#46: The Want-Ad Killer

The Supreme Court’s Fatal Error: How the "McNabb Rule" and the "Want-Ad" Predator Exposed the Lethal Gap in American Justice

1. The Nightmare That Waited Fifteen Years

In the stifling heat of a New York City August in 1957, Mary Miller awoke from a vision of pure, concentrated evil. The dream was visceral: she saw a fourteen-year-old girl with long, dark hair, her face unrecognizable behind a mask of matted blood. Mary’s daughter, Kathy, was only four months old at the time—a beautiful, healthy blond baby. For fifteen years, Mary clung to the relief that Kathy was fair-haired, a living contradiction to the dark-haired specter in the nightmare. She believed they had outrun the omen.

The catalyst that proved her wrong was as mundane as a newspaper column. In May 1973, Kathy, now fifteen and eager to enter the adult workforce, began scanning the "Want Ads" in the Seattle Times. What appeared to be a routine search for a summer job became a collision course with a predator who didn't just hunt; he used the legal system’s own protections as a shield. To examine the case of Harvey Louis Carignan is to look into the abyss of American jurisprudence, where the rights of the accused can inadvertently sign a death warrant for the innocent.

2. The Ultimate Legal Loophole: A Killer Saved by the Supreme Court

The most chilling reality of the Harvey Carignan story is that he was a man who should have died decades before he ever reached Seattle. In 1950, Carignan was convicted in the Territory of Alaska for the bludgeoning murder of 57-year-old Laura Showalter. He was sentenced to hang. He escaped the gallows not through a lack of evidence, but through a technicality that exposed a terrifying flaw in the legal system.

While in custody, Carignan had been properly arraigned for the rape of a young woman named Dorcas Callen, but investigators failed to bring him before a magistrate for a separate, timely hearing on the Showalter murder charge specifically. This violation of the "McNabb Rule"—a mandate requiring prompt arraignment to prevent coerced confessions—rendered his admission of guilt inadmissible. The Supreme Court eventually upheld the reversal of his conviction. In an act of systemic irony, the highest court in the land mandated the release of a man Justice Bone described in his 1950 appellate commentary as a "pretty smart criminal" rather than a "dull clod."

Justice Bone’s warning was prophetic:

"We would be utterly naive if we overlooked the cold hard fact that we are not dealing with a simple, childlike mentality. We deal with a cold-blooded rapist, who was clever and cunning enough to hide his criminal trail with great skill... It will not do to rake and scrape through the whole gamut of possibilities to find some plausible reason to believe that he was a dull clod rather than a pretty smart criminal."

3. The Professional Front: Luring Victims Through Economic Opportunity

Carignan did not haunt dark alleys; he operated in the broad daylight of commerce. He leased a "Sav-Mor" gas station and used the help-wanted columns of reputable newspapers to target young women. His lure was the promise of financial independence.

He utilized "professional" tactics to disarm the natural caution of his victims, exploiting the teenage eagerness to be taken seriously as an adult. He conducted disciplined, ten-minute phone interviews, asking about age, education, and marital status—questions designed to assess vulnerability as much as competence. To Kathy Miller, the thoroughness of the interview suggested a prestigious opportunity. This deceptive front was bolstered by his wine-colored Oldsmobile Toronado, which he used as a mobile hunting blind. On May 2, 1973, Kathy stepped into that car for a "ride to the station" for an application, never realizing the "Sav-Mor" was merely a theater for Carignan’s depravity.

4. The Intellectual Predator: Studying the "Psychopath" to Become One

Carignan was the product of a lifetime of institutionalization, which he used to develop a specialized "Institutional Literacy." From the Mandan reform school to the Army and Alcatraz, he learned to navigate and manipulate systems. His childhood was a blueprint for his pathology: a history of chronic bed-wetting (enuresis), childhood chorea (St. Vitus’s dance), and claimed sexual abuse by female relatives and baby-sitters. He viewed women as seductive, sexually abusive giantesses—a perception he weaponized.

While incarcerated at Walla Walla State Penitentiary, he didn't just pass time; he studied. He focused on sociology, psychology, and journalism, earning A's on papers titled "The Sexual Psychopath" and "The Well-Adjusted Individual." He used this academic vocabulary to mimic normalcy, allowing him to dominate and silence a succession of wives—Sheila and Alice—and stay steps ahead of investigators. He wasn't just a killer; he was a student of the very minds tasked with catching him.

5. A Systemic Imbalance: Suspect Rights vs. Victim Protection

For Seattle Detectives Billy Baughman and Duane Homan, the investigation was a masterclass in frustration. They knew Carignan was the killer almost immediately, yet the Constitution protected the predator from the very people trying to stop him. Under the "fruit of the poisoned tree" doctrine, any search conducted without airtight probable cause would result in evidence being thrown out.

When Mary Miller questioned why the police couldn't simply search Carignan's property, Detective Homan had to deliver a devastating truth: "Under our present system, I’m afraid the victim doesn’t have the constitutional rights that the suspect has."

This imbalance was compounded by the "twenty-four-hour rule." Because Kathy was initially classified as a "runaway," Carignan was granted a lethal head start. He used this window to scrub his purple Toronado and dump Kathy’s schoolbooks in the Everett Plywood Company parking lot, twenty-six miles away, while the law waited for a clock to run out.

6. The "Passion for Certainty": The Killer’s Methodical Records

Carignan lived by what he called a "passion for certainty." He was obsessed with being "triply sure" of everything, a trait that made him a meticulous record-keeper and an expert at sanitizing crime scenes. However, his pathology occasionally failed him.

The physical evidence that almost ended his run was a result of his one oversight: a partial palm print found on the inside of the Toronado’s passenger window—the only spot he failed to wipe down. Investigators also found Kathy’s body wrapped in black "Visqueen" plastic sheeting. In a haunting link to his "professional" front, this was a common product Carignan used at his Sav-Mor station to wrap gasoline pumps.

Yet, "the luck of the draw" favored the killer. In a final stroke of bleak irony, Kathy’s schoolbooks were found at the Everett Plywood lot, but the rain had obliterated the fingerprints on the pages. Because the timekeeper who found them had wiped them dry, the evidence that could have yielded a clean conviction was lost to the elements.

7. Conclusion: The Legacy of a Fighting Mother

The case of the "Want-Ad Killer" is a sobering testament to the cost of legal technicalities. However, the tragedy catalyzed a shift in the American legal landscape. Mary Miller transformed her grief into an investigative and political force, helping to form the "Families and Friends of Missing Persons and Violent Crime Victims."

Her work was instrumental in the evolution of victims' rights, eventually leading her to testify before a Presidential Task Force. She fought to ensure that the system would one day weigh the protection of the innocent as heavily as the rights of the accused, turning a nightmare into a movement for justice.

As we reflect on the decades Harvey Carignan spent using the law to facilitate his hunt, we are left with a final, haunting question: In a system designed to protect the innocent from wrongful conviction, how do we prevent the "brilliant" predator from using those same shields to claim their next victim?