He added that the DNA reportwould “be revealing enough that it will give theBoston authorities the incentive to look at their evi-dence and their findings and maybe compare notesand maybe bring the investigation forward.”In fact, by December 2001, neither DeSalvo’s fam-ily nor Mary Sullivan’s believed DeSalvo was theBoston Strangler. That opinion was apparently sup-ported on December 6 by reports that Prof. Starrs’s“All-Star Forensic Science Team” had discovered for-eign DNA from two individuals on Sullivan’s bodyand clothing, neither of the samples linked toDeSalvo. As Prof. Starrs told the press, “It’s indica-tive, strongly indicative, of the fact that AlbertDeSalvo was not the rape-murderer of Mary Sulli-van. If I was a juror, I would acquit him with noquestions asked.” Sullivan’s nephew, Casey Sherman,had an even more emphatic statement for the press.“If he didn’t kill Mary Sullivan, yet he confessed to itin glaring detail, he didn’t kill any of these women.”Retired Massachusetts prosecutor Julian Soshnickdisagreed, retorting, “It doesn’t prove anythingexcept that they found another person’s DNA on apart of Miss Sullivan’s body.” Seeming to ignore thatneither donor was DeSalvo, Soshnick stood firm: “Ibelieve that Albert was the Boston Strangler.”Another retired investigator, former Boston homicidedetective Jack Barry, stood firm on DeSalvo’s detailedconfessions. “He just knew so much,” Barry said,“things that were never in the paper. He coulddescribe the wallpaper in their rooms.” Dr. AmesRobey, Bridgewater’s supervisor in the 1960s and thechief psychiatrist who evaluated DeSalvo, found theconfessions less persuasive. “He was a boaster,” Dr.Robey told reporters. “I never believed it for aminute.”In any case, the DNA discovery still stopped shortof solving Boston’s most famous murder case. Prof.Starrs believes at least one of the DNA samplesrecovered from Sullivan’s body belongs to her killer,but as he admitted in December 2001, “We cannottell you the $64,000 question as to whose it is.”Casey Sherman, a nephew of victim Mary Sullivan,announced his plan to crack the case in August 2002.After three years of research, Sherman told reportersthat he had completed a book on the case (stillunpublished at press time for this volume). “I willreveal who the killer is, without a doubt,” Shermantold the Boston Globe. “This is based on new evi-dence. We have physical evidence that puts him atthe scene of the crime. Hopefully we will put pres-sure on [state attorney general] Tom Reilly to prose-cute this individual.” Sherman declined to name hissuspect in advance of the book’s still-undeclaredrelease date, and the Boston Strangler’s case remainshauntingly unsolved.BOTELHO, Sandra See NEW BEDFORD, MASSACHU-SETTS, MURDERSBOTHELL, Washington: unsolved murders (1995–97)King County, Washington, has long been infamous asthe hunting ground of the elusive “Green River Killer,”but it seems that elusive predator (finally identified in2001, some 17 years after his last-known murder) maynot be the region’s only serial killer. In February 1998multiple human remains were unearthed near Bothell,a Seattle suburb, apparently unrelated to the GreenRiver slayings of 1982–84. Captain Bob Woolvert, ofthe Bothell Police Department, told reporters on Feb-ruary 12, 1998, that there was a “strong indication”of at least two corpses buried at the site. While declin-ing to furnish much detail on the remains, initialreports state that one of the fragmentary skeletonsbelonged to a person below the age of 20, apparentlydead for less than three years.A team of 70 investigators, including police detec-tives, lab technicians from the King County MedicalExaminer’s office, and volunteer search-and-rescueworkers, labored in pouring rain to seek moreremains of the unidentified victims. Bothell policechief Mark Ericks told the press, “This is as bad as itcould get. The rain and mud is horrible, and it’s mak-ing our job harder and harder. We could use 30 morepeople to help.” Authorities from both King andSnohomish Counties were represented in the dig,concerned that the skeletons might represent newvictims for one or another of the area’s unidentifiedserial killers.According to media reports, the first set of boneswas found by a transient on Tuesday, February 10,1998, lying atop straw that was scattered over anewly graded construction site. Police were notifiedand commenced to dig at the scene, suggesting toreporters that the first bones had been unearthed and46BOTELHO, Sandra
scattered by animals. At this writing (in 2003) thevictims remain unidentified, and no further corpseshave been found.BOWKER, Sarah Jane See FORT WAYNE CHILDMURDERS“BOY in the Box”: Philadelphia murder (1957)Philadelphia’s most enduring mystery began on theevening of February 23, 1957, when a La Salle Col-lege student parked his car off Susquehanna Road, inthe Fox Chase district, and began to hike across avacant lot in drizzling rain. The young man—variousreports peg his age between 18 and 26 years—was anhabitual voyeur, en route to spy on inmates of thenearby Good Shepherd Home, a Catholic residencefor “wayward” girls. Instead of getting lucky,though, he stumbled on a cardboard box, observedthe small corpse wedged inside, and retreated swiftlyto his vehicle. Frightened and embarrassed, the manconfessed his discovery to a priest on February 24and was told to call the police. He complied the nextday, after concocting a tale that he had found the boxwhile chasing a rabbit through the weeds.Patrolmen arriving on the scene found a largecardboard carton lying on its side and open at oneend. Inside lay the body of a small Caucasian boy, hisnude body wrapped in two segments of a cheap blan-ket printed with designs reminiscent of AmericanIndian artwork. Seventeen feet from the box, policefound a man’s Ivy League cap, size seven and one-eighth, made from royal blue corduroy with a leatherstrap and buckle at the back. Coincidentally or oth-erwise, a beaten path through weeds and underbrushled directly from the cap to the makeshift cardboardcoffin.Philadelphia’s medical examiner, Dr. Joseph Spel-man, performed an autopsy on the young victim. Hisreport pegged the boy’s age between four and sixyears; he had blue eyes and blond hair cut in an ama-teurish style. The boy was 41 inches tall and weigheda pathetic 30 pounds at death. Malnourishment wasevident, but Dr. Spelman blamed the child’s death ona savage beating that left his face and body mottledwith fresh bruises. Older marks included a smallL-shaped scar on the boy’s chin; a 1.5-inch surgicalscar on the left side of his chest; a round, irregularscar on the left elbow; a well-healed scar at the groin,apparently from surgery to mend a hernia; and a scaron the left ankle resembling a “cut-down” incisionused to expose veins for a medical infusion or trans-fusion. The boy was circumcised but bore no vacci-nation marks, suggesting that he had not beenenrolled in public school.Dr. Spelman’s report contained other intriguingdetails, as well. The victim’s right palm and the solesof both feet were rough and wrinkled, presenting the“washerwoman” effect that indicates extended sub-mersion in water, immediately before or after death.When exposed to ultraviolet light, the boy’s left eyealso fluoresced a brilliant shade of blue, indicatingrecent treatment with a special diagnostic dye used intreatment of chronic ocular diseases. Spelman attrib-uted death to head trauma, probably inflicted with ablunt instrument, but he could not rule out damageby “pressure”—a circumstance that prompted someinvestigators to suggest the fatal damage wasinflicted by someone squeezing his head when he gothis last haircut. Detectives clothed the child and pho-tographed his battered face, in hopes that they couldthereby learn his name.Their hope was sadly premature.Investigators learned that their victim’s makeshiftcasket had originally held a bassinet sold by a JCPenney store. The bassinet in question was one of adozen received on November 27, 1956, and sold for$7.50 sometime between December 3, 1956, andFebruary 16, 1957, from a Penney outlet in UpperDarby, Pennsylvania, perhaps as recently as a weekbefore the boy died. The store kept no records ofindividual sales, but the other 11 bassinets wereeventually located by detectives. FBI fingerprint tech-nicians found no useful latent prints on the cartonrecovered from Susquehanna Road.Examination of the blanket proved equally frus-trating. The blanket was made of cheap cotton flan-nel, recently washed and mended with poor-gradecotton thread. It had been cut in half, one sectionmeasuring 33 by 76 inches, while the other (with apiece missing) measured 31 by 51 inches. Analysis atthe Philadelphia Textile Institute determined that theblanket had been manufactured either at Swan-nanoa, North Carolina, or at Granby, Quebec.Unfortunately, it was turned out by the thousandsand police never identified a likely point of sale.A label inside the discarded cap led police toPhiladelphia’s Robbins Bald Eagle Hat & Cap Com-pany, where proprietor Hannah Robbins described it47“BOY in the Box”
as one of 12 made from corduroy remnants some-time prior to May 1956. Robbins recalled the partic-ular cap because it was made without a leather strap,but its purchaser—a blond man in his late twenties—had returned a few months later to have a strap sewnon. Robbins described her customer as resemblingphotographs of the “Boy in the Box,” but she had norecord of his name or address.Philadelphia police circulated more than 10,000flyers, bearing the child’s photograph, to policedepartments throughout eastern Pennsylvania andsouthern New Jersey, all without result. ThePhiladelphia Gas Works mailed 200,000 flyers to itscustomers with their monthly bills, while more werecirculated by the Philadelphia Electric Company, gro-cery stores, insurance agents, and a pharmacists’association—some 300,000 flyers in all. An articleon the case was also published in the FBI’s monthlyLaw Enforcement Bulletin, again without producingany worthwhile leads. Five months after the boy wasfound, authorities buried him in Philadelphia’s pot-ter’s field, near the Byberry state hospital. Detectiveson the case collected money to erect the seedy grave-yard’s only headstone. Its inscription: “HeavenlyFather, Bless This Unknown Boy.”There the matter rested until November 4, 1998,when the “Boy in the Box” was exhumed for extrac-tion of DNA samples, collected for future compari-son with any suspected relatives. A year elapsedbefore authorities admitted that no satisfactoryDNA profile could be obtained from the child’sdegraded remains. An attempt to glean mitochondr-ial DNA from the core of the boy’s teeth likewisefailed in February 2000, but a second attempt wasreported as successful in April 2001. Granted, dis-covery of living relatives at this point seems unlikelyin the extreme, but various investigators remain cau-tiously hopeful. Frank Bender, a forensic artist andactive member of the VIDOCQ SOCIETY, sculpted abust which he believes may bear a strong resem-blance to the dead boy’s father. America’s MostWanted profiled the case for a national televisionaudience on January 16, 1999, and efforts to iden-tify the child continue, albeit with decreasing energyas each new day brings other cases forward to com-mand police attention.In June 2002 Philadelphia homicide investigatorTom Augustine visited Cincinnati with a pair ofVidocq Society members, there to interview awoman who claimed knowledge of the case. Thealleged witness, never publicly identified, called thedead boy “Jonathan,” claiming that she had livedwith him in the affluent Philadelphia suburb ofLower Merion. She described Jonathan as mentallyhandicapped, reporting that he was fatally injuredafter he vomited in the bathtub and an abusive,enraged female caretaker hurled him to the bath-room floor. The incident allegedly climaxed a life ofbrutal physical and sexual abuse, with Jonathanforced to live in a cellar and sleep in an old refrigera-tor box. According to the witness, Jonathan’s bio-logical parents had sold him to his killer and herhusband, some two years before he died. As of presstime for this volume, none of the reported informa-tion has been verified by police.BOYD, Alexander: assassination victim (1870)A native of South Carolina, raised in Greene County,Alabama, Alexander Boyd was 19 years old in 1856,when he killed a young man named Brown in a per-sonal quarrel. Convicted of second-degree murder attrial, he received a 10-year prison term, butAlabama’s governor reviewed the case on a plea forexecutive clemency and reduced Boyd’s sentence toone year in county jail. Upon release, Boyd leftAlabama for Arkansas, remaining away from hischildhood home until the latter part of 1867.By the time he returned to his hometown ofEutaw, Alabama was a defeated member of the Con-federate States of America, its former white rulingclass seething in the grip of congressional Recon-struction. Boyd joined the then-dominant Republi-can Party and despite his criminal record wonelection as Greene County’s solicitor. His dutiesincluded prosecution of violent felons, and there wasno shortage of suspects in those days, as the terroristKu Klux Klan waged brutal guerrilla warfare againstblack freedmen and their Republican benefactors.Boyd soon earned a reputation as a vigorous prose-cutor and enemy of the KKK, securing indictmentsagainst several night riders who had flogged blacksafter a political meeting at nearby Union, Alabama.At the same time, he also pressed an investigationinto the lynching of one Samuel Colvin, a black mantaken from Eutaw’s jail by Klansmen and killed onan accusation of murder.Shortly after 11:00 P.M. on March 31, 1870, aparty of 20 to 30 masked men invaded the Eutawtavern where Boyd rented rooms, bursting into his48BOYD, Alexander
flat and dragging Boyd from bed, firing two point-blank pistol shots into his forehead. Reports of theThursday night murder brought several hundredarmed and outraged freedmen into Eutaw on Satur-day, April 2, calling for retaliation against the nightriders. One member of that mob spoke for all whenhe complained that local Confederates “have neversurrendered yet, and the only way to stop this is toburn them out.” A store in Eutaw, owned by aprominent white Democrat, was burned a few daysafter Boyd’s murder, and several barns were alsoreportedly torched over the next month.Lieutenant Charles Harkins, commanding a U.S.2nd Infantry detachment sent to restore order inGreene County, reported his findings on April 13,1870. “Civil affairs are in a very disturbed and agitatedcondition,” Harkins wrote. “Seven murders have beencommitted in this county within the past three months,and but little effort made to arrest and bring to justicethe perpetrators of these crimes; the civil officers seempowerless to restore and maintain law and order.”Troops on the scene made no great improvement, andthe terrorism continued until Alabama threw off con-trol by “carpetbag” Republicans. No suspects wereever indicted for Boyd’s murder.BRACEWELL, Brooks See TEXAS TRI-COUNTYMURDERS(1971–75)BRADSHAW, Hazel See SAN DIEGO MURDERS(1931–36)BRAUN, Donna See “OCCULT MURDERS”BRAZEAU, Pauline See “HIGHWAY KILLER”BREST, Belarus: taxicab murders (1996–97)Taxi drivers in Brest, near the Belarussian borderwith Poland, were terrorized in the winter of1996–97 by a serial killer blamed for the murders ofthree cabbies and a gas station attendant over fourmonths’ time. After the final slaying, reported in Jan-uary 1997, angry drivers staged a protest demonstra-tion, surrounding the latest murder scene with theirtaxis and honking their horns nonstop for half anhour. Despite the public outcry, police at last reportstill had no suspect in the murders, and the caseremains unsolved.BREWER, Theresa See SAN DIEGO MURDERS(1985–88)BRITISH child murders (1978–84)On April 21, 1986, detectives from Scotland Yardheld a conference to examine evidence and discusspossible links in the deaths and disappearances of 16British minors in the past eight years. The victimsranged in age from five to 16 years, with officersreporting that at least seven cases seemed connectedthrough a close proximity to fairs and circuses. Inseveral other cases links were theorized for the homi-cides and nearby streams or lakes habitually fre-quented by anglers.Three of the murders under consideration—thoseof 11-year-old Susan Maxwell, five-year-old Caro-line Hogg, and 10-year-old Sarah Harper—wereultimately solved with the conviction of a predatorypedophile. That defendant, however, was cleared inthe remaining 13 cases on Scotland Yard’s list.Those victims include: Genette Tate, 13, missing49BRITISH child murdersA reign of terror against blacks and Republicans, includingthe murder of Alexander Boyd, inspired this view of theSouth during Reconstruction. (Florida State Archives)
from Ayelsbeare, in Devon, since August 19, 1978;Sean McGaun, 15, murdered on April 7, 1979; 15-year-old Marion Crofts, murdered at Fleet, inHampshire, on June 9, 1981; eight-year-old VishalMehrota, slain in Putney, West London, on July 29,1981; Jason Swift, 14, murdered at Hackney, EastLondon, on July 11, 1983; nine-year-old ImnanVoha, killed the same day as Jason Swift, at Preston,in Lancashire; Collette Aram, 16, murdered at Key-worth, in Nottinghamshire, on October 30, 1983;15-year-old Lynda Mann, killed at Narborogh,Leicestershire, on November 21, 1983; nine-year-oldChris Laverack, murdered in Hull on March 9,1984; Mark Teldesley, seven, missing from Working-ham, Berkshire, since June 1, 1984; and six-year-oldBarry Lewis, murdered at Walworth, South London,on September 15, 1984.To date, despite interrogation of numerous sus-pects and pursuit of countless futile leads, the homi-cides and disappearances remain unsolved. Policecan only speculate on how many of the crimes maybe the work of a single, elusive killer, but in anycase—one slayer or many—the nightmare of grievingparents endures.BROOKLYN, New York: unsolved murders (1989)Murders are so common in New York City that theyoften receive short shrift in the local press. Many slay-ings are ignored completely by the august New YorkTimes, while others rate a mention in the tabloidsonly if they are particularly gruesome or the victimsare celebrities. One such case, briefly mentioned inpassing by New York reporters and then forgotten,involved a series of home invasions during 1989.On July 22, 1989, spokesmen for the New YorkCity Police Department published a sketch of anunidentified black male, suspected in a series of day-light robberies reported from Brooklyn’s Parkvilledistrict. The unnamed victims were all senior citi-zens, apparently followed home by a lurking preda-tor who then forced his way inside their apartments,beating and terrorizing his prey before he lootedtheir homes. Two female victims died from theirinjuries, on July 9 and 14, before police made theirannouncement and published the sketch. The mostrecent robbery in the series had been reported onJuly 17. Judging by the stony silence since that firstpress conference, it appears that New York’s finestnever caught the man responsible.BROOKS, Virginia See SAN DIEGO MURDERS(1931–36)BROSSO, Angela: murder victim (1992)Angela Brosso was one day short of her 22nd birth-day on November 8, 1992, when she left her apart-ment in northwest Phoenix, Arizona, for a nocturnalbike ride through nearby Cave Creek Park. The ridewas a nightly routine, never previously interrupted,but this time Brosso did not return. The next day herheadless corpse was found on a bike trail near CactusRoad and Interstate Highway 17, disemboweled by aragged slash that opened her chest and abdomen.Brosso’s severed head was found on November 20, inthe Arizona Canal. Her purple 21-speed Diamond-back racing bicycle remains missing to this day.Authorities believe Brosso’s murder to be the workof a still-unidentified serial killer. Ten months afterher slaying, in September 1993, 17-year-old MelanieBernas was ambushed and murdered in Phoenix, herbody dragged from the Arizona Canal near the spotwhere Brosso’s head had been found. Bernas sufferedno mutilations, but her green SPC Hardrock Sportmountain bike was missing from the scene and hasnot been found to date. A discarded turquoise body-suit lay nearby, described by police as a clue to themurder. In March 1994 DNA testing of unspecified“biological evidence” found on both corpses linked asingle unknown slayer to both crimes. The fugitive’sDNA profile has been entered into a national data-base, waiting to snare him if he is tested for any rea-son in the future. Until that day, the Phoenixhomicides remain hauntingly unsolved.BROWN, Ben: murder victim (1868)Political activity was perilous for an African Ameri-can in the South during Reconstruction (1865–77),when white Democrats (or “Conservatives”) joinedforces with the terrorist Ku Klux Klan and similargroups to overthrow Republican rule in the wake ofthe Civil War. Ben Brown, a former slave, facedgreater risks than most when he assumed the presi-dency of the Republican Grant and Colfax Club inSumter County, Alabama. Pledged to the election ofRepublican presidential candidate Ulysses Grant andrunning mate Schuyler Colfax, the club was a light-ning rod for threats and violence in a district largelycontrolled by the KKK.50BROOKLYN, New York
Brown was warned repeatedly by local whites tocease and desist holding black political meetings inSumter County. By late September 1868 he was vir-tually besieged, dwelling on the plantation owned bya white Republican, Dr. Gerard Choutteau (himself atarget of numerous threats and assaults). On thenight of October 2, 1868, a band of 25 to 30 terror-ists raided Brown’s home and shot him to death.County authorities declined to investigate the crime,and no suspects were ever publicly identified. Noc-turnal raiders subsequently returned and set fire toDr. Choutteau’s home, another crime that remainedforever unpunished.BROWN, Carline See RAWLINS, WYOMING, RODEOMURDERSBROWN, Vivian See GOOD SAMARITAN HOSPITALMURDERS“BTK Strangler”: unidentified serial killer (1974–77)Residents of Wichita, Kansas, were ill prepared tocope with monsters in the early days of 1974. Theirlives, by and large, were conservative, well ordered,and purposeful. They had no previous experience tobrace them for the coming terror, and it took themabsolutely by surprise.On January 15, 1974, four members of the Oterofamily were found dead in their comfortable home,hog-tied and strangled with lengths of cord cutfrom old Venetian blinds. Joseph Otero, 38, layfacedown on the floor at the foot of his bed, wristsand ankles bound with pieces of the same cord thatwas wrapped around his neck. Nearby, Julie Oterolay on the bed she had once shared with her hus-band, bound and strangled in similar fashion. Nine-year-old Joseph II was found in his bedroom,duplicating his father’s position at the foot of hisbed, with a plastic bag over his head. Downstairs,11-year-old Josephine Otero hung by her neck froma pipe in the basement, dressed only in a sweatshirtand socks.Aside from the killer’s ritualistic modus operandi,police knew the attack had been planned in advance.Telephone lines outside the house were cut, and thekiller had come equipped with ample cord to bindand strangle four victims. (The fifth Otero familymember, a young daughter, survived and summonedneighbors to report the massacre.) Witnesses recalleda “suspicious-looking” man in the neighborhood,but published sketches of the stranger failed to pro-duce any suspects.Ten months later, a local newspaper editor receivedan anonymous call from the killer, directing him to aparticular book at the Wichita Public Library. Insidethe book he found a typewritten letter filled withnumerous misspellings, claiming credit for the Oteromurders and promising more to come. Signing him-self the “BTK Strangler,” the author provided his owntranslation in a postscript: “The code words for mewill be . . . Bind them, Torture them, Kill them.”Police requested that the letter be withheld from pub-lication, against the possibility of false confessions inthe case, but no one came forward. No further evi-dence was found. Another 29 months would passbefore the killer surfaced again.On March 17, 1977, 26-year-old Shirley Vian wasmurdered in her Wichita home, stripped, bound, andstrangled on her bed, hooded with a plastic bag, thekiller’s trademark cord wrapped tight around herneck. Vian’s three children, locked in a closet by thearmed intruder who had invaded their home, man-aged to free themselves and call police. One of Vian’ssons reported that the killer had stopped him on thestreet, earlier that morning, displaying photos of anunknown woman and child while he sought direc-tions to their home. As with the Oteros, the crimewas clearly premeditated, and again the killer left noclues behind to establish his identity.On December 9, 1977, 25-year-old Nancy Jo Foxwas found dead in the bedroom of her Wichita apart-ment, a nylon stocking wrapped around her neck.Unlike previous victims, however, she was fullyclothed. An anonymous telephone call broughtpolice to the scene, and officers traced the call to aphone booth, where witnesses vaguely recalled“someone”—perhaps a blond man, six feet tall—placing a call moments earlier.The killer mailed a poem to the press on January31, 1978, but it was routed to the newspaper’s adver-tising department by mistake and lay ignored for sev-eral days. Angered by a paucity of headlines, thestrangler shifted targets, mailing his next letter to aWichita television station on February 10, 1978.“How many do I have to kill,” the letter asked,“before I get my name in the paper or some nationalattention?” The note claimed a total of seven victims,51“BTK Strangler”
naming Vian and Fox as the latest. The seventh vic-tim remained anonymous, with a taunting punchline: “You guess the motive and the victims.”Alternately blaming his crimes on “a demon” anda mysterious “factor X,” the strangler compared hishandiwork to that of London’s “JACK THE RIPPER,”New York City’s “Son of Sam,” and the Los Angeles“Hillside Strangler” (then still at large). Unable todocument the killer’s seven-victim body count, policestill took him at his word, accepting the theoreticaltally. Psychiatrists who analyzed the BTK letters feltthe killer saw himself as part of some nebulous“grand scheme,” but they were unable to pinpointhis motive or predict his next move.In fact, there was none. Wichita police ultimatelyspent some 100,000 man-hours on the case withoutdiscovering a suspect, and FBI profilers fared no bet-ter. Fear of the strangler was briefly revived on Octo-ber 31, 1987, after 15-year-old Shannon Olson wasstripped, bound, stabbed to death, and dumped in alocal pond, but despite a rash of crank letters blam-ing “BTK” for the crime, no evidence of a link to the1970s murder series ever surfaced. The December1997 murder of PHILLIP FAGERand his daughters wasfollowed, two months later, by delivery of another“typewritten, rambling communiqué, which pur-ports to be from BTK,” but authorities identified asuspect (later acquitted) in that case and pronouncedit unrelated to the strangler’s crimes.A fresh wave of BTK panic swept through Wichitaon March 25, 2004, when the Wichita Eagleannounced receipt of a new letter from the still-unknown killer. Postmarked on March 17 andreceived two days later, the envelope bore a falsereturn address in the name of “Bill Thomas Kill-man”—BTK. Inside was a photocopy of 28-year-oldVicki Wegerle’s driver’s license and three photostaken of her body after she was strangled in herWichita home on September 16, 1986. That crime,like the rest of BTK’s murders, was still unsolvedwhen the letter arrived, but police had never linked itto the slayer’s spree. Authorities confirmed thatWegerle’s driver’s license was missing from the 1986crime scene, and a police spokesman told frightenedEagle readers that the eight-time killer “is probablynow living in Wichita.” While local gun sales soared,forensic profilers struggled to explain the “unique”lapse in time between the BTK’s communications,and at press time for this volume the letter hadbrought detectives no closer to an arrest.BUFFALO, New York: taxi murders (1980)In October 1980 residents of Buffalo, New York,were stunned by the grisly murders of two black taxidrivers on successive nights, details of the crime sug-gesting human sacrifice or worse. The first victim,71-year-old Parker Edwards, was found in the trunkof his cab on October 8, his skull crushed with ablunt instrument, his heart cut out and missing fromthe murder scene. One day later 40-year-old ErnestJones was found beside the Niagara River inTonawanda, New York, likewise bludgeoned todeath, with his heart carved from his chest. Jones’sblood-spattered taxi was retrieved by police in Buf-falo, three miles from the site where his body wasfound. After the second slaying, Erie County districtattorney Edward Cosgrove told reporters, “This isthe most bizarre thing I have ever seen in my life.Any word I reach for to describe it is inadequate.”Worse yet, from the standpoint of racial harmony,four other Buffalo blacks had been killed in the past18 days, all gunned down with the same .22-caliberweapon. Then, barely 24 hours after the murder ofErnest Jones, 37-year-old Colin Cole was assaultedin his Buffalo hospital room by a white man whotold him, “I hate niggers.” A nurse’s arrival savedCole from death by strangulation, but he sustainedsevere injuries to his neck. Descriptions of the would-be strangler roughly matched eyewitness reports ofBuffalo’s elusive “.22-caliber killer.”Some authorities believed the mystery was solvedthree months later, with the arrest of army privateJoseph Christopher at Fort Benning, Georgia,charged with stabbing a black fellow soldier. Asearch of Christopher’s former residence, near Buf-falo, revealed quantities of .22-caliber ammunition, agun barrel, and two sawed-off rifle stocks. Police alsolearned that Christopher had joined the army onNovember 13, 1980, arriving at Fort Benning sixdays later. He was absent without leave from Decem-ber 19, 1980, through January 4, 1981, with a busticket recording his arrival in Manhattan on Decem-ber 20—just two days before five blacks and oneHispanic victim were stabbed there, four victimsfatally, in random street attacks.Hospitalized following a suicide attempt on May6, 1981, Christopher bragged to a nurse of hisinvolvement in the September shootings around Buf-falo. Four days later, he was charged with three ofthe “.22-caliber” slayings, a fourth murder chargeadded to the list on June 29, 1981, plus further52BUFFALO, New York
counts related to nonfatal Buffalo stabbings inDecember 1980 and January 1981. In New YorkCity indictments were returned in two of the Decem-ber 1980 stabbings.Joseph Christopher was ruled incompetent fortrial in December 1981, but that verdict was reversedfour months later. On April 27, 1982, after 12 daysof testimony, Christopher was convicted on threecounts of first-degree murder in Buffalo, drawing aprison term of 60 years to life. Seventeen monthslater, in September 1983, he sat for an interview withBuffalo reporters, boasting that his murder spree hadclaimed a minimum of 13 lives. Journalists notedthat he “did not deny” the Jones-Edwards “heartmurders” of October 1980, but neither did he con-fess to the crimes, and no charges were filed in thosecases. Christopher’s Buffalo conviction was over-turned in July 1985 on grounds that the judgeimproperly barred testimony pointing toward mentalincompetence. Three months later, in Manhattan, ajury rejected Christopher’s insanity plea, convictinghim on one count of murder and another ofattempted murder. The murders of Parker Edwardsand Ernest Jones remain officially unsolved.BUGAY, Angela See BAY AREA CHILD MURDERSBULL, Gerald Victor: murder victim (1990)An American citizen born at North Bay, Ontario, in1928, Gerald Bull suffered a loveless childhood,raised by an aunt after his mother died and his fatherleft for parts unknown. Still, he excelled in school andwas rated a virtual genius, earning his Ph.D. from theUniversity of Toronto at age 23. By that time, he wasalready obsessed with the idea of building giant gunsthat could propel satellites into outer space, a visionfueled in equal parts by childhood readings of JulesVerne and study of the giant field guns used by Ger-many to bombard Paris during World War I.Bull took the first step toward realizing his visionwhen he joined the Canadian Armament andResearch Development Establishment (CARDE),involved throughout the 1950s with problems ofsupersonic aerodynamics for aircraft and missiles.Supersonic wind tunnels were expensive to build, soBull devised an alternative method of testing: In lieuof constructing vast tunnels, he proposed using can-non to fire models down a test range at supersonicspeed. The early tests were successful, and at age 31Bull was promoted to lead CARDE’s aerophysicsdepartment. A loathing for bureaucratic red tapedrove Bull to a series of unapproved media inter-views, which in turn alienated his superiors, andhe was dismissed from CARDE two years later, in1961.Briefly adrift in private life, Bull soon found sup-port from the Pentagon, the CIA, and the CanadianDefense Department for a new experimental pro-gram dubbed Project HARP (High-Altitude ResearchProgram), created to study large guns and high-altitude ballistics. Initial testing was done in subter-ranean tunnels, on land Bull purchased along theVermont-Quebec border. Free-flight tests were laterconducted on the island of Barbados, where giantprojectiles were lobbed over the Atlantic, peaking atan altitude of 108 miles.Diversion of military funds for the ongoing Viet-nam War doomed Bull’s project and once again lefthim without official sponsors. Before the bitter end,Bull transferred HARP’s assets to his own com-pany—Space Research Corporation (SRC)—operat-ing from an 8,000-acre spread in rural Vermont. Bythe 1970s CIA contacts had placed Bull in touchwith government representatives from South Africa,China, and Iraq, but those connections ultimatelylanded Bull in jail. American relations with SouthAfrica’s racist apartheid regime were severed in thelatter 1970s, and U.S. corporations were bannedfrom doing business with Johannesburg. Bullignored the restrictions until he was arrested forsmuggling 30,000 artillery shells to South Africa viathe West Indies. A guilty plea on that charge broughtBull a six-month jail term, despite a federal prosecu-tor’s recommendation that Bull serve no time in cus-tody. The conviction left Bull bankrupt anddesperate. Upon release from prison, he moved toBrussels, seeking any clients who would keep hisdream afloat financially.By 1981 Bull had a new deal with Iraq, by thenimmersed in a marathon war with neighboring Iran.Rumors persist that Bull met personally with SaddamHussein, then a favorite client of the Pentagon andReagan-Bush White House for his opposition to Iran.According to journalist David Silverberg, Hussein wasso taken with Bull’s presentation that he “downed abottle of Johnnie Walker Red and called up his croniesin the middle of the night, insisting that they rush rightover to hear Bull.” Be that as it may, Bull soon foundhimself at the helm of Project Babylon, designing a53BULL, Gerald Victor
“supergun” for Iraq that would sport a 120-meterbarrel and tip the scales around 4.2 million pounds. Amodel of the giant weapon was displayed in May1989 at the Baghdad International Exhibition for Mil-itary Production. On the side, Bull also helped Iraqdesign a multistage missile that would have permittedlong-range strikes against Hussein’s enemies.At 6:20 P.M. on March 22, 1990, as Bull paused tounlock the door of his sixth-floor apartment in Brus-sels, an unknown assassin shot him three times in theback with a silencer-equipped pistol. Bull collapsedto the floor, where two more shots were fired into theback of his head at close range. Killed instantly, helay bleeding on the floor for 20 minutes before policearrived. Bull’s briefcase lay untouched nearby, con-taining various papers, financial documents, andclose to $20,000 in cash. Within days of the murder,Saddam Hussein declared in a speech from Baghdad,“A Canadian citizen with U.S. nationality came toIraq. He might have benefited Iraq. I don’t know.They say the Iraq intelligence service is spread overEurope, but nobody spoke of human rights of theCanadian citizen of U.S. nationality. After he came toIraq, they killed him.”Israel was the immediate prime suspect in Bull’smurder, committed to retarding weapons-develop-ment programs in Iraq and other hostile Arab states.Alternative scenarios blame the Iranian government(known enemies of Iraq), British intelligence, and theCIA. The British theory, advanced by journalist WalterDe Bock in 1998, claims that Prime Minister Mar-garet Thatcher ordered Bull’s murder because he wastaking lucrative Iraqi arms contracts away fromBritish firms. (As support for his claim, De Bock notedthat reporter Jonathan Moyle was murdered in Chileon March 31, 1990—eight days after Bull’s assassina-tion—while investigating claims of secret British mili-tary trading with Iraq.) American involvement in themurder was suggested by Canadian journalist DaleGrant, reporting that Michael Bull “broached the ideathat the CIA did it, because his father was applying fora U.S. pardon of his arms-smuggling conviction.” Twoyears later, former SRC employee Christopher Cowleytold the House of Commons that he and Bull hadbriefed the CIA and Britain’s MI5 on the progress ofProject Babylon as it proceeded. While convinced thatIsrael was responsible for killing Bull, Cowley “specu-lated that the CIA must have been tipped off by theMossad [Israeli intelligence] and thus had acquiescedin the assassination.”Project Babylon disintegrated after Bull’s death,which was doubtless the intention of his killer orkillers. SRC immediately closed its doors and theemployees scattered. Iraqi forces invaded neighbor-ing Kuwait on August 2, 1990, and U.S.-led forcesresponded with aerial attacks in January 1991, cli-maxed by a swift land offensive the following month.Bull’s superguns were located and destroyed byUnited Nations weapons inspectors in the wake ofthe Gulf War. No suspects have yet been identified inDr. Bull’s murder.BURGHARD, Paul See NEW YORK CITY TAXIMURDERSBURK, William: murder victim (1868)A former slave in Marshall County, Tennessee,William Burk risked his life to become a RepublicanParty activist during the violent Reconstruction era(1865–77). His work was particularly dangeroussince Cornersville, his hometown, lay less than 20miles northeast of Pulaski, birthplace of the terroristKu Klux Klan. A band of masked Klansmen raidedBurk’s home on the night of July 4, 1868, and lefthim dying from multiple gunshot wounds. Pulaski’sDemocratic newspaper, the Citizen, responded to themurder by branding Burk “a vicious and dangerousnegro [sic].” On the night Burk died, an editorialmaintained, he “was waited upon by some gentle-men, who approached him to talk the matter over ina civil way. He wouldn’t listen to a word, but imme-diately began firing at the party. The gentlemen, whowere said to be Kuklux, were compelled to shoot himdown in self-defense.” If true, it seems odd that thegunmen took pains to conceal their identities afterthe shooting. In any case, they were never publiclynamed and the murder remains unsolved.BURKE, Richard: assassination victim (1870)A black Republican in Reconstruction-era GreeneCounty, Alabama, Richard Burke was elected to thestate legislature in 1870, when his white successorpanicked in the face of threats from the Ku KluxKlan and refused to fill his post. Political activity wasa virtual death sentence for Southern blacks in thoseyears, but Burke—an older man and former slave—disdained all efforts at intimidation. By the time54BURGHARD, Paul
Burke returned from Montgomery to the GreeneCounty seat at Livingston, in early August 1870,Klan members had decided he must die.The trigger incident occurred on August 13, whenrumors spread that 100 armed freedmen weredescending on Livingston, prepared to massacrewhite residents. The county sheriff led 200 armedmen to intercept the guerrillas, but he found only 40blacks bound for a Republican political meeting. Thepeaceable crowd was dispersed with warnings to stayout of trouble—defined in that time and place as anyassertion of personal rights—but nightfall found anew rumor in circulation. According to the lateststory, Richard Burke had confronted stragglers fromthe band and denounced them as cowards for dis-persing in the face of superior force. “You go backand shoot out your last load of ammunition,” heallegedly declared, “and then club your guns andfight to the last.”While none of the freedmen took that advice—and Burke probably never spoke the words at all—Klansmen were moved to proceed with hiselimination. On the night of August 18, 1870, aband of 20-odd riders stopped at the home of JudgeTurner Reavis, abducting one of the judge’s blackservants and compelling him at gunpoint to showthem Burke’s house. Burke saw the mob coming andleapt from a second-story window, fleeing on footuntil they overtook him some 50 yards from thehouse. Judge Reavis recalled hearing gunfire andlater found Burke “shot all to pieces.” When ques-tioned later by congressional investigators, Reavisdenied any knowledge of other violence in the neigh-borhood or of “any permanent organization for55BURKE, RichardA raid like this one, by the Ku Klux Klan, claimed the life of black activist Richard Burke. (Library of Congress)
political or other purposes, called Ku-Klux, or any-thing else.”Gainesville Klansman Edward Clement Sanderscast doubt on that testimony when he told the samepanel of his personal experiences with the GreeneCounty Klan. Judge Reavis had been present on thenight he was initiated, Sanders swore under oath, andwhile the question of Reavis’s Klan membershipremained open, it seems unlikely that outsiders wouldbe welcomed to clandestine meetings of the order.Greene County Republicans were shocked byBurke’s murder. They postponed a county-wide con-vention, scheduled for August 27, until U.S. troopsarrived to protect them four days later. The conven-tion then proceeded under armed guard, but it was awasted effort. In time Klan terrorism would“redeem” Alabama and the rest of the South forwhite Democrats, instituting seven decades of virtualone-party rule.BURKS, Diane See DETROIT MURDERSBURNHAM, A. J. See COLORADO MURDERS(1911–12)BURROUGHS, Krystal See NEW ORLEANS MURDERS(1987–88)“BUTCHER of Mons”: Belgian serial killer (1997)Police in Mons, near Belgium’s border with France,blame one unknown killer for the murders of fourwomen, whose dismembered bodies were retrievedfrom roadside ditches and riverbanks in 1997. Thefirst discovery, in March, revealed the severed limbsof three different victims, wrapped in trash bagsand dumped beside a highway on the outskirts ofMons. One day later, another trash bag was found,this one containing a woman’s “surgically dis-sected” torso. Some of the limbs appeared to match,while others remained without bodies. Postmortemtests revealed that one victim had been killed withina week of discovery; the other two, with limbsapparently frozen at some time, may have beenkilled as early as 1995.Authorities immediately discounted any speculativelink between the dismemberment slayings and killerpedophile Marc Dutroux, whose recently exposedchild pornography ring had slain at least four chil-dren. The latest Belgian stalker clearly preferred adultvictims, and he also seemed to possess a macabresense of humor, discarding body parts at sites withsuch names as Rue du Depot (Dump Street), Cheminde l’Inquietude (the Path of Worry), or beside theRivers Haine (Hate) and Trouille (Jitters).As far as technique was concerned, detectives ini-tially said the killer’s victims were dismembered with“remarkable precision,” prompting speculation thattheir man might be a surgeon or a butcher. The dis-posal of remains on weekends pointed to a subjectgainfully employed, a weekday nine-to-fiver, but fur-ther details of an FBI profile prepared on the killerremain under wraps.The Butcher’s fourth victim surfaced in June 1997,bagged in plastic like the others, dropped along RueSt. Symphorien (named for a beheaded third centurymartyr, whose remains are entombed at a nearbychurch). On June 3, 1997, a report was broadcastthat authorities were investigating possible religiousmotives for the murders, perhaps satanic in nature,since “the treatment of the bodies is very methodical,which is often the case with satanics involved in ritu-alistic killings.” That report also dismissed priorclaims of the killer’s surgical skill, noting that his lat-est victim had been chopped into numerous pieces,none more than 12 inches long.Two of the Butcher’s victims have thus far beenidentified. Martine Bohn, a 43-year-old French trans-sexual and retired prostitute, had disappeared in July1996, her bagged remains found floating in theHaine, both breasts removed. The second positiveI.D. was that of 21-year-old Nathalie Godart. A thirdpresumed victim, 33-year-old Jacqueline Leclercq,was last seen alive on January 23, 1997. Study of anunknown woman’s pelvis, found across the border inFrance, has so far failed to confirm a link with themurders in Mons.Belgian psychiatrists describe their faceless killeras a meticulous anal retentive whose murders arecommitted “very neatly, very precisely, the work ofan obsessive.” The only suspect named to date wascleared upon substantiation of his alibi and subse-quently left Belgium. Police have no leads to thekiller (or killers), waiting grimly to see if he (or they)strike again, perhaps leaving clues that may lead toan arrest. Seven years of inactivity and counting sug-gest that their wait may be in vain.56BURKS, Diane
CABO, Ronald See NEW YORK CITY GAY MURDERS(1973)CADIEUX, Cynthia See “BABYSITTER”CAIN, Jessica See “I-45MURDERS”CAMBI, Susanna See “MONSTER OF FLORENCE”CAMPBELL, Amanda See BAY AREA CHILD MURDERSCAMPBELL, Howard See LOS ANGELES DRIVE-BYMURDERSCAPIOLA, Debra See WASHINGTON, PENNSYLVANIA,MURDERSCARFANO, Anthony: gangland murder victim (1959)Little is known about the early life of mobsterAnthony Carfano, better known to police and hisMafia associates as “Little Augie Pisano.” AuthorCarl Sifakis reports that Carfano, raised in New YorkCity, borrowed his sobriquet from a dead East Sidegangster, but the other details of his childhood(including date of birth) remain obscure. We knowCarfano was arrested several times for carrying con-cealed weapons, and that while he was once chargedwith murder, the case never went to trial. That factwas likely due in large part to Carfano’s mob connec-tions, including FRANKIE YALE, Frank Costello,Joseph (“Joe Adonis”) Doto, Anthony (“Tony Ben-der”) Stralla, Mike Miranda, and super-bookie FrankErickson. Carfano also achieved a measure of fauxrespectability from his marriage to the daughter ofJohn DiSalvio (aka Jimmy Kelly), a Greenwich Vil-lage nightclub owner and Tammany Hall electioncaptain in the Second Assembly District.In June 1928, after Frankie Yale fell prey to theBig Apple’s first machine-gun drive-by shooting, Car-fano was chosen to administer the late mobster’sBrooklyn rackets for Joe Adonis. Three years later,he attended an organizational meeting of thenational crime syndicate at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, mingling with mob leaders whosenumber included Charles (“Lucky”) Luciano, MeyerLansky, BENJAMIN(“BUGSY”)SIEGEL, Moe Dalitz,and ALBERT ANASTASIA. Luciano was subsequentlyconvicted of “white slavery” and sentenced toprison, then deported to his native Italy, but Carfanowas among those present for a lavish welcome homeparty thrown for Luciano in Havana, Cuba, onDecember 22, 1946. (Frank Sinatra provided the57C
entertainment, while assembled mob leaders dis-cussed the growth of Las Vegas and voted to elimi-nate Ben Siegel for skimming syndicate funds.)In the late 1950s Carfano moved to Miami,Florida, and sought to establish himself as a big fishin a relatively small pond. Miami had been deemedan “open city” by the syndicate, theoretically mean-ing that any mobster was free to operate there, aslong as he inconvenienced no one else. In fact, how-ever, Miami gambling was dominated by Lansky andother members of the so-called Jewish Mafia—MoeDalitz, Sam Tucker, Morris Kleinman—and theMafia was ably represented by Santo Trafficante.Still, Carfano reasoned, there should be loot enoughto go around.On the night of September 29, 1959, Carfano wasin New York, dining at the Copacabana nightclubwith Mrs. Janice Drake. A former beauty queen,Drake was the wife of comedian Alan Drake, whosecareer had received a boost from Carfano’s mobinfluence. Carfano’s relationship to Mrs. Drakeremains speculative: She called him “Uncle Gus”and may have simply been a platonic friend, as Car-fano maintained. On the night in question, theywere joined for dinner by four companions, includ-ing Tony Bender, Vincent Mauro, ex-convict AlSegal, and Segal’s wife. In the middle of dinner,around 9:45 P.M., Carfano received a phone call andleft the restaurant with Drake. At 10:30 they werefound in Queens, parked on a residential street nearLa Guardia Airport in Carfano’s black 1959 Cadil-lac. Both had been shot in the back of the head, byone or more gunmen seated behind them. Policespeculated that the killer (or killers) had been wait-ing in Carfano’s car when he left the restaurant,forcing him to serve as their chauffeur on LittleAugie’s last ride.Detectives thought Mrs. Drake had been killed asan unlucky eyewitness to murder, but the motive forCarfano’s death remains a subject of debate amongmob-watchers. Some observers believe he was killedon orders from Lansky and/or Trafficante, for invad-ing their Miami turf without permission. Othersmaintain that Carfano fell prey to the same late-Fifties underworld that claimed the lives of AlbertAnastasia and ABNER(“LONGY”) ZWILLMAN. A long-shot third scenario involves Carfano’s dubious rela-tionship with Janice Drake, although the method ofhis death (and hers) clearly suggests the work of aprofessional killer.CARLSZEN, Signe See COLORADO MURDERS(1911–12)CARROLL, Anna See “FRANKFORD SLASHER”CARTER, Diane See DETROIT MURDERSCARTER, Gloria See WASHINGTON, D.C., MURDERS(1988)CARTER, Leroy: murder victim (1981)Shortly after noon on February 8, 1981, San Fran-cisco police received complaints of a transient sleep-ing near Alvord Lake in Golden Gate Park. Thereport was not unusual, by any means. A verbalwarning would suffice, perhaps a trip downtown inhandcuffs if the subject was disorderly or drunk.Patrolmen answering the call were ill prepared for anexcursion through the twilight zone of cults andhuman sacrifice that waited for them in the park.Arriving at the scene, two officers were met by acomplaining witness who led them to a clump ofbushes where a sleeping bag was partially concealed.A nightstick drew the top flap of the sleeping bagaside, revealing a decapitated human body with achicken wing and two kernels of corn where themissing head should be. Detectives were summoned,and a search of the area turned up several mutilatedchickens in a cardboard box, some 50 yards distantfrom the corpse. No trace of the victim’s head couldbe found.Fingerprints identified the dead man as 29-year-old Leroy Carter, a black petty criminal whoserecord included arrests for trespassing, auto theft,assault, and battery. A canvass of his known associ-ates produced no motive for the slaying, but CoronerBoyd Stevens publicly described the murder as a rit-ual homicide.With that in mind, the case was referred to the SanFrancisco Police Department’s resident “cult expert,”Detective Sandi Gallant. She, in turn, placed a call toCharles Wetli, coroner of Dade County, Florida, andthe nation’s top expert on Santeria. Wetli noted thatchickens are routinely sacrificed to various orishas(gods) in the Afro-Caribbean religion, but corn isspecifically sacred to the god Eleggua, ruler of gates58CARLSZEN, Signe
and crossroads. Based on evidence from cases inMiami, Wetli advised that the missing head would beburied for 21 days, then unearthed by the killers andkept for another three weeks to extract psychic pow-ers, before it was returned to the murder scene.Det. Gallant relayed Wetli’s information to homi-cide investigators, facing ridicule for her efforts andbecoming the subject of countless “chicken jokes”around the squad room. The laughter stoppedabruptly when a new report came in from Golden GatePark on March 22, 1981. A black man’s severed headhad been discovered close to Alvord Lake, exactly 42days from the date Carter’s body was found.Unfortunately, proof of Santeria cult involvementin the case brought police no closer to a suspect.More than two decades after the fact, the murder ofLeroy Carter remains unsolved.CARTWRIGHT, Una See “WEST SIDE RAPIST”CASTANEDA, Jacqueline: kidnap victim (2001)Fleeting moments sometimes mark a life forever. So itwas for 19-year-old Olivia Castaneda on May 6,2001. Although a teenager herself, Castanedaalready had two daughters, two-year-old Nayeli andthree-month-old Jacqueline. On that Sunday after-noon she took the girls with her to a swap meet inAvondale, Arizona, west of Phoenix. Midwaythrough their shopping, Nayeli needed to use therestroom and Olivia found a portable facility nearby.Nayeli needed help, and since the cubicle had noroom for three people, Olivia left Jacqueline outsidethe privy, strapped in her portable car seat. Whenmother and daughter emerged moments later, thebaby was gone.Avondale police arrived promptly and sealed off theswap meet, conducting a thorough search, but notrace of the baby or car seat was found. During thesearch one vendor remarked on the suspicious behav-ior of a female customer who had caressed the ven-dor’s own baby and remarked on the child’s beauty.Unfortunately, no one still inside the swap meet whenpolice arrived was found to match the woman’sdescription, and her identity remains unknown.Eleven months after the kidnapping, on April 19,2002, a tip sent detectives to suburban Glendale, Ari-zona, seeking a child who resembled Jacqueline Cas-taneda, but it proved to be a false alarm. Authoritiesremain cautiously hopeful, since no evidence of mur-der has so far been found, and Olivia Castanedarefused to believe that her daughter may be dead. “Ihave faith,” she told reporter Judi Villa in May 2002.“I know one day I’ll have her back. I just don’t knowwhen. I know she’s alive. Nothing can happen to her.I don’t want to think that way.”CASTRATION murders: U.S. serial killings (1981–86)Around 7:00 A.M. on June 14, 1982, sheriff’sdeputies in Wasatch County, Utah, were summonedto the banks of Daniels Creek, where a fly fishermanhad reported a grisly discovery. On arrival, theyfound a man’s nude body lying on its back, kneesraised, with the genitals severed and missing from thescene. Autopsy results disclosed that the castrationhad occurred postmortem, after the victim was shotonce in the back of the head with a .38-caliber pistol.On October 11, 1983, the victim was identified fromfingerprints as Marty Shook, age 21, from Truckee,California. He had last been seen alive on June 12,1982, leaving his mother’s home on a hitchhikingtrip to Colorado.Another four years and seven months elapsedbefore Utah authorities submitted details of Shook’smurder to the FBI’s National Center for the Analysisof Violent Crime, for comparison to other crimesreported from around the country. The marvels ofcomputer science notwithstanding, it was May 1989,nearly seven years after the slaying, when G-menreported back on a strikingly similar case from Penn-sylvania. There, six miles north of Williamsburg,another young man had been found on August 19,1981, nude and emasculated, shot in the back of thehead. The Pennsylvania victim was identified as 30-year-old Wayne Rifendifer, a North Carolina nativewith a record of arrests for larceny. Ballistics testsproved that Shook and Rifendifer had been shot withthe same gun.Authorities suspect the same killer is responsiblefor the November 1986 murder of 26-year-old JackAndrews, an Oklahoma native with a criminalrecord, found nude and wrapped in a blanket at ahighway rest stop near Litchfield, Connecticut. Inaddition to the standard missing genitals, Andrews’snipples were also cut off and both legs were severedat mid-thigh. None of the missing parts were found,and cause of death was not determined in the Litch-field case. Andrews had not been shot.59CASTRATION murders
No progress has been publicly reported on thesecrimes since 1989, and while investigators theorizeabout a transient killer—possibly a long-haul truckerwho preys on hitchhikers—they are no closer to asuspect now, than back in 1981. Barring sponta-neous confession by the killer (or killers) or coinci-dental matchup of a gun recovered by police, there isno prospect for solution of the mystery.CHANEY, Trina See “SOUTH SIDE SLAYER”CHAPMAN, Annie See “JACK THE RIPPER”(1888)CHARLTON, Judge: assassination victim (1870)A prominent Republican in Summerville, Alabama,during Reconstruction (1865–77), Judge Charltonsuffered the double misfortune of being slain for hispolitical beliefs and losing his first name entirely tothe tides of history. Military and congressionalinvestigators who reviewed his case in 1870–71knew him simply by the title of his office, and so heis identified today.Judge Charlton’s trouble began in the wake ofAmerica’s bitter Civil War, when he switched alle-giance from the white-supremacist DemocraticParty to campaign for Republicans and establish-ment of black civil rights in Alabama. As if thatwere not bad enough, in the eyes of Confederateneighbors who dubbed him a crass “scalawag,”Charlton also served as foreman for a federal grandjury based at Huntsville, which returned multipleindictments against members of the Ku Klux Klanand other racial terrorists. Few of those chargedwere ever arrested, but dodging the police and U.S.troops was still an inconvenience. Inevitably, theMorgan County Klan swore vengeance againstCharlton.The night riders made their first attempt in Octo-ber 1868, shortly before the upcoming presidentialelection. A gang of masked Klansmen spent the nightterrorizing local Republicans, including a deputysheriff and circuit court clerk, but they hit a snagwhen they reached Judge Charlton’s home. Theraiders kicked in his front door, but were surprisedwhen a visitor—one Bob Gardner—rushed past themand into the night. While the Klansmen unloadedtheir weapons at Gardner, without effect, Charlton’sson opened fire from the house and scattered theminto the night. Rumors spread that one raider suc-cumbed to his wounds, but if so he was secretlyburied, leaving no record behind.In the wake of the raid on his home, Judge Charl-ton joined other Republicans and disgruntled ex-Klansmen to organize an “Anti-Ku-Klux” band inMorgan County. The group quelled terrorism by vis-iting known Klansmen at home, warning them thatany future violence would be answered in kind.Acknowledged members of the Anti-Klan laterdenied any mayhem on their own part, and perhapsthreats were enough to discourage local raiders—butthey would not save Judge Charlton.On March 18, 1870—soon after the grand jury’ssession ended with 33 new indictments, includingseven for murder and manslaughter—Charlton wentto visit a friend in Decatur, Alabama. A gunman lay inwait for the judge near his destination, firing a shotgunblast that killed Charlton outright. Alabama GovernorWilliam H. Smith promised “a vigorous and deter-mined policy” to suppress terrorism, but his words hadlittle effect in the hinterlands, and Charlton’s killer wasnever identified. Local Democrats blamed a personalfeud for the murder, thereby absolving the Klan, andLieutenant Charles Harkins could not prove themwrong when he led a detachment of the 2nd Infantryto garrison the district. As Harkins reported on March5, 1870: “Family, political, and personal quarrels havebeen so blended and mixed that it is very difficult toascertain where one commences and the others end.These, and other conflicting interests, have kept thespirit of discord and animosity alive, and have engen-dered such deadly feuds to such an extent that atthe present time law and order are set at defiance.” Soit would remain, throughout the state, until white ter-ror “redeemed” Alabama from Republican rule andReconstruction came to an end.CHASE, Richard and Russell: murder victims (1976)For one brief day the savage murder of three youngboys on Gila River Indian Reservation, southeast ofPhoenix, ranked among the most sensational homi-cide cases in Arizona history. Twenty-four hourslater, it was eclipsed and driven from the headlines byan even more sensational crime—and so it remainsunsolved today, after more than a quarter century.Critics suggest that racism may be one reason whythere have been no arrests in what became known asthe case of the boys on the tracks.60CHANEY, Trina
Eleven-year-old Richard Chase Jr.
