Biography of Harvey Louis Carignan

Biography of Harvey Louis Carignan

Harvey is the son of August Carignan and Mary Adelina Belanger . He is a brother to Patricia, Clinton, Francis and Bernard Carignan.

His mother would marry August Carignan when Harvey was a toddler. Before being sent to live at a reform school in Mandan, ND at age eleven Harvey tried living with relatives in Cavalier and then Williams, ND. Bedwetting, stealing and childhood chorea were problems for young Harvey. Carignan claimed female employees at the reform school sexually abused him. When he left the reform school at age eighteen he enlisted in the U.S. Army.

On July 31, 1949 while stationed at Fort Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, Carignan raped and killed 57-year-old Laura Showatler. She died from several blows to the head. Less than two months later, Carignan attempted to rape Dorcas Callen but she escaped. She told the police she had been approached by an intoxicated soldier at around 7 a.m. Callen and another eyewitness, John Keith, identified Carignan in a line-up. On September 17, 1949, Carignan was brought to the U.S. Marshal for the murder of Laura Showatler and confessed. He was charged and convicted of first degree murder. He was sentenced to death by hanging. His lawyers, however, filed an appeal with the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that Carignan's confession was unlawfully elicited by an interrogator who assured Carignan that he would not be executed if he confessed. In 1951 the Supreme Court overruled his death sentence due the officer's violation of the McNabb rule. In 1952 he was transferred to Alcatraz where he served eight more years and on April 2, 1960, he was paroled.

Four months later he was arrested in Minnesota for burglary, assault and attempted rape. He was convicted and sentenced to two and one half years in a Minnesota State prison and another 2,086 days in federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. On March 2, 1964, he was released on parole and moved to Seattle where he was arrested on November 22, 1964 for second-degree burglary and sentenced to fifteen years in the Washington State prison in Walla Walla. During his stay there he obtained his GED before being paroled in 1968.

A year later he married Sheila Moran. That same year he was arrested for parole violation and suspicion of robbery. He was sent back to Walla Walla for a year and his wife divorced him due to physical abuse.

On April 14, 1972 Carignan married Alice Johnson and moved in with her and her two children, Billy (11) and Georgia (14). Two months later Billy moved out to live with his real father due to the beatings he had been receiving from Carignan.

On July 27, 1972 Virginia Piper disappeared. It is speculated that Carignan had kidnapped her. On October 15, 1972 nineteen-year-old Leslie Laura Brock of Bellingham, Washington was found dead. She died from several blows to the head. Witnesses claimed that they saw her get into Carignan's silver truck.

On May 1, 1973 Kathy Sue Miller, age fifteen, answered Carignan's want ad for employees at a service station that he was leasing. When the girl showed up in response to the ad, he sexually assaulted and killed her. Her body was found months later by two boys hiking on the Indian reservation north of Everett, Washington. She was naked, bundled in a sheet of plastic and had been beaten with a hammer which left nickel-size holes in her skull.

On June 28, 1973 forty-seven-year-old Mary Townsend was attacked by Carignan at a bus stop. He attacked her from behind knocking her unconscious. When she awoke, she was in his vehicle and he began to command sexual favors, but she managed to leap from the vehicle and escape. A few days later, he was arrested for assaulting his wife, Alice, who soon thereafter left him.

On September 9, 1973 he picked up Jerri Billings, a thirteen-year-old hitchhiker and forced her to perform sexual acts on him while he assaulted her with a hammer. After the assault, he released her. She did not report the incident until several months later.

By May of 1974, Carignan moved in with Eileen Hunley, whom he picked up hitchhiking, after moving to Minnesota. In August Eileen broke off her relationship with him. She disappeared on August 10, 1974. Her rotting corpse was found five weeks later in Shelbourne County. Her skull had been shattered by blows from a hammer and she had been raped with a tree branch.

On September 8, 1974 Carignan picked up seventeen-year-old June Lynch and sixteen-year-old Lisa King who were hitchhiking in Minneapolis. On the edge of town Carignan assaulted June with a hammer and left her on the roadside. Lisa managed to escape during the attack.

On September 14, 1974 Carignan picked up Gwen Burton from a Sears parking lot. He ripped her clothing, choked her into semi-consciousness and sexually assaulted her with a hammer. He dumped her body in a nearby field but she survived and was able to crawl to the roadside for help. Four days later, he picked up Versoi and Diane Flynn. He forced them to perform oral sex and would beat them if they didn't follow his commands. The two girls were able to escape when Carignan stopped for fuel. Two days later, Kathy Shultz disappeared. Her body was found the next day by hunters in a cornfield forty miles from Minneapolis. As in the other cases, Kathy's skull had been crushed by hammer blows.

By this time, police in Minneapolis and Washington state were closing in. A search of Carignan's possessions revealed a map with 181 red circles drawn in isolated areas of the United States and Canada. Some of the circles indicated places where he had applied for jobs or purchased vehicles, but others indicated the sites of a string of unsolved homicides and assaults on women.

In February of 1975, Carignan was tried on the attempted murder and aggravated sodomy in Gwen Burton's case. He pled not guilty by reason of insanity claiming that God told him to kill those women. The jury was not convinced by the insanity plea and found him guilty. He was sentenced to a maximum of forty years in prison. Minnesota term limits meant his convictions and sentences for the other assaults and murders would have no effect on his eligibility for release in forty years. His combined sentences, however, called for 150 years. He, apparently, is eligible for parole in 2015.

He has been nicknamed "Harv the Hammer" and "The Want Ad Killer".

(biography information found at www.findagrave.com - memorial # 110153943)