A Monster’s Revenge: The Brutal Slaying of Renae Wicklund
An Afternoon of Terror
In the winter of 1974, twenty-three-year-old Renae Wicklund was living the American dream. She and her husband Jack had recently settled in their very first home in the suburbs of Clearview, Washington. To round out their perfect lives, they were also the proud parents of a baby girl they named Shannah.
On a sunny afternoon in late December, while her husband was at work, Renae decided to take advantage of the unusually warm temperatures by cleaning the outside windows. She had made a family affair out of the chore by letting Shannah, who was a little over a year old at the time, play in the grass nearby.
The Wicklund home was situated a good distance from the road, which offered the family a sense of privacy they had come to appreciate. Strangers seldom wandered into the area, which made it all the more surprising when Renae glanced up to see a tall man with a head of wildly unkempt hair coming up the driveway.
When the two locked eyes, the man had done an abrupt about-face and headed back the way he came. The young mother hadn’t thought much about the brief encounter. She assumed that he was looking for someone and realized at the last minute that he had the wrong house. Undeterred by the interruption, she returned to the task at hand.
