As should be clear, though all forms of sexual attack are horrible and heinous, the anger rapist and the sadistic rapist will tend to be the most dangerous.
All of the evidence in the Green Man crimes suggest that the perpetrator was a power-reassurance rapist. He threatened his victims to get his way, but did not attack them with his knife. He talked to them and was apologetic. In an admittedly weird and self-centered way, he seemed concerned for their welfare.
This type of behavior squares with DeSalvo’s background as the Measuring Man. A power-reassurance rapist will generally start out with socalled “nuisance crimes,” such as voyeurism, and, as he gets older and a little more confident, will evolve into less benign activities that are still nonviolent. The important consideration is that this type of personality does not evolve into an anger-retaliatory or sadistic offender. Even DeSalvo’s background gives him away on this. He hated his father but had good relationships with his mother and wife. This is not the hallmark of an anger rapist. But with the precipitating stressor of the birth of a sick child and his wife’s resultant antipathy to sex, we have all the motivation we need for the evolution into a power-reassurance rapist.
If we look at the Boston Stranger murders, we see clear evidence of a sadistic rapist at work. He not only targeted young women but older, more vulnerable ones. He not only raped but beat them. He strangled them with articles of their own clothing. He depersonalized them. He posed them in such a way as to degrade the victims and shock whoever came upon the crime scene.
From a behavioral perspective, everything about these two sets of crimes is different. Keep in mind that the Green Man was still operating after Anna Slesers was killed. There is no way DeSalvo or any other killer could have deescalated from such a brutal murder back to the kind of assaults the Green Man was committing. Albert DeSalvo was not an angry or sadistic guy. If he were, this behavior would have shown up in other aspects of his life, and it would certainly have shown up in his interactions in prison.
Though DeSalvo wouldn’t have committed crimes as savage and sadistic as those of the Boston Strangler, it is understandable that, once the suggestion was made to him, he’d take credit for the crimes. If he’s power-reassurance motivated, then anything that puts him into a more macho light can be appealing to him. If he’s looking for status, he knows he’s not going to find it as a brain surgeon, a movie star, or a pro athlete. And one way or another, he’s not getting back out on the street anytime soon. But in the milieu in which he’s used to operating, if he can be perceived as a celebrity criminal, well, at least he’s a somebody.
If DeSalvo was taking credit for crimes he did not commit, it was not the first time. He had claimed responsibility for a robbery and assault in Rhode Island in 1964, though someone else was identified by the victim and arrested for the crime. As to how he could have gained specific information on the Strangler murders, he later said he was so fascinated by the press accounts that in some cases he used his burglary skills and broke into the victims’ apartments just to look around.
Other than for George Nassar, we can’t be sure whom DeSalvo had extensive contact with at Bridgewater, but it is clear that he easily could have been fed additional information on the Strangler crimes. It is also possible that Bailey might unintentionally have asked him leading questions. Much was published in the papers. And though DeSalvo wasn’t the brightest guy in the world, he was known for his excellent memory. Not only that, Albert’s own extensive experience as a burglar allowed him to intuit some of the right answers just because he knew how an intruder would have acted. Even so, DeSalvo still got a number of Strangler details wrong or didn’t remember at all.
No witness ever identified DeSalvo in connection with any of the Strangler crime scenes, and no physical evidence connects him to any of the murders.
No one has ever been tried for the Boston Strangler murders. A number of accomplished detectives never believed DeSalvo was the Strangler and, in fact, thought there was more than one offender. A number of reasonable alternative suspects have emerged over the years, including George Nassar himself, a criminally sophisticated convicted murderer with a high IQ who has admitted to having killed for excitement. However, he has steadfastly denied that he was the Strangler, and no official attempt has been made to tie him to the crimes.
New York police lieutenant Thomas Cavanaugh believed he discovered the identity of the Strangler through a 1963 homicide he investigated: the strangling of a sixty-two-year-old woman tied to Charles A. Terry, twenty-three at the time and a native of Waterville, Maine. Terry had been in Boston during the first six Strangler murders, and evidence from the New York crime scene matched many of the Boston details, including positioning of the body, strangulation with a scarf, and tying the bow. He had been diagnosed as a psychopath and sexual sadist and had a history of assaults against women. He died in prison of lung cancer in 1981.
After the August 20, 1962, murder of sixty-seven-year-old Jane Sullivan, the sixth Strangler victim, George Snubbs, a man with a deviant sexual history, committed suicide several blocks from Sullivan’s apartment by tying a bow around his neck with a pair of stockings. After his death, the age range of the Strangler’s targeted victims shifted from older women to younger ones.
A man whose stay at Bridgewater overlapped with DeSalvo’s was a suspect in the deaths of Anna Slesers, Jane Sullivan, and three others of the first wave of murders, since he was missing from Boston State Hospital on those dates. A diagnosed psychotic with a low IQ, he had tried to kill his mother, whom he regularly punched and kicked. He reportedly told his sister that he was the Strangler.
And then there was another inmate at Bridgewater whose stay overlapped DeSalvo’s by five weeks. He was a university student in the Boston area during the Strangler murders. Another diagnosed psychotic and possible schizophrenic, he had an extremely high IQ, as well as a history of drug-abuse and petty crime. He had been arrested for abusing his pregnant wife. Friends said he was subject to wild fits of anger and violence and claimed he said he would save the world by destroying its women. His move from Boston to the Midwest coincided with seven brutal sexual murders there, in two of which stockings were tied around the victims’ neck.
There is no evidence that Albert DeSalvo had any knowledge or insight as to the true identity of the Boston Strangler or Stranglers. He acknowledged the mystery, at the same time adding to his own mythology and mystique, with a poem he composed in prison. It ends:
Today he sits in a prison cell,
Deep inside only a secret he can tell.
People everywhere are still in doubt,
Is the Strangler in prison or roaming about?
CHAPTER SIX
THE JONBENET RAMSEY
MURDER
In the JonBenet Ramsey murder case, many of the themes we’ve been dealing with come together: family . . . celebrity . . . personality evaluation . . . the suffering of the most innocent among us . . . kidnapping . . . brutal, sustained-aggression killing . . . and the appearance of raw evil where we least expect to find it. It is also the one case in this book with which I have had extensive personal involvement.
And since I am personally involved, it’s probably necessary to say a couple of things up front. My purpose here is neither to defend or condemn John or Patricia Ramsey, nor to justify the actions or positions for which, in certain circles, I have been roundly criticized and my motives challenged. My purpose is only to explain how I reached the conclusions I did through the use of the criminal investigative analysis that I helped develop over a quarter of a century.
As I’ve stated on many occasions, murder is the single most disturbing and devastating experience that can happen to any of us; because murder, unlike death by disease or accident, is an intentional act, one that turns our world upside down and robs us of all of our basic orientations to the world except, if we are very fortunate, our faith. And this particular murder is among the most horrifying of all: both because of its beautiful, sixyear
-old victim, and because of the horrendous evil it implies by raising the possibility that a father or a mother could be capable of killing his or her own child.
The case is also noteworthy—virtually unique—for other reasons as well. Many crimes are tried in the court of public opinion long before they reach a court of law—the Borden, Lindbergh, and Simpson- Goldman murders, to name just a few. But I know of no other case in which the majority of people have decided the solution based on statistics. I know of no other case in which the public substantially believes what has been reported in the tabloids. I know of no other case in which the mainline media have let the tabloids take the lead and then reported on their reporting. And I know of no other case in which largely respectable television programs have so tried to outdo each other in sensationalism. I would not be so exercised except this is so clearly and fundamentally the enemy of fairness and justice.
Am I saying I alone have the inside track on those two ideals? By no means. Nobody knows for certain what happened on the night of December 25, 1996, that caused the unnatural and violent death of JonBenet Patricia Ramsey, except for the person or persons who perpetrated it. All that any of the rest of us can do is to make our best judgment based on our common sense, analysis, and whatever expertise and experience we can bring to bear.
If I am vilified for coming out and stating what I believe to be true, so be it. It won’t be the first time and doubtless will not be the last. I had already experienced this reaction when I was called to Atlanta in 1980 during the horrifying string of child murders. I came away with the police pissed off at me for moving in on their territory and the public rejecting my suggestion that the killings of black children wasn’t an organized conspiracy of hate by the Ku Klux Klan, but the work of a lone and inadequate young black man. That’s the nature of the business.
But the important point I want to make here is that a criminal investigation is not a popularity contest. It is not, nor should it be, directed or determined by public opinion or media influence.
Some have called me a “hired gun” in this case, and it is true that I received a small fee early on, as I have in certain other cases in which I have consulted since leaving the Bureau. Some have called me a “publicity hound,” and it is true that I have never been shy around a camera, particularly in the days when I was trying to get the FBI’s profiling program off the ground and would seek publicity from just about anywhere, both to support the program and to elicit the public’s help on individual cases. But I have never ever offered an opinion that wasn’t deeply felt and fully supported by my own belief and the facts as I saw them.
A defense attorney has the responsibility of making a case for his client’s innocence, whether he believes in that innocence or not. A criminal investigator has only one responsibility, and it is an extremely solemn one. It has to do neither with whom he or she works for, nor who is signing the paycheck. It should have nothing to do with personal glory or career advancement. It has only to do with the silent pledge made by the investigator to the victim, who can no longer speak for herself, that he or she will do everything within his or her power to uncover the truth of what happened and bring the offender to the gates of earthly justice. There is not enough money or fame in the entire world to lure me away from the enormity and seriousness of that pledge.
And I am far from alone in this. I believe in the sincerity of that pledge no less vehemently with regard to former detective Steve Thomas, with whose interpretation I disagree radically, than with detective Lou Smit, with whom I am in much more basic agreement, to name but two participants in this case. I believe both men to be of solid integrity and to want nothing more or less than justice for JonBenet. I hope they regard me the same way.
With that off my chest, let’s look carefully at the Ramsey case and why it has haunted us so profoundly.
I don’t think we can deny that we became obsessed with this one because the victim was so young, blond, and beautiful, the parents rich and prominent and intelligent, the neighborhood fashionable and safe, the community secure and self-satisfied, and the timing—Christmas. All these elements suggest a crime like this should not have occurred. If ever there was a “man bites dog” case, this is it. Even her unique name—a combination of her father’s given names coupled with her mother’s first name—added to the mystique.
And let us be plain: the first time we saw those beauty-pageant images of the mini Las Vegas showgirl—the pint-size cowboy sweetheart and the patriotic, red-white-and-blue-bedecked, tap-dancing tot, eyes always full of fun and mischief and hand resting confidently on a cocked hip—they were instantly and indelibly etched on our collective memory. District Attorney Alex Hunter offered the opinion that it was this pageant film that separates this case from two thousand other child homicides. In a bizarre and perverse mockery of our cult of celebrity, in death JonBenet became America’s greatest cover girl.
DECEMBER 25–26, 1996
So how are we going to approach this case?
Regardless of who the killer is, we’ve got to deal with the facts as they were. We’ve got to be able to track a family from a morning of gifts and visiting and childish delight, through a happy and fun-filled Christmas dinner with good friends and the anticipation of an early-morning flight on their private plane to their vacation home, to the garroting, blunt force trauma, sexual assault, and fatal sustained aggression against a six-year-old last known to be asleep in her bed.
Those are the facts. Any participants and motives we attempt to plug into the scenario must work with those facts.
For law enforcement, the case began at 5:52 A.M. on December 26, 1996, when a Boulder, Colorado, police dispatcher took the following 911 emergency call from Patricia Ann Ramsey:
Ramsey: (inaudible) police.
Dispatcher: (inaudible)
Ramsey: Seven fifty-five Fifteenth Street.
Dispatcher: What’s going on there, ma’am?
Ramsey: We have a kidnapping. Hurry, please.
D: Explain to me what’s going on, okay?
R: There we have a . . . There’s a note left and our daughter’s gone.
D: A note was left and your daughter is gone?
R: Yes.
D: How old is your daughter?
R: She’s six years old. . . . She’s blond . . . six years old.
D: How long ago was this?
R: I don’t know. I just found the note and my daughter’s (inaudible).
R: What?
D: Does it say who took her?
R: No. I don’t know . . . it’s there . . . there’s a ransom note here.
D: It’s a ransom note?
R: It says “S.B.T.C. Victory.” Please . . .
D: Okay, what’s your name? Are you . . .
R: Patsy Ramsey. I’m the mother. Oh my God, please . . .
D: I’m . . . Okay, I’m sending an officer over, okay?
R: Please.
D: Do you know how long she’s been gone?
R: No, I don’t. Please, we just got up and she’s not here. Oh my God, please.
D: Okay.
R: Please send somebody.
D: I am, honey.
R: Please.
D: Take a deep breath (inaudible).
R: Hurry, hurry, hurry (inaudible).
D: Patsy? Patsy? Patsy? Patsy? Patsy?
Within a few minutes, Boulder PD officer Rick French arrived at 755 Fifteenth Street, a large, red-brick, Tudor-style house in the city’s University Hill neighborhood. The exterior of the house was elaborately decorated for Christmas. He was met at the front door by the missing child’s mother, Patricia Ramsey, three days short of her fortieth birthday, attired in a red sweater and black slacks. They were joined shortly by the father, John Bennett Ramsey, fifty-three years of age, dressed in a blue-andwhite-striped shirt and khaki slacks. Patsy was John’s second wife. His first marriage, to the former Lucinda Lou Pasch, had ended in divorce, and he and Patsy had been married for sixteen years. Officer French’s i
mpression was that Patsy appeared agitated and distraught, while John appeared tense but calm and controlled. Their nearly ten-year-old son, Burke, had not yet been awakened.
They told French that Patsy had come down from her third-floor bedroom around 5:45 A.M. to awaken six-year-old JonBenet and to begin getting everything ready for their flight to Charlevoix, Michigan, where their vacation home was located. From there, they had planned to fly to Florida to take Burke and JonBenet on a cruise on Disney’s Big Red Boat.
JonBenet’s bedroom was empty. Patsy then descended the back spiral staircase outside the child’s room on the second floor. On one of the lower steps she noted three sheets of lined, white legal paper laid side by side. They showed French the communication, now laid out on the wooden floor of the hallway outside the kitchen:
Mr. Ramsey,
Listen carefully! We are a
group of individuals that represent
a small foreign faction. We [cross-out]
respect your bussiness but not the
country that it serves. At this
time we have your daughter in our
posession. She is safe and un harmed
and if you want her to see 1997,
you must follow our instructions to
the letter.
You will withdraw $118,000.00
from your account. $100,000 will be
in $100 bills and the remaining
$18,000 in $20 bills. Make sure
that you bring an adequate size
attache to the bank. When you
get home you will put the money
in a brown paper bag. I will
call you between 8 and 10 am
tomorrow to instruct you on delivery.
The delivery will be exhausting so
I advise you to be rested. If
we monitor you getting the money
The Cases That Haunt Us Page 34