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On August 14, 1987, a catastrophic fire erupted at New York’s Vernon Downs racetrack, leading to a distressing discovery for emergency responders.
Inside one of the racetrack’s dormitories, they encountered the body of Leslie Dickenson, a 39-year-old horse groom. She was found hanging from a bloodstained electrical cord, with a bottle of vodka nearby.
“Her throat was slashed,” recalled Joseph Lisi, the undersheriff for Oneida County, during an episode of Oxygen’s Accident, Suicide, or Murder. “An electric knife lay on the floor beside her, blood visible from her throat, and her wrists were also cut.”
Investigators also noted the presence of lit candles, which they suspected might have ignited the fire.
“I had never seen anything like it,” Lisi reflected. “None of us had ever witnessed such a violent scene.”
But, based on the evidence at the scene, it was difficult to determine whether Dickenson had taken her own life in a violent suicide or if she’d been the victim of foul play.
For years, it would remain a mystery, until another horse groom was killed three years later, 1,500 miles away, under eerily similar circumstances.
Investigators Find Suspicious Clues at the Scene
As they tried to retrace Dickenson’s final movements, authorities spoke with more than 20 other horse grooms working at the track, security personnel and more track officials. They learned that the night of Aug. 13 Dickenson enjoyed a few drinks with her coworkers at a picnic table outside of the dormitory, before heading up to her room at 9 p.m. Around midnight, the staff noticed smoke billowing out of the dorm and called 911.
When emergency responders arrived, investigators were immediately struck by some unusual clues at the scene. For instance, Dickenson was found hanging with her pants unzipped. There was also no suicide note found at the scene and her death had been violent. Yet those who worked with her couldn’t imagine anyone who’d want to do her harm.
“Anybody we asked said you know, she’s a nice person, kept to herself a lot, but everybody, you know, liked her,” Oneida County District Attorney Michael Arcuri said. “There was absolutely no bad things at all said about her.”
Through Dickenson’s family, authorities learned that she’d once tried to take her own life about 20 years earlier and had also recently broken up with her boyfriend—a fellow horse groom who’d been several 100 miles away at the time of her death.
“The lifestyle of a groom is very seasonal, constantly moving around, but they are kind of a small community because they get to know each other at all of the different tracks, and people knew all the circumstances of this case,” Arcuri said. “This was a very big deal, but there was no real prime suspect.”
Without any definitive answers, detectives turned to the autopsy results. The pathologist concluded that horse groom had died by strangulation caused either by the cord or the hanging and classified the death as a suicide.
Lisi explained, “They thought she cut her throat and wrapped the cord around and then hung herself and then cut her wrist as she was hanging.”
What Happened to Pamela Albertson?
The case was considered closed until three years later when police were dispatched to the Pompano Beach race track, 1,500 miles away in Florida, after another horse groom was killed under suspicious circumstances.
Pamela Albertson was found unresponsive inside her room on Feb. 20, 1990 after she failed to show up for work. Although the door had been locked, the attacker likely fled through the room’s window.
As retired Pompano Beach Detective Gregory Flynn explained, “Pam was laying right inside the doorway and it appeared as though there may have been some sense of a struggle.”
Albertson had bruises on both sides of her head as well as her upper lip and it appeared as though someone may have tried to put her pants back on.
Retired Pompano Beach Capt. Kevin Butler explained, “We felt pretty confident there was foul play, that she was assaulted.”
An autopsy later determined that Albertson had been strangled to death and had a broken hyoid bone in her neck.
Crime scene analysts gathered items at the scene, including a red tank top, and collected vaginal swabs for DNA testing. They also found hair clutched in her hand that looked like it had been pulled out by the root.
Police Focus on Suspect With Violent Past
As authorities were looking for possible suspects, they spoke to fellow horse groom Ann Santoriello. She told police that her friend had been afraid of a male groom who went by the nickname “Mississippi.”
“Pamela told me that he was harassing her,” Santoriello recounted in Accident, Suicide or Murder. “He said that he had sex with her. There was no shot of that because she wanted nothing to do with him. She told me that she was getting afraid of him.”
According to Santoriello, Albertson had been so afraid that she’d purchased a bus ticket to go home, but died before she’d get the chance to leave.
Albertson’s neighbor also reported seeing a man matching Mississippi’s description at the 32-year-old’s door the night of her death.
Detectives identified Mississippi as Robert Hayes, a man with a criminal record for assault, and learned that he had been fired shortly before Albertson’s death for harassing her.
They also learned that Hayes had a troubling—and violent—history with women. One alleged victim told police that after she turned down his advances, he choked her and threw her off a second-story balcony of a dormitory at a race track in Delaware.
“He liked women he could intimidate,” Santoriello explained, “and they don’t come forward because they’re scared to death.”
Though he initially denied it, Hayes admitted to being at Albertson’s room that night, but denied killing her.
Still, investigators felt they had enough evidence against him and made an arrest.
Authorities Re-Consider Leslie Dickenson’s Manner of Death
With Hayes under arrest, Santoriello made the chilling realization that Hayes had been working with Dickenson and the other horse grooms when she had died at Vernon Downs three years earlier.
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” she remarked, “and there are similarities between what happened to Leslie and Pamela.”
Investigators in Florida and New York joined forces to take a fresh look at the case, noting the glaring similarities between the deaths. They learned while talking to the grooms that Hayes had bragged about going out with Dickenson before her death.
To gather additional evidence, authorities exhumed Dickenson’s body on Nov. 15, 1990. This time, a more skilled medical examiner noticed she had a broken hyoid bone and defensive wounds on her hands and changed her manner of death to homicide.
Was Robert Hayes Convicted?
Authorities decided to pursue the Florida homicide case against Hayes first after his DNA was found to match the vaginal sample from Albertson and the red tank top found by her body.
Hayes was found guilty of first-degree murder in October of 1991 and sentenced to death, however, the conviction was later overturned after his attorneys successfully argued that the method of DNA testing used on the shirt at the time was considered unreliable.
As a result, prosecutors were unable to bring forward all the same evidence at a second trial in 1997. This time, defense attorneys argued that the hair in Albertson’s hand had belonged to someone caucasian, ruling out Hayes. He was acquitted and released from death row.
“That was a gut punch,” Flynn said. “I felt as though I let Pam down.”
Still hoping to see Hayes behind bars, authorities turned their focus to Dickenson’s murder. Their case was strengthened when a groom and a prisoner once housed with Hayes came forward to report that he’d confessed to the murder.
In November 2004, Hayes pleaded guilty to manslaughter in Dickenson’s death and received a sentence of 15 to 45 years in prison.
Later DNA tests conducted by The Innocence Project in Albertson’s case confirmed Hayes’ DNA was found on her body, suggesting he had been responsible for her death.
