Brian Lane - Mind Games with a Serial Killer

The second incident was years later, when I was a teenager. My mother was under incredible pressure that I had not recognized. She was having health problems, and she was desperate to get out of her marriage to my father but felt that she couldn’t without jeopardizing his financial underwriting of my brother’s and my educations. My mother, my brother, and I were all driving in my mother’s car. I said something, and boom! my mother jerked the car over to the curb and told me to get out. She told me that she just couldn’t take it anymore, that I was utterly selfish and ungrateful. At least, that’s what I think she said—it’s certainly what she ought to have said. All I really remember is her ordering me out of the car as she started to cry. In my heart of hearts, I knew she wasn’t about to leave me there, but I was absolutely paralyzed with fear and refused to get out of the car. My brother burst into tears. Our saintly mother had suddenly become a monster or a Martian or worse, and I was to blame. Quickly, she caught herself and relented, pulling the car back out into traffic. I vividly remember the exact corner where this occurred in Van Nuys in the San Fernando Valley, and I still get a twinge anytime I drive near there. I also know that it was on a Wednesday in mid-April, and I always remember it when April rolls around. I know that afterwards my mother felt as bad about the incident as I did, but that doesn’t mitigate the emotional reality that her momentary rejection and threat of abandonment was totally crushing.

Interestingly, my therapist recently pointed out that most if not all of the emotionally charged incidents in my life revolved around cars. I suggested that you spend a lot of time in cars in Southern California and they create an artificially confined venue from which there is no escape as interpersonal issues come to the fore. Cars heighten reality. They are also incredibly conducive to fantasy. They are worlds unto themselves, both a part of and apart from the rest of the world. The FBI profilers have postulated that serial killers can function more easily in modern times because the mobility afforded by cars gives them a wider killing field which makes them more difficult to catch. I think the truth is the converse: Serial murder is not at an all-time high because it’s easier for serial killers to commit their crimes and get away with it, it’s because the cocoon of the car actually fuels the crime. If you move too much you never root, you never connect, and it’s insulation and fantasy which create the mens rea for serial murder.

Yet, once again my childhood traumas—car-related or not— may have held back my maturation and even glitched my chances for happiness, but they did not propel me to serial murder. So I get the chills when I imagine a child like Bill Suff whose entire emotional youth was manipulated and toyed with by his parents, taken to inexplicable extremes. We cannot ever justify the crimes that he committed as an adult, but you just have to accept as gospel that Bill Suff never ever had a fair chance, and, because of that, neither did his victims. Particularly once he bought his van.

Catherine McDonald had worked hard to get her life together , A pretty , thirty - year - old African - American from Los Angeles , she’d completely kicked a sometime drug habit and was employed as a domestic in order to provide for her two toddlers . She lived in an apartment not too far from the meticulously manicured middle - class house where she’d grown up and where her kids stayed during her workdays , taken care of by her proud mom and stylish sister . God was an important part of Catherine McDonald’s life .

The problem was , God seemed to like to see Cathy pregnant , and , in mid - September 1991 , she was in the last days of her first trimester for “ child number three ”. Of course , Cathy had yet to nail down even a “ husband number one ”.

With her pregnancy starting to show , Cathy had to explain the situation to her employers , and they made it clear that , once she got “ too far along ”, they’d have to find someone to replace her . Permanently .

Panicked but practical , Cathy steeled herself and made a plan : she’d spend the next few weekends “ moonlighting ”, making some extra cash that she could stash away , so that she wouldn’t be a burden on her family when she was out of work .

The “ moonlighting ” would be a trade she thought she’d left behind but always knew she could and would resort to in a pinch : the world’s oldest profession — work that’s always there , skills that never get rusty . But no way would she let her family know .

So , on a Thursday afternoon , September 12 , 1991 , Cathy dropped off her kids at her mom’s , made some excuse about a weekend holiday with a fictitious beau , and down the freeway she cruised .

To Riverside .

To where Bill Suff was proudly but nervously prepping for the Riverside County Employees’ Annual Picnic and Cook - off .

Bill had a reasonably new wife , a very new baby daughter , and a lot of worries about how that baby kept getting so injured all the time . He also had several years of murders under his belt , and he was now moving at a pace of at least one per month . He had a very real fear that Texas was happening all over again , that his wife might leave him if this stewardess class she was taking actually led to a job , and maybe somehow it was all the baby’s fault . Again . If you believed in omens — as he did — it just didn’t help that this baby had the same birthday as the dead baby . He could have and should have viewed it as God granting him a second chance , but he saw it instead as a curse destined to revisit him again and again .

Thankfully , the cook - off would be a chance for him to socialize and prove to all the world that nothing was wrong , and he actually reveled in the pressure of concocting his sweet chili one more time , after having won the “ best chili ” ribbon two years running and the “ best dish overall ” two years ago . This year Bill was determined to regain that ultimate title and take home the loving cup and ribbon that went with it . New trophies to add to his collection . Of course , the other “ trophies ” couldn’t be displayed so publicly — clothes , jewelry , and other personal items from his murder victims : he had these “ trophies ” in his apartment , his van , at his workplace , little reminders that got him a little bit erect any time he thought about them , anytime he wanted , secrets hidden in plain sight , a trail of blood and agony that anyone could see but no one did . It’s not that he wanted to get caught ; it’s that the threat of exposure was exhilarating . How then to take it one step further ? How best to prove that he was in control , total control , of the living and the dead alike ! Bill had the answer .