Kenny
The Making of a Serial Killer
- A Trilogy -
Book 1
Patrick Laughy
Dedication
To the memory of Vancouver Police Service Dog, Duke III.
Acknowledgement
Without Suzy’s help, this book would never have been written. My thanks to Linette and Joe who once again assisted with proofing and editing.
ISBN:978-1-927965-35-1
Copyrighted Material
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, alive or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
- September 1979 -
CHAPTER TWO
- December 1984 –
CHAPTER THREE
- September 1985 –
CHAPTER FOUR
- October 1988 -
CHAPTER FIVE
- July 1989 -
CHAPTER SIX
- March 1990 -
CHAPTER SEVEN
- September 1991 -
CHAPTER EIGHT
- December 1991 -
CHAPTER NINE
- April 1992 -
CHAPTER TEN
- September 1992 -
CHAPTER ELEVEN
- September 1994 –
CHAPTER TWELVE
- May 1995 –
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
- September 1995 -
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
- September 1996 -
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
- September 1997 -
- PREFACE -
This book is a work of fiction.
I write it from the perspective of a cop, because I was one and that has provided me with the experience and credibility to realistically describe both sides of the fictional accounts of the two main characters involved in this story.
This narrative is a description of the making of a serial killer, coupled with the background experience of the cop who eventually brings him to justice.
To help you set the stage for what is about to take place, I think it is only prudent for me to provide you with some basic facts before we begin our tale.
- What is a Serial Killer? –
What motivates him or her to kill again and again? What, if any, are the common denominators found among serial killers?
Serial killers are not the same as, and should not be confused with, people who commit mass murder, which is described as killing numerous people in a single incident. Nor is it the same as spree-killing, where murders are committed in two or more locations over a short time-frame.
Generally-speaking, a serial killer is a person who, suffering from abnormal psychological gratification, murders three or more people, committed as separate events usually, but not always, by a single offender acting alone.
These murders normally take place over a period of more than a month and include significant breaks or cooling off periods in between. The average age of a serial killer at the time of the first killing was just over twenty-seven years and they are typically white males.
Female serial killers are likely to kill husbands, relatives, or people in hospitals or nursing homes where they work. Their murders usually take place in one specific area. Poison is frequently used on the victims; money is often the motive. Male serial killers are more likely to kill strangers. They tend to be geographically mobile, are likely to torture or mutilate when killing, and report having a driving sexual motive.
While the motivation for serial killing can include anger, thrill-seeking, financial gain, and attention seeking, psychological gratification is the usual object of the serial killer. Most serial killings involve sexual contact with the victim.
These murders will often be attempted or carried out in a similar fashion, and the victims frequently share something in common, such as age group, appearance, gender, type or race.
There are exceptions to these tendencies however. There have been examples of serial killers demonstrating extended bouts of sequential killings over periods of weeks or months, escalating, while having no apparent cooling off periods or a significant return to normalcy.
There are several oft found characteristics among serial killers. One of these is the exhibition of a degree of mental illness or psychopathy which can contribute to the killings - psychotic periods, during which the killer believes that he or she is another person, someone who is compelled by other entities, to commit murder.
Psychopathic behavior common to many serial killers can include predatory behavior, the need for control, impulsivity and the absence of feelings of guilt or remorse. It is important to keep in mind that psychopaths can seem normal and often are considered as quite charming.
Serial killers have often been abused by a family member, either emotionally or physically and frequently, sexually. They tend to be more likely to engage in fetishism, partialism or necrophilia and have a strong tendency to experience the object of their erotic interest as a physical representation of the symbolized body.
Many young serial killers display one or more of the following tendencies in their early years: a fascination with setting fires, involvement in sadistic activity with animals, and bed-wetting.
While children, and in early adolescence, they are frequently bullied or isolated socially. Some will become active in petty crimes and have trouble as young adults in seeking and keeping a job. A serial killer is no different from any other individual in seeking approval from parents, sexual partners and their peers, as a child.
In early life, having a loving, supportive and nurturing family or lack thereof, is of utmost importance. Interaction with family plays an important role in a child's growth and development and is what they identify with on a regular basis. The quality of their attachments to parents and other members of the family is critical to the future way these individuals will interact with and value other members of society.
The need for approval influences children to attempt to develop social relationships with their family and peers. If they are rejected or neglected, they cannot achieve this end. This failure results in the lowering of their self-esteem and can lead to the creation of a fantasy world in which they are in control.
Early trauma, followed by contributing factors such as the use of pornography, alcohol or drugs, serves to fortify this situation. It is common for a serial killer to come from a family which has experienced divorce, separation, or the lack of one or both parents.
Additionally, many serial killers have experienced emotional neglect and some type of physical or sexual abuse. If a child receives no support from those around him or her, then he or she is unlikely to recover successfully from an earlier traumatic event.
Children who do not have the physical or mental strength to control the mistreatment they suffer often create a new reality to which they can escape. This new reality, one of pure fantasy, then becomes their method of total control and becomes part of their daily existence. From that point on, it is from within the confines of this fantasy world that their emotional development is guided and maintained.
In this sociopathic state, the child fails to develop the normal concepts of right and wrong and the ability to experience empathy towards others is arrested. Safely ensconced and self-centered he resides in his/her own little dream world, in which they can do no wrong. The pain of others is of no consequence. Only the needs of one person, that of the child, matters. It is a haven in which the child has complete control, leaving only an outer shell that walks through the real world, a world to which he or she has no desire to commit.
In every sense of the word, the chi
ld is then emotionally isolated within those safe fantasies.
A head injury or some form of brain pathology is often a predisposing factor in the development of a serial killer. This will often occur if the individual in question has responded in a negative way to the traumatization while in the formative years, experiencing low self-esteem and developing increasingly violent fantasies.
Traumatic experiences and feelings from the past can be dissociated from conscious feelings, and the adult offender often expands an altered state of consciousness by using facilitators, such as alcohol, pornography, or drugs.
Eventually he or she commits murder as a way of regaining control and in so doing feels reinforced on a short-term basis, before low self-esteem reasserts itself. Shortly thereafter, the divisions between fantasy and reality are lost and when that occurs, the fantasy existence can begin to morph, leading to a need to assert dominance and continue the act of serial killing.
Do not forget however, that, as adults they may well appear as normal, part of a regular family and gainfully employed.
There are several psychological phases in the development of serial killers.
The initial phase consists of a withdrawal from reality and a heightening of the senses. This phase may last anywhere from a few moments to several months and will likely begin as a prolonged fantasy. During this time, the killer may attempt to medicate himself with alcohol or drugs.
In the next phase, the killer begins to act, identifying and stalking his first victim. This is followed shortly thereafter by the killer working at gaining the confidence of a victim in preparation to trapping that target.
The next step is for the killer to render the victim helpless, therein allowing for a reversal of the roles in a ritual re-enactment of the disastrous experiences of the killer's childhood. Now, finally in complete control, the killer savors his retribution.
The high from this is short-lived. Dead, the victim no longer represents what the killer thought he or she represented. Conversely, the horrific memories of the individual or individuals who previously tortured the serial killer in the past, remain.
For the most part serial killers fall into two main categories - organized or disorganized.
Organized serial killers usually have social and interpersonal skills that allow them to develop both personal and romantic relationships. They have friends and lovers and often a spouse and children and tend to plan their crimes methodically. They often abduct their victims and then murder them in one place before disposing of the bodies elsewhere. They usually have a fair knowledge of forensics and tend to sustain a high degree of control over their crime scenes.
Organized serial killers believe that they are smarter than the authorities and will have no difficulty in getting away with their crimes. To them the entire exercise becomes a game of cat and mouse, a game which they firmly imagine they can win. This type follows the media coverage of his or her acts, taking pride in their accomplishments.
Disorganized serial killers are normally far more impulsive. They often commit their murders with whatever weapon is at hand at the time and usually make no attempt to conceal the body. This type is likely to have a history of mental illness, be either under-employed or unemployed and very likely a loner, with very few, if any, real friends.
The motivation for their crimes can vary widely. An examination of some of these variations is worth consideration. For example, so called ‘Visionary Serial Killers’ suffer from psychotic breaks with reality. During these breaks, they may believe they are another person or are compelled to kill by superior entities like the Devil, or God.
‘Mission-oriented Serial Killers’ are generally not psychotic. They justify their acts as necessary to rid society of certain types of individuals that they believe to be undesirable. They target specific groups, for example homosexuals or prostitutes.
The motive for ‘Lust Serial Killers’ is primarily sexual in nature. The lust may be satisfied with either a living or dead victim, and fantasy plays a major part in their murders. The level of sexual gratification achieved will depend on the amount of torture and mutilation they perform on their targets. These serial killers have a psychological need to have absolute control. Usually their victims are strangers. They must dominate and be all powerful over their victims. The infliction of torture and ultimate death is required to satisfy their need. These killers generally use their bare hands or sharp instruments to do the job. They relish close contact with their victims and the time between killings often decreases while the required level of stimulation required to fulfil their need often increases with each kill.
The primary motive of a ‘Thrill Killer’ is to induce pain or terror in their victims. They seek the rush provided by hunting and killing victims and murder only for the kill. Their attack is usually swift and has no sexual aspect. They can abstain from killing for long periods of time while tending to become more successful at killing over time.
Beginning in 1979, this novel is set in the west coast city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
It contains a factual depiction of one of the so-called prostitution ‘Strolls’ located in Vancouver.
There are several of these strolls, enough to satisfy most of sexual appetites one finds in large cities. There is the ‘high track’ stroll on Seymour Street. It is upscale and operated by pimps and organized crime, unlike the ‘low track’ stroll on the Downtown East side where you will find women who will turn a trick for the price of their next fix.
For different appetites, there is the ‘kiddie stroll’ located on Commercial Drive, which is stocked with runaway girls as young as twelve working the sex trade and ‘boy's town’, situated at the foot of Homer Street, which caters to men who are looking for sex with teenage males.
There are approximately two thousand prostitutes working the combined strolls of Vancouver.
Those involved in the sex trade are likely to be targeted by a serial killer for several reasons.
Firstly, they are usually individuals who come from the bottom end of our society. Often these people have been forced by poverty, sexual abuse, alienation at home, bullying at school, and drug addiction, into the dead-end life of the sex-trade worker.
Unlike regular members of our society, the disappearance of one of these individuals is not treated, by either society in general or police, as being that surprising. If one of them goes missing it seems to all concerned that this should be expected, that it is ‘par-for-the-course’. They are rarely in regular touch with either family or friends, anyone who would be alarmed should they go missing.
Therefore, when they do go missing, it doesn’t ring the same alarm bells with law enforcement officials that it would if it happened to you.
After all, under those conditions, people move on; life is like that on the streets.
Serial killers pick up on stuff like that. I mean, if you are thinking of killing people, you can’t find a safer hunting ground than that of the sex workers, from which to choose your victims.
In Canada, the Criminal Code was changed in 1986 to make it illegal to communicate in public for buying or selling sexual services. Hence the existence of the strolls. Now those interested in partaking no longer must search out a hooker; they just drive to a specific stroll location and help themselves to take-out.
Now, let’s step back a little in time and, armed with this basic understanding of the complexities of what makes a serial killer, and a clear concept of the stroll situation in Vancouver, we’ll follow one of these monsters from birth to the point where he is fully involved in his grizzly crimes.
Concurrently, we’ll experience the life of the cop who is destined to become the central figure in the effort to successfully bring the serial killer’s crimes to an end.
Before we begin I will also warn you that the novel begins sedately enough, but as it progresses it is not a story for the faint of heart.
You are headed for an adventure into the dark side.
CHAPT
ER ONE
- September 1979 -
When he came into the world, Kenneth Jacob Simpson wasn’t necessarily predestined to be a serial killer. However, over time, he was to morph into one of the worst in Canadian history.
He was born to Karen Anne and Phillip Richard Simpson on September the first of 1979.
He had a big sister named Leanne. She was two when they brought Kenneth home.
His parents were prosperous and he found himself warmly welcomed into a nurturing and privileged existence. His mom and dad called him Kenny.
For the first few months, his sister called him ‘Kemmy’. As she got older, she learned how to say it right.
His grandpa on his mother’s side of the family had passed away from a heart attack a year and a half before Kenny was born. That left him with two Grammas and one Grandpa. All three of them doted on both him and Leanne.
The grandparents all came from old money.
Kenny’s dad was an engineer and he owned a company that did contract work, mostly for the government. They lived in West Vancouver, an upper-class suburb of Vancouver, in a large house on several acres situated high up on a mountain ridge overlooking the city.
They had a big in-ground swimming pool, cabanas, stables, a riding ring and a tennis court within the fenced confines of the well-landscaped property.
His mother didn’t work but she spent a good deal of her time involved with various charities and society events, as well as regularly playing tennis and riding horses. He and Leanne had a nanny. The family also had a full-time combination cook and housekeeper who supervised an outside cleaning staff, gardeners and a pool boy, who each spent two days per week keeping the family estate in pristine condition.
By his first birthday, Kenny had a full head of blond hair, a round and endearing face accented with bright blue, inquiring eyes. Otherwise he was of average intellect and looks. Nothing about him stood out especially. He appeared to function and act just like any other little boy.
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