by Scott Bonn
Their mutually rewarding and satisfying relationship continued for more than seven months. During that time, Stacey’s daily use of heroin was increasing and getting progressively worse. Although Little Anthony provided her with the drug, the amount he gave her was not enough to satisfy her increasing dependency and needs. Stacey could not afford the additional bundle of heroin she began to require each day, even with the cash she got from Little Anthony. Her terrible heroin cravings were making her sick, and she was becoming desperate.
She knew that she had to get more money from somewhere immediately in order to purchase heroin, so she decided to extort Bill Stevens to get it. She would tell him that he needed to pay her more money if he wanted to continue their monthly rendezvous.
“Bill is crazy about me and my pussy. He’ll pay up to keep me happy,” she said to herself.
When she and Stevens reached his hotel suite on a fateful evening in mid-May and began to undress, Stacey said, “You need to give me more money, Bill. The things I do for you are worth a lot more than you are giving me. I need more money now. If you want to keep seeing me, you need to give it to me.”
Her words shocked Stevens. He became enraged. He had no intention of letting a prostitute extort him. His face reddened, and he forcefully refused her demands.
Stevens screamed, “What an ungrateful little whore you are! I give you plenty of money. How dare you come into my hotel room and make demands? No way. Fuck off!”
With that, Stacey grabbed his Diamond Rolex watch, worth twenty thousand dollars, that was lying on the nightstand next to his bed.
She said, “Fine, I’ll take this instead, asshole.”
Now enraged, Stevens grabbed her and slapped her sharply across the face with his right hand.
He said, “Give me that watch, you bitch. I want you to get the hell out of here now.”
Stevens managed to pull the watch out of her hand and then knocked her down onto the bed with another hard slap across her face.
Once again, he demanded, “Get the hell out of my room right now. I am finished with you.”
Frantic and feeling dope sick from heroin withdrawal, Stacey stood up from the bed and grabbed a heavy sterling silver candleholder from the dressing table. She struck Stevens with a heavy blow from the candleholder on the left side of his head and knocked him down onto the floor. The sharp blow to his head rendered Stevens unconscious immediately. He was also bleeding heavily from a deep gash above his left eyebrow.
Unmoved by the scene, Stacey snatched up his Rolex watch and five hundred dollars in cash from his wallet. Shaking from a combination of fear and withdrawal, she made a hasty exit without even bothering to check on his physical condition.
She did not make it very far, however. Stevens regained consciousness moments after she left his hotel suite. Rising from the floor groggily, he pressed a hand towel against his bleeding head and quickly called down to the front desk for help.
The hotel security team stopped Stacey as she raced through the lobby toward the exit. The hotel manager called the police. When the authorities arrived shortly thereafter, Stevens filed a written complaint at the scene. The police promptly arrested Stacey and took her to jail. The next morning, she appeared before a judge who formally charged her with aggravated assault, robbery and prostitution.
She called Little Anthony for help, but he provided no assistance at all and even refused to see her in jail. Finding herself all alone, and lacking the resources to arrange for her own bail, she remained in jail.
After two weeks behind bars, the assistant district attorney assigned to her case offered Stacey a plea bargain as an alternative to facing trial. Based on the advice of her court-appointed attorney, she accepted a guilty plea on reduced charges in exchange for a sentence of five years in prison with the possibility of parole.
The prosecutor offered Stacey a plea bargain because she was only eighteen years old at the time she committed her crimes and she was a first-time offender. If she had gone to trial and been convicted of all charges against her, she could have received the maximum sentence of sixteen years behind bars without the possibility of parole.
Stacey is now twenty years old. She is in the second year of her incarceration at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility and is doing very well. Considering her extensive history of neglect, abuse and drug addiction, she has made a miraculous turnaround since entering prison.
No longer sullen, argumentative or combative, she has settled nicely into her daily routine and is following the rules of the institution. She generally gets along with her fellow inmates and rarely has any incidents with the prison staff. She minds her own business, keeps her mouth shut, and the guards leave her alone.
She works in the prison laundry five days a week and stays in shape by lifting weights and running laps in the prison yard. She is in the best physical and mental condition of her life. She is also inquisitive and reads everything available on the shelves of the prison library.
Two factors can account for the remarkable change in Stacey’s thinking, personality and demeanor over the last twelve months. First, the treatment she has received at Bedford Hills for her drug addiction, as well as intensive counseling for her psychological problems, have helped her greatly. To her credit, she has embraced the professional help that she has received in prison and is very grateful for it.
The second factor, however, is the more powerful contributor to her recovery—that is, a special, spiritual bond she has developed with the prison chaplain, Charles Lundquist. Since arriving at Bedford Hills, Stacey has begun to share her innermost feelings, fears and desires with Lundquist. She has never shared herself so openly with anyone before. She trusts and respects Lundquist completely.
Ironically, Stacey is finding freedom, serenity and a purpose for her life inside the walls of prison. However, freedom is not the only thing she has discovered at Bedford Hills. Stacey has discovered love, too. She has fallen completely in love with Charles Lundquist.
Chapter Six
It is 9:00am on Friday, October 8th. Charles Lundquist is sitting at the desk in his small office at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. The chaplain is waiting for a prison guard to escort Stacey Sommers to his office for her spiritual guidance and counseling session.
While waiting for Stacey to arrive, he sits silently in prayer and meditation. His prayers this day are about Stacey and gratitude. He is thanking God for putting her into his life.
Since coming to Bedford Hills last year, Stacey has given Lundquist renewed faith in his work and a beautiful, tangible reason to continue his career as chaplain. He derives immense satisfaction from being Stacey’s spiritual guide, advisor and mentor. He is extremely proud of her religious growth and the tremendous personal progress she has made since entering prison.
Their friendship is also very satisfying to Lundquist on a personal level. In fact, their relationship has become the most wonderful and gratifying experience of his five-year career at Bedford Hills.
He hopes that one day Stacey will allow him to baptize her in the prison chapel and become a member of the Methodist Church like him. Lundquist believes that it is his calling or even destiny to protect Stacey and save her from a lifetime of crime, abuse and misery.
In silent prayer, Lundquist says, “Stacey, I promise to protect you from the evils of the material world. You are not alone anymore. I am your special friend, your guide, and I will not let anything harm you,”
The chaplain waits patiently in his office for Stacey to arrive. His eyes are closed and he smiles.
Chapter Seven
It is 10:00am on Sunday, October 10th. It has been nine days since Melissa Stein disappeared on the upper west side, and the NYPD has no clues concerning her whereabouts. Just like two other teenage girls who disappeared in Manhattan several weeks before her, Melissa vanished into thin air without a clue or witness to the crime.
There are similarities between the missing girls. All three of them are from stable, lov
ing, upper-middle-class Manhattan families. Girls from such backgrounds do not just vanish, and they rarely run away from home. No one has heard from any of the girls since the date of their disappearances. They all have cell phones that have gone unanswered since they disappeared. Naturally, the parents of the three girls are beside themselves with anxiety, fear and despair.
The disappearances of three girls in such a short period suggests foul play to NYPD investigators. Authorities initially considered kidnapping as a possible explanation, but no one has contacted the girls’ families to claim responsibility or make such demands. Kidnappers seeking ransom would certainly have notified the families by now, so authorities no longer consider kidnapping to be the most likely motive for their disappearances.
Officially, and publicly, the NYPD is treating the girls as missing persons, but the investigators involved suspect violence in all three cases. With kidnapping all but ruled out, investigators are focusing on darker motives, including rape and murder. In the absence of any eyewitnesses or material evidence, however, the police have very little to go on. Without a single meaningful lead to pursue and guided only by their experience in prior cases, the detectives are completely baffled.
NYPD investigators are examining patterns and possible correlations in the three cases. Due to the similar family backgrounds of the girls involved and the identical nature of their disappearances, law enforcement authorities are investigating any possible links between the three of them. As it turns out, however, only the similarity of their socioeconomic status or social class, race (white) and age connect the girls. Their families have absolutely no business, social, political or religious ties. The girls reside in different neighborhoods, attend different schools and have different groups of friends.
The search for the three missing girls is massive, even by New York standards, and unprecedented in scope. It continues non-stop, twenty-four hours per day. Teams of officers are going door to door on both the upper east and upper west sides of Manhattan. They are canvassing households one by one for clues. The public has also banded together on behalf of the missing girls and formed informal neighborhood search parties to look for them.
The NYPD began to search the East River immediately following the disappearance of two girls on the upper east side within three weeks of one another. The efforts by police scuba divers are continuous. Their search of the East River preceded the disappearance of Melissa Stein on the upper west side.
As one might expect, the search for the girls has become a major news story that the local and national media update constantly. The massive, ongoing news coverage of the search has turned it into a spectacle that has captured the hearts and minds of the entire nation. Increasingly, the news media and public clamor for the NYPD to find the missing girls. As a result, the pressure on both the mayor and police commissioner is immense.
Chapter Eight
The NYPD makes a shocking and terrible discovery at 10:15am. After nearly two weeks of dredging the river, scuba divers locate the dead bodies of what appear to be two adolescent females. The bodies are lying within thirty feet of one another at the bottom of the East River, and approximately fifty feet from land at 110th Street. The bodies of the girls are intact, and they are completely nude.
The medical examiner conducting the autopsies, Dr. Robert Smythe, quickly establishes the identities of the dead bodies through dental records that were already on hand from the families of the missing girls. The two dead teenage girls are, coincidentally, both wearing unique and readily identifiable braces on their teeth. Using dental records as a means of identification is necessary because the corpses are bloated, distended, decomposing and almost unrecognizable after so much time in the river.
At 6:15pm, following nearly six hours of autopsy procedures on the two bodies and discussion, the medical examiner confirms that the deceased females are the two missing girls from the upper east side—that is, fourteen-year-old Emily Foster and fifteen-year-old Jenny Keiser. The medical examiner makes it official after the distraught parents of the two missing girls come in and identify the bodies of their daughters.
The medical examiner concludes that the girls were killed before their bodies were dumped into the river. He comes to this conclusion because there is no water inside their lungs, despite the fact that the bodies have been lying at the bottom of the East River for several weeks. He further concludes that the girls were strangled to death. He draws this conclusion because their necks are broken and there is bruising and discoloration around their throats in a distinctive pattern that is consistent with manual strangulation. Bruising marks from the killer’s hands and fingers are clearly visible around the throats of the victims.
In addition, there is evidence of trauma and tissue damage to the vaginas of both girls that are consistent with violent sexual penetration. The damage is quite extensive, particularly to the first victim, Emily Foster, who disappeared on September 5th. The medical examiner concludes that the assaults occurred post mortem because there are no signs of internal hemorrhaging that would certainly be present if the sexual assaults occurred while the girls were alive. There is no semen or other trace of DNA from the perpetrator on or inside of either body.
The medical examiner conducts toxicology tests to rule out any possibility of death by poisoning or drug overdose. The results of the toxicology tests will take at least two weeks to complete. The medical examiner finds no bullet wounds or stab wounds on the bodies, and no readily apparent signs of torture, although he cannot completely rule out the possibility that the victims were tortured prior to being murdered. This is because the bodies of the girls have been deteriorating and decomposing in the river for weeks, and a tremendous amount of important forensic evidence has been lost forever.
Despite the degraded condition of the dead bodies, the medical examiner and NYPD criminalists have discovered some very valuable evidence that appears to link the two murders to one another. First, the disappearances of the two girls occurred several weeks apart, and their abductions took place in different Manhattan neighborhoods, but the ligatures found on their bodies are the same. The corpses of both girls have blue nylon cord tied tightly around them. Forensic scientists will soon determine if the manufacturer of the nylon cord is the same, but it almost certainly is. In addition, the particular type of knot used to tie them up—the square knot—is the same on both girls.
Second, and the single most important discovery made by the forensic experts, involves a religious symbol or artifact found on both bodies. The religious symbol that criminalists discover on the corpses is a Christian cross, made from iron, tied around their necks. The two crosses are identical in design and each weighs five pounds. The medical examiner believes that the iron crosses served as anchors or ballast and helped to drag the dead girls wearing them to the bottom of the river.
The matching blue nylon cords and iron crosses found on the bodies make it clear to the medical examiner and other forensic experts present in the autopsy room that the same person killed both girls. They further conclude that the placement of the Christian cross around the necks of the girls serves a symbolic purpose. Moreover, it constitutes the signature of the killer.
Based on the material evidence discovered with the bodies, the NYPD criminalists make an instant but informed prediction about the personal characteristics of the unknown perpetrator of the murders. Specifically, given the challenging and audacious nature of the crimes, combined with the sheer physical strength required to abduct the girls, kill them, and then transport their dead bodies, the criminalists predict that the perpetrator is a youthful male who is strong, very fit and confident.
The medical examiner concludes his autopsy of the two dead girls at 6:30pm by stating that New York City is now facing a compulsive, ritualistic and highly formidable serial killer.
Chapter Nine
It is 7:05pm. The discovery of two dead girls at the bottom of the East River earlier today has generated a frenzy of news media inquiries
into the office of NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton. Discoveries of this magnitude are difficult to keep under wraps. Shortly after the discovery, confidential sources inside the NYPD leaked to the press the fact that two corpses were found in the river and also that the bodies were thought to be the two missing teenage girls, Emily Foster and Jenny Keiser.
Throughout the afternoon and into the evening, the news media have been contacting the NYPD non-stop for information about the discovery of the two bodies. In particular, they are asking whether the two corpses are somehow connected. Reporters are also asking about the possibility of a connection between the two corpses just discovered and Melissa Stein, the teenage girl who remains missing from the upper west side.
Bratton is very aware that the news media will fan the flames of rumor, hearsay and conjecture in the absence of facts about the situation. At the same time, he does not want to respond in a piecemeal fashion to the inquiries. Therefore, he has scheduled a press conference for noontime tomorrow to address the discovery. He has told the news media that he will make an important announcement about the two teenage girls missing from the upper east side.
By acting quickly to schedule the news conference, the police commissioner hopes to control both the content and tone of the message delivered to the public about the two dead girls and, thereby, avoid a general panic.
Chapter Ten
At exactly twelve noon on Monday, October 11th, Commissioner Bratton enters the main briefing room at One Police Plaza in downtown New York City. He is about to make an official statement concerning the two dead adolescent females that were discovered at the bottom of the East River less than twenty-four hours earlier.