A North Carolina man and alleged “serial killer” was sentenced to life in federal prison in South Carolina earlier this week.
Daniel Glen Printz, 59, killed 80-year-old Edna Suttles in August 2021. The defendant admittedly kidnapped the victim after the two met at a Food Lion in Travelers Rest, S.C. He entered a plea agreement earlier this month which was unsealed on Tuesday, June 21.
Printz bought some yogurt that day and went back to Suttles’ home with her. He returned to the Food Lion later that day, surveillance footage showed, with the woman markedly subdued but still alive. There, he put Suttles into his car and eventually traveled across state lines – turning the ensuing murder into a federal crime. Before that, however, a different surveillance camera caught the defendant dropping Suttles’ car off at a hotel and wiping down the inside of the vehicle.
The octogenarian missed work the day after she was abducted. Concerned co-workers reported the odd no-call, no-show and the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office began an investigation – quickly ascertaining that Printz was involved in the woman’s disappearance, the U.S. Department of Justice noted in a press release.
A search of the defendant’s home turned up Suttles’ keys, bank card, jewelry, and pocketbook – all stashed away in a bee box “on a remote part” of Printz’s property, federal prosecutors said.
“Investigators also found a yogurt cup — opened — and a forensic lab analysis determined the interior of the cup contained Lorazepam, Tramadol, and Cyclobenzaprine,” the press release noted.
After those discoveries, Printz was arrested and began cooperating with law enforcement. On May 16, 2022, he took investigators to a property in Rutherford County, N.C. where he buried the victim’s body.
Over the course of the investigation, authorities learned the defendant was responsible for the disappearances or deaths of three additional women – Nancy Rego, Delores Sellers, and Leigh Goodman. Printz would later confirm his role in those cases in testimony before a court in Greenville, S.C.
“Make no mistake that he is categorized as a serial killer,” Greenville County Sheriff Hobart Lewis said at press conference on Wednesday, according to Goldboro, N.C.-based CBS affiliate WNCN.
According to the terms of the defendant’s plea agreement, Printz cannot be federally prosecuted in connection with the three other murders and disappearances. Federal prosecutors also agreed not to seek the death penalty in the Suttles case and will “recommend” that Printz not be prosecuted “for any similar or related state crimes stemming from the conduct” described in his plea agreement. Ultimately, however, that decision will be left to state law enforcement.
“Printz is a monster who has a long history of targeting, kidnapping, and killing women – causing unimaginable loss to his victims and their families,” U.S. Attorney Corey F. Ellis said. “He has earned every day of his life sentence, and our communities are safer with him in a prison cell. We are grateful that the Court delivered justice today and we hope it provides some measure of comfort for the victims’ families.”
Though he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, U.S. District Judge Donald C. Coggins Jr. also gave Printz an additional five years of supervised release “should he ever be released, with mandatory, standard and special conditions,” a minute entry on the federal docket notes.
The criminal complaint against the defendant was recently unsealed but that change has yet to take effect on the federal docket.
Printz’s plea agreement is available below:
