Collette, 13, disappeared from the Alvin Bus Stop in Galveston, Texas on June 17, 1971. Her body was later found near Addicks Reservoir. She had been shot in the head. Four months later the body of 19-year-old Gloria Gonzales was found near the reservoir, just 35 yards from where Collette had been located. Gloria had also been shot. Collette and Gloria's murders are thought to be related to the disappearances and murders of 26 other girls and women from the Galveston area since 1971.
Dear Nancy,
Hello. I recently found the "Find a Grave" site and have been adding my family to it.
There are some corrections I need to tell you about regarding Collette Wilson.
I was raised in Alvin Texas with the Wilsons and knew Collette very well. She was born in 1958.
Here is how your post reads:
Collette, 13, disappeared from the Alvin Bus Stop in Galveston, Texas on June 17, 1971.
Actually she was dropped off by our band director (Charlie Mays) at the corner of Highway 6 and our county road 95 to walk home and was abducted from there. There is no bus stop there. It was just a long gravel county road. The county is Brazoria and the town is Alvin. (Galveston is a VERY long ways from Alvin). Her body was discovered on November 26, 1971. I think I have a school picture of her somewhere and will email it to you when I can find it. Her funeral was extremely sad, as what remained of her was put into an infants white coffin. Her father was our town dentist and eventually died of literally a broken heart at a young age. Her sister (Theresa Wilson) went on in her fathers footsteps to be our dentist. Tragically, four years after Collette's disappearance, The Wilson's youngest son was accidentally run over and killed in their driveway by a friend who didn't know he was behind the car. When he tried to back out of the driveway, he crushed the child.
Also here is some information on Collettes "Suspected" killer Harry Lanham:
On November 3, 1971, the body of 16-year-old Adele Crabtree was found outside Conroe, Texas. Last seen alive at a "hippy" commune in Houston, she was fully clothed when found, her death attributed to close-range shotgun blasts. The same day, Linda Sutherlin was reported missing in Houston, when she failed to come home after work. Police retrieved her blood-stained car, but five more days would pass before her corpse was found near Pearland, in Brazoria County. A pair of nylon pantyhose was tied around her neck, but death was the result of shotgun blasts. Investigators learned that Sutherlin had stopped in a neighborhood bar after work, on the night she disappeared. Witnesses recalled her talking to one Harry Lanham, a tow-truck driver once convicted of rape , more recently charged with beating his girlfriend and her five-year-old daughter. Picked up for questioning on December 8, Lanham refused to cooperate with police, but he was careless with his cellmate, making reference to "his own private graveyard." The pressure of surveillance and interrogation finally got to Lanham, during April 1972, and he fingered an acquaintance, 24-year-old Tony Knoppa, in the Sutherlin murder. Previously charged with rape, Knoppa had been sentenced to seven months even after the victim changed her story. Back in jail on suspicion of murder, he was outraged by Lanham's fancy footwork, informing detectives that Harry was the triggerman in both the Sutherlin and Crabtree slayings. In the wake of his prior rape conviction, Knoppa said, Lanham had vowed to silence his future victims, insuring against further jail time. "He said I should stick with him," Knoppa testified, "then I'd see a lot of women killed." Their typical M.0. involved picking up hitchhikers, women in bars, or stranded motorists, transporting them to a vacant house for multiple rapes, after which they were driven into the countryside and shot. In custody, Lanham was also linked with the murder of 13-year-old Collette Wilson, from Alvin, Texas, whose bones were found with those of Houston victim Gloria Gonzales, missing since October 1971. Convicted on all counts, Lanham and Knoppa were sentenced to life imprisonment.
I hope this helps and best to you,
Todd Davis
Dear Nancy,
Hello. I recently found the "Find a Grave" site and have been adding my family to it.
There are some corrections I need to tell you about regarding Collette Wilson.
I was raised in Alvin Texas with the Wilsons and knew Collette very well. She was born in 1958.
Here is how your post reads:
Collette, 13, disappeared from the Alvin Bus Stop in Galveston, Texas on June 17, 1971.
Actually she was dropped off by our band director (Charlie Mays) at the corner of Highway 6 and our county road 95 to walk home and was abducted from there. There is no bus stop there. It was just a long gravel county road. The county is Brazoria and the town is Alvin. (Galveston is a VERY long ways from Alvin). Her body was discovered on November 26, 1971. I think I have a school picture of her somewhere and will email it to you when I can find it. Her funeral was extremely sad, as what remained of her was put into an infants white coffin. Her father was our town dentist and eventually died of literally a broken heart at a young age. Her sister (Theresa Wilson) went on in her fathers footsteps to be our dentist. Tragically, four years after Collette's disappearance, The Wilson's youngest son was accidentally run over and killed in their driveway by a friend who didn't know he was behind the car. When he tried to back out of the driveway, he crushed the child.
Also here is some information on Collettes "Suspected" killer Harry Lanham:
On November 3, 1971, the body of 16-year-old Adele Crabtree was found outside Conroe, Texas. Last seen alive at a "hippy" commune in Houston, she was fully clothed when found, her death attributed to close-range shotgun blasts. The same day, Linda Sutherlin was reported missing in Houston, when she failed to come home after work. Police retrieved her blood-stained car, but five more days would pass before her corpse was found near Pearland, in Brazoria County. A pair of nylon pantyhose was tied around her neck, but death was the result of shotgun blasts. Investigators learned that Sutherlin had stopped in a neighborhood bar after work, on the night she disappeared. Witnesses recalled her talking to one Harry Lanham, a tow-truck driver once convicted of rape , more recently charged with beating his girlfriend and her five-year-old daughter. Picked up for questioning on December 8, Lanham refused to cooperate with police, but he was careless with his cellmate, making reference to "his own private graveyard." The pressure of surveillance and interrogation finally got to Lanham, during April 1972, and he fingered an acquaintance, 24-year-old Tony Knoppa, in the Sutherlin murder. Previously charged with rape, Knoppa had been sentenced to seven months even after the victim changed her story. Back in jail on suspicion of murder, he was outraged by Lanham's fancy footwork, informing detectives that Harry was the triggerman in both the Sutherlin and Crabtree slayings. In the wake of his prior rape conviction, Knoppa said, Lanham had vowed to silence his future victims, insuring against further jail time. "He said I should stick with him," Knoppa testified, "then I'd see a lot of women killed." Their typical M.0. involved picking up hitchhikers, women in bars, or stranded motorists, transporting them to a vacant house for multiple rapes, after which they were driven into the countryside and shot. In custody, Lanham was also linked with the murder of 13-year-old Collette Wilson, from Alvin, Texas, whose bones were found with those of Houston victim Gloria Gonzales, missing since October 1971. Convicted on all counts, Lanham and Knoppa were sentenced to life imprisonment.
I hope this helps and best to you,
Todd Davis
Collette, 13, disappeared from the Alvin Bus Stop in Galveston, Texas on June 17, 1971. Her body was later found near Addicks Reservoir. She had been shot in the head. Four months later the body of 19-year-old Gloria Gonzales was found near the reservoir, just 35 yards from where Collette had been located. Gloria had also been shot. Collette and Gloria's murders are thought to be related to the disappearances and murders of 26 other girls and women from the Galveston area since 1971.
Dear Nancy,
Hello. I recently found the "Find a Grave" site and have been adding my family to it.
There are some corrections I need to tell you about regarding Collette Wilson.
I was raised in Alvin Texas with the Wilsons and knew Collette very well. She was born in 1958.
Here is how your post reads:
Collette, 13, disappeared from the Alvin Bus Stop in Galveston, Texas on June 17, 1971.
Actually she was dropped off by our band director (Charlie Mays) at the corner of Highway 6 and our county road 95 to walk home and was abducted from there. There is no bus stop there. It was just a long gravel county road. The county is Brazoria and the town is Alvin. (Galveston is a VERY long ways from Alvin). Her body was discovered on November 26, 1971. I think I have a school picture of her somewhere and will email it to you when I can find it. Her funeral was extremely sad, as what remained of her was put into an infants white coffin. Her father was our town dentist and eventually died of literally a broken heart at a young age. Her sister (Theresa Wilson) went on in her fathers footsteps to be our dentist. Tragically, four years after Collette's disappearance, The Wilson's youngest son was accidentally run over and killed in their driveway by a friend who didn't know he was behind the car. When he tried to back out of the driveway, he crushed the child.
Also here is some information on Collettes "Suspected" killer Harry Lanham:
On November 3, 1971, the body of 16-year-old Adele Crabtree was found outside Conroe, Texas. Last seen alive at a "hippy" commune in Houston, she was fully clothed when found, her death attributed to close-range shotgun blasts. The same day, Linda Sutherlin was reported missing in Houston, when she failed to come home after work. Police retrieved her blood-stained car, but five more days would pass before her corpse was found near Pearland, in Brazoria County. A pair of nylon pantyhose was tied around her neck, but death was the result of shotgun blasts. Investigators learned that Sutherlin had stopped in a neighborhood bar after work, on the night she disappeared. Witnesses recalled her talking to one Harry Lanham, a tow-truck driver once convicted of rape , more recently charged with beating his girlfriend and her five-year-old daughter. Picked up for questioning on December 8, Lanham refused to cooperate with police, but he was careless with his cellmate, making reference to "his own private graveyard." The pressure of surveillance and interrogation finally got to Lanham, during April 1972, and he fingered an acquaintance, 24-year-old Tony Knoppa, in the Sutherlin murder. Previously charged with rape, Knoppa had been sentenced to seven months even after the victim changed her story. Back in jail on suspicion of murder, he was outraged by Lanham's fancy footwork, informing detectives that Harry was the triggerman in both the Sutherlin and Crabtree slayings. In the wake of his prior rape conviction, Knoppa said, Lanham had vowed to silence his future victims, insuring against further jail time. "He said I should stick with him," Knoppa testified, "then I'd see a lot of women killed." Their typical M.0. involved picking up hitchhikers, women in bars, or stranded motorists, transporting them to a vacant house for multiple rapes, after which they were driven into the countryside and shot. In custody, Lanham was also linked with the murder of 13-year-old Collette Wilson, from Alvin, Texas, whose bones were found with those of Houston victim Gloria Gonzales, missing since October 1971. Convicted on all counts, Lanham and Knoppa were sentenced to life imprisonment.
I hope this helps and best to you,
Todd Davis
Dear Nancy,
Hello. I recently found the "Find a Grave" site and have been adding my family to it.
There are some corrections I need to tell you about regarding Collette Wilson.
I was raised in Alvin Texas with the Wilsons and knew Collette very well. She was born in 1958.
Here is how your post reads:
Collette, 13, disappeared from the Alvin Bus Stop in Galveston, Texas on June 17, 1971.
Actually she was dropped off by our band director (Charlie Mays) at the corner of Highway 6 and our county road 95 to walk home and was abducted from there. There is no bus stop there. It was just a long gravel county road. The county is Brazoria and the town is Alvin. (Galveston is a VERY long ways from Alvin). Her body was discovered on November 26, 1971. I think I have a school picture of her somewhere and will email it to you when I can find it. Her funeral was extremely sad, as what remained of her was put into an infants white coffin. Her father was our town dentist and eventually died of literally a broken heart at a young age. Her sister (Theresa Wilson) went on in her fathers footsteps to be our dentist. Tragically, four years after Collette's disappearance, The Wilson's youngest son was accidentally run over and killed in their driveway by a friend who didn't know he was behind the car. When he tried to back out of the driveway, he crushed the child.
Also here is some information on Collettes "Suspected" killer Harry Lanham:
On November 3, 1971, the body of 16-year-old Adele Crabtree was found outside Conroe, Texas. Last seen alive at a "hippy" commune in Houston, she was fully clothed when found, her death attributed to close-range shotgun blasts. The same day, Linda Sutherlin was reported missing in Houston, when she failed to come home after work. Police retrieved her blood-stained car, but five more days would pass before her corpse was found near Pearland, in Brazoria County. A pair of nylon pantyhose was tied around her neck, but death was the result of shotgun blasts. Investigators learned that Sutherlin had stopped in a neighborhood bar after work, on the night she disappeared. Witnesses recalled her talking to one Harry Lanham, a tow-truck driver once convicted of rape , more recently charged with beating his girlfriend and her five-year-old daughter. Picked up for questioning on December 8, Lanham refused to cooperate with police, but he was careless with his cellmate, making reference to "his own private graveyard." The pressure of surveillance and interrogation finally got to Lanham, during April 1972, and he fingered an acquaintance, 24-year-old Tony Knoppa, in the Sutherlin murder. Previously charged with rape, Knoppa had been sentenced to seven months even after the victim changed her story. Back in jail on suspicion of murder, he was outraged by Lanham's fancy footwork, informing detectives that Harry was the triggerman in both the Sutherlin and Crabtree slayings. In the wake of his prior rape conviction, Knoppa said, Lanham had vowed to silence his future victims, insuring against further jail time. "He said I should stick with him," Knoppa testified, "then I'd see a lot of women killed." Their typical M.0. involved picking up hitchhikers, women in bars, or stranded motorists, transporting them to a vacant house for multiple rapes, after which they were driven into the countryside and shot. In custody, Lanham was also linked with the murder of 13-year-old Collette Wilson, from Alvin, Texas, whose bones were found with those of Houston victim Gloria Gonzales, missing since October 1971. Convicted on all counts, Lanham and Knoppa were sentenced to life imprisonment.
I hope this helps and best to you,
Todd Davis
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