Arlington Bathtub Killer

Big Brother 11 Houseguest *Chima Benson* was Final Victim of Bathtub Rapist

On February, 10, 2009, Dale Devon Scheanette, the Arlington Bathtub Killer, dubbed the “Bathtub Rapist,” or the Arlington Bathtub Killer was executed by the State of Texas for the rape and murder of Wendie Prescott on December 24, 1996. He was charged, but never tried for the identical rape and murder of Christine Vu on September 17 of the same year.

The women were raped, strangled, bound with duct tape and found in half-filled bathtubs. The two women lived in the same apartment complex. Dale Devon Scheanette, the Arlington Bathtub Killer was suspected of five other rapes within the same area.

At his execution, Scheanette, the Arlington Bathtub Killer, the Arlington Bathtub Killer only said, ”My only statement is that no cases ever tried have been error-free. Those are my words. No cases are error-free.” He was executed by lethal injection and died nine minutes later. At 6:21 p.m., February 10, 2009, Scheanette, the Arlington Bathtub Killer was pronounced dead.

Big Brother 11 Houseguest Chima Benson was Scheanette, the Arlington Bathtub Killer’s last victim. She managed to fight him off, as she told the other houseguests, and he was caught shortly thereafter.

The first victim, Christine Vu, was found by her boyfriend. There were no signs of forced entry and very little to go on. Three months later, Dale Devon Scheanette, the Arlington Bathtub Killer raped and killed again within the same apartment complex. In both cases, one fingerprint was found and the semen taken from the bodies matched. The police knew they were now looking for a serial killer.

It was three years later that Chima was awoken in her dorm room by a masked man. After he beat and raped her, he fled. The semen taken from her matched the serial killer. Chima’s rape brought attention back to the cold case and new fingerprint technology was used to identify Scheanette, the Arlington Bathtub Killer. He had lived at the apartment complex where the murders had taken place, but as he did not have a criminal record, he escaped further scrutiny.

Scheanette, the Arlington Bathtub Killer was charged in August 2000, sentenced to death in January 2003 and executed this February.

Chima told her fellow Big Brother 11 houseguests that she had to have two facial surgeries because the attack had been so brutal.

On September 17, 1996, Thang Khuu returns home to his Arlington, Texas apartment to find his girlfriend, Christine Vu, dead in the bathtub. Christine’s naked body is lifeless, her hands and feet are bound with duct tape and she has been strangled. Khuu pulls his girlfriend out of the tub, and dials 911.

Detective Ed Featherston of the Arlington Police Department takes the call. At the scene he finds no signs of forced entry. However, he does find two critical pieces of evidence left behind by the killer, including semen recovered from Christine’s body and a single fingerprint found on a deadbolt lock.

Featherston began his investigation by questioning Thang Khuu. Khuu denied any involvement and provides hair and saliva samples for DNA testing.

Three months later, on Christmas Eve, the bathtub killer strikes again. Twenty three-year-old Wendie Prescott is found dead in her Peartree apartment in the same signature fashion.

Like Christines, Wendie has been raped, strangled, and bound with duct tape. Inside the apartment, crime scene investigators discover a pristine fingerprint pressed into the dust on a TV stand. The print is documented and collected. Semen from both crime scenes is determined to be a match, confirming that a serial killer is on the loose in Arlington.

With the focus off Thang Khuu, detectives spread out and begin looking at every male associated with the Peartree apartment complex. They identify hundreds of residents, employees, and associates of the property, and begin the painstaking process of questioning and eliminating. Thousands of leads are followed up and more than 80 men are eliminated through DNA, yet the detectives are no closer to finding their killer.

Three years later, in February of 1999, 22-year-old Chima Benson sleeps soundly in her sorority house when she wakes up to a masked man in her bedroom. The man brutally beats and rapes Chima, before fleeing into the night. At the hospital semen is collected. The sample is compared to the DNA from the 1996 murders at the Peartree apartment complex, and confirmed to be a match.

The serial killer is back, but now he has changed his methods. He is raping, but not killing. Arlington Detective Tommy Lenoir questions Benson, who tells him her attacker was a black male.

Lenoir immediately returns to his suspect list and is able to eliminate two thirds of the remaining pool, focusing only on black males. At the same time, detectives learn of a new fingerprinting system known as I-AFIS. After four years with no hits in AFIS, detectives send the prints to the FBI, hopeful that new technology can help.

Two weeks later, the system comes back with a match to a man named Dale Scheanette, the Arlington Bathtub Killer. Lenoir learns that Scheanette, the Arlington Bathtub Killer lived at the Peartree apartments at the time of Vu’s murder. He had no criminal record, and was simply flying below the radar.

In August of 2000, Scheanette, the Arlington Bathtub Killer is arrested and jailed. By the time the trial begins, DNA has linked Scheanette, the Arlington Bathtub Killer to a crime spree including two murders and five sexual assaults. In January of 2003, Scheanette, the Arlington Bathtub Killer is found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death.