Notorious ‘Want-Ad’ serial killer Harvey Carignan has died at age 95, 48 years after he was convicted in Minnesota of the murders of two women.
Carignan used “help wanted” ads to lure unsuspecting women to him before he raped and then bludgeoned them to death with a hammer.
The convicted murderer died earlier this month inside the Minnesota Correctional Center in Oak Park Heights of natural causes, according to TMZ.
At the time of his death, the man was serving a life sentence for the murders of Katherine Schultz, murdered in 1975. He is also known to have murdered at least two other women.
During his trial, he claimed that God had commanded him to carry out the murders, claiming that he was told to murder ‘whores and harlots’. He pleaded insane, but was found guilty.
Notorious ‘Want-Ad’ serial killer Harvey Carignan has died at age 95, 48 years after he was convicted in Minnesota of the murders of two women.
Carignan used “help wanted” ads to lure unsuspecting women to him before he raped and then bludgeoned them to death with a hammer.
Carignan’s first known victims were women he met in Alaska, more than 25 years before he was convicted.
In July 1949, the man murdered 58-year-old Laura Showalter during an attempted rape.
Less than two months after this crime, he again tried to assault a woman, Christine Norton, who miraculously survived.
On September 17, 1949, Carignan was arrested.
He was found guilty of first degree murder and assault with intent to commit rape and sentenced to death for his crimes.
However, his death sentence was eventually overturned as his confession to the crime had been improperly obtained after an officer during his interrogation told him that he would not be executed if he confessed.
At his retrial, the murder charge was dropped and he continued to serve a 15-year prison sentence for his other crimes until he was paroled in 1960.
After being released from the infamous Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, Carignan committed a series of robberies in Minneapolis along with his brother Clinton.
During that time, he was arrested and convicted twice, serving several years in Minnesota prisons for second- and third-degree robbery and violating his probation.
It wasn’t until 1972, that his vicious crime streak picked up again.
This is Eileen Hunley, with whom Carignan lived for several months in Seattle. She disappeared in August 1974 and her body was later found raped and beaten to death.
In May 1973, 15-year-old Kathy Sue Miller was responding to a “help wanted” sign at a Carigann gas station. When she appeared, the man raped her and then bludgeoned her to death with a hammer.
Katherine Schultz, 18, was the last confirmed victim of Carignan. Her body was found in a cornfield days after she went missing in south Minneapolis, Minnesota.
This is the Minnesota Correctional Center in Oak Park Heights, where Carignan died.
In October 1972, 19-year-old Leslie Laura Brock was found dead in Washington, killed by multiple blows to the head.
As police investigated the crime, several witnesses came forward to say they had seen the teen get into Carignan’s truck.
Several months later, in May 1973, Kathy Sue Miller, then just 15 years old, was responding to a ‘seeking help poster’ posted by Carignan for her service station.
When she appeared, the man raped her and then bludgeoned her to death with a hammer. She was later given the nickname ‘Harvey the Hammer’ for her choice of weapon.
The young woman’s body was found by two children months later on a hiking trail.
Miller had been wrapped in plastic sheeting with hammer holes in her skull.
Despite being identified as the main suspect, Carignan could not be arrested due to lack of evidence, according to reports.
In September 1973, Carignan picked up a 13-year-old boy in Minnesota named Jerri Billings.
He sexually assaulted her and hit her with a hammer, but released her alive.
Carignan then traveled back to Washington, where he lived with 29-year-old Eileen Hunley for several months in the summer of 1974.
She was reported missing in August of that year and her body was later found raped and beaten to death with repeated blows to the head.
Carignan’s crimes spawned a book by Ann Rule that documented her murders and assaults.
In September 1974, Carignan picked up two teenage girls, Sally Versoi and Diane Flynn, and forced them to perform oral sex on him.
Versoi and Flynn were able to escape, but Carignan also escaped.
Just a few days later, the body of 18-year-old Katherine Schultz was found in a cornfield.
She had been reported missing in south Minneapolis just days before.
Ultimately, the man was arrested three days after Schultz’s body was found, on September 24, 1974.
He was charged with attempted murder and aggravated sodomy for the rapes of Versoi and Flynn.
In February 1975, he was tried on the charges and pleaded insane, telling the court that God wanted him to kill ‘whores and harlots’.
Carignan was convicted in April 1975 of four counts of sodomy and indecent liberties in the attack on 13-year-old Jerri Billings.
After pleading guilty to Schultz’s murder in February 1976, he was sentenced to life in prison.
His crimes spawned a popular book by Ann Rule, who documented his murders and assaults.
