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William Henry Hance Background

William Henry Hance was born in Lexington, Virginia, on November 10th, 1951. Growing up, Hance wasn’t a troublemaker, and his only legal issue was for a parking ticket when he was 19.

After graduating from high school, he joined the Marines, where he rose to the rank of sergeant.

After transferring to the Army, he was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1976.

Forces of evil murders

Police began receiving letters from a group called the “Forces of Evil” on March 3rd, 1978.

They claimed to be seven white men who were holding a black woman named Gail Jackson hostage.

The investigators didn’t have any reports of a woman named Gail Jackson missing, but a woman named Brenda Gail Faison had recently gone missing, and they suspected this was who the letter was talking about.

A follow-up letter claimed that a second woman named “Irene” had been abducted.

Investigators determined that 32-year-old Irene Thirkield had recently gone missing.

Even though the letter writer claimed to be a group of white men, a criminal profiler pegged the culprit as one black man, who was working a low-level military position.

An anonymous phone call on March 30th, 1978, led police to Faison’s body. Four days later, another phone call led authorities to Thirkield’s body.

The phone calls helped police crack the case when an officer identified the caller as Hance.

Hance was arrested the day after Thirkield’s body was found. After detectives laid out all of the evidence, he confessed to the murders of Faison, Thirkield, as well as 24-year-old Karen Hickman, who was found dead in September 1977. He also confessed to the murder of a woman when he was stationed at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana.

Legal Proceedings

He was convicted in military court for the murders of  Hickman and Thirkield, but those convictions were later set aside. Hance was convicted in a civilian court for the murder of Jackson and was sentenced to death.

As the years passed, he tried to use his low IQ of 75 to 79 to get off death row, but it didn’t work.

The 42-year-old was executed via the Georgia electric chair on March 31st, 1994.