Women Who Kill: Profiles of Female Serial Killers

by Carol Anne Davis

  Sixteen-year-old Kippi Vaught and seventeen-year-old Rhonda Scheffler happily accompanied Charlene to the vehicle where Gerald immediately locked them in and brandished his pistol. He told the girls that they were being kidnapped as he wanted to terrify them - their fear turned him and Charlene on. Charlene then taped their mouths, ankles and wrists, took the gun and kept it trained on the girls whilst he drove to a deserted area. They arrived late in the afternoon and Gerald and Charlene undressed and told the victims to do the same.

  For the next six hours, the couple assaulted the helpless teenagers. Gerald sodomised them both and made them fellate him. He only had vaginal sex with one girl as the other was menstruating. The bite marks on one girl’s breasts were very different to the bite marks on her friend’s breasts, suggesting that Gerald bit one girl and Charlene bit the other. She would later tell a cellmate how ecstatic she felt during this cruel kidnap-rape. That’s author Eric van Hoffmann’s view of how the killings took place - but it has to be said that Ray Biondi’s take on the subject is very different. He believes that Charlene had no sexual contact with the victims after she abducted them. This is very unlikely given what we know of Team Killers - the female half of every other killing couple in this book played an active part in at least one of the sexual assaults.

  Gerald then told Charlene to drive around whilst he went off into the woods with his victims, carrying a sleeping bag. It’s likely that he wanted to perform further abuses on the pair without having his girlfriend watching. The girls were clearly distressed when he eventually returned with them.

  She now took the wheel and drove the girls on a fifteen mile journey to what would become their execution ground. She stayed in the van whilst her lover cracked their skulls with a jack handle then shot them, leaving them where they dropped. Kippi Vaught had only received a minor head wound but Gallego saw her moving and shot her again.

  Charlene’s third marriage

  Charlene then drove Gerald home and for the next two weeks they relived the excitement. Soon they were looking for new kicks so decided to get married. The wedding took place on 30th September 1978 and was attended by Charlene’s parents who took lots of photographs. Charlene seemed thrilled that she’d got her man. In truth, it’s more likely that Gerald thought a wife couldn’t testify against her murderous husband - when in reality it’s merely that she can’t be made to testify. It was a moot point as, despite the Reno marriage licence, she never legally became Mrs Gallego as the marriage was bigamous, Gerald not being divorced from a previous wife. Married or not, she’d later choose to testify against him and her evidence would put him on Death Row…

  But for now, life settled back into its routine of drink and drugs and unfulfilling attempts at sex together. Both continued to give up jobs and find new ones, Charlene working in a bank at one stage and at a meat processing plant at another, whilst Gerald found a driving job. It wasn’t enough to keep the adrenalin flowing so within nine months they were ready to kidnap and kill again.

  The third and fourth victims

  On 24th June 1979 Charlene lured the second pair of victims from a county fair in Reno, Nevada. Fourteen-year-old Sandra Kaye Colley and her fifteen-year-old friend Brenda Judd were approached by Charlene who asked if they’d like to make a few dollars by delivering leaflets. Like most teenagers they were eager to make some cash. They followed her to the van to collect the leaflets, only to find Gerald there pointing a gun at their heads.

  This time Charlene drove the victims to a remote spot near Lovelock, Nevada. One of the girls was so frightened that she was sick and an angry Charlene slapped her hard. Gerald hurt himself when the van braked suddenly, after which he couldn’t perform, but Charlene, according to author Eric van Hoffmann, went on to have sex with both girls.

  Gerald then crushed their skulls with a spade and buried them in a shallow grave. They were considered missing for three years until Charlene admitted taking part in their deaths - but their skeletal remains weren’t found for almost twenty years, dug up by a tractor driver in November 1999.

  The fifth and sixth victims

  In April 1980, ten months after the third and fourth deaths, Charlene lured her fifth and sixth victims from a Sacramento shopping mall. Seventeen-year-old Karen Chipman-Twiggs and Stacy Redican were driven to the Nevada woods, sexually assaulted by both Gallegos and shot by Gerald. He buried them near Lovelock, the battered bodies being found in July 1980 three months after they’d met their deaths. Until now the Gallegos had always kidnapped pairs of girls - presumably because they wanted one each, but now Charlene got pregnant so Gerald went on to choose a solo victim by himself.

  The seventh victim

  Charlene’s pregnancy made her sick and she found it hard to sleep. Worse, she couldn’t drink. Her condition made her miserable and the last thing she wanted was any kind of sex. Gerald, who had been so abused throughout his childhood that he had no empathy with other people, was totally unsympathetic to her condition and insisted they cruise about as usual in Charlene’s van.

  In early June 1980 the pair of them were driving through Oregon when he drew her attention to a lone female hitchhiker. Ironically, twenty-one-year old Linda Teresa Aguilar was also pregnant, four or five months gone with her second child. The Gallegos stopped the Oldsmobile and seeing the pretty Charlene in the van she was happy to accept a lift.

  Gerald quickly ordered her into the back of the van, where she fainted from terror. Charlene became enraged and banged Linda’s head against the van’s floor. They undressed her and Charlene explored her pregnant body but apparently Gerald couldn’t become aroused. Desperately Linda pleaded for her life, but he took her outside with her hands still tied behind her back. Then he beat her about the head, strangled her and buried her in a hastily dug grave.

  The subsequent autopsy would reveal sand in her windpipe - proof that she was only knocked out by the rock that he’d hit her with. She had regained consciousness to find herself buried alive.

  Around this time the pregnant Charlene moved back in with her parents as she liked her creature comforts. But she continued to date Gerald and sometimes sleep over at his house.

  The eighth victim

  Charlene and Gerald abducted their next victim, a Sacramento waitress, from outside the tavern she worked at. Virginia Mochel was thirty-four and had been talking to the Gallegos in the tavern. Witnesses would later say that Gerald was drunk and that Charlene was very quiet.

  But Charlene was also clever. She left her jacket behind then knocked on the door after hours and asked Virginia to fetch it for her. Virginia did, but only opened the door a little so Charlene couldn’t force her way inside. Undaunted, she and Gerald waited in the car park then forced the waitress into their vehicle at gunpoint. Gerald had touched Virginia’s car, so Charlene hastily polished it free of prints.

  They then took the terrified mother of two back to Gerald’s home. There they stripped her and tied her hands behind her with fishing line before repeatedly sexually molesting her. Charlene forced the terrified woman to go down on her and whipped her and Gerald sodomised her several times. He then strangled her and the pair dumped her body early the next day. This murder took place on 17th July 1980, a mere month after the previous one. Afterwards Charlene drove back to her parents house for a nice long sleep.

  The ninth and tenth victims

  When Gerald phoned in August 1980 and asked her to spend the day with him she probably knew exactly what he had in mind - what she couldn’t predict was how reckless he was becoming. They started to tour Sacramento, stopping off at various bars and restaurants in search of victims to abduct. Charlene couldn’t drink much because of her pregnancy but Gerald got increasingly drunk.

  That night they saw pretty Beth Sowers and her fiance Craig Miller leaving a dance at a restaurant. Gerald insisted that he had to have Beth, though Charlene thought it was too risky. But when he insisted, she pointed her gun at the young lovers, forcing them into the van. A friend of Craig’s unwi
ttingly intervened at which stage Charlene hit him across the face and told him to get lost.

  The couple drove Craig to an execution spot - a lonely field - where Gerald shot him three times in the head. The Gallegos then took the terrified Beth back to Gerald’s apartment. There she endured the same ordeal as their previous victims, an ordeal which lasted until the early hours. Charlene then drove to a remote area where Gerald shot Beth.

  Meanwhile Beth and Craig had been reported missing. As they were intelligent young people from good families the police started to follow up on the registration number of the abduction vehicle. It led to Mercedes and Chuck Williams house and they explained that the vehicle belonged to their daughter, Charlene. She, in turn, spoke to the police briefly, claiming not to know anything about the missing Beth and Craig.

  Fugitives

  Knowing that the net was closing in, the Gallegos now went on the run, taking up residence in a Nebraska inn where they considered kidnapping the receptionist in order to steal her vehicle. They used assumed names but were caught when the Williams tried to wire them some money. Ironically Chuck Williams was afraid that his daughter might be harmed by Gerald - he had no idea that Charlene was actively luring victims into the Oldsmobile that he’d bought for her.

  The FBI, using the charge of unlawful flight in an effort to avoid prosecution, took the by now scruffy pair into custody. The authorities strongly suspected they’d killed Craig and Beth - they just couldn’t prove it yet.

  Charlene’s parents had already obtained an attorney for her and now got her a first class criminal lawyer. They filed motion after motion. She wrote to Gerald that they had a beautiful love together and that their relationship had been the most exciting of her life. He, in turn, reverted to being the romantic, sending her love letters with cute little drawings in the margins. Whilst in custody she gave birth to their child, a boy, who was immediately placed in a loving home. Seeing the baby as yet another bond between her and Gerald, Charlene felt very pleased with herself.

  But after ten months in jail she became increasingly involved with another female prisoner and found less and less time to write to Gerald. Soon her prison lesbian lover was replaced by an informant who passed on Charlene’s hints of what she’d done to young girls in the outside world…

  Beginning to go stir crazy, Charlene contacted her legal representatives and said that she’d turn states evidence in return for a light sentence. As Gerald wasn’t talking, they found this offer very attractive. She was promised immunity from the death penalty, and told that the prosecution would use those parts of her evidence which implicated Gerald, after which her statement would be sealed. A relieved Charlene went on to give details of all ten murders though she downplayed her part in them. It was agreed that if she testified against her husband she would receive a maximum sentence of sixteen years and eight months.

  The trial

  The first trial was held in California. Gerald had no money so was left with a public defendant. Instead he opted to become his own lawyer - which meant he was allowed to cross-examine Charlene when she testified against him in court. There she said that she’d procured the girls to fulfil his sexual fantasies and added that she herself didn’t have any such fantasies. This was in direct contrast to what she’d told officials before: ‘We had this fantasy, see…’

  When further questioned by Gerald, Charlene would admit in court that she’d had a homosexual relationship in prison. And another prisoner was called who said that she’d rejected Charlene’s advances and that Charlene had then been very aggressive. It was clear that, despite her denials, Charlene could be dominant and that she liked sex with girls.

  Charlene tried to give the impression that she too had been one of Gerald’s sex slaves, that she’d been too afraid to deny him. But she had to admit that she’d sent Gerald letters whilst they were both in prison that said things like ‘please don’t ever leave me’ - hardly the sentiments of a woman who was glad to be rid of a murderous man.

  Gerald was found guilty at his first trial of murdering Beth Sowers and Craig Miller and given the death penalty, then extradited to Nevada and again given the death penalty for the murders of Stacy Redican and Karen Chipman-Twiggs. In 1984 he was put on Death Row where he still waits, lodging appeals against the sentence of lethal injection in one state and the gas chamber in another. A three judge panel met to discuss one of his appeals as recently as 1999.

  District Attorney Wagner at first thought that Charlene was a timid and frightened girl. The police thought the same as she was almost pathetically eager to co-operate with them - albeit only once it suited her. Wagner spent weeks studying Charlene and eventually realised that she was manipulative, that she liked to pull the strings behind the scenes. He thought that she had been the number one girl in her father’s life - and was determined to be the number one girl in Gerald Gallego’s, even if that meant outdoing him in bravado and cruelty. She retained her religious streak and clearly thought of herself as special, saying that she had driven home drunk after kidnapping one of the victims but hadn’t crashed, thanks to God.

  Charlene said that she could do nothing to help these girls - a ridiculous statement given that it was she who lured most of them to the van in the first place. She also tried to give the impression that Gerald could have killed her at any moment - but one of her jobs meant that she was on the road alone for days at a time so she could easily have contacted police in a far away state. She’d also persuaded her parents to help Gerald evade the law and change his name by finding him the birth certificate of one of their relatives.

  When it suited her she made coy comments to the court like ‘I don’t tell the man what to do.’ Ironically her demeanour towards these court men was far from obsequious and the jury didn’t like her at all.

  The sentence

  Charlene Williams served her full sixteen years and eight months in a Nevada prison. She spent her days reading and her evenings playing her beloved violin. She was freed on the 17th July 1997, age forty, and presumably reunited with her teenage son. She’d also said earlier in her sentence that she was looking forward to eventually going home to live with her mother. She is expected to inherit her parents wealth.

  Update

  By the year 2000 reports about Gerald Gallego’s appeals were continuing to appear on American news bulletins, often posted on the internet. Most of those news items simply referred to ‘serial killer Gerald Gallego’ so that anyone not familiar with the case gleaned the impression that he acted alone. Already - as it so often does - society was choosing to forget the unpalatable truth that he had a female accomplice who lured the victims to the van, took part in their subsequent sexual assaults and knew of their cruel deaths.

  6 Land of make believe

  The confused inner world of Genene Jones

  Genene was born in 1950 in Texas and immediately given to her adoptive parents, Richard and Gladys Jones. Richard was an innovative man who ran a billboard business and owned a club. He would take Genene out in the truck with him when he drove around town putting up his billboards. She later said that these hours in the truck were the happiest times of her life. At six foot tall and weighing 240 pounds, her father had a powerful presence. She would remain close to him until his death from cancer when she was in her late teens.

  One of Genene’s brothers likewise died from cancer at a young age. She also had an adopted younger brother who she adored and who would die in his teens in horrible circumstances. And she had a sister, so the family was fairly large. Her adoptive parents were often busy - her mother taking care of the four children and helping her father to build a club which became the family business. He also built their home.

  Genene would later report that she grew up lacking in attention and would pretend to be ill in order to obtain it: this started her childhood interest in medicine and in hospitals. At school she was loud and desperate to get noticed and loved to boss her peers about. Her high school graduation photo shows a teenager
with a heavy face, thick bangs of hair and an unconvincing smile. No one knows exactly what happened to her during these formative years but she would later tell a friend that her childhood involved abuse.

  The abused child grew into a slightly overweight adult of five foot four with a large nose and a small mouth. Her large grey eyes were her best and most expressive feature. She kept her brown hair cut short, something which emphasised her somewhat masculine face. Outwardly Genene seemed gregarious and fun loving but inside she nursed strong doubts about her self worth.

  Her first marriage

  She was dating in her late teens when her boyfriend announced that he was about to sign up for the navy. Genene panicked as she realised that she might lose him. So she immediately announced that she was pregnant, causing him to shelve his career plans and marry her instead. Genene was once more the centre of attention, the alleged future mother of his child.

  But the months passed and she didn’t get any bigger. When her husband confronted her about the situation she admitted that she’d lied to him. He was hurt and baffled as he would have been willing to marry her without a pregnancy. They stayed married but he now went into the navy as he’d originally planned whilst she stayed with her widowed mum.

  Later the couple set up home in Tennessee together and had their first child, a son. When her husband was sent away on intensive training, the twenty-something Genene went back to her mother without telling him - presumably an extreme way to show her displeasure at not having his full attention again. It’s possible that she was also playing the games that many insecure women play, hoping that their partner will arrive in tears and beg them to come back.