Serial Killers. Up Close and Very Personal

183 Pages·2011·1.07 MB·English

by  Victoria Redstall

To my parents, who followed me out to America, for their
unconditional love and continued support with my journey
through life.
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I want to thank true crime author and criminologist
Christopher Berry-Dee; without his unwavering help this book could not
have been written.
Several of his books, including Talking with Serial Killers, are in the library
at the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit (BSU), Quantico. His total devotion to this
book – including editing, advising me, sharing his experience, gained from his
history in criminology, his award-winning series on serial killers, and his 26
published books (still counting) – have helped put me on a path to follow in his
footsteps. Not only do I respect his knowledge of this sensitive subject matter
but I have the admiration for his talent as a crime writer. I’m so glad I listened to
all of his advice.
Although I may be new to writing books, I am, however, quite confident in
my knowledge of serial killers because I have studied them for over a decade.
Thanks to Christopher’s never-ending support and guidance, I’m looking
forward to writing my next book.
Many, many thanks to my publisher, John Blake, for commissioning this
book. Lunch, at your club in London, was one of the most exciting meetings of
my life (and the duck was delicious!). Also to my editor, John Wordsworth.
I would also like to thank the Oregon State Penitentiary, California Death
Row at San Quentin State Prison, Florida Death Row at Union Correctional
Facility, Menard State Penitentiary, the Los Angeles County Jail, and many more
State facilities.
Thanks to Judge Michael Smith; forensic psychiatrist Dr Michael Stone;
forensic psychologist Dr Paul Berg; Coroner Frank Jaeger; Deputy Van Buskirk;
Coroner Glen Sipma; Pastor James Ray; Valerie Rondi – ‘thank God you made it
out alive!’; Jeff Bergman, my super cameraman in Illinois; Tim Carr, my great
cameraman in Florida; and to my lawyer, Pamela Forster; and journalist/author
Phil Stanford.
A big thank you to all the wonderful guards – including a few grumpy ones,
who I will not mention by name – who have helped make this book possible. I
must give a special mention to Officer Castellanos from California Death Row,
San Quentin: you are a great man with a wonderful heart and now I can consider
you to also be my friend.
Now to the most important people in my life: my parents. Although they
disapprove of this subject matter and my mother will never read this book, they
have nevertheless supported me, and have never once turned their back on me. I
have even included my father in a few interviews with two of the serial killers in
this book. It was certainly an experience for him to tell my mother – again she
listened with her hands over her ears!
Thank you to so many more people who have supported me along this dark
journey: Isabelle, Dana, Molly, Desiree, Melanie, Shanna, Meri, Linda, Natalie,
Teresa, Doreen and Edwin, Alba and Cliff … yes, and all my LA County Deputy
Sheriff friends who have been there for me through thick and thin over the past
15 years.
I owe a great debt of gratitude to several agents from the FBI’s BSU at
Quantico. Indeed, the American people owe these agents so much for their
unstinting efforts in protecting our loved ones.
Thank you also to the serial killers and inmates of the US Correctional
System who feature in Serial Killers: Up Close and Very Personal. As
distasteful as it may seem, and I pity them not, I have acknowledged these men
because as a society we are duty bound to hear their words; we need to
understand why they committed serial homicide in order to make the world a
safer place.
Wayne Ford – the first serial killer I ever met. Although it took time, thank
you for giving me your trust even though, from what you told me, it may have
cost you your life.
Keith Jesperson – although you don’t stop talking, at least you did talk and it
was interesting.
Gary Ray Bowles – you opened up with me on every level and I appreciate
your trust in me. Your artistic talent is very good – keep it up and thank you.
Bobby Joe Long – although you refused to go on camera, you were respectful
toward me in your letters and cards, and also when I met with you and your
mother in person. I have kept my promise to you and have not published your
private correspondence in this book.
Robin Gecht – I will maintain the fight to get your DNA tested. I still want to
get to the truth. Despite our numerous arguments, you opened up the possibility
that while someone can be accused of horrific acts, they might still be innocent,
and that individual could be you.
Finally, I need to acknowledge those who have lost their loved ones at the
hands of these human predators. All too often, far too much attention is given to
the criminals themselves, far less to the next-of-kin and close friends who have
suffered so terribly. Nobody can understand your pain except you, and my heart
goes out to you.
With these sentiments running right through me, I hope that I have struck the
right balance throughout the writing of this book – hopefully, I have got most of
it right, while I also understand that sometimes I might have crossed an
emotional boundary, and got it wrong. If the latter applies, please do not hesitate
to write to me, via my website: www.victoriaredstall.com. I always reply.
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Author’s Note
Foreword
Introduction
1 Wayne Adam Ford – Killer with a Conscience
2 Keith Hunter Jesperson – The Happy Face Killer
3 Gary Ray Bowles – Rollin’ on a River of Fear
4 Robert ‘Bobby Joe’ Joseph Long – The Streetwalker Slayer
5 Robin Gecht – The ‘Alleged’ Chicago Ripper
Summary
Copyright
Author’s Note
The author affirms that the sources and references used in this book have been
drawn from the following:
The offenders: verbally recorded – audio and filmed – statements; exclusive
written correspondence with the author, and others; sworn, signed and sealed
affidavits, and official law enforcement and court transcripts.
The witnesses: verbally recorded – audio and filmed – statements; exclusive
written correspondence with the author, and others; sworn and sealed
affidavits, and official law enforcement and court transcripts.
Forensic and autopsy reports: drawn from verbally recorded statements made
by the medical examiners and investigators concerned; mostly from verifiable
documents not generally in the public domain but available upon request.
Although some of the individuals’ names featured in this book may differ from
previously published material – Internet/TV/motion picture transmissions – the
names used in this book are the true names sourced from official documents,
also available upon request from the jurisdictional agency concerned.
Foreword
by Christopher Berry-Dee
‘What lives in the heart of a Monster?’ asks Mary Shelley in Frankenstein.
The answer might have come straight from the ink-dipped, goose quill of
Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: ‘Wickedness lies within each heart,
waiting only for the proper time and impetus to break free.’
Month after month, year in, year out, I am emailed by students and
professionals holding an interest in criminology. They ask numerous questions
about serial killers and, most pertinently, ‘In your opinion, Christopher, what
makes them tick?’ Well, if I knew the empirical answer to that question I would
also be clever enough to be able to get fingerprints from running water – but I
don’t, and I cannot.
Of course, there are legions of psychiatrists and psychologists who do claim
to know the answer to this question, and I have met a few who have been blessed
with the answers to every question. Unfortunately, most of these ‘experts’ have
never met a serial killer in the flesh, let alone spent years corresponding with
such a person. They are, therefore, despite a string of letters after their names,
textbook shrinks, for no one but the killer himself knows what makes him tick.
Of course, it goes without saying that you could never conceive of
committing such terrible acts on a fellow human being, so you will never know
what goes through a serial murderer’s head. And this also applies to all of the
experts out there who claim to know it all, but the only ones who do know are
the killers themselves.
So, throughout this book, and using their own words, the killers will tell you,
either consciously or subconsciously, what they think made them exactly what
they are – what makes them tick, in other words. By doing so, we might be able
to form the conclusion that if this is what these monsters think and say today,
then retrospectively it must have been more or less the same as they did when
committing their crimes. A leopard never changes its spots, they say, so this
book will make for very grim reading indeed.
And it is that this point I wish to refer to former FBI Agent John Douglas
with Mark Olshaker. Victoria and I highly recommend their book, The Anatomy
of Motive, specifically Chapter 3, ‘Magnum Force’.
In a nutshell, and in an attempt to paraphrase the entire chapter, John makes it
crystal clear that no matter what dysfunctional, formative upbringing a fully-
emerged serial offender might have received, the well-worn ‘nature versus
nurture’ (or rather, the more commonly accepted ‘nature and nurture’) debate no
longer cuts any ice in criminal courts in the US. Mitigation offered by defence
counsel as to why Mr X brutally beat to death Mrs Y – because he did not
receive the accepted norm in potty training; he wet the bed into his teens; he
suffered a bump on the head as a youngster; his wife dumped him and stole his
kids; that he had been instructed by God to kill prostitutes; or had been subjected
to pornography, which propelled him into abducting, raping, torturing, killing
and then finally to dump the victim as so much trash – all of these ‘mitigating’
circumstances are no longer admissible.
As John Douglas suggests, ‘These killers know, when they commit these
crimes, that they are stepping outside the social order … they enjoy killing …
they are not insane … they do what they do … they enjoy the hurt they inflict
and, in one case, when a teenager forced caustic cleaning fluid down an 80-year-
old woman’s throat just to steal a few bucks, and she died in agony, the offender
enjoyed another 14 years of life on Death Row – appealing that lethal injection
was cruel and unjust punishment.’
Victoria Redstall’s book documents each subject’s life history from cradle to
life imprisonment, Death Row, and to the grave. Using the killers’
correspondence and their own words spoken from behind the grim walls and
glittering razor wire, comes the basis for Victoria Redstall’s début into true crime
writing: Serial Killers: Up Close and Very Personal.
The first chapter in this book concerns itself with a very unusual serial killer
indeed. Dubbed by the media ‘The Remorseful Serial Killer’, Wayne Adam
Ford’s life’s story is, as he would say, as tragic as the suffering he caused to the
prostitutes he killed and butchered. Then he walked into a police station carrying
a severed woman’s breast in his pocket, and gave himself up. For the first time,
Wayne confesses all from the Green Mile.
The religious and morally salted butter Robert Joe Long eats wouldn’t melt in
his mouth, or so he would have the world believe. However, this book
exclusively reveals the sexually perverted mind of Mr Long today. Bobby’s
shocking correspondence reveals the true nature of a deviant serial murderer
who killed eight women, and who allowed one kidnapped woman to go free – an
action that predictably led to his arrest and current residency on Florida’s Death