The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (54 page)

tive, Ng was denied bail, and he struck a bargain with lifestyle was practiced—complete with period costumes military prosecutors in August, pleading guilty to theft and surgical alteration of goats to produce “unicorns.”

in return for a promise that he would serve no more A few months after his arrival in Ukiah, Lake met Char-than three years of a 14-year sentence. Confined to the lie Ng.

military stockade at Leavenworth federal prison, Ng Hong Kong–born in 1961, Charles Chitat Ng was

was paroled after 18 months, avoiding deportation the son of wealthy Chinese parents. Forever in trouble, with a reference to the phony birthplace shown on his Ng was expelled from school in Hong Kong and then enlistment papers. On release from prison, he returned from an expensive private school in England, where he to California and again teamed up with Leonard Lake.

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By that time, Lake had settled on two and a half before they could detain him. The car was still outside, acres of woodland near Wilseyville in Calaveras however, and officers found a bearded white man at the County, enlisting the help of neighbors to construct a wheel. He cheerfully produced a driver’s license in the fortified bunker beside his cabin, where he stockpiled name of “Robin Stapley,” but he bore no resemblance to illegal weapons and stolen video equipment. His every its photograph. A brief examination of the Honda’s thought was recorded in various diaries, including trunk turned up the stolen vise, along with a silencer-details of “Operation Miranda,” entailing the collection equipped .22-caliber pistol. Booked on theft and of sex slaves to serve his needs after the anticipated weapons charges, “Stapley” evaded questions for sev-nuclear holocaust. On the subject of females, Lake eral hours, then asked for a drink of water, gulping a wrote: “God meant women for cooking, cleaning house cyanide capsule removed from a secret compartment in and sex. And when they are not in use, they should be his belt buckle. He was comatose on arrival at the hospi-locked up.” An oft-repeated motto in the diaries tal, where he would linger on life-support equipment for advised, “If you love something, let it go. If it doesn’t the next four days, finally pronounced dead on June 6.

come back, hunt it down and kill it.” On February 25, A fingerprint comparison identified “Stapely” as 1984, shortly before his reunion with Ng, Lake Leonard Lake, but the driver’s license was not a forgery.

described his life as “Mostly dull day-to-day routine, Its original owner was also the founder of San Diego’s still with death in my pocket and fantasy my major Guardian Angels chapter—and he had not been seen at goal.” If authorities are correct, the first death in Lake’s home for several weeks. The Honda’s license plate was pocket may have claimed his brother Donald, reported registered to Lake, but the vehicle was not. Its owner of missing by their mother—and never seen again—after record, 39-year-old Paul Cosner, was a San Francisco he went to visit Lake in July 1983.

car dealer who had disappeared in November 1984, On June 2, 1985, employees of a lumberyard in

after leaving home to sell the car to “a weird guy.”

South San Francisco called police to report a peculiar Lake’s auto registration led detectives to the property shoplifting incident. An Asian man had walked out of in Wilseyville, where they discovered weapons, torture the store with a $75 vise, placed it in the trunk of a devices, and Lake’s voluminous diaries. Serial numbers Honda auto parked outside, and then escaped on foot on Lake’s video equipment traced ownership to Harvey Dubs, a San Francisco photographer reported missing from home—along with his wife Deborah and infant son Sean—on July 25, 1984. As detectives soon

learned, the stolen equipment had been used to produce ghoulish “home movies” of young women being

stripped and threatened, raped and tortured, at least one of them mutilated so savagely that she must have died as a result. Lake and Ng were the principal stars of the snuff tapes, but one of their “leading ladies” was quickly identified as the missing Deborah Dubs.

Another reluctant “actress” was Brenda O’Connor, who once occupied the cabin adjacent to Lake’s with her husband, Lonnie Bond, and their infant son Lonnie Jr. They had known Lake as “Charles Gunnar,” an alias lifted from the best man at Lake’s second wedding (and another missing person, last seen alive in 1983). O’Connor was afraid of “Gunnar,” telling friends that she had seen him plant a woman’s body in the woods, but rather than inform police, her husband had invited a friend—Guardian Angel Robin Stapely—to share their quarters and offer personal protection. All four had disappeared in May 1985.

Another snuff tape victim, 18-year-old Kathleen Allen, made the acquaintance of Lake and Ng through her boyfriend, 23-year-old Mike Carroll. Carroll had served time with Ng at Leavenworth and later came west to join him in various shady enterprises. Allen abandoned her Charles Chitat Ng (Wide World API)

job at a supermarket after Lake informed her that Car-154

LANDRU, Henri Désiré

roll had been shot and wounded “near Lake Tahoe,”

and three members of the Dubs family. (Remains of offering to show her where he was. Her final paycheck Stapely and Lonnie Bond were found in a common had been mailed to Lake’s address in Wilseyville.

grave on July 9, bringing the official body count to 12.) Aside from videocassettes, authorities retrieved Ng was also charged as an accessory to murder in the numerous still photos from Lake’s bunker, including disappearance of Paul Cosner.

snapshots of Lake in long “witchy” robes, and photos On July 6, 1985, Ng was arrested while shoplifting of 21 young women captured in various stages of food from a market in Calgary, Alberta. A security undress. Six were finally identified and found alive; the guard was shot in the hand before Ng was subdued.

other 15 have remained elusive, despite publication of Charges of attempted murder were reduced to aggra-the photographs, and police suspect that most or all of vated assault, robbery, and illegal use of a weapon, with them were murdered on the death ranch.

Ng sentenced to four and a half years’ imprisonment Gradually, the search moved outward from Lake’s upon conviction. On November 29, 1988, a Canadian bunker into the surrounding woods. A vehicle aban-judge ruled that Ng should be extradited to the United doned near the cabin was registered to another missing States for trial on 19 of the 25 felony counts filed person, Sunnyvale photographer Jeffrey Askern, and against him. Ng’s appeal of that decision was rejected police soon had a fair idea of what had happened to on August 31, 1989, but further legal maneuvers stalled Lake’s vanishing acquaintances. On June 8, portions of his extradition until 1991.

four human skeletons were unearthed near the bunker, Even that was not the end, however, as Charlie Ng with a fifth victim—and numerous charred bone frag-pulled out all the stops, using every trick and legal loop-ments, including infant’s teeth—discovered on June 13.

hole in the book to postpone his trial for another seven Number six was turned up five days later and was the years. He fired attorneys, challenged judges, moved for first to be identified. A 34-year-old drifter, Randy Jacob-change of venue (granted, to Orange County), lodged son had last been seen alive in October 1984 when he complaints about jailhouse conditions—in short, used left his San Francisco rooming house to visit Lake and the cumbersome California legal system to hamstring sell his van. Two of Jacobson’s neighbors, 26-year-old itself. In October 1997, Ng’s stubborn refusal to coop-Cheryl Okoro and 38-year-old Maurice Wok, also on erate with his latest court-appointed attorney won yet the missing list, were linked to the Wilseyville killers by another delay in his trial, with jury selection pushed personal contacts and cryptic notes in Lake’s diary.

back to September 1, 1998. Police in San Francisco, Three more skeletons were sorted out of scattered meanwhile, grudgingly admitted “accidentally” des-fragments on June 26, and authorities declared that troying vital evidence in one of the 13 murder counts Lake and Ng were linked to the disappearance of at filed against Ng, but 12 more still remained for his trial.

least 25 persons. One of those was Mike Carroll, who In May 1998, Judge John Ryan permitted Ng to fire his reportedly agreed to dress in “sissy” clothes and lure lawyers and represent himself, with a stern warning gays for Ng to kill, then died himself when Charlie tired that the trial would begin on September 1, whether of the game. Donald Giuletti, a 36-year-old disc jockey Charlie liked it or not. On July 15, Ng tried for yet in San Francisco, had offered oral sex through pub-another postponement, claiming that his glasses were lished advertisements, and one of the callers was a

“the wrong prescription” and his personal computer young Asian man who shot Giuletti to death in July was not fully programmed, thus hampering his defense.

1984, critically wounding his roommate at the same Judge Ryan, unmoved, denied the motion and sched-time. Lake’s wife recalled that Ng had boasted of shoot-uled pretrial hearings to begin on August 21. Ng’s trial ing two homosexuals, and the survivor readily identi-was the longest, most expensive criminal proceeding fied Ng’s mug shot as a likeness of the gunman.

ever in a state notorious for courtroom marathons, Two other friends of Ng—and occasional coworkers finally ending on May 3, 1999, when Ng was convicted at a Bay Area warehouse—were also missing. Clifford and the jury recommended death. He was formally con-Parenteau, age 24, had vanished after winning $400 on demned on June 30, 1999.

a Superbowl bet, telling associates that he was going

“to the country” to spend the money with Ng. A short time later, 25-year-old Jeffrey Gerald dropped from
LANDRU, Henri Désiré

sight after he agreed to help Ng move some furniture.

Born in Paris during 1869, this future “BLUEBEARD”

Neither man was seen again, and Ng was formally was a bright student who studied mechanical engineer-charged with their deaths in two of the 13 first-degree ing at age 16. He served four years in the army, rising to murder counts filed against him. Other victims named the rank of sergeant before his discharge in 1894. Durin the indictment include Mike Carroll, Kathleen Allen, ing the same period, Landru seduced his cousin and she Lonnie Bond and family, Robin Stapely, Don Giuletti, bore him a daughter in 1891, becoming his wife two
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LEE, Bruce

years later. On discharge from the service he enlisted bais villa in November 1916, but their romance was with a Paris firm requiring cash deposits from its new short lived, and the lady vanished on Christmas Day.

employees, but the owner soon absconded with the In January 1917, Landru met a young servant girl, money, leaving Landru bitter at society in general.

Andrée Babelay, at a railway station, offering her a He logged the first of seven felony arrests in 1900 and place to stay while she looked for work. On March 11, was sentenced to a two-year term for fraud. He drew Andrée told her mother she was engaged, and she another two years in 1904, 13 months in 1906, and moved in with Landru full-time on March 29. Penni-three years in 1908. While still imprisoned on the latter less, she had nothing to offer in terms of financial term he was returned to Lille for trial on charges of rewards, but her days were still numbered. By April 12, swindling 15,000 francs from a middle-aged widow he she had vanished without a trace.

met through a newspaper lonely-hearts ad. That convic-In July, after more than two years of running corre-tion earned him another three years, but Landru spondence, Landru began courting Madame Buisson.

accepted his punishment philosophically, fathering three They boarded the train for Gambais on August 19, and more children during his brief vacations from prison.

she was seen no more. Suspicious relatives launched Free on parole in 1914, Landru was suspected by their own investigation in the face of police indifference police of various offenses and convicted in absentia, and began comparing notes with the family of Madame sentenced to a four-year prison term and lifelong depor-Collomb.

tation to New Caledonia, to be imposed upon his Landru, meanwhile, continued his courting apace.

apprehension. He had nothing left to lose except his Madame Jaume met her husband-to-be through a mat-life, and by the outbreak of the war in Europe he was rimonial agent, moving to Gambais on November 25, risking that, as well.

1917. Five days later, Landru cleaned out her bank In 1914, posing as “Monsieur Diard,” he struck up account. Madam Pascal joined the list on April 5, 1918, an acquaintance with a widow, Madame Cuchet, and her furniture sold as an afterthought. Madame Mar-her 16-year-old son. Despite warnings from her family, chadier accepted Landru’s proposal on New Year’s Day the lady furnished a villa at Vernouillet and the three of 1919; she moved to Gambais two weeks later . . . and them set up housekeeping. The Cuchets disappeared in vanished.

January 1915, with Landru pocketing 5,000 francs on Pressure from the Buisson and Collomb families the deal and presenting his wife with the woman’s gold eventually forced police to arrest Landru on April 12, watch as a gift.