The Gates of Janus

by Ian Brady

  Gacy epitomized the new breed of intelligent, highly mobile stalkers for whom criminologists and psychiatrists even had to adopt a fresh term to describe: ‘serial killer.’

  A term for a modern satyr, a werewolf who, having contempt for humanity as a whole, is nevertheless astute and resourceful enough to camouflage his predatory nature and move freely among the herd without being detected, methodically killing at will. As surgical and alert to public niceties and social impact as a freelance politician. An updated Duke of Clarence as Jack the Ripper. Machiavelli practising the science of murder. De Quincey cultivating it to a fine art.

  Surprising though it may seem at first glance, I believe it would be erroneous to assume that Gacy was a homosexual, or even a bisexual, simply because he committed homosexual acts upon his victims. A person may enjoy exotic meals without being classified an epicure; he might simply crave variety. Many prisoners practise homosexual sex but revert to heterosexual when released. We should search beyond the immediately obvious, for a cause or reason which best fits the character and circumstances as a whole.

  Every man has his feminine side. In most instances it remains subliminal and does not unduly influence his essentially masculine personality. But Gacy, either at a conscious or subconscious level, began to fear this feminine part of himself.

  Fear breeds hate, and hatred breeds violence. Therefore, in an attempt to neutralise this fear and reinforce his masculinity, Gacy began by choosing homosexuals to beat up, torture and degrade, his acts simultaneously distancing and definitively proving to himself that he was superior to the breed.

  But the subconscious is a tenacious enemy, and the more guilt Gacy experienced the more resentfully sadistic he became.

  Gradually, Gacy discovered that this form of sadistic sex was far more satisfying, making normal heterosexual sex tame and boring by comparison. So, when he abruptly informed his second wife that he would no longer be sleeping with her, Gacy was not abandoning her because he had become a homosexual, but rather that he had evolved into the enthusiastic, sadistic scourge of homosexuals. The neurotic craving deepened its roots and evolved into an addictive psychopathic cycle.

  In periodically being driven to crush and annihilate a victim, Gacy was not only psychically reinforcing his sense of superiority but also attempting to eradicate his own guilty lust, caused by committing homosexually satisfying acts mainly to torture and destroy the victim. So naturally the cycle of guilt and self-contempt continued to accelerate.

  In this pathological context, it is quite logical that Gacy concluded that to prove his masculinity to himself even more emphatically, and in tandem deepen his sadistic satisfaction, he had to go one step farther.

  He began to ensnare young men and boys who were not homosexual. In raping and degrading heterosexuals, he was further persuading his subconscious to accept the argument that: by violently subduing and treating a heterosexual male as a woman, I demonstrate more masculinity and virility than the victim or the ordinary male.

  The only problem was that he had to keep up the cycle of torturing and killing to reinforce the premise, systematically and ritualistically conditioning his pathological conscience. Further, in my opinion, it is more than likely that Gacy, notwithstanding the fact that he was quintessentially a psychopath, may also have become a victim to secondary psychosis.

  As the cumulative effect of his crimes mounted, his personal behaviour became overtly erratic, irrational and self-destructive. He had in addition gradually begun to evince all the incipient symptoms of organic or non-affective psychosis.

  In order to eradicate or relieve his feelings of anxiety and guilt, Gacy developed a high dependency on alcohol and medically unsupervised drug abuse. A toxic mixture used to ameliorate tension by depressing it at the source, the cerebral cortex, which is also generally agreed to be the storehouse of conscience. Alcohol, even taken without other distorting substances, immediately begins to dissolve conscience, therefore the effect of alcoholic abuse on someone who already had comparatively little conscience remaining, could reasonably be expected to be dramatically psychotic. Even the ordinary intoxicated drunk is in the grip of a temporary psychosis, the regressive behavioral effects resulting in atavistic, childlike reactions. Loss of emotional control is the next casualty, leading to escalating primal aggression. Long-term alcoholic abuse to relieve psychic attacks, as in Gacy’s case, could feasibly be anticipated to create variations of a condition known as pathological intoxication, several symptoms of which are prolonged amnesia, dissociation and mounting anxiety attacks.

  As alcoholic abusers eat very little, the next stage in the destructive chain would be vitamin deficiency, which can cultivate or exacerbate yet further psychotic factors and trigger the Korsakoff Syndrome, some symptoms of which are additional forms of selective amnesia, disorientation and emotional volatility. This goes some way to explaining why Gacy, in the final stages of freedom, exhibited all the signs of florid functional psychosis, being in a permanent state of overanxiety as his real and imaginary fears of disaster overwhelmed all normal thought processes.

  This culminated in the drunken/drugged high-speed drive towards the airport and visions of escape, despite knowing that the police were chasing only yards behind him, and irrationally ignoring the stark reality that he hadn’t a hope of being allowed to board a plane.

  During his spare time on Death Row, by way of relaxation, Gacy painted endless portraits of clowns. Possibly revealing that, subconsciously, this was really how he saw himself in the final analysis: a frenetic, perhaps tragic figure of absurdity, reaching for the impossible.

  Should such a suggestion seem unlikely, I point out that it is not uncommon for notorious criminals to take a far less serious view of themselves and their actions than society does. It may further offend some zealots to learn that a great many murderers believe their actions to have been absolutely natural and fully justified, and are quite frankly puzzled by what all the commotion is about — soldiers feel no remorse, so why should they, is a frequent reaction.

  Imprisonment confirms, rather than denies, their beliefs. Mindless punishment hones the spirit of revenge. They regard ‘rehabilitation’ as something that exists only in the vain imagination of the authorities, a public-relations device invented by officials for their own personal and public self-esteem.

  Gacy’s legal arguments finally ran out and he was put to death by injection, while crowds cheered and jeered outside the prison.

  An exhibition was held of his paintings of clowns — no doubt due more to his notoriety than artistic merit. Nevertheless, one painting sold for $33,000. So perhaps Pogo the Clown had the last laugh after all.

  The hope I dreamed of was a dream.

  Was but a dream; and now I wake,

  Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old,

  For a dream’s sake.

  — Christina Rossetti

  CHAPTER TEN

  Graham Young

  Man, false man, smiling, destructive man.

  Nathaniel Lee (1653–1692)

  During a stay in London, I had the opportunity to interview some prominent English serial killers, most of whom — with notable exceptions such as Peter Sutcliffe, the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’ — seemed to prefer quality to quantity.

  But, then again, in a small country with a low crime rate it is obviously much easier to track down a serial killer. So, conceivably, their careers were cut short prematurely through no great fault of their own. Nor any special forensic ability on the part of the English police who, by American standards of forensic science, are comparatively primitive.

  The English forces of law and order rely more on projecting an empirically unjustified Sherlock Holmes/Scotland Yard foggy mystique to deter the less informed types of criminal. It did not have any effect on Graham Young.

  St Albans, a small, respectable market town in the south of England with a thousand-year history, had approximately 54,000 inhabitants when a black-haired young man, with saturnine featu
res and piercing dark eyes, descended upon it and, in his studious manner, almost immediately began to ‘decrease the surplus population.’

  Graham Young, a psychotic manic-depressive from an early age, was a disorganised killer, destined to become known as the St Albans Poisoner.

  Highly intelligent and articulate, he could converse on a wide range of subjects, though his favourite, obsessional topics were toxicology and Nazi Germany. He owned a sharp sense of humour combined with a ready, acid wit. Dapper in appearance, black hair combed flat, Young had the practised affectations of a medical consultant, but lacked any of the qualifications. An enthusiastic amateur, he was nevertheless expert in his voluminous knowledge of poisons and their symptoms.

  Young was an ardent admirer of Dr Josef Mengele, the German concentration camp doctor known as ‘The Angel of Death,’ and had his boyishly handsome looks.

  Emulating another idol, Young sometimes grew a Hitler moustache, fastidiously trimming it with a razor until the skin around it was red raw and the prison staff had to stop him.

  An inveterate but excitable chess player, he rather foolishly favoured the black pieces, likening their potency to the Nazi SS. His daily opponent on the board for years was the author of this book, against whom Young always failed to win a match.

  Graham Young would probably be regarded by some as — to use a recently fashionable term — a ‘natural born killer.’

  I personally do not believe in such socially convenient theories as genetic/hereditary determinism, except at the crudest, most obvious level, in that we are what we experience and ingest, be it knowledge, food, drink or drugs; a definition which pretty well covers all schools of psychology from psychophysical to psychoanalytical.

  The truth is, in the Western hemisphere in particular, society is atavistically opposed to accepting medical evidence as an explanation for criminal behaviour. This is a curious anomaly, Western countries being the most sophisticated and technologically advanced.

  The general population willingly accepts all the comforts science and technology provide, yet remains constitutionally resistant to accepting psychiatric or physiological evidence which mitigates criminal behaviour, as such findings confound accepted moral and ethical standards.

  This ethical fudging threatens to deprive them of the primal satisfaction of unqualified vengeance, a bloodlust which appears to persevere no matter how cosmetically civilised and educated a society wishes to present itself in a geopolitical context. Thus the instincts of the majority reflect man’s true, unalterable nature, essentially that of an ephemerally higher form of animal.

  If the scientific analysis of violence were generally accepted, scientific, rehabilitative methods for the treatment of violent offenders would be given more emphasis within penal systems.

  To sentence a mentally disordered patient to prison is tantamount to punishing a blind man for jaywalking.

  However, if the traditional practice of bowing to the desires of the uninformed majority — who generally can see no further than their own nose — is given precedence over expert psychiatric evidence, then the majority should axiomatically be prepared to suffer the consequences. Namely, the vengeance of the released mentally ill criminals temporarily caged rather than committed to the hospital indefinitely for remedial treatment.

  In my experience, the insane have a more inexorable and inspired appetite for revenge, chiefly because they care less about the consequences to themselves. What goes around comes around.

  Graham Young was as enthralled as the mob with the aesthetics of reciprocatory revenge.

  His first and only ardent love was murder. Not the garish public variety, rather more a secret, intimate relationship or fleeting liaison of which only he knew the details and fatal result.

  His covert, slow destruction of another human being by poison was in fact a form of absorption; as he watched the spirit, energy and vitality of his victims decrease so did his rise. A psychic process of vampirism.

  Those he embraced with his art died without knowing how or why, perhaps suspecting bad food, bad karma or simply awfully bad luck, before giving up the ghost and dropping off the twig. Graham may have had a fatal lack of good taste as far as others were concerned but he certainly possessed exquisite good manners.

  He always took pains to attend the funeral of those he had lovingly relieved of all the world’s travails. A truly professional mourner — unique, in that he could, with absolute certainty, rehearse his condolences with some exactitude far in advance of the actual expiration.

  At the tender age of fourteen, Graham Young was committed to Broadmoor, a top-security hospital for the criminally insane, for attempting to poison: (a) his stepmother, whom he hated not only for attempting to take the place of his mother but also for being the restrictive bane of his existence and high ambition; (b) his father, ironically because he shared his love with the stepmother; (c) his sister, who doubtless further depleted his share of paternal affection, and finally; (d) a school friend, who apparently fell from grace for failing to appreciate Graham’s superior intellect and fatal enthusiasms.

  Graham spent the next nine years in captivity at Broadmoor, surrounded by inadequates and intellectual inferiors who further exacerbated his seething resentment for those who stood in his light.

  Displaying a farcical degree of incompetence, records show that the hospital authorities saw nothing remarkable in the fact that Graham habitually carried a textbook on toxicology under his arm wherever he went, even to compulsory church services.

  It is also documented that mysterious bouts of food poisoning occurred amongst the hospital inmates during the period of Graham’s incarceration.

  Despite these ominous facts, he was eventually pronounced sane in 1971 and released upon the unsuspecting public, where he hastened to make up for enforced inactivity and lost time.

  Graham obtained a menial job in the stores department of a photographic company, Hadlands. An astute choice, considering that many poisons, including various decoctions of cyanide, are used in some photography processing.

  Ambitious as always, he assiduously began to climb his way to power rather like Richard the Third, murdering anyone who stood in his path to advancement.

  The first victim was Bob Engle, his immediate superior in the stores department. Engle mysteriously fell ill and was treated for peripheral neuritis, to no effect. He eventually died in hospital, having enjoyed the company and fruit Graham brought on several convivial visits.

  Young attended the funeral in his favourite garb, black.

  With the death of Engle, Graham Young had the greater freedom he sought and began to take over the storeman’s responsibilities as planned, which included making tea for the office staff!

  Soon, as one would expect, other employees were falling victim to an esoteric series of illnesses, collectively referred to as ‘the bug.’

  The next employee to be seriously hit was a Mr Fred Biggs. Again, Graham solicitously visited him in hospital, taking ample provisions of fruit, and showing a keen interest in the physiological symptoms of the patient.

  After three weeks of intense suffering, his hair falling out in handfuls, Fred Biggs succumbed in hospital. Graham again dutifully attended the funeral.

  The cemetery was by now becoming rather like his second home, or a precious piece of real estate to which he made regular contributions.

  From a spiritual perspective, Graham greatly enjoyed casual strolls along the gravel paths of graveyards, pondering the literary sentiments on the tombstones with a judgmental, sombre eye. Like many people, it made him feel more alive and vital to be in close communion with the dead.

  The ‘bug’ was now beginning to become widespread amongst other employees at Hadlands, who were also complaining that their tea had a bitter taste.

  Medical inspectors were called in to thoroughly examine the storehouse and other premises for chemical leaks or other possible sources of contamination. They found nothing.

  The doctor i
n charge of the inspection interviewed the employees and was impressed by Graham’s knowledge and astute grasp of medical terminology. The fact that Young even suggested to the doctor that thallium poisoning had similar symptoms to that of the ‘bug’ appears to indicate either uncontrolled egotism, a craving for recognition, or a subconscious wish to be caught. But perhaps the fact that Young was also prey to cyclical psychotic fugues of chronic paranoia and delusions of grandeur more explains his reckless, erratic behaviour.

  Graham’s affective psychotic condition was also compounded and made more manically flagrant by a growing dependence on alcohol which, combined with the daily dosage of prescribed drugs he had to take as a condition of release from the mental hospital, demolished the final remnants of emotional and intellectual control, helping to nurture the delusion that he was invulnerable.

  At any rate, luck was with Graham for the moment, as the investigating doctor paid no heed to his astonishing prognostications re: thallium poisoning. Graham managed to attract further attention to himself by airing to staff at the photographic company his medical expertise in the field of toxicology. It is more than likely that these additional dissertations by Graham finally prompted the upper management of Hadlands to bring in the police to investigate the increasingly dire situation.

  The police, carrying out a routine preliminary check of all staff for anyone with a criminal record, came upon Young’s past excursions into poisoning.

  When detectives called at his house to arrest and question him, they discovered Graham blithely making tea and a sandwich in the kitchen. Upon searching him, a glass phial containing a lethal dose of thallium was found in his pocket.

  Intensified police investigation soon uncovered that Graham had illegally obtained his supplies of the little-known metallic poison thallium from chemist shops by posing as a medical student.