A Murderer Known Only as "Al" Prowled North Las Vegas Bars in 1979
Several women disappeared from bars - including one located inside of the Silver Nugget Casino - in North Las Vegas during the fall of 1979. Local press covered the mysterious circumstances surrounding the disappearances of Sheila Griffith and Linda Jenkins. (Las Vegas-Clark County Library District/LVRJ/UNLV Digital Collections)
Linda Jenkins was last seen alive leaving a North Las Vegas bar with a man known only as “Al” on the night of September 7, 1979. Jenkins was one of three Las Vegas area women murdered in the span of a few weeks in late-1979, though Jenkins’ slaying is the only one of the three that remains unsolved - and questions remain as to the identity of “Al.”
Aerial shot of North Las Vegas in the late 70’s near the time that Sheila Griffith, Linda Jenkins, and Johnsie Bame were murdered after disappearing from area bars and casinos. (UNLV Digital Collections)
Homicide detectives were called out to the desert about a mile south of Blue Diamond Road and Arville Street on September 23, 1979. The owner of some undeveloped property in the area was checking on his real estate when he smelled a foul odor nearby and made a gruesome discovery – the nude body of a young woman.
The body was identified as that of Linda Jenkins, a young mother that had gone missing about two weeks prior. Linda was out at a bar with a friend on the night of September 7, 1979, when she caught a man rummaging through her purse. Investigators later speculated that the unknown man was short on cash and sought the solution to his problem in Jenkins’ purse.
For some reason or another, Jenkins and her friend continued drinking with the sticky-fingered stranger and proceeded to the 101 Club before ending up at the Sky Club at 4015 North Nellis Boulevard. After sharing more drinks with their new companion – who witnesses later said went by “Al” – he accompanied Jenkins as she drove her friend home.
Linda Jenkins would never be seen alive again after pulling her 1972 Ford Maverick away from her friend’s house at around 3:00 a.m. with Al sitting beside her in the passenger seat.
Only a few days after her body was located, airport workers at Lindbergh Field in San Diego making a regular check of cars parked at the lot discovered Jenkins’ abandoned vehicle on October 1, 1979. The car had been parked at the lot since September 9, 1979. Investigators believe Jenkins was murdered by Al inside her vehicle while driving toward San Diego, though news reports did not indicate the manner of death.
Police sought leads from press publicity after linking the murders of Griffith and Jenkins. Sheila Griffith had just started a job as a cocktail waitress at Caesar’s Palace about a month before she went missing, and Linda Jenkins was described as a dependable employee at a downtown clothing store with two young children. Above is an aerial photo of the Silver Nugget during the 1970’s at the time Sheila Griffith went missing from the establishment. (Las Vegas-Clark County Library District/LVRJ/UNLV Digital Collections)
Less than a month after Linda Jenkins went missing, another young woman would disappear after leaving a North Las Vegas establishment.
Sheila Gay Griffith, a 22-year-old cocktail waitress at Caesar’s Palace, had only recently moved to Nevada from Oklahoma and was staying at her sister’s residence in North Las Vegas. Griffith and her sister went out to the Silver Nugget Casino for a few drinks on the evening of September 23, 1979.
The sisters left the Silver Nugget together, but Griffith returned to the casino by herself later that night for dinner. Griffith was last seen alive leaving the Silver Nugget with a man described as white, about 5’7 – 5’9, between the ages of 26 and 30, with a medium build and brown hair.
Griffith’s 1972 Plymouth Satellite would later be found torched behind a hotel in the commercial district of Eloy, Arizona on September 30, 1979. While Griffith’s body was not located in the vehicle, detectives were able to determine that a toolbox had been taken from the car. Police believe the suspect was unfamiliar with the area, otherwise he would have disposed of the vehicle in the desert rather than a busy commercial center.
The search for Griffith would end on November 27, 1979. A hunter scouring for rabbits instead found a nude female body wrapped in a sleeping bag located in a ravine about half-mile from Whiskey Pete’s Casino near the Nevada-California state line. Though several teeth were missing from the remains, police were able to positively identify the body as that of Sheila Griffith. The medical examiner determined that Griffith had been at her resting site for “some time” before being found. The cause of death was eventually determined to be strangulation.
Another woman was taken around the same time that Griffith went missing. 62-year-old Johnsie Bame was leaving a local casino when she slipped and fell in the parking lot, badly skinning her knee. As her focus was consumed by the pain emanating from her knee, Bame was approached by a young stranger that offered her a ride home.
Bame entered the young man’s car and was never seen again.
A man identified by witnesses only as “Al” left with Linda Jenkins from the Sky Club bar in North Las Vegas. Jenkins’ body would later be found in the desert outside of Las Vegas. Local press distributed a sketch of “Al” created by Metro. (Las Vegas-Clark County Library District/LVRJ)
Detectives working on the two murder cases described the suspect in Sheila Griffith’s case as “nearly identical” to the man Linda Jenkins was last seen with at the Sky Club, the mystery man known only as “Al.” News reports from the time of the murders indicate investigators believed the killer may have originally been from Colorado. Further, detectives speculated that robbery may have been part of the suspect’s motive.
Police eventually released a sketch of “Al” but it resulted in no further leads. However, investigators did later learn that “Al” had been involved in a fist fight with a student at UNLV not long before meeting Jenkins.
Edward Allen See, a little-known serial killer that happened to make his way through Las Vegas in September of 1979, was convicted of the murders of Sheila Griffith and Johnsie Bame after his arrest for robbery in North Carolina. The only photo we could locate of See was of him in his old age while imprisoned in Nevada. (Las Vegas-Clark County Library District/LVRJ/NVDOC)
A break in the investigation of Sheila Griffith’s murder occurred several thousand miles from Las Vegas when 32-year-old Edward Allen See was arrested on charges of robbing a restaurant in Robeson County, North Carolina in early-1980.
See had prior convictions for kidnapping and rape, which resulted in him receiving consecutive life sentences in North Carolina due to his violent felony history after being convicted of the restaurant robbery. Telling police investigators that he was “sentenced to all the time he could,” See proceeded to confess to five murders – including two in Las Vegas.
Agents from the FBI lead the interviews with See about his claimed murders. See told the agents that he convinced Sheila Griffith to leave with him from the Silver Nugget. However, See became enraged when Griffith rebuffed his sexual advances. He responded by sexually assaulting the young waitress and then strangling her to death before disposing of her body in the desert.
See also confessed to being the stranger that had enticed Johnsie Bame to enter his car after she scraped her legs in a casino parking lot. He had witnessed the woman fall and saw an opportunity to strike. He drove Bame home so she could clean up the wounds to her legs. But during the drive back to the casino, See attacked and strangled Bame. He left her body in the desert, though he could not remember the location. Bame’s body was never recovered.
Edward Allen See and another inmate took a gospel singing group hostage in an effort to escape the Nevada State Prison. The futile effort resulted in no injuries and only scant press coverage. (Las Vegas-Clark County Library District/LVRJ)
Edward Allen See was convicted for one of his five confessed murders in North Carolina and received another life prison sentence for the crime.
The conditions at the North Carolina prison where See was incarcerated – which used to be a former prisoner of war camp for Union soldiers during the Civil War – were too harsh for See’s tastes, and part of his plea agreement with Clark County prosecutors provided that he serve his sentence in Nevada. See plead guilty to two counts of first-degree murder for the killings of Griffith and Bame and was sentenced to two consecutive life terms.
Shortly after See began his sentence in Nevada, the North Carolina prison where he was formerly incarcerated underwent extensive renovations to modernize the facility.
Though he was now secured behind the walls of the Nevada State Prison in Carson City, See found new avenues to vent his violent propensities. Only a few months after receiving two life sentences in Judge Howard Babcock’s Las Vegas courtroom, a gospel singing group from Reno known as the “Parable Players” were entertaining the prisoners at the Nevada State Prison. At the conclusion of the performance, See and another inmate cornered the singing group while brandishing knives.
The group of nine gospel singers – which included a 15-year-old girl – along with the prison chaplain were taken hostage by See and his conspirator. The inmates initially demanded a helicopter and safe passage out of the prison.
However, negotiators managed to whittle down the hostage takers’ demands as the hours dragged on, and by that night the only requests maintained by the prisoners were that they be taken into custody without being harmed and that they be seen by the prison doctor. The inmates surrendered their weapons to the chaplain and were then detained. The two attempted escapees were examined by a doctor before being put under supervision in the prison’s psychiatric ward.
See received another 15 years tacked onto his sentence for the hostage taking, and he would eventually die in prison of natural causes.
The murder of Linda Jenkins remains officially unsolved, though Edward Allen See appears to be the most likely suspect. The Las Vegas Review-Journal ran a piece in 1984 detailing unsolved local homicides that police believe may be linked to serial killers. Jenkins’ case was one of those noted by Metro Lt. John Collins as likely being committed by a serial killer. (Las Vegas-Clark County Library District/LVRJ)
While the murders of Sheila Griffith and Johnsie Bame were solved with See’s confession, the slaying of Linda Jenkins officially remains a cold case. The only other reference to the Jenkins murder or the mysterious “Al” in the news archives was a 1984 article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal about unsolved local homicides in which serial killers were suspected of involvement.
While officially a cold case, Edward Allen See was prowling the bars and casinos in the Las Vegas area around the time that Jenkins went missing. And she was last seen with a man known only as “Al.” It isn’t a far stretch to imagine that See might have used a variation of his middle name when introducing himself to potential victims.
See was the right age and type to match the witness descriptions of “Al,” and he certainly was in the right place to have committed the Jenkins murder. But with only this circumstantial evidence, the murder of Linda Jenkins officially remains open.