prosecutors at his trial for first
degree murder.
With
their man in custody Punta Gorda authorities began to search his
background. Aside from being a superbly imaginative liar, he had no real
trouble with the law except for a run-in with U.S. Naval authorities that
resulted in his administrative discharge. The investigating officer in
that case found that Conahan tried to perform oral sex on a sailor in
1978, which resulted in a fight.
However
the bodycount of the HogTrail Killer began on Wednesday, April 17, 1996,
when two Charlotte County road workers decided to wonder around and do a
little hog hunting on their lunch break.
At
the top of a knoll in the dense bushland, they hesitated as they looked
down on an unusual object. The two men moved down the embankment to see
what it was.
There
the two men bent over what appeared to be a human skull. Without another
word the two men hightailed it mack to their car and drove on to find a
phone, instead they found two police officers eating donuts in a local
convenience store.
The
officers listen intently to the men's story and then agreed to accompany
the road workers back to the location in the dense woods. The officers
peered closely at the skull and could tell right away it was indeed a
human head. The uniformed officers immediately reported the ghastly find
to their superiors, who in turn notified the Florida State Troopers and
Emergency crews.
Crime
scene officer quickly made another grisly discovery.
Beneath
an old carpet, they found a hidden body. The young male was lying on his
back, totally naked. Rope burns on his neck told the officers he had been
strangled. Then further examination of the rest of the body showed that
the man's genitals had been carved from his body.
In
their search for more clues, detectives came across fresh footprints.
Since the victim was barefoot at the time he was found, they hoped that
the footprints belonged to the killer.
Detective
Rickey Hobbs of the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office led the
investigation.
Analysts
drew up diagrams of the crime scenes, photos were taken and a thorough
search of the area and surrounding ground for more clues.
The
preliminary autopsy report was what investigators had expected. The victim
had been raped and strangled to death with a rope, possibly a clothesline.
The pathologist had identified the body through dental records as well as
fingerprints. The victim was 21-year-old Richard Montgomery. He had been
reported missing by his family only the day before his body was found by
the hog hunters.
The
detectives interviewed Montgomery's relatives, hoping for some leads. The
victim's mother told the officers that he mentioned someone offering him
money to pose nude, when she saw him earlier the morning he disappeared.
If
Montgomery had gone into the woods with a man he barely knew to allow
himself to be photographed naked, it wasn't the wisest move to make. A
killer, police knew, usually wins by matching wits with his victim.
The
day after the grisly discoveries in the woods, a party of investigators
returned to the scene to search for any further evidence.
It
wasn't long before they found another mutilated corpse close to where
Montgomery's body was found and then three more turned up. Two of the
bodies remain unidentified.
In
each case, Charlotte County Medical Examiner R.H. Imami conducted his own
investigation of the scene before the remains were carried to the
coroner's van.
According
to Imami, ligature marks left on each of the bodies had been inflicted
after death. He indicated the same man was responsible for all of the
murders. The individual was determined to be either a homosexual or
bi-sexual. The speculation was that he was probably a schizophrenic
sociopath and living in the area.
When
police uncovered the body of Bill Melaragno in the vicinity of where
Montgomery and several others died it appeared that the victim was
stronger than his killer thought and fought for his life for as long as he
could.
Just
before he died, victim William John Melaragno ran through the woods naked,
panicked enough to race barefoot over sharp rocks and blindly hurl himself
through tangles of underbrush that slashed his upper torso. Melaragno's
body also bore ropelike marks, suggesting he had been tied up during part
of the ordeal that ended his life in a remote, wooded area of southwestern
Florida. His attacker stabbed him four times, posed the body in the shape
of a cross on the ground and amputated the dead man's genitals, according
to authorities.
A
detective described his death as unneeded and deliberate, "with
execution-style wounds."
The
February 1996 killing was the third in what investigators believe is a cluster
of at least six slayings by Conahan. Most of the victims were slain in
isolated, densely wooded areas just inland from the Gulf Coast, within 10
miles from where Conahan was living in a condominium with his elderly
parents.
Between
1994 and 1997, six bodies were found within a 10-mile radius. All were
male and nude. At least four were posed on their backs in similar
positions. Two of them had their genitals amputated. All were transients,
day laborers or "street people," according to police. Ropelike
material was involved in at least three of the killings. One body was
completely dismembered, and its parts scattered for a hundred yards
through the trees.
The
killer drove around with his "murder kit" -- a knapsack filled
with a knife, rope, tarp, gloves and a Polaroid camera. He would pick up
transients, hitchhikers and hustlers for sex and nude bondage photos.
Plying them with alcohol and drugs, he would take them into isolated
wooded areas, where he'd bind them to trees before killing them. Then he'd
pose the corpses on the ground and perform various mutilations. Which is
the reason Wier volunteered to use himself as bait to capture the man who
so far killed five men before he killed again.
Once
they had Conahan in custody they began their systematiac routine of
obtaining warrants to search his house. They did believe that all the
victims were killed where they were found, they only wanted to check the
house for any items that may link their suspect to the victims.
Three
years after his arrest, on Monday, June 28, 1999 Danny Conahan, gave a
jailhouse interview to reporters where he used it as a forum for him to
sternly deny the charges and claim he was innocent. In another breath, he
said he was sure he would be railroaded because the police had to solve
the case quickly to save face. Conahan went on to accuse the investigators
of trickery, perjury and witness tampering.
In
his lap were a pile of legal files that he had marked up with asterisks,
frenzied underlines and scribbles, exclamation points and question marks
and bold letters of "LIES! LIES! LIES." Next to the arresting
officer's name he had written "Sonofabitch!"
Dismissing
his arrest as a theatrics, Conahan chided authorities who had trapped him
into an arrest. "At the beginning they expected all kind of evidence
to come rolling in," he blurted. "My opinion is that right now
they don't know what to do because they don't have evidence, they don't
have one piece of solid evidence."
Asked
about knives and ropes he had purchased that were traced to a local
Wal-Mart store, where a clerk identified him through a photo lineup, he
snapped, "So what?"
He
dismissed talk about allegedly picking up men on deserted roads, then
killing them. "If I'm suppose to be tying these guys up, butchering
them, cutting their dicks off, wouldn't there be one speck of blood?"
he asked.
Pretrial
investigation showed that the Florida State Attorney's Office filed an
affidavit professing that Conahan made an obligatory confession to a
homosexual lover in Chicago that he fantasized about picking up vagrants,
taking them into the woods and tying them to a tree where he would have
oral sex with them before the victim's sexual organs were skewered.
In
later interviews with psychiatrists and the investigators he denied,
then admitted that he had violent fantasies and that he picked up vagrants
and took them deep into the forest for paid sex. He said he concentrated
on photographing them in the nude and even discussed bondage.
But
he never tied any one up or killed them, he insisted.
The
coincidence was too extreme. After grinding through the customary channels
of checking and rechecking known facts, Conahan was charged with the
first-degree murder, sexual battery, and kidnapping of Montgomery. Citing
the barbarity of the case, the prosecution wanted the death penalty.
In
a surprise move, Conahan waived his right to a jury trial because of
pretrial publicity, and decided to let presiding Judge, the Hon Judge
Blackwell to resolve his guilt or innocence.
The
case gave light to even more of the evil side of Danny Conahan.
Prosecution said Montgomery was a high school dropout who ill-treated
drugs and alcohol, adding "He was easy prey when he was drunk or when
he needed some money."
In
an effort to show the bestial side of the defendant, the prosecution
described for the court how Montgomery's body, ligature marks on his neck,
chest and legs, was found close to the bludgeoned and sexually assaulted
remains of Kenneth Lee Smith on April 17.
According
to Lee the prosecuting attorney, Conahan was able to cut off Montgomery's
genitals "with near medical perfection" because he was a nurse
at Charlotte Regional Medical Center until January 1996. He did this, Lee
said, because he knew that if he left them on the victim, investigators
would have his saliva and DNA would connect him to the crime.
"His
terrible lust and passion spent and his dark fantasy fulfilled, he walked
away with his gruesome trophy in his hand," said Lee.
In
contrast, defence attorney Ahlbrand told Judge Blackwell that his client
did have interest in casual sex with men, but that he was never aggressive
in his manner.
"This
man is on trial not because he is guilty of the offense, but because he
has adopted a lifestyle which is similar to their scenario as to who
killed Richard Montgomery. He matched their little profile," said
Ahlbrand.
Continuing
to portray Conahan as a man with a documented history of back problems -
one reason he should be found not guilty -- Ahlbrand said, "They're
describing this as a very brutal, physically demanding thing",
something with Conahan's injuries culd not possible achieve.
Montgomery's
roommate then testified that Montgomery had told him he was going to make
$100 posing nude, as he left their rented trailer and walked toward Cox
Lumber Yard, where Conahan picked him up. The roommate also told the court
that the new friend called Conahan dropped in one day looking for Ritchie
a few weeks before the young man's disappearance.
When
Montgomery said he was going to go out make some money it was the last
time his mate saw him alive. Though Montgomery did not specify that he was
going to pose for the pictures, his roommate had made the assumption.
A
Fort Myers police officer called to the Hog Trail crime scene in 1996
remembered a man who told him he survived a similar attack in 1994. That
led to the state's star witness, 29-year-old Stanley Burden. Lee believed
Burden's testimony could provide chilling insights into how six men may
have died at the hands of Conahan.
"I
live the attack every night," he told the court. "You don't
forget nothing. It just beats at you and beats at you and tears you
apart."
The
witness, still badly shaken, said he had been down and out and
living in a dirty little motel room in 1994 when Conahan approached him
and offered him $150 to go with him into the woods to pose for naked
photographs he wanted to use for a magazine article. Being broke Burden
found the offer one he could not refuse.
As
thethe two men walked into the woods of Hog Trail, Conahan asked Burden if
he ever had pictures taken in bondage.
"I
told him no," Burden testified. "Then he said he'd show me how
to do it." Burden said Conahan began by tying his hands around a
tree, then he took pictures of him in various positions.
Burden
said he felt a little uncomfortable, then frightened when Conahan tied a
rope around his neck. "He said 'Here, I'm going to drape this just
around your shoulders and take some pictures.' Then he yanked straight
back into the tree," Burden continued.
He
said Conahan was perspiring, breathing heavy and cursing, "Why won't
you die you son-of-a-bitch?"
"He
tried with everything he could to kill me. You got your foot on the back
of the tree and you're pulling with everything you've got and it don't
work. What would you do? It was like he gave up," Burden said.
Conahan had made a dratsic error with this victim. After half an hour of
trying to strangle his victim, Burden still would not died. So he gave up,
Burden lived to tell his story and put the killer to death.
Conahan
sexually assaulted him then offered him money to forget about the
occurrence. "He said he would give me a hundred dollars. I told him
just keep it, I just want to be left alone. If he didn't have somewhere to
go that day, I believe he would have tried to stand there and keep
going."
Conahan's
story differed dramatically from Burden's. He claimed that Burden refused
to be photographed in the nude, but accepted $20 for quick sex and that's
all there was to it.
However
inconsistencies in Burden's story made him anything but a credible
witness, and his own dubious history also added doubt to his credibility.
Under
cross-examination, Burden admitted to previous lies. In previous
interviews with police he couldn't remember or refused to supply a number
of details about the Conahan incident.
In
yet another setback for the prosecution, after ME R.H. Imami testified
that ligature marks on the body of Montgomery were inflicted 'after'
death, Ahlbrand got him to admit that the killer could have tied him up
while he was alive and the ligature marks could still have come after
death from the weight of the slumped body pulling against the rope.
Probably
the most essential witness called by the prosecutors was Paula
Sauer, a microanalyst with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (
FDLE). She testified that she found 15 types of fibers taken from
Conahan's home, his Plymouth station wagon and his father's 1984 Mercury
Capri, at the site of murder victim Montgomery.
According
to Sauer, an uncommon pink fiber called polyprophlene, was lifted from
Montgomery's body that matched a rope found in the Mercury Capri.
Sauer
told the court that a 16th type of fiber found on his property matched
fibers on a rope that police contended he used in a strangulation
attempted of another man.
Janice
Taylor, a senior crime lab analyst with FDLE testified next. She said she
found a paint chip in Montgomery's public hair that matched a paint chip
taken from the Capri that belonged to Conahan's deceased father. It
was impossible for the flakes to be from any other car due to the fact
that the car had been resprayed twice, the layer effect matched the tiny
specimen found on the body.
The
judge's decision came after in 25 minutes of deliberation. He found that
Daniel Conahan Jr. was guilty of strangling Richard Montgomery, allowing
the Punta Gorda police to close the book on the Hog Trail murder case.
Judge Blackwell found Conahan guilty of first-degree murder, premeditated
murder and kidnapping, while strangely enough, dismissing a charge of
sexual battery.
On
November 3, 1999, after 22 minutes of deliberations, a jury asked Judge
Blackwell to send him to death row until such time he could be strapped to
Florida's "Old Sparky" - the very same chair that held
another notorious serial killer Ted Bundy.
