Harvey John Collins (October 5, 1925 – December 3, 1957) was an American serial killer who was responsible for three murders committed in Kentucky and Washington between 1953 and 1955, one of them committed while he was serving in the United States Army. Convicted and sentenced to death for one of the murders, he was subsequently executed in 1957.
Early life and first murder
Harvey John Collins was born on October 5, 1925, in Portland, Oregon, one of several children born to Alfred and Mable Collins (née Tessier). Early on in his life, the entire family moved to Spokane, Washington, where Collins would grow up. According to one of his sisters, they all grew up in a stable, loving home, in which Collins was considered a mama's boy who would get along with everyone. When he became an adult, he enlisted in the Marine Corps, where he served with distinction in the Pacific Theatre and fought during the Battle of Iwo Jima, from which he brought home a katana taken from a Japanese soldier he had killed in battle. For his fighting merits, he was promoted to the rank of Captain, and was generally regarded as an upstanding member of society.
However, after the war ended, Collins began to exhibit signs of psychological distress, possibly brought on either from PTSD or from the death of his father in a workplace accident years prior. In 1953, he was transferred to Fort Knox, Kentucky as part of his Army artillery training. On May 15, 1953, he was dining at a roadhouse where he got into a fight with the escort for one of the waitresses, a 37-year-old divorcee named Edna Iona Hall, of nearby Vine Grove. In what appeared to be a friendly gesture, Collins offered to drive her home, but while driving back to Fort Knox, Collins stopped the car on an isolated road and attempted to make sexual advances towards Hall. She rejected him outright, causing the enraged Collins to kick her out of the car, then beat and finally stab her in the head with a screwdriver.
After doing this, Collins picked up the still-breathing woman and put her in the back of his car, even flagging down a passing automobile to help him move his vehicle, as it was stuck in the sand. Once the car was freed, Collins drove further along the road, where he dragged Hall off to the nearby woodlands and buried her alive in a foxhole, covering the burial site with dirt and sheet metal. He then returned to his quarters at Fort Knox, where he subsequently burned his clothes in the furnace. Some time later, he was questioned by FBI agents in regard to Hall's disappearance, but was cleared when several of her friends claimed that they had supposedly seen her alive on that particular night. Thusly, Collins was let go, and even after Hall's body was discovered eight months later, her murder would remain unsolved for the time being.
Attempted suicide, discharge and move to Washington
As part of his tactics aviation course, Collins was transferred to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, with his family residing in nearby Walters. On January 6, 1954, he left behind a suicide letter and then went to the base's air field, where he stole a Cessna O-1 Bird Dog and lifted off. For the next few hours, he flew aimlessly around the area until he eventually crashed the plane near some train tracks in Temple. While the wreckage was quickly located by other officers, there was no immediate sign of Collins himself.
Two days later, he surrendered himself at a police station in Dallas, Texas, and shortly after was detained at the Carswell Air Force Base. An investigation revealed that Collins had been picked up by a Walters resident and driven to Wichita Falls, who was told by Collins that he intended to travel to Galveston. After a medical examination concluded that he was sane and unharmed, Collins was transferred back to Fort Sill. When questioned about the incident, he reiterated that he initially wanted to commit suicide, but claimed that he had no idea what happened after the crash. As a result of this incident, he was dishonorably discharged and moved in with some relatives in Puyallup, Washington, who employed him at their dairy shop.