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- [00:00]
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- [00:50]
Mike Ferguson
Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.
- [01:28]
Mike Morford
Hello everyone and welcome to episode 411 of the Criminology podcast.
- [01:32]
Mike Ferguson
I'm Mike Ferguson and this is Mike Morford.
- [01:35]
Mike Morford
Mr. Morford, how you doing this week, buddy?
- [01:38]
Mike Ferguson
Doing good. A little bit tired. I was just talking to you before we started. I wake up super early, usually between 3:30 and 4:30 every morning. And by 9 o' clock when we record, I'm getting a little bit ready for a nap. So that's what I'm thinking is on the slate for today. How about you?
- [01:56]
Mike Morford
I'm doing great. But yeah, we just discovered that you're waking up pretty close to the time that I'm actually going to bed. So we have very different schedules.
- [02:08]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, I definitely can't handle that anymore at my age. Lucky you still can.
- [02:13]
Mike Morford
Yeah, we're just about a week out from Crimecon Vegas. This episode actually drops the weekend before Crime Con in in Vegas at Caesar's Palace. So we wanted to give one final mention to listeners that we're going to be on Creators Row. So if you're there, please stop by, say hi.
- [02:32]
Mike Ferguson
We also want to remind everyone that we're having our annual joint criminology TCAT CrimeCon meetup. And that's Saturday night, May 30th at 8pm at the Vista Cocktail Lounge. So if you want to come by and hang out for a bit, that should be a lot of fun and we hope to see you there.
- [02:47]
Mike Morford
So now that we have all of that out of the way, let's jump into this week's episode. And we're exploring a series of murders that happened in the 1980s and early 1990s that targeted a bunch of different coin shop owners, all of which were killed in their shops. Although the murders happened in several different states, the cases were so similar that authorities began to work together to see if the cases were connected and if so, to nab the killer. At the time, this was a pretty big deal because jurisdictions didn't work together as closely as they do now, and information wasn't as readily shared between agencies. We've seen how the lack of cooperation between agencies and different jurisdictions has hindered investigations in the past, particularly when it came to serial killers who were moving around, whether it was just one state or several. This was such a unique collaboration, in fact, that Pete Pacini, a deputy sheriff in Jefferson County, Washington, told the LA Times, this case saw one of the unique joinings of police departments in each
- [03:57]
Mike Ferguson
of the cases we'll be discussing. A friendly and helpful stranger had recently started hanging around the coin shops where the murders would occur. This person, a very tall white male, was polite and knowledgeable about coins and valuables. The man was persistent too, coming around all the time and just kind of making himself at home. He told each coin shop owner a different but very similar story about being local, but not too local, that anyone would recognize him and having some incoming money that he was looking for ways to invest. Once the store owners had gotten more familiar with his presence and started letting their guards down. But before he had worn out his welcome, the man would come back just before closing, armed, and he would strike. The weapon used in each case was a small caliber firearm. Luckily, in many of these cases, the coin shop owners mentioned this new patron to others, helping investigators put together an MO And a profile.
- [04:50]
Mike Morford
Today, we do know the identity of the coin shop killer. There are multiple coin shop murders for which authorities believe Charles T. Sinclair is responsible. Though as we'll discuss, Sinclair is not the only coin shop killer there has been. It does seem like he could be the one behind these specific murders. These crimes feel eerily similar and fit the pattern of Sinclair's other crimes. And it can be proven that Sinclair was in the area at some point or there was direct evidence that linked him to the crime scene. And as we'll discuss, this Sinclair guy was very dangerous, but at the same time, he used his natural ability to gain the trust of his victims.
- [05:35]
Mike Ferguson
Charles Thurman Sinclair, the youngest of four children, developed an interest in coins early on. Maybe it was inevitable. After his father died when he was young, his mother supported their family with a coin related business, a coin operated Laundromat where she would also take in clothes to iron. As he grew up, Sinclair started his own coin collection. The interest was something that never left him. He was a Navy veteran and had served in the Vietnam War. Back home he worked in the oil fields. Eventually he was able to open his own coin shop in Hobbs, New Mexico. He put his own collection up for sale in the store, using coins he already owned to create an inventory for the shop. After a while he was able to start buying, selling and trading weapons too.
- [06:21]
Mike Morford
Some more. If you ever collect coins or anything like that.
- [06:25]
Mike Ferguson
When I was a kid I had some coins that my grandparents got me. A couple books with some coins in them and little boxes that came with some coins. And I had some stamps too, but I didn't really get too heavily into it. How about you? No.
- [06:39]
Mike Morford
I do tend to. I don't know if collect is the right word, but I do tend to get interested in owning multiples of certain types of things, but I've never been into coins. Trading cards I was into as a kid and even as I was an adult, but I don't do that anymore either. In 1985, Sinclair Shop and Hobbs called the shooter Supply burned to the ground. Authorities suspected that the fire was the result of arson, but didn't have enough evidence to charge Sinclair. Since he wasn't able to operate the business anymore, he couldn't pay back a loan he had from the bank and he ended up defaulting. The lender attempted to collect the collateral he had put up for the loan, which was a few guns. But Sinclair had been ready for that and had a plan. Instead of giving up his guns, he left town and began to move around the United States with his family. We know he was in Utah, Montana, California, Alaska, Wyoming and Washington, though it is suspected he visited other states as well. After realizing that the Sinclairs had fled New Mexico, authorities noticed that they owed the state more than $30,000. As part of their business, they processed and charged for hunting and fishing licenses. The Sinclairs failed to turn the fees they collected over to the state before the shop burned down and they skipped town. Authorities in New Mexico charged Debbie Sinclair with embezzlement. It didn't matter much at the time since the Sinclair family had left the state and had assumed new identities. But eventually it wasn't just a matter involving money that had investigators trying to track down Sinclair.
- [08:31]
Mike Ferguson
On May 4, 1990, 29 year old Kelly Finnegan was shot in the head at his store, Year Legacy Coin Shop located in Murray, Utah. Luckily, he survived and was Able to provide investigators with a lot of useful information. Finnegan told investigators that the shooter was a man from Texas named Jim Stockton who had been coming around the shop recently. According to Finnegan, this Jim Stockton character was a newer but familiar face in his shop. So on May 4, when Stockton came in right before closing, as Finnegan was locking away the most valuable items in his safe, he wasn't worried. He didn't feel unsafe. In fact, he let Stockton use the restroom and even turned his back to him. Finnegan told the LA Times, I had gotten used to him and that when he turned around to put something away, Stockton mumbled to him, you dumb bastard. I turned around to say what? And in that split second, he shot me.
- [09:25]
Mike Morford
Thankfully, the bullet basically grazed his forehead, something usually attributed to the fact that he was turning around at the moment the gun was fired. But it was enough to hurt and enough to cause him to bleed. So much so that he was able to convincingly play dead. He could hear Stockton walking around the shop, stepping over what he thought was Finnegan's dead body as he decided what to take with him. He seemed to be in no hurry. Ultimately, he stole about $60,000 worth of items, including gold coins and antique pocket watches. Finnegan was later able to confirm that Jim Stockton was actually Charles Sinclair, using one of his many aliases and man morph, what a scary situation. I mean, you know these types of businesses, I've never worked in one, but it seems like they'd be a little scary just because I think he was probably in there mostly by himself. You don't have any backup, you don't have anybody else around in case someone, you know, gets physical or in this case pulls out a gun. But to be shot in the head, no less, I mean, that's the stuff of nightmares. But I mean, luckily it was just a grazing shot. And I think he was able to play it off like this guy really thought he had killed him. And I think the way that he did play it off saved his life.
- [10:58]
Mike Ferguson
Probably it seems lucky that he was turning at that exact moment or he would have probably taken a lot more bad shot to the head. Could have been one that ended his life. And to your point, these kind of businesses seem like a, like a Target rich type of a store for people that want to quick dollar and want to escape, because oftentimes they're located next to highways or on the edge of town where someone can commit a robbery and hit the highway and be out of the area quickly. So I think these store owners probably are often Cognizant of that. A lot of times they have guns to defend themselves. It just seems like in this situation, he was caught off guard.
- [11:44]
Mike Morford
Well, the other thing is they're dealing in items that, I don't know, maybe are easily or more easily sold resold than other stores. Maybe a little harder to trace gold and coins than other types of items.
- [12:03]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, especially if you have a buyer lineup that will buy that kind of stuff without asking too many questions. On July 31, 1990, just a couple months after the attack on Kelly Finnegan, there was a double murder at the treasure state silver and gold coin shop in Billings, Montana. The owner, 60 year old Charles Sparbo, and his assistant, 47 year old Catherine Nostrom, had both been shot in the head during the apparent robbery. The killer got away with $50,000 worth of gold and valuable coins. Sparbo's son Jim had been in the shop earlier that day when a strange man had come in. Hina's father had been suspicious of the man before the murders, and after what happened, Jim was sure he was the person responsible. Jim provided a description of the man, and it was used for a composite sketch that was released to the media. He was described as a white man with a gap between his teeth and a scar on his right hand.
- [12:56]
Mike Morford
The info Jim relayed to police was helpful. He recalled his father telling him about a new customer that kept coming in. The man claimed to be a farmer and said he was from Laurel, about 15 miles away. He also claimed that he was about to sell his farm for $130,000 and that he would be looking to invest a large chunk of it in gold. Charles Sparbo had mentioned to his son how odd it was that the man parked his car, a silver Pontiac, far from the shop and then walked the rest of the way. Jim had noticed that the man had what he called banker smooth hands, which made him very suspicious of the claim that he was a farmer.
- [13:38]
Mike Ferguson
He.
- [13:39]
Mike Morford
He felt no man who spent all day tending to his farm would have extremely smooth hands. And I think morph, it's such a good observation, and we talk in a lot of cases about people really being observant of others, which is a good thing. But this observation that this guy's a farmer, yet he doesn't have rough hands, no calluses, extremely smooth hands. It just doesn't seem like somebody who works with their hands day in and day out.
- [14:13]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, I thought that was a neat observation, you know, because if you think about it, if you see somebody with grease under their fingernails, maybe Greasy hands? Well, you could maybe guess. Okay, this is a mechanic or somebody that works around machinery or farmer, something like that, versus, you know, someone with, well, manicured, soft hands that, you know, they're likely in some kind of white collar job where they're not doing a lot of stuff with their hands. So that. That's one important clue he was able to relay that may have given police some helpful information. Billings police had the sketch of the suspect, and they quickly circulated, and a tip soon came in. A coin shop owner in Spokane, Washington, recognized the man in the sketch as someone he knew as JC Weird. He had been a customer in that man's shop that spring. Looking up the name JC Weir in databases, authorities found that a silver Pontiac, just like the one owned by the supposed farmer who killed Charles Sparbo and Kathryn Nostrom was registered in his name. Spokane authorities found that Ware's driver's license had been surrendered in Wyoming. The new license issued there listed a false address in Jackson Hole. A silver Pontiac was found abandoned at the airport. There was. Authorities knew they had the right car because Inside they found a.22 caliber handgun, a silencer, and coins that had been stolen from Sparbo's shop in Billings. At around the same time, police developed information that J.C. ware was really Charles Sinclair, and that Sinclair was already being sought by authorities in New Mexico.
- [15:52]
Mike Morford
So I think, Morph, there's some really good police work here, but there's also people who are giving the police some really good information to work with, Right? We've talked about a bit of it. The one thing that really jumped out at me here is that this person who they believe is Charles Sinclair is going to kill two people, rob the store, and then flee, leave his car at the airport. Now, that part doesn't surprise me. But inside, he leaves the handgun, the silencer, and some coins that can directly tie him to the Sparbo's shop. I mean, that doesn't seem like a master criminal, right? There's some things there that can really tie you to the crime scene.
- [16:45]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah. I wonder if it was like a flippant attitude on his part, like he think the cops would find him, or he wasn't prepared for them to find him that quickly. Maybe he planned to get that stuff hidden by the time they came looking for him, if they ever came looking for him. So maybe he was just sort of caught in the middle of his plan and wasn't able to get rid of that stuff.
- [17:06]
Mike Morford
Yeah, it could be, but obviously, and I hate to say it this way, but it's an error on his part. Now we like it when criminals make these types of errors because it's ultimately what helps, you know, them to being caught and being charged and convicted. So we don't want perfect criminals, but I think it's worth pointing out mistakes that they make that ultimately tie them to these crimes.
- [17:38]
Mike Ferguson
They were the coins that were stolen from Sparbo Shop. So how do you explain that away if you're him?
- [17:46]
Mike Morford
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- [23:14]
Mike Ferguson
Robert and Dagmar Linton were a married couple living in Stockton, California. In the summer of 1986, they decided to take a road trip up to Vancouver, British Columbia and attend the World Exposition on Transportation and Communication. We know they made it up to Washington, where they dropped out of contact with their son. They had been giving him regular updates about their location until they disappeared and their travel trailer was found abandoned at the Naco west campground in Brennan, Washington. The last thing they told their son was that they were planning a day trip to Mount Baker. The Linton's pickup, a 1982 Dodge Ram 1500, was found at the Seattle Tacoma airport. There were blood stains and hair found inside the truck. Authorities are still not sure where, exactly when or even why the Linton's cross paths with Sinclair. It appears that it happened after they left the Naco west campground, but before they had a chance to make it back. What Sinclair was doing in the area, we don't know. He was an outdoorsy type of guy, though. He could have just been there on a day trip of his own to Mount Baker when he saw the Lintons as an easy target for some quick money. The Linton's bodies have never been found, but police have no doubt they were killed by Charles Sinclair.
- [24:26]
Mike Morford
The Linton's credit cards were used to buy gas in a movie 125 miles away from Brennan, where their trailer and belongings had been left. Someone used their cards as they traveled south through Oregon. And one coin shop owner may have been very fortunate that the credit card declined when the suspect tried to buy two 50 peso Mexican gold pieces for $1,000. It's possible that this purchase would have been the way that the suspect posing as Robert Linton made himself seem trustworthy and worthwhile to have around a coin shop before coming back and killing the owner, robbing the shop and leaving investigators to search for a man who was already dead. That specific shop, though, may have been intimidating to him. It was set up for the staff safety. They always worked in pairs and they were always armed. It would be a lot harder to make a clean getaway at this shop. This may be why the man, after claiming he would be back later with the cash to buy the pesos, just never came back. And I mentioned it earlier, Morph, you know, some of these shops, I think people were working alone, but not this one. Right. They always worked in pairs, and they were always armed. That is not the type of store that, you know, you want to try to rob. Is why you never hardly hear on the news of gun stores being robbed. Anybody who's ever gone into a gun store, almost everybody is armed. It's not a good place to try to rob.
- [26:08]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah. I think if you're a criminal, you're looking for an easy target, someone that's not going to fight back. But when you have multiple employees armed and able to shoot back, that's probably a place you want to avoid.
- [26:19]
Mike Morford
Well, and you have to assume they're probably pretty proficient. Right. With. With firearms being around them all day. They probably shoot a lot and stuff like that. But you and I have done so many cases over the years about serial killers, and I don't know that the thought is all that much different. What are we normally talking about? What do we hear even serial killers say? And it's that they're looking for, in most cases, vulnerable types of individuals. They don't want to go after people who could potentially put up a major fight. They're looking for vulnerable types of victims. And I think this situation is no different. You know, if you're a. A person who robs stores, you're using that same sort of mentality. You're not looking for the. The toughest nut to crack. Right. You're. You're looking for the most vulnerable type of store.
- [27:25]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah. And there are cases every once in a while where the person is very impulsive and they will take chances, and despite the risk to themselves, they'll attack someone that might be armed or able to protect themselves. But more often than not, like you mentioned, it's. It's always these people looking for someone they feel that they can overtake without much resistance. Investigators in the Linton case were starting to catch up to the suspect. But an article about the missing Lintons noted that the suspect was being tracked by their credit card usage. After that article ran, the suspect stopped using the cards and the trail went cold. But as we now know, the killing didn't stop. The description given of the suspect that was using the Linton's credit cards was that of a very tall, large white man with a beard and a bandage on his right hand. And it perfectly matched up with Sinclair, who had scars on his right hand. Except that Sinclair was clean shaven when he was arrested. This slight change in his appearance actually made Deputy Sheriff Pete Pacini, who was investigating the murder of the Lintons, initially overlook the connection. It turns out that Pacini had once interviewed Sinclair in a pawn shop. A tall man with a bandage on his hand, because he was acting suspicious, he didn't realize it was his suspect. At the time, however, the same stolen car used to buy the clarinet had first been used to buy gas in marble mount, just 50 miles away from the town of Deming, Washington, where the Sinclair family lived at the time. Though they were going by the last name Ware, Sinclair had assumed Jimmy Charles ware's identity in 1985 and never looked back. That clarinet Sinclair bought left a trail of its own. His daughter played clarinet, and investigators were able to see that her school records had been transferred from Washington to Alaska. Deputy Sheriff Piccini told seattlepi.com, the Lintons were killed because Sinclair's daughter needed a clarinet, his wife needed a Crockpot, and he needed some more coins.
- [29:23]
Mike Morford
And we talk about so many, you know, senseless murders, right? Almost all of them are. But to think that this guy is basically robbing and killing as a way of life, I mean, that's like. I mean, he's making his living almost. I know that's a strange way to say it, but he is. By robbing stores and. And killing people. I mean, his daughter needs a clarinet, his wife needs a Crockpot. Well, how am I going to get that stuff? And in his mind, robbing and killing is what he came up with.
- [30:02]
Mike Ferguson
And it makes me wonder what he was using the money for besides that kind of stuff, because we mentioned some pretty large takes in a couple of these crimes. Yet when they caught up with him, he was living in a rented house with no indoor plumbing. So it doesn't sound like he was living any kind of lavish lifestyle for sure.
- [30:21]
Mike Morford
Well, I just wonder, you know, he's probably not working all that much. Maybe not at all. Maybe that was his only form of income. And it would last for a while, but it's not going to last forever, and then it has to be replaced. So this storage locker of Sinclair's yielded a lot of clues that connected him to the murder of the Lintons. But evidence in the storage locker also connected Sinclair to other cases. According to Vacaville, California Police Department Sergeant Mike Cook, in an interview with the Deseret News, very Specific evidence related to the murder of the owner of the Golden Hills Coin Exchange was found in Sinclair's possession. It's unclear what the evidence was, but Sergeant Cook was confident saying, we have more than enough evidence to charge him. They also found a sales book belonging to Reuben Lucky Williams, who was murdered in his shop in California in. In 1986.
- [31:22]
Mike Ferguson
When Sinclair was arrested, he had an antique pocket watch in his pocket. It had been stolen from the safe of Legacy Coin shop in Murray, Utah. It was also discovered that a Rolex Sinclair's son was wearing had been stolen during the same robbery. So Sinclair had apparently shared the spoils of his crimes with his wife and children. When they found out their father Charles was arrested and that he was a murderer, his children were said to be devastated. As for Sinclair's wife Debbie, Deputy Sheriff Pacini told SeattlePI.com she was like an ostrich who just never asked any questions. He would bring home coins, cash them in, and they'd party and then he'd go out again. It was almost as if she didn't want to know how he was getting his stuff, but was happy to have it.
- [32:07]
Mike Morford
And that's such an interesting quote, right? She was like an ostrich. He didn't say it, but it's almost like, you know, she kept her head down in the sand. She obviously had to know something strange was going on. How was he getting all this stuff? But she didn't ask any questions. She was happy to have it and apparently didn't care where it came from. While being held in Palmer, Alaska on $500,000 bail, authorities in Montana and Utah charged Sinclair with murder, attempted murder and aggravated robbery. He fought extradition from Alaska and was moved to a facility in Anchorage. His wife Debbie was also arrested and extradited to New Mexico to face those old embezzlement charges related to the hunting license fees. It seemed like justice was on the horizon for the victims and families of these various coin shop attacks and that Sinclair would have to answer for his crimes. But that wasn't to be.
- [33:12]
Mike Ferguson
On the morning of October 30, 1990, 44 year old Charles Sinclair was found unresponsive in a cell at the Cook Inlet pre trial facility in Anchorage, Alaska. He was rushed to Humana Hospital, but after half an hour, he was pronounced dead. The cause of death was ultimately heart failure, but it initially appeared that he intended to die as a toxicology test showed that there was an elevated level of propranolol found in the system. The medication had been prescribed to him to treat his high blood pressure following a heart attack. In 1989, a coroner's jury determined that there was a drug overdose. The massive dose of the drug, three times more than he should have had in the system, apparently caused his heart to stop. The jury found that the overdose was accidental and not intentional.
- [33:59]
Mike Morford
Charles Sinclair's death was not the ending anyone wanted. They wanted to see him tried and convicted and sentenced for his crimes. Kelly Finnegan, the only victim known to have survived an attack by Charles Sinclair, told the LA Times. I feel cheated. Authorities were suddenly facing a roadblock in the cases that were definitely connected to Charles Sinclair, but also in the cases for which they suspected him and they definitely felt he had more victims. Deputy Sheriff Pacini told the LA Times. We all felt Sinclair was a serial killer of the same stature of Ted Bundy. And Vacaville Sergeant Mike Cook told the Deseret News. Our suspect sounds like the typical serial killer. But when Sinclair died, they suddenly lost the ability to question him. There was no hope that anything could convince him to spill his secrets, and investigators believed he had a lot of them. They also believed he could be responsible for up to 15 murders and two sexual assaults in addition to the attempted murder of Kelly Finnegan. And I'm going to go back to, you know what Kelly Finnegan said he felt cheated, and I completely understand how he would feel that way. I feel. I think I would feel the same way. It's like this person who did something terrible to you. Luckily he survived when, you know, no one else did. But they finally figured out who it was. They caught this guy and he's going to be charged and go to trial. And then all of a sudden you learn that, no, that's not going to happen. That must be very frustrating.
- [35:47]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, frustrating for the victims and their families, but also frustrating for police because they might have been able to use a leverage against him later sentences, more favorable conditions if he shared secrets about his crimes. But they didn't have that chance to ask him or question him in those other cases.
- [36:06]
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- [36:35]
Mike Ferguson
with GLP1s for many years, it was believed by some law enforcement officials that, including Deputy Sheriff Pacini, that Charles Sinclair could be responsible for the murder of 18 year old Amanda Stavic in Bellingham, Washington. We covered her case back in episode 391. Mandy, as she was known to friends and family, was attacked and killed while on a jog the day after Thanksgiving in 1989. According to ctinsider.com, the search of Sinclair's storage unit had apparently uncovered a high school yearbook belonging to Sinclair's son, with Mandy's picture circled and a yellow flowered bedsheet and pillows that supposedly matched the linen used to strangle and wrap the body. But Ron Peterson, a former Whatcom County Sheriff's civil deputy who recovered Mandy's body, disputed this and said that her body wasn't wrapped in anything. There was nothing for the sheets or the pillow to match related to Mandy's case. In 2013, new DNA technology helped investigators develop a new suspect to focus on in the Stavik case. Timothy Bass, who lived in the same neighborhood as the Staviks. It took another four years for investigators to finally collect his DNA and confirm their suspicions that Bass had killed Mandy. After nearly 30 years, the Stavik family had answers. And the list of cases Sinclair could have been involved in got shorter by one.
- [37:57]
Mike Morford
Police also felt that Charles Sinclair could be responsible for the murders of Jay Cook and Tanya Van Kuylenborg. We covered their case way back in season four. The two were last seen alive on November 18, 1987, getting onto a ferry in Bremerton, Washington, headed to Seattle. Tanya was found six days later on Thanksgiving Day. She had been left on the side of a rural road in Alger, Washington. She had been sexually assaulted and shot in the head. The couple's van was found the next day near the Bellingham Greyhound station, full of evidence. Jay's body was found one day later, about 60 miles from Tanya's body. He had been strangled and bludgeoned with a rock. Their murders reminded some authorities of Robert and Dagmar Linton. Jay and Tanya drove through Brennan where the Linton's trailer was abandoned. A man named William Earl Talbert II was convicted of their murders in 2019 after investigators used new DNA testing technology.
- [39:05]
Mike Ferguson
While investigators may have gotten it wrong and Charles Sinclair wasn't involved in Mandy Stavic's case or in Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenberg's, they still think he's a good suspect in the other cases that fit his normal MO that being targeting coin shop owners. Unfortunately, with no DNA to test. We may never know the answer in these coin shop murders. The nature of these murders kind of obscures important details. There are a list of dozens of coin shop murders over the years, seemingly unrelated ones throughout the United States and Canada. And it's likely that this kind of thing happens in other countries too. When you deal in valuables, you're often a target. So we certainly can't say that Charles Sinclair is responsible for every murder of a coin shop owner. But various agencies came together and pooled their resources and shared details and collectively they came to believe that there's a very high likelihood Charles Sinclair was responsible for some very specific murder cases.
- [40:01]
Mike Morford
One of those cases took place in Everett, Washington on January 27, 1980. David Sutton was found dead in his antique shop, the Bennington Auction Company in Everett. He had been shot in the head with a.38 caliber weapon. $80,000 in the form of silver coins had been stolen from the shop. Another case thought to be connected to Charles Sinclair happened on August 28, 1985. That's when 41 year old Thomas Rohr was found dead in the coin shop he managed in Mishawaka, Indiana. The following year, on November 1, 1986, Reuben Lucky Williams was found dead in the coin shop he owned in vacaville, California. The 59 year old was a military veteran. Sinclair had Lucky sales book in his possession when his storage unit was searched.
- [40:58]
Mike Ferguson
Another murder police think Sinclair is responsible for is that of 45 year old Leo Kashut. On July 14, 1987, he was found dead in his coin shop in Spokane, Washington. He had been shot in the head. On March 12, 1988, 52 year old Leroy Hoffman was found dead in his shop in Kansas City, Missouri. Coins worth several thousands of dollars had been stolen. Before he was killed, he had told his wife about a farmer that had recently been in the shop looking to sell his coins. Hoffman's wife told the LA Times that her husband was planning to buy the man's large collection. It's not clear that Sinclair was ever in Missouri. But this farmer role was part of his exact ruse.
- [41:39]
Mike Morford
Different weapons were used in the murders of these coin shop owners. Some were.22 caliber, some were.38 caliber. But Sinclair did have access to multiple guns. After all, he sold guns along with coins out of his own shop. According to an FBI bulletin, along with Jim Stockton and J.C. weir, Sinclair also used the names Carl Lynch, Charles R. Williams, Robert Jarvis and John. It turns out that Sinclair regularly went hunting with a man named J.C. weir. How he ended up with his car, or even if it was the real JC Weir's Pontiac, isn't clear. Investigators recovered equipment for making false identification cards in the Sinclair family storage unit. So maybe the Pontiac belonged to Sinclair but had been falsely registered in J.C. weir's name. It's unclear whether Weir was aware that Sinclair had stolen his identity.
- [42:42]
Mike Ferguson
In 1990, Charles Sinclair traveled through Quebec, Ottawa, Yukon, and Whitehorse, Canada. The FBI's map of Sinclair's movement has him in every single western state from 1982 to 1990, with the exception of Nevada and Arizona. Some people find this odd that he would go to every western state but those two, especially because in Nevada, with Vegas and Reno, you have a seemingly endless supply of potential coin shops that he could have targeted. If we look close enough, we may find crimes in those two states that match Sinclair's M.O. but officially, there are no crimes that are connected to him.
- [43:20]
Mike Morford
And I just wonder more if. If maybe he skipped Nevada and especially, you know, Vegas and Reno. Yeah, they do have a lot of coin shops, but I feel like many of them are of the larger variety with probably more people, more security than maybe a small town type of coin shop. Again, if you're looking for maybe the easier type of robbery situation you want to hit, at least in his mind, probably these smaller places where there might only be one person working. You don't want to go into Vegas with all these people and hit a large store. Yeah, there's probably more to gain from it, but there's also a lot more risk involved. But the other thing that jumps out at me is this guy is all over the place. He's in so many states in the US he is in a bunch of territories up in Canada. I mean, it just seems to me that this guy was essentially living his life, funding his life by moving around, using different identities and robbing these types of stores. I don't think there is any doubt about it now, how many robberies and murders can be attributed to him? Okay, there are questions there, but I don't think there's any doubt that there's quite a number of them that he committed over the years. I do believe this guy was a pretty serious serial killer.
- [45:14]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, when you go to that many states, it seems like an endless supply of stores that might have coins or similar businesses that he could have focused on. And maybe some of those cases in those states haven't been connected yet. He may have other victims.
- [45:30]
Mike Morford
Well, and it's easy to say, okay, any coin shop killing, let's attribute to Charles Sinclair, but let's not forget they actually found legitimate evidence in his storage unit regarding some of these robberies and murders. So I don't think it's just a matter of, you know, doing a Henry Lee Lucas type of thing here where any murder that this guy could have possibly been anywhere near we're going to attribute to him. There's actual evidence here connecting him to some. Some people believe that there was more than one coin shop killer in that when Sinclair died similar cases happened. But we talked about it earlier. Coin shops and their owners likely make for appealing targets just like there was more than one night stalker, more than one fast food killer. This is another moniker that may pass on to new suspects for as long as there are coin shops. For example, if you just look up the Coin Shop Killer, you're going to find some more recent articles that are not even about Sinclair. Articles from as recently as last month are referring to a man named Douglas Smith when they talk about the Coin Shop Killer.
- [46:52]
Mike Ferguson
Douglas Smith was found guilty of killing 67 year old Dwight Brockman and 76 year old George Doc Manley at the coin shop in Cheyenne, Wyoming in July 2015. He was actually the one who called 911 to report a robbery happening at the coin shop. He claimed that he had been held at gunpoint and gave a detailed description of a suspect he made up. He was arrested after a nine year investigation which he continued to both insert himself in and interfere with. In April of this year 2026, Smith died at the Wyoming Medium Correctional institution in Torrington, Wyoming. He was 70 years old. Is it possible that he had more victims?
- [47:32]
Mike Morford
It turns out that Charles Sinclair wasn't even the first coin shop killer. Years before Sinclair's first known murder, the moniker Coin Shop Killer referred to Forrest L. Ethington. Though there are those that believe that it was Sinclair, not Ethington who killed Robert Rosberg, the owner of a coin shop in Pantego, Texas in 1985. At one point authorities even floated the idea that the two were working together. David Chapman, Assistant District Attorney in Tarrant county, Texas told UPI.com, ethington was always looking for someone he could recruit, someone cold blooded to commit these types of crimes. And and it would explain how coin shop murders continued when Ethington was behind bars. Chapman believed that Ethington certainly could have planned and supervised these types of crimes from inside the Texas Penitentiary. Eventually, Ethington's conviction was overturned and he was released on parole. In the end, we don't really know how many victims Charles Sinclair had. Charles, there May be more. But barring some new evidence coming to light years after his crimes, we may not find out what else Charles Sinclair did. Perhaps FBI Special Agent Ken Merrisson said it best when he told the LA Times, the only one we know who knew the whole story was Charles Sinclair, and he took it to the grave with him. And as we wrap this one up more. I mean, it is a fascinating story, the story of Charles Sinclair. I think that quote, though, is exactly right. You know, anytime you have a situation like this where you seemingly have this one person who's out robbing and killing and they die before they ever go to trial, they do take pretty much all the information with them to the grave. And like we said earlier. Right. It's frustrating for victims, the families of victims, but also law enforcement. You made a great point earlier when you said, you know, had they been able to talk to Sinclair, they could have made, you know, some kind of plea deal with him where they were able to close a bunch of cases if he was involved. But that all went away the moment he died.
- [50:11]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah. And luckily, he was not a master criminal because he left things in his storage unit that police were able to connect to other crimes. He left that car at the airport with stuff in it that was connected to a case. So he did make mistakes. And as you mentioned earlier, we like it when criminals make these mistakes because that helps police solve a lot of these cases.
- [50:37]
Mike Morford
And I just wonder, because I keep making the. The parallels here to different serial killers. And I do think Charles Sinclair was a serial killer. I wonder if some of the stuff he kept in this storage unit were his trophies. Now, we know some of it was used, right? Given to family members, used by Sinclair, used by his wife, his kids. But there were some things that police found in that storage unit that were never going to be used. They weren't useful to anyone. And I just wonder if he kept them as a trophy or trophies.
- [51:19]
Mike Ferguson
That's definitely something serial killers do. I wouldn't put it past him, because I agree. Definitely seems like he was a serial killer. And one thing speaking of serial killers that I took away from this was I felt there's a little bit of a vibe of Henry Lee Lucas where they were trying to pin other crimes on him just because he was in the vicinity. You know, we talked about a few of them. You know, the murder of Jay and Tanya and Mandy. They were a little bit different than his typical MO and there were sexual assaults in them as well. Something that, as far as we know, he didn't Do. So, you know, I found that interesting that police were trying to connect these cases to him, even though it was. Wasn't in his normal wheelhouse.
- [52:07]
Mike Morford
But it's so natural, right? We do it. When I say we, I mean the public does it, law enforcement does it. You're trying to make sense of some of these unsolved murders and you find out about these really bad people and you find out that they were in the area. It's kind of natural to think, well, could they have been responsible for some of these as well? Now we know that he wasn't responsible for some of those. But. But I also think there's no way that authorities know his full scope of crimes. You think about someone traveling to as many states and areas as he did, also traveling, you know, throughout Canada. He lived in a bunch of different places. I mean, it's scary to think how many stores he could have robbed, how many people he could have killed.
- [53:07]
Mike Ferguson
If it came out next week that some kind of physical evidence linked him to other crimes back in the 80s, I wouldn't be shocked at all because I think there's probably more victims out there.
- [53:17]
Mike Morford
Yeah, me neither. I'm right with you on that, but no doubt. You know, he was a very nasty individual to me, this thought of earning your living for a lack of a better way of saying it, and providing for your family by robbing others and killing them. Not to mention, you know, this thought that his wife kind of had an inkling, let's say maybe even more than an inkling that he was getting stuff that he probably shouldn't have. She didn't know how he was getting it, but she didn't ask any questions. And then you think about his children, who are obviously blameless, but you know, they're going to learn, right, at some point. And now I'm sure they're. They're much older, obviously, but that they used a clarinet to play, let's say, in the school band that was provided from a robbery and murder. The son had a Rolex that he would learn at some point came from a robbery and murder. So, I mean, that's. I don't know how you square all of that along with the fact that your dad was this prolific murderer.
- [54:36]
Mike Ferguson
And I think that proves that there were victims, too, in this so far, reaching effects from his crimes.
- [54:43]
Mike Morford
Yeah, absolutely. But that's it for our episode on the Coin Shop Killer. As always, if you love the show but you haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, leave us a review, leave a rating Also keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the podcast really helps us out.
- [55:00]
Mike Ferguson
If you want to find us on social media, we're on every major platform. Just search for Criminology Podcast on your favorites. And for news, old episodes and more, head over to our website, criminologypodcast.com and if you want to join a discussion group about the podcast and the cases we discuss, head over to Facebook and search for Criminology Podcast discussion and fans.
- [55:20]
Mike Morford
So that's it for another episode of Criminology. But Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike and Morph, we'll talk to you next week.
- [55:32]
Mike Ferguson
Take care everyone.
- [55:43]
Mike Morford
Sam.