ascertaining 88.asc.881 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

In early February 1987, Heidnik found reason to punish Sandra Lindsay when he caught her trying to move the plywood that covered the pit. The punishment was severe. She was forced to hang from a roof beam by a single handcuff attached to her wrist for several days. During this time, her condition deteriorated and she refused to eat. Still believing her to be pregnant, Heidnik tried to force feed her pieces of bread. Towards the end of the week, even though she was vomiting and running a high fever, Heidnik continued to force feed her, often jamming food into her mouth and holding her mouth shut until she swallowed. The next day she lost consciousness. When Heidnik couldn't rouse her, he became angry and unlocked the handcuffs, dropping her to the ground. He told the others that she was faking and kicked her into the pit and left her there while he served up ice cream for everybody and left. When he returned, he lifted Lindsay out of the pit and checked her pulse. She was dead.

After telling the girls that she had probably choked, he carried Sandra's body upstairs. A short time later, they shuddered with horror when they heard the unmistakable whine of a power saw. Their horror later turned to revulsion when one of Heidnik's dogs walked into the basement carrying a long meaty bone and proceeded to devour it in front of the terrified girls. Investigators would later reveal that Heidnik had ground up Lindsay's flesh using a food processor, and fed it to his dogs and the captives mixed with dog food. To dispose of the remaining parts of the body, he cooked them on the stove.

In the days following Sandra's death, the girls began to notice a sickening stench that filled the entire house. Eventually, it would become so bad that Heidnik's neighbours complained to the police. After several such calls, a patrolman was sent to the house to make inquiries but left after Heidnik assured him that the smell was caused by an overcooked roast dinner.

Following Sandra's death, Heidnik's behavior became increasingly bizarre. He urged the girls to inform on each other with the promise of better conditions for those who complied. During this period, the girls devised a plan to attack Heidnik and escape but the plan never came to fruition. Jacqueline would later testify that the attack never occurred because Josefina told Heidnik what they were planning.

Convinced that the girls were constantly plotting against him, Heidnik devised a plan of his own to prevent them from leaving. After cuffing each girl hand and foot, he hung them from a beam and gagged them. Then, taking several different sizes of screwdrivers, he gouged inside their ears in an attempt to deafen them. He believed that if they could not hear, they would be unable to hear him coming. The only one he didn't touch was Josefina.

Later when Deborah Dudley began to cause trouble, he unchained her and took her upstairs. When they returned, Deborah was unusually quiet and solemn. After Heidnik had left, the others asked her what had happened. Stammering with fear, she told them that Heidnik had taken her into the kitchen and showed her a pot he had on the stove. Inside it was Sandra Lindsay's head. He then opened the oven and showed her part of Sandra's ribcage that he was roasting. Opening the fridge, he pointed to an arm and other body parts that he had wrapped in plastic and told her that if she didn't start obeying him, she would be next.

Within a few days, Deborah had recovered her composure and continued to defy Heidnik's attempts to "tame" her. As an added incentive to obey, Heidnik added a new punishment to his already cruel bag of tricks, his own version of electric shock treatment. His method was simple. He stripped the insulation from one end of an electrical extension cord and plugged the other into a socket. Then, turning on the power, he would hold the bare wires against each of the girl's chains and watch with detached amusement as they wriggled and danced to escape the current. As before, Josefina was exempt from punishment.

As the weeks passed, Heidnik began to treat Josefina as more of a partner than a captive and spent more and more time with her alone. So much so that, on March 18, when Heidnik decided to punish the others, he enlisted Josefina to help him. The shock treatment was again employed with one added feature, water. After drilling airholes in the plywood cover, Heidnik ordered Josefina to fill the pit with water. The three other women, still in chains, were then pushed down into it before the cover was replaced and weighted down with bags of dirt. As they sat shivering with cold and fear, the bare wire was pushed through one of the holes until it briefly touched one of the chains sending a jolt of electricity surging through all of them. The wire was then pushed into the hole a second time, making direct contact with Deborah's chain. Absorbing most of the voltage, Deborah screamed and shuddered uncontrollably before collapsing face down in the water.

Seeing their friend fall, Jacqueline and Lisa screamed until Heidnik removed the cover and dragged Deborah out. After ascertaining that she was dead, Heidnik calmly made sandwiches and told the women, "Aren't you glad it wasn't one of you." He then left for a few minutes and returned with a pen and paper. Handing it to Josefina, he ordered her to write the time and date at the top of the page. When she had done so, he made her write a statement detailing how she had assisted him to electrocute Deborah. He then ordered her to sign it before adding his own signature. Holding up the letter, he then told her: "If you ever go to the cops, I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie." Satisfied that he had her completely under his control, he removed Josefina's chains and told her to go upstairs and change. It was the first time she had been completely dressed in four months. The following day, Heidnik returned to the basement and, after wrapping Deborah's body in plastic, placed it in the freezer and left.

clarifying 22.cla.002 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

In childhood, and to some degree in the present, I had an overwhelming fear of doctors and dentists with their bright lights and sharp tools. Fear was my constant companion-fear of the darkness, of windows, of being alone in a church, the outdoors, and of parked aircraft-that I imagined would come to life along with the occupants.

I learned early on not to admit my true fears to adults as they would very quickly tell me that space aliens did not exist. If I persisted I was punished. Of the many events occurred in my childhood two events stand out-one of which was explored through the use of regression.

The first one is a partial memory of encountering a male and female alien couple when I was approximately seven years of age. One night I was coming home from visiting my grandmother who lived nearly adjacent to us. As I reached the halfway point I saw two figures standing behind the fence. My heart began to race as these were my night visitors-not outwardly different from one another but one male and one female. They did not speak aloud but they called me to come to them. In horror I shouted I would not and tried to run the rest of the way home calling them monsters. The next thing they uttered I have not forgotten to this day. They told me that they were my "real parents" and that I should go with them. I have little memory of what happened after that however I like to think that I ran and made it home.

My next clear memory was of seeing the ghost of my grandmother shortly after her death when I was twelve. This memory was further explored with the use of hypnosis and proved to be far different than the screen memory I had of the event. In the morning my family and I had attended my grandmother's funeral and then all the relatives went to my grandparent's home for a gathering. I remember feeling uncomfortable with all of the emotional and grieving adults and I went into a bedroom to get away from them and perhaps take a nap. I entered the room and shut the door behind myself but in a few seconds I realized I was no longer alone. In the corner of the room was a floating figure that I thought was my grandmother's ghost.

Upon clarifying the memory I was able to see that the figure appeared far different than my grandmother-no hair, large black eyes that slanted, very thin arms, and pale whitish-gray skin. Frightened, I clung desperately to the door handle in hopes of escape. (I had always thought that I had fled after seeing that ghostly figure but that proved to be untrue.) The figure moved toward me and stared at me with enormous black eyes. It told me to come with it. I initially objected and resisted, but I uncontrollably went with the alien.

During the regression the saddest moment was when I realized that I no longer had my hand on the door handle and there was no possibility of escape. I was taken to a small waiting UFO and had procedures performed that included a sexual-gynecological procedure at my young age of twelve. I was returned to the bedroom and forgot most of the details other than I saw something frightening that I believed was a ghost. When I found my mother she indicated angrily that people were looking for me and that I was upsetting everyone with my talk of ghosts. Events of this type were interspersed throughout my childhood-sometimes clear and sometimes not at all.

examiner 55.exa.003 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

The Dallas police had no idea what had begun when they collected the body of a murdered prostitute on December 13, 1990. She was found in plain sight on the 8800 block of Beckleyview in the Oak Cliff neighborhood, according to the Dallas Morning News. The kids who first saw her thought they'd stumbled across a mannequin. Instead, it was the nearly nude body of a dark-haired woman, lying face-up, wearing only a T-shirt and shot in the back of the head with a .44-caliber bullet. In footage shown on HBO's "Autopsy" program, there was blood on her face and shirt.

Dallas Morning News logo
Dallas Morning News logo

Detective John Westphalen took over the case and learned from another officer that the victim had been Mary Lou Pratt, 33 (another source says 35), a known prostitute who worked that area. On "Autopsy," the area was described as a hangout for drug dealers, drug addicts, and prostitutes. (Matthews and Wicker indicate that Lee Harvey Oswald retreated to a movie theater here after shooting President Kennedy.) To the police that day, the murder just seemed like one of the routine risks of the shady business of prostitution. Yet it was soon discovered that this one went beyond the reactive type of killing from anger or over money. There was something more deviant about it.



Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire, the medical examiner, was going over the body to ascertain the cause and manner of death when she placed her hands on the dead woman's face and prepared to look at the condition of the eyes. She touched the stiffening lid and pushed it open. To her surprise, she saw only muscle and gore. No eye. In fact, it appeared that the eyeball had been removed with surgical care, and not merely gouged out in anger with someone's thumbs. Moving to the other eye, she opened the lid and saw the same thing. This killer had removed both eyes without making much of a mark on the lids and apparently had taken them with him.

responsible 88.res.03 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

But is their evil vanquished, even now?

A grisly list of cult-related crimes remains unsolved in Mexico. From prison, Sara Aldrete told reporters, "I don't think the religion will end with us, because it has a lot of people in it. They have found a temple in Monterrey that isn't even related to us. It will continue." Between 1987 and 1989, police in Mexico City recorded 74 unsolved ritual murders, 14 of them involving infant victims. Constanzo's cult is suspected in at least 16 of those cases, all involving children or teenagers, but authorities lack sufficient evidence to press charges.

Referring to those cases, prosecutor Guillermo Ibarra told reporters, "We would like to say, yes, Constanzo did them all, and poof, all those cases are solved. And the fact is, we believe he was responsible for some of them, though we'll never prove it now. But he didn't commit all of those murders. Which means someone else did. Someone who is still out there."

handlebars 33.han.001 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

The Clark family bounced around Connecticut and New Jersey as Hadden was growing up, rarely staying in any place for more than a year. Hadden's father, who had both an MBA and a PhD in chemistry, never seemed satisfied with his employers, always searching for more money.

Bradfield was a handful from the start and became involved with drugs as a teen. Though he would receive two university degrees, and be highly thought of in the new world of computers, the Clark genes would be his downfall. In 1984, during a night of drinking and drugs, he would murder his date, a beautiful 29-year old woman named Patricia Mak. After banging her head against a brick cinderblock and strangling her, he would cut up her body into 11 pieces in his bathtub, cook part of her breasts on his barbecue grill, eat them, and then stuff the remaining body parts into plastic bags. Like Hadden, he intended to bury the body, but grew remorseful, attempted suicide, and then called the police. He received 15-years-to-life and is still serving time at Pleasant Valley State Prison in California.

Geoff, the youngest brother, would have other problems. After earning a degree in microbiology at Ohio State University, he married a childhood sweetheart and the two made their way to the Maryland suburbs of Washington where a position at the Food and Drug Administration awaited. They settled into a quiet house on Sudbury Road in Silver Spring and had three children before the marriage turned ugly and divorce actions were filed. Marcia accused Geoff of physically abusing her twice and he was convicted of one of the charges, earning a suspended sentence.

Born Evil

If the three other Clark children had difficulties in their lives, with Bradfield eventually committing the ultimate offense, they paled alongside Hadden. He seemed to have been born evil and liked to hurt people. Children usually ran the other way when he showed up and those who dared cross him often found their family dog or cat deposited on their doorstep, decapitated.

Once, when Geoff and Hadden were learning to ride their bikes without hands, Hadden grabbed his handlebars and deliberately rammed his brother. Geoff hit the sidewalk headfirst and began bleeding profusely from the head. Hadden hurried home to tell his mother, Flavia.

"There's been an accident," he told her, but don't worry the bike's okay." He didn't mention his brother's injuries.

"My brother's sense of reality was always a little askew," Geoff said, years later.

Flavia Clark at first blamed her son's strange behavior on a bad forceps delivery. Then she thought he had cerebral palsy and took him to an expensive clinic. His father had no such illusions. After a few drinks, he began to refer to his son as "the retard." Since Hadden was the second child, and the couple had wanted a girl, his mother often dressed him in frilly girl's clothing. A taste for female clothing was implanted in him as was the name Kristen—his mother addressed him by that name when she was drunk.

convinced 2004 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

athleen Grundy's sudden death on June 24th 1998 came as a terrible shock to all who knew her. A singularly active 81-year-old, she was well known to the people of Hyde. A wealthy ex-mayor, she had energy to burn and was a tireless worker for local charities until the day of her death.

Her absence was noted when she failed to show at the Age Concern club. There, she helped serve meals to elderly pensioners. Because the wealthy widow was noted for her punctuality and reliability, her friends suspected something was wrong.

The Grundy home
The Grundy home (CAVENDISH PRESS/UK)

When they went to her home to check up on her, they found her lying on a sofa. She was fully dressed, and dead.

They immediately called Dr. Shipman.

He had visited the house a few hours earlier, and was the last person to see her alive. He claimed the purpose of his visit had been to take blood samples for studies on aging. Shipman pronounced her dead and the news was conveyed to her daughter, Angela Woodruff.

The doctor told the daughter a post mortem was unnecessary because he had seen her shortly before her death.

Following her mother's burial Ms. Woodruff returned to her home, where she received a troubling phone call from solicitors. They claimed to have a copy of Ms. Grundy's will.

A solicitor herself, Angela's own firm had always handled her mother's affairs - her firm held the original document lodged in 1986. The moment she saw the badly typed, poorly worded paper, Angela Woodruff knew it was a fake. It left 386,000 pounds to Dr. Shipman.

"My mother was a meticulously tidy person," she later told the Shipman trial, 'the thought of her signing a document which is so badly typed didn't make any sense. The signature looked strange, it looked too big. The concept of Mum signing a document leaving everything to her doctor was unbelievable.'

"It wasn't a case of 'Look, she's not left me anything in her will."' she later said.

Initially, she wondered if Shipman was being framed. But after interviewing witnesses to the "will," she reluctantly concluded the doctor had murdered her mother for profit.

It was then she went to her local police. Her investigation results ultimately reached Detective Superintendent Bernard Postles.

His own investigation convinced him Angela Woodruff's conclusions were accurate. Of the forged will itself, Postles was to later say, "You only have to look at it once and you start thinking it's like something off a John Bull printing press. You don't have to have twenty years as a detective to know it's a fake. Maybe he thought he was being clever — an old lady, nobody around her: Look at it; it's a bit tacky. But everyone knew she was as sharp as a tack. Maybe it was his arrogance..."

Now Det. Supt Postles had the oldest motive in the world — greed — to justify his future actions.

profiler 11.pro.0004 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Sedgwick County Sheriff Mike Hill, who worked on the 1978 probe, said, "It's sad to say the only way that we'll ever find out who this individual is will be we'll have to have a victim." Nevertheless, Stewart hopes that some day a beat cop will stumble onto the BTK still savoring his press clippings or souvenirs.


FBI Profiler John Douglas in the book Obsession has a chapter on the BTK strangler. It is the chapter called "Motivation X". Within the book, Douglas states that there were no defensive wounds found on any of the victims, assuming that the killer used a gun to control them. He further stated that the killer's letters to the police had so much detail that he is convinced that the perpetrator had taken his own crime scene photos in order to have a keepsake of the crime to fantasize about later.

Douglas states that the killer used police lingo in his letters - Douglas thinks he may actually be a cop, or may impersonate a cop - he probably reads detective magazines and may have even bought a police badge. He would attempt to insert himself in the investigation. He would be tempted to brag or leave hints about what he had done.

Douglas states that the killer was in all probability a loner, inadequate, in his 20s or 30s, might possibly have an arrest record for break-ins or voyeurism, but probably no actual rapes.

Douglas further states that the perpetrator may have stopped killing because he is in jail for something else, or a mental hospital, may have died, or maybe he injected himself so closely into the investigation, he got scared. It is even a possibility that the memories and photographs are enough for him to contain his obsession.