CASE CLOSED

Murderer Gary Muehlberg Charged With Four Brutal ‘Package Killer’ Slayings

The spree—in which women were killed and stuffed into containers—was one of the most notorious unsolved cases in St. Louis.

Authorities on Monday brought charges against a man they say is responsible for four horrific murders in St. Louis that went unsolved for over 30 years. Gary Muehlberg, 73, is already serving a life sentence for murder. He’s now been charged with four first-degree murders in the cold cases of Robyn Mihan, Brenda Pruitt, Donna Reitmeyer, and Sandy Little. In just six months in 1990, all four women disappeared from south St. Louis before passersby found their bodies stuffed into different containers: one tied between two mattresses, two crammed into garbage cans, and one in a wooden box. Detectives suspected all four strangling deaths were linked—with the murderer dubbed the “package killer” due to his method of body disposal—but a definitive suspect proved elusive until a DNA match put Muehlberg in the frame this March. The convict admitted the four killings to police, court documents show, as well as another murder with which he has not been charged.