Harold Haulman

Harold David Haulman III (born November 28, 1978) is an American serial killer. Originally convicted for the murder of a fellow countryman in Germany in 1999, he was paroled and returned to the United States, where he murdered at least three women in Michigan and Pennsylvania from 2005 to 2020.

Haulman confessed to all the latter murders and pleaded guilty to all of them, receiving life terms or long sentences for each of them.

Early life and first murder Harold David Haulman III was born in Michigan on November 28, 1978. Very little is known about his early life. In the mid-1990s, his family moved to Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany, where his father was stationed as a civilian technician at the Ramstein Air Base. Haulman got into an argument with his father in the late 1990s, after which his father resigned from the air base, left Germany and moved to Turkey. Following his father's departure, Haulman lived at his girlfriend's house for some time, but was forced to leave when their relationship ended in early 1999.

Left homeless, he lived for several months in the woods between the city and the air base, where he slept in a dugout. For income, Haulman resorted to doing odd jobs and occasional petty thefts. On June 5, 1999, aged 20, he was arrested on a petty theft charge, but surprised investigators when he confessed to killing 21-year-old Joseph Lawrence "Jay" Whitehurst, the son of an Air Force colonel, on May 30. Haulman said that he had met him several times at several bars in Ramstein-Miesenbach, and according to him, they spent the night drinking together at a bar on May 29. On the following morning, the two went to a nearby park and lit a campfire. He then said that an intoxicated Whitehurst started erratically running around and dancing, causing him to strike him on the head with a club. Whitehurst succumbed to his head injury not long after, and his body, which had been covered up with leaves, was found three days later near the air base. At trial, he told the court that he committed the murder because he felt threatened by Whitehurst as he ran and danced around the campfire. Haulman's attorneys petitioned for a forensic psychiatric examination, which found him sane, even though psychiatrists had concluded that he suffered from early symptoms of schizophrenia. In late 1999, Haulman pleaded guilty on all counts and faced ten years imprisonment, the maximum sentence in juvenile courts in Germany. Zweibrucken court showed Haulman leniency because of a 'diminished mental state' (paranoid schizophrenia), sentencing him to six years at a German reform school. He soon found lodging and work as a truck driver, but left Battle Creek in 2009 and began to travel around the country. Between 2009 and 2020, Haulman changed several places of residence, he lived in Pennsylvania, California, Illinois and Maryland. In the 2010s, he married a woman named Ann, but they split up in 2013 because she did not want to participate in his bondage fantasies. From then onwards, Haulman began dating women he met through online dating sites.

Exposure Investigation and first confession On December 27, 2020, Haulman was arrested in Butler Township, Pennsylvania on charges of murdering 26-year-old Erica G. Shultz, who had gone missing on December 4 and whose corpse was discovered in the early morning hours of December 27 in the nearby woods. He was then lodged in the Luzerne County Jail to await trial. According to relatives, Shultz was autistic and susceptible to manipulation, having gone missing after leaving her apartment in Bloomsburg to go to work.

During the investigation, an examination of Shultz and Haulman's cellphone billing data revealed that Haulman was at the murdered girl's apartment on the evening of December 4, after which they went on a trip. The last recorded data on Shultz's phone was registered in Pennsylvania in the early morning hours of December 6, after which it was turned off or destroyed. On December 23, FBI agents contacted and questioned Haulman about the disappearance while installing a GPS tracker on his van without his knowledge. Haulman insisted he had nothing to do with it, and since no body had been found at the time, he was not apprehended.

The day after the interrogation, Haulman disconnected his phones and fled. On December 26, the GPS tracker placed him on the outskirts of Duncannon, where he attempted to commit suicide near some railroad tracks by slashing his wrists with a box cutter. Before he could bleed out, however, he was found by a railroad worker and taken to the Geisinger Holy Spirit Hospital in Camp Hill. After receiving appropriate treatment, Haulman was re-interviewed by the FBI agents and subsequently admitted to killing Shultz.

Ashley Parlier A few days later, Haulman confessed to yet another murder, this one being the June 12, 2005, murder of 21-year-old Ashley Marie Parlier in Battle Creek, Michigan. According to family members, Parlier ran away from home after an argument with her parents and never returned. Supposedly, Parlier had recently found out she was pregnant, but this could not be corroborated. He said that on the day of her murder, he drove Parlier to a remote area of Newton Township, a few miles south of Battle Creek, where he struck her on the head with a log after a short argument. He claimed to have left her body in the woods, but returned two months later to check if it had been found - to his relief, there were only skeletal remains left.

Following his confession, Haulman was extradited to Michigan and attempted to locate Parlier's remains, but was unsuccessful in doing so. Nevertheless, he was indicted by the Calhoun County Prosecutor's Office for her murder. Additionally, he described that killing people was a pleasure that made him feel a way that no drug ever could. At the sentencing, he maintained complete equanimity, expressed no remorse for his actions and refused to address the court. Following his sentencing, he was transferred to Calhoun County, Michigan, to stand trial for Parlier's murder.

Haulman's trial began on December 14, 2022. On February 1, 2023, he pleaded guilty to killing Parlier.