THE MAKING OF A SERIAL KILLER

Abstract

I June 1987, 40-year-old Arthur Shawcross was granted his freedom—freedom to kill. He had been convicted in 1972 of murdering two young children in upstate New York. His first victim was 10-year-old Jack Blake, whom he kidnapped while Jack was on his way to a friend’s house to play. Shawcross confessed to having raped and butchered the boy, and then devouring his genitals. Shawcross’s other victim was 8-year-old Karen Ann Hill, whom he raped and murdered. Shawcross served the minimum of a 15to 25-year sentence before being paroled. Despite his hideous past, Shawcross blended well into the Rochester community where he settled after his release from custody. It didn’t take him long to pick up where he left off, only this time victimizing prostitutes rather than children. The middle-age killer appeared, to the hustlers he targeted, like just another john. Overweight and balding, he hardly seemed threatening to the women he picked up, even after they had been alerted that a serial killer was on the loose and preying on streetwalkers. By March 1988, the police in Rochester had discovered the partially nude bodies of two prostitutes floating in the Genesee River gorge. One woman had been asphyxiated, the other shot. The police saw no clear-cut pattern to link these homicides, other than the victims’ occupation. The homicides drew little attention in part because it is hardly unusual for prostitutes to get killed because of the sleazy clientele with whom they do business. Six months later, however, the police found the skeletal remains of a third victim in the same area; shortly thereafter, they uncovered a fourth body, also in the river gorge. By this point, if only because of the high frequency of the killings, the police were forced to confront the frightening probability that a serial killer was on the prowl and targeting women of the night. By Thanksgiving 1988, the 10th body, that of 29-year-old June Stott, was discovered. This case was strikingly different from the other nine, however. Not only was the murder particularly grotesque—the woman’s body had been eviscerated from the neck down to her pubic bone—but Stott also was the first victim who was not a prostitute. It is commonplace for serial killers to increase their level of brutality as they get bored with less vicious behavior and as they grow more comfortable with murder. It is also commonplace for them to branch out to more respectable victims as they become convinced that they are smarter than the police and will never be apprehended. Shawcross was no different in this regard. His sense of invincibility and carelessness ultimately led to his demise. Long after dumping the body of his 12th victim, June Cicero, in Simon Creek, Shawcross returned to mutilate her corpse. Surveying the area by helicopter, the Rochester police spied Shawcross getting into his car, which was parked on a bridge some 15 feet above Cicero’s body.