Alton Coleman

Coleman was just the tenth person since the initiation of the list in 1950 to merit inclusion in such a manner.

Coleman and Brown bicycled into Norwood on July 13 at about 9:30 a.m. Less than three hours later, they drove away in a car belonging to Harry Walters, whom they left unconscious, and his wife Marlene, who was raped and beaten to death.

Walters survived and later testified that they had met the couple to discuss their potential purchase of a camper, but that Coleman attacked him with a wooden candlestick.

Alton Coleman (November 6, 1955 – April 26, 2002) was an American serial killer who, along with accomplice Debra Brown (born November 11, 1962), committed a crime spree across six states between May and July 1984 that resulted in the deaths of eight people.

Alton Coleman was born on November 6, 1955, in Waukegan, Illinois.

His mother worked three jobs, and he lived with his 73-year-old grandmother.

Debra Brown was born on November 11, 1962.

She is one of eleven children, is borderline intellectually disabled, suffered head trauma as a child, and was diagnosed with dependent personality disorder by a psychiatrist.

Coleman was well known to Illinois law enforcement, having been charged with sex crimes six times between 1973 and 1983.

Two of those cases were dismissed, with Coleman pleading guilty to lesser charges in two and twice being acquitted.

He was scheduled to go on trial in Illinois on charges stemming from the rape of a 14-year-old girl when he fled and began his killing spree.

Coleman was diagnosed with mixed personality disorder with "probable" antisocial, narcissistic and obsessive features, with additional diagnoses including epileptic spasms, psychosis and borderline personality disorder.

She was engaged to another man when she met Coleman in 1983, but left her family and moved in with him shortly afterwards.

Although a willing participant in Coleman's assaults and murders, Brown had no history of violence or any criminal history prior to their relationship.

Coleman and Brown committed their first murder when they killed 9-year-old Vernita Wheat from Kenosha, Wisconsin.

After Coleman had befriended her mother, Juanita Wheat, he abducted Vernita and took her to Waukegan on May 29, 1984.

Vernita's badly decomposed body was discovered on June 19 in an abandoned building four blocks from the apartment of Coleman's grandmother.

It was determined she had been raped, and the cause of death was ligature strangulation.

On May 31, Coleman befriended Robert Carpenter in Waukegan and spent the night at his home.

The next day he “borrowed” Carpenter's car to go to the store and never returned.

In June 1984, Coleman and Brown encountered two young girls in Gary, Indiana: 9-year-old Annie Turks and her niece, 7-year-old Tamika Turks.

The couple sexually assaulted the two children.

Annie survived the violent attack, but Tamika did not; her partially decomposed body was discovered on June 19.

The same day, Donna Williams, a 25-year-old woman from Gary, disappeared.

On July 11 her decomposed body was discovered in Detroit, Michigan, about half a mile from where her car was found.

She had been raped and killed by ligature strangulation.

On June 28, Coleman and Brown entered the home of Mr. and Mrs. Palmer-Jones of Dearborn Heights, Michigan, whom they beat severely.

Coleman ripped the telephone from their wall before stealing money and their car.

On July 5, Coleman and Brown arrived in Toledo, Ohio, where Coleman befriended Virginia Temple, the mother of several children.

When Temple stopped communicating with her relatives, authorities entered her home and found her young children alone and frightened.

Temple and her eldest child, 9-year-old Rachelle, had been strangled to death and left in a crawl space.

On the same morning as the Temple murders, Coleman and Brown entered the home of Frank and Dorothy Duvendack in Toledo, who were bound with electrical cords which had been cut.

The couple stole the Duvendacks' money and car, and Mrs. Duvendack's stolen watch was later found under another victim.

Later that day, Coleman and Brown visited the Dayton home of Reverend Millard Gay and his wife Kathryn.

The two stayed with the Gays and accompanied them to a religious service on July 9, where the next day the Gays dropped off the couple in downtown Cincinnati.

On July 12, Tonnie Storey, a 15-year-old girl who lived in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, disappeared; her body was discovered eight days later.

A bracelet that had been stolen from the Temples was found under Storey's body.

Coleman, who received death sentences in three states, was executed by the state of Ohio in 2002.

Brown was sentenced to death in Ohio and Indiana, but the sentences were later reduced to life imprisonment without parole and 140 years, respectively.

On the day of Storey's disappearance, the FBI added Coleman to its Ten Most Wanted List as a "special addition" as the 11th most wanted.