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Walter Kelbach #11867
Oquirrh 4
Utah State Prison
Box 250
Draper, UT 84024

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Walter Kelbach, 28, and 25-year-old Myron Lance had many things in common. Both were veterans of prison and aggressive homosexuals, each given to abuse of drugs and alcohol. Above all else, they shared a fondness for inflicting pain -- and, ultimately, death -- on fellow human beings. In December 1966, their twisted passion claimed five lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, touching off a local reign of terror.

On December 17, hopped up on pills and wine, the duo stopped for gas at a service station where 18-year-old Stephen Shea was working the night shift alone. Impulsively, the "customers" drew weapons, robbing Shea of $147, forcing him into the back of their station wagon and driving him into the desert. There, Shea was ordered to strip, and was raped by both Kelbach and Lance. Afterward, a coin was tossed to see who would receive the "honor" of eliminating Shea. The winner -- Kelbach -- plunged a knife into his victim's chest five times and left the body Iying on a lonely desert road.

Repeating their performance on the eighteenth of December, Lance and Kelbach kidnapped Michael Holtz, the night attendant at another Salt Lake City filling station. Raped by both of his abductors, Holtz was forced to watch while coins were tossed to choose his executioner. Lance won, this time, and stabbed his victim once in the heart with the same stiletto used on Stephen Shea.

December 21. The killers changed their modus operandi flagging down a taxi driver named Grant Strong, directing him to Salt Lake City's airport. On the way, Strong stopped off at the taxi barn to tell his supervisor that he didn't trust his latest fares. It was decided Strong should click his microphone transmitter switch in case of any trouble, and he flashed the signal moments later, after Kelbach drew a gun and pressed it to his skull, demanding money. Strong surrendered all his cash on hand -- nine dollars -- but his captors were not seriously interested in robbery. Police and fellow cabbies were converging on the scene when Kelbach put a bullet through his victim's brain. "I just pulled the trigger and blood flew everywhere," he later told an NBC reporter. "Oh boy! I never seen so much blood!"

Police found Strong a short time later, Iying dead inside his cab. By that time, Lance and Kelbach had arrived at Lolly's Tavern, near the airport, acting casual as they perused the bar for further victims. Kelbach tinkered with a pinball game while Lance walked up behind a patron, 47-year-old James Sizemore, and coolly shot him in the head, immediately ordering the manager to empty out his till. Pocketing $300 from the cash register, Lance and Kelbach turned their pistols on the bartender and his four surviving customers; Fred Lillie and Beverly Mace were killed where they stood, three other human targets feigning death until the manic marksmen took their leave.

As Lance and Kelbach left, the manager retrieved a pistol from behind the bar and opened fire; he scored no hits, but panicked his assailants, and they fled on foot. Retrieving their car, both gunmen were captured at a roadblock several hours later. Convicted on five counts of murder, Kelbach and Lance were sentenced to death, their penalties commuted to life imprisonment after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional .

As lifers, Lance and Kelbach are theoretically eligible for parole. It is a prospect that concerns the residents of Utah, and the common fear was spread from coast to coast in 1972, after Kelbach was tapped for an interview by NBC News, on a televised program entitled Thou Shalt Not Kill. "I haven't any feelings toward the victims," Walter told his audience of millions, grinning for the camera. "I don't mind people getting hurt because I just like to watch it."