American Serial Killers: True Crime Short Stories Featuring Serial Killers from All 50 States: Part 6

Kris Welles didn't know Wayne Nance very well. Nance was a Missoula, Montana, truck driver who delivered furniture at the same store where Kris was employed and in the course of their acquaintance they had talked about their lives and such, as co-workers are prone to do. But that was it - at least for Kris.

On the night of September 4, 1986, however, Nance would take their "relationship" to an all-new level when he made the fatal decision to visit the Welles home.

Doug Welles was outside his home when Nance pulled up. Before he had a chance to do anything, Nance had clubbed Doug into unconsciousness and headed for the house.

Once inside, Nance forced Kris into the bedroom at gunpoint and tied her to the bed. Nance then returned to Doug and dragged him into the basement and tied him to a post. During this, Doug regained consciousness and Nance stabbed him, leaving the husband for dead and started to the bedroom intent on raping Kris.

Doug, injured but still alive, managed to free himself of the bonds and began up the stairs to rescue his wife, a rifle (a common item on hand for a gunsmith) in hand. Nance, unfortunately, heard him coming and confronted the heroic husband with his own gun. Both men were injured during the exchange of gunfire but Doug, a strong-willed man now fueled by adrenaline, broke the barrel of his rifle over the head of Nance then dispatched him with a final shot.

When police answered the Welles' call for help, they were reminded of an unsolved rape and murder from twelve years earlier which was eerily similar to the scene they were now viewing.

Facial Reconstruction of Jane Doe victim, a.k.a. Christie Crystal Creek
Source: Websleuths

To Kill and Kill Again (Onyx True Crime ; Je 323)
Amazon Price: $5.99
Donna Lynn Pounds was a Missoula housewife when an unknown assailant had entered her home and raped and murdered the 40 year-old woman. Although Nance was a friend of her son's at the time, he had never been considered a suspect until the Welles' attempted murder. In December 1985, Theresa and her husband Michael Shook had been murdered in their home while their children were sleeping upstairs in a fashion very similar to the attack on Kris and Doug. The Shooks' home had also been set on fire in what investigators believed was an attempt to cover up the crime. Sixteen year-old Marcella "Marci" Cheri Bachman had runaway from her Vancouver, Washington, home when she made her way to Missoula and had the misfortune of meeting Nance who murdered her in September 1984 and buried her body in a shallow grave. A nature photographer discovered the body in December 1984 but it would take twenty years before Marci was identified through the University of North Texas Human Center for Human identification.

Nance is also believed to be responsible for a Jane Doe discovered at the same time as Marci. Given the nickname Christie Crystal Creek for the area in which she was found, her identity remains unknown even today.

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