The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer
Page 15
Terry Pue, 15 years old, was missing from the Krystal Restaurant on January 22, 1981. Pue, like many of the others, had no car and hung out at the Omni, a place that Geter was also known to frequent. The next day at 7:30 A.M., Pue’s body was discovered in yet another police jurisdiction near Atlanta, Rockdale County. It was almost like the killer was dumping victims in as many different police jurisdictions in and around Atlanta as possible. Pue’s fully clothed body was located near Interstate 20 on Sigman Road, laid out as if the killer had wanted it to be discovered. Pue had apparently suffered manual strangulation.
Another juvenile known to hang out near the Omni was Patrick Baltazar, 11 years old. Baltazar was last seen on Courtland Street in the early evening hours of February 6. His body was found on Friday, February 13, 1981. It was behind the Corporate Square Office Park, off Buford Highway, three blocks from Interstate 85 in Dekalb County. He was fully clothed, but his clothing was unbuttoned. Probable asphyxiation due to ligature strangulation was the cause of his death.
Through the end of March 1981, five more young black males went missing and were found either in the South or Chattahoochee rivers. They ranged in age from 13 to 23 years old and all of them had died of some form of asphyxiation. In February 1981, an Atlanta newspaper carried a story that revealed that several different types of fibers were found on two of the murder victims. It seemed no coincidence that following the publication of the fiber story, five bodies, clad only in undershorts or nude, were subsequently deposited in rivers in the Atlanta area instead of being dumped on land. It appeared to police investigators that the victims were being disposed of in rivers without clothing so that the water would wash away any fibers that might otherwise be left on their bodies.
The next body found in the series, that of Larry Rogers, was dumped in a vacant apartment on Temple Street, less than a mile from Bankhead Highway, on April 9, 1981. He, too, was clad only in undershorts but was wearing his tennis shoes. Asphyxiation due to strangulation, possibly by chokehold, was determined to be the cause of death. Rogers was last seen on March 30, 10 days prior to his discovery date, at his residence in northwest Atlanta. Less than a month later, at 3:30 P.M. on April 27, 1981, the body of 21-year-old Jimmy Ray Payne was found snagged on a tree limb in the Chattahoochee River, one quarter of a mile downstream from the Interstate 285 bridge and between it and the Bankhead Highway bridge in the city of Atlanta. He was clad only in shorts and died from asphyxiation by unknown means.
The last murder victim on the task force list was William Barrett, age 16. Barrett was last seen by his court services officer on May 11, 1981, in the Kirkwood area of Dekalb County. His body was found dumped on the road at one A.M. the next day in the vicinity of Winthrop Drive, just off I-20 in Dekalb County. Even though his cause of death was determined to be asphyxiation due to strangulation, the medical examiner discovered five knife pricks in his body but only two holes in his shirt. His clothing was unbuttoned and his pants were loose. Also, Barrett’s body had two horizontal post-mortem stab wounds.
Profile of the Atlanta Child Killer
On the day following the first meeting, our consultation group gave its first response to the Atlanta task force senior commanders. We believed that at least 23 of the 27 murder victims on the task force list were connected and committed by the same person. The cases of Jimmy Payne, William Barrett, Larry Rogers, Patrick Baltazar, Lubie Geter, Terry Pue, Charles Stephens, Eric Middlebrooks, and Alfred Evans were linked to each other. The same fibers and animal hairs were present consistently from one case to another. Because other young black female and male victims were discovered, probably strangled, in the same rivers or along the same roads in close proximity to the main nine victims, they could not be excluded from the investigation. We didn’t have any direct evidence that tied their deaths to the nine primary victims, but it was too soon in the process to throw them out on that fact alone. We conceded that with very few or no similar fibers and animal hairs identified, an absolute connection from the other victims to the nine linked victims could not be made. However, there was still a very high probability that 23, if not all 27, murdered children were killed by the same person. Moreover, we reported, we were unable to develop a strong rationale for connecting all 27 murders into one series because of either an incomplete investigation into the murders of the early victims or insufficient data given to us by the Atlanta task force. The more information available for analysis, the more effective we would be in attempting to link these crimes. Some assurance that friends and family members were not responsible for some of the murders was necessary before connections to other cases could be made.
The style of killings, with victims missing from areas popular with young blacks and asphyxiation being the most predominant cause of death, didn’t fit logically with the most publicized theory that a white racist person or group was eliminating the black children of Atlanta to create fear in the community. These were not terrorist murders in the political sense of the word. The Atlanta child murders were more than likely committed by a black male whose method of operation reflected a personality with a need for hands-on activity with each victim before and after death. This would be a killer who could move about freely, who had relationships within the community, and whose presence in the area on any day he chose would not be considered out of the ordinary. This would be a killer who was trusted by his victims. Thus, we concluded, the killer was part of the community and, like a Ted Bundy, was taking victims who had no idea they would ever be in danger.
Probable asphyxiation was the cause of death in a number of cases. A lack of telling marks of death or signs of a struggle were indicative that the killer more than likely got the victims into a sleepy stupor by using drugs or alcohol. Then he quietly strangled or suffocated the children. Getting the victims to the point of drowsiness took patience and a plan. That meant that the killer spent considerable time with each victim from the point of initial contact until the induction of the state of drowsiness and subsequent murder. To accomplish all that meant that the killer was deceptively cunning in his approach and the victims had complete trust in him.
Some of the boys who had been murdered hung out in the fringe areas of Atlanta, neighborhoods populated principally by the unemployed drug users and hustlers. This was the killer’s primary trolling ground, and we figured that he had something these young victims wanted. This was how he lured them into his trap. The killer’s line of approach was most likely the offer of a short-term job to make quick money. This was the ploy that John Wayne Gacy used to entrap his young male victims and that Jeffrey Dahmer would use 15 years later. This is a typical serial killer lure. The job offer might have been for prostitution, posing for photos, or running drugs. To the younger victims, the killer may have looked like a role model or big-brother figure, and the victims probably hoped that their association with him would eventually develop into something long term. To the older victims, the killer was nothing more than a very short-lived employment opportunity for the evening, such as a “john” or a drug dealer in need of an on-the-spot carrier. The killer, we believed, was able to change his approach according to the victim. He might have been able to lure his younger victims with money and his older victims with money and a job offer. Whatever the case, the killer was able to get those male victims from 9 to 28 years old under his complete control.
What added to his ability to attract those boys was that each one of them was a clone of the murderer’s own self-image. Even though his choice of victims was purely random, they were a ready pool of handsome boys just like him. He looked, thought, and talked just like his victims, and that is what appealed to them the most—he was someone with common threads. He identified with them so well, the victims probably were never afraid of him, nor was he frightened by them. But his common ground was seductive because he probably presented himself as educated, well-integrated into the community, and always having a good job. The major obstacle for each victim—primarily because they were young—w
as that they were unable to see through his mask of superficiality.
Based on the killer’s ability to mingle across a spectrum of elementary school boys, older teenage victims, and adults, you would expect to find the killer comfortable in each of those atmospheres. He could have been or still was a volunteer or employee of a boys’ service group, such as Boy Scouts, the YMCA, or other types of boys clubs or community groups. He might have been a frequent volunteer, substitute teacher, or vendor around the elementary-school scene. He might have frequented boy prostitutes and, at the same time, been part of the gay disco scene. He was not likely to have been an out-of-the-closet homosexual. In fact, he might have been known to hate gays in some circles and be superficially heterosexual with his own family of origin.
On the other side of the child-killer’s mask was evidence of his need for total possession of his victims by engaging in postmortem activities with them. He had a sex drive that embraced necrophilic tendencies and a willingness to spend considerable time with victims after death. Even though direct evidence of sexual assault was not confirmed for most victims, it was expressed through the killer’s signature: leaving the nude or partially clad males in a sexually degrading manner. He also partially redressed previously nude victims and disposed of their bodies in obviously posed positions at preselected locations, as if he’d rehearsed this before the killing.
The killer’s arranging of various victims in contorted or sexually degrading positions or leaving them in open places so they would certainly be discovered was a form of death ritual as well as a message. He revealed that he was treating the police as enemies and demonstrated with his victims’ bodies that he not only exercised absolute control over the corpses, but over the police as well. The police were completely unable to catch him even though he was leaving the bodies in plain view and in posed positions that said to investigators, “I am a murder victim.” The police looked more and more inept to the public as the search intensified, reinforcing the killer’s mentality with feelings of extreme superiority even as the hunted fugitive that he knew he was. He wanted the police to feel, psychologically, as he really did, helpless and controlled.
We also knew the killer was very aware of his environment, sensitive to the nature of the police pursuit, and clever enough to modify his patterns the moment he knew people were on to him. His changing of victim dump sites from mainly land surfaces to rivers, for example, was a response to the publicity his crimes had received. In so changing these styles, he revealed his media awareness and his ability to monitor the progress of the investigation through public sources. How the police tracked him, mainly with the remains examined for similar fibers and hairs, was very important to him. Leaving partially nude or nude bodies in a river diminished the chances for finding that crucial microscopic trace of physical evidence that could be linked back to him. There was no question that the Atlanta Child Killer was well-versed in police procedures. Having police-science knowledge was part of his survival technique of acting only when there was least possibility of detection. He didn’t want to get caught—ever.
The killer’s predilection for postmortem engagement with his victims should have led investigators to check out those individuals who had been employed at—no matter how briefly—or were applicants for positions at funeral homes or medical examiners’ offices. Previously convicted multiple murderers had expressed their interest in morbidity by applying for jobs in police departments and in the death services area. Killers like Ted Bundy and Kenneth Bianchi worked at crisis clinics and applied for sheriff’s officer positions, respectively. Bundy, at one point in our interviews, reflected on his fascination with decomposing bodies.
The distance from where victims were last seen to the location of their body recovery ranged from a few blocks to over 15 miles. That feature could mean only that the killer had access to reliable private transportation. Each of the respective multiple murderers whom we had investigated had had several vehicles that were available to transport their victims to secluded areas. Also, each had driven hundreds of miles pursuing potential victims and checking out prospective dump sites.
The profile of the killer as a black male in his mid-twenties, with a record of intermittent employment around elementary schools, interest in medical examiner functions, obsession with necrophilia, traffic with boy prostitutes, a role model for young boys, and constantly driving around Atlanta in pursuit of potential victims was a characterization that the task force brass must have wanted to believe. The pressure was so intense to link the murders to some white racist conspiracy or to the occult that the black lust-killer theory was not emphasized publicly.
The white racist conspiracy and occult responsibility were poor theories to promote. For one thing, there were none of the typical indicators or paraphernalia, such written messages claiming responsibility or symbolic references such as “666” or “KKK” carved in a tree or discovered at any crime scene. In addition, only one of the victims had been shot, but more gunshot-type murders, which were characteristic of previous murders by members of extremist groups, would have been expected.
How to Catch the Killer
It was proposed by the Atlanta task force command that supporting the white racist theory through the media would make the killer think that the police were far from his tracks. We didn’t think that was a good idea because the killer already knew that they had linked cases through fiber identification. Besides that, previous attempts made by law enforcement to play games with a serial killer through the news media had failed miserably. The main reason that those strategies were not effective was that the killer was the only person who knew all the facts of the murders. Any attempt to deceive the killer by portraying distorted facts or attempting to lure the killer to a particular location through a remorseful appeal served only to alert the killer to how close the investigation really was to catching him—about as close as the planet Pluto is to Earth.
The second strategy suggested by the Atlanta staff was already in place, and they were hoping that this effort would be endorsed by the consultants and would ultimately be productive. Several days prior to our consultation, they had set out to conduct surveillance of bridges that crossed the South and Chattahoochee rivers. This rationale was sound because at least six of the last seven victims had been dumped in one of the two rivers and there was no reason to believe that the next or a subsequent murder victim would not be dumped into one of those two rivers. For the last two days, nagging doubts surfaced among our group of consultants about whether the task force had given us any meaningful criteria upon which to base our suggestions for apprehending the killer. At the very least, I doubted the Atlanta staff’s ability to relate the features of their series of murders that were important for our assessment. But their idea to stake out bridges was outstanding and a stroke of brilliance. We wholeheartedly endorsed their proactive effort to catch the killer, even though it meant using manpower in an area that took away from other parts of the investigation, such as following up leads, checking sources, and interviewing potential witnesses.
The task force had planned to watch 11 bridges that crossed the two rivers. It was a very labor-intensive proposition, taking at least five officers to watch one bridge—two on each end and one near the water where he could hear the splash. That meant the equivalent of at least 55 full-time officers had to be on duty 24 hours a day. At the rate of re-lieving them every eight hours, it required 165 surveillance officers, a crew larger than 95 percent of the police departments in Washington State. What an expensive proposition to continue through the summer months while there were still routine traffic patrols and anticrime details that had to be staffed. But we all thought it would be worth it.
Some of the bridges were very long, so it was necessary to station someone underneath, near the water, to detect the splash of a body. If a vehicle stopped in the middle of a bridge, the surveillance crews on either side might not see it, so they had to be alerted by the splash detectors below. There was an e
laborate notification procedure set up so that when a splash was heard, responding officers would quickly place large nets across the river in an effort to snag the body that would presumably come floating by. The officer under the bridge would notify the crews on top and the bridge would be barricaded and catch the Atlanta “riverman” in the act. The Atlanta task force staff members really appreciated our assistance and advice. We were confident the bridge stakeout would work.
At about 10:30 A.M. on our last day in Atlanta, May 22, 1981, we were putting the finishing touches on our Child Killer profile when a messenger entered the room. It was a time that the entire city of Atlanta would never forget. Lee Brown and the others politely excused themselves for about an hour. When they returned, nothing was said about their abbreviated absence. Looks of frustration, nervousness, and stress lined their faces. Brown was especially apprehensive and remarked only that something critical to the murder series had occurred and he would inform each one of us, personally, what it was at a later date. He never did. He presented us with Atlanta City Police Department commemorative coins and paperweights, and thanked us by saying that the serial murder consultation process was the most valuable part of their investigations. With that we left Atlanta.
My pen was flying across my yellow legal-size pad on the airplane flight home. Our one-hour presentation of the Atlanta Child Killer’s profile and discussion about staking out the bridges left me with a very shallow feeling; I felt as though the consultation process was very superficial. I was concerned about what I saw and heard during the presentations and felt that I had to make written recommendations to the task force, so I composed a letter to Commissioner Lee Brown. First of all, I didn’t get the impression that there were any homicide detectives in the room from the Atlanta task force, except for Sergeant Bolton, who was very quiet the entire session. I knew that police administrators were highly effective at summative evaluation—Monday-morning quarterbacking—and less effective at formative evaluation. I just felt that experienced investigators needed to be involved in the planning process of in-progress investigations. Murder cases cannot be run from above.