United States of America
EDWARDS
Andrew David
Active from 1987 to 1992, in Oregon, California & Colorado
DID YOU KNOW...
Birth Fact
Edwards was born in Sunnyvale California USA in 1958
Interesting Fact
Edwards is 180cm tall
Train Fact
The Burlington Northern Railroad yard (now Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway) is the largest freight railroad network in North America
THE DISPATCH
The Beginning
In 1985, Andrew David Edwards broke up with his girlfriend and left his job as a brick layer. Edwards had been in and out of alcoholic treatment centres and programs since he was 19. He hit the road, hit the bottle, and began killing other transient men he drank with.
The Murders
John Harold Schiermeister
- October 5, 1987
- Portland, Oregon
On October 5, 1987, John Harold Schiermeister was found dead by railway workers at the Burlington Northern Railroad yard. He died from a blow to the head. The two men drank together, until Edwards beat him to death in an alcohol-fueled rage.
Anthony Keith Thurman
- April 5, 1990
- Portland, Oregon
On April 5, 1990, Anthony Keith Thurman was found beaten to death under a freeway overpass. Edwards had killed him with a piece of pipe.
Melvin Richards
- February 21, 1992
- Bakersfield, California
Melvin Richards met up with Edwards while riding the rails. After the two men started drinking, Edwards again became enraged, and attacked Richards. He threw Richards’s body off the train near Bakersfield on February 21, 1992.
Bud Griffith
- In April or May, 1992
- Pueblo, Colorado
Just months after the death of Richards, in either April or May, 1992, Bud Griffith was reported dead in a homeless camp in a rail yard near Pueblo, Colorado. He and Edwards had been drinking, when Edwards beat him to death with a piece of 2″x4″ wood and a wine bottle. Griffith lay dead for days before his death was reported.
Lynn Ellis Delong & Edwards' Arrest
- In January, 1993
- Chico, California
In January, 1993, Edwards sought help after getting into a fight with Lynn Ellis Delong. He broke the brake lines of a train he was riding on, and hopped off the train in Chico, California on January 26, 1993.
Arrest, Sentencing
Edwards Arrested, Charged
- February 2, 1993
- Chico, California
Edwards was picked up by a deputy while wandering around a residential area. He decided to unburden himself, and confessed he had murdered 5 men. His confession included his attack on Delong, whom he thought he had killed. Delong lost an ear, but survived. Edwards had injured his hand and sought medical help.
Edwards was extradited to Oregon, the location of his first murders. He was charged with murder after police worked to verify his story. He was only charged for the 2 Oregon murders, as the others were in different jurisdictions.
He regretted his decision to confess because he thought his parents would be embarrassed. The deaths, trial and sentence got little media coverage, probably because they were all homeless alcoholic men.
Edwards Sentenced To Life
- October 18, 1993
- Oregon
The Oregon Department of Corrections website says that on October 18, 1993, Edwards entered the prison system, serving life. As of June, 2021, he remains in prison. He is searching for penpals on various prisoner penpal type websites.
Edwards & The “Less -Dead”
Only one of Edwards’s victims seems to have gotten press coverage when he was murdered. Steven A. Egger wrote a book called The Killers Among Us: An Examination of Serial Murder and its Investigation. In it, one of the topics he raises is The Less-Dead. Eggers says that people who are “less important” when they are alive – alcoholic transients, low-level prostitutes, drug addicts – are “less important” when they die. There is little to no press coverage of their murders, and almost no coverage of their killer’s trial.
In Edwards’s case, I found information about one murder, his arrest and a couple of articles written at the time. Because of this phenomena, I have included books below which do not specifically mention Edwards, but do examine The Less-Dead theory.
SIMILAR SERIAL KILLERS
Robert Andrew Clay Allison
Robert Allison, the Wolf of Washita who terrorized Texas and New Mexico, was also an alcoholic
Richard Lawrence Marquette
Richard Marquette was a meat packer who also murdered people in Portland, Oregon
Paul Bernardo
Infamous Canadian serial killer Paul Bernardo was also arrested in February, 1993
BOOKS
Books about serial murder and “The Less-Dead”
The Need to Kill by Steven A. Egger
ISBN: 9780131433441
Published by Prentice Hall on 2003
Pages: 259
The Need to Kill rips away the myths and mystery associated with serial killers, shedding new light on the world’s most terrifying individuals. Dr. Steven Egger, creator of the first statewide computer system for tracking serial killers, has been researching this phenomenon for 20 years.
In this book, he brings a clear eye and real objectivity to questions that are rarely answered accurately in the press. Is there really a “profile”? Who do serial killers murder? How do they choose their victims? What motivates them? Are they “mutants from hell,” or frighteningly like the rest of us. And why, exactly, are we so fascinated with them?
Drawing on his unmatched expertise, Eggers profiles seven of history’s most notorious serial killers, including John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, Henry Lee Lucas, and Jeffrey Dahmer. Egger also profiles unsolved cases of serial murder from across the United States: the work of killers who may still be out there, planning to strike again.
Finally, Egger takes readers behind the scenes with the investigators, exploring the tools at their disposal–and the obstacles standing in their way.
Real-Life Monsters: A Psychological Examination of the Serial Murderer by Stephen J. Giannangelo
ISBN: 9780313397851
Published by ABC-CLIO on 6 July 2012
Pages: 193
Real-Life Monsters: A Psychological Examination of the Serial Murderer takes a different approach than most titles on a similar topic: the author develops and proposes an original psychological explanation, rather than simply repeating some of the long-held theories for these criminals’ heinous actions. The work addresses current issues, presents detailed commentary and personal observation, and contains photographs that will fascinate general readers interested in the subjects of true crime, serial killers, and psychopathology.
The first part of the book carefully examines the research past and present regarding clinical, psychological, societal, and biological bases for violent behavior, specific to the serial murderer. Part two establishes a novel theory of the pattern of violence and then explores this hypothesis through eight case studies, interviews with serial killers, and elemental analysis. The work also contains a chapter based on conversations between the author and a convicted serial murderer.
Rethinking Serial Murder, Spree Killing, and Atrocities by Robert Shanafelt, Nathan W. Pino
ISBN: 9781317564676
Published by Routledge on 20 November 2014
Pages: 190
Multiple killings by serial or spree killers and the mass violence seen in war crimes and other atrocities have typically been understood as discrete category types, which can foster the view that there are fundamentally different kinds of human beings, including “deviants” who are born evil and innately given to sadism or a callous lack of empathy. In contrast, this book considers the violence of these “deviants” in terms of larger questions about human violence. Therefore, in addition to describing the life histories of a sample of individual serial and spree murderers, the book includes analysis of macro-level phenomena such as genocide, mass rape and killing, and torture occurring under conditions of war, state authorization, or political upheaval. The chief claim of the book is that, given the “right” combination of factors occurring at different levels of analysis, virtually anyone can emerge as a killer or perpetrator of atrocities. While it is crucial to understand individual killers in terms of the details of their biographies, it is equally crucial to understand political atrocities in terms of the details of their histories; and to see that persons and groups are always the product of complexly interacting assemblage processes.
Quinet, Kenna. (2007). “The Missing Missing: Toward a Quantification of Serial Murder Victimization in the United States”. Homicide Studies – HOMICIDE STUD. 11. 319-339. 10.1177/1088767907307467.
Although early attempts to estimate the number of serial murder victims in the United States varied greatly and were exaggerated, current estimates may actually underestimate the number of serial murder victims. This study provides extrapolation from existing databases including missing persons, unidentified dead, and misidentified dead to estimate uncounted serial murder victims. In addition to providing lower and upper estimates of possible victims from these sources, this article also provides a methodology for counting “the missing missing”—missing persons who were never reported as missing and some of whom may be serial murder victims. By counting various sources of possible hidden serial murder victims, the addition of a lower estimate of 182 and an upper estimate of 1,832 additional annual serial murder victims in the United States is suggested.
THE STATS
Killer in a Historical Timeline
Statistical table for Andrew David Edwards
| Killer Name | Edwards, Andrew David |
| Gender | M |
| Arrest Date | February 2, 1993 |
| Sentence | Life term |
| Birth Location | Sunnyvale California USA |
| Birth Date | June , 1958 |
| Status | Alive or Unknown |
| Height | No |
| Labour Type | brick layer |
| Fake Job | Blue |
| Marital Status | Straight |
| Victims (Suspected) | 4 |
| Victims (Convicted) | 2 |
| Victims (Claimed) | 2 |
| Victim Race | M |
| Victim Age | Unknown |
| Victim Type 2 | Strangers |