Invisible Killer
Page 16
April 25—* first
18-Jul 21—Nassau, Bahamas
August 5—Charlie asked me to move in with him.
September 4—first night in apartment
18-Oct 20-Oct—St.Augustine, FL
Nov. 7 17-Nov—Nassau, Bahamas
1986 18 Jan—Melbourne, FL
Feb 26—Charlie’s Dad, Gail, Melody talked
20-Mar 23-Mar—Key Largo, FL then home Ormond Beach, FL
2-May 5-May—Fly to New Orleans, LA
Charlie asked me to marry him
11-Jul 18-Jul—St. Lucia, Bahamas
July 26—new apartment
29-Aug 2-Sep—Islamorada, FL wedding day
Sept. 12—Charlie interview in Key West
Sept. 26 29-Sep—Washington, DC
10-Oct 13-Oct—the Keys, FL
October 22—New home (rent) the keys
Dec. 9—bought boat
1987 22-May 25-May—Daytona, FL
June 10th—weird feeling
29-Aug 3-Sep—Miami, FL to Cozumel, Mexico
13-Dec—LA
24-Dec 27-Dec—Orlando, FL
1988 24-Jan 5-Feb—Charlie leaves for the Cape
29-Jan 31-Jan—Teri-Melbourne then at the Cape
March 18—Weird day
23-Mar Mach 28—Phoenix, AZ
26-May 30-May—Ormond Beach, FL
July 2—Patricia Lorenza Homicide
3-Jul 15-Jul—Washington, DC Norfolk to home
August 25—weird day
October 8—house hunting
20-Oct 23-Oct—Dallas, TX
December 9—closed on house Ranger Ave, Big Pine Key, FL
December 16—Lisa Sanders Homicide
27-Dec 30-Dec—Daytona, FL
1989 18-Feb 19 - Feb—Boat Show then to the Everglades, FL
27-Apr 7-May—New Orleans, LA
May 8—weird day
7-Jun 10-Jun—Ft. Lauderdale, FL
July 11—rough conversation
July 19—Sherry Perisho Homicide
28-Sep 2-Oct—Jackson bound - [For the wedding of Teri’s friend, Melanie Fecher.]
22-Nov Nov 25—Melbourne, FL
1990 17-Jan 20-Jan—Miss [with the Fechers]
21-Jan 28-Jan—Hawaii
15-Mar 17-Mar—West Palm Beach, FL
26-Apr 1-May—Ft. Walton Beach, FL
1-May 2-May—Orlando, FL
6-Jul 9-Jul—Homestead, Vanderbilt Bch, Sanibel, FL
12-Oct 16-Oct—Boston, MA
22-Dec 24-Dec—Ormond Beach and Orlando, FL
1991 February 14—Valentine Homicide
May 2—[Teri stops writing in planner and starts another planner.]
5-Jun 6-Jun—Miami, FL
5-Jul 12-Jul—Colorado
July 22—Charlie got no contract news
August 13—weird day, rough, runaway and hide feeling
5-Oct 10-Oct—St. Pete and Sanibel, FL
30-Oct 3-Nov—Orlando, FL
24-Dec 28-Dec—Orlando, FL
1992 Jan 12—Charlie on meds
Jan 17—Charlie lost contract
18-Jan 19-Jan—Everglades/Fl City, FL
Jan 22—Charlie gone at 3:30AM
May 27—Charlie fired
8-Jun 14-Jun—Maryland
11-Jul 17-Jul—Denver and Keystone, Colorado [Teri went on staff retreat with the dentist she was working with, and the staff.]
July 13—Charlie starts meds
14-Oct 18-Oct—Bahamas
Nov. 25—Teri turned into a witch/Charlie hurt
Dec 14—Charlie’s family
1993 Feb 2—start meds
March 5—Deb Harrison [mental health Ph.D.]
14-Apr 18-Apr—homestead to Sanibel, FL
July 15—Charlie a little depressed
18-Jul 26-Jul—[Teri’s father has a stroke and passes away]
24-Jul 26-Jul—[ Charlie arrives Orlando]
26-Jul 5-Aug—South Carolina-Funeral [Charlie leaves 30th?]
Aug 22—walked to the site for lunch
Aug 30—Melanie called hurting bad
Sept. 16—started to talk things out-talkative time a bit emotional
Oct. 27—a bit impatient with Charlie
30-Oct 2-Dec—Miami, Tampa, Panama City, to FWB [Teri stays with her mother after her father’s death.]
Nov 5—Charlie left message did not talk
Nov. 6—Charlie called very emotional
Nov. 11—Charlie called a bit upset
Nov. 24—Charlie called real emotional
20-Dec 21-Dec—Orlando, FL
1994 Jan 17—Charlie had a rough day
1-Mar 4-Mar—Bahamas
31-May—Miami, FL
29-Jun 6-Jul—Cormel, Point Sur, California [Teri reunion with her sisters for her mother’s birthday, she turned 70.]
Aug 11—weird day
18-Oct 20-Oct—Stuart, FL
Oct 24—problem solving
Nov 24—weird day
14-Dec—Miami, FL
Dec. 24—Upsetting night [in 1995 book]
1995 11-May 16-May—Ft. Walton Beach, FL
July 5—sad day
July 21—weird talk and not a good night
20-Sep 3-Oct—Spokane WA and California
Dec. 25—weird evening
1996 9-Jan 12-Jan—Daytona, FL
31-Jan 10-Feb—Ft. Walton Beach, FL [Teri and her sister Pat arrive to help her ill mother.]
18-Mar 21-Mar—Homestead and Coral Gables, FL
6-May 16-May—PA and Maryland [Teri and her sisters help mother move to Maryland - funeral services for mother.]
19-Sep 2-Oct—Hawaii
1997 Jan 1—emotional
9-Sep 17-Sep—California [Teri visits her sister Marty]
26-Oct 31-Oct—Melbourne, FL
7- Nov—Orlando, FL
1998 17-Mar 23-Mar—St. Johns Bahamas
26-Aug 30-Aug—Daytona, FL
23-Sep 28-Sep—Orlando, FL
Oct 8—lost it
22-Dec 29-Dec—Maryland
1999 Jan 29—Charlie played with computer
4-May 10-May—Bahamas
16-Sep 26-Sep—California
2000 31-May 3—Jun - Sanibel, FL
June 21—weird feeling
2001 27-Feb—Miami, FL (Dr. Chase)
21-Mar 23-Mar—Daytona, FL
15-May 24-May—California
July 12—Dr. Pruett
9-Aug 10-Aug—Fl. City, FL
2002 14-Jan 17-Jan—NC [Teri and Charlie went to see Teri’s parents and bought a car]
14-May 21-May—DC
18-Jun—Miami, FL
4-Jul—Orlando, FL
12-Nov 21-Nov—Melbourne, FL
2003 15-May 20-May—NC [Teri went to a sisters reunion]
14-Apr 16-Apr—Melbourne, FL
15-May 20-May—Orlando to NC
8-Jul 11-Jul—Melbourne, FL
13-Jul 19-Jul —Melbourne, FL [the trips to Melbourne were to see Melanie Fecher, who had moved.]
20-Jul 27-Jul—Las Vegas, Reno, Lake Tahoe
26-Nov—Orlando, FL
Some of Teri’s and Michelle’s friends can account for some of these times, and states of mind.
Suzy Hamilton, for instance, who had a thirty-million-dollar account with Michelle at The Golf Channel, remembered something out-of-theordinary that happened when both women were very young.
“Michelle had become one of my best friends in the world,” said the client, who’d loved her new account, and its rep. “I met both Charlie and Teri and at the time I didn’t think much of him, but Michelle and I went on trips a lot; to Key West, for instance. On one of those occasions, Teri and Charlie came to meet me and I had some business friends with me, and we all had our boyfriends and other friends with us. In short, we were a large group.” Hamilton prefaced what later occurred. “We went out to dinner, all of us, including Charlie and Teri. We later went to the pier to see the boats. And then we realized we’d lost one of our friends
; she kind of disappeared on us! The next morning we couldn’t find her. It was noon the next day when she finally resurfaced. And she said, ‘I don’t know what happened; I don’t remember anything!’ It turned out she woke up in the bathroom in the middle of the night. She had been sitting next to Charlie all night, and Charlie had offered himself as the designated driver. I don’t know if any of that is of any significance.”
It may not be. Both Teri’s and Michelle’s friends now see a lot of things in hindsight.
As for Charlie choosing to be the designated driver, profiler D’Ambrosia has an easy explanation.
D’Ambrosia met Teri’s sisters on Big Pine Key and asked them about Charlie’s alleged solicitous attitude towards his wife, as witnessed and recounted by everyone who knew the couple.
“It sounds like it fits Teri’s sisters’ description of Charlie always being the ‘caretaker,’ for lack of a better description, whenever there was a group together socializing. Everyone insisted that he was a social person and a nice guy when the case first broke. I proclaimed that this would change with time, when everyone truly understood his behavior, or when they began to dissect how he really behaved.
“I asked her sisters when I bumped into them in the Keys, if he had ever actually sat and engaged in conversation with them, because as they described him back then, was he was always ‘doting’ on Teri and them in social settings. He would get them drinks and jump up and refill them when they got low, he would prepare snacks, et cetera. Basically, he served as the waitstaff.
“When I asked if he’d ever actually participated in the social gatherings and preferred that—instead, perhaps he was serving everyone because he was uncomfortable with sitting with them in the social setting—this is when I got the ‘aha!’ moment. I told them that perhaps it was his way of avoiding actual social interaction and conversations. On the surface he was Mr. Nice Guy, the Host with the Most, but in actuality I believe he was avoiding prolonged social interaction. His offering to be the DD served this purpose, and put him in close proximity to the other girls. We understood that Charlie was a little bored, unhappy with the marriage and/or Teri. He wasn’t perhaps as attracted to her anymore. His hitting on the other girls is not so much weird, as it is an indication that he was a common lech looking for extramarital activities.”
As for the young woman, Suzy’s friend, “disappearing” after sitting next to Charlie all night, there might be an equally mundane explanation. Everyone in the group was drinking a lot; it’s what young people do in the Keys. Perhaps the young woman had simply had too much, ran to the bathroom, and there, passed out. One thing is certain: If Charlie Brandt, serial killer and stalker of women, had had any designs on Suzy’s friend, she would not have resurfaced at noon the next day—perhaps not ever.
Now, maybe this scenario holds the truth, and maybe it is coincidental, but Jim noticed that Charlie and Teri’s behavior towards him began to change after they were married for a while. This is not surprising, considering the upheaval that was going on in the Big Pine Key home, behind closed doors, between the couple, according to entries in Teri’s planner.
“They started acting like they were the adults and I wasn’t grown up because I was single,” Jim said, with a sense of surprise still. “I attributed it to both of them back then, but in retrospect, Teri was very funloving, and I think it was Charlie. I think he wanted me away from her. Now I think he probably committed a lot of atrocities in the Bahamas. It wasn’t till he left the islands that he wanted to meet a girl.” And then, maybe, Charlie was trying to isolate her.
But if Jim was puzzled at finding a basic “how-to” book on having sex under Charlie and Teri’s coffee table, investigators were even more puzzled when they found a female anatomy chart hung beside their bedroom door.
“I was told the chart was Charlie’s, by investigators,” said profiler D’Ambrosia. “If that was true, and it was not Teri’s, then I would view that as being consistent with his fantasies and paraphilic desires. He had a sexual obsession with body parts, organs, necrophilia, peeping, women’s lingerie, et cetera. He enjoyed viewing a variety of sexually deviant Internet sites and received Victoria’s Secret catalogues. All of these fueled his fantasies and his particular desires.”
Forensic computer experts found that Charlie visited all sorts of websites about necrophilia, and he did receive Victoria’s Secret catalogues, which he stashed carefully away. He did refer to Michelle as his “Victoria’s Secret.” And as D’Ambrosia pointed out: “The anatomy chart isn’t paired with a specific event, but could provide that same sexual excitement as a trophy or souvenir.”
If the anatomy chart was behind their bedroom door, Charlie had to see it whenever he and Teri made love. It is a gruesome thought when viewed in conjunction with the sexual act on a marital bed, but perhaps for Charlie it was better than the sex book Jim had spotted under the coffee table.
D’Ambrosia reconstructed Charlie’s crimes, and drew some conclusions based on the injuries from the murders inside the home of Michelle Jones.
“He killed Teri first,” D’Ambrosia stated. “It looked like Teri was on the sofa and she had been drinking—wine, I believe. She may have dozed off on the sofa. All of them had been drinking that day. As I remember, it looked like Michelle had gone to take a shower, and he blitzed her or surprised her there.”
Michelle:
• Was found nude on the bed with head removed and positioned to the side of the body “overlooking” the body (as though observing the process of disarticulation-removal of body parts). Did he want her to “see his work?”
• Chest cut open
• Heart removed and lying beside body
• Left leg removed—on bed
• Both breasts removed—on bed
• Left arm partially severed—no[t] completely removed
• Liver, some intestines, abdominal wall removed and put inside lined garbage can next to foot of bed
• Removed parts, especially head, devoid of blood (looked like he cleaned her face and smoothed her hair) [This is what profilers call “undoing,” trying to make it seem as though the murder didn’t occur.]
• Blood noted as finger-marks on limbs (probably from his holding them to slice/cut)
• Bed not much blood due to post-mortem removal
• Cause of death was a single stab wound to the chest. This sharp force injury was ante-mortem [before death] and severed the mid sternum, slightly up to down and centered. Cut through pericardium and right ventricle, and severed the aorta. (Deep single stab wound that caused death)
• There were contusions on her right hand and thumb and right foot and leg. There was also a superficial abrasion to the right hand. Bruising indicates the injury happened before death [due to circulation]. It is unknown if this is considered “defensive.” There are none of the typical defensive wounds we see in stabbing deaths: cuts and gashes to the hands. [This would indicate being struck or striking someone, but given their days-long “partying” state, it’s just as likely she fell getting out of the hot tub.]
• There are blood clots in the lungs (hemothorax) indicating the chest injuries etc. resulting in the filling of blood in the lungs before (or while) dying.
• The stab wound would have been immediately incapacitating.
• There is a blood-stained blue tank top with a “vertical cut” on the shirt below the neckline, in the sink basin. So she was killed while wearing her shirt. The rest was post mortem and done on the bed. (ergo: why I thought she was blitzed in the bathroom) I suppose it’s possible she ran from him there, but there are no signs of struggle. There are perfume bottles, etc. on the counter, her jeans skirt is on the counter, cell phone, moisturizer, etc. Perhaps getting ready to get in the shower?
• Her panties and bra are in the bedroom on the floor with other items: bloodstained pink panties cut/torn, blue bloodstained panties intact with a maxi pad attached, bloodstained pink bra cut/torn, section of a bloodstained pink bra cut
/torn away, bloodstained pair of torn orange panties, bloodstained orange bra intact, 4 bloodstained towels (hand, bath that match, 2 beach towels) I think were used to clean up the blood on the body parts to make it look the way he wanted. Also the detectives said the cuts/tears were on one side of the panties.
• There was a pair of Champion gym shorts (tag removed) and an American Outdoors t-shirt (tag removed) on the floor with the lingerie/panties, also bloodstained. In the bedroom with all of Teri and Charlie’s belongings were suitcases containing clothing that had all the clothing tags cut out. So these were Charlie’s clothes on the floor with her panties, etc. He changed. I think it’s likely he removed his clothing and put on Michelle’s panties (why he cut the one side) Since we already know Charlie was a paraphile [engaged in sexually deviant behavior such as necrophilia and peeping] we know that Charlie would likely have engaged in other behaviors regarded as sexually deviant, paraphilic behavior because research shows that paraphilic behavior is clustered. Meaning research has shown that if there is evidence of a person engaging in one sexually deviant behavior, the likelihood is high they will engage in others. Cross-dressing (transvestitism) would not be a stretch here. So perhaps Charlie was also cross-dressing with the undergarment of his victim. Except if Charlie did it, it was only this one time, with Michelle’s “Victoria’s Secret” underwear.
Teri:
• Wearing only a t-shirt. Her pajama bottoms were removed/pulled all the way down.—Why? To humiliate and degrade her?
• She has multiple stab wounds to the chest. There were 10 stab wounds noted in the mid and lower chest area. The 11th stab wound was actually an “exit” stab wound in the back associated with a lower chest stab wound that was over 18 cm in depth (wow, that’s deep) and exited her back. This damaged many vital organs inside.
• She had defensive wounds on her left hand. Perhaps she awoke? (when she approached her?!) or was just very inebriated when he approached. She was dressed for bed, on the sofa, and had a glass of wine on the table. She could have dozed off.
• Her t-shirt had numerous cuts to the front that corresponded with the sharp-force injuries to the torso.
• Her pants were pulled down—this is both voyeuristic and degrading.
Charlie:
• Only injury was the ligature mark
• He was clothed hanging in the garage, there was a steak knife on the hood of the car below him but he hadn’t stabbed himself