Alton Coleman and Debra Brown: A Serial-Killing Couple

Alton Coleman and Debra Brown after their arrest

On this day in 1984, Alton Coleman and Debra Brown were apprehended in Evanston, Illinois, after a two-month crime spree that left eight people dead and several more wounded. The couple had met in 1983 after Coleman had already established a lengthy criminal record, which included serving time for the abduction and rape of a woman in Waukegan, Illinois. Although it was well known by psychiatrists and prison officials that he was obsessed with violent sex, he was released from prison and later acquitted of subsequent rape charges in 1976 and 1980.

On May 28, 1984, Coleman and Brown abducted two Gary, Indiana, girls, ages seven and nine, and proceeded to rape and beat them. One girl managed to escape, while the other was choked to death. The next day, with the FBI already in pursuit, the couple abducted and murdered 9-year-old Vernita Wheat in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Their next stop was Detroit, Michigan, where they started stealing cars and beat a couple with a pipe in their home. On July 7, 1984, the bodies of Virginia Temple and her 10-year-old daughter were discovered in the crawlspace of their Toledo, Ohio, home. In Cincinnati, they continued stealing cars, bludgeoning one woman to death in the process. Their last victim, 77-year-old Eugene Scott, was also killed for his car in Indianapolis on July 18.

On July 20, Alton Coleman and Debra Brown were walking across an intersection in Evanston, Illinois when they passed a car stopped at a red light. The car's driver was from Coleman's Waukegan neighborhood. He recognized Coleman and immediately notified the police. By this time Coleman had been given a special eleventh slot on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list. Coleman and Brown faced trials in several states and Coleman was executed by lethal injection on April 26, 2002, in Ohio. Brown was also sentenced to death but her sentence was later commuted by Governor Richard Celeste in 1991 on the basis of her low IQ and a diagnosis of dependent personality disorder. Before she met Alton Coleman, Debra Brown had no history of violence or any record of criminal activity. She is serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole at the Dayton Correctional Institution in Dayton, Ohio.

Related Reading:

From The Vault: Serial killer and rapist Alton Coleman terrorized Tri-State in 1984

Yes, we used to hang people on Fifth Street: A brief history of Cincinnati executions


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