POLICE STORIES
A True West Coast Menace
John Wayne Thompson sits on death row for a murder in California — but there’s more.
One of the scariest elements of a brutal killer, is that you can’t always tell their motives by looking at them.
I think we’ve all seen shots of serial killers or mass murderers, and thought to ourselves: “He looks like a killer”. It’s profiling by appearance, if you will. But the sad reality is that many evil people look like someone you could have coffee with at Starbucks. Sometimes you just can’t tell.
A few days ago, I was contacted by a reader on Medium. She lives in Washington state and began relating to me the case of one John Wayne Thompson. She suggested that I write a piece on the saga of Thompson and his victims. I’ve done some research on the case, so without further ado:
The Victims
Thompson is accused of murdering Longview, Washington resident Lori Hamm on July 16, 2006. He admitted to police that he committed the killing, but has yet to be brought to trial. Thompson has also confessed to killing 73-year-old Spokane resident James Ehrgott a few weeks prior to Lori’s killing. James Ehrgott’s body has yet to be found.
