Image Gallery

Wayne Nance, age 15, during his freshman year in high school. (1971 Bitterroot, Missoula County High School)

Wayne Nance was a high school senior when Donna Pounds was murdered. (1974 Bitterroot, Missoula County High School)

Wayne Nance enjoying a concert in 1984. (Missoula County Sheriff’s Department)

Wayne Nance’s Montana driver’s license from 1985. (Missoula County Sheriff’s Department)

The East Missoula home Wayne Nance shared with his father, George. (John Coston)

The main road cutting through East Missoula and leading into Hellgate Canyon, where police found several unidentified murder victims. At right is The Cabin, the bar where Wayne’s mother waitressed and which became Nance’s favorite hangout. (John Coston)

Downtown Missoula in the early 1990s. (John Coston)

Robert L. “Dusty” Deschamps III, Missoula’s County Attorney, who refused to arrest Harvey Pounds for his wife’s murder. (Missoula County Sheriff’s Department)

Missoula County Sheriff John C. Moe (Missoula County Sheriff’s Department)

Robert W. Balch, Professor of Sociology at the University of Montana, who certified that the town was collectively suffering from a case of mass hysteria stemming from several murders that resembled satanic sacrifices and cult killings. (John Coston)

Wayne Nance and a girl known as Robin shown kissing in a coin-booth photo taken in the summer of 1984. (Missoula County Sheriff’s Department)

The girl named Robin was last seen in Missoula on September 28, 1984. (Missoula County Sheriff’s Department)

This scrap of paper was found in Wayne Nance’s hidden box of mementos. The writer of the note is unidentified. (Missoula County Sheriff’s Department)

Devonna Nelson, shown at the age of 15. Her disappearance in July 1978 coincided with Wayne’s visit to the city. Her remains were discovered east of Missoula in January of 1980. (Missoula County Sheriff’s Department)

The Cobblestone Apartments, where Janet Wicker was attacked by an unidentified intruder who, it was later discovered, had hand-drawn maps of the complex. (John Coston)

Anthropological reconstructions of the heads of the victims found east of Missoula in 1985, along with their bullet-holed skulls. Chryssie Crystal Creek is on the left, along with Debbie Deer Creek, who was later identified as the girl named Robin. (John Coston)

Undersheriff Larry Weatherman, of the Missoula County Sheriff’s Department, in his office. Chryssie Crystal Creek and Debbie Deer Creek are on his bookshelves at the right. (John Coston)

Conlin’s Furniture store in Missoula, where Wayne Nance worked as a deliveryman who was so trusted by some local residents that they would leave him keys to their homes to make deliveries easier. (John Coston)

Though fellow workers believed Wayne Nance to be harmless, this drawing made on top of a note from a saleswoman and which was found after his death shows Nance’s hidden nature. (Missoula County Sheriff’s Department)

Kris Wells, Conlin’s manager, in a photo taken in 1985 when Wayne had already developed a deadly obsession for her. (Missoula County Sheriff’s Department)

Another photograph of Kris Wells was featured on the first page of a photo album that Wayne devoted to her. (Missoula County Sheriff’s Department)

A note to Kris Wells was written on the back of a photograph of her that was found in Wayne’s hidden box. (Missoula County Sheriff’s Department)

Wayne Nance delivered a new couch to Mike and Teresa Shook at this house only days before their murders on December 12, 1985. (John Coston)

Mike and Teresa Shook’s gravesite. (John Coston)

Bob and Georgia Shook, Mike’s parents. (John Coston)

A sampling of the items found in a box that Wayne Nance hid in a corner of Conlin’s warehouse. (Missoula County Sheriff’s Department)

A spread of photos from Wayne Nance’s album, which included 35 photographs of Kris Wells. (Missoula County Sheriff’s Department)

The bugling elk figurine and knife Wayne Nance stole from the Shook’s proved his presence inside their home. Less than two weeks later, Nance gave the elk to his father as a Christmas gift. (Missoula County Sheriff’s Department)

The kitchen cutlery knife that Wayne brought with him to Kris and Doug Wells’s home on September 3, 1986. (Missoula County Sheriff’s Department)

This single-action six Ruger belonged to George Nance, Wayne’s father. (Missoula County Sheriff’s Department)

Wayne Nance tied Doug Wells to this basement pillar as he had similarly trussed Kris to her bed upstairs. (Missoula County Sheriff’s Department)

The Wells’s bedroom, where the final battle between killer and would-be victims took place. (Missoula County Sheriff’s Department)

Kris Wells in her bloodied nightclothes after the attack. (Missoula County Sheriff’s Department)

Doug Wells testified on November 20, 1986, at a coroner’s inquest in the death of Wayne Nance. Robert “Dusty” Deschamps holds the broken stock of Well’s Savage 250 rifled that he used against Nance. (Dwan (cq) Feary, the Missoulian)

Doug and Kris Wells provided valuable insight in to the mind of a serial killer to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. (John Coston)

Wayne Nance’s gravesite. (John Coston)