Serial Killer Investigations Read Online Free PDF Page A

lived close to Ruth Mercado. The house proved to be a shabby building on South Norton Avenue, and police who searched it found the walls covered with nude pinups, in which some of the women were bound and gagged. There were also a number of lengths of rope—it seemed Glatman took an interest in bondage. Brooks realised he had his man.
    Glatman agreed to take a lie detector test, and when Ruth Mercado’s name was mentioned, the stylus gave a nervous leap. A few minutes later, Glatman was confessing to murdering her.
    He described how he had obtained Mercado’s number from one of the numerous Los Angeles modelling agencies that booked girls who were willing to pose clothed, semi-clad, or in the nude (agencies freely gave out their client’s contact information in those days). Introducing himself as Frank Johnson, he spoke to the 24-year-old stripper. When he called on her on 22 July 1958, some instinct made her plead illness. The following evening, however, he showed up at her apartment with his automatic pistol, and took her to her bedroom. There he tied her up and raped her. Then, telling her they were going for a picnic, he marched her down to his car. He drove her out to the desert, and spent a day taking photographs of her—bound and gagged—and raping her. In between rapes he released her and allowed her to eat. Then he told her that he would take her home. On the way, he stopped the car for ‘one more shot’, tied her up once more, and strangled her with a rope.
    He then went on to describe the murder of Judy Dull. Calling on a model who had recently arrived from Florida, he had looked at her portfolio—but he was fascinated by a photograph he saw on the wall of 19-year-old Judy. She was married, with a 14-month-old daughter, but separated from her journalist husband. Glatman obtained her telephone number, and the following day he called her and asked her to pose for photographs later that afternoon. Dull was initially reluctant until he explained that they would have to shoot at her apartment, since his own was being used. Posing in her own home seemed safe enough, but when Glatman arrived there, he told her that he had managed to borrow a studio from a friend. It was, in fact, his own apartment.
    Once there, he told her to take off her dress and put on a skirt and sweater. He then explained that he had to tie her hands behind her—he was taking a photograph for the cover of a ‘true detective’ magazine. Dubious but compliant, she allowed him to tie her hands behind her, bind her knees together, and place a gag in her mouth. He snapped several photographs, then unbuttoned her sweater, pulled down her bra, and removed her skirt. After that he shot more photographs. Finally, when she was clad only in panties, he laid her on the floor and started to fondle her. She struggled and protested through the gag. Glatman became impotent if a woman showed signs of having a mind of her own—total passivity was required for his fantasy. He threatened her with a gun until she promised not to resist, and then raped her twice. After that, both sat naked on the sofa and watched television. Judy promised that if he would let her go she would never tell anyone what had happened. Glatman pretended to agree—he wanted her cooperation. He assured her that he would drive her out to a lonely place and release her, and then he would leave town. Then he drove into the desert near Phoenix, Colorado, and strangled her, after first taking more photographs. He buried her in a shallow grave.
    Glatman then confessed to the murder of 24-year-old divorcee Shirley Ann Bridgeford, a mother of two children, whom he contacted through the Patty Sullivan Lonely Hearts Club; he registered as George Williams, a plumber by profession. He made a date with her over the telephone to go square dancing on 8 March 1958, but when he picked her up at her mother’s home in Sun Valley, he told her he would rather take her for a drive in the moonlight. After