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Butler County, Kansas

KBI Awaits Lab Tests In Slaying

Kansas Bureau of Investigation agents in Wichita Tuesday awaited results of laboratory tests by the bureau Topeka office on evidence found in a car that had been missing since the Dec. 23 slaying of an El Dorado, Kan., waitress, Mrs. Vicki L. Howell, 20.

KBI men said every items that could provide a clue to the identity of the woman's slayer was removed from the car after it was found Monday in a salvage lot at Yingling Chevorlet Co., 300 S. Topeka.

Wichita police, called in to assist local KBI agents, reportedly found a pair of the victim's tennis shoes, a rubber boot and a blood-stained coat in the auto.

Agents said they had nothing concrete to go on until the items were processed at Topeka and returned to them.

The white sedan owned by Mrs. Howell's husband, George, had been sought since it was seen at about midnight Dec. 23 when the victim left work in El Dorado with an unidentified man.

She was found the next morning in brush near Oil Hill, three miles northwest of El Dorado. Police said she had been strangled.
(The Wichita Eagle ~ Wednesday, 10 Dec 1968)

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Hunt Pushed For Car of Slain Woman

EL DORADO, Kan.--Law enforcement officials of three states continued their watch Sunday for the 1963 white sedan of a woman found strangled to death here Saturday.

The body of Mrs. Vickie Lynn Howell, 20, El Dorado, was found unclothed in a brush pile near Oil Hill, Kan., about three miles northwest of here.

Butler County Sheriff Sid Blakeman said it had not been determined if she had been raped. She was last seen late Friday leaving a hamburger stand in El Dorado where she worked.

Her car has not been found and is believed being used by the assailant to drive to Colorado or Oklahoma.

Services for Mrs. Howell will be at 2 p.m. Tuesday at Dietz-Pittman Funeral Home.

A lifetime El Dorado resident, she as a 1965 graduate of El Dorado High School. She was employed at the Burgerteria, a hamburger restaurant. She was a member of First Methodist Church and had worked with local police reserve units.

Survivors include her widower George Lloyd; a son, Bradley; a daughter, Sheri, all of the home; her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Vincent Chambers, El Dorado; two brothers, Phillip Chambers, Navy aboard U.S.S. Sacramento and Steven Chambers, El Dorado; her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Robson, Yates Center, Kan. and Mr. and Mrs. V. L. Chambers, Newton, Kan.
(Wichita Eagle ~ 25 Dec 1968)