MASKING EVIL
Copyright Carol Anne Davis, 2016
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For Ian
19572009
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carol Anne Davis was born in Dundee, moved to Edinburgh in her twenties and now lives in south-west England. She left school at 15 and was everything from an artist's model to an editorial assistant before going to university. Her Master of Arts degree included criminology and was followed by a postgraduate diploma in Adult and Community Education.
Since graduating from Edinburgh University in 1987, she has been a full-time writer. Her crime novels Near Death Experience, Extinction, Sob Story, Kiss It Away, Noise Abatement, Safe as Houses and Shrouded have been described as chillingly realistic for their portrayals of sex and death.
She is also the author of the true crime books Parents Who Kill, Doctors Who Kill, Youthful Prey, Sadistic Killers, Couples Who Kill, Children Who Kill and Women Who Kill.
www.carolannedavis.co.uk
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
What makes a mild-mannered bank clerk kidnap little girls? What drives a deacon to use and murder prostitutes? Why would a respected airline pilot bludgeon his wife to death? All of the men and women profiled in the following pages were in good professions some were doctors, clergymen, criminologists, policemen and educationalists but all of them fell spectacularly from grace. Most committed murder, though two stopped short of this, perpetrating repeated acts of extreme child abuse. The younger killers were model pupils, the type voted most likely to succeed.
Criminologists used to see violence as an act of frustration often borne out by an inability to articulate strong emotion, hence the unemployed young man lashing out at his girlfriend or the drunken layabout slapping his energetic kids. These professionals also believed that men and women who had no control at work would take out their rage on weaker victims during their leisure time.
And, at first, this seems borne out by a quick look back at recent history's most heinous crimes. Raymond Morris, profiled in one of my previous books, felt demeaned by his factory job and would go to work in a suit and lie to his relatives and neighbours about his work life. His rage spilled over and he became a murderous paedophile. Similarly, Peter Sutcliffe, the serial-killing Yorkshire Ripper, felt that he was too bright to be a lorry driver and had a sign in his cab saying that genius lurked within. Moors murderer Ian Brady saw himself as an intellectual and abhorred being an office clerk, whilst labourer Fred West told anyone who would listen that he was a skilled abortionist.
There was nothing wrong with the work that these men did, but they viewed themselves as superior to it and carried some of their frustration into their increasingly pathological sex lives. They also found that stalking their prey brought them an excitement that the nine-to-five simply lacked.
The culprits featured in this book broadly fall into several categories. First, the predatory personalities who knew from an early age that they wanted to molest women or children and joined the clergy in the hope that it would provide them with a lifelong moral framework. It didn't. Similarly, some of these emotionally fractured men entered the police force in the hope of becoming extra good. But other police officers, such as the sadistic Gerard Schaefer and the misogynistic Craig Peyer, deliberately entered the force to lure young women into their lethal traps.
Some of the other professionals featured here fit into the intelligent-but-hugely-damaged-in-childhood category. Though they became everything from a church organiser to an Ivy League lawyer, they were at heart angry and neglected children with numerous unmet needs.
Greed is one of the motives which rears its ugly head, particularly in the case of the foster mother from hell, Eunice Spry, who was willing to keep one of her foster daughters in a wheelchair, despite the fact that she could walk, in order to claim additional benefits. Her other motive was sadism. Greed also motivated policewoman Antoinette Frank, who turned a thriving family restaurant into a bloodbath in the hope of stealing the day's takings.
Fear also plays its part, as evidenced in the case of FBI Agent Mark Putnam, a basically good man who murderously overreacted when his lover threatened to tell his wife and employer about their relationship. Fear equally influenced Steven Rios, who was terrified that his gay lover would tell Rios' wife about his true sexual desires, and terror was the main motivator for Donny Tison, a criminal justice student who helped his father, a known killer, to escape from jail as he feared his father would be killed by another prisoner if he remained behind bars.
Extreme jealousy was behind a few of the crimes, notably those committed by John Tanner and Jean Harris, both bookish and sensitive individuals at opposite ends of the age scale who murdered their lovers. Meanwhile, madness motivated the doctor who became part of a cult and turned into a half-starved survivalist, and there was also increasing mental illness in Cokeville town marshal David Young, who plotted to kill an entire classroom of kids in Wyoming.
Though some of the most sadistic adult murderers deserve to die behind bars (and several of the serial killers already have), this is not a book without hope: two of the youngest killers and a middleaged FBI officer have been released and gone on to lead useful lives in their new communities. Others will become eligible for parole in due course, though only time will tell if they deserve a second chance.
THE DEPUTY SHERIFF
GERARD SCHAEFER
Though he applied to train for the priesthood and, when rejected, went on to become a law enforcement officer, Gerard Schaefer was one of America's most sadistic serial killers.
Early life
Gerard John Schaefer was born on 25 March 1946 to Doris and Gerard Schaefer. He was their firstborn and they went on to have a girl, then a second boy. The family initially lived in Wisconsin but relocated to Georgia when the children were small.
