Killer fiction, p.1
Killer Fiction, page 1
KILLER FICTION
KILLER FICTION
BY
G.J. SCHAEFFER
AS TOLD TO
SONDRA LONDON
FOREWORD BY COLIN WILSON
INTRODUCTION BY SONDRA LONDON
FERAL HOUSE
WARNING: EXPLICIT SEX & VIOLENCE
FOR MATURE ADULTS ONLY
All rights reserved.
Duplication of the contents of this book in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is prohibited.
© 1989, 1990, 1991 by Media Queen Ltd. Inc.
©1995 by Sondra London
Media Queen Ltd. Inc. previously published two volumes entitled
Killer Fiction and Beyond Killer Fiction.
Upon dissolution of Media Queen Ltd. Inc., all copyrights held thereby were conveyed to Sondra London and incorporated in this volume along with previously unpublished material.
An earlier version of “The Serial Killer Who Loved Me” was published in Knockin’ on Joe: Voices from Death Row
Nemesis Books (London, England, 1993), along with “My Ticket to the Society of Fiends,” “Death House Screams,”
“Early Release,” and “Nigger Jack.”
“Nigger Jack” was published in Loompanics Unlimited Main Catalog 1992
and Loompanics Golden Records 1993.
“Early Release” was published in Loompanics Golden Records 1993.
“Spring Break” was published in Brutarian, Vol. 1 #2.
“Expecting Dinner” was published in Boiled Angel #7.
All photographs and illustrations
are provided courtesy of Sondra London.
This Special Edition of Killer Fiction is published by
FERAL HOUSE
© 1997 by Sondra London & Feral House
ISBN: 978-1-932595-50-5
CONTENTS
Introductory Essays
Halitosis of the Soul by Colin Wilson
The Serial Killer Who Loved Me by Sondra London
Criminal Justice
The Classic Case
A Real Lady Killer
A Good Scare
Doing Doubles
Burning With a Blue Flame
The Guilty Mind
Pornographic Filth
Books Won’t Burn
True Confessions
Killer Fact
One Step Ahead of the Flames
King and Bronson
Belinda Hutchens
Carmen Hallock
Leigh Hainline Bonadies
JackDolan
The Real Detective Kelly
Prison Visit
Dee Dee Kelly
Virtual Baby-Raper
Going to Disney World
Big Pervert
From Guilt to Violence
Picture Bride
Prison Murder
The Official Version
The Tabloid Version
The Defendant’s Version
Killer Fiction
Author’s Warning
Whores: What to DO About Them
Spring Break
Cut Bait
Whores
Detective Dan Kelly: Rogue Cop
The Sex Beast Caper
Murder 101
Trail of Butchered Girls
Starke Stories
My Ticket to the Society of Fiends
Death House Screams
Early Release
Nigger Jack
Actual Fantasies
Murder Plan
Into the Mind of the Ghoul
Powerline Road
Expecting Dinner
Beyond Killer Fiction
Being Called Ghoulish
Jesse in Flames
Green Dragon Tong
Gator Bait
False Confessions
First Kill
Death on Sex
Fascinating Conversations
The Main Rule
Blonde on a Stick
Murder Demons
Flies in Her Eyes
Bloody Instructions
Malignant Intelligence
Tender Victims
Murder Frenzy
Experiments in Terror
The Maggot Problem
Playing Doubles
Private Graveyards
Murder for Fun
The Murder Channel
Killer Fact
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
Abbreviations used by Schaefer
Killer Verse
Sex Beast
Suzie Prime True Crime
Lucille
Georgia Peach
Mortal Sin
Necessary Blood
ILLUSTRATIONS
Susan Place
Georgia (Crystal) Jessup
Sondra London in 1964
G.J. Schaefer in 1964
Nancy Trotter
Nancy Trotter
G.J. Schaefer, July 23, 1992
Sheriff Robert Crowder
Sergeant George Miller
Schaefer and London, 1964
Schaefer and London, 1990-91
G.J. Schaefer, 1971
Schaefer’s 1993 Valentine
John King and Tim Bronson
Carmen Hallock
Leigh Hainline Bonadies
Hainline abstraction
Elton Schwarz
David A. Kelly
Dee Dee Kelly letter
Candidates for Miss Princesita
Pervert abstraction
Schaefer’s “picture bride” Elen
Vincent Rivera
G.J. Schaefer, May 18, 1973
Schaefer autograph
Cut Bait abstraction
Schaefer clippings
Rick McIlwain
Schaefer clippings
Florida State Prison drawn by G.J. Schaefer
Robert Stone
G.J. Schaefer, 1990
Drawing by Schaefer, seized 1972
Drawing by Schaefer, seized 1972
Drawing by Schaefer, seized 1972
Drawing by Schaefer, seized 1972
Drawing by Schaefer, 1991
Drawing by Schaefer, seized 1972
Drawing by Schaefer, 1991
Schaefer clippings
Schaefer clippings
Schaefer’s passport photo, 1970
Memo listing Jesse Tafero as “Lost”
Schaefer manuscript
Schaefer manuscript
Schaefer manuscript
Schaefer autograph
Hanging abstraction
HALITOSIS OF THE SOUL
by Colin Wilson
Gerard John Schaefer was undoubtedly one of the nastiest serial killers of the twentieth century.
I am not speaking simply about his crimes—which were certainly bad enough—but about his mind. George Orwell said of Henry Miller that there must be millions of men who think and speak of sex just as crudely, but that the surprising thing is to see it written down. That comment could readily be applied Schaefer.
American prisons must be full of men whose view of sex is as brutal and sadistic as Schaefer’s; the astonishing thing is to see it presented in the form of literature.
Schaefer did his best to perpetuate that view. His stories, he said, were supposed to be shocking; their purpose was to make people see what real violence was all about. Many readers, I suspect, will fail to understand what purpose is served by printing them. Although I see their point, perhaps I can provide a meaningful rationale.
When I first read an account of Schaefer’s crimes in True Detective magazine in 1974, and learned that the evidence that convicted him consisted of a G number of sadistic stories that were found in the back of a closet, I felt considerable curiosity about the stories. Then finally in 1991, when I saw Killer Fiction advertised in the catalogue of New Jersey bookseller, I ordered it immediately.
I found that this collection of Schaefer’s stories, edited by Sondra London, certainly provided an interesting insight into the mind of this most sadistic serial killer. Schaefer fantasizes repetitively about the same thing: picking up a “whore,” taking her to some remote location, then stabbing or hanging her and defiling her lifeless corpse. So in fact, these early writings cannot be treated as literature, even of the most primitive order—they are too repetitive. The only possible reason to study them is for the insight they afford into the disordered mind of the sexual psychopath.
Technically speaking, based solely on his convictions, Schaefer could not be labeled a serial killer. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1973 for the murder of two girls, Georgia Jessup and Susan Place, whom he killed while he was out on a $15,000 bail for “kidnapping” and threatening two other young girls.
Fortunately, the mother of Susan Place had noted down the license number of Susan’s date on the evening she disappeared. That license number, beginning with a 4, led the police to the obviously innocent owner of a car in Pinellas County, Florida.
Six months after her daughter’s disappearance, Lucille Place happened to be driving through Martin County when she noticed that all the car license plates began with 42. She now re-checked the number she had noted down, substituting 42 for 4, and learned that this license belonged to Gerard John Schaefer. Learning that Schaefer was now in jail for the abduction and assault of two girls, Mrs. Place went to look at Schaefer’s picture, and recognized him as the man who had driven off with her daughter and Ge
Sondra London describes how, when she was 17, she met a handsome 18-year-old student then known as John Schaefer, who became her first lover. Bright, attractive and personable, she reports that he made quite a presentable escort for the greater part of a year. But in due course, his darker side emerged as he admitted that at times he was overwhelmed by the violent compulsions of his “inner demons.” In fact, by his own admission (in “False Confessions”) he had killed at least seven women before he ever had normal sex with a girl—who may well have been Sondra London.
One of the essays he wrote about the time he was dating Sondra concludes: “It is trying to fight the urge to relieve these terrible cravings. I am sure that there must be an answer somewhere, and some day I will be cured.” Schaefer was tormented by his obsession with sexualized violence, and seems somewhat wistful as he tries to wish it all away.
Sondra states that she broke off her affair with the budding serial killer not because he harmed, abused or threatened her, but because she did not want to serve as his psychiatrist or mother confessor. They parted company after a year, and then nine years later, she learned that he had been convicted of murder. Finally, in 1989, twenty-five years after first meeting him, she wrote to her ex-lover in prison, inviting him to collaborate on a book about his life and crimes.
Most prisoners are glad to enter into a correspondence. Prison is a dreary and demoralizing place, and since human beings can only achieve personal evolution through self-expression, one of the most damaging things about imprisonment is that the convict’s mind is condemned to stagnation. And so it was that after being isolated from intelligent companionship for the greater part of his adult life, Schaefer poured considerable energy into his correspondence with the woman who had once been his closest companion.
Although Schaefer’s writing technique showed considerable improvement after being honed by college-level creative writing courses under the Southern Gothic novelist Harry Crews, his psyche remained fixated at the same coprophilic level revealed in the early writings seized by police in 1972.
In the spring of 1989, Schaefer began sending London not just repetitive, sadistic fantasies, but also some extremely interesting narratives that appear to be far more factual, with titles like “Flies in Her Eyes” and “False Confessions.” It is typical of Schaefer that he modified “confessions” with “false,” so that if challenged, he could claim that it was just a fantasy; he always tried to have it both ways.
I have to admit that Schaefer is a far nastier character than Danny Rolling, the Gainesville serial killer, to whose autobiography—under this same publisher’s imprint—I have also written an introduction. What comes over clearly from Rolling’s book is that, no matter what he has done, Rolling remains a fundamentally a decent human being who is as appalled by his heinous acts as his readers are.
Let me state before we go any further that I am not one of these “bleeding heart” liberals who insist that all criminals are created by their environment and upbringing, and therefore are not really to blame. I do not believe this and, frankly, neither do most criminals.
At St. Elizabeth’s Hospital New York in 1961, two psychiatrists of that liberal persuasion, Samuel Yochelson and Stanton Samenow, began to study criminals and ended by doing a complete about-turn, finally concluding that criminals are adept self-deceivers whose conduct only changes when they face up to the fact that they are going to spend a lifetime in jail if they go on like this. They change by making a conscious choice to do so. But most of them, Yochelson and Samenow found, exhibita “cutoff mechanism” that enables them to push inconvenient thoughts out of their consciousness. They would, for example, confess frankly at one meeting, then insist they had never said it at the next. Years of research brought Yochelson and Samenow to the conclusion that the essential trait of the criminal mind is a sort of wishful thinking that Sartre called mauvais foi, or self-deception.
I am inclined to dismiss the usual excuses about why criminals commit crimes. Yet one thing is perfectly obvious. The criminal’s background tends to be basically purposeless. Which means that he will usually allow himself to drift into situations. This helps to explain why youngsters like Elmer Wayne Henley and David Brooks, associates of the Houston mass-murderer Dean Corll, can become killers without giving it much thought. Most teenagers are bored out of their minds. And, given a bad family background and a few minor brushes with the law, it is not difficult for a young person to take those first steps toward becoming a hardened criminal. It seems to me that Rolling drifted unwittingly into patterns of criminal behavior in this fashion, but that Schaefer did it far more willfully and with less of a sense of self-division.
At this point, I must make an admission that may seem totally absurd. When I began to write a book called The Occult in 1969, I had no doubt that most of the phenomena reported were the product of nonsensical superstition. With continuous and careful study, however, I came to believe that what we call a “ghost” may be a kind of “tape recording,” which might be the emotional counterpart of an unpleasant smell lingering around the scene of a tragedy. I was also initially inclined to believe that poltergeists—“banging ghosts”—are due to psychokinesis, or mind over matter, on the part of emotionally disturbed teenagers. But more than a decade of study has finally convinced me that ghosts might well represent the spirits of the dead, and that poltergeists, in most cases, are also disembodied spirits.
My research into thousands of reported cases also came to change my mind about so-called “possession.” In the days when I was writing The Occult, I was confident that the phenomenon was simply the result of an overheated imagination fueled by sexual frustration. Two important books by psychiatrists disabused me of that interpretation: Adam Crabtree’s Multiple Man, and Ralph Ellison’s Minds in Many Pieces. I finally came to accept that there may be some highly unpleasant entities in the “psychic ether,” that can freely gain access into minds that are already on the same “vibration” or wavelength. This, then, may be the real meaning behind the Devil’s temptation of Faust and other similar legends.
Danny Rolling readily admits that his mind was already inclined towards negative vibrations, starting with his relationship with an irascible and domineering father, and later compounded by problems with his marriage. His first rape was committed in a state of rage, misery and self-pity when his wife divorced him, and from then on—as always in such cases—sex crime became steadily easier. Rolling’s belief that, when he committed sex murders, he was taken over by a demonic entity, may be self-deception, but I am now willing to allow for the possibility that he could be correct.
And now, upon reconsidering Killer Fiction, I feel even more strongly that if ever a man “opened” himself to negative forces, it was Gerard John Schaefer.
