Simon Feffer (The LDS Butcher)

By Shirley Bush

Simon Feffer was a peculiar sort of man. His particular psychosis was forged from generations of abhorrent dysfunction which culminated in the formation of a prolific serial killer. Hailed as “The LDS Butcher,” he carved his victims and used their blood for his own perverse pleasure. In the end, it would take a task force and an astute accountant with special gifts to bring him down, but not before he left a trail of mayhem in his wake.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shirley Bush
• Release date: Aug 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005686246

Shirley Bush

Shirley J. Bush is a registered nurse and holds a Master's Degree in Public Health. She is widowed and has one adult son. Currently, she lives near Mammoth Cave National Park.

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Acknowledgements

1. To my late husband, Paul M. Bush, Associate Professor of English until his death in 2013: I will never love another. . .

2. To our only child, Jeremiah: Your contributions to this endeavor were invaluable.

3. To Sandy: Thank you for insisting that I write a serial killer book.

4. To Emily: Thank you for keeping me writing even when I wasn’t sure that I wanted to continue.

5. To my family and friends: I appreciate and love you all.

Chapter One: Simon Says

Simon Feffer was a peculiar sort of man. Those few who knew him liked him. But, most people never thought about him one way or another. To the outside world, Simon would have seemed decent enough. He held a steady job. He pretty much kept to himself. And, although he was a clumsy conversationalist, he was generally affable. Simon prided himself on the fact that he was always available to lend a helping hand if called upon, (not that anyone did). It didn’t help that his physical traits weren’t, at all, memorable, either. He was of average height, average weight and could neither be described as good looking nor ugly. He just was. There was nothing about him that particularly stood out save his thick, coarse, espresso-colored hair. In fact, if anyone (like the police) were to ask his neighbors to describe the enigmatic Mr. Feffer, they would not be able to provide many details about his appearance even though he did have a couple of distinguishing traits, like the fact that his right eye was a smidge darker than the left, and he had an apple-shaped, tan-colored birthmark on the back of his neck that he kept hidden beneath his collar-length dark mane. It was just that no one had ever gotten close enough to him to notice. For the most part, Simon had gone through life invisible to the vast majority of folks--which was just the way he liked it.

All in all, it was best that no one had broken through his well-crafted facade. He had some strange proclivities for sure that, if discovered, would have brought his murderous reign to an early and decisive end. Through the years, Simon had done everything in his power to ensure no one ever got close. On some levels, like his ability to remain anonymous and avoid detection by law enforcement, he was a freaking genius. On others, such as his utter disregard for the sanctity of life, he was more akin to a soul-less beast. On every level, Simon was abnormal. He didn’t dress normally. He didn’t act normally. He didn’t even think, normally. But, anyone acquainted with his story couldn’t, in good conscience, expect anything more. From his Mormon undergarments to his two-toned eyes, Simon was an aberration.

Simon wasn’t religious; and, he definitely wasn’t a Mormon, but he sported their temple underwear (white cotton undershirt and long cotton boxer-style briefs) at all times. He had perverted the meaning of the garment’s embroidered symbols so that they became for him a private and constant reminder of his kills. It was a repugnant bastardization of the stitched adornments’ real purpose, which for the faithful represented the promises they had made to God (to keep His commandments, to curb their own desires, to nourish their souls, and to remain reverent). All of which were broken by the aloof Mr. Feffer.

His list of odd choices included his taste in alcohol. Although he didn’t indulge in spirits often, when he did, it had to be snake wine which he periodically procured from eBay. Simon liked the steeped variety with the whole venomous snake inside the bottle, not the mixed kind which merely contained the reptile’s bodily fluids. It gave him power, or so he thought. More importantly, it increased his sexual prowess, at least that was his hope. And, in a strange way, it did. Anytime that he took a sip of the earthy, slightly fishy-tasting brew, he achieved an erection. Climaxing, however, required an additional step. In order to pleasure himself fully, he had to dip his hand in the blood of his victims and masturbate. It was the closest that he ever got to intimacy with another person. He had spent the majority of his life alone. So, whether his isolation abetted his hobby or was a contributor to it mattered little. Over time, Simon had mastered his craft; and, if killing was the only way that he could bond with another human being, then so be it.

Based on his solitary life, one would imagine that Simon had been an only child. He wasn’t. When he was five years old, his mother, Clarice, (God rest her soul) had borne another boy. She called him Walt, but Simon hadn’t seen the need to officially label the malformed child. Walt had a number of congenital malformations any one of which would have been enough to result in his demise; but the combination of which proved to be rarer than the existence of a Titanic-sized iceberg floating around freely in the insatiable fires of hell. The infant’s full name was Walter Timion Feffer, and the irony of his initials was not lost on Simon. The imperfect tot had an unusually small head, also known as microcephaly. That was the first and most obvious sign that something was severely wrong. Internally, the situation wasn’t any better. His heart had four different structural defects known as Tetralogy of Fallot. Due to the resultant poor circulation, the infant would literally pass out from exhaustion every time he tried to suck his bottle for more than a couple of minutes. And, if that weren’t enough, he also suffered from Osteogenesis Imperfecta, or brittle bone disease which resulted in both a skull fracture and broken collar bone during the birthing process. The poor thing survived a pain-filled three weeks before he finally succumbed to his conditions. It was just as well. His prognosis was exceedingly poor. Even if he had survived the necessary surgeries to fix his misshapen heart, Walt’s quality of life would have been questionable, at best (at least that’s what his big brother surmised).

Simon didn’t have any fond memories of his only sibling. He had seen the boy just once. Because the infant was so fragile, Simon’s mother had kept her germaphillic preschooler away from the hospital in an effort to protect the sickly neonate. Meanwhile, Simon had been vacationing with an elderly neighbor, while his mother spent every waking hour with her critically-ill offspring. It was only after Walt’s physicians told Mrs. Feffer that her baby’s death was imminent that she allowed Simon to come for a farewell visit. What her older child remembered about his only brother was this: the terrible noise that came out of Walt’s mouth. It was a horrible cacophony between a whimper and a cry. He made it continually while Simon was there, and it left a lasting impression. Sometimes, when Simon slept, he could still hear that sound in his dreams.

Truth be told, Simon hated his deceased brother. That one and only meeting between the two had sealed their fate. No one had prepared the five-year-old for what he was about to see, so as he stared through the nursery glass at his ailing sibling, he blurted out that the boy looked funny. Instantly, he felt the sting of his mother’s backhand as it landed squarely on his left cheek. She hit him harder than she meant to, but it was instinctual and uncontrollable. That didn’t stop her from feeling guilty as she watched the redness whelp up on his tiny, tear-stained face. Nor did it stop him from associating his pain--rightfully or wrongly--with his baby brother. This was Simon’s first recollection of being on the receiving end his mother’s wrath, but it would not be the last. Walt’s death had a profound impact on both surviving members of the Feffer family. It marked the beginning of his particular psychosis and the escalation of hers.

There was another thing that made a significant impact on the very young Mr. Simon Feffer that day. It was the fact that his mother stared so intently at little Walt’s face as she held his bundled body in the Ronald McDonald-style hospitality room located directly off the Labor and Delivery wing of the hospital, yet she didn’t seem to be able to bring herself to even glance in Simon’s direction. He mistook her judicious attention as love and internalized the slight as disapproval; he would spend the rest of her life trying to see that perceived level of pure love in her eyes as she looked at him. But, he would never find it. He couldn’t because it didn’t exist. It became a festering sore spot which periodically spewed pus all over his budding ego. From that day forward, the vision of his mother tenderly swaddling his defective brother would incessantly play out in his head every time he lost control.

What Simon didn’t know was that she was actually scrutinizing every nuance of her rapidly-failing son’s face, while simultaneously dealing with her own embarrassment at having brutally smacked her recalcitrant first-born. Even though their mother loved each of them to the best of her inept ability, she was disappointed with the way that they both turned out. For nine months, she carried Walt in her womb, and pre-delivery he held all the promise she had for a bouncing baby boy. But that fantasy came crashing down the moment that he was born. He was no longer an ideal; he was an ugly reality. In her distorted mind, Walt had failed to live up to her expectations, just like Simon had. Walt was never going to be the perfect child she had envisioned. Clarice was stuck with Simon and would have to find a way to deal with his inevitable shortcomings. Yet, every time her five year old broke a dish, or back-talked her, or refused to do his chores, she distanced herself a little more.

For the next couple of years, a disturbing pattern emerged. Mrs. Feffer fluctuated between showering Simon with the love and attention that he so desperately needed and chastising him for being a major disappointment. When she was loving, he felt extra special, and at times, somewhat smothered. Whether that warmth came from a place of loss or from guilt, Simon was never quite sure. But, he didn’t care. It was more tenderness than he had ever known. Her efforts, however, were somewhat Machiavellian. She doted on him in an attempt to fashion him into what she wanted him to be, but was never going to be: normal. When it became obvious that her attempts were in vain, she inevitably succumbed to depression. That’s when things changed. Clarice’s darling boy lost luster. No matter what he did, it was never enough. This waveform pattern of love, followed by disgust, ended up molding his budding ego into a distorted version of itself. In order to protect himself, Simon chose to ignore the bad times and her as she dug her way out of despair. She viewed his withdrawal as proof that he would never be the flawless child of her dreams, so she froze him out of her bipolar life. It was difficult dealing with her hot and cold treatment, but like all children, Simon was resilient. As far as he was concerned, his mom was his world. He learned to tolerate her massive mood swings because when she was up, life was good. She played the games that he wanted to play. She even made up fairy tales that featured Simon as the consummate hero. In his narcissistic worldview, he even believed that Simon Says was wholly written about him. In fact, he was well into his elementary school years before he learned that it was nothing more than a generic sort of game played by the unimportant masses. It was a hard lesson, but not nearly as hard as learning that he was, indeed, special--just like everyone else. The fact that some kids seemed to be more so and excelled where he seemed to struggle was a harder pill to swallow. Being the child of a mentally unstable mother had in no way prepared him for the real world where he was expected to be normal and ordinary. From the beginning, however, Mr. Simon Feffer was anything but.

Chapter Two: Mrs. Feffer

Clarice Feffer had a hell of a life. She was born on July 4, 1955 just north of Jasper, Georgia, into a family of nine. Marie Clarice Pfeffer (she changed the spelling of her last name when she ran away) was the baby. Her brothers, Clarence, John, Hershel, and Wilson were the oldest, followed in quick secession by her sisters, Annabeth and Jess. Clarice was something of an after thought since she made her appearance five and a half years after Jessie. Everyone thought the Pfeffer family was complete at eight. However, no one took the last arrival quite as hard as the five-year-old daughter, Jess. Until Marie--that’s what the Pfeffer clan called Clarice--came along, Jess had the honor of being the baby. In a brood the size of the Pfeffer’s, it was hard to develop an identity that stood out from the crowd. To an extent, the oldest and the youngest were immune to the struggle because their roles were somewhat defined. Their treasured statuses conveyed certain privileges. For instance, Clarence never had to wear hand-me-downs like the other boys. And, he was the only child who got to come and go as he pleased. Their parents, George and Hannah, had high hopes for their first-born and always seemed to praise him the most. In their eyes, he could do no wrong--even when their daughters reported just how wrong he was.

Clarice, on the other hand, was exempt from many of the chores that her sisters had to perform. While they had laundry detail, cleaning and cooking responsibilities, her one job was dishes. The mollycoddling of their youngest sister didn’t set well with the older girls. They in turn called her choice names like candy ass and took every opportunity to distance themselves from her. All of the other Pfeffer kids had to share berthing quarters with at least one other sibling; everyone that is except for Clarice. She preferred to sleep alone on the floor in the girl’s closet on a pallet made from old, tattered quilts, or at least that’s what her older sisters told their mom. Actually, Jess conspired with Annabeth to kick little Clarice out of their featherbed convincing the small child that she would find the closet floor much more to her liking. They weren’t wrong. The youngest Pfeffer grew to love the solitude and the privacy that her tiny bedroom afforded. She even personalized her surroundings by taping up a couple of her hand-drawn, crayon-colored flower pictures. Besides, she was never alone. Her one doll, Lu Lu, was always by her side. Had the older girls not shut the door and blocked it with a chair each night, Clarice might have liked it more. When the darkness closed in, she would reach for her drawings and pretend they were windows to the outside. In her mind, sunshine was never more than a touch away. Interestingly, once the youngest Pfeffer was strong enough to escape her nightly prison, she chose to keep the door shut.

Clarice didn’t have a lot of memories of her brother John. He was significantly older than she and joined the Army as soon as he turned seventeen with their parents’ approval, of course. Once he left, he never came back. Other than an occasional phone call, the family rarely heard from him save the random postcard from one place or another. Even when their father passed away, John was a no show. In fact, six of the seven siblings prematurely left their childhood home for good. Each had his/her own reasons. Hershel, however, was the exception. He stayed. Hershel was slow as the Pfeffers put it. Officially, he had Down’s syndrome. But, Hershel had a kind heart and was, without a doubt, Clarice’s favorite. He was probably the only one of the lot