Hey friends! In this episode, Shelby tells the girls the story of Sarah Pisan, which leads us straight to a truly terrifying serial killer. Our cocktail for this case comes from the police nickname for our murderer: The Chameleon.
- Chameleon Serial Killer Stephen Peter Morin Serial Killer
- Stephen Peter Morin Childhood
- Stephen Peter Morin Sarah
- Chameleon Serial Killer Stephen Peter Morin Son
What you’re gonna do is add 1oz clear rum, 1oz simple syrup (colored red with food coloring) and lime juice from half a lime to a shaker. Then mix it all together. Next muddle some mint leaves in the bottom of a glass and add in shaved ice (colored blue with food coloring) and then uncolored shaved ice. Finally, pour the mixture on top, spritz with some seltzer and stir it all together with a mint stem. That’s how you get the Chameleon Mojito!
Now, let’s jump into the story of Sarah Pisan and her horrifying run-in with the Chameleon. In January of 1980, Sarah Pisan decided to move to Las Vegas from Bullhead, AZ with her three young children. She almost immediately landed a job at a Terrible Herbst gas station where she became quick friends with her coworker Cheryl Ann Daniels or Cheri as her friends called her.
When Cheri would get off work, Sarah and the other girls would always see a car pull up as her new boyfriend, Andrew Ireland came to pick her up. Cheri told the girls that he was a bit of a loner and didn’t deal well with people. Clearly falling for the man, Cheri went on to her coworkers about how generous he was and how he acted like a true gentleman. One night when he picked up Cheri, Sarah noticed that Ireland was staring at her through the station windows the entire time. Naturally, it made her feel very uncomfortable, but seeing that her friend was happy, Sarah kept this to herself.
Chameleon Serial Killer Stephen Peter Morin February 24 2019 Posts must be about serial killers or the subject of serial murder. Attacking users / starting flame wars. Mar 13, 2010 March 13th, 2010Headsman. On this date in 1985, Texas executed serial killer Stephen Morinfor murdering and robbingCarrie Marie Scott in 1981 — one of at least three, and up to thirty, of his victims, most of whom were (unlike Scott) abducted for rape and kindred brutalizing. Just the sixth person executed in Texas under its modern death penalty regime, Morin was an IV drug addict.
Two days later when Cheri came into work with tears in her eyes Sarah couldn’t help but show her concern. After asking what was wrong, Cheri exclaimed that her new boyfriend was married and then left the station in an aggravated state.
The next day, Cheri didn’t show up to work. Immediately Sarah and her other coworker Donna become concerned as Cheri wasn’t the kind of person to not show up to work without any notice at all. That night Sergeant Robert Hilyard and Detective Mike Brady of the Las Vegas Police Department come to the gas station hoping to learn more about Cheri’s work and personal life. They asked Sarah if she knows of anyone that might want to harm Cheri and she tells them all she knows, including the fact that Cheri had a new boyfriend and had just learned that he was married. Sarah gives the detectives the name Andrew Ireland.
The next afternoon, the Las Vegas Police found Cheri’s Jeep abandoned in a shopping center parking lot. Knowing that she would never leave her car, Cheri’s friends and family brace themselves for what they expect to be bad news. The news still wouldn’t come for a few more months. Over that time, Sarah was promoted to manager of one of the Herbst stations known as the “Armpit of the West”. Sarah is also approached by a new customer, Robert Generoso who continually asks her out on a date, which she refuses due to her work commitment and, of course, her three children at home.
It’s now been four months since the disappearance of Cheryl Ann Daniels and while taking a shower in her apartment, Sarah heard her beeper go off. She got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her to make sure she could her the message clearly. Then a voice came through the beeper saying: “You look good in a towel.”
Chameleon Serial Killer Stephen Peter Morin Serial Killer
Sarah, understandably, got very upset and closed the blinds, but her beeper continued to go off. Over the next few months, Sarah continued to receive these creepy beeper messages and as time went on the messages grew more and more vulgar and terrifying. He started telling her all of the things that he wanted to do to her, meaning sexual things, but he also told her fantasies of kidnapping and torture. All the while, Sarah could hear him masturbating in the background. The calls escalated to coming in every few hours; until one call freaks Sarah out so bad that she begins turning her beeper off. The call says, “I can’t wait. First, I’m gonna tie you up, then I’m gonna cut you up.” As if that wasn’t enough, Sarah then heard a woman screaming through her beeper, meaning that not only was someone being hurt on the other end of the call, but that he wanted Sarah to hear it.
Throughout this time, Robert Generoso was continually visiting her at the station and asking her out on a date. Finally, Sarah told him to call her sometime and 15 minutes later he called the station to set up their date for the next night. Before ending the call he says, “I’ve been looking forward to this date for a very long time.” The tone that he had in this statement gave Sarah a bad feeling and something inside her told her not to go. So, she stood him up for their date the next night. Instead, Sarah stays at her station until about 9:30 at night in an attempt to wait him out, so that she would not run into him waiting to pick her up outside of her apartment.
The next night in November 1980, Robert Generoso shows up at the station where Sarah works in a rage. First, he tried to hit Sarah with his truck, but she made it into the booth. Then Generoso bangs on the station door and windows, yelling at her for standing him up the night before. Now, the polite and friendly Robert was gone and replaced with a purely evil man.
Two weeks after Robert’s outburst at the gas station, Sarah heard a strange noise in her apartment and freaked out as her paranoia is really on edge since the beeper calls had escalated in both number and violence. Each call was sexual in nature and would end with the man dismembering, stabbing or shooting Sarah. One night, her beeper went off at about 2 in the morning. At first she could hear whimpering noises coming from the beeper, which she could later tell was a woman. The whimpers turned to screams and Sarah started to hear the sound of chains, which she believed he was using to beat this woman.
The next night, Sarah went in to work at the gas station and gets a call from her mother. Her mother tells her that the Las Vegas Police Department just called her and told them that she had been linked to a homicide. The next call that Sarah got at the gas station was from Detective Brady who told her that she was in grave danger and directed her to lock herself in the gas station and stay out of sight until they arrive.
When the detective finally show up, they tell Sarah the terrible news that she had been waiting to hear for six months: they had finally found the body of Cheryl Ann Daniels. The two detectives explain that at 6pm that day they found Cheri’s lifeless body dumped in the appropriately named Hell Hole Canyon. It was apparent that she had been raped and brutally tortured before she was shot in the back of the head. Detective Brady then informs Sarah that her name and home address had been discovered inside a wallet beside the body.
The detectives take Sarah back to the police station and ask her to look through a large photo album of mugshots and asked if she could identify “this” man. After looking through the photos, which seemed to vary from white suspects to hispanic suspects, Sarah questioned the detectives wording. Detective Brady assured her that all of these photos were one man and that they believed that this man was intent on killing Sarah.
Eventually, Sarah comes across pictures she recognizes as Andrew Ireland and Robert Generoso. The detectives tell Sarah they believe this man is one of the most brutal and sadistic serial killers they have every come into contact with. This man is Stephen Peter Morin.
Stephen Peter Morin, a drifter from Rhode Island, is believed to have begun his career as a serial killer as early as 1969, at the age of 18. Morin would find names on tombstones that were around his age and send for their birth certificates. Over the years he accrued many new aliases this way. He would go by Edward See, David Penny or Ray Constantine, just to name a few. He changed his look, style and name so many times that he earned the nickname “Chameleon” from the police and remained virtually invisible to investigators for almost a decade.
At this time, in early 1981, Detective Brady has four murders with a single connection. 15 year old Kim Bryant, dead from blunt force trauma to the head; Linda Jenkins, had been beaten, strangled and dumped in the desert; 22 year old Sheila Griffith, strangled; 18 year old Susan Belotte also strangled and dumped in the desert and, finally, Cheryl Ann Daniels.
Only one detail connected each victim: they were all kidnapped from Las Vegas and murdered within the space of a year. The police knew that they were linked in this way, but they were not yet aware that the same man committed all of these horrific acts.
Now, Morin appeared to be stalking and attempting to make Sarah his next victim. Luckily, God decided to intervene before Morin could enact his horrific plans on the young mother.
In the early morning hours of December 11, 1981 in San Antonio Texas, Morin shot and killed 21 year old Carrie Marie Scott in front of Maggie’s Restaurant, her place of employment. Apparently, Carrie had interrupted Morin while he was in the process of stealing her car. Morin later claimed that he never intended to kill her and had even pleaded with her to leave him alone, but then he says something came over him and his gun went off.
Later that day, driving around in Scott’s car, Morin abducted Margaret Palm from a local shopping center and tells her to drive him to a bus station in Kerrville, Texas. Morin plans to travel from there to Houston, Texas. The two drive around for ten hours, while Margaret prays and Morin plans his escape. He doesn’t kill or even rape Margaret, but instead gives her a chance to escape. Before she leaves him at the bus station, Margaret gives him her book of psalms. The police find him reading this book when they pull up to finally arrest the elusive murderer.
At the time of his arrest, Morin was a suspect in 37 violent crimes, spanning from coast to coast. I know what you’re thinking, that’s a record to rival Ted Bundy, how come I’ve never heard of this guy before? Well with the number of aliases he had, Morin could only be definitely proven guilty of a few of those suspected crimes. Unfortunately, he is not convicted for the murder of Cheryl Ann Daniels, but Morin is convicted and charged for the killings of Carrie Marie Scott, Janna Bruce of Corpus Christi, Texas and Sheila Whalen of Golden, Colorado. He was sentenced to death.
On March 13, 1981, 37 year old Morin is brought in for his execution by lethal injection. After struggling for 40 minutes to find a vein due to Morin’s extensive drug abuse, a medical technician finally managed to slip a needle into his arm at 12:44am. Stephen Peter Morin is pronounced dead 11 minutes later.
Sarah Pisan, now in her late 50s, lives along the coast of Southern Oregon. She published a book about her horrifying experience with Morin published in 2013 titled, Sarah’s Story: Target of a Serial Killer. While there seems to be no justice for Cheryl Ann Daniels, I believe that her murderer is long gone and many other women were allowed to live safely in a world without Stephen Peter Morin.
Thanks for joining us for this story! If you want to hear more of the details of this case you can listen to the episode on any platform where you find podcasts or right on our homepage here on the website. If you would like to dive further into this case on your own you can do so by reading Sarah’s book noted above or watching the first episode of the Investigation Discovery show “Obsession: Dark Desires” entitled “Paging Sarah” or by checking out my other sources included below. Until next time…
Bye mom!
Stephen Peter Morin Childhood
Sources:
Stephen Peter Morin Sarah
Serial killer Stephen Peter Morin has been called a chameleon. Operating under a string of aliases, Morin drifted across the United States throughout the 70s and 80s, murdering, raping, and torturing as many as 30 women (although he was ultimately convicted of only 4 murders).
Morin claimed he was converted to Christianity by his final kidnapping victim, Margaret Mayfield Palm. Morin abducted Palm at gunpoint and the two drove aimlessly for some 10 hours while Palm read bible verses from a handwritten journal and played tapes by the Rev. Kenneth Copeland, a Texas evangelist.
Morin was sentenced to death by lethal injection for his crimes. His final statement was a prayer, imploring God to forgive his executioners. His final words were: “Lord Jesus, I commit my soul to you.” As a result of Morin’s lifelong drug abuse, it would take nearly 45 minutes for medics to find a vein suitable for the lethal injection cocktail. He was pronounced dead at 12:55 a.m. on March 3, 1985.
Morin fasted in the days leading up to his execution.
His requested final meal was “bread without yeast”.
Symbolism and Interpretation
Many have questioned the sincerity of Morin’s faith. Chris Clark, whose mother had dated Morin, interprets Morin’s religiosity as follows: “He wanted to manipulate the cloying, puling conservative Christians in the Texas penal system: what better method than ostentatiously coming to Jesus?” (Clark writes about his haunting experiences with Morin in this piece, published in the Guardian.) And there is certainly good reason for this kind of skepticism; Morin had spent years living under false identities, lying, and manipulating those around him to serve his own less-than-noble interests. Indeed, Margaret Mayfield Palm’s account of how she converted Morin from a brutal sociopath to a devout servant of God during the course of a 10 hour car ride would arguably be more plausibly interpreted as deceptive manipulation than as an honest spiritual awakening. Furthermore, much of the narrative surrounding Morin’s post-arrest morality does not stand up to scrutiny. It’s often claimed that Morin’s guilty plea represents an acceptance of his sins and demonstrates the sincerity of his newfound faith; however, prior to his indictment Morin engaged in a slew of obstructionist legal tactics in an effort to delay the proceedings. Morin also notably failed to cooperate with police, refusing to provide any details about either his convicted murders, or the many more murders he was suspected of having committed.
For me, the sincerity of Morin’s religious convictions are immaterial. I see little value in speculating on the contents of the hearts and minds of strangers. Given Morin’s sudden conversion to Christianity, it is perhaps relevant to quote the bible on the subject of the contents of the hearts of men:
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
— Jeremiah 17:9
Chameleon Serial Killer Stephen Peter Morin Son
In this arrangement Morin’s unleavened bread sits amongst a collection of empty vessels — a reference to his period of religious fasting. The scene is grey. Brutally grey. Very nearly monochrome. I wanted to convey something impersonal, anonymous, malleable. The candle, extinguished, representing death, is the only element of this composition that competes with Morin’s unleavened bread for the attention of the viewer. This seems fitting.