The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (31 page)

five-figure prices. Brisk sales were also reported for two
86

GALLEGO, Gerald Armand and Charlene

published volumes of Gacy’s prison correspondence woman,” Charlene persuaded her parents to invest with friends on the outside.

$15,000 in a Folsom gift shop, aptly christened “The Last-minute appeals failed to halt Gacy’s execution Dingaling Shop.” When that venture went belly-up, she by lethal injection on May 10, 1994. At the end, there tried her hand at marriage, with equally disastrous were those who believed Gacy innocent and others who results.

suspect he may have had accomplices in his long-run-Charlene’s first husband, an impotent junkie, was ning murder spree . . . who still remain at large. The discarded for failing to please her in bed. In retrospect, state of Illinois, meanwhile, was outraged at the mur-he thought the relationship might have gone better if he derer’s celebrity, announcing plans to sue his estate for had played along with Charlene’s plan to hire a prosti-reimbursement of costs for room and board, incurred tute for kinky threesomes, but he preferred to spend his by Gacy during 14 years on death row.

money on heroin. Husband number two shunned

See also ARTWORK AND MEMORABILIA

drugs; he also shunned his bride, dumping Charlene after several weeks of marriage to live with another woman. On September 10, 1977, Charlene was shop-GALLEGO, Gerald Armand and Charlene

ping for dope at a Sacramento poker club when she met Gerald Armand Gallego never met his father, but he had Gerald Gallego and fell in love at first sight. A week the old man’s temper, all the same. Gerald Senior was after their first meeting, the lovebirds moved in serving time in San Quentin when his son was born in together, renting a small house on Sacramento’s Blue-1946, and nine years later he became the first man to die bird Lane.

in Mississippi’s gas chamber, condemned for the mur-Variety was the spice of life for Gallego, and ders of two police officers. Gerald Junior was unaware monogamy ran against the grain. Charlene was willing of the fact, accepting his mother’s fiction of an acciden-to accommodate his taste for strangers if it kept him tal death, but he was already launched on a criminal home at night, and she made no complaint when he career of his own. Dozens of minor scrapes with the law moved a teenage runaway into their love nest. Gerald climaxed at age 13, with Gerald’s incarceration for rap-enjoyed having sex with two women at once, but it was ing a six-year-old neighbor. His adult record listed 27

a different story when he came home early one after-felony arrests and seven convictions, with outstanding noon to find the teenager engaged with Charlene.

warrants for incest, rape, and sodomy. By age 32, he had Enraged, he threw the youngster out an open window been married seven times—twice to the same woman—

and gave Charlene the first of many beatings that would with several bigamous unions along the way. The incest soon become a staple of their turbulent relationship.

charge related to his daughter, Mary Ellen, whom he The revelation of Charlene’s bisexuality turned Gal-had repeatedly molested from the age of six.

lego’s world upside-down. The self-styled “macho Despite the overwhelming down side, Gallego could man” was suddenly unable to perform in bed, except turn on the charm when he chose, and it was running when forcing himself on Charlene. Violence bred of full blast in September 1977 when he met the woman frustration became a daily event in their home, Char-who would share his final years of freedom.

lene sometimes giving as good as she got. In one free-The pampered only child of a supermarket executive for-all, Gerald broke a finger while punching Charlene in Stockton, California, Charlene Williams was 10

in the face; she responded by splitting his scalp with a years Gerald’s junior, born in October 1956. A certified club, and Gerald was holding her at gunpoint when genius, her IQ tested at 160 in high school, she also Charlene’s mother interrupted the fracas.

possessed a photographic memory and played classical In July 1978, Charlene dreamed up a surprise for violin well enough to rate an invitation from San Fran-Gerald’s 33rd birthday, inviting his daughter Mary cisco’s Conservatory of Music. Despite the early Ellen and one of her adolescent girlfriends to spend the promise, though, she drifted into drug abuse at 12, lost night on Bluebird Lane. It quickly turned into an orgy, her virginity a year later, and qualified as a borderline all three females serving Gerald, and his impotence alcoholic by age 14. A year later, she was boasting to seemed to be cured . . . for the moment. Mary Ellen’s classmates of her ongoing affair with a black college departure brought a swift relapse, however, and Char-student—one of the few indiscretions she managed to lene conceived the idea of using “disposable sex slaves”

hide from her doting parents.

to keep her man happy. They spent two months refining Genius IQ notwithstanding, Charlene’s extracurricu-the plan, in which Charlene—dressed up to make her-lar activities played havoc with her studies at Rio Amer-self look like a teen—would lure the chosen prey into icano High School, in Sacramento. She squeaked her “Daddy’s” waiting hands.

through graduation but washed out of junior college in On September 11, 1978, 17-year-old Rhonda Schef-her first semester. Bent on becoming “a business-fler and a friend, 16-year-old Kippi Vaught, disappeared
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GALLEGO, Gerald Armand and Charlene

from Sacramento on a short walk to a local shopping 21, was four months pregnant when she disappeared center. Two days passed before their ravaged, battered from Port Orford on June 8, 1980. Relatives reported bodies were recovered outside Baxter, 15 miles away.

her missing on June 20, and her body was found two Each girl had been sodomized by Gallego and forced to days later, planted in a shallow grave south of Gold perform oral sex on Charlene, after which Charlene Beach. Sexually abused by both Gallegos, the victim’s gnawed on their bodies. After the rapes, both victims skull was shattered, her wrists and ankles bound with were bound and beaten to death with a tire iron, and a nylon cord, but an autopsy revealed sand in her nose, single bullet was fired into each skull at close range.

mouth, and throat, indicating that she was buried alive.

Pleased with their experiment, the homicidal lovers Somehow, the latest murder failed to satisfy Gerald celebrated by driving to Reno on September 30, where and Charlene, perhaps because they only had one vic-they were married with Charlene’s parents as witnesses.

tim to abuse. Tension mounted around the Gallego Back in Sacramento, Charles Williams found his daugh-homestead, with neighbors calling police to break up ter a job in a meatpacking plant, thereby satisfying Ger-screaming fights on July 12 and 14. Both times, Char-ald’s demand that she pay her own way.

lene convinced patrolmen that the sounds of combat On June 24, 1979, 14-year-old Brenda Judd and 13-emanated from their TV set, denying any conflict with year-old Sandra Colley vanished from the Washoe her spouse.

County fairgrounds in Reno. Wheeling the murder van On July 17, 1980, 34-year-old Virginia Mochel was along a desert highway, Charlene grew so furious at abducted from the parking lot of a West Sacramento Gerald’s starting the rape without her that she swerved tavern, where she worked as a barmaid. For the first off the road and grabbed a gun, intent on killing him.

time, Gerald and Charlene took their victim back to Shots were exchanged, a bullet grazing Gerald’s arm Bluebird Lane, smuggling her into the house under cover before the macho man called for a cease-fire, complain-of darkness. Repeatedly sodomized by both Gerald and ing that the van’s abrupt halt had bruised his Charlene, the victim was also flogged with a rope and genitals.Temporarily out of action, Gallego watched otherwise abused before Gerald dragged her back to the Charlene molest both girls before he finished them off van and strangled her there. Mochel’s skeletal remains, with point-blank gunfire.

still bound with nylon fishing line, were found outside of Judd and Colley were still listed as missing in 1982

Clarksburg, California, on October 30.

when Charlene’s jailhouse confession solved the mys-Three days later, around 1:30 A.M., 22-year-old tery of their disappearance. In the meantime, she sug-Craig Miller left a Sacramento fraternity dance with his gested the abduction of two black girls on their next date, 21-year-old Beth Sowers. Moments later, friends outing, but Gerald refused to “contaminate” himself observed the couple seated in a car outside, a rough-with interracial sex. Finding herself pregnant three looking stranger sitting up front on the passenger’s side.

weeks after the second double murder, Charlene told One of Craig’s friends was sliding in behind the wheel her husband the good news. Gallego angrily forced her to make small talk when Charlene Gallego appeared, to go for an abortion—at her own expense, of course.

slapping his face as she ordered him out of the car; she On April 24, 1980, teenagers Karen Chipman and jumped behind the wheel and sped away. Miller’s frat Stacey Redican disappeared from a Reno shopping mall.

brothers memorized the license plate, telling their story Their remains were later discovered near Lovelock, to police when Craig was found dead the next day at Nevada, on July 27. Both victims had been sexually Bass Lake. Beth Sowers would not be found until abused by the Gallegos, separately and in tandem, before November 22, shot three times and dumped in a Placer they were beaten to death with a blunt instrument.

County ditch.

Five weeks later, on June 1, Charlene’s parents joined Officers traced the vehicle to Charlene’s parents, the killer couple on another drive to Reno, where Ger-recording a flat denial of its involvement in any crime ald and Charlene repeated their marriage vows. This from “Mrs. Steven Feil.” The Gallegos promptly time around, Gallego used the name Steven Robert Feil, skipped town, but Charlene phoned her parents for a false identity he had secured by stealing a policeman’s money a few days later. Police were ready when the ID card, using the vital information to request a “dupli-next call came, from Omaha, and FBI agents dropped cate” birth certificate and driver’s license for himself. If the net on November 17, when Gerald and Charlene Charlene’s parents questioned the curious move, they called for their money at a Western Union office.

kept all doubts to themselves. Charlene was eight weeks The killer team of man and wife hung tough for eight pregnant on her wedding day, but this time Gerald took months, but July 1981 found Charlene shopping for a the news well, deciding the baby was “a keeper.”

way to save herself. On July 27, she offered a confes-Gerald and Charlene celebrated their second wed-sion linking Gerald to the Miller-Sowers homicides if ding with a fishing trip to Oregon. Linda Aguilar, age only she could be released on bail. Prosecutors ignored
88

GARAVITO, Luis Alfredo

her, and Charlene tried again on March 2, 1982, roamed at will throughout the country, kidnapping and announcing her desire to clear 10 murder cases in killing scores of children. Most of the victims were exchange for leniency. Police were skeptical until they boys, although five young girls disappeared from a heard the details, some resisting the plea bargain even three-block stretch of Bogotá’s Miguelito district then, but the deal was struck by late summer. In return between November 1995 and July 1997. The manhunt for testimony against her husband, Charlene would began during 1997, after 36 decomposed bodies were receive a maximum sentence of 16 years and eight pulled from shallow graves outside Pereira, 110 miles months in prison.

west of Bogotá. In November 1998, Pereira’s mayor Gerald Gallego’s first trial, in the Miller-Sowers case, announced that 13 more bodies—12 boys and one

opened on November 15, 1982, in Martinez, Califor-girl—had been discovered, most beheaded, some with nia. Jury selection took more than a month, with Gal-hands bound and bearing signs of torture. None were lego serving as his own attorney, and the trial dragged identified, but police estimated their ages between eight on through May. Charlene’s self-serving testimony did and 13 years.

the trick, and her husband was sentenced to death on On December 31, 1998, police arrested suspect

June 22, 1983.

Pedro Pablo Ramírez, a paroled sex offender, on suspi-Transferred to Nevada for trial in the Chipman-Red-cion of murdering 29 children. The ink on that story ican murders, Gerald became the target of an unprece-was barely dry when authorities scaled back their esti-dented public subscription campaign, with California mate, naming Ramírez as a suspect in “at least three”

residents donating $23,000 to help defray prosecution Pereira murders and “possibly three others” in nearby expenses. Gallego’s second trial opened on May 23, Armenia. No disposition of his case was ever pub-1984, with Charlene taking the stand on May 24. One lished, but Ramírez was presumably released, when the June 7, jurors convicted Gallego on two counts of mur-murders continued despite his arrest. On September 8, der and two counts of kidnapping, recommending exe-1999, Colombia’s police chief, General Rosso Serrano, cution. Gerald received his second death sentence two broadcast a new alarm. “We fear,” he told reporters, weeks later, and he was housed at Carson City to await

“that there could be a serial killer or a group of mur-execution.

derers on the loose.” All told, Serrano said, 55 bodies Charlene, for her part, was also jailed in Nevada for had been found since 1994. “The bodies of the chil-reasons of personal security. “Good time” made her eli-dren were all similarly mutilated,” he declared. “They gible for parole in 1991, but she agreed to serve her full were buried with hands tied and organs missing.”