Charles Rodman Campbell

 

This case has apparently been on my list for a very long time but I have to say that I do not remember hearing about it, even though it is obvious that I did at some point. In fact, my research stated that Ann Rule wrote a book called A Rose For Her Grave about it although admittedly it was apparently one of her books with several stories in in. When it comes to true crime books in reference to Ann Rule I am a bit in the minority when it comes to her. I admit that it was one of her early books that got me hooked on true crime reading and many of her books and stories are very good. However, I have always felt that as her popularity grew it affected her writing and that rather than give facts of a story she did a lot of interjecting herself and her feelings in her books. There are a few cases that she did where in my opinion she ignores the evidence collected and expressed her own conclusion, one that went against investigators.

It has been said that Charles Campbell is the “poster child” for the death penalty. He was not simply just a narcissist who thought he was smarter than everyone as we often see in murders. He was a man who literally said “The world has created me and I am free to do what I want. There is no right or wrong, or anyone to tell me what to do.” He may have denied committing the murders that ultimately sent him to death row, but he also made no effort to really get away with it and he did not seem to care. His mother was even quoted as saying “It was inevitable. I never believed he was going to end up anywhere but the electric chair.”

On December 11, 1974 Renae Wicklund was washing the windows outside her home in Clearview Washington. A man ran into her house and grabbed her then eight month old daughter, Shannah. The man had a knife in his hand and threatened to kill the baby if Renae did not comply with his requests which included her providing him with oral sex. After the man was done he left the home and Renae called the police. A report was made but it would be almost two years before Charles Campbell would be caught and identified in a lineup.

Charles Campbell went on trial for the attack on Renae. At the trial not only did Renae testify but so did her friend and neighbor, Barbara Hendrickson. There is not a lot of information about what occurred at the trial or what the evidence was because in the end, despite the violence involved, the rape and attack on Renae was one of the least offensive things Charles Campbell would do in his life. It is unclear whether his sentence for first degree rape was thirty or forty years.

The attack had taken a toll on Renae and her marriage. She and her husband, Jack would ended up getting divorced but Jack had his own weird story going on. In December of 1977 Jack “was found tied to a chair in his West Seattle home.” He told investigators that a stranger had come into his home, tied him up, doused him with gasoline and then set him on fire. He was left with that was described a “massive third degree burns” on his body. Less than six months later Jack's car crashed into a tree and he died. There were notations made that the police were never able to determine whether his death was an accident, murder or suicide.

In the meantime Renae concentrated on raising her daughter Shannah. She began an accounting business out of her home and she did the finances for a beauty school nearby. Life seemed to be moving on. But, what no one knew was that in 1981 Charles Campbell had been released from prison after serving just over six years to a halfway house and was on work release meaning he basically came and went as he pleased. His release would bring much controversy for several reasons. First, and the biggest thing was that his victim was not notified of his release. It was said that this ended up changing laws in Washington but to be fair I found nothing to prove this. Secondly, the parole board had released him due to “good behavior” but an investigation was later done that determined the parole board had been lied to. I will touch on these issues a bit later.

On April 14, 1982 Renae Wicklund, now thirty-one, had been sick and resting in bed. Around 4:20 that evening her friend and neighbor, Barbara Hendrickson had gone over to Renae's home to check on her and to help eight year old Shannah make some Jell-O. At around 6:30 Barbara's husband, Don, walked down to Renae's house because he had not heard from his wife in a few hours and she seemed to be gone longer than expected. When he got to Renae's house he noticed the door open and went inside. What he found was something you only hear about in horror stories.

Don Hendrickson would find the inside of the home in disarray, with furniture tipped over. In the hallway he would find the body of his wife, Barbara with her throat slashed. He walked into Renae's room and found both Renae and her daughter. They were both dead also with their throats cut. Don immediately called the police and the investigation began.

Charles Campbell did not come on the radar right away simply because he was out of prison and at a nearby half-way house. As investigators would later say he did nothing to attempt to hide the fact that he was involved. First, neighbors saw him in the area that morning. One neighbor saw a man described and later identified to be Campbell “sneaking” around Renae's yard with a knife and another saw him going towards the house with a “large blanket roll.” There was even a bloody fingerprint found on a drinking glass at the scene that was identified as belonging to Campbell. Investigators were able to find much, much more that connected Campbell to the murders. First however, lets talk about what was done to the victims.

Investigators would come to believe that Renae was the first to be attacked. She was found in her bed, naked and severely beaten. She had been strangled, raped with a “blunt instrument,” and her throat slit. She was covered in bruises and had a broken nose, jaw and ribs. It was believed that Shannah was attacked when she came home from school in the dining room and drug to her mother's room. She had been choked and her throat was cut so deep that she was nearly decapitated. Her earrings had been taken forcibly removed to the point in which one of her earlobes were torn. It was believed that Barbara came into the home after both Renae and Shannah had been murdered and she too was attacked. It was also believed that the overturned furniture came from when Barbara was attacked and that she had fought to get away. It seems apparent that she too was first attacked in the dining room and then later drug into the hallway. Her throat too had been cut. Aside from earrings taken from Shannah it is unclear if investigators knew right away that other things had been taken from the home but apparently it did not take them long to find out.

On April 19^th, five days after the murders Charles Campbell was arrested and charged with three counts of first degree murder and second degree theft. When he was taken into custody he had a pair of earrings belonging to Renae in the pocket of his pants. His car was searched and dried blood was found on the door handle and one of Shannah's earrings were found in the backseat. Investigators learned that within just a few hours of the murder Campbell had attempted to sell some of Renae's jewelry.

Charles Campbell went on trial in November of 1982 and prosecutors were seeking the death penalty. Campbell was not cooperative. I found a notation that during jury selection he requested not to be present. The judge severely questioned him, making sure he knew his rights and I am sure trying to make sure his decision could not use this in an appeal later. It was unclear whether this was also attempted at his trial. Prosecutors would tell the jury that this was a “revenge killing.” They would hear about the 1974 attack and 1976 conviction; they would hear from the neighbors who saw him around the house the morning of the murders; they would hear about the blood and other forensic evidence. They would also hear from a woman named Judy Dirks.

Judy Dirks was Campbells girlfriend in 1982. She testified that on the morning of the murders he had showed up at her house already drinking and continued to drink another six pack of beer before he left. The following day Dirks noticed that one of her kitchen knives were missing. Dirks told the court that upon his release from prison she knew for a fact that Campbell had driven past Renae's home. While Campbell did not testify in his own defense he did something unusual, he cross-examined Dirks himself. He got her to admit that he had never expressed to Dirks a desire to harm Renae.

There was also apparently evidence presented by Campbell's ex-wife. She had claimed that on December 25, 1981 and on two other occasions after his release from prison that Campbell had come to her home and raped her. She reported it to the police but they claimed there was insufficient evidence and did not do anything. Speaking of being raped. Prosecutors believed that before Campbell murdered Renae he had raped her but because the coroner could not determine if she was sexually assaulted before or after death, and apparently the defense objected to the prosecutors position, the jury was told to disregard that allegation. It was said that after the trial Campbell's ex-wife sued the state of Washington for allowing him to go free on work release and raping her. It is unclear the outcome of this lawsuit.

It is unclear whether the jury was made aware of the following but it is notable to mention at any rate. A condition of his parole from the 1976 attack was that he attend rape counseling. In the end Campbell ended up having a relationship with the counselor. She even became pregnant and ultimately gave birth to his second child.

After the prosecution rested their case the defense called no witnesses and they too rested. It appears that their entire strategy was to argue that investigators solely focused on Campbell and did not look for anyone else or follow any other leads. In my opinion due to all of the evidence that was presented this argument was not only moot, it was ridiculous. So it is no surprise that the jury found Campbell guilty on all counts. On December 17, 1984 Charles Rodman Campbell was sentenced to death.

Over the next decade Campbell proceeded to lose all of his appeals but there were also several other investigations and lawsuits in that time. As I mentioned earlier his ex-wife filed a lawsuit. So too did Renae's mother and Don Hendrickson. The argument was not only that Campbell had been released after serving such a small amount of time, but also that his victims had not been notified of such. As with the case of his ex-wife, I was unable to determine what happened with the case Renae's mother filed on behalf of her daughter and granddaughter. The state however agreed to pay Don Hendrickson $950,000 in his lawsuit.

In 1985 a report was released about an investigation that had been done at Monroe Reformatory, where Campbell had spent his time after his conviction for the attack on Renae in 1974. It was found that an inmate counselor by the name of Roger Button had accepted “sexual favors” from inmates to “cover up their prison infractions. In addition to that it appears that Button used those inmates to help “beat up” other inmates that he did not like, collect debts owed or to protect other inmates that Button did like. It was said that Campbell was one of those inmates who had been on Button's good side. To be fair Button denied all of this and I am unsure whatever came from the report. However, the parole board would later say that it is because of this information that they were not aware of issues Campbell had while inside the prison and because of this they had granted him parole. Whether this is all true or not is left up to speculation I suppose. I cannot say that the parole board did or did not know about Campbell's behavior in prison, which later was reported to horrible, and his later behavior would re-enforce this, but the report released in 1985 after the outrage of his release and subsequent crimes would have been a good “out” for the parole board. Whether someone is a criminal or not, the idea of passing the buck and blaming others for actions is nothing new, especially in the prison system.

In the state of Washington, at least at the time of Campbell's conviction and subsequent execution, inmates were given a choice between lethal injection or hanging. If they did not choose then the choice was made for them and it would be hanging. Campbell refused to choose. Throughout his prison time he was apparently feared by all of those around him including guards and inmates. At some point the governor at the time, Booth Gardner had visited and when he “peered into” Campbell's cell he spit on him. He was always defiant it seems, right up to the end. A prison psychologist said that Campbell had “a near- total lack of empathy to other human beings and felt that it was his right to live life and act however he pleased.”

Prior to his May 27, 1994 date of execution the current governor at the time, Mike Lowry, was in office and known to be an opponent to the death penalty. Even he refused to commute his sentence after he heard the details of the crime saying essentially he saw no redeeming qualities in Campbell. When it was time to go to his execution Campbell “refused to cooperate” and refused to even get off the floor of his cell. He was pepper sprayed before he could be removed. Once at the site of the execution, he had to be tied to a board, which is unusual, when he once again refused to stand. As they attempted to place the cloak and the nook on his head he kept moving his head making it difficult to place them. Finally it was done and once the hanging took place he was declared dead after about two minutes.

After his execution his cell was cleaned out and a four inch metal piece sharpened into a knife was found in his cell. It seems to me that many people were lucky that he had not used that on anyone.