Eric Beishline

Eric John Beishline (born 1965) is an American murderer and suspected serial killer implicated in the murders of three elderly people in Missouri from 1992 to 1993. Beishline, a drug addict, was convicted of one of the murders and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Early life Eric John Beishline was born in 1965 in Hobart, Indiana, the second of three children of an upper-middle-class family. His father Larry worked in medical sales, while his mother Joyce owned several funeral homes. Beishline grew up in Crown Point and later graduated from a private Catholic high school in 1982.

During the mid-to-late 1980s, he began a relationship with a young woman and enrolled in Purdue University; however, he attended only sporadically and spent most of his time doing drugs and drinking alcohol. Hoech refused and eventually started yelling at him to leave, prompting Beishline to pull a gun on her and push her to the ground, threatening to shoot her in the head.

On January 9, 72-year-old Anna Elizabeth Norton disappeared from her home in Troy. Her body was later found on January 15 on a bank of the Missouri River near Columbia. As it was later determined she was suffocated to death, her daughter concluded that she must have trusted her killer, as Norton - who suffered from polio - was wary of strangers.

Arrest and investigation On the same day Norton disappeared, her purse was found in Beishline's car. He was detained, but despite potentially incriminating evidence being found in his possession, he was not immediately charged with Norton's murder. While he was being searched, Beishline became enraged and started trashing the room he was in, leading to an additional charge of resisting arrest. In order to gather more information, the Missouri State Highway Patrol opened a temporary 800 number for citizens to call anonymously if they suspected that they had been defrauded by Beishline or had a recently deceased relative who was known to be in contact with him.

Trials Assault on Evelyn Hoech Beishline's first trial, for the assault on Hoech, concluded in January 1994 after he pleaded guilty to the charges of first-degree assault and burglary. Throughout the initial proceedings, prosecutor Kevin Crane presented the jury with a suitcase containing various items used in the crimes, ranging from Beishline's handgun to printed out maps showing the layout of Troy and Warrenton. Crane argued that the Norton murder was premeditated and warranted the death penalty. On March 9, Beishline was convicted of Norton's murder, with jury having to make a decision to either sentence him to death or to life imprisonment without parole.

Sentencing phase During the sentencing phase, Crane attempted to convince the jury to be in favor of the death sentence by attempting to link Beishline to two other suspicious deaths. The first was that of 86-year-old Irene Miller, from whom Beishline attempted to cash in a stolen check of $5,000 on December 17, 1992. When the bank notified him that they needed Miller's signature, Beishline said that he would go fetch her - fifteen minutes later, he returned claiming that she was not home.

In response to this, multiple members of Beishline's family pleaded with the jury to spare his life, sharing with them instances of his doing good deeds when he was younger, such as saving a young girl from drowning. In the end, Beishline was spared the death penalty and was sentenced to life imprisonment without a chance for parole.