Drew Peterson's Body Language During Verdict, and Sociopathic Seduction of Women

by Dr. Lillian Glass

When we look back at the trial of serial killer  who received the death sentence, Ted Bundy, it was reported that he showed no emotion.

When we look back at the reaction of Scott Peterson who was convicted to death for killing his wife and unborn baby, we all witness that he had a mask like facial expression and showed no emotion. Now we have seen the same thing with Drew Peterson. As soon as the "guilty" verdict of was read for killing his third wife Kathleen Savio, Drew Peterson showed no emotion.

That lack of emotion is typical of a sociopath’s reaction when found guilty. They detach and tune out as though the situation had nothing to do with them. They may even joke and make light of their situation. Peterson was overheard saying, after hearing the verdict,  “I guess that ruins my Christmas.”

His joke clearly reflects that he feels no remorse for what he did.

Peterson  will be spending the rest of his natural life behind bars where like most sociopaths will insist he did nothing wrong and how it was everyone else’s fault he is in prison. This sociopath will be where he deserves to be so he can no longer seduce, marry,  and harm women who fall prey to him.

He fancies himself  as being irresistible to women. Like many sociopaths, his seductive personality  lured them in. The fact that he was a policeman and considered to be on the right side of the law, initially  made many women feel safe and secure. But once he got  them into his clutches, it was a different story.He became controlling and  abusive.

Thank goodness 24-year-old Christina Raines' father put an end to her engagement with Peterson a few years ago. Her father told the media that Peterson tried to control his daughter and use her to watch his kids.

The young woman’s father was her savior; he went to Peterson’s home with police in tow to collect his daughter, escorting them to and from he home with police units. Peterson, who was  more than twice the young woman’s age, blamed her father and the press for the breakup. In typical sociopath form, Peterson said, "This is what the media always does to me. As soon as the story got out on Chrissy, I knew it would be a problem for us.“

If you listen close enough to what a sociopath says, they often reveal themselves as  Peterson did in his "Nightline" interview years back when  Peterson said, after he was asked about Christina Raines’ family, “I’d be wary of me too.” He also  admitted  when the romance is gone in his relationships he tends to have flings and move on.

Thankfully, his comments sparked a fight between the couple, and Christina Raines returned the engagement ring and a cell phone.

Christina Raines, 24, is still alive. It's unlucky that Stacey Peterson, who is still missing,  was just 17 when the affair began while he was still married to Kathleen Savio. Kathleen was 10 years his junior when he married her. Most of the women he married or went after were  young and petite. These were women  Peterson  felt he had some control over.

I had the opportunity to  briefly see Peterson when I was at CNN. Peterson was there to do the Larry King show and was in the makeup room, where,  according to the makeup artist, he  hit on her. She told me that he stared directly into her eyes and didn't break the gaze as she applied his makeup.

Perhaps Peterson  wanted to see if he could control this curly haired, glasses-wearing,  pierced, short-statured woman with colorful and strange tattoos all over her arms, chest and neck. The eye stare was no doubt  his test to see if he could assert control over  this different-looking woman. Most likely, Peterson has played this staring game with many other women. Those who blinked, turned away, or women he sensed were intimidated  by his stare were the ones, if circumstances allowed, he probably took to the next level of seduction.

Even though Peterson will live out his years behind bars, don’t be surprised if you hear that he has landed another relationship. Unfortunately, there are emotionally disturbed women out there who are attracted to men behind bars and who feel empowered by defending them.  They have the illusion  the criminal  would never do any harm to them because they are special and they have control over the situation, which is only true  when the perpetrator is behind bars.

Little do they realize that sociopaths like Peterson will still be in control as he plays mind games with them in an engaging way with manipulation and emotional abuse, which is  typical of a sociopath like Drew Peterson.

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How to Save Your Daughter's Life

by Pat Brown

There once was a girl who, after having a fight with her boyfriend, left their apartment in a huff. While she as out wandering around, she decided she might as well check a few places to see if there were any jobs available she might apply for. She walked into the local bowling alley and talked with the manager. She filled out an employment form and they chatted. He was cute and sweet, and he asked if she wanted to hang out and go smoke a joint when he went on break. She was in a bad mood, so she said yes.

He directed her to a door that led into an unused area of the building. He said he would slip in through the back and let her in; he didn't want the other employees to see him sneaking out with her. She followed his directions. He let her into the other part of the building, and they sat down just inside on the floor and smoked the weed and chatted. Not so abnormal for a couple of young people (she was just twenty-two and he was about thirty).

After twenty minutes, his break was over, and he told her he had to get back to work. He instructed her to follow him out the back so he wouldn't get caught "playing hooky" with her. He indicated they would need to go down some stairs into the basement and out the back way.

Suddenly, the girl felt something was wrong. She felt the "gift of fear," as security specialist Gavin de Becker would call it. (Becker is the author of the book of that name in which he advises women to pay attention to their gut feelings about danger.) She told the man she wouldn't go out that way, and she stood next to the glass door at the front. 

He looked at her with dead eyes and said, "You think I am going to kill you, don't you?"

She looked straight back at him and said, "Yes, I do."

He let her out the  front door. Whether he did this because he knew she would put up one hell of a fight or because he admired her for being so direct with him, we will never know.

One thing I do know: I am happy to be alive, because that dumb girl who went off to smoke dope with a stranger was me.

(excerpt from How to Save Your Daughter's Life: Straight Talk for Parents from America's Top Criminal Profiler by Pat Brown)

For more on the book, listen to my interview on Elliot in the Morning.

                 

How to Save your Daughter's Life by Pat Brown available now in local bookstores and online at from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.


Included in this book, what parents of teen girls need to know about:

The Early Years
Partying, Drinking, Drugging, Casual Sex (Hooking Up), and Gangs
Date Rape
The Dangers of Social Networking and the Internet
Risky Relationships
Stalkers
Child Predators, Serial Rapists, and Serial Killers
The Sex Trade and Sex Trafficking

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America’s Serial Killers – How Many Are There?

by Diane Dimond

It was a small but horrifying item in the Los Angeles Times. “Police are asking for the public’s help in identifying what they call a ‘serious, dangerous serial killer operating in Orange County. Police believe one person is responsible for stabbing three middle-aged homeless men. He is (considered) extremely dangerous to the public.”

Another serial killer, I thought. And then the question: How many serial killers are out there in America?

John Douglas, a former Chief of the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit and author of “Mind Hunter” says, “A very conservative estimate is that there are between 35-50 active serial killers in the United States” at any given time. Often, Douglas told me, they will, “kill 2-3 victims and then have a “cooling-off” period between kills.”

That period can be days and in some cases (such as the BTK Strangler, Dennis Rader, convicted of killing 10 people from 1974 to 1991) even years.”

But others who study serial killers (defined as someone who kills 3 or more people) think there are many more of these demented predators out there than the FBI admits to – maybe as many as a hundred of them actively operating right now.

Why don’t we know the exact figure? Because serial killers are a secretive and often nomadic bunch.

Right before his execution in January 1989 the widely traveled Ted Bundy, described as a charismatic killer, admitted to 30 murders across half a dozen states – from Washington to Florida.

Andrew Cunanan killed at least five people during his wanderings through Minnesota, Illinois, New Jersey and Florida, including fashion designer Gianni Versace in Miami.

The FBI knows death travels and five years ago it set up the Highway Serial Killings Initiative. The bureau reveals it has “a matrix of more than 600 victims and potential suspects in excess of 275.” Since the bodies were found off major highways top suspects are long-haul truckers who may pick up prey in one state and dump the body several states away.

I know this is disturbing to read and you may wonder, “Why should I care? I’m not going to hitchhike at a truck stop!”

Well, realize lots of serial killers stay close to home and their victims are random. The aforementioned Dennis Rader (left) found all his victims in Kansas not far from the Wichita home he shared with his wife and two kids. Rader, the president of his local church, knocked on his victim’s doors and they simply let him in.

John Wayne Gacy, met many of his 33 victims (all young men and boys) at charity events where he appeared dressed a clown. After luring them to his house and murdering them he stuffed them under his Cook County, Illinois home.

Gary Leon Ridgway, the so-called Green River Killer, was convicted of strangling 49 random women he met in Washington. He confessed to killing 71 but authorities believe the number of victims could be over 90.

Jeffrey Dahmer of Milwaukee admitted to killing and cannibalizing 17 young men and boys before he was arrested. Dahmer’s mother, Joyce, once told me her son wished doctors would come study him in prison to help figure out what drove him to do it.

We who write about crime are told that law enforcement nationwide is doing a better job of communicating with each other about suspected serial killers. Indeed, the item I read about the homeless murders was a milestone. In the past, detectives were loath to tell the public about a serial killer on the loose for fear of spooking people. Now, they’ve come to realize that knowledge is power and citizen’s information can be a huge help in solving crimes.

Hardly a state in the union hasn’t had a serial killer. California, Texas and Florida seem to have more than their fair share. And mass graves have been found all around the country. Two examples: The 11 bodies of young women and an infant found on the isolated West Mesa outside Albuquerque. And, an eerily similar case thousands of miles away in Long Island, New York where authorities unearthed 10 bodies – eight women and a toddler along with a man dressed in women’s clothes.

These are among the serial killer dumping grounds that have been found. Many others may go undetected forever.

The best thing we can do is be vigilant. Know that many victims of serial killers put themselves in harm’s way. Most are women who have some contact with the sex trade or illegal drug underworld and if they have children they are in grave danger too.

Dr. Maurice Godwin has studied serial killers for years and one in-depth analysis of 107 of them revealed important information. Godwin found 55% of serial killers began having trouble in childhood and had criminal juvenile records. 45% had been convicted for a previous sex crime. As with so many criminals it goes back to their early formative years and the best lesson we can learn is that when we find a troubled child we best help them. Failure to do so could result in another serial killer walking among us.

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The Jefferson Davis Parish Killer: A Serial Killer You May Not Have Heard Of

by Stacy Dittrich 

Now, here’s one you probably haven’t heard about. In the realm of serial killers in the news, the Long Island serial killer(s) have seemed to throttle their way to the top of the line in terms of publicity. But, as we know, serial killers are working their way through the United States at any given time. The numbers vary, but 50-80 is a fairly safe bet. Granted, media organizations couldn’t possibly feature all of these, otherwise news of Osama Bin Laden’s death would have been pushed to the back of the blogosphere. Regardless, the serial killer that is terrorizing the small community of Jennings, Jefferson Davis Parish, Louisiana definitely deserves some attention. The JD Killer (I coined that phrase just now; we’ll see if it sticks), has been preying on young women since May, 2005. And, to date, there are eight victims.

Jefferson Davis Parish is an economically depressed area with an estimated 11,000 people. The victims, like in Long Island, were involved in a lifestyle of drug use, prostitution, and ran in the same social circles. In fact, two of the victims, Kristen Elizabeth Gary Lopez, 21, and Brittney Gary, 17, were cousins. Lopez’s remains were found March 18, 2001 (12 days after her disappearance), and Gary didn’t meet the same fate until over a year and half later when her remains were discovered in the grass off of a dirt road on November 15, 2008 (13 days after she first disappeared). In the circumstances surrounding all eight victims, the killer made little attempt to conceal the bodies; instead relying on environmental and animal conditions (for example, alligators) to do the work for him. Some of the victims had their throats slit, others were strangled, some were partially clothed, some were nude, and some were almost completely decomposed.

Here is a list of all eight victims:

May 17, 2005 - Loretta Lynn Chaisson, 28, is last seen. Her body is found in the Grand Marais drainage canal three miles west of state Highway 26, just off La. 1126 three days later. No official cause of death is ever determined, but high levels of alcohol and drugs were found in her body.

June 18, 2005 - The body of Ernestine Marie Daniel Patterson, 29, is found in a canal off La. 102, just six miles away from the location of Chaisson's body. Her death is later ruled as a homicide by a slit throat.

March 6, 2007 - Kristen Elizabeth Gary Lopez, 21, goes missing. Twelve days later her body is found in the Petitjean Canal, ten miles south of Welsh. No official cause of death is determined, but high levels of alcohol and drugs were found in her body.

May 12, 2007 - The body of Whitnei Charlene Dubois, 26, is found just south of Jennings in the same vicinity as the other victims, but on a rural road instead of a canal. The cause of her death was never determined, but high levels of alcohol and drugs were found in her body.

May 27, 2008 - LaConia Shontel "Muggy" Brown, 23, is last seen by her grandmother, hours before her body was found in the middle of East Racca Road near a police shooting range on the edge of Jennings' city limits. She was doused with bleach. Her death is ruled as a homicide by slit throat.

September 11, 2008 - The body of Crystal Shay Benoit Zeno, 24, is found in a dry canal a couple miles southeast of Jennings, but because of the advanced state of decomposition, it took nearly two months to identify her. Her death is ruled a homicide but how she was murdered has not been made public.

November 2, 2008 - Brittney Gary, 17, disappears after walking to a nearby Family Dollar Store to purchase minutes for her cell phone. Gary is known to have done drugs and knew several of the other victims, including her cousin Lopez and best friend Brown. Saturday, November 15, 2008, a family search party finds a Gary in the grass off Keystone Road, a half-mile south of La. 1126 and about four miles south of Roanoke. Her death is ruled as homicide but how she was murdered has not been made public.

August 16, 2009 – Necole Guillory, 27, is believed to be missing. On August 19th JDP law enforcement is notified, at 1:30 pm, about the situation with Necole. By 2:00 pm, the task force is interviewing the person who reported Necole missing. At 2:30 pm, Acadia parish officials are notified that workers weed eating grass on an I-10 embankment had just discovered a dead female. The victim was positively identified on August 20, 2009.

Strangely enough, Jefferson Davis Parish Sheriff Ricky Edwards won’t come out and use the term serial killer in the homicides of the eight women. Why? I’ll save the legal mumbo jumbo and resort to Wikipedia to give the general definition of a serial killer:

"…an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time (a "cooling off period") between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is largely based on psychological gratification. Other sources define the term as "a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone" or, including the vital characteristics, a minimum of at least two murders. Often, a sexual element is involved with the killings, but the FBI states that motives for serial murder include "anger, thrill, financial gain, and attention seeking." The murders may have been attempted or completed in a similar fashion and the victims may have had something in common; for example, occupation, race, appearance, sex, or age group."

All of the women were in their late teens and 20’s, socialized within the same groups, their remains were located in rural areas, and their manner of deaths coincided with one another over a four year period. Sure sounds like a serial killer to me. I highly doubt that in a town that small, eight different people got angry with each of these women and unknowingly murdered and dumped them alike. It just doesn’t happen. I’ve read some media reports that are speculating that Sheriff Edwards is avoiding this term to avoid causing the killer “jubilation and media attention.” I say, “Jubilate and give more attention to the killer than he can stand.” This is where they start to make their mistakes. And, as quickly as you gave the killer attention—cut it off. It will drive him nuts. In fact, Sheriff, he might even write you a letter, or contact the media. No guarantees, but it’s possible. Hiding it and sugar-coating the case clearly isn’t working, and it’s long past time for a new strategy.

There was a strange twist to the case that piqued my interest a little. In December 2007, veteran Jennings Police Department Sgt. Jesse Ewing was arrested by the Louisiana State Police Department for obstruction of justice and malfeasance in office. Ewing was accused of interviewing two female inmates, who asked for him specifically and provided crucial information in the case, and failing to turn the information over to the investigating authorities. He turned the information over to private investigator Kirk Menard instead. Menard was hired by the victims’ families and contends that the reason Ewing gave the information to him was because it contained reference to a high ranking official, and Ewing was hesitant to even give the information to his chief of police. This caused many to speculate that the killer may currently, or has been, involved in the local law enforcement community.

There’s definitely more than meets the eye in the case of the Jefferson Davis Parish serial killer. The victims undoubtedly knew their killer or killers, and acquaintances of the victims most likely know who he is too. Unfortunately, if things don’t progress in this case, they may fall victim themselves before they put two and two together.

Stacy Dittrich will be discussing the case of the Jefferson Davis Parish serial killer on the debut of the new BlogTalk radio show, “Behind the Yellow Tape,” Friday, May 27th at 11 p.m. EST at www.blogtalkradio.com/behindtheyellowtape with host Joey Ortega.

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Cell Phones Are Not All Bad

by Robin Sax

Oprah, I’m sorry. Please don’t think I’m a bad person because of what I’m about to write here.

I have a confession to make. I love my phone, I love technology. and I love being connected, in touch, and up on the latest, even if it causes me stress or overloads my synapses or interferes with a meal here and there. Yep, I’m one of those. You know exactly the type, the ones who are seemingly always texting, tweeting, updating, emailing, and even sometimes talking. Basically, if it involves my phone, count me in.

There are many published articles that criticize cell phones for any number of reasons, with the majority focusing on the same theme that being connected is distracting, dangerous, and even lethal. Not coincidentally, lobbyists, concerned citizens and legislators have rallied around this issue. There is even a zero tolerance time in California, with the state declaring April Distracted Driving Awareness Month, and we all have heard Oprah’s truly wonderful campaign against texting while driving (I signed that pledge).

Let me be clear: I am not here to say that all of these cell phone campaigns are not worthy, but I am also here to embrace the cell phone by taking a moment to celebrate (or LOL) about the anniversary of probably the single-most used piece of technology, the cell phone. Thirty-eight years ago the first public cell phone call was made by a Motorola executive walking on the streets of Manhattan. We’ve come a long way, baby. 

Before I highlight the benefits of cell phones, I must clear up an essential misnomer. Cell phones are not phones. Cell phones are mini-computers, mini-cameras, mini-video recorders, GPS devices, and phones all rolled into one, and that’s the beauty of these devices. Yes, they help connect our worlds, but when it comes to crime, their benefits are even greater.

We know that criminals exploit technology and advance their behaviors as technology advances. Well, folks, cops can too. And it is these benefits that have saved lives, found people and provided essential evidence later on. 

Let’s take a look.

Emergency scenarios: It's not news that cell phones often record key elements and evidence in a life-threatening disaster as well provide a lifeline and assistance in an emergency scenario. Cell phones have played a role in emergency events, from 9-1-1 calls, to young people lost while hiking or rock climbing alone in the mountains.

Crime reportinting/memoralizing: Victims and witnesses who find themselves in a crime scene have been able to use those devices in many ways--instantly calling law enforcement, snapping photos, and utilizing data stored in phones (for example, registration and insurance).

Law enforcement is often able to see the last searches on a suspect’s cell phone, Internet browsers, and can even start to form a criminal profile based on the kinds of apps, games,and searches the suspect uses.

Drug crimes: Phone records, cell phone camera pictures of drugs found as well as “pay and owe lists” stored on a drug dealer’s cell phone provide a veritable treasure trove of information. And it's all kept in one place. Before cell phones, drug dealers usually kept this incriminating information on little slips of paper shoved in wallets.

Missing persons/kidnapping: With these crimes, time is of the essence. Cell phones can let authorities know where people are. The last calls made can determine who was called, where the person was going, and where a ping goes off on a cell phone tower that helps find the location of a victim.

Domestic violence: Secret cell phones allow victims to memorialize their abusers' crimes and eventually leave the abusers. Victims can get cell phones with disposable, non-traceable numbers.

Serial killers: They often like to memorialize their crimes on their cell phone camera leaving law enforcement with ready made evidence.

Sex crimes/child pornography: Cell phones are one of the best ways to corroborate child sexual assault. In addition to porn, phones store text messages and ping locations provide the corroboration that is necessary to prove a sex crimes case. Given that cell phones are used so often by just about everybody, it's nearly impossible for a perp not to lead to a mark in the phone that will lead to eventual corroboration. In addition, child pornographers as collectors often carry and store images with them, thus making it an immediate value a crime scene evidence right there in the phone itself. 

So, while I totally agree with the downsides and problems with the cell phone, please don’t blame the device. Happy anniversary, cell phone. It’s been great working with you. This is truly a relationship that can last, so long as we all do not text and drive.

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'The Bitch made me do It!' Defense

by Pat Brown

You know, if it weren't for all those bitches in the world, we would have a whole lot less crime.

Consider poor Joran van der Sloot. Twice, bitches have messed up his life. First, Natalee Holloway dies on him while trying to force him into sex on the beach (or after falling off a balcony while stupid drunk), and now he is languishing in a South American prison because another bitch, Stephany Flores Ramirez, took her pants off and snooped on his laptop. Geez, what's a guy to do with hos like this in the world? Joran can only hope that the jury will understand his temporary insanity and realize that he only bludgeoned and choked Stephany to death because "The bitch made him do it."

Mayor Marion Barry, the long-serving Washington, D.C. politician, had his career ruined by another bitch, Rasheeda Moore, who enticed him away from his wife to her hotel room and stuck a crack pipe in his mouth. "The bitch set me up," defense didn't work very well for Barry because the jury couldn't get it that Barry was sucked in by this siren. Post-prison, Barry got reelected and the second time he was caught with drugs, his career was dealt a death blow. Apparently, this time the bitch split before the cops showed up and left him high and dry with nobody to blame but himself for getting caught.

Convicted serial rapist, Sammie Lee Nichols, was just a teen when he unfairly got 149 years to life when two bitches took advantage of him on separate occasions, forcing sex on this underage kid. He explained to the jury how he had been a victim of statutory rape. In fact, he was so terrorized by these adult women's sexual assaults on him that he had to hold a gun to their heads during the acts just to protect himself from further harm. I guess, in this case, the bitches did it to him.

One of the hallmarks of a high level of narcissism and psychopathy is not taking responsibility for one's actions and always blaming someone else for one's poor choices or crimes. It is always someone else's fault. Many serial killers have an interesting way of twisting their crimes into a "Bitch made me do it" scenario. "All I was did was knock at her door and when she answered, she got all nasty toward me." Of course, it will be proven later in court that Mr. Handyman was carrying duct tape, rope, and a knife in his tool bag.

Serial killer David Bullock blamed one of his many victims, saying "He started messing with the Christmas tree, telling me how nice the Christmas tree was, so I shot him." He also used "The bitch made me do it" excuse, claiming one of his female victims "laughed in his face," causing him to have to shut her up with a firmly applied pillow over the offending wordhole and a bullet to the mouthy bitch's brain. Sometimes, the victims don't have to do anything except be who they are. Thugs like Daniel Rodriguez and Daniel Aleman, who were charged with a hate crime in the brutal assault of a gay man, simply believe their victims "deserve the beat down."

Women, though, almost always get blamed by the offenders who attack, rape, and kill them. If a woman was walking home from work on an isolated road, jogging alone at dusk, or exiting a bar at closing time into the parking lot, the perpetrators of crimes against them will say she was asking for it; if she had any sense of decency, she wouldn't have been there, and since she wasn't decent, she deserved what she got.

The truth is, when you get caught doing nasty things to defenseless women, pretty much all you have to salve your ego is to tell yourself and everyone else, "The bitch made me do it."

Note: Female offenders also toss blame around to avoid accepting responsibility for their crimes. They may say, if they murder their husband, "The bastard made me do it," and claim he was abusive or that she feared for her life (due to the fact women are more vulnerable in a domestic situation, this can sometimes be true). Women who are part of serial killer teams may claim their partners forced them into it or they fell under his spell. However, women more often than men to claim a psychiatric disorder as an excuse. And, oddly, women are more likely than men to simply tell the truth: it was fun, I was sick of him, I got tired of taking care of the baby, I killed them because my boyfriend didn't want my kids around.

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Risky Business

by Pat Brown

Prostitution is the world's oldest profession and also the most dangerous. Recently, we have had a spate of homicides with victims who put their lives at risk to earn money in the sex trade. Yet, interestingly, the last few times I commented on these homicides, the television shows I was on decided not to report this aspect of these women's lives; the idea is not to lessen the horribleness of the crimes by insinuating that they deserved what they got or that they are less important as victims than a student, a churchwoman, or a middle- or upper-class professional woman.

I can appreciate the concept of presenting a victim of violent crime in a rosier light; she is someone's daughter, sister or mother, and she is loved by her family regardless of her choice of activity. But, it is also a damaging and dangerous concept. Damaging because it can prevent useful information from being offered that might lead to the killer, and dangerous because other women involved in prostitution in a certain jurisdiction might not get the warning they need to avoid being the next victim of a dangerous predator.

Three recent cases I have commented on come to mind.

One is the "Lady in the Suitcase" crime out of East Harlem, New York City. A chilling video of a man dragging a suitcase along the streets of the city has been broadcast repeatedly with the hope someone will recognize the leather-jacketed man who left the suitcase on the sidewalk in front of an apartment building and then just walked away. The name of the victim was known very quickly and not likely because she had her ID on her. Betty Williams, 28, has been arrested some fourteen times in her life. Arrests which include drug involvement, theft, and trespassing. She spent jail time on Rikers Island, which indicates to me she has had a rough life and deals with some tough characters. It would be important to find out whether she has dabbled in prostitution. As it stands, we have no information indicating this, but serious drug users often need to earn money in a hurry. If prostitution is one of Betty's activities, her killer could be a john or not. If she hasn't worked on the streets, then he could be a boyfriend, a drug dealer, or a fellow drug user. The truth will help focus the investigation.

While it is always a possibility that Betty was grabbed off the street by a man who had no connection with her or her activities, it is highly unlikely. The fact that her body was found in the suitcase fully clothed, strangled, and with trauma to the head indicates she was in her killer's apartment and that the crime was not premeditated. Usually when a victim ends up in a piece of luggage, it means the murderer did not plan to kill the victim, which is why he got stuck with a body in his home. Then, he had no way to get the body out of there without being noticed, hence the need for zipping up the victim in a suitcase and toting her down the stairs or elevator and out of his residence.

So, Betty probably knew her killer, and why she might have been in his apartment is very important to figuring out who the perpetrator is. If one wants useful tips, it helps to give people information that will lead them to link someone to the victim or some activity they have in common. Keeping Betty's background a secret is not going to help get justice.

We also have two serial killers on the loose who are clearly targeting prostitutes. One, the "Kensington Strangler," is in the Philadelphia area. Even though the first two victims were both prostitutes, and DNA from the killer matched in both crimes, no warning went out to women working the streets that they could be next. Consequently, a third prostitute became the victim of the same serial killer.

Up in Long Island, a serial killer appears to be getting his victims off of Craigs List's adult service ads. Yet, when I did a TV show on the topic, two of the possible victims were identified, respectively, as a tourist and a local woman. It sounded like some guy was grabbing women off the street as they walked home, or was using some ruse to get them into his car. But this was not accurate. The women were running ads on Craigs List and were going to someone's home to provide their services. Knowing this and getting this information out is crucial in identifying this sexual psychopath and letting women know not to respond to customers in the vicinity of the dump site where four bodies have been found on an isolated beach. Or, at least not to go without letting the john know that his information is being recorded and that the woman is going to have a driver waiting in the car for her.

Not all risky behavior is the reason for women becoming victims, but sex, drugs, and alcohol tend to top the list, and we need to know if these issues are linked to victims so we can catch their killers. We also need to know if they are overly kind, naive, or happy-go-lucky because these not-so-bad behaviors can also put a woman in a situation where she becomes the unlucky victim of a psychopath who catches her in his evil little web. All behaviors are important to recognize in both the victim and the perpetrator; the truth will get someone arrested and put away, hopefully, for good.

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Shirley Winters: Evil or Insane?

by Diane Fanning

Roughly twenty percent of serial killers are women. Of serial arsonists, less then twelve percent are female. Shirley Winters was both.

Over twenty-seven years, she killed four children, attempted to murder a fifth and was responsible for setting eighteen fires. And yet, until recently when I talked to St. Lawrence County Fire Investigator Joe Lacks (below right with K9 Alex), I had never heard of her.

The trail of crime began on September 12, 1979, when Shirley killed her 3-year-old daughter Colleen with blunt force trauma to her head. She also injured her 18-month-old son Johnny and left him for dead. Then she set fire to her parents' cottage in Theresa, New York. John died of smoke inhalation. Shirley was never charged.

On November 21, 1980, she smothered her 5-month-old son Ronald. His death was labeled a case of sudden-death syndrome.

Shirley was arrested for arson in connection with two seperate fires at her mobile home in Otisco, New York, in 1981. She pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of criminal mischief and was sentenced to three years probation and mandated counseling.

The next year, she set a fire that destroyed her mobile home. Again, there was a plea agreement that allowed her to remain free.

On November 12, 1986, a fire broke out in the apartment complex in Marcellus where Shirley lived. She was not considered a suspect at the time, but investigators were not aware of her history.

On that same date in 1989, she set a fire in the basement storage room of the house where she lived. She grabbed her two youngest children, but told 5-year-old Joy to stay in the house. When Shirley ran for help, she said she could not find her older daughter. Fortunately, Joy did not listen to her mother. She was found whimpering on the front porch of the blazing home. Shirley was found "Not guilty" of arson.

Shirley started another blaze on January 6, 1990, in her new home. Custody of her children was awarded to her ex-husband. On March 18, she set another fire in a house she shared with two adults. On September 21, she torched the garage of her aunt's home. On October 5, she set the same place on fire again, this time destroying both the garage and the house. She topped that off the following January by assaulting the officer who arrived to arrest her after she made harassing calls to a neighbor.

In October, 1991, Shirley was sentenced to state prison for one to three years. She remained behind bars until November 1992 when she was released on parole. Except for harassment and larceny charges, her record remained clear until January 17, 1997 when she set a trailer on fire. Then in April, she ignited another blaze in the home of her mother, who had died in an automobile accident two months earlier. This time, Shirley was incarcerated for eight years.

She was the same person after serving time. On November 28, 2006, just three days before little Ryan Rivers would turn 2 years old, Shirley drowned him in the bathtub in the home. He was found flat on his back, fully clothed, in the bathtub. She set fire to a neighbor's trailer on December 31 before her arrest for the homicide of Ryan.

On June 16, 2008, she received a 20-year sentence for Ryan's death. The next day, she received an eight-and-a-half to 25 year sentence for killing her son, Ronald, in 1980. She will be eligible for parole in 2025 when she is 67 years old.

But that's not the whole story of Shirley Winters. Many believe her problems go back to 1966 when she was only 7 years old. She was at her grandmother's house that night when a natural gas leak caused the family home to fill with carbon monoxide fumes. Her 10-year-old brother Peter and her sisters, 4-year-old Liteta and 11-year-old Joyce, died.

After that, her cousins said she would bite, throw things and claw at people with her fingernails. Her classmates called her Squirelly Shirley. She told a psychiatrist that her sexual molestation began after the fire. And the violence escalated.

She was first admitted into a mental health facility in 1978. In all, she has been in psychiatric wards twenty-eight times over thirty years. She's attempted suicide on multiple occasions. She's been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, disassociative disorder, bipolar disorder, psychogenic amnesia, pyromania and, even once, with anti-social personality disorder.

And yet, she was diagnosed and released, sometimes in as little as two days. Shirley was clearly a danger to herself and to others and still she was released to wreak havoc in the lives of others again and again.

Maybe there weren't enough indicators to spare the lives of her own children, Colleen, Johnny (left) and Ronald, but, surely, the signs were obvious before the death of Ryan Rivers. I cannot understand why she was not forcibly committed until, if ever, mental health professionals could affect a change in her illness, outlook and behavior.

With someone as dangerous as Shirley Winters, does it really matter whether she's evil or crazy? The important question is this: How can society be protected from the serial malignant acts of Shirley Winters and others just like her?

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Memories of Murder

by Deborah Blum

When I was a baby reporter - which is how I think of my early days in journalism - I covered the cop-and-court beat for The Macon Telegraph, a medium-sized paper in a rather stately town in middle Georgia.

At least the reputation was for stateliness and deep Southern history which is something one tends to miss when hanging out at the county courthouse, covering the trials of rapists and murderers. My memories of Macon - aside from very late nights at a downtown bar called The Rookery - tend to be like antique paintings, golden oils featuring dark paneling and desperate faces.

I covered one trial involving two men who had abducted and beaten to death two elderly women. The bodies were found in the woods in an adjacent county. The prosecutor brought one of the skulls into the courtroom so that the jurors could see how a blow had caused dents and chips in the bone.

In the courtroom breaks, I'd hang out with the cops, flirting a little maybe, trading crime gossip the way any beat reporter does. And often in those discussions she would come up, the killer to whom all needed to compared, the worst of the Macon killers, whose murderous trail, laid in the 1950s, still left its shadow.

"I've saved all the stories," one detective told me, and he had. He gave me a sheaf of photocopies, dark and smudgy the way they used to be, with the headlines over-black and the face of Anjette Lyles, framed by her silvered hair, shining on the page. He rubbed a finger over that smiling image, the arsenic-loving serial killer.

I used to think I might one day write a book about her, the homicidal woman whose pretty face still charmed the older police officers in Macon. Anjette Donovan Lyles, born 1925, was arrested in 1958 for killing two husbands, a mother-in-law and a nine-year-old daughter. Sentenced to die in the electric chair, she was found insane and sent to the mental hospital for the criminally insane in Milledgeville, Ga., where she worked in the prison cafeteria until she died of heart failure in 1977.

But the book already exists, called Whisper at the Black Candle, published by Georgia true crime writer Jaclyn Weldon White in 1999. It tracks Anjette Donovan through her troubled first marriage to Ben Lyles Jr. (and his mysterious death), her marriage to Buddy Gabbert (his excruciating death plagued by ulcerated sores on his skin and internal bleeding), the death of Lyle's mother, and eventually of Anjette's little daughter, Marcia.

At the time of the last two murders, Anjette was running a successful restaurant in Macon. The deaths of her husbands had not raised any suspicions, but these did, especially her daughter's death. During her trial, it came out that she'd bought her daughter's coffin two weeks before the little girl died from arsenic-spiked lemonade. After the death, Anjette shocked nurses in the hospital by gathering up her daughter's clothes, saying "Well, she won't need these anymore," and throwing them away. Autopsies found the poison in all four bodies.

There was a time, I believe, when every crime reporter, every serial killer historian in Georgia knew the story of Anjette Lyles. I have an old friend, once a staff writer at the Atlanta Journal Constitution, who, as Mary Kay Andrews, writes wonderfully charming Southern comedies of manners. I stayed with her this spring while touring for my latest book, The Poisoner's Handbook. Two former cop reporters hanging out, and old Georgia killers naturally came up. And Ms. Lyles herself, whose photograph once hung on a wall at the AJC.

"Was she all glamorous?" I asked, seeing in my memory that silvery glimmering face.

"She was a crone," my friend replied flatly.

I kind of liked that, actually. It's just right to hear evidence that prison takes a toll on serial poisoners, turns beautiful, amoral women into hags trapped behind stone.

It strikes me, though, that some murderers are made for haunting. The killings I described, the beating deaths of the old women? Sometimes I'm caught back there, in that over-bright courtroom cluttered with tales of death and bits of broken bone. And Anjette Lyles? If you can believe it, someone has created a Facebook page in her memory.

The first creepy thing is that it plays to her glamour girl side. The second, at least for me, is that when I looked the page, the most recent post was about me and my poison book. It startled me to see it there, made me wonder why. But maybe it's just what I said earlier; some murders stay in our memories. Some killers call up the ghosts.

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Here a Serial Killer, There a Serial Killer

by Pat Brown

What is it about serial killers, above all other kinds of criminals, that makes everyone so fascinated with them, and why are they showing up in every piece of fiction? And why is it that most of the time the serial killers aren't even close to what exists in reality?

I know this is my field, and I specialize in serial killers, but really, aren't there any other kinds of murderers and criminals out there in the world? Remember Agatha Christie? She bumped off lots of people, and the killer had other motives and methods that didn't always involve a gruesome sexual homicide.

I have a good reason why I am feeling surly. I decided to take a day off from work and treat myself to an old-fashioned day in the spring sunshine. I settled into a lawn chair in the yard, a bottle of Perrier and a bowl of grapes alongside in the grass, and simply read. I had the Number One book in my lap, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and I felt a pleasant indolence settle into my body as I started into Stieg Larsson's translated-from-Swedish prose. I picked the book for a couple of reasons: it was getting rave reviews as a piece of fine literature, and my quick scan of the first few chapters promised a journey to a small town in Scandinavia and a mystery of a sort that was hidden in a web of journalism, industrialism, and powerful family secrets ... an intrigue that wouldn't involve the typical present-day fare of "naked dead brutalized woman found in field."

It isn't that I can't read a book that includes crimes from my profession but, quite frankly, I was sick of always reading about the same kind of murder. I read The Lovely Bones a bit ago and seen the movie, and the young girl who narrates the story is raped, tortured and murdered by a serial killer right at the outset of the book. Then I read The Shack while I was on vacation in Costa Rica because I had heard it was an inspiring spiritual book. And wham, another serial killer murders someone's daughter, a little girl even younger than the one in The Lovely Bones. I wanted to throw the book into the hotel dumpster, but I carried it home in my luggage and eventually left it in the waiting room of a hospital intensive care unit. Although I didn't go for the message in the book, apparently it helped a lot of people, and I thought someone sitting there with a heavy heart for a loved one might find the book uplifting.

So I wanted a literary book. Something with more to it than another sexual psychopath killing off an unsuspecting female. I didn't want to read about rape and sadism and stranger murder. I thought I had a found an escape with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

(Spoiler ahead!)

The book started out so nicely. It had a complicated assortment of players and one of them, the protagonist, found himself lured to a tiny town, with an interesting collection of residents, where a mystery of some sort was to unfold. A number of readers complained about the mundane descriptions of the food and housing and furnishings. But I rather liked those bits as they took me to another land, developing a cultural picture in my mind that evoked memories of my college days in Copenhagen. Then I got to page 92. The true goal of the puzzle was revealed: the protagonist/journalist was to find out who murdered his employer's granddaughter.

Okay, I wasn't unduly alarmed. Did she discover a family conspiracy to take over the business? Was there a Nazi connection to be discovered in the tidy town? Was there a secret love affair to be kept behind closed doors?

(Spoiler ahead!)

By page 250, my grapes were gone and so was my "innocence." The first disgusting rape scene had been badly digested. I replaced the almost empty sparkling water bottle with a Diet Pepsi. The fruit dish now had cookies on it.

(Big spoiler ahead)

I struggled onward. And then it hit. Page 375. The serial killer showed up. Actually two of them. An incredibly repulsive series of homicides with unsavory biblical connections. The best book in the world (some 24 million books if you include the other two in the trilogy) lost its allure. And then it got stupid. Whereas serial killers are almost always massive financial losers and operate in secrecy, this author turns rich businessmen into a father/son serial killer legacy and allows them to rape the daughter/sister as well to make the story all the nastier. Then ridiculous religious signatures are added to the crime scenes (that none of the detectives ever note and only a teenager and a seriously personality disordered woman pick up on) ... Okay, you have to make fiction more interesting than life. I get it, but I just found the story repulsive and downright silly. I wasted a day off and ruined my diet.

So what is it that causes fiction writers to so often include violent sexual predators as their fictional criminals? How about a good blackmailer, a con artist, a burglar, a kidnapper? How about leaving out the graphic stuff, or is that the whole point? Is that what makes the sales these days? Does a book have to include something gruesome and stomach-turning to be interesting?

I really loved the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. There was a murder in this book as well, but it was a dog, not a human. And our detective was an autistic boy. It was a curious book indeed, and I enjoyed every bit of the mystery to be uncovered.

I might just have to start rereading Nancy Drew, The Dana Girls, and The Hardy Boys. I always loved the puzzle of trying to figure out what pieces fit together and then seeing the picture come clear as the final chapter reveals the answer. Maybe I am still a child at heart but I think adult fiction could benefit by cleaning up its act and giving us a mystery that involves our minds and not just our visceral parts. Or maybe I am just getting old and crotchety. Anyone with a good recommendation of a mystery book or series without all the gore and nasty serial murders? I need another day off with a really good book to take me through it. And I need to get back on my diet.

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