On June 16, 1992, a mutilated body later recognized as 20-year-old Navy Seaman Conway Utterbeck was discovered inside a shallow grave inside a wooded section of Warner Robins, Georgia.
Government bodies made the nasty discovery after loggers known as 911 to report “a smell,” John Holland, a detective with Houston County Sheriff’s Office, told “Mastermind of Murder,” airing Sundays at 7/6c on Archiweekend.
Utterbeck’s mind, hands, and ft have been stop. A scar near his left knee was among the couple of clues to recognize him.
“This wasn’t the scene from the murder. It was disposal,” stated Erectile dysfunction Lukemire, former Da, Houston County.
Detectives had attempted to recognize your body using missing persons reports for any week when Naval investigators on the base in Pensacola, Florida arrived at out about Utterbeck. A junior sailor man within the engineering department having a spotless record, he’d inexplicably gone AWOL in the U.S.S. Forrestal on April 6, based on Special Agent, NCIS Diane Kelley. His banking account have been untouched for days.
Reba Utterbeck, the missing sailor’s mother, had known as Navy officials to report she hadn’t been told by her boy. Finding yourself in the Navy, she stated, “was his dream.” Before Utterbeck disappeared he’d known as her to inform her he would Georgia for that weekend with two shipmates, saying never fear which “he was with buddies.”
Even without using fingerprints or dental records, investigators were confident the torso was Utterbeck. He’d an injuries near his knee which had needed surgery.
Investigators spoke individually with Edward Vollmer and Travis Hittson, the mariners Utterbeck spent the weekend with before he disappeared. Both of them stated that whenever the weekend in Georgia at Vollmer’s parents’ house all of them came back to Florida.
They claimed they last saw him once they dropped him in a local bar because they came back towards the ship. Investigators were puzzled: How could Utterbeck’s torso maintain Georgia if he came back to Florida?
Investigators conducted interviews along with other crewmen to understand more about Vollmer and Hittson. Like a sailor man, Travis Hittson was referred to as very easygoing and able to stick to the chain of command, based on Kelley. As he wasn’t working he drank heavily. Steve Nix, an old sailor man around the U.S.S. Forrestal, remembered that in one drunk stupor Hittson entered the incorrect apartment and wound up charged with breaking and entering.
Vollmer, however, was an alpha leader. Like a sailor man, he was smart coupled with been recognized into a top-notch program. Some fellow mariners described him as arrogant, and a few were frightened of him.
Investigators searched for to possess a second sit-lower with Vollmer, who’d been discharged in the Navy for possessing marijuana. Officials determined he was living off base in Pensacola, but he left town before they might interview him.
When investigators reinterviewed Hittson, he “looked overwhelmed,” stated Kelley, adding that because he retraced the occasions of the items happened throughout the weekend in Georgia, “his face was vibrant red. He was almost trembling.”
Hittson then came clean by what really went lower in Georgia.He accepted he shot Utterbeck between your eyes. Having a confession guaranteed, Hittson was charged with murder.
He decided to take investigators where the parts of the body were hidden in Florida.
Investigators could use dental records and also the retrieved mind to irrefutably find out the continues to be Utterbeck.
The medical examiner confirmed that Utterbeck endured a gunshot to his brow. Detectives understood how Utterbeck died but remained as puzzled about why he was performed. That which was Vollmer’s role?
Investigators found that Vollmer had told Hittson that Utterbeck were built with a “hit list” these were both on, Kelley told producers. Vollmer basically told him, “When we don’t kill him first, he’ll kill us.”
Between Hittson’s persistence for the chain of command cheap he’d been consuming, he was easily manipulated, based on investigators.
Vollmer instructed Hittson to enter the home and disable Utterbeck having a baseball bat. To prevent getting bloodstream on his parents’ carpet, the boys pulled Utterbeck in to the kitchen. Vollmer handed a gun to Hittson, who shot Utterbeck within the mind. They dismembered Utterbeck having a hacksaw in the shed, after which thrown him in to the trunk of Vollmer’s vehicle. They drove to some wooded place to bury the torso.
They came back towards the house and Hittson “spent hours” washing the kitchen, based on investigators. They bagged the rest of the parts of the body, stashed them in Vollmer’s trunk, and came back towards the ship. They hidden Utterbeck’s mind, hands, and ft the following day.
Vollmer was arrested but declined to talk to government bodies.
Investigators looked his parents’ home, where they found a .22 revolver, a bat, along with a saw. Luminol revealed bloodstream traces in the kitchen area. Everything Hittson had stated “was corroborated,” stated Lukemire. Investigators had enough evidence to create murder charges against both Vollmer and Hittson.
Why did Vollmer fabricate the storyline of the hit list to control Hittson into killing another sailor man? Detectives pieced together a motive after speaking with shipmates and Vollmer’s ex-wife. She described him as abusive and obsessive about murder.
“Hittson was the right puppet for Vollmer,” stated Kelley, adding that due to his superior rank he required benefit of others beneath him. Vollmer required “sick pleasure in becoming in charge.”
Like Hittson, Utterbeck wanted to slot in. Investigators believe that is why he recognized Vollmer’s invitation to visit Georgia while they weren’t buddies.
In March 1993 Hittson was charged and sentenced to dying. Vollmer pleaded guilty to murder charges to prevent the dying penalty. He was sentenced to existence with the risk of parole. Hittson, 45, was performed by lethal injection in 2016.
