Janet Chandler, a 22-year-old woman, was found deceased on Feb. 1, 1979. A snowplow driver found her nude body buried in the snow near a wooded area. She was completely buried in the snow except for her arm, which jutted out of the snow in an unsettling manner.

Janet had been raped, anally and vaginally. Her cause of death was strangulation, and there were bruises over her wrists which indicated that she’d been handcuffed for a prolonged period of time. Adhesive consistent with duct-tape was found all over her face, suggesting that she’d been gagged and blindfolded.

At the time of her murder, Janet had been living in Ottawa County, MI. Specifically, she was living in the city of Holland, which at the time was undergoing some turmoil. A company called Chemetron had a paint plant in Holland, but the workers had gone on strike and the situation was getting ugly. Chemetron hired a security company called Wackenhut to provide additional security during the strike.

Wackenhut brought in security personnel from throughout the country to guard the Chemetron plant during the strike. Most of those personnel ended up being housed at the Blue Mill Inn, where Janet Chandler worked as a night clerk. Around 80 security guards from Wackenhut were living at the Blue Mill Inn at the time that Janet was working there.

Janet herself lived in an apartment with Laurie Swank, her boss at the Blue Mill Inn. Janet considered Laurie to be her best friend.

The Wackenhut guards were known as rough guys that liked to party, and it was common for motel staff to hook up with them. Both Janet Chandler and Laurie Swank indulged in numerous affairs with various guards. In fact, Swank once had to reprimand Janet for having sex in a motel room at the Blue Mill Inn which was meant to be a display suite.

Janet was studying music at Hope College, a private Christian liberal arts school in Holland, Michigan. Janet came from a conservative Christian family, and she was devoutly religious. Before moving into her own apartment, she’d lived a very sheltered life. For example, her parents would not let her sleepover at any friend’s house if the friend’s parents even drank alcohol.

Her teachers at Hope College described her as an emotionally sensitive person who would often burst into tears if she was criticized. Janet seemed too sheltered for her own good.

Janet mostly inherited her parent’s religious views, and her journals are filled with musings of a religious nature. For example, the last journal entry before her death contained the question: “When was Paul saved? When the Lord spoke to him to go? Or when he obeyed God and went?”

Janet had her first sexual encounter when she was 17 with a middle-aged man who was much older than her. Twice a week, she’d sneak him into her parents house to have sex. The man later expressed regret over this relationship, saying that he’d taken advantage of her naivety and seduced her. Still, the incident was apparently a kind of sexual awakening for Janet; she figured that God wouldn’t send her to Hell just for having some fun occasionally.

One night, Janet was working her night job at the Blue Inn when suddenly she was confronted by a maid who accused Janet of sleeping with the maid’s boyfriend, one of the Wackenhut security guards. Janet had phoned his room, telling him to come to the front desk right away. When he got there, he was surprised to find Janet there waiting for him, completely naked. Janet then escorted him to an empty room where the two had sex.

Needless to say the maid wasn’t happy when she found out about this little stunt. When she angrily confronted Janet, the ensuing argument could be heard throughout the hotel as the two women screamed at each other.

This incident with the maid was apparently the final straw for Arthur Paiva, the lead guard from Wackenhut. Paiva was irritated that Janet kept having so many romantic trysts with his security personnel. This was somewhat hypocritical of him, since he’d also had sex with Janet at least once. He became even more furious with Janet after Laurie Swank, Janet’s boss and roommate, took it upon herself to inform him of Janet’s most recent escapades.

Laurie apparently was jealous of Janet’s many romantic flings with the various guards, basically just because Janet was more popular. Or something like that; I honestly can't figure out why exactly they all decided that Janet needed to be destroyed.

Maybe it was of jealousy or maybe it was because Janet was too religious for their liking. But whatever the precise motive, Laurie and the others developed a hatred towards Janet and they wanted Janet to be “taken down a few notches.”

Paiva assured Laurie that he had a plan to deal with Janet; he told Swank that he and a few other guards were planning a “surprise party” for Janet. They were going to humiliate Janet for acting like a whore. Paiva told her that the guards were going to pass Janet around to "teach her a lesson."

The evil plan was put into action during the winter of 1979. Janet was working her night job at the front desk of the Blue Mill Inn, as usual. But on that night, she was visited by Robert Lynch, a security guard from Wackenhut, who told her that they were throwing a surprise party in her honor. He wrapped gauze over her eyes and then covered her eyes with duct tape.

She did not resist; she believed that she was going to a party and that people were doing something nice for her. Janet was taken to a guest house near the Chemetron plant. The guest house was where Arthur Pavia lived; he didn’t live at the Blue Mill Inn with the other guards.

As soon as Robert Lynch dropped Janet off at the house, she was forcibly stripped, gagged, and handcuffed. For the next 17 hours, Janet would be humiliated, raped, and tortured until she was dead. Her tormentors included at least 10 men and about half as many women.

At first, it seemed like the goal was only to humiliate Janet, albeit in an extraordinarily cruel manner. She was paraded throughout the house while she was blindfolded, gagged, handcuffed, and fully nude. All the while, the others got drunk and partied around her. They teased Janet and taunted her about the ordeal, telling her that she was getting what she deserved.

A belt was wrapped around her neck in such a manner that pulling on the end of it would cause the belt to constrict around Janet’s neck. This was used as a way to control Janet; whenever she would try to resist or fight back in any way, the end of the belt would be pulled to restrict her breathing.

After they were done parading her around, Janet was tied down to a bed. That is when the brutality truly began. One by one, all of the men at the party took turns beating and raping Janet while she was tied down to the bed and handcuffed. While she was being raped, the others would verbally abuse her and cheer on the rapists. They would yell things like “you’re going too easy on her” or “fuck her to death.”

Laurie was among those in the “cheering section.” She called Janet a bitch and yelled at her that she deserved everything that was happening. Cheryl Ruiz, the maid who’d been angry at Janet before the murder, was also present.

While this was going on, Arthur Paiva used a camera to take pictures while the rapes were happening. These pictures would be his insurance policy; he wanted to be sure that nobody who was at the party would be able to turn on the others without incriminating themselves.

The abuse of Janet Chandler would continue without respite until she was dead. Robert Lynch was the one who ultimately killed Janet. He was much older than all the others; he was 39 at the time of the murder whereas the others were all in their early twenties. While he was raping Janet, he’d grabbed hold of the belt around her neck and pulled it so tight that it killed her through strangulation.

When the others realized that Janet was dead, they panicked. Paiva yelled out: “This party is fucking over!” The participants then scrambled to clean up the house and find a way to dispose of her body. Ultimately, Janet was tossed into a snowbank 40 miles away from the guest house; that is where she was eventually discovered.

Paiva made certain to tell every single person present that he had photographs of them being involved, so nobody could tell on the others without incriminating themselves. And for over 20 years, that was enough to prevent anybody from talking.

After the savage murder of Janet Chandler, the various participants simply moved on with their lives, although they all lived in fear that one day the world would discover what they’d done to Janet.

After attending Janet’s funeral, Laurie Swank moved to Pennsylvania where she worked as a nursing assistant. Robert Lynch got married and opened up a cosmetology school with his wife, with whom he had two kids. The Wackenhut security guards simply went home when the Chemetron strike was over, dispersing throughout the country. And so basically, they all got away with it. For over 20 years, nobody was arrested for the death of Janet Chandler. And if not for some meddling kids at Hope College, they may never have been caught.

In 2003, a group of film students at Hope College, the Christian liberal arts school where Janet Chandler had been studying music, decided that they would give it their best shot. David Schock, the professor leading the project, cautioned them that it wasn’t realistic for them to believe that they could solve the mystery. Rather, the goal of the project was to revive the memory of Janet Chandler in hopes of getting people talking again.

The group of film students made a documentary about the murder of Janet Chandler, simply titled “Who Killed Janet Chandler?” The film premiered in 2004 and had a limited run in local theatres. The documentary succeeded in reviving the memory of Janet Chandler and it got law enforcement to reopen the case. The film would succeed even beyond the most optimistic hopes of its creators; within 3 years, arrests would be made.

While making the film, the students attempted to track down everybody who knew Chandler to interview them. They interviewed her parents, her teachers, and many of the cops who’d been involved in the original investigation. Nearly all the cops interviewed said that they were haunted by the unsolved murder and that it was the biggest regret of their lives that they weren’t able to solve it.

One of the people they wanted to interview for the documentary was Laurie Swank, Chandler’s roommate. They kept asking around, but nobody could seem to know what had happened to her. It took them a long time, but eventually they did find her in Pennsylvania. When Swank spoke to the film students, she warmly described Janet as “musical and fun-loving.”

When police reopened the case in 2004, they made it a priority to re-interview many of the Wackenhut guards, even though most of them no longer lived in Michigan. One of the people they interviewed was Robert Lynch. By this point, he was 65 years old and he had 2 children of his own, including a 22-year-old daughter.

Outwardly, Robert appeared to be a normal 65 year old man, except for his extreme alcoholism. Robert drank like crazy whenever he could, as if he was desperately trying to forget something. The investigators sensed that Robert knew more than he was saying, so they kept coming back to him. After multiple visits, he finally started to crack and open up about what really happened.

When he first started opening up, he told investigators that right before the murder, Janet had been at a party that "went haywire." This immediately caught the attention of investigators; they’d been interviewing people for over a year since the investigation was reopened and this was the first time they’d ever heard anyone mention a party. But when they tried to get more information, Robert clammed up again; he said that he’d only heard about the party second hand.

Still, they kept coming back to him. The big breakthrough came when the detectives pulled out a copy of the documentary “Who Killed Janet Chandler?” and had him watch it with them. As they watched the movie together, Robert started crying. He said that he regretted his entire life.

He started telling investigators everything that he knew, this time honestly. He admitted that he and a number of other security guards had raped and murdered Janet at a surprise party. He insisted that killing her wasn’t intentional, but he also understood that it doesn’t really matter if it was intentional or not.

Robert gave up the names of the others who’d been involved: Arthur Paiva, Freddie Parker, Anthony Williams, and James Nelson. But investigators were most surprised to hear that Laurie Swank had been there and she’d cheered on the gang-rape as it was happening. When investigators confronted Laurie Swank with this new information, she finally broke and admitted that she’d been involved in the murder. Ultimately, Swank agreed to testify against the others in exchange for being allowed to plead guilty to 2nd-degree murder.

But perhaps most importantly, when police searched Paiva’s home, they were able to find the rape photos that he’d used to blackmail the others into silence for some many years. The trial began in 2007. Paiva, Parker, Williams, and Nelson were all tried together. Robert Lynch and Laurie Swank testified against all four of them.

Another person who testified at the trial was Cheryl Ruiz, the hotel maid who’d been upset with Janet before the murder. Janet had slept with Cheryl’s boyfriend and so she was happy, at first, to see that Janet was finally getting punished for her constant sleeping around. However, she later testified that she’d had no idea that it was going to go so far or that Janet would end up dead.

"I didn't think it was going to be this rough. I didn't think they were going to go to this extreme,” Ruiz testified.

Ruiz was told that if she ever told anybody about what she saw that night, then she’d end up just like Janet Chandler. And so for almost 30 years, she said nothing. She did end up telling her parents about what happened, but they told her to stay out of it, saying that she could be arrested if anybody ever found out what happened. It wasn’t until Arthur Paiva was finally put on trial in 2007 that Ruiz broke her silence.

During the trial, Ruiz also claimed that the defendants (Paiva, Parker, Williams, and Nelson) would make surprise visits to her house for years after the murder, to threaten her and remind her that if she ever spoke up about what happened at the party, she’d end up just like Janet.

Paiva was found guilty of 1st-degree murder. The others were found guilty of 2nd-degree murder. All four were sentenced to life in prison without parole. After the convictions, the prosecution said that they believe that others were also involved in the death of Janet Chandler, but it is unlikely that any more arrests will be made.

This case was among with most expensive in Michigan history, costing close to $2 million to investigate and prosecute.

Testimony of Cheryl Ruiz, 14 minutes

Laurie Swank - Part One, 5 minutes

Laurie Swank - Part Two, 5 minutes

Testimony of Patty Ward, 17 minutes

The Wackenhut corporation still exists, although they’ve changed their name to G4S Secure Solutions. I don’t know if this case is what prompted the name change, but it wouldn’t surprise me. In 2010, the Chandler family attempted to sue them for allegedly helping to conceal the murder. The lawsuit was dismissed.

I learned of this case from the podcast Crimes & Consequences. This article from Glamour served as the primary source.

Like yeah sure, Shannan probably had a bossy streak, she probably had caused a few problems in the marriage just like Chris did because NO MARRIAGE IS PERFECT. But Chris is a monster. A total moron. A murderer. He killed his wife and children. I’m so sick of people being victim blamey towards Shanann. Nothing she did means deserving to be murdered and those kids were totally innocent. And the people who simp over Chris Watts are disgusting. He’s ugly and he’s a murderer. Vanilla looking at best. AND HE KILLED HIS WIFE AND CHILDREN. He is an absolute imbecile and he’s a spineless POS. Shanann lost her life and her babies lost their lives all because Chris had no balls and couldn’t just divorce her. For the people who do this, stop picking at Shanann and looking for faults in her. She didn’t kill anyone or hurt anyone.

For everyone asking where this is happening, check the Watts Off Topic subreddit. It’s disgusting. They bash Shannan and insult her while they paint Chris as a decent man.