of WFLA Newschannel 8 ST. PETERSBURG - Pinellas investigators are trying to separate fact from fiction in the case of a Florida prison inmate who claims to have kidnapped and murdered 26 people from 1967 to 1982. Much of James Winkles' story appears fabricated - there's little to indicate the supposed victims existed. But in at least two unsolved murders, authorities believe Winkles is telling the truth. And Pinellas County sheriff's Detective Marty Hart says his office will seek murder indictments in January. Nineteen-year-old Elizabeth Graham of St. Petersburg disappeared Sept. 9, 1980. A year later, Clearwater real estate saleswoman Margo Delimon, 39, vanished. Winkles, now 58, later became a suspect in the cases. But there was no direct evidence, and no charges were filed. Winkles was arrested Jan. 7, 1982, near downtown Orlando after kidnapping a Sanford real estate saleswoman. He pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, armed robbery, kidnapping and grand theft auto. He has been in prison ever since and is not eligible for parole until 2013. Now, he's talking. In extensive interviews with authorities as well as WFLA reporters, Winkles has given new information about the two slayings. He told Pinellas detectives that a skull found in 1981 and turned over to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement was that of Graham. Recent DNA tests confirm his story, detectives say. Winkles came forward after 18 years of silence, he says, because he fears that he won't live out his prison sentence. He says he has high blood pressure and heart disease. When he decided to talk, he was moved to the Pinellas County Jail. Now he is in the Polk Correctional Institute in Polk City. Friday, WFLA reporters told Pinellas officials that Winkles claims to have buried a metal box containing pictures of some of his victims. Investigators dug Friday night at the location Winkles identified but found nothing. Pinellas officials also plan to subpoena copies of taped interviews WFLA reporters conducted with Winkles. WFLA plans to cooperate. Winkles gives these accounts of the two slayings: When Graham disappeared, she was working as a dog groomer, going to customers' homes. Winkles made an appointment by phone and put a gun to her head when she arrived. ``I handcuffed her hands behind her back,'' he said in a recent interview. ``I blindfolded her. I put her in the back floorboard of my vehicle.'' Graham wasn't his intended victim, Winkles says. ``The actual abduction was supposed to be somebody I'd seen a couple of weeks before and really took a shine to,'' Winkles said. ``But she got sick or something the day I was supposed to get her and Graham showed up. Graham was actually a victim of circumstance.'' Winkles took Graham to the Clearwater home on 63rd Street North he shared with his grandmother, he says. ``When I went in I took her straight to my bedroom and told her stay there and remain quiet and I went in there and told my grandmother and my aunt who was there at the time that I had a guest,'' he said. He said he later fired his gun twice inside the house to show Graham he was serious. Winkles held Graham hostage for four days, forcing her to dress up in women's outfits he kept at the house. He says he repeatedly raped her, but assured her that she would not be killed. Later, he decided she would be able to identify him if he released her, so he gave her a ``heavy dose'' of sleeping pills and then shot her in the head three times. He buried the body in woods near the Pinellas County landfill and Gandy Boulevard. Later, he returned to the grave and removed the head, taking it to Lafayette County in the Florida Panhandle. There, he says, he dumped the head in a river. Divers found it a year later. Winkles recently took a team of forensic experts to where he says he buried the body. They dug and found nothing. He says he kidnapped Delimon in much the same way: He made a Saturday morning appointment with her to discuss real estate, then drove her to the same woods off 49th Street, saying he wanted to build a cabin there. He told her he was ``really attracted'' to her and that she was being kidnapped. He handcuffed her and took her to his cousin's house. Over the next four days, while Delimon's family frantically searched for her, Winkles repeatedly raped her, he says. He also drove her around in his car, watching her closely. ``I terminated her, obviously, because we had been all over the damn place and she knew exactly where that safe house was at,'' Winkles said. ``I overdosed her with sleeping pills and it took her a long time to die.'' He says he first buried her body in woods near the St. Petersburg Clearwater Airport. Two weeks later, he moved the body to Citrus county and buried it on the bank of the Withlacoochee River. About a week later, a couple who were fishing found parts of the body. It took another two years to identify the remains as those of Delimon.
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