Man charged for rape and murder in a South End hotel - in 1980

A man currently serving a life sentence for raping and murdering a young woman in an Alabama motel room in 1982 was indicted yesterday on charges he raped and murdered Wendy Dansereau, 19, in a room at the Hotel Diplomat at Chandler and Berkeley streets in the South End two years earlier.

Investigators' path to Steven Jerome Fike started when his DNA matched that in a sample that had been taken from the murder scene, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney's office. In a statement, DA Rachael Rollins said:

Ms. Dansereau was 19 years old when she was murdered, and her family has waited nearly four decades to know what happened to her. Today, we have not only the advances in forensic testing necessary to identify her killer, but a team of dedicated professionals – including Boston Police Detective Jack Cronin and SCDAO Civilian Investigator Emily Wood – who have worked to find answers for Ms. Dansereau’s loved ones, especially her daughter, who was only four weeks old at the time of her mother’s death and has waited her entire life for accountability

Dansereau, a Worcester native, had been staying at the Diplomat while trying to get into public housing when she was murdered on March 18, 1980, according to press accounts at the time.

Fike, 60, is currently imprisoned at the Elmore Correctional Facility in Alabama, serving a life sentence - with the chance of parole in 2023 for a Jan. 30, 1982 murder. A jury convicted him of raping and then beating to death Patricia Ann Culp, 20, in a motel room in Bessemer, AL, then dumping her body in a neighboring county. Prosecutors said the two had met at a nightclub where Culp was a dancer.

About two months after Dansereau's murder, Fike was back in Alabama - and being admitted to an Alabama prison to serve a sentence of one year and a day for grand larceny, according to Alabama prison records.

At the time of both murders, Fike was married to an Alabama woman, although separated. In 1982, the woman gave birth to a child who was taken away by the state a month later for parental neglect. In 1983, Fike, already imprisoned on his Alabama murder conviction, sued to try to have the baby given to his parents - even though he testified the baby could not have been his biological child because he had no contact with his then wife for ten months before the baby was born. He lost that case.

Photo from the Alabama Department of Corrections.