The Fetish Killer
There are many odd people in the world. There are evil people in the world and those who crave blood bringing terror to others.
In the late afternoon on April 21, 1969 Sharon Wood who was 24 left her secretarial job in Portland, Oregon to meet with her estranged husband. She wanted to tell him that she wanted a divorce. Entering the basement level garage to get her car, a tall, pudgy man suddenly approached her. Later she would tell the police that she had felt that someone was behind her and was hoping to be able to get to an area where there would be other people when she was tapped on the shoulder. Sharon turned around and saw a man holding a gun. He told her not to scream but she was both frightened and angry and decided to fight him. Stepping away from him Sharon screamed and he grabbed her, putting an arm-lock around her throat. He was taller than she was and outweighed her by nearly one hundred pounds. Instinctively Sharon felt that this man had murder on his mind. She then kicked at him with her high heels and screamed again. Grabbing the gun she gave it a hard twist. When the man tried to silence her with his hand she bit him. He tried to free himself and couldn't. Grabbing her hair he tried to force her to the floor but Sharon continued to resist with all her strength. However the man did manage to slam her head on the concrete, dazing her. Sharon relaxed her jaw and let him go. At that point she heard a car coming and her attacker picked up his gun and left. Then Sharon knew no more. Someone had apparently called the police and she found herself giving a shaky statement. Sharon described him as a tall man with blue eyes and freckles. She said she would know him if she ever saw him again. At this point investigators had no idea they would be looking for a serial killer. At the time they were questioning Sharon Wood, three women were already dead.
In 1968 America had been shocked by the assassination of presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy, the insolence of the Chicago Seven at the Democratic Convention and the violence on college campuses over the Vietnam War. A whole subculture experimented with drugs and the occult. And the country was about to see many more serial killers.
Linda Slawson was working for a book company in 1968. She went door to door persuading families to purchase sets of encyclopedias. Linda was only 19 and hoped to make money for college. On January 26 she was in a Portland neighborhood looking for another house to call on. Afterwards no one ever saw or heard from Linda again. Unfortunately the book company had no record of where she had been that day so the police had nothing to go on. Her family was frantic. Finally the police located her abandoned car. It offered no signs of struggle and apparently nothing was missing. With time Linda just remained a name on a list. Abducted or otherwise she had vanished.
On her way home for the Thanksgiving holiday Jan Whitney who was 23 disappeared on November 26, 1968. Her car, a Rambler was found off the highway at a rest area near Albany, Oregon. Just like Slawson Jan was simply gone. Four months later on March 27, 1969 Karen Sprinker 19 disappeared. Karen's mother had arranged to meet her daughter, who was home for a holiday from university for lunch at a downtown restaurant. She waited for an hour and grew worried with no sign of Karen. Later it was discovered that she had parked her car at the garage for the mall where her mother was waiting. Shoppers in the area said they had seen a very tall and strange-looking woman. One witness said that when this woman got close to them they could see that it was a man in drag. Since he seemed very creepy people avoided him. Karen like the others before her had vanished. Four weeks later Linda Salee 22 went to a shopping mall to buy a present for her boyfriend but didn't meet him that evening. When she didn't show up for work the police were notified and her car was found abandoned. Linda was gone.
The police began wondering if there was any connection between these girls. Except that they were all young white females. Three weeks after Linda Salee had disappeared a man fishing that May in the Long Tom River, south of Corvalis, Oregon found decomposing human remains in the rushing current. When the police arrived they discovered that the deceased female had been bound to a car transmission box to weigh her body down. The victim had been tied to the transmission box with a nylon rope and a specific knot had been used.
To the medical examiner it appeared from the condition of the neck area that she had been strangled. There was also a pair of odd postmortem punctures, each circled by a burn at opposite sides of the rib cage. They appeared to have been caused by a needle. Dental records identified the victim as Linda Salee. Searching along the river the police found another body a few days later. The victim was bound to an engine head. The same type of bindings and knots had been used. The victim had been strangled with a strap used as a garrote. The clothing that was still on her body matched what Karen Sprinker's mother had said she was wearing. When authorities lifted her they discovered that she was also wearing a long-line black brassiere that appeared to be much too large for her and it had been padded with brown paper towels. Further discovery led to the fact that her breasts had been removed and the padding placed against her chest to absorb the blood and fluid. Further searches along the river resulted in nothing. The police decided to question students on the Oregon State University campus in Corvalis which Sprinker had attended.
When detectives spoke to students as OSU they discovered that some female students had been receiving strange phone calls from a man who was trying to lure them out. There were also reports of a suspicious red-haired, pudgy man loitering about the campus. One young woman had actually gone out on a brief date with a man claiming to be a lonely Vietnam veteran looking for company. The woman had no intention of seeing him again and said that he was a bit disconcerting and had wanted to discuss the discovery of the bodies in the river. She described him as a fair haired man with a lot of freckles. When this man called her again, she agreed to meet him and phoned the police.
The police went to the designated meeting place and spotted a tall, pudgy man enter. When they approached him they found out that his name was Jerry Brudos. The man acted as though he had nothing to hide. The police decided to keep him under surveillance. Brudos lived in the area and had worked as an electrician. The police researched his background and in five days as the coincidences piled up they arrested Brudos.
Jerome Henry Brudos was born on January 31, 1939, in South Dakota. His parents traveled around and finally settled in Oregon. He was an unwanted child since there were already two boys in the family. His mother had hoped that this time it would be a girl. Brudos was often alone and developed a fantasy life and habits which at 17 got him in trouble with the law. He had a sexual fetish for women's shoes and underclothing. Brudos fetish began at an amazingly early age. When he was five years old he found a pair of women's spike-heel shoes at a local dump. When his mother found him wearing them in his bedroom, she grabbed him, destroyed the shoes and told him that it was a wicked thing to do. He also stole the shoes his kindergarten teacher kept in her desk and received a reprimand.
At 17 in 1956 Brudos fetish became dangerous. He had dug a hole in a hillside in which to keep girls as sex slaves. Threatening her with a knife he accosted a 17 year old girl. He demanded that she remove her clothing so he could photograph her in the nude. He then proceeded to beat her up but an elderly couple caught him and he admitted what he had done. Afterwards Brudos spent nine months in the psychiatric ward of the Oregon State Hospital. Doctors became aware of the fact that his sexual fantasies centered around his hatred for his demanding mother and revenge against women in general.
Brudos went into the military but was discharged early because of his strange delusions. In 1961 he became an electronic technician. At this time he was 22. He met a shy 17 year old girl and married her. She did everything that Brudo told her to do. This included staying naked in the house, staying out of his workshop and avoiding the attic. They had two children and eventually Darcie declined to have any more sex with him. Brudos would steal out at night to invade other people's homes to satisfy his underwear fetish. Darcie was shocked when he once walked up to her dressed in women's underwear. When she couldn't understand his need for this he returned to his secret world.
Continuing their investigation detectives found that Brudos had a lot of nylon rope in his workshop. They got a warrant to search Brudo's car but found that the interior had been washed. Then an adolescent girl picked him out in a photo spread as the man who had recently attempted to force her into a car. Along with a charge for having a gun in his car the police arrested Brudos on May 30th and he agreed to submit to an interrogation.
Brudos confessed to his crimes and provided details. He relished telling about his fetish for shoes, panties and bras growing excited as he described them. From January 1968 until April 1969 Brudos killed four women. He mourned his fate and felt bad for his wife and kids. He admitted to killing and mutilating the women and throwing their bodies into the river after he had cut off parts from them. Linda Slawson had been found minus her left foot. He had kept it to try shoes on it and take photographs. The two women who had their breasts removed, Brudo had sex with their bodies.
Linda Slawson had naively followed him to his workshop to pitch her encyclopedias. There he had hit her with a two-by-four and knocked her out. Afterwards he strangled her. His wife, children and mother lived right there in the house with him. Meanwhile in his workshop he had a dead woman on the floor. He calmly told his family to go out to a fast food place for dinner.
Then he began thinking about what he could do with the dead woman's body. He undressed her and redressed her in some underwear that he had from his own collection. With a hack saw he removed her foot and put it in a freezer. Then took her to the Willamette River, bound her to a car engine and threw her body over the bridge railing.
With another victim Jan Whitney Brudos stopped when he saw that she had car trouble. Jan had picked up two hippies and they refused to help her with the car. Brudo took them all in his car. He dropped off the hippies and took Jan to his house telling her to stay in the car. He said he was going inside to tell his wife that he would go and fix her car for her. When he returned Brudos got into the back seat. He proceeded to play some mind games with her and then put a strap over her head and around her neck and strangled her. Afterwards he had sex in the car with her body. He then took the body to his workshop and dressed it in some of his clothes and took pictures. He tied up the body and raised it into the air via a hook and pulley system he had fixed in the ceiling. He left her hanging there for several days. This was his second victim. From this victim he kept her right breast. Once again he weighted the body down and threw it into the Willamette River.
With Karen Sprinker he used his pistol to force her into his car and brought her to his home. There he raped her and forced her to pose in his clothing. He killed her by hanging her by the neck from a hook. Then he subjected the corpse to the same indignities he'd imposed on the others. This time he removed both breasts and dressed her in the padded bra to keep the body from bleeding in his car.
On June 2, 1969 Brudos was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Karen Sprinker. The police prepared a search warrant. Brudos believed that all evidence had been destroyed as he had told his wife to burn all of his female clothing. She however had not done so. A team entered the Brudos home and workshop to search for evidence that might link him to the other victims as well. They took pictures of everything. They found women's shoes in various sizes, bras, girdles, panties and slips and his horrifying collection of photographs. On June 4, 1969 Brudos was arraigned. Attorney Dale Drake was to defend him and teamed up with high-powered criminal lawyer George Rhoten. Brudos pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Psychiatrists did not find this man insane, dangerous yes but not remorseful. After consulting with his attorney's Brudos changed his plea to guilty in the murders of Jan Whitney, Karen Sprinker and Linda Salee, all from Salem. He was sentenced to three consecutive terms of life imprisonment with the chance for parole.
Afterwards his wife Darcie was arrested and tried as his accomplice but there was no evidence to prove that she actually knew about the murders. She was acquitted in 1970. Darcie then ended her eight year marriage to Brudos, changed her name and moved with the children to an unknown location.
Brudos' three life sentences ended on March 28, 2006. At the age of 67 being the longest incarcerated inmate (almost 37 years) at Oregon State Penitentiary he had died from liver cancer.
In 1968 America had been shocked by the assassination of presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy, the insolence of the Chicago Seven at the Democratic Convention and the violence on college campuses over the Vietnam War. A whole subculture experimented with drugs and the occult. And the country was about to see many more serial killers.
Linda Slawson was working for a book company in 1968. She went door to door persuading families to purchase sets of encyclopedias. Linda was only 19 and hoped to make money for college. On January 26 she was in a Portland neighborhood looking for another house to call on. Afterwards no one ever saw or heard from Linda again. Unfortunately the book company had no record of where she had been that day so the police had nothing to go on. Her family was frantic. Finally the police located her abandoned car. It offered no signs of struggle and apparently nothing was missing. With time Linda just remained a name on a list. Abducted or otherwise she had vanished.
On her way home for the Thanksgiving holiday Jan Whitney who was 23 disappeared on November 26, 1968. Her car, a Rambler was found off the highway at a rest area near Albany, Oregon. Just like Slawson Jan was simply gone. Four months later on March 27, 1969 Karen Sprinker 19 disappeared. Karen's mother had arranged to meet her daughter, who was home for a holiday from university for lunch at a downtown restaurant. She waited for an hour and grew worried with no sign of Karen. Later it was discovered that she had parked her car at the garage for the mall where her mother was waiting. Shoppers in the area said they had seen a very tall and strange-looking woman. One witness said that when this woman got close to them they could see that it was a man in drag. Since he seemed very creepy people avoided him. Karen like the others before her had vanished. Four weeks later Linda Salee 22 went to a shopping mall to buy a present for her boyfriend but didn't meet him that evening. When she didn't show up for work the police were notified and her car was found abandoned. Linda was gone.
The police began wondering if there was any connection between these girls. Except that they were all young white females. Three weeks after Linda Salee had disappeared a man fishing that May in the Long Tom River, south of Corvalis, Oregon found decomposing human remains in the rushing current. When the police arrived they discovered that the deceased female had been bound to a car transmission box to weigh her body down. The victim had been tied to the transmission box with a nylon rope and a specific knot had been used.
To the medical examiner it appeared from the condition of the neck area that she had been strangled. There was also a pair of odd postmortem punctures, each circled by a burn at opposite sides of the rib cage. They appeared to have been caused by a needle. Dental records identified the victim as Linda Salee. Searching along the river the police found another body a few days later. The victim was bound to an engine head. The same type of bindings and knots had been used. The victim had been strangled with a strap used as a garrote. The clothing that was still on her body matched what Karen Sprinker's mother had said she was wearing. When authorities lifted her they discovered that she was also wearing a long-line black brassiere that appeared to be much too large for her and it had been padded with brown paper towels. Further discovery led to the fact that her breasts had been removed and the padding placed against her chest to absorb the blood and fluid. Further searches along the river resulted in nothing. The police decided to question students on the Oregon State University campus in Corvalis which Sprinker had attended.
When detectives spoke to students as OSU they discovered that some female students had been receiving strange phone calls from a man who was trying to lure them out. There were also reports of a suspicious red-haired, pudgy man loitering about the campus. One young woman had actually gone out on a brief date with a man claiming to be a lonely Vietnam veteran looking for company. The woman had no intention of seeing him again and said that he was a bit disconcerting and had wanted to discuss the discovery of the bodies in the river. She described him as a fair haired man with a lot of freckles. When this man called her again, she agreed to meet him and phoned the police.
The police went to the designated meeting place and spotted a tall, pudgy man enter. When they approached him they found out that his name was Jerry Brudos. The man acted as though he had nothing to hide. The police decided to keep him under surveillance. Brudos lived in the area and had worked as an electrician. The police researched his background and in five days as the coincidences piled up they arrested Brudos.
Jerome Henry Brudos was born on January 31, 1939, in South Dakota. His parents traveled around and finally settled in Oregon. He was an unwanted child since there were already two boys in the family. His mother had hoped that this time it would be a girl. Brudos was often alone and developed a fantasy life and habits which at 17 got him in trouble with the law. He had a sexual fetish for women's shoes and underclothing. Brudos fetish began at an amazingly early age. When he was five years old he found a pair of women's spike-heel shoes at a local dump. When his mother found him wearing them in his bedroom, she grabbed him, destroyed the shoes and told him that it was a wicked thing to do. He also stole the shoes his kindergarten teacher kept in her desk and received a reprimand.
At 17 in 1956 Brudos fetish became dangerous. He had dug a hole in a hillside in which to keep girls as sex slaves. Threatening her with a knife he accosted a 17 year old girl. He demanded that she remove her clothing so he could photograph her in the nude. He then proceeded to beat her up but an elderly couple caught him and he admitted what he had done. Afterwards Brudos spent nine months in the psychiatric ward of the Oregon State Hospital. Doctors became aware of the fact that his sexual fantasies centered around his hatred for his demanding mother and revenge against women in general.
Brudos went into the military but was discharged early because of his strange delusions. In 1961 he became an electronic technician. At this time he was 22. He met a shy 17 year old girl and married her. She did everything that Brudo told her to do. This included staying naked in the house, staying out of his workshop and avoiding the attic. They had two children and eventually Darcie declined to have any more sex with him. Brudos would steal out at night to invade other people's homes to satisfy his underwear fetish. Darcie was shocked when he once walked up to her dressed in women's underwear. When she couldn't understand his need for this he returned to his secret world.
Continuing their investigation detectives found that Brudos had a lot of nylon rope in his workshop. They got a warrant to search Brudo's car but found that the interior had been washed. Then an adolescent girl picked him out in a photo spread as the man who had recently attempted to force her into a car. Along with a charge for having a gun in his car the police arrested Brudos on May 30th and he agreed to submit to an interrogation.
Brudos confessed to his crimes and provided details. He relished telling about his fetish for shoes, panties and bras growing excited as he described them. From January 1968 until April 1969 Brudos killed four women. He mourned his fate and felt bad for his wife and kids. He admitted to killing and mutilating the women and throwing their bodies into the river after he had cut off parts from them. Linda Slawson had been found minus her left foot. He had kept it to try shoes on it and take photographs. The two women who had their breasts removed, Brudo had sex with their bodies.
Linda Slawson had naively followed him to his workshop to pitch her encyclopedias. There he had hit her with a two-by-four and knocked her out. Afterwards he strangled her. His wife, children and mother lived right there in the house with him. Meanwhile in his workshop he had a dead woman on the floor. He calmly told his family to go out to a fast food place for dinner.
Then he began thinking about what he could do with the dead woman's body. He undressed her and redressed her in some underwear that he had from his own collection. With a hack saw he removed her foot and put it in a freezer. Then took her to the Willamette River, bound her to a car engine and threw her body over the bridge railing.
With another victim Jan Whitney Brudos stopped when he saw that she had car trouble. Jan had picked up two hippies and they refused to help her with the car. Brudo took them all in his car. He dropped off the hippies and took Jan to his house telling her to stay in the car. He said he was going inside to tell his wife that he would go and fix her car for her. When he returned Brudos got into the back seat. He proceeded to play some mind games with her and then put a strap over her head and around her neck and strangled her. Afterwards he had sex in the car with her body. He then took the body to his workshop and dressed it in some of his clothes and took pictures. He tied up the body and raised it into the air via a hook and pulley system he had fixed in the ceiling. He left her hanging there for several days. This was his second victim. From this victim he kept her right breast. Once again he weighted the body down and threw it into the Willamette River.
With Karen Sprinker he used his pistol to force her into his car and brought her to his home. There he raped her and forced her to pose in his clothing. He killed her by hanging her by the neck from a hook. Then he subjected the corpse to the same indignities he'd imposed on the others. This time he removed both breasts and dressed her in the padded bra to keep the body from bleeding in his car.
On June 2, 1969 Brudos was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Karen Sprinker. The police prepared a search warrant. Brudos believed that all evidence had been destroyed as he had told his wife to burn all of his female clothing. She however had not done so. A team entered the Brudos home and workshop to search for evidence that might link him to the other victims as well. They took pictures of everything. They found women's shoes in various sizes, bras, girdles, panties and slips and his horrifying collection of photographs. On June 4, 1969 Brudos was arraigned. Attorney Dale Drake was to defend him and teamed up with high-powered criminal lawyer George Rhoten. Brudos pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Psychiatrists did not find this man insane, dangerous yes but not remorseful. After consulting with his attorney's Brudos changed his plea to guilty in the murders of Jan Whitney, Karen Sprinker and Linda Salee, all from Salem. He was sentenced to three consecutive terms of life imprisonment with the chance for parole.
Afterwards his wife Darcie was arrested and tried as his accomplice but there was no evidence to prove that she actually knew about the murders. She was acquitted in 1970. Darcie then ended her eight year marriage to Brudos, changed her name and moved with the children to an unknown location.
Brudos' three life sentences ended on March 28, 2006. At the age of 67 being the longest incarcerated inmate (almost 37 years) at Oregon State Penitentiary he had died from liver cancer.
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