William Wickline

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“	May tomorrow see the courts shaped by more wisdom and less politics.	”
	— Wickline's last words

William Dean Wickline, Jr., a.k.a. The Butcher was a serial killer, drug trafficker, and pimp convicted of dismemberment murders tied to his operations. Even after his eventual execution, Wickline is suspected of more murders, particularly involving dismemberment.

Background[]

Wickline was one of multiple sons born to William Wickline, Sr., and Irma Wickline (nee Bolen). Wickline had a stable household and was originally an adequate student with a promising career in wrestling. After descending into juvenile delinquency, including egging the principal's car, which cause his grades to decline, Wickline accumulated arrest records including burglary, drug dealing, and sex trafficking. A friend reported Wickline aligned with a group guilty of, among other crimes, animal cruelty. Wickline adapted to prison best he could, lifting wights and studying psychology. Even after his parole, Wickline failed to maintain relationships due to being threatening and violent with the women he dated. He also collected knives and practiced butchery skills with the cutlery he experimented on.

Murders[]

Wickline is suspected of the disappearance of Tory Gainer, a local gambler, from Fairfield County in 1978, as informants pointed the finger at Wickline, saying Gainer's remains were in various dumpsters. On November 11, 1979, Wickline killed construction worker Charles Marsh in a hotel room in Parkersburg, West Virginia, strangling and then beheading him. He was still handcuffed on the bed, and his head was on the end table. Marsh was a known drug dealer, and the proficient decapitation of his corpse suggested a contract killing.

Wickline threatened his girlfriend Teresa Camp into assisting him in killing Christopher and Peggy Lurch in Columbus, Ohio, on August 14, 1982, over a drug debt. Lying Wickline would assist Christopher with a clogged tub drain, he instead cut Christopher's throat over the tub, then strangled Peggy while Teresa held her legs. Wickline dismembered the Lerches in the tub and then left their remains in various garbage bins across Franklin County, never to be found. In January 1983, a man who remains unidentified was found in a canal in Miami, Florida. Wickline is suspected due to suspicions of a professional hit and similar skilled dismemberment of the man.

In October 1983, a teenager named John A. Muncy was found dismembered in Delaware County. Wickline was a suspect, as Muncy was believed to have been a witness to a drug transaction. Authorities closed the case when evidence pointed to Daniel Alan Anderson, a violent serial rapist of boys having died in 2013. Annette Cooper and Todd Schultz were killed in 1984, Annette's stepfather Dale Johnston being wrongfully convicted. Wickline was an alternative suspect at the time Johnston's conviction was challenged, but Johnston was exonerated in 2008 after the convictions of two unrelated suspects to either him or Wickline.

Arrest, Trial, and Execution[]

After Wickline was convicted of a drugstore burglary in Nelsonville, in 1984, Teresa gave a full report to police. in 1985, Wickline was found guilty of the aggravated murders of the Lerches within a week, being sentenced to death for murdering Peggy and life imprisonment for murdeirng Christopher. Although conclusively tied to murdering March, Wickline was never tried due to his capital sentence. Every court Wickline appeal to rejected his motions, and on March 30, 2004, after putting his thumbs up for his spectating brothers, Wickline was executed by lethal injection.

Modus Operandi[]

Wickline targeted affiliates and rivals in his criminal enterprises, usually as retribution for not meeting his demands or to eliminate competition. Wickline most commonly strangled victims with ligatures, while either restraining them or having an accomplice hold them in place. In the case of Christopher Lerch, Wickline lured him to a room to get him alone and then slashed his throat, making sure he bled over a bathtub so his blood drained. Wickline, with anatomical precision, would then dismember the victims' remains. In his first confirmed murder, he left the victim posed at the scene, decapitated, laying on a bed in handcuffs, and his head on the night table, his hair also being combed for compulsive reasons unknown. His only other confirmed murders involved extensive dismemberment and mutilation to take the victims' remains with him and throw away in various trash bins to be picked up by garbage collectors. Wickline also kept Peggy Lurch's wedding ring as a trophy.

Known Victims[]

Confirmed[]

November 11, 1979, Parkersburg, West Virginia: Charles Morgan Marsh, 34 (handcuffed and strangled with a telephone cord; decapitated, placed his head on a table, and combed his hair postmortem)
August 14, 1982, Columbus, Ohio: The Lerch murders (dismembered and disposed of in trash bins postmortem; their remains were never found)
- Christopher Lurch (slashed his throat)
- Peggy Lurch (strangled with rope while held down by Teresa Camp)

Suspected[]

1978, Fairfield County (disappeared): Tory Gainer (allegedly killed, dismembered, and disposed of at various dumpsters postmortem)
1983
- January, Miami, Florida: Unidentified man (killed, dismembered, and threw his remains into a canal postmortem)
- October, Delaware County: John A. Muncy, 25 (stabbed and dismembered; Daniel Alan Anderson was identified as the killer in 2020)
1984: The Cooper-Schultz murders (killed and dismembered; two suspects were convicted in 2008)
- Annette Cooper
- Todd Schultz

On Criminal Minds[]

Season One
- "Natural Born Killer" - While never directly mentioned or referenced in the franchise, Wickline appears to be the inspiration for the episode's unsub, Vincent Perotta - Both are serial killers with ties to organized crime, had accomplices, targeted a married couple as some of their last victims, slashed the throat of one of the spouses, dismembered the remains of victims, and intended to dispose of their remains so they were never found (though Perotta failed in his final murders).