Talking with Serial Killers

by Christopher Berry-Dee

  * * *

  Known for disarming suspects, using his boyish smile and supportive manner, State Police Detective Mike Malchik has used his investigative skills to crack even the toughest of homicide enquiries, including 40 or more which were considered ‘unsolvable’ by his colleagues. A legendry figure in Connecticut, the fair, blue-eyed cop often worked alone and unpaid on these jobs, such was his dedication to law enforcement. The case of Wendy Baribeault was no exception.

  Mike had already found solid links between the murders of Debra Taylor and Tammy Williams, and when he placed Robin Stavinsky and Wendy Baribeault into the equation, he knew he was looking for a sexual psychopath and serial killer who would not stop murdering until he was arrested and brought to justice.

  Mike Malchik’s experience in homicide cases was such that he did not need to consult the FBI for advice, but, to confirm his belief, he spoke to a colleague at the National Centre for the Analysis of Violent Crime in Quantico, Virginia. Malchik already knew what type of suspect he was looking for. He would be a young, dark-haired Caucasian male in his late twenties or early thirties. He would be of the ‘white-collar’ type, who worked in Norwich yet lived further south, and this man would frequently travel along Route 12 between his place of work and his home. Griswold was a good bet for the suspect’s locus and now there was the extra bonus of knowing that the man drove a blue, foreign make of sedan car.

  Using what Mike calls ‘basic common sense’, he reasoned that whoever had murdered Wendy Baribeault would want to flee the crime scene and get home as quickly as possible, so he reasoned that his target was a local man. He called the Vehicle Licensing Department and asked them for a print-out of all vehicles, and their owners, in the locality. For this service, the VLD charged the police department $12, which proved to be a cheap investigative tool. When the list rolled out of his fax machine, Malchik started looking for a blue, foreign make of car. At number 27 on the list was the vehicle owned by one Michael Bruce Ross who lived in Jewett City.

  Ross seemed intrigued when Malchik arrived on his doorstep on Thursday, 28 June, to question him. He invited the detective in for a cup of coffee and enjoyed the attention of the police. For his part, Mike actually felt that the personable young Ross could not have been a serial killer. As he was about to leave to rejoin his colleague, Detective Frank Griffen, outside in their car, Malchik was asked a question. Ross wondered if such a murderer would be declared insane, and escape the electric chair, if he was convicted? It was such a pointed question that it prompted Malchik to return to Ross’s sitting room.

  The sleuth knew that the description of a blue car didn’t exactly match that of Ross’s vehicle, which was parked outside. The cop was looking for a hatchback with rear wipers and, while Ross certainly had a blue Toyota, it was a sedan and had no rear wiper blades. After a few more minutes of general conversation, Malchik got up to leave, for the second time. He had only walked a few yards before a gut instinct prompted him to turn around and ask Ross a question of his own.

  In the manner of television actor, Peter Falk, acting out his role as Columbo, Mike asked, ‘What were your movements on Friday, 15 June, the day Miss Baribeault went missing?’

  Amazingly, thought Malchik, Ross immediately reeled off his movements for that day almost to the minute, with the exception of the hour encompassing 4.30pm. This was the time when witnesses had seen Wendy walking along the road, with Ross following her. Malchik thought it remarkable that anyone could recall his or her exact whereabouts, along with solid timings, two weeks after an event, so he reckoned that 15 June must have been a special day for Ross. He then asked him what he had been doing on the two days either side of this crucial date. Ross couldn’t remember a thing and the detective was stunned, for the implication was now obvious. Ross had tried to alibi himself for the day of the murder, and in doing so had proved himself too clever for his own good.

  Malchik then asked his suspect to accompany him to the nearby murder incident room, which had been set up in the Lisbon Town Hall. Ross thought that a ride in an unmarked police car would be ‘fun’, so he changed into a white, short-sleeved shirt, and dark, lightweight slacks for the ten-minute journey, the very same clothes that he had worn when he killed Wendy Baribeault.

  Once he was seated in the police interview room, Ross was soon rambling about his life to the amiable cop. By now, Malchik was privately convinced that he had a serial killer sitting in front of him. But in the bustling confines of the command post, obtaining a full confession was another matter entirely. At one point, just as Ross was about to make some serious admissions, a cleaner burst into the room and started to mop the floor. This unexpected intrusion broke the spell and Malchik had to begin coaxing his suspect again.

  Suddenly, Ross asked: ‘Mike, do you think I killed Wendy?’

  Malchik said that he believed so, and with that, Ross admitted 11 sexual assaults and 6 murders.

  Recalling that first meeting, during a subsequent prison interview, Ross said, ‘I remember the detective coming to the door. He was looking for a blue hatchback with wipers, and I didn’t have a blue hatchback. I had a blue sedan with no wipers. And, uh, he was getting ready to leave, and I told him something. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but something that made him pause. And he said he had better ask me a few more questions and then afterwards he was getting ready to go. An’ I said something else, so I guess I didn’t really want him to leave.’

  Remembering the interview with Mike Malchik, Ross explained, ‘You know, it’s not exactly the easiest thing in the world to do. You know, ‘Hello, Mr Police Officer, I killed a load of people.’ You know, it was hard for me. If you actually listened to the audiotape confessions, ah, it was very difficult for me to admit that I did it, and then I had one got out. Then, he would have to kinda get the next one out. Then I could talk about that one. Yes, it was hard at first saying I killed this one, or that one. I mean I told ’em about two they didn’t know about. I mean they didn’t even question me about them ’cos they thought they were runaways.’

  When I asked Ross why he had confessed to the murders of April Brunais and Lesley Shelley, when he hadn’t even been asked about them, the killer complained, ‘Well, the police said that there was something wrong with me, and there was a place called Whiting for insane criminals. Yeah, I fell for that one, an’ I thought I was going to get the help I needed and that’s what I wanted to hear. “Hey, you know you have got something wrong with you and we are going to do something about it cos the murders have stopped.” Yeah, Malchik said all the right things, so I thought, What the hell, and I gave ’em everything.’

  To be fair to Mike Malchik, he did honour his promise to Ross, for the murders did stop, and the law eventually did something about Ross’s problem. If possible, they would execute him.

  * * *

  Wyndham County prosecutor, Harry Gaucher, only charged Ross with the 1982 murders of Tammy Williams and Debra Smith Taylor. Whether it was because of lack of physical evidence to support the rape portion of an aggravated capital felony charge, which carried the death sentence, or Gaucher’s anxiety about losing his case at trial, he allowed Ross to plead guilty solely to murder.

  Sitting on Saturday, 13 December 1986, the trial judge sentenced Ross to two consecutive life terms. He would serve no less than 120 years behind bars. However, the murders of Wendy Baribeault, Robin Stavinsky, April Brunais and Lesley Shelly fell under the jurisdiction of a more tenacious prosecutor. New London County State’s Attorney, C Robert ‘Bulldog’ Satti, of the ‘hang-’em and whip ’em’ brigade, wanted to be the first prosecutor for decades to send a murderer to Connecticut’s electric chair.

  Satti also knew that he was up against a death penalty statute that tipped the balance in favour of life imprisonment. But the counsel stuck to his guns, for he strongly believed that if ever there was a man worthy of the chair, it had to be Michael Bruce Ross. Apart from the morality of executing a man in liberal Connecticut, there was another cos
t to consider. ‘Old Sparky’ had not been used since Joseph ‘Mad Dog’ Taborsky had been electrocuted in it on Tuesday, 17 May 1960, since which time it had fallen into disrepair. If they wanted to kill Michael Ross, the state would have to pay out at least $30,000 to make the chair serviceable, and redecorate the witness viewing area and death house suite.

  For their part, the defence attorneys had to convince a jury that Ross was not legally responsible for the crimes to which he had confessed. Making their job tougher was the fact that Ross didn’t qualify for an insanity defence. Moreover, the case had received so much pre-trial publicity that, in the summer of 1987, the venue was moved to Bridgeport, where the prosecution would argue that Ross was a rapist, a cold-blooded, calculating monster, who had planned his assaults and murdered his victims, simply to stay out of prison.

  In June 1987, after four weeks of testimony, the eight men and four women of the jury took just 87 minutes to convict Ross of capital felony murder. At the penalty phase, three weeks later, it took them under four hours to prove that Connecticut’s death sentence could be imposed. On Monday, 6 July, 20 days before his twenty-eighth birthday, Ross was condemned to death. Under Connecticut law, he would have been spared this sentence if the court had found even one redeeming factor or quality, that the jurors believed to indicate remorse or mitigation. They could not, for Ross, it seemed, did not have a conscience and didn’t give a damn.

  * * *

  Ross explained to me that he is not afraid of dying in the electric chair. He says that living is too good for him, but he is worried that, if that fateful day does arrive, he will say the wrong thing, or show weakness in the face of death. He is also afraid of something he says is worse than death.

  ‘I’ve always felt that I had to be in control of myself and, even to this day, I feel the need to be in control. What scares me the most isn’t life in prison, or the death penalty, but insanity. I’m scared of losing touch with reality. Sometimes I feel I’m slipping away and I’m losing control. If you are in control you can handle anything, but if you lose it, you are nothing.’

  When asked if he had any feelings or remorse for his crimes, he replied bluntly, ‘Nope! I don’t feel anything for them. I really wish I did. I don’t feel anything. I feel really bad for the families. I mean, I feel lots of times. Like I can see Mrs Shelley, the mother of one of them girls I killed, on the witness stand crying. And, then there’s Mrs, ah, I can’t remember her name, but I can think of another one on the stand describing her daughter. She went to the morgue and saw her at the morgue. But the girls themselves I feel nothing for, and I never have.’

  Ross then explained why he hadn’t turned himself in to the police when he started to commit his earlier offences, way back at Cornell University, when he knew he needed help.

  ‘I made myself believe that it would never happen again. And, I know it sounds hard, but looking back, I can’t understand how I did it. It was a fluke because I really didn’t do those things. Even sitting here now, I know if I was released I’d kill again. There’s no reason to think otherwise. But, I can’t, as I sit here now, picture myself wanting to do that. I can’t really see myself doing it. I mean, it’s like being on different levels.’

  When asked if he had any detailed memories of the murders, Ross chuckled, and then said, ‘Yes and no. I used to fantasise over the crimes every day and every night. I would masturbate to the point of, um, actually having raw spots on myself from the masturbation. I would bleed. It’s weird. I get a lot of pleasure from it. It is really a pleasurable experience. But, when it’s all over, it’s a very short-term thing. I guess it’s like getting high. You know I’ve never used drugs, but you can get high, then you come down and crash. That’s almost how it is. It’s just not any easy thing to live with.’

  An inevitable question was to ask him what had been going through his mind when he was raping and killing his tragic victims. His reply was, ‘Nothin”. But, after a moment’s reflection, he added, ‘That’s what’s so weird about this thing. Everybody seems to think, you know, the State’s theory that I’m a rapist and I kill them so they can’t identify me. Look, most of the time it’s broad daylight. I mean, I’m not a stupid person. As sure as hell, if I was going to do something like that, I sure as hell wouldn’t do it that way. There was nothing going through my mind until they were already dead.’

  ‘And then it was like stepping through a doorway. And, uh, I remember the very first feeling I had, was my heart beating. I mean really pounding. The second feeling I had was that my hands hurt where I always strangled them with my hands. And, the third feeling was, I guess, fear, and the kind of reality set in that there was this dead body in front of me.’

  ‘And, again, I don’t want to mislead you because I knew what was going on, but it was like a different level. I mean it was like watching it. And, after it was all over, you know, it kinds of sets in, an’ that’s when I would get frightened and stuff. I would hide the bodies and cover them up, or something.’

  Ross lives in his death row cell which is truly an ancient dungeon painted a muddy brown colour. ‘Death Row’ is stamped in white stencil on the steel door leading to the tier which houses Connecticut’s seven condemned men. On my final visit to the prison, only Ross and Robert Breton were at home. Sedrick Cobb, Ivo Colon, Richard Reynolds, Todd Rizzo and Daniel Webb were enjoying fresh air in the exercise yard, and taking in a little sun.

  Ross is proud of his cell. It is piled high with books and writing materials; indeed, he boasts about the fact that he has been allocated a second cell, where even more of his books are stored. Michael also brags about the dozens of pretty young women who court his attentions, one of whom is as pretty as a starlet and has even signed her photograph ‘With Love’. Her letters show that she would marry him in a flash, but he would probably kill her in an instant.

  Michael Ross is not unique among the serial killer breed but, to his credit, he is struggling to understand why he was driven to commit such terrible crimes on young women. Indeed, he is striving to understand the forces that propelled him into such severe antisocial behaviour in the first place. To this end, he volunteered for a series of treatment, which includes chemical and surgical castration, the latter being refused by the State.

  Many acknowledged experts seem to believe that this treatment could separate the beast from the decent Michael Ross and, for an extended period, he was prescribed Depo-Provera to reduce his enormous sex drive. At the same time as he was taking this drug, he was being prescribed Prozac, a powerful antidepressant, and this cocktail certainly reduced his abnormal sexual desires. Unfortunately, excessive use of Depo-Provera ballooned his weight by several stone and, as a result, he suffered pathological changes in liver function and hormone levels and his depression reappeared.

  Before these drugs were prescribed, Ross claims he masturbated constantly. Occasionally, when in the company of a female correctional officer, he experienced an overwhelming desire to kill her. The Depo-Provera reduced his sex drive, and Michael said, ‘You know that everybody has had a tune playing over and over again inside their heads. And, if you have this tune that plays all day, over and over, it can drive you nuts. An’ just imagine having thoughts of rape an’ murder, an’ you can’t get rid of it. Well, just like the tune, it’ll be driving you nuts. No matter what you do to get rid of that tune, it’s going to stay in your head. And that’s how I am. I don’t want these thoughts.’

  Asked if he thought this tune was, in reality, the monster, he replied, ‘No, I think he’s separate. He goes to sleep for a while and, uh, you never know where he’s gone, and that’s very true. I mean, sometimes he’s there, and especially with the Depo-Provera, I can feel him back here. [Ross touched the back of his head.] I don’t know how anybody is going to understand this, but he used to be always in front of my mind, and always intruding, like an obnoxious roommate, always butting into your business and you can’t get rid of him.’

  In a letter, Ross described what happene
d to him when he became used to the drugs:

  ‘I would do anything to clear my mind. The medication gave me some relief but my body has adjusted to it now, and the thoughts and urges have returned. Now, my obnoxious roommate has moved back in and things seem worse because now I saw what it was like without him. Today, I feel like a blind man from birth who was given eyesight as a gift, but was taken away a month later. It’s really hard to understand what is normal for everybody else if you’ve never had it yourself.’

  It is a rare thing for defence and prosecution psychiatric experts to agree on both a diagnosis and its ramifications, but the Ross case was unusual and, in this instance, there was a consensus that he was suffering from sexual sadism, a mental disease that resulted in a compulsion in Ross to ‘perpetrate violent sexual activity in a repetitive way’. Unknown to the members of his trial jury, forensic psychiatrists from both sides had also agreed that the crimes committed by Ross were a direct result of the uncontrollable sexual aggressive impulses to which he was prey. But the State, aware of the damage that could be caused by their own psychiatrist, effectively giving evidence against them by concurring with the defence team, presented no psychiatric witness at all. Hence, the jury were kept in the dark as to a probable mitigating factor which would have removed the threat of the death penalty from Michael Ross.

  Contrary to this line of argument, the State successfully argued that Ross was sane, and therefore totally responsible for his crimes. Their suggestion to the jury was that Ross had been examined by a psychiatrist who had found him not to be suffering from a mitigating psychopathology, which was patently untrue. Amazingly, the defence failed to ask why the State’s expert was not made available to testify. Had they done so, it would have become apparent that he had withdrawn from the case, a damaging admission for the prosecution. This amounted to constructed deceit, for the jury had been led to believe that there was a difference of opinion, between the State and defence psychiatrists, when there was not. This resulted in rulings that improperly excluded evidence, disingenuous summations, and instructions that allowed the jury to draw inferences that were insupportable.