Dark Dreams: Sexual Violence, Homicide And The Criminal Mind
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At DiStefano’s ESU dorm room, searchers might not have found Christine Burgerhof’s clothing, but they did recover abundant evidence of an obsessive attachment to her. From the walls above his bed they seized twenty-four color photos of Chris and Christine together (including the “memorial” of 1990 dance photos), and twelve more from his desk. Between the sheets of his bed was another, oversize photocopied picture of her. Several enlarged photos of the victim’s face also were seized from DiStefano’s Geo.
Perhaps the most amazing artifact the authorities seized was a mammoth secret journal, 2,450 pages long, found in his bedroom at home. DiStefano had begun the journal in December 1984, when he was fifteen. Written in a tiny, cramped script, the journal was a detailed daily record of his life. No fact was too insignificant for inclusion. For example, he made sure to mention on December 21, 1984, that he showered at 6:45 that morning. DiStefano kept lists, such as the dates of every prom he had ever attended and all the times he had gone skating. He even preserved his writing instruments, bundling them and labeling each group with the dates he used them to write in the journal. Parallel with such tame, if peculiar, day-to-day notations, DiStefano maintained an equally meticulous record of his sexual and fantasy life.
In the entry for May 28, 1988, he wrote of dreaming that he’d tied himself up in front of the house, late at night, and was masturbating. Someone discovers him and beats him up. He runs. Kids chase him. The nightmare ends when he awakes in the morning.
On another date he wrote, “Dream I molested girl—around 1/7 plus or minus five days.”
He made note of each time he masturbated (sometimes using the code letters NOT), as well as each time he donned a rubber gas mask, which he referred to as GM in the journal, gagged (“gged”), used duct tape (DT), or engaged in some form of sensory deprivation (SD).
Typical entries of his journal are as follows:
*NOT*OCT.26—EARLY—GMTAPED—TOOK FOREVER!
*NOT*DEC.10—LATE—GGED, NEW GM TAPED—COMFORTABLE.
LEAVE 6:20. TOO CROWDED FOR GM. EARPLLIGS.
STOP IN WASHINGTON,$28 HOTEL.
*NOT* SD. EARPLLIGS/GM/BLINDFOLD. SLEEP BRIEFLY.
>NO HOME TODAY, TAYLOR’S HOTEL, $25. *NOT* OUTSTRETCHED ACROSS BED.
GAGGED/GM. GM KEPT KNOCKING INTO BED FRAME. SLEPT IN CLOTHES.
Bondage was a recurrent theme. On one page he listed twelve different ways to tie a person’s hands; three ways to bind feet; four knots that require two people to tie; six ways to gag someone; and five ways to suffocate them. Under “Things to do to someone who’s tied up,” he included the following measures: suffocation, kisses, tickling, blindfolding, gagging (“hold a one-way conversation”), gently slapping or touching face, unbuttoning her shirt, unzipping her pants, unhooking her bra, mussing her hair, mussing her clothes, writing on her, feeding her candy, and teasing her with food.
DiStefano also obsessively recorded personal bests of all sorts, including his highest bowling score, 185, and “Most girls I’ve gone out with at one time: 4.”
He documented his interest in masochism, too.
LONGEST WITH FEET TIED TOGETHER IN BED WITH LEATHER BELT: 8 HOURS
LONGEST TIME WITH TAPE OVER MOUTH: 1 HOUR, 30 MINUTES
LONGEST TIME WITH HANDS TIED ABOVE HEAD: 1 HOUR, MARCH 7, 1992
LONGEST TIME WITH GAS MASK ON: 2 HOURS. AUG. 12, 1994.
When Lackawanna County’s first assistant district attorney Andy Jarbola first contacted me about the DiStefano prosecution, he asked that I analyze all available materials and address three separate issues: the defendant’s sexually deviant behaviors, his behavior after the murder, and whether I believed the crime scene at the Reflex Center had been staged.
I recommended that the analysis be submitted in three separate reports, one for each of the subject areas. My reasoning was that if the judge disallowed any one of the analyses, it wouldn’t taint the remaining two. During cross-examination at a pretrial hearing, DiStefano’s attorney questioned me on this very point, and I responded, “Of course!” I believe that even the judge smiled at that point. The defense attorney moved on to another area of cross-examination.
DiStefano later waived a jury, so Judge Carlon M. O’Malley would preside at trial and render the verdict.
O’Malley was on the bench in Courtroom 2 of the Lackawanna County Courthouse on November 10, 1998, as Andy Jarbola led me through my hearing testimony.
Addressing the issue of motive, I began by testifying that I believed Christine Burgerhof’s murder was a sexual crime, motivated by anger. I explained that if robbery or burglary was the killer’s original intention, he would not have needed to murder Christine Burgerhof.
Anticipating the defense attorney’s cross-examination, I then noted that even if he killed the victim to prevent her from identifying him, there was no need to transport her body, which greatly increased his risk of capture. If he had meant only to kill the victim, he need not have removed her body at all. If all he meant to accomplish was to delay the body’s discovery, it certainly was unnecessary to remove her clothing. Finally, if he removed her clothing to reduce his chances of being identified through fiber or hair analysis, then positioning of the body was unnecessary.
When a killer transports the victim’s body from the crime scene, I explained, he takes control not only of where (or if) the remains will be found but also how soon and in what condition. Christine Burgerhof’s nudity “certainly is consistent with a sexual crime,” I said.
Also, I pointed out her body’s placement in the parking lot. Because of the locations of the tractor trailer and the Dumpster. Burgerhof’s killer had to carry her a short distance to where she was found. He hadn’t just left her. But why?
The answer is ritual. Sexual killers often do things that aren’t necessary to the commission of their crimes. When this occurs, one possible explanation is that the commission of the crime is insufficient to achieve the offender’s goal of psychosexual gratification.
He may have to add his own special touch. A dead Christine Burgerhof lying naked on her back with her hair arrayed around her, her arms and hands and legs arranged as they were, might not mean anything to others, but it meant a great deal to her killer.
Jarbola then asked me why I thought anger was the motivation for the murder. I testified that a number of factors had led me to that conclusion.
First, Christine Burgerhof was beaten before she was murdered. Dr. Ross, the pathologist, had determined that she had been struck at least twelve times in the face and head. “That in itself suggests anger,” I said.
Second, Dr. Ross said the victim had been strangled manually from the front. “That requires personal contact,” I said. “Frontal manual strangulation is commonly associated with personalized anger.”
Number three, Dr. Ross also noted ligature strangulation, possibly with a pulley rope from an exercise machine at the Reflex Center. That meant Burgerhof was physically assaulted in at least three ways. Moreover, she would have been incapacitated following the manual strangulation. As I saw it, use of the ligature meant he wanted to ensure she was dead. That’s an indication of anger.
Finally, I pointed out the positioning of her body. She was left nude, face up, her genital area exposed, on an open asphalt surface next to a Dumpster in a refuse-littered industrial district parking lot. Contrary to what DiStefano had “speculated” about the killer’s feelings of love and respect, “that suggested to me there was no concern for her dignity. He just put her out there among all of this refuse… grossly exposed, if you will. That again suggests hostility to me.”
Jarbola asked why, in my opinion, there was so little physical evidence at the Reflex Center. I answered that the killer either was in firm emotional control of himself as he committed the crime, or he regained his composure afterward, possibly leaving and then returning to sanitize the crime scene.
Consistent with this, I added, was his decision to strip the victim. “By taking the victim’s clothing,” I t
estified, “you remove the possibility of the police being able to process it for hairs, for fibers, for materials that may have rubbed off the offender and onto the victim’s clothing.”
The killer also could have wanted Burgerhof’s clothing as a trophy.
I said that he appeared organized and probably was not under the influence of liquor or drugs that night. From the care he took he seemed to be of above average intelligence. He might have been experienced at this type of crime. If not, I said he might have given it a great deal of thought prior to committing the crime. By way of comparison, I mentioned Robert LeRoy Anderson’s murders in South Dakota, where I had recently testified.
Next, we turned to the question of staging, which in this context meant arranging the scene and removing evidence. The intention of these actions was to mislead investigators as to why the crime was committed and by whom. A thorough search of the massage parlor revealed no physical or trace evidence of the killer. There were no fingerprints, hairs, or fibers. That is highly unusual and suggests that the responsible person spent time “sanitizing” the scene.
I began my crime-scene analysis with the safe. It had been clumsily and unprofessionally removed from the closet shelf and placed on the massage table, where it was apparently rifled. Wood shelving was still attached to its bottom, and two screwdrivers and a bent coat hanger lay beside it on the table.
There were two possible explanations. One, some unknown third party stumbled onto the murder scene and seized the opportunity to look for valuables. That seemed unlikely because the sort of person who wanders into an unlocked massage parlor after midnight is also the sort of person likely to leave some trace of himself.
The second possibility, far more likely in my view, was that the killer had tried to stage the crime scene as a robbery gone bad. Remember that money and a Caller ID box were missing. If the hypothetical robber took those items, he certainly would have taken Christine Burgerhof’s gold watch and earrings. An office stereo was left untouched as well. An opportunistic thief surely would have taken such items before concerning himself with the Caller ID box or the customer slips. I concluded that the killer took what he did “because possibly there’s something associated with him there, or fingerprints on the money, or possibly his number on the Caller ID.”
My third report dealt with Christopher DeStefano’s sexual deviancy. It was based upon my analysis of the evidence in the case and particularly the material seized from his rooms and car. In the end I recommended that Andy Jarbola not submit this lengthy document. I believed that Judge O’Malley would disallow it as being too prejudicial to the defendant. As with our decision to submit the other two papers separately, I didn’t want to take the risk of tainting all of what I had to say by the likely rejection of one part.
The analysis does provide insights into Christopher DiStefano’s deviant behaviors and is presented here for the readers’ edification.
Sexual Bondage
This is distinct from binding for the purpose of restraining someone’s movements. Sexual bondage involves the psychosexual arousal from the binding and control over another person (sadism) and/or arousal from being bound and controlled by another (masochism). Sexual bondage is identified by unnecessary bindings (i.e., restraints on the thighs, calfs, forearms, upper arms) and/or symmetrical bindings and/or binding the victim in a variety of positions (i.e., wrists to ankles, ankles to neck, suspended by wrists, suspended by ankles, spread-eagled).
Throughout his journal and other writings, DiStefano returned again and again to the theme of sensory deprivation (e.g., hoods, gags) and motor bondage (tying of limbs) both of others and himself. I also noted in my report that handcuffs and adhesive tape (new and used) had been recovered in the searches as well as lengths of rope. Such items are commonly found in the possession of bondage practitioners.
On January 11, 1995, DeSteffano wrote detailed instructions explaining how to fashion leather wrist and ankle restraints. The heading was “Something to Make: Wrist/ankle cuffs.” The same day he also described how to make a “Locking hood.” That Christmas, he wrote a girlfriend: “I really thought that was great that you let me do that to your mouth for 2 hours… I promise that I’ll never hurt you and I’ll un[tie] you whenever you want… I can’t wait to—[tie] you to a b—[bed]. I’ll go crazy!! You’ll turn me on so far you won’t turn me off.”
Masochism
The masochist is sexually aroused by his own suffering and/or humiliation. As with the sadist, he may only fantasize, act out his urges on himself, or he may seek a partner. Male masochists often are fetishists and may also be sadomasochists.
DiStefano’s writings, which show his interest in masochism, include extensive notes on ways to be tied up, his interest in the Internet news group
Fetishism
DiStefano appears to have been sexually attached to at least one inanimate object, his gas mask, an item that is surprisingly common among fetishists. Men frequently masturbate while holding, rubbing, smelling, or looking at their fetish object. In his correspondence to
According to his notes, DiStefano frequently wore his gas mask for two hours or more, most often while masturbating. His attraction to the masks was shown again with a photograph he clipped from the Scranton Times*Tribune, which depicted Japanese soldiers wearing gas masks.
Dangerous Autoeroticism
One form is sexual asphyxiation, the mechanical reduction of oxygen flow to the brain (hypoxia), which can create a sense of euphoria and is sexually stimulating to some people. Practitioners may act out fantasies with elements of torture, abuse, execution, helplessness, and sexual arousal through risk taking. Three deviant behaviors commonly observed among these people are masochism, fetishism, and sexual bondage.
Recovered among Christopher DiStefano’s possessions during the searches were a gas mask with taped air filter, a rubber foam mask for the nose and mouth, and an envelope marked “special stuff,” which contained photographs and printed material on bondage and asphyxiation.
One 5 × 8 color photograph depicted handcuffs, a noose, scissors, pliers, duct tape, a hacksaw, a wrench, a kitchen knife, rubber bands, and some tacks. In another, a hangman’s noose was suspended from a ceiling with a sign affixed to the wall behind it with the word JUMP printed on it. A third photo depicted an unidentified young woman at this same scene. A fourth showed a little stuffed puppy, trussed in silver cord and blindfolded, with PUPPY’S DEAD! printed beneath it in red. The messages DiStefano sent to the
Sexual Sadism
DiStefano’s photo collection definitely included some sexually sadistic elements, as did many of his writings about bindings, gags, and suffocation. Strong sadistic overtones were also clear in the nude pictures of his ex-girlfriend in bondage.
His letters were sometimes graphically abusive. He wrote one girl: “The only thing that bothers me is when you stand on a street corner and spread your legs…. You act like a slut.” A month later, he wrote the same girl: “If you don’t believe me I’ll rape you! You do believe me? Well, I’ll rape you anyway! RAPE!!”
He also clipped and saved a letter published in Ann Landers’s newspaper column in which a woman wrote of being robbed by two youths who bound her hands, feet, and mouth during their crime.
The most extraordinary feature of this decidedly unusual case was the variety of postoffense behaviors DiStefano evinced. It truly seemed that he had immersed himself in the literature of sexual murder and then patterned his actions on what he had read. Put another way, it was as if he’d w
ritten a checklist of behaviors that we look for, and then went down the list, marking off the items as he accomplished them.
One point of my oral testimony at the preliminary hearing was to explain these postoffense behaviors and then let Judge O’Malley draw his own conclusions.
I began with a well-known fact of crime detection: Killers often return to the scene of their crimes. We know from the police report that Christopher DiStefano went to the disposal site and requested access to the precise location where the victim’s body was found. Also, in his confession, he said he did so.
Quoting from Bob Ressler, Ann Burgess, and John Douglas’s study of killers in the book Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives, I told the court that in 32 of the 118 murders the authors surveyed, the killers said they had returned to the scenes of their crimes.
I listed several possible reasons for this behavior:
The subject may have been mentally impaired, drunk, or high at the time of the killing and returns to see if he actually committed the crime. In such cases he rarely removes the body.
The offender may return to sanitize the site, i.e., clean up any possible physical or trace evidence and/or move the body if he hasn’t already done so.
He may return to be near the victim and to relive the crime.
He may be curious to see if the murder has been discovered and whether the police are involved yet.
He may return to determine the progress of the investigation.
He may return to dispose of additional victims he has killed.
I told the court that included among the sexual killers known to have returned to the scenes of their crimes were Ted Bundy, Arthur Shawcross, David Sutcliff (the Yorkshire Ripper), and David Berkowicz, New York’s Son of Sam.
Next, I noted that killers often try to insert themselves into the police investigations of their homicides, as Christopher DiStefano did. Again testifying from Bob, Ann, and John’s data, I told the court that in 24 of their 118 cases, the killer had intentionally become involved in the investigations.