Serial Killer Investigations

by Colin Wilson

  The finding of bodies in the river triggered the search for the killer. Detective Jim Stovall decided to start at the Oregon State University campus in Corvallis, 80 miles south of Portland, where Karen Sprinker had been a student, and spent two days questioning every female student. The only promising leads were several mentions of a stranger who made a habit of telephoning the residence hall, asking girls their first names, then talking at length about himself, claiming to be psychic and to be a Vietnam veteran. He usually asked for a date, but seemed unoffended when he was refused. It was when one of the girls mentioned that she had agreed to meet the ‘Vietnam veteran’ that Stovall’s interest suddenly increased.

  The man had seemed interested when she mentioned that she was taking a psychology course, and told her that he had been a patient at the Walter Reed Hospital, where he had learned about some interesting new techniques. When he suggested coming to the dorm for a coffee, the girl agreed.

  The man’s appearance had been a disappointment. He was overweight, freckled, and looked as if he was in his thirties. He had a round, unprepossessing face and narrow eyes gave him an oddly cunning look, like a schoolboy who is planning to steal the cookies. But he seemed pleasant enough, and they sat in the lounge and talked at some length. Nevertheless, she had the feeling that he was a little ‘odd’. This suddenly came into focus when he placed a hand on her shoulder and remarked: ‘Be sad.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Think of those two girls whose bodies were found in the river.’ When he left, he asked her to go for a drive, and when she declined, made the curious comment: ‘How do you know I wouldn’t take you to the river and strangle you?’ Stovall began to feel excited when the girl told them that the ‘Vietnam veteran’ had mentioned that he might call again.

  ‘If he does, would you agree to let him come here? Then call us immediately?’

  The girl was reluctant, but agreed when the police told her that they would be there before the man arrived. She merely had to make some excuse to delay him for an hour.

  A week later, on Sunday, 25 May 1969, the Corvallis Police Department received the call they had been hoping for. The girl told them that the ‘Vietnam veteran’ had telephoned a few minutes ago, asking if he could come over. The girl had told him she wanted to wash her hair, and asked him to make it in about an hour.

  When the overweight, freckle-faced man in a T-shirt walked into the lounge of Callaghan Hall, two plainclothes policemen walked up to him and produced their badges. The man seemed unalarmed; he gave his name as Jerry Brudos, and said that he lived in Salem; the only sign of embarrassment was when he admitted that he had a wife and two children. He was now in Corvallis, he explained, because he was working nearby—as an electrician.

  Since Brudos had committed no offence for which he might be arrested, or even taken in for questioning, the police let him go.

  A preliminary check showed that he was what he claimed to be—an electrician working in Corvallis. But when Stovall looked into his record, he realised that he had a leading suspect. Jerome Henry Brudos, 30, had a record of violence towards women, and had spent nine months on the psychiatric ward of the Oregon State Hospital. Moreover, at the time of the disappearance of Linda Slawson, Brudos had lived in Portland, in the area where she was trying to sell encyclopaedias.

  The first thing to do was to check him out. Stovall called on Brudos at his home in Center Street, Salem, and talked to him in his garage. Stovall’s colleague, Detective Jerry Frazier, also went along, and noted the lengths of rope lying around the room, and the hook in the ceiling. He also noticed that one of the ropes was knotted, and the knot was identical to one that had been used to bind the corpses in the river.

  This, Stovall decided, had to be their man. Everything fitted. He worked as an electrician and car repairman. He had been working at Lebanon, Oregon, close to the place where Jan Whitney’s car had been found. And he had been living close to the place from which Karen Sprinker had disappeared in Salem.

  There was another piece of evidence that pointed to Brudos. On

  22 April a 15-year-old schoolgirl had been grabbed by an overweight, freckled man holding a gun as she hurried to school along the railroad tracks; she had screamed and succeeded in running away. She immediately picked out the photograph of Jerry Brudos from a batch shown to her by the detectives.

  Except for this identification, there was no definite evidence against Brudos for the murders. Stovall was therefore reluctant to move against him. But five days after Brudos had been questioned in Corvallis, Stovall realised he could no longer take the risk of leaving him at large. As he was on his way to arrest Brudos for the attempted abduction of the schoolgirl on the railway tracks, he received a radio message saying that Brudos and his family had left Corvallis, and were driving towards Portland. Shortly after this, Brudos’s station wagon was stopped by a police patrol car. At first it looked as if Brudos was not inside; but he proved to be lying in the back, hidden under a blanket.

  Back at the Salem police station, Brudos was asked to change into overalls. When he removed his clothes, he was found to be wearing women’s panties.

  When Stovall first questioned Brudos, he failed to secure any admissions. It was the same for the next three days, Stovall did not ask outright if Brudos had murdered the girls; he confined himself to general questions, hoping to pick up more clues. But at the fifth interview, Brudos suddenly began to talk about his interest in female shoes and underwear. Then he described how he had followed a girl in attractive shoes, broken into her home through a window, and made off with the shoes. Soon after this, he described how he had stolen the black bra—found on Karen Sprinker’s body—from a clothesline. Now, at last, he had virtually admitted the killing. Then, little by little, the rest came out—the curious history of a psychopath who suffered from the curious sexual abnormality for which the psychologist Alfred Binet coined the word fetishism.

  In Jerry Brudos’s case, it first showed itself at the age of five, when he found a pair of women’s patent leather shoes on a rubbish dump, and put them on at home. His mother was furious and ordered him to return them immediately; instead he hid them and wore them in secret. When his mother found them, he was beaten and the shoes were burned.

  When he was 16—in 1955—he stole the underwear of a girl who lived next door. Then he approached the girl and told her he was working for the police as an undercover agent, and could help her to recover the stolen articles. She allowed herself to be lured into his bedroom on an evening when his family was away. Suddenly, a masked man jumped on her, threatened her with a knife, and made her remove all her clothes. Then, to her relief, he merely took photographs of her with a flashbulb camera. At the end of the session, the masked man walked out of the bedroom, and a few minutes later, Jerry Brudos rushed in, claiming that the masked intruder had locked him in the barn. The girl knew he was lying, but there was nothing she could do about it.

  In April 1956, Brudos invited a 17-year-old girl for a ride in his car. On a deserted highway, he dragged her from the car, beat her up, and ordered her to strip. A passing couple heard her screams, and rescued her.

  A psychiatrist determined that he was sane and had no violent tendencies. Back in his home, police found a large box of women’s underwear and shoes. They sent him to the Oregon State Hospital for observation, and he was released after nine months.

  A period in the army followed, but he was discharged because of his bizarre delusions—he was convinced that a beautiful Korean girl sneaked into his bed every night to seduce him.

  Back in Salem, he attacked a young girl one night and stole her shoes. He did it again in Portland. Then, just as it looked as if nothing could stop him from turning into a rapist, he met a gentle 17-year-old named Darcie (a pseudonym) who was anxious to get away from home, and who got herself pregnant by him. Once married, she was sometimes a little puzzled by his odd demands—making her dress up in silk underwear and high-heeled shoes and pose for photographs—but assumed that most men were like this.
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  While his wife was in the hospital having a baby, Brudos followed a girl who was wearing pretty shoes. When he broke into her room that night, she woke up, and he choked her unconscious. Then, unable to resist, he raped her. He left her apartment carrying her shoes.

  He was now a time bomb, waiting for another opportunity to explode. It happened when an encyclopaedia saleswoman knocked on his door one winter evening...

  Because he pleaded guilty to four counts of murder, he was sentenced without a trial to life imprisonment.

  The desire for a living toy was carried to an absurd extreme when Cameron Hooker, a bespectacled, mild-looking timber worker, kidnapped a hitchhiker and kept her in a box for seven years. No case better illustrates Hazelwood’s comment that sex crime is not about sex, but about power.

  On 19 May 1977, a 20-year-old young woman named Colleen Stan was hitchhiking from Eugene, Oregon, to Westwood, in Northern California when she was offered a lift by a young couple with a baby. When they suggested turning off the main road to look at some ice caves, she raised no objection. In a lonely place the man placed a knife to her throat, handcuffed her, and then confined her head into a peculiar boxlike contraption that left her in total darkness. Hours later, he took her into the cellar of a house, stripped her, suspended her from the ceiling with leather straps, and whipped her. Then the couple had sex under her feet. After that, the head-box was clamped on again and she was placed in a larger wooden box, about three feet high, for the night.

  The next day she was chained by her ankles to a rack, and given food. When she showed no appetite, he hung her from the beam again and whipped her until she was unconscious. Later the man made her use a bedpan, which he himself emptied. Again she was locked up in the box.

  This went on for weeks. When she became dirty and unkempt, he made her climb into the bath. He raised her knees and held her head under water until she began to choke. He did this over and over again, taking snapshots of the naked, choking girl in between. After that, her female jailer tried to comb her hair, then gave up and snipped off the knots and tangles with scissors.

  Cameron Hooker had been born in 1953. He was a shy, skinny boy who had no close friends. When he left school he went to work as a labourer in a local lumber mill. His only reading was pornography, particularly the kind that dealt with flagellation and bondage. His daydream was to flog nude women who were tied with leather straps. When he was 19, he met a plain, shy 15-year-old named Janice. She was delighted and grateful to be asked out by this quiet, polite youth who drove his own car and treated her with respect. So far she had fallen in love with boys who had ignored her or treated her badly. Cameron was marvellously different. When he explained that he wanted to take her into the woods and hang her up from a tree, she was frightened but compliant. It hurt her wrists, but he was so affectionate when he took her down that she felt it was worth it. In 1975 they married, and she continued to submit to strange demands, which included tying her up, making her wear a rubber gas mask, and choking her until she became unconscious. Finally, he told her of his dream of kidnapping a young woman and using her as his ‘slave’. Eventually, she agreed. She wanted a baby, and longed to live a normal life; perhaps if Cameron had a ‘slave’, he would stop wanting to whip and choke her. That is how it came about that Colleen Stan was kidnapped, and taken to their basement in Oak Street, Red Bluff, where she was to spend the next seven years.

  After a month or so, Janice felt she could no longer stand it. The idea of holding someone captive sickened her. What was worse was that the captive was an attractive young woman. Even though her husband had agreed that there would be no sex between him and his ‘slave’, it was obvious that he was deriving from Colleen the same sexual satisfaction that he derived from tying her up. Janice decided to weaken the ties with her husband. She went to stay with a sister, and found herself a job in Silicon Valley. She returned every weekend, but this brought about the situation she had been trying to avoid. Left alone with his ‘slave’ for the whole week, Cameron gave way to temptation. He forced Colleen to perform oral sex on him, reasoning that he was not going back on his bargain so long as there was no vaginal intercourse. He also burned her with a heat lamp, administered electric shocks, and choked her until she blacked out. Six months after the kidnap, he started giving her small tasks, such as shelling walnuts or doing crochet. The Hookers sold the results of her labours in the local flea market.

  In January 1981, Hooker discovered an article in an underground newspaper about a company of white slavers who made girls sign a slavery contract, and decided that Colleen should do the same. And on 25 January Colleen was made to sign a long document declaring that she handed herself over, body and soul, to her Master, Michael Powers (alias Cameron Hooker), but her true owner was a company affiliated to the Mafia. She was to agree never to wear panties, and always to sit with her legs open. She was told that her new name was Kay Powers.

  Now she was allowed to come upstairs and help with household chores, but if Cameron came in and shouted Attention,’ she had to strip off her clothes and stand on tiptoe with her hands above her head. Soon after this, Janice herself suggested to her husband that he should have sex with his slave. Perhaps she was hoping that he would cite his original agreement and refuse; in fact, he promptly brought Colleen up from the basement, spread-eagled her naked on the bed, with a gag in her mouth and her wrists and ankles tied to the corners, and then raped her. Janice, meanwhile, rushed off to vomit.

  The Hookers decided to move to a more secluded place. He bought a trailer on some land beyond the city limits, and underneath a large waterbed, constructed a kind of rabbit hutch, which was to be Colleen’s home. Colleen was moved in—blindfolded and handcuffed—one afternoon, and immediately confined in her new quarters.

  Now life became a little freer. She was let out for an hour or so every day to perform her ablutions and help with the chores. She made no attempt to escape—Hooker had told her all kinds of horror stories about what happened to ‘Company’ slaves who tried to run away: having their fingers chopped off one by one was the least of them. To remind her that she was his slave he periodically hung her from the ceiling and flogged her with a whip. He also burned her breasts with lighted matches.

  There were compensations. In the autumn, Hooker went up into the mountains to cut wood on the land of the company that employed him; he took his slave with him. He made her work; he also made her swim in a pond and run along a dirt road. When she was ‘disobedient’, he tied her down on a kind of mediaeval rack and ‘stretched’ her. This excited him so much that he stripped naked and made her perform oral sex. On another occasion he raped her on the ‘rack’. Janice was not told of these sexual episodes. Soon after this, the slave was made to drink most of a bottle of wine, then perform oral sex on Janice; it made her sick.

  Early in 1980, after nearly three years of captivity, Colleen was allowed an amazing excursion. She was permitted to dress up in some of Janice’s clothes, make up her face, and accompany Janice to a dance. There they met two men and went home with them. Janice vanished into the bedroom with one of them, while Colleen stayed talking to the other. Cameron apparently suspected nothing, and his wife’s liaison continued for the next two months, until it fizzled out. After that, Janice, still unsuspected, had another short affair.

  Colleen was also allowed more freedom—she was allowed to go out and jog on her own. Incredibly, she still made no attempt to escape

  —Hooker had brainwashed her into seeing herself as a well-behaved and loyal slave. As a reward for obedience, she was allowed to write to her sister—without, of course, including a return address—and even, on one occasion, to telephone her family, with Hooker standing beside her monitoring everything she said. She told them she was living with a couple who were ‘looking after her’. When they wanted to know more, her Master made her hang up. Soon after that he took her on a visit to his own family, on their ranch outside town. This passed off so well that he decided to take the ultim
ate risk, and allow her to go and see her own parents, who lived in Riverside, California. In March 1981, he drove her to Sacramento, and ordered her to wait in the car while he went into an office block that belonged to the sinister Company who owned her. When he came back, he told her they had granted permission to visit her family. The visit to Riverside was brief, but went off perfectly. Hooker was introduced as her fiance Mike, who was on his way to a computer seminar. Colleen Stan spent the night in her father’s home, and then visited her mother—who lived elsewhere—without divulging where she had been for four years, or why she had failed to keep in touch. The following day, her Master rang her and announced that he would be arriving in ten minutes to take her home. Colleen was upset that Hooker had broken his promise to allow her to spend a full weekend with her family, and sulked all the way back to Red Bluff. When they got back, the Master decided that enough was enough. The slave’s period of liberty came to an end, and she was put back into the box.

  This period lasted another three years, from 1981 until 1984. The relationship between Hooker and his wife was becoming increasingly tense—she disliked being tied up and whipped. At one point she left him for a few days and went to stay with her brother. When she came back, she and Cameron had a long, honest talk; she confessed about her two early affairs—her husband seemed indifferent—while he admitted that he had been having sex with Colleen. (This deeply upset Janice.) Then, in an attempt to repair their marriage, they began reading the Bible together. Colleen had already found refuge in the religion of her childhood, and now she joined in the prayer sessions. Cameron, meanwhile, worked on a kind of underground bunker that would be a dungeon for the slave. It was completed in November 1983, and Colleen was installed inside. When the winter rains came, however, the dungeon began to fill with water, and they had to take her out again and let her back indoors.