An Almanac of Infamy

Thomas Edward Luther Survivor Heather Smith Callahan On this day in 1982, a 21-year-old woman named Mary Brown accepted a ride from a man in the ski town of Breckenridge, Colorado. Upon entering the man's vehicle, she was raped and severely beaten with a claw hammer. Her attacker, Thomas Edward Luther, was traced through his truck and arrested. Thomas Edward Luther was born June 23, 1957, in Hardwick, Vermont, the eldest of five children. According to Luther, he was subjected to extreme verbal and physical abuse at the hands of his mother. By age 9, he had started drinking and by age 12, he was using drugs. It was also at age 12, Luther claimed, that he began having sex with an aunt. After his arrest for the assault on Mary Brown, he told psychiatrists that he attacked her because she resembled his abusive mother. He told a fellow inmate that "the next girl won't live. They'll never find her body." Thomas Edward Luther was released from prison in 199