Episode 71: The Abduction of Melissa Benoit
52-year-old Henry Meinholz
On Saturday, September 15th, 1990, 13-year-old Melissa Benoit vanished from her hometown of Kingston, Massachusetts. She had stopped by her father’s grave after leaving a friends house and was abducted on her way home.
The town detective interviewed neighbors along the path that Melissa took, but no one claimed to have witnessed anything. The FBI soon got involved and had all of the neighbors take a polygraph test. 52-year-old Henry Meinholz, a deacon and Bible school instructor and Melissa’s next door neighbor, soon showed up on the FBI’s radar when he failed his polygraph.
Henry informed the FBI that he failed because he had a history of following young girls home in his car while masturbating and that he fantasized about molesting little girls. His home was thoroughly searched and Melissa’s body was found in a shallow grave in his basement.
She had been sexually assaulted and had died of asphyxiation, and she also had ligature marks indicating that she had been tied up. Henry confessed to Melissa’s murder and claimed that he heard voices in his head that told him to rape and kill her.
Henry was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in 1991 and passed away in 2000.
Image sources:
nempb2015.wixsite.com - “Melissa Benoit”
bowienewsonline.com - “1990 A Bible School instructor abducts a teenage girl”