Above: Carol Ann Risk, the young St. Louis girl who was murdered in early December 1958; the Risk home as it looked at the time of the murder on North Clinton Street in St. Louis; Michigan State Police divers quickly found the murder weapon in the Pine River on the day after the killing; the only existing picture of Paul Rondeau as he appeared as a sophomore in the 1958-1959 school yearbook. Of all of the St. Louis sophomores photographed, Rondeau was the only one to appear in a tie and jacket.

On December 1, 1958, a young girl in St. Louis was killed in what was then considered the most horrific murder since the town’s lumbering era. Twelve-year-old Carol Ann Risk was suddenly and unexpectedly shot by a neighbor boy named Paul Leroy Rondeau. The Risks lived in a small house at 322 North Clinton Street, two doors north of the Rondeaus. Christian Risk, the father, served as a St. Louis fireman and worked at the chemical plant. The mother, Lova Risk, lost five children to miscarriages and deaths at early ages. Their family consisted of a son, Michael, and a daughter, Carol Ann, who would soon be thirteen. She had naturally curly brown hair and brown eyes and was in the seventh grade. Quiet and studious, Carol Ann also liked roller skating and going to the movies.

    The Willet Rondeau family moved to St. Louis from Alpena, Michigan, in 1952. Willet Rondeau was a traveling salesman who sold school supplies and was often only home one night a week. Their mother, Betty, was active in the community. There were two children: their son, Paul, who was fifteen, and a daughter, Beverly, who was younger. Paul struggled with a speech impediment but participated on the school debate team.  He was an above-average student with few friends, a “lone wolf.”

      On the weekend of November 29, 1958, Paul asked to borrow Christian Risk’s .25 caliber handgun, took it, and kept it inside his high-top boots and under his pillow at night. On the evening of Monday, December 1, 1958, Christian and Lova Risk took their son by car to help him with his paper route.

    Two hours later, Rondeau went to the Risk’s home.  Carol Ann answered the door, and Rondeau asked if he could borrow Michael’s bike. After letting him in, she resumed watching “The Huckleberry Hound Show.” Rondeau stepped toward a heater behind her chair, pulled out the pistol, and shot Carol Ann through the forehead. Getting up from the chair, she screamed, and Rondeau shot her again, this time through the temple. Surprisingly, no one in the neighborhood heard the shot or knew what had happened. Paul then headed downtown to finish running errands for his mother. Crossing the bridge southwest of Wheeler Field, he tossed the gun into the Pine River.

    Entering the living room upon returning home, Christian Risk was first to see his daughter slumped over in her chair.  Dr. William Knowles was called and arrived quickly, followed by the St. Louis police. The State Police were also called to assist with the investigation.  The police created a list of three possible suspects from the neighborhood. Clearing two left Paul Rondeau.  He was picked up and questioned. Rondeau was questioned for only an hour when he confessed.  Rondeau’s written confession simply read, “I had an urge to kill someone. I don’t know the exact reason I did it, but I knew after pulling the trigger that I did wrong.” After obtaining the gun two days earlier, he had planned to kill someone.  While held at the Ithaca County jail he talked to a reporter from the Detroit Free Press.   “Maybe someone can find out what’s wrong with my mind.” Rondeau stated he wanted “what’s coming to me” and described Carol Ann Risk as “an old buddy, a pal, and Michael Risk is my best friend.” He concluded that killing Carol Ann the way he did “was a good setup.”

     Upon learning that Rondeau had thrown the murder weapon in the river, Michigan State Police divers found it within an hour. Probate Judge Mildred E. Taft ordered him to undergo testing at the Lafayette Clinic in Detroit. Dr. Norman Westlund certified that Paul Rondeau had a mental illness. In February 1960, fourteen months after the murder, Rondeau was transferred from Detroit to the Traverse City State Hospital for the mentally ill. Doctors believed Rondeau needed long-term care, and he still had not shown remorse for killing Carol Ann Risk. Judge Taft ruled that Rondeau would not be released from Traverse City without consent from her court. When the Gratiot County Prosecuting Attorney Fred Passenger petitioned the court to try Rondeau in a criminal court, Judge Taft would not grant the request until Rondeau turned seventeen.

    Times were hard for the Risk family. Carol Ann was buried at Oak Grove Cemetery in a new red dress a neighbor made for her upcoming birthday and the new saddle shoes her mother had gotten for her. Lova Risk died in December 1959 from a heart condition, and her father, Christian, died a year later. Michael Risk moved from Gratiot County, entered the Air Force, and sold insurance. He died in 2010 in St. Petersburg, Florida.

    Paul Leroy Rondeau, however, disappeared from Gratiot County’s history. The Lafayette Clinic of Detroit closed in 1982. The Traverse City Hospital, later known as the Northern Michigan Asylum and Traverse City Regional Psychiatric Hospital, closed in 1989. As a result, those records disappeared, and Rondeau’s juvenile court records were sealed; only he could open them. A search shows a man named Paul L. Rondeau of similar age who once lived in Wayne County, Michigan. From there, this Rondeau married, moved outside Las Vegas, Nevada, and died in 2017. Was this Carol Ann Risk’s murderer?

    Sadly, all that remains today from this St. Louis murder are three graves located on Oak Grove Cemetery’s east side. Under a shade tree, a young girl buried in a new red dress and black and white saddle shoes rests. She tragically died on an early winter’s day in 1958, the victim of an urge to kill.  

Copyright 2024 James M. Goodspeed