A Killer On The Doorstep: A beautiful young model returning home from a night on the town; a sexual predator lying in wait; a monstrous crime about to happen.
A Lust For Blood: A real life vampire is stalking the streets of Sacramento, tearing his victims apart and drinking their blood.
Dealing With the Preacher: Who could have known that the respected small town preacher was actually a sex-obsessed serial killer?
A Tale Of Two Girls: Alyssa was your typical inquisitive teen. The question she most wanted answered was: “What’s it like to kill someone?”
Dr. Death: An enterprising criminal with a unique approach to bank robbery, first poison all the staff then flee with the money.
Murder At Big Sur: Deana thought that she was among friends. Little did she know the cruel fate those “friends” had planned for her.
The Shark Arm Murder: When the Coogee Aquarium’s latest exhibit regurgitates a human arm in front of horrified onlookers, the hunt is on to catch a killer.
Plus 10 more riveting true crime cases. Click here to get your copy now.
Murder Most Vile Volume Seven
Murder At Big Sur
Big Sur, situated between Carmel and San
Simeon along California State Route 1, is one of the world’s most beautiful
stretches of coastline. Here the Santa Lucia Mountains rise dramatically from
the Pacific Ocean, offering stunning views. It is a popular destination for
local and foreign tourists alike, although visitors are encouraged to stand
well back from the edge at the many viewing turn-offs. The shale is slippery
underfoot and a false step could send you plunging down the cliff face to the
cold waters of the Pacific, hundreds of feet below.
On a typically beautiful California day in
April 1987, Virginia McGinnis, her husband Billy Joe, and her son from a
previous marriage, James Coates, decided to make a day trip to Big Sur. Also
along for the ride was 21-year-old Deana Wild, a young woman who the family had
befriended after her separation from her husband.
Deana was feeling ill that day, complaining
of dizziness and blurred vision. When Virginia pulled the car into a viewing
spot, she declined to get out, saying that she’d rather take a nap.
Nonetheless, Virginia persisted, saying that the bracing sea air would do her
good. Besides, Virginia said, she wanted to take some snapshots to send to
Deana’s mother, back in Louisville, Kentucky. Reluctantly, Deana agreed.
Over the next few minutes the group drank
in the beauty of the scene before them, while Virginia snapped happily away
with her camera. She seemed particularly interested in pictures of Deana and
James together, James with his arm draped around Deana’s shoulders. Deana was
too tired to argue. She allowed James to draw her into an embrace, while
Virginia captured the moment on camera. Then Virginia suggested a shot of Deana
with the ocean as a backdrop. Wanting to get this over with and get back to the
car, Deana agreed. She trudged listlessly forward and turned to face the
camera. Too late she realized that Billy Joe McGinnis had walked up behind her.
As Deana’s befuddled brain tried to figure out what he was up to, he thrust out
an arm, sending her careening backwards towards the cliff’s edge.
Deana’s survival instincts kicked in
immediately. She flailed her arms in a vain attempt to regain her balance. Underfoot
the shale was shifting. She felt her feet lose purchase and came down hard on
her side. Now she was sliding, fingers digging in, gaining a grip, halting her
slide just before her body reached the tipping point.
Pain flared in her hand where her palm had
been lacerated, her fingernail torn out. Deana ignored it. She knew only one
thing. She had to hold on. “Help me!” she whimpered, as Virginia suddenly
filled her vision, looming over her like a vengeful giant. “Help!”
“Help you?” Virginia sneered. “I’ll help
you alright.” She raised her foot and brought it crashing down on Deana’s
fingers. Deana yelped in pain but clung on. She held on through the second and
third blows too, but eventually her lacerated fingers let go. Then the weight
of her body carried her down, bouncing off rocks and through brambles before
she was thrown over the precipice to plunge helplessly towards the jagged rocks
below.
When the police arrived, summoned by an
apparently distraught Virginia, they heard identical stories from the three
eyewitnesses. Tearfully, Virginia explained that she, Billy Joe, and James had
been powerless to save Deana. She had stepped too close to the edge while
posing for a photograph and had lost her footing, Virginia said. It had
happened so fast that none of them had had time to react. It was a dreadful,
dreadful tragedy.
Virginia must have told a convincing story
because the Monterey County Sherriff’s department did not bother with much of
an investigation. The death was ruled an accident, leaving Virginia McGinnis
free to cash in the $35,000 life insurance policy she’d taken out on Deana just
days before her death.
Back in Louisville, Kentucky, Bobbie
Roberts was devastated by the tragic death of her daughter, Deana Wild. She
spent hours looking at the photographs that she’d received in the mail from
Deana’s friend, Virginia McGinnis. Those photographs, taken just moments before
Deana’s death, were at least of some solace to her, keeping her in some way
connected to her daughter. But something about the pictures bothered her and
over time Bobbie realized what it was. Deana had been a happy, vivacious girl.
In the photographs she looked tired, her smile forced. Bobbie was also
concerned about Virginia’s assertion that Deana had been engaged to marry her
son, James Coates. Since Deana was still married to Jay Wild, an enlisted man
serving abroad with the US Navy, that didn’t make sense. Deana had often spoken
to her mother about her hopes of reconciling with Jay.
Bobbie Roberts entertained these thoughts
and then swiftly dismissed them as motherly misgiving. Her daughter had died in
a tragic accident. What else could there be to it? Deana had spoken fondly of
Virginia McGinnis and her family. Virginia had been like a surrogate mother to
her. Besides, Bobbie had more pressing concerns. The cost of Deana’s funeral
had left her in financial dire straits. There was a small burial policy of some
$2,500, but the insurance company was dragging its heels about paying up.
Desperate to resolve the matter, Bobbie turned to Steve Keeney, a Louisville
attorney who attended her church.
Keeney was deeply moved by Mrs. Roberts’
obvious grief and financial plight.
In July 1987, he agreed to do whatever he
could to bring matters to a speedy resolution. The attorney started by
contacting the Monterey Sherriff’s Department to obtain the facts surrounding
Deana’s death. He had no idea of the hornet’s nest he was about to stir
up.
On the face of it, the case appeared simple
enough – a tragic accident had claimed the life of a young woman in front of
three witnesses who were able to describe to the police exactly what had
happened. But Keeney was immediately struck by the slipshod nature of the
investigation. No photos had been taken of the death scene, for example. When
Keeney questioned the police on this, they said that they hadn’t bothered
because Virginia McGinnis had promised to hand over the pictures she’d taken.
She hadn’t done so, of course, instead sending the photographs to Deana’s
mother.
Then there were the autopsy photos, which
clearly showed Deana’s bruised hands and broken fingernails. It suggested that
she had clung on for her life before making her final death plunge. And that
did not jibe with the story told by the McGinnis clan. Finally, there were
traces of the powerful anti-depressant, amitriptyline, found in Deana’s
bloodstream. The drug is known to cause drowsiness and disorientation, but it
had never been prescribed for Deana. It had however been written up for Billy
Joe McGinnis. He’d filled his latest prescription just weeks before the Big Sur
tragedy.
The case was beginning to stink to high
heaven, but when Keeney presented his findings to the Monterey County
authorities, they refused to file criminal charges, citing insufficient
evidence. Frustrated, and with the statute of limitations swiftly running out
on a potential wrongful death suit, Keeney decided to take his investigation
further. He learned that Deana had married Jay Wild in Kentucky in 1985, and
had moved with her husband to San Diego when he’d enlisted in the navy.
However, the long separations while Jay was away at sea had taken their toll on
the marriage. By late 1986, the couple was living apart, although Deana still
hoped to make the marriage work. It was around this time that Deana met the
McGinnis family and after much nagging agreed to take a room in their
home. Deana had once told her
sister that the family was “kind of weird,” but that they were good to her and
were the only friends she had in San Diego.
Keeney’s next step was to look into the
background of the McGinnis clan, and in particular that of Virginia McGinnis,
who appeared to be the de facto family leader. He traced Virginia’s roots back to
her birthplace of Ithaca, New York, where she was born in 1932. Virginia met
her first husband there, apparently after he helped fight a fire that destroyed
her father’s barn. All ended well after the family received a handsome
insurance payout and Richard Coates began courting Virginia. She would bear him
two sons, but the marriage eventually broke down over Virginia’s habit of
setting blazes to claim insurance money.
Unfazed by the divorce, Virginia moved back
in with her father. A short while later, the family homestead burned to the
ground, providing another payday. Virginia eventually moved to California,
where her bad luck with house fires continued. She became so brazen in her
frauds that on one occasion she refused a payment of $85,000 to repair a
partially burned house. A week later, a second fire leveled the damaged
property, ensuring that Virginia collected the full $147,000 payout.
But arson-for-profit was not the worst of
the scams Virginia was working. In 1972, her three-year-old daughter Cynthia
Coates had accidentally hanged herself with a roll of baling twine in
Louisville, Kentucky. Suspicions were raised about the death because the
authorities couldn’t figure out how the child had managed to tie the twine to
an eight-foot rafter in the barn. In the end though, the insurance company
settled the grieving mother’s claim and the matter went no further.
Two years after that suspicious death came
another. When Virginia’s second husband, Bud Rearden, was diagnosed with
cancer, Virginia insisted on treating him at home, claiming that she was a trained
nurse. This, of course, was a lie, but it did not stop her overdosing Bud with
painkillers. He survived the first attempt on his life but not the second.
Virginia emerged somewhat richer for his passing. Not long after, she married
Billy Joe McGinnis. Now, with the investigation into Deana Wild’s death hanging
over their heads, the McGinnis’ marriage began to disintegrate. Virginia
eventually divorced Billy Joe and moved in with her sons. She also reverted to
the name Virginia Rearden, and it was under that name that she would gain
lasting infamy.
Steve Keeney eventually filed his wrongful
death suit with days to spare. Subpoenas were twice filed on Rearden but, as
she failed to appear in court, the judge ruled against her and ordered her to
pay Deana’s family $250,000 plus interest for the wrongful death. But Keeney wasn’t
prepared to let the matter rest there. With Monterey County still refusing to
press criminal charges, he approached the authorities in San Diego. As the
policy on Deana’s life had been purchased in that city, the DA decided to
indict Virginia and her former husband Billy Joe McGinnis for murder.
Billy Joe, as it turned out, would never
make it to the courtroom. He died of AIDS before the trial, leaving Virginia to
face the music alone. Virginia’s son, James Coates, also escaped justice, at
least in this case. He was in prison on unrelated charges at the time his
mother went to trial. He did appear as a witness for the defense and trotted
out his rehearsed story of how Deana had slipped and fallen.
But the jury wasn’t buying it. They found
Virginia Rearden guilty of first-degree murder with special circumstances –in
this case, murder for profit. That made her eligible for the death penalty but
in the end the judge opted for leniency. On March 30, 1992, he sentenced
Virginia to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Virginia Rearden would serve 19 years of
that sentence. She died in prison of natural causes on June 25, 2011. She was
74 years old.
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