This is probably the first true crime show I ever watched, and it sucked me in from the beginning. Hosted by Bill Kurtis, Cold Case Files tackles any case deemed cold, some dating back as far as forty years. It’s interesting to think about how differently an old case might have been handled were it to occur today.

The best thing about the show is that the cases chosen are ones finally solved. Most of the time, a case has been dormant for months if not years until a determined detective or officer gets wind of it and looks at the situation with fresh eyes. Sometimes it takes decades, but dogged determination and advancement in forensic science have resulted in hundreds of solved cases.

Episode Highlights:

The Answer In The Box

On July 25, 1986 eleven-year-old Alison Parrott disappeared from her Toronto, Canado home. A male caller had convinced her he would be taking pictures of Allison and her track and field teammates. She was to meet the photographer at the University of Toronto’s Varsity Stadium. The man had also called a week earlier with the same request, and Alison was able to get her mother’s permission to meet him. She told the family housekeeper her plans, and then left her home. Source

She was found two nights later in Kings Mill Park on the Humber River. Alison had been raped and strangled.

Capture

The case went cold for 10 years until Francis Carl Roy was arrested in 1996. A runner with a known interest in photography, Roy had a criminal record that included assault and rape. When Alison was murdered, he’d been on parole after serving just 18 months of an eleven year sentence for the rapes of two teenaged girls. DNA evidence linked him conclusively to Alison.

He was convicted of first-degree murdered and sentenced to life without the chance of parole for 25 years.

Mommy’s Rules–the Murder of Suesan and Sheila Knorr

Theresa Knorr physically and verbally abused all her children but daughters Suesan and Sheila were targeted the most. Jealousy over their youth and beauty, and the crazed notion the two girls were witches who had forced Theresa to gain weight were used as her motivation to torture them. Source

Theresa burned her kids with cigarettes and beat them, and she trained her sons to beat and discipline her daughters.

Suesan

In 1983, Knorr shot Suesan in the chest. The bullet lodged in the girls back, but her mother refused to seek medical help. She left Suesan to die in the bathtub, but when she survived, Theresa started nursing her back to health.

A year later, Suesan asked to move out. Theresa agreed on the condition she could remove the bullet still lodged in the girl’s back. On the dirty kitchen floor with alcohol as an anesthetic, Theresa had her son Robert removed the bullet with a box cutter. Suesan quickly became infected and slipped into a coma–on the kitchen floor. She was left there to die, and Theresa instructed the other children to walk over her, telling them her illness was a result of possession by the devil. She convinced her sons Robert and Bill to take Suesan and burn her alive.

Sheila

Next, Theresa forced daughter Sheila into prostitution, and then accused her own daughter of giving her an STD. Sheila was locked in a closet and starved to death. Her body was packed into a cardboard box and dumped.

Daughter Terry managed to escape and then spent years trying to get law enforcement to listen to her. No one believed her until in 1993, she finally convinced someone to listen.

Capture

Finally, in November 1993, Theresa and her sons are arrested after an appearance on America’s Most Wanted. She was charged with two counts of murder, two counts of conspiracy to commit murder, as well as multiple murder and murder by torture. When Theresa found out her sons were set to testify against her, she pled guilty to avoid the death penalty. She was sentenced to two life sentences and will be eligible for parole in 2027.

These are just two of the dozes of harrowing and complicated cases A&E’s Cold Case Files have covered. For a full list, visit the show’s official site.

What do you think about these cases? Should Theresa have a shot at parole? How much should her sons be held accountable? And is the system to blame for Allison Parrott’s murder?

Don’t forget, Welcome To Las Vegas is on sale NOW with an exclusive excerpt of Into The Dark. 
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Into The Dark releases in digital and print November 30th, but you can pre-order your ebook right now.

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Today we’re talking about women predators. Aileen Warnous may be the most famous, but she’s certainly not the only female serial killer. In a study by Eric Hickey for Serial Murderers and their victims, female serial killers had between 400 and 600 victims! One of the worst is The Giggling Granny.

Nannie Doss – The Giggling Granny

Born in Blue Mountain, Alabama on Nov, 4, 1905, as Nancy Hazle, Doss spent much of her childhood years dealing with an abusive father. Education wasn’t a priority, and Nannie only completed the sixth grade. At the edge of seven, she suffered a head injury that caused her to suffer migraines, blackouts and depression for the rest of her life.

Her father prevented his daughters from social interaction, and Nannie didn’t get a taste of freedom until her first job at the age of 16. Her favorite pastime became romance magazines, and she loved the lonely hearts club section. She eventually married a coworker named Charley Braggs, and the two lived with his ailing mother, who was controlling and manipulative. Over the next four years, Nannie had four children and life became a prison of childcare and caring for her demanding mother-in-law. Charley was an abusive adulterer, and Nannie because drinking and barhopping to cope.

Nannie’s First Victims

In 1927, Nannie’s two middle children died from food poisoning. Her husband suspected Nannie and left with the oldest child but left Nannie alone with the newborn. His mother died soon after. Eventually the two divorced and Nannie and her children moved back in with her parents.

Nannie met her second husband through the lonely heart’s column. Robert Harrelson was yet another poorly chosen man. He was a drunk and loved bar fighting. Still, they remained married for 16 years until Harrelson’s death.

The Grandchildren

In 1943, Nannie’s oldest daughter had a son. Two years later, she gave birth to a healthy girl who died soon after birth. Her death was unexplained, but Nannie’s daughter said that while in and out of consciousness after a rough delivery, she saw her mother stick a hatpin into the infant’s head. No proof was ever found.

In July, 1945, Nannie had a fight with her daughter about the girl’s new boyfriend. Her grandson Robert was in Nannie’s care, and that night he died of asphyxia from unknown causes. Nannie collected a $500 insurance policy on the child a few months later.

That fall, Frank Harrelson allegedly came home drunk and raped Nannie. The next day she poured rat poison into his corn whiskey and watched her husband die a miserable death.

More Husbands

Nannie snagged Arlie Lanning from the classifieds. After two and a half years of marriage, Lanning died. He had a history of drinking, and it was believed he died of a heart attack brought on by the flu. Lanning’s house was to be inherited by his sister, but it burned down before she could take possession. Nannie got the insurance money, but not before her mother-in-law (whom Nannie was staying with) died in her sleep. Nannie then moved in with her cancer-stricken sister, who also died in Nannie’s care.

Richard Morton met Nannie at the singles club. He wasn’t a drunk but an adulterer, and Nannie had her sights set on another man already. Her recently widowed mother came for a visit and within days, died after complaining of severe stomach cramps. Richard Morton was next.

Samuel Doss was Nannie’s last husband. Unlike her other men, Samuel was good man who fell in love with Nannie. But he was very frugal and boring, and that just didn’t sit well with Nannie. His life was militant–no romance novels or love stories on television and a strict 9:30 p.m. bedtime every night. He finally gave Nannie access to the money after she took off, and then she convinced him to take out two life insurance policies with herself as the benefactor.

Then came the stomach problems. Samuel spent two weeks in the hospital. His first night home, Nannie gave him a home-cooked meal, and he died soon after.

Doctors ordered an autopsy and found arsenic poisoning. Nannie was questioned and confessed to killing four husbands, her sister, her mother, her grandson, and one mother-in-law. Remorse wasn’t her style. She joked about her dead husbands and her killing methods, earning her the nicknames of The Giggling Granny and The Jolly Widow.

Sentenced to life for Samuel Doss’s  murder, Nannie Doss died in 1963 of leukemia.

What do you think?

What drove Nannie Doss to do such horrible things? Was she a psychopath or just a vicious, jealous individual? How did she manage to murder so many times without suspicion?

This is one of those cases with SO much more information than I could relay in a blog post. Visit Murderpedia for a Picture of Nannie Doss and source.
Source – Inside the Minds of Serial Killers by Katherine Ramsland

A big THANK YOU to Stacy Green for inviting me to be her guest today!

Visceral Rules!

By Margie Lawson

Let’s talk visceral!

First, I’ll SHOW, then I’ll TELL, then I’ll SHOW and TELL.

SHOWING:

Romily Bernard, 2012 Golden Heart Winner, and multi-Margie-grad

Find Me,  Romily’s debut Young Adult novel will be published Sept. 2013

1. Then I hear the car door slam and my heart rides up my throat with spurs.
2. “We have a visitor.” Weird how my voice sounds flat and confident when my insides are churning and liquid.
3. I rub my thumb over the frayed binding, irritation pinching all my insides like I’ve got mosquitoes eating their way out.
4. There’s a flickering under my scalp, a tingling across the back of my neck. My annoying mosquitoes have grown into spiders. They’re crawling all over my skin.

TELLING:

A visceral response is a physical manifestation of emotion.

If you’ve taken some of my online courses, or heard me present a full day master class, you know a key to writing a page-turner is visceral emotion.

You know a scene carries psychological power when you use several scene components, including visceral responses.

You know when emotions in a scene are high, POV characters need to get out of their heads to get in to reader’s hearts.

Visceral responses include, but are not limited to:

• stomach clenching
• heart pounding
• rapid and shallow breathing
• pulse racing
• adrenaline surging
• legs weakening
• throat tightening
• mouth drying
• face flushing
• nausea imminent
• chest tightening
• equilibrium failing
• hear blood rushing
• vision narrowing

Visceral responses are involuntary.

You can’t keep your face from flushing. You can’t keep your mouth from going dry. You can’t keep your chest from tightening, your heart from pounding, your vision from narrowing.

If visceral responses are clichéd, the scene loses power.

If there are too many visceral responses, the scene loses power.

If variations on the same visceral response are overused, the scene loses power.

Time Out for a Teaching Point on Rhetorical Devices!

The paragraph starting with—You can’t keep—Is an example of anaphora.

The next three lines below that paragraph, the ones ending with—the scene loses power—that’s an example of epistrophe.

Now – back to visceral responses. 

When a POV character experiences a strong emotional stimulus, they will have a visceral response. And that visceral response presents immediately.

Visceral responses are experienced first. Always.

When there’s a strong emotional stimulus, people don’t act first.

People don’t think first.

People don’t speak first.

People experience a visceral response first. It’s immediate.

If your characters experience a visceral response first, your scene will be more credible.

We want readers hooked, glued, secured, emotionally immersed in our stories. We want readers viscerally engaged.

SHOWING AND TELLING:

Melanie Milburne, USA Today Bestselling Author, and multi-Margie-grad

Deserving of His Diamonds? 

1. Gisele’s heart tripped in her chest like a pony’s hoof in a pothole.

Analysis: Fresh writing, Simile, Alliteration, Compelling cadence

1. Gisele felt a butterfly wing-like flutter pass over the floor of her belly.

Analysis: Fresh writing. Specificity. A subtle play on the cliché, butterflies in stomach, but it’s fresh and light and connotes something positive. Compelling cadence.

1. Her legs felt like dampened paper, barely strong enough to hold her upright. Her spine was loosening, vertebra by vertebra, until she felt sure she would melt into a pool at his feet. Where was her resolve? Where was her anger? They were like cowardly soldiers retreating from the frontline of battle.

Analysis: Fresh writing, twice! Simile. Specificity. Several points amplified multiple times. Two rhetorical questions. Amplified simile backloaded with power word: battle. Compelling cadence.

Barbara O’Neal, Seven-time RITA Winner, Inducted into the RWA Hall of Fame

The Garden of Happy Endings

1. Elsa paused on the threshold, feeling a dense, dark energy swelling from somewhere, through her. Dizzy, she closed her eyes and put a hand on the door to steady herself.

Analysis: Fresh writing. Amplified feeling. Alliteration, twice. Body language. Recovery. Compelling cadence.

1. Tamsin sat through the sermon with a brick in her belly.

Analysis: Fresh writing. Fun metaphor. Alliteration, twice. Compelling cadence.

1. Her lungs pinched hard enough that she had to cough, like an old lady, to get air.

Analysis: Fresh writing. Visceral response used as a stimulus. Amplified with simile. Backloaded with power words: to get air. Compelling cadence.

1. A sense of anticipation skittered over the top of her skin, brushing the back of her neck, her elbows, her belly.

Analysis: Fresh writing. Alliteration. Specificity. Anaphora. Asyndeton. Compelling cadence.

Darynda Jones, 2012 RITA Winner, and multi-Margie-grad

Third Grave on the Left

1. A rush of delight rippled down my spine and pooled in my abdomen. My pulse accelerated by a hairsbreadth, just enough to cause a tingling flutter in my stomach

Analysis: Fresh writing. Visceral responses, amplified multiple times. Specificity. Visceral response used as a stimulus for another visceral response (pulse accelerating triggered tingling flutter in stomach). Compelling cadence.

1. A vise locked around my chest and was inching closed. My periphery darkened. I could barely breathe, and I needed out of there.

Analysis: Three basic visceral responses. First visceral response intensified. Two others in separate sentences. Shared need to leave, implying things would get worse if she didn’t leave. Compelling cadence.

The last examples I’ll analyze are the four by Romily Bernard that you read in the opening of the blog.

Romily Bernard, 2012 Golden Heart Winner, and multi-Margie-grad

Find Me,   Romily’s debut Young Adult novel will be published Sept. 2013

1. Then I hear the car door slam and my heart rides up my throat with spurs.

Analysis: Fresh writing. Shared stimulus and response. Amplified visceral response twice. Backloaded with power word: spurs. Compelling cadence.

1. “We have a visitor.” Weird how my voice sounds flat and confident when my insides are churning and liquid.

Analysis: Fresh writing.  Complex dialogue cue.  Complex visceral response. Parallelism.  Compelling cadence.

1. I rub my thumb over the frayed binding, irritation pinching all my insides like I’ve got mosquitoes eating their way out.

Analysis: Fresh writing. Shares stimulus (the book) and amplified visceral response.  Implies creepy/scary feelings, without saying she was creeped out or scared. Backloaded with power. Compelling cadence.

1. There’s a flickering under my scalp, a tingling across the back of my neck. My annoying mosquitoes have grown into spiders. They’re crawling all over my skin.

Analysis: Fresh writing. Picks up visceral thread from half-page above. Visceral amplified multiple times. Mosquitoes to spiders, implies danger intensified. Compelling cadence.

Excellent examples from all the authors!

This blog shared some ideas for using visceral responses. You got to taste a few dishes from my visceral response smorgasbord.

Lots more to learn about writing visceral responses.  I dig deep into visceral responses in these two online courses:

1. Empowering Characters’ Emotions
2. The EDITS System: Turning Troubled Scenes in to Winners!

The next time I teach Empowering Characters’ Emotions is February.  But the Lecture Packet can be ordered any time through my web site.

I teach The EDITS System course Sept. 24 – Oct. 19.

Please check out my online courses and presentation schedule. I’m presenting in Denver, Houston, Seattle, and Washington D.C. this fall. I hope to meet some of you in one of those cities this fall – or somewhere next year. Atlanta?

BLOG GUESTS:  NOW IT’S YOUR TURN! 

POST A COMMENT AND YOU MAY WIN a Lecture Packet  or one of my online courses from Lawson Writer’s Academy!

I’ll post the name of the LUCKY WINNER  tonight – at 9PM Mountain Time.

Post a comment – or just say “Hi Margie!” – and you could be a WINNER!

 —Make sure you leave a comment for a chance at winning an awesome gift from Margie. Don’t forget to enter the THRILLER EXTRAVAGANZA GRAND PRIZE giveaway of either a silver spot in Kristen Lamb’s WANA International Blogging or an Amazon Gift Card and a bag of healthy goodies. 

***IF YOU ARE A NEW COMMENTER, YOUR COMMENT WILL NEED TO BE APPROVED. DON’T WORRY IF IT DOESN’T SHOW UP RIGHT AWAY – I’LL GET IT:)

Lawson Writer’s Academy now has 37 courses and 12 instructors. LWA courses are taught in a cyber classroom from Margie’s website, www.MargieLawson.com.

Upcoming Courses from Lawson Writer’s Academy:

1.  Aug. 20 – Sept. 28:  Fab 30 in 40 Days: Advanced Deep Editing, A Master Class

     Instructor: Margie Lawson

2.  Sept. 1 – 30: Story Structure Safari

     Instructor: Lisa Miller

3.  Sept. 3 – 28:  Writing Compelling Scenes

     Instructor: Shirley Jump

4.  Sept. 3 – 28:  Steampunk A-Z

      Instructor: Suzi Lazear

5.  Sept. 24 – Oct. 19:  The EDITS System:  Turning Troubled Scenes in to Winners

      Instructor: Margie Lawson

Margie Lawson —psychotherapist, editor, and international presenter—developed innovative editing systems and deep editing techniques used by writers, from newbies to NYT Bestsellers. She teaches writers how to edit for psychological power, how to hook the reader viscerally, how to create a page-turner.

Thousands of writers have learned Margie’s psychologically-based deep editing material. In the last seven years, she presented over seventy full day Master Classes for writers in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Please contact Margie if you think your group might be interested in having her present a master class for them.

For more information on Lawson Writer’s Academy, lecture packets, full day master classes, and the 4-day Immersion Master Class sessions offered in Margie’s Colorado mountain-top home, visit:  www.MargieLawson.com.

On February 12, 1993, security cameras at the Bootle Strand Shopping Center near Liverpool, England recorded a young boy leading a toddler by the hand. A second boy walked a few steps ahead.

Two-year-old James Bulger trusted the two boys who took him on a long walk, cruelly tortured and then murdered him. The boys were seen by an estimated 38 people during the hours they had James. These people became known as the “Liverpool 38.”

As a mother, this is one of the most terrifying true crime stories I’ve read. My six-year-old knows not to trust strange adults, but an older child offering to play with her? I’m afraid she would follow. That’s why I can’t relax at a park or other public places.

On that February day, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson entertained themselves by stealing various items: candy, batteries, a can of paint. Both boys were petty delinquents. After the arrest, authorities assumed tough-acting Robert was the ringleader while Jon, who cried and wallowed in remorse, simply followed. Both boys blamed the other one.

Just like my daughter and I, Denise took James everywhere. And like myself, she’d suffered a miscarriage with her first child, making her even more protective of James. On February 12, Denise and her brothers girlfriend went to the shopping center, bringing James along. After a few stops, Denise bought James a snack, hoping to get him to settle down. But like any two-year-old, he was antsy and full of energy. He’d misbehaved at a couple of stores, and at their last stop, Denise went in and left James by the door. She was only inside the shop for a few minutes, and he was gone.

Robert and Jon had skipped class. Already behind a grade, both hated school. They went to the shopping center, where they were told to leave most stores they entered. They lied to shop clerks, telling them they were out of school on a holiday. They were at a concession stand near the butchers shop when they spotted James standing by the door and eating Smarties.

Jon told him to come on and James obeyed. Outside the shopping center, they carried the boy, who cried for his mother. At a nearby canal, one of the boys picked up James and dropped him on his head. They covered James with his hood to hide the cut from the fall. Several witnesses saw the boy being led by the older children. At one point, James rushed into traffic, crying for his mother. Drivers saw Robert catching him and pulling him back. Eventually, Robert and Jon took James to a grassy area near a reservoir where a witness saw Jon punch and shake James. She closed her curtains and did nothing. Others would encounter the boys, who talked their way out of James’s injuries by telling them they’d just found James and were on their way to the police station. One woman nearly took James to the police station herself.

At one point, the boys were very near the police station. They’d been dragging James along  for hours now and had many opportunities to give him up and run. They chose to kill him. I won’t give you the details of the child’s murder. It occurred between 5:45 and 6 p.m on Friday.

James’s body was discovered on Sunday afternoon. The damage was horrific, but the blue paint the boys had flicked on him would be their undoing. Police knew from the security footage they were looking for two youths, and when an anonymous woman saw the footage, she called the police. She told them her friend Susan Venables had a son named John who’d skipped school Friday and had blue pain on his jacket sleeve. She also mentioned his friend Robert. The boys were brought in for questioning and eventually confessed.

Forensic evidence backed them up: the blue paint on their clothing matched the paint on James’s bod. His blood was on their shoes, and a pattern of bruising on James’ right cheek matched the features of a shoe worn by Robert.

Robert and Jon were found guilty on November 24, 1993 and sentenced to custody until the age of 18. They were released in June 2001, given new identities and moved to secret location. The English government gave them new passports, national insurance numbers, and medical records. They were not allowed to contact each other or Bulgar’s family, they were prohibited from visiting the area where the crime took place, and they had to report to probation officers. A worldwide media injunction was imposed after their release to protect the boys’ new identities. In 2010, Jon Venables went back to prison for violating parole.

I know they were only ten when they killed James. But what ten-year-old doesn’t know murder is wrong? These two boys had so many chances to let the child go. They lied and did whatever it took to keep him in their grip. Why should they be released? I have little doubt they would kill again, and frankly, it doesn’t matter. They should have served far more time than they did. And much like Mary Bell, the two were given entirely new identities, paid for by the government. I can’t condone it, and if I were Denise, I would never be able to rest.

What do you think of Jon and Robert’s release?

Want more Thriller Thursday, book excerpts, contests, and other fun things? Then sign up for my newsletter, Twisted Minds and Dark Places!

Detailed account of James Bulger’s murder and the subsequent events by Katherine Ramsland (source).

Robert Thompson gets money for News of the World hacking his phone.

When Nicole first asked me to write this guest post, I jumped at the chance. With my Thriller Thursday feature, of course I could tell everyone the difference between the two genres.

Right. Defining the two turned out to be much more difficult than I anticipated. Suspense and thrillers are so interchangeable that pinpointing a true separation is tricky, but the subtleties are there, if you look closely.

“Suspense is the state of waiting for something to happen.” –Alfred Hitchcock.

When I think of suspense, I picture dark shadows, peaking around corners, heart pounding, body sweating, stomach-churning waiting. Readers often sit on the edge of their seats with the nagging feeling that everything is adding up to the moment the main character is going to be in mortal danger. Suspense novels are akin to puzzles: lots of little pieces come together for a shocking, “oh my goodness, that’s the bad guy” moment. Sometimes the most benign circumstance can turn out to be the clue that binds the entire story together.

Suspense is subtle, building with the story. It’s slower paced (not boring, but the action scenes are more calculated and the pacing is different). Readers might be inside the bad guy’s head in some suspense novels (Allison Brennan), but they don’t always know his true identity. In most suspense novels, the main character starts out with very little sense of danger and is simply thrown into a situation.

For example, in Greg Iles’s excellent novel Turning Angel, prosecutor Penn Cage has remained in his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi to raise his young daughter in a safe world. But then the nude body of a prep school student shows up, and Penn’s best friend is a suspect in her murder. Penn agrees to help and gets caught up in the world of blackmail and deadly violence. As the book progresses, Penn finds himself in increasing danger, and of course, the bad guy is never who we think it is. Getting to the heart of the plot and the building sense of foreboding keeps readers turning the pages in suspense novels.

So how do you write great suspense?

1)    Strong, relatable characters. Penn Cage is a small town doctor and a widower just trying to do what’s best for his young daughter. He’s middle-aged and handsome but has no idea how to get back into the dating game, nor does he care. He wants to do what’s right, but he can’t turn his back on his friend.

2)    Setting is key. The mood of a story can be set and changed with each scene description. Vivid descriptions and pacing can be used to set the tone so the reader knows something heart stopping is just around the next page.

3)    Conflict. Like any novel, conflict needs to be in every scene, and your main character must continue to limp forward despite her setbacks.

4)    Antagonist must be riveting and as three dimensional as possible. In suspense, he’s usually a step ahead of the protagonist, and the clues are constantly building as to who the bad guy is and what his motivations are.

5)    Keep it visceral. One of the main elements of suspense is the nerve-wracking wait for the next shoe to drop. Show your main character terrified, confused, upset. Make the reader feel what your protagonist is feeling. Margie Lawson’s Empowering Character’s Emotions is a fantastic guide for getting a reader deep into your character’s head.

Thrillers have all these elements, too, but they also have something more.

“It “thrills” as one reads it. The plots are scary, the characters are at great risk and the novels are constructed in a manner that makes the reader really want to turn the page.” –Thriller Press

Thrillers are more like a terrifying, nine-hundred turn roller coaster. Fast, slow, fast, dip, circle, quick pause, and then start all over again. And don’t forget the gigantic ticking clock in the background. That’s a must in a thriller, but it doesn’t always have to be a high concept, end of the world or bust deal. The stakes can be local (saving the next women from becoming a victim in Tess Gerritsen’s brilliant medical thriller The Surgeon) or global, as in War of The Worlds.

And there are any number of thrillers: spy thrillers, techno thrillers (From Russia With Love), legal thriller (John Grisham), medical thriller (Robin Cook), true crime, action/adventure, and my personal favorite, the psychological suspense (The Silence of The Lambs, Shutter Island.)

Seriously, if you want a lesson in how to get into the minds of your readers and scary them silly, study Silence of the Lambs. Thomas Harris makes us feel Clarice’s every emotion: fear, pride, anguish, anger. When Hannibal calls her at the end of the novel, even though the main story line is all tied up and Buffalo Bill is dead, our hearts our still pounding at what the good doctor might say. That’s the essence of a thriller – the ride doesn’t stop until the very end.

So what do you need for a great thriller?

1)    Start off with a bang. An action scene is a great way to kick-start a thriller – think of any James Bond movie. They always start when Bond’s in a precarious situation and has to fight his way out of a jam.

2)    Larger than life hero/heroine. Your main character has to be someone who defeat whatever evil he’s facing. Clarice Starling is a quiet, reserved FBI recruit with the heart and determination of a lion. It’s her sheer will and stubbornness that defeats Buffalo Bill and saves the senator’s daughter.

3)    Your villain had better be all-powerful, too. In Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons, Robert Langdon is up against the powerful and secretive Illuminati as he tries to thwart the group’s efforts to destroy the Catholic Church. These guys are willing to sacrifice themselves – and each other – for their cause.

4)    What about the stakes? Whether they’re local or global, they’ve got to be high. Saving a president from assassination, biological warfare, or stopping a serial killer – it’s about life and death from the beginning in a thriller. And the main character knows it. That’s the key difference. Robert Langdon knows he’s trying to save a life (his own neck) in The Da Vinci Code as soon as he’s suspected in the priest’s murder. And in Angels and Demons, the threat is global, as the anti-matter being stolen from CERN is the inciting incident.

5)    Hero’s plans – he’s got to be out to stop the villain from committing a further crime, not just trying to solve a previous one. Clarice is trying to save the senator’s daughter, Robert Landgon the Catholic Church – you get the point.

So what do you write? Thrillers or suspense? Or both? Are current thrillers more interchangeable with suspense than the classics? Has this post helped you understand the difference and the similarities?

Since I’m leaving for vacation for 10 days tomorrow (yay!), I won’t be posting a new Thriller Thursday until June 28. Will be checking in on Facebook and Twitter when I can.  

Thanks to the Writer’s Unboxed Facebook group and Catie Rhodes for their help with this post.

Old fairy tales are scary as hell. In The Legend of Bluebeard (“La Barbe bleue”, Tales of Mother Goose, Charles Perrault, 1697), a hideous man with a strange blue beard and a wealthy estate is known to have had several wives who disappeared. His new wife is soon left alone on the estate, and he hands her a set of keys. She may open any room she wishes, except for the small closet at the end of the basement. Naturally, as soon as he was gone, the wife rushed to the basement closest, only to find the seven previous wives of Bluebeard, their throats slashed from ear to ear. Bluebeard discovers her treachery and vows her to death, but her brothers arrived to save her. The wife inherited his fortune, and she and her family lived happily ever after.

A children’s fairytale, meant to teach God only knows what, but in the early 1900s, one of the world’s first lonely hearts predators killed ten women, earning the chilling nickname Bluebeard.

Short and bald, with bushy eyebrows to match his equally overgrown beard, Henri Landru wasn’t exactly an Adonis. By looks alone, he wasn’t the type of man you’d expect to woo hundreds of women, let alone bilk them out of their lives savings. And yet he did. A second-hand furniture dealer and automobile mechanic, something about Landru lured women by the hundreds.

He killed ten of them.

Born in 1869 to an average family, Landru’s childhood was uneventful. His mother was a housewife, his father a fireman at Paris’ Vulcain Ironworks. Landru attended Catholic school and was drafted to the French Army at the age of 18. In 1891, he managed to seduce his cousin, who bore him a daughter. He married another woman two years later, quit the military, and began working as a clerk.

Unfortunately, his employer swindled Landru out of a large sum of money. This turned Landru to a life of crime and revenge. Many of his victims were windows he’d meet through his legitimate furniture business. Lonely and faced with poverty, these widows made easy targets.

Between 1900 and 1908, Landru served several stints in prison. He was released in 1908 with the understanding he would re-enlist in the French Army. Instead, he honed his skills and continued to prey on vulnerable women.

His first known murder victim is Madame Cuchet, a 39-year-old widow. She was nearly destitute when Landru swept in to save the day. Cuchet’s brother was suspicious of Landru, but she ignored his warning. She and Landru moved to a villa in Vernouillet with her son. Mother and son were last seen alive in 1915. Landru’s wife was later presented with Cuchet’s watch as a present.

Next was an Argentine widow named Madame Laborde-Line. She told friends she was marrying an engineer from Brazil, but the two decided to move in together. Laborde-Line was last seen in July 1915.

Then came Madame Guillen, a 51-year-old widow, followed by Madame Heon. Both visited Landru’s villa in Vernouillet and disappeared.

Andree Babelay, a servant girl, also disappeared. No one knows why Landru chose to kill her–she certainly had no money to offer.

Landru eventually left Vernouillet for a new home in Gambais, where he had a large cast-iron oven installed.

His first known Gambais victim was Madam Buisson. It took Landru almost a year to estrange the wealthy widow from her family. She was last seen in 1917.

Madame Louise Leopoldine Jaume disappeared in September 1917.  Annette Pascal vanished in the spring of 1918. Marie Therese Marchadier disappeared in late 1918 after visiting Landru in Gambais.

For years, Landru wasn’t suspected in these women’s disappearances. He worked hard to separate his victims from their families, but then worked even harder to make the families believe their loved ones were alive long after he’d killed them. He sent postcards, forged letters, pretended to be an attorney–the list goes on.

Remember the first Gambias victim, Madame Buisson? Two years after she’d disappeared with Landru, her son passed away. Her sister began searching for the woman, finally writing to the mayor of Gambais. She told the mayor her sister’s intention had been to run away with a man named Guilett (Landru’s alias). The mayor suggested she meet with the family of Madame Collumb, who had also vanished under similar circumstances in 1917.

Landru’s aliases were soon discovered and searched for, but his known residence at Gambais was empty. Buisson’s sister refused to give up. She remembered what her sister’s lover had looked like, and in 1919, spotted Landru strolling out of shop. She lost him in the crowd, but the owner of the shop told her the man’s name was Guilett, and that he lived in the Rue de Rochechouart with his mistress. Landru was soon arrested.

They didn’t have much to hold him on. Police searched the homes and gardens in Gambais and Vernouillet but only found a memo book where Landru recorded his financial status. Landru believed he was in the catbird’s seat and kept quiet. Authorities spent two years investigating, eventually discovering that all the women in Landru’s notebook, whom he’d med through marriage advertisements, had disappeared. He’d also recorded one-way trips from Paris for each victim, but round-trips for himself.

Still, no bodies. The gardens at both his residences were repeatedly dug up. The break came when neighbors at Gambais mentioned noxious fumes coming from the kitchen. Police searched the iron stove and found bones, as well as women’s fasteners. Landru was charged with 11 counts of murder.

Remember, in 1919, there were no terms like “serial killer.” Only Jack the Ripper was widely known to have killed multiple people, and a murderer like Landru was a shocking affront to the French people. His trial lasted a month. He believed that without a body, he could stonewall the court and kept virtually silent during trial. A jury found him guilty, and he was sentenced to death.

In February, 1922, Landru faced the guillotine. He showed little remorse for his actions, although he did express embarrassment his wife would discover the affair he was having at the time of his arrest. Some argue that because Landru killed for financial gain rather than a sexual motive, he can’t be classified as a serial killer. Rather, he overlaps categories, becoming a sort of Black Widow spider, taking what he needed and killing his mate with no remorse.

What do you think? Was Landru more complex than the modern serial killer? Did he receive a fair trial, or should he have been released for lack of a true body?

Love Thriller Thursdays and want more? Sign up for my newsletter, Twisted Minds and Dark Places. I’ll be featuring creepy flash fiction, Thriller extras, book reviews, and news on my upcoming releases.

Thanks to Catie Rhodes for the topic!

Known as the Lonely Hearts Killers, Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez murdered their last victim on February 28, 1949. Then the couple went to a movie and enjoyed popcorn and soda. It would be their last outing.

Born in 1919 in Milton, Florida, Martha suffered a glandular condition that caused her to physically mature faster than other children. At age 10, she looked like a grown woman and possessed the sex drive of an adult. She was also overweight and the subject of ridicule from classmates and mother. At trial, Martha would claim her bother sexually assaulted her and her mother beat her for accusing him.

After graduating nursing school, Martha he moved to California and became pregnant. Ashamed and alone, she moved back to Florida. She made up a story about the father being killed in the service and later gave birth to a daughter. After a short marriage to Alfred Beck, Martha placed an add in a local “lonely heart’s club.”

Raymond Fernandez was five years older than Martha and served with Spain’s Merchant Marine’s during WW2 where he suffered a head injury. Located in the frontal lobe region that regulates logic and learning, the injury forever changed Fernandez. He was distant, easily angered, and rambled when he spoke. He soon became convinced voodoo gave him a special sexual power over women.

By the time he met Martha, Fernandez was using the lonely hearts club to rob his date of money, jewelry, and anything else he could find.

Martha was hooked by his elaborate words and faux sincerity. A two-week correspondence included a dozen letters and an exchange of photographs. Not wanting to turn Fernandez off with her size, Martha sent a group photo of the nurses at her hospital where she was partially hidden.

Fernandez didn’t care about Martha’s size–just her money. He eventually requested a lock of hair to perform his voodoo ritual, and after a back and forth courtship that attempted suicide by Martha, he moved her to New York City to live with him. His one requirement was that she give up her kids, and Martha complied. On January 25, 1948, she dropped them off at the salvation army on January 25, 1948. Three years would pass before she had any further contact with her children.

Fernandez quickly introduced Martha to his criminal ways. Posing as his sister, she aided Fernandez’s escapades but was careful to make sure he never consummated the relationship. If he did have sex with a victim, Martha’s violent temper reared its head.

Although suspected of killing as many as seventeen (some say twenty) women, the murder of one woman sent the couple to the electric chair. In 1949, Fernandez became engaged to Janet Fay, 66. When Martha discovered the two in bed together, she smashed Fay’s head with a hammar, and then Fernandez strangled her. They dumped the body in a large trunk, and nearly two weeks later, Fernandez buried the trunk in a cellar of a rented house, covering it with cement. He and Martha spent the next week cashing Fay’s check’s and typing letters to her family. That’s where they made a major mistake: Fay didn’t own a typewriter. Her family called the police.

The killers quickly moved on to a suburb of Grand Rapids, Michigan, where they charmed Delphine Downing, a young widow with a two-year-old daughter. Fernandez gave her sleeping pills, and Beck strangled the crying child, but not killing her. Worried about the bruising on the baby, Fernandez shot Downing. The couple stayed for several days in Downing’s home, and when Beck again became enraged by the crying, she drowned the child in a basin of water. At trial, Beck would claim Fernandez made her kill the baby. They buried the two bodies in the basement, but suspicion rose, and police showed up on February 28, 1949.

Fernandez and Beck gave a detailed, gruesome confession to Kent County D.A. Roger O. McMahon, who promised they would not be turned over to New York, a state with the death penalty. But the pressure was immediately on for a transfer. New York Governor Thomas Dewey cut a deal with prosecutors: they would waive the charges for the Downing murders and allow New York to extradite.

At trial, the defendants claimed they were misled by law enforcement. Fernandez insisted everything he did was for Martha, that he was railroaded by prosecutors and confessed so that Martha could be freed.

But the written confession was too powerful. Martha told Michigan investigators, “I can still hear it! The blood was dripping, dripping, dripping, and the sound of it just sounded like it could be heard all over the house.” She also said that Janet Ray’s false teeth fell out when she was being strangled, and she and Fernandez disposed of them because her teeth would enable identification. Full of sex games, deception, and murder, the confession sealed their fate. Fernandes and Beck were convicted and later executed on March 8, 1951.

Their official last words demonstrated their love for each other, which they professed throughout their incarceration.

“I wanna shout it out; I love Martha! What do the public know about love?” Raymond Fernandez.

“My story is a love story. But only those tortured by love can know what I mean […] Imprisonment in the Death House has only strengthened my feeling for Raymond….” Martha Beck.

There is a lot more to this case, including Martha’s testimony (one juror questioned her sanity) and it can be read here. The 2006 John Travolta filme, Lonely Hearts, featured the manhunt for Fernandez and Beck, and you can read more about it here.

What do you think? Was Martha a willing participant or manipulated victim? Did the Michigan D.A. act inappropriately by sending them to New York? How much did the press play into their verdict and did it matter?

On May 12, 2007, the peaceful quiet of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania was shattered. Sound asleep in her two-story home on Peach Lane, twenty-year-old Bucknell University student Maggie Haines woke up to the sounds of a frantic struggle in her home. She got out of bed in search of the commotion, going first to her parents bedroom wehre she found her father lying on the bed. Her mother sat on the edge, badly injured.

“Go get help,” Lisa Haines managed to say. Maggie raced out of the house so quickly she didn’t see her brother’s mutilated body lying in the hallway. Help would be too late. Thomas Haines, 50, Lisa Haines, 47, and Kevin Haines, 16, died of multiple stab wounds. Only Maggie was spared without a scratch on her.

Seventy miles from Philadelphia, Lancaster County is known as Dutch Country, complete with beautiful rolling hills and dotted with Amish carriages, a place where people trusted one another and often didn’t lock their doors. The Haines were no exception. The back door stood open and police found no signs of forced entry. Nothing was stolen from the home. Maggie saw no one in her mad dash through the house and across the yard to the neighbors.

Weeks of investigation proved what everyone already knew: the Haines were happy family who loved one another and had no dark secrets. Suspects popped up here and there, but all were false leads or disturbed people looking for attention.

While Maggie was originally a suspect because of her strange calm during questioning and lack of injury, she was quickly ruled out. The killer, wearing a size 10 hush puppy shoe, had left blood prints on the carpet. When Maggie went to the neighbors, she didn’t have a drop of blood on her.

The community was terrified. The county coroner suggested a psychotic killer may be on the loose. The FBI was called in, and while the Haines murders were similar to a string of other home invasions across the country, no evidence was found to tie them together.

Sixteen-year-old Kevin Haines sustained the worst injuries by far. In addition to defensive wounds, his neck and upper body were eviscerated. The FBI questioned Kevin’s friends and classmates, but found nothing about the shy sophomore that would lead to murder. He had a small circle of friends and was among the top academics in his class. Close with his family and well respected, there were no skeletons in Kevin’s closet.

For more than a month, Lancaster residents were baffled and broken. They believed a transient killer had entered their town and chosen his victims at random. And he could come back at any time. Befuddled, the policed urged residents to follow procedures such as “locking their doors at night, turning on lights, knowing where their children are during the day, meeting with neighbors to be sure that they know each other’s daily routines.”

Just when it appeared the killer had gotten away with it, the unthinkable happened. After being admitted to a mental hospital following a suicide attempt, sixteen-year-old Alec Kreider, described by many as a close friend of Kevin’s, confessed to the murder. His parents didn’t believe him at first. How could their highly intelligent, quiet son do something so horrendous? But when his father saw the evidence, including the bloody knife Alec had hidden in his closet, he contacted police. They’d already received two tips about Kreider, one going so far as saying the teen bragged about getting away with murder. The forensic evidence supported Kreiders story: the blood on the knife matched Kevin Haines’s and the size ten hush puppies Alec wore to the mental facility still had traces of Kevin’s blood in the soles.

A police affidavit stated that Kreider went to the home intending to smother Kevin, but instead stabbed him in the neck and chest, and then went on to kill Thomas and Lisa. Kreider was charged as an adult with three counts of murder. Police had interviewed Alec but dismissed him early on. After the murders, he continued to go to school and lead a normal life.

District Attorney Craig Stedman says that while many students found Kreider “dark,” “cynical” or “arrogant,” and at least one harbored the suspicion that he might someday “do a Columbine,” no one saw any clear sign that he was on the verge of a murderous frenzy. “But if someone would have had access to all of the surveys together,” says Stedman, “what he ended up doing would not have been a great surprise.”  SOURCE

Perhaps the most compelling–and disturbing–look into Kreider’s mind is the journal he began keeping. Described by PEOPLE as “grandiose, pathetic and chilling,” Kreider made a chilling entry on the night of the murders, stating he had been born that very night. He also states his “want/need to kill people had increased.” There is no remorse anywhere in the writing.

“I don’t know if God wanted me to hate so much but things have been very hateful lately.” –Alec Kreider journal entry.

One passage in the journal is particularly telling. Kreider wrote of hating happy people. “They make me sick.” His own parents were divorced, and the Haines home, a place he visited frequently, was brimming with happiness thanks to a close-kit family.

Forensic psychology professor Dr. Louis B. Schlesinger believes Kreider may have been jealous. “He may have been jealous because they were happy and normal,” says Schlesinger. “Alec may have become very, very angry at that. There’s a reason he did this; nobody does anything for nothing.” SOURCE

But to this day, Alec Kreider has never given a reason. Nor has his shown an ounce of remorse for his friend and the family he destroyed. He was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences and has no possibility of parole.

And the reason Maggie’s life was spared? Kreider didn’t realize she was home from college.

What do you think? Are some people just inherently evil? Were the warning signs all there? Should Kreider have received the death penalty?

A two-hundred-mile labyrinth of dark storm drains serves as a refuge for the delusional stalker who will go to any lengths to possess fragile, emotionally isolated Emilie Davis. To survive, Emilie will have to confront the secrets of her past she has kept locked away from everyone, including herself.

That’s the query hook for my novel, INTO THE DARK. Protagonist Emilie Davis has a stalker who seems to know her deepest secrets, and he’ll stop at nothing to make her his. The inciting incident is a staged bank robbery where her stalker–nicknamed the Taker–attempts to kidnap Emilie and hide her away in the treacherous Las Vegas storm drains.

For me, the scariest part about stalking is the subterfuge–the idea that some creep could be watching from the shadows, chronicling our lives and biding his time. And it happens a lot more than most people realize. In 2009, the Department of Justice reported that 14 out of every 1000 people aged eighteen or older reported being victims of stalking. Source: MSI Detective Services.

Stalking as defined by the National Violence Against Women Prevention Research Center:

A repetitive pattern of unwanted, harassing or threatening behavior committed by one person against another. Acts include: telephone harassment, being followed, receiving unwanted gifts, and other similar forms of intrusive behavior. All states and the Federal Government have passed anti-stalking legislation. Definitions of stalking found in state anti-stalking statutes vary in their language, although most define stalking as “the willful, malicious, and repeated following and harassing of another person that threatens his or her safety.

Men have stalkers too–more than you might think. The same D.O.J report stated males were as likely to report being stalked as females, and that 43% of offenders were female.

Despite the statistics, stalking wasn’t always defined as a crime.

The tragic 1989 murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer changed everything.

At just twenty-one, Rebecca Schaeffer was the co-star of the sitcom My Sister Sam, a show that was quickly growing in popularity. She’d been receiving fan letters from nineteen-year-old Robert Bardo for months, and as she responded personally to each of her fans, Schaeffer answered Bardo. She wrote that his letter was “the most beautiful” she’d received, and drew a peace sign, a heart, and then signed the letter: “with love from Rebecca.”

On the day he received her response, Bardo wrote in his diary that he would like to become famous to impress Schaeffer.

In June 1987, Bardo went to the Burbank Studio gates with a teddy bear and a bouquet of roses for Schaeffer. He was denied entrance. A month later, he returned with a knife, but was denied again. He then wrote in his diary: “I don’t lose. Period.”

At home in Tucson, Bardo watched the actresses’s new film Class Struggle in Beverly Hills, where she had a bed scene with a male actor. Bardo was furious. His innocent flower had become “one more of the bitches of Hollywood.” As he contemplated Schaeffer’s punishment, Bardo drew a diagram of her body, marking the spots where he planned to shoot her. He asked his older brother to buy him a gun.

For the next two years, Bardo swarmed Schaeffer with love letters, built a shrine for her in his room, and collected videos of her tv shows and appearances. He sent a letter to his sister in Tennessee and said that if he couldn’t have Rebecca, no one would. In the summer of 1989, he took a bus from Tucson to Hollywood, determined to track Schaeffer down.

Once he arrived, he called her agent’s office to find out where she lived. After they denied him the information, he took to the streets, flashing her picture and asking people if they knew her address. Eventually, he paid a private detective $250 to find her, although at the time, anyone could go into a California DMV and fill out a form stating who they were, what person they want information on and why, and how they plan to use the info. For a $1, the information was given on the spot.

On July 18, 1989, carrying a copy of The Catcher In The Rye, Bardo rang Schaffer’s doorbell. The intercom was broken, so she went to the building’s front door. When she saw Bardo, she ignored his attention, and he left. An hour later, he returned. Schaeffer came to the door and opened it.

Bardo would later give the following account of the incident: “She had this kid voice… sounded like a little brat or something… said I was wasting her time! … Wasting her time! No matter what, I thought that was a very callous thing to say to a fan, you know… I grabbed the door… guns still in the bag… I grab it by the trigger… I come around, and kapow, and she’s like screaming… aaahhh… screaming… why, aaahhh … and it’s like, oh God…”

A neighbor heard the shots and screams. He found Schaeffer’s body, wearing a black robe, lying in the building’s foyer. She had no pulse. Witnesses saw a young man in a yellow shirt jog away and disappear into an alley.

Rebecca Schaeffer was pronounced dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Bardo was arrested in Tucson a day later. He was running around in traffic on Interstate 10, and motorists said it looked like he was trying to get hit. He confessed immediately and was convicted by prosecutor Marcia Clark. Bardo was sentenced to life without parole.

Rebecca Schaeffer’s murder was instrumental in Governor George Deukmejian signing a law prohibiting the DMV from releasing addresses. It was the first of its kind and would help convict Jonathan Norman to twenty-five years in prison for threats against Steven Spielberg.

Within five years of Schaeffer’s death, all fifty states and Canada had adopted anti-stalking laws.

Celebrities aren’t the only victims of stalking, but Schaeffer’s death catapulted the experience into the national spotlight and gave victims the ability to fight back in court.

Robert Bardo remains in prison.

Have you or a family member/friend ever been the victim of stalking, whether in person or via the Internet?

A twice-parolled sex offender, William Bonin tortured, raped, and killed at least twenty-one young boys and men between 1979 and 1980. He’s suspected of committing at least fifteen more murders.

Like most serial killers, Bonin grew up in a dysfunctional family. Born in Connecticut in 1947, Bonin endured an alcoholic father who beat his family and once gambled away their home. His grandfather was a convicted child molester, and despite her own childhood sexual abuse, Bonin’s mother often left him and his brother in their grandfather’s care. Neighbors said the Bonin children were always unkempt and hungry.

At age eight, Bonin was incarcerated in juvenile hall for stealing license plates. The older boys molested him, instilling a warped understanding of sex in the young child. The facility also dealt out harsh punishments for insubordination, including submersion in ice water.

Connecticut medical records state Bonin was approached for sex by an older boy and agreed to participate if he was restrained, allowing him to feel more secure.

Years later, Georgetown University Hospital neurologist Dr. Jonathan H. Pincus would examine Bonin. He stated Bonin’s early sexual awareness and request for restraint made it inconceivable for him to believe Bonin hadn’t been sexually abused and forcibly restrained by adults prior to his experience at juvy.

After he was released, Bonin began sexually molesting other children, including his brother. As an adult, he joined the U.S. Air Force and served as a gunner in the Vietnam War, and by all accounts was a good soldier. After the war, Bonin married, then divorced, and eventually moved to California where he began his further descent into sexual depravity.

In 1969, he was accused of molesting five boys in L.A. County. Bonin picked up the boys in his vehicle, then handcuffed and sodomized them. After his conviction, doctors labeled Bonin a mentally disordered sex offender, and he was remanded to the Atascardaro State Hospital. He received treatment but the details are unknown.

Bonin claimed to have no memory of childhood sexual abuse, but doctors believed he was repressing and stated he was severely and repeatedly sexually abused as a child. Bonin was found to have several physical and psychological problems including brain damage in the area thought to restrain violent impulses, manic-depressive disorder, and unexplained scars on his head and behind.

Bonin was released in 1974 and placed on probation. It didn’t take long for him to succumb to his urges once again.

In August 1975, fourteen-year-old David McVicker was hitching to Huntington Beach and accepted a ride from Bonin. McVicker would later tell the Los Angelas Times that Bonin was “totally cool. There was nothing in the least bit strange about him.”

When Bonin requested sex, McVicker asked him to stop the vehicle. Instead, Bonin took out a gun, drove to a deserted area, and raped him. McVicker went to authorities and Bonin was sent back to prison. He served three years, and then despite a kidnapping conviction, two counts of sodomy with a child, and a diagnosis as a sexual predator, was released to prowl on young children yet again. And this wouldn’t be the last time the California penal system gave Bonin an assist.

Yes than a year later, he was arrested in Orange Country for assaulting a seventeen-year-old hitchhiker. A records mix-up freed Bonin before his trial, and he never showed in court.

German exchange student Marcus Grabs was the first known murder victim. On a backpacking tour of the U.S., the seventeen-year-old was last seen hitchhiking on the Pacific Coast highway in Newport Beach on August 5, 1979.

Police state Bonin and his friend Vernon Butts picked up Marcus, raped and then beat him, leaving his naked body in Malibu Canyon. Marcus Grabs was stabbed more than  seventy times and found with a yellow nylon rope around his neck, as well as an electrical cord wrapped around an ankle.

Vernon Butts had a long criminal record and sadistic homosexual activities excited him. He happily assisted Bonin will several of his killings and would eventually be arrested for his role in the murders.

Three weeks later, fifteen-year-old Donald Hyden was discovered mutilated in a trash bin near the Ventura Freeway. Hyden had been raped and strangled with a ligature. The killers had slashed his throat and attempted to castrate the boy.

David Murillo, another seventeen-year-old, was found dead on September 12, 1979. He had also been sodomized and strangled with a ligature.

In the months after Murillo’s murder, several other young men lost their lives to Bonin: Charles Miranda, 15; James McCabe, 12; Ronald Gatlin, 18; Harry Todd Turner, 14; Glen Norman Barker, 14; Russell Duane Rugh, 15; Steven Wood, 16; Lawrence Eugene Sharp, 18; Darin Lee Kendrick, 19. All were found sexually assaulted and strangled.

Finally, luck would slam the case open. In May, 1980, a car thief named William Pugh was arrested. He confessed he’d been with Boninn when he killed Harry Turner. The seventeen-year-old would serve six years for voluntary manslaughter as part of the plea deal that brought authorities William Bonin.

Nineteen-year-old Steven Wells would die at the hands of Bonin and another accomplice, James Munro, before he was captured. Munro’s testimony also helped convict Bonin.

Just nine days after murdering Steven Wells, Bonin was on the hunt again. Police officers tailing him watched as the predator tried to pick up five different men. A fifteen-year-old boy accepted, and Bonin drove to a deserted police parking lot. When officers approached the fan, Bonin was sodomizing the teenager. Tape and rope matching those found on previous victims were in the van, as well as the scrapbook of the Freeway Killer stories that Bonin kept. Butts and Munro were picked up soon after.

Bonin had no remorse, only embarrassment at being caught. He confessed in graphic detail to killing twenty-one men and boys with an near prideful attitude.

“I’d still be killing. I couldn’t stop killing. It got easier each time.” –William Bonin

Bonin confessed to killing 21 young men and boys and shared aspects of each crime in horrifying detail. He was soon convicted and sentence to death, but Bonin worked the justice system by repeatedly appealing his case for seventeen years. Disgustedly, in the extra years of his life, Bonin published a book of short stories and had an art exhibition at a gallery in Seattle. He also corresponded with many of the survivors of his victims, going so far as to tell one mother that her son had been her favorite because he was “such a screamer.” Bonin never offered an apology.