So, on a Thursday afternoon, September 12, 1991, Cathy dropped off her kids at her mom’s, made some excuse about a weekend holiday with a fictitious beau, and down the freeway she cruised.
To Riverside.
To where Bill Suff was proudly but nervously prepping for the Riverside County Employees’ Annual Picnic and Cook-off.
Bill had a reasonably new wife, a very new baby daughter, and a lot of worries about how that baby kept getting so injured all the time. He also had several years of murders under his belt, and he was now moving at a pace of at least one per month. He had a very real fear that Texas was happening all over again, that his wife might leave him if this stewardess class she was taking actually led to a job, and maybe somehow it was all the baby’s fault. Again. If you believed in omens—as he did—it just didn’t help that this baby had the same birthday as the dead baby. He could have and should have viewed it as God granting him a second chance, but he saw it instead as a curse destined to revisit him again and again.
Thankfully, the cook-off would be a chance for him to socialize and prove to all the world that nothing was wrong, and he actually reveled in the pressure of concocting his sweet chili one more time, after having won the “best chili” ribbon two years running and the “best dish overall” two years ago. This year Bill was determined to regain that ultimate title and take home the loving cup and ribbon that went with it. New trophies to add to his collection. Of course, the other “trophies” couldn’t be displayed so publicly—clothes, jewelry, and other personal items from his murder victims: he had these “trophies” in his apartment, his van, at his workplace, little reminders that got him a little bit erect any time he thought about them, anytime he wanted, secrets hidden in plain sight, a trail of blood and agony that anyone could see but no one did. It’s not that he wanted to get caught; it’s that the threat of exposure was exhilarating. How then to take it one step further? How best to prove that he was in control, total control, of the living and the dead alike! Bill had the answer.
When I first got involved in the Suff case, all everyone wanted to talk about was “Bill’s cookbook”. Bill himself brought it up to me in every conversation. He was playful about it, but he was also extraordinarily proud, and he wasn’t lying when he told me that two of the jail guards had asked for the chili recipe on behalf of their wives who’d tasted the stuff at the cook-off. However, most people’s reference to the cookbook was in the context of creepi-ness. The notion of an accused serial killer sitting in his jail cell and writing a cookbook was just plain “over the top”.
As you will see, the cookbook contains both recipes and anecdotes. It’s quite a sophisticated piece of writing—Bill’s very distinct, folksy “voice”, along with careful instructions and chitchat. I was amused to note that Bill even penciled in the trademark and tradename logos whenever he recommended ingredients by brand.
“But aren’t you supposed to do that legally?” he asked me when I raised the issue.