LEAKIN PARK: BALTIMORE'S OPEN AIR CEMETERY
Leakin Park in Baltimore is where missing people or those suspected to be victims of violence are looked for. Why?
Because since the 1940s, seventy-nine bodies of murdered men, women and children, many times mutilated have been dumped in the woods or along the roads running through the park.Â
Leakin Park adjoins Gwynns Falls Park which covers 1216 acres. Without knowing of its sinister reputation it appears to be a lush woodland, where families once visited so their children could ride ponies and enjoy the outdoors.
On April 19, 1968, four young children, all under the age of 10 were found murdered and mutilated in what was then known as Baltimore Park. The area of Gwynns Falls Park where the boys were found had been riddled with reports of children being molested, and others missing altogether. Other children returned home saying a man had accosted them and made sexual advances.
The discovery was made after police picked up a teenager reported as acting suspicious by neighbors in the area. He took them to the bloody scene. The suspect was carrying a lunch box with human body parts inside. He also had two brown paper bags and a blue suitcase with a hacksaw blade, a table knife, and a claw-like instrument. His name was Reginald Vernon Oates, 18, an unemployed janitor. He lived in the same West Baltimore area where the bodies were found and was described as "deeply religious" who could pass as a 13-year-old.
The victims were Mack Jefferson, 5, his brother Larry, 9, their cousin Lester Watson, 10, and Louis Robert Hill, 10, who was decapitated, and his hands were removed. The others had their throats slit, and were sexually mutilated. Three of the bodies were in a wooded area of the park, and the fourth was about a block away on a foot trail.
The M.E. who was at the scene said three of the boys were clothed but their shoes were missing. The fourth which had been dead about a day longer, had been stripped.
Police found "a mason's maul, a small wedge-shaped hammer with a head about 4 inches long, in a hiding place near the 'Iron Bridge'".
On April 22, 1968, Oates was charged with attempting to rape two girls and molesting and beating four other boys.
In November, 1968, Oates was committed to a mental institution until he was competent to stand trial for the murder of the four boys, the rape of the two girls and sexually molesting four other boys. Eight doctors had found him mentally incompetent.
By the time of his arrest Oates had spent two years in a juvenile facility for robbing another youngster. In the facility he was sexually abused by the other inmates. Two years later he was released and he returned to his adoptive parents. He converted to Christianity but had also started to show signs of mental illness.
Later it was determined he raped Lewis Hill then killed him, and he had sex with the corpses of the other boys. He gutted them and cut off their genitals which he kept. He had also cannibalized part of the children and drank their blood. He is still institutionalized present-day, however he continues to petition for his release from the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
The murder of the boys was not the first, and by then it was known as a dumping ground for murder victims.
In a foreshadowing of eerie events to come, on September 16, 1948, the Baltimore Rosicrucians held their annual pyramid ceremony at Leakin Park.
Fifteen days later on October 1, 1946, Richard Wayne Truman, 13, went missing from his home. He had been staying with his aunt and uncle for the past six weeks.Â
It wasn't until November 18, that his badly decomposed body was found in a wooded section of Gwynn's Falls Park. The boy was found by a man walking his dog, who scratched at a mound found in a honeysuckle thicket. The medical examiner found a hole in the vertebra of the boy, which proved it was not a self-inflicted wound.
Within a week police charged Robert Clayton Wright, 15, with shooting Richard Truman. By December, 1946, he was convicted on a charge of manslaughter for the accidental shooting of the 13-year-old. In January a judge set aside the verdict and referred the case to the juvenile division.
A year after the four boys were killed by Oates, Elsie Josephine Johnson's bullet-riddled body was found in the park. She was shot at close range with a .38-caliber automatic pistol. The 16-year-old had been missing for almost a month, and no ID, money or jewelry was found on the body. It was her nephew Edward Johnson who identified her. Apparently once she left her family's home they lost track of her. Then they received a telephone call on May 8, saying she was staying with a family on Dunmore Avenue, however when police arrived they were told she was gone.
She was last seen alive on May 28, leaving a two-day party at 2 a.m. with an unidentified man.
A month later, William H. Frazier, 24, an Army private stationed at Fort Meade was charged in the murder of Elsie Johnson. Three other men were named in the warrant. The motive was unknown.
As if setting the stage for things to come, five months later the fully clothed skeleton of Eugene Leroy Anderson was found in the park. He was supposedly kidnapped and tortured by members of the Black Panther Party since he was suspected of being an FBI informer. His eyes were gouged out, alcohol was rubbed on his body, and he was beaten and scratched for 48 hours before being killed. No one was convicted of the murder.
As the years passed the park became notorious for criminal activity. In January 13, 1999, Hae Min Lee, a Korean-American high school student disappeared. Four weeks later her body was found in Leakin Park. She had been strangled.
Three days after the discovery of Lee's body an anonymous phone call urged police to investigate Adnan Masud Syed, 17, her Pakistani ex-boyfriend. On February 16, police reviewed Syed's phone record. Ten days later he was arrested and charged with first degree murder. Later one of his friends would testify that he expressed a desire to kill Lee, and that he helped Syed stash her body in the park.
During their relationship Syed had a reputation for being a jealous and controlling boyfriend.
The first trial in December, 1999 ended in a mistrial due to a dispute between the defense attorney and the judge. The second trial ended with a conviction of first degree murder, kidnapping, false imprisonment and robbery. He was convicted and given a life sentence plus 30 years. Appeals on his behalf continued for the next 20 years.
Syed was released in 2022, after issues arose concerning evidence used during the trial. In 2023, his conviction was reinstated on a courtroom technicality, when prosecutors dropped Syed's pending charges, but not before Young Lee, Hae Min's brother, gave formal notice of an appeal. In July, 2023, The Maryland Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal from Syed and the Lee family.
In September, 2024, Adnan Syed’s conviction was reinstated, and he will remain free pending the case going to the lower courts,
In the dozen years since Hae Min Lee's body was discovered in 1999, 20 corpses were been found at the park. In 2012, 23-year-old Antoine Ellis, was shot multiple times in the head before dying in the hospital.
In January, 2023, the body of Steven Gillus, 39, was found in a burning vehicle in Leakin Park.
Perhaps due to its ominous reputation, portions of the movie, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) and episodes of the series The Wire were filmed there.
This park is bordered by two of the most high-crime neighborhoods in Baltimore, and so far 71 bodies have been recovered, both males and females, with ages ranging from less than a year to 69 years old, earning the space the name of Murder Park.
Despite the abundance of bodies found in Leakin Park, authorities believe there are many others that remain undiscovered.
