The House of Horrors: Billy Mansfield's Family of Predators

0:00 A six acre property in rural Florida heavily wooded filled with junk, a mobile home in the middle of it. The neighbors drive by, they see something wrong, but they don't say anything. They just look the other way and drive faster. What would you do if you lived next to that? Would you call the police? Would you be scared? Keep that in mind, because what we're talking about today sits right there on that property with a family that nobody wanted to talk to. [Music] Okay, let me tell you about the real Florida where you drive in there's cows and woods, and nothing for 20 miles.

0:58 In the 1970s, Wiki Watchi acres in Spring Hill had about 76 people, and that's in 1970, dropped to 8 by 1980. People lived on six acre plots with mobile homes and junk yards, and they didn't really talk to each other. On one plot, there was a family that nobody ever invited over. The dad was William Mansfield's senior, with history stretching back to the 1940s. In Michigan, he was charged with attempted rape of a 13-year-old girl, and the jury didn't believe her, so they let him go. A year later, he was convicted of armed robbery and sent to prison. He got out, but then he was back in Reno, Nevada, violating parole on new rape charges, and he went back in.

1:40 This man moves his family to Florida in 1974 with his wife Virginia and his six sons. The oldest is William, Jr., 19, born in 1955 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The property there is heavily wooded with junk and debris and a mobile home right there in the middle. They run an air conditioning repair business together, so they're always on the property, always cloistered together. Neighbors would later tell you that William's senior encouraged his sons to fight each other, chasing one boy down the street with a two by four screaming he was going to kill him. Billy grows up where violence is normal, and it's just the texture of his home. Where in your home you might be used to eating Sunday dinners with a family, Billy was used to maybe getting punched in the face for eating the last bowl of Cheerios.

2:29 Billy drops out at 14, forges his birth certificate, and enlists in the army to escape the compound, but he develops alcohol addiction and drug dependency, getting sent to Veterans Administration Hospital in Tampa for treatment in 1978, and then again in 1980. The military and VA sent him back without fixing what's underneath, which is the pattern with his family. And I mean you can't expect the army to fix his family. But before the murders, there is a pattern. At 18, Billy gets arrested in Michigan and charged with kidnapping two women and forcing sexual acts. But the jury doesn't convict because they can't believe one man could force two women.

3:10 In 1977, at 22, he pleads guilty to sexual misconduct against a babysitter in Grand Rapids and gets six months in jail and three months probation. But within a year, he assaults two teenage girls at knife point, and it goes back to prison. In there, he shares a cell with Albert Lee III, who tells him he murdered an 11 year old girl named Linda Vanderving. So Billy testifies against Lee for a reduced sentence, and he gets out after only one year. Back in Wiki Watch, in early 1980, which makes you realize the system was not set up to protect people. In 1975, Billy marries Phyllis Speelmaker, and they have two kids together.

3:51 She says he's easy going when he's sober, but violent when he's drunk. Also she says that he's a closeted bisexual. He brings men home from gay bars and has sex with them in front of her. On one occasion, he discusses a murder with her. And they divorce in 1979, so she takes the kids back to Grand Rapids because she knows what he was and she got out. New Year's Eve, 1975, and 15 year old Elaine Zeagler from Parkman, Ohio is on vacation with her mother and her stepfather at a co-acampground near Brooksville, Florida. On December 31, she goes to the camp showers and is never seen again.

4:31 Search parties form immediately. People say they saw a girl matching her description riding on a motorbike, claiming that she's heading back to Ohio. While others saw Elaine talking to a man in his 20s near the shower and then getting into his car, a light blue Ford with Florida plates. Her family stays in additional week to search, but they eventually go back to Ohio without her. Elaine gets classified as a runaway, a 15 year old girl vanishes from a campground at night, which was everywhere in the 1970s when young women disappear and police think that they chose to leave. This was happening pretty often. They're giving perpetrators time to escape and six years pass without anyone finding her.

5:14 March 1980, an 18 year old named Carol Ann Barrett from Zanesville, Ohio is on spring break with seven friends at the Treasure Island Motel and Daytona Beach Shores. A March 23rd at 2am, a lone gunman bursts into room 12, forcing everyone at gunpoint to undress and robs them, then saying he'll kill anyone who calls the police. When he grabs one of Carol's friends as a hostage, Carol offers herself instead because she's trying to calm him down and also trying to save her friend. He drives her over 90 miles to Jacksonville and her body's found next day in a ditch along interstate 95 near Pecan Park Road.

5:55 A marked execution style with no signs of a struggle. For 40 years, the only evidence is a police sketch from her friend's memories and the case goes cold. April 26th, 1980, and 21-year-old Sandra Graham from Tampa is a divorcee working at a Hillsboro Community College. She's last seen at Pam's liquor lounge on April 27th leaving with a biker. She leaves behind her cigarettes, her car keys, and her eyeglasses. Her body gets identified one year later from beneath the man's filled property and the cause of death is strangulation. May 16th, 1980, and 17-year-old Teresa Phillingerim from Tampa disappears one week before her birthday when her sister reports her missing and she doesn't show up for a job interview.

6:40 And she'd remain a Jane Doe for 42 years. June 19th, 1980, an 18-year-old Pamela Cheryl is forced into Billy's van. She's driven to a rented trailer, beaten, bruised in an attempted rape, and she does escape. She reports it immediately. The police go to arrest him, but he's already gone. He's fled to California. So if police had found him in time, the California murders might have never happened. December 6th and December 7th, 1980. Billy and Gary live at a co-acampground in Watsonville, California, working at a mushroom farm. Billy meets Renee Sailing, 29, a mother of three, at a tavern, and witnesses see them leave together.

7:22 The next morning, her half-naked bodies found in a drainage ditch where her clothes are torn, and a nylon rope is tied so tightly around her neck it's embedded in her skin. Four days later, a rookie police officer in Nevada pulls over a van with two men giving false names, and he arrests them both because their descriptions match a bulletin on two men wanted for Sailing's murder. At their arraignment in Watsonville, both brothers appear with bags over their heads, and the press starts calling them "the bag brothers." Mid-March 1981, the Hernando County Sheriff's Office gets anonymous tips that bodies are buried on the man's filled property, and armed with a warrant they descend on March 16th.

8:04 Within 24 hours, they find a skeletonized young woman wrapped in a blanket behind the house. With wire wrapped around her neck and wrist, she's never identified. Next later, beneath the water pipes under the house, they find Elaine Ziegler's remains, confirmed by dental records. The search continues, and eventually three more sets are unearthed. Elaine at 15, Sandra at 21, and Teresa at 16 years old. Plus the Jando estimated to be about 22 to 30 at death, and still unidentified to this day. Billy's first California trial for Renee Sailing's murder moves to San Rafael, and the only physical evidence is a fiber from his pants was found on her body.

8:46 So the jury deadlocks. Before retrial, he escapes on October 27th, 1981, aided by fellow inmate Ben Berrigan, when he unchains himself, climbs to a rooftop, and they jump and run. After 11 hours on the run, Billy is found hiding in the bushes at Paradise Park, still wearing his prison uniform. In the second California trial, Gary testifies against his brother, and Billy is convicted of first degree murder, sentenced to 25 years to life. Facing four Florida murder charges and possible death penalty, Billy changes his plead to guilty for all four and receives four concurrent life sentences in Florida. Critically, when pleading guilty to those Florida murders, Mansfield did not name the two unidentified victims, so that silence defines the ongoing investigation for over four decades now.

9:38 Fast forward to October 27th, 2020, Gary Mansfield is still living on the family property. He gets arrested for selling meth to an undercover officer, and deputies also find LSD and Fettinal. As he's being placed in the patrol car, he yells out, claiming there are bodies all over the property. The police get another search warrant, they find additional human remains, and Billy Mansfield III, Billy Jr's son, tells the media that he believes there are many more victims. June 22nd, 2026, the FBI, Hernando County Sheriff's Office, and State prosecutors are actively excavating dry creek ranch in Sunshine Grove near Brooksville, and cadaver dogs alerted investigators.

10:22 The sheriff confirms conversations with Mansfield indicate possible additional remains in Hernando, Pasco, and Pinellas counties. Billy is in his late 60s now. He's in Stockton, California, and he's outlived two of his trial judges, but the case remains open. The fourth Jane Doe is still waiting, and the DNA is in the system with the genealogist working. So somewhere, a family might still be looking for someone they loved, who never came home. That's the part of this story that keeps going, even 46 years later.

11:04 Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder, Bingeable True Crime Stories. Hello. I'm Joe, I'm the host, and here's an email that I can't read, hold on, me, and scroll. Subjects. This made me laugh. Hey, Joe. I'm a co-worker about your podcast the other day, and halfway through explaining a case, I realized I sounded way too enthusiastic about murder. I had to stop and clarify that I just appreciate good storytelling. Anyway, he ended up subscribing, so I guess it worked. Lisa in Peoria, Illinois. Lisa, first of all, thank you for risking being a creepy creeper and sharing the podcast with your co-worker there. But also, I can't remember, I don't live there, obviously, that's going to be evident by the thing I say next, but it's Illinois, right?

11:52 There's an S at the end. I always forget. I don't know why I forget. It's Illinois. You don't say the S. I hope that's right, and I feel really stupid right now, and I apologize. And it's along the same lines as the people when I say Nevada, and it's, what's the other way of saying it? I've forgotten. No, Nevada is not the right way, but that's the way I say it. Nevada, that's it. Every time I tell a story and I say Nevada, someone will email me, at least one person emails me and says, "You said Nevada wrong." It's Nevada. And I realize that, but I just forget every single time. Anyway, Lisa, back to you, ADHD, I'm sorry.

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