Killer driller
Demented dentist and his stack of bodies
GLENNON ENGLEMAN had family, a respectable position in his St. Louis community, and meaningful work as a dentist.
It wasn’t enough for him, so he became a hunter. Engleman had no interest in lions, rhinos or other such trophies. His prey walked upright on two legs and the prize he sought was cash.
He appeared to take pleasure in the act of murder. “It takes a certain kind of person to be able to kill another human being,” he once told a reporter.
Although physically unappealing, Engleman used a strange sexual power to manipulate women, including his dental assistants, to help him carry out elaborate murder schemes. He threw one of his victims down a well and tossed dynamite after him. He bludgeoned and shot others. He blew another one up with a car bomb.
Engleman was convicted of five killings and admitted to more, but no one knows for sure how many died by his hand. It took more than two decades to get enough for an arrest.
The future killer dentist was born in St. Louis in 1927, one of four children of a railroad clerk and his wife. Despite middling grades in school, Engleman earned a degree in dentistry and set up a practice in a downtrodden St. Louis neighborhood. He often treated his poorest patients for free, wrote Susan Crain Bakos in her book on the case, “Appointment for Murder.”
His first marriage, to student-teacher Ruth Ball, lasted three years. After the divorce, he continued to give her money and they still had sex. She also continued to see him for dental care.
Ruth’s next husband, James Bullock, 27, a clerk who was studying to be an accountant, was also one of Dr. Engleman’s patients. Not long after the wedding, Bullock was shot dead in front of an art museum. That was on Dec. 17, 1958. Police suspected the doctor had some part in it, especially when his ex collected on a $ 64,000 insurance policy. But Engleman had an alibi.
After Bullock’s murder, investigators discovered that his wife had a wild side. Her exploits in local bars were legendary. Circuit Attorney Thomas Eagleton questioned her, then backed off when criticized in the press for his harsh treatment of a grieving widow. No one was ever charged with Bullock’s killing. Five years later, Engleman, now remarried to a librarian, came up with a new get-rich scheme — a drag racing strip. Eric Frey, a young man who recently married one of Engleman’s former girlfriends, became a partner in the business. On Sept. 26, 1963, Frey was helping Engleman with construction at the site. Somehow, Frey and a large amount of dynamite ended up at the bottom of a well that was blown up. The death was ruled accidental. Frey’s widow sunk $16,000 of the $25,000 insurance settlement into the drag strip, which was bankrupt by 1964.
A decade would pass before Engleman had another kill-for-cash scheme. He used his charms on his dental assistant, Carmen Miranda, 24, to persuade her to marry a man she didn’t care much about, Peter Halm. The bridegroom ended up with a bullet in his head. Miranda paid around $10,000 of the $75,000 insurance to her boss.
More money came after the shooting deaths of Arthur and Vernita Gusewelle in 1977 and their son, Ronald, two years later. Ronald’s share of the Gusewelle estate, about a quarter of a million dollars, went to his new wife, Barbara, who also collected on a $190,000 life insurance policy. Before she hooked up with Gusewelle, Barbara had a hot affair with the dentist.
The next victim, Sophie Marie Berrera, had done some work for him in her dental lab, and was threatening to take him to court over $14,500 he owed her. A car bomb in January 1980 put an end to her demands for payment.
Police had been connecting the dots and dollars and were sure that Engleman was behind these killings. They turned to an unlikely snitch, Engleman’s third wife, also named Ruth. He had blabbed about his murders to her in bed, after sex, which she found more than mildly disturbing. Her homicidal hubby was also making noises about getting rid of her. She told police of his descriptions of the murders and agreed to wear a wire so they could capture his boasts on tape.
A month later, Engleman, Miranda, and two male accomplices - Miranda’s brother, Nick, and Robert Handy, were under arrest. Miranda testified against him in his trial for Halm’s murder, which resulted in a guilty verdict and a 50-year sentence. Later, his trial for Berrera’s bombing death got him life.
There was more to come. In an attempt to bargain for leniency, Handy offered police details about the Gusewelle murders, telling them that Engleman and Barbara Boyle, a divorcee, had been lovers long before she even met Gusewelle. The couple targeted him because of his money. Barbara pursued Ronald until she got a ring on her finger and a stake in the family fortune.
Engleman pleaded guilty to the three murders and got three more life sentences. Convicted of her husband’s slaying, Barbara Boyle got 50 years but served less than half that time.
Engleman had developed diabetes before his trial, and complications of his condition killed him in 1999. He lived long enough to see Hollywood hunk Corbin Bernsen make a fine art of portraying a dentist more terrifying even than root canal in three horror films loosely based on the case.