Episode 14:
Between April 1986 and September 1992, the nude strangled bodies of Willie May Harding and Lee Ann Blomquist were found in or near watery graves in Golden Valley.
Armongene Mason and Susan Rheineck were found bound outside by county roads. These four cases most closely resemble Vicky’s murder to me.
In this episode of “Aren’t You the Girl?” I’ll be introducing and covering the unsolved tragic deaths of four women across Minnesota that may be connected.
The Lake Strangulations
Willie May Harding – Wirth Lake in Golden Valley 1986
Lee Ann Bloomquist – Bassett Creek 1992
Rural/roadside Strangulations
Armongene Mason – nude, bound and strangled 1987
Susan Rheineck – Strangled, bound with white rope 1985
Vicky Morris – nude, bound and strangled 1994
Lee Ann, Susan and Willie Mae are listed in Vicky’s police file under FBI leads of victims most similar to Vicky.
I like to look for patterns and to categorize cases and victims in the hopes to uncover something that has been previously missed or not connected within police departments throughout Minnesota.
Not all of these cases are within the same County or within the same police department so a hope of mine as I continue this podcast and examine more victims and cases – more patterns will fall together.
Right now I’m in search of unsolved victims who closely resemble Victoria Morris and Martha Bacon, both Wright County victims but both have pretty different styles of murders.
Though their stories and cases are completely different than one another, law enforcement and media look at Vicky and Martha in the same way:
Sex workers and addicts that were partly the cause of their own demise.
Falling into the “non perfect victim” category.
You’ll find in this episode that many women leading different lives also fell into this category.
Ranging from a 40 year old mother to a 16 year old runaway, they are categorized the same.
This episode relates more to Victoria “Vicky” Morris and victims who closely resemble her in life and in death.
I’ve covered Vicky’s case and life story in episode 5, episode 10 and episode 12.
Three of these victims cases are listed in Victoria’s case file of victims that closely resemble Vicky’s in the FBI victim database. The other victim I found on my own researching and I feel fits into this episode.
I split the cases into two categories. As I go you’ll see the common thread.
The first two cases are of women being found in or near watery graves in Golden Valley – very close to the Minneapolis border.
Willie Mae Harding
The first victim is included in Victoria’s file as closely resembling her homicide.
Willie Mae Harding was a black woman from St. Paul. She was born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago when she was 18 years old.
A couple of years after she married Joe Harding they moved to Pennsylvania. They had three children.
Willie Mae did hair for a living and struggled with a cocaine addiction. She would freebase cocaine.
Willie was arrested after accumulating $1,000 worth of parking tickets for parking downtown in St. Paul.
She owed many debts in Minneapolis for drugs and it was unknown how she was trying to repay.
She had borrowed money from a friend to pay for rent before but paid him back.
April. 23rd, 1986:
Willie Mae made a phone call between 8-9 pm. She told her worker at the time at the Sherburne house she was leaving to see a friend in Bloomington.
That if anything happens to her, to watch out for her kids.
Willie Mae left the shelter around 9:30 PM, dressed in blue jeans, duck shoes, a black shirt with pink, blue, and white stripes, and a blue jacket.
She carried a large black leather purse and drove her tan 1979 Chevrolet Malibu.
Her partially clothed body was found the next day face down in shallow water at Wirth Lake in Golden Valley just outside of her car.
Found on the east side of Wirth Lake.
She had been strangled with a ligature.
Cedric Bryant had discovered her body.
He said,
“I noticed the car from a block away as I drove towards the lake on Glenwood avenue.
The car’s right front wheel was in the water. The passenger door was wide open but the driver’s door was closed. Someone had driven her car into approximately one foot of water.
When I pulled up I looked to the left and saw these tennis shoes and thought, “Oh, no.” She was lying face down in the water and I could tell she had been there awhile.”
Her copper colored Chevrolet was on the shore line. Just outside the passenger door, which was still open, was the body of Willie Mae laying face down in the water.
She was strangled with an object.
Searches in the water for anything relating to the crime came up with nothing.
Her purse was missing from the scene.
Contents in her vehicle:
- Various pieces of paper bearing miscellaneous writing
- A notebook with addresses in it, indicating Willie Mae was looking for an apartment in the St. Paul area.
Reportedly Willie Mae’s ex-husband and father of her children was very abusive towards her.
Yvonne, Willie Mae’s sister, said Joseph had physically abused Willie Mae in the past and that they had many problems.
Joe had put sugar in her gas tank and poured bleach over her clothing.
The fights would get so bad that they were asked to leave the residence.
Willie Mae then went into a shelter in Plymouth.
April 17th, Willie got into a fight with a man for unknown reasons in North Minneapolis. A resident from Casa De Speranza was also with her.
A shotgun and pistol were involved.
According to the person with her, who was reluctant to come forward, the man was a black man described as 5 ’11 and 185 pounds, about 42 years of age, who had short curly hair and no facial hair.
Supposedly this person deals a great deal of cocaine.
Willie Mae had been in a shelter for Battered Women known as Casa De Speranza in St. Paul until Friday of April, 18th.
She was having trouble with the shelter and had issues with making curfew before being asked to leave.
At that point in time she moved to the Sherburne house in St. Paul, another Battered Woman Shelter.
Her three children were at the Sherburne house and being taken care of by personnel.
A few days later, Willie Mae was found dead.
I do have her case files and plan on returning to her case for a full length episode solely on her.
Willie Mae Harding’s case remains unsolved and cold today.
Felicia Fonda Williams
This next case may possibly be solved but I find it important to go over because it will lead us into the next few victims.
The body of Felicia Williams was found December 4th 1987, wrapped tightly in a sheet along the eastern shore of Wirth Park Lake.
A few hundred feet from the boundary of Minneapolis and Golden Valley.
She was dressed, bound and strangled.
Felicia was the third black woman to be dumped within two weeks near the area.
The other two victims were Tahrita McKinnies who was found on November 20th and Armongene Mason who was found on December 2nd a week before Felicia.
Felicia Fonda’s mother Rachel said that Felicia met Tahrita McKinnies a year earlier while they were both in the Hennepin County Workhouse.
Tahrita was the first of the three killed.
Her mother said Felicia called her after Tahrita’s murder and was very shaken up. She gave the impression to her mom that she and Tahrita had not remained friends since both being released.
Felicia was described as a pleasant, quiet person.
In early 1991 Edward Thompson, the prime suspect in the case, made statements to his girlfriend, Kimberly indicating his involvement in Felicia’ death.
Her case was closed after his death in 1992 based on his confession.
Lee Ann Blomquist
I will return to the middle victim between Tahrita and Felicia after this next case. You’ll hopefully understand how I’m splitting up the cases – even with Armongene being lumped with those two deaths – her case is a bit different.
I want to introduce the next victim found in the same general area as Willie Mae Harding and Felicia Fonda Adams.
Lee Ann Blomquist was 19 years old living in North Minneapolis in 1992. On September 3rd her sister reported her missing since August 28th.
Her apartment was found to be locked with the television on and no money or clothes had been removed, and that her car had not been moved.
Her body was found along the east shoreline of Bassett Creek near Olsen highway in Minneapolis on Sep 9th, 1992. About 150 feet north of the highway and about 3 and a half miles south from her home.
It was not clear how long she was in the water but indications at the scene were that her body had been submerged in the creek then it came back to the surface as decomposition continued.
Police didn’t know if she was killed at the scene or elsewhere.
All they knew was that she was strangled.
A ligature was around her neck.
The examiner noted there was an unknown mark on her right breast that he was unable to determine if it was a bug bite or bite mark.
Lee Ann was known to trade sex for drugs.
The body of a 26 year old Carol Abelseth was found near another area of Bassett creek about 2 miles from where Lee Ann’s body was found a few months before.
Carol’s case is now closed but it shows how popular of a dumping spot this area was at the time.
Wirth lake and Bassett Creek would and continues to stay a popular dumping ground.
Many are unsolved.
Lee Ann Blomquist was mentioned in Victoria’s file as having the same victim profile.
Armongene Mason
Returning to Armongene Mason.
Armongene Mason was the middle victim found between Tahrita and Felcias homicides.
Though these three are often lumped together in the media – they are different.
Felicia’s case was closed in 1992.
Tahrita McKinnies was found with her hands bound behind her back, dead from a gunshot wound, in a cornfield. She was seven months pregnant at the time.
Of course, I will return to her case later on.
Armongene Mason’s homicide has a striking resemblance to Victoria Morris.
Her nude body was found on the side of an Anoka county road on Dec. 2, 1987 miles from her north Minneapolis home.
She was tied up, strangled and dumped on the side of County road 23 in Columbus township.
Her hands showed signs of being tied up before she was dumped from a car. She had a few stab wounds but they were not fatal.
Armongene was 40 years old and her family said she wasn’t the type to be linked to any sort of crime like this.
She was the mother of a 24 year old daughter and a 20 year old son at the time of her death. And had been separated or divorced for several years.
Her only felony conviction was in 1982 for wrongfully obtaining public assistance.
Armongene was struggling with a 10th grade education and a severe case of epilepsy that kept her on constant medication.
She then was only able to work one day a week and received social security disability.
But Armongene studied hard to be a certified nursing assistant.
For three years before her death, she worked full time as a nursing assistant at Weldwood Healthcare Center in Golden Valley.
Her friend who was also a nurse there said she was an excellent worker.
Everyone at her work was left shocked and horrified.
Police say Armongene’s death seems to have been the work of a stranger.
Her sister Diane described her as a hardworking mother who was the sole provider for her two children.
Saying,
“She didn’t deserve to die this way. This case needs to be prosecuted.”
In 1988, authorities had five potential persons of interest. However, the leads eventually dried up and no charges were ever filed.
In 2012, the Minnesota BCA recently reviewed the evidence and conducted some DNA testing on physical evidence that did not exist in 1987.
Since then Armongene’s case has remained cold in the media.
Susan Rheineck
Susan Rheineck was also listed in Victoria’s file as closely resembling hers. Most notably a white ligature found on her body.
Susan was 16 years old and was last seen on May 16th, 1985.
She was found the next day in a wooded area on a bank of the Mississippi River. She was wearing her coat, blouse and socks. Her shoes were located alongside her body.
There was a white rope, nooselike ligature around her neck which was also tied to a small tree.
A second rope was tied around her right wrist and tied to another small tree.
Her genital area was packed with grass and dirt.
There was evidence of a sexual assault as well.
Susan was a kind and friendly teenager but was troubled and a frequent runaway. Reportedly she spent more time on the streets than in school.
Her father Richard said,
“I knew she was in trouble. She was independent and did what she wanted to do. She was a 16 year old thinking that she was 21.”
She would go back and forth between her mother and fathers houses and ran away six different times.
Her father pleaded with her to stop this way of living but she didn’t listen.
Susan felt free and indestructible.
In January she was found working in a Lake Street massage parlor. She was arrested for what amounted to being a runaway and was not charged with prostitution.
Three weeks later she was arrested in downtown Minneapolis for loitering.
For the three months before her death, Susan was living with her sister in South Minneapolis.
She was last seen by her sister leaving the apartment with a man.
When Susan didn’t return home that night, it was assumed she was staying the weekend with a friend.
They became concerned when the male friend she was last seen with told them conflicting stories about the last time he saw Susan and how they parted.
They called all of her friends that they knew and no one had seen her.
When Susan didn’t show up that Monday, a missing persons report was filed.
When asked if her father had advice to parents with troubled teens he replied,
“No, I don’t. I guess I never solved my problem. I don’t think I… No, I didn’t solve it.
It’s not easy being a parent. It’s terribly hard. Some people have good luck with it, though.
I think that’s wonderful. I wish everyone could.”
“She was a neat kid. I loved her very much. I don’t know what I’m going to do without her.”
This series of violent deaths reveal patterns.
Multiple women, often from marginalized backgrounds, were found murdered in outdoor locations, frequently near water or parks.
Many victims were Black or involved in sex work, with several cases showing signs of binding and strangulation.
Groups like WHISPER pushed for more attention to these cases, highlighting the lack of urgency due to victim stigmatization.
I covered some of the cases WHISPER highlighted in episode 3 about Martha Bacon’s homicide.
Due to Evelina Giobbe’s public push and persistence investigators from departments across Minnesota shared information about their cases with each other for the first time.
Though, that lasted a very short time before all cases went cold.
All women were strangled in this episode.
Both Victoria and Armongene were found nude and had evidence of being bound.
Both strangled with a ligature and dumped on the side of a rural road miles from the Twin Cities – where they both were from.
Both are also black women.
The victim profiling is different for them both but I feel the cases should be looked into a little further together.
I covered four brutal and brazen unsolved cases in this episode.
The victims were all very different yet were treated similarly in death and investigation.
The victims are all connected in some way.
And all almost completely forgotten in the digital world today.
Return to episode fourteen where I’ll continue covering unknown and unsolved homicides that closely resemble Victoria Morris and Martha Bacon.
In hopes to revive their names and cases.
Until next time – stay safe everyone.
Rest in Peace to –
- Willie Mae Harding
- Felicia Fonda Williams
- Lee Ann Blomquist
- Armongene Mason
- Tahrita McKinnies
- Carol Abelseth
- Susan Rheineck
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