Dark Dreams: Sexual Violence, Homicide And The Criminal Mind (8 page)

I think another, more subtle, motive may lie behind this practice, too—particularly among those who record their crimes in text, photos, or tapes. Mike DeBardeleben is an illustrative example.

Counterfeiter and Killer

DeBardeleben was brought to justice in May of 1983 by U.S. Secret Service agents, who pursued him across the United States as a counterfeiter. He was one of the most successful, and artful, lone wolf forgers that the U.S. government has ever encountered. Only after his apprehension was it discovered that DeBardeleben was also a kidnapper, rapist, bank robber, murderer, and a dozen other types of felon.

Because so many of his crimes were sexually aberrant, the Secret Service asked me to consult on the case. In that capacity I reviewed DeBardeleben’s work product—to my knowledge, the most detailed and extensive self-documentation by any sexual sadist since the Marquis de Sade. From bloody underwear to audio tapes to sheaves and sheaves of notes, DeBardeleben saved it all.

As I reviewed the photos he had taken of his victims, I noticed one series showing a young female being forced to fellate him while on her knees. Seen in the photos was yet another set of pictures scattered around DeBardeleben’s feet. These shots depicted an earlier victim being forced to perform the same act on him in exactly the same position.

I was mystified, unable to figure out DeBardeleben’s intent or what significance the photos on the floor held for him. I considered that he might have used those pictures to batter his victim psychologically or perhaps as a visual example of what he wanted her to do.

Both theories were reasonable. From listening to his audio tapes of other crimes, I knew that he gave precise verbal instructions to his victims, and that he enjoyed verbally battering them.

Still, these answers weren’t entirely satisfying.

I turned the question over in my mind for quite some time until one day at home, while I was writing out my monthly checks, the answer suddenly struck me. DeBardeleben was using the pictures to critique his criminal interaction with the victim! A compulsive perfectionist, he was looking for possible ways to improve on his attempts to bring his fantasies to reality. Just as a SWAT team always meets after an exercise to critique its performance, or a football team reviews game films, DeBardeleben was conducting a comparative analysis of his sexual assaults!

Yet reality can never fulfill fantasy’s expectations. Why? Because fantasy is always perfect. Mike DeBardeleben surely recognized this but was not deterred. He was determined to make the criminal act conform as closely to his deviant fantasy as possible.

“They’ll Never Catch Me!”

Another reason why ritualistic sexual offenders like to keep records is what you might call “the bulletproof syndrome.” As a narcissist, the serial sexual offender simply doesn’t believe the authorities will ever apprehend him, so he doesn’t fear capture or discovery of his records. Johnstone, the cartoon case criminal, was an example of this attitude.

When I have the opportunity to interview one of these men, I always ask if the death penalty would have deterred him from his crime. Without exception, he’ll say no. I asked one rapist why, and he responded by asking me a series of questions.

Had I ever skipped school?

Yes.

Did I know in advance that I would be punished if caught?

Yes.

Then why did I do it?

Because I didn’t think I would be caught, I said.

There you go, he said.

Extreme narcissism leads the criminal to the belief that he is superior to everyone in general, and to law enforcement in particular. He considers himself invulnerable to identification and arrest. Even if he did consider the possibility of arrest, the offender typically becomes so focused on acting out his fantasies that the question of detection becomes immaterial. Billy Lee Chadd, whom you’ll soon get to know, became so emotionally involved in one of his crimes that he could easily have been overpowered by the victim.

Law enforcement should be deeply grateful for the narcissistic personality disorder; it is the serial sexual offender’s Achilles’ heel. You can almost take for granted that after a while the bulletproof syndrome will set in, and he will begin to take unnecessary risks. Boredom will push him in search of the bigger jolt he gets from pushing the envelope, risking more.

Don’t confuse such outrageous behavior with a hidden wish to be caught. Ted Bundy, for example, was arrested three times during his killing career. On each occasion he was drunk or high and was driving erratically late at night in an unfamiliar neighborhood. You might expect that someone as intelligent as Bundy would make a mistake like that only once, at most.

In my view Bundy wasn’t inviting capture, either subconsciously or consciously. He meant to stay free, he wanted to keep killing, but his narcissistic ego prevented him from correctly perceiving the peril of his behavior.

The authorities who arrested him in Florida had no idea that Bundy (already infamous throughout the West) had murdered the sleeping coeds in Tallahassee and the twelve-year-old child in Lake City. He was headed from Florida to Houston and could have easily reached his destination had he not been drinking and driving erratically on the streets of Pensacola. This behavior led to his recapture. If not for this classic narcissist’s misstep, Bundy would have gone on to kill again.

I don’t believe any aberrant offender ever wants to be caught, even subconsciously. I do believe that some honestly are appalled at their behavior and sincerely would like to stop what they are doing. Some offenders have told me that they were scared by their violent fantasies and behavior, but I have never met an offender who said that he wanted to be caught.

One sadistic serial rapist, Jon Simonis in Louisiana, did tell me he was glad he was caught before he committed murder, which he feared he would soon do because “rape was becoming boring.” He wasn’t bothered by the crimes he had committed so far, and he certainly did not want to be locked up or punished for them. He just didn’t want to kill.

Psychopaths

Perhaps the most frightening personality disorder is that of the psychopath. Professionally, the condition is known as
antisocial personality disorder (APD)
. This term has replaced
psychopath
in the modern psychiatric lexicon, just as psychopath once replaced
sociopath
. In earlier times, people in this category were called “morally insane” or simply “evil.”

Psychopaths do not feel remorse or shame, guilt or appropriate fear. They do not learn from punishment. They are easily bored. They like excitement. They find it difficult to delay gratification, no matter where their self-interest may lie.

In a classic (though not scientifically validated) test of psychopathy, the subject is told he can have a quarter now or a five-dollar bill tomorrow. The psychopath always takes the quick two-bits.

Psychopaths are chronic liars, even when they have no need or reason to lie. They have no understanding of, or concern for, the harm they cause others.

I once asked a psychopath what he thought about love.

“Intellectually I understand the concept,” he said, “but I have never experienced it.”

This man had raped and tortured more than fifty women across twelve states. Two of his victims, devout Christians, visited him in prison, hoping to bring their attacker to Jesus. I asked him if he felt it was healthy for the women to continue calling on him.

“Probably not,” he answered, “but it sure is good for my ego.” Typically, his own gratification was his only concern.

“A Normal, Easy-Going Guy”

Sexual serial killers, for all their depredations, remain rare among criminals. Rarer still is the opportunity to review their most private records, which are their most prized possessions and are usually well hidden.

In the course of my work as a behavioral investigator, I’ve been given access to the innermost thoughts and fantasies of a wide number of these criminals. One example stands out because the offender, Billy Lee Chadd, wrote an extremely detailed account of his crimes and fantasies after he was captured.

Chadd, who originally meant the manuscript to be published—he hoped to make money with it—appears to have embellished his accounts in places, according to Mike Pent, the California deputy district attorney who prosecuted him. Nevertheless, Chadd has provided us an intimate window on his mind. Without such documents, we would know far less than we do about these bizarre and extremely dangerous men.

Billy Lee Chadd, a native San Diegan, husband and father, described himself as a “normal, easy-going guy.” Eventually, he claimed to have killed scores of people. In his manuscript the number is just four. Mike Pent says his office was able to confirm three.

Chadd’s first confirmed homicide, committed at age twenty, was the 1974 rape-murder of a thirty-year-old San Diego woman. She was found lying in bed on her stomach. Her hands and feet were bound with window sash cord, and she had been blindfolded with a towel. The young woman had been violently raped vaginally, anally, and orally. Chadd also strangled her and used a steak knife to stab her repeatedly in the neck.

In his clinical, emotionless confession, Chadd said he went to the first murder victim’s residence intending only to burglarize it. Inside, however, he confronted her as she emerged from her tub, naked and wet, and became aroused.

From his confession it might appear that Billy Lee Chadd was an
opportunistic rapist
, a term I use to describe a man who arrives intent on committing one crime, usually robbery, but seizes the opportunity to commit another—rape.

But Chadd was also a sexual sadist who left nothing to chance. He took the woman to the bedroom and raped her. Afterward, realizing that she could identify him, he decided to kill her. That is the essence of his confession.

As an investigator, I would have been happy to obtain such a straightforward admission of guilt. It meant that the case was closed and Billy Lee Chadd would be taken off the streets for a long, long time.

But then came a twist. In jail Chadd handwrote a manuscript that he titled “Dark Secrets.” Its contents certainly merit the title.

When “Dark Secrets” came into my possession, I prevailed upon my wife-to-be, Peggy Driver, to type the manuscript. She presented me with fifty-seven pages of appalling typescript, double spaced. The fact that she later married me, despite the assignment I had pressed on her, attests to Peggy’s selfless nature.

Self-Portrait of a Killer

“Dark Secrets” is Chadd’s intimate reflection on his crimes and why he committed them. Portions of the text are graphic. Throughout the document, Chadd casts himself in the most positive light possible. His intelligence is evident, as is his belief that he is essentially normal. In both regards, he is an archetypal ritualistic offender.

He says he led “a double life,” a husband and father who nevertheless had this little problem—a violent streak toward women. He rationalizes his behavior by noting that he came from a broken home. Both his mother and stepfather were alcoholics. From the time he was eight, Chadd writes, he can remember very few times his mother was out of bed before noon. Friends taught him how to steal at an early age. He boasts that by age eleven he could drive a car, and that he stole them “quite frequently,” without suffering any serious legal consequences.

At age fifteen Chadd fell in love with his future wife, with whom he says he “began having sex when I was sixteen… We made love almost daily until July of my 16th year. Then all hell broke loose in my life.”

Chadd describes his first real trouble with the law, a rape case, as a miscarriage of justice. This is the aberrant offender’s familiar pattern of blame projection. It’s always someone else’s fault.

One midnight, he writes, a visiting friend, drunk and also high on drugs, announced that he wanted to go across the street to rob a house. Chadd claims he stayed in his friend’s truck, only to be awakened some hours later by flashlights and voices. It was the police, and he was under arrest. According to Chadd, he could not have committed the crime because of his unspecified physical abnormality, which the victim could not help but notice had he been her attacker. Yet she made no mention of it in her testimony. Chadd’s attorney apparently refused to pursue the matter. “I even told him to ask these questions. I wasted my breath. I was found guilty on her testimony and a partial footprint found in her driveway…. I was sentenced to two years.”

Chadd escaped from the California Youth Authority (CYA) on two occasions. The second time, he writes, he “really did” rape someone.

A subsequent sexual assault begins with a random knock on a door. “Bad luck for the poor lady that she was home. I told her our car had broken down and I asked if she would let me use her phone. If she would have said no and closed the door, nothing may have ever happened to her. She did say no, but she then explained that her husband was at work and she never let strangers in when she was alone. ALONE.”

Chadd returns to the house, breaks through the front door with a brick, and discovers the woman in her bathroom. He grabs her by her hair. She begins to scream. He puts a knife to her throat as he drags her back to a bedroom and tells her to shut up or he’ll kill her. “When we got to the bedroom, I just shoved her down on the bed and threw up her housecoat. I tried to cut her panties off but my knife wasn’t sharp enough… I pulled her panties off and pulled down my Levi’s and got on her… she just laid there. So I told her to start moving or I’d hurt her….

“Up till that night, I had balled quite a bit but I had never experienced such sexual pleasure. I was completely overcome with passion. I dropped my knife… I even lost my vision for a few seconds. I collapsed on her and I was so spent I couldn’t even move. Had she only known my condition, she could have picked up the knife and stabbed me and I couldn’t have done anything to stop her…

“I told her to stay on the bed and I left the house… Later that night, I thought about the rape and I decided it wasn’t bad at all. And I knew I would do it again.”