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Today we’re stepping back to 1996 & entering the town of Springfield, Ohio, a city that’s situated in the southwestern part of the state about 45 miles (72 km) west of Columbus. We’ll be diving into the chilling case of serial killer William Sapp whose brutal crimes against women & young girls in the early 1990s left a community terrified.
As investigators began talking to the man in 1996, they quickly saw that William Sapp was like an onion; each layer that was pulled away was darker & more disturbing than the one that came before. What started as an investigation & trial for a violent assault & attempted rape in February 1996 opened the doors to multiple murder cases, some unsolved, one of which involved two young girls at the tender ages of 11 & 12-years-old. It was a signature element that Saap used during multiple attacks, the careful severing of the seams of a victim’s pants using a knife, that connected one case to other unsolved crimes.
It all began on Monday, February 5, 1996 when a Springfield, Ohio woman named Una Timmons was walking down the side of the road when a car pulled over. The driver of the car just so happened to be a then 33-year-old William Sapp. He asked her if she wanted a ride & after she climbed in, the two ended up smoking crack cocaine together. Una was shocked when the man who had only been a stranger to her minutes earlier, suddenly attacked her. Thankfully, she managed to fight him off, escape & report the attack to police. An investigation began & Sapp was arrested a little over three weeks later on February 27.
The trial was held on September 9, 1996 where Sapp pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. While he was awaiting the conclusion of his trial, investigators from Florida began questioning him as Sapp reportedly confessed to killing a Jacksonville woman fifteen years earlier during the decade he was living there between 1981-1991.
In Una’s case, Sapp was found not guilty of attempted murder but convicted of assault & attempted rape & received a sentence of 15-55 years. After his sentencing, he agreed to be interviewed by detectives from the Duval County Sheriff’s Department.
The interview was held on September 26, 1996 & as he spoke with Detective Robert Hinson from Jacksonville, Florida, Sapp began confessing to another case; he told the officer that he sexually assaulted & attempted to murder a woman in Springfield in 1993, three years earlier. Detective Hinson quickly left the interview room & returned with an investigator from the Springfield Police Department who was familiar with the case in question.
With this, Sapp provided details that matched the unsolved sexual assault & attempted murder of Hazel Pearson in December, 1993. Local detectives were aware of a signature element from the attack on Hazel Pearson where the rapist carefully severed the seams of the victim’s jeans with a knife rather than just removing her pants.
This same signature element also matched evidence from the double rape & murder case of two young girls, 11-year-old Martha Leach & 12-year-old Phree Morrow that happened near downtown Springfield in 1992. With this, detectives obtained samples of Sapp’s blood, saliva & hair for DNA testing & lo & behold, they were a match to semen recovered from the bodies of both girls.
On April 2, 1997 Sapp agreed to be transferred from the state prison where he was incarcerated to the Springfield police department for additional questioning in regards to Martha & Phree’s murders. He initially denied any involvement, but once he was presented with the solid DNA evidence, he ultimately confessed to not only playing the lead role in the young girls’ murders, but also for being responsible for the 1993 murder of an adult woman, Belinda Anderson whose remains were not found for two years because he buried them inside a neighbor’s garage.
Stepping back to Saturday, August 22, 1992, 11-year-old Martha Leach lived around the corner from her friend, 12-year-old Phree Morrow in Springfield & the girls decided to head to Schuler’s Bakery. Just about this same time, two of Sapp’s friends, David Marciszewski & his stepson, 22-year-old John Balser, were seen near the bakery.
Witnesses later told investigators that Martha entered the bakery with an unidentified male, she selected cookies & donuts, the man paid for her order & they left together.
In the meantime, David’s wife Wanda was home with their 14-year-old nephew, Ralph DePriest. John Balser, Wanda’s son, came into the house & told her that he was in some trouble. With this, Ralph & Wanda went outside & climbed into a van with David & another man, Christopher Bibbs & drove to a nearby pond that was situated behind Schuler’s Bakery.
When they got closer to the pond, they saw a then 30-year-old William Sapp kneeling beside two young girls who were unconscious & lying on the ground. Ralph later described their appearance as all messed up. He watched as Sapp, David Marciszewski, John Balster & another man, Jamie Turner were rubbing the girls’ genitals. Sapp then forced the 14-year-old Ralph to participate. After this went on for some time, Wanda ordered them to kill the girls.
With this, David & John picked up rocks & struck the girls in the head. Ralph saw, in horror, as Sapp raised a rock over his head, but unable to watch, he turned away before Sapp brought it down. Sapp told Ralph that if he ever told anyone what he witnessed that day, he would kill him. Sapp, Balser & Marciszewski then moved the young girls’ bodies from the pond to a nearby hill while Ralph assisted them in concealing tthem with brush.
The following day, two boys were out riding bikes near the pond when they came upon Martha & Phree’s bodies behind Penn Street near the bakery. Branches & leaves covered the bodies while Phree had a rock on her head. Police located a bicycle, a brick & two pairs of shorts in a nearby storm sewer known to locals as Lion’s Cage. Phree’s mother was able to confirm that one of the pairs of shorts was what she last saw her daughter wearing. Another witness confirmed that the bicycle matched what the girl’s were standing by while they were outside the bakery.
Forensic criminalist Timothy Shepherd noted that the shorts had not been torn from Phree’s body, rather someone had cut the seams with a sharp instrument. Autopsies proved that both young girls had died from blunt force head trauma; Phree had been struck in the head at least six times while Martha had been struck three times. Both girls suffered fractured skulls by blows that had an impact equivalent to that of a free fall from a second-story window onto a concrete surface. They both had bruising to their legs & torsos & sperm was located on swabs taken from their vaginas.
David & Wanda Marciszewski, John Balser, Jamie Turner & Christoper Bibbs were all convicted of the murders of Phree & Martha, but it wasn’t until 1996 that Sapp’s involvement came to light. It was his description of cutting the shorts during his assault on Hazel Pearson when detectives from Springfield realized it matched the way in which Pree’s shorts had also been cut.
After DNA confirmed Sapp’s involvement in the murders of Martha & Phree, he was brought in for questioning in April 1997 & fully confessed. He said that he was out with Marciszewski, Balser, Turner & Bibbs that day & the five of them ended up at the pond behind the bakery. He claimed that at the time they arrived, the two young girls were already there & after the girls called Turner & Balser disparaging names, he retaliated by punching Phree in the head. He then cut the shorts from her body with a buck knife in an act he later indicated was a way to leave his name. Sapp said he forced Phree to roll over onto her stomach & ordered Martha to lie down on top of her.
Sapp said that he raped Martha & then he & the others took turns striking Phree in the head with rocks. After they all took their turn, he heard a gurgling sound coming from Phree so he lifted a large rock over his head. He told investigators that he threw it down, trying to send it on the other side of the world because she wasn’t yet dead. He elaborated that he used a boulder for the second strike because if it’s gonna be done, it’s gonna be done right.
Sapp next struck Martha in the head with a rock & then raped Phree. It was at this point he & his friends moved the girls’ bodies, concealed them with leaves & moved their bikes & clothing to the storm sewer. After his interrogation & confession, Sapp was held in the Clark County Jail. He was overheard by a deputy sheriff telling another inmate, I’m gonna make national news. I’ve killed several people, but mostly it’s about two little girls. But God forgives me for it now because I’ve been saved.
A little over one year after Martha & Phee were brutally murdered, it was Wednesday, September 8, 1993 & Belinda Anderson was staying with her sister, Debra, in Springfield. Debra left the house at 5:20 pm to visit her parents & when she returned at 6 pm, her sister was gone, but had left a note behind. However, she never saw Belinda again.
It wasn’t until nearly two years later when Belinda’s body was found on July 8, 1995, buried under the dirt floor of a garage in Springfield by the new residents of the home, Mary Williams & Raymond Calkins. At the time Belinda disappeared, the house & the garage had been vacant for several years. Investigators discovered that her body had been placed in a plastic bag & buried in a shallow grave with her feet sticking out. She was wearing a shirt, shoes & socks, but no pants.
The autopsy determined that Belinda had died as a result of multiple trauma to her head & neck. She had three chop wounds & bruising to her face as well as fractures of some of her facial bones. A blow to the back of her head lacerated her scalp & abraded the outer layer of skull underneath. Her larynx was broken & each of the injuries she’d sustained were inflicted before death. Because of the state of decomposition, it was unclear if Belinda had been sexually assaulted.
During his confession to Springfield police, Sapp indicated that he met Belinda Anderson for the first time on the day he murdered her. According to Sapp, she agreed to have sex with him for $40 & led him to the vacant garage which they entered through a hole in the back. He claimed that he pre-paid her & she began to perform fellatio on him, but stopped saying she changed her mind & wasn’t doing the rest. He demanded a refund, but Belinda started to leave so he reached down & grabbed her & she hit him.
Sapp said he grabbed her by the throat & threw her against a wall. He struck her in the head with a piece of pipe & she dropped to the ground. As she attempted to get up, she threatened to call the police. He said he felt as if a fire was inside of him so he picked up a piece of metal & struck her several times because she wouldn’t shut up. He told detectives he heard her make a gurgling sound & remarked, how many times you gotta hit a person before they stop trying to get up?
He denied sexually assaulting her, but said he was determined to get what he paid for or get a refund. He cut her pants off with his hunting knife, reasoning, I done bought ‘em so I took ‘em off for her. He said that fled from the garage only to return a few days later & at this time, he placed a plastic bag over her head & another over her feet & buried her in the garage.
He bragged to another Clark County inmate, Johnny Saxour, about Belinda Anderson’s murder, but in this version, he said that he had raped her.
Three months after he murdered Belinda, it was December 7, 1993 & Hazel Pearson & her boyfriend, Butch Morgan were out at a Springfield bar when they incidentally came across his ex-girlfriend. Hazel got upset & left by herself & the following morning, employees at a nearby packaging company saw her sitting in a nearby parking lot. When they realized that she was badly injured, they ran over to attend to her & saw that she was nude from the waist down. When she was asked if she’d been raped, she nodded yes. She was transferred to the hospital, bleeding from multiple open injuries to her body.
Hazel’s throat had been slashed from ear to ear & she had a deep stab wound to her upper abdomen. Her cheekbone, orbital bone & jaw were fractured as well as her skull which resulted in serious brain injuries. Her face was swollen, her body black & blue with stones embedded into her flesh.
When Hazel woke in the hospital, she realized that her watch was missing. She recalled crawling in the direction of railroad tracks, but everything else from after she left the bar was blank. Police found her jeans near where she was found in the parking lot & when they were examined, police criminalist Timothy Shepherd, who’d also examined Phee’s shorts, determined that Hazel’s pants had been cut in the exact same manner.
During his September 26, 1996 confession, Sapp indicated that he cut Hazel’s throat, took her watch & threw the knife on a church roof. In 1994, the custodian of a church found a knife stuck into the roof. He said when he met her, he was intoxicated from alcohol & pills & noticed her crying on a street corner. When he approached her, she explained that her boyfriend was in the bar with another woman. He walked with her until they reached railroad tracks & according to his version of events, they began to kiss & mess around a little bit. She complained about his stubble & he claims she slapped him. He became so furious that he was determined that she needed to die so he began to beat her with a piece of steel cable, kicked her repeatedly & stabbed her in the stomach. At some point he removed her pants & had sex with her, claiming that it was consensual. He later elaborated that he’d spent 7-12 minutes cutting her jeans off.
When Hazel became still, he moved her to a nearby loading dock & fled. He threw the knife onto the church roof & the steel cable into a storm drain. After his confession, police later found the piece of cable in the drain in question in 1998. Sapp told investigators that it was a personality who lived inside him named Bob Lancaster, who was responsible for the attack.
He also told fellow inmate Johnny Saxour that he jumped on a woman near Selma Road because he didn’t like her pink outfit. He went on to beat her with a crow bar & believed he killed her, not stopping until someone started yelling at him & he took off running.
The grand jury returned a 27-count indictment against Sapp including three counts of aggravated murder for the deaths of Phree Morrow, Martha Leach & Belinda Anderson, two counts attempted aggravated murder of Hazel Pearson, four counts of rape & four counts of kidnapping.
William Sapp was born William Kessler Lilly in Springfield, Ohio in 1962. After his parents divorced, he & his brother were sent to live at a children’s home until their father remarried. He later claimed that both his mom & stepmother sexually & physically abused him. He also claimed that his mother set his youngest brother on fire & blamed him for it & that his mother watched as his 7-year-old half-brother, Charles, drowned.
At the young age of 10, Children’s Services made a record about Sapp indicating he has hostility toward all women he comes in contact with. In 1980 he was arrested two days before his 18th birthday & charged with animal cruelty. With this, his mother purchased him a bus ticket & he relocated to Jacksonville, Florida where he lived between 1981-1991.
When he was 19, Sapp was adopted by a homosexual man named Al Sapp & in 1981, he legally changed his last name from Lilly to Sapp. On April 14, 1981, Sapp claims to have murdered Shirley Ogden on West Main Street in Jacksonville. He met & married his wife, Karen Sapp, in 1988 & the two went on to have three children together as well as one child from Karen’s previous relationship.
By 1991 Sapp was back in Ohio where he started his reign of terror the following year, murdering Phree Morrow & Martha Leach on August 22, 1992. One year later he murdered Belinda Anderson on September 8, 1993 & three months later he raped & tried to murder Hazel Pearson on December 8. Two months later, a sex worker’s body was found in the woods near Sapp’s house on Kinnane Street.
Two years later, he stabbed & beat Una Timmons after he offered her a ride & they smoked crack together on February 25, 1996. He was arrested two days later & pleaded not guilty. His trial began in September 1996 & it was during this time that light was shed on his previous dark, twisted & violent deeds.
Sapp pleaded not guilty to the 27 charges against him, including rape & murder charges & after he was interviewed by a psychologist, he was deemed competent to stand trial, but the doctor indicated he had been the most difficult patient she’d interviewed in 17 years. He was ultimately diagnosed with bipolar disorder, antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder & in addition to his alter-ego, Bob Lancaster, he may have had as many as 35 aliases.
The trial began on September 13, 1999 & on October 8, he was found guilty on all 27 charges. On October 21, 1999 he was given 3 death sentences with an execution date set for September 1, 2000.
In 2017, Phree Morrow’s sister spoke about visiting her sister in the Springfield Children’s Memorial, a park that honors her sister. She spoke about the fact that yes, Sapp is in prison, but he still has a life to live which is in contrast to her sister, whose life was snuffed out far too soon. The debates over the humanity of execution methods frustrate Holly Massie, who fully believes that he deserves to die, saying, what he did to my sister is more inhumane than he will ever get.
There are currently more than one hundred people on Ohio’s death row, many of which are held at the Ross Correctional Institution, Sapp included. The last execution in Ohio took place on July 18, 2018 & has since been paused due to the inability to obtain the necessary drugs. Sapp’s execution date remains unscheduled though if & when it happens, Holly doesn’t plan on being in attendance since she wouldn’t want to give him the sick satisfaction.
The only thing Holly Massie has to remember of her sister, Phree Morrow, are photos. She thinks about her sister’s smile often & remains haunted by what happened to her, praying for some closure.
William Sapp was a predator who roamed the streets of Springfield & whose depravity knew no bounds. His confessions, all of which came after the attack on Una Timmons, brought long, overdue justice, but also revealed the horrifying depths of his crimes. There are still lingering questions about other unsolved cases, such as the Jacksonville murder of Shirley Ogden. Thanks to advancements in forensic testing as well as the bravery & courage of survivors like Una Timmons & Hazel Pearson who helped unmask a monster.
References:
- William K. Sapp “The Dreaming Demon”
- FindLaw: State v. Sapp
- Murderpedia: William K. Sapp
- Medium: The murder of best friends Phree Morrow & Martha Leach
- Medium: William Sapp: Another serial killer who had “intense hostility” towards women
- Dayton 24/7 Now: Family of child murdered by death row inmate speaks out about Ohio death penalty
- Spectrum News: Could Ohio be the next state to use nitrogen gas in executions? New method would end 5-year lag
