Richard Anthony Grissom Jr. (born November 10, 1960) is an American serial killer who kidnapped and murdered between three and four young women in Johnson County, Kansas, over three weeks in June 1989.

[2] Its unknown what his original name was, but soon after his birth his family gave him up to an orphanage, where three years later he was adopted by U.S. army Sergeant Richard Grissom Sr. and his wife Fredonia, an African American couple .

[2] Sometime after leaving, he stole a railroad spike, which he used to break into the home of his neighbor, 72-year-old Hazel Meeker, whom he viciously beat to death.

Police discovered that there were footprints in the snow all around the house, and they subsequently followed the trail which led them to the southern railroad tracks.

[2] In 1989, Grissom began a romantic relationship with Terri Renee Maness, a 25-year-old Butler Community College student, and the two planned to have a date on June 6.

The next day, Maness' neighbor, J.C. Stevenson, discovered her nude body lying in her condominium riddled with stab wounds.

[7] The next day, on June 8, Grissom, under the alias of Randy Rodriguez, rented a storage locker in southern Johnson County, which was to remain his until July 1.

The first of these cases was 24-year-old Joan Marie Butler of Overland Park, who was last seen on June 18 visiting a friend at the Country Club Plaza in Missouri.

[11] Police were able to pinpoint Grissom as a suspect after he was identified as a person spotted on surveillance cameras using Butler's bank card.

[17] This same vehicle was also spotted at the scene of an attempted abduction on June 12, in which case a woman named Michelle Katf was attacked in her bedroom by a man welding a gun.

[22] Grissom was then led to an interrogation room, where for about eight hours he was questioned by FBI agent Mike Napier and Leawood Police Detective Joe Langer, who pressed him about the incriminating evidence.

According to both, Grissom, who did not confess nor deny abducting the women, stated he wanted a deal that could, according to him, "provide the whole package", and also request an attorney.

[29] The trial coincided with the 1990 Kansas gubernatorial election, and Republican governor Mike Hayden, who was seeking re-election, used the case as an example as to why capital punishment should be reinstated by arguing that if Grissom had been sentenced to death for the 1977 murder, then he would not have been able to kill the other three women.

[30] This sparked controversy as several individuals, including former governor John William Carlin, pointed out that Grissom could not have received the death penalty at the time because he was a juvenile.

[34] Family members of his victims expressed their disappointment that such a website was allowed; Tim Butler, who was the brother of Joan Butler, wrote to the web site operators and said, "the monster Grissom forgot to mention his other hobbies: bludgeoning old ladies with railroad spikes and killing and torturing young women.

This was seen by many as inappropriate, but the newspaper agency responded by explaining that they received no info about Grissom's background prior to the paper's publishing and that they had been a victim of a prank.

[38] In late July 1989, the KCTV news station in Kansas City, Missouri was sent an anonymous two-page letter, which offered to release the three women, whom the writer claimed were being held against their will, for an exchange of $1,500,000.

David Burger of the Lenexa Police Department stated that the letter, "didn't attach any credence", and there was, "no validation to the demands".

[41] In August 1999, a team of searches from NecroSearch inc. scoured a landfill near Clinton Lake after theories about the women's bodies being buried there emerged.