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Show Notes

It was the worst spree killing in Dayton Ohio History. Over a 3-day period in December 1992, four young people embarked on a shooting rampage that left five people dead and three wounded. They would soon be known as the “Downtown Posse”.

What started out as a petty robbery quickly turned into a Christmas nightmare. Laura Taylor, 16, and her boyfriend Marvallous Keene, 19, lured Joseph Wilkerson into their trap under the guise of an orgy. Wanting to make a little Christmas cash, Laura and Marvallous, along with their friends Heather Matthews (20) and Demarcus Smith (17), tied Joseph to his headboard with electrical cords, robbed him, and then shot him with a .32 Caliber Derringer that Keene found in Joseph’s garage. According to Dayton Daily News, Joseph was shot in the chest and the head. During their trial, Heather Matthews (who had been released from prison only a few months earlier) later testified that Laura Taylor put the .32 Caliber to Wilkerson’s head and shot him a second time, killing him. After rummaging through his house, they stole his car and used his home as a base of operations for their other crimes. He died on Thursday, December 24th and was found on Saturday, December 26th.

That same evening, Danita Gullete, an 18-year-old senior at Patterson Cooperative High School, and the mother of a two-year-old child, was shot by Keene for her Fila tennis shoes. Her coat and backpack were also taken. According to Daily News, Keene fired nine shots into the booth as she begged for her life. She was shot five times, the ground and the payphone booth covered with her blood. Also on the ground were .25-caliber bullet shell casings, which would later allow the police department to connect their swath of murders.

After Danita, the group targeted Heather Matthew’s ex-boyfriend, Jeffrey Wright. Demarcus, Heather’s current boyfriend, shot Jeffrey in the legs four times while he was sitting in his car. He later escaped to a neighbor’s house.

The next morning, December 25th, Laura Taylor lured her next victim, ex-boyfriend Richmond Maddox (19), from his parents’ home. They left in Maddox’s car, but Marvallous, Heather and Demarcus were following closely behind in Wilkerson’s car. Once Maddox realized that he was being followed, Laura shot Richmond in his right temple with the same weapon used to kill Danita—a .25 caliber Derringer.

On December 26th, Sarah Abraham (38), an Ethiopian immigrant and mother of three who worked at her family’s Short Stop Mini Market, became the Posse’s fourth victim. Laura Taylor walked in first, purchased an item, and went to the back of the store. Shortly after, Marvallous and Demarcus enter, demanding all of the money in the register. According to AP News, Jones Pettus, a witness at the store, said that Sarah handed them $30, everything that was in the cash register, but they demanded more money and then shot her. Pettus was shot in the stomach and the hand, and was hospitalized at Miami Valley Hospital but survived. Sarah was shot by Marvallous twice in the head, and she died four days later at St. Elizabeth Medical Center. According to AP News, 64 year-old Jones Pettus, a witness at the store, said that Sarah handed them $30, everything that was in the cash register, but they demanded more money and then shot her. Pettus was shot in the stomach and the hand, and was hospitalized at Miami Valley Hospital but survived. A third person, 71-year old Mini Mart employee Jim Thompson, was unharmed in the event and survived by pretending to be shot as well. He later informed the police that he saw a small black female enter the store prior to the two boys entering.

After their fourth victim, the pressure begins to build. Realizing the severity of their actions, they must cover their tracks. First, they swap the license plates on multiple stolen vehicles. Next, fearing betrayal, they lure their friends Wendy Cottrill (16) and Marvin Washington (18) out for drinks. Because Wendy and Marvin had witnessed the death of Heather’s ex-boyfriend Richmond Maddox, the group was afraid they would implicate them in his death. According to Dayton Daily News, wine and beer in tow, Marvallous pulled off the road onto a gravel yard to pee, and then Demarcus and Marvallous ordered them to get out of the car, where they shot both victims in the head, and dumped them at a gravel yard out of town. Their bodies were not found until after they were arrested. Daily News reported that they also took Wendy Cottrill’s shoes.

After shooting Wendy and Marvin, the group stole a Dodge Shadow from a woman at gunpoint from a local gas station on Salem Avenue. After they have already left the the gas station, Sargent John Huber gets a call from one of the posse’s friends, 18-year old Nicolas Woodson, who informs the detective that his friends were bragging about the deaths from the news during a party the other night. He was terrified for life believing he was next, and asked to be placed in protective custody. Huber leaves to patrol local neighborhoods to locate the car, and spots 4 teenagers getting into a Dodge Shadow outside of a home. He follows them for a little bit and then pulls them over when the license plate doesn’t match the vehicle. As he was approaching the vehicle, he could see Laura Taylor mouthing to the person in the front seat to shoot him, but before anyone in the car could act, another officer pulls up in an unmarked car and orders everyone to put their hands up.

Once the posse are in custody, everyone confesses except Laura, who remains silent. Only after a priest pays Laura a visit does she admit that there are two other bodies that have been undiscovered, Wendy and Marvin. This seals the posse’s fate, and they are sentenced to their respective punishment.

Dayton Christmas Killers:

the Gradations of Evil Scale

According to Michael Stone and Gary Brucato, category 15 and 16 killers are spree and mass murders who are vicious and prolific and kill multiple people as part of a wider campaign. “While their killings are sometimes slow in nature—for instance, by poison or repeat stabbings—the goal is not to torture victims, which would place a killer at a higher level of the scale. Psychopathy and sheer amorality are typically obvious here, for all to see, and not concealed beneath a superficial layer of charm.”

The “Downtown Posse”

Laura Taylor

Dayton Daily News reports that Laura, who is still serving her life sentence at Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, was the intellectual ringleader of the group. Not only did she start their spree with, “Let’s get some drama in our lives”, but it was her idea to offer Joseph Wilkerson an orgy in exchange for money. How did she know the victim? How did she know he would accept the offer?

Interestingly, in an interview conducted with comedian Mo’Nique in 2007, Dayton Daily Staff News Writer Mary McCarty reported that Mo’Nique visited both Heather and Laura in jail, saying “145 years! If I were you, I would have told that judge, 'What did you just say? I won't live 100 more years, judge! That is so (expletive deleted) unrealistic. Give me a joint, judge." Taylor slaps her thighs and rocks her body back and forth with laughter. This is the woman Burke describes as "the most vicious of the bunch." It was Taylor who conceived the idea of robbing the Short Stop Mini-Mart downtown, where Keene shot and killed 38-year-old Sarah Abraham, an Ethiopian immigrant and mother of three. It was Taylor who lured two men, including a former boyfriend, to their deaths with the promise of sex. It was Taylor who turned on her own friend, 16-year-old Wendy Cotrill. She watched as Keene fired a bullet into the temple of the pregnant teenager.” The full interview can be found here.

See here for Laura Taylor’s appeal 20 years after the Dayton Ohio Christmas Spree Killings to the Ohio State Supreme Court, stating that her age was not considered as a mitigating factor in her choices during the original court ruling in 1994.

Heather Matthews

Heather is also serving her life sentence in Marysville at the Ohio Reformatory for Women. According to Medium, Heather later revealed in an interview “I wanted to be like them. I wanted to do what they was doing.” According to Desert, Matthews was a truant, a chronic runaway and a high-school dropout. She was released early from the Ohio Reformatory for Women at Marysville after serving six months of a one-year sentence for receiving stolen property before winding back up in the same facility for the Dayton Ohio Spree Killings.

DeMarcus Maurice Smith

DeMarcus is serving his life sentence at the Mansfield Correctional Institute.

Marvallous Keene

According to the Daily News, Keene was not a typical killer. He had never been arrested and was a good student — until his older brother was killed while committing a robbery in 1991. The death of his brother was said to have a “profound effect” on him, and according to a court report “he became depressed, virtually gave up on his educations efforts for a time, and was morose and introspective.” He lived with his father for a short while before moving back in with his mother in Dayton in 1992. For reasons unknown, he left her home and landed in a flop house. After Keene was arrested, he sent a letter to his childhood church in Dayton, and while the contents of the letter are unknown, his defense attorneys argued that he had suffered from a form of post-traumatic stress disorder related to the death of his brother. While this does not excuse his actions, it should cause us to question what was going on for him, and the possible effects that unprocessed grief and trauma may have had on his actions.

According to The San Diego Union Tribune, Gov. Ted Strickland denied clemency for Keene the week of his execution, even though Keene did not request it, as he did not want to cause any more pain for the families. Prior to his execution, Keene called his stepfather in Dayton on a Monday night, and the call lasted for more than two hours. He then requested a muscle-relaxing drug that was provided by staff.

According to CBC News, Marvallous Keene was the 1,000th inmate killed by lethal injection since 1976. He was executed at the age of 36, on July 21st, 2009, by lethal injection at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. His execution was held seven days after Ohio’s previous execution, which was the fastest turnaround since the state executed two inmates in six days in 2004.

 According to The Blade, the Ohio Supreme Court said it would schedule future executions at last three weeks apart so that public defenders would have more time to prepare clemency cases for inmates who wished to pursue it.

For additional information on this case, you can explore the Dayton Daily News Library. Or, check out “The Christmas Killings: 40 Hours to Justice” by Gismer-Monseur-Murphy on Amazon.

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Unpopular Culture Podcast is a psychology podcast hosted by Professor & Psychotherapist Michael Drane. With help from professionals in different fields, he seeks to shine light into the broken underbelly of society.

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