Eric was supervising one of the abandoned cisterns on his property when he received a severe blow to the back of the head. Still half unconscious, the man felt himself being dragged by his legs until he was placed next to a well. Seconds later, the venue suffered a huge explosion and Eric died instantly.
Days later, the deceased’s partner, a renowned dentist, received a significant sum of money from his partner’s widow, whom he had deceived with his lovemaking skills. What no one suspected was that the dentist was actually responsible for the explosion and, therefore, for Eric’s murder. It wouldn’t be his last crime. From then on, he would lead a double life until he became an unscrupulous hitman.
Glennon Edward Engleman, whom everyone called Glen, was born on February 6, 1927 in Saint Louis (United States). There is no data about his childhood and adolescent years, and the only reliable information about our protagonist is found in his adult years when he served in the army and, more specifically, in the United States Air Corps.
Years later, he left the armed forces to study dentistry at the University of Washington thanks to the GI Bill, known as the Military Readjustment Act, which provided a series of benefits to war veterans. After graduating in 1954, Glen began working in a St. Louis practice and married Edna Ruth. However, the marriage only lasted two years.
In fact, it was in the wake of their divorce that Glen devised a Machiavellian plan: to kill Ruth’s new husband, James Bullock. There was only one compelling reason for it, money. Greed made the dentist trick her ex-wife, with whom he still had sporadic sexual relations, into giving him the money from the life insurance policies for an amount of $64,088. That would help him refloat her query.
Ruth, devastated by James’ death, did not hesitate to help her ex-husband. But what she didn’t know is that she, the one who had shot James that December 17, 1958, was, in truth, Glen himself. In fact, investigators questioned both, but found no incriminating evidence.
Glen committed the second murder on September 26, 1963, and this time the victim was his partner Eric Frey, with whom he had purchased a racetrack. That morning, Glen hit Eric with a rock and blew up the property with dynamite. The coroner ruled the death accidental and the widow, Sandy, collected life insurance.
Of course, once again the dentist used his trickster power to obtain part of those profits. Sandy fell into Glen’s arms and did not hesitate to invest in the dental practice. Then Carmen Miranda, a young woman he hired as an assistant, came into her life. The woman, married to Peter Halm, told him in confidence that her husband had life insurance worth $60,000.
The plan to conquer Carmen Miranda and get Peter out of the way didn’t take long to arrive. Greed got the better of him. In 1976, Glen took advantage of the fact that the couple was walking through a rural area to hide in some bushes and shoot her husband. The shot was accurate and hit her head. Subsequent investigations concluded that, since it was a hunting area, it could have been accidental and the case was closed.
Meanwhile, Carmen Miranda collected the insurance money, invested part of it in her former boss’s office and, later, remarried him. However, the dentist also had extramarital relationships with other patients, such as Bárbara Boyle, a future millionaire.
On November 3, 1977, Glen killed Arthur and Vernita Gusewelle, Barbara’s in-laws, on their farm in Edwardsville, Illinois. The dentist beat the woman to death and shot the man. After the Gusewelles died, their only son Ronald received $340,000.
Two years later, Bárbara’s husband died under strange circumstances: his body appeared inside a vehicle with obvious signs of violence. He had blows of varying degrees, in addition to several gunshots. It was April 4, 1979.
With Ronald’s death, his widow received the current equivalent of $1,700,000, and at her side, Glen, the famous dentist and lover, could not be missing. At this point, the authorities began to realize that there had been too many enigmatic deaths around our protagonist. But there was no thread to pull. Until the murderer killed the owner of his practice, Sophie Barrera.
The owner had sued him for non-payment of $14,000 and he had to appear before the judge. But a few days before her hearing, on January 14, 1980, Sophie was murdered: her car exploded when a bomb was placed in the undercarriage of the vehicle. The first suspect was Glen. Before she died, Sophie had confessed to her son that she feared her tenant would kill her.
After an interrogation of more than three hours, Glen was released. There was no way to prove his guilt in the attack, only that the dentist was a defaulter. So, the researchers made a key decision: talk to the dentist’s first wife.Â
Ruth was initially reluctant, but eventually explained her ex-partner’s lack of scruples and the possibility that he had killed several people. According to the woman, the only objective of these crimes was to obtain benefits.
To catch Glen, the police used Ruth as bait by bugging her. In the third and last meeting between the two, in the privacy of a bed, the dentist ended up confessing in detail to the murders and providing investigators with the evidence necessary to arrest him. In exchange, Ruth entered a witness protection program.
The hitman dentist was arrested in February 1980 for the murders of Peter Halm, Sophie Barrera, the Gusewelle family, Eric Frey and James Bullock and, over the next five years, was sentenced to a total of four life sentences and two 50-year sentences. years and 30 years in prison respectively. For her part, Ronald’s widow, Barbara Boyle, was sentenced to 50 years in prison for conspiracy to murder her husband, and was released on parole in 2009.
Glen Engleman spent the rest of his days in the Jefferson City Correctional Center, until March 3, 1999, when he died from health problems related to diabetes. The serial killer was 72 years old.
