My Murder Story investigates the case of Paul Steven Mack, who evaded police after becoming a suspect in the murders of two women, one in California, the other in Ohio. Mack fled to Ohio, where he changed his name to Lainer and got married.
However, his new wife soon began to suspect him of having murderous intentions.
In 1987 Paul Mack lured 21-year-old beauty pageant winner Karen Grace Winslett to his apartment with the promise of a photoshoot for a calendar spread. He raped Winslett after drugging her with such a hefty dose of painkillers that it killed her. He left her body decomposing in her car in a parking lot.
Sacramento County police arranged for Mack to surrender to them charged with Winslett’s murder. Unfortunately, he skipped town and fled to Utah. None of this was new to Mack, as authorities also wanted him in Ohio for the 1981 slaying of 19-year-old Annette Huddle.
Huddle had worked for Mack as a secretary, and he was the last person to be seen with her before she died. However, he’d fled the state before the police could question him.
Paul Steven Mack turned himself into Sean Paul Lainer
About eight months after the Winslett murder, Mack is in Salt Lake City; he’s changed his name to Sean Paul Lainer and is working as a chef. He met Margie Danielson, who thought he came across as handsome, charming, and attentive. They struck up a relationship and got married.
Danielson noticed a change in her husband shortly after the marriage; he had become violent, abusive, and manipulative.
Watch the Latest on our YouTube ChannelOne day Margie Danielson awoke convinced that her husband of seven weeks had drugged and raped her. Her husband, Sean Paul, was nowhere to be seen. Downstairs, she discovered a glass he’d just used, and thinking quickly she took the glass to Salt Lake City police so they could remove some fingerprints.
She told the police, “I don’t think my husband is who he says he is.” Detectives returned to Danielson and said to her that her suspicions were correct. The fingerprints matched with Paul Steven Mack, who was wanted for murder.
Officers eventually arrested Mack, and he was extradited to California to face charges in the Winslett murder. In 1991 he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Police suspect he had used up to six different aliases in his lifetime and had been married seven or eight times.
More from Investigation Discovery
Follow the links to read about more grisly murders profiled on the TV station dedicated to serious crime. Donald “Pee Wee” Gaskins went on a sickening murderous rampage that lasted from the 1960s to the 1980s. In 1991 he was executed for murdering nine people, but he claimed to be responsible for over 100.
In Young, Hot, and Deadly, ID investigated the mystery of the death of 3-year-old Caylee Anthony in 2008. Her mother, Casey Anthony, was put on trial only to be acquitted in a controversial decision that grabbed national headlines and outraged many.
My Murder Story can be seen at 10/9c on Investigation Discovery.