Roy Melanson

Roy Allan Melanson (February 13, 1937 – May 22, 2020) was an American serial killer and rapist, conclusively linked to three murders and numerous rapes in three states, and remains the prime suspect in at least two other murders. Melanson was convicted of two 1974 murders, for which he received two life sentences, and died in May 2020 at the Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility, in Cañon City, Colorado.

Early life and crimes Hailing from Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, Melanson was a drifter and con artist who spent a majority of his life in various prisons. Some of his earliest offenses include burglaries and rapes in Orange and Jefferson County, Texas, for the latter of which he was given 12 years imprisonment, but served only half of it. He allegedly killed an inmate while imprisoned in Texas. In 1975, he was extradited for a rape trial, which landed him a life sentence. However, it was reduced, and he was released in March 1988, a few months before the murder of one suspected victim.

Murders Anita Andrews A one-time county fair beauty queen, 51-year-old Anita Andrews was a single mother working two jobs, one at the Napa State Hospital and the other being at the family bar named "Fagiani's Cocktail Lounge", inherited by both Andrews and her sister Muriel from their father. She was last seen alive on July 10, 1974, tending to the bar, which was near closing hours, as one stranger was still hanging around the premises.

The following morning, Muriel found her sister's body in a pool of blood on the floor. Anita Andrews had been raped, her clothes ripped through, stabbed 13 times with a screwdriver, in addition to having her throat slashed. In 2008, Wesley pleaded guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. That same year Sterling was convicted of first degree murder and was given a life sentence.

Pauline Klumpp A suspected victim of Melanson, 51-year-old Pauline Klumpp was renting a home to Melanson, his ex-wife and her new boyfriend in the Port Acres area of Port Arthur, Texas. One day in 1988, she asked Melanson for help with her air conditioner, as well as to pick up a TV from the trio. The two were last seen together, but Klumpp mysteriously vanished after that.

Trial and imprisonment Melanson was arrested in Kentucky in January 1992, on unrelated charges of burglary. In August of that year, after Michele Wallace's remains were located, Melanson was transported to Colorado to stand trial for the murder. Melanson was found to be in possession of her car and other items, including her camera, which showed him posing with a yet-unidentified teenager. In September 1993, he was brought to trial, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for her murder, based on hair evidence collected from her scalp. It was not until 2000, when a newly enacted federal law obliged him to submit his DNA for testing, when authorities got a chance to solve the other murders.

DNA evidence connected him to the murders of both Andrews and Sauerwin in 2010, but he was tried only for the murder of Andrews in 2011, receiving another life imprisonment term. Since then, law enforcement agencies around the country started reviewing their cold cases, with the hope that they could connect Melanson to any further crimes. Melanson was uncooperative with police and repeatedly tried to apply for parole before the Colorado Supreme Court, without success.

Melanson died on May 22, 2020, while serving his sentence. His death was not announced until 2021 when the Napa District Attorney's Office called the prison to check on him.