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Craig Price

Active

1987–1989

Region

Warwick, Rhode Island, USA

State

RI

Kind

Serial

Status

Convicted

Victims

4

Craig Price killed four of his neighbors in Warwick, Rhode Island: Rebecca Spencer in July 1987, when he was 13, and Joan Heaton and her daughters Jennifer and Melissa in September 1989, when he was 15. Arrested days after the Heaton murders, he confessed to all four. Because he was a juvenile, state law required his release at 21, and the outcry led Rhode Island to let serious juvenile offenders be tried as adults. He has been kept in prison by later convictions, including a 2019 guilty plea to attempted murder for stabbing a fellow inmate in Florida, for which he was sentenced to 25 years.

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Victims

We remember the people whose lives were taken.

• Rebecca Spencer, 27 · July 27, 1987

  A mother of two who lived a few hundred yards from the Heatons.

• Joan Heaton, 39 · September 1, 1989
• Jennifer Heaton, 10 · September 1, 1989
• Melissa Heaton, 8 · September 1, 1989

Timeline of locations

1. 1987
   Price family home, Warwick (Killer's residence, approximate area)

   Price lived in the same Warwick neighborhood as his victims and was arrested on September 5, 1989.

2. July 27, 1987
   Spencer home, Warwick (Crime scene, approximate area)

   Rebecca Spencer was killed in her home in July 1987, a few hundred yards from the Heaton house.

3. 1989
   Rhode Island Training School, Cranston (Prison, approximate area)

   Price was held at the state's juvenile Training School, with release required when he turned 21 in October 1994. New adult convictions kept him in custody.

4. September 1, 1989
   Heaton home, Warwick (Crime scene, approximate area)

   Joan Heaton and her daughters Jennifer and Melissa were killed in their home in the middle of the night.

5. April 4, 2017
   Suwannee Correctional Institution, Florida (Prison)

   Moved to Florida in 2004, Price stabbed a fellow inmate here in 2017. He pleaded guilty to attempted murder in 2019 and was sentenced to 25 years.

Watch, listen, read

Active at the same time, nearby

• Charles Stuart · both active in 1989, 76 km apart · map both

A coincidence of time and place, not a connection. All overlaps

Sources

• Not in My Backyard (TIME, Sept 5, 1994)
• Craig Price pleads guilty to attempted murder in Florida (NBC 10 WJAR, Jan 18, 2019)
• Man who killed 4 as teen accused in prison stabbing (AP via Fox News, April 5, 2017)
• Craig Price (murderer) (Wikipedia)

Each location also lists its own sources in the data file.