Saturday, June 10, 2006

Of Kittyns and Killers

I was asked last night if I was a serial killer groupie. I get asked that quite often, come to think of it. So I figured I'd lay it out here and then people won't have to worry that I'm the lost Manson girl or something.

I am not a serial killer groupie. I do not want to spawn with Rick Ramirez or even a Menendez brother. I don't think they're cool or fun or anything to admire. I am, however, a true crime buff who has been studying serial killers and spree killers for 25 years. I've read every book by Douglas and Hazelwood I can get my hands on and I have an extensive library (sometimes being a rare book dealer's daughter has its perks).

I also have a bizarre and decidedly black sense of humour. I want to own a Gacy Pogo painting. I collect serial killer memorabilia. I have the Serial Killer cards that came out a thousand years ago and an original Life Magazine with Manson's picture on it.

How did it start? I'll tell ya.

I was born and raised in Westchester County, NY. When I was young enough to understand but not old enough to comprehend, David Berkowitz was causing panic in my area. We would later find out that the place my mother used to go walk the dog every night was right across from a regular hangout for Berkowitz. The close proximity of something that had the entire region in complete panic gripped me. My biggest thrill in life was watching "The Night Stalker" with my dad, I think I was born loving the creepy.

Even as a kid I never believed Berkowitz acted alone. There were too many discrepancies and differences in witness accounts and a few of the witness-prompted sketches definitely show different people. Early on I was fascinated by the conspiracy end of Berkowitz and the rest of the story people outside of the metro area didn't hear. Like Sam Carr getting murdered. Like Sam Carr's son getting murdered. I dove deep into trying to research The Process but at the time it was next to impossible to get anything but whispered rumours.

In 1982 I was hanging out with some friends who lived down the road from Untermeyer Park. This is where Berkowitz allegedly went with his 'group' to worship Satan. Untermeyer Park is a strange place. It's a ruins now, gorgeous and at the same time eerie as can be. It's hard to stand in the gazebo and not feel like you're being watched. The local ghost-hunting societies swear the place is haunted and it really is creepy at night. Wait, let me get you a link or two.

Untermeyer Park - 1
Untermeyer Park - 2
Untermeyer Park - 3
Untermeyer Park - One More
Purrfect creepy view of the weird gazebo and the start of the walk down.

The park itself is somewhat of a mystery. Built around the start of the 20th century, Untermeyer Park was a grand villa and grounds that were never completed. Where the house was there is now a hospital. The Park consists of the ruins of the gardens, the Greco-Roman architecture looks badly out of place in the middle of nothing else. I can imagine at one time it was a glorious place but now it's just creepy.

So there we were hanging out one day, bored. My friend Chris suggested we go to Untermeyer and go down to the Devil's Cave. This was where Berkowitz and crew allegedly went. It's part of the park but separated. Running parallel to the park is the Old Croton Aqueduct and this is where the Cave is.

We had to cross through the ruins and we stopped in the gazebo to decide if we really wanted to do this. I was scared but excited and completely into it. Chris and my other two friends had been there before, this was a first for me and the curiosity beat out the fear.

We had to walk down at least 300 steps. Old stone steps, they weren't even really steps. Century-old masonry at work, slabs of granite stuck into the steep incline down. It took us a while to get down there, the trees grow denser and it's almost a suburban forest sort of setting.

The first thing we saw when we finally got to the bottom was the corpse of a German Shepherd. One of the girls started crying and wanted to go but there was no way in Heaven or Hell I was leaving after I just hoofed it down a friggin' mountain on thin stone steps. I was absolutely terrified when I looked at the dead dog. It had obviously been there a while but you could see it had been cut up by a knife and not another animal.

We trudged through the woods and there it was - Devil's Cave. Except it wasn't a cave. It looked like a cave, there was an opening that led inside but it was actually part of the old aqueduct. This raised the creep factor and the crying girl, even though she had claimed to have been there before, took off back up. The rest of us took a deep breath and went in.

It was dark. Not so dark that we couldn't see that every inch of the wall was covered in symbols and stars and obscure writing. Not so dark that we couldn't see that it was an antechamber, there were three exits leading who knows where.

I don't think I was breathing by this point, my legs were shaking and I was beyond scared. As colloquial as it sounds, there are times when you really can 'feel' evil. Everything about that place felt ominous and the stuff on the wall wasn't just graffiti left by people after the events. I had listened to enough talk of The Process between my godfather (a cop who worked the case) and my dad to understand that this was a bad place that bad people came to. It was a feeling I can't really describe thinking to myself 'holy shit, Berkowitz was here.'

I wanted to go into one of the tunnels, they said they'd wait for me there. I wandered in a bit, trying to read the stuff on the walls and trying not to piss in my Jordache jeans. I kept seeing cloaked figures that weren't there and every hair on my body was standing at end. I walked about 7 minutes in before the fear won out and I went back to the main part of the Cave.

I was alone.

My asshole friends thought it would be funny to leave the newb alone in David Berkowitz's cave. Har har.

That moment of knowing I was alone in the Devil's Cave with all that crap on the walls and a dead dog right outside was the most intense pang of fear I have ever felt. Ever. Even more than when my house was robbed and I had a gun pointed at my head. It was an utterly crippling fear and for a few seconds I couldn't even move to get the Hell out of there. I was struck full-force by the terror that one man could cause.

That was when it was born. A lifetime desire to understand the sociopathic/psychopathic mind as best I can.

It was late afternoon and getting towards dusk, when I finally got my shit together and left the Cave it took me a few seconds to get my head together. The panic factor was setting in and the only thing that saved me from going the wrong way was that stupid dead dog.

I flew up those stairs, it was probably the best workout of my entire life. I flew up the stairs with imaginary Satanists hot on my tail. It was a mix of panic and endorphin and the awakening of a lifetime passion for knowledge and my ass got up those stairs in record time.

My asshat friends were hanging out in the gazebo, they all got a good guffaw as I collapsed on the ground panting. It was like some sick hazing thing, I had made the rite of passage without soiling myself. I let them think they had pulled off some great gag, I had enough of a sense of humour now that I was back up top to appreciate the gag aspect. Besides, they had given me something I would continue to devour all information I could find on it for the next 25 years. Fair trade-off, I think.

At this point, I'm probably as good as the novice profiler. I've read everything from textbooks used in actual training to autopsy reports to you name it. It's a burning desire for knowledge that is never quelled as different serial killers emerge with the changing times. The human mind can be such a twisted and fascinating thing, I will never get enough knowledge to satiate the thirst.

My goal for this Summer is to locate the exact spot Wisteria Cottage stood at so I can say I've been to where Berkowitz did his voodoo and Albert Fish lived.

/end really long-winded story.

1. I need to go to that sick-ass park. With a camera.

   Dave McAwesome  on  06/10  at  05:00 PM

2. that was a great post! however I dreamed about it last night and woke up in a cold sweat!

   katkat  on  06/11  at  08:35 AM

3. and what, my dear, is your take on Vancouver’s newest name, Robert Pickton? profile? etiology? motivation?

   rilah  on  06/11  at  10:05 AM

4. The pig farmer!  He’s an scary-ass dude, I read somewhere they suspect he could have killed 60+ women and made them into sausage he sold.  What I don’t get though is the police keeping it quiet with all these women vanishing.  That should have been all over the news, prostitues or not.

   Pickton is a serious freak, he’s right up there with the biggies from the US.

   Are you in Vancouver?  We get no news of this stuff down here, I have to search it out

   WebKittyn  on  06/11  at  10:36 AM

5. yup. me and gusgreeper be vancouverites.

   and yes, he’s officially been charged with something like 54 murders based on dna evidence from his pig farm alone. who knows how many others there could be?

   the scary thing is thinking of how long it went on and how mnay outside forces, through indifference or direct links, were involved, such as the vacnouver police and the hell’s angels.

   rilah  on  06/12  at  11:08 AM
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