The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (93 page)

VAKRINOS, Dimitris

to 11 homicides and mailed it to the court, explaining that his crimes were committed “in a moment of frenzy.”

Vacher blamed his bloodlust on the bite of a rabid dog, allegedly suffered when he was eight years old. Prolonged examination by psychiatrists determined that he was mentally fit to stand trial for murder.

Despite Vacher’s written confession, he was charged with only one slaying—that of Victor Portalier, a young shepherd killed at Tournon in 1895. Vacher’s trial was held at the Ain Assizes in October 1898, highlighted by his outbursts and posturing in court. At one point, he lurched erect from his seat, shouting, “Glory to Jesus!

Long live Joan of Arc! Glory to the great martyr of our time! Glory to the great savior!” Despite his performance, jurors found him sane and guilty as charged.

Vacher was sentenced to die and was dragged kicking and screaming to the guillotine on December 31, 1898.

VAKRINOS, Dimitris

A quick-tempered Greek who stopped growing at five feet four inches, taxi driver Dimitris Vakrinos was arrested on April 9, 1997, at the climax of a one-man crime spree that had spanned the best part of a decade.

In custody, he confessed to five murders, six attempted murders, one attempted rape, four armed robberies, and one attempted robbery. His victims were to blame, Vakrinos told police, for having mocked his sawed-off stature. Held without bail pending trial, Vakrinos committed suicide on May 12, using his own shoelaces to hang himself from a showerhead in the prison’s isola-Police sketch of the “Valley Killer” (Author’s collection) tion ward—a trick, ironically, that might have proven unsuccessful for a taller man.

the knife repeatedly into her lower body, clearly a sadistic sexual attack.

“VALLEY Killer”

Police were still puzzling over that case a year later The scenic Connecticut River Valley forms a natural when 13-year-old Sherry Nastasia was reported missing border between the states of New Hampshire and Verin Springfield, Vermont. Skeletal remains, found on mont—a generally quiet, peaceful place in which to live.

December 13, included a broken leg and fractured ribs, And yet, since 1978, the region has been terrorized by but the cause of death was tentatively fixed as strangu-two vicious serial killers. One was captured and incarlation. Twelve-year-old Theresa Fenton, who was cerated for his crimes in 1983; the other—and more abducted while riding her bike in Springfield on August lethal of the two—remains at large today.

29, 1981, was found alive the next day. Hopelessly The first confirmed victim of the faceless stalker injured by a savage beating, she died on August 31. The known to locals as the “Valley Killer” was 26-year-old next victim, 11-year-old Caty Richards, was kidnapped Cathy Millican, an enthusiastic birdwatcher, last seen on April 9, 1983, and found beaten to death the next alive on September 24, 1978, when she drove to a wet-day, but this time a witness was able to describe the lands preserve at New London, New Hampshire, to killer and his car. Suspect Gary Schaefer was quickly practice her hobby. She failed to return home that night, arrested and later confessed to the murders of Fenton and her body was found the next day, sprawled near a and Richards, plus the abduction of a female hitchhiker path through the wetlands, her clothing disarranged, who managed to escape his clutches in November 1982.

her belongings scattered along the trail as if she had In December 1983, he pled no contest to one murder been dragged for some distance. Millican was killed by count (Richards) and one charge of kidnapping (the stab wounds to the throat, after which her slayer drove survivor). Schaefer never admitted involvement in
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“VALLEY Killer”

Sherry Nastasia’s death, but most investigators think he The Valley Killer’s apparent medical fetish resurfaced is responsible for that crime as well.

in January 1987 when he chose another nurse as his The other “Valley Killer,” meanwhile, seems to have next victim. Barbara Agnew, 36, lived in Norwich, Ver-gone on hiatus while Schaefer was playing his cat-and-mont, and worked part-time at Mary Hitchcock

mouse game with police around Springfield. His next Memorial Hospital across the river in Hanover, New presumed victim was 17-year-old Bernice Courte-Hampshire. She was last seen alive on January 10 after manche, last seen alive on May 30, 1984, when she left a day of skiing with a friend near Winhall, Vermont.

her job as a nurse’s aide at the Sullivan County Nursing Three days later, her wallet and a woman’s blood-Home, in Beauregard Village, New Hampshire. A

stained clothing were found in the dumpster at a gas coworker drove Bernice to nearby Claremont, where station south of White River Junction, Vermont, and a she announced her intention of hitchhiking to Newport call to Agnew’s workplace confirmed that she was miss-for a visit with her boyfriend. Bernice never arrived; ing. Her car was found abandoned on January 14 at a authorities feared that she may have drowned in the highway rest stop in Hartford, Vermont; police noted flood tide of a nearby river. Their hopes for a “natural”

that her skis were missing, although her poles and boots solution to the mystery were dashed on April 19, 1986, were left behind. Agnew’s remains, preserved intact by when skeletal remains were found by two fishermen frigid weather, were found by hikers near Hartland, near Kellyville, New Hampshire. Bernice was identified Vermont, on March 28. An autopsy revealed multiple from dental records three days later, knife marks on her stab wounds to the neck, apparently inflicted from cervical vertebrae indicating she was stabbed to death.

behind, plus gashes to the lower abdomen that had In the two years between Bernice’s disappearance become the Valley Killer’s signature.

and the discovery of her remains, the Valley Killer had By this time, homicide investigators had their eyes on already claimed three more victims. Ellen Fried, a 26-two more unsolved murders from the area, one dating year-old nurse, was last seen alive on the night of July back to June 11, 1968, when 15-year-old Jo Anne Dun-10, 1984, and reported missing after she missed two ham vanished from Claremont, New Hampshire.

days of work at Valley Regional Hospital in Claremont.

Found strangled the next day, her death bore no resem-Her car was found soon after, parked on a narrow for-blance to the unknown slasher’s crimes, but police est lane nearby, but it was September 19, 1985, before noted that her corpse was found within a mile of the her skeleton was found at Newport, New Hampshire.

point where Eva Morse was last seen alive.

Fried was identified on October 1, and while the first Another victim, 25-year-old Elizabeth Critchley, had autopsy failed to note a cause of death, subsequent disappeared on July 25, 1981, while hitchhiking from reexamination found apparent knife wounds, listing her Massachusetts to her home in Vermont. Found two death as a homicide by stabbing.

weeks later at Unity, New Hampshire, she had not been Eva Morse, a single mother with one 10-year-old stabbed, but neither could the coroner determine any daughter, arrived at her regular job in Charlestown, other cause of death. Her body had been found three New Hampshire, at 7:00 A.M. on July 10, 1985, but miles from Gary Schaefer’s home, and while authorities never punched in. Instead, she lingered barely long had questioned him about the case, he was never posi-enough to make a telephone call, then told her supervi-tively linked to Critchley’s death. In fact, police now sor that she was going home sick. A coworker who saw that her body had been dumped within two miles spoke with Morse before she left would later tell police of the point where Eva Morse and Jo Anne Dunham that Eva was bound for Claremont, hitchhiking to visit were slain.

her one-time lesbian lover. As word of her disappear-To this day, authorities cannot agree on whether vic-ance spread, a motorist reported giving Morse a lift to tims Dunham and Critchley belong on the Valley the Charlestown-Claremont line, and there she van-Killer’s hit list. They feel more confidence concerning ished—until loggers found her skeleton on April 25, Jane Boroski, a pregnant 22-year-old who was attacked 1986, the skull nearly severed by stab wounds.

at a country store on Route 9, south of Keene, New Lynda Moore was the next to die, found stabbed to Hampshire, on the night of August 6, 1988. An

death in the kitchen of her home at Saxtons River, Ver-unknown man approached Boroski in the parking lot, mont—south of Springfield—when her husband came dragging her out of her car, and pulled a knife when she home from work on April 15, 1986. The medical exam-fought back. At one point in their scuffle, when she iner counted more than two dozen stab wounds to her asked why he had chosen her, the man replied, “You throat and abdomen, plus defensive cuts on both hands beat up my girlfriend.” Boroski denied it, and the man and arms. Moore’s husband was initially suspected by appeared confused. “Isn’t this a Massachusetts car?” he police, as every spouse is suspect in such cases, but inves-asked. Boroski pointed out New Hampshire license tigation swiftly cleared him of involvement in the crime.

plates, and the stranger hesitated, began to turn away,
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VAMPIRISM and Serial Murder

then rushed her with the knife again. Boroski was dumped in vacant lots. Pathologists blamed the deaths stabbed before approaching headlights caused her on deliberate exsanguination, suggesting that a black-attacker to flee, but she survived her wounds and gave market “blood ring” was killing children and selling birth to a healthy daughter two months later.

their blood for $25 per quart. Two surviving victims, Boroski also described her assailant for police, assista pair of 12-year-old twins, went missing for four days ing in the preparation of a sketch that was widely pub-in December 1963; found in badly weakened con-

lished throughout the Connecticut River Valley. In dition, they described a house where they and other 1991, the crime was reenacted—and the sketch dis-boys were held against their will and injected with played for a national audience—on TV’s
Unsolved
drugs to make them sleep. What happened next is
Mysteries,
hosted by Robert Stack. The program had a anybody’s guess, however, since the house was never history of clearing unsolved crimes, but there were no found and the Cali “vampire” murders remain

leads generated in Boroski’s case. The Valley Killer, unsolved.

though apparently “retired” since August 1988, is
See also
PARAPHILIA

unidentified and still at large today.

VANNI, Mario

See
“MONSTER OF FLORENCE”

VAMPIRISM and Serial Murder

“Blood sports” are a fairly common form of sexual activity in modern society, with certain nightclubs and
VICAP:
Law enforcement tool

role-playing games devoted to make-believe vampires.

While FICTION AND FILM have wildly exaggerated the The wise practitioners of such pastimes are frugal in role of FBI agents in pursuing and capturing serial consumption and take care with hygiene in this age of killers, the Bureau
does
play a part in tracking such AIDS, but serial killers with a literal lust for blood predators. The “chase” is typically a mental exercise of (hematomania) predictably take the game to fatal PROFILING unknown subjects, with most of the work extremes.

done in basement quarters at the FBI Academy in There have probably always been flesh-and-blood Quantico, Virginia, by members of the Bureau’s Inves-vampires among us throughout history. If Countess tigative Support Unit (formerly Behavioral Science).

ERZSEBET BÁTHORY’s infamous bloodbaths belong more Accurate profiling requires input from detectives work-to fable than fact, still it is known that she and her arising on the case, wherever they may be, and that infor-tocratic predecessor GILLES DE RAIS used blood spilled mation is collected through VICAP—the FBI’s Violent from their victims as a prime ingredient for pagan ritu-Criminal Apprehension Program.

als and alchemy. More recently, FRITZ HAARMANN

VICAP was the brainchild of retired Los Angeles killed more than tow dozen German youths by biting police commander Pierce Brooks, a veteran of serial out their throats, and Britain’s JOHN HAIGH claimed to murder investigations dating from the 1950s, who rec-drink the blood of victims whom he robbed and mur-ognized the glaring lack of any information network dered, prior to dunking them in acid baths. Wayne geared to track nomadic killers on the move. In Brooks’s Boden, the Canadian “Vampire Rapist,” also tapped his day, the only antidote to “LINKAGE BLINDNESS” in such female victims as a source of blood, his crimes mimic-cases was exhaustive study of long-distance news ked by Marcelo de Andrade in Brazil and John Crutch-reports or steady correspondence with other (sometimes ley in Florida.

hostile) law enforcement agencies. Computers offered Some delusional subjects regard themselves as literal the obvious solution, and Brooks told anyone who vampires, requiring periodic blood infusions to survive.

would listen of his plans for a nationwide network One such was California’s Richard Trenton Chase: con-designed to collect and compare details of unsolved vinced that some unspecified disease was “drying up”