by Scott Bonn
She says, “Commissioner, it tells us that these murders are very personal and intimate for him. Before he captures these girls, I believe that he fantasizes obsessively about what he will do to them once they are under his control. These girls are very special to him. He enjoys the physical contact with them immensely. He wants or needs to feel their bodies and to be intimate with them. He enjoys strangling them, and I am certain that it arouses him sexually.”
Cassidy continues, “Now, what I am about to tell you is vitally important to understanding his criminal pathology and motivations. As the guardian strangles these girls, he feels all-powerful. As he kills them, I suspect that it makes him feel like he is God. It gives him complete control over life and death. It is the ultimate thrill for him. It is the reason that he kills. Power and control over life and death.”
Cassidy looks over to Pritchard and asks, “Captain, do the autopsy reports for the three victims show evidence of sexual assault?”
Pritchard replies, “Yes, they all do. There is evidence of trauma and tissue damage in the vaginas of all three girls that are consistent with violent sexual penetration. Also, the chief medical examiner believes that the assaults occurred post mortem.”
Pritchard adds, “However, there were no traces of semen found inside of their bodies. In fact, there was nothing discovered on any of the victims to provide a blood or DNA sample from the perpetrator. The girls were in the water for many days before they were found, so valuable evidence may have been washed away, or the killer may have worn a condom to rape his victims.”
Cassidy says, “As I suspected. This killer is very careful and meticulous. Although he is hedonistic and lustful, he is also very controlled. A real psychopath.”
She adds, “That is my initial take on this serial killer, but my colleagues and I will be able to tell you a lot more about him after we read your case file and review the findings of the chief medical examiner. We really need to review everything you have before we can develop a complete profile of the guardian.”
Pritchard replies, “Naturally, Agent Cassidy. I understand. I think we should stop here for now, so that we can all get some rest tonight and then regroup early tomorrow morning. However, before we break up for the evening, I want to mention one more important item. It involves a unique characteristic of these murders that we have kept from the news media and the public. The guardian has a unique signature that involves an iron cross—a Christian cross—that he ties around the neck of each victim before he drops her into the river. The crosses are identical and weigh five pounds each.”
Pritchard continues, “In addition to the cross, the most recent victim had a Bible reference carved into her abdomen. This killer is obsessed with religion—he seems to believe that God sent him to kill these girls—and I believe it is vital to understanding his needs, motivations and actions.”
With her curiosity now piqued, Cassidy says, “Fascinating, Captain. I think that you are correct in your assessment. As you know, the signature of a serial killer like the guardian comes from within his psyche, and it reflects a deep fantasy need that he has about his victims. Although his signature may evolve somewhat over time, such as the biblical reference carved onto the latest victim, it will always be present in his crimes because the signature originated in his fantasies that began long before he murdered his first victim. His signature has powerful psychological and emotional meaning for him. This could be the key to unlocking the mystery of how we will catch him.”
Pritchard nods and says, “Yes, absolutely. It might just help us nail this bastard. I would like to pick up this conversation first thing in the morning.”
The group adjourns for the evening. After saying good night to everyone, Pritchard goes back to his office to ponder the complexities of the case alone. He sits for a few minutes in quiet reflection. He is completely exhausted but cannot get the guardian or the victims out of his thoughts. His mind is spinning, and he is restless and agitated.
Pritchard rubs his unshaven face. He thinks about going back to his hotel room. It occurs to him that if he goes back to his hotel room, he will probably start drinking again. Nevertheless, he desperately needs to sleep. His head is throbbing, his eyes are bloodshot, and his vision is blurry. He decides to tempt fate and return to the large, comfortable bed in his hotel room.
“Maybe just one drink to relax,” he says to himself as he leaves his office.
Chapter Twenty Five
It is October 20th at 7:35pm. The night sky is clear and the air is calm, seasonably cool and crisp. A full moon is shining brightly over Manhattan as the guardian sits alone in the dark in his alter ego’s car—a 2016 red Honda Accord sedan—which is parked on West 66th Street between Amsterdam and West End Avenues. He is parked on a dark side street near Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. His car is facing west toward the Hudson River that is just two blocks away.
As he sits in the car and stares straight ahead, the guardian is restless and very uncomfortable. He feels a powerful yearning—more precisely, a hunger—growing inside him. Nineteen long days and nights have passed since he killed Melissa Stein. The pleasure he derived from strangling Melissa, and from having sex with her lifeless body, are a distant memory. He can barely even remember her now.
His hunger for a new victim has been increasing for days, and it has become an overwhelming obsession for him.
As he sits inside the car, he says to himself, “The yearning is too much for me to bear. I cannot wait any longer. I must find a new girl right now. I will save her mortal soul and release her from bondage here on earth.”
As the guardian sits in a state of heightened arousal, sixteen-year-old Eve Curry is leaving the Juilliard School of Music, located at Lincoln Center, just one block from where his car is located. Eve has just attended a performance of the jazz ensemble there. Her favorite cousin, Annie, a scholarship student at Juilliard, recently joined the ensemble, and Eve came after school today to see her perform. Annie plays clarinet, and she is a very gifted young musician. It is her second year at Juilliard, and she is a prodigy and future star.
Eve was delighted to witness Annie’s first performance as a member of the highly regarded jazz ensemble. She found the event to be very exciting and enjoyed talking to Annie, who is two years older than she is, after the performance. Eve admires her accomplished, older cousin, and it made her feel special that Annie gave her a personal invitation to attend the event. Annie’s parents were also there to see her perform, but no one else from Eve’s immediate family was invited.
Like Annie, Eve is also a talented teenage girl, but her skill is not in music. Eve is tall, approximately five-foot-eight-inches, and strong. She is a gifted athlete. She is first-string goalie on the girls’ varsity soccer team at the prestigious York Prep School located on West 68th Street, near Central Park. Her athletic skills are such that she is being scouted for a soccer scholarship by a number of major universities. Eve loves sports, and she is very competitive by nature. She no doubt gets the competitiveness from her father, Ben, who was a champion rower at Yale University during his junior and senior years there.
Eve is a lovely girl with olive-colored skin and long, straight blonde hair. She has sparkling, emerald green eyes. She is very popular among her peers at York Prep, and many of the boys in her class have tried to date her but to no avail. Unlike many teenage girls, Eve places her schoolwork and team sports ahead of her social life. She must also frequently take care of her six-year-old sister, Julie, after school because her parents are both employed full time, and they often work late. Eve does not mind taking care of Julie. In fact, she really enjoys it. Despite their significant difference in age, the sisters are very close. Eve is protective of Julie who adores her older sister in return.
Eve is at an age where she desires independence and wants to establish an identity for herself that is separate from her parents and family. It made her feel very mature when Annie invited her to attend the performance all by herself. Altho
ugh Eve’s parents were a bit nervous about their daughter going to the performance alone, particularly in light of the recent serial killings of three teenage girls in the city, they relented when she assured them that she would come home immediately after the event ends at 7:30pm.
In agreeing to let Eve go on her own, her parents reasoned that it would still be early when the performance concluded, and Lincoln Center Plaza is always crowded with people attending various events in the evening. Besides, Eve’s family resides in an apartment located on West End Avenue at West 71st Street, so she has less than a ten-minute walk from Lincoln Center in order to get home safely.
It is 7:36pm as Eve walks briskly down the steps from Juilliard and turns right toward West 66th Street. She is walking with a small group of people who also attended the jazz ensemble performance. There is a slight chill in the air. Eve wraps a lovely red-and-white silk scarf around her neck to keep warm. Her father, a successful commercial banker, bought the expensive scarf for her while on a business trip to Paris last year.
Eve is shivering a bit as she and the others approach West 66th Street. She wishes she had worn her black leather jacket today. She is wearing only a pleated skirt, wool sweater and the scarf from Paris.
“I should have worn my leather jacket,” she tells herself.
As Eve is walking along with the others, she feels a sudden pang of hunger in her stomach and wonders what her mother, Julia, has planned for dinner. Although very hungry, she is somewhat skeptical about what her mother may have planned for dinner tonight. She is skeptical because six months ago Julia decided that the family was consuming too much fat and too many carbohydrates. This decision by her mother caused her to adjust the family’s evening meals in an attempt to reduce the fat and carbs in their diet.
Eve often complains that their new family diet contains less taste than the old one. She has been disappointed with her mother’s dinner menu many times in recent months. She craves red meat and hopes that it will be included in tonight’s offering.
“I could really go for spaghetti and meat balls, or maybe a cheeseburger,” she tells herself.
When Eve reaches West 66th Street, she turns left toward the river and home. The small group of people she has been walking with turns right toward the subway entrance located at 66th Street and Broadway. Some of the group members are hailing taxicabs that are readily available along Broadway.
As the group disappears behind her, Eve suddenly finds herself walking alone toward the Hudson River. The street becomes increasingly dark as she approaches Amsterdam Avenue, although she is still only one block away from the bright lights of Lincoln Center. There is no traffic at the intersection of Amsterdam and West 66th Street. She crosses Amsterdam and looks straight ahead. She sees no one walking on the block in front of her. There are only parked cars and a few trees lining the street.
She feels a little uneasy and tense about having no one in sight but reminds herself that she is very close to home. To reach her family apartment, Eve must walk one more block to West End Avenue, turn right, and then walk five blocks north to her family’s apartment on West 71st Street.
A cold gust of wind from the direction of the river hits Eve in the face and gives her a chill. It brings a few tears to her eyes.
“Why didn’t I wear my leather jacket?” she asks herself.
She is cold and shivering, so she picks up her pace in order to get home more quickly. She rubs her hands together and then blows warm air from her mouth into her cupped palms. It does not help. She is still cold.
Eve is shivering as she walks quickly along West 66th Street. She cannot wait to get home to her apartment and get warm.
“I am going to have a big mug of hot chocolate as soon as I get home. No matter what Mom says, I am going to have real whipped cream with the hot chocolate, too. I don’t care how much fat there is in it,” she tells herself.
Eve is halfway between Amsterdam and West End Avenues, and the sidewalk is very dark. She does not notice the root of an old oak tree that is protruding slightly from the sidewalk in front of her, and she accidentally trips on it. She stumbles forward but does not fall to the ground.
Instead, she steps forward awkwardly with her left foot, and slightly twists her ankle in the process. A sudden jolt of adrenaline makes her heart race. She feels a sharp twinge in her left ankle for a moment, but she is more startled than injured by the unexpected incident.
Eve regains her balance immediately and begins to walk toward West End Avenue. The pain in her ankle has subsided and she chuckles to herself about her slight mishap.
“Well, that woke me up. It could have been a lot worse,” she tells herself.
Eve continues walking in silence. She approaches a large oak tree on her left-hand side that stands next to a parked Honda Accord. As she passes by the gnarled old tree, a tall, dark, hooded man suddenly grabs her from behind and knocks her out cold with a sharp blow to the right side of her head from a blackjack.
The tall, hooded assailant puts handcuffs on her and then pushes her unconscious body into the back seat of the Honda Accord sedan. In a matter of seconds, Eve’s abductor is behind the steering wheel and starting the car’s engine. He steps on the gas pedal and quickly makes a right-hand turn onto West End Avenue, and then heads northbound toward Harlem.
The car with Eve in it soon passes by her apartment on 71st Street. Unbeknownst to her family that waits for her inside, Eve’s fate is now in the stone cold hands of the guardian.
Chapter Twenty Six
Eve Curry’s captor drives north on West End Avenue until it intersects with Broadway at 107th Street. He turns his car onto Broadway and heads north for another twenty-three blocks. Within minutes, he is parking his car on West 130th Street, just west of Broadway. The street is very dark and empty. The guardian removes his prize from the backseat of the Honda Accord and carries her up to the second floor of an abandoned building. He has reached his secret lair where he has previously taken three girls to die.
As he always does, the guardian planned Eve’s abduction with great precision and care. He selected the time, the street, and even the particular oak tree that he would park his car next to in advance. Once in position, he simply waited for the right victim—that is, the one who suited his desires, to come along. Unfortunately for Eve Curry, it just happened to be her this night. When the guardian saw her, he pounced on her without mercy or hesitation.
The abduction of Eve Curry has been flawless, just like his three prior assaults. Because the guardian is a stealthy and meticulous predator, he never leaves a trace of evidence or clue at the crime scene. He leaves absolutely nothing behind for the authorities to find. After he leaves the scene of an abduction, it is as if it never happened and he was never there.
The guardian uses chloroform to keep Eve unconscious in his car while he transports her to his Harlem lair. Upon arrival, she is still unconscious. He lays her down on the floor and ties her up with blue nylon cord. He covers her mouth with silver duct tape. Then he positions her flat on her back and facing upward on the floor.
He lights a tall candle in a silver candleholder and places it on the floor just a few feet to the right of her unconscious body. He positions a metal folding chair near her feet and sits down on it. With everything in place, the guardian sits on the folding chair and calmly observes his prize. He watches her triumphantly without blinking his eyes.
Feeling great pride, he says aloud, “It is so good to be here again. At last, I can relax and enjoy some time with my special guest.”
Gazing down at her, he says, “You are with the guardian now, my dear. This is not a mistake or a random event. This is your fate. Everything is just as it should be.”
Before long, Eve begins to regain consciousness. She is confused, dizzy, and in pain from the blow to her head. She opens her eyes but can barely see anything in the dimly lit room. She instantly realizes that she cannot move her arms or legs. Terrified, she tries to scream, but the duct tape that
covers her mouth keeps her from crying out. The only sound that she can utter is a pathetic moan. She wriggles and strains against the nylon cord that binds her. For a moment, she is silent, and then she moans and whimpers again.
After considerable effort, and utilizing the powerful stomach muscles of an amateur athlete, Eve rises up into a sitting position. When her eyes begin to focus, she can see that she is not alone in the room. Someone is sitting on a chair directly in front of her. It is a man. He is watching her intently from the chair positioned only two feet in front of her. He is silent and motionless.
She struggles to identify him. He is wearing a dark grey hooded sweatshirt, black jeans and black tennis shoes. He does not look familiar to her. She has no idea who he is or what he wants from her. She simply cannot comprehend what is happening to her.
Completely bewildered and terrified, Eve shakes her head from side to side and begins to sob uncontrollably. Her heart is pounding wildly and her head is throbbing with pain. She is trembling and paralyzed with fear.
It occurs to Eve that this strange man sitting in front of her is average looking. She observes that his face does not look frightening or crazy, but she is terrified all the same.
The man in the chair continues to looks straight at her. He remains silent, motionless, and expressionless. Although he stares directly at her, he does not do so in a threatening manner. His face is impassive. Eve thinks to herself that he seems to be very calm and tranquil, almost like he is in a trance.
She is desperately trying to understand what is happening to her. She attempts to control her breathing and stay calm, but panic has taken over and her mind is racing wildly. She feels faint and sick to her stomach.
Eve wants to communicate with this strange man but she does not know how to do so. She looks at him and moans loudly from underneath the duct tape. She shakes violently and tries to move her arms, but the tight nylon cord makes any movement impossible.