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Wayne Nathan Nance’s Background

Wayne Nathan Nance was born in Clinton, Montana, on October 18th, 1955. His father was a long-haul trucker, and his mother was a waitress. They raised Nance in a motor home just east of Missoula, Montana.

As a youth, Nance was considered intelligent but eccentric. He talked about devil worship, he branded himself with Satanic symbols, and he told friends he wanted to kill someone one day.

Murder of Wayne Nathan Nance

Fast forward to 1986, Nance was working for Doug and Kristen Wells’s furniture company. On September 3rd, 1986, Nance was creeping outside the couple’s home when Doug caught him and asked what he was doing.

Nance told Doug he was walking by and saw someone prowling outside the house. Doug let Nance in the home to borrow a flashlight. Nance attacked the couple and tied both of them up. He stabbed Doug and left him in the basement to die; then, he went upstairs to violate Kristen.

Doug was able to get free and load a rifle. He stumbled upstairs and shot Nance. Doug and Kristen both survived the incident, while 30-year-old Nance died the next day.

Nance Gets Connected to More Crimes

Over the past 38 years, authorities have looked at Nance’s background and named him the Missoula Mauler as they believe he got away with a plethora of other violent crimes, starting when he was 19.

On April 11th, 1974, he is believed to have broken into the home of 39-year-old Donna Lorraine Pounds. Pounds was the mother of one of Nance’s friends.

When she arrived home at 3:30 pm, Nance allegedly pointed her husband’s rifle at her. After violating her, he made her go to the basement, and he shot her 5 times in the head, killing her.

Then, he stuck the rifle inside her and left the home. Pound’s husband came home at 6 pm to the horrific scene. Three eyewitnesses said they saw Nance leaving the house.

Police questioned Nance, and he told them he was in another part of town gathering materials for a school project around the time of the murder. Prosecutors didn’t feel they had enough evidence, and he was not charged.

Soon after that crime, Nance joined the Navy. He was discharged in November 1977 after he was caught with drugs and stolen items.

Over the next few years, several bodies showed up in the Missoula area.

The remains of a female were found on February 27th, 1980. She had been stabbed. She was named Jane Doe until February 1985, when she was identified as 15-year-old Devonna Nelson.

Detectives learned she went missing from the Seattle, Washington, area in July 1978. Since Nance lived in Seattle at that time, he is considered a suspect in her murder.

On December 24th, 1984, a female’s decomposing body was found in a shallow grave in Missoula. Like the previous case, the person was a Jane Doe for years until she was identified as 16-year-old Marchella Cheri Bachmann in 2006.

Authorities learned she ran away from her Vancouver, Washington, home in 1984 and traveled with a trucker to Missoula.

They believe she met Nance and lived with him for a short time before he killed her in September 1984.

Police found her hair in his truck. Authorities also found photos of the two together in Nance’s home after he died in 1986.

On September 11th, 1985, a female skeleton was found three miles away from where Bachmann’s body was located. The unidentified skeleton had two bullets in its head.

In May 2021, she was identified as 23-year-old Janet Lee Lucas.

She is believed to have disappeared from Sandpoint, Idaho, in the summer of 1983. Based on where she was found and how she was killed, authorities suspect Nance was behind her death.

On December 12th, 1985, an armed Nance allegedly busted into the home of 34-year-old Michael Robert Shook and 32-year-old Teresa Lynn Shook. He shot Teresa in the leg and then forced the couple’s four kids into a bedroom.

Michael tried to fight back, but he was hit in the head, then tied up and stabbed to death. Teresa was taken upstairs and violated before she was killed.

Nance reportedly left the property before returning two hours later to steal some items and tried to burn the house down before leaving again. The fire went out, and neighbors eventually rescued the four kids.

Detectives later found the couple’s items in Nance’s home; they also learned Nance had delivered furniture to the Shook home days before they were murdered.

Authorities believe Nance is responsible for six deaths, although the total could be higher.