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Speaker 3: You are now listening to true Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 3: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 3: written about them. Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK Every
Speaker 3: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 3: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 3: journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Speaker 4: Good evening. This is your host Dan Zupansky for the
Speaker 4: program True Murder, The most shocking killers in true crime
Speaker 4: history and the authors that have written about them. It
Speaker 4: was a time of innocence, a time of hippies, flower
Speaker 4: children in the Age of Aquarius, a time when young
Speaker 4: people felt free to roam the countryside, hitchhiking without fear.
Speaker 4: A time when law enforcement was trusted by the people
Speaker 4: they were sworn to protect and serve. That time was
Speaker 4: shattered by one of law enforcemen's own. His name was
Speaker 4: Gerard Schaeffer. He was a former Florida police officer who
Speaker 4: lied his way into the office of the Martin County,
Speaker 4: Florida Sheriff's office. He used his lie to continue to
Speaker 4: perpetuate his crimes of torture and murder of young women
Speaker 4: who hitchhiked along Florida's roads. Schaefer not only destroyed the
Speaker 4: lives of as many as thirty four young women, he
Speaker 4: kept trophies of his kills, and he lived the crimes
Speaker 4: over and over again. He believed he was doing the
Speaker 4: world and his victims of justice by ridding the world
Speaker 4: of the whores who hitchhiked. Gerard Schaeffer was a narcissistic
Speaker 4: psychopath who wanted his fifteen minutes of fame. He believed
Speaker 4: he had earned it. My special guest this evening is
Speaker 4: Yvonne Mason, and the book will be discussing is Silent Scream.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the program, and thank you for agreeing to
Speaker 4: be on True Murder. Yvonne Mason.
Speaker 5: Thank you Dan for having me. This book is very
Speaker 5: close to my heart.
Speaker 4: I could tell that by reading it, and I'm sure
Speaker 4: the audience will recognize that as we go on with this.
Speaker 4: This is one of the most incredible stories that I
Speaker 4: hadn't heard anything about before I read this book. So
Speaker 4: I also have to think I should have had the
Speaker 4: guest pardon me. One of the listeners to the program
Speaker 4: is the person that recommended and I had sent you
Speaker 4: the email with that gentleman's name, but he had highly
Speaker 4: recommended that I contact you. So I've got to give
Speaker 4: props to that person for turning me on to you
Speaker 4: and this book, and now for our audience has the
Speaker 4: benefit of this incredible story. Now, first off, silent scream.
Speaker 4: It's a story that's older. It happened in the seventies.
Speaker 4: The crimes. Please tell us how you came to this
Speaker 4: case itself and why you decided to write about this case.
Speaker 4: Tell us about that.
Speaker 5: When I moved to Florida to be with my now husband,
Speaker 5: he had retired from the State Attorney's office as their
Speaker 5: chief investigator and their administrative person. Right, he took me
Speaker 5: on a tour of our fair city and part of
Speaker 5: the tour was South Hutchinson Island and as we were
Speaker 5: going down A one A, he said, Yvonne, right over
Speaker 5: there is where a serial killer committed his crimes and
Speaker 5: kept his teeth as trophies. Well, because of my background,
Speaker 5: which is criminal justice, and I am a bounty hunter
Speaker 5: and my degree is criminal justice with a side in
Speaker 5: serial killers, which is my passion, because they're such an
Speaker 5: anomaly that just set off all the creative juices. And
Speaker 5: because I had access to my husband and to the
Speaker 5: law enforcement agents that worked the crime and to all
Speaker 5: of the evidence that we used to bring him to
Speaker 5: trial and conviction. The story begged to be written. And
Speaker 5: once the victims had names, they got him ahead and
Speaker 5: would not leave. They had to be heard. And the
Speaker 5: more I read and the more I found out, the
Speaker 5: sicker I got, and the more that I knew that
Speaker 5: I had to write this story for their benefit because
Speaker 5: they were forgotten. Some of the bodies have never been found.
Speaker 4: Certainly.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it was important that these young women, through
Speaker 5: no fault of their own, have a voice, because Schaeffer
Speaker 5: stole that voice.
Speaker 4: I see. Now, let's start at the beginning with Gerard
Speaker 4: Schaefer and let's our John. Gerard Schaeffer actually is full name.
Speaker 4: So let's go back. And as much I know that
Speaker 4: what you wrote in your book is that his family,
Speaker 4: they grew up as devout Catholics, and I think that's
Speaker 4: the big part of part of the story. They take
Speaker 4: us back to Dori Shaeffer and her husband or John,
Speaker 4: pardon me, Shaeffer's father tell us about his early family life,
Speaker 4: so we can have some idea on what shaped this
Speaker 4: person to become the monster that he did become.
Speaker 5: Well apparently, and I never could prove this. But from
Speaker 5: everything that I read and everything that Schaeffer said, apparently
Speaker 5: his parents had to get married because they were she
Speaker 5: was pregnant with him. So he always said that he
Speaker 5: was a byproduct of an unhappy marriage and his father.
Speaker 5: They lived in Atlanta. His father was a traveling salesman
Speaker 5: for Kimberly Clark, so he's gone a lot. And apparently
Speaker 5: his father was very abusive when he was home because
Speaker 5: he was an alcoholic and his mother was a control freak. Well,
Speaker 5: when his father would leave home, that left Shaeffer and
Speaker 5: his mother. And though I was told that Shaeffer slept
Speaker 5: with his mother until he was sixteen years old, I
Speaker 5: left that as an open ended question in the book
Speaker 5: because I did not put anything in the book that
Speaker 5: I could not back up with fact. Right, But there
Speaker 5: was a psyche vow, and in that psyche vow it
Speaker 5: was stated that he did sleep with his mother until
Speaker 5: he was sixteen years old, and one of the agents
Speaker 5: that were at the crime gave me that information. Well,
Speaker 5: if a child, especially boy, sleeps with his mother up
Speaker 5: until he's sixteen years old, that's problem sure. And of
Speaker 5: course when his father would come home, Shaeffer was out
Speaker 5: of his mother's bed. So at a very early age,
Speaker 5: at twelve years old, Shaeffer started hanging himself for sexual pleasure.
Speaker 4: So we're talking about auto erotic affixiation for those that
Speaker 4: aren't so familiar with this, that is to hang themselves
Speaker 4: to magnify or increase the sexual orgasm exactly.
Speaker 5: And not only did he start doing that, but he
Speaker 5: started killing small animals and insects, which is a classic
Speaker 5: sign of a sociopathic killer. He would go out and
Speaker 5: kill things just for the pleasure of it, things that
Speaker 5: didn't bother him, like when they got to Florida, he
Speaker 5: would go out and kill the fan crabs, or he
Speaker 5: would pull the wings off of flies, or he would
Speaker 5: sit and shoot birds with the b begun just because
Speaker 5: he could, and then dismember them. So he started at
Speaker 5: a very early age with his sociopathic sociopathic tendencies, and then,
Speaker 5: of course as he got older, he got involved. He said,
Speaker 5: he got involved with a girl who liked to be raped.
Speaker 5: Now I tend to disbelieve that. I believe that that
Speaker 5: was part of his narcissistic tendencies and that everything was
Speaker 5: everybody else's fault. But he is I think that he
Speaker 5: enjoyed raping her because she broke off the relationship, and
Speaker 5: he never understood why, because he always said, she always
Speaker 5: asked for it, she wanted me to do it. Then
Speaker 5: he graduated to even more out of you know, erotic
Speaker 5: fantasies and wanting to do bad things, but he always
Speaker 5: justified it.
Speaker 4: Now this is we're talking about John Gerard Schaeffer. He's
Speaker 4: no dummy. This guy's got been tested IQ wise. He's
Speaker 4: well over one hundred and thirty, so it puts him
Speaker 4: in the above average category. From the account in your book,
Speaker 4: he said he grew up the devout Catholic, so he
Speaker 4: had the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church to either
Speaker 4: confuse him or to enlighten him. Maybe you can tell
Speaker 4: us because part of his part of the allure of
Speaker 4: these guys, and with this gentleman in particular, is his charm.
Speaker 4: Please describe his physical looks. Was he a good looking person? Tall, muscular?
Speaker 4: About that?
Speaker 5: He was an extremely good looking man. He was a
Speaker 5: very charming man. When the two victims that got away
Speaker 5: were interviewed, they said he was very charming. He was
Speaker 5: very nice, he was very persuasive, He had the smile
Speaker 5: that would literally knock you dead. The picture that I
Speaker 5: have in the book that was taken when he was
Speaker 5: on trial, the eyes are dead, but the smile is
Speaker 5: just as charming as it can be. And that's how
Speaker 5: he managed to lure these young women into his vehicle
Speaker 5: and into trusting him, because he knew how to talk
Speaker 5: to them in such a way that they didn't mind
Speaker 5: getting in the call with him.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: In fact, he getting back to his Catholic upbringing. He
Speaker 5: would watch his neighbor across the street and he told
Speaker 5: his friends they always knew what times she got ready
Speaker 5: for bed, and he told his friends that she was
Speaker 5: a whore and that she was asking to be raped,
Speaker 5: and he was just gonna go over there and knock
Speaker 5: in the door and go and give her something because
Speaker 5: she would like it, and that's what she wanted, right,
Speaker 5: So he.
Speaker 4: Was peeping tom early on.
Speaker 5: Oh, very early on.
Speaker 4: Yeah. There is one thing I found quite interesting too,
Speaker 4: is that maybe you can tell us when this happened, approximately,
Speaker 4: is that he had thoughts of becoming a priest.
Speaker 5: And that was, yeah, that was shortly. That was when
Speaker 5: he was in college. He had already washed out of
Speaker 5: teaching because he had gotten in trouble while he was
Speaker 5: what they call a student teacher. He'd gotten in trouble there,
Speaker 5: so he decided he would go into the priesthood. And
Speaker 5: I think that goes back to his sense of guilt
Speaker 5: for his past behavior, and also it gave him an
Speaker 5: open doorway to get rid of young women. I mean,
Speaker 5: who doesn't trust a priest?
Speaker 4: Now, what happened with his bid for the priest or
Speaker 4: his interest in being a priest? What did the prospective,
Speaker 4: not the clergy, but what did the people in power
Speaker 4: have to say to him? And was his what was
Speaker 4: his faith as a priest? Did he well?
Speaker 5: He never made it because they told him that he
Speaker 5: did not meet the criteria. Apparently there was something and
Speaker 5: one of either the psyche vowels or one of the
Speaker 5: tests that they gave him that said, we don't think
Speaker 5: we can use you. You're not what we're looking for. You're
Speaker 5: not the caliber person that it takes to be a priest.
Speaker 4: The other thing was that you had alluded to was
Speaker 4: that he had gone through teachers college, or he wasn't
Speaker 4: teacher's college, and he was a teacher's assistant or like say,
Speaker 4: a student teacher, but he was dismissed from two different
Speaker 4: schools without any real explanation on why they didn't want
Speaker 4: him as a teacher at these schools. Isn't that correct?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 5: And in hindsight I have a feeling it was because
Speaker 5: he might have messed with some children, and that being
Speaker 5: that time period, as with the Catholic Church at that time,
Speaker 5: nobody wanted to say anything.
Speaker 4: Now, the other interest that he has, among many things
Speaker 4: was but one of the mean interest that he had
Speaker 4: in terms of occupations, was he wanted to be a
Speaker 4: police officer in that area. Did he go to school criminology?
Speaker 4: What did he do to that? For that pursuit?
Speaker 5: He went to the police academy and he passed the
Speaker 5: police academy. But while he was in the police academy,
Speaker 5: there were several men there that were very leary of
Speaker 5: him because of his bragadocious attitude about how he treated
Speaker 5: women and what he did with women. But he did pass.
Speaker 1: He passed.
Speaker 5: I mean, the man was a genius. And then he
Speaker 5: got on one of the police departments down in South Florida,
Speaker 5: and he worked there for a while and he got
Speaker 5: in trouble. And when he got in trouble, he decided
Speaker 5: it was best if he left, so he falsified his
Speaker 5: chief signature on a letter of recommendation and got hired
Speaker 5: by the Martin County Sheriff's Department.
Speaker 4: Well, now, where's where is Martin County? That's in Is
Speaker 4: that Fort Lauderdale?
Speaker 5: That is north of Fort Lauderdale. It's about an hour
Speaker 5: north of Fort Lauderdale. It is It is south of
Speaker 5: Saint Loucy County, where I live. But it's it's between
Speaker 5: Stuci is between Saint Lucy County and Broward County, which
Speaker 5: is Fort Lauderdale, which is where he was from, right,
Speaker 5: But he had moved when he got the job with
Speaker 5: the Martin County Sheriff's Department. He moved to Stewart, which
Speaker 5: is in Martin County. Well, not knowing his background and
Speaker 5: not knowing that he had falsified the chief signature on
Speaker 5: this letter of recommend recommendation, the sheriff at the time hearting,
Speaker 5: of course, remember this was in nineteen seventy. They didn't
Speaker 5: talk to each other, right, And they hired because of
Speaker 5: his great grades at the academy, and he had gotten
Speaker 5: some accolades at the police department he had been at prior,
Speaker 5: and they were in dire need of good sheriffs in
Speaker 5: Martin County because the county was growing by leeds Van,
Speaker 5: so they hired him. But he had already been killing.
Speaker 4: He was involved. The accolade that you talk about was
Speaker 4: that he assisted or was majorly involved in a drug bust. Yes, okay,
Speaker 4: now let's get to when he's on the Martin County
Speaker 4: Police Force. It's his first incident that we see, and
Speaker 4: you introduced Nancy Trotter and Pamela Sue Wells. Describe what
Speaker 4: happened when John Gerard Schaeffer met Nancy Trotter and Pameless
Speaker 4: who under what conditions? Please explain that incredible story.
Speaker 5: Well, those two young ladies had made their way to
Speaker 5: Florida from their home state. They had stopped in Biloxi, Mississippi,
Speaker 5: to visit one of the one of the sisters, and
Speaker 5: had hitched height to Jensom Beach. Jensen Beach is in
Speaker 5: Martin County. They were apparently making their way to the
Speaker 5: beach that day when Shaffer pulls up in his patrol
Speaker 5: car ask them what they were doing, and they told
Speaker 5: him they were going to the beach, And he said, well,
Speaker 5: why don't I ask them where?
Speaker 1: They were.
Speaker 5: He asked them where they were staying, and they told him,
Speaker 5: and so he said, well tomorrow I will be off.
Speaker 5: Why don't I come and pick you up and I'll
Speaker 5: take you to another beach, a better beach. So the
Speaker 5: next day his wife had a dentist appointment down in
Speaker 5: Fort Lauderdale. So Schaeffer and his civilian clothes goes and
Speaker 5: picks up these two goals. But instead of taking them
Speaker 5: to a beach, he tell them he wanted to show
Speaker 5: them an old fort. Right, Well, there's no forts in
Speaker 5: this part of them, in this part of the county,
Speaker 5: especially on that island, there's no forts at all. So
Speaker 5: he takes them to a remote area.
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Speaker 5: On Hutchinson Island and Hutchinson Island is an island. It's
Speaker 5: a long island that is situated between the Indian River
Speaker 5: and the Atlantic Ocean. In the nineteen seventies, there was
Speaker 5: nothing on a one to a but mangroves and road.
Speaker 5: This is very remote, so it takes them to an
Speaker 5: area that has got a lot of mangroves with a
Speaker 5: heavy roots on them. He proceeds to bond them to
Speaker 5: gag them and to hang them, and he bound them
Speaker 5: with handcuffs. He forgot whatever it was that he needed,
Speaker 5: one of his tools of the trade, and he told
Speaker 5: them that he was teaching them a lesson because that
Speaker 5: they could get picked up by slave traders and he
Speaker 5: was going to teach them a lesson. So he leaves
Speaker 5: them and he goes back to his house and as
Speaker 5: he comes. When he comes back, the girls are gone.
Speaker 5: So he goes back to his house again and he
Speaker 5: calls Sheriff Crowder. So he's out front cutting his grass
Speaker 5: and he tells Crowder that he's done a bad thing,
Speaker 5: and Crowder asks him what he's done, and he tells
Speaker 5: him that he's done this to these two girls and
Speaker 5: there they're gone. Well, Crowder tells him to come down
Speaker 5: to the station. In the meantime, Crowder gets in his
Speaker 5: patrol car and starts north on a NA and he
Speaker 5: comes upon a car with a gentleman that's standing beside
Speaker 5: the car, and one of he has one of the girls.
Speaker 5: And what it happened is the girls had gotten loose,
Speaker 5: they'd gotten out of the noose, and one of them
Speaker 5: had haulbuggy down south on a one A Crowder pulls up.
Speaker 5: They put her in the car. Then she takes them
Speaker 5: back to the place where the other girl had been left,
Speaker 5: and she's not there. They find her in the Indian River,
Speaker 5: trying to get away. They bring both the girls back
Speaker 5: to the Sheriff's department and they tell their story, and
Speaker 5: in the meantime, somebody's interrogating Shafer. Well, when it was
Speaker 5: all done, Bob Crowder had the guts to arrest Shafer
Speaker 5: on two counts of kidnapping and two counts of assault
Speaker 5: because Crowder had the nerve to do that when he
Speaker 5: ran for sheriff the next time, he lost because you
Speaker 5: didn't do that, you did not cross the blue line.
Speaker 4: Well, so he.
Speaker 5: Lost his job as sheriff. When Shaffer went in front
Speaker 5: of the judge, the judge gave him six months. They
Speaker 5: dropped all the charges but won assault charge. The judge
Speaker 5: gave him six months in jail. Shaeffer said, well, can
Speaker 5: I take some time to get my affairs in order?
Speaker 5: This was like in September. Can I get times to
Speaker 5: get my affairs in order? Because I need to get
Speaker 5: my wife down to Fort Lauderdale to stow with my mother,
Speaker 5: and YadA, YadA, YadA. So the judge not knowing the
Speaker 5: history because, like my husband said, they didn't even know
Speaker 5: what a serial killer was. He said, it was something
Speaker 5: you ate for breakfast. And they did not know all
Speaker 5: these other girls had disappeared. He says, Okay, you have
Speaker 5: to report on January the fifteenth, to do your six months.
Speaker 5: From September until January, the aide Shaffer killed six more
Speaker 5: young women.
Speaker 4: Wow. So to the judge's credit, though they gave him
Speaker 4: six months, they did drop a bunch of charges, but
Speaker 4: they didn't buy into his story that he was just
Speaker 4: trying to scare these women into not hitchhiking. They didn't
Speaker 4: buy that.
Speaker 5: They didn't buy into it, but they didn't take it
Speaker 5: far enough because they didn't know any better.
Speaker 4: Wow. Now he gets the six months, he goes to jail.
Speaker 4: Is there any events? It was it eventful his time
Speaker 4: in prison? Tell us about his time in prison.
Speaker 5: He was due to get out in April mid April.
Speaker 5: On April, the first two gentlemen found two bodies on
Speaker 5: South Hutchinson Alan at Blind Creek, which was down from
Speaker 5: or north of the power plants.
Speaker 4: And when.
Speaker 5: My husband and the other law enforcement agents got there
Speaker 5: and started working the crime scene, it dawned on them
Speaker 5: that this was the same ebo that Shaeffer was serving
Speaker 5: time for. The stories were just what it looked like
Speaker 5: to them, matched with the two girls had told that
Speaker 5: got away, So that gave them probable cause for a
Speaker 5: search warrant. They got a search warrant for Shaffer's apartment
Speaker 5: in Stewart, and they got a search warrant for Shaeffer's
Speaker 5: mother's house in Fort Lauderdale. When they got down and
Speaker 5: they had to bring in the Broward County Sheriff's Department
Speaker 5: because they they crossed jurisdictional lines, so they had to
Speaker 5: bring them in. When they brought them in and they
Speaker 5: executed the search warrant, they found a treasure trove of trophies.
Speaker 5: And not only did they find trophies, they found photographs.
Speaker 5: They found a book that Schaeffer was writing that he
Speaker 5: said was fiction, but when they read it, it made
Speaker 5: them all very very ill because it was confessions of
Speaker 5: the crimes.
Speaker 4: He had committed, or at least it seemed like it.
Speaker 5: It seemed like, so they brought him up on charges
Speaker 5: of murdering the two girls. They convicted him of it
Speaker 5: and he got life because at that time in nineteen
Speaker 5: seventy two, Florida Supreme Court and all of its infinite wisdom,
Speaker 5: struck down the capital punishment. Right, you couldn't kill anybody
Speaker 5: for a capital crime, you could only give them life. Well,
Speaker 5: the two girls were killed in September of seventy two,
Speaker 5: and when they brought him to trial, even though they
Speaker 5: brought him to trial in seventy three, they could only
Speaker 5: give him life. They couldn't ask for the death penalty.
Speaker 4: Now let's go back. Let's talk about the trial a
Speaker 4: little bit. He really didn't the police, despite everything they had,
Speaker 4: what they did find at his mother's house, at Dorothy
Speaker 4: Schaeffer's house. When you talk about trophies, the trophies were
Speaker 4: things like a purse, personal effects, correct, And so what
Speaker 4: they did find was they found personal effects of people
Speaker 4: that they didn't know were missing yet or certainly didn't
Speaker 4: know anything about. But at the same time, what I
Speaker 4: want to talk about is the trial is that despite
Speaker 4: not having overwhelming evidence, they had a lot of circumstantial evidence,
Speaker 4: and yet they still got a conviction and gave him
Speaker 4: a life sentence. But tell us a little bit about
Speaker 4: the kind of evidence that they did cobble together to
Speaker 4: be able to convict him murder of these two women.
Speaker 5: They found a brown swede bag that belonged to Susan place.
Speaker 5: They found a GOLDERI box that belonged to Georgia Jessup.
Speaker 5: And when the when they were putting all of the
Speaker 5: things that they were bringing in a house, when they
Speaker 5: were doing an inventory log, there was an officer sitting
Speaker 5: there writing it into the inventory line, and he asked
Speaker 5: Dorris Schaeffer if she recognized these two articles, and she
Speaker 5: said no, she had never seen them before ever. Right
Speaker 5: but when it came to trial, the family circled the
Speaker 5: wagons and purged themselves on the stand and said that
Speaker 5: the jewry box belonged to Grandpa Shaeffer, and that the
Speaker 5: brown swayed bag belonged to Shaeffer, that he had bought
Speaker 5: it to put his bullets in. And they never could
Speaker 5: swathe them that those did not belong to the people
Speaker 5: they said they did. But the victim's parents identified both
Speaker 5: of those items as belonging to their children.
Speaker 4: Right now, what was the behavior in the demeanor of
Speaker 4: a John Gerard Schaeffer when he's looking at life in prison?
Speaker 4: What was his demeanor and what was his behavior like
Speaker 4: at the trial, he was very relaxed.
Speaker 5: He was very nonchalant. Was he really believed he would
Speaker 5: get off? And he threatened to kill the prosecuting attorneys,
Speaker 5: both Phil Schahler and Bob Stone. He threatened to kill
Speaker 5: their families. He threatened to kill my ho. Then he's
Speaker 5: threatened to kill all of the law enforcement that was involved,
Speaker 5: Rick mcelwaine, everyone that was involved, Steve Williams, everyone that
Speaker 5: was involved in the case. He telled him that he
Speaker 5: was going to kill them. In fact, when they were
Speaker 5: sitting in court one day before the judge came in,
Speaker 5: they were in a very small courtroom, and he leaned
Speaker 5: over to Bob Stone of Phil Schler, and he said, Phil,
Speaker 5: I saw your wife and daughter at the park yesterday.
Speaker 5: They sure did look nice.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So he's taunting authorities and the victims' families and anyone
Speaker 4: else he can. The other thing I found quite interesting too,
Speaker 4: is that he was married at the time to a
Speaker 4: woman named Teresa Dean Teresa Schaeffer. Does his wife stick
Speaker 4: with him through this trial? You talk his mother testifying
Speaker 4: him on his behalf, what about his wife?
Speaker 5: His wife stuck with him the entire time? Incredible in fact,
Speaker 5: there is something that was left out of the book,
Speaker 5: and I left it out in ten point because Teresa
Speaker 5: was as much of a victim as the victims were
Speaker 5: right when he and again this was secondhand, so I
Speaker 5: did not put it in the book. But the source
Speaker 5: that I got this from is very credible, and the
Speaker 5: source told me that later Theresa made the statement that
Speaker 5: before he would allow her in the bed at night,
Speaker 5: he would make her laid down on the tile floor
Speaker 5: in the bathroom until her body was cold.
Speaker 4: Interesting, Now, what about the media at the trial and how, if,
Speaker 4: and how does John Gerard Schaeffer, in his being a
Speaker 4: narcissist and also being a person looking were attention. What
Speaker 4: happens with the media? How do they how seriously did
Speaker 4: they consider this story? And then how does he interact
Speaker 4: with the media.
Speaker 5: The media ate it up, and Shaeffer played them like
Speaker 5: a piano. He was charming. He was, Oh, this is
Speaker 5: gonna be fine, I'm gonna get off. I'm not guilty.
Speaker 5: I didn't do this. Bob Stone is a liar. And
Speaker 5: the media, because it was such a unique crime and
Speaker 5: it had never happened before, the media it was like
Speaker 5: a feeding friend. It was like sharks in the water.
Speaker 5: People could not get enough of Shaeffer, and they were everywhere,
Speaker 5: and every time they showed up, Shaeffer had to tell
Speaker 5: his side of the story, and he lived for it
Speaker 5: as long as they played his game his way.
Speaker 4: One of the sorry one of the stories that he
Speaker 4: put forth was just to just to muddy the waters.
Speaker 4: Was he said that the reason that he was in prison,
Speaker 4: or that he was charged, was because he was about
Speaker 4: to reveal information about a police drug dealing story, and
Speaker 4: as they were, this was a way of the police
Speaker 4: internally silencing him and he did get I don't know
Speaker 4: about mileage, but the media did print a lot of
Speaker 4: the allegations from Schaeffer, and he had a few allegations
Speaker 4: like you say that Robert Stone, the prosecutor, was this,
Speaker 4: and so there was a fair amount of attention by
Speaker 4: the media and they must have seen him as a
Speaker 4: good and interesting interview. So George Schaeffer played his journalist.
Speaker 5: You know that bad news sales papers, sure, and people
Speaker 5: they live off of it. But at the same time
Speaker 5: it was frightening because Stuart was like a back road
Speaker 5: country town. There was nothing there Port Saint Lucy, where
Speaker 5: I lived, roads went nowhere. There were no houses, so
Speaker 5: this Whilarrea was pretty remote, but people felt safe because
Speaker 5: they believed in their police officers. Well Shaeffer destroyed it.
Speaker 5: So that's old papers too. Here you have a cop
Speaker 5: that's out killing women. How many more cops are out
Speaker 5: there killing women?
Speaker 4: Now? Nancy Trotter and Pamela Sue Wells, the first almost
Speaker 4: victims of Gerard Schaeffer, did they testify at the trial?
Speaker 5: They did, and willingly. In fact, my husband Jack wanted
Speaker 5: to do a rent so that they could show it
Speaker 5: at the trial. And they flew the girls back down here,
Speaker 5: and the girls were more than willing to go back
Speaker 5: to the scene of the crime, be hung, be bound,
Speaker 5: and be gagged so that they could shoot the footage
Speaker 5: for the trial. And when they got on the stand,
Speaker 5: my husband said they were impeccable.
Speaker 4: Right now, the lawyer for the defense you talked about
Speaker 4: the prosecutor being Robert E. Stone, and we'll talk about
Speaker 4: a little bit about him a little bit later. But
Speaker 4: an interesting character is the defense lawyer, Elton Schwartz. Now
Speaker 4: tell us a little bit about Elton Schwartz and just
Speaker 4: the tact that he used at trial. You talked about
Speaker 4: endless motions. So talk a little bit about Elton Schwartz
Speaker 4: before we give the audience another surprise.
Speaker 5: Well, Elton Schwartz was with the Public Defender's office and
Speaker 5: he was the best public defender at that time. He
Speaker 5: knew how to defend. But I think in the back
Speaker 5: of his mind that he really believed that Schaeffer was guilty.
Speaker 5: And his second chair was Bruce Colton, who had just
Speaker 5: gotten out of law school. And Bruce had a pregnant
Speaker 5: wife and needed a job. So he literally was baptized
Speaker 5: by fire because this was his first capital crime case.
Speaker 5: Now Bruce is our state attorney. But Elton would lead
Speaker 5: his witnesses, especially Doris Shaeffer and Teresa by the hand
Speaker 5: through the proceedings with kid gloves. He was very kind
Speaker 5: to them and he was very easy with them.
Speaker 4: The thing is with Elton Schwartz at the beginning of
Speaker 4: the trial, again, he filed numerous motions, basically trying everything
Speaker 4: he could in his vigorous defense. But one of the
Speaker 4: things that he tried and wasn't successful, but he really
Speaker 4: tried very hard, was to have some psychiatrists designate John
Speaker 4: Gerard Schaeffer as being insane. Yes, yes, to that avail,
Speaker 4: to that avail, what was it exactly that they were
Speaker 4: trying to say was his illness? And tell us just
Speaker 4: a little bit about the battle of the psychiatrists.
Speaker 5: Well, Elton tried to get the psychiatrist to say that
Speaker 5: Schaeffer was not responsible for his ashes, that he did
Speaker 5: not know what he had done, and that he did
Speaker 5: not know the difference from right or wrong, and that
Speaker 5: he had a personality disorder. Well, when tiatrist got through
Speaker 5: with his evaluation, he determined that Schaefer knew exactly what
Speaker 5: he was doing, and that Shaeffer was indeed not insane,
Speaker 5: and that what they did is they took him up
Speaker 5: to Chattahoochee, which is the local nuthouse, for a thirty
Speaker 5: day evaluation, and the psychiatrist plainly said that he was
Speaker 5: a narcisistic sociopath with homicidal tendencies, so they could not
Speaker 5: use that defense. And what Schwartz was trying to do
Speaker 5: was delayed the trial for as long as possible so
Speaker 5: that people would forget about it and maybe he would
Speaker 5: get him off.
Speaker 4: Didn't work, so he sentenced to life. When all this
Speaker 4: said and done, and what do we find out somewhat later.
Speaker 4: But during this whole process, at some point, Teresa Shaeffer
Speaker 4: files for But why does she file for divorce and
Speaker 4: who is she now with?
Speaker 5: Teresa Shaeffer files for divorce in November. After Shaeffer is
Speaker 5: sentenced in September, and she turns around several days later
Speaker 5: and marries Elton Schwartz, the defense attorney.
Speaker 4: Incredible and apparently.
Speaker 5: At sometime during the course of the trial, she and
Speaker 5: Elton got very close, and you know, it was like
Speaker 5: I see it as a psychiatrist in patient relationship. Okay,
Speaker 5: he was her savior from and I really believe that
Speaker 5: Shaeffer abused her on many different levels because she was
Speaker 5: very young when they got married, and he had already
Speaker 5: been out doing his killings for many years prior to that.
Speaker 5: And I really believe that she bought his bill of
Speaker 5: goods and didn't know how to get out of it,
Speaker 5: because again, that was a time in history where women
Speaker 5: were not protected like they are now. And I'm sure
Speaker 5: she was afraid of him, and I'm sure in his
Speaker 5: mother's eyes, he did no wrong. So when Elton came along,
Speaker 5: Elton was like Krnight in shining armor. And they got
Speaker 5: married several days after her divorce were finals, and Schaeffer
Speaker 5: used that and one of his thirty four appeals that
Speaker 5: he did not have adequate defense because the defense attorney
Speaker 5: was screwing around with his wife.
Speaker 4: Right now, this story has just got so many twists
Speaker 4: and turns. So he's in prison, but at some point
Speaker 4: and right away, what he's doing too is trying to
Speaker 4: get out of prison. So what does he do. He
Speaker 4: is a turns into a jail house snitch, trying to
Speaker 4: get information on other murderers. And he's in You say,
Speaker 4: he's in a minimum security prison, so he has the
Speaker 4: ability and the freedom to do some things. And what
Speaker 4: does he do with that freedom? Tell us a little
Speaker 4: bit about his behavior in prison before he gets shipped
Speaker 4: to Stark Prison. Tell us about what he does.
Speaker 5: Oh, when he was at Avon Park, which is a
Speaker 5: minimum security it's like a work camp. Now, he would
Speaker 5: invite reporters to come visit him and he would have
Speaker 5: them record him while he read excerpts of his book.
Speaker 5: He would also this is also at a time when
Speaker 5: he would write the threatening letters to law enforcement, to
Speaker 5: Bob Stone, to Phil Shailer, to my husband, to Rick mcelwaine,
Speaker 5: and to other people. That were involved, and even to
Speaker 5: Teresa and to Elton and to Bruce. He would write
Speaker 5: letters saying that he was going to kill them and
Speaker 5: he was going to do this, and he was going
Speaker 5: to do that. And while he was at Avon Park
Speaker 5: he got involved with Sundra London again. He had been
Speaker 5: involved with Sandra when they were in high school and
Speaker 5: had broken up after about a year, and after he
Speaker 5: became convicted of this crime, Sondra hooked back up with
Speaker 5: him because she wanted to become another Ann Rule. She
Speaker 5: wanted to write true crime and she wanted to get
Speaker 5: her fifteen minutes of fame, so she hooked back up
Speaker 5: with Shaeffel Lilee was Avon Park and told him that
Speaker 5: she would be more than happy to tell his story. Well,
Speaker 5: his story was his book that he was written called
Speaker 5: Killer Fiction, which he said was his imagination, which in
Speaker 5: actuality it was confessions of his crime, which he never
Speaker 5: admitted to. When Sandra didn't play to his tune, he
Speaker 5: started threatening her and her daughter. In the meantime, she
Speaker 5: gets him all these interviews on current Affair and gets
Speaker 5: these reporters to go in and resolved his books to him,
Speaker 5: and he makes statements like did I do it? You
Speaker 5: tell me is this story real.
Speaker 2: Or not?
Speaker 5: And he was always playing the mind game and he
Speaker 5: could get away with it. In fact, he even when
Speaker 5: he was there, got involved in a scheme where that
Speaker 5: his father was involved in as well as a Filipino
Speaker 5: bride and it was a prostitution ring and he was
Speaker 5: making money. And he was also writing to different people
Speaker 5: under these different names and he was writing them erotica
Speaker 5: and he was getting paid for it.
Speaker 4: Well, let's let's be clear what this is though, That
Speaker 4: he met a person named Eric Cross. They became partners.
Speaker 4: He's a photographer and they through the father, he set
Speaker 4: up conference calls for Eric Cross to photograph children with
Speaker 4: animals and got a legitimate organization called dot Burn's Agency,
Speaker 4: and they actually convinced seven adults he did to pose
Speaker 4: naked for this photographer and see while both of them
Speaker 4: are in prison.
Speaker 5: And got the children to pens naked.
Speaker 4: Incredible, incredible, and the man could do anything.
Speaker 5: And when it finally dawned on the law enforcement what
Speaker 5: was going on, and what they would do is Schaeffer
Speaker 5: would call his father, then they would three way to
Speaker 5: the clients. Well, when it all came out, they knew.
Speaker 5: Shaeffer then to Stark which is also known as Rayford,
Speaker 5: which is a maximum security prison, which is where the
Speaker 5: electric chairry is.
Speaker 4: And there are a certain amount of famous serial killers,
Speaker 4: like our audience will know Ted Bundy Otis Tool yes,
Speaker 4: being some of two of the most notorious serial killers,
Speaker 4: and especially they shared the same characteristic. They loved the media.
Speaker 4: They loved either exaggerating or telling the truth or a
Speaker 4: combination of both.
Speaker 5: And they loved braggett. They were braggadocius. Sure, and if
Speaker 5: you believe what Shaefer said, he and Bundy had this
Speaker 5: I want to call it love hate relationship because Bundy,
Speaker 5: according to Shaeffer, said that he read about Schaeffer and
Speaker 5: that's why he did what he did. And he wanted
Speaker 5: to know how many Shaffer killed because he killed thirty four.
Speaker 5: And Shaeffer said, well, I did when And then he
Speaker 5: told Bundy there's two types of serial killers. There's an
Speaker 5: organized and a disorganized Schaefer was a very organized killer.
Speaker 5: Bundy was not. And he told Bundy, he said, what
Speaker 5: you do is just wrong. You don't know how to kill.
Speaker 5: You leave too big of a mess.
Speaker 4: Yeah, incredible. Now, one of the stories which involved Ted
Speaker 4: Bundy and Otis Tool. Oti's Tool is sort of a
Speaker 4: not so intelligent serial killer, but he had the smarts,
Speaker 4: I guess, to cause enough trouble and claimed he had
Speaker 4: killed all these people, including America's most wanted host, John Walsh.
Speaker 4: John Walsh's son, Adam Walsh was killed and Oti's Tool
Speaker 4: and John Gerard Schaeffer hooked up to try to extort
Speaker 4: money from John Walsh fifty thousand dollars for the remains
Speaker 4: of it Adam.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: He Shaeffer told John Walsh that for fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 5: he would tell him where Adam's head was. Well, I
Speaker 5: know that that they closed the case and in a
Speaker 5: credit to that to Otis Tool. But I studied Otis Tool,
Speaker 5: and the guy that he killed with Otis Tool was
Speaker 5: not smart enough to do that on his own. M
Speaker 5: Otis Tool was a follower. But I know that that
Speaker 5: Wash won enclosure, so they said, Okay, we're gonna give.
Speaker 3: It to Tool.
Speaker 5: But Tool was not the brains of that outfit. But
Speaker 5: Shaeffer was smart enough because at that time that that
Speaker 5: particular crime was with Walsh's son was everywhere and and
Speaker 5: it happened in Vero Beach which is north as me
Speaker 5: and and they wanted to know that, you know, wash
Speaker 5: One enclosure. So he figured that he would use that
Speaker 5: to gain a notoriety and the favoritism so that maybe
Speaker 5: some of his time might get knocked off, or he
Speaker 5: might get some extra points in prison, some extra freedoms.
Speaker 5: And that was not the first time that he had
Speaker 5: done that. He would pretend to be the jailhouse lawyer
Speaker 5: to gain information to use against the prisoners that he
Speaker 5: was pretending to represent.
Speaker 4: Right now, back to this is bragging. He does say
Speaker 4: to some inmate that he has killed thirty four thirty
Speaker 4: or thirty four young women. Now, in terms of law enforcement,
Speaker 4: after he is sentenced to life, unlike maybe some other
Speaker 4: jurisdictions or some other time in history, the law enforcement said, listen,
Speaker 4: I think we better investigate this guy for other murders
Speaker 4: and see if themo matches. And so that's what went on.
Speaker 4: So in terms of those thirty four, the claim that
Speaker 4: he had killed thirty four women, what did law enforcement
Speaker 4: believe and how did they proceed.
Speaker 5: They believed that he killed at least nine. And the
Speaker 5: reason they believe that is because in the evidence that
Speaker 5: they found at Doris Schaeffer's house was a passport, a
Speaker 5: driver's license, and a birth certificate and they belonged to
Speaker 5: two girls that were later found over at oakhamp. As
Speaker 5: soon as they found that evidence, they went back to
Speaker 5: South Hutchinson Island looking for those two girls, but they
Speaker 5: did not find them until later over at oak Hammick Park,
Speaker 5: and that was collect goodenough and Willcox Barbrian Wilcox. They
Speaker 5: also found a phone little phone book that belonged to
Speaker 5: Carmen Halleck. Her body's never been found either. They found
Speaker 5: a jumble of other evidence that they never could identify
Speaker 5: who it belonged to. At one time they were going
Speaker 5: to try to take him back to court and convict
Speaker 5: him for Carmen Halleck and Lee Hanlin because they found
Speaker 5: her necklace, but they decided not to because they were
Speaker 5: afraid that if they took him back to court and
Speaker 5: retried him on the outstanding death that he would get
Speaker 5: off on all of 'em. So they decided not to
Speaker 5: go there and just leave him where he was because
Speaker 5: he was making all these appeals in the meantime and
Speaker 5: the judge was throwing him out and joining him out
Speaker 5: and drown Now until after the thirty fourth one when
Speaker 5: he said, I've had enough, don't do any more appills.
Speaker 5: You're not gonna get in front of me again. But
Speaker 5: Bob Stone made the statement that it was better that
Speaker 5: he be convicted for the two then go for you
Speaker 5: for none of them.
Speaker 4: Now let's get back to Sondra London, and it was
Speaker 4: as far as I believe. In your book, you talk
Speaker 4: about him being his second girlfriend and they broke up.
Speaker 4: They both went to different schools, so there was not
Speaker 4: any trauma there. But this Sondra London, when you talk
Speaker 4: about she wanted to become the next Ann Rule because
Speaker 4: she had read Stranger Beside Me, which is Anne Rule's
Speaker 4: classic book, her first book where she has a relationship
Speaker 4: with Ted Bundy exactly and his unbeknownst to her at
Speaker 4: that time that this is the serial killer that she
Speaker 4: has just been signed on as a book contract to
Speaker 4: write about an event that he gets arrested. So incredible,
Speaker 4: incredible story. Now, what I found interesting was, of all
Speaker 4: the odds, her boyfriend becomes a serial killer and she
Speaker 4: becomes involved with the publishing business. She was already involved
Speaker 4: when she said, okay, listen, I think this is the
Speaker 4: story that I'd like to deal with, and his book was,
Speaker 4: as you've mentioned, killer fiction. I wanted, we do have
Speaker 4: a little bit of time left in the program, and
Speaker 4: I was wondering if you would read some of or
Speaker 4: at least tell us about, if not actually read the
Speaker 4: words that are contained in Killer Touch, because to see
Speaker 4: the monster, the beast that he is, is really evident
Speaker 4: when you read some of the material that, of course
Speaker 4: he said was fictional, but as law enforcement, yourself and
Speaker 4: myself and probably anybody that reads it knows that this
Speaker 4: is the ranting of a psychopathic killer.
Speaker 5: When I was writing about Carmen and I was reading
Speaker 5: what he wrote, I liked at my husband and I said,
Speaker 5: this is a concession. This is Carmen, And he said,
Speaker 5: I know. Let's see what shall I write?
Speaker 4: Read what I found particularly interesting if you do can
Speaker 4: reference this. The most horrifying thing that I did read
Speaker 4: is what he said about while one woman watched, he
Speaker 4: did something to the other woman, and then that that
Speaker 4: other woman died swallowing her own drowning in her own vomit.
Speaker 5: Do you remember what page that was?
Speaker 4: No? I don't, But what I can say is that
Speaker 4: while you reference something to read is that what he
Speaker 4: had said was that he disemboweled one woman while her
Speaker 4: friend watched. I found that incredibly discissied he did.
Speaker 5: That's exactly what he did. Wow, that that is exactly
Speaker 5: what he did. Let me give Let me get the book,
Speaker 5: because I have I have killed. I like to never
Speaker 5: found killer fiction. Killer Fiction is now out of print. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and if you can find it, it will cost you
Speaker 5: a fortune.
Speaker 4: I'm sure.
Speaker 5: Let's see. Let's see what I can find. Here we go,
Speaker 5: all right. We will need an isolated area assembled, accessible
Speaker 5: by car and a short hike away from any police
Speaker 5: patrols or parking lovers. The execution site must carefully be
Speaker 5: arranged for a speedy execution once the victim has arrived.
Speaker 5: Ideally would be two soule horses with a two by four,
Speaker 5: preferably by car. A grave must be prepared in advance
Speaker 5: away from the place of execution. The victim would be
Speaker 5: any one of the many women who flocked to Miami
Speaker 5: and Fort Laud during the winter months. Even two victims
Speaker 5: would not be difficult to dispose of, since women are
Speaker 5: less wary when traveling in pairs. In any case, it
Speaker 5: may be more preferable to bind and gag the victim
Speaker 5: before transporting them to the place of execution, then again,
Speaker 5: depending on what torture or defaminists plan for them, other
Speaker 5: items may be useful bars of soap and water. These
Speaker 5: are useful if you would want to wash a woman
Speaker 5: before her execution, Induce her to urinate and then wash her.
Speaker 5: Soap provides an excellent lubricant for anal intercourse. Beer is
Speaker 5: useful to induce urination and make the victim groggy more cooperative.
Speaker 5: Soap can also be forced into the rectum to induce
Speaker 5: defecation of bowels. Possibly she may want to defecate, since
Speaker 5: people generally have a desire to do this when they
Speaker 5: are scared. A douchebag may be helpful in degrading her further,
Speaker 5: and is also useful in a soap sud's enema, which
Speaker 5: would a great indignity, especially if one victim was made
Speaker 5: to gurinate or defecate on the other. This would be
Speaker 5: a gross indignity. Now on, stockings are useful to tie
Speaker 5: the hands and feet of the victim. The victim should
Speaker 5: be made to strip at least to her underwear. If
Speaker 5: stripped completely nude, an attempt can be made to excite
Speaker 5: her sexually. This effect would be especially interesting if the
Speaker 5: victim had her neck in the noose and hands tied
Speaker 5: behind her back. A white pillow case should be placed
Speaker 5: over her head and her mouth gagged. Her pennies should
Speaker 5: be pulled down enough to expose the gentiles gentiles and
Speaker 5: collateral stimulation applied during the heights of her excitement, that
Speaker 5: support would be pulled away and she would dangle by
Speaker 5: her neck. She may be revived before death, if desirable,
Speaker 5: and subjicated to further indecencies. After death has occurred, the
Speaker 5: corpse should be violated, if not violated all ready. The
Speaker 5: body should then be possibly mutilated and carried to the
Speaker 5: grave and buried. All identity papers should be destroyed and
Speaker 5: the place of the execution dismantled. And that's exactly what
Speaker 5: he did.
Speaker 4: Incredible, incredible. Now John Gerard Schaeffer is in solitary confinement.
Speaker 4: He's considered a rat. He's doing everything he can. He's
Speaker 4: pretending he's a jailhouse lawyer and being very helpful to
Speaker 4: other inmates. Meanwhile he's gathering information. In fact, one inmate
Speaker 4: that he got information from ended up on death row.
Speaker 3: YEP.
Speaker 4: Now, tell us what the fate of John Gerard Schaeffer
Speaker 4: was in the Stark prison.
Speaker 5: And what was when was that The backstory is Schaeffer,
Speaker 5: out of the goodness of his heart. And I say
Speaker 5: that in parentheses, instituted getting a water cooler in the pod,
Speaker 5: and the water cooler allowed the men to be able
Speaker 5: to get warm water for their super coffee or whatever
Speaker 5: when they got it out of the canteen. Well, because
Speaker 5: he thought that since he had instituted this, he was
Speaker 5: allowed to get two cups. That could only get one cup,
Speaker 5: but he decided he was going to get two cups
Speaker 5: of water. He went to his room or to his cell,
Speaker 5: and in nineteen ninety three a mister Rodriguez, who was
Speaker 5: crazier than Schaefer, followed him into his cell and took
Speaker 5: a shank and poked out both ice and sliced him
Speaker 5: from his ear to the other ear across his mouth.
Speaker 5: And that sent the message, and the message was this
Speaker 5: you no longer see and you can no longer talk.
Speaker 5: He stabbed that man so many times that they couldn't
Speaker 5: even hardly clean up the blood because he bled out
Speaker 5: from all I think there were over thirty two stab wounds,
Speaker 5: and most of them were in his face and in
Speaker 5: his eyes. Incredible, And even the psychiatrist said that the
Speaker 5: guy that committed the execution, he was even afraid of him.
Speaker 5: So it took somebody who was more evil than Schaeffer
Speaker 5: as that were possible to finally dispense justice.
Speaker 4: Now you say that the investigation he wasn't up. He
Speaker 4: didn't actually it formally charged for the other murders. But
Speaker 4: maybe we have if you can reference this, maybe we
Speaker 4: can name a few of these nameless people, these nameless
Speaker 4: victims I think I have.
Speaker 5: I may have a vocall yes, and I did do
Speaker 5: that at the end of my book. Hold on just
Speaker 5: a minute. This is the part of the book that
Speaker 5: I've have a hard time getting getting through because when
Speaker 5: I do speeches, these people are with me all the time.
Speaker 5: For eight months when I wrote this book, I didn't
Speaker 5: sleep because they were always in my head. But the
Speaker 5: girls are Georgia Josup, Susan Place, call it goodenough, Barbara
Speaker 5: and Wilcox, Nancy Lichtner, pam Nater, Nancy Charter, Pamela Wells,
Speaker 5: Carmen Halleck, Lee Hanlin, Belinda Hutchins. Those are the nine
Speaker 5: that we know about those girls. Nancy Linchner and pam
Speaker 5: Nater were never found. They were his first two kills.
Speaker 5: They were killed in nineteen six sixty six at O'calla
Speaker 5: National Forest. They were never found. In two thousand seven,
Speaker 5: when I first started researching this book, they closed that
Speaker 5: case because Rick mcelwaine had a file, and in that
Speaker 5: file was a letter that an inmate had sent him
Speaker 5: that said that Shaeffer confessed to him that he had
Speaker 5: killed these two girls, aren't she? Nancy Trotter and Pamela
Speaker 5: Wells are the two that got away. Carmen Halleck has
Speaker 5: never been found. She left a baby girl, Lee Hanline
Speaker 5: was found. Belinda Hutchins has never been found. Deborah Lowe
Speaker 5: has never been found. There are two other girls that
Speaker 5: were eight nine years old that were found years later.
Speaker 5: Mary Briscolne was one of 'em. They were found years later,
Speaker 5: but they have now been attributed to Shaeffer. But we
Speaker 5: know it was Shaeffer because they disappeared while he was
Speaker 5: a substitute teacher down Implantation and he'd tell it at
Speaker 5: the school that these girls went to.
Speaker 4: Yeah, credible coincidence. Yeah, So now you say that you've
Speaker 4: lived with this and I can totally understand from reading
Speaker 4: this book, and anyone who's listening to this interview can
Speaker 4: tell how passionate you are about the subject and how
Speaker 4: much it can wear on you to deal with such
Speaker 4: a psychopathic and evil person. And then all of these
Speaker 4: the damage, the carnage basically that he's left behind, the
Speaker 4: twisted families, the missing children, these were all for the
Speaker 4: most part, young innocent, well not there's any guilty women,
Speaker 4: but young innocent, vibrant women in the in the during
Speaker 4: the time of their life. They were that were snatched
Speaker 4: up and and for this sadistic, evil killer Uh to
Speaker 4: have his his jollies. And I thought, what was interesting too,
Speaker 4: is the the book that was put out Killer Fiction.
Speaker 4: And then there was another book put out after that
Speaker 4: from this Sondra London person. And then at Sondra London
Speaker 4: again there's another story I dealt with. I think it
Speaker 4: was Corey Mitchell had written a story about Danny Rowlings. Yes,
Speaker 4: or maybe just the book I already have. I mean,
Speaker 4: I'm getting a little concused.
Speaker 5: But now she wrote she hooked up with Danny Rollins.
Speaker 5: After after Shaeffer started fading into the back pages of
Speaker 5: the newspaper. She dropped him like a bad habit and
Speaker 5: hooked up with Danny Rollins, and that's when he started
Speaker 5: threatening to kill her because Danny Rollins was also at
Speaker 5: start where Shaefer was.
Speaker 4: Yeah, incredible, and he's a serial killer that killed eight students,
Speaker 4: eight students up.
Speaker 5: In games at the University of Florida. Now, not only
Speaker 5: were the victims affected, and not only were the families
Speaker 5: of the victims affected, but the two girls that were
Speaker 5: killed at o'calla, there was a stranger who was affected,
Speaker 5: who became an alcoholic and died an alcoholic when she
Speaker 5: saw Schaeffer take a body out of the trunk of
Speaker 5: his car at Paying Prairie Preserve and walk off into
Speaker 5: the preserve.
Speaker 4: You know. The other thing I wanted to say just
Speaker 4: before this that one of the one of the most
Speaker 4: important things that happened at the trial was that I
Speaker 4: think it's Susan place was it? I think it was
Speaker 4: her mother? She had said, listen, we met this guy
Speaker 4: and he gave an alias, but the mothers thought something
Speaker 4: was off off, and she went outside and took the
Speaker 4: license plate number down and that led to police. That
Speaker 4: was a big, big break in this case and also
Speaker 4: her testimony and that license plate is a very interesting
Speaker 4: story for those that read the book, that this was
Speaker 4: this sort of turning point here and very important to
Speaker 4: the trial, that she had the presence of mind to
Speaker 4: go out there and check out that license plate. Otherwise
Speaker 4: he might not even been convicted of those two.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't have.
Speaker 5: He would not have.
Speaker 2: And the.
Speaker 5: Sad part is every one of the people who were
Speaker 5: involved in this case, every one of the law enforcement
Speaker 5: officers that were involved, were forever changed by the carnage
Speaker 5: that Gerard Shaeffer perpetrated on these girls. When I went
Speaker 5: to look there were four boxes of evidence. And when
Speaker 5: I went to look at the evidence, I took my husband,
Speaker 5: and my husband is seventy six years old and this
Speaker 5: was cases over thirty years old, and we started going
Speaker 5: through the evidence. He was with me, and he went
Speaker 5: through the first three boxes with me, and there's one
Speaker 5: box left that had the clothes that they found at
Speaker 5: the crime scene that belonged to Susan place in Georgia,
Speaker 5: jessup and I wanted to touch those clothes and to
Speaker 5: touch the tree trunk, and to wrap myself around those girls.
Speaker 5: And I when I went to go through that box.
Speaker 5: He said, Yvonne, will you be mad at me if
Speaker 5: I don't go with you? He said, I can't. I
Speaker 5: saw my husband transported back to nineteen seventy three, and
Speaker 5: I saw the look on his face, and it was
Speaker 5: so sad and so devastating because it was like it
Speaker 5: happened yesterday, right right, and my husband seen death. He's
Speaker 5: seen murder. He's seen things that most people don't see
Speaker 5: in his job. But this case affected every one of
Speaker 5: those men so much that even going back thirty four years.
Speaker 4: Later, it was like yesterday, Yeah, And that's understand This
Speaker 4: serial killer, John Gerard Schaeffer, is one of the most complex, fascinating,
Speaker 4: and hands down, I've done this show for almost two
Speaker 4: full years. I've read countless, countless books about the most
Speaker 4: famous and infamous serial killers. This guy ranks right up
Speaker 4: there as one of the most fascinating, compelling, charismatic He
Speaker 4: really does you know? Ted Bundy is a fascinating character.
Speaker 4: John Wayne Gacy, You're gonna have a program on next
Speaker 4: week the defense lawyer that defended John Wayne Gacy will
Speaker 4: be on. But really, this is one of those, for
Speaker 4: lack of a better term, just a hidden gem of evil.
Speaker 4: This person and a very fascinating, very fascinating.
Speaker 5: Now you know, I had to write the book absolutely
Speaker 5: because the more I dug, the more I had to know,
Speaker 5: and the more I had to know. It was like
Speaker 5: several people had tried to write this book before, and
Speaker 5: every time they'd write it written to sue them.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
Speaker 5: And when I started writing the book, a friend of mine,
Speaker 5: who is a victim's advocate for the State Attorney's office,
Speaker 5: she said, if I'm what about the families. I said, Borb,
Speaker 5: I'm writing this book from a perspective that no other
Speaker 5: writer has ever gone before. I said, I'm writing this
Speaker 5: book from a cops perspective. I'm writing this book the
Speaker 5: way that it was solved, and I'm writing this book
Speaker 5: in such a way that everything that I have can
Speaker 5: be documented. It's all public record. I did not contact
Speaker 5: not one of the victim's families when I was writing
Speaker 5: this book. As soon as the book came out, I
Speaker 5: got an email from Susan Place's niece and she asked
Speaker 5: me about the book and asked me why I wrote it,
Speaker 5: and I told her I sent her book. She emailed
Speaker 5: me and told me thank you because she now had peace.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 5: She gave the book to her father. His name is John,
Speaker 5: and she emailed me and asked me if she could
Speaker 5: give her father my phone number because he wanted to
Speaker 5: call me. He called me and he said, and he
Speaker 5: was squalling. Now we're talking about a grown man. He
Speaker 5: was sobbing, and he said, I wanted to say thank
Speaker 5: you because my family has finally found peace. He said,
Speaker 5: you showed what a truly evil man Shaeffer was, and
Speaker 5: my family finally has peace. And I said, well, my
Speaker 5: husband worked the case. That's how I got hold of
Speaker 5: all the information that because I got information, nobody else
Speaker 5: could get sure. And he wanted to talk to Jack.
Speaker 5: And when he talked to Jack, he was crying. Jack
Speaker 5: was crying. I was crying, and I don't cry easy.
Speaker 5: It takes a lot to make me cry. But all
Speaker 5: three of us were sobbing, and it was like he
Speaker 5: was finally able to grief and let his sister go.
Speaker 4: Well, that's a real testament to what you've done and
Speaker 4: the sensitivity that you've that's imbued in this book that
Speaker 4: you've taken and considered. That is your most important focus.
Speaker 4: And I think that just that phone call itself must
Speaker 4: have reassured you that what you have done was worth
Speaker 4: it and how you had handled it was the right way.
Speaker 4: And I got to say that this incredible story and
Speaker 4: thank you for the book, and thank you for this program.
Speaker 4: So I want to as we're wrapping up here, I
Speaker 4: want to thank you very much for coming on the
Speaker 4: pro and talking about your book, Silent Scream. And maybe
Speaker 4: you can just tell us how the best way to
Speaker 4: get a hold of this book. This is self published,
Speaker 4: but tell us how if people were interested in this book,
Speaker 4: how would they go about finding this book.
Speaker 5: It's on Amazon, it's on Kindle, it's on notebook, it's
Speaker 5: on Lulu, and you can order you can order it
Speaker 5: on my online bookstore, which you will get a signed
Speaker 5: copy at the book addict dot a writer dot com.
Speaker 4: Great again, people have been listening to the program. This
Speaker 4: is Silent Scream with my special guest, Yvonne Mason, and
Speaker 4: join her on Facebook and look up this excellent book
Speaker 4: and read it for yourself. You will not be disappointed.
Speaker 4: So I want to thank you very much, Yvonne, for
Speaker 4: coming on my little program here True Murder. It's been
Speaker 4: a great interview and I want to thank you.
Speaker 5: And you have a great evening, and you too, Dan,
Speaker 5: and thank you for having me. I appreciate it because
Speaker 5: because of you, the girls now have even a greater voice.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you very much, and like you say, have
Speaker 4: yourself a great evening, you two, dear, Thank you. You've
Speaker 4: been listening to program True Murder, the most shocking killers
Speaker 4: in true crime history and the authors that are written
Speaker 4: about them, with your host Dan Zupansky. We've been talking
Speaker 4: about Silent Scream with Yvonne Mason. Good Night,