True Crime: Harvey Carignan, ‘The Want-Ad Killer,’ Dies In Minnesota Prison

Laura Showalter was attacked and raped by Harvey Carignan on July 31, 1949. Harvey Carignan was 22 when he attempted to rape Christine Norton. He was later arrested.

Carignan was convicted for the first-degree murder of assault with intent rape. He was sentenced in death. Carignan was granted a fresh trial in 1951 after his confession was invalidly obtained. Carignan had been told by an officer that he would not be sentenced to death if he admitted to the crime. He did.

His confession was suppressed and the murder charge was dismissed. However, he did serve a 15 year sentence for assaulting Norton.

In 1960, he was released on parole. However, a few months later, he and his brother were taken into custody for Minnesota burglary. After they were convicted, Carignan was sentenced for another four years before being paroled on March 2, 1964. Eight months after his release, he committed another burglary. He was convicted and sentenced again to 15 years. This time he was paroled on March 2, 1964. He was also sentenced to another year for violating his parole.

Carignan was quiet for many years. However, Leslie Brock (19) was found murdered in Washington on October 15, 1972. Witnesses claimed that they saw her get into Carignan’s truck.

Carignan is alleged to have committed the crime that earned him the nickname of serial killer in 1973. “The Want-Ad Killer.” Kathy Sue Miller was 15 years old when she saw a Carignan gas station help wanted sign. Carignan allegedly raped her after she replied to the advertisement. Then he beat her with a hammer. Her body didn’t turn up for several months until two boys, hiking near Everett Washington, discovered her wrapped in a sheet made of plastic with holes in it.

Carignan was not charged with the murders Brock and Miller because there was insufficient evidence.

In September 1973, months after Miller’s murder, Carignan beat and raped Jerri Billings, 13, with a hammer. But she let her go, with the threat not to report the attack to anyone.

Carignan, now 29, began to live with Eileen Hunley in Minnesota around 1974. However, when she left him in August, she vanished and was found five weeks later dead with multiple head injuries. She had been also raped using a tree trunk.

Gwen Burton was killed by Hunley one month later. Carignan then took her from a parking lot and choked her. Then he sexually assaulted Burton with a hammer. He dumped her in a field nearby. She survived.

Sally Versoi, Diane Flynn, and Diane Flynn were both then teenagers when Carignan took them both and made them perform oral sex. If they did not comply, he threatened them with beatings. Carignan stopped at the gas station and the girls managed to flee. Katherine Schultz (18), disappeared a few days later and was found dead with a hammer.

Carignan was captured on September 24, 1974. This happened less than two weeks after his Minnesota-based crime spree. He was charged for attempted murder, aggravated sodomy and other offenses. He claimed that God instructed him to plead insanity. “kill whores and harlots,” TMZ reported.

He was convicted of both charges in 1975. A few months later, he was convicted on the other charges of sodomy upon an infant and sentenced for 60 years. He was also accused of murdering Schultz or Hunley. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced for 40 years. He was later convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for killing Hunley.

Although he was only convicted for the murder of three women, Carignan allegedly murdered at least five more and raped many more.

Carignan, 95 years old, died earlier this month from natural causes as he was serving his life sentence in a Minnesota prison.

“From True Crime: Harvey Carignan, ‘The Want-Ad Killer,’ Dies In Minnesota Prison“

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