Texas

Faryion Wardrip

Basic Facts

Full name: Faryion Edward Wardrip

Lived: March 6th, 1959 – Present day.

Date Apprehended: May 9th, 1986 and 5th November 1999.

Victims: 5

Criminal Penalty: In 1986, 35 years with the possibility of parole and in 1999, the death penalty and 3 life sentences without the chance of parole.

Wardrip chose his victims very specifically. All of them were female, white and aged between 20 and 25. They were also all under 5 and a half ft tall. Wardrip assaulted and murdered a total of 5 women across three jurisdictions in Texas which resulted in a slow investigation and Wardrip evading punishment for his crimes for 15 years.

Wardrip’s childhood was described as ‘ordinary’ and at 19-years-old, he joined the United States National Guard. After serving there for 6 years, Wardrip was released under a ‘less-than-honourable’ discharge due to disorderly conduct, smoking marijuana and multiple absences without leave (AWOL). During his time in military service, Wardrip was not once deployed into combat duty.

In March 1983, Wardrip married his first wife at 24 years old. Together, they had two children. Due to his drug and alcohol abuse, Wardrip struggled to hold down a job, going in and out of employment until he found work as a janitor in a hospital. After just 2 years, Wardrip’s wife left him, taking the children with her. She filed for divorce which was granted in 1986.

In the early hours of December 21st, 1984, a young woman was staying at a friend’s apartment when she heard a disturbance outside. When the woman went outside to investigate, she found Wardrip who was “shouting at the sky”. When he saw the woman, he lunged towards her though she ran back inside the apartment she was staying at. When later questioned about the woman, Wardrip admitted her targeted her for “no apparent reason”. Standing 6 ft 6 inches tall, Wardrip broke the door down and grabbed the woman. He then stabbed her, 8 times in the chest, 3 times in her back and stabbed her once in the upper arm. The next morning, the owner of the apartment returned home and knocked on the door for her friend to let her in, however there was no answer. She went to her landlord to let her in and when they entered, they found the living room completely ransacked and the woman who was staying the night laying in her own blood on the bathroom floor. When police officers arrived, they found the victim had cuts on her hands and fingers suggesting she tried to fight off her attacker. Her hands were bound with an electrical cord because of her resistance. Officers also found semen and a fingerprint on the victim’s shoe which they preserved and over a decade later, was used to identify Wardrip as the killer.

Wardrip committed his next murder on January 19th, 1985 – a nurse at the hospital Wardrip worked at had gone missing. Two days after she had disappeared her car was found within a few miles of the hospital. It was only then on February 15th that her naked body was found in a field. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed a total of 8 times. Police officers found an abandoned bus near to where they had found the body. They came to the conclusion that this was where the murder had taken place, finding the nurse’s clothes there. It was discovered that the victim had initially survived the assault and managed to crawl 100 feet before she had died. Four days after the body had been found by authorities, Wardrip quit his job at the hospital.

Two months after the murder of the nurse, Wardrip met a 25-year-old woman in a bar and asked her to dance. They spent the evening together in the bar, drinking and dancing until Wardrip offered to drive her home. When he tried to make advances upon her in his car, she quickly rejected him so Wardrip killed her. He left her body at a construction site nearby and was discovered by 2 workers five days after her body was left there. The woman’s husband who she was about to separate from was believed to be the culprit. The husband later admitted it “destroyed his life”.

On September 20th, 1985 Wardrip abducted a 21-year-old who was walking to her car after leaving work where she worked as a waitress. He forced the woman into her car and made her drive them to a secluded area where it was assumed, he strangled her to death. He left her body in the secluded area and drove her car back to where he had originally found her. When police found her car, they discovered her blood inside along with her purse. Her body was found almost a month later and was in a “very advanced state of decomposition” to the point where she could only be identified by comparing dental records. The police also believed there was a chance that she could have been sexually assaulted as her underwear had been pulled down but due to the condition her body was in, the police investigation resulted inconclusive.

May 6th, 1986 was Wardrip’s last known murder. He killed his friend who was 21-years-old and worked as a waitress. He had gone over to her apartment and had suffocated her with a pillow because she “reminded him of his ex-wife”. However, neighbours had seen a white man, over 6 ft tall who was wearing a baseball cap leaving the apartment that day. Three days later on May 9th, Wardrip phoned the police threatening to commit suicide. When the police arrived at the scene, he confessed to killing his friend 3 days prior with a pillow. He was sentence for her death 35 years in prison. Of these 35 years, Wardrip only served 11 before being released on parole on December 11th, 1997.

In 1999, a new detective was handed the cold cases of 3 of Wardrip’s victims. He began to investigate and believed that all three murders were linked. The possibility of the murders being linked had never been investigated before due to the murders happening in 3 separate jurisdictions with a different local police force handling each of the murders. The officer’s investigation revealed a link between the murders. Wardrip had mentioned the waitresses name who had been found partly decomposed when he was on trial. He also used to work at the same hospital the nurse worked at and lived just a block away from the first victim. For the officer to test his theory, he needed Wardrip’s DNA to test with the semen they had found at one of the crime scenes. He followed Wardrip to work where he now worked at a factory. On Wardrip’s lunch break, he had drunk from a coffee cup which he had disposed of before going back to work. The officer picked it up and sent it for DNA comparison. It was a match, so Wardrip was arrested.

Initially, when questioned about the murders, Wardrip denied even knowing the victims. However, 3 days later he confessed to all three murders, along with a forth they didn’t think were linked – the woman who was found at the construction site.

In November 1999 Wardrip was sentenced to death for his first victim and 3 life sentences for the other murders he committed. In 2008, a federal magistrate recommended that the death penalty should be overturned due to the fact that Wardrip received ineffective defence during his trail.

Wardrip still remains on death row though the case has been sent back to the U.S. District Court for reconsideration.