Invisible Killer

by Diana Montane

  As to why Charlie then went after his older sister Angie, tried to shoot her, and when the gun jammed, tried to strangle her and finally pleaded with her not to leave him as they each ran to neighbors’ apartments, the profiler attributes it to his being thirteen years old at the time.

  “Now, I would surmise that it wasn’t a completely sound plan, because he didn’t anticipate what to do after that. I attribute that to his age and lack of maturity and criminal sophistication.”

  When, after his arrest, a police officer asked him: “If your sister would have gotten in your way that night, you think that you would have killed her?” Charlie answered: “It’s hard to say. Probably anybody.”

  It is not certain to anybody whether young Charlie, at that point, was “manipulating the system,” as Charles Manson did after he went in and out of reform schools. He might have tried to appear more innocent than he was to the cops, and a “model patient” to the psychiatrists, as Edmund Kemper had. It is hard to say.

  What is known is that he did not cry after his father shot his companion dog; that he did not cry at his mother’s funeral, which he attended in shackles; and that he did tell his sister Angie that he realized when the mental staff at the hospital expected him to cry.

  There is another case besides Edmund Kemper’s, in which a killer was released back into society, both by the courts and by accredited medical professionals.

  Young Penny Chang’s parents emigrated from China to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Penny was born. They called her Penny because they loved their adopted city and state, but then they relocated to the affluent Shaker Heights section of Ohio, since her father was offered a post as a math professor at Cleveland State University.

  Penny and her older brother Sean had friends in common, like twenty-one-year-old Scott Strothers.

  Strothers liked Penny. He tried to date her, then pursued her, stalked her, harassed the family mercilessly, and finally, on the morning of March 16, 1999, shot Penny to death, four times in the back, as she walked to school. Strother checked himself into the Cleveland Clinic voluntarily, probably in an effort to avoid a court sentence or parole violation. Later, he wrote that he had checked himself in “because it would look good in court.”

  The Cleveland Clinic acknowledges that Scott Strothers’s date of admission into the emergency room was on October 22, 1998.

  According to court documents, his initial diagnosis was listed as “Delusional Disorder vs. Impulse Control Disorder” as well as “Personality Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified.”

  “Impulse Control Disorder” was the diagnosis, more or less, of Charlie Brandt.

  The Cleveland Clinic has since refused to discuss which treatment Strothers received. However, on November 26, 1998, Scott Strothers went home to his family for Thanksgiving.

  It is apparent that psychiatrists at the Cleveland Clinic realized that Strothers had homicidal tendencies, and that they were evidently, from the diaries he kept about Penny Chang, directed at one specific young girl.

  Strothers, however, from the accounts of all the mental health professionals who gave him the green light to go out into the community and cold-bloodedly murder Penny Chang, was, as so many psychopaths and sociopaths are referred to, “a master manipulator.”

  Both Scott Strothers and Charlie Brandt had been diagnosed, even if Strothers was much older, as having “an impulse control disorder.” Charlie’s was termed in a different way, doctors stating that he suffered from “an uncontrollable impulse.” What is the difference?

  There is no point in casting aspersions on the mental health professionals who felt their patients were no longer a danger to themselves or to others. It is possible that these evil impulses, to call them evil and not “uncontrollable impulses,” reach far beyond that. Or that, as Dr. Michael Brannon states, they are undiagnosable because they are “personality disorders.”

  No one still quite knows the truth about Charlie’s parents. It is possible that, without being abusive, they behaved in non-healthy ways towards their children, or at least towards Charlie. Nobody ever knows what happens behind closed doors. And Charlie told psychiatrists and investigators he “loved” his parents.

  In his informed investigation of human evil, “People of the Lie,” M. Scott Peck posits, “When a child is grossly confronted by significant evil in its parents, it will most likely misinterpret the situation and believe that the evil resides in itself.”

  But then Peck qualifies this carefully:

  “Does evil run in families because it is genetic and inherited? Or because it is learned by the child in imitation of its parents? Or even as a defense against its parents? And how are we to explain the fact that the children of evil parents, although usually scarred, are not evil? We do not know, and we will not know until an enormous amount of painstaking scientific work has been accomplished.”

  There is also no point in wondering what would have happened if Jim had told Teri about Charlie’s past. “I don’t blame myself for that one,” he said. “What I blame myself for is that time when I was playing a gig at Hammerhead’s and Teri came to me with the story about Charlie covered in blood in the fish-cleaning room.”

  That had been, of course, right after the murder and evisceration of Sherry Perisho under the Big Pine Key Bridge, a few blocks from Charlie and Teri’s house. Jim does not blame himself for not fessing up about Charlie’s past, because he made Charlie swear he would tell Teri, and also because of what Angela had said to Teri: “You know everything about him and you love him anyway?” And there was another time he’d asked Teri, “When are you going to have kids?” and she answered, “We’re not going to have kids, considering.” Jim assumed it was considering Charlie’s past, which is a sound assumption, although Teri’s sister and Michelle’s mother, Mary Lou Jones, disagrees. “It might have been because Teri was there for the birth of all of her nephews and nieces.” But that doesn’t jell with Teri saying “considering.”

  Melanie Fecher, Teri’s best friend on the Key, also disagrees:

  “Both of us had talked about not wanting to have children,” Melanie said. “That is probably what she meant.”

  As to why Jim did not encourage Teri to go to the sheriff, as she’d wanted to do, when she found Charlie covered in blood in the fish-cleaning room, he stated, again, that he did feel most sorry and saddened about that. “It was the first real gig I’d had in awhile, and the music was loud, and there was no time, and we had all been drinking, and it just didn’t make any sense.” He was, of course, referring to the violent butchering of Sherry Perisho, although Jim did not know it at the time.

  But then, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office also fell a few blocks short in seeking out Sherry Perisho’s killer. One of the most efficient and persistent police departments in the State of Florida, they canvassed the neighborhood door to door, looking for neighbors who might have been witnesses to the carnage inflicted on the popular, harmless resident who lived in her dinghy.

  The canvass stopped when authorities brought in a profiler who narrowed down the suspect as a homeless transient, jobless and having no family. The police brought in every homeless transient and the neighborhood canvassing stopped. What might have happened if they had gone two doors? Would Teri have told them the story about Charlie in the fish-cleaning room covered in blood? Again, nobody will ever know.

  There were always signs with Charlie. Several people referred to “the glazed look” that came over his eyes at times. The first was Angela when he tried to strangle her and she was able to dispel his “glazed, maniacal look.” When the two siblings then went running to neighbors’ homes, knocking frantically on their doors, Angie asking for shelter and Charlie saying he had done “something bad,” the neighbor who opened her door to Charlie remembers “he had the blackest eyes I had ever seen.”

  Bill Jones, Michelle father, referred to that change in Charlie as well. “One time we were having lobsters and he had a glazed look in his eyes. I said, ‘Charlie,
are you okay?’ and he snapped right out of it and said, ‘Oh yeah…yeah’.”

  And what about Michelle Jones? What if she had decided to leave her home on that night when she’d said Teri and Charlie were arguing, and “it wasn’t very pleasant”? She could have gotten into her car and gone to meet Lisa Emmons, the friend who was late. Of course Michelle, who was so careful of her image and protective of her job, would never have gotten into her car if she’d had even a couple of drinks.

  Colleen Maloney met Teri at the University of Southern Mississippi.

  Colleen was one of many young enthusiastic students taking in the fresh atmosphere of college life at the University of Southern Mississippi. Here, she thought, was a chance to finally make something out of independence. New friends and new experiences lay waiting to reveal themselves, like unopened Christmas presents. When unwrapped, one proved to be the best gift of all: a true friend.

  Teri Helfrich was an outgoing, quick-with-a-comeback, lighthearted student who was enjoyed by almost everyone who met her. A mutual friend of Colleen’s roommate led to Colleen and Teri being introduced and becoming best friends; friends who would grow apart geographically, but not personally or, most importantly, at the heart.

  “We got to be friends through one of my roommates, and eventually she became my best friend,” Colleen said about Teri.

  Then a beacon of light known as the Sunshine State called Teri’s name, and she decided to embark on her journey to Florida.

  The career calling baited Colleen in, and she proceeded to successfully fill a position with a local hotel management company that conveniently owned several properties—most importantly, properties that were in Florida. With a free place to stay, Colleen took every opportunity to travel to Daytona Beach and see Teri; one trip provided the message that would change everything.

  Strangely enough, at first it seemed as though there could not be a better piece of personal news. Teri explained how she had met someone who had not only the same interests as her, but also was the most genuine, man she had ever met. Colleen was thrilled for Teri, who seemed to have found the one thing almost everyone yearns for in this life—some-one to spend the rest of her life with. If only at the time Teri had realized that the man known by the name Charlie was only disguising the devil inside him, freely passing out the drug known as deception.

  “Every chance I got to see Teri, I would,” her friend Colleen said. “During one of the trips to Daytona Beach at the time, Teri told me about meeting someone, and it was Charlie. She was on cloud nine. She felt she had finally met someone who had the same interests she did, and he was such a good person.” If only Colleen had known.

  As time passed, Colleen fell deep into a relationship with a man nicknamed “Fish,” which would later build into a marriage in January of 1990. It was during this time (corroborated by Teri’s daily planner) that both Teri and Charlie had traveled to Jackson, Mississippi, to help their good friends, with whom they had spent many happy occasions, celebrate their upcoming marriage. It was during this time that an incident would occur that only years later in hindsight would prove of any relevance.

  The night before Colleen went from being Colleen Maloney to Colleen Maloney Michie, she had thrown her bachelorette party and in an attempt to have a night out of his own, “Fish” Michie decided to take Charlie out to a local bar where he played piano. It was a typical night at the bar. Fish finished playing, and after he’d put away his equipment, the men shared conversations, put back beers, and looked towards both of their prospective futures. A man walked past the crowded space Charlie and Fish were occupying, and while the nudge was minor and unintentional, Charlie reacted. “But when Charlie turned around and looked at my husband,” Colleen said, “something very strange happened, and my husband never reacts like that!” Charlie turned around and sent a soulshivering stab down Fish’s spine.

  Fish remembered that Charlie was kind of loose, since they had both been drinking at Kristo’s, the piano bar where Fish played jazz. “But he wasn’t a belligerent drunk, he was sort of slow,” Colleen’s husband recalls.

  “I remember it was after my gig, and I was packing up my equipment, and Charlie was going to help me, and a guy bumped into him. I saw Charlie turn and look at this guy, and I saw Charlie’s eyes and it was chilling! He had shark eyes! The blackest eyes, without expression. I said, ‘It’s okay, it’s okay.’ He didn’t acknowledge me. When he turned around and looked at that guy, my blood ran cold.”

  The blackness was indeed like looking into the eyes of a great white shark that understood the emotional repercussions of its hunting—what every bite, every tear of flesh, every drop of blood meant as a whole and how that pain and destruction could bring the greatest pleasure to the hunter.

  Years later, when the 48 Hours program was aired, briefly summarizing Charlie Brandt’s life, the producers interviewed the neighbor who had opened the door to the haunted thirteen-year-old after he had “done something bad.” She described this little kid by saying, “He had the blackest eyes I had ever seen!”

  Charlie’s eyes were blue.

  The musician married to one of Teri’s best friends noticed something else about Charlie’s eyes. It was the “glazed look” several people have noticed, but Fish Michie sensed something more. “I thought he was into drugs because he would get a glazed look in his eyes sometimes. Even after a couple of drinks, I felt he got immersed in something. I can’t put my finger on it.” Obviously Fish, with more instinct than most, perceived something sinister, an inner world of perverse imaginings. There can be no doubt that is where Charlie was going, when he turned his gaze inwards.

  Fish remembered another instance that coincided with other stories told by others.

  “We live in Marigold, Mississippi. The weekend I asked Colleen to marry me, Teri and Colleen went shopping at Greenville, which is about thirty miles away. They said they’d be back in an hour. An hour went by and Charlie got nasty, and started pacing around and cursing. Then another hour went by, and he became like a child, whining, ‘Where is Teri? What did Colleen do with Teri?’”

  If Teri was another part of his mask of normalcy, Charlie must have felt exposed, almost naked, like a babe in the woods, when she was not by his side.

  Fish remembered another incident when Charlie became childlike.

  “One time, in the Keys, we grabbed a little fourteen-foot boat to go across to a restaurant. On the way back across, everyone had been drinking and Charlie kept saying, like a kid, ‘We’re not going home, we’re floating out to the Gulf! Where do we live, Teri, where do we live?’ It was entirely too creepy. And now I think, he could have killed me and Colleen that night!” And maybe sometimes Charlie simply regressed and returned back to the night of January 3, 1971.

  Fish remembered how it all was at first, when he began dating Colleen and he met Teri. “Everyone kept saying, ‘You have to meet Charlie, he’s the greatest guy!’ And I thought that for a long time, until that night at Kristo’s when I saw his eyes. Nobody had a clue!”

  Apparently, Fish had more of a clue than anyone else.

  Lisa Emmons, an outspoken, articulate, and attractive blonde and one of Michelle’s best friends, remembers, and she calls it that, “the glazed look.” “I thought it was because he smoked a lot of pot,” Lisa said. It was corroborated that Charlie did smoke marijuana, and also took LSD and other psychedelic drugs. But Lisa had one experience with Charlie she has not forgotten.

  She recalled a club she and Michelle and Charlie and Teri, when they were in town, used to frequent in Central Florida, near Altamonte Springs.

  “There used to be a club at Lake Fairview,” she began. “We were twenty-three years old.” Lisa continued in vivid detail.

  A full moon illuminated the volleyball tournament that had been carrying on from earlier in the afternoon. The shores of Lake Fairview, in Altamonte Springs just outside the heart of Central Florida, were filled with partiers flowing in and out of the doors of “Shooters.” Ther
e was seafood, outside decks, live music, and plenty of alcohol to lubricate the awkwardness of sober social interaction.

  In the midst of this whirlwind of activity was a party of four: Michelle Jones, her friend Lisa Emmons, Teri, and Charlie. Anytime Charlie and Teri had made their way into town from their home down in the Keys, the group would get together at the lake for drinks and for the girls to play catch-up in the conversation department. Charlie never said much.

  “Down the road I saw odd things,” Teri’s college roommate and friend, Colleen Maloney Michie had said. “Charlie wanted to be around Teri so much; he seemed too needy. I don’t know if that’s because she was with me, or an insecurity type of thing.”

  The incident brings back the time when thirteen-year-old Charlie pleaded with his sister, Angela, right after he shot his mother to death and critically wounded his father, “Promise me you won’t leave me!”

  Colleen recalled a particular time.

  “My husband and I were just dating at the time. We would travel with Teri and Charlie to the Keys and they came to Mississippi for our wedding. This time we all traveled to Mexico, to Cozumel. We were at a bar, and Teri went to the restroom. Charlie looked at us and said, very meekly and sadly, ‘I miss Teri.’ I said, ‘Charlie, she’s in the bathroom, get over it!’ I just took that as, he’s different.”

  This is reminiscent of the time when Charlie, age thirteen, asked his older sister Angela, after shooting their mother to death, “Promise me you won’t leave me?” Did Charlie have a fear of abandonment? Did he see Teri more like a sister than a wife? At one point, during that awful night of January 3, 1971, Charlie had tried to kill his sister.

  It is known he was left alone by his father when Herbert remarried and left him in the care of his grandparents, but what happened when he was thirteen and he shot his mother? Was it on account of her pregnancy?