Blood Lust: Portrait of a Serial Sex Killer (27 page)

Chapter 18

The next day, Friday, September 11, Machado
went through a packet of missing person reports that had been sent
over from the Portland Police Bureau. There were several that could
have fit the general descriptions—which were scant at best—of the
Molalla forest victims, but only one stood out among them. The one
that caught his eye was that of a young woman, twenty-six-year-old
Maureen Ann Hodges, who had suffered a broken nose when much
younger. Machado immediately recalled what Dr. Lewman had said
about Body #7 having a nose slightly deviated to the right, likely
the result of an old injury. Machado contacted a member of
Maureen's family to obtain the name of her dentist. He wanted
Maureen's dental records as soon as possible.

In the meantime, Machado and Strovink went to
the Clackamas County Jail to try to interview Dayton. Because of
all the calls that were coming in about his dates with Portland
hookers, the detectives wanted to talk to him more than ever. They
had not previously talked to him about the Molalla forest case, and
so he had not had the opportunity to invoke his rights against
self-incrimination in that investigation. They really didn't expect
him to talk to them, but they had to be able to say that they at
least tried. The interview was set up in an office of the jail.

When Dayton was brought into the office, he
was carrying a manila file folder and a pad of paper. When he saw
the two detectives, even though he hadn't met them previously, he
stiffened and became solemn-faced. He stared hard at both of
them.

"Wait a minute," he said. "Are you guys
police?"

"I'm Detective Jim Strovink, and this is
Detective Mike Machado." Strovink smiled slightly and held out his
hand, but Dayton declined to take it.

"I don't want to talk to you," said Dayton
sternly.

"Is it that you don't want to talk to us, or
is it that your attorney doesn't want you to talk to us?" asked
Strovink.

"My attorney said not to, and I am following
his advice. I don't want to talk to you."

There wasn't any use in pursuing the matter
any further. Dayton had invoked his rights and there was nothing
Strovink and Machado could do about it. Under the law, they
couldn't question him unless he indicated on his own that he wanted
to talk to the police, legally referred to as "initiation after an
invocation." Since Dayton didn't want to talk and clear matters up,
the detectives resigned themselves that they would have to get the
answers the hard way by interviewing witnesses and generating new
leads. The high volume of telephone calls coming into the task
force office helped in that aspect immensely.

One such call from a Multnomah County
sheriff's deputy summoned Turner and Machado once again to the
Justice Center in Portland, where Multnomah County houses most of
its inmates. There were a number of prostitutes in custody there,
they were told, many of whom were talking about a man who called
himself Steve and claimed to be a professional gambler from Nevada.
The man typically offered $40 to $80 for a sexual scenario that
involved bondage, but sometimes offered as much as $150. According
to the girls, he always had his dates completely undress and then
bound their hands and feet at the wrists and ankles with rope, dog
collars, wire, nylon stockings, shoe laces, anything that would
hold their arms and feet securely in place while he tortured and
mutilated them for hours on end. Nearly all of the girls told
Turner and Machado that the fellow had a foot fetish and that he
found their arches sexually arousing. The dates always occurred
inside his pickup truck and included the mixing and drinking of
screwdrivers using vodka in miniature bottles and orange juice in
plastic disposable containers. All of the prostitutes said that the
man masturbated frantically during the lengthy encounters.

One prostitute told Turner and Machado that
the man was endowed with a very large penis. All of the hookers
echoed that he never had intercourse with them, but instead just
manipulated himself.

"You should see that guy," said one
prostitute. "That guy's huge, real huge. Thank God he never fucked
me!"

Another working girl told the two detectives
that she had been working on Union Avenue near Sumner Street when a
man in a Nissan pickup approached her at about 11:30 P.M. on July
11. He said he wanted a date, and she told him it would cost him
$40, to which he agreed. After getting into his truck, they drove
to a nearby Winchell's Donut shop and parked, where she asked him
for the money they had agreed upon.

"'You whore, I'm giving you nothing!'" she
quoted the man. "'I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill all you
whores!' I said, 'Like hell you are.' I then opened the door and
jumped out. He pulled a gun from the waistband area of his body and
fired one shot. The next thing I remember was waking up in a
hospital bed."

Another hooker, Darla Johnson,* thirty-five,
recalled climbing into a light blue pickup near Union and Wygant, a
corner she had sometimes shared with Jenny Smith. It had been in
the winter, during January or February 1987, at about 1:30 in the
morning when the man approached her and asked her for a date.
Wearing a miniskirt and a thin top, Darla was cold and desperately
wanted to get out of the early morning chill. She agreed to go with
him for $50, and he handed her a $50 bill.

While they were driving to a wooded location
that Darla thought was on the way to Salem, the man asked her to
remove her shoes and pantyhose so that he could look at the arches
of her feet. He told her to put her feet up on the dashboard by the
glove compartment so that he could see them better. When she
complied, he reached over and began rubbing them. He began talking
about bondage, which frightened Darla. But they were already on the
highway and there was little she could do to get out of the
situation. Sensing her fear, he had told her not to be scared, that
he always tied his girls up when he took them into the forest.

After reaching their destination in the
woods, Darla was more frightened than ever. She did whatever the
man asked of her, and he soon had her in bondage. He pulled up her
miniskirt and began rubbing her back and buttocks. He then slipped
her panties down and entered her from behind, vaginally. He pulled
out at one point and masturbated to climax, ejaculating on her
back. He then began his biting routine, mainly on Darla's feet and
toes. Although he bit her hard several times, for some reason he
hadn't subjected her to the high level of pain that he had put many
of the other girls through.

Turner and Machado later reasoned that Dayton
hadn't tortured Darla too severely because he had ejaculated and
reached climax early on in their encounter, and Darla hadn't put up
as much resistance and had not shown as much fear as had some of
the others. The investigators reasoned by now, correctly, that
Dayton got off on the fear, that fear was the driving force behind
his sexual frenzies. It was beginning to seem that the girls who
withstood the pain and didn't react were the ones who made it out
of the forest alive.

"Do you know the names of any other girls
this guy has picked up?" asked Machado.

"No."

"What about Jenny Smith?"

"Oh, yeah. I remember a night that I saw him.
I wouldn't get in the truck with him, and he pulled around the
corner and Jenny was on the opposite side of the street. I assumed
he was going toward her, but I had already gotten in the car with
another john and I didn't see if he picked her up. That would have
been about four weeks ago." About the time Jenny was murdered,
reasoned Machado.

"Have you seen Jenny since then?"

"No."

"Are there any other girls you haven't seen
lately?"

"Yeah. Christine Adams. I haven't seen her
out on the street for more than two months. We were real close. She
was my best friend. I've been concerned because she used to come by
or stay with me at my place on Rodney Avenue, and her kids don't
know where she is, either. She's been missing for two or three
months now."

"Anybody else?"

"I knew Lisa."

"You mean Lisa Mock?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. What does Christine look like?"

"She's, uh, heavyset. She has long brown hair
down to her waist, almost. She's got blue eyes. She's Caucasian.
She's about as tall as me. I'm five-six."

"How much do you think she weighs?"

"She was pretty big. She probably weighs
about a hundred and seventy. Maybe a little more." Darla provided
the detectives with the names of Christine's family and where they
could be reached.

When Turner showed Darla a photo of Dayton's
truck, she froze, visibly upset.

"That's the truck, all right," she said.
"I'll never forget it as long as I live."

She also picked Dayton Rogers out of the
photo montage within two seconds. Tears welled up in her eyes as
she said, "That's him, that's him."

One by one, Portland's streetwalkers and
former hookers told their story to Turner and Machado, each nearly
identical. When he would first meet the girls, the man calling
himself Steve always began on a softer note, the first dates plain
and simple, almost always seeming harmless. But by the third date,
each of the girls who hadn't yet been harmed considered Steve a
"regular," and usually didn't object to bondage by the third date
because he hadn't hurt them previously. Slowly, it appeared, he had
built up their confidence and had gained their trust.

One prostitute, who had positively identified
Steve as Dayton Rogers, told Turner and Machado that on her third
and final date with Dayton he pushed her head into the seat of the
pickup and began punching her in the face. The more fear she
displayed, the more aggressive he became.

At one point, after he had her bound, Dayton
stabbed her in the left ankle. In tears, she told the detectives
that Dayton had said he was going to "take off my feet." However,
lights from a passing pickup frightened him and he untied her and
let her go. The hooker told the detectives that she knew Lisa Mock,
whom she had last seen in July. She said she also knew Maureen
Hodges, whom she described as a good friend and last saw on July 2,
and Christine Lotus Adams.

Next, a jailer brought in Lena Hastings,* a
twenty-one-year-old blond, blue-eyed hooker who looked like she was
strung out and in need of a fix. She sat down at the interview
table and began telling Turner and Machado how a man, whom she
promptly identified as Dayton Rogers, had picked her up in July or
August a year earlier in front of a convenience store near 82nd
Avenue and Flavel Street. Dayton's hair had been greasy and slicked
back, parted on one side. It hadn't looked natural, she said, but
Lena never realized then that he might have been trying to disguise
himself. It was about 10 A.M., a beautiful warm summer day when he
pulled up in his truck. Dayton, she said, offered her $80 to go
skinny-dipping with him at Wagon Wheel Park near Molalla. She was
sick and in need of a fix, so she accepted.

They began drinking. Lena, being sick,
thought that getting drunk might ease her pain. She didn't tell
Dayton that she was a heroin addict, and she never protested about
the long drive because he seemed very friendly at first.

"At one point he pulled over and asked me if
I wanted to watch him suck himself off," said Lena. "He said, 'Have
you ever seen a man suck himself off?' He didn't even want to have
sex with me, so I said, 'Well, shit, that oughta be a real trip to
see. I'll watch him do that for that kind of money.' He wanted to
see my feet and he wanted me to get off while he was sucking
himself off. This guy is a real weirdo."

She watched him fellate himself, then they
drove on. All the while Lena had made plans of her own. When they
stopped at the river to go skinny-dipping, she was going to run
back to the truck and steal his wallet. But they hadn't stopped.
They passed on by Wagon Wheel Park and soon turned onto a gravel
road.

"We just kept going and going and going," she
said. "There was a bunch of people by the river, and he just said
that the spot where he was taking me was farther on up the river. I
pointed out spots that I thought looked just fine, but he wouldn't
stop. He kept saying, 'Trust me, trust me. I go deer hunting up
here all the time. I know this really good spot.' All of a sudden
he took a right turn onto a real bumpy road, and the river was off
to the left. When I pointed it out to him, he whipped out a
machete. The biggest knife I ever saw. He held it to my throat and
said, 'Bitch. Shut up. You reach for that door and I'll cut your
fuckin' throat.' Here I am, drunk. You know, I woke up real
quick."

Lena explained that they drove to the top of
a mountain, away from everybody, and parked along a narrow dirt and
gravel road. They were surrounded by trees and tall bushes.

"He took the machete and cut my shirt off. I
could see he was a sadist, into torturing. He said, 'You told me
you liked a little pain, you know. We'll see how you like me. Maybe
you'll like me a lot.' He grabbed my tit and held the knife up to
it like he was going to cut it off. And then he would bite it,
drawing blood. I was in pain. I was scared to death. The whole time
he was doing this he had the machete between my legs and he told
me, 'One false move and it's going up inside of you.'!"

Turner and Machado looked sharply at each
other, but didn't say anything. Lena's story had brought forth a
chilling recollection of how Body #3 had been found, completely cut
open from the vagina to the sternum. They wondered if
that
victim had tried to escape, only to have the machete rammed up
inside her.

"A little later on, he started punching me
between my legs as hard as he could," said Lena. "He tried to shove
his fist up my cunt, but he couldn't get it up there. It hurt like
a motherfucker. And then he started pulling on my clit, and
pinching on it between his thumb and finger. He cut my pubic hairs
off little by little, and cut some of my hair on my head. He wanted
me to scream and holler, but I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't give in
to what he wanted. He hit me in the face and gave me a black
eye.