Edward Wayne Edwards (June 14, 1933 – April 7, 2011) was an American serial killer and former fugitive. Edwards escaped from jail in Akron, Ohio, in 1955 and fled across the country, holding up gas stations. By 1961, he was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
Edwards was captured and arrested in Atlanta, Georgia on January 20, 1962. After his release from prison on parole in 1967, Edwards murdered at least five people between 1977 and 1996. He is suspected of several additional killings.
Background
Edwards was born in Akron, Ohio in 1933. In his autobiography Edwards wrote that he grew up in an orphanage, and that he was abused both physically and emotionally by nuns there.
Edwards was allowed out of juvenile detention to join the U.S. Marines, but he eventually went and was dishonorably discharged. He traveled frequently during his 20s and 30s, working as a ship docker, vacuum cleaner retailer, and handyman, among other assorted jobs.
In 1955, Edwards escaped from a jail in Akron and drifted around the country robbing gas stations. He wrote that he never disguised himself during these crimes because he wanted to be famous. After spending several years as a fugitive, he was placed on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list in 1961 following a 1960 escape from a Portland, Oregon jail, where he had been held on suspicion of impersonating a Federal Officer. After his 1962 capture, he was imprisoned in USP Leavenworth, from which he was paroled in 1967. Edwards claimed that the influence of a benevolent guard at Leavenworth reformed him. He married and became a motivational speaker.
Edwards appeared on two television shows, To Tell the Truth (1972) and What's My Line? He wrote an autobiography, The Metamorphosis of a Criminal: The True Life Story of Ed Edwards, in 1972. By 1982 he had returned to crime, and was imprisoned in Pennsylvania for two years for arson.
Between 1974 and 2009, Edwards lived in more than a dozen different states when not incarcerated, according to his daughter April, used many false names.
In a 1993 letter to the FBI found in his papers, Edwards requested his criminal and history records for cities in 19 states, claimed that J. Edgar Hoover "more or less gave me permission to proceed" with his 1972 autobiography "after I assured him there was nothing in it bad about the FBI" and he was writing a new book about criminals he met while incarcerated, such as Tony Provenzano, Charles Manson and Jimmy Hoffa.
Known murders
The first murders for which Edwards was convicted took place in Ohio in 1977. William ″Billy″ Lavaco, 21, of Doylestown, Ohio and his girlfriend Judith Straub, 18, of Sterling, Ohio, had been dating eight months when Straub's car was found in the parking lot of Silver Creek Metro Park on Aug. 7, 1977, her purse and shoes inside. Family members gathered in the lot the next day as Norton police, aided by a National Guard helicopter, searched the high weeds. There, they found Lavaco and Straub, lying on the ground, shot at point-blank range with a 20-gauge shotgun. He received life sentences for these crimes in 2010.
The second pair of murders, another double homicide, occurred in Concord, Wisconsin in 1980 when Tim Hack and Kelly Drew were stabbed and strangled. These were referred to as the "Sweetheart Murders." Edwards had been questioned at the time, but there was no basis to hold him. Almost 29 years later, his connection to the crime was established by means of DNA testing. Edwards' own child, April Balascio, tipped off police about his possible involvement.
Edwards confessed to the 1996 murder of his foster son, 25-year-old Dannie Boy Edwards in Burton, Ohio. The victim had lived with Edwards and his family for several years. Dannie's original name was Dannie Law Gloeckner. Edwards murdered Gloeckner in a scheme to collect $250,000 insurance money. Dannie Boy, a soldier in the U.S. Army, was persuaded by Edwards to go AWOL from the Army and taken by him to the woods near his house in Burton, Ohio. There, Edwards shot him twice in the face, killing him, and left his body in a shallow grave, where it was later discovered by a hunter. Edwards was sentenced to death for this crime in March 2011. He died in prison of natural causes a month later.
Arrest and conviction
In 2009, Edwards was arrested for murder in Louisville, Kentucky. Neighbors described him as pleasant and neighborly. In 2010, he pleaded guilty to the murders of Billy Lavaco, 21, of Doylestown, Ohio; Judith Straub, 18, of Sterling, Ohio; and Tim Hack, 19, and Kelly Drew, 19, both of Jefferson, Wisconsin.