The Mitsubishi 3000GT: A Car To Kill For

For today’s post, we’re going to look at yet another hot car that ended up being an element in a crime.  Going back in time to just about one month before the events that transpired in our last post involving a murder and a Miata will bring us to the date of May 23, 1995.  I remember the car and this crime particularly well, because it started out in Des Moines, Iowa, and  at that time, I was a 16 year old kid living in a suburb of that city when this hit the news.

On that day in May of 1995, a business owner named Karen Logsdon dropped off her kid at school and was on her way to work when things went horribly wrong for her.  She was behind the wheel of a car that I believe I’ve made mention of briefly in other posts: a 1994 Mitsubishi 3000GT…. And really, that isn’t giving her proper credit for the vehicle she drove, because hers wasn’t just a base model, but a 3000GT VR-4, which was an impressive set of wheels then, and holds up pretty well now, even.  Karen Logsdon was a woman who clearly knew a thing or two about her cars, and she chose a really good one for herself.

I think it was in a post about the Alfa Romeo Spider that I made mention of a Dodge Stealth that had been sitting in the showroom at Stew Hanson’s Dodge City in downtown Des Moines when I happened by so many years ago.

Well, the Dodge Stealth is actually the same thing as a Mitsubishi 3000GT.  Aside from badges and some cosmetic details, and the whole captive import thing, it’s the same car when you get down to the nuts and bolts.

In fact, I stumbled across a Stealth some time ago in Austin, MN if I recall correctly, and  that’s what you’re seeing in the pictures that feature the red car here.  This one is priced at $5,995, and though outwardly, it’s in better shape than the Mitsubishi I’ve got for this post, it’s still pretty stripped down when it comes to features, and I don’t think it‘s priced well.

This is, however, a 1994 model Stealth, which I include here, because it’s the same model year as the 3000GT VR-4 that today’s story features.  

But of course, we’re talking Mitsubishi here, so we’ll dispense with the Stealth business after a photo or two, and move on to a car I found at a used car lot that has a similar outward appearance to the vehicle Karen Logsdon was driving on that fateful day.

The 3000GT I have pictures of is a 1998 model, so it’s actually 4 years too new to be a match to Karen’s car, but it is the same color as the one she drove, so you get a pretty close idea of what the car we’re talking about looked like.   The pictured 3000GT is one I spotted in a used car lot in Crystal, MN.  It pales in comparison to Karen’s VR-4, because it’s just an SL trim level.  Brand new in 1994, a 3000GT SL probably cost between $25,000-$30,000.  This one, in particular, can be had now for a price of $4,995 because it hasn't been very well cared for and has over 130,000 miles on its odometer.

Let’s take a moment to talk about Karen’s car in particular, because this is important to the story of her untimely demise.  You see, Karen had an awesome vehicle.  It was leased, but it was hers for the time being back in 1995, and it was a looker.  More than just looks though, Karen’s car had the goods to back up all that slick styling.

The Dodge Stealth had a production run from 1991-1996, but the Mitsubishi 3000GT (hereinafter referred to on and off as a “Mitsi 3000GT”, “3000GT”, or “Mitsi“) had a production run that spanned from 1990-2000.  For the purposes of this post, we’ll focus only on the Mitsi.  The 3000GT was a vehicle known as the GTO in Japan, but that name was one they didn’t dare to use in foreign markets, because GTO, meaning Gran Turismo Omologato (which is basically a way of saying that the car has enough balls to meet and qualify for some international racing standards) was the name of a famous Ferrari as well as a famous Pontiac abroad, thus the 3000GT name plate was used in exports instead.

In 1994, the Mitsubishi 3000GT came in the following trim levels:  the base model -which was nice looking, but nothing to brag about really - had a single overhead cam 3.0L V6 with 160HP and 184 lb-ft of torque.  Woe and shame on the buyer of this vehicle for not upgrading to the Dual overhead cam (DOHC) version, I say.

Next up the trim scale was the SL, which is what we have pictured in our photos today.  This was an improvement over the base model because it featured a DOHC version of that 3.0L V6 which bumped output to 222 HP and 204 lb-ft of torque.  Incidentally, a much more rare, yet available at the time convertible version of the 3000GT was also up for grabs, but we won’t go into that now (if you ever spot one in good shape for a decent price, though, jump on it).

Anyway, these trim levels were kid stuff compared to what was next up the ladder of performance for the Mitsi.  Karen had the good sense to select a 1994 Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4 as her whip.  That meant that she had a DOHC, twin turbo, intercooled 3.0L V6 with an output of 320HP and 315 lb ft of torque along with an all wheel drive system that had a 45/55% torque split front to back, a 6 speed manual transmission, four wheel steering, four wheel anti-lock brakes with four-piston front calipers, vented rotors all around, a 0-60 time of 5.2 seconds, and a top speed of 160 MPH.  That’s decent by today’s standards, and fantastic by standards of 17 years ago!

So, we have firmly established that Karen Logsdon had one hell of a cool car back in 1995.…  Unfortunately, that fact ended up being part of the motive for why she was murdered.  When we left off with Karen, she was on her way to the business she ran with her parents after dropping off her kid at school -what an awesome entrance that kid must have made to school each day, stepping out the door of a gleaming white Mitsi 3000GT onto the school yard, eh?  Anyway, somewhere between that school and her work place, Karen had the misfortune of crossing paths with a sleazy little scum bag named Anousone Soukharith (hereinafter referred to as “Anousone“, “Soukharith”, “scumbag“, “that little weasel”, or “Dipshit”, depending on my mood).  I feel bad using his last name here, because it’s a surname he shares in common with a nice guy I knew in high school who was sweet enough to let me talk him into pretending I was with him as his date long enough to get through the door of after-prom party that was only meant for juniors and seniors and their dates back when I was a freshman or sophomore in high school (freshman, I think, but I might be mistaken about that).  I think we danced together a couple times once in the door, but we had different friends, so that was about it between us.  Anyway, if there’s any family relation between them, I certainly wouldn’t hold it against the Soukharith I knew, who was a really sweet, considerate, and fun-loving guy.

Back to the Soukharith I’m not so fond of….  Anousone Soukharith was a 19 year old loser in 1995.  He didn’t have much going for him, but he apparently knew a thing or two about cars, because he had just enough sense to know that the Mitsi 3000GT was a hot, hot ride at the time.  Aside from that one thing, nothing else I know about him points to any more appropriate term to describe him other than a complete and utter moron as far as I’m concerned.  That alone would have been bad enough, and even reason to pity him, except for the fact that Soukharith was a moron with a .45 caliber handgun, and a plan to use it.

Somewhere along the line, Anousone carjacked Karen Logsdon as she was making her way to work in her gorgeous car.  Rather than just boot her out and drive away, the little weasel kidnapped her and forced her to make a series of calls from her cellular phone to her family.  Her relatives could tell something was wrong because she was crying over the phone as she told them she would be running late and that she was driving to Ames, Iowa for something or other instead of heading directly to work.  These family members called the police, who used NCIC, the national law enforcement database (National Crime Information Center) to put out an alert on her vehicle and its plate number.

Beyond the bonehead move of carjacking somebody, and past the even dumber move of kidnapping that somebody after the carjacking, Anousone made yet another stupid decision.  He forced Karen to drive him to Nebraska.  You may be thinking, what’s so bad about that?  I mean, maybe he was a Husker fan or something, right?  Here’s why it’s beyond stupid.  It was in Nebraska that Soukharith forced Karen Logsdon to pull off the road, ordered her out of the car at gunpoint and into a wooded area near a state park, and shot her in the back, leaving her lifeless body in the ditch.  But here’s why it was not only cowardly, but also incomprehensibly stupid on his part -Iowa is a state where there is no death penalty.  By crossing state lines, first and foremost, Soukharith turned his carjacking and kidnapping into a potential federal case, and secondly, drove right into a state that DID have the death penalty.

There is no question that Karen Logsdon died in Nebraska, in Sarpy County, near the Eugene Mahoney State park off I-80 (a route I drove many a time to go to and from Graduate school in Lincoln Nebraska several years later).  Under Nebraska law, first degree murder is punishable by death, and you’d better believe that Soukharith’s deeds qualified.

I’ll never understand why Soukharith didn't just let Karen go.  Sure, she’d be out one heck of a car, but compared to losing her life and the impact it would have on the people who loved her, I’m sure she would have been able to move on.  Even if he didn't just boot her out at the scene of the carjacking, he could have made her drive to any number of remote locations and just ordered her out of the vehicle before peeling off toward home.  Utah, was his ultimate destination, in this case -word has it he was planning on showing off the Mitsi to his old high school buddies and presenting it as his own car in an attempt to impress them..  You know what would have been impressive?  If the little weasel had managed to EARN the money to BUY HIS OWN 3000GT instead of carjacking one!  Sorry to use my angry capitalization tone in my writing with you, my kind readers, but what he did pisses me off more than a font 100 times this size, in bold print with highlights and a hyperlink could express.

Lets zoom ahead a few hours to 6:30 PM that same day of May 23, 1995.  Soukharith made it all the way into Wyoming in Karen’s car while she lay dead in the ditch.  It was at this point, an eagle eyed Wyoming state trooper noticed the flashy, white Mitsi with out-of-state plates.  This trooper was no dummy.  He saw the young kid behind the wheel of what was at the time, a $32,000-$35,000 car (that figure is not adjusted for inflation, so, you know, that was a lot of money back then) and he said to himself, “Hey, something is not quite right about this”.  After all, how many 19 year old guys to you know who can get financing for a brand new car like that, let alone buy it out of pocket?

The trooper eased up behind Karen’s Mitsi and ran the plate.  Immediately, the alert that the Des Moines Police had issued popped up and the trooper initiated a traffic stop along the interstate to check the welfare of the 40-something female who was a supposed to be driving the car.  Soukharith claimed he had just bought the car with a $2,000 check from his check book.  This story must have sent the trooper’s bullshit detector soaring off the charts.  After all, I sure don’t know of anybody willing to sell a car that’s worth around $30,000 for 1/15th of that amount, do you?  Hell, even today, 18 years later, a stripped down SL -a lesser Mitsi 3000GT, has a used asking price of around $5,000!

This is what puzzles me though.  Why didn’t Dipshit make a break for it?  After all, he could have easily outrun and out-maneuvered a 1994 police issue Crown Victoria (I‘m assuming that‘s what the trooper had), provided he wasn’t a completely shitty driver (though Soukharith did not have a valid license at the time, so that could have been the case)..  Look at the specs if you don’t believe me.

Remember all the goodies we listed for the Mitsi 3000GT VR-4?  AWD, four wheel steering, 320 HP from the twin turbo V6, a curb weight of about 3,200 lbs, a 0-60 time of 5.2 seconds and a top speed of 160MPH?  Now, compare those to your standard Crown Victoria interceptor of the same era:  4.6LV8 with 210 HP, rear wheel drive, a curb weight of around 3,800 lbs (before the cops load it up with all their gear), a 0-60 time of around 8.5 seconds if they’re lucky, and a top speed of 130 MPH.  See the difference?  For those of you who don’t feel like doing any math today, I’ll gladly oblige here.  The Mitsi weighs at least 600 lbs less than the Crown Vic interceptor, it has 110 more horse power, it handles with the benefit of all wheel drive as well as four wheel turning, and it’s a damn sight more aerodynamic than a lumbering Crown Vic sedan.  In short, it is only by the grace of sheer stupidity that Soukharith didn't elude the trooper who caught onto the scent of something rotten and foul wafting from the space behind the wheel where Soukharith sat in the Mitsi.  Lets be honest here; Karen’s 3000GT VR-4 could have blown the doors off that Crown Vic back in 1995, Interceptor spec or no.  But, as cowards are wont to do, Anousone stayed put , apparently too dumb to run, and too afraid to go head to head with the trooper, hoping that by some twist of fate, nobody would catch on to the fact that he had just carjacked the vehicle he occupied and murdered its rightful driver to do so.  You know, good thing he didn't run, because it’s bad enough that Karen lost her life over his foolishness, it would have been even worse if the beautiful car she loved got wrecked in a high speed pursuit, too.

Moving on, the trooper was going to let Soukharith go with a $400 fine for not having a valid license.  Anousone did pay on the spot with cash (that he may well have taken from Karen for all we know).  However, the Des Moines police let the trooper’s dispatch know that if the female driver wasn’t with the vehicle when it was found, they considered it a stolen car.  It was at that point that the trooper held the driver, Soukharith, and signaled for backup.

While waiting in the back of the trooper’s cruiser for backup to arrive, Soukharith told the trooper that there was a .45 caliber gun stashed in the Mitsi.  When backup arrived, the 3000GT was searched, and the gun that Soukharith had used to murder Karen Logsdon was located in the console.

While in custody the following day, Soukharith told investigators where he had left Karen’s body, and she was discovered that same day.  Despite this, Soukharith tried to claim innocence (because it’s totally plausible that Karen carjacked herself and shot herself in the back only to die in a ditch, while the murder weapon ended up in her car in a totally different state, yeah right!).

On December 11, 1995, a jury found Anousone Soukharith guilty of first degree murder, kidnapping, robbery, and use of a weapon to commit a felony.  Karen’s family, or at least her mom, that is, did not advocate for the death penalty, saying she didn’t believe in it, which is lucky for Soukharith.  I consider myself quite liberal on most things, but when it comes to shitty people who do shitty things like cold blooded murder, especially over a damn car (even a really cool one like Karen‘s), I have little tolerance and would just as soon see them drop dead as warehouse, feed, clothe, and offer medical care to them - after all, it’s not like murderers bother to extend those things to their victims.  Anyway, Soukharith was sentenced to concurrent terms of life in prison for the murder charge and the kidnapping charge with a concurrent 20-40 years for the robbery charge, and a concurrent 10-20 year sentence for the weapon conviction.

Of course, Soukharith, being the selfish little weasel that he was, figured that wasn’t good enough.  He didn’t want to take any responsibility for his actions.  After all, that’s the type of thing that decent human being might do, and he couldn’t possibly be held to that kind of standard!  So, he tried to appeal.  The biggest argument in his appeal centered around the traffic stop.  Soukharith claimed that his 4th amendment rights had been violated by the NCIC check of the plates on the car that he CARJACKED AND MURDERED for.  What it comes down to is whether it’s a violation of the 4th amendment right when we’re dealing with only a brief detention of somebody or something for the purposes of completing a computerized warrant check. But really, in this case, there’s wasn’t even a detention, brief or otherwise during or before the check.  So, had the trooper pulled Soukharith over BEFORE running his plates and seeing that the car was flagged for a stop and check the welfare of its occupant, then yes, it would have been possible to consider this an unreasonable seizure.  However, the trooper didn’t activate his lights and pull Soukharith over, nor did he take into custody (or seize) Souharith or the Mitsi before knowing that the car was flagged and even moreso, that it was considered stolen.  Moreover, the mere act of running the plate for a check regardless of any reason is in and of itself not considered a seizure of any kind, much less an unreasonable seizure.  I don’t know about you all out there, but here in Minneapolis, we have a number of cameras throughout the city that read and run the plates on cars that happen by them, alerting police to any vehicles flagged as stolen or otherwise.  The mere running of plates is not unreasonable, it’s just a part of public safety that‘s necessary so long as shitty people continue to carjack, steal cars, commit crimes in cars, or use cars to get away after doing something they ought not to have done.

So, Soukharith’s appeal got shot down, and good thing, too.  1995 was a rough year for women in Iowa with nice cars, it seems.  Just like Jodi Huisentruit’s Miata, I don’t know whatever became of Karen Logsdon’s white 3000GT VR-4.  Because it was leased, there’s a good chance it went back to the dealership at the end of its term (or at least at the end of Soukharith’s trial, depending on which came last).  From there, Karen’s family would have had the option of buying it -though I’m not sure they would have, given the extremely high price that Karen ultimately paid for the car thanks to Soukharith’s selfish and stupid criminal actions.  The Mitsi could have cycled back to the dealership after its lease term and gone up for sale as a used car.  If that’s the case, I wonder if the person who bought it next has any idea what kind of dark history their beautiful Mitsi possesses.  After all, lives were ruined because somebody beheld that car’s beauty and refused to control himself in his efforts to make that beauty his own.  Karen’s life, for certain, the lives of her family, who suffered the loss of her, even Anousone Soukharith, horrible person that he became, ruined his life (or at least a good, long portion of it) and I’m sure his family has suffered, too, as a result of his callous actions.

I know I have a few peeps in the Des Moines area who are regular readers, and if you guys happen to know anything about whatever became of Karen Logsdon’s 3000GT, I’d like to hear about it, just to settle my own curiosity.  One thing I’ve always been fascinated by, and an aspect that has shown up in much of my sculptural work, as I believe I’ve mentioned before, is the notion of inanimate objects absorbing some trace of the lives and events that surrounded them.  I wouldn’t call it a haunting, but more of an echo of time, space, and being that resonates within and about a material thing or form.