Investigation Discovery is looking at the case of serial killer Phillip Jablonski, aka The Deadly Urge Killer, who murdered at least five women over the course of 13 years. It would have perhaps been many many more had he not been incarcerated for most of that time.
Jablonski had a long history of violence against women dating back to his first wife, Alice McGowan, who he married on his return from the Vietnam War in 1968. He was sexually aggressive to Alice, and during sex, he would often try to suffocate her until she became unconscious.
In 1972 he was arrested and convicted for the rape of a female acquaintance, who he had attacked at knifepoint in her own home, with her baby infant on the premises.
By 1978, Jablonski was out of prison and had married his second wife, Linda Kimball. The pair had a daughter together. However, after Jablonski threatened to rape Kimball’s mother, she told him she wanted a divorce. A short time later, she was found beaten and strangled to death on the floor of their shared apartment.
Jablonski was arrested 11 days later and served 12 years in prison before being released on parole for good behavior.
In 1982, Carol Spadoni answered a lonely hearts ad that Jablonski had put in a paper while he was still serving time for Kimball’s murder. Amazingly, Spadoni agreed to marry him that same year.
Jablonski was released from prison in 1991 due to good behavior, despite attempting to strangle his mother with a shoelace during a prison visit in 1985.
Watch the Latest on our YouTube ChannelJablonski killed second wife Carol Spadoni
On April 23, 1991, Jablonski went to the home of his wife, Spadoni, in Burlingame, California, where she lived with her mother, 72-year-old mother, Eva Petersen. He shot Spadoni and then suffocated her with duct tape. He then sexually assaulted her mother before also shooting her.
That same month he sexually assaulted and murdered 38-year-old Fathyma Vann, a student at the community college in Indio, CA, that he had been required to attend as part of his parole conditions.
A few days later, he sexually assaulted and shot dead 58-year-old Margie Rogers in Grand County, Utah. Rogers and her husband owned a store along the highway, which is where her body was found.
He was apprehended a day later, on April 28 in Kansas. At his trial, he pleaded innocent by way of insanity. However, a jury disagreed with him, and he was sentenced to death.
Jablonski died in December 2019 while waiting on death row in San Quentin State Prison; he was 73-years-old.
More from Investigation Discovery
Follow the links to read about more serial killers profiled on ID.
Cosmo DiNardo shot dead four young men within the space of a few days on his parent’s farm in Pennsylvania. He had lured them to the farm with the promise of selling them marijuana before killing them. When the police caught up to him, he couldn’t explain why he did what he did.
Jeffrey Dahmer, aka The Milwaukee Cannibal, murdered and dismembered at least seventeen young men in Milwaukee between 1978 and 1991. He was only captured after one of his victims managed to escape.
The Serial Killer Among Us: Phillip Jablonski airs at 9/8c on Investigation Discovery.