The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (23 page)

disabled in seconds, victims are seldom bound or tor-Although involved at the periphery of many infa-tured; any sexual assault is likely to be carried out upon mous serial murder cases, often described as the model the corpse. Because he gives so little thought to capture, for fictional G-man Jack Crawford in the novels Red the disorganized slayer rarely transports or conceals his Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs, Douglas did not kills, leaving bodies where they fall and are easily pursue and arrest serial killers himself. Still, the job had found. Little or no effort is made to clean up the crime its dangers, including a schedule so hectic and stressful scene, conceal weapons, or eradicate such evidence as that it drove Douglas to a near-fatal brain hemorrhage semen stains and fingerprints.

in December 1983 while visiting Seattle to consult on It would appear, from those criteria, that every disorthe case of the “GREEN RIVER KILLER.”

ganized killer should be caught after the first or second Although he was interviewed frequently and gave murder, but such is not always the case. Some, like countless lectures while serving with the FBI, true fame Sacramento vampire Richard Trenton Chase, embark on found Douglas in retirement, with several best-selling such ferocious killing sprees that they outrun investiga-books, countless TV talk-show appearances, and a tors for a time through sheer momentum and rack up a lucrative sideline in private consultation on criminal fair body count in the process. Others, like Wisconsin’s cases such as the infamous JonBenét Ramsey murder in EDWARD GEIN, are blessed by circumstance—remote Boulder, Colorado. Books coauthored by Douglas in locations or particularly unobservant neighbors—so the subject area of serial murder include Sexual Homi-that they can kill for years, even decades on end, with-cide (1988); the FBI’s Crime Classification Manual out being exposed.

(1992); Mind Hunter (1995); Unabomber (1996); Jour-See also MODUS OPERANDI; MOTIVES; VICAP

ney Into Darkness (1997); Obsession (1998); The Anatomy of Motive (1999); The Cases That Haunt Us (2000), and Anyone You Want Me to Be (2003).

DOUGLAS, John Edward:
FBI profiler

Ironically, Douglas’s celebrity has evoked public hos-A Brooklyn native, born in 1945, Douglas is the first to tility from his one-time mentor, Robert Ressler, criticiz-admit that he was “no academic standout” in high ing Douglas for his “flamboyance” and denouncing school. Having been rejected by Cornell University, he claims that Douglas “went face-to-face with JOHN

wound up enrolling at Montana State, in Bozeman, GACY,” when prison records show they never met. (In where he struggled to maintain a “D” average. In fairness to Douglas, the claim was apparently made by 1966, with the war in Vietnam heating up, Douglas a press agent, rather than Douglas himself; it appears joined the U.S. Air Force to avoid an army draft and nowhere in his published books.) When Douglas hired was stationed in New Mexico, where he finished earn-on with the Ramsey defense team in Boulder, announcing his BA. He also became fast friends with a local FBI ing his “gut instinct” that the victim’s parents were agent, who urged him to apply for a job with the innocent of her murder, Ressler publicly questioned his Bureau after his discharge from military service in judgment, describing Douglas in one interview as “a 1970.

Hollywood type of guy.” Douglas, for his part, has thus Douglas was accepted by the FBI and spent his first far declined to participate in public squabbling with his year as an agent in Detroit, assigned to the Reactive former boss.

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DUTROUX, Marc

DURRANT, William Henry Theodore

finally hanged on April 3, 1897—the very anniversary At first glance, Theodore Durrant appeared to be what of Blanche Lamont’s brutal murder.

well-placed women and their single daughters would In 1999, author Robert Graysmith suggested that call a “good catch.” Still in his twenties, courteous, well Durrant was innocent of any wrongdoing, the victim of groomed, a doctor in training at San Francisco’s Cooper a frame-up by clumsy police and his own pastor at Medical College, he was also devoutly religious, serving Emmanuel Baptist, Rev. John Gibson. It was Gibson, as assistant superintendent for the regular Sunday Graysmith claims, who murdered Blanche Lamont and school at Emmanuel Baptist Church. Unknown to those Minnie Williams. More startling yet, Graysmith also around him, though, the young man had a darker side.

names Gibson as London’s elusive “JACK THE RIPPER.”

His dual obsessions were religion and sex, although in Sadly, for Durrant’s supporters, no evidence exists link-the latter field, he would confide to a fellow med stu-ing “Pastor Jack” Gibson to either crime series, and dent, “I have no knowledge of women.”

Graysmith’s credibility is undermined by inclusion of That didn’t stop young ladies from being drawn to fabricated “diary” excerpts, penned while posthu-Durrant like moths to a flame, however, and one of his mously delving Durrant’s private thoughts.

strongest admirers was 18-year-old Blanche Lamont, a parishioner at Emmanuel Baptist. On April 3, 1895, they were seen together by numerous witness, making
DUTROUX, Marc

their way toward the church, where Blanche was last No serial killer since London’s “JACK THE RIPPER” has seen alive on the sidewalk outside. She had been miss-produced social and political upheaval on a par with ing several days, curiously unreported by her family, Belgium’s Marc Dutroux. A pedophile and alleged child when Durrant began dropping broad hints that she pornographer, Dutroux murdered at least five victims might have “gone astray.” On the side, he was pawning during the period 1995–96, and some reports suggest a her jewelry and pocketing the cash.

final body count that rivals JEFFREY DAHMER’s. It was Police were clueless as to Blanche’s whereabouts, but not Dutroux’s brutality or the tender age of his victims, another young woman at Emmanuel Baptist, 21-year-however, that sparked public outcry and high-level gov-old Minnie Williams, was talking her head off, telling ernment resignations in Belgium. Rather, the upheaval friends that she “knew too much” about the case, hint-stemmed from his claims that he served as “a cog” in a ing darkly that Blanche had met with foul play. On sinister network of rich child molesters whose tentacles April 12, Minnie was seen arguing with Theo Durrant spanned western Europe.

on the street outside the church, but they seemed to The nightmare began on June 24, 1995, when two patch things up, and she was holding his arm, cuddling eight-year-old girls, Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, van-close, as they went back inside.

ished while playing near their homes in Grace-Hollogne, Next morning, a Saturday, members of the church eastern Belgium. Two months later, on August 23, 19-Ladies Society were stunned to find Minnie’s lifeless, year-old Eefje Lambrecks and 17-year-old An Marchal blood-smeared body wedged inside a church cupboard.

disappeared on a holiday visit to the seaport town of Half naked, she had been stabbed in both breasts, her Ostend. Twelve-year-old Sabine Dardenne went missing wrists slashed, and her own underwear jammed in her on May 28, 1996, while riding her bicycle to school in mouth. Police waited a day before searching the rest of Kain, southwestern Belgium. Laetitia Delhez, age 14, the church, thereby disrupting Easter Sunday services, dropped from sight on December 6, 1995, homeward but it was worth the effort. Once they forced the bound from a public swimming pool in the southeastern boarded-up door to Emmanuel Baptist’s 120-foot bel-town of Bertrix.

fry, they found Blanche Lamont’s body; she was naked, Marc Dutroux was well known to police when the strangled, rape after death, her clothing packed into the girls disappeared. The eldest of five children, born in belfry rafters. Her corpse had been arranged so neatly, Brussels in November 1956, he assumed the life of a head propped up on wooden blocks, that police imme-transient prostitute after his parents (both teachers) diately cast about for “someone who knows something separated in 1971. Married for the first time at age 20, about medicine.”

Dutroux sired two sons, but flagrant adultery and spo-Theo Durrant was a natural suspect, all things con-radic wife-beating doomed that relationship in the sidered, and he was swiftly indicted for Blanche Lam-early 1980s. By then, he had already logged the first in ont’s murder. Conviction for the “Monster of the a series of convictions for theft, mugging, drug deal-Belfry” was even more rapid, jurors setting a new ing, and selling stolen cars. Dutroux soon married one record with deliberations lasting barely five minutes.

of his mistresses, Michelle Martin, and his record went Durrant was sentenced to die, and while appeals from bad to worse. In 1986, Dutroux and Michelle delayed his execution for nearly two years, he was were arrested for kidnapping and raping five girls.

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DUTROUX, Marc

Both were convicted and sentenced to prison in 1989, Ripples of panic spread swiftly, including media alle-but Dutroux’s 13-year term was cut short in 1992, gations of an international pedophile ring and suspicion parole granted under a government program designed that Dutroux might have murdered a fifth girl, reported to keep close watch on known sex offenders.

missing from Slovenia. No charges were filed in that Dutroux’s own mother opposed his release, warning case, or in 12 other slayings mentioned in various prison officials, “I have known for a long time and media reports, but the charges filed against Dutroux with good cause my eldest’s temperament. What I do and company were serious enough. Police returned not know, and what all the people who know him fear, empty-handed from their search of a flooded coal mine

[is] what he has in mind for the future.” Nonetheless, on property owned by Dutroux—he had described the Dutroux was freed with a bonus, receiving a monthly site as “interesting”—and Dutroux’s attorney com-invalid’s pension of $1,162.

plained of death threats and desertion by longstanding Back on the street, Dutroux returned to his criminal clients. Protesters jeered outside Belgium’s High Court trade and compiled a fortune adequate to purchase and on October 15, after the five-judge panel removed maintain seven homes. In 1993, informer Claud Thi-investigating judge Jean-Marc Connerotte from

rault told detectives that Dutroux had built a concrete Dutroux’s case on grounds of bias (he had attended a bunker under one of his homes, intended as a holding fund-raiser for the victims’ families). Two weeks later, pen for kidnapped girls whom he would sell to

300,000 angry Belgians marched through Brussels, pedophiles abroad. Dutroux had offered Thirault protesting inept police handling of the case.

$3,500 per head for any victims procured of a certain Confined at Arlon, in southeastern Belgium,

type—long-haired, slender and prepubescent—but Dutroux was swamped with fan mail and cash from police ignored the warning. Two years later, an internal strange GROUPIES, even while the general public con-memo was finally issued, recording the details of Thi-demned him as a beast in human form. On December rault’s report. Police called on Dutroux in June 1995, 22, 1996, he recommended that police search the aban-after Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo disappeared.

doned coal mines once more, but officers demurred, While searching Dutroux’s house, the officers heard suspecting a practical joke. One lawman told reporters, muffled screams from somewhere close at hand, but

“I can just imagine that bastard enjoying the television they accepted Dutroux’s explanation that the sounds pictures of us digging away in the cold and wet.” For-came from children playing outside. Six months later, mal indictments were issued on February 2, 1997, Dutroux was charged with auto theft and other crimes.

charging Dutroux with five counts of murder, plus Subsequently convicted at trial, he served nearly four charges of kidnapping, rape, auto theft, and “criminal months in prison, but emerged in time to snatch Sabine association.” Michel Lelievre faced charges of kidnap-Dardenne from Kain.

ping, rape, and drug possession, Michel Nihoul was The net finally closed on August 13, 1996, when charged with kidnapping, and Michelle Martin was police arrested Dutroux, Michelle Martin (now his ex-charged with conspiracy to kidnap.

wife), and 24-year-old Michel Lelievre in Sars-la-Buis-Controversy continued as the case made its way sière, southern Belgium. Two days later, Dutroux led through Belgian courts with glacial speed. On April 9, detectives to his home in Charleroi, a suburb of 1997, a report from parliament condemned the police Marcinelle, where Sabine Dardenne and Laetitia Delhez investigation of Dutroux as “inhumane, inept, ineffi-were found alive in a makeshift basement dungeon. Both cient and ill-equipped.” Protest demonstrations marked girls were malnourished; both had been drugged and sex-the second anniversary of the Lejeune-Russo abduc-ually abused. On August 16, soon after police detained a tions in June 1997. Four months later, parliament’s fourth suspect, 54-year-old businessman Jean-Michel Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens’ Rights Nihoul, Dutroux confessed to kidnapping Eefje Lam-demanded the resignation of Belgian judge Melchior brecks and An Marchal. One day later, he admitted mur-Wathelet, who approved Dutroux’s parole in 1992, dering both girls and added the name of suspected from the European Court of Justice. In February 1998, accomplice Bernard Weinstein to the hit list. That after-after parliament rejected claims of an official cover-up, noon, Dutroux led police to his Sars-la-Buissière propAn Marchal’s father denounced the report as a white-erty, where the bodies of Weinstein and two other wash. “The traditional parties in power,” he said, missing girls—Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo—were