Charles Rodman Campbell (October 21, 1954 – May 27, 1994) was an American murderer and rapist. He was executed by hanging in 1994 by the state of Washington for a 1982 triple murder that he committed in Clearview, killing three female victims.
In 1974, Campbell attacked and sexually assaulted 23-year-old Renae Wicklund, leading to his apprehension in 1976. After Wicklund and her neighbor, Barbara Hendrickson, testified against him, Campbell was convicted of first degree assault and sodomy and received a sentence of 40 years in prison. Authorities did not make Wicklund aware of the fact that Campbell's sentence would allow him to be placed in a work release program after serving seven years behind bars despite Campbell being accused of multiple disciplinary infractions while serving his 40-year sentence, including the rape of at least two other inmates and the physical assault of a third; in 1981, he was placed in a work release facility under conditions that allowed him more freedom of movement outside of prison, unbeknownst to Wicklund.
On April 14, 1982, months after Campbell's placement in his work release program, he revisited and burglarized the Wicklund house, where then 31-year-old Renae Wicklund, her nine-year-old daughter Shannah, and 51-year-old Hendrickson were present, and murdered and mutilated all three of them. Campbell's motive for returning to Wicklund's home to further victimize her was revenge due to her and Hendrickson having testified against him during his trial for Wicklund's rape. Following his arrest, trial, and conviction, Campbell was executed by hanging, becoming one of only three people executed by hanging in the United States since 1976.
In 2023, DNA tests posthumously linked Campbell to a separate sexual assault and murder of a woman in 1975.
Early life and background Campbell was born on October 21, 1954, in Oahu, Hawaii. Campbell's father was a former Marine, and both his parents were heavy drinkers. He stated that he watched his father commit domestic violence against his mother frequently. Despite his father's domestic violence, Campbell stated in a 1982 psychological report that he admired his father and thought of his mother as weak and excessively disciplinary. Campbell began drinking and using drugs, including amphetamines and heroin, by the time he was 13 years old.
On October 29, 1970, eight days after his 16th birthday, Campbell's father reported him to the police in Edmonds, Washington, for stealing the family car. In July 1971, Campbell's mother reported him as a runaway but stated that she "[had] given up hope for [Campbell] except for trying to get him to court. She would not bother reporting him gone and would just as soon that he never came back home." The next day, he burglarized his grandparents' home and was promptly arrested after stealing several guns to finance a trip to California.
The theft of his grandparents' guns led to his incarceration at the Green Hill School in Chehalis, Washington approximately between 1971 and 1972. School employees considered him unruly at times but "nondescript," as several of the facility's employees had little recollection of Campbell when interviewed about him shortly before his execution. One of his prior instructors stated that he was the kind of student who "just falls between the cracks". Bob Williams, the superintendent of Green Hill School, recalled Campbell was "a real cold-blooded person" who "promised that he would try to hurt anybody that came around him". Campbell's stint in the youth detention facility was apparently intended to address antisocial tendencies.
In August 1973, after his stint at the Green Hill School ended, Campbell married. He subjected his wife to domestic violence and threatened to kill several members of her family as well as her dog. In March 1974, Campbell and his wife had a daughter; on one occasion in June 1974, when their daughter was three months old, Campbell grew irate at the infant's crying and threw a butcher knife at their daughter. In August 1974, Campbell and his wife divorced, and his wife gained custody of their daughter.
When Campbell was 23 years old, the Washington State Division of Juvenile Rehabilitation purged his juvenile crime records.
Initial crimes against Renae Wicklund
On December 11, 1974, Campbell attacked then-23-year-old Renae Wicklund while she was doing yard work outside her home in Clearview, Washington. He demanded that she perform oral sex on him at knifepoint, threatening to kill her infant daughter, Shannah, if she did not comply. Wicklund submitted to his demands. After he completed the rape and left, Wicklund called police. Campbell was not apprehended until 1976, when she picked him out of a police line-up.
Campbell faced trial in spring 1976, and he pleaded not guilty. During Campbell's trial, Wicklund and her neighbor, Barbara Hendrickson, testified in detail about the assault; Hendrickson attested to Wicklund's psychological state following the assault. A jury convicted Campbell of first degree assault and sodomy in April. On May 11, 1976, Campbell began serving three concurrent sentences, totaling 40 years, for the assault and sodomy of Wicklund as well as an unrelated 1976 burglary. Wicklund was not alerted to the fact that Campbell's sentences ran concurrently, not consecutively, meaning that he could theoretically have been paroled in significantly fewer than 40 years.
During the intervening years, Wicklund had separated from her husband, Jack, due to the lingering stress of the assault and devoted herself to raising her daughter, supporting herself and Shannah with an in-home business as an accountant for local beauty parlors, as well as helping students obtain loans for beautician school. Jack Wicklund, meanwhile, fell victim to a bizarre incident in December 1977, when he was found tied to a chair in his West Seattle home with massive third-degree burns. After receiving medical treatment, he said that a complete stranger visited his house, tied him up, doused him with gasoline, and set him on fire. Wicklund was required to wear a rubber bodysuit to protect his damaged skin. Five months later, he died when his car crashed into a tree. The exact circumstances surrounding Jack Wicklund's death are unclear, and police never satisfactorily determined whether he had been murdered or had died by suicide.
Imprisonment and work release During his stint serving his concurrent sentences in the Washington State Reformatory, Campbell accumulated several disciplinary infractions, including possessing homemade liquor he had illicitly brewed using yeast stolen from the prison kitchen; raping at least two fellow inmates and threatening murder if one of the victims reported the rape; and physically assaulting other inmates, including one incident in which the victim needed treatment for head injuries.
Campbell also began having sex with a prison substance abuse counselor and former nun, who was later fired for this illicit relationship. In October 1982, the counselor gave birth to a son fathered by Campbell.
In January 1979, a prison psychologist completed a psychological review of Campbell, concluding that Campbell was drawn to conflict, exhibited multiple antisocial tendencies, had no regard for others, and "[had] declared war on society, all of whom he regards as mindless nitwits who are getting theirs and are now out to get him." The psychological review also stated Campbell was "[blithely] uncaring of others, conscienceless, malevolently intolerable of the social order which imprisons him, and [was] imminently harmful to all who directly or indirectly capture his attention or interest".
Despite his prison disciplinary infractions and his psychological report, the Washington State Parole Board waived Campbell's mandatory sentence in June 1981, thus making him eligible to be downgraded to minimum-security custodial status as he awaited a May 1983 parole hearing date. In October 1981, Campbell was placed in a work release facility in Monroe, Washington. Sometime between December 25, 1981, and January 4, 1982, Campbell's ex-wife accused him of temporarily leaving his work release to rape her. Following the closure of his original work release program in Monroe, Campbell was transferred to another program in Everett, Washington, on February 24, 1982, where he committed four additional disciplinary infractions in his first 30 days.
Triple murders On April 14, 1982, then-31-year-old Renae Wicklund was sick at her home in Clearview, and her nine-year-old daughter Shannah was with her. Her neighbor, then-51-year-old Barbara Hendrickson, visited the home at approximately 4:20 pm to tend to Wicklund and check her vital signs. Two hours later, at 6:30 pm, Hendrickson's husband Donald visited Wicklund's home to check on his wife and discovered the dead bodies of all three victims in different rooms of the house. Campbell beat and assaulted all three victims before murdering them. He tore Renae's and Hendrickson's earlobes to steal their earrings. He severely beat Renae across the head, back, and upper chest, broke her jaw and nose, strangled her, raped her with a blunt object, and cut her throat, severing her carotid arteries; her official cause of death was exsanguination from the cut to her throat. Campbell also strangled Shannah and cut her neck so deeply, that he nearly decapitated her; her blood loss was extensive enough to make it difficult for investigators to obtain a sample of her blood, since she lost 95% of her blood, and extensive enough only takes 5% loss of blood. The blood loss caused extreme trauma, instant lung collapse, and she is estimated to have died just 100 ms after. Campbell cut Hendrickson's throat as well. The same day of the murders, Campbell also tried to rape another woman.
A neighbor of Wicklund's told police she saw Campbell sneaking around Wicklund's yard with a knife that morning, and other neighbors observed him heading towards the house with a large blanket roll in his hands. After investigating the crime scene, investigators found a drinking glass with a bloody handprint on it which matched Campbell's fingerprints; Campbell also left a trail of Renae Wicklund's jewelry running from the front door of the house down the walkway. Campbell's car had dried blood on the driver's side door handle, and Shannah's earring was found in the back seat. Investigators found a pair of Renae's earrings in Campbell's pants pockets during his arrest. In addition, a fellow work release resident directed police to a location along the banks of the Snohomish River, where he and Campbell had been on the evening of April 14. There, diving units recovered several pieces of clothing, decoration, and jewelry, including pottery, other pairs of earrings, a bracelet, necklaces, a pair of jeans, and a shirt from the river. When questioned by police, Donald Hendrickson stated that "the man who'd attacked Renae eight years earlier" was the only possible perpetrator he could think of.
Campbell was arrested at the Monroe Reformatory on April 19, and charged with first degree murder. Held in the Snohomish County Jail, he was unpopular with other prisoners because he had murdered a child; additionally, the circumstances of his crime meant that stricter rules would be imposed on the freedoms of inmates on parole.
Trial