Neal Falls
Neal Falls | |
|---|---|
| Born | Neal Martin Falls September 24, 1969 |
| Died | July 18, 2015 (aged 45) |
| Cause of death | Gunshot |
| Details | |
| Victims | 0–8+ |
Span of crimes | 1992 – 2015 (suspected) |
| Country | United States |
| State(s) | Oregon, Nevada, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, New York, Texas, and California (all suspected)[1][2] |
Neal Martin Falls (September 24, 1969 – July 18, 2015)[4] was an American suspected serial killer who was shot and killed in self-defense by Heather Saul, a sex worker in Charleston, West Virginia. Falls had been stopped by police in over twenty states during his life but did not incur any serious criminal charges.[1] Only after his death did police discover evidence possibly tying Falls to other crimes.
Biography
Little is known about Neal's early life. He was born on September 24, 1969 in Eugene, Oregon, into an impoverished family with 9 other children. Falls' father was aggressive to his wife and children, as a result of which the young Neal grew up in a socially disadvantageous environment that negatively affected the well-being of the entire family.
During his school years, Falls began to show an interest in firearms, and subsequently became obsessed with military paraphernalia. After leaving school, he did not continue his education and was forced to engage in low-skilled labor. Despite this, he led a law-abiding lifestyle, refrained from abusing alcohol or drugs, and was keen on collecting weapons and ammunition, with most of his friends and acquaintances speaking very positively of him.[5]
From 1969 to 1992, Falls lived in various cities around the state of Oregon. In early 1992, he moved to Greensburg, Kansas, where he lived with his father until his father's death in 1995, after which Neal returned to Oregon, where he soon found a job as a private security guard. After finishing his training, his fingerprints were entered in a national database in 1998. In 2000, Neal moved to the city of Henderson, Nevada, where for the next 8 years he worked as a security guard on the Hoover Dam. During this period, he began to exhibit deviant behavior, including abusing animals in the desert regions of Arizona, due to which he was subjected to disciplinary action. At the same time, Falls began to spend most of his free time in the company of various prostitutes and their pimps. In the mid-2000s, he visited the Philippines for the purpose of sex tourism.
In 2008, Falls was charged with sexually harassing a colleague, after which he was forced to quit. After his dismissal, he began to show signs of dromomania, frequently changing his place of residence from 2009 to 2015, living in the states of Indiana, Kentucky, Oregon and Texas, where he was detained by police on several occasions for traffic violations.
In January 2015, Neal found out that the woman with whom he was intimately related was married, after which, in the same month, his mother passed away. These two events greatly affected his emotional state, as a result of which he became internally conflicted and disorganized. In April 2015, Neal Falls underwent retraining courses to continue working as a security guard in the private sector in Oregon, but in the summer of that year he went to Texas, from where he moved to West Virginia.[6]
Death and discovery
After entering Saul's residence following their meeting online, Falls held her at gunpoint. Saul describes the struggle that ensued as follows: "When he strangled me, I grabbed my rake, and when he laid the gun down to get the rake out of my hands, I shot him ... I grabbed the gun and shot behind me."[1] Falls died at the scene, [6] shot by Saul in the head, killing him instantly.
Four sets of handcuffs were retrieved from his body.[7] When police officers searched the inside of his car, they allegedly found a machete, axes, knives, a shovel, a sledgehammer, bleach, plastic trash bags, bulletproof vests, clean white socks and underwear.[1]
Police linked the objects found, Falls' modus operandi and his previous known locations to the murders and disappearances of nine women in the states of Illinois, Ohio and Nevada. For 8 years, he lived in Henderson, a suburb of Las Vegas, where from 2003 to 2007, four sex workers disappeared, three of whom were later found dismembered in California, Illinois and Nevada. All of the missing women, like Heather Saul, advertised their activities on the Internet.[8] Six more vanished from Chillicothe, Ohio, a two-hour drive from Charleston. Despite the fact that no evidence was found of Neal's presence in the city, he is still considered a suspect, as it turned out that since 1995, he had been detained by the police for violating traffic rules in 16 states, and his true scale of movement and activity remains unknown.[9][10] Also, a list containing the names of six women involved in the prostitution business and their contacts on social networks was found in Falls' pocket, which, according to the prosecutor's office, may have been intended victims. However, police investigations determined that all of them were alive and well, five of them were located across West Virginia and the sixth worked in San Diego.[11] In 2018, Neal Falls was tested for involvement in the I-70 Killer murders, a series of killings in the Midwestern United States in the spring of 1992. At that time, Falls lived in Kansas, where one of the murders had occurred, and corresponded very closely to the suspect's image, but no physical evidence was located to corroborate these speculations.[6][12]
Possible victims
Possible victims of Neal Falls include:[13]
- Jodi Brewer
- Lindsay Marie Harris
- Misty Marie Saens
- Tiffany Sayre
- Shasta Himelrick
- Charlotte Trego
- Tameka Lynch
- Wanda Lemons (missing)
Victims ruled out in Falls case
See also
References
- ^ a b c d "Neal Falls link investigated in 8 states". koin.com. Associated Press.
- ^ Jonathan Mattise and Dan Sewell (July 31, 2015). "Man killed by escort examined for possible serial killer ties". KUTV.
- ^ Miller, Cole. "Was Springfield man Neal Falls a serial killer?". koin.com.
- ^ Wall, Katie. "'Textbook Case': W.Va. Sex Worker Stopped a Serial Killer, Authorities Say". NBC News. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
- ^ "Portrait of a Serial Killer: Online Perv Neal Falls, the suspected serial killer slain by an escort in West Virginia, may have had a very disturbing alter ego". The Daily Beast. July 30, 2015. Retrieved 2020-03-02.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b c Who is Neal Falls? September 3, 2015
- ^ "Police: Woman saved lives by shooting possible serial killer in the head". WTVR.com. 2015-07-27. Retrieved 2016-12-12.
- ^ "Nevada police investigate Oregon man killed by Charleston woman". WV MetroNews. 2015-07-24. Retrieved 2020-03-02.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "Was Neal Falls – killed by an escort – responsible for the disappearances of women across the US?". Daily News. 2015-07-28. Retrieved 2020-03-02.
- ^ Taylor Eaton (July 29, 2015). "UPDATE: Police Say Neal Falls had contact with Police at More than a Dozen Agencies". WSAZ-TV.
- ^ "Possible Serial Killer Neal Falls Had List of Six Other Women: Police". NBC News. Retrieved 2020-03-02.
- ^ Was Neal Falls the I-70 Killer? December 3, 2018
- ^ M. Alex Johnson. "Possible Serial Killer Neal Falls Had List of Six Other Women: Police". NBC News. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
- ^ Caniglia, John (24 July 2015). "Career criminal charged in death of one of the missing Chillicothe women". Cleveland.com.
- ^ Usufzy, Pashtana (27 March 2016). "Mother looks for answers about her daughter's disappearance a decade ago". Las Vegas Review-Journal.
- ^ a b reports, Staff and wire. "Falls police see no apparent links between Bills case, suspected serial killer". Niagara Gazette. Retrieved 2018-06-12.