David Meirhofer

David Gail Meirhofer (June 8, 1949 – September 29, 1974) was an American serial killer who confessed to four murders in rural Montana between 1967 and 1974—three of which were of children. Meirhofer killed himself shortly after confessing, and was never tried in court. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to the small town of Manhattan, where David would spend his childhood and adolescence. He attended the local Manhattan High School where, due to his melancholic temperament and introverted nature, he was considered an outcast and periodically bullied by other students.

After graduating in 1967, Meirhofer worked several odd jobs before being drafted into the Army in the fall of 1968. He enlisted in the Marine Corps on October 1, spending the next few months training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego as part of the Signal Corps. After completing his basic training, he was sent to MCAS Cherry Point, before being dispatched to fight in the Vietnam War in 1969, serving in the 5th Communications Battalion. Three days later, a man called one of the FBI's regional offices in Denver, Colorado, claiming that he had kidnapped the girl and demanding $25,000 in ransom. On July 2, the Gallatin County Sheriff's deputy Ron Brown received a similar call. This time, the kidnapper demanded $50,000 and, to back up his claims, he described Jaeger's appearance, pointing out that she had a unique fingernail on one index finger, which was later confirmed by her relatives. During the phone call, Marietta referred to Meirhofer by his name, to which he did not respond.

While Meirhofer was detained at the Gallatin County Jail in Bozeman, authorities began a search of his house and the interior of his car. Searchers found bloodied women's clothing, washed-out blood stains, and a human hand and several fingers, the latter of which Meirhofer had kept in the refrigerator.

Confessions and suicide Upon learning of these findings, on September 29, Meirhofer confessed to two crimes. He admitted to abducting and killing Susan Jaeger, as well as 19-year-old Sandra Dykman Smallegan, who had gone missing on February 10 of that year from a basketball game in Manhattan. One was the death of 13-year-old Bernard L. Poelman, shot to death on a bridge in Three Forks on March 19, 1967, while swimming with a friend. Police had initially ascribed the Poelman incident to an accidental shooting or ricochet from hunters or target shooters. Interrogators suspected Meirhofer may have committed more than four murders, but confessed only to those in Gallatin County due to the plea deal with county prosecutors. Jailers had not been informed Meirhofer was a murder suspect and he was not put on suicide watch.

Meirhofer's younger brother, Alan Meirhofer, was arrested in 1986 for a string of child rapes near Seattle, Washington. He was convicted in 1988 and released in 2017.

In 2022, author and journalist Ron Franscell wrote ShadowMan: An Elusive Psycho Killer and the Birth of FBI Profiling, about the Meirhofer case and the role played by the FBI's first-ever criminal profile, which had only been a theoretical concept at the Bureau to that point.

Television shows The short-lived ABC docudrama series FBI: The Untold Stories re-enacts Susan Jaeger's kidnapping and the FBI investigation in search of her kidnapper, aired: October 1991.

The police and FBI investigation into the abduction and murder of Susan Jaeger was portrayed in the May 27, 2003, episode of the television docudrama series The FBI Files entitled Dark Woods. In the episode, the name David Meirhofer was changed to David Masterson.

In September 2013, the Investigation Discovery series 20/20 on ID aired The Power of Forgiveness . Marietta Jaeger shares her emotional pain after receiving a call, that lasted an hour, from Meirhofer on the one year anniversary of her daughter's abduction and how the call aided in law enforcement's capture of Meirhofer.