The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (30 page)

leading to Prince Georges County Hospital. A mocking On January 5, 1982, after eight hours of delibera-note, its contents still unpublished, was discovered with tion, jurors convicted Bonin on 10 counts of murder the body, signed “The Freeway Phantom” in accor-and 10 of robbery. (He was acquitted in the deaths of dance with the nickname coined by journalists. In a Thomas Lundgren and Sean King.) Two weeks later, he macabre twist, FBI experts reported that Woodward was formally sentenced to death, but it took another 14

had written the note herself, in a steady hand, betraying years to see that sentence carried out. On February 23, no hint of tension or fear.

1996, Bonin was finally executed in the gas chamber at For once, police had ample evidence of pattern, from San Quentin Prison. It was noted that his passing left the victim’s race—all African-American—to the pecu-bridge partners Randy Kraft, LAWRENCE BITTAKER, and liar fact that four were named Denise. There also DOUGLAS CLARK one hand short for their next game of seemed to be a geographical connection both in the cards on death row.

abduction and disposal of remains, but speculation brought authorities no closer to their goal of an arrest.

The black community in Washington was up in arms,

“FREEWAY Phantom”

demanding a solution to the case, intent on proving that A puzzling case recorded from the nation’s capital, this a white man was to blame, but angry rhetoric did noth-murder series stands officially unsolved despite convic-ing to advance the murder probe.

tion of two defendants in one of seven similar homi-Ten months elapsed before the Phantom claimed his cides. Authorities have speculated on solutions in the final victim, abducting 17-year-old Diane Williams on case, asserting that “justice was served” by the roundup September 5, 1972, Her body was found the next day of suspects on unrelated charges, but their faith was along I-295, five miles from the point where Carole shaken by an outbreak of look-alike murders in Prince Sparks was discovered in May 1971. Again, police Georges County, Maryland, during 1987. At this writ-noted striking similarities with the other crimes—and ing, some students of the case believe the “Phantom”

again, they found no evidence that would identify a sus-has eluded homicide detectives altogether, shifting his pect in the case.

field of operations to a more fertile hunting ground.

In late March, Maryland state police arrested two The capital stalker’s first victim was 13-year-old black suspects—30-year-old Edward Leon Sellman and Carole Denise Sparks, abducted on April 25, 1971, 26-year-old Tommie Bernard Simmons—on charges of while en route to a neighborhood store in southeast murdering Angela Barnes. Both suspects were ex-police-Washington. Her strangled, ravaged body was recov-men from Washington, and both had resigned in early ered six days later, a mile and a half from home, lying 1971 before completion of their mandatory probation on the shoulder of Interstate Highway 295, one of sev-periods. Investigators now divorced the Barnes murder eral freeways passing through Washington east of the from other crimes in the Freeway Phantom series, filing Anacostia River.

additional charges against both suspects in the February Ten weeks passed before 16-year-old Darlenia

1971 abduction and rape of a Maryland waitress. Con-Denise Johnson disappeared, on July 8, from the same victed of murder in 1974, both defendants were sen-street where Carole Sparks was kidnapped. Strangled to tenced to life.

death, she was found on July 19 within 15 feet of the Meanwhile, a federal grand jury probing the Phan-spot where Sparks was discovered on May 1. In the tom murders focused its spotlight on “a loosely knit meantime, a third victim, 14-year-old Angela Denise group of persons” suspected of luring girls and young Barnes, had been abducted from southeast Washington women into cars—sometimes rented for the hunt—then on July 13, shot to death, and dumped the same day at raping and/or killing their victims for sport. Suspects Waldorf, Maryland. Brenda Crockett, age 10, disap-John N. Davis, 28, and 27-year-old Morris Warren peared two weeks later, her strangled corpse recovered were already serving life on conviction for previous on July 28 near an underpass on U.S. Highway 50.

rapes when a new series of indictments was handed The killer took a two-month break in August and down in December 1974. Warren received a grant of September, returning with a vengeance to abduct 12-limited immunity in return for testimony against Davis year-old Nenomoshia Yates on October 1. Familiar and another defendant, 27-year-old Melvyn Sylvester
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“FREEWAY Phantom”

Gray. As a government spokesman explained, “The reported from neighboring Maryland. Again, the female ends of justice can be served just as well if the person is victims were young and black, abducted and discarded convicted and sentenced to life for kidnapping than if in a manner reminiscent of the Freeway Phantom’s he is jailed for the same term for murder.”

style. Authorities refuse to speculate upon a link Critics questioned the wisdom of that advice 13

between the crimes, and so both cases are considered years later when a new series of unsolved murders was

“open,” officially unsolved.

84

G

GACY, John Wayne, Jr.

spanning a period of months. Those accusations were John Gacy Sr. was an alcoholic tyrant in his home, a still pending when Gacy hired a teenage thug to beat the crude exaggeration of the famous Archie Bunker TV

prosecution’s witness, and more charges were filed.

character with every trace of humor wiped away. He Striking a bargain, Gacy pled guilty to sodomy, and the made no effort to conceal his disappointment with the other charges were dismissed. Sentenced to 10 years in son who bore his name, inflicting brutal beatings for the prison, he proved himself a model prisoner and was least offense, occasionally picking up the boy and hurl-released in 18 months.

ing him across a room. In more pacific moments, he With the state’s permission, Gacy moved back to was satisfied to damn John Jr. as a “sissy” who was Chicago, where he established himself as a successful

“dumb and stupid,” useless in the scheme of things. In building contractor. Divorced while in prison, he soon time, the “sissy” portion of his groundless accusations remarried, settling in a middle-class neighborhood of sub-would appear to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

urban Des Plaines, where he was popular with his neigh-Born in March 1942 in Chicago, Gacy grew up

bors and hosted elaborate holiday theme parties. On the doubting his own masculinity and taking refuge from side, he was active in Democratic politics—once posing sports and other “manly” activities through precocious for photos with the wife of President Jimmy Carter—and hypochondria. Struck on the head by a swing at age 11, as “Pogo the Clown,” performing in full makeup at chil-he suffered periodic blackouts for the next five years dren’s parties and charity events. Few of his new acquain-until their cause—a blood clot on his brain—was finally tances knew anything about the Iowa arrest, and those dissolved with medication. Thus deprived of one afflic-who heard a rumor were assured that John had merely tion, he developed (or imagined) yet another, settling on done some time for “dealing in a little porn.”

the symptoms of a heart ailment that seemed to come On February 12, 1971, Gacy was charged with dis-and go, depending on his mood.

orderly conduct in Chicago, on the complaint of a boy After graduation from business college, Gacy became he attempted to rape. The accuser, known to be gay, a shoe salesman, but he had his sights on better things.

failed to appear in court for Gacy’s hearing, and the He married a coworker whose parents owned a fried charges were dismissed. Parole officers in Iowa were chicken restaurant in Waterloo, Iowa, and Gacy never notified of the arrest or accusations, and Gacy stepped into a ready-made role as the restaurant’s man-was formally discharged from parole on October 18, ager. He was a whiz kid on the job, belying everything 1971.

his father had to say about his intellect and drive, By his own estimate, the first murder occurred less ascending to a post of admiration and respect among than three months later, on January 3, 1972. The vic-the local Jaycees. His wife and friends were absolutely tim, picked up at a bus terminal, remains unidentified, unprepared for John’s arrest in May of 1968 on charges but his death was typical of Gacy’s future approach. In of coercing a young employee into homosexual acts searching for prey, Gacy sometimes fell back on young
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GACY, John Wayne, Jr.

friends and employees but more often relied on trolling Not all of Gacy’s victims died. In December 1977, the streets of Chicago for hustlers and runaways. Like Robert Donnelly was abducted at gunpoint, tortured, the “Hillside Stranglers” in Los Angeles, he would and sodomized in Gacy’s house of horrors, then sometimes flash a badge and gun, “arresting” his released. Three months later, 27-year-old Jeffrey Rignall intended victim. Others were invited to the Gacy home was having a drink at Gacy’s home when he was chlo-for drinks or a game of pool, and John would show roformed and fastened to “the rack,” a homemade tor-them “tricks” with “magic handcuffs,” later hauling ture device similar to that used by DEAN CORLL in out sex toys and the garrote. When he was finished, Houston. Gacy spent several hours raping and whip-John would do the “rope trick”—strangulation—and ping Rignall, applying the chloroform with such fre-his victim would be buried in a crawl space underneath quency that Rignall’s liver suffered permanent damage.

the house. In later years, as he ran out of space down-Regaining consciousness beside a lake in Lincoln Park, stairs, he started dumping bodies in a nearby river.

Rignall called police at once, but it was mid-July before Planting corpses in the crawl space had its draw-they got around to charging Gacy with a misdemeanor.

backs, notably a rank, pervasive odor that the killer The case was still dragging on five months later when blamed on “sewer problems.” Gacy’s second wife was Gacy was picked up on charges of multiple murder.

also in the way, her presence limiting his playtime to The end, when it came at last, was solely due to occasions when she left the house or traveled out of Gacy’s carelessness. Fifteen-year-old Robert Piest disap-town, but when their marriage fell apart in 1976, Gacy peared from his job at a Chicago pharmacy on October was able to accelerate his program of annihilation.

12, 1978. Gacy’s construction firm had lately remod-Between April 6 and June 13, 1976, at least five boys eled the store, and Piest had been offered a job with the were slaughtered at Gacy’s home, and there seemed to crew, informing coworkers of his intention to meet “a be no end in sight. On October 25 of that year, he killed contractor” on the night of his disappearance. Police two victims at once, dumping their bodies in a common dropped by to question Gacy at his home, and they grave. As time went by, his targets ranged in age from immediately recognized the odor emanating from his nine to 20, covering the social spectrum from middle-crawl space. Before they finished digging, Gacy’s lot class teens to jailbirds and male prostitutes.

would yield 28 bodies, with five more recovered from rivers nearby. Nine of the 33 victims would remain forever unidentified.

In custody, Gacy tried to blame his murderous activities on “Jack,” an alter ego (and, coincidentally, the alias he used when posing as a cop). Psychiatrists dismissed the ruse, and Gacy was convicted on 33 counts of first-degree murder in March 1980. Life sentences were handed down in 21 cases, covering deaths that occurred before June 21, 1977, when Illinois reinstated CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. Twelve death sentences were imposed in the cases of victims murdered between July 1977 and December 1978.

Over the next 14 years, Gacy remained a controversial inmate on death row. Abandoning the split-personality defense, he now claimed the bodies unearthed at his home had been planted during his absence by unknown conspirators. He described himself as “the thirty-fourth victim” of an insidious murder plot, with the true killers still at large. By 1993, supporters and the curious could dial Gacy’s personal 900 telephone number for a 12-minute “refutation” of the prosecution’s case—at a price of $1.99 per minute. Gacy also raised a storm of protest with the paintings—mostly grinning skulls and sad-faced clowns—that he produced and sold from death row. As his appeals ran out and time grew short in early 1994, the killer’s portraits were hailed as collector’s items, some of them selling at John Wayne Gacy Jr. (Wide World API)