Glennon E. Engleman was a dentist who partnered with women in murder plots; he eventually pleaded or was convicted of five murders. But detectives suspected he committed more.

He was caught after the 1980 death of Sophie Marie Barrera, 59, who owned a dental lab, and sued Engleman because he hadn't paid some bills. Engleman, with an accomplice, planted a car bomb; Berrera was killed when it exploded near her lab's office on Miami, east of South Grand Boulevard. At the same time he was charged in her death, he was charged with the 1976 shooting death of Peter J. Halm.

Halm was married to a dental hygienist, Carmen Miranda Halm, who worked in Engleman's office. His widow testified that she and Engleman plotted for her to marry so they could kill her husband for insurance money. Jurors found Engleman guilty of the various charges in 1980 and 1981. (She received immunity for her testimony.)

After his convictions in those deaths, Engleman was charged with killing Arthur Gusewelle and his wife Vernita, in November 1977; and their son Ronald, who died in April 1979. Engleman pleaded guilty to the three murders in June 1985. Ronald Gusewelle's widow, Barbara Gusewelle Boyle, was also convicted of murder for her husband's death. Engleman plotted to kill the couple, and then Ronald Gusewelle, for insurance money that he split with the widow.

Engleman died in prison in 1999.

He was never charged with the 1958 shooting death of James Bullock, who had married Engleman's first wife after she divorced the dentist. Bullock was found shot near the Art Museum in Forest Park, and the investigation and questioning of Engleman and the widow was closely followed in the news.

He was also never charged in the 1963 death of business partner, killed in an explosion that, at first, looked like a work accident. Eric Frey died at the dragstrip near Pacific that Bullock's widow invested in after she received $64,500 in insurance money. Engleman was a director at the dragstrip.

Engleman's defense attorney said, in 1985: "No, his motives were not money. He would treat people for nothing, and there were acts of kindness and charity in his background.

"I think probably his desire to control individuals was his driving force — to make all the little dummies walk in line and sing at the same time."