Date With the Devil Read Online Free PDF Page A

the line, the agent was in the middle of routinely explaining flight arrangements when she heard screaming and the sounds of a scuffle. She immediately called the LAPD (from her Arizona workplace) and Hollywood officers were dispatched to the house. Upon their arrival, they found an open window.
    Inside, the officers discovered Engelson’s nearly nude body, dressed only in white socks and a gray sweatshirt pulled up to his neck. An attempt had been made to behead and emasculate him too. It would be later theorized that the killer had heard noises outside and left before he could complete the job.
    In another bedroom, investigators recoiled at a stunning sight. On the corner of a soft white comforter, neatly covering a king-sized bed, reposed the bloodied head of Robert Lees! A round belt buckle with a raised black-and-red five-point star covered the mouth, while the leather belt extended from the throat and onto the white fabric. One of the eyes had been gouged out. Few people have ever witnessed a more sickening vision. Not even a Quentin Tarantino film would have gone this far.
    At about the same time as the excruciating discovery, a woman who had tried unsuccessfully to call Lees showed up at his house and nearly fainted upon seeing his mutilated body.
    Every detail of the macabre event had been permanently etched in the mind of Detective Vicki Bynum, even though she has wished she could use a delete key to cleanse her memory.
    â€œI’ll never forget that day,” she said with a grimace. “I think it was Sunday—a beautiful day. Got the call to come in and meet with Liz, another detective, who now works cold cases. We were briefed by officers, who were really creeped out. At least we had the luxury of knowing they had already gone through the house and made sure no suspect was in there. We learned the victim had been on the phone making reservations with Southwest Airlines. He and his wife were going on a trip. She, thank God, had gone out shopping. All the windows were open, and none of them had screens. The house is a lovely old bungalow type, on the west side of our division. Dr. Engelson had been playing classical music while talking on the phone.
    â€œFortunately, the airline agent had already taken down his address and phone number. The psycho comes from the house where he had decapitated the first victim, and carried the head with him like a purse. He crawled through Dr. Engelson’s window while carrying that head. This poor guy is on the phone, sees this grisly sight, and gets attacked. The Southwest agent hears it and calls the police. Officers respond. There is blood outside. They look through the window and see someone lying on the hardwood floor. I get there and they are explaining this to us. We went in, very gingerly. I remember the first victim, a neighbor, had been mutilated. His penis had been severed and it was lying next to him. The assailant had also used a fireplace poker to stab him. The whole scene was as gruesome as it gets. So, in Engelson’s house, Liz and I are going through it and we get to a back bedroom. Officers on the scene hadn’t warned us. We are like, ‘What is that on the bed?’ We get closer and it’s the head of the previous victim, with the belt buckle, like a star shape, pulled tight against the mouth.” At that moment, Bynum wondered if she really wanted to stick with the job.
    Keven Graff had stolen Engelson’s car and driven to Hollywood Boulevard, where he abandoned it. Investigators found ample fingerprints at both crime scenes and they expedited computer identification. Within hours they started searching for Graff. LAPD chief William Bratton arranged for the suspect’s photo to appear on several local television stations. On Monday afternoon, an alert guard spotted him just outside the famous gate of Paramount Studios and called the police.
    It took four years to bring Graff to justice. In April 2008, he pled guilty to