by April Smith
She moved away and found some tissues, and we each sat rigid in a denim beanbag chair. She wheezed quietly. I sat. With this child who was not my child. In the big house north of Montana, in the generous room with the sheer white curtains—and computer and clothes, boom box and stuffed animals—and the purple light encompassed us. We were alone together in a cone of purple light.
“What is this?”
I held a get-well card signed with smiley faces, twenty names.
“From the swim team.”
“I swim, too.”
Neighbors had been leaving things, her mother told me: a flat of strawberries by the front door.
“There is good out there,” I reminded her.
“Why did this happen? I keep asking the therapist.”
“What does she say?”
Juliana’s eyes lowered. “That it’s not my fault.”
I looked up at the dense foliage of a tree outside the window. I could see it was an avocado. The fruit would fall into the narrow space between the houses.
“The man who raped you was acting out his own scenario of power and control. It was all about him. He was brutal, overpowering, clever and deeply driven to do what he did. There’s no way you could have stopped him, he had it all planned out. You survived. Because you know something, Juliana? You have a sense of yourself. You’ve been through an experience your friends cannot ever conceive of.”
“That’s not right.”
“What isn’t right?”
“Ray wasn’t like that.”
She said his name.
Eleven.
I expected everyone to feel the urgency I felt, the surge of momentum that comes with a major break. There would be eager questions, and relief that someone like me, 110 percent committed, was in charge. Andrew and his lieutenant would be there, pumped. Galloway and his ASACs. I was ready for us to bear down and get this guy.
I did not expect to be ambushed.
The briefing was held in our state-of-the-art emergency operations facility. A row of clocks reported the time from the Pacific to the Zulu zone. There were banks of computers, TV screens, a radio console and one-way glass through which the proceedings could be observed. A situation board ran across the front of the low-ceilinged room, a row of chairs before it, facing the troops. It was from those chairs on that platform that Rick and I would address the investigative team.
By 8 a.m., fifty agents and support personnel were grouped around the urns of coffee and cafeteria doughnuts that had been placed on the window ledge, talking shop. To the south, beach cities and teeming flats were bleached by the bandit sun like an overlit transparency. The hot cityscape seemed to leap up and attack. It hurt your eyes, even through the tinted glass.
Everyone wore sport coats or dresses; I had on the slim black pantsuit. Andrew strolled by, unshaven, the open leather jacket over a midnight blue cowboy shirt, faded jeans and boots, wearing his resentment like the shield on his belt. Nobody but Barbara knew we were going out, but I felt embarrassed where I wanted to be proud. He’d looked pretty sharp for the briefing on his turf.
“Where’ve you been?”
“Caught a homicide.”
“Isn’t this your most important case?”
“Nothing’s more important,” Andrew agreed, deadpan.
“I’ve been trying to call you.”
“I called you back,” he said.
“Once.”
We broke it off as Lieutenant Barry Loomis came over and Andrew formally introduced me for a second time to his boss, whom you also could not miss in a room of clean-shaven straight guys—he’d be the one with the thick brush mustache and Tasmanian devil tie.
“Go get ’em,” Barry urged, as if I were some kid in Little League.
Rick and I took our seats, looking out at rows of attentive faces. Andrew, center section, gave me a lazy thumbs-up, chuckled at something Barry said. Galloway, wearing a snowy white turtleneck and holding a dead cigar, was reading from a sheaf of papers on his knee.
Projected on a screen above the platform was a yellowy composite drawing, gleaned from Juliana Meyer-Murphy, of “Ray.” It didn’t tell much: Caucasian, narrow eyes and high cheekbones, thick-necked, short matted hair. Suddenly I felt loose and coasting. After sitting with Juliana on the rose-colored carpet, writing at warp speed, I had been up until two in the morning integrating what she had been able to tell me about the assault and creating a profile of the offender, deep into the marrow of a violent sexual deviant. It seemed insane to be sitting here dressed for lunch, making eyes at my boyfriend in the third row.
“But yesterday, Special Agent Grey was able to obtain the victim’s narrative, included in your packet,” Rick was saying, “which you might want to take a moment to read. Would this be a good time, Ana?”
FD-823 (Rev. 8-26-97)
RAPID START
INFORMATION CONTROL
Case ID: 446-702-9977 The Santa Monica Kidnapping
Control Number: 5231 Priority: Immediate
Classification: Sensitive Source: Juliana Meyer-Murphy (Victim)
Event time: 2:00 PM
Method of contact: Interview in victim’s home
Prepared by: Grey, Ana Component/Agency: Kidnap and extortion squad, FBI
Event narrative:
“The first time I met Ray was on the Promenade. I went there to get jeans. I was waiting for my mom to pick me up near Wilshire and some skaters were grinding on the fountain and this guy was taking pictures. He was older. He looked regular except he had kind of long bleached hair like a rock star and he had a professional camera, so I thought he was from a skateboard magazine. They’re always shooting commercials and TV shows on the Promenade. I didn’t think about it.”
The offender was described as being in his late twenties, about six feet tall, long legs but muscular torso, possibly a weight lifter. The victim is five feet, 110 pounds. She is very young in appearance, and it is possible the offender thought she was even younger than fifteen. She described him as wearing a black sweatshirt, baggy nylon pants and boots that were shined. (See lab report: shoe print on victim’s back.)
“He asked me if it was all right to take my picture and I said, ‘What’s it for?’ And he said, ‘I just like taking pictures of pretty girls,’ which I knew was a line so I said something like, ‘Yeah, right,’ and he apologized if he offended me and went back to the skaters and told them they’d better chill before they got a ticket. ‘They bust you for skateboarding but murderers go free,’ he said. ‘Cops are idiots.’ He lit up a cigarette and told me I should never start because smoking could kill you. He said the cops were a lot cooler in England. He started telling me about London, he used to work for an English newspaper and took pictures of Sting, and I went, ‘Is that where you got that haircut?’ and he goes, ‘Yes.’ But then I started feeling nervous in case my mom saw me talking to him, so I said I had to go and walked up to Fourth Street.”
The victim estimated she encountered the offender on the Promenade three or four times over the next few weeks. Once he was feeding the pigeons. Once he was photographing a homeless man. They would have casual conversations. “I like your sunglasses,” he told her one day. “Where’d you get them?” She named the shop and he said he knew the owner. He said he could get her a deal. He never came on to her, he did not ask her name, but she felt he was her special friend, an older person who was accepting and happy to see her while she was experiencing exclusion at her new school.
On Thursday, the 23rd, the victim had gone to a commercial venue on the Promenade called Crystal Dreams, a New Age–type store, desperately looking to buy marijuana to impress the “in crowd” at school. She was rebuffed by the owner, who claims to be “antidrugs,” and felt humiliated. As she exited the store she saw the offender sitting outside on a bench. His appearance had changed. He had cut off the long hair and was sporting a buzz cut. Despite this rough-and-tumble appearance, he seemed concerned that she not put her backpack on the ground.
The photos were not of the victim but of girls like her. Close in age, medium in stature, long hair, white. She reported that the shots looked professional, taken in parks or on the beach or posed with cars. All the subjects were clothed.
“He told me he’d seen a lot of girls and picked me out of the crowd right away. He said I could become a model, like the girls in the pictures. I shouldn’t even think about the kids in school. ‘They’re not fit to carry your purse.’ They were jealous of my talent. He used the word ‘talent.’ I was feeling better. He said he had pictures of me in the van. I said, ‘No way!’ He said yeah, he’d taken some candids and they really turned out great. The van was in a parking structure half a block away. I took my backpack and went with him. It didn’t seem like a big deal.”
The van was parked on the roof of parking structure number five. It was older, dark green, rear double doors. The victim was not able to identify the make. Most of the parking spaces were empty and there were no other pedestrians visible.
“I felt weird being alone up there with him. I was hoping someone would come out of the elevator, but I told myself that was stupid, just a reflex that gets drummed into your head. He was very polite. He went around to the driver’s side and unlocked the doors, and I climbed in on the passenger side. There was a camera bag on the front seat, so I put it on the floor.
“As soon as I was inside his whole thing changed. He yelled at me to get in the back. He scared the crap out of me just with his voice. I tried to open the door, but it was locked. Then he took out a gun. I never saw a real gun. I think I went into shock. He said, ‘Give me your money.’ I couldn’t open the zippers on the backpack fast enough, and he started screaming at me to hurry up. I started opening my wallet, the change spilled all over. ‘How much do you have?’ I said about ten dollars and my mother’s credit card for emergencies. He stuffed everything into the place where you put the CDs. He had a bunch of junk in there. Some wire, a roll of duct tape, some loose bullets and about three knives. I was totally freaked when I saw that stuff.
“He told me again to get into the back. I guess I expected some artsy thing since he was a photographer, but inside there were filthy mattresses on the floor and the windows were covered with black paper and there was like fishnet hanging. I was really, really scared. He had the gun to my head. I was crying. He said, ‘I’m going to kill you. If you do as I say, I’ll let you choose which way you die.’ I said, ‘Please don’t, please don’t,’ and said I could get a lot of money for him, but he said, ‘Take off your clothes.’ I took off my sweatshirt. I had to pull it up over my eyes, and I was sure he was going to shoot me. But then I could see him again, and he was right there looking at me, but it was like his face was a mask. He made me take off my T-shirt. I don’t wear a bra, so he started feeling my breasts. It was disgusting and it hurt. Then he told me to put my hands out, and I did, and he put these handcuffs on me and that was the worst. I felt like I was a slave. He said if I made any noise he’d kill me. He pushed me down on my back and knelt over me and unzipped his pants. I kept crying and saying, ‘Please don’t hurt me,’ but he sat on my chest, put his penis in my mouth, and I couldn’t breathe.”
The offender was not able to get an erection.
“His filthy underwear was in my face. He said, ‘Are you a virgin?’ and I couldn’t answer so he’d grab my hair and make my head nod and he said, ‘You’re not a virgin. You’ve done this before. You love it. You’re good at it. You love it. Does this do it for you?’ and make my head nod like I was a doll. He was heavy, and I couldn’t breathe, and it went on and on. I could not believe this was happening on the roof of the parking structure. I thought I would never get out of that van alive. It was worse than a nightmare. He kept telling me what to do, like, ‘Suck on it,’ over and over and making my head nod, or banging it against the floor, and this went on and on until finally he, I guess you’d say, ejaculated down my throat and all over my face, and I started heaving like I was going to throw up and he got off me and said, ‘Spit,’ and I spit into a filthy rag, a rag you’d wipe the engine of a car with, then he rubbed it into my face and all over my breasts. I thought at least it was over, I was coughing, but then all of a sudden he put this thing, they said it was a chain, around my neck and strangled me until I almost blacked out. He did that over and over again. It was like he held me underwater. I tried to fight, but he was too strong. All I could say was, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ Finally he told me to sit up and quit crying. ‘You’re my woman now,’ he said, which struck me as so stupid I started to laugh. ‘You think that’s funny?’ he said, but he was smiling. He tucked in his shirt, and it seemed to take a long time. He fussed until the buttons of the shirt were lined up with the buckle on his pants. Then he pulled a cooler out of the netting and I thought, Oh my God, what does he have in there? but it was only sodas and sandwiches. ‘Want a Coke?’ he asked like a normal person, the person he was like on the bench. While he was busy getting it, I was looking around to escape. I remembered hearing you should never, never get into a car with them, and I knew if we drove away he’d definitely kill me. I thought if I could get to the back doors fast I could jump out, even with the handcuffs, before he turned around, but then he turned around. I was still naked on top, but also smeared with oil from the rag and disgusting stuff all over me. I felt totally filthy and degraded, but I wanted to live; so I decided to do whatever he said and try to be nice to him. I made up my mind about that. He wouldn’t let me hold the Coke. He fed it to me until I drank it all. Then he said, ‘Lie down and die.’ I felt really drunk and passed out.”
After a few minutes of silence there was body movement and a couple of sighs of disgust. Handcuffs were brought out and fiddled with.
“We believe he drugged her with Rohypnol or GHB,” I told the team. “She doesn’t remember much of the rest of the assault, but we have forensic evidence—the lab report is also in your packet—that gives an emerging picture of the scenario. The big question now is, where?”
“How about who?” cracked Andrew to a couple of guffaws.
I smiled. “Hopefully this guy,” pointing to the composite.
“We are fortunate the victim was taken to a rape treatment center where the evidence was collected in a correct and timely manner and the victim was given compassionate care,” added Rick. “We all know horror stories of mishandling of evidence. For reference, see the sexual assault victim questionnaire put out by the NCAVC.”
Rick, I noted, was a bit of a professor.
“Ana’s going to profile the suspect, then we’ll talk about assignments based on new evidence. She’s been up day and night on this case so I think we owe her our thanks.”
Desultory applause.
I stood, notes in hand.
“We’re looking at a power-assertive serial rapist. A man whose issues revolve around being seen as masculine. He wants people looking at him. He takes care of his body. He’s finicky about it. He doesn’t like dirt. These attacks are out of anger.
“I characterize him as a serial rapist because even if we didn’t have these hits on VICAP, which may connect him to assaults in Washington, DC, Florida and Texas, statistically there is a good possibility he has raped before. His MO shows there was a definite routine to this attack. He uses a con approach to gain trust. He dresses the part, not like a tourist. He can maybe convince a child h
e’s a big-deal photographer, but this guy’s just blowing smoke. Once he has the victim under his control, he has no feeling or concern for her. She becomes something nonliving, a doll, as Juliana described.”
The faces were interested. Kelsey Owen was taking notes.
“Our friend Ray has elaborate fantasies of domination, which he acts out like a script. Everything has to go according to this preconceived plan. Clearly, the kidnapping and rape were well thought out. He had the van outfitted for the crime. He had his rape kit, the handcuffs and wire. He buzzed his hair. I believe he was stalking the victim, creating chance encounters, waiting for the right time. The probability is high that when we catch this guy we will find a cache of pornography or detective magazines that reinforce his fantasies. As we know, fantasies are perfect, life is not. It’s likely he will do it again and again until, in his mind, he gets it right.