Trail Creek, Indiana, 1981. 33-year-old Hilma Marie was a beautiful brunette, living in Beverly Shores, and married to 43-year-old Paul Witte, with two incredibly loyal sons, 15-year-old Eric and 12-year-old John (Butch). Witte was a brutish man who belittled and criticized his sons. The boys were much closer to Mother Dearest. Often, their father hit them and their mother. It was not a happy household. Hilma hated her husband and she made a rather admirable attempt to poison him to death by sprinkling arsenic into his food. However the hearty Witte experienced no side effects whatever. Take that, Grizzly Adams.
Hilma approached her boys and asked them to kill their father. She told them that Witte was going to divorce her and the family would end up living in the streets. Better to just do away with him. Say what? They refused. Sure they weren’t fans of the old man, but kill 
him? Nothing doing. In response, the manipulative woman left home and informed her sons she wouldn’t come home until they shot their father for her. Eventually her unhappy boys gave in to Hilma’s demands and shot their unsuspecting father. Happy Hilma returned home and continued to live with her boys as if nothing had happened. So did the rest of the community. The death was deemed an accident. Police believed Eric accidentally shot his father when he tripped over something and shot Witte. Hilma wasn’t the best homemaker in the county. The nasty clutter in the household made this story seem plausible.
Hilma and the boys moved in with her 74-year-old stepmother-in-law, Elaine Witte near Michigan City, Indiana. Witte believed Hilma’s sob story about her own son. She adored her stepdaughter-in-law and was happy to have her stepdaughter-in-law and her grandsons move in. Hilma still had a fairly close relationship with her mother, Margaret O’Donnell, but it was Witte who took her under her wing. By 1984, the decidedly unappreciative Hilma began stealing money from Wittte’s bank accounts. Angry, Witte confronted her stepdaughter-in-law. Their relationship became strained. Witte told Hilma to leave and in so doing, she signed her own death certificate. No one crossed Hilma Marie.
Before you could say “run for your life” Hilma ordered her sons to kill her stepmother-in-law. She used the same excuse as she had about her late husband: Witte planned to “kick them out of the house.” Wherever would they go? By now John, nicknamed Butch, was 14-years-old. It was his turn to off someone. Butch didn’t want to shoot grandma. He loved her. He spent the night before her murder in the basement smoking pot and drinking vodka. Unhappy, he spent hours debating whether or not he should kill the old lady. Finally, Hilma’s dominance won out. Butch would later state, “My mom said I could strangle her or use my crossbow. It was up to me.” Butch used a cross-bow to do the deed. Ouch! What a horrible way to go. He pinned her onto her bed and she died a slow, agonizing death. Why Butch chose a cross-bow I cannot say. Never mind. Hilma could gleefully accept Witte’s social security checks, maintain the home, and not do a day’s work to support her sons.
What to do with grandma’s corpse? How does one explain away an arrow? Butch tripped over an object and accidentally killed grandma with a cross-bow? Instead, Hilma forced her sons and O’Donnell to help her dismember and dispose of grandma. Seriously. Even O’Donnell got in on the act. A real family affair. Witte and her two sons destroyed the body, using a saw, knives, chisel, garbage disposal, trash compactor, a deep fat fryer and a microwave oven to reduce the body parts for disposal in garbage bags. They did a darned good job. Her body would never be found. A few hours after killing his grandmother, Butch went to court with his mother to inquire about receiving disability benefits from his father’s death. It was probably around this time that Eric and Butch realized if their mother was capable of killing their father and her own stepmother, they might be next on the list. Meanwhile, Witte’s friends, concerned over her disappearance, approached police. During an investigation, Butch caved and admitted to killing his grandmother at Hilma’s behest. He also ratted on Eric.
Hilma’s half-sister couldn’t believe her nephews became killers. It broke her heart. “Why they agreed to do it, I don’t know.” I think the answer is obvious: Hilma Marie was a manipulative sociopath who provided the boys with their basic human needs. What would they do without her? Still, dismembering grandma took a very strong stomach and a certain constitution I find to be particularly gruesome. On December 20, 1985, Hilma Marie received life to 90 years in prison. She will die there. O’Donnell was charged with assisting a criminal. Eric and Butch received 20 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter. They were released in 1996 after serving 11 years.
Never one to be bested, Hilma Marie has flourished in prison. She tutored other inmates (hopefully not in body dismemberment) and, never one to pay a penny for her own needs, earned a bachelor of arts degree at the taxpayers’ expense. She took part in groups for domestic violence, anger management, incest survivors, assertiveness and more. She petitioned for parole after serving 14 years but was denied. She stated in her petition, “There is no excuse for resorting to violence regardless of the circumstances” and that she “deeply regrets those actions.” Not as much as Paul and Elaine Witte, I’m sure.
Deathly Dames Inc. 