'Disorientated and wearing just one shoe': Bizarre last sighting of top White House aide found murdered and dumped in landfill

Victim seen in car park booth looking disorientated

Smoke bomb found under home of one of his neighbours

Police pull up floorboards of victim's home

Detectives also search his Manhattan home

Revealed: Wife's sister was stabbed to death in 1995

The top Pentagon aide found dead at a landfill site was seen in a confused state 48 hours before his death wandering around the wrong car park and wearing only one shoe.



John Wheeler was ‘disorientated’ and not wearing a coat despite the freezing temperature, according to the car park attendant in Wilmington, Delaware.



Asked if he felt OK, the 66-year-old simply responded: ‘No’.

The following day he was also seen wandering around the town in the last sighting before his body was discovered dumped at the tip.

Confused: Murder victim John Wheeler is caught on security camera at a Delaware car park booth two days before his body was found in a nearby landfill. Disorientated: A confused John Wheeler speaks to the attendant in the car park booth two days before his body was found in a Delaware landfill.

Police are now desperately trying to piece together what happened during the crucial 48 hours before his death in a mysterious case that has left them unable to even find the crime scene.

But it now appears their attentions appear could be turning towards a possible link to a property row after it emerged that a smoke bomb was found under one of his neighbours’ homes.

Mystery: Former White House aide John Wheeler (left) spoke to Delaware car park booth attendant Iman Goldsborough just two days before he was found murdered in a dumpster

The location at which Mr Wheeler was last seen is also about six blocks from the office of the lawyer representing him and his wife in their legal battle against the same neighbour whose plans to develop their house will supposedly block their view.

The body of Mr Wheeler, a former Army officer who was instrumental in building the iconic Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall in Washington DC, was discovered on a landfill in Wilmington on New Year’s Eve.

A Harvard and Yale graduate, he had served as a military advisor to three presidents and lived in New Castle, Delaware with his wife Katherine Klyce, 66, a silk importer.

The first of the two sightings were on December 29th at a parking lot at the New Castle County courthouse in Wilmington.

Attendant Iman Goldsborough said Mr Wheeler, who had two children from a previous marriage, looked unsteady and was looking for a car that it later emerged was parked elsewhere.

‘He really didn't look good to me.’ she said.

‘I asked him, 'Are you OK?' He was like, 'No.'

She added that he ‘just didn't seem like he was really there. He seemed like he was disoriented.’

The following morning Mr Wheeler was spotted walking in downtown Wilmington by members of the public, the last sighting of him alive.



At 3.30pm the day after that, New Year’s Eve, a garbage truck containing his body completed its run at the Cherry Island landfill in Wilmington where it threw his body out and the grim discovery was made.



Dumped in landfill: Wheeler's body was spotted as a garbage truck emptied contents of dumpsters at the Cherry Island landfill in Wilmington, Delaware

Crime scene investigation: Forensics teams are poring over the site where the body was found but police admit they have no motive and no leads in the case

He had been put into a commercial dumpster in Newark, Delaware, about 12 miles from his home and 15 miles from Wilmington, where it was picked up by a garbage truck and taken to the landfill site.

The case has left detectives with few leads and no idea why or how such a respected Washington figure could come to such an end - they have even refused to reveal how he died.



They have however begun to investigate the ongoing row with his neighbour Frank Marini in Wilmington’s historic district over his ongoing project to build a home next to theirs.



Mr Wheeler reportedly tried to stop the plans in court and said that the house was too big for the area.



Delaware police have now revealed that a smoke bomb was placed under the same neighbour’s house last week but have not released any more details.

Legacy: Mr Wheeler as instrumental in the approval and construction of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall in Washington DC, which includes more than 58,000 names of servicemen who died in the conflict

In further developments, officers have pried up floorboards at Mr Wheeler’s Wilmington home, although they have said that it is not a crime scene.

In Manhattan police have also searched the luxury flat that Mr Wheeler and his wife shared for at least three years but left empty-handed.



It also emerged that this is not the first time that Ms Klyce has been hit by tragedy - her sister and wealthy socialite Emily Klyce Fisher was stabbed to death in her home in 1995.



Mr Wheeler had enjoyed a long and distinguished career in public life and served as an advisor under presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior.



His was also a special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force during the presidency of George W Bush.

The Washington Post said that, while working at the Pentagon, Mr Wheeler wrote a manual on the effectiveness of biological and chemical weapons and recommended that the US should not use biological warfare.

Although critics initially blasted the design of the Vietnam memorial, which he was instrumental in creating, it has become one of Washington's most visited sites since its unveiling in 1982.

