The Evil Within - A Top Murder Squad Detective Reveals The Chilling True Stories of The World's Most Notorious Killers (36 page)

It wasn’t long before she was identified as Dorothy ‘Dotsie’ Blackburn, 27, a local prostitute and mother of three. Her sister had filed a missing persons report on 18 March and it was she who identified the body. Prostitute murders were not unusual and this woman had been a cocaine addict with a debt. Prostitution was a high-risk occupation with a low risk of discovery for whoever decided to target such women for murder. The Rochester police examined the shooting and knifing murders of two other prostitutes in the area, but at the time were unable to link them.

The case went cold. However, the police did investigate the killings of several more prostitutes during the summer of 1989, although none of the cases seemed clearly linked to one another and none seemed unusual. One woman had been dumped along the roadway on an exit ramp, another shot and a third one killed by a car in a way that looked suspicious.

On 9 September 1988, a man looking for empty bottles to sell came across another set of remains. He spotted a bone sticking up and believed it was from a dead deer, but on closer inspection saw a pile of clothing. He immediately contacted the police who found it to be the decomposing body of a woman. This woman had apparently floated upriver and debris had snagged her body. No one had seen her there and she had decomposed considerably, making it difficult for the medical examiner to offer a cause of death, although he listed it as probable asphyxia. There were no knife or gunshot wounds evident in the bones. Who was she?

The police found 138 possible matches for identity purposes
from reports of missing women, but all were eventually eliminated. Unable to identify her or to find someone like her reported missing from the area, the police enlisted the help of a forensic anthropologist to reconstruct what her face had looked like from the skull. It was a long, involved process, but he produced a clay bust and added a wig and fake eyeballs, and the police photographed the final product and published it in the local papers. The victim’s distraught father identified her as Anna Steffen and dental records confirmed this. The police believed a drug dealer or pimp had killed her. Her body had been discovered far away from where Blackburn’s had been found, so while their manner of death and disposal may have been similar, the police were not linking them and no one was talking about a serial killer.

On Saturday, 21 October, six weeks later, three fishermen went into the gorge and came across the remains of a decomposing headless corpse, mostly bones, hidden in tall grass along the riverbank. The body was that of a female; her neck was broken and the cause of her death was difficult to determine, but she seemed to have been killed by blunt impact with something. An employee of the county jail read about the discovery and reported that a homeless woman named Dorothy Keeler, aged 60, had not been seen in some time. The remains were again given to the forensic anthropologist and an identification was made.

Six days later, a boy retrieving a ball saw a foot sticking out from beneath a pile of debris and cardboard near a YMCA hostel not far from the gorge. He summoned the police, who uncovered a decomposing, maggot-infested body dressed in black trousers and a sweater. The dead woman was identified as Patty Ives.

The number of victims was rising; four apparently dead by asphyxia, with three in quick succession. The pressure was now on to stop the killer. It was suggested that the strangler killed quickly and that he was probably quite strong; he appeared to strangle the women without much effort and little sign of a struggle on their part. As the victims were prostitutes, the police
tried to enlist the help of the other working girls. On average, around 35 women worked the area at any given time, though many came and went. The police sat in unmarked cars, watching them and allowing them to ply their trade. They were told about a transvestite who seemed to get the most action, but there was nothing overtly suspicious about him. The women were tentative about this unusual arrangement, not altogether trustful that the police watching them wouldn’t just arrest them. Neither side was used to working with the other. Yet the prostitutes also felt safer. Despite all of this, other prostitutes soon went missing. One such person was blonde Maria Welch, who resembled Patty Ives in build. Then the body of a petite blonde was discovered dumped in the gorge, down a steep slope, wearing only a pair of boots. Her cause of death was asphyxia and bruises on the body indicated that she’d been beaten. Everyone assumed this victim was Maria, but they were wrong. Her name was Frances Brown. Enquiries revealed that she had met a man named ‘Mike’ prior to her death.

The police thought they had a series of six to eight women who had been killed by the same man. Checking files of sexual predators who’d been paroled from upper New York prisons, they found nothing to indicate that they had one living in their area.

On 15 November, Kimberly Logan, a black prostitute, was discovered dead beneath a pile of leaves in the back yard of a house. She’d been battered and kicked in the abdomen. The medical examiner found leaves stuffed down her throat. She had not been found near the gorge. Eight days later, a man out walking his dog went into a marshy area near an industrial estate. He came to a clearing where he spotted a piece of stiff carpeting, iced over. Walking closer, he saw a bare foot beneath it. The police’s worst fears had come true. It was the body of another victim of the mysterious killer.

The woman, who had been preserved somewhat by the cold weather and the covering, lay face down. Spots on her skin suggested decomposition, so she had been killed as much as two
or three weeks earlier. A considerable amount of blood had settled into her back, which meant that she had been lying on her back after death for a period of time, and now here she was on her face. Someone had come and turned her over. Her position suggested that she’d been anally penetrated after death. She’d also been strangled, but that wasn’t all. When they turned her over, they saw that some time after she had died, she’d been cut from the top of the chest between her breasts all the way into the vaginal area, like a gutted deer. Upon close inspection, it looked as if the vaginal lips had been removed. This killer had returned for some perverted pleasure. Yet the analysis at the morgue indicated that there was no semen in or on the body. In the weeds, the police found a knife and a bloody towel, but there were no fingerprints and very little physical evidence.

The victim was soon identified as the missing June Stott. As far as anyone knew, she was not a prostitute and had never taken drugs. This made investigators wonder whether this murder was part of the series or something new. She had also been found seven miles downriver from where other bodies had been left. Did they have several killers on their hands, or was just one killer disposing of bodies all over the place? This victim had been covered, like some of the others, and asphyxiated.

Local police decided to enlist the help of the FBI. There were now 11 unsolved cases of prostitute murders in and around Rochester in a 12-month period. The average number of murders per year was three or four. Yet before the FBI even arrived, a hunter found the body of Elizabeth Gibson, a prostitute, on 27 November in a swamp in a neighbouring county. She had been strangled. What linked her to the others was a witness. Jo Ann Van Nostrand, a prostitute, had happened to see a regular client whom she knew as ‘Mitch’ the day before with a prostitute whom she recognised as Elizabeth Gibson. A newsflash that day on television told her a woman had been found murdered. Jo Ann went directly to the police to tell them about Mitch. They took her to the station, but Jo Ann did not
know Mitch’s real name or where he worked. However, police believed that she had given them a solid lead. At the very least, they knew how the man operated and what kind of car he drove. What they did not know was that the killer would change cars and still remain in the shadows.

Towards the end of December, several more women were reported missing and one of them was someone everyone had felt certain would never fall victim to a killer. June Cicero was one of the most streetwise prostitutes in Rochester, and another prostitute, Darlene Trippi, had teamed up with Jo Ann Van Nostrand for safety. Just before she disappeared, June Cicero had boasted to the police about how she wasn’t afraid of the man. It was he who ought to be afraid of her. They had believed her. Also missing at this time was a black prostitute named Felicia Stephens and the long-missing Maria Welch.

On 31 December, a state trooper on road patrol in a rural area outside Rochester spotted a pair of black jeans discarded and frozen along the roadside. He stopped to investigate and went through the pockets. He found an identification card in the name of Felicia Stephens. With this discovery, everyone assumed that she was dead. It was also clear, since the jeans had been found not far from Salmon Creek, that the killer was returning to former dumping grounds. Then Stephens’s boots were found in separate areas. She could not get along in the freezing temperatures without those. A thorough search was almost impossible at that time of year, even with search dogs. Everything was under snow or frozen over, and trying to walk out on the water proved treacherous. Four missing women and no one had found a body; it was frustrating for the police. They decided to fly over the areas where bodies had been found in an attempt to locate more. They flew low over Salmon Creek, scanning back and forth, alert to anything unusual. Suddenly they saw something near a bridge. They flew closer and saw what appeared to be a human figure lying splayed out and face down on the surface of the ice. She was wearing a white top, as Felicia
Stephens had been when last seen, but nothing else. They hovered for a closer look and made out a female with darkish skin, but not black. It could not be Felicia Stephens, but they had three other missing women, so it could be one of them. Then they noticed a Chevrolet Celebrity on the bridge, so they radioed to patrol units on the ground to check it out. A large, overweight man was there and he appeared to be urinating. Then he got into his car and drove away.

When officers arrived at the location, they found the body was that of the streetwise prostitute, June Cicero. She had been asphyxiated by strangulation and then mutilated post-mortem. Her genital area had been sawed clean through, probably while she was frozen. Now the investigators had to learn who this man was who had been on the bridge and find out what he had to say for himself. Perhaps he’d seen something that would help.

Patrol units were hot on the trail of the man in the vehicle and the helicopter team followed. They watched as the car pulled into a car park across the street from the Wedgewood Nursing Home in Spencerport. The driver went into the nursing home, and a check on the registration number revealed that the car belonged to a woman named Clara Neal. The troopers took over while the helicopter team returned to protect the crime scene. They saw that there were fresh footprints in the snow. Those would be good evidence. They preserved the scene and called for more support.

Police went to the nursing home and asked the man in the Celebrity for ID, which he produced. His name was Arthur John Shawcross, aged 44 (although with his greying hair he looked much older), and he said he thought that they’d followed him because he’d urinated out in the woods. That was his story, anyway, and he agreed to cooperate with the police. When asked for his driving licence, he admitted he did not have one and then revealed that he had been in jail for manslaughter.

That revelation struck everyone at once. This was no ordinary citizen who’d happened to get close to a crime scene. This was a
one-time killer. The profilers had told them that this offender was returning to his victims, and that could very well be what they’d caught him doing. By a sheer stroke of luck, they had flown over the scene at the very time he’d decided to have another look at his brutal handiwork.

Despite what they now knew, the police weren’t sure that they had the killer. They had to be careful. Interrogators often make mistakes by showing their eagerness and trying to rush someone into a confession. They had spent too many hours on this case to go in blind. Shawcross was persuaded to accompany the police to the State Police Barracks for further questioning. He was happy to oblige and even signed forms that gave the police permission to search the car and his home. The police then took both him and Clara Neal (in a different car) to Brockport.

Shawcross openly admitted that he’d been arrested 16 years earlier in Watertown because ‘two kids died’. He would not elaborate on these crimes. He insisted it was just a coincidence that he was parked over the body on Salmon Creek, that he was just driving around and had stopped to urinate when the helicopter flew over. He hadn’t seen anything. Though excited by what they heard and by the feeling they finally had the killer right in front of them, the investigators continued to build a rapport rather than press for details. They wanted Shawcross to feel comfortable talking with them, because they intended to question him again and they wanted it to be voluntary. They had him in the interrogation room for about five hours, and took Clara home before they released him. He did finally tell them more details about how he had killed the children, raping the little girl anally before he’d strangled her. Everyone was disgusted but they tried not to show their feelings. Shawcross also told them how he’d had sexual relations with his younger sister, and he thought that had something to do with why he had assaulted a child, as well as why he had killed so many people in Vietnam. He liked to talk about his ‘accomplishments’ there. He’d been quite the soldier. The police decided to release Shawcross in order
to make further enquiries. Before they released him, they asked to take his photograph, which Shawcross allowed.

Police then showed it to several of the prostitutes working Lyell Avenue. One was Jo Ann Van Nostrand, who had told the police about ‘Mitch’. She immediately identified Shawcross. Several other prostitutes identified him as well. They all knew him as a regular customer who’d never been a problem.