Naman Shrestha
In the 1990s, several women in Arkansas were found covered in blood in the middle of a gruesome crime scene. The investigators kept digging but could not find the killer until 2000 when he was caught red-handed by the father of the victim. Charles Ray Vines evaded justice for several years, taking several vulnerable women victims. The episode titled ‘Grave Secrets’ of ‘Murder by Numbers’ covers the crimes Charles committed and was linked to during his reign of terror in Arkansas. With the help of in-depth interviews with the victims’ families and friends, the viewers are provided with a detailed account of it all.
Charles Ray Vines Led a Double Life and Committed Rapes and Murders in the 1990s
Before getting involved in some horrendous crimes, Charles Ray Vines was described as a doting father and loving husband. In 1985, he got married to Crystal Winton and the couple gave birth to two sons, Tyler and Kyle. Charles used to spend some quality time with Tyler, and he would take him hunting and fishing. He was also a good neighbor and friend, always lending a helping hand to others. However, there was a much darker side to Charles as he allegedly inflicted a lot of trauma on Tyler by beating him up, threatening him with a gun, and stabbing him with a knife.
Not long after the marriage, Charles also turned abusive towards his wife. As per Tyler, he not only pulled a gun to her head, but he also threw her off the porch while she was pregnant with their second child. He usually kept her locked up in the house or his shop. Consequently, after four years of abuse, the marriage deteriorated, and the couple got divorced in 1989. Soon, he got into a holy matrimony with a woman older than him, but the marriage only lasted for about three months. Unfortunately, his wife and sons weren’t his only victims. In the 1990s, Charles began terrorizing the River Valley region, starting with the brutal beating and rape of Lilly Jones, an 89-year-old legally blind woman, on April 10, 1993. She seemingly survived the attack.
Charles Was Ultimately Apprehended For His Crimes in 2000
A couple of months later, Charles reportedly murdered a 58-year-old woman named Juanita Wofford. She was found a day or two after she was killed, and the police described the crime scene as gruesome and horrific. The medical analysis also showed that she was sexually assaulted after getting killed. He got away with the crimes as another man named Danny Bennett confessed to them and got himself incarcerated. This allowed him to commit another crime a couple of years later, on August 10, 1995. He mercilessly stabbed 74-year-old Ruth Henderson to death, leaving the crime scene quite similar to that of Juanita. When the pattern was noticed by the police, they released Danny and searched for the real killer.
Five years later, in March 2000, a couple called the authorities to report their family friend who committed a heinous crime against their 16-year-old daughter in their residence. The attacker was Charles who was found raping and stabbing the teen. After this, he was beaten by the girl’s father before the police arrived and took him into custody. While he was awaiting trial, the police also found incriminating evidence against him in connection with the rape and murder of Juanita and Ruth. To avoid getting the death sentence, he cooperated with the authorities and told them the details of the rapes and murders he had committed. Consequently, the jury found him guilty of two capital murders, and the court sentenced him to three life sentences without the possibility of parole.
Charles Ray Vines Died While Serving His Life Sentences in Arkansas
Besides that, Charles was also linked to the murder of 19-year-old Melissa Witt, who had disappeared from the Bowling World parking lot in Fort Smith, Arkansas, on December 1, 1994. A couple of hunters found her body more than a month later, on January 13, 1995, in the Ozark National Forest near Turner Bend in Franklin County. The investigators reported that the way Melissa died was similar to the victims of Charles Ray Vines.
In order to solve that case, the investigators dug deeper into Charles in 2019 and found out that he had drawn maps of the Ozark Mountain area. Moreover, around the same time of the murder, he worked within an 8-minute drive of where the victim’s body was found by the hunters. However, despite the detectives’ best attempts to get an interview with the suspect, they failed as Charles was severely sick and unconscious at the time.
In September of the same year, the convict passed away due to natural causes without giving an interview about the Melissa murder case and taking the truth about it to his grave. At the time, he was incarcerated in the Maximum Security Unit southeast of Pine Bluff. However, the investigators still did not give up, as they went to his home and frequently visited places, searching for clues and evidence. He was still considered a prime suspect in the case.
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