Notable Reprobates

By Joseph Howard Tyson

Notable Reprobates examines the pathological phenomena of serial killing and mass murder. It provides detailed case studies of notorious multi-murderers Elizabeth Bathory, H. H. Holmes, Belle Gunness, Ted Bundy, and Joseph J. DeAngelo Jr. Chapter 6 explains DNA and other modern methods of crime detection. The final section deals with heinous political regimes that have resorted to serial mass murder as a matter of policy, including Stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany, Mao Zedong’s Red China, and Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge Movement in Cambodia. In the final analysis, criminal despots such as Stalin, Hitler, and Mao were exponentially worse for humanity than the likes of John Wayne Gacy, Charles Manson, and Jeffrey Dahmer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9781532078408

Joseph Howard Tyson

Joseph Howard Tyson graduated from LaSalle University in 1969 with a B.A. in Philosophy, took graduate courses in English at Pennsylvania State University, then served in the U. S. Marine Corps. He has worked in the insurance industry since 1972, and lives in the Philadelphia area. He and his wife have four children and three grandchildren. Tyson has contributed several articles to The Schuylkill Valley Journal. His previous nonfiction books include Penn’s Luminous City (2005), Madame Blavatsky Revisited (2006), Hitler’s Mentor: Dietrich Eckart (2008), The Surreal Reich (2010, World War II Leaders (2011), and Fifty-Seven Years of Russian Madness (2015).

Book preview

Copyright © 2019 Joseph Howard Tyson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-5320-7839-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-7840-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019909655

iUniverse rev. date:  07/19/2019

DEDICATED

TO THE VICTIMS, LIVING AND DEAD.

CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1     Serial Killing: An Overview

Chapter 2     Ted Bundy: White, Anglo-Saxon Psychopath

Chapter 3     Space Cadet: U.f.o. Cult Founder Marshall Herff Applewhite Jr.

Chapter 4     Female Serial Killers

Chapter 5     The Legend Of H. H. Holmes: Fact, Fantasy, and Conjecture

Chapter 6     Dna Technology and The Golden State Killer Case

Chapter 7     Legal Serial Killing

PREFACE

Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against the hosts of wickedness. St. Paul, Ephesians 6:11-12

I never set out to write such a grim book. It accidentally fell together because of separate articles about crooks, madmen, and the 20th Century’s appalling history. In my opinion all criminals are crazy. Who in their right mind commits heinous crimes? Only maniacs oblivious to rational self-interest flout common sense societal norms so brazenly.

So why did I write this catalogue of human depravity? Because, as any criminologist will tell you, we need to understand evil and its causes.

While researching this work, I learned most psychopaths endured battering and/or molestation as children. Disturbing activity such as fire-setting, animal cruelty, and pathological lying signal even darker impulses. Despite modern western society’s loathing of censorship, and rhetoric about protecting Constitutional rights, scientific studies have indicated that pornography facilitates antisocial behavior, and has been identified as a profound influence on serial murderers.

Today the media focus more on rogue cops’ civil rights violations than police heroism. In the course of this undertaking I encountered many heroes, both civilians and police officers: Lutheran minister Istvan Magyary, who risked his life by reporting well-connected Countess Elizabeth of Bathory’s atrocities to Vienna’s High Court circa 1603; insurance investigator William Gary who suspected H. H. Holmes guilty not only of fraud, but Benjamin Pitezel’s murder, and convinced Fidelity Mutual President L. G. Fouse to hire Pinkerton detectives to track him down; Pinkerton detective John Cornish and his men who collared Holmes in Boston on November 17, 1894, just before he booked passage to Europe; Philadelphia police detective Franklin P. Geyer, who traveled all over the Midwest and Canada in his successful search for the bodies of Alice, Nellie, and Howard Pitezel; Philadelphia District Attorney George S. Graham and Assistant D.A. Thomas Barlow, who did a magnificent job of prosecuting H. H. Holmes; Utah Highway patrolman Bob Hayward, who arrested Ted Bundy in Granger, Utah for suspicious activity on August 16, 1975; Sheriff’s detective Daryl Ondrak who connected the burglar tools, weapons, and disguises in Bundy’s car trunk to the deaths of four young women; brave Pensacola, Florida police officer David Lee who spotted Bundy—then in full-throttle murder mode— driving a stolen car on February 15, 1975, and singlehandedly stopped, chased, tackled, and handcuffed him before he could kill any more young women; Dr. Dorothy Otnow Lewis, the psychotherapists who figured Ted Bundy out, and revealed that simply by witnessing violence young children can be traumatized and develop deep-rooted obsessions; the late Michelle McNamara, whose book, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, sparked renewed interest in The Golden State Killer case; Dr. Barbara Rae-Venter, a pioneer in the development of genealogical genetics; Drs. Margaret Presser and Colleen Fitzpatrick, founders of the DNA Doe Project, which has identified dozens of previously unidentified murder victims; Cece Moore, genetic genealogist for Parabon NanoLabs, Inc. who has brought many dangerous criminals to justice through advanced DNA analysis; Bruce Harrington, older brother of Golden State Killer victim Keith Harrington, who spent almost two million dollars of his own money to pass Proposition 69, a measure which allowed California corrections agencies to extract DNA from all newly convicted felons. That database has since solved hundreds of cold cases.

And let’s not forget the courageous U.S. and Allied military personnel who helped defeat mass murderer Adolf Hitler and the evil cabal surrounding Japanese Emperor Hirohito.

To atone for this depressing work, I’ve made a resolution to write about saints next time.

Sincere thanks to Pete Krok for encouraging the H. H. Holmes chapter, Susan Evans for editorial assistance, and sister Betty-Jo for hospitality during final revisions.

J. H. Tyson

Long Beach Island, NJ

October, 2018

CHAPTER 1

SERIAL KILLING: AN OVERVIEW

Thou shalt not kill.

King James Bible, Sixth Commandment, Exodus 20:13 & Deuteronomy 5:17

No individual brought serial killing more vividly into public consciousness than the unknown psychopath dubbed Jack the Ripper. Between five and eight murders have been imputed to him. His victims and their dates of death are listed below:

Martha Tabram, August 7, 1888, probable, mostly accepted;

Polly Nichols, August 31, 1888, first of the canonical five;

Annie Chapman, September 8, 1888, universally accepted;

Elizabeth Stride, September 30, 1888, universally accepted;

Catharine Eddowes, September 30, 1888, universally accepted;

Mary Jane Kelly, November 9, 1888, universally accepted;

Alice McKenzie, July 17, 1889, possible victim, accepted by some;

Frances Coles, February 13, 1891, also possible.

All of those women were murdered at night in London’s East End. Jack strangled all of them, then stabbed and slashed them with a long knife. The Victorian press depicted them as alcoholic prostitutes. However, Hallie Rubenhold in her recent book, The Five, has proven that they should more aptly be described as impoverished women in despair who medicated themselves with alcohol, and engaged in casual prostitution to avoid homelessness.

Police detectives and armchair criminologists have proposed many suspects over the years: Prince Albert Victor (eldest son of future King Edward VII,) Queen Victoria’s physician Dr. William Gull, coach driver John Netley, kosher butcher Aaron Kosminski, Oxford cricket star Montague John Druitt, cotton broker James Maybrick, Polish barber Severin Klosowski, patent medicine huckster Francis Tumblety, expressionist painter Walter Sickert, American serial killer H. H. Holmes, and at least two dozen more. The case remains unsolved. Since the perpetrator apparently left his DNA on Catherine Eddowes’ shawl, the best hope for a solution might lie in genetic genealogy.

At the outset, I should clarify terms. Serial killing means murdering several victims at different times and places. Ted Bundy slew multiple women at disparate locations on various dates. Mass murder usually involves killing many people in one place during a specific time frame. On June 12, 2016 twenty-nine year old Omar Mateen, the son of immigrants from Afghanistan, shot 49 people to death at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Another hybrid category exists: that of serial mass murderers. For example, during his twenty-eight year reign of terror Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered scores of purges.

Serial killing has both genetic and environmental causes. Among the external influences, psychologists have cited abusive parents, alcoholism, sexual molestation in childhood, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and exposure to pornographic or violent films. Many ancient cultures attributed homicidal mania to demonic possession.

Most serial killers are psychopaths who suffer from anti-social personality disorder. Their signature traits include juvenile delinquency, a drive to dominate others, no empathy, zero remorse, craving for excitement, lack of impulse control, perception of other people as objects, and mood disorders (especially manic-depression, a.k.a. bipolar syndrome.)

For centuries physicians have noticed that certain head injuries can adversely affect patient behavior. In some cultures the brain’s prefrontal lobe became known as the seat of conscience. Today neurologists associate the prefrontal cortex with higher cognition, which includes planning, rational decision-making, and the ability to distinguish right from wrong. In well-adjusted people the prefrontal lobe performs the soul-like function of exercising dominion over the inner brain’s limbic system. Two almond-shaped pods called the amygdala fuel the limbic (or emotional) network’s engine. When the prefrontal lobe fails to control the amygdala, an individual will be prone to act on impulses such as anger, lust, and fear. Thus, unchecked amygdala may precipitate physical violence, sexual molestation, reckless driving, and other antisocial actions.

One recipe for criminality appears to be overactive amygdala unrestrained by sufficient gray matter in the prefrontal cortex. Neurophysiologists have discovered that abuse and neglect of children under five will inhibit the production of gray matter in their prefrontal lobes. Autopsy results have shown that violent psychopaths generally have a preponderance of white matter in that region.

Note how the amygdala-prefrontal lobe dynamic parallels classicism’s exaltation of reason above passion, and Freud’s notion that the civilized ego and superego need to censor one’s primordial id. One could argue that certain philosophical dualities—such as spirit vs. matter and good vs. evil—arise from this tension between the prefrontal lobe and amygdala.

This trend of slaughtering random victims to gratify perverse urges gathered momentum during the hedonistic era between 1965 and 1990.

Although the term serial killer didn’t come into vogue until 1960, multi-murderers have plagued humanity for centuries. Sadistic Roman Emperor Caligula (12 to 41 A.D.) ordered hundreds of people slain for his own amusement. French army officer Gilles de Rais (1405 – 1440) allegedly murdered more than a hundred children. Vlad the Impaler of Romania (c. 1428 – 1477) carried out bloody purges against the Wallachian nobility, Transylvanian Saxons, and Ottoman Turks. With help from accomplices, Hungarian Countess Elizabeth of Bathory (1560 – 1614) might have tortured and killed as many as 650 young women. 16th Century Scottish fiend Sawney Beane supposedly murdered over 1,000 individuals and regularly indulged in cannibalism.

GEOGRAPHY

Three prolific serial killers terrorized South America. Pedro Monster of the Andes Lopez of Colombia murdered between 53 and 300 girls from 1969 to 1979. Incredibly, he was released from a mental hospital for good behavior in 1998, and promptly disappeared. Between 1967 and 2007 Pedro Filho of Brazil killed at least 72 people, including his own father. Police estimate his death toll may be as high as 180 persons. He has allegedly murdered 47 fellow inmates while in prison. Colombian police suspected Luis Garavito of slaying as many as 300 street children in the 1990’s.

Communist China tends to hide its dirty laundry, but the depredations of fiendish Yang Xinhai leaked to the West. Between 2000 and 2003 this psycho broke into dozens of homes at night and killed an estimated 67 people with either an ax or meat cleaver. He was executed in 2004.

This ghastly catalogue could go on much longer by summarizing the atrocities of Mikhail Popov (Russia, 78 victims,) Andrei Butcher of Rostov Chikatko (Russia, 53 victims,) Anatoly Onoprienko (Ukraine, 50,) Wang Qiang (China, 45,) Yves Trudeau (Canada, 43,) and others, but you get the point. Serial killers live all over world.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION

For decades the homosexual community has used the term mad dog to describe a violent gay man. Some mad dogs have become serial killers.

In 1986 Navy brat Andrew Cunanan’s San Diego high school classmates voted him person least likely to be forgotten. A voluble name-dropper and compulsive liar with a 142 I.Q., he continually fabricated tall tales and boasted about non-existent friendships with celebrities. Andrew (1969 – 1997) attended University of California, San Diego for two years, majoring in American History. School friends told F.B.I. interrogators that he sometimes earned money as a male prostitute, servicing gay sugar daddies more than twice his age. Sometime in the early 1990’s Andrew latched onto California millionaire Norman Blachford, and lived the high life awhile thanks to Norman’s largesse. Due to Cunanan’s infidelities, flagrant credit card abuse, and other issues, Blachford terminated their relationship in September, 1996. That blow quickly reduced twenty-six year old Cunanan from partying bon vivant to jobless pauper.

Andrew’s acquaintances informed the F.B.I. that he dealt drugs to support himself after the Norman Blachford break-up. His own drug of choice was methamphetamine, which inflamed bipolar tendencies. Along with the violent porn videos he liked to watch, speed fueled mania, rendering him not merely feral, but rabid. It aggravated his anger, jealousy, and anxiety about being broke. Former companions said Andrew also worried that he’d contracted AIDS. (His autopsy determined that he was HIV-negative.) In any event, this nitroglycerine cocktail of rage, apprehension, and meth exploded in the spring of 1997 when he embarked upon a killing spree.

Andrew had confided to friends that thirty-three year old architect David Madson was the love of his life. However, Madson came to regard Cunanan as an unhinged narcissist, who grew sulky and petulant if he weren’t the center of attention at every party. David dumped Andrew, formed a liaison with handsome former Navy officer Jeffrey Trail, and moved with him to Minnesota.

Cunanan traveled to Minneapolis in late April, 1997. On April 27th he beat Jeff Trail to death with a claw hammer. Before exiting Trail’s apartment, he stole his 40 caliber Taurus PT92 semi-automatic pistol. With that weapon Cunanan shot ex-lover David Madson in the back and head on Rush City, Minnesota’s lake shore. Police found his corpse there on May 3rd.

Desperately needing a payday, Cunanan went to Chicago where he visited 72 year old real estate mogul Lee Miglin. Once inside Miglin’s residence on May 4th, he jabbed a Phillips screwdriver into him twenty times, and nearly severed his head with a hacksaw. After ripping off cash, credit cards, and the victim’s car, Cunanan headed east through Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Realizing that the FBI issued a nationwide alert for Miglin’s vehicle, he shot cemetery caretaker William Reese dead in Pennsville, NJ on May 9th, and sped off with his red pickup truck. Andrew drove south down I-95 to Florida, and kept a low profile for two months, hiding out aboard an unoccupied houseboat moored in one of Miami Beach’s posh marinas.

Around 9 A.M on July 15th. Cunanan shot fashion designer Gianni Versace twice in the back of the head as he walked toward the front steps of his Miami Beach home.

On July 23rd a harbor employee heard a gunshot and called police, who searched the area. In the houseboat’s cabin they found Cunanan dead from a self-inflicted bullet wound to his head.

What motivated him to kill Gianni Versace? Some think Cunanan did it out of spite