Edward S. Sullivan - Hellbound. The Sadistic Sex Murders of Harvey Glatman

HELLBOUND

BY EDWARD S. SULLIVAN

AN EBOOK

ISBN 978-1-909923560

PUBLISHED BY ELEKTRON EBOOKS

COPYRIGHT 2013 ELEKTRON EBOOKS

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In his own eyes, when Harvey Glatman became a murderer at the age of 29, he finally became a man.

The stooped, bespectacled, jug-eared Los Angeles television repairman actually seemed to be proud of what he had done as he re-visited the Anza Desert scene of his crimes in the pre-dawn hours of October 31, 1958, with a grim corps of Southern California detectives and newspapermen. The confessed sex maniac, ravisher and killer at three beautiful young women, almost gloated as he pointed out the bleached bones of his victims and the pitiful shreds of their clothing. Even the hardened professionals surrounding him were amazed by his failure to show the slightest sign of remorse.

There is an old gag that goes, when I was a boy, the girls wouldnt spit on me, but now that Ive grown up, they spit on me. This was the case with Harvey Murray Glatman, or so he was convinced in his twisted mind. The fact is that Harvey Glatman, from early childhood, was what is com-monly referred to as an oddball, a creep, a spook.

Harvey was born in New York City, the only son of decent, respectable, hardworking parents. They moved to Colorado when Harvey was a small boy and he was raised in and around Denver. He was a nervous, brooding, suspicious, solitary kid, given to uncontrollable temper tantrums when crossed. He had no friends at all. He shunned little girls in particular, and the aversion was mutual. They made fun of his shyness, his awkwardness, his jug ears, his weak eyes, his nervous tics and his stutter and he hated them for it.

Harvey hasnt said much about his childhood, but what little he has said is revealing. He admits he has been fascinated by ropes, knots and nooses as far back as he can remember. It seems to me Ive always had a piece of rope in my hands, he said. His mother confirms that he de-lighted in tying himself up with string at the age of three.

Another thing that always has intrigued him is guns. And since he was ten years old, Harvey says, he has been dis-turbed by thoughts of death specifically of suicide.

In his early teens, sex, as it does to most men, came to Harvey Glatman. But, being Harvey Glatman, he didnt follow the usual teenage routine of going out on bashful dates with the giggling girls at school. Young Harvey was desperately eager to explore the forbidden secrets of sex, but not in a normal way. Girls to him were a world apart; mysterious, fascinating, fragile creatures so far above him that he was unworthy even to talk to them, much less touch them. In their presence he was miserably paralyzed by a sense of inferiority and inadequacy. Harvey wanted girls he desired them to the point where he couldnt get them off his mind but at the same time he hated and resented them for what he considered their superiority and aloofness.

For a long time he contented himself with eyeing girls covertly, spying on them from a distance and indulging in erotic fantasies. He never went to parties or dances. He didnt even engage in bawdy talk or crack dirty jokes with the other boys, and this gave him the reputation of being a goody-goody. His schoolmates didnt know about the lewd girlie magazines and the obscene photos he pored over breathlessly in the privacy of his room.

Soon Harvey Glatman was ready to progress from fantasy to action. His budding sex fancies centered on humiliating women; torturing them, terrorizing them, dominating them completely, making them admit he was their master. This was the only situation he could imagine that would bring him satisfaction.

Harvey was 17, a scrawny, near-sighted stoop-shouldered high school senior, when he first blossomed out. After an uneventful beginning as a Peeping Tom, he got hold of a gun somewhere and prowled the dark streets of Denver at night, trailing young women walking alone.

He accosted them at lonely spots, pushed his gun into their ribs, snatched their purses and ran away as they screamed for help. He didnt actually molest his victims sexually he was afraid to try that but the twisted sex motivation was clear in Harveys later explanation: The money was incidental. The important thing was to put them in fear. I got a bang out of that!

His downfall came when he graduated to housebreaking.

Peeping furtively into a bedroom one May night in 1945, he watched a woman undress, put out the lights and go to bed. Thinking she was alone, Harvey climbed in the bedroom window and threatened her with his gun. But there was another woman in the next room. She screamed and Harvey ran. The police picked him up, cowering in the bushes down the block, and he was charged with armed robbery.

Harveys horrified parents, who were sure a terrible mistake had been made, bailed him out. In July, while he was waiting trial, the junior-grade sex maniac kidnapped a young blonde at gunpoint from a street in Boulder, Col. In the family car, he drove out to a deserted canyon in the rugged Rocky Mountain foothills. There he made the girl, who had on a light, sleeveless summer dress, lie down on the ground. He tied their hands and feet with rope. Then he squatted beside her all night, feasting his owlish eyes on her, while the girl cried and begged him to let her go. Harvey didnt try to assault the helpless blonde he didnt even fondle her. She was in his power completely subject to his will and that was enough for him. It was the biggest sex thrill of Harveys young life. But it was just the beginning.

In the morning, he gagged his weeping victim and left her hidden in the bushes. The girl, in a state of hysteria, lay trussed up on the sweltering desert all day, convinced that her weird abductor had left her to die. But that night Harvey returned, untied her and drove her back to the outskirts of town. He gave her a parting jab with his gun, warning her not to report the incident if she valued her life. But her disappearance had already been reported, and Harvey was easily traced and arrested by Boulder police.

He glumly admitted his guilt, but the Boulder girl refused to prosecute him, fearing the unpleasant publicity. In December, 1945, Harvey was convicted in Denver on one count of aggravated robbery, and was sentenced to one to five years in the state penitentiary at Canon City. However, his tender years and meek, submissive attitude won him release in eight months. With the blessing of his parents and the authorities, he went back to New York to visit relatives and make a new start in life.

Harvey got a new start, all right. One night in August, 1946, soon after his arrival in the Empire State, he sprang out of the shrubbery in a Yonkers city park and menaced a woman with a knife, failing to notice that her boyfriend was walking a few paces behind her. The man grappled with him, but Harvey stabbed him in the shoulder and fled in the darkness. He got away with the womans purse, an article that had become a sex symbol to him.

A week later a Phantom Bandit made headlines in Albany. He followed attractive young women after they got off buses at night in lonely sections of the city. He terrorized them with a gun, threatened to kill them if they cried out, and ran off with their purses. Plainclothes police were assigned to ride the buses, and the Phantom was arrested as he was stalking his fourth victim. It was 18-year-old Harvey Murray Glatman. His pistol turned out to be a toy, so he only drew five to ten years for first-degree grand larceny. Sent to Elmira Reformatory in October, 1946, he was transferred to Sing Sing Prison in 1948.