Family struggles to rebuild
JoAnn O’Conner, whose 5-year-old son Ronald Dean Smith was among Kearney’s victims, isn’t interested in facing the man who robbed her of a lifetime with her son. Instead, she writes letters to the parole board expressing her desire to keep Kearney behind bars.
“I’ve already gone through the mourning and healing from the anger. I don’t think it’d be good for me to attend,” she said. “It’s like dead flesh. You don't bring it up because it stinks.”
Still, not a day passes that the family doesn’t think about the youngest member of their family.
“Ronnie was the baby of the family, and there’s not a holiday or day that goes by that we don’t imagine what he’d be doing, what he’d look like now," said his aunt, Ronnie Jewette. “His death was so terrible and it made me afraid to let my own children go out anymore. When Ronnie died, we all learned you can't be too trusting. His death changed everything, everyone."
As for his mom, O’Conner clings to the precious memories she carried of her only child.
“I can still smell what his skin smelled like and how his hair felt and, when I close my eyes, I hear his voice,” O’Conner told the Daily Breeze, the newspaper that covers Los Angeles County’s South Bay area and was busy during the period of time when the Trash Bag Killer was on the prowl.
“Your life is never the same after something like that,” she added. “My life went through radical changes. I changed everything in my life. If I were going to survive it, I had to make some changes.”
The family celebrates Ronnie’s birthday, pulling out the collection of photographs they have of the boy and sharing their favorite memories, even through their tears.
“All the family has pictures out now and we talk about Ronnie freely,” his mother said. “It’s nice to be able to put those pictures out and share those happy memories.”
A life behind bars
Kearney is currently incarcerated at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, California, where he was moved in 2014.
Kearney’s allowed to attend college equivalency classes, but has a cell to himself and is confined mostly to it.
“He’s in a protective housing unit like some of the others,” said prison Sgt. Tony Diaz. “Otherwise, their safety would be jeopardized. This keeps him away from others who might want to do him harm. And it keeps him away from those he might want to hurt.”
He, like many serial killers, gets letters, including one from a woman in Wisconsin. When he wrote back, he said, “Thanks for writing. So what’s it like there in the North Pole? Thanks for the photo. I like your hair.”
His famous fellow inmates there include Lyle Menendez, one of two brothers who killed their parents in 1989; Andrew Luster, heir to the Max Factor fortune who chose to use GBH to sexually assault numerous women in 2003; Robert John Bardo, who murdered “My Sister Sam” actress Rebecca Schaeffer in 1989 after stalking her for three years; mass murderer and religious fanatic John Linley Frazier; Michael Carson, who along with his wife, Suzanne, murdered three people; Charles Manson as well as Manson follower Charles “Tex” Watson; Death Row Records founder Suge Knight; and serial killer Herbert Mullin, who liked to sing, often, which offended his former cell neighbor William Bonin, who was executed in 1996.
Chapter 11: A survivor tells his story
As a child, Tony Stewart used to mow lawns for Patrick Kearney to make extra money.
One of seven kids, Stewart came from a poor family and the landlord of their Redondo Beach home helped the children make extra money by not only giving them jobs around his property, but also helping them line up other work.
Stewart remembers being introduced to Kearney and landing the job of mowing his lawn, which he did for about four years.
Years later, their paths would cross again, and it would be a meeting that Stewart would never forget.
“I was 19 years old and fresh out of high school,” he said. “The only thought on my mind besides searching for beautiful women, playing guitar and surfing waves, was to attend as many wild parties as possible with my friends.”
It was the free-spirited 1970s, and Stewart’s life was carefree.
He’d had a car his dad had given him for graduation, a 1964 Chevy Impala convertible that was perfect for cruising along the Pacific Highway, but the engine quickly gave out, forcing Stewart to hitchhike when he couldn’t catch a ride with friends.
One night in April, after a day of surfing and skateboarding, Stewart was planning to hitchhike the five miles home, but first stopped at a local convenience store hoping that he could talk someone into buying him some beer.
After his mission failed, he headed for the highway and stuck out his thumb.
He was surprised when a familiar face in a pickup truck pulled over to offer the ride.
“You’re Patrick,” Stewart recalled. “I used to mow your yard.”
After the usual chitchat between people who hadn’t seen one another in years, Stewart told Kearney that he was hoping to find someone to buy him a quart of beer, and Kearney volunteered, with one caveat.
“You’ll have to drink it at my house. You’re a minor and I don’t want you getting in any trouble,” Kearney said.
It was about midnight when they got to Kearney’s Redondo Beach home – “the same house where I mowed his grass and did yard work for four years, earning $3.00 each time I worked for him,” Stewart recalled.
Kearney told Stewart to sit down, and the older man went into the kitchen, asking Stewart about his life as a free-spirited California teen while rustling through silverware.
When Kearney came back, things got strange.
“He reached into a black doctor’s type bag beside the television and pulled out a stethoscope. He put it around his neck and said, ‘I used to be a doctor,’ then asked if he could listen to my heartbeat, adding that he wanted to hear if my heart slowed down while I’m drinking. I was so naïve, I calmly said, ‘Sure, I don’t care.’ I didn’t think anything odd about the request,” Stewart said. “Besides, I figured, he did buy me beer. He placed the instrument on my chest outside my shirt and began moving it around trying to locate my heart. Next, he asked, ‘Could you lift up your shirt? I can’t hear anything.’ Without thinking, I lifted it up for him. He continued to move it around on my chest.
“Suddenly, he began to slowly lower the hearing mechanism towards my belly button. I did not feel comfortable with this and told him I need to get going. I added that my parents might lock me out if I’m out too late. As I spoke, I heard someone keying the doorknob to enter the residence, about to enter. Kearney's face quickly turned to the direction of the sound. It was his roommate, David Hill. As Hill began to open the front door, Kearney quickly jumped back away from me, as if he didn’t want his roommate to know what he was doing. Nervously, he said, ‘Dave, do you remember Tony? He used to mow our yard. Say hello.’ Dave Hill quietly said ‘hi’ and continued walking straight to the bedroom. As he was walking, I repeated, ‘Well, I really have to get going.’ I wanted to make sure Hill heard me. Pat said ‘OK, let me get the keys to my truck.’ I heard him tell Hill, ‘David, I will be right back, I'm just going to drive Tony home.’”
According to Stewart, Kearney said very little on the way home, so he filled the truck with conversation, thanking him for the beer, telling him how great it had been to see him again after so much time and they should do it again soon.
When they got close to a park near Stewart’s home, he told Kearney he could pull over, since his house was just across the street, lying about the true location of his home because of Kearney’s strange behavior.
Kearney took Stewart’s earlier words to heart, and made him promise to stop to visit some more the next day.
“I remember Pat Kearney had a strange look in his eyes that I will never forget. It was almost hypnotic. He mentioned how good it was to see me again and he looked forward to tomorrow. I said, ‘Well I’d better go,’ and then I began walking north. I looked ba
ck and watched as he turned the truck around and began driving away. Then I ran full speed around the corner toward my house. I looked over my shoulder and noticed him turning around again. He must have seen me running because he made a U-turn in my direction. I made it to a house around the corner and hid behind my fence. I watched him slowing drive by, looking around, but he didn’t see me. I thought it was strange that he turned around. I wouldn’t realize it until months later, that if his roommate hadn’t come home when he did, I might have been killed,” Stewart said.
Months later, Stewart was hanging out at a girlfriend’s house when his brother called him and told him to turn on the news.
“I did, and almost went into shock at what I saw,” Stewart said. “It was Patrick’s face on the television and they were saying that he killed thirty-two people, including young boys. I almost fainted. I began to tremble, thinking about the night I was at his house alone drinking beer, and how he acted. I thought, ‘My God, I was alone with a serial killer drinking beer in the middle of the night.’ I had nightmares for weeks after that evening, reliving that night over and over in my head.”
Another’s last moments recalled
That late night beer would not be the only encounter Stewart would have with Kearney, although his second would be a vicarious one.
He and his friend Gene Austin – the proud owner of a red Ford van with chrome wheels – were going to a party that promised to be the biggest blow-out of the summer.
Austin described it as “the party of all parties” as they headed to the event, along with their mutual friend, Billy, and one of Gene’s friends, John Woods, who went by the nickname Woody.
Woody, a tall redhead who Stewart said reminded him of Art Garfunkel, was talking about Vietnam, telling gruesome stories of wartime while they cruised around drinking a few beers, waiting for the party to get started.
The party turned out to be as much of a bust as their pre-party conversations.
By the time they arrived, the cops had already been called, and were ordering everyone to leave.
The foursome drove around drinking a few more beers, then dropped Woody off at a bar and Billy at home.
Tony decided to stay at Gene’s house overnight so the two could go surfing the next morning.
When the surf report revealed a lack of surf-worthy waves they decided to wash Gene’s van.
As they were working, detectives arrived with guns pointed at the two teens, and ordered them away from the van and onto the ground.
The two had no idea what was going on, until one of the detectives asked them why they were washing the blood out of the van.
Horrified, Tony and Gene then learned that Woody had been found earlier that morning in San Diego, shot in the head.
Since San Diego was about two hours away from the bar where they had dropped Woody off the night before, the two assumed the Art Garfunkel lookalike had met someone at the bar and had been offered a ride that ended up turning deadly.
Later, when the names of Patrick Kearney’s victims were released, it included John Woods.
Notable:
A tracing of Patrick Wayne Kearney’s hand is available for sale on the internet via a site that specializes in macabre merchandise. Kearney signed the item eight times in six different languages, including Roman, Gregg Shorthand, Arabic, Cyrillic, Hiragana and Katakana. It is $55.
According to letters to pen pals, Patrick Kearney’s obsessive interest in other serial killers hasn’t waned behind bars. He wrote asking about Ian Brady, a Scottish serial killer who murdered multiple children in the 1960s with his girlfriend, Myra Hindley, whom he’d brainwashed into becoming his slave.
Conclusion
Every six years, Patrick Kearney will be up for parole, and every six years, a police officer or family member will fight it.
The man with so much anger from a troubled childhood is unlikely to be able to control his desire for revenge if released, and the Mule Creek parole board is unlikely to take the risk.
But just as stopping Randy Kraft and William Bonin – the men who for a time shared the nickname the Freeway Killer with Patrick Kearney because they used the California freeway system to procure their human playthings – there’s always another one waiting in the wings, another angry man seeking vengeance for some sort of childhood horror.
Hopefully they don’t move in next door.
Murder In Wisconsin
Most Evil Serial Killers in Wisconsin History
Written by
Jack Rosewood
&
Dwayne Walker
Copyright © 2015 by Wiq Media
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
GET THE BOOK ABOUT HERBERT MULLIN FOR FREE
Go to www.jackrosewood.com and get this E-Book for free!
Table of Contents
Introduction
Ed Gein
Chapter 1: Did his mother make him do it?
Chapter 2: Taking cemetery visits just a little too far
Chapter 3: Stepping into a house of horror
Chapter 4: A psychiatric gold mine
David Spanbauer
Chapter 1: Spanbauer was born for bigger crimes
Chapter 2: Released after 12-year prison stint
Chapter 3: Cora Jones, A bike marks the spot
Chapter 4: Mistakes lead to arrest
Chapter 5: No final trial for David Spanbauer
Chapter 6: The aftermath
Jeffrey Dahmer
Chapter 1: Birth of an obsession
Chapter 2: Dahmer turns fantasy to reality
Chapter 3: Second victim opens the floodgates
Chapter 3: Dahmer’s house of horrors revealed
Chapter 5: The trial of Jeffrey Dahmer
Chapter 6: The aftermath
Walter Ellis
Chapter 1: DNA mistakes slow arrest
Chapter 2: Victim list spans 20 years
Chapter 3: Trial a farce for victims’ families
Conclusion
The making of a serial killer
More Books by Jack Rosewood
More Books by Dwayne Walker
GET THE BOOK ABOUT HERBERT MULLIN FOR FREE
A Note From The Author
Introduction
There’s something about a Wisconsin winter, perhaps, that drives people a little bit mad.
The snows start as early as October and sometimes don’t end until late April. During the worst of the months - the grey, gloomy days of January and February - frigid temperatures dip well below zero and feel especially harsh when accompanied by the bone-chilling winds that sweep off of lakes Michigan and Superior.
It’s a place suitable only for the very resilient, and some never know if the long winters will turn them into real-life versions of Stephen King’s Jack Torrance from “The Shining.” At least not until it is too late.
Home to hip college cities and quiet mill towns along the Wisconsin River, Wisconsin is a dichotomy of sorts, part bucolic rolling hills dotted with farm fields, part thick Northwoods pine forest, where mobster Al Capone built a stone hideout where he would go when things in Chicago got sticky.
Hunting is a popular sport, although as we all know, some hunters aren’t so much on the prowl for deer or quail as they are for victims.
Given the terminally gray skies that seemingly last forever – broken only by a few short months of spring, summer and fall - it’s no surprise that the state has the dubious honor of being home to some of the most depraved serial killers of all time, including one of the first and most notorious, Ed Gein.
One could say it was the cold, the snow drifts, the ice and the gray skies. And maybe they’d be right. Maybe.
Ed Gein
The monster of Plainfield
Re
sidents of Plainfield still don’t like to talk about the heinous crimes of loner handyman Eddie Gein, even though it has been decades since police found hardware store owner Bernice Worden gutted like a deer and hanging headless in Gein’s dilapidated woodshed.
For that small Wisconsin town, the media circus that followed Gein’s arrest, clogging streets and backing up traffic, brought too much attention, and once the rabid reporters and their cameras with smoking flashes were gone, Plainfield residents only wanted to get back to the business of living their lives.
But normal would prove to be terribly tricky, given the sheer horror of what police found in Gein’s house when they searched the home, their passage initially illuminated only by flashlight. Inside, authorities learned that Gein had decorated his clapboard farmhouse with chairs and a lampshade crudely upholstered with human skin, the faces of human heads stuffed with newspaper and a woman’s lips adorning the drawstring on a window shade, among numerous other nightmare-inspiring items.
In his kitchen were human skulls that he used for soup bowls, a scenario so macabre and awful that Wisconsinites made up a few jokes - (“What did Ed Gein give his girlfriend for Valentine’s Day? A box of farmer fannies,” and “What did Ed Gein say to the sheriff who arrested him? Have a heart.”) - in order to cope with the sheer horror of their neighbor’s crimes.
But soon enough, the reality of Gein’s depravity slowly sinking in and the jokes known as Geiners stopped, as did any talk about Gein and his crimes by Plainfield residents.
After all, there was nothing funny about the vest crafted from a female torso that Gein liked to wear outside to dance under the moonlight, nor the shoebox full of female vulvas gathered from corpses he’d dug up from their graves that were also among the grisly finds that police discovered on that chilly day in November of 1957.
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