Wayne Nance

What the record shows

Wayne Nance was a Missoula, Montana, furniture delivery driver whom law enforcement suspects of at least six killings in Missoula and Ravalli counties between 1974 and 1985. He was never charged, tried or convicted of any homicide. In the early hours of September 4, 1986, he broke into the Missoula home of Doug Wells and his wife and attacked them; Wells freed himself, took a rifle and shot Nance, who died aged 30. Every attribution below therefore rests on investigators' conclusions after his death, not on a court finding.

Nance was born on October 18, 1955, in Clinton, Montana, according to the Wikipedia article, which says teachers and classmates remembered him as academically gifted but eccentric, and that friends recalled him boasting about Satanism. The earliest killing linked to him is that of Donna Pounds, 39, who was shot in the basement of her home in April 1974. She was the mother of some of Nance's school friends. Popular Science reported in 2009 that retired Missoula County investigator Larry Weatherman had briefly suspected the then high-school student, but a grand jury found insufficient evidence to charge him; the Associated Press reported in 2021 that prosecutors were unable to obtain an indictment. The Wikipedia article says a later search of Nance's home turned up evidence linking him to the case.

The 1985 deaths of Mike and Teresa Shook in Ravalli County are among the cases most firmly tied to him. According to AP reporting, the couple were bound and killed in their home in December 1985 and the house was set on fire; their three children were rescued. Two items stolen from the house were later found at Nance's residence, and the Wikipedia article adds that he had delivered a couch to the couple a few days earlier and that a neighbor saw a pickup matching his.

Investigators also connected Nance to the remains of young women found in the woods east and south of Missoula. A teenager's skeleton found beside Deer Creek Road on December 24, 1984, and nicknamed Debbie Deer Creek, was identified through DNA in April 2006 as Marcella (Marci) Bachmann, 16, a runaway from Vancouver, Washington. The Oregonian reported that she had lived with Nance for several months under the name Robin and had been shot three times in the head. Popular Science described how strands of dyed hair and a photograph of the woman bar patrons knew as Robin tied her to him. The Missoula County Sheriff's Office describes Bachmann as a known Nance victim, according to CNN reporting.

Two other cases remain suspicions rather than established links. Devonna Nelson, 15, went missing in 1978; her remains were found near Missoula in 1980 and identified in 1985. The Wikipedia article says Nance had visited Seattle around the time she vanished but has not been definitively linked to her death. A woman found shot twice in the skull near Crystal Creek in September 1985, long known as Christy Crystal Creek, was identified in May 2021 through forensic genetic genealogy by Othram and the sheriff's cold case team as Janet Lee Lucas, 23, of Spokane, last seen in Sandpoint, Idaho, in summer 1983. Othram and the sheriff's office said Nance is suspected but the connection was still under review; Detective Captain Dave Conway called it a cold case homicide investigation.

The attack that ended Nance's life involved people he knew through work. AP reporting from 1986, summarized in 2021, said Nance entered the Wells home, knocked Doug Wells unconscious and had him tied up, then beat and stabbed him and went upstairs to his wife. Wells freed himself, loaded a rifle and shot Nance. Both spouses survived. The Wikipedia article says police then found photographs of the wife in Nance's possession, some taken along her jogging route.

Totals vary by source. The AP described Nance in 2021 as suspected in at least six killings, the figure also cited by the Billings Gazette, while the Oregonian in 2006 wrote that police had linked him to at least five deaths. Police reports quoted by CNN say the true number will never be known. Because he died before any charge was filed, none of these killings has been tested in court. His case is the subject of John Coston's book To Kill and Kill Again.