It was the 2005 murder of Danielle Subjects that first drew investigators’ attention to Edward George McGregor. That August, police found Subjects’ nude body in the bathroom of her Houston apartment, her head submerged in a tub and wrapped in clothing, according to court documents in the case (via Justia). McGregor was the last person to call her phone before her death. Six months later, someone murdered another woman, Mandy Rubin, in Houston. The circumstances were eerily similar to Subjects’ murder.
While McGregor was never charged with these murders, investigators found DNA evidence in the second case, and after collecting a sample from him they got a hit on the cold case from Missouri City. “We believe that Edward George McGregor is a serial murderer who is responsible for three violent deaths of three women in the Houston area,” a representative of the Houston Police told the AP. In December 2006, McGregor’s DNA showed up in another cold case in Houston. In May 1994, someone shot and strangled Edwina Barnum to death in her apartment. She too had connections to McGregor.
Although McGregor was not convicted of Barnum’s murder, evidence in that case was used as an “extraneous offense” during his trial in the Wildman murder. In Texas, prosecutors can use this type of evidence in certain cases as well as during the punishment phase, per the Law Office of Mark Stevens. After a jury convicted McGregor of killing Kim Wildman, a judge sentenced him to life in prison.
