Nothing Interesting Ever Happens at Sheppard AFB • The Havok Journal

My initial active duty service with the USAF was from March 1980 to March 1984. During that time, other than Basic Training, I was assigned as an aircraft maintenance instructor at Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls TX. How I came to be an instructor straight out of Basic is another story. Now those who have ever been to Sheppard might think that nothing interesting ever happens or happened at Sheppard, which is often considered to be the armpit of the Air Force. But I can assure you that many interesting things happened during my time there. Maybe this article will become a series since I’ve already written about my run-in with two uber-feminists during my time there.

A quick caveat: 1980 was a long time ago and memories sometimes get a tad muddled, so the sequence of events may not be exactly correct, but the gist of this story is true. Thankfully I ran into a retired Chief Master Sergeant who was there at the time and confirmed that it all happened.

In February of 1983, I was a Senior Airman (E-4), and my boss at the time was serving as a volunteer coach of the base women’s volleyball team. Some life events popped up for him and he asked me to step into the role since I had played volleyball on a championship team in New Zealand. I agreed. If I remember correctly, the team comprised nine women, all junior enlisted, and we met at the base gym twice a week after duty hours to practice.

During one practice in March, I noticed a guy who had been just kind of hanging around the past couple of practices. He wasn’t a gym employee, and he was never in workout clothes. (This was pre-Air Force PT uniform days). Something about him seemed “off” to me but just in a weird way. As the practice was wrapping up, he walked towards me and engaged in small talk about the team, their chances, and mentioned that he was permanent party on the base and would give a ride home to anyone who needed it. I told him thanks but that I had it covered. He nodded and said that the offer was there in the future and that it was important that all the females get home safely. He then walked away.

As he was leaving, he mentioned something to two of the women. We gathered for a quick post-practice chat and then I mentioned the guy and what he had said. I told them that he felt “off” to me and that nobody should accept a ride from him and to be situationally aware. The women agreed and said that he creeped them out pretty badly. I followed them out to the parking lot and made sure they all got into their cars.

He showed up again at the next practice session but kept his distance and eventually left. A few minutes later another guy walked up to me and identified himself as an OSI (Office of Special Investigations) Agent. He asked if I had noticed that guy and if we had interacted at all with him. I told him about our conversations and he just told me to keep doing what I was doing and not let any of the women accept a ride from him. He left and then came back about a week later and told me what had happened.

The guy was a Technical Sergeant (E-6) named Thomas Bunday, who just also happened to be a serial killer. He had murdered a bunch of women when he was stationed at Eielson AFB Alaska from 1979-1981. They had issued a warrant for his arrest but somehow he got word and on his way to work, drove his motorcycle head-on into an oncoming dump truck at highway speed.

Needless to say, I was stunned, as were the women on the team. Especially when we all realized that they were potential targets. The OSI guy assured us that they had been watching him, but that didn’t do much to alleviate the shock we all had.

He killed 5-6 women in Alaska ranging from 11 to 20 years old, the same ages as those women on the volleyball team.

So yeah, nothing interesting ever happens at Sheppard AFB, or to Senior Airmen.

Addendum

The Air Force guy I talked to recently who had met him and had been in training with him had equally creepy interactions with Bunday and decided to keep his distance.

A notable aspect of this event is that it was the first time that psychological profiling was successfully used in Alaska to find a killer.

If you want to read more about the event, which has a few more twists, check out the Wikipedia entry.

Airman Basic Clearisa Grimes, 361st Training Squadron fuels systems apprentice and native of Borger, Texas, crawls into and inspects the internal fuel tank of a C-130 Hercules at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, Sept. 9, 2016. The aircraft fuel systems apprentice course is a 36 academic day, 285 instructional hour training course designed to teach Airmen the fundamentals of aircraft fuel maintenance. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Kyle E. Gese/Released) Source.

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Dave Chamberlin served 38 years in the USAF and Air National Guard as an aircraft crew chief, where he retired as a CMSgt. He has held a wide variety of technical, instructor, consultant, and leadership positions in his more than 40 years of civilian and military aviation experience. Dave holds an FAA Airframe and Powerplant license from the FAA, as well as a Master’s degree in Aeronautical Science. He currently runs his own consulting and training company and has written for numerous trade publications.

His true passion is exploring and writing about issues facing the military, and in particular, aircraft maintenance personnel.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.