Christopher Berry-Dee - Serial Killers: Up Close and Personal: Inside the World of Torturers, Psychopaths, and Mass Murderers

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Table of Contents

Dedicated to my lovely wife Tatiana, and the memory of Leanna Williams (died August 23, 1994), a two-year-old victim of her stepfather, Santiago Margarito Rangel Varelas.

Acknowledgments

As Professor Elliott Leyton, the worlds most widely consulted expert on serial killing, and former FBI Special Agent, Robert Ressler, the worlds most renowned offender profiler both agree, unless you are a police officer or a psychiatrist, both of whom have unique access to the penal system, it is almost impossible to gain access to interview a single serial murderer, let alone two such creatures. I have interviewed, at length, over thirty.

Apart from the financial outlay, which may cost many thousands of dollars only for the offender to change his or her mind at the last minute as you arrive at the prison gate, one has to build up a relationship with a killer over many years of correspondence before they begin to trust you. But, this is only a fraction of the work involved.

Even to begin to understand the subject under study, one has to research their history back to birth. Meet with their parents, relations, friends, schoolteachers, work colleagues, the victims next-of-kin, the police, attorneys, judges, psychiatrists and psychologists, even the correctional staff who are charged with their welfare while in custody, often on Death Row. Then, like the razor wire that forms an unpenetrable barrier around the prisons, one has to negotiate a way through the red tape that wraps up our killers. Without the permission of the Department of Corrections, you go nowhere. Only when each of the above has been checked off do you get to meet themthe most dangerous human predators on Earth.

As Sondra London says in her excellent book Knockin on Joe, Getting involved with these people is a dangerous matter, because when you concentrate deeply on any personality for an extended time, you find yourself drawn into their world ... And while you are in their cages studying them, they are studying you.

I have often had cause to contemplate the words of Friedrich Nietzsche: Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

Non-fiction is not possible without a collective effort by many people, and the study of violent crime on a first-hand basis can be, at once, rewarding, exciting and distressing. But at the end of the road, the time comes to reflect on that journey and to remember all those individuals and organizations who, in their various capacities, helped to make this book possible and, hopefully, worthwhile.

Many of their names already appear in the main text. Others do not, but they were equally important in the development, research and writing.

I would particularly like to thank, where appropriate, the victims next-of-kin. The killers featured in this book have taken their revenge on society and there is no adequate measure for the agony they have wrought. Death is tangible, grief less so. Yet, despite the tragic losses of loved ones, those left behind have shown compassion for the killers of their children. Without their help, without their anguish, without their indelible pain, this book could not have struck the emotional balance it is hoped it has achieved.

I also thank the many Departments of Corrections for allowing unrestricted access to their penal systems and the offenders who were interviewed. Numerous law enforcement officers, attorneys and judges who have honorably discharged their professional duties, not only in bringing the offenders to justice, but in assisting, where they could, in the detailed research for this book. And, strange as this may seem, thanks are also due to the serial killers and mass murderers who allowed me into their dark worlds, for if society is to learn anything about how these beasts tick, we must, however abhorrent it may seem, listen to their words, their truths and lies.

As always, I am indebted to my close friend, Robin Odell. A superb writer and editor in any event, Robin knows this subject better than most. He has taken much of my raw manuscript, and has helped to polish it into the completed work sitting before you now.

For their personal support, perhaps now is the moment to thank a few of those who were patient enough to listen to my thoughts on serial homicide for months on end. Therefore, I extend much gratitude to my father and mother, Patrick and May. Great friends, Jackie Clay, Graham Williams, David Elvis Murphy, Ace Francis, Bob Noyce, Phil Simpson, Barbara Pearman, and Tony Brown, who kept my spirits up when they were low. My television producer, Frazer Ashford, Steve Morris, and my staff at The New Criminologist.

Special thanks to Phillip Simpson, Kirstie McCallum, Sarah Brown, Ruth Sands, Simon Beal (webmaster of TNC), and Martin Balaam.

Much gratitude is also extended to all of the professionals who have assisted me in the writing of this book.

For John Wayne Gacy: Joseph R. Kozenczak, former Chief of Police, Des Plaines PD, Judge Louis B. Garippo and attorney William Kunkle.

For Kenneth Bianchi: Frances Piccione (Bianchis adoptive mother). Kenneth Bianchi, Veronica VerLyn Compton, Professor Donald T. Lunde, MA, MD, Professor David Canter, Professor Elliot Leyton, Judge Roger Boren, Bellingham PD, LAPD Homicide, Captain Lynde Johnston, Rochester PD Homicide, Det. Richard Crotsley LAPD Homicide, Agent Robert Beams FBI, Katherine Yronwode, Whatcom Security Agency, former SOCO Bellingham PD Robert Knudsen, the staff at Western Washington Correctional Center for Women (WWCCW) and the Washington State Penitentiary (WSP) Walla Walla.

A very special thanks with much love to my special PJ, because it did work out all right for you in the end, and I will always miss your company, and Alyona Minenok from Novosibirsk, Russia. The late night talks with you helped me immensely. Finally, my publisher John Blake and Lucian Randall, along with the many thousands of readers.

Christopher Berry-Dee
Southsea, Hampshire

Introduction

With 5 percent of the worlds population, the United States produces more serial killers than the rest of the world, accounting for 76 percent of the total. Europe produces the second-highest number of serial killers at 17 percent. England leads with 28 percent of the European total, followed by Germany with 27 percent.

California has the highest serial homicide rate in the United States, followed by New York, Texas and Illinois, while Maine has the lowest.

Over 90 percent of serial killers are white males, usually from low-to middle-class backgrounds; these men are usually intelligent but, as students, have generally had difficulty in focusing. Most have experienced a traumatic childhood, often having been abused psychologically, physically or sexually. Typically, they may have been raised in unstable families, often with criminal, psychiatric and alcoholic histories. As a result, children raised in such families often spend a great deal of time on their own with many of them indulging in animal cruelty at a very young age.

Most people who suffer as children grow out of it and become upstanding, decent human beings. But serial killers such as Kenneth Bianchi and John Gacy, who all suffered as children, repeat the same mistakes over the course of their lives. They cannot make their transition into adulthood; they have trouble making the transition in middle age and, at the very time they feel they should be reaching the pinnacle of success, they find they are sliding downhill fast. They want to feel important, they want to feel special; they crave the sense of power, dominance and control. But they simply cannot achieve it in any respectable way, so they kill, torture, sodomize and dismember, and this makes them feel good about themselves.

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