A Rage to Kill

by Ann Rule

  But this had only served to make Emerson more furious, and he’d borrowed a knife from the passing car when he couldn’t get one inside. No more than two or three minutes had passed during the confrontation, but Brad Bass had been terribly wounded by one snakelike thrust of a filleting knife. Because there had been no blood loss, precious time was lost—time that might have saved Brad’s life.

  On February 25, the detectives were handed the name of another eyewitness to the assault. She was a twenty-year- old girl who made a rather precarious living by her wits. Her nickname was “Chi-Chi,” but her real name was Barbara Palliser*. She reportedly worked as a cocktail waitress. Fonis and Sanford went to the club where she worked only to find that “Chi-Chi” had not shown up for work in three weeks. The manager gave them her last address. They found a listing for B. Palliser in the lobby of a run-down apartment house. She opened the door of her apartment only a crack, and wouldn’t let the detectives in until they pushed their cards under the door.

  “I saw it,” she finally admitted. “I saw that guy get stabbed. I’ve been afraid to go to work ever since.” Tearfully, she agreed to go to the homicide offices to make a statement.

  “I went to the Take 5 at 2 A.M. to meet a friend,” Barbara Palliser recalled. “I waited twenty minutes and she didn’t show so I went to walk around and look for her. I still didn’t find her, and I went back to the Take 5. I was standing just inside the front door when I saw a white male in his twenties and a black female impersonator just outside. It looked like he grabbed at her wig and pulled it off. ‘She’ grabbed it back and started swearing. They exchanged words, and ‘she’ threw her purse at someone and asked them to hold it. Then ‘she’ started fighting with him. The onlookers tried to tell them to take it easy. They calmed down and she took her purse back. Then the male grabbed her wig again, and the fight started again. She went inside to get a weapon. Then this car drove up. It looked like there were two black males and one black female—I’m not sure if she was a woman or not—inside. The two men tried to get this ‘Jackie’ in the car but she was really mad and stepped back and started fighting again. The man just kind of reached out toward her, and then he fell down. The car drove away fast with ‘her’ in it.”

  The girl known as “Chi-Chi” quickly selected the mug shot of Jonathan Emerson as the “woman” who had stabbed Brad Bass. She had no doubt at all that she was right.

  Jonathan Emerson, aka “Jackie” Collins, aka Jacqueline Collins, aka “Jackie” Blackshire had been picked by too many witnesses not to believe that he was the killer of Brad Bass. The King County Prosecutor’s Office filed second-degree murder charges against him on February 26, 1976.

  But the charges were filed in absentia. “Jackie” Emerson had gone underground. A flyer describing the five-foot eight-inch, now 160-pound fugitive was sent to California, Oregon and British Columbia as well as Washington State. Jackie’s disguises were perfect, and it was hard to tell who he would be next. The bulletin warned that Emerson would probably be dressed as a woman, wearing a wig, false eyelashes and makeup. “Suspect has needle tracks on both arms.”

  Every Seattle Police patrolman had been apprised of the urgency in locating “Jackie” Emerson at line-up briefings. The homicide detectives believed if he was still operating in Seattle, he would be spotted sooner or later—even if he didn’t have a permanent address. It was ten minutes to three A.M. on March 7 when two first-watch patrolmen observed a woman walking in the 1400 block of E. Yesler Street, not far from police headquarters. She drew their attention because she was very tall and had exceptionally broad shoulders for a woman. She wore a tight green sweater, slacks, and a blue coat. As they studied her more closely they agreed that her billowing hair could only be a wig.

  They pulled out the wanted bulletin on Jackie Emerson, and studied it with a flashlight.

  “It’s Jackie . . . No doubt about it.”

  Jonathan “Jackie” Emerson was arrested and advised of his rights before being transported to jail and booked. He refused to make any statements to detectives without the presence of his lawyer.

  With Emerson safely in jail, detectives located the driver of the car who had picked Jackie up at the stabbing scene. The driver admitted that it was his knife that was used to kill Bass. He said he had met Jackie that morning, and he, too, had thought that he was a woman. He said the knife had been in his jacket pocket when he drove up but he denied giving it to Jackie. When he jumped into the car after the attack, the driver said he realized that it was his knife, and it had blood on it. He was lying. Witnesses saw him toss it to Jackie.

  When Jonathan Emerson went on trial for the murder of Brad Bass, it took a while to get a jury. Prospective jurors viewed the defendant, who sat demurely beside “her” lawyer, as they were asked if they had prejudices or convictions that would make them unable to render a fair verdict. Many did. By Monday morning, May 24, 1976, four women and eight men and an alternate juror had been seated and the testimony began.

  Senior Trial Deputy Jon Noll spoke for the prosecution, outlining an incredibly senseless and vicious crime and Brad Bass’s state of living death. There would be an agonizing question—a question that brought to mind the Karen Ann Quinlan case. The defense would certainly question whether twenty-one-year-old Brad Lee Bass had died as a result of an attack by the defendant, or because life support systems had been turned off.

  The first witness for the prosecution was Brad Bass’s father, a man still wracked with grief over the inexplicable tragedy that had befallen his son. The agony of parents who have lost their children in a homicide is painful to observe, yet it is often necessary for them to go through the final ordeal of recalling their child’s life for a jury.

  “Jackie” Emerson sat impassively at his trial as the prosecution presented its case. His whole posture was feminine and demure. He tiptoed daintily along on his three-inch high-heeled sandals during morning and afternoon breaks, seemingly oblivious to the stares he drew from startled onlookers. Occasionally, he patted his luxuriant wig with his painted nails or nodded to his friends in the gallery.

  During the extensive newspaper coverage of his trial, the two major Seattle papers could not agree on how to refer to him. One called him “him” and “he.” The other referred to him as “her” and “she.”

  Wes Hohlbein, a prominent criminal defense attorney, did not deny that Jackie had stabbed Brad Bass, but suggested he had done so only because he had been in fear of his life. Jackie took the stand in his own defense and explained his lifestyle to the jury.

  He said that he had been raised as a female child and had worn girls’ clothes since the age of six. “All through life it has caused me difficulties but I can’t be no other way,” he explained.

  As he had done for so many psychologists and psychiatrists, he detailed his plans for a sex change, and said he was taking female hormone treatments that made him feel more like a woman.

  Emerson said he had lived in Seattle for about eight years, and had worked as a nurses’ aide during part of that time, but admitted under cross-examination that he had been arrested “a lot of times” for prostitution and also had convictions for grand larceny and shoplifting.

  Regarding the morning of Friday, February 13, Emerson testified that he had stopped at Larry’s Take 5 at three A.M. to get food to take home and had met Brad Bass there for the first time. He said Bass had offered him $50 for an act of prostitution. He insisted that he never told Bass he was not a woman, and didn’t know why Bass became angry at him. He said that, when they got outside, Brad accused him of stealing money from him in the past.

  Jackie fluttered his eyelashes at the jury as he said he had only been trying to avoid trouble and that Brad Bass had pulled off his wig, kicked him in the groin, and threatened him with a knife. He said he’d gone back into the Take 5 to try to get a knife or some weapon to protect himself but the cook stopped him. He returned to the fight, and twisted the knife out of Bass’s hand and “stuck it to him.”


  “I was scared,” he testified huskily. “I was trying to defend myself. He was big. I was smaller than I am now,” Emerson confided.

  Jackie’s testimony left gaping holes in the truth. His story that Brad Bass carried a knife differed from every other eyewitness’s testimony, and from the testimony of Brad’s father and brother, who had testified that Brad had never carried a knife in his life. And it differed a great deal from testimony that Brad Bass had tried to avoid a fight, had been reluctant to strike out at the enraged transvestite who was flailing at him.

  It was very clear to those in the gallery that Jackie, a veteran of many mean streets and an expert at con games, had met a young man who was entirely out of his element. Only twenty-one, Brad Bass hadn’t even been experienced enough to recognize who Jackie Emerson really was, or the danger he was courting unaware. When he did recognize that Jackie wasn’t a woman at all, he had been disgusted and embarrassed and he’d wanted out. But Jackie wasn’t willing to shrug his shoulders and let it go. He had gone into a screaming, kicking tizzy. He had been “insulted” and he wanted revenge. Tragically, he got it.

  The jury spent fifteen hours in deliberation pondering the case. When they returned with their verdict, it was clear they hadn’t believed Jackie’s version of what had happened that Friday the 13th. They found him guilty. As the jury was polled, three of the four women jurors brushed tears away. Later, one of them burst into uncontrolled sobs in the corridor outside the courtroom.

  Beyond the guilty second-degree murder finding, the jury found Jackie Emerson guilty of using a deadly weapon in the commission of his crime. In Washington State, that meant a mandatory five-year sentence in addition to the sentence meted out for the murder charge.

  The question naturally arose: where was Jackie Emerson going to be incarcerated? In a men’s prison or in Purdy, the Washington State facility for women? Jackie was neither fish nor fowl and a real puzzle for the Washington State Department of Corrections. Chuck Wright, District Administrator for that department, was the man who had to deal with this hot-potato decision.

  Wright gathered all of Jackie’s records and studied the psychological profiles done earlier. He shook his head at the number of offenses and at the attempts to categorize a difficult subject. He could see the potential for problems. Jackie still had a complete complement of male equipment. How could he be put into a woman’s prison? On the other hand, could Wright recommend that Jackie be sent to a male prison—where he might well cause a riot?

  After talking to Jackie himself and recognizing the sociopathic traits he had seen over and over again in prisoners referred to him, Chuck Wright turned to forensic psychiatrists and psychologists for help in his decision. Jackie was a transvestite, certainly, but he was first and foremost a murderer—or murderess—depending on your viewpoint, and Wright wasn’t taking any chances. He read Jackie’s statement to the court about Brad Bass’s murder many times, frowning at the lack of any compassion or insight there. “I’m sorry Bradley had to die,” Jackie had written, “but he became a threat to me when he pulled a knife on me and attempted to kill me. I also suffered cuts and whip lashes [sic] from this on my hand. I don’t feel guilty, but hate that my hand had to put a misorable [sic] man out of his missories [sic].”

  One psychologist wrote after his examination of the peculiar prisoner, “Emerson fully identifies himself as a female . . . Outline of Psychiatry defines transsexualism as a deviancy where the person is physically normal but has a total aversion to his [or her] biological sex that dates from early childhood. Emerson began cross-dressing as a female at the age of six.”

  After reviewing Jackie’s long psychological and criminal history, the doctor concluded, “Although well controlled most of the time, this individual is unable to tolerate frustration with respect to his sexual identity and has shown the propensity to react to the frustration with physical aggression . . . A history of deviancy such as evidenced by this individual would virtually preclude a sex change operation. For society’s protection, commitment of Emerson to . . . the Mental Health Unit at Monroe for further observation and evaluation regarding placement [is indicated].”

  A highly respected forensic psychiatrist talked to Jackie Emerson next. Even he had to remind himself that it was not a woman he was evaluating, but a man. “This individual appeared to be quite convincingly feminine. Had I no information about his identity prior to the interview, my first impression probably would have been that this individual was a woman. Upon entering the examination room at the jail, he appeared to be somewhat flirtatious and attracted comments and glances from other inmates. His skin appeared to be smooth and relatively free of hair. The more subtle mannerisms during the interview were convincingly feminine. There was no evidence of severe anxiety or depression. There was surprisingly minimal fear regarding the ultimate disposition, although he was quite persuasive in presenting himself as a female and requesting the women’s prison.”

  The psychiatrist had to decide whether Jackie suffered from primary transsexualism or merely a variant of the disorder. If the first was considered, Jackie’s active sex life as a homosexual made it doubtful. The doctor was more inclined to believe that Jackie had a secondary transsexual reaction. That is, that he was a homosexual with a long-standing cross-dressing fetish. There was no evidence that showed Jackie had any endocrine dysfunction. He was more likely to be a passive-role homosexual.

  Such delineations might seem to be nit-picking. But they were vital when it came to selecting a prison for the man with the long eyelashes and sweet smile.

  Jackie had been dumped by his male lover two years before Brad Bass was murdered, and the examining psychiatrist was convinced that his demands for a sex change operation had sprung from that rejection. “I think this is more of a transsexual reaction to severe rejection in a homosexual relationship,” he wrote. “This reaction is chronic, severe, and needs to be observed under psychiatric supervision to determine where the client eventually stabilizes. For this reason, I recommend that [he] be observed for an extended period of time in the mental health unit at Monroe Reformatory.”

  He went on to surmise that—if Jackie turned out to be a true transsexual—he probably should be transferred to the women’s prison at Purdy. If Jackie proved to be only a man in women’s clothing, he probably should be kept in segregation at a male prison. “In no case,” the psychiatrist wrote, “should this individual be integrated into the general population of either Purdy or the male institutions.”

  Whatever else Jackie Emerson might prove to be, he was clearly a man completely devoid of empathy or conscience. He had taken what he wanted all of his life, and Wright doubted that he would change. Armed with the suggestions of experts in deviant sexual behavior, Chuck Wright made his recommendation on July 14, 1976: “It is our recommendation that Mr. Jonathan Emerson be sentenced to the Department of Social and Health Services, and before he receives a specific institution, that he be evaluated at Monroe’s Mental Health Unit.”

  Wright’s counsel was sound. But apparently no one listened to him. In less than two years, Jackie Emerson was a fixture in the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, the state’s largest prison for men. Although he could not wear his wigs and dresses in Walla Walla, Jackie managed to maintain his feminine persona with makeup, a velvet cap and sheer tank tops. He found a “husband,” and the two shared a cell. One of about a dozen transvestites in Walla Walla, Jackie was the most popular, and charged other inmates $30 for his “favors.” He had one protector after another, but, if he found himself in a tight situation, he used his own fists and muscles to fight back.

  He no longer desired surgery, saying, “If God truly wanted me to be a female, he would have given me all the female equipment. I know I can be happy and loved without a sex change.”

  Jackie Emerson’s sentence was akin to the old fable of Br’er Rabbit, who begged Farmer Brown not to “throw me in that cabbage patch,” which was, of course, exactly where he wanted
to be.

  Jackie served a long sentence in Walla Walla, and returned to western Washington when he was paroled. Today, he is an aging prostitute, nearly fifty years old, who continues to get into penny-ante scrapes with the law. Nothing has really changed in Jackie’s life, and the memory of a young man named Brad Bass is buried so deep in his consciousness that he scarcely recalls the rainy night in February twenty-three years ago.

  Brad Bass would have been forty-four years old today. He left only a few bequests, but they still exist. The most important were the perfect kidneys and eyes he donated to help people he never knew. His father kept his 1957 Chevrolet pickup, testimony to the fact that Brad could do anything once he made up his mind to do it. What Brad might have accomplished with the rest of his life will never be known. He was fooled by an expert at disguise and he paid for it with his life.

  The Killer Who Talked Too Much

  “Show me a homicide where we don’t pick up any meaningful physical evidence and I’ll show you a ‘loser,’ ” the Seattle police detective said vehemently. “It doesn’t matter how much circumstantial evidence we have, or what our gut feelings are, or even how much probable cause we have to arrest. You still have to show a jury something they can see.”

  Although I have written articles and books about well over a thousand true crime cases, I have seen only a very few convictions on circumstantial evidence, and I know that detective was right. Homicide investigation has become a science involving physics, chemistry and ballistics, lie detector tests, computers, DNA, electronics and even laser beams. The world of television attorneys and their amazing courtroom coincidences is only fiction, after all. In real life, it’s more difficult.

  One classic example of the need for physical evidence in proving a murderer guilty occurred in the courtroom of King County Superior Court Judge Stanley C. Soderland during a four-week trial in October 1976. Have a seat in the front row of the jury and weigh the evidence in this incredible case. What wouldyou have decided?