On July 10, 1942 the first of five brutal murders and rapes began with the 20 year old red-haired wife of a man named William Brown. Charles Floyd entered the Brown’s home and strangled his wife to death before brutalizing her body. She was pregnant at the time so police ruled the murder as a double homicide.
Six months later Georgina Green and her happily married daughter were alone in their home when Floyd broke in. He bludgeoned both of them to death. They were both redheads, which helped police understand that the killer had an affinity for red-haired women. On May 15, 1945 the killer struck again. This time his victim was Panta Lou Niles, another red-haired woman.
A local drifter named Henry Owens was arrested for the murders of these four women. Due to his simple mindedness, he was an easy suspect to pin the murders on. He remained in prison until Charles Floyd struck for the fifth and final time on July 1, 1948.
Floyd broke into a home with a mother who was watching her two daughters. He began to force them into sexual acts until a concerned neighbor came to the aid of the women and Floyd ran off. Charles Floyd then broke into Ruth Norton’s home two blocks away and murdered her. Now that there were survivors of an attack, the police had a description that quickly led them to the arrest of Floyd on November 22, 1949.
Floyd was convicted after confessing to the rape and murder of these five red-headed women and the murder of the unborn child. After testing his IQ the judge felt as though Floyd should not be sentenced to death by way of the electric chair, so Floyd was sentenced to life in a mental institution. Floyd would eventually die there due to natural causes.
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