William Dale Archerd

William Dale Archerd ( May 5, 1912 - October 29, 1977 ) was an American serial killer who killed at least three people with insulin injections in California between 1956 and 1966 . He was the first to be convicted of the use of insulin as a murder weapon in the United States, and is considered suspect in three other cases.

Example

Archerd was always interested in medicine , but had neither the money nor the discipline to study it. In 1940 and 1941 he worked as an assistant in the Camarillo State Hospital on wards treating the insane with insulin shock therapy .

In 1950 he was after he had pleaded guilty, for possession of morphine in San Francisco to a prison sentence of five years probation convicted. In the course of another conviction, this parole was revoked. After an escape from the minimum security prison of Chino , he was in San Quentin State Prison arrested and again released in October 1953 probation.

Arrest and conviction

Archerd was arrested in Los Angeles on July 27, 1967 for triple homicides . He was accused of killing his fourth wife Zella († July 25, 1956; two months after the wedding), his nephew Burney Archerd († September 2, 1961 in Long Beach ) and his seventh and last wife, the writer Mary Brinker Arden ( † November 3, 1966). Not included in the indictment were the killing of his friend William Jones († October 12, 1947 in Fontana ), his fifth wife Juanita († March 13, 1958 in Las Vegas ) and another friend, Frank Stewart († March 17, 1960 in same hospital as Juanita). All had died of hypoglycaemia .

Archerd was sentenced to death on March 6, 1968 for murder on three counts . In December 1970, the California Supreme Court upheld the death sentence . In 1972, the sentence was, however, by a judgment of the United States Supreme Court in a life sentence converted. He died of pneumonia in 1977 at the age of 65.

literature

• Newton, Michael: The Great Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. 5th edition, Stocker, Graz 2009, ISBN 978-3-85365-240-4 (source, unless otherwise stated)