[sinister music]
♪
This is a serial killer
unlike any I've ever seen.
He kills simply to cover his tracks.
Anyone who gets in his way can be disposed of.
Whatever threat comes his way,
he makes that person disappear.
And what could be a more horrific way to kill
than drowning.
One of the most twisted,
psychopathic killers I've ever heard of.
[eerie music]
♪
[ambient music]
Newaygo County is a lightly populated county
in the state of Michigan.
It's north of Grand Rapids.
A lot of it is very wooded.
People come to camp and get away
and enjoy our rivers and lakes.
♪
July 5th of 1997,
two turtle hunters out in Oxford Lake area
made a 911 call to the Newaygo County Sheriff Department.
They reported that they discovered a body
floating in Oxford Lake.
We were dispatched to the scene,
which is in a very remote, wooded area.
A few hundred feet out from the shoreline,
we observed what appeared to be
a lump of something in the water.
We secured the boat,
which the turtle hunters had used to go out
and examined what was in the lake.
As we got closer, it appeared that it was probably a female
due to the length of hair.
She was wearing a plaid shirt and a pair of blue jeans,
no shoes.
Duct tape had been placed around her head
which covered up her mouth and also covered up her eyes.
Her nose was not covered with duct tape.
We observed chains going around the body.
And attached to the chains were cinderblocks,
one on each side of the body.
That was to weigh the body down.
The decomposition of the body was--was very clear.
It had clearly floated up from the bottom of the lake
due to the gases building up inside the body.
The problem was, what is the best way
we can recover this body without losing evidence?
It was suggested we use a trampoline.
Obviously, water and air can go through the netting,
but there was a-- a really good chance
that we would not lose any other kind of evidence
that may be underneath the body.
We had divers that pushed the trampoline beneath the body,
but at the same time, scooping up about a foot or so of mud.
And then the body was pulled out of the lake
on the trampoline.
When she was recovered from the lake,
we were able to see that her hands
had been handcuffed behind her back.
The cement blocks along with a chain,
along with the padlocks, along with the handcuffs
were removed from the victim.
Cinder blocks appeared
to have some reddish paint on them.
We were very concerned about
any kind of potential forensic evidence.
So it was all sent to the Michigan State Crime Lab
to be examined.
Since the body was in such a decayed state of composition,
her skin--or the fingertips from her hand--
had sloughed off.
The trampoline still retained mud,
it still retain weeds,
and it also retained the skin
which had come off the hand.
We gave those to the crime lab,
and hopefully they would be able
to develop a fingerprint impression
from this loose skin.
At that point, the body was then
taken to the medical examiner's office.
This was a major case and something
we don't normally see here in Newaygo County.
Myself and Detective Miller
went to the morgue for the autopsy.
We were there for the collection of evidence.
I performed the autopsy on a woman
initially known as Jane Doe.
The body was examined,
looking for injury that might have been fatal.
I did not find any trauma to explain this death.
There was tape on her face,
but the nose was exposed,
so she would have been capable of breathing
until she was put into the water.
I concluded that the cause of death was asphyxia by drowning.
He had determined that our victim,
in all likelihood,
was alive when placed in the water,
which...makes this a really sick individual
that would do that.
She was chained up, her mouth was taped over.
She would have known the fate that she was about to meet.
And she then had the experience of actually drowning,
which can take a minute, upwards of several minutes,
depending on your lung capacity,
which is a very, very long time to be suffering.
The lengths that this killer went to, it makes me think
that this was probably a premeditated murder.
Obviously some relationship,
something happened between the two of them.
What was it? What did she do? What does she say?
What would cause somebody to go to this level of brutality?
And who was she?
It was critical to find out
who this individual was.
We checked, is there any missing persons
from Newaygo County or the surrounding areas
to match up to our victim?
We were unable to find anything that related
to what we knew about the body at that point.
There was really nothing to go on
as far as missing persons at that particular time.
Approximately one week after the body was recovered,
our crime laboratory was able to take that sloughed skin
that was recovered from her hand
and was able to, through her fingertips,
make positive ID on who the victim was.
She was Rachel Timmerman, 19 years of age.
She lived near Cedar Springs,
which is probably 20 miles or so
south of where she was recovered.
And we made a notification to our victim's family members.
It is a very, very difficult thing
to let, you know, loved ones know that,
you know, your daughter isn't coming home.
It's even worse how she died.
When we were contacted
by the Newaygo County Sheriff's Department,
it's very traumatic.
People that have never had a child murdered
don't understand how difficult it can be.
It was a hole in my heart.
I had a love and nowhere to give it.
Rachel was my big sister,
um, and my best friend.
She really enjoyed music and singing.
She enjoyed painting, and Rachel was very creative.
And there was the wholehearted, unconditional love almost
that of siblings who have a close bond have.
So it was a really, really awful feeling
that I would never see my sister again.
Rachel was a sweet, smart, loving person.
She had a bright future.
She wanted to be a good mom,
and that was the most important thing to her.
We talked to family members, and they indicated
that Rachel had an 18-month-old baby, Shannon.
That was when we said, "Where is Shannon?"
Rachel had left with Shannon.
We told them we're missing a granddaughter.
We recovered Rachel from Oxford Lake.
Is Shannon there?
Is Shannon somewhere else with the suspect?
It was a real concern to the team as a whole.
We have a missing infant now.
Mr. Timmerman explains that he had not seen Rachel
since June 3rd.
Rachel had left with her daughter, his granddaughter,
and that was the last he had seen of either one of them.
On the 3rd of June, Rachel had told me
she was going on a dinner date with a young man named John.
She was very excited about going on,
you know, a first date.
And this guy was really interested in,
you know, hearing about her daughter, Shannon.
He--he just had to meet Shannon.
Rachel came out and said, you know, "Goodbye, Dad.
I love you."
And I, of course, you know, told her "Goodbye, honey."
She was carrying Shannon,
put her in a car seat, and away they went.
Of course, we were concerned
when Rachel didn't come back that night,
but the next morning, we received a letter from Rachel
where she had told us not to worry,
that she had met the man of her dreams.
The handwriting was absolutely Rachel's.
It wasn't uncommon for her to write me a letter,
so our reaction to the letter
was simply, we'll have to wait and see.
About a week after Rachel left,
we received another letter.
It was postmarked from Little Rock, Arkansas.
And them letters indicated that she was going
to stay and live with him down there,
start a new life, her and her baby, Shannon.
Didn't make any sense to us.
But there was nothing we could do.
She was 19. She was an adult.
It was critical to find out who this individual was
that picked up Rachel and her daughter, Shannon.
My sister started yelling,
"He's after me. He wants to kill me."
We learned from family members
that Rachel was picked up by somebody by the name of John.
I saw him in the car,
but could not identify him.
The more that you checked in this case,
the more people that you learned about
that had disappeared.
We contacted the FBI off the side of Grand Rapids.
And Agent Roberta Gilligan was assigned to assist us
to investigate the murder of Rachel Timmerman.
Rachel was last seen by her family on June 3rd,
when she and her infant daughter, Shannon,
went out on a date with somebody.
And then Rachel Timmerman's body was found
on July 5th floating in Oxford Lake.
Her infant daughter, Shannon, had not been seen since
and that really escalated the investigation.
We wanted to do everything we could to find out
where's this child and what happened to the child.
Time is of the essence.
[tense music]
We had to figure out who this unknown person was
that picked up Rachel and Shannon.
We learned from family members
that Rachel was picked up by somebody by the name of John.
And this man named John had sweet-talked her on the phone
and invited her to dinner with Shannon.
But when he picked Rachel and Shannon up,
he never got out of the car.
And the car was kind of a nondescript-colored car.
♪
A forensic artist was able to sit down with family members
and were able to come up with a composite of the person.
The individual was a white male,
young, kind of thin build.
But at that time,
we weren't able to identify anybody
who specifically matched that composite drawing.
We also took a look at Rachel's background.
We learned that she had been a reported victim
of a rape in Newaygo County the previous year.
On the 9th of August in 1996,
Rachel had made a report
with the Newaygo County Sheriff's Office
that she had been raped the previous night.
Rachel said she had been playing cards at a trailer
with Wayne Davis
and a subject named Marvin Gabrion.
They then decided to go get some beer.
Marvin, Rachel, Wayne Davis all left together.
Marvin Gabrion was driving the car.
At some point, Marvin Gabrion ordered Wayne Davis
to get out of the vehicle.
He then drove on with Rachel.
Gabrion and drove her to a remote area
and he attacked her.
She said that he sexually assaulted her.
Gabrion said that if she went to the police
and told what he had done to her,
he would kill her
and kill Shannon, but make her watch.
Rachel didn't want to tell the police,
but she knew that it was the right thing to do.
If she could speak up about his actions
and maybe he go to jail,
then maybe harm wouldn't come to other girls.
During the rape investigation,
we were able to locate Wayne Davis
and I was able to obtain statements.
His version of what had occurred
was basically the same as Rachel's,
up to the point he was told to get out of the vehicle.
So we had a good case against Marvin Gabrion
and the prosecutor was able to issue an arrest warrant
for him on the rape charges.
Gabrion was eventually arrested
in Newaygo County, January of 1997.
But then, a couple of weeks later, awaiting trial,
he was bonded out by a friend of his.
Rachel Timmerman was scheduled
to testify against Marvin Gabrion
on June 5th, 1997.
She was seen for the last time two days before, on June 3rd.
Marvin Gabrion showed up for court
and Rachel Timmerman did not show up for court,
so the charges were ultimately dismissed.
Is this common among sexual assault victims? Absolutely.
You know, when you have an extended period of time
that goes on between the arrest and the trial,
they move on with their lives
and there's a part that maybe perhaps
they just don't want to go back.
It wouldn't be surprising for Rachel to back out
of testifying against her rapist.
This happens all the time, and this is for many reasons.
Fear, shame, embarrassment.
They know that they're leaving themselves open
to cross-examination
and so anything that's happened in their life
is now fair game in an open courtroom.
And that's a terrifying thing for someone
who has already been traumatized.
There are a few reasons why Rachel may not have shown up
to testify at the rape trial, but now we know
that she disappeared a few days before the trial.
That's probably when she was killed
'cause she was pulled out of the lake a few weeks later.
It sure looks like someone didn't want her to testify.
Of course, by the time we're looking at the case,
we know that she had already been drowned in Oxford Lake.
The circumstances surrounding her rape charge
changed the whole focus of our investigation
toward Marvin Gabrion as the suspect
in the murder of Rachel Timmerman.
The thing that made it mysterious was,
although we knew for sure
Rachel Timmerman left the home, got into a car,
we knew Rachel would never leave with Marvin Gabrion.
She was terrified of him
and she thought he was gonna kill her.
So whoever was in that car on June 3rd,
the last time she was seen, was not Marvin Gabrion.
It had to be somebody else.
[tense music]
Rachel Timmerman would never leave her house
with Marvin Gabrion.
However, once we linked Gabrion
to Rachel's disappearance through motive
and the fact that he's the person
who directly benefitted from her death,
we, of course, went looking for him at his last known address,
which was a house in Altona, Michigan.
♪
Our priority at this point was to find a baby Shannon.
Our second priority was to locate Marvin Gabrion.
We knocked on the door and nobody responded.
It was noticed a little ways from the home on the property
was a brush pile
with a bunch of cement blocks and cinder blocks.
And I could see on the cinder blocks
that there was red paint.
They were similar to the ones
that were attached to Rachel Timmerman.
As a result, we were able to obtain a search warrant
to get inside Marvin Gabrion's residence.
Inside the house,
it was kinda junky,
stuff was just laying around,
and it was somewhat of a mess.
He made significant use of duct tape
to hang up his blinds and curtain.
The duct tape appeared to be similar
to--to the same type of duct tape
that was used to bind Rachel's head.
We did a thorough search of the house.
Nobody was there. It was a fake inn.
We checked in the fireplace
to see if there could possibly be remains
such as a skull or something, bones from a baby,
or something that may have been burned in there.
We did not find anything which indicated such.
We recovered items such as padlock keys...
duct tape, the cinder blocks.
All that evidence was taken to the FBI lab
to be examined.
The area where Gabrion lived
was just very rural area.
We did neighborhood canvas. We talked to the neighbors.
We learned that Marvin Gabrion
were in the area since the first part of June.
We also learned a number of neighbors
were very fearful of Marvin Gabrion
because he had pointed guns at them
and had threatened to shoot them or kill them.
Got into a fight with one neighbor, and the next morning,
the neighbor woke up and somebody had splashed gasoline
alongside the house and set fire to it.
A really disturbing picture of him started to emerge.
He was a one-man crime wave up--
up in that area of Michigan.
Gabrion has an explosive temper
and he's unpredictable.
He acts out, even overreacts, to people who cross him
or even if he just perceives that they're crossing him,
so you better not cross him
'cause you don't know what's gonna happen.
When you look at the totality of all of the criminal acts
that have been documented,
you know, you talk about arson,
you talk about a drive-by shooting,
you talk about pointing a weapon at somebody,
and then you bring it down to actual rape,
to another different level.
You--what you have is the making of a monster.
It seems to make sense and tie in with the possibility
that this is the same person who has raped
and now maybe killed Rachel and her young child.
He's likely to be violent towards other people
and potentially to kill other people.
And because of this incredible threat now to society,
the pressure is on police to track him down
as quickly as possible.
At this particular point, investigators were not able
to locate baby Shannon or Marvin Gabrion.
We had no idea where he was.
So we tried to track down
and locate people that would know him.
One person that hung around with Marvin Gabrion
was his supposed friend, Wayne Davis.
Wayne Davis was, in fact, also a witness
in the rape of Rachel Timmerman by Marvin Gabrion.
So the police went looking for Wayne Davis
to see what he had to say about Marvin Gabrion's involvement
for the murder of Rachel Timmerman
and the disappearance of Shannon, the baby.
There was no one at his residence,
no indication he was there.
We spoke with an acquaintance of Wayne Davis'
by the name of Darlene.
She did not know where he was.
In fact, she has not seen him in some time.
She stated that there was a note in the house
allegedly from Wayne Davis
saying he didn't want to be involved in any further
in the case with Marvin Gabrion.
Wayne Davis could have possibly testified
against Marvin Gabrion in the rape case,
but the note in the house
was saying he was going to California.
She indicated that didn't seem right
because also left in the home
was a jacket that he wore on a regular basis.
She said it was his favorite jacket.
His friends and family indicated
they had not heard or seen from him.
Wayne Davis had disappeared.
We had no idea whether he could possibly be a suspect
as the person that may have helped Marvin
or if he was another missing person in this investigation.
It was unusual and was very suspicious.
So not only was Rachel now found dead floating in a lake,
but Shannon and a witness to the Rachel's rape
were also missing.
So within a period of two weeks,
there were three people missing or dead.
[tense music]
When this story broke, this was the lead story
on every TV newscast.
Rachel Timmerman's body pops up out of a lake
with bricks and chains,
bound and gagged.
Her baby's missing.
It had a great impact on the community.
It was one of those stories that gripped people.
You know, searching for a baby.
♪
We were searching for any leads
as to what may have happened to Rachel's baby, Shannon.
We received tips
that people thought they saw a baby that looked like Shannon
and we would follow up with those leads.
There were suggestions made that Marvin Gabrion
may have tried to sell that baby
or take that baby out of state.
The more time that elapsed
and the more leads that we received
and determined weren't valid leads
about the location of Shannon, the more we were concerned
that Shannon may have been killed as well.
Although we didn't want to give up hope.
The most difficult part of the whole experience
was the missing granddaughter.
But we thought, the only person that could really
tell us anything about Shannon was Gabrion.
Approximately one month into our investigation,
we got a very significant break in the case.
In August of 1997,
a woman by the name of Elaine
calls the Michigan State Police tip line to say
that she has information about the Gabrion investigation.
Elaine told us that she had overheard
a couple of phone calls that her boyfriend, John Weeks,
had made to a female by the name of Rachel.
She thought these phone calls happened in May of 1997,
close to the disappearance and murder of Rachel Timmerman.
She tells us, she confronts him
about, "Why you talking to another girl,
asking her out on a date?"
And she is told by John Weeks,
"Hey, I'm not cheating on you.
"My friend wants me to ask Rachel out
so that he can meet with her."
John had advised her that he wasn't calling for himself.
He was calling for a friend.
She believes that friend to be Marvin Gabrion.
It's very possible that John Weeks was the person
that picked Rachel Timmerman up that day
from her father's house.
The investigators compared the composite
of the person who picked up Rachel to a John Weeks.
And in general terms,
he matched that composite drawing.
Elaine also said that she did not know where he was.
She has not seen John since sometime at the end of June.
So we were trying to find and locate John Weeks
to ask questions about Marvin Gabrion and Rachel Timmerman,
such as when the last time you had contact with her,
what was your relationship?
What were you doing the night she disappeared?
However, nobody had seen him.
We talked to family members, people that knew him,
and he just came up and vanished.
So that, I think, was very strange
because the more that you checked in this case,
the more people that you learned about
that had disappeared.
And now, not only was Rachel missing
since she left her home, but Shannon and John Weeks.
The individual we think was responsible
for getting Rachel from her house, they were also missing.
Plus the fact is, is that
investigators were still trying to locate Marvin Gabrion
as the main suspect
along with, of course, Wayne Davis
who had said that he was off to California.
However, the police did
track down more information
about John Weeks and Marvin Gabrion.
In the same area as Oxford Lake,
where Rachel was murdered,
they found a couple of campers that were camping in that area
around the same time, in June of 1997,
when Rachel disappeared.
The campers told the police
that two men drove up to their campsite,
and the person driving asked
if he could store an aluminum boat there
and he had some scratches on his face.
He called himself Lance.
When the police showed them
pictures of Marvin Gabrion,
they identified Lance,
the man driving the pickup truck, as Marvin Gabrion.
And they said he was with another man.
And from pictures,
they identified that person as John Weeks.
These witnesses were significant
because they put Gabrion and John Weeks
at Oxford Lake
between the time that Rachel Timmerman disappeared
and the time where she was found dead
floating in the lake.
There was a real concern that he would kill again.
What we discovered is, he was still receiving
social security checks.
An FBI SWAT team staked out the Sherman Post Office
to kind of ambushed Marvin Gabrion, take him by surprise.
[tense music]
Marvin Gabrion was our suspect
in the murder of Rachel Timmerman,
for the disappearance of baby Shannon,
and the disappearance of his friend, Wayne Davis.
At Oxford Lake,
the police found a couple of campers.
There were two witnesses
that identified Gabrion, John Weeks,
and someone who appeared to be Rachel Timmerman.
John Weeks, we believe was the person
that picked Rachel Timmerman up that day
from her father's house.
But John Weeks hadn't been seen by his family
or his girlfriend since late June.
Wayne Davis was with Marvin Gabrion
the night that Rachel was raped.
John Weeks might've been the person
who picked up Rachel the night she was last seen.
Both of these guys may have been suspects in those crimes,
rape and murder, but are they now victims?
All of these people are connected to Marvin Gabrion.
All of these people pose a threat to Marvin Gabrion.
Do we have a serial killer among us?
Most serial killers kill out of passion, enjoyment,
sort of the hunter sport of it.
But if the allegations against Marvin Gabrion are true,
he was different from most serial killers
in that he had a very clear motive.
He killed out of pure necessity for self-preservation.
He was trying to protect himself
against people that could have identified him.
Marvin Gabrion was a fugitive.
He had fled the state.
Officers couldn't find him.
But the police kept putting together
the case against Marvin Gabrion,
looking for solid evidence,
airtight evidence so that when we ultimately found him,
we could charge him with the murder.
There were six concrete blocks
from Gabrion's backyard
and blocks attached to Rachel's body.
And what the FBI lab told us is that they were a match.
They had the same color, dark red paint,
just like they had come from the same manufacturer
at the same time.
Now we knew for sure the blocks came from his house
and we knew Gabrion had the motive
to kill Rachel Timmerman,
so we could make a case out of it.
At this point, we still had the locate Marvin himself.
And it was critically important
that we get him off the streets and arrest him.
There was a real concern that if he was left out
in the public, that he would kill again.
During the course of trying to locate Marvin Gabrion,
I analyzed a number of Gabrion's records.
Phone records and bank records.
And what I learned is that
Marvin Gabrion had used an alias
by the name of Robert Allen.
And we also discovered there was a true Robert Allen
who was from the Grand Rapids, Michigan area.
He was a disabled person who was totally reliant
on monthly social security.
And what we found from interviewing the family
is that Robert Allen had not been seen by the family
since either late 1995 or 1996.
Robert Allen had vanished around the same time
that Marvin Gabrion started using this name.
Marvin Gabrion stole Robert Allen's identity.
What we discovered is Robert Allen,
although he was missing,
he was still receiving social security checks.
And when the social security checks were due,
they were sent to a post office
in the town of Sherman, New York.
Social Security Commission confirmed
that somebody was cashing the checks.
And what I did was contacted the FBI office in Buffalo
that covered that territory to ask them to investigate
whether or not Marvin Gabrion was the individual
running a post office box in the name of Robert Allen.
And the postal employee identified,
Gabrion is the one renting that box.
Finally, Marvin Gabrion had left a trail
leading back to him.
So the FBI set a sting up,
and on the date that the checks
were supposed to arrive through the post office,
they were there.
An FBI SWAT team staked out the Sherman Post Office,
kind of ambushed Marvin Gabrion,
take him by surprise.
But the local newspaper had done a story on the search
and their fear was that Gabrion would walk past the press box
and see the headline.
So they staked out the post office,
wondering if he would ever show up.
But lo and behold, he shows up to pick up his check.
After Gabrion picked up his mail,
exited the post office,
the FBI SWAT team went in to capture Gabrion.
They jump him.
You know, it's the FBI SWAT team, guns drawn.
They arrested him without incident.
And he was then extradited back to Michigan.
I was ecstatic.
When I found out he was arrested,
number one, he couldn't harm anyone else.
And number two, we might find additional evidence
to indicate what he did with the baby, Shannon.
Marvin Gabrion was indicted for the murder of Rachel Timmerman.
And we went to the Milan Correctional Facility
to meet with him.
I told him we had a concrete case against him.
He said he was not responsible.
Somebody else had Rachel Timmerman and the baby killed.
He was very uncooperative.
At times, he would try to be charming,
but it was unnerving to be around him.
He did seem evil.
We were clinging to this hope that maybe the baby was alive.
That was a concern,
that Shannon may have been killed as well.
[eerie music]
After he was arrested, Marvin Gabrion started
telling people he was not responsible.
Somebody else had Rachel Timmerman killed.
However, based on the evidence
that we put together in this case,
we believe Marvin Gabrion had to get rid
of Rachel Timmerman
because she was going to convict him of rape.
♪
So he set up a plan.
He got John Weeks to befriend her,
ask her out, get her into his car,
and John Weeks drove Rachel and her baby
to where Gabrion was.
We believe that taking the baby
was a way to control Rachel
and make her write these letters to her family.
And then, they drove to the lake,
him and John Weeks with Rachel and the boat.
She was alive in that truck when witnesses observed 'em.
At Oxford Lake,
they had duct-taped her-- her mouth, her eyes--
handcuffed her hands behind her back,
and then connected her to two concrete blocks.
Going out on the water in the boat,
she had to know that he was going to kill her.
The sheer terror that he put this victim through
is--it's--it's--it's unreal.
It's unmatched.
We believe Marvin Gabrion
could not allow baby Shannon to live
because she linked Gabrion to the murder.
He had to--he had to kill baby Shannon
in order to--to escape justice.
All of Marvin Gabrion's victims had clear motive.
They could identify him to law enforcement,
with one exception.
Shannon was an exception.
She couldn't identify him. She couldn't even speak.
And so, killing her
seemingly was done out of pure convenience.
This is a man who just doesn't wanna get caught.
What's he gonna do with a baby, right?
He--if he has this baby,
people are gonna trace the killings to him,
so he gets rid of the baby.
And when we look at the brutality that Rachel suffered,
I believe that baby Shannon was killed in front of her.
This--this was brutal. He was sending her a message.
He's carrying out a threat.
There's no doubt in my mind she watched her child die
at the hands of Marvin Gabrion before her own death.
This man is a monster,
anyone who can kill a child as young as Shannon.
It reminds me of what Timothy McVeigh said
when asked to comment about the children he killed
in the Oklahoma City bombing,
and he said they were collateral damage.
Well, that's what Shannon was.
We believe that Marvin Gabrion killed Robert Allen,
he killed Wayne Davis,
and he killed John Weeks.
Wayne Davis had to go because he could possibly help
send Marvin Gabrion to jail.
John Weeks, he's a witness to the murder.
Robert Allen, he was a source of money.
He was just a means to an end.
It just shows you that we believe
that Marvin Gabrion was truly a serial killer.
We only found one body,
so Marvin Gabrion was charged with a single count
of first-degree murder of Rachel Timmerman
on federal land,
specifically the Manistee National Forest.
Michigan doesn't have the death penalty,
but any murder committed on federal property
carries the possibility of a death sentence.
Marvin Gabrion's trial began
on February 25th, 2002.
He claimed he's not guilty.
He made a great effort of trying to appear insane.
At one point, he actually lunged across the table
to try to choke his attorney.
I don't know if that was an act or if he's just that angry.
After about a week of evidence,
the jury decided not only
that Gabrion murdered Rachel Timmerman,
he deserved the death penalty for that.
A couple of months after Gabrion was convicted,
just by coincidence,
Wayne Davis' body was found
in a small pond in Newaygo County.
He was found in rope
and weighted down with rocks,
very similar to Rachel Timmerman's body.
This case clearly stands out to me
as--as the most horrific that I investigated.
He's a monster and a psychotic
who has no feelings or remorse or concern for others.
What I miss most about Rachel was just her smile.
When she walked into a room, she would lighten a room.
Rachel was very full of life.
And I think the thing I miss the most is,
I miss having a best friend.
Well, Shannon, it's so much fun
to watch a kid grow and mature and develop,
and so, we never got to see that.
We never got to see what her potential was.
There are truly evil people in this world.
It's just not good people
who do bad things or make bad decisions.
There are truly evil people in this world.