Brian Lane - Mind Games with a Serial Killer

There’s no mention of any emotional aspect to that body, merely details as to the angle of the turned head and bent arm and crossed legs.

Of course, who are we to judge what a person should notice when he’s having an out-of-body experience and about to die, but yet… since Bill is admitting to us that body positioning is something that matters to him, then you would be remiss not to analyze the possible connection between him and more than a dozen dead women whose bodies were carefully manipulated into “interesting” positions. You decide whether any of these women were posed in a way that mimics Bill’s description of his own body after the wreck, and you decide what the various body posings look like to you. They each seem to tell a story, to reflect an “artist’s impression” of what each woman meant to him, what he saw in her or what she reminded him of. Once he’d killed them, these poor women were clay that Bill could mold into what he preferred them to be or what he believed they ought to be. He undressed them, re-dressed them in clothes that weren’t theirs, stuffed a sock down the throat of one, and a lightbulb up the vagina of another. Then he carefully twisted them and posed them.

After wrestling with whether this book should contain any photos of the bodies, I had to include them because the posing is so truly important to interpreting both the killer and the killings.

I will offer my thoughts on one victim, on Tina Leal, the girl who’s on the cover of this book. As you can see, she was found wearing clothes that weren’t hers—striped men’s socks up her legs, purple sweatpants with the legs tucked into the socktops, and a dark blue T-shirt with her arms folded inside the shirt. What you can’t see is that she had that GE Miser lightbulb placed up inside her, clear into the uterus. There’s an X ray that shows the lightbulb, and it may be the single eeriest thing I’ve ever seen.

Everyone associated with the case still trades thoughts about the meaning of that lightbulb, but everyone’s first impression is always the same: “Wow, it didn’t break!”

I actually think that’s the answer to the mystery.

Since we know Bill had a “problem” with babies, I’d spent months wondering whether that lightbulb was a surrogate fetus, or whether there was some symbolic illumination of the womb intended by it. Was Bill looking up there, trying to ask why and what for? Or was he merely trying to make the point that he needed to come first to “his” women, not some child who would displace him? Was he trying to reclaim his male identity by pointing out that unless a man expends his seed, then a woman can’t become a mother, no matter how much she wants to? Was this just the industrial tech version of Adam’s rib?

No, the answer lies in a different direction altogether.

Bear with me on this.

After Bill got to know and trust me, he told me about his happy life with girlfriend Bonnie Ashley, who he dated off and on from 1985 until 1989. He still professes to love her incredibly. She’s still “the one” for him. And there’s no question but that, by anyone’s standards, the life he led with her was a high end fantasy that he never could have thought he would achieve. She was also not only the prettiest woman he’d ever dated, she was pretty without qualification.

Bill and Bonnie lived in a terrific little house with a yard and a garden and pets; Bonnie worked and made a good income, while Bill held down a job but also made it his job to make this house a home, to contribute in artistic, aesthetic, sensitive, and husbandly ways.

Bonnie was “the rose” and Bill “the hollyhock”, and they lay together in their “flower bed”.

This was Disney, folks.

And, crucially, the rose was crazy jealous and possessive of her hollyhock.

Now this was the highest compliment Bill had ever received. For the first time, he had a woman he knew would not cheat on him, and yet she loved him so much she was worried about him cheating on her! His love actually mattered to her. This was a stunning turn of events for Bill. Bonnie followed him around, kept track of him, made him jettison the various other lady friends he had. Bonnie cried and got angry when she fretted that Bill might be wavering in his love for her, which of course he was not. But it was just so incredible that she would be so paranoid—she wanted him at any cost, and she constantly wanted to win him anew.

And, to top it all off, Bonnie had to have a hysterectomy, so she couldn’t have kids. Bill could be her whole world to her, and vice versa, without interference.

Of course, we will ignore the fact that, despite his happiness with Bonnie, Bill was still dating and murdering hookers. Once again, throw out the profile—no one could have profiled this.

So, as the story goes, one day, in the midst of their perfect little existence, Bill and Bonnie decided they wanted to add chickens to their menagerie. They would start with a hen. They went to a chicken farm, to a woman known as “The Chicken Lady”, and they bought a small incubator and they carefully and jointly picked out one fertilized egg. The Chicken Lady dangled a needle and thread over the egg, watched how the needle swayed and circled, and then she told them that she divined a hen in the egg rather than a rooster—this was a trick that, like others, the Chicken Lady could do with pregnant humans as well.

Bill and Bonnie took their egg and their incubator home, carefully set it all up and monitored it, and, lo and behold, the day came when a crack appeared in the egg. And then the little chick’s egg tooth and beak appeared—Bill and Bonnie couldn’t have been more excited.

Not one just to stand by and let nature take its course, Bill got out the “chicken birthing kit” he’d prepared for the occasion, and he helped the chick out of its egg, helped crack away the shell using cold water and a small paintbrush to brush away the blood where the chick was attached to its yolk sac.

And Bill and Bonnie had themselves a fine and healthy hen.

Bill immediately lay down and let the chick nestle in his chest hair.

Of course, the chick imprinted on him and followed him around like a dog. “Chicken Girl” is what he and Bonnie named it, and Chicken Girl was the perfect pet for the perfect lives of this perfect couple in their perfect house.

Chicken Girl quickly grew and learned to go in and out of the house through the doggie door, and Chicken Girl would fly up to your hand and gently take a bite of meat when proffered, and, as Bill watched with rapt fascination, she would lay eggs inside the house on the kitchen counter. Chicken Girl would even let the real dog, Bonnie’s dog, Myrtle the spaniel, carry her around in its slobbery dog mouth. Yes, everyone and everything was smitten by Chicken Girl

And, finally, when Chicken Girl was old enough, Bill and Bonnie went back to the Chicken Lady for another egg—a rooster— which was similarly incubated and hatched by the perfect couple in their perfect house. Tellingly, the rooster never acquired a name, but he did do his duty, and soon Chicken Girl’s eggs were hatching with dozens of Chicken Girlettes, all of which she would lead around the house and yard, following Chicken Dad Bill. Yes, the rooster may have been the biological father, but he was treated as a nameless, spiritual zero, and this finally led to a confrontation.

The rooster spurred Bill.

And Bill tossed the rooster clear across the yard.

Shaken, the rooster steered clear of Bill after that, but he did fly at Bonnie whenever he had the opportunity, so the perfect couple gave this not-so-perfect rooster away to friends.

And life at the perfect house became perfect again.

Until Bill and Bonnie came back from a camping trip and found Chicken Girl gone.