Glennon Engleman: The Serial Killer Dentist
Dentist by day, con man and serial killer by night. Glennon Englelman manipulated the woman around him to kill their loved ones in a get rich quick scheme, leaving a trail of devastation in his wake.
TW: References to sexual abuse
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SOURCES
Appointment For Murder by Susan Crain Bakos
https://www.newspapers.com/image/139172556/?match=1&terms="Widow Tells Of Plot To Kill Halm."
https://www.newspapers.com/image/140997912/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/139629367/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/140834476/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/140879862/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/139794985/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/574607356/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/574586795/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/140474958/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/140449722/
TRANSCRIPT
It’s January 14th, 1980. Sophie Marie Barrera is in her office, trying to wrap up a long work day.
She has no idea, but earlier that day, while she was working, a strange man approached her car, a 1975 white ford pinto, as it was in the parking lot of her office. He tinkered with it for a few moments, and then disappeared before anyone saw him.
Sophie gathers up the last of the paperwork on her desk and slides them into her briefcase.
She’s out the door by a quarter to five, taking the back stairs down to the building parking lot. Sophie pops the trunk on her car, stashes her briefcase. There’s no sign that the man was ever there, no sign anything had been tampered with. Then she gets in the driver’s seat, buckles her seatbelt, turns the key.
Welcome to heart starts pounding, as always I’m your host, Kaelyn Moore.
Today, I have a tale of a serial killer I want to share with you. One who was killing his victims in between doing dental cleanings for his patients.
Maybe you’re thinking to yourself, wow Kaelyn, two evil dentist tales already this year? Yes, going to the dentist is one of my biggest fears ok? And I spend a lot of time reading stories about the bad ones to scare myself.
Which is also why in this episode I want to shout out the listener who reached out to me to let me know that James Craig was actually THEIR dentists. We talked about his case and how he poisoned his wife with arsenic he bought on amazon in episode 104: Love sick. But this listener told me he was nicer than you would expect, except one day it was like a switch flipped and he was really mean to her when extracting a tooth. So mean, that the office manager gave her a refund for the extraction, and it was actually the same office manager that intercepted the cyanide package at the office and told the police. So someone get that girl a raise.
Alright, let’s dive back in
Someone had placed a bomb in Sophie Berrera’s ford Pinto. But who? And Why?
Both the St. Louis Bomb and Arson Squad and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms were on the scene within the hour, lead by Special Agent William J McGarvey.
He surveyed the twisted metal wreckage in front of him. There was only one word to describe this murder: overkill.
Based on the giant blast radius, the unknown bomber had rigged at least 20 sticks of dynamite under her car - like something out of an Acme cartoon. The explosion ripped apart the Ford Pinto, launching the steering wheel onto the roof of a six-story apartment complex. The shockwave blew out the windows of the other cars in the lot and shattered several windows in the adjacent buildings, raining glass pebbles onto the sidewalk. It sent so much glass flying, the cars parked on the side street looked like they’d been in a shootout. It was honestly a miracle that no one else had been injured.
Sophie had died immediately. I’ll spare you the grisly details of what the scene looked like, but Investigators found part of her 30 yards away. Whoever did this had only one aim: obliteration.
That was Agent McGarvey’s first lead. The rage the bomber felt towards Sophie. They didn’t just want her dead, they wanted to blast her from the face of the earth. Vaporize her.
McGarvey needed a list of Sophie’s enemies.
He didn’t expect that she would have many. She was an almost 60 year old owner of a dental laboratory business, it wasn’t like she was in the mob. People didn’t just blow up woman like Sophie.
But as McGarvey talks to Sophie’s ex-husband, son, daughter, neighbor, and close friend, he notices the same name keeps coming up.
Glen was, a local dentist and a client of Sophie’s dental laboratory business. The two were in the middle of a lawsuit. Glen owed her $15,000 in unpaid bills. Adjusted for inflation, that’s roughly $60,000 today
Sophie had initially filed the suit about a year ago, in early 1979. Glen had tried to get her to settle for $5,000, but she refused. Services had been rendered and the price was the price.
And sophie’s family revealed to to the authorities that this was not the first time that a bomb had been planted near Sophie. In March, a dozen sticks of dynamite wired to an electric detonator were found outside of her house. Thankfully, it had rained overnight, soaking the dynamite. The explosion left scorch marks on the wall of her garage, but was essentially a dud.
Sophie told the police about the lawsuit, suspecting Glenn was responsible. They assigned protective surveillance for 30 days while they investigated, but didn’t find any evidence pointing to Glen. Even still, Sophie dropped the lawsuit. Her life was worth a lot more than $15,000.
Then, in January, Sophie changed her mind and told her lawyer to refile. A hearing had been set for Monday the 21st - exactly a week after the bombing.
Arson investigators compared the car bomb to the one left at Sophie’s house. The components and wiring were similar; they were probably made by the same person.
It was enough to pique McGarvey’s curiosity towards Glen Engleman. The police brought the dentist in for questioning that night.
Glen Engleman was a pillar of his community. He was a local dentist who was beloved for his kindness to patients and his care. He was born in St. Louis in 1927, had served in the US Army Air Corp, and got his degree in dentistry from University of Washington in St. Louis on the GI bill. McGarvey was surprised that a guy like Glen was even on their radar for a crime as heinous as this.
But Glen wasn’t the least bit surprised that the police wanted to talk to him. His manner was cordial, but completely nonchalant. No, he didn’t consent to a polygraph. No, they can’t test his hands for explosive residue.
In a soft, formal voice, he asked, “This is about the lawsuit, I’m assuming?”
He then handed the officers a list of his appointments he had the day the bomb went off, and encouraged them to call any of them to verify. Heck, call all of them.
And his alibi checked out - he was with patients on the day of Sophie’s murder.
But there was something about this guy that McGarvey couldn’t shake, there was literally no one else who had any ill will against Sophie except for Glenn… so he looked into the dentist a bit more.
He found that Glen was beloved by the local community. He offered low-cost or sometimes even free dental work to his working class neighbors. He was the Scout Master of his son’s troop. He had a pale, doughy, baby-face with a receding hairline and a high-pitched voice. Everything about him said dentist. Not killer.
But he also discovered that this wasn’t the first time Glen Engleman had been questioned by St. Louis detectives. There was a file on another murder that happened in the area, Twenty years earlier. One in which Glenn was one of the prime suspects…
It was the night of December 17th, 1958. 27-year-old James Bullock left his house around 7PM to attend a night class at St. Louis University. It should’ve taken no more than 15 minutes for him to get there, but when class started at 7:30PM, James was absent.
Instead, he was spotted roughly 4 miles away outside and Art Museum. Around 7:40PM, a man was driving past the museum when two people suddenly ran out into the street in front of his car. He had to swerve to avoid hitting them. But when he turned around to see the two people he almost killed, he saw that One of the men collapsed to the ground; the other stood over him, holding a gun.
Before he could get out of his car, the gunman fled. The driver didn’t get a good look at his face, but said he was wearing a brown hat and dark coat. The man on the ground was James Bullock. He’d been shot four times. The driver called 911, but James died from his injuries as he was loaded into the ambulance.
The police found James’s car parked on a service road behind the museum, the engine still running. They found blood spatter in the car - it appeared he’d been shot the first time while sitting in the driver’s seat - and a trail of blood as he fled from his attacker. The shooter had chased after James and shot him three more times with a .22 caliber pistol.
Initially, it seemed like a crime of passion. In 1958, the area behind the Art Museum, Art Hill, was a known lover’s lane and pick-up spot for gay men. James had missed six classes in the last two months with no explanation. Police assumed he had a habit of coming to the Hill for secret affairs, even though he was married to a woman named Edna. It seemed like on the night of the 17th, something happened, he trusted the wrong guy and wound up dead. Given the attitude of homophobia of the era, the fact that James was even in Art Hill at night meant he must be living a secret gay life.
The police spoke with James’s wife, Edna, to get a better picture of their relationship. They were newlyweds, married six months, and, quote, “absolutely happy.” James was the love of her life and they were already trying for a family. This was supposed to be their first Christmas together. James had even taken the time to string up lights in the front yard before he left for class.
But Edna got really nervous when the police asked her a simple question - how did she meet James? She claimed that a friend gave her James’s number to set up a date, a woman she was in a social club with. But she couldn’t remember the friend’s last name, and she refused put the police in touch with any other members of the club.
The next question made Edna even more nervous - had she been married before? Yes, briefly. She had been married to another man but they had gotten divorced about two years before she started dating James. “What was the mans name?” The police asked.
“Glen Engleman,” She replied.
It wasn’t long before Investigators discovered that Edna stood to inherit $65,000 from James’s company life insurance policy. In 2024, that would be almost 700 grand. I mean, that wasn’t too strange, many spouses get life insurance checks when their husband or wife dies, that’s kind of the point, but the situation kept looking weirder and weirder.
Because Then they realized that Glen was a part-time staff dentist at the company where James worked. He was actually one of Glenn’s patients. It put Edna’s memory lapse in a whole new light - she hadn’t gotten his number from a friend in a social club. Glen had given it to her. And as part-time staff, Glen was aware of the company’s life insurance benefits.
The police started to think that Glen and Edna had planned an elaborate honeytrap scheme. Edna seduced James Bullock so that Glen could kill him and they could share the insurance payout.
Both Glen and Edna were brought in for questioning. When the police tried to give Edna a polygraph, she fainted and passed out. Then she asked for a lawyer, refusing to answer any more questions.
Glen, on the other hand, was unflappable. He sauntered past the throng of reporters outside the police station, ignoring the shouted questions and flashbulbs. An article the next day noted his dark coat and brown hat - which fit the exact description of the shooter.
When questioned, Glen had a ready answer for everything. He asked the officers in an unassuming tone, “This is about my ex-wife, I’m assuming?”
And then, just like he had during his investigation into Sophie’s murder, he handed the officers a list of patients he saw the day James was murdered. There, at the bottom, was Tom Johnson, a last minute appointment that he had taken at the exact time of James’ murder. Any other questions? He asked the police.
Agents McGarvey was reading through this police file with so much frustration he was white knuckling the manila envelope. Police never found any physical evidence tying Glen to James’ murder, and he was released, the case was still technically unsolved.
But when Edna was formally cleared of any wrongdoing, the insurance company cut her a check for $65,000. Glen received a payment of, $20,000.
So it makes sense why McGarvey was so mad, what do you mean a guy fitting the description of the murderer walked into the police station, received money from the life insurance payment of the deceased, but was let go? Just because James was maybe gay and Glen had a piece of paper that said he saw a patient that night he was ok to leave?
McGarvey looked into what the patients Glen saw that night reported, and they found that there was a patient who was at his office at 6pm, and reported that Glen never showed up. It was starting to look to McGarvey like Glen got away with murder
But, at the end of the day, he was in the same exact predicament. There was no physical evidence that Glen had killed Sophie AND he had an alibi that he had seen patients that night.
And then, McGarvey got this horrible, sinking feeling in his stomach. If Glen killed someone 20 years ago, and killed someone today, is there a chance that he was killing people during that 20 year period?
Well, the answer to that question was a lot more shocking than McGarvey could have ever anticipated
Two days after Sophie Barrera’s murder, Special Agent William McGarvey knocked on the door of a modest townhouse. The petite woman who answered was Ruth Engleman - Glen’s third wife. Well, Ex-wife; they’d been divorced for over a year.
McGarvey introduced himself and Ruth invited him inside, showing him to the living room. She was blatantly nervous, fidgeting on the couch, tugging on the hem of her dress. She yanked a tissue out of the box and twisted it in her hands until it disintegrated. McGarvey wondered what had her so wound up - a sign of a guilty conscience?
McGarvey decided to take a soft approach. He had some questions about Glen, but she didn’t have to say anything she didn’t want to. Ruth squirmed and recrossed her legs. She wasn’t sure if she could help - she didn’t really know anything.
But Then she asked, “If I tell you, will you help me and my son?”
And then it all clicked for McGarvey: Ruth was terrified of Glen. Because she knew what he was capable of.
McGarvey could only help her if she told him what she knew. But he promised: she could trust him.
Ruth explained that she had been trying to get away from Glen for years, ever since her son was born. She’d tried to divorce him several times before the last one finally stuck. He was a master manipulator. He knew when to apologize, when to make a big romantic gesture, when to make threats. And, even divorced, Glen was still a fixture in her life because of their custody agreement. He came over to the townhouse, which he owned, two or three nights a week to spend time with their son.
But Ruth wasn’t worried that Glen might kill her - she was certain of it. He’d told her he would, repeatedly. Once their son turned 14, Glen said he was going to teach him how to be a man. He said that Ruth’s soft motherly instincts would only interfere with that, so she’d have to go. He saw no value in keeping her around.
But then she told McGarvey the exact thing he thought was true. She said “Glen’s done it before. Killed people. More than Sophie.”
For starters, Ruth was positive that Glen killed James Bullock. He told her about the murder a few months before their wedding. He thought it set him apart from ordinary men, just like his education. He wanted her to know that he was a rarity - a man who was capable of murder.
But it seemed like Glen had an MO, because After James Bullock, Glen repeated the honeytrap ploy at least three times, that Ruth knew of.
His go-to method was that he would convince a woman, usually one he was somewhat close to to marry a target that he had pre selected. This was always some Man that Glen thought he would be an easy kill. Then, Glen would kill them for the insurance payout. That’s what he had done to Edna in the past. After they divorced, he had selected James for her to marry, with the promise that his death would make them both rich.
But how would he find more women to convince to be a part of his scheme. Not everyone was willing to conspire on a plot to kill their spouse.
Luckily, he had a huge pool of young, impressionable women at his disposal: his patients and his employees. At least, that’s how he saw them.
Carmen Miranda was one of those women. She had known Glen her whole life. He had really taken in the entire Miranda family, Carmen’s mom and her seven siblings. He made sure there was money for groceries, the utilities stayed on, and presents under the tree on Christmas morning. For Carmen’s entire life, Glen was someone who fixed problems. Like I said on paper he looked like a great guy. Carmen saw Glen as someone who genuinely wanted the best for her.
In 1973, Carmen was a high-school dropout with no plan for the future. Once again, Glen came to the rescue. He hired Carmen as an office assistant, promising to train her to be a dental technician. Once she had a real, marketable skill, all kinds of doors would open.
Carmen liked working for Glen. He was an easy boss, a good teacher, and he was never too busy to listen to her problems. She told him how much it bothered her that she couldn’t move forward in life. She felt like she was just…existing. And I just want to say, I’ve been there too. And when you feel lost, that can be the time when you’re the most easily influenced.
Glen said he had a solution: Carmen should get married. He would help her find the right man, and then she wouldn’t have to work at all.
He knew that Carmen had an on again off again relationship with her high school boyfriend, Peter Halm. she had told him all about Peter. He was kind, smart, and had a good job working for Southwestern Bell.
Glen enthusiastically supported the relationship, telling her Peter was “the one.” He made it seem like he was committed to Carmen’s happiness, he started coaching her on how to convince Peter to marry her. Like a twisted My Fair Lady, Glen gave Carmen books to read, bought her new clothes, but he also said that he could teach Carmen how to physically be a good wife to Peter. He was already twisting their relationship through manipulation and getting Carmen to do things she wasn’t comfortable with.
But it worked. Peter and Carmen were married within a year.
That’s when Glen revealed the next step of his plan: he was going to kill Peter for her.
He told her needed to wait at least six months, to avoid suspicion, but there was plenty for Carmen to do in the meantime. First, she needed to make sure she was listed as the beneficiary on all of Peter’s assets and policies. Then she should convince him to buy more life insurance.
This was overwhelming for Carmen, who was a young newlywed. Kill Peter, she didn’t want the money.. The plan was so outrageous, that she didn’t believe he was serious. Glen was a motor mouth, always talking, as if a moment of silence might literally kill him. He would go on diatribes about freeloaders, described the plots of novels, monologued the proper way to change a tire and jump a car battery. Carmen knew by now that half of what Glenn said was just noise.
Until it wasn’t. The summer after her wedding, Glen asked Carmen to come to his office over the weekend. She hadn’t been able to stop working like Glen had said, Peter didn’t make enough money for her to quit her job. but Glen had helped her get a new job in a different office, where she made more money.
She went to his office that Saturday afternoon. Glen asked if she’d done what he told her and filed the paperwork. She nodded, thinking this was just Glen talking out loud about his ridiculous plan that would never bee seen through. She didn’t really file the life insurance policy, but he didn’t need to know that
Then Glen walked Carmen through every detail of his plan to murder Peter. This was no longer a hypothetical, Glen was actually going to do it.
He wanted Carmen to meet him again the following weekend so they could drive out to the murder site together. He needed to show her exactly where to go to avoid any mistakes. Like a dress rehearsal.
Carmen felt like she was breathing through a straw, and she got really lightheaded. She didn’t want Peter to die. Their marriage had some problems, like anyone else’s. But this was crazy. She told Glen she didn’t think she could go through with it.
And for once, Glen was silent. It was terrifying. He looked at Carmen with black eyes, his face turning red. She could feel the rage boiling up inside him, poised to explode in violence. He hissed, “I’m very disappointed in you, Carmen. After all I’ve done for you, and you won’t do this for me? Are you that ungrateful?”
And I mean, think about it. Glen had been a father figure for Carmen for almost her whole life, he had already manipulated her so he could take advantage of her sexually. It sounds outrageous to hear that Carmen agreed to go ahead with Glen’s plan, but she really thought that he knew what was best, that maybe this was what adults did
On September 5th, 1976, Carmen and Peter drove down I-44 towards the state forest. They were on their way to Six Flags, But first - Carmen wanted to take Peter on a quick hike in the state forest. It was her favorite trail because it ended in a group of natural caves and it was less than ten minutes away from Six Flags. She promised the detour would be worth it.
Carmen parked in the dirt lot at the trailhead and led the way down the sandy path. Peter didn’t notice, but there were markings on the path that Glen had left so Carmen knew which way to lead Peter. And even as she was checking for these markings, she still didn’t really believe that Glen was going to go through with his plan. It was just so outrageous
Carmen tried to scan through the trees for any sign of Glen. Maybe he wasn’t there, and this was all a test, like she kind of thought it was. She hoped he–
A rifle shot cracked through the trees. Carmen whirled around and watched as Peter collapsed to his knees. He mumbled, “Get help.” Then he pitched forward into the dirt, bleeding everywhere. Carmen screamed in horror. In disbelief. But Peter's wounds were too much, and he sadly died.
Glen had been hiding in the trees waiting for the newlyweds.
Peter’s death sent Carmen down a dark spiral of paralyzing guilt and depression. She completely disassociated from the world. When she told her family that all she could see was “blackness” and threatened suicide, they admitted her to a psychiatric hospital.
But the entire time, she wouldn’t give up Glen. Maybe she was that brainwashed, I really don’t know. The police determined that Peter’s death was accidental. Someone had been shooting at targets in the stand of trees next to the hiking trail - and based on the number of empty bottles police found, they were intoxicated. Peter had been hit by a stray bullet. Which, why they also wouldn’t try to hunt down the drunk person who accidentally shot and killed a man, I’ll never understand- apparently that was fine.
Carmen was released from treatment after three months and moved to California to live with her older brother. Glen called constantly about the insurance money - Had she filed the claim? Did they send the check? Eventually, she was sent a check for Peter’s life insurance, $10,000 - far less than what Glen had expected. Carmen never changed the beneficiary on Peter’s policy, so most of the money went to his parents. But she preferred that; she didn’t want a dime, not after what happened.
So She gave Glen the entire $10,000, almost 50k today, and vowed never to see or speak to him again.
Ruth Engleman finished telling all of this to Agent McGarvey, who couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “There’s Others, too” she told him.
Ruth claimed Glen had used his honeypot ploy at least four times. In addition to James Bullock and Peter Halm was a man named Ronald Gusewelle. And his widow, Barbara, was Glen’s most lucrative co-conspirator.
Years earlier, she had joined his rotation of girlfriends. He eventually set her up with a colleague, another dentist, delivering on his promise to give her a better life. But he didn’t dare try to cash in on Barbara’s first husband - a white collar professional. People organized fundraisers and tip hotlines for those murders. Those murders were actually solved.
For 10 years, Barbara enjoyed the perks of being a doctor’s wife and stay-at-home mother. Then he cheated on her. Barbara filed for divorce, expecting that she’d get half of her husband’s assets to maintain her lifestyle. But the alimony didn’t shake out that way, and Barbara found herself living in a one bedroom apartment with three kids and bills piling up. It was time to reconnect with Glen. And find her a new man.
Barbara met Ronald Gusewelle at a laundromat; they hit it off over stale coffee served in styrofoam cups. Six weeks later, they were married. Ronald eagerly took on the role of step dad and Barbara adjusted to life in his small hometown. The courtship was so fast, Barbara didn’t learn much about Ronald’s family until after they were married. As it turned out, his parent’s estate was worth close to a million dollars - and Ronald would inherit half when they died. Adjusted for inflation, it equaled roughly 2.6 million.
Barbara relayed all this to Glen with a twinkle in her eye. They were about to make a killing.
On November 3rd, 1977, Ronald’s parents, Arthur and Vernita, were attacked in their house by an unknown intruder. Vernita died instantly from a point blank gunshot wound. Arthur had laid still, bleeding from his own wounds, waiting for the intruder to leave. Then he crawled to the phone and called 911.
When the paramedics arrived, Arthur was in critical condition. All he could say was the word, “two,” which he repeated several times. Investigators assumed it meant there were two intruders, but that’s just a guess. Arthur later died at the hospital.
Initially, it looked like the Gusewelle were killed by burglars. The whole house had been tossed, drawers rifled through, cabinets standing open. But Vernita’s purse, which had cash inside, was untouched. They had also left behind her wedding ring and other jewelry. Was the robbery staged?
The murders shocked the Gusewelle’s close-knit community. Everything about them felt… senseless. The police had no leads and the case quickly went cold. The whole ordeal caused a schism between Ronald and his brother as they divided their parents' estate. But at least Barbara and the kids were there for Ronald to lean on.
Then, almost two years later, on March 31st, 1979, Ronald pulled into his driveway after a late shift at work. The garage door opener was busted, so he put the car in park and yanked on the metal handle, opening it manually –
There’s someone INSIDE, waiting for him, a silhouette in the beams of his headlights.
Ronald looked to the back door, thinking about his wife and kids inside, then - bang. He was shot in the chest, directly through his heart. Then another figure emerged from the dark and slammed a hammer into his temple. Ronald immediately crumpled, dead.
Barbara appeared at the back door and looked at her husband bleeding out on the floor of the garage. To the two other men standing in the dark garage: it was Glen and his best friend, Bob Handy. Barbara told them to move Ronald’s body, quickly, then went back into the house for something to mop up the blood with.
Glen and Handy shoved Ronald into the backseat of his Camaro, breaking one of his legs in the process. Then they drove off into the blackness, back to St. Louis. They parked Ronald’s car in the parking lot of a former Holiday Inn. It was a pay-by-the-hour place now, with a clientele of drug users and sex workers. Glen slipped a few condoms into Ronald’s pocket, to make it look like he’d come here to solicit sex. Then they walked to the next block, where Handy’s car was parked, and drove home.
It took five days for someone to actually look in the backseat of the Camaro and find Ronald’s body. Just as Glen intended, the police assumed that Ronald had been murdered by a sex worker. It was a tragic, but clear-cut, investigation.
Ronald’s friends and neighbors didn’t know how to handle the news. Not just how he died, but for it to happen so soon after Arthur and Vernita. It was unimaginable. No one blamed Barbara, his grieving widow, when she sold the house, packed up the kids, and moved away from the small town. Too many bad memories there.
But they probably didn’t realize that Barbara had walked away with over half a million dollars. now, he needed to verify as many details as he could. If what she said was true, his carbombing case was now a serial killer investigation. A pretty big leap.
Ruth also mentioned that there was a man at a drag racing venue Glen frequented who was pushed down a well and then the well was blown up with dynamite. That murder had been long unsolved, but after hearing about how Glen blew up Sophie, Ruth was sure it was him.
<<>>
Ruth’s stories checked out. She knew details that had never been released to the public. Things only the killer would know. But it was both good and bad news for McGarvey. Glen had told Ruth most of these things while they were still married. A skilled defense attorney could keep Ruth from testifying at trial because of spousal privilege.
He offered Ruth a deal: he would place her and her son with the witness protection program if she agreed to wear a wire, with the hope that they could catch Glen talking about Sophie Barrera’s murder – or, well, any of the murders really.
Both McGarvey and Ruth knew there was risk involved. Glen was a suspicious person by nature. If something tipped him off and he discovered the wire, he would kill her on the spot.
But Ruth was already waiting for Glen to finally kill her. And if the wire worked, she would be free. So she agreed.
And she called up Glen who agreed to meet with her. Ruth asked Glen about Sophie’s case, and He mentioned that she got exactly what she deserved.
Ruth used that as an opening - wasn’t there anything else Glen could have done to stop the lawsuit? Did he really have to kill her?
Glen was taken aback by the suggestion. And for a second, Ruth figured she was found out. She gripped the cold ceramic handle of her coffee cup and held her breath, waiting for Glen to lunge at her. But he didn’t. No. He said couldn’t have handled it any other way.
And if that wasn’t a clear enough confession, ten minutes later Glen admitted to making the car bomb and planting the first bomb at Sophie’s house.
It was all Ruth could do to stay composed until Glen left for the night. She immediately called McGarvey - did he hear what Glen said? They had him!
It was a good start, but the more Glen said, the stronger the case against him would be. If they were really lucky, he’d admit to being a serial killer.
It was really hard for Ruth, talking to Glen more would give him more opportunity to find her out. But she went back. After Ruth’s early success, steering Glen toward conversations about the other murders was a challenge becauseThere weren’t many organic reasons for Ruth to bring them up. She tried bringing up Peter’s name, but Glen shot her a look and she walked it back. This went on for weeks, until finally, something in her broke and she asked him point blank: why do you have to kill people?
He tried to laugh it off, change the subject, but Ruth wouldn’t drop it. She asked him three more times, she really wanted to know: Why does he keep killing people?
Her persistence trips Glen’s spidey-senses. He tells her, “I’m beginning to wonder if I’m in a bugged house, Ruth. You’re no longer my wife. You can testify against me. There are plenty of guys in prison because of their ex-wives”
And He stormed out of the house, Ruth was totally dejected, like she missed her chance. But then Glen agreed to have dinner with her on Valentines day.
Right before their dinner, an article had actually been published about Peter’s murder and it listed Glen as a person of interest, which gave Ruth exactly the opening she needed. She asked him about the article, and Glen couldn’t stop himself from complaining about how little money he’d gotten out of the whole affair. It had hardly been worth it.
Ruth prodded, softly suggesting that Carmen and her brother lied about the amount. How did he know she didn’t keep more for herself?
Glen scoffed at that. Carmen was incapable of lying to him. He said he “trained that out of her”. And her brother, well, he knew how Glen operated and what he would do if they tried to screw him. He said, “Plus, we’ve got a third person very much in the background who does simple little killings for a thousand bucks.”
That detail genuinely shocked Ruth. She asked Glen, what kind of person would do that? Is he that desperate for money?
Glen weighed her question, then shrugged. The money was part of it. But killing probably made the guy feel confident, too. Seeing the look on Ruth’s face, he quickly added: “I do know one thing, babe, there’s no driving urgency on my part to keep getting rid of my fellow man. That’s the last thing I’m interested in now. I just want to settle down quietly, practice a little dentistry.”
McGarvey, listening from the surveillance van, actually smiled. Jackpot.
Five days later, McGarvey drove Ruth and her son to the airport to enter witness protection. It took another five days for Glen to realize they were gone. And then he was arrested, charged with the murders of Sophie Barrera and Peter Halm.
Thanks to the wire tap and testimony from Ruth and Carmen, Glen was convicted and sentenced to 60 years without the possibility of parole.
Then, in 1984, the Illinois prosecutor called a grand jury regarding the Gusewelle murders. Agent McGarvey had uncovered new evidence: blood spatter in the garage that matched Ronald’s DNA.
and then a few days later, Glen’s co-conspirator, Barbara, paid for an expedited passport and booked a ticket to Switzerland.
But the police managed to track her down and arrest her in Florida before she had a chance to use either. Barbara was extradited back to Illinois and, given her clear flight risk, set bail at $6 million.
She used most of the money she’d lied, schemed, and killed for to hire veteran defense attorney F. Lee Bailey, part of OJ Simpson’s dream team. But even he couldn’t save her. She was convicted for murder and sentenced to 50 years in prison.
With the new evidence McGarvey uncovered, Glen Engleman was also charged for Ronald, Arthur, and Vernita’s murders. After maintaining his innocence and taking the stand to defend himself during the previous trials, Glen surprised everyone by deciding to shut up for once. He accepted a deal, pleading guilty on all three counts, and forgoing a trial. He was already destined to spend the rest of his life in prison, so perhaps the thrill of the courtroom had lost its shine. He died in prison in March of 1999 at 72-years-old.
Glen was never formally charged for James Bullock’s murder, allegedly the first murder he committed, which remains an open, unsolved case. However, it’s commonly accepted that Glen killed James, based on the testimony of Ruth Engleman and others.
Glen has also been connected with the death of Eric Frey in 1963, the man who was pushed down and well and then blown up, but, again, never charged. At the time, police ruled Eric’s death accidental. He was helping Glen demolish an old well with explosives at one of his properties. The detonator misfired while James was inside the well, burying him alive. You know, when someone accidentally dies on a serial killers property and it’s not suspicious….
But, in a familiar twist, Eric’s young widow had collected $25,000 in life insurance after his death - almost $300,000 today. They had been married less than a year. And Glen had introduced Eric to his future wife; she was his step-niece. Given the similarities to Glen’s other murders, it’s not that far of a leap to suggest Eric’s death was anything but an accident.
If Glen was indeed responsible for James Bullock and Eric Frey’s death, it means that there are still two women who never faced justice for their actions. The women that seduced these men at Glen’s request, said nothing to stop their murders, and profited.