to tell his story. He appears to be somewhat depressed at the present time and his predominant mood would appear to be of depressed, dejected embarrassment. His affect is appropriate to thought content. There is no evidence of suicide, homicide, or destructive urges. He feels that he sometimes has trouble controlling his temper but that it has never got him into trouble except on this last occasion when he maintains that he cannot remember too clearly exactly what he did but was told that the girl received a broken nose. There is no evidence of hallucinations, delusions, or illusions. He denies any sense of fear except over what is going to happen to him, and he says he has some sense of guilt over having got into trouble but does not feel particularly guilty over having taken the photographs. … Intellectually, he is functioning well within the limits of his educational background. His insight and judgment are questionable; he feels that there must be something the matter with him and he hopes that he will be able to find out and have it cured here. …
The provisional diagnosis of Jerry Brudos' problem was: "Adjustment reaction of adolescence with sexual deviation, fetishism."
Jerry was not a full-time patient at the mental hospital. During the day, he was allowed to attend high school at North Salem High School. He moved among the other students as a nonentity, a tall, pudgy youth with raging acne.
He was smart, probably brilliant, in mathematics and science, and yet no one remembers him. None of his teachers. None of his fellow students. Years later, one of his defense attorneys would realize with a start that he and Jerry had been in the same homeroom at North Salem High. But the lawyer could remember no more about Jerry Brudos in high school than anyone else could.
When he became infamous, teachers and peers tried to remember Jerry. They still couldn't. He had moved through North Salem High and left no ripple behind. He was a loner. The odd duck, hurrying through the halls with his head bent. His after-school residence at the state hospital was kept secret. All anyone at North Salem High knew was that he never came to the football and basketball games and never showed up at the dances, where Elvis Presley's records of "Blue Suede Shoes" and "Heartbreak Hotel" played over and over.
He belonged to another world.
Jerry Brudos' fantasies, as black and horrific as they were, remained his own. When he stared at the pretty high school girls, at their clothing, and especially at their wonderful shoes, he did it covertly.
At the mental hospital, Jerry talked often with the doctors. A second diagnosis was "borderline schizophrenic reaction" a handy catch-all diagnosis of the era.
Jerry remained at the hospital for eight or nine months. Henry and Eileen Brudos were adamant that they didn't want him home until he was cured of whatever ailed him.
But before a year had passed, he did come home to the family farm in Dallas. Jerry had not been missed much. Eileen had been working at a wool mill, and Henry worked the farm and had a job in town. Larry was doing well in college. Jerry was the only problem they had.
In the end, the staff at Oregon State Hospital had determined that Jerry Brudos was not that far removed from normal. A bit immature, certainly, overly shy, and given to tall stories, but not particularly dangerous. When he left the hospital, he was advised to "grow up."
Back in Corvallis, Jerry returned to high school. There were 202 students in his graduating class. He enrolled in audiovisual and stagecraft courses for his electives. It is somewhat ironic that this non-communicative youth should pick courses that dealt principally with communication, with reaching out and touching others through the radio or from the stage. What he could not seem to do in a face-to-face encounter, he apparently sought to do through the media. His goal was to obtain an FCC license so that he could be employed at a radio or