“Donny,” said Bill Suff, “my brother, Donny.”
“Donny?”
“There were red hairs found on one of the victims—I don’t remember which anymore. Donny’s got red hair.”
“You really think Donny’s capable of murder?”
“Yes. He was convicted of raping that prostitute in Las Vegas, so it’s not a big step up to killing ’em.”
Don Suff—he was definitely guilty of trying to cash in on his brother’s infamy, but he’s just not a serial killer. Don’s like the little birds that sit on the backs of hippos—they wait for crumbs to float off the hippos’ teeth and they munch bugs out of the folds in the hippos’ skin. These birds are nothing to aspire to, but the hippos’d probably miss ’em if they were gone. Or not. It’s hard to know if they evolved to their station or just flopped there and got overlooked when nature took a head count. But what was interesting here on the human side of the fence was that Bill clearly had a mad-on for brother Don, and this was the passive-aggressive way he was handling it.
“You mad at Donny because he wanted to sell your van to that guy that collects serial killer memorabilia?” I asked.
“I’m mad at Donny ’cause of what he said on Leeza” said Bill.
In October of 1995, Don and Ann needed money. I was friends with the then executive producer of Leeza, and so I pitched her the idea of doing a show where the serial killer’s family would get together and make peace with the families of the victims.
However, the victims’ families refused. Instead, the show became “My Son Is a Serial Killer”, starring Don and Ann along with Mr. and Mrs. Dahmer. Don and Ann got $1000 and a night at a posh hotel for their trouble.
It was the highest rated show Leeza ever had, and, once it aired, Zellerbach and the victims’ families demanded their own “Victims Talk Back” show so they could go “on air” and call all the Suffs every name they could think of.
Which they did.
The taping of the original show—”My Son”—was delayed for a half hour when Ann broke down and cried in the “green room”. Leeza Gibbons tried to comfort her, and she too was reduced to tears. Ann was lamenting the loss of her son, the loss of her grandchildren, and the loss of all those poor dead girls. She was very sincere, however disloyal to Billy. Then again, she had cooperated with Zellerbach and the cops when Billy was first arrested. She’d even knit them a toy yarn octopus. She’d also turned over to them Cathy McDonald’s library card and another victim’s ring and necklace which she’d found in Billy’s apartment after the first police search.
I like Ann, even though nobody else seems to. After she testified at the death penalty phase that Bill was a good kid who never hurt anybody or anything, the jury decided that she was “cold as a glacier”. After listening to her, they said they could understand how Bill turned out as he had.
In any event, Ann went on television and spoke about Billy as if it were fact that he was a serial killer. Then Donny chimed in. He said he did not want to believe that Billy could have done these things, but, based on the evidence at trial, he had to accept that it was true.
Then Leeza asked him if he forgave his brother for his crimes.
“How can you forgive somebody who won’t even admit to himself what he’s done?” asked Don in perhaps the only rhetorical question he’s ever posed.
“Can you believe he said that?!” Bill snarled angrily at me. “Even the guards at the jail couldn’t believe it when they heard!” To Bill, his prison guards are the ultimate authorities—whatever they think is gospel, particularly when they’re on his side. I wonder if they know quite how much he quotes them.
The bottom line is that Bill has not and will not ever forgive Don for Leeza. Ann he will not condemn—in fact he makes sure that she is taken care of financially and otherwise—but Don betrayed him in some profound way. I’m not exactly sure why what Don did was so bad in Bill’s eyes—didn’t Bill admit to me that even he would have voted to convict had he objectively viewed the evidence as presented?—but I do know that, prior to Don’s appearance on Leeza, Bill had been exhorting him to stand up and make his brother’s case for the defense, miniscule evidentiary point by miniscule evidentiary point.
Now that I think it through, perhaps the answer is that Bill knows the evidentiary points do not work in his favor, and all he could ask for are people to stand up and swear to him and his character, for people to say “I don’t care what the evidence is, the Bill Suff I know would not have done these things!”
And maybe Donny should have said that.
I would have said it for my brother, God rest his soul.
Then again, my brother was not a serial killer, and no one’s invited me to appear on Leeza.
Funny how Ted Kaczynski’s weirdo snitch brother is now a hero, while Don Suff is a pariah.
“I find it hard to think Donny did these killings, Bill,” I said, “and I’d bet he has alibis for at least some of them.”
Once again, that was the issue: no matter who you are and how hard you are to keep track of, you ought to be able to alibi yourself at least once out of more than a dozen crimes. Plus, Donny was out on the streets all this time, and Riverside prostitutes were no longer getting murdered and mutilated and posed. Circumstantially, only Bill fit the bill. And Donny has a naiveté about him that, while not innocent, nonetheless augurs for spontaneous rather than premeditated guilt. He says he didn’t rape that Vegas hooker, he just didn’t pay her, and then they got into a tussle and she called the police.
I almost believe it.
In fact, Donny made a big confession of it to me when we first met in person in Riverside. He told me he wanted me to hear it from him first, since I was bound to hear it from others. There were a few other things I would hear about him also. Let’s just say that the Suff boys all got into trouble in various ways, and women were pretty much a common denominator.
Considering my failed marriages, I am not one to comment any further on this.
So, when Donny fessed up to me, I told him it was irrelevant to this book. I was then on my way to visit Bill, and that was the story.
“Need a microcassette recorder to take with you?” Don offered,
“Thanks, but I’ve got a tape recorder,” I said, “and anyway I don’t think I’m allowed to take it into the jail.”
“The one I’ve got is Bill’s,” Don said.
“Really,” I said, this being my favorite response.
“The police missed it the first time they searched his apartment while Mom and I were there. So I took it, along with a bunch of tapes.”
“Anything interesting on the tapes?”
“I’ve only listened to one or two, but there’s nothing important on ’em.”
“Like what?”
“Like Bill driving around in his van talking to Cheryl. And another where you hear a bunch of guys cheering as they watch a football game on TV.”
“Huh?” This was my second favorite response.
“It’s just like Bill had the tape recorder on, recording, while he did other stuff.”