All language subtitles for Murder.360.S01E08.The.Gardener.720p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-FLUX

He called himself
a "Sick Ripper."

He was an affable
Southern gentleman,

had a good sense of humor,

and was very easygoing
and laid back.

He shows that picture
and tells a jailhouse inmate,

I'm the one that murdered
this young woman.

She was stepping into
a death chamber.

He's a monster.

Sick.

He told me things I don't
know if I was ready to hear.

He's probably
the most infamous serial killer

that we identified
in Connecticut.

And she kept repeating,
he's going to kill me.

And he shoots my daughter.

That's about the
only time in my career

that I just wanted
to shoot him.

You can run,
but you can't hide.

I was in charge of
the police department.

We got called to a scene
out on Hartford Road

behind one of our
shopping plazas.

A gentleman walking
through the woods

came across what he believed
to be human remains.

He knew he had
to call the police.

And he admitted he
had been back there,

you know, hoping to hunt.

And he had found--
you know, he'd found a skull.

That's a super busy street.

One of the state's
largest malls

is literally
100 yards up the road.

But it's a little strip mall
with a couple of restaurants.

It proceeded with
a whole search of the area.

We got
the state anthropologist

and the state medical examiner
involved

um, and they ended up
to being the remains

of three people.

They figured out that it
was three

separate women was because
there were three, like,

either right
or left hip bones.

So obviously that indicates
three different people.

They were all identified
at that time as Jane Does.

Which just broke my heart.

We needed to know
who they were,

reunite them
with their families.

No human being should
be left behind like that.

We relied heavily

on reports of missing persons.

We searched databases
in the tri-state area

to try to match
with whatever we could

with whatever
the science at the time

was allowing us to do.

Someone has got
to find justice.

In those years,

the New Britain Police
Department did everything,

everything they could possibly
do to identify these women.

These women were loved,
and somebody is missing them.

And the trick is
how do you figure out who?

So about 2009,
two New Britain detectives

drove two skulls,

and at that point,
they were known as

Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2,

to a specialized unit
within the FBI

in Quantico, Virginia.

And what that unit does is
it creates

busts, basically,
of what they thought

the person would look like.

And by 2010, the police
announced, you know,

we've got these busts
in the hopes that

somebody would recognize
these women.

We published photos of it
in the local media.

And it was the same night
or the next night

after it was ran
I received a phone call.

It did lead to the discovery

that Jane Doe 1 was
Diane Cusack.

She had been addicted
to drugs for many years

and lived a very hard life
on the streets.

Diane was never
reported as missing,

but not because
her family didn't care.

It was because there
were periods of her life

where she wouldn't communicate.

This one had gone on too long.

They start--
they had become very concerned.

She and her family
had been estranged

for a good number of years,

but the bust kind of
looked like her a bit

and that prompted, I think it
was her brother and his wife,

to come forward and say,
you know what?

Hey, this may be Diane.

I remember her telling me,
you know,

the face looks like Diane.

The hair is wrong,
but the face looks like Diane.

We ran with that,
and we were able to make

a dental match and a DNA match
at that point with Diane.

We could talk to her family,
friends, retrace her steps.

When was she last seen?

And that brought us back
to 2003.

So now we had a date range.

In September of 2013,

again, we get the notice,
oh, a big press conference.

So I walk into the training
room at the police station

and there is this poster

of this gorgeous young girl

with jet-black hair, you know,

just done beautifully,
red lipstick, smiling.

She had big,
big hoop earrings.

They had identified
Joyvaline Martinez

through her DNA.

She went missing
in October of 2003.

I mean, she was
missed terribly.

Her sister Sandra said

they refused
to move out of New Britain

because they didn't know
if someday,

she was going to return.

As time goes on,
technology improves,

and their capability
in terms of, you know,

calling DNA
and examining DNA improves.

So enough time had gone by that
they were able to identify her.

He told the other inmates
what he had done.

And his name
is William Devin Howell.

At that time,
William Devin Howell

and Jonathan Mills were
playing a card game

with a cold case
card playing deck.

The playing cards is a

technique that the police
and the prosecution have used

to try to solve cold cases,
and they put these cards

into the Department
of Corrections systems

and allow the
inmates to play cards

and on the cards are faces
of deceased individuals

whose cases are unsolved.

They have their phone number,
hotline to call,

and a lot of inmates, um,
take advantage of that.

Either because they know
or they don't know

but they're going to try
to pretend that they know

information to try to get their
sentences commuted or shortened

or something of that sort,
some kind of benefit.

Howell pulls the card
of Joyvaline Martinez.

He shows that picture to
Jonathan Mills and tells Mills,

I'm the one that murdered
this young woman.

Not only did
I murder Joyvaline Martinez,

I murdered seven people
and I put all of their bodies

behind a strip mall
in New Britain.

He even went as far
as drawing a map

and showing him the placement
of those graves

in his burial ground.

He said that he buried
these bodies in his garden.

And he called himself
a "Sick Ripper."

We brought in the cadaver dog
that was offered by the FBI.

This dog alerted us to areas

in a very large piece
of acreage that was again,

very heavily wooded
and difficult to traverse.

Within days, they had
found four more bodies.

- 22.
- Mm.

Possibly.

Mm-hmm.

Mel, she and I,
we had an amazing childhood.

We played with Barbies
and she would play the piano.

She was amazing.

A very strong person.

Even physically.

She was tiny but still strong.

She was a good mother.
She loved her kids.

I can remember
being around 16.

She was around 17.

And I can remember
seeing a change.

She had a really
strong addiction to drugs.

I couldn't imagine having
something so strong

taking control of you

to where I know she wanted
to be a good mom...

and then she couldn't be.

I knew something
really bad happened.

When Nilsa Arizmendi
disappeared

on July 25th of 2003,

her family went almost
immediately to authorities.

And she was known
to frequently call her mother

and her four children
and visit with them,

so her not being around was
a noticeable concern

to the family members.

Nilsa and her boyfriend
lived in a motel

where they would
leave every afternoon

and walk about a mile
and a half into New Britain,

where Nilsa would
hustle the streets.

Nilsa's boyfriend was the
one who said, you know what?

She went off with this guy
and never came back.

The last person to be seen
with his girlfriend,

Nilsa Arizmendi,
was William Devin Howell.

When the investigators
searched Howell's van,

they discover one DNA sample

belonging to Nilsa Arizmendi.

I think what motivated him
to accept that plea was

the fact that the prosecution

had blood DNA evidence on hand

showing that Nilsa Arizmendi's
blood was in that van.

Now, granted, it was just
a single drop of blood,

but they had it.

It took a few weeks or so to
positively identify each one,

and they announced that one
of the remains was Nilsa's.

At that point,

we did identify
the remaining victims.

There was seven victims

all buried
in the same general area.

My mom was in contact
with one officer.

And she had called me and said
they want to meet with me.

So I kind of knew.
I knew something was going on.

Ironically enough,
it was on Mel's birthday.

Huh.

And I remember her calling.

And, uh...

all she said was it's her.

Melanie Camilini,
a young mother of two children.

She was working the streets
in Waterbury, Connecticut.

And unfortunately for her,

when she stepped into
that 1985 Ford Econoline van,

she was stepping into
a death chamber.

He did first attempt
to kill her

after raping her
with a hammer.

He said that it didn't
even knock her out,

but it terrified her
and she pled for her life.

At that point,
he decided to strangle her.

He thought
it would be the quickest

and most efficient way
to bring about her death.

These victims were
Diane Cusack, Mary Jane Menard,

Joyvaline Martinez,
Danny Lee, Marilyn Gonzalez,

Nilsa Arizmendi,
and Melanie Camilini.

I did a preliminary review
of the arrest warrant,

and, you know,
it paints a picture of a person

who would consider
doing this type of crime.

And so I kind of
formulated an image of him.

And then I met him.

And the person that I met

did not correspond
with the image

that I had created in my mind.

He was an affable
Southern gentleman,

had a good sense of humor,

and was very easygoing
and laid back.

You know, every time
they brought him in

in the orange jumpsuit,

he just looked like
this ordinary guy.

He was like an ordinary guy.

Hey, Bill.

Yes, we do.

Let's talk about the crimes.

I've got to ask you
a few questions about those.

What was it that brought you

some kind of satisfaction
in that?

Mm-hmm.

My motivation from the start
was, of course, to write a book

about William Devin Howell.

And at all times, he knew

that that was the reason
why I was visiting him.

I mean, I would say by no means
am I what I think of

as one of these serial killer
groupies who is fascinated

with serial killers,

who wants to go
visit these men in prison.

If anything, when I went
to visit Powell in prison

to discuss information that
I needed to get for this book,

I frequently found myself
dreading that visit.

It was uncomfortable.

I felt nervous
driving there wondering,

what would I say to this man
who is a serial killer?

I wonder if I did
the right thing

in getting to know this man.

He eventually told me things

+that I don't know
if I was ready to hear.

William Devin Howell was
born in Hampton, Virginia,

back in 1970.

He was the last
of four children.

However,
two of his brothers were

quite a bit older than Howell.

One of his brothers was
serving in Vietnam

at the time of Howell's birth.

You know,
I talked to Bill quite a bit

about his background,
his childhood, parents,

and he described his upbringing
as very happy.

His mother and father were--
it wasn't a broken marriage.

They were together.

He describes
a happy childhood.

By the age of 12,

William Devin Howell's mother
got sick with breast cancer.

She was at the time
in her early 50s,

and this really did
affect Howell quite a bit.

She was sort of a source
of stability in his life.

She gave him protection
and routine.

She was a strong
disciplinarian.

Howell began
to solicit prostitutes

at a very young age.

He was only 14 years old.

He stole his father's car
in the middle of the night

and drove silently off

and picked up
his first prostitute.

It became his secret addiction,

soliciting prostitutes
in the middle of the night.

He has been with well over
a thousand prostitutes

over the years.

In his late teens, he got into
a drunk driving accident.

Following that accident,

he was frequently incarcerated
for driving without a license.

William Devin Howell
would work at places

like 7-Eleven as a cashier.

He worked at a gas station

and just petty cash that
he earned mowing lawns.

I think there was
a time period of hope

for William Devin Howell when
his first child was born.

At the time he was
in his late teens,

he moved down to Florida
with the mother of his child.

At the time,
he was working at a 7-Eleven.

And one could see
that at that point,

there could have been
a turning point in his future

where he became a responsible
family man like his father.

However,
I think what did him in

was the fact that
he still had this addiction

to soliciting prostitutes.

I guess ultimately,

he decided to plead guilty.

They actually gave him
six life sentences

and he agreed to that
to spare, you know,

the families of going
through the trial.

And that's what just
confounds me, Bill,

is that after knowing you
for three years,

I feel honestly like
you have shown me

nothing but respect
and goodwill.

How come I get good treatment
and--and--

but they didn't?

What's the difference
between me and them?

Mm.

You know,
they had addiction issues,

and he was offering drugs,
so they were vulnerable.

They were vulnerable people
and he took advantage of that.

Now, keep in mind,
if a woman uses drugs,

to Howell, that's one
of the two things

that makes them
a worthless object.

He claimed that the
only victim that troubled him

was his first victim,
Melanie Camilini.

And what bothered him the most

was when she begged
for her life and said,

"Please don't kill me,
I have children."

He said, "That really troubled
me when she said that,

and I almost couldn't do it."

Nonetheless, he knew that he
had just repeatedly raped her

over a 12-hour period

and that he, in his way
of thinking, had no choice.

All of us make
our own decisions,

and regardless of background,

he chose to do what he did to
these seven innocent people.

He actually
kept the tarnished ring

with a stone in it
belonging to Melanie Camilini

after he killed her.

That was the only item

belonging to any of his seven
victims that Howell kept.

I asked him why he kept that.

Was it a souvenir,

a kind of trophy
that serial killers

are known to keep to symbolize
their achievement?

He said, "No.

"Actually,
I kept that tarnished ring

"to remind me of the night

that I stopped being a man
and I became a monster."

Howell, after killing
Melanie Camilini

in May of 2003,

he was driving through
the streets of Waterbury

and he came upon
Marilyn Gonzalez.

She was also a young mother
who had a drug addiction

and was turning tricks
on the street.

As with Camilini and most
of his other victims,

Howell knew that that night,
the woman that he paid

was going to end up dead.

He knew that he would
rape Marilyn Gonzalez.

And as with
all of his other victims,

that took place
over a 12-hour period.

On again, off again,
in between rapes,

he would bind his captives

to the backbench of his van,
duct tape their mouths,

and drive them
to different locations.

At the time
of the killing spree,

I think in your mind,

you did see them as worthless
human beings, am I correct?

You just kind of--

certainly, when you raped
and killed them,

they weren't
human beings to you.

They were objects.
Would you agree with that?

Mm-hmm.

Howell completely
misunderstood

the people that he victimized,
these innocent victims.

He thought of them
to be without value,

without purpose in this world.

He couldn't have
been more wrong.

He didn't value them
as human beings.

He didn't value most people
as human beings.

He thought of them
as disposable.

I think he always had
this binary view of women.

There were the good girls
and the bad girls.

The good girls would
be someone like

the mother of his children.

He says to me
that she is a good girl.

She does not drink.
She does not smoke.

She does not do drugs.

She was a good mother
to the children.

She was faithful to him.

And then there are
the bad girls.

And these would be the women

that he would pick up
on the streets.

Mm-hmm.

Howell picked up
Daniel Whistnant

outside of this bar-restaurant

called the Cadillac Ranch
in Southington, Connecticut.

It was Howell's habit to go to
places like the Cadillac Ranch

when he had a night off

and to sit at the bar
for hours

and hope to get lucky
finding a woman at the bar.

If he didn't have
any luck at the bar,

by the time the bar closed,
he would go to the streets

and solicit a prostitute
instead.

Now, the bar closed
at 2:00 a.m.

and Howell went outside
and saw Daniel Whistnant

walking along the street,
who was dressed as a woman.

He had long, silky black hair,
Howell states,

and a short miniskirt
and high heels.

And so thinking
Daniel Whistnant

is a female prostitute,

he invites Mr. Whistnant
into his van.

During the transaction
that took place,

Howell puts his hand on
the head of Whistnant

and pulls off a wig.

He becomes enraged that
this man has deceived him

into this vulnerable position.

He throws Daniel Whistnant
against the wall of the van

and tells me that
he punched him out twice

and then quickly strangled him.

We're at the back of the
strip mall in New Britain

where William Devin Howell
would leave the remains

of his seven victims.

First off,
he would stop his van

over there
behind the strip mall

and dump the parcel,
or the body of his victim,

wrapped in garbage bags,
deep into the ravine.

And then what he would do
is he'd get back into his van

and go over to the McDonald's
parking lot, park his car,

and come back to this location
where we're at right now.

There's a trail,
as you can see.

It goes into

sort of a meadow-like
littered area.

And William Devin Howell
would walk this trail

and make a sharp right
that led into the ravine

where the parcel that he had
left was left in the ravine.

He would retrieve a spade,
a shovel that he had stored

behind the guardrail,

and then he would drag
that body,

along with his shovel,
about a few hundred yards

into the woods to the location

that he was known
to call his garden,

which is where he buried,
in very shallow graves,

the seven bodies of the people
that he killed.

In the case of
Nilsa Arizmendi,

he states that he didn't plan
to rape and kill her.

Now, it's interesting
that up until then,

any time he planned
to rape a prostitute,

it was based solely, he says,

on his lawn care schedule
the following day.

If he didn't have lawns

that he had to mow
the next morning,

then that night, he knew

he was free to solicit a
prostitute and keep her captive

in his van for the entire night
and throughout the next day.

Now, with Nilsa Arizmendi,
when she stepped into his van

and asked him to drive her to
a location to pick up drugs,

he said he would do so

in exchange for
a sexual transaction.

What happened was
when she refused

to finish that transaction,
he grew very angry.

He decided
in that split second,

I am going to rape
and kill this woman.

The next day,
he had the lawn care schedule.

So he had to keep Nilsa's
body wrapped in tarp

in the back of his van for the
duration of his lawn care jobs

that next day
before taking her out

to the back of the mall
and burying her.

Mm-hmm.

I remember going
to the crime scene.

When I walked down the
embankment in my dress shoes,

and it was kind of
muddy and slippery,

and when I was down there,
I felt like I was

in an amphitheater
kind of looking up.

And I thought, huh,
this is actually

a pretty interesting place
to have buried bodies.

You know, you'd think, well,
people might be driving by

and look down, but it wasn't a
place that you would suspect.

So it probably was
the perfect place.

In a 10-week time period
in August, September,

and the first
two weeks of October,

his last three victims died.

He picked up Mary Jane Menard

on the streets
of Waterbury, Connecticut,

and went through
his typical routine

of holding her captive
in his van for 12 hours,

raping her off and on,

and eventually strangling her.

In this case, he strangled her
in the back parking lot

of the McDonald's which was
located right next to

the strip mall where
his burial ground was located.

The sixth victim
was Diane Cusack.

Howell picked her up
in New Britain, Connecticut,

and went through
his similar routine

of raping and strangulation
in the McDonald's parking lot.

And this is where

three of William Devin Howell's
victims died.

He parked his car
right over there

and raped and strangled
three of his victims.

Now as you can see,

there is a very busy drive-thru
to my left.

This is a popular McDonald's

and it's not outside
of the realm of possibility

that quite a lot of people,

even as Howell was
killing his victims

or going up the trail
to bury his victims,

would have seen his van
and seen him

at least walking up the trail
and made no question of it.

Ironically,
Howell would also

go through this very drive-thru

with some of his victims
held captive

in the back of his van,
tied up and duct taped.

And he said to me that he
would turn the music up high

so no one would hear him--
or hear the victims

if they were screaming
or cried for help.

And during that time,
he would actually order food

through the drive-thru

and ask his victims if they
also wanted something to eat.

That 1985
Ford Econoline van,

he told the fellow inmate
that he confessed to

that he called it
the Murdermobile.

And it really is
a ghastly vehicle.

It's right here.

You know, it was all
rusted and, you know,

treadless wheels

and there was some plywood
on the back of the windows.

And this is where
all the crimes took place,

was in the interior
of that van.

He did give me title
to this awful van.

And believe me,
I won't be driving this van.

But I'm most definitely

going to take it
to the junkyard

and get it crushed.

I think it would
be a good thing

to extinguish
this awful vehicle

from the face of the Earth.

Joyvaline Martinez was
Howell's last victim.

She was a very beautiful
young girl.

She was only 23 years old
at the time of her death.

William Devin Howell
picked her up

on Hillside Avenue
in Hartford, Connecticut.

And as with his other victims,
he went through the routine

of holding her captive
in the back of his van

for a 12-hour period,
during which time

he raped her off and on

and ultimately
strangled her to death.

It's my belief
if he wasn't arrested,

he would have continued.

And that we would have
more victims.

He didn't value women as equal

or even worthy of life.

He--the terrible things
he did without the remorse

and did it again and did
it again and did it again.

In Connecticut, when you're
charged with this type--

or convicted
of this type of offense,

you're in a 8x10-foot cell,
approximately,

22 hour a day lockdown,

and you're isolated
with your thoughts.

And it's a pretty

traumatic place to be.

Some people will say
that's where he belongs,

but that's his life
until he passes away.

In court, I was initially

somewhat hopeful for him
and his soul.

Actually, his first words
were "I'm sorry."

But then he went on to
speak pretty much at length

about how life is so difficult
for him in prison.

So it really very
quickly turned into

he was sorry for
the predicament he's in.

To my knowledge, he has
not expressed any remorse.

So that's a vintage
wedding dress?

Mm-hmm.

- Oh, it's lovely.
- Yeah.

It doesn't make sense.

It doesn't make sense
that it was her.

You don't want to come
to the realization

of what really happened.

It wasn't a car accident.

It wasn't health issues.

How do you cope?
How do you process?

The victims in this case,
they were all loved,

each and every one of them.

Their families
never stopped hoping

or waiting for them to return
home safely to them.

Each one was a special person.

Being demonic.

There's got to be something
like that related with him.

There's no way.

He's a monster.

He's a monster.

Sick.

I will not let another man

destroy my soul
by making me hate him.

I won't give him that.
I don't think about him.

He would destroy me
if I hated him.

Why would someone want
a hero in our community dead?