Bio

Gary Addison Taylor was born in 1936 in Michigan. He spent his early childhood in Florida. As a teenager, he began to show violent behavior. His first known attack occurred in his late teens when he assaulted a woman who had just gotten off a bus in St. Petersburg, Florida. He was charged but found not guilty by a jury.

At the age of 21, Taylor's violent actions escalated. While in Detroit, he drove through neighborhoods shooting at women, which earned him the nickname "the phantom sniper" in local newspapers. He wounded two women during these attacks. Due to his actions, he was declared insane and sent to Ionia State Hospital for treatment. He spent three years there before being transferred to another psychiatric facility, Lafayette Clinic in Detroit.

While at the psychiatric hospitals, Taylor often exhibited dangerous behavior. He received passes to attend classes but took advantage of these freedoms. He attacked a woman in her own home during one such pass, sexually assaulting and robbing her. In the following year, he threatened another woman with a large knife while he was out on a pass. Instead of facing trial for these offenses, he was returned to Ionia.

In 1972, Taylor was released from the Michigan Center for Forensic Psychiatry. Because of the laws at that time, individuals found insane were not able to be kept indefinitely in mental institutions. Taylor was seen as manageable as long as he took his medication and avoided alcohol. Soon after his release, he married and lived with his wife, Helen, in Onsted, Michigan.

After separating from his wife, Taylor moved to Houston, Texas. His violent behavior continued to escalate, leading to serious charges against him.

Murder Story

Gary Addison Taylor, also known as the "Royal Oak Sniper," was involved in a series of violent crimes against women between 1972 and 1975. He is suspected of having killed four to twenty women across several states, including Michigan, Texas, and Washington.

His first known murders took place in Michigan. Two of his victims were 25-year-old Lee Fletcher and 23-year-old Deborah Heneman, who he buried in his backyard in Onsted, Michigan. After committing these murders, he moved to the Seattle area in Washington. There, on November 27, he abducted and murdered a young housewife named Vonnie Stuth.

Authorities later traced him to Enumclaw, Washington. They interrogated him about the murder of Stuth, but because they were unaware of his past as a fugitive, they did not arrest him at that time. He managed to leave Washington and traveled to Texas.

On May 20, 1975, Taylor was arrested in Houston on charges of sexual assault. During the investigation, he confessed to the murders of Leslie Fletcher and Deborah Heneman in Michigan, as well as the murder of 21-year-old Susan Jackson in Houston and Vonnie Stuth in Washington.

The investigation revealed the bodies of Fletcher and Heneman buried in Michigan, as well as Jackson and Stuth's bodies nearby in their respective locations. Taylor faced multiple murder counts and was convicted on four charges. In April 1976, he received a life sentence in prison for these crimes. Throughout his criminal career, he left a trail of violence that led to suspicions of involvement in many other unsolved homicides in various states.