Journey into Darkness (2 page)

Finally, as always, we want to thank all of John’s colleagues at Quantico, particularly Roy Hazelwood, Steve Mardigian, Gregg McCrary, Jud Ray, and Jim Wright. They will always be valued pioneers, explorers, and esteemed fellow travelers on the journey into darkness and back out again.

—J
OHN
D
OUGLAS AND
M
ARK
O
LSHAKER
,
October 1996

Prologue: In the Mind of a Killer

1
Journey into Darkness

2
The Motive Behind the Murder

3
Candy from Strangers

4
Is Nothing Sacred?

5
For the Children

6
Fighting Back

7
Sue Blue

8
Death of a Marine

9
The Passion of Jack and Trudy Collins

10
The Blood of the Lambs

11
Have They Got the Wrong Man?

12
Murder on South Bundy Drive

13
Crime and Punishment

Index

Either man’s freedom of decision for or against God, as well as for or against man, must be recognized, or else religion is a delusion, and education is an illusion. Freedom is presupposed by both; otherwise they are misconceived. Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness.

—VIKTOR E. FRANKL,
Man’s Search for Meaning

“The Simple Art of Murder” Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.

—RAYMOND CHANDLER,

JOURNEY
INTO
DARKNESS

This isn’t the Hollywood version. It isn’t sanitized or prettied up or rendered into “art.” This is the way it really happens. If anything, it’s worse than the way I describe it.

As I had so many times before, I put myself in the mind of the killer.

I don’t know who she’s gonna be, but I’m ready to kill someone. Right now.

My wife’s left me alone for the whole evening, gone out to a Tupperware party with her girlfriends rather than spending the time with me. It probably doesn’t matter all that much; we’ve been fighting all the time anyway and we’d been fighting all day. Still, it’s depressing and I’m sick and tired of being treated that way. Maybe she’s really out seeing other men like my first wife’d done. She got hers, though—ended up face-down in the bathtub gagging on her own puke. Served her right for the way she treated me. Our two kids ended up with my folks; that’s another thing pisses me off—like I wasn’t good enough to take care of them anymore.

I sit around watching TV for a while by myself, drinking beer, a couple of six-packs, then a fifth of wine. But I still feel bad. I keep sinking lower. I need more beer or something else to drink. What’s it now—9:00, 9:30 maybe—I get up and drive to the mini-mart near the commissary and get
another six-pack of Moose Head. Then I drive down to Armour Road and just sit there drinking the beer, trying to sort things out in my own mind.

The longer I’m sitting here, the more depressed I’m getting. I’m here alone, living on the base as a dependent to my own wife, they’re all her friends, no friends of my own, don’t even have my kids. I was in the Navy myself, you know, and thought it was gonna work out, but it didn’t. Now it’s just one dead-end job after another. I don’t know what I’m gonna do. Maybe I should just go on home and wait, then have it out with her when she comes back, get some things settled. It’s all running through my head at the same time. I’d really like to have someone to talk to right now, but there isn’t anyone around. Hell, I don’t know anyone to tell my problems to, anyhow.

It’s dark all around. It’s starting to feel … kind of inviting. I feel one with the night. The dark makes me anonymous. The dark makes me omnipotent.

I’m over on the north side of the base, parked on the side of the road, still drinking beer, just past the buffalo pens when I see her. Shit, those buffaloes get better treatment than I do.

She’s just crossed from one side of the road to the other. She’s jogging on the side of the road, all by herself, even though it’s already dark out. She’s tall and really good-looking, about twenty, I’d say, with long brownish blond hair hanging in a braid. Her forehead glistens with sweat in the moonlight. Yep, very pretty. She has on a red T-shirt with the Marine emblem in gold on the front and little red shorts that show off her ass real nice and make her legs look like they go on forever. Not an ounce of fat on her. Those Marine women keep themselves in real great shape. All that exercise and drilling. Not like the ones in the Navy. They could whip an ordinary man’s ass if given half the chance.

I watch her for a few moments, her boobs bouncing up and down with the rhythm of her run. I’m thinking about getting out to run with her, maybe strike up a conversation. But I know I’m not near in the shape she’s in. Besides, I’m dead fucking drunk. So maybe I pull up in the car, offer her a ride back to her barracks or something, get her to talk to me that way.

But then I’m thinking to myself, what’s she gonna go with someone like me for when she’s probably doing those hotshot Marines? Girl like that thinks she’s too good to give my type the time of day. No matter what I say, she’s gonna blow me off. And I been blown off enough for one day already. I been blown off enough for one lifetime.

Well, I’m not putting up with any of that bullshit anymore—not tonight, anyway. Whatever I want, I’m just gonna take; that’s the only way you get anything in this world. Bitch is gonna have to deal with me whether she likes it or not.

I start up the car and pull alongside her. I lean across to the passenger window and call out, “’Scuse me! Do you know how far it is back to the other side of the base?”

She doesn’t seem scared or nothing—I guess ’cause of the base sticker on the car, plus the fact that she probably thinks she can take care of herself, being a Marine and all.

She stops, comes over to the car real trusting like, breathing a little heavy. She leans in the passenger side and points back and says it’s about three miles. Then she smiles real pretty and turns back to jog some more.

I know this is my only chance with her—another second and she’ll be gone. So I open the door, jump out, and run up behind her. I whack her real hard from behind and she goes sprawling. Then I grab her. She kinda gasps as she realizes what’s happening and tries to get away from me. But even though she’s tall and strong for a girl, I’m nearly a foot taller than her and have to have more than a hundred pounds on her. I hold on to her and whack her on the side of the head as hard as I can, which must make her see stars. Even so, she still puts up one hell of a fight, tries to beat the shit out of me to get away. She’s gonna pay for that, all right; no bitch is gonna treat me that way.

“Don’t touch me! Get away!” she’s screaming. I have to practically smother her to get her over close to the car. I whack her again, which makes her wobbly on her feet, then I grab her and put her in the car on the passenger side.

Just then, I see two men who’ve been jogging run up toward the car and they’re shouting. So I gun the engine and get the hell out of Dodge.

I know I have to get off the base; that is the first thing.
So I head down the road toward the gate near the base theater; that’s the only one that’s open this time of night. I know because it was the one I came in. I prop her up in the seat next to me to look like she’s my date. Her head’s resting on my shoulder, real romantic like. In the darkness it must be working because the guard doesn’t even react, just passes us through.

We’re out on Navy Road when she starts coming to and begins screaming again; she threatens to call the cops if I don’t let her go.

No one talks to me that way. It’s not about what she wants anymore; it’s about what I want. I’m fucking in control, not her. So I take a hand off the wheel and backhand her hard across the face. That quiets her down.

I know I can’t bring her home. My old lady could be back by now. What am I gonna do—explain that this is what I really should be doing to her? I need somewhere me and this new bitch can be alone; that we won’t be disturbed. I need to go somewhere I feel comfortable. Somewhere I know. Somewhere I know I can do what I have to, where no one’ll interrupt us. I got an idea.

I drive down to the end of the road and turn right into the park—Edmund Orgill Park, it’s called. I think she might be starting to wake up again, so I whack her good across the side of the head. I drive past the basketball courts, past the rest rooms and stuff toward the other end of the park, near the lake. I stop the car near the bank and turn off the motor. Now we’re all alone.

I grab her by the shirt and yank her out of the car. She’s sort of half-conscious, moaning. There’s a cut around her eye and blood coming from her nose and mouth. I get her away from the car and sling her onto the ground, but she starts to get up. The bitch is still trying to resist me. So I jump on top of her—kind of straddling like—and smack her around some more.

There’s this tall tree with spreading branches nearby. It’s kind of cozy and romantic. She’s mine now. I’m in control. I can do anything to her I want. I tear off her clothes—Nike running shoes, then her fancy Marine T-shirt and her little shorts and the blue sweat belt around her waist. There’s not much fight left in her. She isn’t so tough anymore. I rip
everything off her—even her socks. She’s trying to escape or get away, but she can’t do much. I am in control. I can decide whether this bitch lives or dies and how she’s gonna die. It’s all up to me. For the first time tonight, I feel like somebody.

While I press my forearm down on her neck to keep her quiet, I start going for her breast—the left one. But that’s just for starters. I’m gonna give it to this bitch like she’s never had it before.

I look around. I stand up for a moment, reach up above me and grab a limb from the tree, snap it off—about two and a half, three feet’s worth. It’s hard because that sucker’s almost two inches thick. The end is sharp where it broke off, like an arrowhead or a spear.

She seemed like she was out cold just before, but she screams loud again. Her eyes are wild with pain. God, with all that blood, I’ll bet she’s a virgin. The bitch just screams in agony.

Here’s for all the women who ever shit on me, I’m saying to myself. Here’s for all the people who gave me a raw deal. Here’s to life—let someone else get shafted for a change! By now she’s stopped struggling.

After the frenzy is over and the wildness is done, I start feeling calmer. I lean back and look down at her.

She’s completely quiet and still. Her body is pale and empty-looking, like something’s gone. I know she’s finally dead and for the first time in a hell of a long time, I feel completely alive.

This is what it means to walk in the shoes, to know both victim and subject—how each interacts with the other. This is what you get from spending hours in the prisons and penitentiaries, sitting across the table, listening to the actual stories. After you’ve heard from them, you begin to put the pieces together. The crime itself begins to talk to you. As horrible as it sounds, this is what you have to do to be effective.

I described this technique to a reporter interviewing me not long ago and she said, “I can’t even think about this kind of thing!”

I replied, “Well, we’d better all think about this if we ever want to have fewer of them to think about.”

If you understand—not in some academic, intellectual way, but in a visceral, experiential way—then maybe we can begin to make a difference.

What I’ve just described was my idea of what had happened late on the night of July 11, 1985, and in the early morning of July 12—the day U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Suzanne Marie Collins—an accomplished, well-loved, exuberant, and beautiful young woman of nineteen—had died in a public park near the Memphis Naval Air Station, just northeast of Millington, Tennessee. The five-foot-seven, 118pound Lance Corporal Collins had left her barracks for a run shortly after 10:00
P.M.
and never came back. Her nude and beaten body had been discovered in the park after she missed morning muster. The causes of death were reported as prolonged manual strangulation, blunt-force trauma to the head, and massive internal hemorrhage from a sharply beveled tree limb being thrust so far into her body that it tore through her abdominal organs, liver, diaphragm, and right lung. She had been scheduled to graduate on the twelfth from a four-month avionics school in pursuit of her goal of becoming one of the first female Marine aviators.