Posted on 12/08/2002 10:02:57 AM PST by Arkinsaw
Police have confirmed they are checking to see if David L. Fuller, 47, the man who apparently kidnapped and killed a Faulkner County girl, may have done the same thing to other children.
Kacie Rene Woody, of the Holland area northeast of Conway, and Fuller were found dead Wednesday night in a storage unit nearly 24 hours after the girl vanished from her home.
"We can't help but believe the possibility is strong that he did this on other occasions É considering the amount of time and planning that went into this crime," said Major Mark Elsinger of the Conway Police Department.
He believes there have been some investigations into a possible link with a case in Utah, and while he has heard it is the Elizabeth Smart case, he could not confirm that.
Elizabeth Smart, 14, was kidnapped at gunpoint from her bedroom in her Salt Lake City home June 5. She has not been found.
"It may be that the Smart case came up because the crimes were similar and because he has some kind of criminal arrest in Salt Lake City but I don't know if the timing even makes it possible," Elsinger said. "There have been children abducted all over the country, it could be the Smart case has been mentioned because it's the hot story that came up in people's minds."
He added that local police have nothing concrete to prove or suggest Fuller committed the Smart kidnapping or other such crimes.
"We have not had any contact with Salt Lake City officials. With the Smart case or any case, local authorities are more than willing to assist if they think this individual could have been involved," Elsinger said.
He points out from what has been learned about Fuller, "he is obviously capable" of committing heinous crimes and the planning and methodology used by Fuller makes it hard for police to believe this was his first time to carry out such actions.
"This was not a crime of opportunity É there was very extensive planning and (suggestions) of a familiarity with the process," Elsinger said.
Police believe Kacie met Fuller on the Internet at least a month ago. At some point they also talked over the phone, Elsinger said, as the Woody's phone records show a cell phone number that has been linked to Fuller.
Investigations have also revealed that Fuller gave Kacie a false name, David Fagan, and told the girl he was 17 or 18 years old and lived in California.
Fuller was from the San Diego area, and California officials say he recently went through a bitter divorce, was the father of a son and daughter and had been ordered to attend anger management classes. He had also been arrested on some kind of domestic battery charge, according to police.
After Kacie was reported missing by her father about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, police followed "a hunch" and looked into a possible Internet connection. They found the name David Fuller and began looking at local motels.
Police found a vehicle with California plates that was registered to Fuller at Motel 6, where Fuller had checked in the previous Monday.
"Things didn't look right or feel right," Elsinger said. "Again on a hunch, we looked into local car rental places," and they discovered Fuller had rented a 2002 Dodge Caravan.
Through all of this, police got a cell phone number and a credit card number, both of which pointed to Fuller, according to Elsinger. The credit card then pointed police in the direction of West Conway Mini Storage on Prince Street, where Fuller had rented a storage unit in the middle of November.
Not knowing what, if anything, they would find there, Sgt. Jim Barrett and others went to the storage unit, lifted the unlocked door and found the van where Kacie would later be found bound, and shot in the head.
Also inside the storage unit was Fuller, who fired one shot into his own head.
Police never fired a shot, and authorities believe Kacie had been dead several hours by the time Metro SWAT Team officers entered the storage unit about 8 p.m. Wednesday.
Elsinger commended Barrett, all the detectives and the officers who worked the case. While Fuller was "very smooth and methodical" in the crime, "a lot of good detective work and some sheer luck" solved the case even if the outcome was not what police had hoped for.
Serial criminals often commit many crimes before being discovered, and while Elsinger cannot say whether or not Fuller is a serial murderer "we do know he'll never commit another crime again."
sw
You could just about write a script for how he might have gone to Utah, abducted Elizabeth in a car not his own, deposit her body in a mini storage, and return the car back to the lot to be sold. Keep in mind, that he made a trip to Arkansas in November to RENT a mini storage unit and on this trip used a car he rented from Enterprise to carry out the crime. Planned well in advance...the monster.
JMHO...sw
BTW, didn't she disappear in the summer? It seems unlikely that the odor of a decaying body locked in a ministorage in the summer heat wouldn't be noticed.
LC, it wouldn't be the first time a "body" had been found sealed up in a chest or another such container in a rented mini-storage, with no detectable odor before the discovery.
A case where a woman killed her husband and sealed him in a chest for 2 years, comes to mind. She "forgot" to make the payment, and called the mini-storage, but alas the unit had just been auctioned off. They arrested her.
sw
I remain convinced that if her father did NOT do it, some man who had actual previous criminal child molesting activity then DID do it.
Not a respectable middle-aged, upper middle class father of two grown children who had no criminal record but may [being divorced] have looked at porn occasionally.
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