Billy Gohl

Billy Gohl
Background information
Birth name	William F. Gohl
Also known as	Ghoul of Grays Harbor "Billy Montana"
Born	February 6, 1873 Germany
Died	March 3, 1927 (aged 54) Eastern State Hospital Spokane County, Washington, United States
Cause of death	Lobar pneumonia, Erysipelas, Syphilis
Killings
Number of victims	2 (but possibly 100+).
Span of killings	1902–1910
Country	United States
State(s)	Washington
Date apprehended	1910

William "Billy" Gohl (February 6, 1873 - March 3, 1927) was an American serial killer who, while working as a union official, would murder sailors passing through Aberdeen, Washington. He murdered for an unknown period of time and was a suspect in dozens of murders until his capture in 1910. Spared from the death penalty by a request for leniency by the jury, he was sentenced to life in prison at Walla Walla State Penitentiary where he died in 1927 from lobar pneumonia and erysipelas complicated by dementia paralytic caused by syphilis.

Occupation and Murders

Nothing of substance is known about Billy Gohl's first 40 years, and the stories he told in response to occasional questions were riddled with holes, contradictions, and some outright lies. By his own reckoning, Gohl was born around 1860, spending most of the next four decades as a laborer and sailor. In 1903 he surfaced in Aberdeen, Washington, as a delegate and employed as a union official at the Sailor's Union of the Pacific. Before this he had been employed as a bartender after returning broke from the Yukon. Already an accomplished criminal, Gohl was suspected of being responsible for many of the large numbers of deceased migrant workers that would be found washed up on shore during his tenure as a bartender, as well as a number of other crimes. In 1905 during the great waterfront Strike Gohl was charged with "assembling men under arms" and is also alleged to to have forcibly abducted non-union crewmen from the Schooner "Fearless" for which he was fined $1250 in the Superior Court.As a union official, Gohl would use his reputation and intimidating size to discourage strikes and "recruit" new union members. The Union building proved to be a location that was ideal for his crimes, both in providing victims, and in concealing the evidence of their murders. Sailors arriving in the port of Aberdeen would usually visit the Sailor's Union building soon after disembarking. The union office, in those days, functioned as a combination mail drop, bank, and general employment office for its members. Sailors new in port might check for letters, scan the list of vessels needing crewmen, or deposit valuables before they made the rounds at local bars and, if they wished, set aside some money in savings.. In many cases, sailors just returned from months at sea had large amounts of cash in hand. An honest union delegate would hold the money in a safe until it was reclaimed. In Aberdeen, the spoils belonged to Billy Gohl. Gohl would usually be on duty, alone. Typically Gohl would ask if the sailors had any family or friends in the area. Then he would turn the conversation to the topic of money and valuables. If the sailor was just passing through, and would not be missed by anyone in the area, and had more than a trivial amount of cash or valuables on hand, Gohl would choose him as his next victim. His method was simplicity itself. When sailors turned up individually, Gohl checked the street for witnesses. If it was clear,and if something of substantial value was entrusted to his care, he drew a pistol from his desk and shot his victim in the head. That done, he paused to clean the weapon, then stripped his prey of any extra cash and all identifying documents. He would dispose of them in the Wishkah River, which ran behind the building and into the harbor. According to some reports, there was a chute which descended from a trap door in the building directly into the river. and the sea beyond. Other reports state that Gohl would use a small launch to murder his victims and dump the bodies directly in the harbor. Within a few years after Gohl's arrival, Aberdeen acquired a reputation as a "port of missing men." No records exist for his first six years of operation, but authorities pulled 41 "floaters" out of the water between 1909 and 1912, suggesting a prodigious body count. Most of the dead were presumed to be merchant seamen, and Billy Gohl was among the most vocal critics of Aberdeen law enforcement, demanding apprehension of the killers and more protection for his men. Gohl's downfall was precipitated by a timepiece and his own attempt at cleverness. While rifling the pockets of his latest victim, Billy came upon a watch bearing the engraved name of August Schleuter from Hamburg, Germany. Alert to the potential for incrimination, he replaced the watch and dumped the corpse as usual. When the "floater" came ashore, Gohl was on hand to identify Schleuter as one of his sailors, renewing demands for thorough investigation of the murders.

This time, Billy got his wish. It took some time, but homicide investigators learned the victim was, in fact, a Danish sailor named Fred Nielssen who had bought the watch in Hamburg from a craftsman who identified each piece he made with an engraving of his name. Gohl's effort to identify the corpse of August Schleuter smacked of guilty knowledge, and detectives finally built a case that brought him into court in 1913 on a double murder charge. Though suspected of being responsible for the large numbers of sailors who would disembark in Aberdeen and disappear, nothing was done to stop him until an accomplice, John Klingenberg, was brought back to Aberdeen after trying to jump ship in Mexico

Arrest

Klingenberg was able to testify to seeing Gohl alone with a sailor, Charles Hatberg, whose body had recently been found in the harbor, soon before his disappearance. Gohl had already been arrested in February 1910 for the Hatberg murder and was convicted of two counts of murder, though suspected of 41 or more, found guilty May 12, 1910 and sentenced to life imprisonment. and taken to the State Prison June 13, 1910 The second count was for the murder of John Hoffman, a witness to the Hatberg murder who was shot and injured by Gohl on the night of the murder, and killed the next day by Klingenberg, for which he was sentenced to 20 years. Gohl was rescued from the gallows by Washington's repeal of the death penalty in 1912. Convicted and sentenced to life for two slayings. he rebuffed all efforts to compile a comprehensive list of victims. Even so, publicity surrounding Billy's case was adequate to prompt restoration of Capital Punishment in 1914. Safe in his prison cell, with no evidence to support further trials and possible execution, Gohl counted the years until he was later transferred to an asylum for the criminally insane, where he died in 1927.