James Ellroy - Silent Terror

From the Milwaukee Tribune, February 19, 1979:

It is now over six weeks since the “Wisconsin Whipsaw,” a rapist/slayer who terrorized the Janesville-Beloit area during December and January, claimed his last victim.

On the snowy morning of January 4, the butchered body of Claire Kozol, 17, of Huyserville, Wisconsin, was discovered in a cabbage field near the Illinois border. She had been raped, beaten to death and dismembered — in a manner identical to Gretchen Weymouth, 16, whose body was discovered a few miles away on December 16, and Mary Coontz, 18, also of Huyserville, who was found in a duck blind on the outskirts of Beloit on Christmas Day. All three young women were attractive, slender brunettes, and forensic psychiatrists attached to Wisconsin State Police Headquarters in Madison were convinced that a highly motivated and exceptionally vicious psychopathic killer was operating in the Southern Wisconsin area. Their psychological profile (based on previous ease histories and physical evidence from the three killings) concluded that the murderer would continue to kill the same type of victim in the same manner, until captured or killed himself.

A task force of twenty Wisconsin State Police detectives were assigned to the investigation full-time, and they were assisted by officers from the Janesville and Beloit police departments. Elaborate decoy traps to snare the killer were set up, in anticipation of another murder attempt in the near future. The net was tightening, and police officials were certain the blood-crazed murderer would step into it soon.

But he didn’t, and there have been no further killings matching the Wisconsin Whipsaw’s M.O. since Miss Kozol’s body was found on January 4. Wisconsin State Police Sergeant Ross Anderson, who supervised the decoy deployment, has a theory as to what happened.

“It’s a theory based on the Psych. 101 course I took in college and circumstantial evidence,” the trooper, 29, told reporters. “But instinctively I credit it.

“On January 5, the day after Miss Kozol’s body was found, I was supervising snowplowing on I-5 south of Huyserville when I spotted the rear of a car, partially covered by snow, off the roadside. I dug through the snow and saw that the car was a ’79 Cadillac with Illinois plates. There was no driver trapped inside, and I checked the glove compartment and found ID belonging to a man named Saul Malvin, age 51, of Lake Forest. When I saw O+ blood on a donor card, my skin prickled. We typed the rape-killer from his semen — and he was O+.

“I radioed the Lake Forest P.D., and they told me that Malvin’s wife had reported him missing that morning — he had left the previous morning to visit friends in Lake Geneva. I took a vest I found in the backseat, drove to Huyserville for a K-9 team, drove back to the area and initiated a search. About eight hours later, the dogs and I hit paydirt.

“Wolves had chewn away most of the man’s upper torso, but you could still tell what had happened. Malvin was dead, about ten yards off the roadside. There was a .357 Magnum in his hand. His wallet was intact, filled with cash. I ran back to my cruiser and radioed for an ambulance, then I started thinking.”

Trooper Anderson’s ultimate theory — that the late Saul Malvin was the Wisconsin Whipsaw, and that he committed suicide in a moment of guilt over his crimes, has created a furor among his W.S.P. colleagues, and opinions are divided on the subject of the former insurance executive’s culpability. Lieutenant W. S. Havermeyer, the commander of the Huyserville Substation, summed up the pros and cons at a press conference last week. “As of now, we’re assuming that if the Whipsaw isn’t Mr. Malvin, he’s in jail or the loony bin, or he’s moved on. The shrink boys in Madison say that sometimes these repeating psychos have a moment of clarity and kill themselves, especially right after an especially brutal job, so that fits circumstantially, and Malvin did have O positive blood. We’ve checked out his whereabouts at the times of the three killings. His car was found just a few miles from where the Kozol girl’s body was discovered, and on the dates of the two previous murders, December 16 and Christmas, he was allegedly working at home alone and waiting at home for his wife to return from celebrating the holiday with her invalid sister.

“So, circumstantially, Malvin could have been the perpetrator, although he does not ‘play’ as one. He had no criminal record, was happily married with grown children, was successful and well-liked by friends and family. That is in his favor.

“But he did commit suicide with a gun that to this day cannot be traced, and relatives and friends have told us that he had no logical reason to take his own life. Unfortunately, wolves had attacked Malvin’s body just before Sergeant Anderson discovered it, and if there was any physical evidence on his person linking him to Claire Kozol, the animals probably destroyed it. All in all, I’m grateful there have been no more killings.”

Sergeant Anderson, believed by many of his colleagues to have “cracked” the case, will be moving on to different duties — carrying extradition warrants to midwestern and eastern cities and returning with felons wanted by the Wisconsin State authorities. He is grateful for the change of pace, and told reporters: “The Whipsaw case took a lot out of me. It’s going to be nice to get a change of scenery, to ply my trade in new places.”

From the Louisville, Kentucky, Herald, April 18, 1979:

The body of a 20-year-old woman who worked as a nude dancer was discovered this morning by her boyfriend, who wept when he saw her butchered remains and immediately called police. The victim, Kristine Pasquale, who worked at the nearby Swinger’s Rendezvous Bar, had been slashed to death and dismembered, and police who viewed the remains of the attractive blonde were shocked and stunned. Sergeant James Ruley, one of the first officers to arrive at Miss Pasquale’s bloodsoaked apartment, told reporters: “Bar none, the worst crime upon a woman I’ve ever seen, and you can quote me on that. It’s either going to be an open-and-shut case, or a toughie, because Miss Pasquale was, if you follow my drift, not exactly a blushing flower. I busted her for prostitution myself when I worked Vice, and the Swinger’s Rendezvous, the joint where she worked, is a notorious criminal gathering place. My guess right off the top of my head is that her killer was a longtime known associate, or she wouldn’t have buzzed him up to her pad. She was a street-smart girl, and choosy about her tricks.”

Miss Pasquale’s body was removed, and her apartment was sealed off. Forensic technicians went to work, and Miss Pasquale’s boyfriend, David Komondy, 27, the bouncer at Swinger’s Rendezvous, was questioned and released. No clues were discovered at the apartment, and eight hours later, Dr. Winton Walker, Assistant Medical Examiner for the City of Louisville, announced his findings:

“Miss Pasquale was raped, then murdered. The cause of death was massive trauma and loss of blood, caused by a severed throat. More details will be released later.”

Meanwhile, Louisville police are swarming over the porn district, looking for what Sergeant Ruley called “a very angry man.”

Follow-up report on Louisville Homicide # 116-79, 4-18-79, filed on 4-27-79 by Det. Sergeant J. M. Ruley, Badge 212, Louisville Police Department, Homicide Division. Titled “Progress Report, Rape/Murder — Pasquale, Kristine Michelle,” it was distributed to all Louisville detective units on 4-28-79.