Evil Season

by Michael Benson

  Murphy carried a weapon in his backpack everywhere he went. It was either his combat knife, with a seven-inch blade, or a hatchet, which he’d purchased at Home Depot for $6.

  “The hatchet came in very handy during burglaries. It could be used both to smash out windows and to pry open doors,” Murphy explained.

  Sometime during his decline of 2003, Murphy purchased a stun gun. He used it on one occasion and was disappointed: “I found it ineffective.”

  The client who could tell he was trying to hypnotize her was the exception to the rule. For the most part, Murphy was an excellent hypnotist with many, many successes.

  He could thoroughly hypnotize subjects without them realizing it. Like the planchette-and-ink experiment, Murphy knew his claims of hypnotic prowess would strike some readers as bragging. Or, worse, as evidence that he was a schizophrenic suffering from hallucinations.

  “They say you can’t get a person who is under hypnosis to do anything that they normally wouldn’t do unhypnotized. I am telling the truth, as God is my witness, that this is not true,” Murphy said. He could not only hypnotize a subject without the subject knowing it, but also without being noticed by anyone in the room. People in the waiting area and other hairstylists would watch him doing his thing, and they would have no idea what he was up to. It got to the point where practically every female who got into his chair was groped. Sometimes he would squeeze their breasts; at other times he’d get right in there between their legs and rub them sensuously on their most private areas. They would sit there in the chair like zombies, not reacting at all to the touching. They were unseeing, unknowing. When he’d had his fill of feeling them up, he’d open their purses and remove the money. Twenties, fifties, the occasional hundred-dollar bill.

  When men had their hair cut, he skipped the feeling-up stuff. Usually he just dropped a posthypnotic suggestion that they should tip really well. Everyone in the chair was hypnotized to some degree.

  On July 22, 2003, Murphy was ticketed for “failure to yield right of way,” involving a car accident in Hillsborough County. Murphy was driving a 1991 Mercury, which belonged to Dave Gallant. Murphy was cited for a traffic violation in connection with the incident. He did not contest the infraction and was ordered to take a course in driver improvement.

  When Murphy moved out of Gallant’s apartment, he moved to a dilapidated but homey mobile home in Gibsonton. He wanted a place of his own, where there was plenty of room for his “spiritual images.” He had progressed past the Ouija board. He could summon even larger and more sophisticated images from the souls and spirits without a planchette. He invented a new contraption, cutting the bottom out of an empty butter bowl. He would turn the bowl upside down and insert as many as a dozen different-colored felt-tip markers into the hole. He’d set the bowl on a piece of folded fabric, which served as his canvas. He would then summon a soul and walk away. After a couple of hours he’d return to look at the completed image. He would slowly unfold the cloth to reveal the spirit world’s latest creation. They were phenomenal. Making the images consumed his time; soon the walls of his new home were covered with them.

  On September 2, 2003, Murphy pawned a Weller soldering gun and two knives at the Universal Jewelry and Pawn on West Brandon Boulevard in Brandon. He pawned a Samsung color TV and an auto battery charger at a second pawnshop, also on Brandon Boulevard, on September 23, 2003.

  Around that time he stole a nice bicycle. He checked it out on the Internet. It was worth almost $3,800.

  During 2003, Murphy’s art also consisted of paint on plates, creating images that only he could see. He wanted his brother and sister-in-law to sell the plates in their gift shop, but they refused, frightened at this new level of delusion. (Eventually, when Murphy said he would be moving to Sarasota in December of 2003, they were glad to give him a ride.)

  Chapter 29

  Shade Avenue

  During the final months of 2003, Murphy lived at a series of Florida addresses, in St. Petersburg, St. Pete Beach, and Oldsmar. By the December holidays he lived on Shade Avenue in Sarasota, near Bee Ridge Road, in a rooming house, in one of six single-room, low-ceiling apartments. He found the place by answering an ad in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. His room, known hyperbolically as “apartment B,” had “immediate access to the bath and kitchen.”

  Like most digs for transients, the place was a madhouse. Transients, after all, rarely count stability among their strong points. But the house did have one thing going for it, from Murphy’s point of view: a great landlady!

  Kit Barker, the owner, had gone out of her way to give the place homey touches, like the white picket fence that opened up to allow access to the front walk leading to the door. There was a carved flower at the top of each freshly painted picket.

  Just in front of the door was a round garden, walled off from the walk that surrounded it by bricks. It was covered with mulch and featured a combination of interestingly shaped large rocks and plants. There were lights set up so that the garden (and, importantly, the front door) was illuminated at night.

  Murphy thought it was a nice place, even before he entered the building. Right away, the landlady charmed him. Barker told Murphy that she was a former Hollywood stuntwoman. She showed him a newspaper clipping, an article about the lady daredevil and her Hollywood exploits with glamorous movie stars. She had an office in the back of the first floor, but she wasn’t there all the time because she had a second home in North Carolina.

  Murphy’s rent was $100 a week, and he paid from the end of December until the middle of February. Kit Barker remembered Murphy as a guy who caused little trouble. “He said he was a hairdresser and an artist,” the landlady recalled.

  Cops were always being called to the Shade Avenue address—before, during, and after Murphy’s time living there. But the calls almost never involved him.

  The house was like a soap opera. Tenants stole stuff from one another—a TV, a cell phone—and the super, a guy named Albert Sanchez (pseudonym), collected the rent but failed to give it to the landlady, resulting in a charge of grand theft.

  The TV was taken by a tenant calling himself John Hughes, who took off and, as far as Murphy knew, was never found. Hughes was also suspected of stealing the license plate from the landlady’s Cadillac, which was parked in a locked garage at the residence. He’d stopped by to “get his things.”

  The landlady told police that when an apartment owner rents out rooms by the week, she didn’t expect to get the best citizens as tenants. Everyone was of sketchy repute.

  Barker said that during the first few months of 2004, she rented a room to a suspected cocaine addict who drove on a suspended license.

  She didn’t compile detailed information on her tenants. Just as long as they paid cash, they were fine with her. She didn’t need or want anyone’s whole biography.

  After Sanchez was incarcerated, his mother came to the rooming house to get his stuff. She found that the door to his room had been pried open and his “entertainment center” was missing.

  Police were yet again called to the address when an anonymous informant reported “heroin use” going on in the building. The responding officer found everyone sober, and was told by the Shade Avenue tenants that it sounded to them like mischief from a hostile ex.

  Another visit involved a man named Jones, who was overdosing on alcohol and drugs. The man was transported to the hospital, where his stomach was pumped. There was no evidence that the man was attempting suicide.

  So the landlady had problems, and Murphy wasn’t one of them. She thought Murphy was one of the better citizens to pass through. She recalled that the only less-than-perfect thing about Murphy was that he was “grabby.” On a couple of occasions he had inappropriately touched her buttocks. The first time occurred when Murphy complained to her that there was something wrong with the toilet, which was between apartments A and B. When Barker bent over to take a look at the commode, Murphy grabbed her ass from behind. She felt he was somewhat stra
nge, not crazy—a big man with big hands, eager to use them. The touching all occurred when he was brand-new in the house, late December maybe, before the holidays. (Murphy remembered the ass-grabbing incident as well. He said this was during his “touching period,” and added that the landlady didn’t seem too put-off by it—which was the impression Barker gave as well.)

  The one time the cops did come to the Shade Avenue house about Murphy, Barker recalled, it was about inappropriate touching at work. The landlady correctly assumed that during this period of Murphy’s life, he had to work to keep his hands off women. Poor impulse control.

  He was always on his bicycle, she later recalled. “Some kind of ten-speed,” she said. He didn’t have a car, and she never saw him get in a car.

  Murphy showed Barker some of the eating plates he had painted. He gave her one as a gift, but the painting, she thought, was too dark and scary. She kept it on a kitchen shelf, not wanting to throw it away because it was a gift, but not wanting to look at it, either.

  Murphy told her that some of his painted plates were on display, on consignment, in Sarasota art galleries, but he was never specific about which ones.

  Scott Richards (pseudonym) was another tenant of the Shade Avenue place when Murphy was there. He remembered that Murphy usually wore khaki pants and a collared shirt, usually a button-up style. Richards said Murphy’s mode of transportation was a rather nifty “mountain bike.”

  Murphy, for his part, had blurred memories of his experiences in the Shade Avenue house. He had other things on his mind. He didn’t befriend any neighbors. He did, however, remember a little Spanish guy in the front apartment—Victor, Hector, something. He knew the guy because they shared a bathroom, and each had to make sure the other wasn’t already in there before entering.

  He remembered that a guy who cleaned carpets for a living had moved in about a week before Murphy left. He just knew him to say hi to. Talked to him for a few minutes, maybe twice.

  He remembered a guy named Clive. It was Clive who fixed his toilet when Sanchez wouldn’t or couldn’t.

  The only problem Murphy had with theft involved food. “I had food disappearing all the time. I would put things in the refrigerator and then they’d be gone—mustard, bread. A few times,” Murphy said.

  Despite Barker’s observations, it seems certain that for the first couple of weeks that Murphy stayed on Shade Avenue, he did have a car. He didn’t give the Geo back to Dean until January 8. After that, he rode his nifty bike all over Sarasota—exploring neighborhoods, scouting interesting locations like a movie director—a filmmaker with larceny on his mind.

  In his free time he frequently went to the beach, and made many all-day trips to Venice Beach and back. As he pedaled, the voices urging him to rape and kill were almost a constant in his head. He could put his fingers in his ears and shout “la, la, la, la” all he wanted, and it did nothing to drown out those voices. They came through loud and clear, no matter what.

  There were many almost incidents. Women were almost hurt on many occasions. But conditions were never just right. Circumstances needed to be just right.

  “I knew without a doubt that my opportunity would come soon,” Murphy said. He still thought he was a god, maybe the God, in communication with other gods: Lord Enki. Marduk. Nergal. And, of course, Jesus. He was Lord God Elton Brutus Murphy, dominant to almost everything, but unadulteratedly subservient to the ever-present female voices nagging in his head.

  Chapter 30

  To Rape and Kill

  On January 16, 2004, that day, Murphy was doing most of his talking to Jesus. As he looked back on it, Jesus sounded like Charlton Heston, the way the actor sounded in The Ten Commandments. That sounded like a joke, but Murphy couldn’t be more serious.

  “Jesus said, ‘Today’s the day. Today you rape and kill,’” Murphy explained. Jesus told him to go to downtown Sarasota because it was there where opportunity awaited him.

  It was like that all morning. Jesus was talking to him even as he prepared his breakfast: sausages, eggs, toast, glass of juice, and a cup of coffee.

  Murphy quietly chewed a piece of crust and said, “Forgive me, Jesus, if I misinterpret what you are saying. You want me to kill a woman today, right?”

  “Yes,” Jesus replied. “You are a god like me and you can kill.”

  Murphy had given up on God twenty-three years before—at age twenty-three—half his life before. Now he was a god among many gods. And he still felt subservient. Now he had to please and appease the voices—whether it be Jesus or the gaggle of crabby gals that usually inhabited his gray matter—just as he had once tried to keep the collective happy.

  He had no choice. He had to do what the voices said or they would drive him crazy. So, at about ten-thirty in the morning, he got on his bike and pedaled the twenty-minute ride to downtown Sarasota. He took a left at the end of the driveway, and another left on Fruitville Road, which he took into downtown.

  He had only been in that neighborhood once before that he could recall, and he didn’t recognize the street names.

  “I chained my bike to a pole just a couple of doors away from a combination coffee shop and bookstore,” Murphy said. He went in, browsed for fifteen minutes, and had a second cup of coffee.

  From the bookstore he walked to the marina and wandered around, looking at the boats. The voices screamed at him, furious now: “You are stalling, so get on with it!” Henpecked into action, he walked back downtown to where he’d left his bike. When he first saw his bike, right where he’d chained it, so beautiful, he paused for a moment to admire it. When he looked up, his eyes fell on a place called the Provenance Gallery.

  One voice in his head, a solo voice amidst the chorus, said, “There’s a possibility.”

  Murphy was dressed in his nicest clothes: a pair of black dress slacks, a green short-sleeved dress shirt, and black leather shoes. He was dressed to go undercover, to play the part of an art buyer in a real-life drama of life and death.

  He carried his black backpack, the kind that had only one strap that went over the left shoulder and buckled at the right waist. Murphy walked diagonally across the street toward the Provenance’s front entrance.

  His memories are like a dream—so vivid, yet unreal. He entered the gallery and there was a woman, in the back, and she started to walk—a little bit jerky like stop-motion animation—in his direction.

  Murphy took his attention off the woman for a heartbeat and glanced at the front door’s lock. It was his lucky day. There was a dead bolt, with a flipper on the inside, so he wouldn’t need a key to lock the door from inside. He was thinking, How convenient, when he returned his gaze to the approaching woman.

  He remembered her wearing pants, a loose-fitting top, and cloth shoes. He was almost forty-seven, and she seemed a little bit older, he thought. He liked her hair. He liked her build.

  She wasn’t too fat at all. Or too skinny. She was “shapely in a feminine sort of way”—and he found her attractive.

  Murphy’s eyes searched the joint. He saw no evidence of other employees. There was good reason to believe the woman was alone.

  She could be the one.

  The voices said, “Yes! Yes! This is the one! Time to rape and kill.”

  “Can I help you?” the woman asked. Her tone was so pleasant. She never did give him her name.

  Murphy realized right then that the voices, for all of their pestering, had never been specific about what his victim should look like. They hadn’t specified a particular age, build, or hair color. The only specification was that she be an “attractive woman.” Other than that, Murphy felt free to pick and choose.

  Yes, this was the one.

  “Yes, you may,” Murphy said. “I’m interested in buying some art, perhaps a painting, for my new home.”

  “Is there anything in particular that you were looking for?” She was perfectly charming.

  “No, not in particular,” Murphy said. “If you’ll show me around, I’d appreciate
it. If I see anything of interest, I’ll let you know.”

  “Okay, let’s look around,” she said.

  She showed him around the gallery, discussing pieces of art that she found interesting, or perhaps thought he might like. They began to tour at the front of the gallery and worked their way back. At last, they were just about all the way back, in an alcove off to the side, where they couldn’t be seen from the street.

  Murphy thought, If I do kill her, this is where I will do it. It was not a voice in his head that said this. He was thinking for himself here.

  Another factor to his advantage. Inside the alcove there were paintings that weren’t hung on the wall, just sort of stacked up, so he had to follow the woman deep into the alcove to look at the art that was on the floor.

  And Murphy did . . . nothing. He wasn’t ready. He needed more time to build up his courage. And that meant a drink. He decided to go to a bar and get half wasted, then return to the Provenance.

  He told her that he liked one painting, a nude of a lovely blond woman, but he was still undecided. He was going to continue his tour of the area’s galleries. If he didn’t see anything he liked better, he would return for the painting.

  The woman said that would be fine. “We’re open till five,” she said cheerfully.

  As Murphy exited the gallery, he became extremely excited. He finally had found someone, an opportunity!

  In part, he’d been telling the woman the truth. He really did want to tour the other galleries, but he wasn’t shopping for art. He was shopping for opportunities even more desirable than those presented by the woman in the Provenance Gallery.

  He visited every gallery on the strip, and he failed to find anything that came even close. The lady in the Provenance was uniquely vulnerable.

  As Murphy put it, there was only one “open invitation to murder.” There it was: the future title of the movie about his life.