Charles Rodman Campbell

Charles Rodman Campbell (October 21, 1954 – May 27, 1994) was a convicted murderer who was executed by hanging in 1994 by the state of Washington.

In December 1974, Campbell attacked 23-year-old Renae Wicklund while she was doing yard work outside her Clearview, Washington home.

He demanded that she perform oral sex on him at knife point, threatening to kill her infant daughter, Shannah, if she did not comply.

Wicklund submitted to his demands, and then called police after he left.

Campbell was not apprehended until 1976, when she picked him out of a police line-up.

Local law enforcement were not surprised, as they had been familiar with Campbell since his childhood.

At the subsequent trial, Wicklund and her neighbor, Barbara Hendrickson, testified in detail about the assault, and Campbell was sentenced to 40 years in prison for first-degree rape.

Unknown to Wicklund, Campbell's sentences ran concurrently, not consecutively.

This meant that he could in theory be paroled in seven years.

Jack Wicklund meanwhile fell victim to a bizarre incident in December 1977, when he was found tied to a chair in his West Seattle home with massive third-degree burns.

After receiving medical treatment, he said that a complete stranger visited his house, tied him up, doused him with gasoline, and set him on fire.

Wicklund was forced to wear a rubber bodysuit to protect his damaged skin.

Five months later, he died when his car crashed into a tree.

The exact circumstances surrounding Jack Wicklund's death are unclear, and police never satisfactorily determined whether he had been murdered or had committed suicide.

Ultimately, Campbell ended up being released in 1981 for good behavior.

His victims were not informed of his release.

During the intervening years, Wicklund had separated from her husband, Jack, due to the lingering stress of the assault, and devoted herself to raising her daughter, supporting herself and Shannah with an in-home business as an accountant for local beauty parlors, as well as helping students obtain loans for beautician school.

On April 14, 1982, Barbara Hendrickson's husband, Don, walked over to Wicklund's house, and discovered Renae, her nine-year-old daughter Shannah and his wife, Barbara Hendrickson, all with their throats cut.

Charles Campbell, then residing at a halfway house, was arrested the following week and charged with first-degree murder and second-degree theft (he had attempted to sell some of Renae Wicklund's jewelry only hours after the killings).

Police described the crime scene as "resembling a massacre".

Wicklund's body was naked, and she had been severely beaten, strangled, and raped with a blunt instrument in addition to having her throat slit (the murder weapon and the object used to rape her were never found).

She was covered with bruises, and had a broken nose, jaw, and ribs, a testament to her attacker's aggression.

Wicklund also had bruising on her knuckles, suggestive of defensive wounds.

Barbara Hendrickson had been attacked and her throat cut after going over to the house to check on Wicklund, who had been ill with the flu that week.

Shannah suffered the same fate when she came home from school.

She had been choked, and her throat cut so deep that she was nearly decapitated.

One of her earlobes was also torn, as the killer had made off with a pair of earrings she was wearing that day.

The same day of the murders, Campbell also tried to rape another woman.

Police were told by a neighbor girl that she saw Campbell sneaking around Wicklund's yard with a knife that morning, and other neighbors observed him heading towards the house with a large blanket roll in his hands.

It was also obvious that Campbell's getaway from the crime scene was extremely sloppy, with no attempt to conceal anything.

A bloody hand print was found on a drinking glass in the Wicklunds' kitchen that matched his fingerprints, and a trail of Renae Wicklund's jewelry was running from the front door of the house down the walkway.

Campbell's car had dried blood on the driver's side door handle, and the above-mentioned earring of Shannah's was found in the back seat.

A pair of earrings belonging to Renae were found in Campbell's pants pockets when he was arrested.

In addition, a fellow work-release resident directed police to a location along the banks of the Snohomish River, where he and Campbell had been on the evening of April 14.

Divers retrieved more jewelry and knick-knacks taken from the Wicklund's home.

When questioned by police, Hendrickson stated that "the man who'd attacked Renae eight years earlier" was the only possible perpetrator he could think of.

Campbell was arrested at the Monroe Reformatory on April 19, and charged with first degree murder.

Held in the Snohomish County Jail, he was unpopular with other prisoners, since he had murdered a child, and because the circumstances of his crime meant that stricter rules would be imposed on the freedoms of inmates on parole.

In 2023, DNA evidence showed that Campbell was likely responsible for the April 1975 murder of University of Washington student Hallie Ann Seaman, whose murder has previously been unsolved.

At Campbell's November 1982 trial, he refused to testify in his defense, or discuss the murders at all.