Anthony Allen Shore, The Tourniquet Killer

The Tourniquet Killer had the American population on alert, especially Houston’s inhabitants, as that’s the city where he committed most of his crimes. Anthony Allen Shore was married two times and had two daughters, who testified before the jury that their father had hit, raped and drugged them on more than one occasion.

Anthony Allen Shore’s life

Anthony Allen Shore was born on June 25, 1962, in Rapid City, South Dakota. Son of a military couple, the Tourniquet Killer lived in several cities until his family moved permanently to Houston. In his testimonies, Shore claimed his mother had sexually abused him and his father had beat him during his childhood.

This turned him antisocial, and he developed an inclination to mistreat animals; however, this didn’t keep him from having an almost normal life, and he got married twice; the first time was in 1983 and the second time in 1997. His last divorce occurred after Amy Lynch, his then wife, confessed that she had been abused by Shore.

Anthony Allen Shore’s four victims

Anthony Allen Shore was officially convicted for four murders, but it is believed that his record of physical and sexual abuse could be much higher, since, besides sexually abusing his two biological daughters, he also sexually abused in 1993 a 14-year-old girl he didn’t kill.

Anthony Allen Shore killed his four victims over the course of nine years: The first time was in 1986, when he murdered Laurie Lee Tremblay; in 1992, he killed Maria del Carmen Estrada; in 1994, his victim was Diana Rebollar; his last oficial murder was in 1995. That year, he killed Dana Sanchez and then a manhunt started which lasted almost three years before he was finally captured.

Modus Operandi

Anthony Allen Shore’s modus operandi was almost always the same: His pattern of sexually abusing and then strangling his victims with a piece of rope was accompanied by violent beating and the abandonment of the bodies in places that were hidden from sight. It is believed that he transported his victims on a white van that one witness was able to see.

Anthony Allen Shore’s murders took place in Houston, and the similitude between the four murders caused him to be known as the Tourniquet Killer, since he used that technique to submit his victims and kill them after having sexually abused them.

The arrest of a killer

For many years, the investigators of the four murders dedicated themselves to collecting evidence, but they did not have the necessary records to determine that the murderer was the same person in all the cases. However, in 1997, the daughters of Anthony Allen Shore accused him of sexual abuse, and in this way the police obtained the necessary DNA evidence to carry out further investigations.

With the evidence, the authorities determined to enter the records of Anthony Allen Shore and compare them with the DNA found in the case of Carmen Estrada, which by then was already closed due to lack of evidence. In 2003, Shore’s DNA was finally found to be present on the victim’s body.

trial and sentence

Before the trial, Anthony Allen Shore confessed all his crimes; he explained to the officers in charge of the case that he had killed three women and a child, but it was impossible to find enough evidence to charge him for the death of Laurie Tremblay, his first victim.

The Tourniquet Killer’s trial started in October 2004; thanks to his daughters’ testimony and that of a witness who identified his car, he was sentenced to death by lethal injection. His execution was carried out on January 18, 2018.

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