Kenny the Making of a Serial Killer 1

by Patrick Laughy

  Once the three of them had finished the first meal of the day, he and grandpa would head out to do whatever chores needed doing, feed the chickens and pigs, stuff like that, and then hop into the little red Ford pickup and drive down the long driveway toward the main road, accompanied by the family dog, old Sam, who kept them company wherever they went.

  Grandpa loved that old dog an awful lot.

  When they got to the spot where the driveway met the main road, they’d swing into the yard where all the tree machinery stuff was kept overnight and then he and grandpa would park the Ford.

  The last thing they did was to use a high-pressure hose to wash down the vehicles, giving special attention to the big shredding machines. Grandpa said they had to keep the blades in them clean or they wouldn’t cut properly. Before doing that though, they’d go over to the big pile of woodchips the incoming trucks had dumped earlier and use the excavator to load the old, unlicensed, yard dump truck, and use it to haul the material that had been brought in the day before to even out low spots on the property and dump it.

  Kenny loved that excavator. Grandpa would start it up as soon as they got to the yard. Grandpa had rigged up a small seat right beside his and Kenny would sit beside him as the big machine chugged into life. Once it had warmed up, they would begin the job of transferring the pile of shredded material into the battered old dump truck.

  They’d gouge up big scoops of the material and dump them into that old truck and when it was full, they’d pile into that noisy old thing and roar off into the bush until they found a low spot grandpa figured needed filling to make the ground flat.

  Sometimes it would take several truckloads to fill a hole and once all the material from the yard had been scooped up and dumped, they’d park that old dump and get back into the excavator and then crawl out through the bush to level all the newly deposited chips.

  Kenny enjoyed every minute of the work and grandpa let him pitch in all the time, even so far as to allow him to sit in his lap sometimes, to help drive the old dump or work some of the controls for the excavator.

  When he wasn’t out working or playing with grandpa, Kenny liked to spend time on his own.

  He’d overheard his grandparents talking about him a couple of times and Grandma was worried about him having no other kids to play with and spending too much time on his own in his bedroom.

  Kenny didn’t ever say so, but he wasn’t much interested in playing with other kids.

  Shortly after that though, grandpa bought him an Atari VCS, so he would have something to keep himself occupied with when he wanted to be alone.

  Kenny really liked it, especially one game, the one called Battlezone, where he got to shoot other tanks and things with his tank. He liked being in control, even if it was only a game and he got very good at killing the other stuff.

  It had started off alright, but ‘84 turned out to be very a bad year for Dave Richards.

  During his tour with his training officer Jack, working the skids, Dave had learned a great deal about what a patrol cop was all about.

  Car nine’s patrol area centered on the dregs of the city. While consisting of only about ten square blocks, it encompassed by far much of the street level drug activity that took place in Vancouver. Bar brawls, public drunkenness, run down rooming houses and low-level prostitution was rampant. The majority of the city’s sudden deaths, primarily overdoses by heroin addicts, took place there, as well as the regular occurrences of knifings and deaths resulting from fights about, and for, drugs.

  It was a real eye opener for a middle-class guy like Dave, who had been raised in the suburbs in a comfortable bungalow nestled on a half acre with two nurturing parents, two cars in the garage and a big brother to guide him.

  During the 15 months that he spent there, Dave learned a lot about life on the other side of the tracks. When he looked back on it, he couldn’t think of a better hands-on introduction to police work.

  For policing purposes, the city of Vancouver was divided into four districts. District 1 and 2 worked out of the main police building which was situated downtown on Main street. Districts 3 and 4 split the southern part of the city and worked out of a substation located in central south Vancouver.

  Once he was elevated to the rank of fourth class constable, Dave transferred from car nine, which patrolled in District 2, to car one, which worked in District 1, in what was commonly referred to as Vancouver’s ‘west end’. There he worked in a two-man patrol unit with another old timer, named Jim Bird.

  The west end of Vancouver is full of high-rises and as far as crime went, far less dangerous than the skids. B&E’s were the most common calls. Those and parking complaints. Lots of report writing. Not a great deal of action.

  Unlike his first partner Jack, Jim had only a few months left to retirement and he was just putting in time. He would, quite successfully, avoid any radio call he could. He didn’t have a drinking problem but, unfortunately, he suffered from narcolepsy.

  He’d never bothered to advise Dave of this fact.

  After the third time, the old bugger had fallen asleep behind the wheel while they were working night shift and Dave had been forced to take control and shove his foot on the brake to prevent them from piling into stationary objects, it had become readily apparent.

  There was not a lot Jim was capable of, or was interested in, teaching Dave.

  His short three-month stint in car one was the most boring in all of Dave’s career.

  Dave had given a lot of thought to his future during the time he rode around in car one. He’d decided that he wanted to give the Dog Squad a try. It was an elite squad, and probably one of the most physically demanding for a young constable.

  Among several other prerequisites, the department required that all potential dog masters must have at least two years on the job and have been confirmed in the rank of constable first class to apply.

  Dave went on to spent two years in the Dog Squad. Although he and his partner had been very successful at catching the bad guys during that time and the team could well have stayed longer in the squad if they had so desired, it was not recommended for anyone who was interested in future promotion to spend too much time in any one position. It was common knowledge that a couple of years in one spot was about the maximum anyone should spend if they wished to be considered for higher rank in the future.

  When Dave left the Dog Squad, he was thirty-five years of age and a confirmed first-class constable with several commendations to his credit. He was ambitious and already had his eye on the next promotion, which would be that of the interchangeable ranks of Corporal /Detective.

  His uncle, recently retired from the force, had advised him to apply for a patrol position in D3, the south-east sector of the city, to expand on his general patrol experience, and had indicated that he would put in a good word for Dave there if he wished.

  Dave did that and was assigned to work car twenty-two, another two-man unit.

  His new partner was a ten-year man by the name of Cliff Spencer. Spencer had spent five years in the district and was generally accepted within the department as be a rising star. It was a plum assignment and Dave soon settled in nicely with his easy going, but very motivated and career oriented, co-worker.

  They worked the car together for just over two years and then, again at his uncle’s suggestion, Dave applied for a spot on the Youth Squad which worked out of the same sub divisional offices as both D3 and D4. His transfer was accepted.

  Two-man teams worked the youth detail and Dave was coupled with an ex-academy comrade, Ed Hamilton, who viewed the world very much as he did. They turned out to be a very balanced and effective team. Good cop (Dave), bad cop (Ed) personified.

  A total of four teams worked the detail, and within a couple of months Dave and his partner were at the top of the heap as far as clearances were concerned. They began to specialize in B&E’s and quickly became very good at soliciting confessions from the young perpetrators of these crimes, clea
ring up numerous individual reported crimes, which often went back over many years and numbered in the hundreds. The number of recovered items they could return to the victims was the envy of the squad and got the department a good deal of positive media coverage.

  An enviable pile of commendations for the duo resulted, and after two years both Dave and Ed were promoted to the interchangeable Corporal/Detective rank.

  Ed was assigned to the uniformed patrol as a Corporal, but Dave managed a transfer to the elite serious crimes section, which was tasked with all Robbery and Homicide investigations undertaken by the department. He got a new partner and was assigned to Robbery.

  By 1984, career wise, Dave was flying high. Unfortunately, in his personal life, disaster was about to strike. In early December of that year, while they were doing some last-minute Christmas shopping, Dave’s wife Jenny and both his kids, riding in the family station wagon, were T-boned by a drunk driver. The idiot had been traveling well over the limit and had run a red light. He not only killed himself in the resulting crash but also took the lives of Dave’s entire immediate family.

  For David, the whole world shattered. The grief was completely overwhelming, leaving him appearing to others as little more than comatose.

  Nothing was any longer important to him. He was devastated, so deeply immersed in grief that he saw little reason to live.

  CHAPTER THREE

  - September 1985 –

  Kenny turned six the day he started school. For him, things seemed to go down hill from there.

  He hadn’t want to leave the safety of the house and property. He worried about meeting strange people.

  He couldn’t sleep the night before he started grade one. His stomach was churning and he couldn’t eat any breakfast the next morning either.

  Grandma had done her best to settle him down, telling him he would meet a bunch of kids and have a lot of fun, but Kenny didn’t see it that way. He said very little, keeping to himself. It wasn’t until Grandpa had loaded him, old Sam and his lunch into the little Ford pickup to head out, that he’d ventured to talk a little about it.

  Kenny had asked the old man why he had to go and Grandpa had thought for a few seconds before answering him.

  “Well, Kenny, school is the place where you learn new things and get to spend time and play with other kids like yourself. You’re getting to be a big boy now and its time you expanded your horizons a little.”

  Kenny had frowned at that and Grandpa had smiled.

  “Don’t worry yourself too much, son. All kids feel pretty much the way you do on the first day of school. It’s something new and a little scary before you get there, but it’ll give you a chance to make some friends.

  “Trust me, you’ll have a lot of fun. When you look back on this day later, you’ll wonder why you were so het up about it.”

  Kenny didn’t reply, but he didn’t think he was going to like it at all.

  And he’d been right.

  From that very first day he just didn’t fit in somehow. He was chubby. He didn’t feel comfortable being around a bunch of people and was very quiet. He’d kept pretty much to himself. After the few attempts he’d made to relate to some of the other kids, he had been cruelly rebuffed.

  No matter what Grandpa said, he just wasn’t like the rest of them.

  His teacher, Mrs. Palmer, was OK. She didn’t hassle him or anything, but she was always trying to get him to take part in stuff and Kenny did not like to be singled out and made the centre of attention.

  As time passed, he was often made the butt of jokes, teased and bullied by the others in his class. He stood out for several reasons, none of them positive in the eyes of his classmates. He didn’t know how to deal with these affronts, never spoke up for himself or responded in kind. He just did his best to avoid setting himself up for a repeat.

  Kenny didn’t have a mom and dad like everyone else, just a grandpa and two grandmas. He was overweight and not well coordinated and hopeless at games and team sports. After those first dismal failures at trying during recess and lunch, he never again attempted to play with the other kids.

  Instead he sat alone and well away from the remainder of them.

  After a couple of months Mrs. Palmer sent a note home with him and after Gramma read it she and Grandpa seemed worried. That night when Kenny went to bed, he could hear them talking quietly for a long time, on the other side of the wall.

  Something about social skills. He had no idea what that meant, but obviously they were worried about him.

  The next day, when Grandpa came to pick him up from school, Sam was not in the truck but Grandma was. She got out and held the door open for him. Before he could say anything, she spoke.

  “Hop in, Grandpa is going to take you for a burger.”

  Grandpa moved off as soon as the door closed and he had his seat belt fastened. They left her standing in the parking lot waving.

  Kenny didn’t have to inquire about what was going on. It was pretty evident that Grandma was going into the school to see Mrs. Palmer about him. Grandpa was putting a good face on it all, talking away cheerfully about their adventure out to McDonalds.

  Grandpa didn’t usually do a lot of talking, so Kenny picked up on the fact that the old man was uncomfortable with what was going on, but he knew better than to ask about it. That would just make matters worse.

  So, he played along, saying he was looking forward to the burger.

  That’s all it took to take the pressure off. The strain in grandpa’s shoulders eased and the old man grinned as he ruffled Kenny’s hair with one hand.

  Edith Simpson met with Mrs. Palmer in a small conference room just off the principal’s office.

  She liked the woman right from the start and after the initial awkwardness of it all, the two of them settled down with a cup of tea and got right into it.

  Mrs. Palmer explained her concerns about Kenny’s difficulty relating to the other children in the class, matter-of-factly telling it as she saw it and expressing her concern over the situation. Edith, having expected to hear pretty much what she was receiving from the teacher, appreciated the woman’s sincere interest in Kenny’s wellbeing.

  After some discussion of the finer points of what had been happening in the class, plus Edith’s frank input as to what the boy had experienced with the loss of his immediate family in the horrific accident, they both agreed that they should perhaps seek some professional help for Kenny.

  Mrs. Palmer provided some names for Edith to consider for possible counselling and promised to keep an eye on things in the classroom in the meantime. The two of them agreed to keep in touch on a regular basis.

  Two weeks later Kenny had his first appointment with a psychologist. He and Grandma spent an hour with him and after, as a reward for the boy’s co-operation, the three of them stopped off at McDonalds, which had by this time become Kenny’s favorite place to eat.

  For the first little while the appointments were weekly, as was the hamburger offer. After a month of sessions, the psychologist advised Grandma that monthly get-togethers would suffice from then on and that she would no longer need to sit in for the entire hour. Instead, she would only have a few minutes alone with the doctor at the end of Kenny’s sessions.

  It was after that next appointment, when Granny left Kenny in the waiting room while she went in to see the doctor, that he’d given her the lowdown.

  Kenny was having trouble dealing with the trauma of the accident, coupled with the loss of his parents and his happy environment. He had lost most of his self-confidence and was beginning to isolate himself from the outside world. He felt that he no longer had any real control of his life.

  This situation could well lead to serious consequences during adolescence and adulthood; however, as he was still young, it was hopefully not irreversible.

  The grandparents were doing everything right and with continuing therapy and the maintenance of a stable home life, Kenny’s prognosis for a long-term recovery was good.<
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  After the accident, Dave went off work on compassionate leave for nearly two months. During that time, he sold off the house because he could not stand to enter it and moved in with his parents.

  Loaded up on valium, he’d managed to attend the funeral held for Jenny and the kids, but when it was over, he remembered very little about it.

  For several weeks after that he really didn’t give a damn about much of anything. Overwhelmed by the feeling of grief and loss, he simply bumbled around in a fog, lost a good deal of weight and refused to leave the protective cocoon of his parents’ house.

  The Police Department was good about it. Staff Relations told him to take as much time as he needed and not to worry about anything but getting back to normal, whatever the hell that was supposed to mean.

  During the sixth week of leave, his old partner, Ed Hamilton began to drop in and after a few days, managed to get Dave out of the house and into a pub where they had some brews and the first real meal Dave had considered eating since the accident. They also played a few games of pool.

  Ed kept the conversation on a general plane for the first half of the evening but slowly over the next hour or so began to mention things going on in the department. Promotions, firings, interesting cases etc. By the time they climbed into Ed’s car to call it a night and head home, Dave had unconsciously begun to allow the shell he’d been living within to crack open slightly, just enough to begin to ask questions about other departmental goings on.

  Ed was the type of guy who valued good friends and knew they were few and far between.

  After he had dropped Dave off at his parents’ and on his way home, encouraged by what had transpired during the evening, he began to formulate a long-term plan aimed at getting his pal Dave out of his slump and back to work.

  Within the department it was common knowledge that once Ed had something in mind there was very little that could sway him off a determined course of action.