Letters From Rachel

by N L Westaway

  The waitress came back then to take their orders.

  Once the food was on the table, Detective Franklin went on to tell them about several old serial killer cases in Michigan. “Donald Murphy, Vitor Malone, Benjamin Atkins, and Shelly Brooks, most of their victims were involved in the sex trade. And some of these killers never got convicted for all the murders they had actually committed. Like with Coral Eugene Watts, dubbed the ‘Sunday Morning Slasher’, he was convicted in the deaths of two Michigan women out of the dozens he was believed to have killed between 1974 and 1982. He got immunity for a dozen murders as part of a plea deal and was almost released on a technicality in 2006. He died of prostate cancer in prison.”

  “He deserved worse,” Gwen said, stabbing at her scrambled eggs.

  Detective Franklin nodded.

  “Wasn’t there some guy who was arrested for kidnapping and attempted rape in a Springfield Township cemetery?” Scott asked.

  “Correct,” his dad said. “Leslie Allen Williams, a parolee. The police discovered the victim in the trunk of his car. He then confessed to the abduction, rape and slayings of four teenage girls in rural Oakland and Genesee counties back in 1992.”

  “Wow—he confessed to others,” Gwen said, glancing at Scott.

  “Sometimes they get someone on a lesser charge to eventually get them for more later, because they don’t have the evidence to arrest them for the worse crime. Right, dad?” Scott asked.

  “Right, like with Don Miller, he had tried to rape a 14-year-old girl in her bedroom, but he was arrested before he could strangle her. He was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison for rape and attempted murder. Then months before he was sentenced, he was indicted on murder charges in the deaths of two women, one of whom had been his fiancée. He also admitted to killing two other women.” Detective Franklin paused then to wave over at the waitress, then he lifted his coffee cup as to request more. He turned back to them, and said, “Then there’s Anthony Guy Walker, who was already in prison for a rape conviction, was later charged in the cold case murders of three women. Then as part of the plea deal in the case, he admitted to two other murders, one he arranged to have killed in prison.”

  “Did you ever hear about ‘The Michigan Murders’?” Scott asked Gwen.

  She shook her head.

  “I wouldn’t have thought so,” Detective Franklin said. “It was back between 1967 and 1969, way before your time—and mine, but they were a series of publicized killings of young women in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area of Southeastern Michigan.” The detective stopped when the waitress came to the table to fill his coffee cup.

  “The guy was known as the Ypsilanti Ripper, the Michigan Murderer, aaaand the Co-Ed Killer,” Scott said, when the waitress left, adding to the story.

  “The victims were young women between the ages of 13 and 21. Are you sure you want to hear this?” Detective Franklin asked her.

  Gwen nodded. “Go ahead,” she said.

  “Okay, well, these women were abducted, raped, beaten and murdered, typically by stabbing or strangulation, and then… their bodies were often mutilated after death before being discarded within a 15-mile radius of Washtenaw County.”

  “Holy crap—who was this guy?” Gwen asked, pushing the plate of her mostly eaten breakfast away.

  “His name was John Norman Chapman—known then as John Norman Collins. He was arrested one week after the final murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.”

  “Well-good, I’m glad they got him,” Gwen said, leaning back and crossing her arms over her chest.

  “He was another one, he was never charged for the remaining five murders or the murder of a sixth girl killed in California, whose death had been linked to the series. The investigators believed he was responsible for all the murders,” he added.

  “He was only 21,” Scott said, making a sour face and a scowl.

  “Average age for a male serial killer is 27,” Detective Franklin said.

  “I’m just glad they caught him,” Gwen said. “But how are you going to get this guy who’s back—killing here, in your county?”

  Detective Franklin gave his head a few slow shakes back and forth. “I guess I’m just going to have to go back to the beginning, go over the evidence again from the previous murders. There isn’t much to go on, no DNA, nothing is ever left behind, and we only have a few images of the guy on camera, and only from the back and side. He wears work boots, a dark trench coat over similar coloured pants and shirt. He’s always wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, and he uses gloves—no fingerprints. Plus, you can see the black gloves in the photos and videos. He has dark hair and a beard, but we think the beard is fake, hair too possibly.”

  “Where were the locations of the last few murders, how close were they to here—the ones just before he disappeared, I mean?” Gwen asked.

  “They weren’t close,” he said. “And I hate to admit it, but I have most—if not all the places and facts memorized, as I’ve been over the files so many times. But this last one… with Officer Stinson, it’s really thrown me.”

  “Tell me about the others,” Gwen said, unfolding her arms and leaning in.

  “I’m going to need another refill,” Detective Franklin said, tipping back the last of his coffee.

  Gwen waved the waitress over.

  Coffee cup filled now; Detective Franklin began the recap of the last four murder locations. “In 2010, it was at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia. The Professor had taught the master’s program in accounting there. When he was killed, people were shocked but not heartbroken. The talk was that most had hoped he would have choked on his Werther’s candy—he liked so much, a long time ago. Apparently, he had tenure at the university, and really did not teach, left it up to his teaching assistants to do the hard work while he took all the glory. He was a lech, and the female students had done their best to avoid him—he was well known for his bad behavior, but he was so old people were surprised he had any interest.” He took a sip of his freshly poured coffee. “The professor was known also for saying things like, ‘Most women are not good at math—these computers do all the work for them now, so they don’t have to be good at it’. There hadn’t been much eagerness to investigate the death at first, but when I came in as a visiting detective from Detroit, I’d deemed it as part of the serial killings we’d been investigating.” He grinned. “Slight change to the MO, as the guy was in his 80s, but the method was the same. Some thought because he was hated so much that it was just a copycat getting rid of the guy, and a few of the other accounting professors had been under suspicion, since they all wanted the old guy’s spot on the faculty. But we got lucky, there was recorded footage of the man who did it, same guy as one of the other bits of video we had from an earlier murder.”

  “The key is in the details—I guess,” Gwen said. “This death could have been missed as part of the series.”

  “Correct,” Detective Franklin said. “Then in 2011, at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, the Professor of Psychology was murdered, again same MO.” He tapped the edge of his coffee cup with his spoon. “Then… in 2013, it was at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, where the Professor of Film Studies was murdered. Ironically, there had been a video released before the murder, showing the professor and a young female student, revealing he had tied her up. He had tried to say it was art, but the student had said she’d been afraid he would fail her—or worse, hurt her, if she didn’t go along. There had been a lot of he-said-she-said, but in the end, someone had taken him out.” He nodded and then took another sip of coffee. “And the last one, before things went cold in 2013, was at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois, the Professor of Exercise Science. I had been tracking the killer West across the states when he disappeared. Then, six years later, he shows up here, kills another professor, but now, he’s changed his MO from professors to cops.” He gave his head a firm shake as if frustrated and confused.

&n
bsp; Gwen did the same, then took in an exasperated breath. “We lived in Charleston in 2013,” she said then. There was something familiar about the name of that last university, in fact she was almost positive it was the same one that she and her mother had gone to for a nutrition class. “I was only fifteen then, but I bet my mother would remember hearing about that one on the news.”

  “How long did you live there?” Detective Franklin asked.

  Gwen scrunched her face and shook her head. “Not long, just the summer. We moved to Ann Arbor that fall.” She frowned, as an image of a man from that time scratched at the edge of her memory. Gwen’s mother hadn’t recalled knowing Detective Franklin, but her bet was that she might remember this police officer from her same hometown. And the last murder, the one before the case had gone cold, that subject was one more reason she needed to speak to her mother.

  Chapter 12

  When Laura had woken Wednesday morning, she had felt like death. This was what a hangover felt like, she had painfully realized. She had also realized that she was not going to make it into work, she could barely make it to the small bathroom off her bedroom to throw up. So, she had called in to say she was sick, and that had been no lie. She’d never called in sick in the six years she’d worked for the bakery, though she’d called in once or twice when Gwen had been the one sick, and the owners hadn’t been upset when she’d told them this time that she wouldn’t be coming in. She had returned a few texts to Marlene letting her know she was okay but had stayed home sick.

  Laura had spent the rest of the day in bed, and she had only gone downstairs after dark to eventually get some food in her stomach. She had managed half a bowl of soup before needing to go lay down again, but she had made a point of double checking that she had left her keys on the side entry table. When she had stepped into the entry hall, she had not seen her keys on the table, instead she’d found them on the floor in front of the door. Off kilter then even more, she had moved towards the door only to find that it had not been locked, that the deadbolt had not been turned, and the security chain had been hanging unlatched. Following a shiver down her back, she’d swiftly locked and fastened them all. She had let her guard down, gotten drunk and had left her front door open to the world.

  Before she had returned to her bedroom, she’d padded around the first floor checking that the windows and the backdoor in the kitchen had all still been secured. And they were. When she had gone back upstairs, before going back to bed, she had taken a quick glance into Gwen’s old room, for what she hadn’t really known, and the room had been as it should have. Back in her bed, she should have felt better, safe, and been able to get some sleep, but she hadn’t. She had had a restless night of crazy dreams and waking up squinting into the dark at shadows.

  Now in the light of day, Laura pushed herself up out of bed, still angry at herself for being so stupid, for drinking so much, for having to miss work, and for not being clear-headed enough to lock up properly. She was also embarrassed, knowing she had more than likely made a fool of herself at the bar. Marlene had messaged her saying it had been a fun night, and that it had been entertaining to see Laura enjoying herself so much. She had been having fun, but when the drinks she’d had, settled in, she’d lost any decorum she had tried to maintain. Plus, she was mortified, because the night was a blur of faces, and dialog, and later panic as she had tried to get herself home. At least, she had made sure not to pass out still wearing the wet clothes and had managed to find her pajamas. Then she had spent the whole day and following night in them. Today she would text Marlene a more formal apology and let her know that she had paid the price for her lack of judgment.

  In the kitchen Laura popped two pieces of fresh bakery cinnamon-raisin bread into the toaster. The sweet aroma of the slices toasting filled the kitchen and calmed Laura’s nerves. She needed to get something more substantial into her stomach, and a few pieces of toast and butter she knew would do the trick. She picked her cell phone up off the table to check if she had any new messages. There were none. Then while her prescription for what ailed her continued to toast, she went to the front door to do another double check that the door was still secured.

  Laura stopped short in the hall. There on the floor about a foot from the door, was one of those coasters, the trivia ones from the bar. She must have taken one, dropped it there the other night in her drunken stupor, was her first thought, but it hadn’t been there last night when she’d locked up. Had she missed it somehow, she wondered then? She walked towards it as though it were something that might lash out at her. Then she bent slowly and picked the thing up.

  It was definitely one from the bar, it had the same yellow and orange lettering and the hula girl on it as the others had that they’d filled out. She flipped it over, then nearly choked on the saliva she’d sucked in with her breath. On the flip side where the answer space should be blank, there was a message, and based on the handwriting and words, she knew it was from her stalker. The message read,

  Did you have a good time last night, Laura?

  You looked like you were. Drinking and flirting.

  Enjoy it while you can but be careful.

  I am watching you, Laura, and I’m watching Gwen too.

  Two things Laura was now horribly aware of, her stalker was in Ann Arbor, and he had been at the restaurant the other night, maybe even that first night out with Marlene, and that he had been watching her. She had always imagined his observations of her were from a distance, but now she realized he had been in the bar, could have been standing near or even next to her, and she wouldn’t have known it. She broke into a cold sweat and was once again feeling the need to throw up.

  She made her way back to the kitchen still clutching the coaster and sat down at the table. She was not going to work today either, she just couldn’t. She picked her phone up off the table and sent a quick text to her boss, stating that she was still under the weather and didn’t want to put anyone at risk of getting sick, and that she’d be in tomorrow for sure. She sighed, setting the phone down, then the toaster popped startling her and she burst into tears.

  She was so exhausted from this, from the fear, the taunts, and the confusion as to why this maniac had chosen to do this, chosen her as what, his devotional target, killing for her? But why and why her? She put her face in her hands and sobbed. Taking in a shaky breath she wiped a sleeve across her eyes, then looked again at the message on the table in front of her.

  There was no mention of the murder of the professor, the one who had been killed at Gwen’s school. There was no direction to stay or leave. And the stalker had not used a postcard from the previous town she had lived in either. This had been more up close and personal, using a familiar object from her night out, letting her know he had seen her drinking and enjoying herself. But she had not been flirting. The only man she had talked to had been Professor Weick, and it had hardly been flirting. If the stalker had been watching her that closely, it may have looked that way though. Could that be what he was referring to? Laura gasped in response when she saw the trivia question on the coaster. “What sport was invented in Hawaii?” she read aloud.

  She dropped the coaster on the table, slid out of the chair, and then ran up the stairs, some two at a time, to the second floor. In her bedroom she went to her dresser and knelt on the floor to pull out the bottom drawer. Next to her other set of pajamas, she had a stack of manila envelopes. She slipped the one from the bottom of the pile marked keep, out from under the rest. Then she flipped the flap up and yanked out a stapled grouping of papers.

  It was the article she had copied at the library all those years ago. She had read it several times back then, but she thought she had remembered something significant now that had been in it. She scanned the article. The doctor and his colleagues had identified five stalker subtypes, and in the article, they were defined as,

  The Rejected stalking type is an individual who has experienced the unwanted end of a close relationship, usuall
y with a romantic partner, but it be could also with a parent, a coworker, or acquaintance. When this stalker’s attempts for reconciliation fail, they commonly seek revenge.

  The Intimacy Seeker sees a person, often a complete stranger, as their true love and behave as if they are in a relationship with them. Many convey the delusion that their love is reciprocated. Celebrity stalkers tend to fall under this subtype.

  The Incompetent subtype, like the intimacy seeker, hopes their behavior will lead to a close relationship, fulfilling their need for contact and intimacy. But unlike the intimacy subtype, they acknowledge that their victim isn’t reciprocating their affection but will still continue their pursuit. They are noted as being intellectually limited and socially awkward, and their inability to comprehend and follow socially normal and accepted dating rituals, they use methods that can be counterproductive and frightening.

  The Resentful stalker experiences feelings of injustice, and they desire revenge against their victim instead of a relationship. This behavior is about their perception that they have been humiliated and treated unfairly, and that they are the victim. They found that this type of stalker often views their fathers as highly controlling.

  Laura had found it all very insightful, but the one she had been most interested in, the one that had sparked now in her memory, had been the last subtype, the ‘Predator’ stalker. This subtype was a person defined as having no desire for a relationship with their victims, but they crave a sense of power and control, and that they find pleasure in gathering information about their victim, then fantasizing about assaulting them physically, but most commonly, sexually. And like those motivated by a vengeful resentment, there is often an acute sensitivity to the confusion, distress and fear resulting from their activities, and their difficulty establishing or maintaining intimate relationships lie at the root of many stalking episodes. And it also stated that many stalkers narrow their daily activities, focusing entirely on the victim and that collectively, stalkers have a remarkable ability to rationalize, minimize and excuse their behaviors, but that the most important step for managing stalkers is to see them as individuals in need of psychological help. There was more, but it was more on how therapeutic interventions focused first on their mental disorders.