by Ian Brady
One may believe in the existence of ultimate truth along with the conviction that no human being will ever discover it. In which case, I believe our lives are better governed by moral relativism, a system of comparative truths and ethical agnosticism.
My personal concept or definition of intelligence is dexterity; eclectic versatility. The polymathic ability to juggle multiple concepts, and the associations or synapses existing between them.
I’ve known academics who were intellectually constipated with knowledge. A concept is simply a string of words, the bare bones, a hypothesis, which, if believed in, should then be taken under personal ownership and expanded into whatever avenues of action the belief indicates. In short, you must breathe life into the idea or philosophy, creating an organic structure.
My personal image of the being or ‘soul’ is that of a kaleidoscopic sphere at our centre, its periphery forever changing and adapting to additional knowledge and experience, but held together by a core or gravitation of central beliefs by which all else is influenced and governed. It is essentially an elitist principle. Those who have neither the will nor desire to become ‘unconditional,’ must perforce continue to function only on the periphery of the kaleidoscope of those who do possess such qualities. There will always be people to take care of them, one way or another.
A priest who goes to work in a leper colony enjoys a personal sense and reputation of self-sacrifice. But the fact that he chose to go, that it satisfies him to go, that he knows he will be admired for going, demonstrates that his decision is not really self-sacrificial.
We all, consciously or subconsciously, choose whatever satisfies us, therefore the good or bad that develops from the choice is secondary, part of the give and take of life, its pretences and realities. We are what we believe; we live what we believe. All else is marginal and neither to our debit or credit — though it is human nature to always claim credit for altruistic spin-offs which were not consciously intended in the first instance.
The elasticity of morality can be further advanced by the use of auto-hypnosis, the aim of which is, by a process of self-analysis and systematic conditioning, to detect our weaknesses and strengths, culling the former and reinforcing the latter. In a civilised situation, our strengths may be seen as our weaknesses; in a ‘law of the jungle’ situation, the reverse may apply. We adapt to suit our circumstances and aims. Therefore it is essentially a technique of self-survival.
The ability to change psychic gears fast reflects a superiority beyond transient moral codes.
From a personal viewpoint, it seems quite palpable that most people are prone to believe that, as they have never been in prison, they are not ‘criminals’; never been in a mental institution, they are therefore ‘sane.’ This illustrates a form of mass folie à deux cultivated and encouraged by social control. In which case, the majority of you have scant reason to feel morally or intellectually superior to the ‘criminal’ in any way. Quite the reverse.
Barring inadequates, as already intimated, those who have had first-hand experience at the hands of the law possess a more empirical intelligence, coupled with an instinctive grasp of moral relativism, than the majority of the population, who for the most part stroll through life in a deliberately structured haze of complacency. There are some secrets we intentionally conceal even from ourselves, not least the ones enjoyed in darkness, the domain where we most naturally become ourselves and feel vitally alive.
In some people, guilt may primarily spring not from committing an illegal or immoral act but from conscious or subconscious enjoyment of others committing it. In much the same manner as you are enjoying reading about acts of lust and murder at this very moment, drawn irresistibly to it despite, and in some cases because of, the artificial respectability and morality you are constrained to observe and subconsciously despise and resent. And why not?
You crave to be fully alive, taste the reality of experience — reading of crime being the most popular of all modern recreations. The mass media know only too well how such key words as ‘scandalous,’ ‘horrific,’ ‘shocking,’ ‘appalling,’ ‘chilling,’ ‘perverted,’ ‘revolting,’ etc., attract the ‘law-abiding’ like bees to honey. Appetite for forbidden pleasures is understandably voracious, though few will formally admit it and have myriad ready excuses to rationalise their attraction to the morbid.
God give me chastity and continency — but not yet!
— St. Augustine
The mere fact that, for the moment, you have been able to maintain a moral façade longer than those who languish in captivity, can hardly be proclaimed as moral superiority. Simply because someone possesses a stronger propensity for self-delusion, a heightened sense of self-survival, a need for social approbation, a lack of nerve and fear of penalty, a difference in taste, etc., is hardly a basis for moral self-aggrandizement.
Therefore, it would be wise to master the humble art of qualification; it will soften the blow when you slip, as so many eventually and gratifyingly do.
The sky is darkening like a stain;
Something is going to fall like rain,
And it won’t be flowers.
— W.H. Auden (1907–1973)
The anonymous Hillside killers began to slide into a predictable trap of their own devising, comprised of a pincer movement: overconfidence and lust. Their psychosexual needs were increasing in direct ratio to degree of success. This was an encouraging development from the point of view of their pursuers, although it would entail immediate temporary drawbacks prestige-wise as the victims mounted.
Seven more victims, six bearing the unmistakable M.O. of the Hillside Stranglers, were claimed in rapid succession in the month of November, 1977.
However, there were reasonable doubts in the minds of the Los Angeles police that one of the seven additional victims, seventeen-year-old Kathleen Robinson, having been found fully clothed, unlike all the other previous victims, had perhaps not been murdered by the Hillside Stranglers but by a copycat, helping himself to an ego-trip slice of the hysterical publicity generated by the media. In tandem with this possible intrusive entry of a third opportunistic serial killer, the Hillside Stranglers themselves were about to undergo a change in appetite, indicating their palates had eventually become jaded with prostitute fare and craved a more tender form of prey.
On Sunday, 20th November, another three naked victims were found discarded in one of the city’s several garbage disposal sites. But this time two of the victims were missing schoolgirls, fourteen-year-old Sonja Johnson and twelve-year-old Dollie Cepeda.
The fact that both girls had disappeared on the evening of the previous Sunday was also further alarming indication of the escalating psychosexual demands of the two killers. As with all previous victims, both of the schoolgirls had been raped and sodomised.
The third victim found on the rubbish dump was eventually identified by police as twenty-year-old Kristina Weckler, an art student who had been reported missing in the Glendale district of the city — the same area where earlier victim Lissa Kastin had been dumped on the slopes of the Chevy Chase Country Club.
Presumably the police would by then have been treating Glendale as a secondary target for special surveillance; their prime target should already have been the area where the very first two victims of the Hillside Stranglers were found, not far from Glendale.
Careful examination of a map indicating the disposal pattern of the corpses would, accurately interpreted, strongly suggest the probable base from which the killers were setting forth on their hunting expeditions.
After the all-important subconscious errors forced upon the killers by the novelty of their hazardous recreation, it was likely that they would belatedly adopt diversionary tactics designed to camouflage the position of their base. But if the police possessed the art to read such strategy in reverse, like an ill-conceived ploy in an elaborate game of chess, that too could betray the location the killers were trying to conceal. In this particular aspect of the game the ki
llers were disadvantaged, being under the pressure of knowing that one mistake could lead to capture.
Conversely, if the killers were cool and intelligent enough to double-guess the police, cover up their initial errors and successfully disguise their ploys, they could retain the initiative and lead the police in a merry dance. The location chosen by the killers to dump their next victim, in some shrubbery by the side of the Golden State Freeway, could well have been just such a ploy.
The police discovered the body on 23rd November and identified it as being that of a twenty-eight-year-old student named Jane King who had been reported missing on 9th November. But the killers then reverted to their normal pattern, discarding the body of their tenth and final November victim, eighteen-year-old student Lauren Wagner, in shrubbery on Cliff Drive, Glendale.
She was discovered on 29th November, her parents having reported her missing only the night before. This time the autopsy examination revealed curious burn marks on the palms of the victim’s hands, signifying that she had been tortured prior to being killed. The nature of the burns puzzled the police pathologists, the skin having retained no trace of ash or other residue to indicate how they had been inflicted.
The killers, or perhaps one of them, had now graduated to the realm of sophisticated, overt sadism, the run-of-the-mill variety inflicted by vaginal and anal rape having obviously palled by repetition. The police would have to wait until the next victim was discovered to determine whether this baffling new method of torture had found favour with the killers, thus leaving another helpful crime signature.
The police used the media in a negative, counterproductive sense, obtaining their agreement not to tell the public that the so-called ‘Hillside Strangler’ murders were in fact being committed by two men, not one. What the LAPD expected to gain from this feeble strategy — apart from making it simpler for them to weed out cranks falsely confessing to the murders for instant fame — is difficult to discern.
It is always more sensible to overestimate your opponent, thus retaining the initiative, keeping sophisticated ploys in reserve until sufficient information is gathered to estimate the intelligence of the protagonist, whose observed behaviour, conscious or subconscious, eventually reflects his personality. Only then will you be in a position to estimate his strengths and, more important, weaknesses, enabling you to employ affective proactive methods to best effect.
Axiomatically, the roles of hunter and prey are reversible; the killer may also be observing and estimating the police chiefs in the same manner, perhaps even researching their backgrounds, and using proactive ploys to which their history makes them readily susceptible.
Theoretically, in the context of covert manipulation and applied stress/distraction, anything the police chiefs can do, the killer can do better: he, after all, has the potentially major advantage of knowing the identity of his enemy, their degree of intelligence, methods previously used, and their background, including family and friends.
Even though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective . . . When you are going to attack nearby, make it look as if you are going to go a long way; when you are going to attack far away, make it look as if you are going just a short distance . . . Draw them in with the prospect of gain, take them by confusion.
— The Art of War, Sun Tzu
Fear and panic were by now spreading throughout Los Angeles, fanned not least by media sensationalism, murder being the most valuable commodity of all to newspapers and television companies; the bloodier the mayhem, the better. One might almost conclude that, if murderers did not exist, the enterprising media would rush to incite or invent some at the behest of their shareholders.
The Los Angeles Police Department, going through the usual high-profile motions to reassure the public, set up a Special Task Force which included the investigating officers from the Glendale Police Department and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s office. Not that they had anything new to go on, but all the busy commotion and news conferences looked good on television and attracted the usual spate of witnesses or cranks who claimed to have seen the mythical ‘Hillside Strangler.’
Again, by keeping the public unaware that two killers were involved, what good were witnesses who were looking for and thought they had seen only one suspicious individual who might be the ‘Hillside Strangler’? Perhaps witnesses who had seen two suspicious men in a car, conceivably the actual two killers themselves, would not regard the matter as being of any significance or worth reporting to the police.
As luck would have it, the police did get a crucial lead — by courtesy of the killers themselves, whose apparent immunity had imperceptibly fostered arrogance and sloppiness, as predicted. But, against all reason, the police failed to realise the importance of the eyewitness account.
In the early hours of the morning when Lauren Wagner had disappeared, it transpired that one witness had actually seen her abducted.
By a stroke of misfortune, the killers had unknowingly chosen to strike directly outside her home and had brought her car to a halt in front of a house across from hers. The elderly occupant of the house, Beulah Stofer, roused by her dog barking, looked out of the window to see what was amiss. She immediately noticed that Lauren Wagner’s car had for some reason parked outside her house rather than the Wagner household, and that the car door was open with the interior light shining. Close beside Lauren Wagner’s car was another vehicle, a large dark-coloured sedan sporting a white top, and two men were arguing with Lauren Wagner.
Beulah Stofer maintained that she had not been near enough to hear what was being said or furnish a detailed description of the two men involved, but she did admit seeing Lauren Wagner reluctantly enter the dark sedan with the two men and being driven off.
The incident should have galvanised the police into action immediately, as it was the sort of lucky break they had been hoping for: a witness who had seen two men, not one. But, amazing as it seems, they did nothing at all.
The police inactivity was soon to become even more incredible.
A few hours after seeing Beulah Stofer, the detectives received a telephone call from her, in an obvious state of distress, urgently asking to see them again. When they arrived back at her house, she told them she had just received a call from a man who had first asked her if she was the lady with the dog. When she answered that she was, the man warned her that she had better keep quiet and tell the police nothing or he would kill her.
To the astonishment of the detectives, she was now able to furnish them with descriptions of the two men she had seen take Lauren Wagner away.
She described the older of the two men as being of Latin appearance with dark curly hair. The younger man had been taller, with pockmarks on his face and neck. When the detectives wondered why she had not been able to tell them all this earlier, she became evasive and flustered.
Quite obviously she had been ashamed to admit that she had been much nearer to the two men than she had at first admitted. In fact, considering the length of her driveway and the quality of light, to observe the descriptive details she now recounted she must have left the house and gone down her driveway to investigate what was taking place. This was confirmed when the detectives belatedly checked that she could not have seen anything from her front window as originally claimed.
The second major error the killers made was the telephone threat because (a) deadly fear makes people unpredictable; (b) they were as good as signalling to both her and the police that they were the killers, and that she could identify them in a lineup. It would have been more astute of them to remain silent, or kill her. They should also have calculated that, if she had already given detectives their detailed descriptions, the police could be guarding her house and tapping her phone.
In the actual event, the killers would have been profoundly relieved and jubilant had they known that the police had totally missed the significance of the witness’ testimony and were doing nothing at all other than floundering ar
ound as baffled as ever.
The uncertainty of the potentially catastrophic incident had obviously worried the killers.
In contrast to their former speedy rate of kills, they waited two whole weeks before gathering sufficient confidence to strike again. And this time they also changed their methodology to what they thought was a safer approach. But their enforced, ad hoc change of tactics for increased security had precisely the opposite effect, as such knee-jerk responses invariably do. It resulted in them furnishing the police with further important clues.
On 14th December, a call-girl agency, ‘Climax,’ received a telephone call from a man requesting that they send one of their girls to him at the Tamarind Apartments in Hollywood. He particularly specified that he wanted a blonde in black underwear. For this service he was prepared to pay in cash the sum of $150.
Background noises made the Climax telephonist suspect he was calling from a public telephone booth and she asked for the telephone number of his apartment. The caller glibly convinced her that he was calling from the pay-phone area of the apartment building to obviate the call being intercepted at the switchboard as he was a married man.
Subsequent police investigations discovered that the call had in fact been made from a telephone booth in the Hollywood public library.
The Climax agency sent a seventeen-year-old prostitute, Kimberley Diane Martin, to the Tamarind Apartments. On 14th December, her naked body was found discarded in a disused lot near the City Hall. Police forensics confirmed she was another ‘Hillside Strangler’ victim.
Detectives immediately interviewed all occupants at the Tamarind Apartments. One helpful apartment-holder, Kenneth Bianchi, a personable young Latino, helpfully volunteered that he had heard screams coming from somewhere within the apartment building but had assumed it was a domestic dispute of some sort.
