On June 5th, a fourteen-year-old boy walking under the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge, kicking stones, kicked a skull. The rest of the skeleton was nearby. The body had probably been under the bridge for nearly a year, Gerber said; the victim had been decapitated, but the skeleton was otherwise intact-including bridgework with three gold teeth. From the formation of the jawbone and the skull, Dr. Watterson, professor of anatomy at Western Reserve University School of Medicine, had deduced the victim was a colored woman.
'Which brings us to the most recent victim,' Gerber said as slides of the Third Street Bridge discovery began filling the screen, 'who has yet to be identified. What we know about this deceased gentleman is that he was approximately six feet tall, weighed one hundred and eighty-to-ninety pounds… and his heart, liver, and various other vital organs were removed. Lights.'
As the lights came up, the men on the folding chairs winced as their eyes got used to the light. Ness glanced around at them; this was a somber group, sickened and perhaps numbed by the shocking, dismaying material they'd viewed in Gerber's wall display and his slide presentation. Overkill on Gerber's part, perhaps; but overkill on the part of the Butcher, most certainly.
Ness rose, turned, and spoke to his audience. 'Seeing this panoply of the Butchers handiwork should bring home to us just what it is we're facing-just what it is we have to put an end to. Now, I've asked Dr. Strauss, our county pathologist, to say a few words.'
Strauss, a dignified, heavyset man, displayed on an easel a large chart of the crimes, comparing them as to dismemberments, condition of bodies, clothing, and other factors. He mentioned that the decapitations were invariably made between the third and fourth vertebrae of the neck.
'The muscles in the neck had retracted,' Strauss said, 'which indicates that the heads of these victims were cut off while they were still alive… or at least immediately after death, while their reflexes were still operating. Ah, but the woman found at Euclid beach
… that's the second woman found there, I should say… evidence indicates she was decapitated after death. Otherwise- cause of death could well be decapitation.'
Silence hung in the room like a dark, heavy curtain.
Strauss smiled pleasantly, said, 'Thank you, gentlemen,' took his chart off the easel, and sat down. The wall-mounted fans churned the air.
Ness stood, thanked Strauss, and said, 'While in a few instances we've recovered the heads of the victims, I think it's significant that the heads and hands are usually missing.'
Chief Matowitz, a friendly-looking bear of a man whose crisp blue uniform bore its customary red lapel flower, spoke from his front-row seat.
'By 'significant,'' Matowitz said, 'you mean these are the items by which we'd most likely be able to identify the victims.'
'That's right.'
'But those items have turned up from time to time,' Matowitz said.
'Yes,' Ness admitted. 'I think in those instances, the murders may have been more spontaneous than others. My feeling is that, for the most part, the killer has stalked his prey, possibly getting to know them, associating with them for several weeks or even months before the kill.'
Dr. Williamson, the psychiatrist, spoke from the second row; he was a small bald man in a tan suit. 'On what do you base this conclusion, Mr. Ness?'
Ness smiled. 'It's less than a conclusion, Doctor. It's part instinct, maybe a little bit common sense. The victims here seem to be of the lower strata of life-little or no family ties, vagrants, drifters, perverts, prostitutes- living on the fringes of society. Specifically, in the vicinity of Kingsbury Run.'
'What does that tell you, Mr. Ness?' Williamson asked.
Ness could detect no skepticism in the psychiatrist's voice; it seemed an honest question. He gave an honest answer: 'To associate with such a group-without arousing suspicion-the murderer must have been of the same physical makeup… that is, a white male, probably a known frequenter of the area.'
'Why a male?'
'Well, let's say probably a male. At any rate, well developed and strong enough to do the heavy… let's call it, disposal work required. Hauling bodies in the dead of night, that sort of thing. Probably, if he does indeed associate with his victims, he is in their same general age range-twenty-five to forty.'
Dr. Gerber, who'd been standing patiently to one side, said, 'Let me say that I concur wholeheartedly with Director Ness. It seems to me that the slayer has gained the confidence and possibly the friendship of his victims before beheading them. What we have here, I believe, is that rarest of criminals-the killer who kills for the sheer love of it-a man who sees himself as God, with the power of life or death.'
Silence again draped the room.
'I'd like your thoughts, Doctor,' Ness said to the psychiatrist.
'I don't have many worth sharing at this point, I'm afraid,' Williamson said with good-natured chagrin. 'I can tell you only that this murderer does not fit into any recognized form of insanity.'
Prosecutor Cullitan, a big man in his late fifties with salt-and-pepper hair and wire-frame glasses, turned and looked at the psychiatrist, startled. 'Are you saying this killer is not insane?'
'Hardly,' Williamson said. 'I'm saying this is not a variety of insanity readily diagnosed and treated. I have done some reading about mass murderers of this general type… and I have encountered nothing in my research that closely parallels this. There seems to be a sexual basis to at least some of the crimes-the emasculation of the men, in particular-and it is my understanding that there was sexual attack in several of the cases…'
Up at the front of the room, both Ness and Gerber were nodding. This fact had not been made public, and it sobered-shocked-the already sober and generally shock-proof audience of men.
'… and that the sexual assault was performed on both male and female victims.'
'That's right,' Ness said.
'Jesus,' somebody in the audience said.
'I would propose,' Williamson said, 'that there may be a reason, other than clouding identifications, where… shall we say, collecting certain body parts is concerned. For one thing, keeping certain parts might be viewed as, well, putting together a trophy collection. For another, we may have a case of genuine necrophilia here.'
'What the hell is that?' somebody in back said.
Sam Wild.
Ness repressed a smile; he could not remember seeing the generally unflappable reporter look so… flapped.
'Sexual interest in the dead,' the psychiatrist said, looking back at Wild.
'What do you mean… 'interest'?'
'He means sex with the dead,' Ness said.
'Oh, Christ,' Wild said wearily. 'How do you expect me to put that in the paper?'
'I can spell 'necrophilia' if you like,' Williamson offered ingenuously, and uneasy laughter rocked the room.
'You may have a point, Doctor,' Ness said. 'There is some evidence of attempts at body preservation- chemicals applied to the corpses, refrigeration, that sort of thing. What is confusing here is that there are enough elements, enough of a consistent modus operandi, to identify all of these victims as genuinely 'belonging' to the Butcher. But nonetheless, the Butcher is all over the map-men, women, studiously planned killings, impromptu killings, this victim emasculated, this one not, this one sexually assaulted, this one not.. even organs missing, in the most recent case.'
'May I have a word?'
In response to the deep, distinctive voice from the third row, Ness said, 'Most certainly, Dr. Watterson.'
Dr. Watterson stood, a distinguished-looking, darkly handsome man in his mid-fifties; a surgeon of some renown, professor of anatomy of Western Reserve, Watterson's manner was one of complete, confident authority.
'All of these cases,' he began, 'indicate dissection by someone showing keen intelligence in recognizing anatomical landmarks as they were approached. As you know, I was called in on several of these cases to give an expert opinion; so I have examined some of the physical evidence itself. The word 'butcher' has been bandied about, and I think it is inappropriate-the technique here is not that of the slaughterhouse-although the subject may indeed have used a butcher knife. We are dealing, I believe, with a doctor or a medical student or possibly a
