The Pyramid Killer

In December 1980 Emory Dexter Strode, aged 71, and his wife Mary Mabel Strode, aged 72, were living in a small trailer on a gold and silver mining property in the Majuba Mountains, about thirty miles north of Imlay in Pershing County, Nevada. Emory had been born in 1909 and Mary Mabel in 1908, and the family had come from Colorado. Their son Frank lived nearby with his wife Linda. Their daughter Miriam Laura Treadwell, 41, had married William Treadwell in 1969 and had recently moved into the trailer. She was almost blind, had just been fitted with a glass eye and walked with a leg brace. Emory and Miriam both kept diaries.

Frank and Linda had been away for Thanksgiving. On the morning of 2 December 1980 Emory and Miriam made the last entries in their diaries. details of the account remain covered until revealed David Hartshorn, a mining engineer, stopped and offered him a lift. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it He asked whether Hartshorn had seen the pyramid and, when told the mountain was Majuba, became angry and insisted it was Mount Olympus. He asked whether Hartshorn had been firing rockets off Mount Olympus and said that one day a rocket would hit his pyramid and blow him up. Asked where he was from, he spread his arms and said, 'This is my land, I own it all.' this part of the story is covered for now A handwritten sign at the entrance read 'This property is protected by Winchester.' details of the account remain covered until revealed

The family were out. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it The family returned. The pathologist later worked out the order of the attacks from the amount of bleeding. this part of the story is covered for now He struck so hard that two ribs broke and droplets of blood reached the ceiling. details of the account remain covered until revealed Emory was still walking around with the knife in him. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it Mary Mabel had crawled into a corner and was still alive, so he shot her too. Miriam was shot once in the back at close range, with powder burns on the wound, and died immediately. this part of the story is covered for now The watch stopped with its minute hand blown off and its hour hand almost at one o'clock, which gave investigators the time of the killings. At some point he began tying Miriam's wrists with an electrical cord and then stopped. He dragged her body into the pile with the others and covered all three with a blanket. He left $8,000 in cash on the dresser and jewellery untouched.

Ray Horn, a mechanic for a mining outfit, was driving on a country road near Majuba Mountain between 12.30 and 2 p.m. when a dark metallic blue truck came towards him. He thought it was Emory's truck. A slender young man put his hand out of the window and fired a small-calibre pistol at him. The first shot shattered Horn's passenger window. Something hit him in the face and he pulled a hot piece of metal from his beard, the bullet slowed by the window. He threw it down and it fell out of the truck. The blue truck chased him at up to a hundred miles an hour down a dirt road north of Imlay. Earlier the same man had fired at a group of miners driving nearby; they had been working at the Iron Mask Mining District, nine miles west of Majuba Canyon, and were not hurt. details of the account remain covered until revealed Between 3.30 and 4 p.m. Earl L. Smith, a highway maintenance worker, gave him a lift between Denio and Winnemucca. The abandoned blue 1980 Ford pickup with California plates, Emory's truck, was later found near Bellingham, Washington, at the scene of an accident. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

On 3 December Frank and Linda returned from their Thanksgiving trip. Frank went into the trailer, called out and found nobody. In the bedroom he found Emory, Mary Mabel and Miriam under a blanket, covered in blood. Emory had a butcher knife sticking out of his chest, along with gunshot and stab wounds. Mary Mabel had been stabbed in the back and shot in the chest. Miriam's wrists were bound with electrical cord and she had been shot once in the back. Nothing had been ransacked. The police found few clues and no enemies; the family were well liked. Investigators put the killings between noon and two o'clock, probably around one, from the stopped watch.

this part of the story is covered for now A highway patrol trooper named Glass stopped the car. The man refused to give his name, saying, 'God knew me and my parents knew me.' details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it During fingerprinting he wrote on a piece of paper that he belonged to the government. His fingerprints matched items from the Strode trailer: a Diet 7 Up can, a glass jar found under the blanket with the bodies, a plate on the kitchen table, a coffee glass, a sugar container and a non-dairy creamer. He was held on a million dollars bond and refused to waive extradition. this part of the story is covered for now

details of the account remain covered until revealed He had lived in Hollywood for three years with Douglas Morrison Jr, an assistant director on the television series Family, who had paid $1,800 to have his teeth capped. He had taken acting classes and fallen in with a guru who convinced him he was receiving messages from gods, and he had become preoccupied with pyramids and Mount Olympus. He pulled the caps off his own teeth. He left Hollywood saying he was going to visit friends in San Bernardino and ended up in Wells, Nevada, on 1 December. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed The motion was refused, as was sequestration. The prosecution, led by district attorney Richard Wagner, called 24 witnesses and presented 150 to 200 exhibits, including about a hundred items from the murder scene. Ray Horn could not be found in Missouri to be subpoenaed, so his earlier testimony was read into the record over the defence's objection. Douglas Morrison Jr testified first. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now

details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now It found no mitigating circumstances sufficient to outweigh them and imposed death, with ten years for grand theft and twenty years for attempted murder, consecutive.

details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now Frank Strode died on 19 August 1990, aged 52, and is buried in the Winnemucca cemetery with the rest of the family. details of the account remain covered until revealed