Time is working against them, however. Captain Reynolds Conklin, second in command of the Baltimore P.D. Homicide Division, told a media assembly last night: “These four homicides have spanned two years, and the official investigations on the first three are, in police parlance, cold. No suspect names have turned up in more than one city in the mass of paperwork thus far collected. No airplane, bus or train reservation lists have the same men visiting the four cities on the applicable dates, and right now we are simply doing paperwork and running with hypothetical footballs. That is how this case will be solved.”
But after how many more victims, Captain?
Inter-Office Memorandum, found under “Miscellaneous Reports” in Baltimore Police Department Case File # 199-5/81.
Skipper—
You said I should be candid, so here it is — nothing, except some decent theorizing from reading through Xeroxes of the Louisville/Des Moines/Charleston case files and talking on phone to two officers previously involved (Sgt. Ruley, Louisville — Sgt Brown, Charleston).
Both these (smart) officers feature a cop impersonator who got access to the victims by threatening shakedowns or arrest if they didn’t come across sexually. This would explain how killer entered pads of vict’s 1, 3, 4. Also, impersonating cops seems to be popular among psychos these days — witness that Hillside Strangler scumbag out in L.A.
I’ll take the reconstruction one step further — suppose the killer actually is a cop? Since the killings originated in Louisville, a check of airline/train/bus records for applicable dates of last 3 killings cross-checked against L.P.D. officers roster (unexplained or unusual officer absences too) might be in order. Needle-haystack stuff, but something to do.
Off the record — I think we should keep going through the standard motions, then bury this thing. Neilton was a hooker, this guy will never kill in our jurisdiction again, and Homicide has got eight major gang/killings & robbery/ killings running hot — they should be our priority. I’ve heard the feds are setting up something big called the Serial Killer Task Force (they’re going to be soliciting data from Municipal & State F.D.’s on old unsolveds, computer-checking them, etc.). Maybe that’s our best bet.
See you for the Orioles next Tuesday — Jack.
From the Columbus, Ohio, Telegram, May 30, 1981:
Sunbury, Ohio, May 29:
Workmen digging up a stretch of land with high-powered, earth movers uncovered the buried body of a transient ex-convict yesterday morning. The man had been dead for over a month, Columbus County Coroner Roger Diskant told reporters, and although “90 % decomposed,” an identification was made from his fingerprints. The man was William Rohrsfield, age 33, a vagrant with convictions for burglary and soliciting homosexual acts. The death was listed as a “gunshot homicide,” and the Ohio State Police are now investigating.
Summary Homicide Report filed by Lieutenant D. D. Bucklin of the Sunbury, Ohio, Sheriff’s Department on June 1, 1981:
Chief—
Here’s the rundown on the stiff found near that 7-11 site out by Route 3:
Name — Rohrsfield, William Waiter
Race — Cauc.
D.O.B. — 5-4-48
Phys Stats — 6'3", 210, brown & brown, build large
Cause of death — shot in head, 38 spents found in dirt by body (unusual lands & grooves) (see attached ballistic workup done by State Officers). Body buried 12 feet deep (strange).
Preliminary investigation — State Detectives. Although this is technically our case, Dead Body Report was filed by State unit that caught the squeal, and since Rohrsfield was an ex-con and not a Sunbury resident, I say let them do the work. Here’s Rohrsfield’s record:
Juvie — B&E — 12-12-65 — (received counseling). Poss. of Marijuana — 1-8-66 — (6 mos Chillicothe Youth Fac.).
Adult — House Burg. & Rec. Stolen Goods — 8-2-67 (1 yr. Chillicothe Adult Fac. 3 yrs. prob.). 1st Deg. Burg. — Convictions (2) on 4/20/69, (3 yrs. — Ohio State Pen.); also on 7/2/74 with added charges of Soliciting for Purposes of Male Prostitution, Loitering in the Vicinity of Public Restrooms and Indecent Exposure (5 yrs. State time — refused parole, topped out sentence). Released 7/14/79, a dozen drunk arrests since.
The State dicks can have him — I say good riddance to bad rubbish — D. D. Bucklin, Lieutenant, Watch Commander.
VI
As a Fugitive: Filling in the Map (January 1979-September 1981)
17
And so the kiss made me a fugitive, and set the man who gave it free to kill with the stylish ease that I used to own.
At the time, of course, I had no idea what Ross was doing. Panic and unnamed desires kept him shut out but close — like a hot wind at my back, one that would turn me blind if I stared into it. Today, with manuscript pages and police documents accumulating on my desk and pins marking my journey on the map covering my cell wall, the lines connecting our respective murders make the dichotomy stand out in boldface: Ross discreetly choosing his victims, cloaked with a badge and extradition warrants, always returning safely to rural Wisconsin; Martin tearing cross-country in flight from real sex, seeking the perfect non-Martin to become, burning like an ant caught in sunlight through a magnifying glass held by a sadistic child.
Burning my way back to my own childhood;
Feeding sacrificial fires with a grandfather and three brothers;
Sabotaging my old caution by skipping at the edge of the flames...
Blasted out of Huyserville, I drove due east on sludgy two-lanes to Lake Geneva. The resort was thronged with athletic youths in brightly colored sportswear, and in the wake of Ross I felt inadequate to the task of working among them. The snub-nose .38, loaded in an undercarriage compartment, seemed like a poor substitute for my magnum; and I knew that if I put my hands on a victim — man, woman, young, old, ugly or attractive — they would feel like Ross, and I wouldn’t be able to finish the job. My only recourse was to force myself to forget the man — his looks, his feel, his style.
That night I did something extraordinarily out of character.
I booked a suite at the Lake Geneva Playboy Club and spent an evening celebrating an auspicious unnamed occasion, forcing myself to act like a reveler blowing off steam. I ate an overpriced meal at the “Sultan’s Steakhouse,” tipped lavishly and watched the floor show at the “Jet Setter’s Lounge.” Young hostesses in low-cut rabbit costumes looked disapprovingly at my out-of-style clothing there, but changed their tunes when I showed them my rabbit-ear room key with “Potentate’s Pad” embossed on the back. Then they accepted my stylishly handed-out twenty-dollar bills with proper humility and led me to a front-row table in the “VIP” section. I ordered Dom Perignon champagne for myself and my fellow VIP’s, and was roundly applauded. Soon the man next to me was offering cocaine, and in the spirit of the unnamed occasion I snorted it and drank greedily from the bottle at my table.
The floor show featured a vulgar buffoon named Professor Irwin Corey. His act consisted of ad-libbed double entendres and malapropisms aimed at the people sitting at the ringside tables; and although at first I found him tedious, as I snorted and drank on he became the funniest thing I had ever seen. Old notions of control kept my laughter internal until Corey pointed to a fat drunk who was snoring with his head on the table. In the voice of an oriental sage, the Professor said, “You drink to forget, Papa San?” and reflexively I thought of Ross, dug through my mind for a portrait and came up instead with the face of a pretty boy from a Calvin Klein ad. Then I did laugh out loud, spewing, spittle and tears across my table until Corey noticed me, walked over and slapped my back and said, “There, there, big guy. Take a shot of meth, two bunnies, four Excedrin and call your broker in the morning. There, there.”