Click the following links to advance to the next chapter in Christa's story:
The Childhood Years
The New York City Years
Let’s Go for Broke
The Los Angeles Years
The Murder
The Original Investigation
The Cold Case Investigation
My Investigation
How You Can Help
THE CHILDHOOD YEARS
“Nothing was going to stand in her way.”
Christa's story began on November 10, 1949 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
“Her birth name was Sandra Lynn Wohlfeil,” says researcher Rene Thompson. “Even from the start, this was a woman who knew what she wanted and she was going to go for it.”
Sandra Lynn Wohlfeil in 8th grade.
“Her father Harry worked for an asphalt company and her mother was a housewife,” reports author John O’Dowd. “Her mother [Dolores] was an alcoholic and that caused a lot of problems in her parent’s marriage.” The couple had three daughters - Sandra, Deborah and Marisa. They divorced when Christa was 8 years of age.
Following her parents’ divorce, Sandra and her siblings lived with their mother. When that arrangement became untenable due to abuses the girls suffered from their mother and the men she brought into the home, they moved in with Harry and his new wife Nancy. In spite of these early disruptions in the family unit, Sandra developed into an ambitious and focused young woman.
“She was fun and outgoing,“ says her childhood friend Darlene Thoresen. “She had a high opinion of herself, but it was more like a self-confidence she carried. Nothing was going to stand in her way.”
At the transformative age of 17, she became pregnant by 34-year-old Gary Clements.
“He was a business owner,” Rene says. “He ran a karate school in Milwaukee.” It was through her association with Gary that Sandra became adept at martial arts.
Sandra and Gary were married soon after she became pregnant with his child. The ceremony took place right outside of Chicago.
Marital bliss was short-lived. Gary left a pregnant Sandra the day after their wedding. Years later, she would tell her daughter and others that Gary had been killed in a motorcycle accident not long after fleeing from the family. In truth, he would actually outlive her by 18 months.
Now a single mother, Sandra moved quickly in the hopes of securing a better life for her and her daughter.
Next chapter: THE NEW YORK CITY YEARS