A Familiar Method of Operation: Is a Convicted Killer Responsible for Several other Unsolved Murders?

From 1969 to 1970, there were four young girls missing from the Southern part of Connecticut. 14 year old Dawn Cave from Bethany, ten year old Mary Mount from New Canaan and eleven year old Diane Toney were all abducted during the last two weeks of May of 1969. Their bodies were found dumped in the woods, they had been bludgeoned to death with a rock. In September of 1970, five year old Jennifer Noon disappeared on her way home from school, eight days later her body was found in a section of woods in the town of Hamden. She was also beaten to death with rocks.

Police had no suspects in the case but noticed similarities to the August 1970, triple murder of three residents of a home for Mentally Disabled persons. The three individuals were all killed by being bludgeoned with rocks and dumped in wooded areas. In 1972, Harold Meade a truck driver in his twenties was convicted for the killing of the three mentally disabled victims.

Witnesses of some of the four girl's murders also identified him as being in the proximity of where the victims had last been seen alive. While Law Enforcement considered Meade a prime suspect they never had enough evidence to convict him of the other homicides. He was sentenced to life in prison and many figured that he would never be out in public again.

If it only were true.

In 1992, forty three year old Linda Rayner was visiting family in Connecticut when she went to Hammonasset Beach State Park in Madison. Her body was found the next day in a remote part of the beach. The Social Worker's skull was crushed by a rock and much of the physical evidence had been washed away by the ocean. Police have a prime suspect who was camping there that weekend who has a history of indecent exposure to women.

However, Harold Meade was in the area at the same time. According to statements from other prison inmates Meade confessed to Rayner's murder. The three time convicted murderer had been granted weekend furloughs for several years despite his violent past.

Even though he is not officially named as a suspect in the Rayner homicide, Meade no longer is granted access outside of prison. According to a Hartford Courant article, he has even made confessions to other people about some of the murders of the four young girls.

After a lengthy illness, Harold Meade died on December 9th of 2007. While there may never be closure on the cases of the four murdered girls, Meade will never hurt anyone again.

Student Was Killed After Meeting Friends at Bar

(CNN) -- It was a Friday night in June 2007 when 22-year-old college student Kelly Nolan left her home to meet friends at a bar in Madison, Wisconsin.

Police say she and three girlfriends spent the evening at a bar in the State Street area of Madison.

About 11:30 p.m., Nolan and her friends separated, because her friends wanted to go home, and Nolan continued on to another bar.

It is unclear exactly whom Nolan was with afterward. Two weeks after she went missing that night, her body was found in a wooded area on private property 11 miles from where she'd last been seen.

The coroner and police have characterized her death as a homicide but have not released a cause of death or details on the condition of her body.

"We have collected a lot of crime scene evidence and feel confident this case can be solved," said Joel De Spain, a spokesman for the Madison Police Department.

According to police, Nolan's last contact with anyone was a cell phone call in the early morning to her sister, April. Triangulation from pings on her cell phone led police to search the area where they found her body July 9.

Tom Paras, owner of Amy's Cafe, a bar in the State Street area, said an employee met Nolan at another nearby watering hole called the Lava Lounge.

Police won't confirm it, but the witness claims that he and Nolan walked out of the bar together because another male bar patron had been harassing Nolan, Paras said.

"The guy was giving her the creeps," Paras said.

The two walked out, but then Nolan asked Paras' employee to wait for her to use the bathroom.

"They were both very drunk," Paras said, "And he admits he was stupid to have left her there when he saw her talking to that guy again outside, but he assumed they were friends."

According to Paras, the real problem is that no one has an accurate description of this person of interest.

Furthermore, police have not revealed any possible motive in Nolan's murder, nor have they said whether she had been sexually assaulted. Investigators even reviewed surveillance video from the bar but found nothing that shows Nolan interacting with the individual last seen with her.

There is a $12,000 reward being offered for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of the individual responsible for Kelly Nolan's murder. Anyone with a tip is asked to call the Madison Police Department at (608) 266-6014.