‘Pissy’ — a savage spree killer

Maybe people shouldn’t be surprised that a boy who had to endure the nickname ‘Pissy’ because of a tendency to wet his pants would grow up to be one of America’s most savage spree killers. And it certainly didn’t help that Pissy would go to prison on a robbery charge and emerge two years later with a tendency to dress in women’s clothing and a desire for rough sex. Whatever the reasons, Alton Coleman and his girlfriend Debra Denise Brown will go down in history as a short-lived US version of Great Britain’s multiple sex-slayers Myra Hindley and Ian Brady.

The story of Coleman and Brown begins in the mid-1970s, takes place in five states and involves one of the largest manhunts in recent history. It is a tale of American criminal justice that stands among the most depraved and cruel incidents of the modern age — Coleman and Brown demonstrated a lack of respect for human life that shocked even hardened FBI agents and police officers. In less than two months, they assaulted, raped and murdered several persons. With every new court ruling or delay, dozens of survivors relived the horror of their encounters with the murderous pair of lovers. A child victim who managed to avoid death at their hands vows that she will never marry because of her inability to trust and questions whether she is still ‘pure’. Another survivor battles drug addiction, suicide attempts, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Debra Brown’s mother continues to rue the day her daughter met Alton Coleman. Brown was ‘a good girl,’ unknown to police before she fell under Coleman’s spell, but by the time the pair were caught, it was clear that Brown was just as vicious and murderous as her ex-con boyfriend. Probably what is most disturbing about Alton Coleman is that he shouldn’t have been on the streets to begin his rape- robbery -murder spree. Over and over Coleman managed to manipulate the judicial system in his favour, beating sexual assault charges on several occasions. Frustrated prosecutors and lawmen knew they had a monster on their hands, but could only stand by helplessly as jury after jury let the him walk, confident the system had “worked” to free an innocent man.

Born in Waukegan, an Illinois town, Alton Coleman endured the taunts of  schoolchildren who teased him because he so often wet his pants. They christened the mildly retarded boy ‘Pissy’. Family members and law enforcement officials who had dealings with Coleman since his teen years said Alton was slow to show emotion and generally kept to himself. Clearly alienated from his peers, Coleman had a reputation for his strong sex drive — reportedly he was bisexual and willing to engage in sex any time, any place with anyone. Said one friend of Coleman’s late mother: “He knew he was different even as a young child. “As he grew up, (Coleman) was deeply into insidious kinds of  sexual gratification.” Coleman first came to the notice of police as a teenager when he was picked up for breaking windows in his Waukegan housing project. He was quickly labeled as a troublemaker, but for the  most part, his crimes were of the petty sort. There was little indication to authorities of the mayhem to come.

Interestingly, property damage, often in the form of arson, can be an indicator of serial murder tendencies. That is not to say that every youngster who breaks windows or lights fires is bound to be a serial killer, but only that many multiple murderers committed similar acts as children. On the way to becoming a serial killer, Coleman gave the law many chances to put him away, but Alton was ‘smooth as silk’, according to those who fought him in court. Lawmen said Coleman put on a good appearance in court which often convinced jurors that authorities had the wrong man. Alton, according to friends, also relied upon the supernatural to help him escape justice. He claimed that voodoo made him invulnerable to attack by the law. “He was good at conning jurors,” Waukegan Police Lt Marc Hansen told the Detroit Free Press in 1984 when Coleman were hiding out in Detroit. “He tells a convincing story in court. People are impressed with his testimony. He comes off as a decent person.”

A prosecutor who watched Coleman beat a rape charge agreed. “He knows what kind of case holds up in court and which ones don’t,” said former US attorney Fred Foreman. “He’s been to the penitentiary. He’s a career criminal.” But when the facade wouldn’t work and voodoo god Baron Samedi wasn’t listening, Coleman resorted to more common forms of beating the rap, most notably witness intimidation. “It’s difficult to get people in court to prove these charges because they are sexual assault charges, they involve kids, they involve family that don’t want to see him go to jail,” said Hansen.

In 1983, Coleman’s sister went to authorities and told them her brother tried to rape her eight-year-old daughter. Three weeks later, she went to court to have the charges dropped. “It’s a misunderstanding,” she said. “A lot of families go through that. It doesn’t make any difference now.” The judge hearing the motion for dismissal was astounded by the 25-year-old woman’s testimony “I think the woman as she stands here today, is terrified of this man,” the judge said. He called her account of the incident “completely implausible”. But in the end, with no victim and no witnesses, the judge had no choice but to free Alton Coleman and dismiss the charges. Coleman’s rap sheet before his Midwestern spree reads like a one-man sex crime wave.

In 1973 he and an accomplice kidnapped, robbed and raped an elderly woman. She refused to testify about the rape and Coleman served two years on the robbery charge. Three months after his release from Joliet, Coleman was arrested for another rape. He was acquitted but served time for a lesser charge. Four years after that spell in the pen, Coleman was acquitted of rape. A year later he was arrested for an attempted rape — the charge was dismissed. In July, 1983 he was charged with the rape of his niece. That charge was dismissed. In early 1984 he was indicted for the knifepoint rape and murder of a suburban Chicago girl whose mother was a friend of his. Coleman learned he was wanted for that crime but disappeared, kicking off his multi-state crime spree with his girlfriend, Debra Brown.

Odyssey of Mayhem

Why Alton and Debra went underground is still a mystery 15 years after they were arrested. Police blamed Coleman’s “intense hatred of blacks,” but longtime friends dismissed that reason as absurd. The pair’s victims were mostly black because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Coleman stayed in traditionally black neighborhoods because they provided a place for him to hide. “That sounds so crazy to me,” said one Waukegan public official who knew Coleman since “he was in diapers.” “Why does he victimise blacks? Black neighborhoods are the logical place for him to go. If he went into a white community, they would have found him long ago.” A friend of the family said Coleman could not deal with his homosexual tendencies. “He used to dress up like a woman a lot. It was well known that he had different habits than a normal male,” the friend said.

Coleman is a classic “disorganized serial killer.” He rarely stalked a particular victim, but instead lashed out at whomever was nearby. He used whatever tools he had handy to kill or incapacitate his victims and there did not appear to be any ritual to his violence. While the pair was on the run, Coleman was indicted on murder charges in Wisconsin and a federal warrant was issued for his capture. Regardless of the motivation, Coleman and Brown began their spree on June 5, 1984 when the pair rented an apartment in Gary, Ind. Coleman had been wanted by police since May 31 and Debra Brown had been interrogated about his disappearance June 1. The pair laid low for two weeks until June 18 when two young girls, Tamika Turks and her 9-year-old aunt disappeared on their way to a candy store. Later that day, the 9-year-old was found beaten and raped. Tamika was missing.

A day later, Tamika’s badly ravaged body was found in a wooded area in Gary. She had been raped and killed by someone stomping on her chest. The older girl was forced to watch as the pair killed Tamika — Brown holding Tamika to the ground and covering her nose and mouth and Coleman jumping on her chest and face until her ribs fractured and punctured her vital organs. The same day Tamika’s body was discovered, Donna Williams, 25, was reported missing by her parents. Her car was stolen, as well. A week later, Williams’s car was found abandoned in Detroit with a forged identification card featuring Brown’s picture.

Residents from the area said the car had been parked in the alley since June 19. Police in four states were now looking for the pair, working on the assumption that Donna Williams had been murdered, even though her body had not been found. In the meantime, two days after Williams was reported missing, a Detroit woman was kidnapped by a man and woman whom she later identified as Coleman and Brown. She escaped while driving the pair to Toledo by purposefully ramming her car into oncoming traffic. Coleman and Brown were able to survive by befriending good Samaritans and later turning on their friends, authorities said. The badly decomposed body of Donna Williams was found on July 11. It was clear that she hadn’t lived long after she arrived, as a hostage, in Detroit.  The couple continued their killing spree — they averaged a crime every other day.

In all, the murderous 53-day rampage — from the time Coleman raped and murdered the 9-year-old  to the time they were arrested in Illinois — resulted in a slew of felonies: eight homicides, as many as seven rapes, three kidnappings and 14 armed robberies. When the time came to transport Brown to the federal lockup, she spoke with agents on the trip to Chicago. Arriving at the federal building, she was once again advised of her rights and she once again refused to sign a waiver. She did, however, agree to talk to officers as long as she could stop when she wanted to. Brown was sentenced to die for the murder of Tamika Turks. Later, Brown was sentenced to die for the Cincinnati murders, but she continued to be held on Indiana’s death row. Coleman was convicted of the same murders and also sentenced to die.

In January 1991 the governor of Ohio commuted Brown’s death sentence, saying she was retarded and “dominated by” Coleman. It took almost seven years, but in August 1991 the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled that the trial court had not erred by allowing the confession into evidence. The conviction and death sentence would stand. The appeals court found that despite her repeated attempts to speak to an attorney, the confession was separated by “space, time and subject matter” from her first request for counsel and that it was proper. Brown willfully gave the confession, the court noted, after being advised of her rights. Criminal defence attorneys fumed at the court’s decision, with one saying to the Indianapolis Star that the Fifth Amendment was being “squeezed to death.”

Coleman was executed by lethal injection at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville at 10 am Friday, April 26, 2002.  He was 46 years old. He spent his last days fighting tenaciously for his life, but appeals that went all the way to the US Supreme Court were unsuccessful. Coleman claimed ineffective counsel and that the prohibition against cruel or unusual punishment would be violated by having his execution broadcast over closed-circuit television. Relatives of Coleman’s victims in Illinois and Indiana were able to watch the death sentence being carried out via a secured television link, but no recording was made of the event. On the day of his execution Coleman ordered a huge last meal: filet mignon with sauteed mushrooms, fried chicken breasts, corn bread, biscuits and brown gravy, french fries, broccoli with cheese, salad with french dressing, onion rings, collard greens, sweet potato pie with whipped cream, butter pecan ice cream and a cherry Coke.