Charles T. Sinclair

Last updated
Charles Thurman Sinclair
Born
Charles Thurman Sinclair

(1946-11-24)November 24, 1946
Jal, New Mexico, U.S.
DiedOctober 30, 1990 (aged 43)
Anchorage, Alaska, U.S.
Resting placeAlaska
NationalityAmerican
Criminal charge
Details
Victims13; total unconfirmed
Span of crimes
1980  – 1990
CountryUnited States
State(s)
  • California
  • Indiana
  • Montana
  • New Mexico
  • Utah
  • Washington
Date apprehended
August 13, 1990

Charles Thurman Sinclair, also known as the Coin Shop Killer, was an American criminal suspected of various murders of coin shop owners between the early 1980s and the 1990s. [1] He was categorized as a nomadic killer [1] who was linked to murders across the western United States and Canada.

Contents

Sinclair has been linked to eleven homicides, one attempted murder and two rapes. [2] He targeted coin shop owners in order to rob them of valuable coin collections. His victims were killed to eliminate any witnesses to the event, not out of any known or specific malice.

Background

Charles Sinclair was born and raised in the small town of Jal, New Mexico. He was the youngest of four children from a working-class family. [2] Sinclair lost his father at a young age, leaving his mother to support the family by operating a coin laundry and taking in ironing.

Sinclair started a coin shop in the 1970s in Hobbs, New Mexico, using his own coin collection. He expanded his store to sell a wide range of guns. [2] In 1985, Sinclair's shop burned down. There were investigations for arson but no one was ever charged. The destruction of his only means of income led to defaults on bank loans. When creditors tried to repossess his gun stock he had used as collateral, Sinclair and his family left Hobbs. [2]

Victims

Sinclair invoked the same method of robbery for each victim: he would make himself known to the owners of a coin shop by talking to them frequently about coins, visiting the shop multiple times a day, and pretending to be interested in making a purchase. [2] This constant interaction with the owners created an image of a trustworthy regular customer, when, in fact, he was learning the traits and attributes of the store and its owners. One day, he would arrive close to closing time with a small-caliber weapon with which he would shoot and kill the owners, then rob the store. The murder was usually committed with a gun, and consisted of a headshot resulting in immediate death.

On July 31, 1990, Charles Sparboe (60), the owner of a Billings, Montana, coin shop, was killed along with his assistant Catharine Newstrom (47), [2] with a .22 caliber handgun. [3] The 10-year-old coin shop was also robbed of $54,000 in coins and gold. [2] Similar to the other killings, Sinclair had lingered around the shop, making himself accustomed and known to the owners by representing himself as a farmer from a town close by. [2]

Jim Sparboe, the son of Charles Sparboe, became suspicious of the frequency of Sinclair's visits, his conspicuous distance in parking, and his "banker-smooth" hands. [2] However, he failed to act in time leading to his returning to the shop to find his father and assistant Newstrom dead. [2] Jim Sparboe provided information about the circumstances leading up to the murders and information that was used to create a composite drawing of the suspect. [2]

Attempted murder

For several days, a polite Texan wanting to invest in coins frequented Legacy Rare Coins in Murray, Utah multiple times a day. On May 4, 1990, Sinclair (posing as "Jim Stockton" [2] ) waited around until owner Kelly Finnegan closed up the shop. As he put his valuables in the safe, Sinclair murmured, "dumb bastard". [2]

Finnegan turned his head towards Sinclair and was met with a shot to the forehead. Despite being shot in the head, Finnegan survived. The bullet managed to not seriously wound him and he remained conscious. He pretended to be dead on the floor as Sinclair robbed the store of around $60,000 worth of merchandise. [2] In his pocket was an antique pocket watch that he had stolen out of the shop's safe; his son was wearing a Rolex watch that Sinclair had stolen from the coin shop's other owner.

Non-coin shop murder

Robert and Dagmar Linton were a working-class couple from the city of Lodi, located in San Joaquin County, California. The soon-to-be retirees loved the outdoors and frequently took short trips to Lake Camanche and New Hogan Reservoir . [4]

In the summer of 1986, Robert and Dagmar Linton headed towards the northwest in hopes of reaching Vancouver to see the World's Fair. As they worked their way north for the first month, they frequently called home. When they reached Washington State, the phone calls stopped. The red and white trailer [4] they had been traveling in was found empty at a campground in Washington State by a campground staff member. Their pickup was abandoned at the Seattle Tacoma Airport. It was mostly clean except for small amounts of blood in the wooden ceiling material of the camper shell. The blood included three distinct types: one matching Robert; one matching Dagmar; and one unknown. [4] Inside the trailer, there was evidence of distress and a struggle. Despite the lack of remains, the family and authorities concluded that Robert and Dagmar Linton were murdered. The memorial was held on October 19, 1986. [4]

Pete Piccini was the main investigator in the case from Brinnon, Washington. [4] Robert and Dagmar's credit cards were stolen and used repeatedly allowing Piccini to trace the transactions through several states. In one instance, a large, bearded white man with a bandaged right hand was seen using the Lintons’ credit cards to purchase a clarinet. [2] When the credit card's use was reported through the media, all activity ceased. [4] Piccini interviewed multiple suspects, including a suspicious looking man in a pawn shop with a bandage on his right hand. [4] The investigation was tedious, leaving family members distressed and anxious about the ambiguous nature of the investigation.

On August 16, 1990, police officers in Alaska arrested Charles Thurman Sinclair for the potential connection to at least eight murders. [4] The police officers raided his storage shed finding: piles of maps, instruments used for creating false identifications, Claymore land mines, C-4 explosives, and valuable coins. [4] More evidence was uncovered, solidifying the veracity of the link to the murder of Robert and Dagmar including the fact that Sinclair had the exact same scars on his right hand as did the man with bandages on his right hand that Piccini had previously interviewed due to his suspicious behavior in a coin shop earlier that year. [4] There was also a clarinet found in Sinclair's home which was traced back to the Lintons’ stolen credit cards. [4]

Linked crimes

There were many crimes that were linked to the Coin Shop Killer based upon victim characteristics (coin/antique dealers) and the manner of death (gunshot wounds to the head):

Pete Piccini, investigator of the Linton case, suspected Sinclair of the November 24, 1989 rape and murder of Amanda Stavik. [1] However, DNA evidence from the crime led to the May 2019 conviction of Timothy Bass. [7]

Arrest

On August 16, 1990, Sinclair was arrested near his home in Kenny Lake, Alaska after being tracked down by investigators following the trail of bodies left across multiple states. [4]

He was held in prison on a $500,000 bond in Palmer, Alaska while Montana authorities were seeking extradition.

Montana authorities charged Sinclair with the murders of Charles Sparboe and Catharine Newstrom and requested his extradition to stand trial. Utah authorities added charges of attempted criminal homicide and aggravated robbery for the attack on Kelly Finnegan at Legacy Rare Coins. [8]

Death

On October 30, 1990, Charles T. Sinclair died of heart failure in an Anchorage, Alaska jail cell. [2] Sinclair's death has left associated cases without the closure of convictions or further information required.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Cunanan</span> American serial killer (1969–1997)

Andrew Phillip Cunanan was an American serial killer who murdered five people over three months from April 27 to July 15, 1997. His victims include Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace and Chicago real estate developer Lee Miglin. Cunanan died by suicide on July 23, 1997, eight days after murdering Versace.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brabant killers</span> Belgian gang

The Brabant killers are a group of unidentified criminals responsible for a series of violent attacks that mainly occurred in the Belgian province of Brabant between 1982 and 1985.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Wayne Glover</span> English-Australian serial killer

John Wayne Glover was an English-Australian serial killer convicted of the murders of six elderly women, over a period of 14 months from 1989 to 1990. The victims included Winifreda, Lady Ashton, widow of the English-Australian impressionist painter Sir Will Ashton, in suburbs located in Sydney's North Shore. Given the advanced age of his victims, after Glover was arrested in 1990, the press nicknamed him The Granny Killer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Randall Woodfield</span> American serial killer and rapist

Randall Brent Woodfield is an American serial killer, serial rapist, kidnapper, robber, burglar and former football player who was dubbed the I-5 Killer or the I-5 Bandit by the media due to the crimes he committed along the Interstate 5 corridor running through Washington, Oregon and California. Before his capture, Woodfield was suspected of multiple sexual assaults and murders. Though convicted in only one murder, he has been linked to a total of 18 murders and is suspected of having killed up to as many as 44 people.

<i>Forensic Investigators</i> 2004-06 Australian television series

Forensic Investigators: Australia's True Crimes is an Australian television show hosted by Lisa McCune which aired on the Seven Network. It aired for three seasons from 2004 to 2006.

<i>CSI: Miami</i> (video game) 2004 video game

CSI: Miami is a 2004 adventure video game based on the CSI: Miami television series. The game was developed by Radical Entertainment, published by Ubisoft, and was released for the Microsoft Windows on April 24, 2004. In 2008, Gameloft redeveloped the game for iOS.

Carol Ann Stuart was murdered by her husband, Charles Michael "Chuck" Stuart Jr.. Charles Stuart claimed that a black man had carjacked their car in Boston and shot both his pregnant wife and himself.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Evans (serial killer)</span> American serial killer

Gary Charles Evans was an American thief and confessed serial killer in and around the Capital District, New York. His penchant for stealing antiques and his multiple escapes from custody — including one that ended in his death — made him headline news in the area on numerous occasions.

Madani Bouhouche was a Belgian gendarme, and associate of the far right who was convicted of two murders, but strongly suspected of committing a third and attempting several more. He organised a small circle of like-minded men of police and even professional backgrounds into a self-sufficient gang that carried out at least one multimillion-dollar robbery, and the initial stage of a bizarre extortion plot that echoed a notorious and still-unsolved series of multiple robbery-homicides. A lifelong gun fanatic, he repeatedly retained and then was caught with illegal weapons that implicated him, with his final downfall coming when he shot dead the head of a family of diamond merchants that he and his partner apparently tried to rob. Although he always denied any involvement and passed a polygraph, Bouhouche became the subject of enduring suspicions about what he might have been able to reveal about mass shootings by the still unidentified Brabant killers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Coleman (murderer)</span> American murderer (1947–1990)

Charles Troy Coleman was an American convicted murderer and suspected serial killer who was executed in 1990 by the state of Oklahoma. He was convicted in 1979 of the murder of John Seward, who, along with his wife, was killed by a shotgun blast in rural Muskogee County, when they interrupted a robbery at a relative's house. He also murdered Russell E. Lewis in a fatal carjacking in 1979 and is suspected of murdering the father of his former girlfriend in 1975. Despite being accused of killing at least three people, he was never convicted of the murder of Seward's wife and his sentence for Lewis's murder was overturned.

The 1978 Blackfriars Massacre, also known as the Blackfriars murders, is an unsolved Irish Mob and/or Italian-American Mafia massacre that occurred on 28 June 1978, in the Blackfriars Pub in Downtown Boston, Massachusetts. Four criminals known to the police and a former Channel 7 Boston television investigative news anchorman, Jack Kelly, were killed, allegedly over the sale of cocaine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2009 Lakewood shooting</span> 2009 murder of four Lakewood police officers in Parkland, Washington, U.S.

On November 29, 2009, four police officers of Lakewood, Washington were fatally shot at the Forza coffee shop, located at 11401 Steele Street #108 South in the Parkland unincorporated area of Pierce County, Washington, near Tacoma. A gunman, later identified as Maurice Clemmons, entered the shop, shot the officers while they worked on laptops, and fled the scene with a single gunshot wound in his torso. After a massive two-day manhunt that spanned several nearby cities, an officer recognized Clemmons near a stalled car in south Seattle. When he refused orders to stop, he was shot and killed by a Seattle Police Department officer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrick Mackay</span> British serial killer

David Groves, better known by his birth name Patrick David Mackay, is a British serial killer who is believed to be one of the United Kingdom's most prolific serial murderers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Israel Keyes</span> American serial killer (1978–2012)

Israel Keyes was an American serial killer, bank robber, burglar, arsonist, kidnapper, and sex offender. He murdered at least three people and committed dozens of other crimes across the United States from the late 1990s to February 2012. Keyes was arrested in March 2012 and killed himself while awaiting trial. Evidence in his jail cell led the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to suspect that Keyes murdered eleven people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">I-70 killer</span> Unidentified American serial killer

The I-70 killer is an unidentified American serial killer who is known to have killed six store clerks in the Midwest in the spring of 1992. His nickname derives from the fact that several of the stores in which his victims worked were located a few miles off of Interstate 70.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Dale Ritchie</span> American serial killer

James Dale Ritchie was an American serial killer. Throughout 2016, Ritchie murdered upwards of five individuals in and around Anchorage, Alaska, most of whom were in parks or along bike paths. He always committed his murders at night, often around midnight or a short time after. Ritchie was killed during a shootout with police officers in downtown Anchorage on November 12, 2016. Following his death, a Colt Python handgun on his person connected him to the string of murders he committed over the course of two months.

Mikhail Olegovich Makarov, known as The Executioner, was a Soviet serial killer, who from February to May 1986 committed three murders and one attempted murder in Leningrad. He was sentenced to death and executed in 1988.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Fautenberry</span> American serial killer

John Joseph Fautenberry was an American serial killer. A long-haul trucker, Fautenberry befriended and subsequently murdered five people across four states between 1990 and 1991, and after his arrest, confessed to an additional 1984 murder for which another man was convicted. He was sentenced to death for one of his killings, and subsequently executed at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Brant</span> American suspected serial killer

Joseph Brant is an American murderer and rapist who killed one woman in New Orleans but is suspected of killing at least three more from October 2007 to September 2008 in the then-post-Hurricane Katrina environment.

Leslie Torres is an American spree killer who, in the period from January 1 to 8, 1988, attacked 11 people in the East Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan. Five people died from the attacks and six were left severely injured. He later turned himself in and confessed to the crimes, of which he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Newton, Michael (2006-02-06). The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. Infobase Publishing. ISBN   9780816069873.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 "Suspect in Murder Spree Takes Secrets to the Grave : Serial killings: Detectives are convinced the man who died in Alaska cell left trail of bodies across West". Los Angeles Times. 1990-11-23. ISSN   0458-3035 . Retrieved 2019-04-09.
  3. ↑ "Texan suspected of masterminding coin shop slayings". UPI. Retrieved 2019-04-09.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 "Accepting loss not the end of the story for Linton family". Lodinews.com. Retrieved 2019-06-02.
  5. 1 2 Smith, Pete (2016-01-19). "2015 Coin Shop Murders Add to a Long List of Tragic Ends for the Hobby". CoinWeek. Retrieved 2019-04-09.
  6. ↑ McMILLAN, PENELOPE (1990-11-23). "Suspect in Murder Spree Takes Secrets to the Grave : Serial killings: Detectives are convinced the man who died in Alaska cell left trail of bodies across West". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  7. ↑ By. "Whatcom County jury finds Timothy Bass guilty of murdering Mandy Stavik in 1989". bellinghamherald. Retrieved 2019-06-19.
  8. ↑ "ALASKA MAN IS A SUSPECT IN 7 SLAYINGS AT 5 SHOPS". DeseretNews.com. 1990-08-24. Archived from the original on September 26, 2018. Retrieved 2019-04-09.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.