|
Man tied to two 1980s slayings
By JANE MEINHARDT © St. Petersburg Times, published November 21, 1998 Pinellas County sheriff's detectives now say that person is James Delano Winkles and allege he killed Elizabeth Graham, a 19-year-old dog groomer who disappeared in 1980. The skull, found in 1981 with two bullet holes in it, was recently identified as Graham's. Investigators also have linked Winkles to the 1981 death of 39-year-old Margo Delimon. She, too, was found decapitated. Her head was found in one county and her body in another. The leader of an investigation that began in February, sheriff's Detective Michael Madden, said this week that two first-degree murder cases naming Winkles have been referred to Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe for review. According to Madden, his investigation shows Winkles abducted, raped and killed Graham and Delimon. Winkles was named in the early 1980s as a suspect in the disappearance of four Pinellas women, including Graham and Delimon. The investigation focused on him again after he provided information to detectives. Convicted of kidnapping a woman in Seminole County shortly after the Pinellas disappearances and sentenced to life in prison in 1982, Winkles lived in Pinellas Park. He worked as a mechanic and ran a lawn maintenance operation. In telephone and jail interviews with the Times, Winkles said guilt prompted him to recently offer information to detectives. "I got away with stuff for so long," the burly, gray-haired man said. "Things I've done make Ted Bundy look like a choirboy." Winkles, 57, claimed he abducted dozens of women in the Tampa Bay area for his sexual pleasure and killed some of them. He spoke nonchalantly, as if talking about some trivial activity, and seems to be seeking notoriety. "Ninety-nine percent of these incidents were not planned," said Winkles, who is in the Polk Correctional Institution. "When the urge hit, they were targets of opportunity." According to detectives, most of Winkle's claims about other supposed victims were unsubstantiated in months of investigation into information he gave them. Winkles had details about Graham and Delimon only their killer could know, detectives said, but no other murder case has been confirmed. "The investigation is still open, but so far we have only verified two murders," sheriff's Sgt. Mike Ring said. "We believe he's done others, but not as many as he claims." Graham was victim of circumstanceElizabeth Graham, known to her friends as Liz, was truly a victim of circumstance Winkles said he was attracted to a woman who drove a van for Pampered Poodles mobile grooming. Posing as a dog owner, he called the business, described the woman and asked for her to come groom his dachshund at a house on Bradford Street near the St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport. Winkles knew the house was vacant. The call was assigned to Graham, who wanted to be a veterinary assistant and had just started working as a groomer. It was the St. Petersburg woman's last call that day, Sept. 9, 1980. Winkles was surprised when Graham showed up. She was not the Pampered Poodles woman he wanted, but it didn't matter. Her van was found at the house the next day, and she vanished. Winkles told detectives what happened. "He took us to the abduction site, told us how he killed her and what he did with the body," Madden said. "He told us the body and head were separated." Winkles told them a skull he had read about in a 1981 newspaper story was Graham's and described it. It was the skull found in the Steinhatchee River. "He's the one who linked that to Elizabeth Graham, the way he described the area and the condition of the skull," the detective said. "We confirmed it via DNA analysis." Winkles claimed he kept Graham captive for several days before giving her a sedative and killing her while she slept. Detectives cannot confirm that, although Madden said it was possible because Winkles "learned many personal things about her habits and aspects of her life." Her body was not found at a mid-Pinellas location where Winkles told them he buried it. Detectives said that was possibly because the area has changed greatly in the 18 years since her death. Graham's parents could not be reached for this article. Gary Muchmore, who was her boyfriend and planned to marry her, wants to some day visit the site where her skull was found as a way to finally end the ordeal. "There were times I wanted to die," Muchmore said. "The whole 18 years I've always been trying to find out what happened. It's like a big heavy burden has been lifted off me." Winkles: Bundy-like techniques usedUsing techniques similar to Ted Bundy's, Winkles said he got Margo Delimon into his car with a ruse and rendered the passenger's door latch inoperable so she could not escape She left the Pinellas Park model home sales office where she worked on Oct. 2, 1981, went to a bank and then called her estranged husband from her Clearwater apartment. That was the last heard of Delimon until the identity of a head and a body was determined in August 1983. Winkles described her abduction and aftermath, but exactly how she was killed remains under investigation. "He took her to a location in Pinellas and ... kept her alive, from his statements, for a few days," Madden said. "If you look at the totality of his statements, it tends to make you believe that was true." Winkles told detectives he buried Delimon in Pinellas, but then unearthed the body a week later when he found that animals had disturbed the grave. Madden said Winkles eventually took her body to Citrus County to a place where he had been on camping trips, removed her head and left the body there. He took her head in the car with him. "He drove south on U.S. 19 from Citrus and found a side road," the detective said. "He said he threw the head in some palmettoes." The headless body was discovered 19 days after Delimon disappeared. The skull was found seven months later about 25 miles away in Hernando County. Hernando sheriff's officials said then that three of Delimon's cervical vertebrae were still attached to the skull, and a toothless jawbone was nearby. Some of what Winkles told detectives can never be confirmed, either because people supposedly involved are dead or he acted alone. According to detectives, he did provide details about Delimon's skull that were verified. Delimon's family, which hired a private investigator in attempts to find out what happened to her, could not be reached. Detectives say they know of three other kidnapping victims who were luckier. One was a Seminole County woman who escaped from Winkles' car in 1982 and alerted a deputy who arrested him, ending Winkles' criminal career. In 1981, an exotic dancer in Tampa was let go after being raped, and a Polk County woman was released after being assaulted around Thanksgiving. "He, in fact, told us the only reason she survived was that he felt sorry for her because it was Thanksgiving," Madden said.
Business |
Citrus |
Columnists |
Commentary |
|
or 18 years, only one person knew the identity of a woman whose skull was found by divers in the Steinhatchee River.
