Blood Lust: Portrait of a Serial Sex Killer

by Gary C. King

  Some forty-five minutes after picking Tracie off the busy Portland avenue, the man made a right turn off the Molalla Forest Road onto a narrow gravel logging spur road. They were surrounded by heavy forest, making the night pitch-black on both sides of the road.

  "We're almost there," he said as they wound along the sometimes nearly impassable road that took them farther and farther up into the hills. True to his word, he soon stopped the pickup along a gravel turnaround near a Y in the road. It felt like they had gone to the top of a mountain. Tracie, noticing a clearing surrounded by trees, momentarily wondered if they were at a remote campsite.

  "Why don't you get completely undressed now," he said, his voice not asking, but commanding again. Tracie agreed, but asked for the money first. When he handed her the $40, she pulled off her shirt. Her date glared at her youthful breasts, shimmering beneath the dim illumination of the cab's dome light. In a hurry to get it over with, she quickly wriggled out of her skirt and panties and bent her legs beneath her as she turned to face her date.

  "Do you like to be tied up?" he asked. The abruptness of the question caught Tracie off guard, but she tried not to let it show even though it scared her. This was the guy, all right. She no longer had any doubt.

  "I really don't get into that," she said nervously, her voice quavering. Cold dread gripped her insides again.

  "Well, that's the only way I like to do it. I'll just tie you up and play with your feet, jack off, and that'll be it."

  "Okay, I guess I can handle that," she stammered. Although bizarre, his fetish seemed simple and harmless enough. Nonetheless, she shivered when the man reached past her to get something from inside the glove box. He brought out two nylon straps, one red and one blue, and a leather strap, all of which resembled dog collars. Each strap had a silver buckle. Tracie reluctantly allowed the man to bind her hands, thinking that would be the extent of the bondage.

  "It's too tight," she complained. "I don't want to do this."

  "You agreed to do it, bitch, and that's the only way you're going to get out of it," he said angrily, his voice rising. It seemed to Tracie that he had suddenly turned against her despite her cooperation, much like a pit bull would turn on a playful child.

  Before she fully realized what was happening, the man pushed Tracie's head down into the seat and climbed over her, straddling her backside. Utilizing another of the straps, he swiftly bound her feet at the ankles, cinching the strap so tight that it felt like it was cutting into her flesh.

  She squirmed and tried to kick, wondering what the hell she had gotten herself into. But her struggling was of no use. The bindings made it nearly impossible for her to move, and there was so little room inside the pickup's small cab that she couldn't even rotate her body a significant distance in any direction. Tracie was now under his complete control. The man had executed the act of bondage with exactness and ease due to much practice, having literally been down that road before. Satisfied that she was nearly immobilized, he hog-tied Tracie's hands to her ankles using the third strap.

  "Go ahead and scream if you like," he said quietly. "Nobody will hear you up here." Her heart pounding against her rib cage, Tracie remained silent. For the moment.

  The man unbuttoned his shirt and slipped his pants down but did not remove them. The sight of the bound and hog-tied naked girl brought forth a prompt erection as he moved across her body, still face down on the seat. Tracie craned her neck to see what he was doing, but she couldn't turn her head far enough around. But when he moved into a different position, she could see that he was well endowed, larger than most men she had seen. Tracie nervously wondered if she would be able to accommodate his largeness.

  He ran his hands down her back, across her buttocks, and along the inside of her upwardly extended thighs. He slowly worked his way over her legs to her feet, showing little interest in engaging in intercourse. At one point, however, he lubricated himself with saliva, freed one of her legs, and entered her forcefully. His largeness and the awkward way that her body was situated caused her some discomfort, and she cried out. But he withdrew seconds later and bound her legs together again. He was clearly fascinated with Tracie's feet, and little else. He seemed to begin slipping in and out of a fantasy state, and often referred to Tracie as "Maureen," even though he knew that wasn't her name.

  "Maureen, your toes are so pretty, so sexy," he said. "They really turn me on, Maureen."

  He forced her to put the bottoms of her feet together again, her toes pointing upward. After lubricating himself with Vaseline that he kept in the glove compartment, he held her feet together with his hands and began pushing his penis between them, rhythmically pulling himself in and out. This went on for some time until he apparently became tired or bored. But he wasn't finished. Far from it.

  He began nibbling at "Maureen's" toes, and for a moment Tracie relaxed a bit and wondered if the woman he kept talking about was the same Maureen that she knew. As he continued to nibble, she put the thought out of her mind. It actually felt kind of good, at first. Being tied up in such a fashion was scary, but it was possible she could come out unscathed if she just played along. She pretended, for the moment, that she was enjoying it.

  He ran his lips and tongue across her right foot, and in short gradual motions moved toward the bottom until he reached the arch, laying silent wet kisses along the path. Suddenly, without warning, he began gnawing viciously at her tender arch. As his excitement grew, he put more and more pressure into each bite. Each time he closed his mouth, he bit harder. Tracie withstood the pain as long as she could, but it soon became too much for her to endure.

  She screamed in agony. Her tormentor seemed to revel at her pain, and his breathing became faster and heavier as he bit the teenager even harder. She screamed again and again, each time bringing a more severe response from the sadist. The more she begged him to stop, the more brutal he became. He had worked himself into a frenzy, and it became clear that there was no stopping him until he had satisfied his lust for blood.

  "Please! This wasn't part of the deal," cried Tracie. She continued to struggle frantically, and at one point her hands broke free and she managed to shift her body around. But he immediately grabbed on to one of her breasts with his mouth and bit down hard, mumbling that he wasn't going to let go until she allowed him to tie her hands again. Fearing that she would lose her nipple, she yielded once again to his command.

  His victim again in bondage, the man moved toward her buttocks, biting and leaving deep impressions everywhere his mouth touched her body. When he tasted her blood, he moved back up to her breasts, biting each nipple so ferociously that Tracie feared he would tear them off with his teeth.

  "You know, there's only one way out of this for you," he shrieked, his voice resounding off the walls of the cab in a high pitch as he neared the apex of his frenzy.

  "Yeah? How's that?" Tracie sobbed.

  "Either you let me cut your tits off," he said, his voice growing higher and more unnatural with each word, "or I'm going to strangle you."

  He opened the glove compartment and took out a kitchen paring knife. When he closed his hand around the knife and stared at its brilliance beneath the dome light, it perversely completed him and made him whole. He was holding it close to her breasts, and Tracie's whole body tightened as she anticipated the worst. He gently ran the blade around each nipple, occasionally breaking the skin. Tracie took a breath, wincing sharply at the cutting of her flesh. At one point she thought she would faint.

  Tracie, horrified at his words and actions, had had enough. She wasn't about to willingly let him carve her up, but being bound as she was, she couldn't fend him off. All she could do was attack him verbally. She knew she had little to lose. He was probably going to kill her anyway.

  "You're not going to cut my tits off, you sonofabitch! Who the hell do you think you are? I'm not going to walk around scarred for life because of you. You're going to have to kill me!" she said, determined that she wasn't simply going to succu
mb to this maniac without saying or doing something, anything. Her bladder full from the vodka and orange juice she drank earlier, Tracie relieved herself by urinating in the cab of the man's pickup, as much from fear and discomfort as from revenge. Although he was aware of what she had done, he didn't seem to care. He made no attempt to clean up her urine.

  "Have it your way," he said, his voice no longer shrieking but now back to its normal soft tone. "I'm going to strangle you."

  But he didn't. He just sat there, looking vacant and spent, and feeling defeated. Tracie didn't realize it yet, but her boldness had taken away the power and control her captor had held over her, and that had meant everything to him. She had killed his thrill, and by doing so had saved her own life.

  Angry that he had failed to have his way with Tracie, he took the knife and in one swift move sliced her across the heel of her left foot. It was a deep cut, and she flinched and cursed at him again as she felt her own blood trickling down her foot. As her hope for survival began to fade again, her date did the unexpected. He undid her bindings and allowed her to dress, and they drove quietly back to Portland. He stopped near 92nd and Powell, about ten blocks from where he had picked her up hours earlier.

  Tracie let out a sigh of relief as she stepped out of the blue pickup and limped in pain down the street, her shoe full of blood. She watched as he passed by, and considered calling the police. But she didn't. They would ask a lot of questions, and she didn't relish the thought of having to relive her terrible ordeal so soon. She was just grateful to be alive. Not only that, she had several outstanding warrants for her arrest on a variety of charges, and after what she had just been through she didn't want to spend the night in jail. Tracie, and numerous other women, would not begin telling the police about their terrifying encounters with the man who called himself Steve for another six months.

  The ordeal had been devastating to the man in the blue pickup truck as well, but in a different way. Even though he had felt and tasted the young girl's blood, he had been let down, disappointed, and was far from being satisfied. Driven by the sight of blood and the sounds of his victims' cries, he knew, in the future, that he would have to do things differently, go much farther to achieve the intense climax, the ultimate fulfillment he was seeking.

  A few days after her horrifying encounter with the man in the blue pickup truck, Tracie Baxter, now hobbling around on crutches because of the injuries to her foot, ran into a friend, Maureen Ann Hodges, twenty-six, a fellow prostitute known as "Mo" on the streets. It was in the early afternoon when Tracie met up with her on 82nd Avenue, not far from Bob's Big Boy. Mo was working, but she told Tracie that she was having a tough time. She needed a fix fast, but had no money to pay her drug dealer for the heroin. She already owed him money, and he had put her on a strictly cash basis until she could clear up her debt to him.

  Mo was known around town as a hooker with a heart of gold, but she was also a heroin addict with an $80-a-day habit. Described by other street people as a "really mixed-up" woman, she was far more desperate than Tracie and was known to "do anything and go anywhere with anyone" if it meant getting money to buy her drugs. Tracie was sympathetic to her needs and was sorry that she couldn't help her out with a loan. But she had enough problems of her own without taking on any additional burdens.

  As Tracie limped along with her for a couple of blocks she told Mo, in between listening to Mo's hard luck stories, how she had been hog-tied and cut on the foot by a man who called himself Steve. When Mo heard the man's name and Tracie's description of his truck, she became visibly alarmed, clearly unnerved. Without hesitation, she warned Tracie to stay away from him. Mo had dated him on three or four occasions, and his name wasn't Steve. It was Dayton Leroy Rogers, and he liked to tie up his dates. He had a foot fetish, and while he hadn't cut her on her prior dates with him, he had caused her a great deal of pain, particularly when he had bitten her feet. She said that he had never asked her to get undressed for him, that he only wanted to "screw" her feet.

  "He must really have a thing for you," offered Tracie. "He kept calling out your name when he was with me."

  "Christ," Maureen said under her breath, disgusted and even more troubled. "Listen, if he tries to pick you up again, get the hell away from him. Call the police if you have to, but don't ever get in that truck with him again." Mo added that he was strange, and that she was terrified of him. She didn't want any more to do with him.

  As they parted company, Tracie assured her that she would be careful. When Tracie looked back and waved goodbye from down the block, Mo had slung the long-strapped dark blue canvas bag that she always carried with her over her shoulder and was propositioning the passing motorists from her spot on the sidewalk. When a car pulled over to the curb, Tracie knew that Mo would soon have the money she needed to get her through the night.

  Tracie would see Mo infrequently over the next few months, always on 82nd Avenue. Despite the fact that Mo had told Tracie that she didn't want anything further to do with Dayton Leroy Rogers, Mo would go on one more date with him three and a half months later, out of a desperate need for more of her drug. Tracie, and a number of other people, would be left wondering what had become of her. Unknown to Tracie, at least six other women would mysteriously vanish without a trace between July 8 and August 2, 1987.

  Monday, July 13, 1987

  Clackamas County Sheriff's Department

  Oregon City, Oregon

  The first clue to the horror that was already well under way came to Clackamas County Sheriff's Department Detective John T. Turner, a tall, distinguished-looking man of Anglo-Saxon descent, then forty-four, in the form of a routinely filed crime report. The veteran detective had no way of knowing it yet, but the evil outrage that was taking its toll on Portland's streetwalkers would virtually consume his life for much of the next two years. The report concerned an alleged second-degree kidnapping that had been reported the week before, on Tuesday, July 7. It would eventually lead him to the most vicious and remorseless killer with whom he had ever dealt or would likely ever face again.

  Case number 87-20998 was near the top of the pile in his in-basket when he settled into his chair at his workstation that summer morning, a cup of coffee in hand. As he studied the various reports, unconsciously arranging them according to seriousness of offense, he lit up a Marlboro Light from the packet he always kept tucked in his left shirt pocket. Occasionally rubbing a hand over his closely cropped graying hair, he saw that there were the usual barroom assault and battery cases from Friday and Saturday night, a robbery, and a couple of domestic disputes. As it turned out, case number 87-20998 ended up on top.

  Turner carefully began reading about the incident, originally investigated by Deputy Bill Strosser. He was oblivious to the steady buzz of his colleagues and the near-constant ringing of the telephones around him as he studied the handwritten document with much interest. He had become accustomed to the noise and frequent interruptions that go with police work, somehow able to shut out everything but that which interested him or pertained to a case he was working on.

  According to the report the victim, Heather Brown,* thirty-one, had been picked up by an unknown white male in Portland at approximately noon on July 7. She had just left her two young children with a friend and began walking to a nearby 7-Eleven store to buy cigarettes when a man in a blue pickup stopped and offered her a ride. She accepted and got inside, and was driven to a wooded area somewhere near Oregon City and Molalla.

  Heather reportedly had told the man that she only needed to go to the 7-Eleven, located only a few blocks away, but he said that he needed to go to Oregon City. He said he would like to have her along for company, and that he would bring her back later, if she didn't mind. Heather told Deputy Strosser that she had consented to go with him.

  As the man drove south on McLoughlin Boulevard toward Oregon City, he introduced himself as Steve. He said that he was from Reno and had been in the Portland area for about a week. He described himself as a pr
ofessional gambler.

  At one point they stopped at a 7-Eleven, and the suspect purchased a six-pack of beer and two cans of Coke while Heather bought her cigarettes. Afterward he offered Heather a drink, and she chose a Coke over a beer. When they approached Oregon City a few minutes later, the man calling himself Steve, guzzling the beer, turned off at a location which Heather could not adequately describe to the deputy. Although she felt like she had become lost, she said that they appeared to be on a logging road somewhere past Oregon City. Turner guessed that he had taken her on one of the logging roads just off the Molalla Forest Road.

  When the man continued to drive on and on, Heather finally asked him where they were going. He responded that he was going to drive into the hills and said that he wanted to "tie someone up and fuck them." The statement had frightened Heather, and when he moved to touch her thigh, she pushed his hand away. She insisted that he take her back to Portland, but he refused and sped up to about forty miles per hour on the unpaved logging road.

  Heather grabbed her shoes off the floor, ready to make a break for it when the time was right. But the man caught her eyeing the door handle, and he reacted instantly. He swerved the pickup recklessly, so she would lose her sense of balance, and reached toward her, placing his hand over her chest to prevent her from jumping out of the truck. He then stepped on the accelerator and was soon speeding to more than sixty miles per hour.

  Although she had been terrified that she would be raped or killed, Heather never gave up. She continued to struggle violently and when they approached a curve she managed to break free of the man's hold. As soon as she spotted a log truck behind them, she opened the door and jumped from his speeding pickup. The suspect slowed his vehicle a little but, apparently aware of the truck following him, kept on going.

  When the logger rounded the curve, he saw Heather lying in the road and slammed on his brakes. Seeing that she was injured and grateful that he hadn't hit her, he helped her into the cab of his rig. One of her eyes was bleeding, which he helped her to cover, and she had other scrapes and cuts. She told the logger that she had to jump out of the man's pickup because he was going to kill her. Since she was obviously very shook up, the logger didn't probe her with questions. Instead, he arranged to have her driven to a medical clinic in Molalla, where it was determined that she had suffered a concussion and multiple abrasions to her left temple area, right forearm, and hand.