Talking with Serial Killers

by Christopher Berry-Dee

  Now, well into his sentence, Arthur was found exhibiting all the welcome behavioural traits of a ‘reformed’ man. He figured that it was better to accept responsibility for the murder of Karen Hill, if only for the benefit of the psychiatrists and, apart from attending the religious services, he wheedled his way into a counsellor’s job in the jail’s mental health unit. While there, he learned the language of psychiatry and psychology and, in doing so, he eventually conned the support of a three-man State Parole Panel, who granted his freedom.

  Arthur Shawcross walked out of the gates of Greenhaven on Tuesday, 28 April 1987. Although, he had been receiving excellent evaluations from one group of experts, their high opinion of his progress was not shared by everyone. A report from senior parole officer, Robert T Kent, noted, ‘At the risk of sounding dramatic, this man could be possibly the most dangerous individual to have been released to this community in years.’ Dr Kent’s assessment was much nearer the mark, but what was the real reason for the release of such a dangerous man as Shawcross? The probable answer lies in politics, and the overcrowding of the entire US penal system. Apart from the federal prison population of approximately 89,000 men and women, New York has the third-highest confinement of inmates in the United States, with around 65,000 being incarcerated at any one time. New York is only beaten by Texas (approx 99,500), and California (approx 123,000). It is, therefore, not surprising to learn that the entire penal system is bursting at the seams.

  Overcrowding is a serious problem, and so are the fiscal issues. New York’s capital expenditure for its system is hammering on the door of $1.2 billion a year, with each inmate costing the taxpayer an average of $53 a day to keep. With these considerations in mind, it is also not surprising to learn that policy dictates that if there is the slightest chance that an inmate is ‘reformed’, then the authorities want him out of prison as soon as possible. With his ranking in the criminal pecking order as a mere first-degree manslaughter felon, Shawcross was simply an innocuous number in the system and, like scores of his murderous ilk, he was released merely to make room for another of the 18,000 new arrivals each year.

  Arthur must have been counting his blessings because he had narrowly escaped a life sentence purely on the basis of economics, costing Jefferson County a potential small fortune if a full-blown murder trial ensued. He had plea-bargained his way into a far lesser sentence and to cap it all, and again for financial reasons, he had engineered an early, and ill-advised, release. These were mistakes that would cost New York State millions of dollars in the years to come but, more seriously, the lives of at least 12 women were sacrificed to bureaucracy.

  * * *

  Shawcross, now 42 years old, grey-haired and bulky, was a dramatic transformation from the strapping ex-serviceman who had entered the penal system 14½ years previously. Divorced for the third time, he walked straight out of the gates into the arms of a pen-friend, Rose Marie Walley.

  His attempts to settle down in a number of communities were thwarted because his murderous reputation dogged his every step. Local law enforcement agencies and the press were not slow to advise their citizens that a murderous paedophile was walking the streets. Eventually, Rose and Arthur settled in Rochester, a cautious, conservative city, sometimes dubbed ‘Smugtown, USA’. Rochester owes its existence to the fast-flowing Genesee River, which Nathaniel Rochester harnessed to power his flour mills in the early nineteenth century. The river tumbles over a cataract that is a smaller version of the Niagara Falls, 80 miles to the west. Then it bores its way through a deep gorge on its way back to Lake Ontario. Despite being affected by industrial pollution, the gorge still provides a leafy sanctuary for anglers and lovers. Arthur Shawcross was one of those attracted by its charms and chose it as an ideal place to fish.

  After staying in a hostel for a short while, Shawcross and Rose Walley set themselves up at 241 Alexander Street, a brown-stone and brick, bubble-fronted apartment just two blocks from Monroe Avenue, one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares. To pay the rent, Rose enrolled as a nurse at the local hospital, while Arthur found work with Fred and Tony Brognia Produce, a vegetable and fruit wholesaler based in the public market, to the south of the city.

  Despite the fact that Arthur was a ‘bullshitter’, he proved to be a good employee. Always on time, or even early for work, he would cycle an hour each way on a ladies-style, blue Schwinn Suburban bike, which had a shallow basket, the Stars and Stripes flag on the handlebars, and two deep baskets straddling the rear wheel, in which to stow his fishing gear. His weekday working hours were between 7.00am and 3.30pm, which left him the evenings to pursue his hobbies and recreation.

  Around this time, Shawcross resumed his old philandering ways. He was enjoying an affair with Clara Neal, a 58-year-old woman who had 10 children and 17 grandchildren. On occasions, he would borrow her cars, either a small, metallic-blue Dodge Omni saloon, or a grey Chevrolet, using them for day outings, or to go fishing; yet he still found time to marry Rose.

  The Brognia brothers soon learned from Arthur that he was a former convict, for he had told Tony that he had served time for murdering a man who had allegedly killed his wife in a hit-and-run accident. Meanwhile, he told Fred that he had been a Mafia hit-man in New York. When the brothers conferred, they quickly realised that their employee’s stories just did not add up. After speaking with a local police officer, who informed them of Arthur’s real criminal past, the Brognia brothers engineered Arthur’s release from their employment.

  He next turned to selling hot dogs on Main Street before landing a permanent job as a salad maker for G & G Food Services which provided catering services to hospitals and schools. Arthur worked nights, being paid $6.25 an hour, and this nocturnal employment regime seemed to be the cue for the onset of Rochester’s reign of terror.

  * * *

  Dorothy ‘Dotise’ Blackburn was the 27-year-old mother of a six-month-old boy and two older children. She was a small-boned woman, with a slender figure, brown eyes and long brown hair. Petite and dainty, she was streetwise, with two convictions for loitering in 1985. She was last seen alive on Tuesday. 15 March 1988, after lunching with her sister at Runcone’s Grill on Lyell Avenue.

  Dotsie’s body was found during the morning of Tuesday, 24 March, floating face-down in Salmon Creek, a stream that meanders through farmland and woods on Rochester’s eastern fringe. A crew of labourers clearing debris and garbage that had clogged a culvert thought they had found a mannequin covered with a layer of silt. They soon realised, however, that they were looking at a woman’s frozen body.

  Her face had distinctive heavy eyebrows, full lips, slightly irregular teeth, and her left eye was shut. She had long, dark hair and wore jeans, a hooded sweatshirt and a single white ‘Soda Pops’ brand sneaker. Her navy top was pulled up from the belt line showing a bare midriff. At the autopsy, the medical examiner determined that she had died as the result of manual strangulation and noted that she had been bitten several times around the clitoris and on the vagina.

  During his interview with me, Shawcross claimed that he had been driving Clara Neal’s Omni, and he admitted that he had killed Dotise at Northampton Park because she had bitten his penis during fellatio.

  ‘She was laughing at me,’ he said, ‘’cos I couldn’t get my pecker up … I slapped her around the head, an’ she bit me. I got madder than Hell. That’s what made me kill her. Then I dumped her clothes in a trash can, cleaned the blood from the seat, and drove home.’

  * * *

  Anna Marie Steffen, aged 27, was an emaciated prostitute who took to the streets to support a drug habit after her paralysed sister died. She was last seen alive walking along Lyell Avenue on Saturday, 9 July. Shawcross met her by the Princess Restaurant in Lake Avenue, and he walked with her to the back of the YMCA. Afterwards, he drove her down to the Driving Park and, during oral sex, he grabbed her throat and strangled her before rolling her body over the edge of the Genesee River gorge.

  Her body was found on Sunday, 11
September 1988, by Hector Maldonado, while he was searching for returnable bottles so that he could buy cigarettes. The victim was lying on her left side curled in a semi-foetal position. A pair of Calvin Klein jeans were pulled down around the ankles and turned inside out. A white tank top with red shoulder straps was wrapped around the right wrist. Police found a pair of blue flip-flops nearby. A hank of hair had been ripped from the skull, and the eyes were missing from their sockets.

  * * *

  Dorothy Keeler was a drifter with an alcohol problem. Despite her distrust of strangers and dislike of men, Dorothy allowed herself to be befriended by Shawcross. She visited his apartment where he employed her as a cleaner and, on Friday, 29 July 1989, with the lie that he wanted to take her fishing, he lured her down to the brushy, five-acre Seth Green Island, where they stripped naked for sex. Afterwards, he accused her of stealing from his home. When she protested and threatened to tell Rose Walley about their affair, Shawcross beat her to death with a piece of wood.

  Three salmon fishermen discovered the body on Saturday, 21 October, describing it as ‘a bunch’a bones in clothes’. The corpse lay in the foetal position. The jeans were unzipped and pulled down. Three pullovers covered an assortment of upper body bones and a rib was fractured. The head was missing because Shawcross had returned to the murder scene to masturbate over the corpse. He had hacked the head from the body and had thrown it into the Genesee River. ‘It floated for a bit,’ he said, ‘sort of swirled around in the current, then it disappeared. Just as I was walking away, it come up again. It sort of looked at me and smiled. Then it was gone.’

  * * *

  Patricia Ives, also known as ‘Crazy Patty’ was a 25-year-old drug-dependent school dropout with a baby boy who had been placed into foster care. The once-attractive woman, who used to bear more that a resemblance to film star Julia Roberts, was now a walking skeleton. A known prostitute with a ragged and unkempt demeanour, she had long, dirty hair, a sliced-bread complexion, and ragged needle marks from her elbows to the backs of her fingers. It was thought that she had AIDS and perhaps herpes.

  A witness who was driving past the corner of Lake and Driving Park at about 7.30pm. on Friday, 29 September 1989, was the last person to see her alive. Later, he told police that he knew her, and that she had been in the company of a white male who was riding a bike with balloon tyres. There were fishing rods protruding from the cycle’s rear baskets. The witness also added that he had watched as the couple climbed through a hole in the fence behind the tennis court of the YMCA.

  Patty was reported missing the following day by her pimp and local burglar boyfriend who delighted in the name ‘Ratface Billy’. Patty’s body was found by children who were hunting for a lost baseball on Friday 27 October. They saw a foot sticking out from a pile of flattened cardboard lying under a large maple tree near the lip of the gorge. The corpse, clothed in black pants and a heavy sweatshirt, lay face up. A wedding ring was missing from her finger, there were no shoes or socks, and maggots had devoured most of her flesh.

  Shawcross said that he had killed her because she went through his wallet. ‘There were children playing nearby,’ he said. ‘I put my hand over her mouth and held her nose. She didn’t struggle, didn’t holler, and didn’t fight.’

  * * *

  June Stott was the youngest of eight children and slightly retarded. She was a shy, homeless woman who heard mysterious voices in her head and had taken to sleeping rough on Lyell Avenue. Aged 30, June wasn’t a hooker or a drug addict, she was just a lost and lonely soul who thought that evil sprits were always chasing her. Shawcross knew her because she had visited his home for dinner a number of times. On Monday, 23 October 1989, he saw her sitting on a bench between Dewey Avenue and Saratosa. He suggested that they went fishing together on the banks of the Genesee River and she accepted.

  Down by the water’s edge, he tried to have sex with her and, when she refused, telling him that she was going to report him to the police, he strangled her. After removing her clothes and dropping them into the river, he drove Clara’s dodge Omni back to her house where he picked up his cycle to ride home. Two days later, he returned to the body and dragged it down into the swaying cattails, where, using a knife he had found in her pocket, he cut open her body from the neck to the anus. Then he gutted her like a large fish, throwing the entrails into the swirling waters.

  On Thursday, 23 November, Mark Stetzel was walking his dog in the northern Rochester suburb of Charlotte and, among the beached, rusting river barges, he noticed an ice-covered object that had been dragged into the reeds. It was a piece of frozen carpet, under which was the badly decomposed body of June Stott. A few feet away was a bloodstained Handi-Wipe cloth. The corpse was face down, but lividity staining showed that she had been rolled over long after death had supervened. The right leg was bent inward at the knee, elevating the buttocks, and thus suggested the possibility of anal intercourse, probably after death. The body was slashed from breastbone to crotch, the vagina was clotted with blood, and the genital lips were missing.

  Shawcross said, ‘I cut the vagina out and ate it. Then I covered her up with the rug, picked up all the excess stuff that was there and threw it in the river, and left.’

  When I asked him why he hadn’t disposed of the body in the river as well, he replied, ‘Well, I kinda liked her.’

  * * *

  Maria Welch had a five-month-old son called Brad, and the 22-year-old woman was described as 5ft 2in in height, weighing about 100lb, with a light complexion, brown eyes and brown hair which she often dyed blonde. She was last seen alive by another hooker near Lyell Avenue, at midnight on Sunday, 5 November 1989. She was reported as missing by her 60-year-old boyfriend, Jim Miller, the following day. He told police that she had been wearing white sneakers, a thigh-length blue jacket, jeans, a purple T-shirt, and she would have had a gold chain around her neck. Her body was tattooed with a unicorn on her forearm, a marijuana leaf and a rose on her left ankle to cover up the name ‘Leo’; a leaf on her right leg near the ankle; and ‘L-O-V-E’ over the knuckles of her left hand.

  Maria’s body was not found until Shawcross was arrested. He told the author that he had picked up Maria at the Marques Restaurant in Lake Avenue.

  ‘We went down that area and parked,’ he said. ‘We sat and talked, for she was cold. Had the heater on high. Gave her $30. She took off her shoes, socks and jeans. Then took off the rest of her clothes. I only unzipped. I asked her if she was on the rag, and she said “No.” But when I put my hand in her, I felt a Cotex and blood. I’ve never done it that way. I asked for my money back, and she told me to go fuck myself. I choked her until she passed out. Had some rope in the car and tied her hands behind her, plus her feet to her hands. I had to take out that Cotex and pushed in a bar towel. She came to, and asked me what I did to her. Then she wanted me to untie her. I was sweating like crazy. Kept wiping my head and face off. I pulled out that bar towel and it was almost clean. Then I mounted her. My sweat dripping into her face. That was when she said “I love you.” I kissed her, then I killed her.’

  * * *

  Francis ‘Franny’ Brown was a 22-year-old drug addict. A mother at 18 with a baby girl, she had been talking with a neighbour shortly before she disappeared on Saturday, 11 November 1989 from the red-light district of Lyell Avenue.

  A fisherman walking down Seth Green Drive found her body at 3.00am, on Wednesday, 15 November. In the early morning light, he thought he had found a tailor’s mannequin. The corpse was naked, except for a pair of white ‘Go-Go’ boots. Shoulder-length hair framed her once-attractive face and her buttocks bore the home-made tattoo ‘KISS OFF’. Her body was decorated with other tattoos including a cross on the right ankle, a wing on the left shoulder, and a butterfly around one wrist. She was in a slightly off-centre kneeling position, and she appeared to be clutching a cement block. The police thought that she may have been thrown over the top of the gorge and had come to rest against a small tree on the ledge.

>   Shawcross explained that they ‘… had sex, 69 oral. She asked me to deep-throat her so I did, but she got carried away. I didn’t pull out so she could breath. She peed in my mouth and I kept pushing. Uncontrolled reaction to doing it that way. She suffocated. I used her also then while she was still warm. Even to kissing her and sucking her tongue and breast. Didn’t have an orgasm. I put my on my clothes and got out of the car. Opened her door and rolled her over the cliff.’

  * * *

  Kimberley Logan, a slightly retarded 30-year-old black mute, was last seen talking to a man answering Arthur’s description near her home on Friday, 15 November. Later in the day, a man called Jimmie James literally stepped on her naked, battered and bruised body, which was partially pushed under his parked RV trailer in a yard in Megis Street. Kim had been strangled to death. Leaves and other matter had been forced into her nose and mouth. Her clothes were neatly folded nearby.

  Shawcross has always denied this murder. However, following my interview with Shawcross, this case has now been closed to the satisfaction of the Rochester Police Department.

  * * *

  During the period of the Rochester murders, it must have seemed like a crime profiler’s dream come true, for clues ran through the homicidal matrix like steel wire. Most of the victims were prostitutes who worked the red-light district of Lake and Lyell Avenues. The women were either strangled or beaten to death, and each was disposed of naked, or partially clothed, around the city, and close to, or immersed in icy cold water. The majority of the victims had vegetation debris stuffed into their ears, nose, anus and vagina. Their clothes were often found neatly folded and close to the corpses, which ranged in decomposition from skeletal to well preserved. In several instances, the body exhibited signs of having been partially eaten by wild animals, or cannibalised by the killer himself.