Jerry Brudos: The Shoe Fetish Slayer (Part 1) | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Ash and I'm Elena and this is [Music] mid this is morid we're apart again you guys it's
like a [ __ ] running theme it's t the season like we both said at the exact same time last night that was wild that
was yeah it's the season of uh weird stomach viruses so uh it has hit our household and so I decided you know
let's not spread it around to anyone else yeah I said I'm happy here in my non diseased household yeah it's hit one
of my kids we're hoping to contain it but you know how that goes everybody so yeah pray for us yeah well two out of
three now technically yeah technically it has and just parents out there so you know weird virus strange virus very
quick so that's good that's nice um it's a stomach virus but it's not as intense
as like the normal like neuro virus or something like that yeah if you're going to have a stomach virus the best way to
do it is this quick yeah I mean I'm going to knock on wood I'll take this one cuz it seems to be a literal 12-hour
experience o and then they're kind of just on their way out of it like it started last night was over pretty quick
with my my oldest and now she's she's sitting eating Saltines Queen and you know watching Bluey oh what I would give
to be watching Bluey right now right she's Liv I love Bluey so much it's so soothing it is so soothing it really is
I love it it's very nice so I'm hoping you know she'll be on the and and be eating by tomorrow like real food so
we'll see yeah last week was a doozy of a week specifically but like it it was pretty rough for me but I feel like for
you it was like there was a couple extra hits that you took that I didn't necessarily yeah um so we then we did
like a little simmer pot I I'll post what we did it seemed to be a good one I did at my house twice and we did it in
the Pod lab once and I feel like the negativity went away and then I feel like your oldest barfing she just barfed
out the last of the negativity I know I feel like she's she's like a real one like she really is and I think she was
just like I got it she's kind she's like uh she's like in The Green Mile John coffee I've never seen that he just like
takes in all the bad stuff he'll like touch someone and take in all the bad stuff and then he evacuates it out of
his body through like it's like bees or something or like oh okay I think I've seen like a preview of that yeah he just
like he like coughs it all out yeah I feel like my my girl she did that last night she took all the [ __ ] of the week
and then she just barfed it out yeah she said but she's a real one that's my girl
right there you woke up to like a lot of good news this morning yeah we woke up to uh very good news about a guest we're
going to have in the first part of the year next year like uh February uh we can't tell you yet cuz it's it's too
exciting and we want to make sure we lock it down first but that's it's going to be a very exciting one it was like
first thing in the morning it was like hey here you go and I was like oh you woke up and texted that like it was
going to be a little bit before we could record so I like stayed in my warm cozy
bed but I put my ringer on in case I went back to sleep and then I saw a group text with you and this
person oh my God cuz we were just talking about it at the end of last week yes and we were about to check in just
to be like oh do we do we think this will happen and they checked in which was wild yeah um so that's going to be
exciting and then guys this is a big I knew ghost was announcing something this morning and I
said oh no what is it what could it be and they had a chapter in the lore and they they edged us on Papa again but no
they announced a [ __ ] World Tour I thought Alina was going to like like combust lost my damn mind and they come
to Boston coming to they're shipping up to Boston they coming to Boston kid and I'm so [ __ ] excited where are they
playing in Boston the TD Garden oh [ __ ] that's a that's a fun venue yeah he they're doing the big ones I was going
to say yeah damn I think they're going to New York doing uh Madison Square Garden for the first time too that would
be Square Garden is also such a fun venue I saw Harry Styles there very different but yeah very different but
you know very very different but still wonderful still awesome yeah and Theatrical MH so there's that I want to
go to that one really bad I feel like that would be a fun one to New York yeah yeah make it a whole I'll go to New York
with you yes you heard it here folks as she's com I to New York with you to the New York
show I'll go with you it will be but I'm really excited and that means I mean guys we're going to know who the new pop
is soon because they haven't they redacted the name of the tour because I'm assuming it has something it would
give something away yeah but this will be the new Papa on tour so we you must be getting new music I'm assuming I'm in
I'm very interested to see like who this papa will be the next iteration of Papa
yes I can't wait I I love the ex the excitement that you get is akin to a child on Christmas morning like the The
Light Within your eyes even right now via Zoom I can it's it's just radiating at me it is I get so excited like when I
saw that they were going to be announcing something today I sat with my little YouTube up and they count down
and I just waited for it I love it I get excited for you it's so fun and like even when I see it I'm like oh SE I know
you're you guys are always like here you go but we also and like this this ties in we went to the night fair this
weekend because um I went there with wicked good books from Salem and we did like a fun little meet and greet signing
thing like a very impromptu thing it was really fun and they still have some books and they ship everywhere yeah they
still have some signed books so go um Butcher and The Ren and butcher game so check it out we'll link wicked good
books in the show notes so you can go to it if you want to grab one um but I got
to meet a ton of people and a lot of people the amount of people who said you got me into ghost mhm made my heart sore
and it was so funny cuz it was like super cold so we had like big jackets on but anytime someone would say it I'd be
like show them your shirt cuz she was literally wearing a Ghost shirt and it was like John obviously
John showed me ghosts like a couple years ago and it's so fun that now I'm like spreading the good word that I'm
just spreading the good word of ghost and it's nice to hear I love it I love seeing you guys like unite in the wild
yes I love it whenever somebody says it I'm like [ __ ] yeah another one down I love it I love it a lot but we
also got to meet one of my favorite people that I've ever met in my life no my favorite person I've ever met in my
life Chelsea Chelsea Chelsea from Alaska Chelsea from Alaska just I said it too I was like I
was like Chelsea this has been a [ __ ] week like it's been a real [ __ ] week like that morning Elena got a flat tire
on the way to my house for book club and found out I have to replace all four of
the tires on my vehicle at the same time that was my favorite you got one flat tire and they were like hey yeah
actually all four of these are about to go and it wasn't even like a you know sometimes you go to the car dealership
and they're like oh my God the whole car is broken should you just get a new one
it was lit for real they're bald cuz Mikey had looked at your tires recently and was like yeah girly these are bald
they're getting kind of bald so that happened and I was like oh awesome we're just taking this right into the weekend
but then the night fair was so lovely and so amazing and everybody we met was so was such a [ __ ] shot in the arm
like it was yes such a cool exper I love the night Fair Salem just gives me always gives me life just oh yeah
breathing the air in Salem gives life it really does the second we like drive over like when you cross into to Salem
we're both just like it's just like this nice little moment and then meeting everybody was
just like the Salem night fair that environment is such a [ __ ] cool environment and then yeah Matt and Ryan
absolutely kill it Chelsea we we kept Chelsea as a highlight on our Instagram because Chelsea forever when I tell you
this the energy that Chelsea brought was unlike anything I have ever experienced
yeah it but just pure pure light radiating out of Chelsea yes and and all her friends too and her sister yes and
every they were all so lovely and I was like Chelsea I've had such a [ __ ] week
including getting the flat tire this morning and I was like I think it the universe rewarded me for putting up with
this week with you like I think they were like here's Chelsea yeah I truly believe that no Chelsea was iconic if
you follow us on Instagram go find the Chelsea highlight and you will see just how iconic Chelsea is she just Chelsea's
from Alaska she's a [ __ ] marine biologist like you could never be as cool as Chelsea you tried nobody can you
you should try aspire to be as cool as as Chelsea but I don't know if you'll get there butd that's that's all of
that's going to be my New Year's resolution is she just like be more like Chelsea yeah radiate the light that
Chelsea radiates it was amazing and also it's so funny my my nephew Aiden who we've
talked about a lot on this podcast I think he just texted me and said in all caps did you see that ghost is going
back on to he just left I was like oh man I missed it I wanted to see that live reaction right I wanted to I wish I
could have seen him but yeah so a wonderful start to the week not great last night but no but it it was the end
you know she my my girly is feeling better this morning so I'm hoping that that that Trends in the right direction
and we got two good good bits of news this morning so that was nice yeah I get to carve pumpkins with my nephews later
I'm pretty stoked about that see the A+ Behavior today yeah it's a great Monday yeah and after this I'm going to go
downstairs and I'm G to watch more Bluey with my girl [ __ ] you I'm gonna I I'm
gonna watch Bluey by myself when I go downstairs hell yeah it's very calming but before we do that unfortunately
everybody I'm going to take you to a dark place yeah now spooky season is never over here um never it's never over
but you know when we are in the official spooky season mode we give you a lot of
like the Paranormal stuff and the strange history and the haunted stuff and all that um and now I'm going to uh
I'm going to rip you out of that with a bang she's like come on get in the True Crime car we're back in the True Crime
car are uh we are doing a pretty uh a pretty big one today yeah we are doing Jerome brutos the foot fetish Slayer I
didn't know his name was Jerome yeah you might know him as Jerry brutos M I do uh
I didn't feel like we were on that level yet but I I probably will refer to him as Jerry because it's easier it is yeah
I don't know why I think I've only heard him as Jerry mostly I think just because
he's widely known as Jerry I get that if you've watched mind Hunter they portrayed him in a horrifyingly Accurate
Way on there the way they do that with like every killer that they portray like Ed keer that was so accurate I was like
did you hire Ed keer to act in this show oh yeah Richard spec and uh Son of Sam yep like David burkowitz I was like
that's David burkowitz like it's crazy you brought him on the show like uncanny deaged him like it's really scary uh if
you haven't watched mind Hunter it's a it's a brilliant show and it was taken away from us too soon yeah kind of
ridiculous I need to finish season two it's pretty great but it's going to make you sad I'm sorry can I just tell you
one thing Drew and I drew and I started Dexter oh my goodness yeah we've never seen it before I am so jealous that you
get to experience it for the first time but I have to warn you we know the end is not going to it's it's it's one of
those we've heard that the end is not quite like the beginning no no it's not but everybody loves it like so much like
overall so I was like uh actually Drew said it he was like cuz it's on Netflix right now yeah and he was like have you
ever watched Dexter and I was like I've seen I've seen the episode of Boyd Fowler because that's what me and Elina
call each other but I've never seen beyond that it is the first few seasons are literally like immaculate yeah we
watched the we watched the uh first half of the first episode but I fell asleep cuz it was after the night fair so it
was late but I'm ready to die back in oh you're going to love it yeah I really like you're really going to love it I'm
excited for you sorry I just had to tell you that but you know what back to back
to business because yes here we go this is going to be a rough one so okay this one buckle up buckle up everybody so
this is going to be two parts because there's just a lot going on uh you're going to need a minute okay so uh this
takes place over the years of 1968 and very well into 1969 um it was in Salem Oregon several women
went missing during that time and would later turn up dead all murdered horrifically and showing signs of being
brutally tortured oh uh at first it seemed like they were never going to connect these women and they were never
going to figure out what happened to them but luckily finally investigators questioned the friends of one of the
victims who we will get to um and they finally came to identify their suspect and eventually arrested 30 30-year-old
30 30 years old yeah when you look at him you say that's a hard 30 yeah well when you when you that full of yuck it
usually is yeah it leeches out of you yeah uh 30-year-old Jerome Jerry brutos damn now ultimately Jerry was going to
be convicted of the murders of Jan Whitney Karen sprinker and Linda Sally um and his capture and the study of his
mind actually ended up establishing what would eventually become the FBI I's behavioral analysis unit oh really so he
was part of that whole thing so it was a very p a very important capture very important event would crime so let's
talk about Jerry shall we cuz I guess unfortunately we need to at least know what the [ __ ] was going on with that I
don't know a lot about his like you know childhood or like entrance into life it's not great okay I mean I had a
feeling when he ended up doing what he did that it probably wasn't awesome but then there are those cases where it is
fine you know yeah I mean it's I feel like it's rare that it's like a very nurturing environment it is yeah but he
was born January 31st 1939 in Webster South Dakota uh he was the second born to eileene and Henry brutos uh Henry the
father he was kind of like when it came to employment he was very unstable um he would find work farming
you know random odd job but he wasn't very good at it so he would end up having to move his family around a lot
so they were never they didn't really have a lot of stability yeah and at no point would the brutos
household be considered safe or supportive oh no for for those children uh Henry was a very insecure man because
again he was not good at anything he did uh so you know what is there to be secure about I suppose you know U he was
also uh an [ __ ] he flew into a rage a lot like very quickly he could not accept any kind of criticism what he
deemed criticism um and eileene the mother was referred to as a stolid woman who dressed neatly and plainly oh okay
it was made pretty clear from eileene the mother that Jerry's brother Larry was her favorite child oh that's always
so [ __ ] up when people like yeah like you can't announce who your favorite is and so what is wrong with you that you
have a favorite that's insane like like it's like what they're children that in and of itself is very strange to have a
favorite but then to go the extra step and announce who it is is [ __ ] that's the thing like maybe you get along with
one on like a better level and you feel like more of a connection there like maybe that's what she was talking about
but it's like to then let the other one know that is messed up and then not just
like work on that right yeah so she she really she was very much more supportive of his brother
Larry and honestly she didn't make any bones about letting Jerry know that she wanted a girl and he and she was hoping
he was a girl oh no so it's very it's a little it's got some ede Vibes with the mother kind of thing where it's like
these awful feelings of like you're not good enough and you're not what I wanted
and you like you weren't supposed to be born even you know yeah and she literally did not hide her
disappointment that he was even born wow yeah that's somebody who should not have
had children yeah and they didn't form a bond yeah if you have that like I understand you know like when you're
like having kids being like Oh like I'd love a girl or like oh I'd love a boy but to be disappointed in what you get
is insane you should be psyched that you have a healthy child exactly exactly like that's and because of this whole
thing like they never bonded and she never made any attempt to bond with that child and then she was very abusive and
hostile to him his whole life and just Jerry not Larry mostly I think she was just to Mo like I think she was in
general but she very much took her anger out on him took it mostly out on Jerry I
don't think Larry got as much at all that's so [ __ ] and later Jerry would describe his mother as stubborn and a
selfish egotist oh okay damn yeah so she sounds like she was also like very uh narcissistic it does sound that way kind
of Vibes so I'm not diagnosing but like has those yes um now this one incident that Jerry could remember from when he
was younger definitely had a profound effect the kind of thoughts he would have later on I'm not saying what he did
later on but like definitely led him into a strange thought process one afternoon while exploring an old
junkyard when he was 5 years old that's good that he was just out in the junkyard at 5 yeah that's your youngest
in the junkyard like imagine my youngest in a junkyard by themselves no no no um
he was just you know he was out there 5 years old just exploring a local junkyard and he came across I know and
he came across a pair of patent leather high heeled shoes in the trash awesome and his mother was a very very extremely
conservative woman so she did not wear high heels she wore plain flats and that was it okay so he had never seen high
heels so this was just something new to him he was just like whoa and he was kind of fascinated by them so he took
them home okay because you like he's like he's five and so he's back in his bedroom and he's like playing with the
shoes and he's putting them on himself he's just walking around like they're fun thing to play with and he was just
kind of parading around his bedroom at 5 years old with these shoes which honestly so his mother caught him which
any I feel like in any other circumstance this would just be like adorable oh you found like what the I
hope those aren't dirty like fears like he let's watch they're from the trash yeah I'll get you some costume ones but
she did not take it well she very different time yeah very different time and she was very conservative so this
was how she felt no matter what and she was Furious she berated him she was very
harsh on him she like punished him for it and demanded that he get rid of the shoes it's like at 5 years old you don't
understand what is why that's wrong precisely that is literally what it's not wrong anyways but like you would
understand why she would say it's wrong like and that's the thing he could not understand why she was angry right like
why did that make you angry I didn't do anything to upset anybody I wasn't hurting anyone I wasn't hurting myself
like I'm just playing with these things I found that aren't hurting anyone I don't understand what the problem is and
so he didn't think he'd done anything wrong cuz he hadn't and and so he hid the shoes in his bedroom instead of
getting rid of them okay and a few days later she found him playing with the shoes again and she was even more angry
and then forced him to watch as she burned them in the backyard what the [ __ ] that's like sadistic and it's just
[ __ ] weird Behavior like you're burning the shoes what the [ __ ] what are they going to do like what are you doing
and not only that she then locked him in his bedroom for the rest of the day at 5
years old locking your kid in their bedroom ever is a weird thing to do but at 5 years old like hello are you diabal
that's insane also like what if they get hurt that's the thing I'm like what what
are you doing and when he was finally let out of his bedroom he immediately ran to the home of a neighbor who was a
single woman that he had bonded with oh this single woman kind of was like a standin for a mother it sound I was I
was wondering if that was the like she kind of took care of him a little bit she knew what was going on sounds like
your mom sucks and it's like it sounds like this woman was like a real one like she was just trying to she was trying to
like be there for him but she knew especially at the time it's like you know in the 30s and 40s and it's like
she's not going to step in she doesn't know what the boundaries are here so she's just kind of be in there for him
when she can right kind of thing and letting him into her home which I'm like what a nice lady I know yeah like damn I
wish that lady was more of a influence in his life to be honest sounds like his mom was just there too much yes exactly
well and then unfortunately a year later the family moved to Riverton California
oh um and that's where Jerry started attending first grade um years later Jerry would talk about this period as
another significant moment in the development of his fetish that would later come out later violently okay um
his first grade teacher would wear high heels every day and every day Jerry would just be fascinated with them and
daydream about them he just thought they were the prettiest shoes you could possibly wear he loved them I mean high
heels are great I mean I love high heels I get it too at this point yeah and it was well known that this particular
teacher would bring two pairs of shoes to school a pair for work and a pair for the afternoon she would like change into
sneakers kind of thing yeah she was like my feet hurt I'm good yeah and like I guess like you know she would change
into them like later in the day yeah and and one afternoon when he could no longer resist the temptation he stole
the pair of high heels out of the teacher's desk when she stepped out of the room and he hid them in the play
area and he was intending to bring them home later but he was hiding them for later this is so interesting but one of
the children found them yeah and by you know before the end of the day and brought them back to the teacher and
nothing crazy happened from that but it was just clearly a moment of like he's kind of taking it further by stealing
them now yeah and this time in Jerry's life was also significant because he was dealing with a lot of health problems oh
um in fact during Second Grade he missed a lot of school he was home a lot and in
the hospital a lot with measles laryngitis he had two fungal infections that required surgery wow um and he also
had according to Jerry he had uh problems with the veins in his legs and it would cause him a lot of pain and
difficulty moving oh wow yeah so according to him he said the veins were ballooning and I had to have the
operations because they were not doing their job so I'm assuming there was a lot of like circulation issues and yeah
now the multiple surgeries and other things he was dealing with meant that he had to stay at home a lot oh no and that
meant he had to be with his mom a lot uhhuh and at this point in second grade he had already come to despise her
you're like seven years old literally that's crazy like that's sad yeah that's very
sad he spent most of his time trying to avoid her at in second grade seven years
old and like a you know a lot of young people these early life experiences are eventually going to kind of mingle
within like your adult experiences and they're going to create certain things that you you know fetishes certain fears
certain things that you're attracted to like things that repulse you like this your your Early Childhood really does
have a lot to do with that they call them your formative years exactly it's like your develop where you're
developing is like so such a huge part of you and it's like that's where we all end up being in [ __ ] therapy and
finding out these random things that you're like [ __ ] that's where that comes from like [ __ ] oh that's why I do that
or that's why I [ __ ] hate that yes like a lot and a lot of it is trauma based a lot of it is negative based of
course there's those core memories that form great things later in life yeah like traditions and
things that you love and make you happy and things you know your career Hobbies but these negative things really make
their Mark unfortunately and the poor relationship with his very abusive mother and feelings of Abandonment you
know those kind of things would lead to negative opinions about women in general
as he grew older it's interesting how that happens a lot with boys yes you know like when boys have especially like
when they're younger and they have such a bad relation relationship with their mom a lot of times it leeches into their
opinions about all women because that's just like their first experience with a woman yeah I feel like the same doesn't
necessarily happen with girls like as often you know yeah it is interesting yeah I feel like it almost flips a lot
with girls where if you have a poor relationship with your father you end up trying to seek out yes almost that
without realizing it yes like you you end up finding men that are like that you know and not necessarily punishing
them for it but almost receiving the punishment over and over yourself I was going to say exactly punishing yourself
yeah it's it's um an interesting psychology yeah psycholog is wild it really is and so as he grew older that
his opinions about women were dog [ __ ] um and also the secrecy around his fasination with women's shoes cuz he
never grew out of that he it stayed and what he felt was like taboo excitement about them that he would get from them
he it it kept growing and growing and that would be fine like that's a fetish is a fetish a kink is a kink you
nobody's here to shame anybody about that right you know what what you like is what you like we shouldn't feel
ashamed about it unless it's hurting someone MH and the problem here was it took a Sinister turn yeah
because he wasn't just keeping the secret for his own well-being he was keeping keeping it secret because he was
taught to and he was taught that it was wrong and he was taught that what he was
doing was disgusting and something to be ashamed of yeah his mom almost fetishized it for him yes you know it's
true she turned it into a taboo thing right cuz at first when he was five he sat there and said like why is this
weird like why are you mad at me like these are just pretty yeah these are just pretty I just like these shoes
right and when he reached puberty and began to associate those feelings with other things he would associate them
with secrecy shame and excitement with sex but then it was also transfused with being abused around those years when he
was finding this thing that he liked right so he was associating it with violence yeah and it was all kind of
mingling into something really bad um this also kind of went with he experienced Death at a young age as well
um a childhood friend passed away one that he was close to when he was very young and then also that neighbor who
was his only source of support she passed away as well oh no yeah so that also became mixed up with these feelings
as he was entering puberty and so he would forever associate his sexual in interest in women's clothing and shoes
and that would kind of be fused with his resentment of women and then it would also fuse with his Fascination and kind
of like um dealing with Death at a young age so it all all kind of fused together
and again you never know when these things are going to fuse into one of these little [ __ ] balls of just
nightmares yeah cuz people go through these things all the time people go through Death at a young age people go
through um being interested in something that you've you kind of feel ashamed about that you've been taught to be as
shamed about right and you know like people deal with shitty parents and shitty mothers and shitty you know
fathers authority figures all the time sometimes they deal with all three of them and they don't turn into this so
you just you just don't know it's like is it a timing thing is it you don't know what's G to just fuse it into that
like [ __ ] ball that's going to turn into this yeah no it's it's weird how it works yeah you just you can't you really
can't predict it no but by the time Jerry reached adolescence the family had moved again this time to Salem Oregon um
and that's where Henry brutos the father was trying again to be a farmer and Jerry didn't realize it but by this time
where he was like reaching adolescence uh he had already started developing particular sexual interests that he knew
whether from inference or whether it was implicated to him he knew he couldn't discuss these sexual interests with
others especially his parents okay which is a problem in fact in the brutos household it's not like he couldn't just
discuss these kind of Niche and maybe taboo interests he was forming he couldn't discuss those with his parents
but there was an air of secrecy and shame that was just around all sex yeah like sex was not talked about it was
treated as something that was disgusting and dirty like those are already problematic things that you're teaching
your kids because that's not going to give them a healthy relationship with it but then he's got all these private
fantasies that he's being taught were taboo and it's like you you infuse all that together and that's a mess
he's holding it in He's So eventually it's going to explode or he's going to be doing it in secret ways which is
going to lead to him like stealing things and spying on people and like doing it in the shadows and you don't
want that yeah exactly it's not good I mean at no time did his parents ever explain sex to their children uh sex
education was not taught in schools at the time that's so I mean it makes sense obviously but it's like crazy to think
about that it's like you need to know the basics yeah that's the thing so so what he learned about it was what he saw
on the farm put roll that around in your head no yeah he saw things happening on the
farm that no one explained to him or from what like little he could take away from like boys conversations
at school yeah which okay is also going to not be an education that you really want no so yeah no we're not coming into
adolescence strong you know we're coming in guns blazing yeah not in the best way
no so when he reached his teen years his fantasies were already taking a violent
turn it was it was pretty much on track unbeknownst to his parents he spent days
digging a hidden tunnel on a rarely visited part of their farm and in that tunnel he would just sit there and antiz
about keeping a girl there captive oh [ __ ] yeah and by his own ad admission later he said he didn't even know what
he wanted to do with her there he said he just knew he wanted a girl to be there and to not be able to leave oh no
Jerry he didn't even know he said he didn't know enough about sex or what he was feeling to think that that's why he
wanted her there he just knew he had these like overwhelming feelings enough that he had to dig a tunnel and make
that actually a reality and he knew he wanted to keep a woman there okay which is like so [ __ ]
chilling and just the fact like obviously you know he was growing up in the time where it was like come home
when the street lights go on but just the fact that he could be gone for that long to build a [ __ ] underground
tunnel and nobody noticed like nobody asked where he was and at this same time he was already
stealing women's undergarments and shoes he would steal them from clothing lines
okay and sometimes he would go into unlocked houses in the neighborhood and steal them oh that's [ __ ] bold yeah
so he's Crossing Lines in a big way here he's jumping right over them yeah when you're breaking into houses like locked
or unlocked that's that's that's a turn yeah where that's a place of no return a
lot of the time yep now these fantasies finally converged when Jerry was only 16
years old one afternoon he stole a neighbor's underwear from her laundry line and later approached her and
offered to help her find her missing clothing but when she arrived at his house a short time later he just took
her by knife point at 16 years old what the [ __ ] and forced her to undress while
he took pictures of her where are his parents that's what I'm saying he's in his parents house doing this yeah what
the [ __ ] and at this time Jerry had been wearing a a heavy black mask so that the
girl couldn't see who she who he was but she knew who he was yeah he's house because he had offered to help her and
he she came to his house he said hey meet me at my house yeah and years later somebody asked her cuz she didn't report
the crime to the police okay and years later people asked her like why didn't you report this crime and she said I
knew who it was all the time I was was scared if I told he would find me out and he would kill me I mean yeah I don't
blame her so she I mean just knowing what he was doing there you know he's capable of a lot but I think also she's
like I knew who he was like I could tell it sounds like this is like a grown woman with like her own clothing line
you know and this is a 16-year-old kid to instill that much fear whatever she went through had to be horrific dark
yeah horrific and this whole incident had been the first foray that he took into actual sexual assault um and well
it was probably unbelievably like something we can't even fathom traumatizing for this
girl she was she was able to get out of there with her life fortunately but it was the victim right after her that
didn't get away so easily so he did this to this woman which is Unthinkable and then immediately escalated to murder he
escalated he didn't escalate to murder but he escalated okay she didn't get out of there unharmed physically okay okay
so from the moment that the this first girl who we're not going to name um That Got Away like just and talked about it
later and said I didn't want to report it um as soon as she left the house Jerry was immediately fantasizing of
doing it to another woman he loved it but he was worried he was going to get caught mhm so eight months passed and
still he didn't do it again uh but he felt confident after 8 months that he could get away with another assault so
in 1956 he lured a 17-year-old girl into his car promising her a ride home so as
they drove the girl became confused when Jerry started talking to her as though they were on a date oh no and she was
like this is not you're just driving me home like what the [ __ ] like why do you
think that no and her confusion turned to panic when it occurred to her that Jerry had already driven well past where
he was supposed to drop her off oh no and he was just driving further and further into a more remote part of
Oregon and once they had reached a vacant location in his mind Jerry pulled the car off the side of the road and hit
the girl with a pipe in the face holy [ __ ] and then hit her in the neck and chest with it my God she was screaming
and trying to flee but Jerry was much bigger um and she had already been beaten at this point so she didn't have
her about her she didn't have any strength to get away she was just completely out of it and he hit her
several more times with the pipe and his fists and then dragged her from the vehicle and demanded that she start
stripping for him oh God and when she refused he punched her in the face squarely in the nose and and she started
screaming again oh my God this poor woman and fortunately at that same time that he was punching her in the face and
she was screaming a couple was driving down the road with their windows open oh my um thank God and they heard the
scream so the man which I was like what a badass man he immediately pulled over the car to investigate and when they
reached the location he saw this large man looming over this screaming woman on the ground so he ran right to her Aid
like he was like [ __ ] this guy wow that's Brave and when he demanded an explanation Jerry said she fell out of
the car she's just hysterical because it scared her and this guy was like [ __ ]
you like no yeah I'm assuming at this point she's like bloody and like she's been beaten with a pipe and punched in
the nose yeah bruises are probably forming and he's like she just fell out of the car yeah and she's just scared
it's like okay why are you looming over her then so this guy was like shut the [ __ ] up I know that's not what happened
so he changed his story and said oh well actually she was attacked by someone by
some weirdo and I she was fighting him off when I drove up and ran to help her oh the hero yeah so according to Jerry
the attacker ran off into the woods just before they the other couple had driven
up he was like oh thank goodness you're here how convenient but you just missed him wow and when it was just him and
this relatively defenseless young woman Jerry had no difficulty asserting himself and being horrifyingly scary but
in the presence of anyone else when someone else Came Upon them oh my did he yield oh I bet he made up the lie but he
shrunk right down uh when the second explanation was also not going to convince this guy he also was like [ __ ]
you I know that's not what happen you're the attacker I know that like I'm not an
idiot um yeah he was like so when that didn't work the couple insisted that they take the girl and Jerry back to
their house to get it sorted out and they were going to call the police MH so he agreed and once they were there the
husband called the Oregon State police and they transported the girl to the hospital and Jerry was taken to the
police barracks for questioning mhm gave right up this poor girl having to even get back in a car with him After
experiencing that my God and with another stranger like holy [ __ ] right so once he was in custody he confessed
everything to the police just boom he claimed he'd only wanted to scare her into taking off her clothes so he could
take pictures and then he denied he'd ever done anything like that before which we know is not true he said his
temper just got the best of him now unfortunately for Jerry detective searched his car found his photography
equipment in the trunk which they very correctly interpreted as a sign of premeditation so meanwhile other
officers went to the Bruto household and spoke to Eileen his mother oh God who gave them permission to search her son's
bedroom because he doesn't give she doesn't give a [ __ ] about him yeah and they found a hidden bunch of stolen
women's clothing and photographs of a nude girl clearly posing under duress oh no that was the first victim now well
when Eileen confronted her son about what they'd found he claimed another boy had taken the pictures and forced Jerry
to develop them for him he said I had to he said he'd beat me up if I didn't Jerry Jerry shut the [ __ ] up Jerry was
arrested and charged with assault and battery which prompted the state authorities to take a closer look at his
history so they spoke with neighbors and they discovered the previous assault that Jerry had committed against that
original woman who a year later finally felt safe telling the authorities what had happened year in custody and given
what they had learned they disco and what they found in Jerry's bedroom he was taken to the Oregon state hospital
for evaluation okay because they were like something is very wrong here now at the time Jerry brutos was a 16-year-old
sophomore in high school oh my God the fact that he already has like this kind of rap sheet at a sophomore year like
are you Ser he's already this brutal at in 16 years old that's horrifying and in
his in his interview with Hospital staff he said he didn't like rough sports but
instead preferred things like 4 and Boy Scouts and photography and despite the circumstances under what he'd been
arrested for he was very and like visibly uncomfortable talking about sex mhm like he had been arrested for
forcing a girl to strip in front of him and he could not talk about it right so Jerry told the doctors he suffered from
nocturnal emissions about every two months but he had quote tried to live a clean life and didn't smoke or drink
what is a nocturnal emission uh wet dreams oh yeah wish I never asked oh yeah oh in fact while they were aware of
the things he'd done doctors still struggled to arrive at a diagnosis I mean or to even provide
Insight yeah they were like you're a strange one and I mean he is yeah in one evaluation the psychiatrist wrote the
boy does not appear to be grossly mentally ill he comes shyly into the interview situation and sits down in a
dejected fashion to talk with great embarrassment about his difficulty he tends to be evasive on a basis of his
acute embarrassment and is somewhat rambling and verbose in trying to tell his story there's no evidence of suicide
homicide or destructive urges wrong he feels that he sometimes has trouble controlling his temper but that 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 toldi yeah but was told that the girl received a broken nose thank God his insight and
judgment are questionable he feels there must be something the matter with him and he hopes that he will be able to
find it out and have it cured here strange yeah I wonder if that was him pretending like he wanted help or if he
actually did want or if he really wanted help who knows now ultimately doctors arrived at a diagnosis of adjustment
reaction of adolescence with sexual deviation fetishism yikes so despite having been convicted Jerry was allowed
to return to school during the day but then he would have to go back to the hospital at night
okay yeah so somehow this was Kept Secret from his peers at the time wow they didn't know
about him being in the hospital they didn't know about his arrest so he wasn't dealing with any attention based
on that but after about 9 months at the state hospital the medical staff determined that he was no longer a
threat and he was discharged back into his parents care nine months is a pretty short time to determine that no he was
going to kill that woman absolutely he was and a year later Jerry graduated from high school and enrolled at Oregon
State University for a few semesters before dropping out in March 1959 when he joined the US Army and was
sent to Fort Gordon Georgia for basic training it's never good when these kinds of guys enter the Army because
then they see some crazy [ __ ] and they get even more bold exactly for Jerry the
Army was his first chance to be completely away from his parents particularly his mother which you would
hope would be a good thing but it wasn't and he wanted to establish his own life
he wanted to like go get away from what he had been doing but his old habits and
interests were plaguing him they could not be put away during the day he trained at the signal Corp giving him
the opportunity to pursue his interest in electronics and Communications but at night his fantasies overtook and he just
couldn't get away from them not long after transferring to Georgia he became convinced that quote a Korean girl was
sneaking into the barracks each night and crawling into his bed and trying to seduce
him all right which I'm like so he's hallucinating now yes he said I didn't want her and I came up fighting and beat
her badly he later said what and he said the scene would replay itself every night and to him it was very real is
that a nightmare or is it a straight up hallucination it must be a hallucination
because no one else in the barracks ever saw a woman sneaking in heard any noise like right wasn't happening soon
he came to dismiss this thing as a kind of hallucination or dream uhhuh but he was Disturbed he said that the woman in
his dream had aroused such hatred in him okay he said he could feel how much he hated her and he said he not only wanted
the woman to stop trying to seduce him but he also wanted to beat her and at times he said I wanted to kill her what
the [ __ ] yeah his Revelations later are like what the [ __ ] yeah I feel like we've never heard anything similar to
that well and interestingly here is he became concerned about his own mental health here like he became self-aware
really and he knew that this was a problem that he felt anger and hatred towards this hallucina woman and that he
wanted to beat her he wanted to kill her so he consulted the army chaplain about
it wow and this army chaplain referred him to the staff psychiatrist Captain Theodore Barry so after hearing the
story about this woman and his desire to harm her Barry was convinced that Jerry
was unfit for service so on October 15th 1959 he was discharged under AR 635-200 which is a determination that
the individual is unfit for service despite reasonable attempts to correct the problem okay now he was 20 years old
at the time and now he's unemployed so he has no choice but to move back in with his parents uh which I think is the
worst thing that could happen yeah it's too bad they didn't like send him to some kind of like counseling counseling
yeah of some sort right but so he had to moved back on the farm in Oregon and he
started sleeping in the spare bedroom but not not long after he did this Larry his brother returned home from college
and his mother said that Larry should have the spare bedroom and he she said Jerry you go live out in the old shed
I'm sorry what yeah also was there not two bedrooms the entire time both of them
lived there they must have shared a bedroom what the [ __ ] and now they're not allowed now he's not allowed to
share the bedroom with Larry he has to stay in the old shed go live in the old shed I'm like lady your kid is already
mentally ill and you're making him even more so yeah she sounds like a truly just piece of [ __ ] individual they both
if you have a child and make them live in a shed that's you're a piece of [ __ ]
you're a [ __ ] person yeah like you're just a [ __ ] person now frustrated and very uh very isolated in the shed he
fell right back to his old habits and you know he was trying to relieve his anxieties and his hallucinations now at
first it was he went right back to stealing women's underwear and women's shoes like he had when he was a child
and an adolescent but it quickly asked escalated one evening while Jerry was running errands in nearby Salem he
spotted a woman in a red dress and started following her when she reached her apartment
doorway he followed her into the dimly lit vestibule which is when she realized that someone was right behind her and
had followed her in before she could say anything he grabbed her by the neck and
choked her until she lost Consciousness right there takes a while he just dropped her body to the floor he didn't
know know what to do next though so he stole the woman's shoes and ran back to his car before anyone spotted him so
that's it he just choked her into unconsciousness this is the wild part of him is it's like him digging the hole he
digs the hole he know he wants a he wants a woman to be in there right but he doesn't know what he wants to do with
her right and even now he chokes this woman he does something physically violent chokes her to the point of
unconsciousness drops her on the ground and then says I don't know what to do now and just takes the shoes why' I do
that like what's my next move I wonder and I don't know if he just like blacks out in these moments and like does
something not blacks out because I think he fully has intentions to like do something but it's almost like it he
enters this like different part of his brain where he does this and then he almost like comes to and is like what am
I doing I yeah and I think it might be that he is so [ __ ] up about sex and what he is interested in and excites him
and it's been and he's had it drilled so hard into him that it's like shameful and taboo and secret and all this [ __ ]
and like violence and all this stuff is intermingling that he literally does not
know what to do with a woman right like he knows he wants to do something but he
does but he's so [ __ ] uneducated about it in a healthy way that he literally doesn't know what to do next
he's like I know I want to do something right and I know this excites me I just don't literally don't know what the next
step is right like he doesn't know what sex even is yeah like he doesn't even know what he's supposed to be
doing in his like deranged mind you know like it's very scary it's very strange and it's like very different from a lot
of these [ __ ] we've covered right now in the weeks that followed that a pattern started emerging where Jerry
would become stressed and go out for a walk and he would stalk a woman he noticed on the Street follow her for a
time and then would attack her choke her steal her shoes or other clothing items
and then he would just leave her and return to this shed on his parents Farm where he would fantasize and sleep with
the shoes and just like touch the clothing what the [ __ ] and feel like he was like
in control again or like feel some sort of power yeah yeah that's very at a time in his life when he found
himself again under his mom's like domineering ways and like abusive ways I think the stalking and thefts he said
later gave him this like weird sense of empowerment and control that he was looking for yeah and he was so [ __ ] up
that that's the route that he took you know yeah I'm like just even just picturing this in your head you're just
like like I'm just picturing him like falling asleep next to a pair of shoes and like like yeah it's like that's not
weird but it is so [ __ ] weird like the way that he goes about it cuz you know they're stolen it off of an
unconscious woman that he's just attacked right and it's like what is this about like I mean we find out what
it's about right and it's just so strange to get that violent and then to just like to to escalate that far and
then to just deescalate so yes like it's like a sudden drop off where he's like oh okay I got what I wanted like bye
yeah gotta go bye and then he just relives it and not harm them any further like obviously he harms them and what he
does is so [ __ ] but then just but to take it there and then abrupt abruptly end it dip yeah like it's just strange
and he didn't have any friends at this time he didn't really have any home life like he's got nothing going on except
his own anxieties and Fantasies and shed life yeah so apparently his professional
life though is one of the bright spots like the only bright spot in his life his training with the signal Corp had
prepared him for a career in radio communications and after he had returned home he found a job as an engineer with
a small radio station in Coralis wow that's a good job yeah and it was there that he met Ral
schwindler who was a 17-year-old girl who was friendly and you know she was friends with a boy who hung around the
radio station most afternoons so like Jerry ralphine was shy and timid had basically no experience with dating mhm
and when she first met Jerry she was not in Tim she was very unimpressed which I
don't blame her yeah um he was 60 six years older than her I was going to say he's uh well above 17 at this point so
this is already inappropriate and she later said I probably wouldn't have accepted a date with him at all except
that he asked me to go swimming and I love to swim she's like you know any any chance
to go swimming any time to jump in that water you know what a queen but by the time he was in his early 20s Jerry's
hatred and disgust of women was well cemented yeah but he felt differently about ralphine I was going to say it
doesn't sound like he has hatred or disgust for her yeah most women intimidated him which is why he hated
and was disgust by disgusted by them but ralphine seemed to be kind of easygoing
she laughed at his jokes she's young yeah like to eventually care for him in a way that he had not experienced with
any other woman besides that one neighbor when he was so I think maybe it hearkened back to that right and while
most people viewed Jerry as just a [ __ ] failure and a loser she kind of didn't she didn't make him seem that way
at least um and raline was honestly she kind of showed that she was a little like impressed by him at times like
while she was not impressed At first she like later became impressed with with him like his knowledge of his job and
all that um and it made him feel a little a little good about himself I guess for the first time but her parents
was they were not impressed by him yeah because what the [ __ ] is a 24-year-old
doing with a 17-year-old exactly uh her mother whom Jerry described as stubborn and independent and said it like an
insult I was going to say oh how horrible yeah she strongly disapproved of her teenage daughter dating a man in
his 20s um and her father [ __ ] loathed Jerry I would and Jerry later said he felt because he was older that
he could decide what we would do where we would go all that like I think he just felt because he was their father
she her father that he would do that it's like [ __ ] you Jerry yeah you're a [ __ ] creep now the fact that ralphine
was still a teenager probably had something to do with her being attracted to Jerry in the first place to her he
seemed more sophisticated than boys her age and the fact that her parents hated him only made him more attractive it
always does uh her her age was also probably why she didn't notice any of the red flags that older an older woman
might have picked up on he was very jealous he was very possessive very controlling um so when ralphine became
pregnant oh no early on Jerry proposed that they get married and she happily accepted oh rine and the way he later
talked about it he said I wanted someone to sleep with and she wanted out of her
home oh how how beautiful and somehow ralphine later remembered things on pretty much the same romantic playing
field she said while my home life was a good one there was this feeling that getting married would be much better
than listening to my parents She's So Young I'm like so true love guys I see it's just so sad like it's so sad at 17
you think you're starting you think you're starting your own life and you know going after your dreams with this
man mixed up with this [ __ ] oh no they married in 1962 and a few months later ralphine gave birth to their
daughter Megan now at first Jerry and Ralph Fine's life together was actually pretty
happy it seemed like it was going well he would lavish his wife and daughter with small gifts and attention and as
far as raline knew they were doing okay financially everything was fine right and even though Ralph Fine's attention
was more or less dominated by the baby at the time they even had a healthy sex life like it was a very normal healthy
sex life at first okay but then things turned a little bit and things started making ralphine uncomfortable like
whenever they were at home Jerry insisted that they both be nude oh just like at home at all times
at home okay that's strange and also you have a child like well that and that only stop stopped when Megan Grew From
an infant to a toddler and ralphine said it's not appropriate for us to be nude in front of our child no so it did stop
but he was not happy about it that's just bizarre yeah cuz he also is like requiring it right like it's not like
they both made this decision together that they're just like that's what we well exactly like that's very different
from like people who like what is it called when you're is it a nudist I think so yeah like whatever like that's
and not even nudest like it's just like some people when at home they like to be
naked I guess I mean yeah go off queens and kings like live your best life but it doesn't we're not a naked household
but like I know people have naked households I'm not a naked household either but yeah you know that's just
your thing but also it doesn't sound like this was like she wasn't necessarily consenting to this no this
felt very much like it was him requiring it yeah and she was probably happy to be
like okay the she's a toddler now we need to stop I'm glad that she was able to get through to him like that me too
well there was was also Jerry's constant need to photograph his wife while she was nude or while they were having sex
okay the black and white images were something Jerry could develop himself at home because he didn't know how to do
that yeah she did she was like that was fine I guess like whatever that's in our
house he's developing them himself but then he had he wanted to take color ones that had to be developed at a lab which
meant other people would see them no and Jerry was like no it's fine this is normal no one's going to care about it
they're not even going to Blink an eye but she said she never felt comfortable about it she didn't like it yeah which
is not consenting right and she said she was also not comfortable with what he would have her do in the photos at times
which I feel like he probably got off on yeah like there was times like she she didn't mind like the Casual shots around
the house of them just like living their life but she said sometimes she he would
insist that she pull a nylon stocking over her face or wear spiked high heeled shoes um and she just she said it made
her uneasy yeah because like you like people can have fetishes and that's completely fine you like we're not
fetish shaming but if you're not interested in that fetish then it probably feels very off and wrong to you
you know like you it is not okay if your fetish is being forced on another person
exactly you need to be in an agreeing situation where that person Reas and is comfortable with engaging in your fetish
yeah that's what a healthy fetish is there are boundaries and to I feel so bad that she felt like she had to do
this and she was young so she's like really being forced into it and there's a power Dynamic there to because he
exactly and after a couple of years what had begun as a happy marriage started to
kind of devolve into like a difficult frustrating and very confusing relationship for her and the more
preoccupied that ralphine became with their daughter Megan because children require attention um the more depressed
Jerry became well and also he doesn't know what like a good mother child bonding relationship is yeah he doesn't
understand that why she's paying attention to her mhm and so he would leave the house and when he left the
house and spent a lot of time out of the house he would engage in his own his old
habits and when they were at home ralphine couldn't help but noticed that Jerry seemed distant and became very
disinterested in their daughter oh actually just ignoring her pushing her away whenever she wanted his attention
oh that's really sad and later raline would wonder whether Jerry resented Megan for taking up so much of her time
and I believe that is it yeah it sounds that way he became more depressed more unhappy when he was at home and the more
he isolated himself from his family and spent time outside of the house the worst it got so by the end of the 1960s
his ability to resist his dark impulses that we know he has inside of him they were weakening
considerably now his path to becoming a killer was very long and very complicated obviously yeah because we're
only in the beginning of the 1960s and at the top of this I think you said 68 yeah and we're starting to enter the
late 60s but I mean he's going through so many iterations of what his darker impulses are um and if you try to
identify any one thing that pushed him over the edge into violence IM brutality I don't think you'd be able to put to
figure out what it is okay but we know that an event that happened right before things got really bad was the birth of
his second child and it was in late 1967 and so in Jerry's head somehow he believed witnessing the birth of this
baby would somehow absolve him of all the bad things he'd done and would set him on a better path okay
he said he just believed if he witnessed the birth of his child he would become a
better person okay which like that and of itself is not you're like okay I kind of get it sure like it's it's a
beautiful Miracle whatever you want to call it yeah so he made ralphine promise that when the time came she would have
one of the nurses come get him from the waiting room and bring him into the delivery room so he could witness this
yeah okay but when the time came no one came to get him to see the birth okay and he tried to force his way into the
room but they the hospital staff actually blocked him and said he they were given explicit orders from the
doctor to keep him out so what the [ __ ] happened there so this obviously devastated him because he had this whole
plan um and then he learned that it was ralphine who told the doctors not to let
him in the room and so he demanded to know why why she would do that now this is horrifying so ralphine explained that
Jerry had always been so possessive and jealous of her that she thought it best that he not witness what happened during
the delivery of a child she said I didn't and this is the way she says this horrifies me to be
quite honest so I want everybody know a little bit of a trigger warning because this is a little graphic and gross the
way she says this in my opinion she said I didn't want you to watch another man play with me um that's not what happens
during birth no that's like there's nothing sexual about birth in any way that's what
horrifies me is like the doctor is not playing with you the doctor is delivering your baby and what happened
ralphine that you are suddenly like and I think it's like she is being conditioned into believing every part of
her life is being sexualized in some way oh wow yeah that's dark isn't that horrifying yeah that's very dark it's so
dark like so dark and she told him this okay so this marked a big shift in their
Dynamic this this moment uh Jerry had always had a disdain for women obviously but his wife was never included in that
because she according to him had accepted and loved him in ways that he had never experienced before and it was
because of that and her refusal that it was because of that that her refusal to allow him into the room he felt it was a
huge betrayal like he took it as an immense betrayal I kind of get that yeah right he in his mind I get it why he
where his mind is right now why that would feel like a betrayal to him yeah and obviously like there's there's many
layers to this because it's her decision you know what I mean like that's her body Choice her experience of going on
but I can see why in his deranged mind right now where his mind is very rancid at the moment that he's he had convinced
himself that this was going to save him this was his salvation seeing this and now she took it away from him now she in
his mind took that from him right so he's twisting it into something far worse than what it actually was well
that's also just like from a trust standpoint like you've been married this is your second child and then like you
know they had this plan or whatever and then to say like no at the last second he probably saw it as like oh you don't
trust me exactly there's so many layers to and she it sounds like she doesn't trust him yeah and it sounds like she
had every reason not to yeah exactly why would she you can see where both of them
are coming from at this point but my God the statement she made about it haunts me yeah one the statement that haunts me
and also that's just so sad like a lot of like I would say like 99% of the time when you have a child with like a
partner and you have a happy marriage like that's a beautiful amazing thing and to have it turned into this weird
dark betrayal you know like fear Mo moment of fear yes and it's being sexualized which
is very upsetting the whole thing is really just [ __ ] yeah it's a poor baby it shows you though like there his
upbringing and how [ __ ] up he was about sex yeah she he imprinted that onto her through their marriage cuz she
was young yeah and it obviously is manifesting in ways like this and what's worse is that night after his child was
born after ralphine had fallen asleep he left the house and went into downtown Portland and drove the streets until he
finally found a woman and that caught his eye so the night that his child was born he went out wow and he watched and
followed the woman for hours as she went from one location to the next hours he followed one woman what the [ __ ] and
finally followed her home and watched her windows for hours until the lights went out oh my God as soon as the
apartment was dark he crept into it and found her sleeping in her bedroom and as
she slept he started started rumaging through her closet looking through her shoes but he was noisy and so she woke
up and found this man in her [ __ ] room looking through her closet uhhuh so before she could even scream Jerry was
on top of her and had his hands around her neck he claimed he had only intended to render her unconscious so he could do
what he always does find a light go through her things and leave mhm but as soon as she lost Consciousness he said
he could not help him himself and he sexually assaulted her oh no and then he stole her shoes and flood her
apartment what the [ __ ] yeah his pathology is so [ __ ] weird it's the stealing of the shoes and
it gets weirder because after all that that's what he did the night of his child's birth his second child's birth
after the whole thing with ralphine and she's thinking after that whole thing she's like I thought it was going to go
downhill our Mar like really fall downhill she said strangely in the months following Jason
their son's birth Jerry seemed to be getting better okay and she said and this is sad she said unlike his
relationship with Megan their daughter which was distant and cold Jerry was attentive and engaged with his son like
she was shocked when he was home he would play with the boy and talk about all the things he hoped to do with him
when he got older whenever he went on errands he he insisted on taking J Jason with him and and he even went out of his
way to take on some of the responsibilities around the house like allowing ralphine to have a little time
to herself as a new mom yeah which is so important ideal like it's just like what
the [ __ ] mhm but of course at the time she had no idea that despite how he was
making things look and how he was trying to put in effort at home at least with one of their children on the inside he
was just Co trying to cover up the feelings that he was barely keeping under the surface like he was still he
had all kinds of [ __ ] brewing in there that he was just trying to shove down it
sounds like it and it was only Jerry's nighttime activities that he kept doing because he kept doing this he kept
sneaking into women's houses kept choking people unconscious sexually assaulting people it was only that that
he claims kept him from exploding every day so she's thinking he's just on the up and up and he's doing horrible [ __ ]
at night to keep himself from doing it during the day what a what a star contrast there yeah and by January of
that year he finally lost all control oh no on the afternoon of January 26th 1968
he was out walk working in the yard when he spotted a young woman coming down the
sidewalk she was a carrying what appeared to be a very large book under her arm it was 19-year-old Linda Slawson
and she had only recently graduated from high school in Rochester Minnesota and she had moved to Aloha Oregon to start
her first job which was in selling encyclopedias door too okay despite the long hours and a lot of walking involved
the company required their female sales agents to dress nicely and wear high heels mhm even though they walked
everything that's great yeah so she was standing on the sidewalk in front of the
bruto's house and trying to figure out which direction she was supposed to be going into and it started to rain so she
you know she just wanted to get out of the rain to get you know set those books that she was carrying down so she
approached Jerry and said she was trying to find the address of a certain house where she had an appointment to show
these encyclopedias and she wondered whether it was his house she was looking for Jerry looked her over for a moment
and he said he lingered for a second or two on her shoes before he told her yes come on in oh no as they entered the
house Jerry mentioned that his wife was having company upstairs and he said why don't we meet in my workshop down
downstairs to have some privacy no thank you go over this so she went in the basement and she started giving her
pitch on the encyclopedias and just making small talk with Jerry as she started to lay out all
the products on the countertop and it was dark in the room so she was fumbling to find the right brochures and stuff
that she was trying to show him so he was like oh let me turn on the overhead lights and he got up from his stool and
went behind her but instead of flicking on a light switch he grabbed a length of
2x4 and swung it at the back of her head my God and is his wife actually upstairs
having company his wife is actually upstairs oh my God yeah and this is just happening in her [ __ ] basement yep
okay and yep he knocked her from the stool and sent her to the floor unconscious
and like we said before since he had been an adolescent a teenager Jerry had fantasized about kidnapping a woman and
keeping her somewhere and just doing what he wanted even though he didn't know what he wanted to do and now he had
just taken a step to make that a reality so he knelt down beside Linda on the floor and detected slight movement in
her chest so he wrapped his hands around her neck and began choking her until he
was certain that she was dead he choked her to death oh my God in the days that followed this he dressed and undressed
Linda's body putting her in the undergarments he'd been stealing throughout the previous months and at
night after ralphine and the kids had gone to sleep my God Jerry would sneak down to the basement to rape her dead
body and photograph her in various states of undress I did yeah I did not know that part of that that he was into
that yeah that poor 19 years old and she's just doing her job and it was so fast and so
horrific and and then his kids are playing upstairs I was just going to say and his kids are upstairs and she's just
and his wife is upstairs and this dead woman who he murdered is just in the basement
yep and he's just likeing her fair warning he's a brutal sadistic [ __ ] so like Fair warning for the rest of this I
mean part two is going to get somehow even worse oh good but after a few days when Linda's body had begun to decompose
yeah Jerry used a hacksaw to remove Linda's left foot which he kept in the back of the chest freezer in the
basement what he kept her left foot in a freezer in his home's basement with the
shoe when the rest of the remains he bundled up among some old car parts and threw
them according to him over a rail somewhere into the willit river okay and later for reasons that remain unclear to
this day Jerry told investigators he quote didn't know where he disposed of Linda Slawson but thought she was still
alive when thrown over the railway rot railing how would he think that if he choked the life out of her exactly and
spent days dressing her and undressing her and like defiling committing necrofilia yeah yeah so it's just he was
a strange [ __ ] yeah when Linda failed to return home that evening that she was killed her mother Mildred
reported her missing to the police and told them she'd last been seen in Portland where she was going to sell
encyclopedias and her disappearance coincided with The Disappearance of another local girl a 14-year-old girl
named Terry chain ERS whose parents speculated she'd maybe run away to join a quote unquote hippie community in
Washington so mild Slawson insisted her daughter was not doing that she had not run away she had never given any
indication that she was unhappy or wanted to leave home but the two stories wound up being associated and Linda's
disappearance was just treated as she was a runaway oh no it's like meanwhile she just graduated she just got this job
she's literally outdoing this job when she disappears and also when the parents are saying she did not run away they do
know their child yeah like you should at least take that into consideration now the photographs and
souvenirs Jerry kept from Linda slosson's murder appear to have been sufficient enough to keep his urges at
Bay for a little while but by late November the holiday period began and the Bruto household was full of Jerry
and Ralphie's families and Jerry stress began spiking in the previous months he would relieve his stress by looking at
his pictures or if it was particularly bad he would go out prowling steal some clothing from Neighbors cloth clothing
lines like do the same old thing but since the weather had turned cold no one was leaving clothes on the line and
finding a new trophy meant that he would have to go inside a home mhm now on the
evening of November 26th 1968 23-year-old Jan Whitney was on her way to see her parents and McMinville and
her car broke down uh it was on the I5 freeway between Salem and Albany I just have to point out this is 10 months to
the date of the last person he killed yeah you're right that's wild that's weird now a few miles before this Jan
had stopped to pick up two young male hitchhikers so the three of them got out of the car when the car died and they
were all looking under the hood uh no none of them knew what to do so they were just like all we got to we got to
figure out what to do so Jerry brutos was on his way home from work and driving down the I5 when he spotted all
three of these people standing by the car mhm this is what's shocking he spotted two men with her yeah and he
pulled off to the side and got out to ask what the trouble was and when he learned that the car had broken down he
said he'd be happy to fix it since he knew a lot about that stuff but he didn't have the tools to do it instead
he said I'll give all three of you a ride so he did he gave them all he put them all in the car and then he let the
two men out of the car at the nearest offramp mhm which I was like what the so they could catch another ride it's like
hey guys maybe uh take this girl with you yeah take her maybe don't leave a girl in a car with a stranger no
especially a girl that just gave you a ride mhm and he and Jan drove on to his house where he said he would get his
tools and take her back to fix the car when they got to his house Jerry went to the front door but was soon back at the
car telling her the house is locked and I don't have my key so we're going to have to wait for my wife to come home
which is a way of soothing her until like my wife is coming home oh I have another woman here yeah he told Jan his
wife would only be a few minutes but in reality ralphine had taken the F the kids to a friend's house and wouldn't be
back for hours oh God and he knew that so while they waited Jerry got into the back seat behind the passenger seat and
started making small talk and he said I said it was a funny thing to ask someone
to close his eyes and try to explain how to tie a shoe like that was part of their small talk like oh have you ever
tried to have somebody close their eyes and explain how to tie a shoe it's funny
okay and she he said you know without using your hands to show how when you can't see and Jan was like oh okay so
she closed her eyes and started describing how to tie a shoe and while she did that he reached down and grabbed
the belt that was on the floor in the back seat and by the time Jan realized what was happening it was too late he
had looped the belt around her neck and pulled it tight choking her when the belt was securely tightened around her
neck Jerry got out of the car and this is like an I don't know why this like really chills me he got out of the car
and closed the end length of the belt in the door tightening it even more and leaving it so that she would not be able
to untighten like it was a constant pressure and then he went inside to double check that ralphine was
really gone and when he came back to the car Jan was already dead she had strangled to death alone in his car and
just outside of his house it's so wild that he takes people back to his house where he lives with his wife and kids
and murders them yeah like intentionally does that yes so she was he confirmed that she was indeed dead and then he
raped Jan's body and then he took her out of the car so in the car in front of his house he
did that then took her out of the car and brought her down into the basement of the house and started photographing
her in the various undergarments and shoes he'd stolen from the neighborhood mhm Jerry repeated these acts in the
following days like dressing her undressing her taking photos and then it would become clear that he would need to
get rid of Jan's body and he decided he wanted something more than photographs to remember the experience this one's
particularly heinous I want everyone to know that that this might be something that you've heard about this case but
maybe you didn't know it was this case okay he later said I thought I could make paper weights out of her
breasts so he said I cut off her right breast and I was going to make a plastic mold and then I could make lead paper
weights but I added too much hardener and it didn't turn out how I wanted oh okay now he was going to be
making paper weights out of a woman's breasts to use around his house uhhuh and he was expecting to
just be able to do that yep which is shocking to me makes you wonder what he was doing around that house
exactly now certain that no one would go into his basement Workshop because he always made sure that they did not Jerry
and the family took a short trip to Portland for a few days leaving Jan's body in his basement like dude that's
going to permeate the rest of the house yeah well and also they were pretty surprised when they came back because
they discovered that someone had driven a car through their garage door leaving a giant hole where the door had
been so the police came out and they wanted to get into the garage but it was locked and he said that was
close but it what and he ended up being able to get them away without them looking into the basement it always
happens and even that wasn't enough to convince him to get rid of Jan's body he still kept her yep he wrapped her body
in a sheet and hid her in the pump house while the police looked over the garage wait while they were there
yeah oh my God then when the coast was clear he took her body to Willet River and waited it waited her down and then
tossed her body in the river okay now when Jan failed to show up at her parents house in McMinville
cuz remember she was on her way to her parents house right her Father John Whitney reported her missing immediately
and a day or two later Jan's car was found on the side of the road with all the doors locked and investigators were
able to get into the car and found that there was nothing to indicate that she you know why she disappeared right and
really other than a camera found in the back seat in her bags there was nothing of note in the car and police had a film
in the camera developed and discovered photos indicating she have had a flat tire that day mhm but that was really
all they had and it wasn't really a lot of help with a lead it was just like did
someone help her right and was that the person but we don't have anything to go on other than that right and nearly a
year passed between the murder of Linda Slawson and Jan Whitney but far less time would elapse between the next
killing yeah cuz he's heating up and he's getting B more and more bold I mean the police just came to his house and he
was able to [ __ ] hide a dead body while they were there and you think that would be when there would be a year
between murders but he takes less time now he goes right back into it I think it makes more like I think it makes
sense because he was able to get away with that so he's so emboldened he was emboldened yeah and that's where we're
going to leave part one because knew it you [ __ ] because we're part two is going to get somehow even
worse um this is all terrible he's a really really bad man he's a really really bad man and it's going to be a
lot so just please be aware of that I feel so bad for these women first of all these young women like and for his wife
and children who were just living in their home while this was going on unbeknownst to them yeah no idea what's
going on just hit the the [ __ ] luck of having him as a father yeah seriously [ __ ] that's
terrifying yeah all right sorry about that everybody well we'll see you for part too we sure will and in the
meantime we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it we but not so weird that you'd be
stealing people's undergarments because what the [ __ ] is wrong with you yeah don't do that but not so weird that
you're mean to your kids if you don't want kids don't have kids yeah don't be a dick bye bye
[Music] [Music]

Over the course of 1968 and well into 1969, several young women in Salem, Oregon went missing and would later turn up dead—all murdered and showing signs of having been tortured. Many of the cases bore certain similarities, but it wasn’t until investigators questioned the friends of one of the victims, Karen Sprinker, that they came to identify a suspect and eventually arrested thirty-year-old Jerome “Jerry” Brudos.

At first glance, there wasn’t much to the mild and unassuming Jerry Brudos; however, when investigators looked into his background, they discovered several arrests for theft, prowling, and sexual assault. And the more they learned about Brudos’ life, the more certain they became that he was the man they were looking for.

Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!

References Associated Press. 1969. "Fisherman's grim discovery started search for slayer." Albany Democrat-Herald, June 30: 21.

—. 1969. "Coed provided first lead in murder case." Oregonian, June 4: 11.

Capital Journal. 1969. "Salem student, 19, feared kidnaped." Capital Journal, March 29: 1.

Carbonell, Dan De. 2006. "36 years later, killer's death relieves victims' families." Statesman Journal (Salem Oregon), March 29: 2.

Leibman, Faith H. 1989. "Serial Murderers: Four Case Histories." Federal Probation 41-45.

Long, James. 1969. "Photo found in Brudos' home shows girl hanging by rope." Oregon Daily Journal, June 7: 1.

Morrison, Allen. 1969. "Brudos tells of attacks, killings." Oregon Statesman , June 28: 1.

—. 1969. "Indicted in death of Miss Sprinkler." Statesman Journal (Salem, Oregon), June 5: 1.

Olmos, Robert. 1969. "Crews widen river search for clues in girls murders." Oregonian , May 15: 19.

Oregon Journal. 1968. "2 teen-age girls missing." Oregon Daily Journal, February 6: J7.

Oregonian. 1968. "Help sought in search." Oregonian, December 23: 24.

—. 1969. "Office aide disappears ." Oregonian, April 26: 14.

Painter, John. 1969. "Sudden shift in plea signals end of trial." Oregonian , June 28: 1.

—. 1969. "Tests stall state trial of Brudos." Oregonian, June 6: 1.

Roby, Larry. 1969. "Parole agency explains eligibilty of Brudos." Capital Journal (Salem, Oregon), July 2: 15.

—. 1969. "Judge discloses warrant details on Brudos." Capital Journal, June 6: 1.

Rule, Ann. 1983. Lust Killer. New York, NY: Random House.

Statesman Journal. 1969. "Brudos home alleged site of 2 slayings." Staesman Journal (Salem, Oregon), June 18: 1.

Wong, James. 1969. "Somebody probably saw Linda Salee's killer--but will the person speak up?" Oregon Daily Journal , May 15: 5. Connect with Wondery http://wondery.com/shows http://facebook.com/WonderyMedia http://twitter.com/WonderyMedia http://instagram.com/WonderyMedia

Brief Summary

Hosts discuss a stomach virus, exciting guest news, and the chilling true crime case of Jerome Brutos, the Foot Fetish Slayer.

Key points

Ghost World Tour Announcement. Excitement erupts as Ghost announces a World Tour, including a stop in Boston!
Meeting Chelsea from Alaska. A heartwarming encounter with a fan brings joy and light after a tough week.
A Mother's Fury. Jerry's mother punishes him harshly for playing with shoes, leading to severe consequences.
The Neighbor's Kindness. A single woman becomes a source of support for young Jerry, contrasting with his mother's behavior.
The First Assault. At just 16, Jerry escalates from fantasies to actual assault, marking a dark turning point.
Jerry's Confession. Once in custody, Jerry confessed he only wanted to scare the girl into stripping.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

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