Kelly O'Donnell The Killer Stripper A Collection of True Crime

KELLY O’DONNELL THE KILLER STRIPPER

AMY PEARSON

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STRIP AND KILL

PORN AND MURDER

MECHELE HUGHES

ROBYN LINDHOLM

KILLER SEDUCTRESS

PAMELA SMART

DANIELLE STEWART

MARY WINKLER

TRACEY GRISSOM

TED BUNDY

THE TRAILSIDE KILLER

TOY BOX KILLER

Kelly couldn’t get the sight of the stripper pole out of her head.

Other women would have been ashamed. But Kelly could pretend that she liked the attention. She felt as if her life was destined to be on that pole, swinging for money.

She had bounced from home to home when she was a kid. With no guidance and no moral compass, the stripper pole had been an easy decision.

At twenty-years old and with five kids in tow, Kelly thought that the money she received from the state wasn’t enough. The strip joint was a place where she could show what she had naturally and get the scraps from desperate men.

She swung around and around, their leering faces etching themselves into her memory. She knew she would see them later.

In her nightmares.

Only in her dreams she couldn’t escape. She couldn’t just run off the stage if things got too heated. There was no bouncer as back-up. For some reason, she was stuck there.

Swinging and swinging, shaking her ass and tits.

A five dollar bill here. A tenner there.

Then the song would end and she ran back into the dressing room.

A picture of one of her sons was pinned to the mirror. Looking at her reflection, she didn’t see what the men saw in her. She saw a rapidly deteriorating good looks. Good looks that were marginal at best. If she didn’t do something soon, she was on a fast track to hell.

If she wasn’t there already.

Pulling out a bottle of Vodka from the drawer, she poured herself a shot. Then another.

Then she waited. Waited for the buzz to set in. It would dull her senses.

Until her next set.

Kelly, you’re up.

Kelly O’Donnell had a rough life.

When she was six years old, her father walked out on her and her mother. Only months later, her mother would die in a house fire which left Kelly with burns.

Adult life would prove to be no better.

She would marry and have children. But her husband would die in a car accident shortly after the third child was born.

Destitute and seemingly destined for poverty, Kelly turned to the stripper pole.

She became a popular dancer in a Philadelphia strip club and received the loudest applause every time she hit the stage.

She was sex on fire, a former patron said. I couldn’t get enough of watching her. Her moves. Actually, it was the way she moved. So confident. So sure of herself.

But the uninhibited persona masked a hurting soul.

Kelly would do whiskey shots backstage at the stripper joint as well as at home. Saddled with kids she couldn’t provide for, she would spend her extra money on drugs.

Some days she would need extra cash so she would see Eleftherios Eleftheriou, known in the Philly club scene as Terry The Greek.

Terry was a pizza restaurant owner who loved the seedy side of life. He had no problem paying for women like Kelly to keep him company.

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Kelly waited until she saw Terry flip the closed sign over on the door of his pizza restaurant. She had to admit, his pizzas were good. But she was there for other reasons.

Money.

Terry the Greek had always been a soft touch. She could see the lust in his eyes whenever she came to visit him. She would use that to get money.

Hi, she said, walking into his restaurant in a low cut blouse.

Whoa, Terry said, looking away from his cash register. Look at you.

Look what I have, she said, tossing a pair of purses and a leather jacket on his counter.

Yeah, Terry leaned in and smelled her neck. I’m looking. I like what I saw.

So how much?

For?

For the fucking stuff!

Jesus, Terry said, inspecting the stolen goods with little interest.

Where’d you get these?

From the store. Duh.

I’ll give you, fifty bucks.

The Greek began peeling out a pair of twenties and a ten.

Do you know how much this is worth? You’ve got to be kidding me. This is at least $250. See? I even left the store tags on.

To me it is worth $50. If you want more, you know what you have to do.

He took her hand and placed it on his penis.

Oh God, Kelly pulled away. Okay, fine. $50.

How about $70, the Greek said, pulling off another $20 bill and placing it between Kelly’s cleavage.

Kelly pulled out the money from her blouse and walked out of the store in a huff.

You change your mind about the other thing and you’ll get some money, Terry laughed.

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This was the cycle for Kelly. She needed money to fuel the drug habit. The welfare checks and the scraps from the strip joint were all not enough to meet the need.

A master of petty thievery and negotiation, Kelly would acquire stolen goods then get quick cash from Terry The Greek.

A hamster on a wheel.

Stripping at night, stealing and doing drugs during the day.

Spinning around the stripper pole, she was on a downward spiral to nowhere until one night she caught the eye of a new customer.

Bill Gribbel.

A shaggy-haired twenty-eight year old, he had little to offer women except lame pickup lines, cheap drugs and a goofy smile.

Bored one night, he came into the strip club looking for a few thrills.

What he saw on stage would change his life forever.

He couldn’t take his eye off of Kelly. Introducing himself, the two immediately hit it off. They had a lot in common. They liked the seedy scene of life including drugs and alcohol. Gribbel boasted about being drug addict since the age of fourteen. Kelly had been a crack addict for as long as she could remember. One of her children was diagnosed as crack-addicted and needed to be placed in foster care.

The two fed off each other and Kelly’s dependence on drugs escalated. She needed more money.

Fast.

In November of 1992, Kelly would once again enter Terry the Greek’s pizza shop.

I need ten bucks, she said.

Really now? Terry gave her the once over before squeezing her ass. What do you got for me?

Can you just loan me the ten bucks?

Loan you? Terry bent over and started laughing so hard he held his belly in mock pain. You’ve got to be kidding me?

Please? I’ll pay you back.

You gotta give me something.

For ten bucks?

That coat looks nice, he said.

Kelly hesitated. She hated to negotiate with the greasy Greek but needed her fix. Okay, she said, handing him her coat. But I want it back.

Sure, Terry peeled off a twenty dollar bill before spanking her ass. Sure you will.

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Blowing the entire cash money on blow and booze, Kelly needed more. Returning to Terry’s place, she offered him the one thing he couldn’t refuse.

Sex.

Bill’s mother had let her borrow her  place while she was away. Kelly invited the horny Greek over for sex in exchange for money.

But when he came over, she had second thoughts. The man was a total pervert who masturbated in front of her. When he turned to look out the window, Kelly took a hammer and smashed her perverted benefactor over the head.

The bloodlust raging within her, Kelly rained down blows on The Greek. Bill came into the room and allegedly began helping Kelly.

I was higher than you can imagine, Bill recalled. I did not mean to do that. I was not like that. I remember hitting him with the hammer, but I don’t know how many times. Maybe five.

Out of breath, the couple looked at the bloodied body and the crimson streaked walls. They vacillated between whether he should call the police or run away.

Kelly came up with a plan.

They would cut his body up and get rid of it.

Dragging his body to the basement, Bill watched as Kelly began sawing into Terry’s limbs and body parts.

Problem was that Terry was still alive.

The Greek moaned in pain as Kelly cut into him.

Then she sliced off his penis.

Bill nearly threw up but Kelly yelled at him to get it together. She dug into the dead man’s pockets and took out his wallet, taking out the cash and credit cards.

Placing the various body parts in plastic bags, the couple hit the road in Bill’s car. Finding a row of garbage cans outside a store, they dumped the body parts inside. 

Kelly then went on a shopping spree with Terry’s credit cards.

On the morning of Friday, November 13th, 1992, the Philadelphia police would receive a report of human body parts left in some trash on the 3900 block of North Delaware Avenue. Upon investigation, they would find a torso with the head missing in one bag. Two more bags would net them a head with the left eye missing and a right arm.

Papers and letters were inside one of the bags.

One was addressed to Agnes McClinchey.

McClinchey was Gribble’s mother.

She had let the couple use the home as she went out to visit someone. When she returned she found blood on the front door and a stain on the carpet. Her walls were scrubbed clean.

What the hell happened? she asked the couple.

We had to kill someone, Kelly said. Self defense. Heard they just found his head on Delaware Avenue.

Agnes watched as the couple moved into the kitchen, continuing their conversation.

You need to burn the car, Kelly said to Bill, referring to the Greek’s car that was still parked outside.  Take it and drive it someplace. Burn the shit out of it.

Bill did the deed and returned to Kelly’s open arms. Thank God you didn’t get caught, the stripper said.

Agnes grew frightened. She called the police and told them to meet her at a gas station near the apartment.

Once there, she told them everything she knew.

The couple was then arrested and charged with murder.

Kelly would confess to the killing but later change her mind. She would try to pin the murder on her boyfriend, Bill.

The police were confused as to only which of the two actually committed the crime.

Kelly would admit to cutting off Terry’s penis and placing it into a pencil case. She wanted the case sent to her father.

I wanted to freak him out, Kelly admitted. I wanted to bust his balls.

But Bill would later state that he flipped out when he saw the greasy Greek Pizza owner fondling Kelly. He took up a hammer and came to her defense.

The case would go to trial in June of 1993. The prosecution came to the conclusion that both Kelly and Bill had lured Terry to the apartment in order to rob him. The two would have a joint defense with separate legal teams. Steven Sigal, Kelly’s lawyer, stated that the stripper was dying from a brain tumor and decided to take the blame for the killing in an act of love for Bill.

But when talking to homicide detective Dennis Dusak, Kelly stated she acted alone.

I did it myself, Kelly bragged. It took a while to cut it up, about an hour and a half, two hours. Billy had nothing to do with this. He had no knowledge of what was going on.

Bill’s defense lawyer Charles Mirachi asked the judge to show leniency to Gribble in particular on the grounds that he had no criminal record. The jury didn’t believe Kelly and sentenced both of them to death. Judge Paul Ribner would sentence Gribble to death and called the dismemberment bizarre.

They are both now serving life sentences.

PORN AND MURDER

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ALISON YATES

I own a lingerie and tanning store. I also host lingerie shows. I will do almost any photo shoot but no porno films. I am fun and energetic. I am looking for paid work. - Amanda' Logue's on-line modeling profile

Amanda Logue had a double life. She was married with a young daughter. But only her husband knew what she was doing on the side to earn money.

Prostitution. Pornography.

She headlined several adult films under the stage name of Sunny Dae. Together with her bisexual partner, Jason Andrews, the two would reach heights of sexual perversion that would lead them down the path to the ultimate taboo.

Murder.

They would rob and kill tattoo shop owner Dennis Scooter Abrahamsen in a shocking crime that made national headlines.

But their motivation wasn't money.

They committed the crime because it made them hot.

EARLY LIFE

Amanda Dailey was born in the small town of Leesburg, Georgia. Her life goals were simple. She wanted the two and a half kids, the big house and the wrap around porch. Just have the perfect life.

But things went south for Amanda in her teen years. She got pregnant during her senior year and dropped out of school to have a baby girl.  Then her mother would die suddenly the following year.

She would get involved in drugs when her mom died. She would also claim that her daughter's father was abusive.

Things were a mess with numerous domestic interventions by the police.

But that is when she met police officer Lamon Logue. Logue was thirty-years old and eight years the senior of Amanda. The two hit it off as he appeared to be her knight in shining armor.

They began dating and Amanda took a shot at living the normal life. They would go to nice restaurants and to the movies. She found a job at a local car dealership as a secretary. Together, they could work together and create the American Dream.

Lamon was clearly a good man, forensic psychologist Paula Orange said. But he was one of those men who fall prey to the charms of a beautiful woman who is down on her luck. They feel the need to fix the woman, the need to be that knight in shining armor but in the end that narrative never works.

Amanda had an itch for more than a domesticated life with a husband and kids. Sure, she wanted a family but something was missing. Some indefinable sense of fun and fulfillment that she wasn't getting at home. Finally, her husband asked her what her lifetime dream was.

Always considered attractive, the bleach-blonde Amanda did not hesitate in answering. She always wanted to be a model.

Lamon encouraged Amanda to pursue her dreams. She answered a few ads and eventually was featured in a small advertising flyer. It was easy, quick money and Amanda enjoyed the work. Gaining more experience, she would get gig after gig and soon the money she was earning through modeling exceeded her salary at the car dealership.

ANOTHER WRONG TURN

Lamon remained the primary breadwinner despite