WITH her thin, wispy white hair and wrinkled complexion, Alice Uden was regarded by those close to her as a gentle and meek pensioner.
At 74, she was frail for her years – so it came as a complete shock to those who knew her when she was arrested and charged with murder.
When Alice Uden was finally arrested, she didn’t look like your typical cold-blooded killer[/caption]
The grisly revelations didn’t end there, either.
As it would later be revealed, for decades both Alice and fourth husband Gerald had been hiding a whole host of sinister secrets, with the ‘evil’ pair leaving a trail of at least four dead bodies in their wake…
‘He was immediately smitten’
Their story together began in 1976, when mum-of-five Alice, then 37, moved to Fremont County, Wyoming, for a fresh start after leaving her third husband.
She’d been divorced twice and widowed once, but this hadn’t put her off finding love and that summer she began dating neighbour Gerald Uden, then 32, a maintenance worker who also had three failed marriages.
Speaking on Hayu documentary Snapped: Killer Couples, true crime author Ron Franscell says: “One day there was a knock on Gerald’s door and it was Alice.
“He was immediately smitten. She was, to him, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in the world.”
Gerald met wife Alice in 1976, and the pair quickly wed after a whirlwind romance[/caption]
‘Awesome mum’ & a ‘good father’
Five months after meeting, the pair wed, and bought a farm.
Erica Hayes, daughter of Alice Uden, says: “My mum was an awesome mum. [Gerald] fell head over heels in love… As their child I never really wanted for anything.”
However in the summer of 1980 Gerald’s ex-wife Virginia Uden and her two young sons, Richard, 11, and Reagan, 10, also moved into the area.
They weren’t Gerald’s biological children, however he had adopted the boys prior to the divorce, so he was paying child maintenance.
Ron Franscell says: “Gerald took his father role very seriously, and he was a good father.”
But things took a sinister turn when, on September 13th 1980 -just two months later – Virginia’s mother Claire Martin reported Virginia and the boys missing to police.
Attorney Leigh Anne Manlove says: “Claire knew her daughter better than anyone and she knew her daughter wouldn’t have just upped and left without saying a word.”
Reagan Uden was just 10 when he went missing with his brother and mum[/caption]
Gerald Uden had adopted Richard, pictured, and his brother[/caption]
A tremendous source of tension
Three weeks later, on October 4, police discovered Virginia’s station wagon on the edge of a very deep canyon, with traces of blood in the back.
The blood was type A – which matched Virginia’s.
Agent Andrew Hanson from the Wyoming division of criminal investigation says: “Virgina and the boys were a tremendous source of tension in the relationship between Alice and Gerald and part of that was because Virginia wanted more child support.”
Attorney Leigh Anne Manlove says: “There was a lot of hatred between [Alice and Virginia]. It wasn’t a fight over Gerald, it was really over money.”
Two months into their investigation, police spoke to both Gerald and Alice.
Larry Matthews, former Fremont county sheriff, says: “Alice was crying and emotional and couldn’t answer much.
“[Gerald] became very physically upset, was shaking… I knew right away we had our guy and he had something to do with it.
“He said even if there was a crime we couldn’t prove it because there was no body.”
However with no evidence connecting Alice and Gerald to the disappearances, years passed without any new leads.
5 must-watch Hayu true crime shows
- Deadly Cults – In this series, investigators uncover and expose the dark world of cults that kill. Each episode focuses on a different cult, looking at the behaviour of their leaders and followers.
- Snapped: Killer Couples – Each episode reveals the shocking story of a couple who have committed murder together. A spin-off of series Snapped, which chronicled lives of women who lost control and were charged with murder, the show has aired 17 seasons, each with ten episodes.
- In Ice Cold Blood – Hosted by Ice-T, this series exposed outrageous tales and shocking true stories involving sex, money, murder and sometimes a fatal cocktail of all three.
- Charmed To Death – A series following the true stories of manipulative and deceptively dangerous criminals who use their charm to cheat, steal and lure unsuspecting victims into romantic relationships, ultimately leaving a wake of devastation and death.
- The Girl In The Box – Colleen Stan relives what it was like to be kidnapped, imprisoned in a box, and how she bravely escaped. The 20-year-old’s ordeal all started when she accepted a ride from Cameron Hooker, and she was kept captive for nearly a year…
A sudden, unexpected twist
In 1982, Alice and Gerald suddenly sold their farm and moved to Chadwick, Missouri, where they lived until 1994, when the case took a sudden and unexpected turn.
Alice’s oldest son, Todd Scott told police his mother had once confessed to being involved in a murder – but not of Virginia or her sons, but rather her third husband, Vietnam war veteran Ron Holtz.
The pair had wed in 1974 after a whirlwind romance, and according to Todd, their relationship was turbulent from the start and was abusive.
Attorney Leigh Anne Manlove says: “One night when [Todd] was about 14 or 15, his mum told him that years earlier when she’d been married to Ron he’d been very abusive and she was afraid of him and so one night when he was sleeping she got her [gun] and she shot him in the back of the head while he was in bed.
“She had taken his body out of the trailer, put him in a barrel and thrown him down an abandoned gold mine.
“Todd for a very, very long time carried an enormous burden and he just eventually had to get it off his shoulders.”
Police widened their investigation, but to no avail.
Former Fremont County Sheriff Tim McKinney says: “We had nothing else to go on… No bodies were discovered, so it became a cold case. It was very frustrating.”
Human remains discovery
Finally, in 2005 both cases received new interest when Agent Andrew Hanson began to re-examine cold case files.
On January 18 2005 police visited Alice and Gerald’s home. Ron says: “When they knock on the front door Alice answers and is a grandmotherly type at that point.
“They ask if she will answer a few questions, which she does.”
When confronted with Todd’s story, Alice denied it happened.
Tragically, on April 4 2013 Virginia’s mother Claire passed away, having never found justice for her daughter and only grandsons.
However, police did get a new break a few months later, when the abandoned gold mine was searched.
Pieces of a barrel were found and a human skeleton, with a bullet hole in the skull.
It was enough to arrest Alice Uden, then 74, for Ron’s murder.
When confronted with the evidence, Alice finally caved, claiming in the interview he’d been threatening to kill her daughter Erica so she’d shot him before dumping his body.
The barrel was eventually found, and a human skeleton was discovered inside[/caption]
‘Ten seconds and they were gone’
At the time Alice was arrested, trucker Gerald was away on work.
When he arrived home agents met him and told him Alice had been arrested.
Wrongly assuming she’d been questioned over Virginia’s disappearance, he finally came clean himself, saying: “Now you guys are here, I’ve got to assume you must’ve either found some bodies… I gotta tell you, if you found bodies it’s a miracle.”
The gun was there, I was there and I shot her right square in the back of the head and she went down. It was that fast.”
Gerald Uden
He revealed on September 12 1980 he lured Virginia to meet him under the premise of taking them to go dove hunting.
Speaking in a police interview, Gerald said: “Virginia was there. The gun was there, I was there and I shot her right square in the back of the head and she went down.
“It was that fast. It was 10 seconds and they were gone.
“I didn’t get any pleasure out of doing it, none. But it did stop the child support, and that was going to come to about $16,000.”
Larry Matthews says: “He said they put them in steel drums, like an oil drum.
“He poked holes in the drum and he took them and put them in a boat, then went out on the Fremont Lake and submerged the barrels.”
More sinister surprises?
Gerald was charged with three counts of first degree murder, pleads guilty and was later sentenced to three life sentences, while Alice opted to go to trial.
However just before it started, police received a shocking tip suggesting Ron Holtz was not the first husband Alice killed.
Her second husband Don Prunty died aged 45, and at the time it wasn’t deemed suspicious.
Erica says: “I know my dad was an alcoholic, and death certificate says alcoholism. They had no reason to do an autopsy.
“There’s a belief however that my mum poisoned my dad. There’s a belief that my dad was her first victim.”
Following up on the tip, police examined Don’s medical records, and his symptoms were consistent with poisoning, specifically anti-freeze.
However there was no evidence to prove this theory.
The couple, pictured in 1999, collectively kept a lot of sinister secrets under wraps for decades[/caption]
‘Two profoundly evil people’
On May 8 2014 a jury convicted Alice of second degree murder, and she died in prison five years later in 2019
Gerald has remained in prison, despite claiming since he falsely confessed to the triple murder – a claim courts dismissed.
Agent Andrew Hanson says: “I genuinely looked at Alice as a person in our society who looked at killing people as a solution to a problem.
“I think with Gerald and with Alice we have a perfect storm of a sociopath and a narcissistic person.”
Attorney Leigh Anne adds: “I think the relationship between Alice and Gerald was unique in that these were two profoundly evil people who found one another.”
Snapped: Killer Couples is available to stream on Hayu in the UK
The pair’s relationship was a ‘perfect storm’[/caption]
