Post by WOLVERETT on Feb 5, 2015 15:08:13 GMT -5
Classification: Child serial killer
Characteristics: Kidnapping - Child molester
Number of victims: 5 - 9 +
Date of murders: 1984 - 1988
Date of birth: February 9, 1958
Victims profile: His 2-month-old son / Christi Lynn Meeks, 5 / Christie Diane Proctor, 9 / Nydra Ross, 9 / Roxann Hope Reyes, 3
Method of murder: Strangulation
Location: Ohio/Texas, USA
Status: Sentenced to life in prison in Ohio, 1992 / Sentenced to life in prison in Texas, 2005
Garland Police detective Gary Sweet has spent seven years working cases against Penton, a man he describes as intelligent, elusive and cunning.
Sweet, who worked the kidnapping and murder cases of the three Dallas-area girls, has interviewed Penton and some of cellmates and other young girls who Penton allegedly attempted to kidnap.
The abductions in Dallas began with Meeks, who was kidnapped from her mother’s front yard as she played on Jan. 19, 1985. Her decomposing body was found several months later about 40 miles away in Lake Texoma after it surfaced. She had been strangled and drowned, a report showed.
As detectives worked the Meeks case, Proctor was kidnapped while walking home in north Dallas in February 1986. Her body was discovered in a field in the Plano area, two years later. According to a medical examiner and forensic evidence, she had been raped and strangled. Reyes was kidnapped while picking wildflowers for her mother near her Garland apartment Nov. 3, 1987. She was found in Murphy one year later. Evidence also suggested she had been raped and strangled.
Sweet said Texas authorities are looking at Penton as a suspect in the disappearances of Angelica Gandara, 11, of Temple, missing since July 14, 1985, Amber Nicole Crum, 2, of Dallas, missing since Dec. 26, 1983 and Johnson.
“He won’t come right out and admit the crimes, but the inmates all had specific information about each missing girl,” he said.
The Collin County District Attorney’s office was prepared to move forward with the capital murder trial against Penton and seek the death penalty four years ago.
In their arsenal prosecutors had information that Penton had attempted several other kidnappings in Dallas in the 1980s and those victims had identified him after he was indicted on the capital murder charges in 2003.
Records in Collin County contained allegations, which have never been made public, that he possessed child pornography and verbally expressed fantasies of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering young school girls in Franklin County Ohio.
The records also quoted one of Penton’s ex-wives who told prosecutors that her ex-husband had sexually assaulted her daughter and had tortured and killed small animals while stationed at Fort Hood in the 1980s.
Letters to his family while he was jailed in Texas pending the trial were also part of the file in Collin County. Using immaculate penmanship, Penton expressed his innocence in letters to his family.
A statement by Collin County District Attorney John Roach said his office was seeking the death penalty. murderpedia.org/male.P/p/penton-elliot-david.htm