The Ivy League Killer (4 page)

Chapter 11: The Egg King

This news spawned a flurry of reports, with journalists searching for items from every angle. Ross’ family was horrified to learn what he’d done and tried to withdraw from the spotlight. Several reporters speculated about Ross’ involvement in the possible murder from 1981 on Cornell’s campus. Ross had not mentioned Dzung Ngoc Tu in his confession, but he’d been a senior at the university that year.

Ross was charged in two different Connecticut counties. He faced charges in Windham County with the murders of Tammy Williams and Deborah Taylor. In New London County, he was charged with the murders of the other four Connecticut victims. His team of public defenders attempted to block charges for Leslie and April, who were killed in Rhode Island. However, the crime had begun and ended in Connecticut, so Ross faced all four felony murder charges in New London County. Because he’d confessed and there was corroborating evidence in several cases, the defense’s strategy was to seek a psychiatrist who would find that Ross had not been responsible for his actions.

C. Robert Satti Sr., known as “the bulldog,” would prosecute. Although Connecticut had executed no one in decades, he elected to go for the ultimate punishment, the death penalty. If anyone deserved this, Ross did.

Ross later claimed that while all of this activity was going on, he entertained himself in his cell by reliving the murders multiple times each day. He remained obsessed with sex and death, and he thought of himself as a “rare catch.” Detectives and reporters alike began asking Ross’ acquaintances what he was like.

A coworker at the insurance company, who went door-to-door with Ross, told detectives about Ross’ unusually aggressive behavior whenever a woman came to the door. He seemed unable to accept rejection from a female. He’d also been disrespectful about attractive women they’d see on the street. He stared at them and made lewd comments.

Ross would claim that his unrelenting sexual fantasies had compelled him. He was obsessed with making women love him or at least obey him. As a teenager, he’d molested several neighborhood girls; these acts had added details to his fantasy life. By the time he’d developed an adult sex drive, he was thinking constantly about rape and murder. To get aroused, he needed an element of fear and submission. He’d evolved into a psychological terrorist, a type of sexual sadist.

Sexual sadists are almost exclusively aroused by the suffering of another person. They may use pain as a tool to elicit the suffering, but the suffering is most important. Sexual sadism counts for no more than 7-10% of sexual crimes committed. However, its rarity adds nothing to claims of losing control. On this diagnosis alone, Ross did not qualify for an insanity defense based on irresistible impulse. However, his condition would be reviewed several times over the next decade.

Dr. Fred Berlin, a psychiatric expert on sexual disorders from the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD, diagnosed Ross as suffering from sexual sadism, a compulsive paraphilia that had influenced his obsessive fantasies. This disorder called for a specific treatment—high doses of the female hormone Depo-Provera. Ross accepted the treatment and found that it reduced the intensity of his sexual urges and allowed him some relief. However, it also produced rapid weight gain and serious liver problems, so he was forced to discontinue it. The fantasies returned full force.

In December 1986, Ross pleaded guilty to the murders of Deborah Taylor and Tammy Williams. He received two consecutive life terms. Six months later, he went on trial for the other murders. Among the items of physical evidence against him was cloth found near one victim that matched the slipcovers on the couch in his apartment, as well as a ligature. Malchik gave powerful testimony about Ross’ confession and it took the jury just 86 minutes to find him guilty.

During the penalty phase, the state argued that Ross had been sane when he’d committed rape and murder. He’d known what he was doing and had been able to control himself. However, the fact that he’d had a significant response to medication indicated to the psychiatrists on both sides that he might not have had full control. The prosecution’s psychiatrist, Dr. Robert Miller, had decided that he could not offer the testimony he’d been hired to give. At first, he’d believed that Ross could conform his behavior to the requirements of the law, but some time later, he changed his mind. The prosecution simply elected not to use him, relying instead on his earlier stance when they gave the impression that their expert had disagreed with the defense psychiatrists. Ross’ defenders failed to challenge the statement, so in short order, Ross received four death sentences.

Although Ross had admitted his guilt in each case, he was annoyed that the court had failed to take his mental illness into account. He insisted that his attorneys include this issue for appeal. If he’d been unable to control his urges, as the psychiatrists believed, then he was not entirely at fault for what he’d done.

Michael Ross
Prison Photo

During the assessments for his trial, Ross told a psychiatrist about two other women he’d killed, including his first murder while he attended Cornell. He said that while he was a sophomore, he’d been depressed and angry about a failing relationship and had begun to stalk co-eds. He’d fantasized about dominating them and making them do whatever he wanted. By the time he was a senior with a fiancée who was pulling away, he’d committed a rape. Finally, with his relationship on the rocks just before he graduated, he’d raped and strangled a woman from one of his classes. He’d seen her in Warren Hall and had followed her when she left. After killing her, he’d thrown her into Beebe Lake. This woman, of course, was Dzung Ngoc Tu.

The other murder to which he confessed involved a girl he’d seen while traveling through New York. She’d been a teenager, he recalled. Her name was Paula Perrera.

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Chapter 12: Going Public

In 1994, Ross offered a full confession to the public when he agreed to be interviewed for the BBC. To Christopher Berry-Dee, the interviewer, Ross appeared plump and bookish. As always, he was polite. Berry-Dee spent several days with Ross, getting his background. He also gave Ross a moniker, the “Roadside Strangler.” In addition, Berry-Dee took credit for getting a confession to the New York State murders, although Ross had already revealed them.

Ross presented an unusual case history for a serial killer. Born in Brooklyn, Connecticut, on July 26, 1959, he was the oldest of four children. However, his parents, Dan and Patricia, did not get along. Ross was the baby that had forced the marriage, and his mother apparently never forgave him. Patricia, highly volatile and moody, could not bear the idea of spending her life on an egg farm. After undergoing two abortions, she left home twice, but even when she was there, she neglected her children, especially Ross, and sometimes abused them. Patricia was twice institutionalized for severe depression in the state hospital at Norwich (the grounds on which he’d left one of his victims). She told the psychiatrist that she had beaten her children and attempted suicide.

Her kids were afraid of her. Ross remembered her trying to manipulate him into shooting his dog when it was ill. She had also humiliated him on several occasions, for which he did not forgive her. His need to master women might have had its origin in the helplessness he felt around his mother. Each day, Ross and his siblings had been forced to gauge her erratic moods. This experience seemed to influence his deepest fears. “I’ve always felt that I had to be in control of myself,” he told an interviewer, “and even to this day, I feel the need to be in control. What scares me most isn’t life in prison, or the death penalty, but insanity. I’m scared of losing touch with reality.”

However, Ross had enjoyed the family farm and was proud of his father’s business, Eggs, Inc. When he was old enough, he got to participate in chores, and he didn’t mind killing the chickens when asked. There was some talk that Ross’s uncle (six years older), who committed suicide when Ross was eight, had molested him. Ross had no recollection of this abuse and exhibited few of the symptoms typical of abused children. Instead, he excelled in high school, getting an unprecedented perfect score on a comprehensive agriculture exam, and went on to study animal science at Cornell University. He formed an ambitious plan to one day manage his father’s business or set up his own. The troubles he had with power fantasies were aimed directly at women he wanted to control, which implicates his mother’s abuse.

During adolescence, Ross developed a habit of following girls around just to see the fear in their eyes. He had a fantasy of imprisoning a girl in an underground cave, to hold her there until she fell in love with him. Once he got to college, he was able to explore some of these feelings in more aggressive ways.

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Chapter 13: The Big Leagues

With an IQ of 122, Ross knew he was smart and he made people around him aware of his talents and goals. His Alpha Zeta fraternity brothers at Cornell dubbed him “the Egg King,” and while some later reported that they thought he was strange or obnoxious, most noticed nothing unusual about him. Ross was no loner. He was socially active, joining clubs and working part-time. He seemed to need to prove himself by always having a girlfriend. In addition, he became a heavy drinker. Suffering from hyperactivity, he began taking Ritalin. It proved to be a dangerous combination of factors.

During Ross’ junior year at Cornell, he met Connie, whom he wanted to marry. Eventually they got engaged. People who knew them thought they were the perfect couple. However, they soon had problems. They rented an apartment so they could live together, and Ross began to withdraw. He started missing classes. In secret, he was reading pornography and spinning violent sexual fantasies that resulted in stalking girls on campus. During one incident, he acted out. That night, he ran up behind a girl, forced her into an isolated spot, and made her undress. Then he ordered her to perform oral sex on him. When he ran off, he was shaken by his audacity but also exhilarated. He feared getting caught and swore he would never do something like that again.

McGraw Tower and Uris Library, Cornell University
Photo by Bill Price III

Just three nights later, Ross attacked a second girl. This time, he placed a rope around her neck and prepared to rape her. A noise startled him, so he fled the scene. He heard that his victim had reported the incident, but no one came to ask him any questions. Relieved, but frustrated over this incomplete act, he looked for another opportunity. He had his fiancée Connie, and he believed she loved him, but she didn’t
obey
him. That’s what he needed. One evening, they had a fight, and Ross went out and raped a coed. It felt good to be in control. He couldn’t force Connie to do what he required, but it was easy to use a stranger as her stand-in.

Ross changed his major to agricultural economics, but his grades dropped dramatically. He began to demand sex from Connie four times a day. She went along for a while, but when it turned rough, she finally decided against marrying him. To Ross’ surprise, Connie ended the engagement. He was devastated. He’d planned their future. He couldn’t let her decide something so dramatic. It was unacceptable! She’d taken all the power in the relationship, and not long afterward, Ross committed murder.

He followed Dzung Ngoc Tu with the intent of raping her. However, she recognized him from their program. He knew he had no alternative but to eliminate her, so he strangled her. The experience was even better for him than rape. Now he could exert the
ultimate
power: He could end their lives. This was a watershed moment, and there was no turning back.

When he graduated from Cornell, Ross found work with an agricultural business in North Carolina. Still trying to persuade Connie to change her mind, he invited her to North Carolina. She came, but then told him she was dating someone else. Around the same time, Ross’ parents decided to divorce, and his mother wanted to sell her share in the business and leave it behind. This development ended his ambition of one day owning the farm. His entire future evaporated, leaving him seething with anger.

On August 25, Ross drove through a North Carolina town called Rolesville. He felt deflated by the two women who’d meant the most to him. He hated them both for depriving him of his dreams. He spotted a woman carrying a bag of groceries and pushing a baby stroller. He knew she had to die, a sacrifice to his need to regain his sense of control.

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