by Ray Black
His first identifiable murder came a month later when he abducted Lynda Ann Healy from her student home. This twenty-one-year-old radio announcer became the first of a long line of young women who would suffer and die at the hands of Ted Bundy. Pretty, slender and with centre-parted long blonde hair, these college girls bore a startling resemblance to Stephanie Brooks. Many have suggested Bundy was still trying to even the score, seeing his ex-fiancée in the women he snatched from college campuses.
SNATCHED AT LAKE SAMMAMISH
By the summer, Bundy had perfected his usual routine. Playing an injured man in need of assistance, often sporting a sling or a cast for added effect, he would exploit the good natures of the girls who would help with a pile of books to his Volkswagen Beetle. A blow to the head from a concealed crowbar was their only reward.
On 14 July 1974, his compulsion to kill escalating, Bundy descended on the crowded beach at Lake Sammamish. In broad daylight, he asked a number of attractive females for help with a boat he needed to unload. Many declined, some even got as far as the car before having second thoughts, yet two girls – Janice Ott and Denise Naslund – were both led unwittingly to their deaths.
King County detectives canvassing those present at the lake, several of whom had witnessed the two victims being escorted away, managed to build a solid description of both suspect and car. Fliers depicting a sketch of the killer flooded the Seattle area. Lost among the hundreds of tips the police received were calls from both his girlfriend and psychology professor.
Missing these accurate leads allowed Bundy to continue his murder spree, moving to Utah where he sodomised then strangled Melissa Smith and Laura Aime in a two-week period. The following month he altered his modus operandi, pretending to be a police officer to lure Carol DaRonch to his Beetle. She managed to fight her way out of the car and gain her freedom from the fake Officer Roseland. Undeterred by such setbacks, Bundy persevered killing another six women over the next eight months, five in Colorado – the fourth state to be blackened by his evil.
HALF HOUR OF HELL
The authorities finally caught up with the elusive coed killer on 16 August 1975 when his VW Beetle ran a red light in Granger, Salt Lake City. A search of the car revealed a ski mask, crowbar, rope and handcuffs identical to those used during the attempted abduction of DaRonch. Singled out from a seven-man identity parade, Bundy was promptly charged with kidnapping and ultimately convicted on 1 March 1976, receiving a fifteen-year sentence in Utah State Prison.
His court appearances did not end there. Wanting him for the murder of Caryn Campbell, the neighbouring state of Colorado requested his extradition. During a court recess, Bundy – acting as his own defence – was allowed to visit the court library. From here he jumped through a second-storey window and escaped via the snowy trails of Aspen Mountain.
Evading bloodhounds and trackers for six days, he was eventually recaptured only to escape a second time six months later through a ceiling crawlspace above his jail cell. Travelling via Chicago, Bundy arrived in Tallahassee, Florida, renting a room under the name Chris Hagen, growing a moustache to alter his appearance. Within days the chameleon-like killer struck again with unparalleled force.
In the first few hours of Sunday 15 January 1978, Ted Bundy crept into Florida State’s Chi Omega sorority house and strangled Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy, who he also viciously raped. Next, he attacked two more girls with a log before being interrupted by a sister returning from a party. The whole encounter took less than half an hour.
His compulsion to kill returned a month later, grabbing Kimberly Leach from a playground, raping and murdering her, before dumping her body in Suwannee State Park. She was just twelve years old. Such boundless evil had to be stopped and three days later he was pulled over in a stolen Beetle in Pensacola. Following a scuffle with the officer, Bundy was was finally subdued and transported back to Tallahassee to face charges.
THE TRIALS OF TED BUNDY
Unable to escape justice for a third time, Bundy now faced a series of trials beginning with the Chi Omega murder case in Florida. In front of television cameras, he played the starring role, cross-examining witnesses as he defended himself once again. However, using eyewitness testimony and matching the bite marks on Lisa Levy’s buttock to his teeth via a mold, the prosecution made an irrefutable case for conviction.
Sentenced to death for both murders, Bundy attended his second trial in Orlando for his crimes against Kimberly Leach, using the court to legally marry Carole Boone. As a fitting wedding present, the judge and jury gave the groom the death penalty. After endless appeals in an attempt to forestall his state-ordered demise, his execution was set for 24 January 1989.
The penultimate night of his life Bundy granted an interview to psychologist Dr James Dobson in which he declared pornography helped to make him the killer he became. Whether a predilection for adult material can be blamed for his actions, which included the decapitation of heads and sex with decomposing corpses, is highly debatable. What is certain is that Ted Bundy will kill no more executed, as he was, at around 7am in the electric chair.
PART TWO: SERIAL KILLERS
Andrei Chikatilo
As the death rattle of a dying Soviet Union sounded across the globe, one of its Communist faithful was fulfilling his necro-sadistic desires, mutilating and murdering over fifty citizens to become Russia’s premier serial killer.
NOT LIKE OTHER CHILDREN
On 16 October 1936, in the rural Ukrainian village of Yablochnoye, Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo was born into crippling poverty. Stalinist rule had ensured his family – along with millions of Russian citizens – suffered under the cruel agricultural policy of collectivism which saw all crops handed over to the state. Starvation swept across large stretches of the Soviet Union and the Chikatilos grew up on a diet of leaves and grass to keep death from their door.
While his father fought in the war with the Red Army, his mother kept their son in a state of fear, telling him scare stories of an older brother devoured by neighbours to sate their hunger. With traumatising tales of famine-induced cannibalism and the regular sight of corpses littering the poverty-stricken streets it was no wonder little Andrei developed into an abnormal human being. He would wet his bed until the age of twelve.
In 1949 his father returned from the war. Having languished inside a Nazi concentration camp, he suffered the indignity of being branded a traitor by his own people. This deeply affected Andrei who was similarly vilified at school, mocked by his fellow pupils. Despite this sorrow he devoted his teens to the Communist ideal, joining the Youth League.
Here he soon realised he was not like others his own age. Preferring the company of younger children, he brought further ridicule on himself when he groped a young girl, ejaculating during the molestation. Rumour quickly spread of his impotence which would become a driving force behind his later crimes.
NO APPLE FOR THE TEACHER
Finishing school, Andrei desperately wanted away from his home country and focused on attaining a law degree at Moscow State University. Sadly, he failed the entrance exam and, following a spell of national service, moved to Rodionovo-Nesvetayevksy near Rostov in 1960 to work as a telephone engineer. The sixties seemed to bring balance to Chikatilo’s life. He married Feodosya Semyovna, a friend of his sister’s who was three years his junior and, despite his impotence, they managed to conceive two children. Still unable to sustain an erection he reportedly had to push his seed into his wife by hand.
As the seventies rolled in Chikatilo acquired a degree in literature and philology at Rostov University and became a teacher. He hoped this role would bring him the respect he had missed out on in his youth, but within a short space of time history began to repeat itself. The students mocked his appearance, belittling him to such an extent he resorted to carrying a knife for protection.
His fear quickly turned to thoughts of revenge and he responded to their taunts by secretly molesting the students. In April 1973 he held a schoo
lgirl in detention and beat her with a ruler causing him to ejaculate. Further deviant acts resulted in his dismissal early the following year and after similar allegations at other schools in the area, he was forced to relocate to Shakhty, a small coal-mining town to the north-east of Rostov-on-Don.
SECRET SHACK
Shortly after moving the family home, the disgraced teacher started to build a secret life away from his wife and children. Andrei wanted to allow himself the freedom to act on his perverted impulses. He bought a hideaway house, little more than a shack on Mezhevoy Lane, the perfect lair for a sexual deviant. His mind was focused on planning his first venture into a world of sin and suffering in a bid to relieve his sexual frustration.
On 22 December 1978 he plucked nine-year-old Lena Zakotnova from a bus stop, luring her to his shack with a promise of candy. A vicious attempt to rape the young child brought further dismay as he was yet again unable to perform. In a fit of rage he withdrew a knife and stabbed her three times in the stomach; the work of this substitute phallus arousing the vexed and violent Andrei.
The body was found two days later in Grushovka River but despite finding blood near Chikatilo’s lair, police dismissed him in favour of a known rapist, Aleksandr Kravchenko. The wrong man was convicted and received the death penalty. The case was closed and Andrei was free to plot a repeat performance. While this close call initially scared him into restraining his urges, the fledgling killer had discovered a means to achieve a long-yearned-for release that was impossible to ignore.
IT’S ALL IN THE EYES
Laying low for the next two years, Chikatilo changed his job allowing him to travel widely on the Soviet rail system. Over the next three years he struck all across the Rostov area, murdering almost twenty victims, beginning with seventeen-year-old Larisa Tkachenko. A boarding school truant, she made the fatal mistake of laughing at her attacker when he failed to become erect. Angry frustration rose up once again and he stabbed her repeatedly with a stick. His rage was so great he even bit off her nipple before filling her mouth with dirt and leaves.
By 1984 a special task force had been created to handle the series of grisly murders. Led by Major Mikhail Fetisov, they marvelled at the uniquely violent MO of the killer. Not only did he inflict multiple stab wounds, but more significantly he attacked the eyes. This Chikatilo trademark came from a popular Russian belief that the eyes of the dead held a snapshot of what they last saw before passing.
Despite these tell-tale signs and the frequency of the murders over a comparatively small area of the Soviet Union, the police were far from catching Chikatilo. They mistook the attacks for the work of a known sex offender or someone registered insane. Even when he was caught accosting women in Rostov on 13 September 1984 and found his briefcase contained a veritable kill kit, they promptly released him. The man had no criminal record and as well as being a family man, he was a Communist party member. Surely nobody with such credentials could have committed such heinous crimes. This oversight allowed the butcher of Rostov to continue carving up the innocent with impunity.
KILLER X
In December 1984 Chikatilo took an enforced break from murder after being found guilty of theft. Stealing some linoleum from work brought a hefty year’s prison term from the People’s Court and during this hiatus Fetisov and his team endeavoured to obtain a better understanding of the killer. The Major brought psychiatrist Aleksandr Bukhanovksy on board to develop a workable profile.
After examining the crime scene reports, he deduced the man they dubbed Killer X was between forty-five and fifty years of age and an unsociable though not psychotic personality. His necro-sadism was the reason for his relentless stabbings; they were a way to enter his victims sexually. Even possessing this unerringly accurate description it would take another six years before the authorities would get their man.
By the late eighties Chikatilo’s attacks had advanced to an even higher level of violence. On 11 January 1989, after stabbing Tatyana Ryzhova in the mouth for mocking his impotence, he cut off her head and legs and scattered them in the nearby woods. He also started to remove the tongues and genitals of those he butchered and began executing these kills in more public areas. Unsurprisingly, after more than forty murders over a ten year period he was beginning to feel unstoppable.
CAGED KILLER
With no clear leads in the case Fetisov stepped up the investigation, seconding hundreds of undercover officers to patrol the various train stations around the Rostov area. On 6 November 1990, a detective spotted a man exiting the woods near Donleskhoz station. Sporting blood on his cheek and mud on his coat, his details were taken before being allowed to continue his journey. This was Andrei Chikatilo and he had just murdered Sveta Korostik.
When her body was discovered the next day the task force checked patrol reports from around Donleskhoz bringing up Chikatilo’s information. Following nearly two weeks of surveillance, the detectives arrested the suspect on 20 November as he attempted to lure away another potential victim. In custody Andrei refused to admit to the crimes. Yet on the penultimate day before he was due to be released, Bukhanovsky, the profiling psychiatrist, was permitted to try.
The subtler approach worked and within hours Andrei was admitting to over fifty murders. He took police on tours of his murder sites revealing seventeen more victims not previously associated with the killer. He even gave a macabre workshop, showing detectives on mannequins how he slaughtered his prey.
The trial began on 14 April 1992. Held in an iron cage for his own protection, a shaven-headed Chikatilo rolled his eyes, heckled and even exposed himself during proceedings, playing crazy in an attempt to avoid the death penalty.
It was all in vain and that autumn he was found guilty on fifty-two counts of murder. Applause followed his sentence and in February 1994 Andrei was led to a Rostov prison cell and shot in the back of the head.
Arthur Shawcross
Between 1988 and 1990 the man known to all as the Genesee River Killer targeted the streetwalkers of Monroe County, strangling them to death before dumping their mutilated corpses around the region.
MATURING TO MURDER
Born two months premature in a US Naval Hospital in Kittery, Maine, Arthur John Shawcross spent his childhood in Watertown, New York surrounded by relatives in an area affectionately known as Shawcross Corners. Yet, according to the killer, this was a far cry from The Waltons family life it resembled. His mother Bessie became a violent matriarch, one time inserting a broom handle into the boy’s anus by way of punishment. He also claimed he was forced to perform oral sex on his aunt, leading to an early obsession with all things carnal. With such an unpleasant upbringing, young Arthur reacted, quickly displaying the tell-tale signs of serial killer behaviour.
From bed-wetting to bestiality, he slipped into a private fantasy world, while also falling behind at school. By the eighth grade he was some three years older than his classmates. A total outcast, he dropped out of school the following year aged nineteen.
Two years later, Arthur was drafted into the army and sent to Vietnam with the 4th Supply and Transport Company of 4th Infantry Division. Here he later attested to a series of heinous acts including the decapitation of a Viet-Cong woman, suggesting he also consumed a portion of her thigh he had roasted over a fire.
Whatever occurred in the Vietnamese jungle, Arthur returned home in September 1968 and was assigned to Fort Sill, Oklahoma where he lived with his second wife, Linda. She soon witnessed first-hand Arthur’s fiery temper, not only taking regular beatings herself but on one occasion watching him kill their six-month-old puppy in a fit of rage.
Following his honourable discharge from the army, the ex-soldier turned to arson, becoming sexually aroused by the flames that gutted a local paper mill and, later, a cheese factory. Serving a total of twenty-two months for these two attacks, he was released in October 1971, returning to Watertown. In less than a year Arthur Shawcross would mature from arson to murder.
THE EARLY KILLS
Early in the summer of 1972 ten-year-old Jack Owen Blake disappeared whilst playing in a suburban area of New York city. His mother raised the hue and cry but a search for her son turned up nothing. The neighbourhood had no idea he had become Arthur Shawcross’s first kill. Luring him into the woods, he had stripped the boy naked then, forcing him to run, hunted the child down before sexually assaulting and murdering him. He would later maintain he also removed and then devoured the heart and genitals.
Four months later, his appetite for murder awoken, Shawcross snatched eight-year-old Karen Ann Hill from under her mother’s nose. Her decomposed body was found beneath a bridge crossing the Black River. An autopsy revealed she had been raped then asphyxiated and had the local mud and leaves rammed down her throat. Knowing Arthur often fished under this bridge, police brought him in as a suspect. He soon confessed to both murders.
Serving less than fifteen of a twenty-five year term, he was released in April 1987, deemed fit to re-enter society. After three communities in New York State refused to take him, Shawcross finally relocated in the city of Rochester, in Monroe County. Now free to start life anew, he managed to curb his dangerous urges for the best part of a year, until the beast within would stay silent no longer.
RED LIGHT FOR MURDER
In March 1988, his burning desire to kill pre-empted the thaw of winter, Arthur began to familiarize himself with the streetwalkers of Lyell Avenue. Picking up Dotsie Blackburn and agreeing a price for mutual oral sex, he drove to a deserted car park where, he later maintained, she bit his penis. Blood everywhere, he grabbed her throat and choked her to death, though not before biting her back. Six days later, hunters in Salmon Creek discovered the body. It had been badly beaten and had suffered distinct vaginal trauma.