James Ellroy - Silent Terror

Cindy Keneally, 72, of Chicago, Illinois, last seen 1/18/76;

George Keneally, 20, of Chicago, her husband, last seen 1/18/76;

Gustavo Torres, 23, of Sao Paulo, Brazil, last seen 1/26/76;

Mills Jensen, 24, of Aspen, last seen 3/1/76;

Craig Richardson, 17, of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, last seen 4/1/76;

Maria Kaltenborn, 21, of Akron, Ohio, last seen 6/2/76;

John Kaltenborn, 22, Maria’s husband, last seen 6/2/76;

Timothy Bay, 16, of Glenwood Springs, last seen 8/18/76.

Police investigating the disappearances were (at first) quick to point out the transient nature of pleasure spas like Aspen, and last year, in the spring of ’76, when the number of vanished people stood at five, they pooh-poohed the idea of massive foul play. But then, during the spring of ’76 thaw, melted snowbanks yielded the mutilated bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Keneally and Mr. Torres, and they knew a fiend was on the prowl.

The subzero temperatures that had prevailed all winter preserved the bodies to gruesome effect. Mr. & Mrs. Keneally were nude and arranged in an explicitly sexual posture, and Mr. Torres (who disappeared eight days after the Keneallys) was positioned a few feet away. All three victims died from slashed throats and were marked about the torsos with “S.S.”

Authorities thought at first that the markings indicated a Nazi killer — “S.S.” being the initials of Hitler’s secret police. But then that theory was dropped in favor of attributing the murders to the “Zodiac” killer, a mass murderer active in Northern California in the late ’60’s-early ’70’s. The “S.S.” body markings were aslant, so that they resembled “Z’s”; and the Zodiac killer (who sent messages to San Francisco-area police stating that he was “claiming slaves for my afterlife”) sometimes marked his victims that way.

An entirely different theory was advanced by Glenwood Springs resident Martin Plunkett, the assistant librarian at the local library. Plunkett, 28, a crime buff and childhood comic-book collector, said that the markings could be a reference to the “Shroud Shifter,” a comic-book villain popular in the 1950’s and ’60’s. The Aspen police thanked Mr. Plunkett for his phoned-in theory, and local comic-book collectors were investigated and cleared, bringing the long, frustrating case of murder/disappearances back to its current state — no clues.

In a press conference held last month, Aspen Chief of Police Arthur Whittinghill stated, “The Keneally/Torres murders were certainly the work of one person or persons, and I suspect the sexual aspects of the crime were subterfuge — the work of a killer or killers bent on obscuring motive. The other five disappearances may or may not be related, and since no other bodies have turned up, I lean to the theory of separate killer-abductors. The Zodiac-Comic Book speculation I view as nonsense, and the important thing now is for all Colorado residents and visitors below the age of twenty-five to be wary of strangers.”

From Boss Detective, November 1978 issue, the “ Missing!” feature:

The nine people listed below have vanished between April 1977 and our press time of October 15, 1978. All were last seen in various parts of Kansas and Missouri, all are Caucasians and college students. Photos are available from the Missing Persons Divisions of the Kansas and Missouri State Police. Direct all inquiries to those agencies. The missing are:

Janet Cahill, 21, 5'3", 116 lbs., brown, blue. Last seen in Holcomb, Kan., 4/16/77;

Walker Cahill, 17, (Miss Cahill’s brother), 5'8", 135 lbs., brown, blue. Last seen in Holcomb, 4/16/77;

James Brownmuller, 24, 6'3", 205 lbs., blond, blue. Last seen outside Wichita Falls, Kan., 6/9/77;

Mary Kilpatrick, 20, 5'1", 95 lbs., blond, blue, last seen in Wichita Falls, 6/11/77;

Thomas Briscoe, 22, 5'11", 175 lbs., brown, brown. Last seen in Wichita Falls, 7/7/77;

Karsten Hanala, 26, 6'1", 200 lbs., brown, hazel. Last seen outside Tompkinsville, Kan., “speaking to large white man driving van,” 8/6/77;

Christine Muldowney, 19, 5'9", 135 lbs., blond, blue. Last seen in Joplin, Mo., 3/13/78;

Lawrence Muldowney, 17, 6'2", 185, blond, hazel. Last seen in Joplin, Mo., 3/13/78;

Nancy De Fazio, 20, 5'4", 125, black, brown. Last seen near Blue Lake, Mo., 10/1/78.

Concluding note: Assumptions of death aside, credit cards belonging to several of the above-mentioned people have turned up in “hot” transactions all over America, and the two card-frauders thus far apprehended have airtight alibis for the times of the card-owners’ disappearances. Those two men have been cleared as suspects after rigorous polygraph examinations, and one man (during polygraphing) stated that, “I bought my card from a guy who got it from another guy — a guy with a weird name like Stick Shifter.”

I killed them all, and the murder/disappearances mentioned in the preceding articles comprised approximately two-thirds of my 1974-78 body count.

Some were crimes of opportunity and convenience; some were assaults against waking and sleeping nightmares and the occasionally recurring urge to live in childhood fantasies. All were perfectly carried out.

My basic tool was the Deathmobile, and my basic means of avoiding capture was the complete eschewing of criminal patterns. I never spoke of my exploits. I never used drugs or alcohol; I never made purchases with the credit cards I stole, and I only sold them to drunken and drug-wasted lowlifes I met in bars — men who later identified me as “big,” “tall,” “young,” and “the Shifter,” but who would never be able to pick me out of a police lineup. I never killed when there was the remotest possibility of eyewitnesses, and the few partial witnesses who spotted me talking to roadside acquaintances I would later kill would never be able to ID me, because I always kept my back to the highway. “Big,” “tall,” “white” — certainly. Martin Michael Plunkett — no.

Caution.

Between 1974 and 1978 the gross yield from my robbery-murders was $11,147.00. I did not, of course, carry that amount of cash on my person — I kept it in bank safe-deposit boxes, the banks themselves spread across the western half of America, the rent on them paid for ten years in advance, the keys safely hidden in wooded areas nearby, so that the final key was my memory.

Ultra-caution.

Deathmobile II, purchased in Denver with the proceeds from my Aspen killings, replaced Deathmobile I when I realised the imprudence of driving with an illegal handgun clipped under the seat. The .357, the detective magazines I kept as mementos of my exploits and the marijuana I habitually harbored to seduce hippie types with would, if subjected to police scrutiny, arouse suspicion of the worst sort. I needed to keep them within a few moments’ reach, but out of reach of the most heavy-duty cop shakedown. Deathmobile I had no suitable hiding places, but studying the owner’s manuals of various make vans revealed that late-model Dodges had an undercarriage made up of metal “pockets,” rectangular-shaped, with openings on the side. I surmised that two or three of the pockets would hold all my contraband items. In order to achieve a look of uniformity I would have to cover all the ends with wire or steel, but the peace of mind I would gain would make the effort worthwhile.

So, in March of ’77, I bought a ’76 Dodge 300 van and performed major surgery on the undercarriage, blocking off all twenty pockets with wire mesh. Inside four of them I kept my .357, my magazines, and my drug supply. Behind the seats, along with my legal belongings, I kept a supply of tools and flares to aid me in my role of Good Samaritan motorist, and my Polaroid was always up front with me, loaded.