by Scott Bonn
Tears pour down from her eyes. The room is dark and cold, but she is sweating profusely from mortal fear.
Eve is so distraught that she begins to choke and wheeze beneath the duct tape. She emits another pathetic whimper, and then a squeal as she tries to get a reaction from him. She is begging with tear-filled, red eyes for him to talk to her.
“Why won’t you tell me what you want? Please, please, talk to me!” she silently screams through the duct tape.
Her attempts to communicate with him are in vain. Nothing she does can provoke a response from the guardian. He has no empathy or ability to comprehend her suffering. As a result, he is detached and completely indifferent to her plight. He sits motionless like a statue and watches her.
Suddenly, the guardian rises up from his chair. He stands silently in front of Eve for a moment, and then he smiles and begins to speak to her.
In a clear and measured tone that contains no hint of emotion, he says, “Welcome, Eve. I am so happy that you are here. Please allow me to introduce myself. I am the guardian. I can see that you are upset, but please, let me assure you, there is no reason to be. I am here to rescue you from the horrors of the material world. I am not your enemy. You need not fear me. I am here to save your mortal soul.”
The guardian sits down and goes back to silently observing Eve. He does not move a muscle or blink an eye. Frozen with fear, Eve stares at him like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car while crossing a road at night.
The words spoken by the guardian make no sense to her and provide no comfort at all. Instead of putting her at ease, his words make her feel even more confused, terrified and alone. Her fear is so great that she is completely disoriented and unable to think. She only knows that she desperately wants to go home to her family.
The guardian is fully aware of Eve’s terror, but her suffering has no effect on him whatsoever. As a total psychopath, he is unable to have any pity for her pain or torment. At the same time, however, he wonders what is going through her mind right now. He wonders what she thinks is happening to her. Her state of mind interests him from an analytical standpoint.
He says to himself, “She is no doubt thinking that I mean to harm her. The poor girl does not understand that I am here to help her, not to harm her. How unfortunate for her.”
The guardian leans forward in his chair in order to be closer to Eve. His face is now so close to her that she can feel his hot breath on her face. Her fear is overwhelming and she cannot breathe. She feels as if she is going to pass out.
While continuing to watch Eve intently, the guardian reaches out with his right hand and caresses her long blonde hair. She pulls her head away from him, but in doing so, she loses her balance and falls backwards. Unable to control her momentum, she rolls onto her left side on the floor.
The guardian rises out of his chair. He kneels down and helps her to regain an upright sitting position on the floor. He returns to his chair and speaks to her again.
He asks her, “Are you okay, my dear? What can I say to convince you that I mean you no harm?”
The guardian continues, “It may be very hard for you to understand, but I have selected you for a special purpose. Out of all the deserving girls in New York, I have chosen you to receive my protection. You are a very lucky girl, Eve. You will not have to experience or suffer the evils of the world as other, less fortunate girls must. The guardian is here to rescue you from eternal damnation and endless torment. Can you understand that? You must not fear me. This is a time of celebration, my child. You are about to be set free.”
After finishing what he has to say to her, the guardian leans forward in his chair. He becomes silent and motionless for a moment.
Suddenly, he pounces on Eve like a jungle cat from his sitting position directly in front of her. His assault is very fast and terribly violent. With a single, powerful right-handed punch to the face, the guardian knocks Eve to the ground.
Lying semi-conscious on the cement floor with her broken nose bleeding profusely, Eve moans in pain. The guardian drops to his knees and straddles her body. Completely dazed, she lies almost motionless on the floor.
The guardian wraps his large hands around her neck and begins to squeeze the life out of her. His face is expressionless as he crushes her throat with all of his might.
Eve’s survival instincts and athletic training take over. She begins to fight for her life as best she can. She wriggles her arms and legs against the ligatures that bind her, and she struggles to move her head. She strains against her tormentor’s assault with all of the strength she can muster, but her efforts are futile. The nylon cord that binds her is too tight, and the guardian is much too powerful for her to stop or even slow down his attack.
Her physical pain is excruciating, and the terror she feels is greater than any words can convey. Her ears are ringing inside her head and her lungs are on fire. She is desperate for air to breathe. She is growing weak. She is dying.
Eve can see the face of the man strangling her in the dim candlelight. Incredibly, and horribly, he has a faint trace of a smile on his face. At the same time, his dark brown eyes are piercing and cold. He is staring directly at her or, more accurately, through her.
Eve’s vision is becoming faint and blurred as she looks directly at the man who is cold-bloodedly killing her. She is starting to lose consciousness.
Observing Eve’s valiant but vain attempt to free herself is very exciting for the guardian. He is becoming sexually aroused as he squeezes her long, soft neck. He can feel his erection pressing against Eve’s stomach as he sits on top of her, and continues to strangle her.
Watching her struggle and die in his grasp offers a powerful and delightful aphrodisiac to the guardian. He wants to penetrate her sexually right now. He can almost feel himself inside of her as he continues to squeeze her neck with his fingers.
“It won’t be long now until you are mine completely,” he thinks to himself, as he stares into her dying eyes.
Eve’s terrible agony is almost over. Her eyes roll back into her head while the guardian continues to strangle the life from her. Her world is becoming darker and darker by the second. Her face is purple and her body is rigid. Her hands tremble and twitch uncontrollably.
The guardian breaks Eve’s neck with his powerful bare hands. She dies with a final shudder that radiates throughout her entire body. The tension releases from her muscles and she struggles no more. She is now motionless and limp. Her eyes are still open.
The guardian holds Eve’s dead body in his arms. His heart is pounding. Lust for her consumes him. He has fantasized about this very moment for many days, and now that it has arrived, he is nearly wild with sexual desire. He runs his hands over her youthful body and strokes her blonde hair. His hunger for her body overwhelms him.
“I must have her now,” he cries out.
He unties the ligatures that bind Eve’s body in order to remove her shoes, slacks and panties. He has previously used a condom to have sex with his victims, but he does not want to do so this time. He longs to feel Eve’s skin against his own with nothing at all between them. He knows that it is very risky for him to penetrate her body without wearing a condom because he will leave traces of his DNA inside her vagina. Despite the risk, he will use no condom this time because he cannot resist his burning desire to feel her flesh completely.
He mounts her dead body and thrusts himself inside of her with great force. He enjoys the ecstasy that her body provides him and he climaxes quickly. Upon completion of the act, he wraps his arms around Eve’s body and lies next to her on the floor for a time. He kisses her lips tenderly and strokes her silky hair.
The completion of the vile sexual ritual with Eve Curry provides the guardian with relief from his hedonistic cravings. Nothing in life affords him more pleasure than the satisfaction he derives from the combination of murder and necrophilia.
After spending a few minutes lying next to Eve, he gets up from the floor and gets a large
knife that is on a table nearby. It is a utility knife with a jagged edge. He walks back to Eve and kneels down next to her. With a steady, unwavering hand, he carves “Psalm 34:7” into her lower abdomen.
He then rises up and looks down at Eve. For a time, the guardian stands alone in his lair and smiles to himself. He feels great pride and satisfaction in his work.
Admiring his efforts, he says, “The world will come to know that Psalm 34:7 is the sign of the guardian. They will learn the blessed verse that defines my mission: ‘The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.’”
After a minute or two, he removes the clothes that remain on Eve’s body and places them into a plastic garbage bag along with her other clothes and belongings. He washes her body carefully and meticulously, particularly inside her vagina, in order to remove his saliva and semen that contain his DNA.
Once he has washed her to his satisfaction, he wraps the blue nylon cord tightly around her body and ties a cast iron cross to the ligature around her neck. He looks at her lying peacefully on the floor and nods his head. She is ready now, he thinks to himself. He looks around his lair and concludes that all that remains for him to do is deposit Eve’s corpse into the Hudson River and dispose of her belongings. He pauses for a moment and says a silent prayer over her dead body. He prays for the protection of her soul and her eternal well-being.
As he prepares to leave his lair, he says to himself, “It is time for your holy baptism now, Eve. The cleansing waters of the Hudson River await you. I told you that you had nothing to fear from the guardian. I am the angel of God. I came here to protect you from the horrors of the dark, material world. I have fulfilled my duty and delivered you from evil. You are free.”
Chapter Twenty Seven
It is 11:05pm and the guardian is driving to his alter ego’s East Village apartment after dumping Eve Curry’s body and personal belongings into the Hudson River. He anticipates that the police will find her corpse much more quickly than they found the bodies of the first three girls he deposited into the river. He expects this to happen because the authorities now know his modus operandi for disposing of his victims’ bodies.
The guardian smiles wryly to himself. The fact that the police know how he disposes of his victims does not concern him at all because he is confident that he has left no trace evidence or clues to his identity either at the crime scenes or on his victims.
As he reaches his destination and parks his car, the guardian feels a bit lethargic and unsettled. It is an unpleasant sensation for him, but it is not the first time that he has felt this way. He has experienced similar feelings soon after killing each one of his earlier victims. Every time he takes the life of a girl and defiles her dead body, he experiences an immediate adrenaline rush followed shortly thereafter by an emotional letdown.
The guardian hates that the euphoria he derives from murder and necrophilia is so temporary. What he hates even more than the rapid letdown, however, is the fact that the pleasure of actually killing and raping a girl never lives up to the erotic fantasies he has about it for days or even weeks leading up to the attack.
The guardian is not alone among serial killers in this regard. Most serial killers derive more pleasure from fantasizing about murder and rape than they do from the acts themselves. In fact, the acts are often a letdown for them. As a result, the majority of serial killers, including the guardian, are compelled to commit the acts again and again, in a vain attempt to reach the erotic high of their fantasies.
The importance of erotic fantasy to a serial killer like the guardian cannot be overstated. Fantasy is an integral part of his personality that has developed over time. The guardian’s fantasies about violence and murder began during his childhood. This is typical for a serial killer. Many incarcerated serial killers have confessed to morbid preoccupation with homicidal fantasies during their youth.
For example, Ed Kemper, the infamous “Co-ed Killer,” following his capture said, “I knew long before I started killing that I was going to be killing; that it was going to end up like that. The fantasies were too strong. They were going on for too long and were too elaborate.”
Masturbation is also typically involved in the fantasy process of a serial killer during his youth. When a physically developing youth combines masturbation with violent fantasies, as Charles Lundquist did, a powerful sexual component is added to the cognitive or mental aspect of a fledgling serial killer’s fantasies.
There is ample evidence of this. In-depth interviews with incarcerated serial killers have revealed that the most common childhood traits among them, which extended into their adolescence and adulthood, are daydreaming and compulsive masturbation. Notorious serial killers such as Jeffrey Dahmer and David Berkowitz have stated that their strange and bizarre fantasies thrived in youthful isolation, masturbation and powerful feelings of anger and rage.
Isolation and feelings of anger and resentment often become part of a cyclical process in the lives of fledgling, future serial killers. Fantasies of violence prompt their isolation from society which, in turn, creates a greater reliance on fantasy for pleasure and relief from anxiety. In a disturbing example of this, John Joseph Joubert, a serial killer who murdered young boys, recalled that during his adolescence, he compulsively masturbated to fantasies of strangling and stabbing boys dressed only in their underwear.
Serial killers like the guardian often fantasize about murder and sexual violence for years prior to claiming their first victim. Eventually, fledgling serial killers reach a point where they are compelled to actually live out their darkest fantasies. They often obsessively ponder and consider every minute aspect of their first murder for years leading up to the actual event. They may drift into an almost trance-like state, enraptured in fantasy, in the days immediately preceding it.
The intended victim is reduced to being a hapless pawn in the fledgling serial killer’s ghoulish fantasy of sex and murder. After committing their first murder, novice serial killers become obsessed with the need to kill.
This is certainly true for the guardian. Having found the key to acting out his secret needs and desires, he continues to murder in order to experience the euphoria of his fantasy again, and again.
Some serial killers become bored with their original fantasy once they have actualized it, so they escalate to more elaborate or violent fantasies in an obsessive, addictive pursuit of a more exciting and orgasmic high. Most serial killers eventually level out and begin to practice a ritualistic routine in their murders from which they never waver.
Such is the case with the guardian. His erotic fantasy of rape and murder will never subside or go away because it is too deeply ingrained in his mind and psyche. Therefore, unless he is either captured or killed, the guardian will be compelled to repeatedly act out his ritual of murder and necrophilia forever.
Chapter Twenty Eight
The guardian has reached the front door of his alter ego’s apartment. As he unlocks the front door and enters, he feels a bit dizzy. He is experiencing physical and emotional symptoms that are similar to those of a hangover, almost as if he has just come out of a stupor after a night of drinking.
He does not like the way he feels one bit. He is very uncomfortable in his own skin.
“This really sucks,” he says to himself.
Although he murdered and violated Eve less than three hours ago, the euphoria from committing those acts has already dissipated, and he is experiencing an unsettling letdown. The guardian is frustrated and agitated because his euphoric high from killing and raping Eve has been so terribly short-lived.
Although he has grown to anticipate, if not accept, such a letdown following murder, this time it occurred much faster than ever before. Normally, he enjoys a euphoric high for almost an entire day following the murder of a young girl. Not this time.
The guardian paces around his studio apartment. He finally sits down at his kitchen table and rubs his temples. He drinks some bottled water fro
m the refrigerator and squints his eyes, trying to clear his mind. He is confused. He cannot understand why the satisfaction that Eve gave him has disappeared so quickly.
“What has happened? What is wrong with me? Why do I feel so empty inside so soon?” he asks himself.
As if in answer to his query, a thought occurs to him. He smiles slightly to himself as he considers it. Now, the guardian is starting to get excited. Suddenly, he pounds the kitchen table with his right fist.
Triumphantly, he exclaims, “I know what is bothering me. It is that damned police captain and the outrageous lies he is telling the world about me. What James Pritchard is saying to the press about me is disgusting and vile. That stupid detective is a menace. I am tired of his bullshit. He is trying to defame me and spoil my glorious work with his lies. He is trying to agitate me, but I will not let him. I see right through him. I am much too intelligent for him.”
He continues, “That son of a bitch called me a coward on TV. A coward! How dare he say that about the guardian? My mission is divinely inspired. It takes strength—not weakness—to carry out my mission with these girls. Just wait, James Pritchard. You will regret spreading lies about me on TV.”
The guardian’s emotional funk is now gone. His sense of purpose is renewed. He pounds the kitchen table with his fist once again.
He shouts, “Pritchard is going to pay for what he has done. I am going to show the world what an inept, lying fool he is. I will write another letter to Pritchard, but this time I will send it to the press. I will use the power of TV just as he has done, but I will do it better than him.”
The guardian thinks for a moment and continues, “Yes, I know what I will do. I will send a letter to Anderson Cooper at CNN. I will have Anderson Cooper show the world that Pritchard is an incompetent idiot. Cooper can do my work for me and humiliate that foolish detective on primetime in front of millions of people who watch CNN.”