I asked him how this had started. William explained that his collection had begun as recently as September 2000, when an online search for “Richard Ramirez” yielded fan pages devoted to the “Night Stalker” serial killer’s art. William was “instantly amazed.” He’d never known art like this was accessible. He said to himself, “I want that.” When I asked William what he found appealing about Ramirez’s art, he told me he was more transfixed by the rarity of the work than by its quality. William searched for Ramirez’s address, wrote to him, and received a letter in reply. Eventually, Ramirez sent William an original drawing. But even then, William’s curiosity didn’t subside. “So I have met him,” he told me. “I still write to him. I’ve talked to his wife a few times. Once, while visiting another inmate on death row, I saw him just by chance. We waved and exchanged smiley faces; he recognized me pretty quick.”
I wanted to understand William’s impressions of the serial killers he’s befriended, how he feels he can possibly relate to them. He told me, “I could have been hit in the head with a baseball bat when I was eleven, or my mom could have gone through a bad divorce, and my stepfather could have raped me, and these things may have made me so mad that I wouldn’t know any way to vent that anger aside from killing people.” William said he is a victim of his circumstances just as all other people, including men like Richard Ramirez, are victims of theirs. William further clarified that both experience and character constitute a man’s circumstances, and that the former, the latter, or both might drive a man to kill. “A lot of these guys have told me, ‘If I could go back, I wouldn’t have done it.’ Others have said, ‘If I got out [of prison], I’d do it again.’“ While some men kill in response to trauma, others inherently crave bloodshed. William explained that some serial killers are in love with torture and murder, and in some cases with the people they crush with their desires. William knew some killers who’d spent their lives isolated and without friends. In part, their crimes stemmed from the logic that says if they could just abduct a person, they could keep that person long enough for him or her to fall in love with them. “They have this romantic idea of how it’s going to work, then of course it doesn’t, and then they have to kill them.”
In order to routinely communicate with serial killers and collect their art and artifacts, you have to become desensitized to a certain degree. This doesn’t mean, however, that a collector’s friends and family will become desensitized as well. William is used to hearing he will go to Hell for writing to serial killers like Ramirez. People think men like William are sick by association. But William insists there is a point at which his rate and level of understanding hits a plateau: “Do I think it’s going to desensitize me to the point where I really want a feel, or a taste? No, I don’t even eat meat. I have no desire to feel what it’s like to hurt a child, a woman, a man; that’s not what interests me.” It’s the fascinating human connection that appeals to William. He described his first impression of Ramirez: “It was behind glass, there was only a small window actually. I was a little nervous, only because the newness of all of it. He was soft spoken, polite. He seemed very shy and was pretty articulate, actually. Meeting him was very laid back.”
Richard Ramirez was the youngest child born to working class immigrants in El Paso Texas in 1960. Under the influence of a close cousin who murdered his own wife, Ramirez became a high school dropout and drug user. On June 28, 1984, following a routine drug binge, Ramirez broke into the home of seventy-nine-year-old Jennie Vincow and began stabbing her in her sleep. The act of killing aroused Ramirez sexually, and compelled him to commit acts of necrophilia. The killing kick-started a thirteen-month murder spree, for which Ramirez was eventually arrested, charged, tried, convicted of thirteen murder counts and over thirty other felonies, and sentenced to death. His crimes were so vile they traumatized the world. He tortured people in their homes, raped children, mutilated his victims’ bodies, and even kept parts of the corpses as souvenirs. A self-proclaimed Satanist, Ramirez would scrawl pentagrams on the bodies of his victims and on the palms of his hands while he sat in front of the judge in court. Ramirez is recognized as one of America’s most horrific and prolific serial killers. DNA evidence has recently linked Ramirez to the murder of nine-year-old Mei Leung, who was sexually assaulted and killed in the basement of a residential hotel in 1984. William, who is in his thirties, was just a kid when the Ramirez murders headlined national news. Remembering my childhood impressions of Charles Manson, I asked William what he had thought of Ramirez then. William explained that back then he was mostly interested in teen killers like self-proclaimed Satanists Sean Sellers and Richard Kasso. “As a kid, I never really gave [Ramirez] much thought.”
William draws a distinction between himself and other serial killer “collectors” who develop rapport with inmates only to satisfy a temporary or superficial need. Many people lure prisoners into false friendships in order to obtain information for a book or score a piece of artwork. When they get what they need (which often involves breeching an inmate’s trust), they discontinue the relationship and move on to another project, another prisoner. But William made it clear that he isn’t just collecting commodities; he’s collecting pieces of people. “The inmates that I write to, they know that I am going to be there. We’ve had arguments - I’ve gotten into some serious verbal altercations - it’s like any other relationship. Another person might stop, but I value the friendships.” William told me that men in jail are still men. “I’m not saying that they should be released. Some of these guys are guilty; they belong right where they are, but I’m not breaking any rules by showing them a little bit of humanity, showing them what they kind of missed out on.” In terms of the money he could make from his acquisitions, it is clear by the piles of pieces that reach his ceilings that William isn’t capitalizing where he could. “It’s certainly not about money; when you see my collection you understand that. I have a hard time parting with things. I’ve never sold a letter.” William said that when he does decide to part with a painting, he’ll price the piece higher than what he knows will sell. “People say, ‘Why don’t you lower the price?’ It’s because I really don’t want to sell it.”
I asked William when and how he got interested in Manson. He told me that, initially, “It was just a crime interest.” William had been writing inmates convicted of murder all over the country, inmates ranging from the well known to the utterly obscure. Because Manson is the most famous American inmate, William’s interest centered on establishing communication with him. Initially, Manson didn’t write back. It took time, years, for William to compose himself effectively on paper. In 2005, he wrote Manson a letter that explained what kind of person he was, what kind of person his wife was, how they’d been wed with a Satanic ceremony. “I sent him a few pictures of the wedding, and I just told him, ‘If you ever want to talk to somebody, you know, a neighbor, go ahead and drop me a line.’“ Manson wrote back from the hole, and the two exchanged a few letters before Charlie suggested a visit. William credits Manson’s willingness to meet him on his letter writing abilities and his pure intentions. “I mean, I was incarcerated myself, so I know how to write. And, as a matter of fact, I didn’t ask him for anything. I didn’t say, ‘Sign this; I want that.’“
Manson called William in June 2006. Surprisingly, William didn’t know much about Manson’s biography, trial, and conviction before he’d initiated contact. Eager to learn more, he asked Manson which books he should read as part of a crash course. “None of them,” Manson scowled. “They’re all shit.” So William respectfully abandoned the prospect of outside research and decided to let any information about Manson come from Manson himself. “He just became someone I talked to. I didn’t know anything about ATWA, nothing about any of that. All I knew was that the man is highly collectible, and he wanted me to visit.”
William met Manson on September 23, 2006. “I can remember waiting, looking around the room, at the microwave, and then the back door popped open and in
he walked with his cane. He held up his hands like Jesus Christ and stuck his tongue out, then he gave me a nice, firm Indian handshake; we hugged, sat down, and just started talking.”
William couldn’t recall the specifics ofthat initial conversation, only that it was “light-hearted, nothing too serious.” It was an introduction of sorts. “I was checking everything out,” William said, “looking at his hands, his hair, the Swastika tattoo.” Manson liked it when he found out William had done two years in a state prison and told him, “Most of the people that I’ve partnered up with, they may have done a little county jail time, but they never did state jail time like you.” Charlie felt William could understand him better than most of his other outside connections could.
When I asked William about his stint in prison, he was a little reluctant to explain. “You see, most people don’t know that about me,” he frowned. William said he had gotten involved with drugs a long time ago and, well, “shit happens.” When pressed, he explained further, “I’ve been to prison and I’ve been called a bad guy. People have told me, ‘You’re not going to make it.’“ William cited the strength of his family’s support as the reason he was able to escape the sort of situations that land a man on death row. “It could be any of us really; there are people who just get drunk, get in a fight, take someone to the back of the bar and beat them to death.” William insisted a sheer lapse in judgment could earn a life sentence in California “real quick,” at a facility where you’d be stripped naked, abused, and deprived of your possessions. “That was so long ago,” William sighed. He took a moment to reflect before he continued, “It might sound pretty cliche, but I’m pretty much a fine, upstanding citizen these days. I mean I don’t even eat meat.”
I asked William to explain more about his connection to Satanism, and he jumped at the chance to set the record straight. “Satanism isn’t about devil worship and all of that; it is very much aligned with environmental themes.” It angers him to think that some people who call themselves Satanists are not simultaneously vegetarian. William was not only determined to align Satanism with positive and loving values, but he also had criticism for Christianity and other theisms that have misconstrued the essence of Satanism through time. Christianity, William confirmed, is the exact opposite of Satanism, but not in the way most people think. William believes that, while Satanism is “life loving” and “earth loving,” Christianity is about “giving people domain over the Earth, and telling people, ‘Oh, there is nothing to worry about because God has a plan.’“ He told me that Earth isn’t happy under people’s negative influence, that it will go on without us, that, regrettably, the planet would be a better place without humans around. I asked William what kind of being he believed the devil to be. He laughed, “If the devil lived on Earth, I think he’d be living just like I am. I think he’d be wanting to eat good food, I think he’d be wanting to fuck cute girls; he and I would really get along. He’d have good taste in art, in music.”
William explained that, when he eventually began listening to Charlie’s ideas, he realized that a lot of his philosophy aligns with Satanism almost perfectly. Though William had been a practicing Satanist for years, he says Charlie really kicked his lifestyle into gear. “The more I became aware of myself, and the more I listened to Charlie, it just kind ofhit me: I didn’t really care about animals and I didn’t really care about the Earth. I mean, I thought I did, but I didn’t.” At the time, William was eating meat and subconsciously craving a reason to realize his beliefs to their full extent. “I’d had these feelings all along; I just really had to be exposed to them in someone else.”
“We play a lot of chess,” William said ofhis visits with Charlie. “Charlie likes playing chess. He’s whupped me a few times; I’ve whupped him back. We talk about girls. I use to ask him about the girls on the ranch, how they had sex, and which one he liked best. I always thought Leslie Van Houten was kind of cute. He’d tell me, ‘Oh, she was a little bit wild.’“ William has a Salvator Asian, an extraordinarily huge species of lizard. Charlie always checks up on the reptile and routinely encourages William to rent a helicopter and fly his pet out into the wild where, Manson says, it belongs.
William’s descriptions of the Charles Manson he visits paint a picture of someone that’s part man, part mystic. Most times, they will engage in commonplace conversations about things like jail and women, while they distract themselves with games everyone knows how to play, such as chess. Sometimes, though, Charlie will act as though he’s in on information no one else knows. Once, as William was getting ready to leave, Charlie nudged him and said, “You know, we could just walk right out of here.” William protested that the point of jail was to ensure prisoners stayed put, and there was no way the guards would just let Charlie free. “Sure they will,” Charlie smiled. “Nobody will stop us; let’s go.” William continued to deny the opportunity and Charlie just laughed.
William drew an interesting distinction: “The day Charlie went in, time kind of stopped. When I did my time and got out, it felt like two years was nothing. You don’t progress; there’s no conversation. It’s the same thing all day long. With Charlie though, he has always had interaction. There have always been people bringing him the news. They are intelligent people; he picks them. Charlie is a good judge of character because he knows who is going to get stuff done, who is going to be able to help. He’s been burnt a million times, so he knows whom to trust, and in that respect, I think he’s been around, and exposed to a lot of intelligent, and influential people in and of themselves. He made it really clear that he does favors for other people. He says that people come to him; he doesn’t go to them.”
William doesn’t take notes from his visits with Charlie and he records only a few of their phone calls. Theirs is an organic relationship that exists outside of artificial means of documentation.
William told me it was hard to endure Charlie’s presence and a hangover at the same time. During his talks with William, Manson would rave about the Spanish Captain, the Pope, and his five snakes. “He’d get into these rants, and, keep in mind, it would be nine or ten in the morning. I’d have been drinking until one in the morning the night before, I’d be kind of hurt that day.” When Manson goes off, William is just as speechless as I am. “Once he said to me, ‘You think Richard Ramirez is bad? The Night Stalker? I’m as bad as they come; they don’t make them more vicious or rotten than me.’“
I asked William how Manson regards the high demand for his paintings, his signature, everything he has ever owned or created, right down to the tube of toothpaste sitting on the sink in his prison cell. “He was telling me this today,” William said. “He sent me a painting, and when I told him I’d received it he said, ‘I just want you to know, William, I’m a terrible artist; I’m embarrassed to send this stuff out.’“ William reminded Manson of the masses of people waiting in line to buy his artwork. “Well, that’s just because I’m famous,” Manson retorted. “They just want my signature.” William told me he truly enjoys Charlie’s creations, especially the pentagram necklace he treasures above the other items in his collection. But Manson dismisses his ability to create art out of toiletries as proficiency in mere “hobby craft.” William, however, is adamant that Charlie’s artistic talent, the way he breathes new life into the thread he unravels from his standard-issue prison clothes, is truly a gift. “The string art pieces he makes are unreal because of the conditions under which they’re made. They are next to impossible to get, because it’s so hard for him to make that stuff.” William told me about a series of ship sculptures Charlie used to make. “These ships, they were something else. I’ve never been able to find one. I’ve only seen them in pictures.” Manson makes dolls and sculpts scorpions, spiders-anything delicate, intricate, and small scale.
William told me he was scheduled next to visit with Tommy Lynn Sells, “The Coast-to-Coast Killer,” convicted of six sexually motivated killings and suspected of dozens more. According to William, “He’s a real r
ough one, a non-discriminatory ‘man, women, and child killer,’ the kind of madman who would walk into a house, get everyone together, and start killing them.” Sells was a drifter who rode trains and stole cars as he traveled across the entire United States. He claims he committed his first murder at age sixteen, while employed as a ride operator for a traveling carnival. Sells insists he killed “at least” seventy people between the years of 1985 and 1999. He accomplished one of his most horrific attacks in the fall of 1987, when he murdered an entire family in rural Illinois. Sells shot the husband in the head and left him to die in a field. He then made his way into the family’s mobile home, where he beat the man’s pregnant wife and three-year-old son to death with a baseball bat. The fetus of a baby girl was pulled from her mother’s womb sometime during or after the beating. Authorities revealed that the mother had been raped with the same baseball bat used to murder her family. Sells is currently on death row in Texas.
As I talked to William, I was overcome with ethical questions about his relationships. I wanted to know how he got past the reality of what his friends had done, enough to carry on normal conversations. Because looking past a person’s irrational anger, hatred, and brutality is something with which I routinely struggle in my work every day. Some of the people I work with are, for the most part, people that society sees as dirt bags. And if it weren’t my jobto look past my patients’ shortcomings, I might view them in the same, negative light. Some patients-pedophiles, sex offenders, psychopaths-have hurt others so horrifically that it’s difficult for me to overcome my initial impressions of them as people, enough to put myself in a position to help. You truly have to “get past” what disturbs you, suspend judgment, and work with the presenting problem. Conquering the tendency, the temptation to dismiss a person based on his or her behavior is an individual process, so I asked William how he was able to generate empathy for the inmates he has befriended. How, I wanted to know, did he show compassion to someone who has none?
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