Daniel Tavares

Last updated
Daniel Tavares
Born
Daniel Thomas Tavares Jr.

1966 (age 5758)
Conviction(s) Murder x4
Criminal penalty Life imprisonment without parole
Details
Victims4
Span of crimes
1988–2007
CountryUnited States
State(s) Massachusetts, Washington
Date apprehended
November 2007
Imprisoned at Monroe Correctional Complex, Monroe, Washington

Daniel Thomas Tavares Jr. (born 1966) is an American serial killer who was convicted of stabbing his mother to death in 1991 and committing a double murder upon his release from prison in 2007. He also confessed to and was convicted for the 1988 murder of a woman found buried in a backyard. [1]

Contents

Early life

Tavares was born in 1966, the youngest of four children, to Ann and Daniel Tavares Sr., who was an officer in the US Navy. His parents divorced when he was four years old, and his father moved to Florida and remarried, leaving Daniel and his siblings to be raised by their single mother. [2]

Tavares dropped out of school in the eighth grade and was first arrested at age 19 for an assault committed during an overnight burglary. A friend of the Tavares family wrote to the judge that Tavares was a "very sincere and honest young man" and said, "I do not believe that you will see this person in your court again once this ordeal is over." Subsequently, Tavares was sentenced to one year of probation, and months later, he was charged with trespassing and possession of marijuana and received another five months of probation. Months later, he was charged with robbery and given a prison sentence for violating his probation conditions. He would be charged several more times throughout the mid- to late 1980s for drug possession, disorderly conduct, and larceny. [2]

In 1988, Tavares moved to Florida with his father, whom he had not seen since his early childhood. His father tried to get him counseling for his drug addiction and got him a job as an apprentice welder. His attempts at rehabilitating his son failed when Tavares was caught with a stolen checkbook. He later returned to his mother's home in Massachusetts. Tavares's mental health quickly deteriorated, and he was using several pharmaceutical drugs, including fluphenazine, a drug used to treat schizophrenia. [2]

Murders and imprisonment

On July 10, 1991, Tavares stabbed his mother 26 times in their home with a carving knife. [3] During the incident, he also stabbed Richard Pires, who wrote a letter recommending leniency for his assault charge in 1985. When police arrived, Tavares was banging his head on the ceiling, proclaiming, "I can't take it. I'm hearing voices, and I can't take it." He would later give a variety of explanations for why he killed his mother, including that he was given an LSD-laced drink at a bar hours earlier and that his mother's two boyfriends would regularly force him to engage in sexual acts with her, which caused him to snap. In June 1992, Tavares pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 17 to 20 years in prison. During his imprisonment, he would file numerous lawsuits and claim that he was harassed and assaulted by correctional officers for being gay. [2]

In June 2007, Tavares was released from prison and relocated to Washington. On November 17, 2007, he fatally shot his neighbors Beverly and Brian Mauck in their home. He was arrested and claimed to have murdered them because they owed him $50 for a tattoo and had disrespected him. [3] In February 2008, Tavares received a life sentence for the murders. [4] [5]

In 2015, Tavares was found guilty of the October 27, 1988, murder of Gayle Botelho, who was found buried beneath a tree in the backyard of his previous address. Prosecutors stated that she was murdered over a cocaine debt. He confessed to the murder on at least four separate occasions, first to law enforcement while imprisoned in 2000. On another occasion, he claimed not to be the person who shot her, stating that she was killed by "rival drug dealers." [6] [7]

As of 2020, he is serving a life sentence at Monroe Correctional Complex in Monroe, Washington. [1]

See also

Related Research Articles

Robert Emmet Chambers Jr. is an American criminal and convicted murderer. Dubbed the Preppy Killer and the Central Park Strangler, Chambers gained notoriety for the August 26, 1986, strangulation death of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin in New York City's Central Park, for which he was originally charged with second degree murder. Chambers changed his story several times during the course of the ensuing investigation, ultimately claiming that Levin's death was the accidental result of him pushing her off of him as she purportedly sexually assaulted him, an account that was characterized by media accounts as one of "rough sex". Chambers later pleaded guilty to manslaughter after a jury failed to reach a verdict after nine days of deliberation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colin Pitchfork</span> British child-murderer and rapist

Colin Pitchfork is a British double child-murderer and rapist. He was the first person convicted of rape and murder using DNA profiling after he murdered two girls in neighbouring Leicestershire villages: Lynda Mann in Narborough in November 1983, and Dawn Ashworth in Enderby in July 1986. He was arrested on 19 September 1987 and was sentenced to life imprisonment on 22 January 1988 after pleading guilty to both murders, with the judge giving him a 30-year minimum term.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tommy Lynn Sells</span> American serial killer

Tommy Lynn Sells was an American serial killer. Though convicted of only one murder, for which he received the death penalty and was eventually executed, authorities believe he committed a total of 22 murders. Sells himself claimed on various occasions to have murdered over 70 people.

William Dwane Bell is a New Zealand triple murderer. He committed a triple murder on 8 December 2001 at the Panmure RSA, after they fired him. He committed the murders while out on parole for a previous aggravated robbery in which he almost killed a service station attendant. He had more than 100 prior criminal convictions, including theft, fraud, unlawful taking of motor vehicles, aggravated robbery, presenting a firearm, impersonating police, and assault. He was given a 30-year minimum non-parole life sentence, at the time the longest minimum non-parole period ever given out by New Zealand.

Mark Philip Dixie is a British serial rapist and a murderer who was convicted on 22 February 2008 of murdering 18-year-old singer and model Sally Anne Bowman on 25 September 2005 in South Croydon, London. He has 17 other criminal convictions. He was known by various pseudonyms.

Henry Louis Wallace, also known as the “Taco Bell Strangler”, is an American serial killer who killed eleven black women in South Carolina and North Carolina from March 1990 to March 1994. He is currently awaiting execution at Central Prison in Raleigh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terry Blair (serial killer)</span> American serial killer (1961–2024)

Terry Anthony Blair was an American serial killer who was convicted of killing seven women of various ages in Kansas City, Missouri, although investigators believed that there were additional unidentified victims.

The New Bedford Highway Killer is an unidentified serial killer responsible for the deaths of at least nine women and the disappearances of two additional women in New Bedford, Massachusetts, between March 1988 and April 1989. The killer is also suspected to have assaulted numerous other women. All the killer's victims were known sex workers or had struggles with addiction. While the victims were taken from New Bedford, they were all found in different surrounding towns, including Dartmouth, Freetown and Westport, Massachusetts, along Route 140. The main detective that pursued the case was John Dextradeur.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter E. Ellis</span> American serial killer and rapist

Walter Earl Ellis, known as The Milwaukee North Side Strangler, was an American serial killer who raped and strangled at least seven women in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin between 1986 and 2007. Until May 2009, the killings were considered to be independent of one another, but were then linked together via DNA profiling. Ellis was arrested as a suspect on September 7, 2009, and convicted for the seven murders in February 2011, receiving seven consecutive life sentences without the chance of parole.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Clyde Gibson</span> American serial killer on death row

William Clyde Gibson III is an American serial killer and rapist who is currently on Indiana's death row for the sexually-motivated murders of two women in 2002 and 2012, in addition to serving a 65-year sentence for a third murder committed in 2012. A habitual criminal noted for his increasingly violent streaks and his handlebar moustache, Gibson has claimed responsibility for upwards of 30 additional murders across multiple states, none of which have been confirmed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Metheny</span> American Serial Killer (1955–2017)

Joseph Roy Metheny was an American serial killer and rapist from the Baltimore, Maryland area. While he claimed to have killed 13 people, sufficient evidence was only found to convict him of two murders. Research later confirmed 3 more victims, through matching his confessions to evidence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of XXXTentacion</span> Murder in Deerfield Beach, Florida, US

On June 18, 2018, 20-year-old American rapper and singer-songwriter Jahseh Dwayne Ricardo Onfroy, known professionally as XXXTentacion, was murdered in Deerfield Beach, Florida. Onfroy was fatally shot and killed by 22-year-old Michael Boatwright after being robbed in his car by Boatwright and his accomplices Trayvon Newsome, Dedrick Williams, and Robert Allen outside RIVA Motorsports, an upscale seller of motorcycles and watercraft in Deerfield Beach. Authorities charged the four men with first-degree murder and robbery with a firearm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hubert Geralds</span> American serial killer

Hubert Geralds Jr. is an American serial killer who murdered five women between 1994 and 1995. He is serving his prison sentence, life without parole, in Menard Correctional Center, which is operated by the Illinois Department of Corrections. During his spree of murders he was known as the Englewood Strangler. Geralds is in custody under the identification number B39967. He was admitted to the Menard Correctional Center on January 16, 1998.

Marvin Gayle Gray (August 7, 1954 – July 23, 2013) was an American serial killer who gained fame in the 2000s due to his deviant behavior. Being a powerlifter, Gray, while imprisoned, achieved incredible results in powerlifting, almost breaking world records. Since 1992, relying on his physical strength, he committed several rapes and murders of fellow inmates, which resulted in taking exceptional measures against Gray by putting him in a high-security prison's solitary confinement cell, restriction of movement within the prison and others.

Alfred J. Gaynor is an American serial killer and rapist who committed a series of nine murders in the city of Springfield, Massachusetts from 1995 to 1998. For these crimes, Gaynor was subsequently given four sentences of life imprisonment without parole.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Killamarsh murders</span> 2021 mass murder in England

In the evening of 18 September 2021, Damien Bendall murdered his partner Terri Haris, her two children Lacey and John-Paul Bennet, as well as Lacey's friend Connie Gent at a residential property on Chandos Crescent in Killamarsh, Derbyshire, an outer suburb of Sheffield, South Yorkshire. He had also raped Lacey as she was dying. After being arrested the next morning, Bendall was charged with four counts of murder and later rape of a girl under 13 in connection with the incident. He pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced to a whole-life prison term on 21 December 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2006 Broward County murders</span> 2006 murder spree in Broward County, Florida

Over three weeks in February 2006, three men were fatally shot in Broward County, Florida, for the purpose of robbery. Video surveillance of the killer using the victims' credit cards was eventually used to link Brian Bethell, a 40-year-old Bahamian native, to murders, an he was arrested along with his girlfriend. Bethell, who confessed to the crimes, would ultimately die before his trial could begin.

The Stockton serial shootings were a series of fatal shootings that occurred in Stockton and Oakland, California, between April 2021 and September 2022. The shootings have been linked together by ballistic tests, but police have not revealed if the same gun was used in every shooting. On October 15, 2022, a Stockton man, Wesley Brownlee, was arrested in connection to the shootings. On December 27, Brownlee was charged with an additional five charges.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2023 Bowdoin–Yarmouth shootings</span> Mass shootings in Maine, United States

On April 17, 2023, four people were shot to death on a property in Bowdoin, Maine, United States. On April 18, shots were later fired at vehicles, seemingly randomly, along Interstate 295 in Yarmouth. Three members of one family were wounded, one critically, while driving. The perpetrator, 34-year-old Joseph Eaton, was then taken into custody. On July 1, 2024, Eaton pleaded guilty in the shooting and was sentenced to life in prison.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kevin Haley</span> American murderer and suspected serial killer

Kevin Bernard Haley is an American murderer, rapist, burglar and suspected serial killer who, together with his older brother Reginald, committed a series of violent crimes in the Los Angeles area from 1982 to 1984, resulting in at least two murders. Suspected in a total of eight murders, Kevin Haley was convicted of two counts of murder in separate trials, receiving death sentences on each count.

References

  1. 1 2 "State's highest court denies reprieve for mass murderer Daniel Tavares". The Boston Herald . Archived from the original on June 19, 2020. Retrieved April 30, 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "How Daniel Tavares went from 'runt' to murderer". The Boston Herald . Archived from the original on July 25, 2021. Retrieved April 30, 2023.
  3. 1 2 "You be the judge: How a violent con was released, only to commit murder". The State Journal-Register . Archived from the original on April 30, 2023. Retrieved April 30, 2023.
  4. "Family of slain Graham couple seeks $20M over killer's early prison release". Seattle Times . Archived from the original on October 22, 2021. Retrieved April 30, 2023.
  5. "The fateful release of 'pure evilness'". Los Angeles Times . Archived from the original on February 26, 2021. Retrieved April 30, 2023.
  6. "Prosecutor: Daniel Tavares killed Gayle Botelho over cocaine debt". The Herald News . Archived from the original on April 30, 2023. Retrieved April 30, 2023.
  7. "SJC upholds conviction of Fall River man who killed woman in 1988 and buried her in backyard". The Boston Globe . Archived from the original on October 31, 2020. Retrieved April 30, 2023.