Vail's ex-wife raises more questions about suspected killer

A former wife of serial killer suspect Felix Vail says he kept surgical saws in a secret compartment in his car — a detail that has caused authorities to wonder if other women could be victims.

"I was shocked when she said it," said Assistant District Attorney Hugo Holland of Lake Charles, La., who conducted the interview at the Tupelo Police Department.

Vail, 74, a native of Montpelier in Clay County, has been charged with murder in the death of his first wife and a suspect in the presumed deaths of two other women in what experts say is the oldest serial killer suspect case in U.S. history. He is the last known person with three women before they died or disappeared — his first wife, Mary, whose body was recovered in 1962 from a river in Lake Charles; his common law wife, Sharon Hensley, who disappeared in 1973; and his wife, Annette, who disappeared in 1984.

Mary Vail's death was originally ruled an accident, but in 2012 The Clarion-Ledger raised questions about that conclusion, pointing out the autopsy report showed a 4-inch bruise on the left side of her head and neck as well as a scarf 4 inches into her mouth.

Louisiana authorities reopened the case, and after a review, the Lake Charles coroner concluded her death was a homicide.

Vail has insisted on his innocence, blaming his arrest on The Clarion-Ledger, prosecutors, money and the women's families, saying "a large amount of money, hate and political ambitions are behind them."

On April 5, Holland and Tupelo Police Detective Tremaine Frison interviewed Vail's former wife, who asked authorities not to identify her. She was 17 when she and Vail married for a few months in 1975.

While they were visiting Vail's parents in Montpelier, he was doing something with the trunk of his yellow Volkswagen, she said in a statement obtained by The Clarion-Ledger. "I walked out there. I don't think he knew I was coming out there. And he had a compartment pulled up …

"I can see it just like it was yesterday," she said. "In that vehicle, there were sinister, surgical looking saws of all shapes and sizes in a neat, neat formation."

The saws looked like they belonged in a surgery clinic, she said. "They were that sterile."

To her, "that looked evil," she said. "I said … 'I'm not going anywhere with you in that car.' It scared me."

That, she said, was the end of their marriage.

Holland said Friday this revelation made him believe there could be other victims that authorities know nothing about.

Vail's lawyer, Ben Cormier of Lake Charles, could not be reached for comment. He has previously said he cannot talk about any matters involving Vail.

In a taped conversation with private investigator Gina Frenzel, Vail talked about working with surgeons and scrub nurses while he lived in San Diego in the 1960s. "I was on call 24-7," he said.

Randy Rheinhardt, a neighbor of Vail in Canyon Lake, Texas, told The Clarion-Ledger that Vail "told me he worked in an operating room and had held a beating heart in his hand."

Vail reportedly told his son, Bill, that Mexican men had attacked him in Baja, Mexico, and that he had killed one of them, cut up the body and buried the pieces.

"Bill said Felix told him about it and showed him the knife he used," said Bill's widow, Janet. "Bill referred to it as a fillet knife."

Enzo Yaksic, founder of the Serial Homicide Expertise and Information Sharing Collaborative, said in his research since 2001, that he has found that serial killers are typically caught within one to three years after they start their sprees.

But those that dismember victims (5 percent of the 2,600 offenders in the database) more often avoid detection for four years or more, he said.

In her statement to authorities, Vail's former wife said the two of them met on a bus traveling to Tupelo. She said she was returning from a trip to Jackson.

He came and sat by her, saying, "You look fit, and I need probably somebody like you to keep me in shape."

At the time, she was 17, and Vail was about 36.

Despite the initial attraction, their marriage was never consummated, she said. "He told me he couldn't … or wouldn't or … didn't. And did I find that odd? Yeah, I found that odd."

At the time, she already had a son, but not by Vail, she said.

Rather than connect physically, "we went on this mind magic trip … mystical bull——, really."

Vail talked about the mountains and "acid trips ... just stuff I never had heard about," she said. "It didn't impress me, but it intrigued me."

She said she wound up marrying him because he was saying, "Let's go here and let's go there."

She knew, she said, "my family wasn't gonna let me go anywhere unless I was married."

She recalled going with him when he worked, presumably in construction, in Clinton, Okla., west of Oklahoma City. She and her son followed him back to Mississippi, where they stayed with his parents, she said.

On one occasion, she said a relative of Vail, whom she didn't identify, confided in her, "You probably need to know that he killed his first wife."

The statement stunned her, she said. "I'm like, what?"

She referred to her former husband as a "misogynist. … He had no value in the female gender."

Annette's mother, Mary Rose, called the revelation of the surgical saws "very, very eerie. It's creepy and shocking, but not surprising given who I know he is."

To contact Jerry Mitchell, call (601) 961-7064 or follow @jmitchellnews on Twitter.