Post by Sher on May 4, 2005 23:35:16 GMT -5
John Eric Armstrong was an unlikely killer, a man who's arrest in a string of prostitute murders caused genuine shock among his friends and family members. Though weighing in at around 300 pounds the former Navy man was so mild-mannered and boyish-looking that his ex-shipmates nicknamed him "Opie" during his five-year enlistment. But underneath his gentle demeanor and freckled face Armstrong , a married father of two, was a cold-blooded strangler.
Armstrong first came to the attention of Detroit investigators when he called in a report of a dead body which later turned out to be one of his own victims. He told police that while throwing up over the side of a bridge he had seen the corpse of Wendy Jordan floating on the riverbank below. For whatever reason, authorities were wary of Armstrong's story and he became a suspect in the slaying and other similar murders that had recently occurred. After linking Armstrong with at least one of the murders through DNA testing, the ex-sailor was arrested and quickly confessed to five prostitue murders and as many as twelve other identical slayings around the world that he claimed he committed during his travels aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz from 1993-98.
Though Armstrong recanted his confessions and his defense lawyer all but labeled him a serial confessor, the sex-slayer was convicted on March 7, 2001, of killing Jordan, 39, in January of 2000. He was then tried and found guilty of the murder of 34-year-old Kelly Hood and at his sentencing for the killing, which earned him a second life sentence, he plead guilty to the other slayings in the Detroit series. He has not at this writing been sentenced for the three additional killings of Robbin Brown, 20, Rose Felt, 32, and Monica Johnson, 31, all Detroit prostitutes. Armstrong also plead guilty to a pair of assaults which were essentially killings that went wrong. Two additional assault charges have been dropped as the result of the plea-bargain.
The FBI and authorities in Washington, Hawaii, Virginia, North Carolina, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Singapore are all investigating Armstrong based on his initial confessions in an attempt to link him with any unsolved prostitute kills. It is not expected that any authorites will pursue additional charges against the serial killer unless his legal situation somehow changes in Michigan.
UPDATE
7/4/2001-Armstrong was sentenced to 31 years to life in prison for the murders of Brown, Felt, and Johnson, all of which he had plea-bargained down to second-degree murder.
