Dark Dreams: Sexual Violence, Homicide And The Criminal Mind (14 page)

The closet from which the safe was removed. Note the hammer that was used to loosen the safe from the shelving.
Pennsylvania State Police
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A massage bed with wood fragments, coat hanger, and two screwdrivers used to remove the safe from the closet shelving.
Pennsylvania State Police
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DiStefano’s bedroom wall reflects his “shrine” to Christine Burgerhof.
Pennsylvania State Police
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Ms. Burgerhof’s picture was found beneath the covers of DiStefano’s bed.
Pennsylvania State Police
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He encouraged Ann to leave her husband, and she did so for a month. Even after a marital reconciliation, Ann continued to meet and to have a sexual relationship with Lyle. Not surprisingly, her marriage eventually failed.

She moved into an apartment and gave herself even more fully to Lyle. Ann told me she had fallen so deeply in love with him that she believed he could never do anything to harm her.

Then their relationship began to change. Gradually, he induced her into smoking crack cocaine, and this habit became a repeated feature of their relationship. She would go to his house, and he would insist that she smoke crack before any other activities took place. One evening, while Ann was under the influence of the drug, he had anal intercourse with her. For the remaining year of their relationship, he never had vaginal sex with her again.

Step by step, with infinite patience, Lyle seduced her into a world of perversity and pain. Certain now of her emotional dependence on him, he told her that he preferred women with large buttocks. To please him, she agreed to consume large quantities of calorie-laden liquids. As Ann’s buttocks grew larger, Lyle periodically would measure and photograph them. Of course, this increased weight further lowered Ann’s self-esteem and dependency. Who else, she reasoned, would love her but Lyle?

Increasing her use of cocaine, he also began inserting foreign objects into her, including large flashlights, an ironing table leg, and a large cylindrical wooden club that he called “the donkey dick.” He recorded these and other acts with photographs as well as with charts and notes that were seized during the subsequent criminal investigation.

As is true with almost all sexual sadists, Lyle was aroused by bondage. Using ropes, belts, and handcuffs, he bound Ann in a variety of ways and postures, all designed to cause her pain and humiliation. He would fasten her wrists and ankles together. He would place her facedown with her wrists tied to her knees and with her buttocks raised to facilitate anal intercourse. Lyle routinely beat her so hard with a whip that she bled. Soon the whip end became frayed and had to be replaced.

Another favorite fantasy prop among sexual sadists is the slave contract. Lyle drafted and forced Ann to sign one that read: “I, Ann, do hereby bequeath to Lyle total ownership of my person and possessions. This entities him to do whatever he pleases to me. He has the right to expect total obedience and the right to impose punishment as he deems necessary. I release Lyle from all liability, both personal and financial. I will be responsible for all of my own bills. I have willingly entered into this contract.” (Signed)

“I became convinced I was his slave,” Ann later told me, “and he could do anything he wanted to me, even kill me. I didn’t enjoy what he was doing, and I didn’t want him to do these things to me. But when I refused to cooperate, he would hurt me so bad that I was afraid not to do as he ordered. If I did what he wanted, he would be nice and not hurt me so much. Because of this I wanted to be the best slave possible, and I worked hard at it.”

Among the humiliations Lyle forced on Ann was anal sex with at least two other men. On each occasion he forced her to get high by smoking cocaine, bound her, beat her, and placed her in a closet on her knees. He then led the other man into the closet and told him to penetrate her anally. Ann recalled that on one occasion Lyle instructed the other man to “fuck her so hard her head hits the wall.”

Interestingly, he would not permit the man to ejaculate.

Lyle isolated Ann from family and friends, but he could not completely mask the horrors he inflicted. Ann’s productivity dropped at work. On several occasions she had no choice but to wear clothing inappropriate to the season in order to cover her bruises. With nowhere to turn, she continued to accept the horrendous abuse.

Then Lyle demanded that Ann quit her job and devote her entire life to being his slave. She told me that her job was her final link to sanity, and she realized that if she complied with his demand to quit, she would not survive physically or emotionally.

One day, after he had gone out, she somehow found the courage to make a break. She gathered together the Polaroids he’d taken of her buttocks, plus the frayed whip, the written scripts she’d been forced to follow as he assaulted her, her bloody clothing, and fled.

Ann’s Quest for Justice

Ann’s first step was to enter a substance-abuse program to kick the cocaine habit that Lyle had induced. Upon completion of the lengthy program, she went to the police to file rape, assault and battery, and false imprisonment charges against him.

The two Los Angeles police detectives who were assigned Ann’s case realized the difficulty of making such charges stick in court. How were they to prove that she wasn’t a masochist who had gone along voluntarily? Still, the two men were convinced of Lyle’s criminal behavior, and they vigorously investigated the case.

After reviewing the detectives’ findings, a male assistant prosecutor also thought the case too difficult to prove and declined to take the matter to court. A year later, however, he was replaced by Tamia Hope. She wanted justice for Ann. “I’ll try the son of a bitch,” Tamia reportedly said after hearing the details of Ann’s ordeal.

One potential obstacle was Ann herself, who feared confronting Lyle in court. She was unsure of her ability to stop him from regaining control over her. She asked that she be allowed to hold a stuffed animal during her testimony, as that might give her the strength to get through it. Tamia was supportive, and the judge approved the unusual request.

It worked. After effectively recounting her grim story at a preliminary hearing with Lyle sitting nearby, she told us, with some pride and relief in her voice, “He’s not as big as he used to be.” I thought to myself, What a wonderfully telling statement.

Tamia Hope proved herself a resourceful prosecutor, and I admired her strategy. Aware that Lyle would probably claim Ann was a consenting partner in everything that took place, she charged him with several crimes for which Ann’s consent or lack of consent were less of an issue or no issue at all. For example, she filed multiple counts of illegal possession of cocaine.

Hope also charged Lyle with false imprisonment, assault and battery, and accessory to rape. The accessory count became possible after the police had identified one of the men whom Lyle had invited to have anal sex with Ann in the closet. As part of a plea bargain, that man agreed to testify against Lyle.

Drug possession wasn’t going to be difficult to prove, since cocaine was seized during a search of Lyle’s residence. The charges of false imprisonment and assault would depend upon whether the judge believed that Ann was truly a victim and not a willing participant.

Tamia Hope was more than equal to the task. First, she had me explain under oath what sexual sadism is and how these men characteristically act out their aberrant fantasies against consenting and nonconsenting partners.

There wasn’t much that Lyle’s attorney could do to refute my testimony because at no time did I say that his client was a sexual sadist. I simply explained the beast, but didn’t give him a name.

Then the two detectives testified effectively about their interview of Ann and what they had learned in their subsequent investigation.

Then Ann testified. Unsurprisingly, she was subjected to a brutal cross-examination. Lyle’s attorney tried to demonstrate what he called her “willing participation” and attempted to document his argument with established facts.

One was the undisputed fact that Ann had, for months, driven to Lyle’s home on Friday evenings and returned to work on Monday mornings. She had also purchased some of Lyle’s sadistic paraphernalia for him, including the dog collar and the dildo.

The attorney’s intent was to characterize Ann as a masochist who didn’t just endure Lyle’s sadism but was aroused by it. She was shaken by the accusations and innuendo but clutched her stuffed animal and firmly rebutted the lawyer, explaining that what he called “willing participation” was really just fear of what Lyle would do if she didn’t comply.

Afterward, we all agreed that the single most important prosecution witness at the hearing was a psychiatrist. He testified that after examining Ann for several hours, he believed she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and was therefore incapable of giving informed consent to her own abuse. The defense naturally attacked that opinion, but the psychiatrist was magnificent on the stand: calm, firm, professional, and highly credible.

The defense lawyer resorted to a familiar tactic: If you can’t attack the evidence, attack the collector of the evidence. He asked the psychiatrist how much the state of California was paying him. But the defense attorney had forgotten the first rule of a lawyer in court: Never ask a question to which you don’t know the answer.

In a clear voice the doctor said he had waived his fee. Because he had never seen or heard of such a horrendous crime, he had examined Ann at no cost and agreed to testify without compensation. He had also volunteered to treat her at no cost until he believed she had recovered from PTSD.

The defense had no further questions.

Rather than risk the impact such testimony might have on Lyle’s jury, the defense agreed to a plea bargain. Plea bargains are not unusual in such cases. Once the issue of consent has been overcome, the defense is confronted with dealing with a jury of citizens who tend to focus, not on the complicated nuances of the law, but rather on the horrors that one human being can inflict on another.

I believe it likely that many of the battered spouses seen by mental health professionals and victim advocates may also be compliant victims of sexual sadists. These men may go unidentified because of the battering’s masking effect—the treater focuses
only
on the battering and not the rest of his behavior—or because the professional does not have the experience to recognize the sexual sadism in the relationship.

When I teach a course that includes discussion of compliant victims, it is not unusual for psychologists in the class to begin questioning their female patients, probing to see if they, too, are in a sadistic relationship. Judging by the phone calls and letters I receive from these professionals, many of the women are.

Tragically, many cases of sexual sadism remain hidden from society because, by their very nature, the compliant victims are unable to reach out for help.

“Discovery,” the chemist Albert Szent-Györgyi once said, “consists of seeing what everyone has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought.”

In Szent-Györgyi’s case, the discovery was vitamin C. The Hungarian Nobelist’s insight applies equally well though to the study of aberrant minds, particularly to profiling them. When done correctly, a profile is a detailed analysis that reveals and interprets significant features of a crime that previously had escaped notice or understanding. Profiling is thinking about a case in a way no one else has.

Let’s try it out.

At 2:00
A.M.
on a summer Thursday not too long ago, a state trooper stopped for a cup of coffee at a convenience store located on a heavily traveled four-lane road. He found the store’s front doors open and all the lights on, but the clerk, eighteen-year-old Kathy,
^*
was nowhere to be seen.

Her car was parked outside. On the counter by the register were a quart of chocolate milk, which had begun to sweat, and a package of powdered-sugar miniature donuts. Kathy’s purse was in its usual place on a shelf behind the counter. Nothing seemed to be missing from it.

The store lacked both an alarm system and surveillance cameras. There were no signs of a struggle, and an appropriate amount of money was in the cash register, suggesting that no theft had occurred. The rear door was locked and chained.

The officer found a telephone beneath the counter. According to phone company records, Kathy had made no calls that evening. Her last known customer was a young man who had purchased some gas and milk at 1:10
A.M.
He was cleared of any involvement in the disappearance.

Nothing was known of Kathy’s fate until nine months later when two rabbit hunters came upon her skeletal remains twenty-seven miles away. The men had been hunting in a remote area accessible only via an unpaved road that ended on an undeveloped parcel of land about two miles square, bounded by farms and pastures. Its owner resided in another state and had no contact with the property other than to pay taxes on it.

The hunters were walking about 500 yards from the road when they came across some lingerie, pornographic magazines, and an inflatable doll. They ignored this material and continued to hunt. About 250 yards deeper into the woods, they began to follow a path cut through the heavy scrub-tree overgrowth.

Approximately 125 feet farther on, they encountered a circular clearing about twelve feet in diameter. In the center of the clearing was a wooden rack shaped like a large upright X. Across the top of the rack was a wooden pole with rope suspended from it. Three leather straps were attached to each of the two wooden cross pieces. The hunters noticed a woman’s slip, obviously weather-worn, hanging from the center of the rack.

They immediately called the police.

A Chilling Discovery

One of the first items that officers noted at the scene was a continuous length of colored, plastic-coated wire that led into and away from the clearing. In one direction it led back down the route the hunters had taken along the cleared path, past the doll, lingerie, and pornography, to the dead-end road. The wire also led in the opposite direction from the rack. Investigators followed it for fifty feet until they found scattered bones and tattered clothes: Kathy’s remains.

The clothing appeared to have been cut from her body. Around her neck were the remnants of her brassiere, together with two circular lengths of twisted coat hanger wire. One piece was five inches in diameter and the other three inches. The victim’s hair was entwined in each.

None of her bones were broken or fractured. The medical examiner determined that Kathy had been strangled to death with the smaller piece of wire.

Enter the Profiler

My role in this case was unusual. The police had developed a suspect but requested my assistance in approaching his ex-wife as a potential witness. Before I could do that, I needed to know something about her relationship with him, which in turn meant I needed an unbiased idea of what he was like.

The best source of information about an aberrant offender is his work product. Accordingly, I asked to examine the crime-scene materials in order to build a profile of the killer. My interpretation would inform me about the suspect, and these inferences, in turn, would guide me to make suggestions about interviewing the ex-wife.

After reviewing case materials, my first questions are always focused on the victim—what type of person was murdered? This is critical information. To understand what happened to Kathy, I needed to know who she was: her personality traits, habits, occupation, lifestyle, and sexual behavior.

Kathy was an unusual type of victim for such a crime. She was working at the convenience store to earn money for college. Kathy didn’t abuse alcohol and had nothing to do with drugs. She had a steady boyfriend and no interests or habits that would have brought her in contact with criminals. The one important risk factor was her working the late shift at the convenience store (law enforcement officers call them “stop and robs”).

Those who knew her reported that Kathy would have fought an attacker unless the odds were dramatically against her. Since there was no sign of a struggle at the store, this information suggested several possible scenarios. She could have been abducted by someone she knew. Or her kidnapper might have conned her into leaving the store. For example, he could have told her that someone had broken a window in her car. Or he might have had a gun. Or maybe several abductors were involved. Such a variety of possible explanations is typical when assessing behavioral clues. The important thing is to maintain an open mind, not to lock in on only one possibility.

Kathy was taken from a well-lighted place of business on a busy road. It was a location that the criminal could not control because someone could walk in at any moment. In my opinion the offender took a high risk of being observed, interrupted, or identified when he committed the crime.

I next considered the abduction site. The still photos I was given showed that the donuts were shelved in one corner of the store and the milk in an opposite corner. Setting aside the possibility that individuals unconnected to the crime left these items on the counter, I believed they pointed toward an MO and the likelihood that a single individual was responsible. A plausible reconstruction suggested itself: The UNSUB calmly walked around inside the store, ostensibly in search of what he needed, but in fact on the lookout for other people and for the presence of surveillance cameras.

This scenario indicated that he was a deliberate, cautious offender, interested in reducing his risks as much as possible. He could casually bring the donuts to the counter, and then the milk, without arousing Kathy’s suspicion. In the process he discovered what he wanted to know about the location.

Since nothing appeared to be missing from either the cash register or Kathy’s purse, I determined that she was his objective not the money. No fingerprints were found on either the donut package or the milk carton. This suggested that he either wore gloves or had wiped the items clean. Since the crime occurred in June, when gloves would have been out of place, wiping was a logical assumption.

The next question was: Were we dealing with an organized or disorganized killer? The evidence so far suggested to me that an organized offender had kidnapped and murdered Kathy.

The distinction between organized and disorganized offenders gives investigators a shorthand way to assess from crime scene evidence whether the perpetrator is deliberate and experienced or in a rush, careless and sloppy. The organized offender usually brings with him his preferred weapon and whatever else he needs to commit his crime. He leaves as little evidence as possible of himself and what he has done. The disorganized offender, on the other hand, has not thought ahead. He acts impulsively, using any available weapon, and may leave both his victim and ample evidence of his own identity (i.e., fingerprints or blood) where they can be readily discovered.

The fact that Kathy’s car was not taken was further evidence that this UNSUB was organized. He had driven to and from the store in his own vehicle. Had hers been missing, we would have had to conclude that he probably arrived on foot or at least did not have access to transportation, which is a sign of disorganization.

The Crime Scene

The next issue to consider was the location he chose to take Kathy. It appeared that he had prepared the site in advance, a further suggestion of his high degree of organization. The choice also showed he was familiar with the outdoors and comfortable there, too. The plastic-coated wire strengthened that impression. I guessed that he had laid the wire on the ground to guide him as he navigated the heavily overgrown acreage at night without the use of a flashlight.

A similar practice was once used in the military. Prior to wireless communications, soldiers installed the communications wire that ran from headquarters to forward areas. Those returning to headquarters were told to “follow the commo wire.” I reflected, This man is a thinker.

The bra around Kathy’s neck, I surmised, originally had been used as a gag and had slid downward as her body decomposed. The two pieces of wire also served specific functions. In my opinion, the five-inch twisted loop was placed around Kathy’s neck as a collar, to which her abductor attached a lead to guide her as he followed the “commo” wire in the dark. Obviously, her wrists would have been bound, too. I also concurred with the medical examiner that the three-inch loop was the actual weapon of death. He would have used it to slowly strangle Kathy after acting out his aberrant fantasies.

As for the lingerie, magazines, and inflatable doll, I felt these were not connected to the crime. For one thing, the magazines were dated both prior to and after Kathy’s abduction, and they fell into the category of “soft” porn. This meant that whoever had brought them was a regular visitor to the remote site, where he could masturbate undisturbed. The lingerie was mostly weather worn, but there were also relatively new items of all different sizes and types.

Experience told me that a man with an autoerotic interest in such articles was far more passive than the killer we sought. The man who captured Kathy, bound her to the rack, and killed her in such a slow, agonizing manner would not have an unprotected collection of soft pornography. Kathy’s killer was a sexual sadist. He would have a well cared for collection of pornography dealing with bondage, anal sex, and captivity. He would prize his collection too much to allow it to be exposed to the elements or theft.

My audiences always are curious about the plasticcoated wire. Was it just a coincidence that it ran past the magazines, doll, and assorted lingerie on its way to the rack in the clearing and then Kathy’s remains?

In short, yes. I can’t completely account for this fact, except to point out that the very seclusion that attracts a sexual killer to a remote site can also make the place attractive for other sorts of sexual purposes.

For example, Ted Bundy abducted and killed two women in one afternoon at Lake Sammamish State Park near Seattle. The subsequent search of the surrounding woodlands turned up twenty-six pairs of women’s underpants, none belonging to either of Bundy’s victims.

Sexual crime investigations also routinely reveal sexual deviants who live nearby or knew the victim or had access to the crime site but had nothing to do with the crime in question.

Another key source of information was the rack. This sadist had built it with the finest lumber and coated it with spar varnish, commonly used on quality watercraft. The rack had deep importance to him, undoubtedly connected to his aberrant fantasy.

No nails or screws were used in its construction. Instead, it was fastened with wooden dowels and glue. The leather straps were positioned to be used as wrist, thigh, and ankle restraints. They were not simply tacked to the crosspieces, but were attached through the wood itself. Here was a clear indication of this interest in sexual bondage.

Kathy’s clothes were cut from her body, suggesting that she was dressed when she was bound to the rack. Her bra was used as a gag in her mouth. In such a position, she would also have been vulnerable to torture and sexual assault.

The location of the crime scene and the obvious amount of preparation underscores how comfortable the killer was in the outdoors. As the profile took form, I noted that he probably had outdoor hobbies, such as hunting and fishing.

It turned out that he loved to camp
.

Connecting this inference with the bulkiness of his rack, I guessed that his vehicle of choice was large and rugged. Since he also clearly was meticulous, I said the vehicle would be well cared for.

He drove an immaculate four-wheel-drive pickup truck with a camper top
.

Because I felt he was a sexual sadist who practiced bondage, my profile suggested he would have collections of bondage paraphernalia.

Not only did he save bondage magazines, he also owned a pair of handcuffs and practiced bondage on his wife
.

The overwhelming majority of sexual sadists are white males, and this man seemed to be no exception. His demonstrated organization and caution suggested that he wasn’t a young person. I placed his age from the late-twenties to mid-thirties.

He was a white male, thirty-six years of age
.

The skilled construction of his rack suggested to me that he made a living by working with his hands.

He was a mechanic
.

From the police I learned the suspect had been married, and from my studies of sexual sadists I knew he had probably dominated the former wife through sexual and possibly physical abuse.

At the time of the offense he was married. His wife, however, had left him in the months since then because he broke her arm as he forced her to participate in anal sex
.

If he was a military veteran, I said, he would have served in the ground forces. The more aggressive sexual offenders who serve in the military perceive the army or marines as the most macho branches of service and therefore more compatible with their self-image.