CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Robert Matheny remembers seeing James Childers around town, often as he walked to the post office.

"To be honest, I didn't know his name. But I'd say, hi, how you doing if I saw him walking around," said Matheny, a lieutenant with the Clarksburg Police Department. "He was very distinctive. He'd wear work boots and shorts, weather permitting."

Childers did, however, remember Matheny's name. As a young police officer years ago, Matheny helped Childers in a car accident.

"He felt I treated him decent," Matheny said.

So when Childers decided to confess to murdering women and setting buildings on fire, he mailed his letter and audiotape to Matheny.

Now the letter and tape are in the hands of an FBI profiler. Police hope to discover whether Carolyn Sauerwein, 40, of Philippi, and Carrie Lynn Baker, 26, of Clarksburg, were Childers' only victims -- or if there are more, as he claimed.

Childers killed himself June 2 in a Clarksburg motel room as police stood at the door.

As details have been revealed, Childers' story has, in some ways, come to parallel that of an infamous murderer also from the Clarksburg area -- Harry Powers. In 1931, five bodies were found in a ditch beside Powers' home in Quiet Dell.

Powers' story was chronicled in Time magazine. In his novel "The Night of the Hunter," West Virginia author Davis Grubb based the killer on Powers. In the famous 1955 film based on Grubb's book, Robert Mitchum played the role.

The house where Powers lived with his wife, and where those five bodies were found, is less than 10 miles from Childers' house, where police say he killed one of his victims 78 years later.

Bluebeard

On Dec. 7, 1931, a Clarksburg opera house was converted into a courtroom for Powers' trial.

Papier-mache trees lined the stage where judge, jury, prosecutor and accused sat. Behind the judge was the painted background of a small town with a church.

In the media, Powers was known as the Clarksburg Bluebeard, after a fairy tale where a young woman discovers her husband has a blood-stained room where he kills people.

Powers led his victims into a custom-made garage in his Quiet Dell home. There, he killed at least two women and three children, then dropped them through a trap door "to the dank sepulchre<co> below," according to contemporary reports in The Charleston Gazette.

The courtroom was packed throughout the trial, as the prosecutor detailed how Powers lured women to his home with personal ads seeking love. In the ads and in love letters to the women, he described himself as a handsome man who owned a ranch -- a far cry from the real Powers, who was described in the Gazette as "a pudgy little man with horn-rimmed spectacles."

A woman took the stand and described how Powers wooed her sister, Dorothy Pressler Lemke, with love letters.

"He has a big ranch at Cedar Rapids, Iowa. And is going to give me everything my heart desires," Lemke told her sister.

But she -- as well as Asta Etcher and Etcher's three children -- were all killed by Powers. Their bodies were found in a ditch near the house in Quiet Dell.

On Dec. 10, 1931, Powers was found guilty and sentenced to death.

Even after the trial, police investigating missing persons cases and unsolved murders continued to interview Powers in the hopes of getting confessions out of him.

After his death, signed statements he wrote to the warden of Moundsville State Penitentiary were opened. Powers confessed to murdering the five people found in the ditch at his house, but not to any others.

Still, police believed he may have killed more.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Robert Matheny remembers seeing James Childers around town, often as he walked to the post office.

"To be honest, I didn't know his name. But I'd say, hi, how you doing if I saw him walking around," said Matheny, a lieutenant with the Clarksburg Police Department. "He was very distinctive. He'd wear work boots and shorts, weather permitting."

Childers did, however, remember Matheny's name. As a young police officer years ago, Matheny helped Childers in a car accident.

"He felt I treated him decent," Matheny said.

So when Childers decided to confess to murdering women and setting buildings on fire, he mailed his letter and audiotape to Matheny.

Now the letter and tape are in the hands of an FBI profiler. Police hope to discover whether Carolyn Sauerwein, 40, of Philippi, and Carrie Lynn Baker, 26, of Clarksburg, were Childers' only victims -- or if there are more, as he claimed.

Childers killed himself June 2 in a Clarksburg motel room as police stood at the door.

As details have been revealed, Childers' story has, in some ways, come to parallel that of an infamous murderer also from the Clarksburg area -- Harry Powers. In 1931, five bodies were found in a ditch beside Powers' home in Quiet Dell.

Powers' story was chronicled in Time magazine. In his novel "The Night of the Hunter," West Virginia author Davis Grubb based the killer on Powers. In the famous 1955 film based on Grubb's book, Robert Mitchum played the role.

The house where Powers lived with his wife, and where those five bodies were found, is less than 10 miles from Childers' house, where police say he killed one of his victims 78 years later.

Bluebeard

On Dec. 7, 1931, a Clarksburg opera house was converted into a courtroom for Powers' trial.

Papier-mache trees lined the stage where judge, jury, prosecutor and accused sat. Behind the judge was the painted background of a small town with a church.

In the media, Powers was known as the Clarksburg Bluebeard, after a fairy tale where a young woman discovers her husband has a blood-stained room where he kills people.

Powers led his victims into a custom-made garage in his Quiet Dell home. There, he killed at least two women and three children, then dropped them through a trap door "to the dank sepulchre<co> below," according to contemporary reports in The Charleston Gazette.

The courtroom was packed throughout the trial, as the prosecutor detailed how Powers lured women to his home with personal ads seeking love. In the ads and in love letters to the women, he described himself as a handsome man who owned a ranch -- a far cry from the real Powers, who was described in the Gazette as "a pudgy little man with horn-rimmed spectacles."

A woman took the stand and described how Powers wooed her sister, Dorothy Pressler Lemke, with love letters.

"He has a big ranch at Cedar Rapids, Iowa. And is going to give me everything my heart desires," Lemke told her sister.

But she -- as well as Asta Etcher and Etcher's three children -- were all killed by Powers. Their bodies were found in a ditch near the house in Quiet Dell.

On Dec. 10, 1931, Powers was found guilty and sentenced to death.

Even after the trial, police investigating missing persons cases and unsolved murders continued to interview Powers in the hopes of getting confessions out of him.

After his death, signed statements he wrote to the warden of Moundsville State Penitentiary were opened. Powers confessed to murdering the five people found in the ditch at his house, but not to any others.

Still, police believed he may have killed more.

Powers went to the gallows in Moundsville on March 19, 1932. The killer was moved to tears when a letter from his wife, also wooed through a personal ad, was read.

"I am heartbroken and so distressed I can hardly live," she wrote. "I am sending you my love and kisses, so please dear, send me a kiss and wave me goodbye."

At 9 a.m. the trap was sprung, and Powers plunged to his death.

Childers

Matheny has heard the Powers case mentioned a few times as he's investigated Childers.

Just about everyone in the Clarksburg area knows of Powers and his murders, he said. Some locals refer to the road Powers lived on as Murder Farm Road.

That's how Childers described it in his taped confession. He talks about driving on Murder Farm Road, Matheny said.

Matheny said he believes Childers, like Powers, used ads to search for victims.

But where Powers placed ads in magazines that reached beyond West Virginia, Childers placed ads locally. Some were ads seeking companionship, others for a housekeeper or to sit with an elderly person.

"I think that was his purpose, to identify potential victims," Matheny said. "I can't imagine why else he would run ads for a housekeeper."

Childers also would answer ads from time to time, once interviewing for a job with an elderly person.

"He didn't get the job," Matheny said.

Childers had a relationship since 2001 with Carolyn Sauerwein. Her brother, Chris Sauerwein, said Thursday his sister had a form of paranoid schizophrenia and Childers mentally abused her for years.

They had a close relationship for about a year, Chris Sauerwein said. After that, they would go months without seeing each other, then start again, he said.

"He would lure her into the relationship, then would steal things he couldn't use, like her glasses, keys and clothing," her brother said. "Then he would do something really cruel, like drop her off in the middle of nowhere; then she would have to find her way back."

Carolyn Sauerwein was shot twice in the head, Harrison County prosecutor Joe Shaffer said Friday. She was killed at Childers' family property in Braxton County where her body was found, Matheny said.

Police don't believe Childers had much of a relationship, if any, with Carrie Baker. They believe she met him about the time she went missing, in July 2008, Matheny said.

Baker died of blunt force trauma to the head, Shaffer said. She was killed in the bedroom of Childers' house, and her body was found in a wooded area off W.Va. 57 in Barbour County, Matheny said.

Carolyn Sauerwein lived with her father, Carl, for many years. During that time, worried about his daughter, Carl Sauerwein documented Carolyn's relationship with Childers, Chris Sauerwein said.

That documentation was sent to the FBI, along with the audiotape and letters sent to Matheny. It contained information about letters Childers wrote to Carolyn Sauerwein, he said.

When they would go a long time without seeing each other, Childers would start writing Carolyn Sauerwein letters, trying to woo her back at a vulnerable moment, her brother said.

Some of the letters would be cruel, Chris Sauerwein said.

"And he would write her love letters," he said. "He would always say he would change, that she was so beautiful."

Reach Gary Harki at gha...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5163.