What Happened to these Cold Cases | Volume 6

What Happened to these Cold Cases | Volume 6 | The Strip Murders

12/7/2025

The Gulf Killer is the nickname given to a possible serial killer who was active in the Pasco County and the wider Tampa Bay area of Florida. A group of unsolved murders of fourteen women and two men were committed between 1971 and 1978. While the victims were grouped together differently at various points, nine were attributed, dubiously, to a single killer. Whether the murders were connected to one or multiple individuals, feuding pimps, criminal organizations, or a sexually depraved killer was never determined. At least eight of the victims were involved in sex work on the Dale Mabry Strip. Thus these crimes also became known as The Strip Murders or the Red Light Murders.

Betsey Loden was murdered in 1975, and her case remains unsolved

In January, 1975 Betsy Loden, 22, clad in a nightgown and bathrobe was found in the garage of a home at 2321 E. Fifth Street, Tanglewood Terrace a suburb in New Port Richey, Florida. She was bound hand and foot with medical or surgical tape, and a strip of the tape was placed over her mouth. She was lying face down next to her yellow Toyota Corona. The car's ignition was on, but the car was not running leading police to believe she may have died from carbon monoxide poisoning, however there were no traces of gas inside the garage. Her body showed no significant wounds or bruises.

Inside the house furnishings were in disarray indicating some type of struggle took place.

Betsy Loden had rented the house two months before. Her ex-husband Charles Loden, 27, was the one to find her when he arrived at the home around midnight after he left work. There was no telephone in the home so he ran across the street and called police from a neighbor's house.

The neighbors later told police they had seen her around noon walking a dog she was keeping for John Moore, manager of the Frankenmuth Restaurant since he was unable to keep it. She had worked there as a hostess until December 12, 1974. Prior to this she worked at Innisbrook as a waitress from October 1973 until August 1974.

House in Tanglewood Terrace, a suburb of New Port Richey where Betsy Loden was murdered c.1975

The dog was locked out of the garage during the time she was killed, because after she was examined by the medical examiner, it was determined she was bound and then left in the garage with the car running.

Her mother Ruth Korte had visited her during the Christmas holiday a few weeks before.

Police said, "We think she was taped in the kitchen and carried to the garage. The police had a suspect but would give out his identity. It’s unknown if her husband was ever a suspect, even though the police were very closemouthed about any suspects.

Betsy had divorced Charles Allen Loden (1948-2002) in 1973, and after this she left Ohio for Florida. It seemed he had followed her to the state and she quit her job at Innisbrook when he was hired as a truck driver by them.

Two years passed and there were no leads and no arrests in the murder of Betsy Loden, however hers was not the only murder case that had become cold.

Unlike some of these victims, Betsy Loden’s parents took her back to Ohio and buried her at Greenwood Cemetery.

Tucker Cemetery in Dade City, Florida was where many indigent and crime victims are buried

Many of these victims would be buried at Tucker Cemetery in Dade City, Florida. It is the oldest cemetery in Pasco County that existed prior to 1855. Family history records the Tucker family lived in the vicinity dating back to about 1790.

Thomas (1788-1865) and Sara Tucker (1778-1855) settled in the area around 1842, and 3 years later planted the county's first orange grove. The oldest markers in the graveyard belong to them.

There are also markers from two Civil War veterans one being W.A. Tucker of Florida Cavalry Co. A and Duncan Bryant of Florida Cavalry Co. B; and a World War I veteran, Eugene D. Tucker.

The community was called Tuckertown until the railroad arrived and then it was known as Richland. Two hundred yards north of the Tucker Cemetery were huge orange trees that once surrounded the Harriet Gill-Tucker-Smith home site from which the home had long vanished.

The entire front section of the cemetery was deeded to the county as a burying place for indigents in 1965.

Josephine "Jody" Tucker Evans of Zephyrhills kneels at the marker of Thomas R. Tucker c.1963

In the 70s Rev. Kenneth Tucker, a descendant of the Tucker family retold a story his aunt shared with him, where years before while standing in the front yard of the old homestead a rider was seen approaching on a horse. As he got closer, he slumped over. It was a young Indian boy who fell off his horse, and died from a gunshot wound. He was buried in the cemetery, not far from where a woman was buried who was killed by the Indians.

The county in exchange agreed to fence and maintains the land in perpetuity. The original cemetery was reserved for the Tuckers, their descendants and their slaves.

Up until 1979, a local undertaker had buried 17 infant children of indigent families in the cemetery.

The front of the cemetery, outside the chain-link fence placed around the original cemetery by the county, is reserved for the indigents.

Some that ended up there were victims of what became known as the Gulf Murders or the Dale Mabry Strip Murders.

The murder of Bethany Nielson c.1971 remains unsolved

The first of these strange and unsolved cases occurred close to where Betsy Loden was killed.

Her name was Bethany Wright Nielson, 55, who was reported missing from her job at the county building on October 15, 1971. New Port Richey police found a back window forced open at her home on Rio Drive. There were blood stains throughout the house, and blood stains and a partial denture in the driveway.

The next day her burned body was found in a shallow grave in Columbia County, Florida near the Georgia border. This was 15 miles north of Lake City. She was found by a fisherman on his way to the Suwannee River. The ground around the grave was scorched, which accounted as to why her features were burned beyond recognition, and she was identified via a dental comparison. The police believed she was killed in New Port Richey and transported to where the body was burned.
Her mother Jessie Wright had died the year before. Her parents were from Hammondsport, New York where she had grown up. She had left after the death of one of her former husbands, of which she had about five or six.

Her murder has never been solved.

Wilma Woods was killed in 1973, She was well known by Tampa police for public drunkenness. Her case is unsolved c.1973

Wilma Ida Mae Woods, 49, was found December 29, 1973 by a passerby on SR-577 near Wesley Chapel in South-central Pasco county.

She lay face down in a ditch with several inches of water. She was only wearing her shoes. The body was relatively unscarred and there was no indication of violence, but it was suspected she was strangled or suffocated based on blood found in her throat; however her wind pipe was not crushed.

She was identified by 3 tattoos she had on each thigh including a rose and the name "Wilma". Tampa Police were familiar with Wilma, and she had been arrested for public drunkenness only a few days before on December 26. She was released the following day, and was last seen alive leaving a North Franklin Street bar in Tampa with a male companion about 10:30 p.m.

Once an autopsy report was completed it was confirmed she was asphyxiated and the case was considered a homicide.

The police then started to look for the companion she was last seen with, but with no success. Her case remains unsolved.

Her son Robert took her body back to her hometown of Rome, Georgia and she was buried in Oakland Cemetery.

Two other bodies would be found in a few years at the same location.

John Villandry's murder dating back to 1974 is still unsolved

The next body turned up on July 10, 1974. It was the partially unclothed body of John Urbain Villandry, 20, who lived at 5870 56th Ave. N. #183 St. Petersburg, Florida.

Villandry was found by a passing bicyclist along SR 581, which had been dubbed "The Road to Nowhere" since it dead-ended at a barbed wire fence. The name stuck due to the number of murder victims dumped in this rural area of Pasco County. His body was in a water-filled ditch, and he was only wearing a t-shirt and pair of Levi jeans that had been pulled down around his ankles.

The car he was using that night, a 1970 red and black Fiat convertible belonged to his girlfriend Bonnie Bigelow. It was found at Gene's Lobster House in Madeira Beach a week later.

His identity was verified through a device designed to correct spaces between the teeth. A check with an orthodontist led to the doctor who had fitted the victim with this device.

Eight months before he was killed, Villandry was arrested and charged with possession of an estimated 10 to 15 pounds of marijuana.

Police believed his death was connected to the drug trade. His murder remains unsolved.

Six months later, Betsy Loden was found dead in her garage.

Four of the Strip Murder victims, Valleck is on the top left side

The next murdered victim was Diana Lynn Valleck, only 18 years old. She would be the first of what are considered the Strip Murders.

Her nude, badly decomposed body was found in a Land O'Lakes orange grove near SR-54 in May, 1975. She lay in a ditch, and she was shot to death. She was buried at Tucker Cemetery as a Jane Doe. Almost two years would pass before she was identified.

Police estimated she was killed on May 12, 1975, and had lain in the orange grove about 4 day before she was found. Detectives were unsure whether she was killed where she was found or had been dumped there after being murdered elsewhere.

The M.E. found the victim had been shot at least 4 times, however he found 14 small caliber bullet wounds caused by the bullets ricocheting inside her body.

She was reported missing nearly a month after she was believed to have been killed by her mother Mrs. Roy Sander of Clarksburg, West Virginia.

Valleck was identified after police cross-referenced her case with the missing person’s report issued by the Tampa Police Department. They realized her description matched the Jane Doe found in 1975.

Pictures of the jewelry found on the body were sent to Valleck's parents who were able to identify 3 pieces of jewelry.

Detectives came across a dentist who had Valleck's dental charts and they were able to confirm her identity. There was no explanation why it took two years to obtain the dental records. She was ID'd after the case was reopened by the new sheriff John Short.

Valleck was a professional go-go dancer who worked at the Carollwood Bottle Club on North Dale Mabry and frequented other clubs along the strip, including the Sportsman’s Lounge.

She was last seen hitchhiking to work about 7 p.m. on May 15, 1975. She body was discovered 4 days later.

Authorities were unable to locate her husband Frank Michael Valleck III (1945-2003) a seaman from New Orleans.

Detectives said that due to her lifestyle tracing her whereabouts during her final days was very difficult.

Her family decided to leave her buried at Tucker Cemetery.

Enid Branch grad picture

It was noted that John Villandry and Wilma Ida Woods had been dumped in the same area, which was lightly populated and had sparsely traveled roads.

On August 21, 1976, the nude body of Enid Marie Branch, 21, was found in neighboring Hillsborough County on the side of a deserted dirt road on the south side of Lake Rogers, north of Crawley Road. She had been shot several times in the head. Her right leg was almost severed and her face was mutilated. Branch left behind a four-year-old son Patrick (1973-2021) who was later adopted by her mother and stepfather. She had been studying refrigerator repair at a Tampa trade school. According to law enforcement, she worked at night as a prostitute.

Her family lost touch with her a few weeks before her death. She was last seen alive as she left a Tampa restaurant at 4 a.m. on the day she was killed.

Mary Jane Burke was killed in 1977

Almost a year later on April 18, 1977 Mary Jane Burke of St. Petersburg, 19, was found among discarded toys under a bush in a vacant lot at Iowa Ave and Dale Mabry Highway. The body was discovered by a group of junior high school students walking to school.

The M.E. found she had died of multiple head injuries, and there was also evidence she had sexual intercourse several hours before she died, but had not been raped. She was also strangled, and might have choked on the blood she swallowed after her jaw was broken in three places by her killer. Her blows were dealt by bare hands.

She was described by her neighbors as "a little slow", and was a former student at a Pinellas County exceptional student center. She was frequently seen walking and hitchhiking in the area.

She left behind a two-year-old child she gave birth to when she was 17 years old.

Her mother later related that a month before she was killed she was getting threatening phone calls every night at 3 a.m. She said: "This guy always identified himself as John from MacDill Air Force Base. He breathed heavy. And his voice made him sound strange, sort of crazy."

The year before she had been raped by a man in a pick up truck while hitchhiking

Jo Ann Parnell

On July 18, 1977 the battered, partially clothed body of a woman was found in a shallow ditch along SR-52. A two-man road crew from the state department of Transportation came across the remains. It was estimated she had been killed about 24 hours before she was discovered. The woman was only wearing a bra and a pink blouse that had been pulled up around her neck. There was no indication she had been raped according to the preliminary autopsy report. It seemed she had died from either a blow on the head from a blunt instrument or by strangulation. Later it was found she had suffered massive brain hemorrhages.

Three days later she was identified as Jo Ann Parnell, age 40. A match was made by her fingerprints.
The police department had difficulty finding her relatives and instead quizzed tavern owners along US-41 (Nebraska Avenue) in Hillsborough County.

Detectives retraced her footsteps on the Saturday when she was last known to be alive. First there was the Mecca Lounge, where she had once worked as a barmaid, and then she went to the Liberty Lounge. This was a routine she had followed during the 8 to 10 years she lived in West Tampa. She lived a transient lifestyle in a Skid Row area where she drifted from room to room and apartment house to apartment house, usually in buildings that had seen better days. She was described as a quiet person who didn't talk much about herself. She was well known to winos, barmaids those who lived and worked in the area. She drank heavily, mostly draft beer and dark port wine. She was also a well-known prostitute by those on the Mabry Strip.

It was rumored she had a daughter in Jacksonville, and possibly some relatives in Phoenix, Arizona. Her only criminal record in Tampa was for child desertion. She had tried to sell or give away her son in a Tampa bar.

Friends said she had been living with a man named "Sonny" who lived in a room near the two bars.

Gene Arthur Wirtjes c.1978

Parnell’s case was one of the few which that was solved.

On January 12, 1979, Gene Arthur Wirtjes, 44, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the murder of Jo Ann Parnell. Wirtjes was already serving a one-year sentence in the Hillsborough County Jail for stealing a truck in July 1977. He had killed Parnell to prevent her from testifying in an aggravated battery case involving a stabbing that occurred at a local bar on July 5, 1977.

Parnell's body was discovered two days after Wirtjes stole a van. Two weeks later he was arrested in Midland, Texas. It turned out the van was used to transport Parnell's body to the site where she was found dead. A pair of her pants with blood on them were inside the van.

Victor Schreckengost, Shelby Whitten and Vincent Gallo, all from Tampa were arrested and charged with trying to cover up the incident.

Parnell was a witness to an argument between Schreckengost and Whitten, and Whitten had stabbed him in the chest.

While Wirtjes was in custody, Ralph "Butch" Brown the only witness who could have testified about the motive for killing Parnell was shot in the back on December 3, 1978, over an argument about cigarettes. He had been at Charlie's Mecca Tavern on West Kennedy Blvd. and died at the hospital.

He had already told investigators that Wirtjes had wanted "certain sexual favors" from Parnell and that he "had had an on-going dispute with her for some time."

Wirtjes was last seen leaving a bar with Parnell, the last time she was seen alive.

Without Brown's testimony, Wirtjes who was originally charged with first degree murder, was allowed to plead to a reduced charge, which would allow him to wait six months for parole consideration. The D.A. estimated he would at least serve 7 years if not more of his 25 year sentence.

When Wirtjes was 18, and had just enlisted in the armed forces both of his parents died in a car accident. He died in 2025, at the age of 80.

Joan Gail Foster

On August 21, 1977 16-year-old Cherylstein Orelia Cherry of Thonotosassa was found strangled, beaten and raped in a wooded area of Jackson Heights. She was nude from the waist down. Cherry was a school dropout who frequented local bars, but she had no known connection to strip clubs, and unlike most of the other victims, she was Black. Five days later, another Black woman, 18-year-old Patricia Jones, was found alive, fully clothed, at the foot of the Weedon Island Bridge in St. Petersburg. She had been shot three times with a .38 caliber gun and died after telling police that a client had shot her. Jones was a prostitute active on the Dale Mabry Strip.

Joan Gail Foster, 20, the second of the "Strip" victims found in Pasco was last seen hitchhiking from her home in Lutz to her job as a topless dancer at the Godmother Lounge on Hillsborough Ave. Her car had broken down.

She was found the next morning, September 28, 1977. Her fully clothed body was lying in an orange grove near Pasco Road about a mile north of SR-54 near I-75. She had been shot twice in the left temple with a small caliber bullet. She had come down from Memphis only 2 or 3 weeks before.

Her body was dumped only 3 miles from where Jo Ann Parnell had been found two months before.

Her body was returned to her family in Memphis for interment in a local cemetery.

The day following the discovery of Joan Foster’s body, Molly Kay Newell, 20, was found with a gunshot wound to the head in Pinellas County. The perpetrator had thrown her body off the Gandy Bridge. Twelve days earlier, Newell pled guilty to offering to commit prostitution and was sentenced to one day in jail.

In October, 1977, three counties organized a taskforce to capture the killer. Fifteen investigators interviewed prostitutes, strippers and barmaids to determine if there were any common denominators among the victims.

Emily Ellen Grieve (nee Vulgamore), 38, was found within days of the last two murders. On October 21, 1977 off a horseshoe-shaped road about a mile north of SR-54 two hunters came across her corpse. She had a gunshot wound to the back of her head in a field 500 yards from the location of where Wilma Woods' body was found in 1973.

Eighteen months before her murder, Grieve was in a near-fatal car accident, which left her with a limp and the inability to use her hand.

Grieve had relatives in Tampa and had been working as a clerk at the Interchange Motor Lodge near Fowler Avenue and I-75. She told relatives she would take the bus to work on October 10, but friends at work described her riding with a "nice young man", and having coffee with him across the street from where she was employed.

She told her fellow workers she was to meet him after work at the Owl Lounge just up the street from Interchange Motor Lodge. After waiting a while, she looked out the window for her date and told friends, "keep an eye on me so nothing happens, I'm going to walk down there."

It was unknown if she ever made it to the Owl Lounge.

Grieve worked in the same hotel as Gail Foster, who was killed a month before.

Police even tried hypnosis with a witness. There was a woman who had driven along the lonely street of SR-577 about the same time Emily Grieve's body was dumped. She recalled seeing a car near the site. Later as she drove farther down the road, the car passed her at a high rate of speed. She was able to give them the type of car and a partial license number.

Grieve left behind a 13-year-old son.

The murder of Terry Lee Crews has never been solved

Judy Fay Bibee, 18, was found on November, 25, 1977, Thanksgiving Day. She died of stab wound so savage and so numerous that the medical examiner termed her death a "sadistic killing." She was found near the Dade City dump. She was from North Carolina and lived with migrant workers near Dade City.

Her daughter Sonya was raised by her maternal grandmother after she was murdered. She died in 1997 at the age of 23.

On December 22, the two hunters who had found Grieve's body two months before discovered the skeletonized remains of a 26-year-old man named Terry Crew from Zephyrhills. A detective said, "They don't hunt there anymore."

On November 1, 1977 Terry Crew went to the Tampa Dog Track to collect his winning from a bet placed previously. But he had left his identification at his apartment in the Village Square Apartment near USF. He frequently placed bets with a man named "Pooch" or "Poochie", whom police were unable to locate.

Crew's gray Ford van was found abandoned in an orange grove near Lakeland on November 12, eleven days after he collected his winnings. At that point his body was yet to be found.

Crew was described as "wheeler dealer". Two weeks later he was found by the hunters, and M.E. found he was shot in the back of the head while he was seated in the driver’s seat of his van.

One of the grove managers connected the van with Crew, when he heard the name of the dead man in a radio broadcast. The license on the van had been removed, but there were papers in it with Crew's name on them.

It's believed he was executed this way since he was a karate expert, leading one to believe his killer knew him.

Cindy Lou Stewart with her son Alton

On January 15, 1979, another Jane Doe was discovered. This was 10th unsolved murder in Pasco County during the decade of the 1970s.

Nicknamed the "Tattooed Lady", she was found about 200 yards south of Jerry Road near Crystal Springs by a squirrel hunter. She was killed by multiple gunshot wounds, and had been dead from one to two weeks. Police believed she was killed at the secluded lover's lane near Hillsborough River in southeast Pasco.

She was fully clothed in a red windbreaker with stripes on the shoulders and on the cuffs, black slacks, a black belt with a brass colored buckle and blue jogging shoes with pink socks. Her body had been partially hidden under a fallen tree, and due to the decomposition of the body they could not take fingerprints.

She was heavily tattooed, especially on her upper body. "C.E., Joe and Cindy" were tattooed on her left arm, and on her left shoulder was a star or a cross and the initials "E.L.". Her right arm had the initial "R" followed by "Leo". She had other tattoos which were unrecognizable letters.

Unnamed she was buried in Tucker Cemetery.

Five months passed and she was still unidentified. It was believed she was from out of state, and there was no one to notice she was missing. Investigators believed she was a "hippy type" or a motorcycle gang member.

Investigators suspected her killer was from the local area because of the secluded nature of the lover's lane, which only a local person, familiar with the area would know how to find.

Investigators made the breakthrough in 1980, after they were contacted by the Opelicka police dept in Alabama with information about the case. This was when they verified she was Cindy Lou Stewart, 19, from Columbus, Georgia.

Harvard was arrested and told Alabama authorities about the murder.

Two men were arrested in connection with the crime: Robert M. Hardagree, 23, from Columbus, Georgia who was charged with first degree murder, and Eddie Ray Harvard, 25 also from Columbus who was charged with being an accessory after the fact to murder.

He received a lesser charge in return for agreeing to testify against Hardagree. He was sentenced to 5 years in prison. Hardagree was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment on October 15, 1980.

Stewart was with Hardagree and Harvard at a New Year's Eve party at a mobile home in northern Hillsborough County and after a heavy drinking bout, was driven to where her body was found. Hardagree shot her to death and then covered her body with leaves. Harvard testified that Hardagree had grown tired of Stewart, and was irritated because she wanted to return to Columbus. She had left two children in Columbus.

Her brother Tim Carlton adopted Stewart's 4-year-old daughter Tanja, and the paternal grandparents adopted her son Alton, age 2.

Stewart quit school in the 9th grade and started running around with her twin sisters, that were two years older than her. She was the 8th of 10 children.

Her sisters went on to marry and settle down, but Stewart didn’t.

Murder map of the crimes in Pasco County c.1979

What the police taskforce found was that many of the victims shared certain traits. They were single, and worked or frequented the Dale Mabry Strip which was lined with bars, adult book stores, strip shows and x-rated movie houses. They were found within 8 miles of each other along SR 54, which was the first exit off I-75 north of Tampa. They were last seen alive hitchhiking or walking. Five of them were shot in the head with a .22 caliber weapon; two were strangled. Three were found nude and the others partially nude. The prostitutes had their purses stolen. The victims were killed elsewhere and their bodies were dumped with little regard for hiding them.

Detectives believe these murders were related to other "strip murders” in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. Other victims were found under similar circumstances during the same period of time when other bodies were found in Pasco.

Police believe they are similar because they were committed by the same person.

Two of the murders, the only 2 male victims, were related because police believed they stemmed from the drug and gambling sub-culture of the Tampa Bay area, but their deaths were widely separated. What links them is their origin only.

Two of the older women's murders were similar because of the lifestyle of the victims, but there the similarities end.

Theories as to the identity of the murder are: that it was a nut; organized crime was behind it, or the girls were knocked off by pimps since some of them were linked to prostitution.

Virtually every victim was involved in the marijuana traffic.

Suddenly the strip murders topped in late 1977, and no one is sure why.

Serial killer, Gerald Stano

In 1980, Gerald Stano was arrested after one of his victims escaped. Once in custody he confessed to killing at least 42 women, even though later he recanted on some of the confessions, saying he was forced to confess by one of the investigators. Among those he counted as his victims were: Diana Valleck, Enid Branch, Joan Foster, and Emily Grieve.

His birth name was Paul Zeininger, and his biological mother neglected him so much that when she gave him up for adoption at the age of 6 months, the county doctors declared him unadoptable. Eventually he was adopted by the Stanos, who were loving parents, but even in early age he displayed serious behavior problems. He had problems at school and graduated when he was 21 years old.

At some point his family moved from New Jersey to Daytona Beach, Florida.

Officially Stano admitted that he began killing in the early 1970s, when he was in his 20s, but also claimed to have begun killing in the late 1960s, at the age of 18. Several girls had gone missing in Stano's area of residence at that time, but since insufficient physical evidence was found when these claims were investigated, he was never charged. He was most active in Florida and New Jersey. By his 29th birthday, he was in prison for murdering 41 women.

He was executed in 1998 in Florida’s electric chair “Old Sparky”. He was electrocuted for the murder of Cathy Lee Scharf, who disappeared 11 days before Christmas 1973. Hunters found her decomposed body in a drainage ditch at the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge near Titusville on January 19, 1974.

Some doctors theorized that Stano probably confessed to murders he didn’t commit.

Investigators believe Pasco County, especially the south-central and southeastern portion of the county served as a dumping ground for bodies, due to the proximity to Hillsborough County. Several of the bodies were found close to arterials leading into the county are cited as factors.

Morris Clifton Hendrick (1918-1965)

There was a cold case that predated all of these. On August 5, 1965 Morris Clifton Hendrick was found dead in the bathroom of his home at 41 Azalea Court, Oakdale Trailer Park in Zephyrhills. He was a WWII veteran and a native of Fancy Gap, Virginia. Hendrick had arrived only a few weeks before to work at an area phosphate plant. He left behind a wife Lucy Ayers Hendrick (1932-2024) and four daughters Juanita, Charlotte, Pamela and Marsha.

It was originally thought the cause of death was a heart attack. The day he died he was stopped by police while driving "under the influence of intoxicants" and forfeited a $100 bond.

Later the death was listed as an unsolved murder, as per Sheriff Short (served from 1981 to 1984) due to certain classified information, which was never disclosed. His murder remains unsolved.