Without Pity: Ann Rule's Most Dangerous Killers Read online

  Praise for Ann Rule’s Brilliant New York Times Bestsellers

  Every Breath you Take

  “Affecting, tense, and smart true-crime…. Rule digs up details…that form a case study of the classic American con man crossed with the more exotic strains of the sociopath.”

  —Washington Post Book World

  “Ann Rule has outdone herself….”

  —The Orlando Sentinel (FL)

  “Rule, in classic form, meticulously re-creates the…lives of her characters.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Troubling but absolutely riveting…. A sober, nonsensational account of Sheila’s murder, the mind-boggling series of events preceding it, and the nail-biting sequence of twists and turns in the investigation of the crime…. As usual, Rule excels at painting psychologically perceptive portraits of all the characters in this stranger-than-fiction but nevertheless real-life drama.”

  —Booklist

  …And Never Let Her Go

  “Most people like to think they recognize evil when they see it. But as this gripping story makes clear, most people are wrong. Much more than the profile of a handsome, insidious killer and the young woman he murdered,…And Never Let Her Go is also the story of three close-knit families and how 30-year-old Anne Marie Fahey’s death strengthened or destroyed them…. In Rule’s capable hands, [this is] the raw material for a modern-day tragedy.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “[A] truly creepy true-crime story…. This portrait of an evil prince needs no embellishment.”

  —People

  “In her selection and treatment of the Fahey murder, [Rule] might have created her masterpiece.”

  —The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

  “Even crime buffs who followed the case closely are bound to gain new insights…. The courtroom scenes of Capano are especially compelling.”

  —The Orlando Sentinel (FL)

  “[Rule] tell[s] the sad story with authority, flair, and pace.”

  —The Washington Post

  “[A] compassionate portrayal of the victim and a chilling portrayal of her killer…. This is a true page-turner.”

  —Booklist

  Bitter Harvest

  “A must-read story of the ’90s American dream turned, tragically, to self-absorbed ashes.”

  —People

  “Impossible to put down…. A tour de force from America’s best true-crime writer.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “[A] tension-filled, page-turning chronology and analysis of a psychopath in action…. It is Rule’s expert attention to detail that makes this Medea-incarnate story so compelling…. [A] gripping saga of sin and murder most foul.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  Empty Promises

  And Other True Cases

  Ann Rule’s Crime Files: Vol. 7

  “Fascinating, unsettling tales…. The shortest article here is deeper, and tells us more about the nature of crime, than a whole stack of full-length books written by less talented competitors. Among the very small group of top-notch true-crime writers, Rule just may be the best of the bunch.”

  —Booklist

  A Rage To Kill

  And Other True Cases

  Ann Rule’s Crime Files: Vol. 6

  “Her telling of the [Seattle] bus-crash saga is filled with those trademark touches that make Rule’s readers feel like they were there.”

  —The Seattle Times

  “Gripping tales…. Fans of true crime know they can rely on Ann Rule to deliver the dead-level best.”

  —The Hartford Courant (CT)

  The End of the Dream

  And Other True Cases

  Ann Rule’s Crime Files: Vol. 5

  “[The] stories take on a poignancy that goes far beyond mere cops-’n’-robbers stuff. Without resorting to psycho-babble, Rule tells us—through exhaustively detailed interviews with lovers, friends, and families—what led three such talented men to such tragic ends.”

  —Seattle Post-Intelligencer

  “Rule’s true-life crime stories read better than most fiction murder plots.”

  —St. Petersburg Times (FL)

  Books by Ann Rule

  Without Pity: Ann Rule’s Most Dangerous Killers

  Heart Full of Lies

  Every Breath You Take

  …And Never Let Her Go

  Bitter Harvest

  Dead by Sunset

  Everything She Ever Wanted

  If You Really Loved Me

  The Stranger Beside Me

  Possession

  Small Sacrifices

  Ann Rule’s Crime Files:

  Vol. 8: Last Dance, Last Chance and Other True Cases

  Vol. 7: Empty Promises and Other True Cases

  Vol. 6: A Rage to Kill and Other True Cases

  Vol. 5: The End of the Dream and Other True Cases

  Vol. 4: In the Name of Love and Other True Cases

  Vol. 3: A Fever in the Heart and Other True Cases

  Vol. 2: You Belong to Me and Other True Cases

  Vol. 1: A Rose for Her Grave and Other True Cases

  The I-5 Killer

  The Want-Ad Killer

  Lust Killer

  An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

  The names of some individuals in this book have been changed. Such names are indicated by an asterisk (*) the first time each appears in the book.

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  Copyright © 2003 by Ann Rule

  Contains material from the following books:

  A Rose for Her Grave copyright © 1993 by Ann Rule; You Belong to Me copyright © 1994 by Ann Rule; A Fever in the Heart © 1996 by Ann Rule; In the Name of Love copyright © 1998 by Ann Rule; A Rage to Kill copyright © 1999 by Ann Rule; Empty Promises copyright © 2001 by Ann Rule

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7434-8028-4

  ISBN-10: 0-7434-8028-7

  First Pocket Books paperback edition December 2003

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Visit us on the World Wide Web:

  http://www.SimonSays.com

  Dedication

  To my friends, a thousand homicide detectives from at least a hundred different departments around America. For almost thirty years, I have watched them work under circumstances that most people could never imagine. When the rest of us are enjoying holidays, spending time with our families and sleeping, they are often out in the field, slogging through rain, mud, snow, and sometimes blood. They are coping with the devastation that violence can do to the human body. They come to know and care for the victims they never met in life, and they strive to find who took their lives away even if it means working twenty-four to thirty-six hours without sleep. They are skilled, dedicated, dogged, tough, perceptive, tender, inquisitive, compassionate, hard-nosed, meticulous, and sometimes even clairvoyant. We all hope we will never need their services, but if we should they will do their best to deliver justice. Yes, the homicide guys are sometimes full of black humor—but I have also seen most of them cry.

  And a salute to Detective Sergeant Don Cameron, thirty years with the Seattle Police Department’s Homicide Unit, on his retirement. A better homicide detective never served. And to Chuck Wright, who retired in 1999 after three decades with the Washington State Department of Corrections. Chuck has helped rehabilitate th
e thousands of people who have been assigned to his case-load, and he has also worked tirelessly for victims’ rights.

  And, finally, to the memory of Seattle Police Homicide investigators Detective Sergeant Ivan Beeson, Detective Dick Reed and Detective Don Strunk.

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Three New Cases

  1. The Tumbledown Shack

  2. Dead and on Tape

  3. Fatal Obsession

  True Cases from Ann Rule’s Crime Files: Vols. 1–8

  4. Campbell’s Revenge

  (from A Rose for Her Grave)

  5. One Trick Pony (from You Belong to Me)

  6. The Last Letter (from You Belong to Me)

  7. I’ll Love You Forever

  (from A Fever in the Heart)

  8. Murder and the Proper Housewife

  (from In the Name of Love)

  9. The Most Dangerous Game

  (from In the Name of Love)

  10. The Killer Who Never Forgot…or Forgave

  (from In the Name of Love)

  11. The Lost Lady (from A Rage to Kill

  12. The Stockholm Syndrome

  (from Empty Promises)

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  I have chosen a dozen cases for this collection that would probably be too unbelievable for publication if they were fiction. We don’t like to think that human beings can be so consumed with greed, jealousy, revenge, or obsession that they evolve into homicidal rage. Although in these cases, the perpetrators are not all beautiful or handsome—or rich—they have many characteristics in common. Some are wealthy and some are drifters, but they all have a special gift with words, a rather negative talent that lets them hide what they really think from friends, enemies, victims, and even detectives—for a while.

  In each of these stories, I was acquainted with at least some of the characters mentioned. Sometimes it was the victim or grieving survivors and sometimes the detectives, the prosecutors, or the defense attorneys. Probably hardest for me to accept were the few times when I actually knew the killer. Considering that I write in the true-crime genre, I suppose that is to be expected—all these people move in part of my world.

  More and more, I’ve arrived at a place where stories come to me, rather than my having to go out to look for them. I cannot begin to write the thousands told to me every year, and so I have always chosen those that baffle and intrigue me most. Murder is never routine, but the cases that follow are truly exceptional. They may well haunt you as they have haunted me down through the years.

  Ann Rule

  WITHOUT PITY

  The Tumbledown Shack

  After writing more than a thousand articles about homicide cases, I suppose it’s natural that some of them blur slightly in my memory. However, there are those that I recall vividly, and I even remember my own life at the time I first researched their tragic details. The story that follows brings back gloomy recollections of four days when I was trapped by a blizzard in Wenatchee, Washington. The sheriff of adjoining Okanogan County had given me a ride from Seattle over the Cascade Mountains on November 16, 1978, and I planned to take the bus back after I’d talked to Chelan County homicide detectives. But a huge snowstorm clogged the mountain passes and no car, bus, train, or plane could get through. That meant I couldn’t get home until the road thawed.

  All the sidewalks in Wenatchee were covered with four or five inches of ice that weekend and many stores had closed. Stuck in a little motel, all I had to read was the police file of this horrifying case. I found no diversion from horror when I turned on the television set. The news had just broken that Reverend Jim Jones, the cult leader of the Peoples’ Temple from San Francisco, had forced his hapless congregation to drink poisoned Kool-Aid at “Jonestown,” in Guyana. Of his 1,100 followers, 973 were dead, and so were California state representative Leo J. Ryan and most of the staff and film crew who had gone with him to Guyana to investigate Jones. There was nothing for me to watch beyond blanket coverage of that story on every channel and a screen filled with a sea of bodies.

  I spent those days completely alone in the dead of winter only thirty-five miles from where the case I was studying had happened in the blazing summer heat. By the time the ice thawed, I knew this story of two vulnerable young women by heart and it stays in my mind to this day.

  Like those who died in Jonestown, the Chelan County victims had been lulled into the false belief that they were safe, and they too trusted enough that they failed to see the evil behind a pleasant facade.

  It would seem that a double homicide that happened almost thirty years ago would have been solved by now. It has certainly not been forgotten. I still meet people who were closely connected to the victims, people for whom time has no meaning. Technically, it is an open case. Yet, over and over again, one man confessed to the murders of two beautiful young women. Was he telling the truth, or was he only throwing up a smokescreen that clouded the investigation so that the real killer was never caught?

  You be the judge.

  Chelan County, Washington, is only a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Seattle, but it lies on the other side of the mountains in eastern Washington, in a climate where the landscape is completely different. The weather, the vegetation, and the topography of Chelan County might as well be three or four states away. Chelan County is fruit-growing country, particularly Delicious apples, and vacation country, a place far away from the congestion of the increasingly industrial west sides of Oregon and Washington, where Portland and Seattle traffic rivals that of L.A. and New York City, and where new housing developments cover fertile valleys with cement streets and perfectly landscaped yards.

  The town of Chelan is forty miles north of Wenatchee, and it exists mostly because of expansive Lake Chelan, the second largest inland lake in America. Tourists flock to Lake Chelan, where deep blue water cuts through dry hills for a hundred miles or more, ending at the isolated hamlet of Stehekin, accessible only by boat or seaplane. Visitors board the Lady of the Lake in Chelan for a four-hour leisurely cruise to another world. Vacationers and those attending conferences fill the myriad resorts curving along Lake Chelan.

  The road between Wenatchee and Chelan winds through quite beautiful country. To the east, poplar trees stand like sentries and as windbreaks for the apple orchards close to the mighty Columbia River. Close to the town of Entiat, roadside stands sell fresh produce, honey, candy, pickles, and flowers. The water thundering from Rocky Reach Dam is awe inspiring, and its grounds thrill little kids; every thatch of spreading junipers provides shelter for rabbits and other little creatures, the descendants of Easter bunnies and abandoned pets released there decades before. Park rangers feed and watch over them.

  It all feels very safe and benign.

  But farther north, the land becomes much more rugged. In high summer and early autumn, rolling hills burn brown, and tumbleweeds, wild daisies, and sagebrush are the only plants that grow. Too often, forest fires erupt and the land burns black as the wind carries flames from tree to tree and across roads. Animals—and humans too—can be trapped with no way out. Many come to Chelan County for reasons other than vacationing. When harvest time comes, migrant workers and young people with the stamina to work hard for several weeks head up U.S. Highway 97 to find jobs bringing in the crops.

  In the mid-seventies, nobody gave a second glance to the strangers and teenagers who stood beside the roads with their thumbs out. They were such a familiar sight that they became part of the environment. It was past the time of peace, love, and hippie beads, but many young people still clung to those beliefs, and they continued to hitchhike.

  At various spots, the road north to Chelan suddenly disappears into black tunnels cut into the rock cliffs, only to emerge into blinding sunlight. There are well-maintained homes along the road to Chelan, but there are also gray pioneer shacks, long deserted and leaning toward the ground. In September and October, the fruit pickers arrive, followed in late fall by hunt
ers stalking deer and elk.

  Chelan County deputies expect extra work in autumn because so many transients swell the population. Sometimes the officers are called out for homicides, but the vast majority of calls are the result of drunken fights, over a bottle of “Mad Dog” or “Night Train” wine, among the nameless drifters who follow the crops.

  It was 2:35 on Tuesday afternoon, September 30, 1975, when Deputy D. B. Mayo received a call from the radio operator at the Chelan Police Department. Someone had gone to the farm-labor office in town wanting to report a “possible rape.” The attack had apparently occurred somewhere out in the county.

  Mayo contacted Bill Myer,* who was staying in a pickers’ cabin at the Hesperian Orchards. Myer appeared agitated as he tried to explain what he’d seen.

  “Me and my friend Hal Oxley* were out hiking in the hills behind the orchards when we found a couple of chicks in a shed…. I think they’ve been raped,” he said hurriedly.

  Myer said he had been spooked by what he’d seen and didn’t stay around long enough to check to see if the victims were alive or dead. If they were dead, Myer and his friend would become the first suspects, but Mayo didn’t mention that. He simply studied the excited young man.

  “But I’m afraid they might be dead,” Myer said. “I can lead you back there where I saw them if you want.”

  Deputy Mayo urged the young picker to hop into his patrol car. They picked up Oxley, and the deputy sped to the area the witnesses pointed out. They directed him to Old Downey Road, which leads off U.S. 97, and headed up that road for a little over a mile, passing some weathered ranch buildings. The man who owned the ranch verified that there was, indeed, an old shed about two miles further on.