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Nancy Ludwig, a 41-year-old Minnesota flight attendant, boarded a flight to Detroit, Michigan, in February 1991, not knowing that it would be the last time she would ever board one. She was found brutally r*ped and stabbed in a hotel room the following day.
The case of the flight attendant remained unsolved for more than a decade until fingerprints collected from a separate crime scene in Margarette Eby's 1986 murder case yielded results. Jeffrey Wayne Gorton's DNA matched the samples collected from both scenes. Gorton was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2002.
Trigger Warning: This article contains graphic details of violence and assault. Reader discretion is advised.
The Lake Erie Murders on ID will revisit Nancy Ludwig and Margarette Eby's heinous murder in an episode titled Heartbreak Hotel. The synopsis of the episode states:
"Beautiful Northwestern Airlines flight attendant Nancy Ludwig is discovered dead in her hotel room, her body mutilated and head almost decapitated; it will take the discovery of links to another heinous killing to blow the case wide open."
The episode will air on the channel this Wednesday, March 22, at 7 pm ET.
Flight Attendant Nancy Ludwig was r*ped and stabbed, similar to a killing that occurred five years before hers
Nancy Ludwig was a Minnesota resident who was murdered in Room 354 of the former Hilton Airport Inn in Romulus near the Detroit Metropolitan Airport on February 17, 1991. Ludwig wasn't scheduled to work that Sunday but had accepted the Las Vegas to Detroit flight as a last-minute substitute. She had checked into the hotel sometime around 9 pm that night.
Ludwig's body was found the following afternoon by housekeeping staff. Reports state that her hands were bound to the back, she was stabbed multiple times, and her throat was slashed to the point of her head being severed from her body in an ear-to-ear cut.
Further examination revealed multiple severe defensive wounds on her hands. Ludwig also had multiple minor cuts to her face and upper torso, suggesting she was tortured before the killing. An autopsy later revealed that she was also violently s*xually assaulted before being r*ped a second time after she had died.
The victim's body and crime scene also suggested that the killer had tried to clean up after and made a point of taking his victim's belongings, including her clothing, jewelry, ID, and luggage, with him when he fled. He only left behind a blood-soaked washcloth wadded up on the bathroom sink he used to clean Ludwig's body.
While investigating the murder case, witnesses reported encountering a potential suspect, but to no avail, given that the man was never located. The case eventually hit a wall until, in 2001, a fingerprint collected from a separate Michigan cold case yielded positive results.
DNA evidence from a cold case was used to solve Nancy Ludwig's case over a decade later
In November 1986, five years before Nancy Ludwig's gruesome murder, a Flint-based provost and professor, Margarette Eby, 55, was found r*ped and stabbed to death in her home under similar circumstances. The case remained unsolved, but in 2001 authorities found a potential lead using a fingerprint they had collected from Eby's crime scene, which matched Jeffrey Wayne Gorton.
Gorton, a 39-year-old man with a criminal record for being a repeat offender, had a reputation for stealing women's panties and served time in prison in the early 80s. Once his fingerprints were matched, authorities obtained his DNA sample, which again matched the ones collected from both crime scenes.
In September 2002, Gorton was found guilty of first-degree murder and criminal s*xual behavior in Nancy Ludwig's death. He admitted to murdering Margarette Eby and chose to forego a second trial.
ID's The Lake Erie Murders will shed further light on the case this Wednesday at 7 pm ET.
