by phuc
Father Glowacz paused, his mind racing on how to proceed, then plunged on. “Of course I would have stopped him. If I had only known what was happening I would have been the first to put a stop to it. But I didn't tell that to the reporter. I almost did, but I couldn't. It would merely lead to him having an opening into what I considered a beautiful thing; my relationship with my mother and brother Charley. He would taint that, corrupt it. I wouldn't let him in that place, so I told him nothing. He moved aside and I inserted the key in the door and said I had no comment, that I really couldn't comment on this because the whole thing was still upsetting to me, and by then I was almost crying. And he saw that I was becoming emotional and something in him changed; he became less arrogant, less aggressive. He moved aside and I stepped into the house and closed the door. And then I retreated to the bathroom, shut the door and cried my eyes out."
He looked up at Father O'Grady, eyes red but dry from the last four days of mourning. “Frankly, James, I am devastated over this whole thing. It's bad enough to lose your mother, but to lose her in such a horrible manner.... “He shuddered, head down. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hands. “And to have him charged with my mother's murder, and have the authorities accuse him of the Eastside Butcher murders. I mean ... I was utterly shocked when they found those bodies in the freezer ... or what was left of them.” The rest of it came in hitching sobs. “It was such a shock ... to think that my brother ... the man I had looked up to when I was a kid growing up ... the man that took care of me, kept me from the wrath of our drunken father ... to think that this could happen to him!” He broke down in an uncontrollable fit of sobbing.
Father James O'Grady sat behind his desk for a moment as if unsure whether to rise and comfort the younger priest, or maintain some semblance of authority and guidance. He was just beginning to shift his chair backward to rise when John Glowacz raised his hand. “It's okay, James. I've been bawling so much lately that I seem to have run out of tears.” He looked up, offering James a half-hearted attempt at a smile.
Father O'Grady reached for the box of Kleenex that was on his desk and handed it to John, who accepted it thankfully. After the young priest had wiped his eyes and blew his nose, Father O'Grady leaned forward, his fingers steepled on the desk. “John, again, please accept my heartfelt condolences for ... the loss of your family."
“Thank you,” John Glowacz said, dabbing at his eyes with the Kleenex.
Father O'Grady spoke slowly, as if choosing his words carefully. “I will submit your request to the council along with my recommendation that you be transferred to another parish. If you have a particular choice where you would like to be transferred, I would like to know as soon as possible so I could include that in your request. I agree that what you have to go through, the emotional as well as the ... psychological trauma, is too intense for you to remain at your parish. You've done such good work at Our Lady that it is hard for me to accept your request, but I will do so because you mean so much to me as a priest and as a person.” He smiled at the younger priest. “There is much good work ahead in store for you, Father Glowacz. Despite what happened in the East Los Angeles area and the murders, the good work you have done to help build that community up before and during the murders, is commendable. When you were parish priest at Our Lady of Guadalupe, gang murders fell by thirty percent. They were on a fifty percent decrease when the murders started, and if you hadn't been stationed at that particular section of the city I'm afraid we would have had an all out war in the area.” He paused, letting his words sink in. John was only too familiar with what the older man was talking about. He nodded, agreeing with everything Father O'Grady said.
“During the time of crisis you held your parish together like glue,” Father O'Grady continued. “You soothed the spirits of those whose loved ones had been killed, as well as those who fell to the resulting gang violence. You worked harder with your counselors to reach out to the youth of the community, to urge them to drop their weapons and take an active part in their community. Your ministry brought more gang members to Christ than any I can remember. You raised money to help some of the young gang members to open a legitimate business, which is doing very well and is expanding. I have no doubt that you will duplicate these goals and more where ever you go."
Father John Glowacz smiled. It felt good to be recognized for the good contributions he had given to the community. He knew very well that without the guidance of the Lord it wouldn't have been possible. “Thank you, James,” he said. “That really means a lot to me. It really does. God knows I want to stay but...” He took a deep breath and looked down at the floor, struggling to keep his emotions in check. “But it's hard,” he said, his voice cracking, hovering on the brink of breaking down again. “It's so hard."
“I know, my son.” Father James O'Grady rose from his chair and walked around the desk to comfort the younger man. He put a fatherly arm around the young priest's shoulders and for a moment the two men awkwardly embraced, John Glowacz still sitting in his chair, his head resting against Father O'Grady's belly while the older man stooped over him, his arms around his shoulders. “Have you seen anybody? I know a good psychiatrist that could help you."
Father Glowacz shook his head. “Thank you, James, but I've already set up an appointment with somebody. I see him tomorrow."
“Good.” Father O'Grady patted John on the back and went back to his chair behind the desk. “If there is anything else I can do for you, just give me the word. I mean that, John."
“I know,” Father Glowacz said, looking up at James with a look of gratitude.
“Thank you."
Father O'Grady sighed and set his hands down on his desk. “Well, I guess first things first. How soon do you want to be transferred and did you have any place in mind?"
And as Father John Glowacz thought about that question and answered it to the best of his ability, it seemed that even though he still hadn't faced up to the source of his problems, today he had taken the first step in ending the hurt and the pain that had been plaguing him for ages. He would work at it; he promised himself. He would do so through the act of confession.
God give him the strength to go through with it and give up the burden of his sin.
Chapter 31
The week of Charley Glowacz's suicide was turmultous for both Daryl Garcia and Rachael Pearce. Daryl launched into his investigation full tilt, often staying at the station for sixteen and seventeen hours a day while the various members of the task force collected data on Charley Glowacz. It was exhaustive, time consuming work, but within a few days they had enough to sufficiently pin Charley Glowacz to all eighteen of the Eastside Butcher murders, the crimes in South Bend, Indiana included. For Daryl that meant the world. It meant that the case could be officially closed, their suspect identified, caught and stopped by his own hand. They might not have gotten a solid confession or found out what drove Charley Glowacz to the grisly murders, but the evidence he left behind was enough for the forensic psychiatrists to paint a ghastly picture.
Daryl got the opportunity to discuss it one evening two weeks after Charley's suicide, in the office of Bernie Haskins. They had spent the evening with the forensic psychiatrist, a bespectacled man named Eric Donahue, and a grizzled, lumbering man with long scraggly blonde hair and a beard who was a criminal psychiatrist, the best in the field. His name was Edward Cooper. Rachael had stopped by the office on her way home from work, and she had been lucky enough to sit in on the conversation.
“You know, even though we couldn't prove it in court,” Daryl said after introducing Rachael to the two psychiatrists, “I am one hundred percent sure that Charley Glowacz was the Butcher."
Rachael nodded. “I agree.” She was leaning against the frosted pane glass of the windows that looked out at the Homicide Department.
“I'm also glad that Father Glowacz was able to hightail it out of here before the press descended on him like wolves,” Bernie said, leaning back in his chair. The two
psychiatrists were sitting in chairs in front of the FBI Agent's desk.
“I know,” Rachael said, shaking her head. “That poor man. I did all I could to not have anything to do with the press finding out about him. I even tried to get the people I worked with at the paper to ease off the guy, but no go. I guess now you can understand why this book deal means so much to me."
Daryl smiled. The day after Charley killed himself, Rachael's agent had landed a six-figure deal for the book she was working on, hardcover rights only. Negotiations were still underway for a paperback deal, and her agent had put her in touch with a film agent in Hollywood for possible option of the book for development as a feature. The first installment of the advance would allow Rachael to quit her job as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. She was fairly confident that she could find appropriate subjects for future true-crime books.
In the week or so since the story broke, the case of Charley Glowacz had exploded in the media. His mug shot and various snap shots from different sources appeared on the cover of People, Time, and Newsweek. The supermarket tabloids were running banner press headlines: Did the Los Angeles Butcher eat parts of his mother after he killed her?
Find out what was found inside the freezer of a former Los Angeles altar boy! Rachael told Daryl that she was aware of at least one paperback exploiting the crimes of the Eastside Butcher in the works besides her own, a sensationalistic affair culled from AP
news sources . Others were sure to follow until Rachael Pearce's definitive tome. The name Charley Glowacz was already becoming as recognizable as Jeffrey Dahmer in the annals of serial killer crime.
“Dr. Cooper, I've really got to commend you for hitting the nail right on the head,”
Daryl said. He was leaning against a bookshelf. “You know, about Charley's virginity.
His mother fixation."
“I don't think I've heard this yet,” Rachael said, looking amazed. “Why don't you share some of that knowledge."
Dr. Cooper grinned. He was the sort of man you might expect to see at a Hell's Angel rally rather than presiding over the official psychiatric analysis of a vicious serial killer. Daryl liked the big, burly man the minute they met. “No problem, Miss Pearce.
We're just really getting started."
Dr. Edward Cooper's deductions, supported by Dr. Eric Donahue, was that Charley's upbringing in a physically violent, as well as psychologically abusive home, was what formed his views of sex, religion, and society. As the only child for the first five years of his life, he bore the brunt of his parent's hardships; victim of and witness to his father's alcoholic outbursts against mother and son, combined with both parent's strong religious beliefs set a deeply rooted seed in him, one that took form early on. As Father John Glowacz testified to Dr. Cooper yesterday after he'd resigned from his position at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic church, by the time the priest was born the bad times were in full swing. Charley had to take care of both himself, his mother, and a younger brother and keep them away from a father who had mood swings that were unpredictable.
“Mental illnesses like the kind Father Glowacz described is sometimes hereditary,” Dr.
Cooper explained. “Sometimes it can skip a generation. We generally deem people like this as sociopathic, people that are unable to feel empathy for others. Sociopathic behavior combined with what Father Glowacz described in his father—the physical abuse, the religious rants—is termed violent schizoid personality behavior, which is aggravated by chronic alcoholism. In the elder Glowacz's case he may have been feeling inadequate for not being able to provide for his family, feeling that God was punishing him for this sin, and since God was punishing him then he would punish his family as well. Weaving this in with the Catholic church's infamous teachings on sex is ... well, enough for anybody whose mind is a loose cannon to completely lose it."
Dr. Eric Donahue chimed in about Charley Glowacz's early childhood, all recounted by Father Glowacz. “Charley had been taken away from his mother once when he was three months old by social workers when their father beat their mother so badly that she landed in the hospital. For the next two years he was in and out of the home, shuttling back and forth to different relatives on his mother's side of the family and to foster homes. It wasn't until their father briefly stopped drinking, when Charley was around four or five, that there was some kind of stability within the family. By then John was about a year old, and had been removed from the home as well. But by then it was already too late for Charley,” Dr. Donahue had said, nodding at his colleague. “The bonding process had been interrupted. Nearly all serial killers that have been profiled by the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit have come from similar backgrounds, where they were abandoned by their mothers or raised in extremely dysfunctional homes. The extreme religious hysteria that went on in that house surely didn't help, either."
“Father Glowacz grew up under the same conditions and he didn't turn out that way,” Bernie pointed out from behind his desk. Rachael frowned, her features serious and contemplative as Bernie went on. “Lots of other people grow up under similar circumstances and manage to not cut people up and make them into meat pies. Why Charley?"
Dr. Cooper nodded and looked at each of them, a questioning look in his burly features. “Why Charley, indeed. That's something we may never know."
The extreme religious hysteria had been described accurately by Father Glowacz, who obviously would have taken great offense if he had been sitting in on this discussion.
Once she had her family back, Evelyn Glowacz had become a devout churchgoer. Her husband, Lawrence, also became briefly enamoured by the trappings of the church. It gave him an opportunity to continue on his destructive path and feel no guilt. Work all day, go home and yell at the wife and kids for awhile, maybe slap them around a little bit, go out drinking and whoring with the boys late at night, stumble home drunk and pass out. Maybe beat the wife and kids again when he got home. And accelerate the behavior on the weekend. And then when Sunday mass rolled around, pack up the family and head off to church, plop yourself in the confession booth and spill the beans on all the sins you had committed and receive penance, thus absolving you of your sins and guaranteeing your seat in heaven next to Jesus Christ. And then start the whole thing over again come Monday.
By the time John Glowacz was five years old this behavior was already in full swing. It would continue for the next three years, with Lawrence Glowacz's drinking and abusive behavior becoming more violent. Evelyn suffered through it because as a Catholic she was taught that she must not only obey and honor her husband, but that to divorce him would be a major sin in the eyes of God. So she had stayed with him until finally Lawrence left on his own after moving the family into the house in Highland Park.
It was then that Evelyn Glowacz's religious mania grew more extreme.
“So let me see if I get this straight,” Rachael said, reiterating the summation of what had made Charley Glowacz a monster. “Lawrence Glowacz leaves the family when Charley is around thirteen. By this time Charley has been a victim of, and bore witness to, his father's brutality. He is also the victim of his mother's extreme religious views. John Glowacz told us that his mother forbid him to even have friends that were of the opposite sex for fear that he would be tempted into having lustful thoughts.” She had pulled out a notebook during the conversation and jotted down brief notes. “How anybody can put such demands on their children is disgusting."
“I agree,” Dr. Cooper said. “Evelyn Glowacz's mental aberrations were no doubt worse then we all thought. And it continued on well into adulthood. She used to chastise Charley constantly about women at church, mocking him, belittling him. And then there was her tenant, that woman who lived in the back house."
“Ah, yes. Father Glowacz's old girlfriend,” Bernie said, trading a glance at Daryl.
“Right.” Dr. Cooper turned to Daryl. “Any developments on that end?"
Daryl shook his head. “None. We found out that she attended the Universi
ty of Indiana and is from Gardena, California, which is pretty weird.” He glanced at Rachael.
“That really struck me as hitting a little too close to home. Both Rachael and I are from the South Bay area."
“Yes, that is an odd coincidence,” Dr. Donahue said.
“Anyway,” Daryl continued, turning back to the psychiatrists. “We haven't been successful in locating Stacy Temple.. There were no official records she had even lived in the back house at the Glowacz residence, since no formal rental agreement had been entered between the parties. Evelyn never registered with the city as a landlord.