40 years after Kansas serial killer admitted to slaying woman, a body is identified

An Oklahoma agency had her remains. An Alabama agency had the 40-year-old case file. Another in Louisiana had an unsolved missing person’s case. And one in Kansas has a serial killer.

They’re all connected, cops say.

Authorities at a Texas lab said earlier this week that they have identified human remains found in Alabama in 1976 as the body of Mary Ann Perez, who went missing from New Orleans earlier that year, the New Orleans Advocate reported.

A suspect is serving a life-sentence in a Kansas prison after he pleaded guilty to a Wichita murder four decades ago.

What happened to Mary Ann Perez?

New Orleans law enforcement said Perez, a wife and mother of three, went missing on March 26, 1976, after visiting a bar with friends, WKRG News 5 in Mobile, Ala., reported. Her purse was found weighed down with a brick in Lake Pontchartrain, about 10 miles away, according to true-crime TV show “Unsolved Mysteries.”

Eight months later, hunters found human bones in a cornfield near an Alabama town just over the Mississippi state line, the Washington Post reported. Unaware of the New Orleans disappearance, investigators sent the remains to an Oklahoma lab, WKRG reported.

None of the law enforcement agencies at the time linked the remains with Perez’s disappearance.

Now that the remains have been identified as Perez through DNA, case information will be sent to Alabama and Louisiana prosecutors, Detective J.T. Thornton of the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office told the Advocate. David Courtney of Kansas could be charged with her murder.

How police caught a killer couple

The frozen body of 20-year-old Wichitan Tamara Lynn Taylor was found with a rope around the neck in a ditch off Oliver two miles into Harvey County five days before Christmas 1979, according to Eagle archives. There were no suspects for four months.

In April 1980, Courtney gave two Wichita police officers permission to search his van, which had a license tag registered to a different vehicle. Inside the van, officers found two letters. One was in a sealed envelope addressed to the district attorney.

The letter writer said he hoped to be dead by the time it was read, the Eagle reported at the time. Police said the driver told them he was planning to “blow his head off.” Courtney had a .38 caliber Colt.

Police said that the Courtneys picked up Taylor, who was hitchhiking on East Kellogg trying to visit her boyfriend in El Dorado. The couple took Taylor to their mobile home, where for three days she was handcuffed to a bed and sexually assaulted.

The Courtneys drove Taylor to Oklahoma, where they planned to kill her. Instead, they returned to Kansas, and David Courtney strangled Taylor with a rope as Donna Courtney drove their van, police said.

Why officials couldn’t charge the Courtneys

After reading the suicide letter and arresting the Courtneys, Wichita police contacted New Orleans officials about the strangulation of a woman with a coat hanger, the Eagle reported in April 1980.

Three months later, after the Courtneys were convicted in the Wichita killing, Louisiana officials said they would seek arrest warrants for the couple in the disappearance of Perez.

“When I went up to Kansas to interview David Courtney, he told me about the female he abducted in New Orleans,” New Orleans Police Detective Bob Lambert told “Unsolved Mysteries.”

Instead of giving the woman a ride home, she was strangled with a coat hanger and her body was dumped, Courtney admitted to Lambert and in his suicide note.

Louisiana police had a confession, but they didn’t have a body, the Advocate reported. So they had no criminal case, and the Courtneys were never charged in Perez’s death.

What happened to the Courtneys?

Two days after the Courtneys were arrested, David Courtney cut his wrists with a razor while in the Sedgwick County Jail, according to Eagle archives. The sheriff’s office said his life was saved when a convicted arsonist used a strip of towel as a tourniquet.

In July 1980, David Courtney pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison. Donna Courtney pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison.

Two years later, Donna Courtney made headlines when she became eligible for parole because of good behavior. The law under which she was sentenced was changed after her conviction.

Donna Courtney was 37 when she was arrested. She was released from prison in 1988 and discharged from parole in 1998, Kansas Department of Corrections records show. She died two decades ago, the Washington Post reported.

David Courtney has been in the Lansing Correctional Facility since 1980 serving a life sentence, records show. He was 35 when he was arrested and is now 74. He is participating in a work program, and his earliest possible release date is May 1, 2022.