The Mansfield Murders
By: Delani R. Bartlette
Tags: History, Serial Killers, True Crime, Murder, Florida

It was not long after Billy returned to Florida — April 26, 1980, to be exact — that 21-year-old Sandra Graham went missing. She had last been seen with him at a bar in Tampa, Florida. She had left her purse, glasses, and cigarettes inside the bar.

Then in June, 18-year-old Pam Sherrell went to police with a terrifying story: she said Billy had forced her into his van, drove her to his trailer, and began beating her. She said he attempted to rape her, but she managed to get hold of a knife, which she threatened him with in order to escape.

Police went to Billy’s trailer house to arrest him on charges of battery and false imprisonment, but he wasn’t there.

Two months later, Billy and his brother Gary left Florida for California, perhaps thinking they could outrun Billy’s arrest warrant. But Santa Cruz police arrested him on the Florida warrant Nov. 23, 1980.

Just two days later, their father pled guilty to the four counts of sexually abusing young girls.

Despite Billy’s long record of violence against women, he was granted bail, which he posted.

Two weeks later, the body of 29-year-old René Saling was found in a drainage ditch in Watsonville, California. Her clothing was torn open and her pants were pulled down around her ankles; a nylon rope was tied around her neck so tightly it was embedded in the skin. The medical examiner couldn’t determine if she had been sexually assaulted.

Witnesses said they saw Saling leave the Wooden Nickel Too bar with Billy on the night she went missing, making him the last person to see her alive. When police went to the KOA campground where the Mansfield brothers were living — just a few miles from where Saling’s body was found — the brothers had apparently abandoned their filthy trailer house. Later, police would discover one of their vehicles abandoned in Sacramento.

A few days later, on Dec. 10, 1980, a police officer in the small town of Winnemucca, Nevada, pulled over a van driven by two men. The men lied about their identities, but the officer noticed they matched the descriptions of the Mansfield brothers, who were wanted on suspicion of murder in California. He arrested the two — who were indeed Billy and Gary Mansfield — and they were soon extradited to California.

Back in the Golden State, Billy was charged with first-degree murder, and Gary, with accessory after the fact. Billy’s trial was set for May 4, 1981, and Gary’s was set for the following August. They both pled not guilty.

But before Billy would stand trial for Saling’s murder, several anonymous tips would send police once again to the Mansfield property. One tipster said they would find the body of Graham, who had been missing for nearly a year, buried there.

On March 16, 1981, Hernando County investigators began searching the property. The next day, they found the skeletonized remains of a young woman, wrapped in a blanket, curled up in a fetal position, buried behind the house. She had a thick wire wrapped around her neck and wrist, and her skull had been fractured.

However, the victim was not Graham. In fact, she still has not been identified.

Days later, police uncovered another skeleton beneath the family home’s water pipes. Evidence found in the grave, later confirmed by dental records, identified the victim as 15-year-old Elaine Ziegler, who had gone missing from a nearby KOA campground on New Year’s Eve, 1975. She appeared to have been killed by multiple penetrating wounds to the head.

Investigators continued digging up the property, eventually finding two more bodies, including Graham, whose cause of death was determined to be strangulation.

Despite strongly suspecting they would find at least two more bodies, without any clues to point them in a specific area, after five weeks, the search was halted.

Two of the women police found buried on the property are still unidentified. One is thought to be a teenaged girl who could have been as young as 13, white with possible African American heritage, standing about 5 foot 4 inches. The other was described as a 22- to 30-year-old white woman who would have been about 5 feet tall. The skulls of both victims were sent to Colorado State University for forensic facial reconstruction. Both had been buried about two years when they were discovered, so may have gone missing around 1979.

Forensic facial reconstruction of the two unidentified victims

Billy Mansfield’s first trial in California, for the murder of Saling, began in July 1981. Since the only physical evidence linking Billy to Saling was a fiber from a pair of his pants found on her body, the jury deadlocked. A second trial was set for January 1982.

But Billy didn’t want to wait for another trial. In late October 1981, he and another inmate climbed up to a rooftop in the prison yard and were able to jump over the fence and escape. Using sniffer dogs, police found the two just 12 hours later.

Meanwhile, Gary entered into a plea deal with prosecutors: in exchange for testifying against his older brother, the charges against him were dropped.

In his second trial, with his brother and a woman known only as “Cindy” testifying against him, he was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years to life.

At the same time, Billy was also indicted in Florida for the murders of the four women found buried on the family property, as well as the kidnapping and assault charges against Sherrell. He originally pled not guilty, but changed his plea to guilty to avoid the death penalty. However, he did not name the two unidentified victims.

He was given four life sentences, but was allowed to remain in California.