The Grisly Crimes Of Alton Coleman And Debra Brown
Bettmann/Getty ImagesAlton Coleman and Debra Brown express little emotion as they are arraigned on Jan. 9, 1985.
The two-month killing spree carried out by Alton Coleman and Debra Brown was so horrendous that the FBI added a special 11th spot on their 10 Most Wanted List for Coleman.
The pair met in 1983, but Coleman’s criminal record started long before then. He had abducted and raped a woman in Illinois in 1973, and he was charged with rape twice more in 1976 and 1980.
Brown was 21 and engaged to another man when she first met Coleman. She had no criminal history, but she was borderline intellectually disabled due to a head injury she’d suffered as a child.
The serial killer couple’s murder spree began on May 29, 1984, when they kidnapped, raped, and strangled nine-year-old Vernita Wheat in Wisconsin. Just a few days later, Coleman and Brown abducted two more young girls, Annie and Tamika Turks, in Indiana. They brutally sexually assaulted the children, resulting in seven-year-old Tamika’s death.
Bettmann/Getty ImagesPortraits of Alton Coleman and Debra Brown for Coleman’s addition to the FBI’s Most Wanted Fugitives list.
The pair then made their way to Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, and back to Indiana, committing a series of robberies, assaults, rapes, and murders. They were ultimately arrested in Evanston, Illinois, on July 20, 1984, after killing at least eight victims.
Alton Coleman was sentenced to death and executed on April 26, 2002. Debra Brown was initially sentenced to death as well, but that was commuted to life in prison, largely due to her low IQ. She remains behind bars today.
