Kentucky man awaiting trial in Wisconsin killings also investigated for Ohio homicides

Kentucky man investigated in additional slayings

JEFFERSON, Wis. — Investigators believe a former drifter accused of killing two teenagers in Wisconsin nearly 30 years ago may have been involved in another double homicide in Ohio.

Edward W. Edwards, 76, of Louisville, Ky., faces two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Kelly Drew and Tim Hack in Jefferson County in 1980. He’s being held at the Dodge Correctional Institute while he awaits trial so he can get medical attention for an array of ailments.

According to court documents, another inmate at the prison sent a letter to prosecutors in Akron, Ohio, on April 9. The inmate said Edwards had been talking about a double homicide in Norton, Ohio, in 1976 and that Edwards was proud of getting away with it.

Edwards sent a letter to Akron prosecutors on April 19 saying that he understood they were interested in him for a 1976 double homicide in which a man and woman were shot to death in a park.

He said he was getting old and tired and invited investigators to speak to him about the crimes, saying he was in the area when the killings occurred and that when investigators were done talking with him they would want to “stick a needle” in his arm — an apparent reference to Ohio’s death penalty.

Investigators believe Edwards was talking about the deaths of 21-year-old William Lavaco of Doylestown, Ohio, and 18-year-old Judith Straub of Sterling, Ohio, according to court documents. The couple was found shot to death in a Norton park in 1977.

The documents say that while Edwards has the year of the homicides wrong, there were no double slayings in 1976 in Norton. They say Edwards’ letter contains details about the killing of Lavaco and Straub that are not public knowledge.

Ohio investigators traveled to Wisconsin last week to speak to Edwards, according to a statement from Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh.

They obtained an incriminating statement from him, she said, but she is still reviewing whether to file charges.

Edwards’ attorney in Wisconsin, Jeffery De La Rosa, declined comment on the Ohio investigation.

Edwards wrote an autobiography detailing how he spent the 1950s traveling the country, stealing cars, running scams, robbing gas stations and seducing women. He landed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list in 1961. Police captured him in Atlanta 1962.

After a stint in federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan., he gave speeches discouraging others from becoming criminals.

Bevan Walsh said Edwards got married in the late 1960s and his family moved every few years, spending time in Florida, Arizona, Colorado, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, Oklahoma and Kentucky.