I traded cars with an older woman (“Dee”) who had befriended me for sex (in the hopes of getting pregnant, I later realized, because her husband preferred sex with his own prepubescent daughters instead of her). Then I took the money I had been saving to move (about a thousand dollars) and headed south on interstate five.
I spent that first night on the lam in the first travel hotel I saw as soon as I crossed the state border into Oregon. Crossing the border made me officially a fugitive. I had a full beard at the time (my first, and only recently grown). So, I used my beard trimmers to give myself a buzz-cut haircut, and Van Dyke'd my beard --- which was completely out of character for me (I really didn't like Van Dykes or buzz-cuts). I figured appearing out of character would help as a disguise. The next morning I donned a cotton Nike baseball cap (also out of character) and continued South on I-5. (I'm noting this uncharacteristic change of appearance because it describes how I looked days later when I kidnapped 10-year-old Anthony in front of several other children. Even though I was later incorrectly described in the news as having only a mustache, I actually still had the partial beard at that time. This mistake may have helped me get away, and nevertheless told me that no one had gotten a good look at me, which obviously is what I wanted.)
My intent was to drive into California and then start looking for another child to kidnap, rape, and murder. Even though rape and murder are clearly very emotionally motivated crimes, and NOT “cold-blooded” the way they are so commonly portrayed and promoted, the rationale I invented at the time to justify my intent (everything had to be “rational” and “make sense” to me, just like most people) was that if I was going to have to go back to prison, possibly for the rest of my life (if I ever got found out for killing those two girls in Seattle), then I wanted it to be for something “worth” going to prison for.
On the deeper emotional level I just wanted revenge. I needed to take power back from those who had taken power (over my own life) away from me. When we take power back from someone who took power away from us in a socially acceptable way, we call it “justice”. But because what I was doing was against society, even though it's the same thing, we call it “vengence”, and “criminal”.
The next couple of nights I slept in the car in order to be as incognito as possible as I hunted for a child to kidnap. The sex and age of the child was not nearly as important as the mere vulnerability of the victim. I wanted the crime to be shocking and bold in order to show the desperation I felt. So I targeted almost every child I spotted out in the open, and passed over many after stalking them briefly when I determined they were not quite vulnerable enough, because there were too many people around, too many threats, or just too difficult for me to get control over them.
I spotted the group of boys that Anthony was with in an alley that ran behind several lower-middle class houses on a residential block in Beaumont, California. I circled the block then drove into the alley from the other side. I saw four or five boys, aged maybe seven to ten, talking to two girls over a low chain link fence. The girls were “safe” in their own backyard, but the boys were exposed and very vulnerable.
I stopped near them and asked from the car if any of them had seen my cat, proffering a photo of one of my pet cats that I had left behind in Seattle to lure the boys closer. I suppose they may have wanted to appear brave in front of the girls, but for whatever reason, at least two of the boys approached in order to look at the picture, while both girls quickly vanished into the house.
The boys seemed wary and cautious, and I sensed that if I so much as tried to get out of the car, much less get them in, they'd run away. So I thanked them cordially and asked them to keep an eye out for my lost cat. Then I drove out of the alley.
I drove around the immediate neighborhood to get a better “feel” for the area and to devise a strategy to get the boys --- or at least one of them --- in my car and under my control (“control” was very important). I decided to drive back into the alley, this time from the direction I had left the first time. The boys were still there, but no longer were the girls. I stopped a “safe” (non-threatening) distance away from them then got out of the car and began pretending to look around for my cat in the bushes and such. I used this ruse to move a little toward the boys, but they kept their distance. So I hollered over to them and pleaded that if they just helped me look I'd pay them each a dollar, and I pulled out my wallet to produce the cash to show them. They agreed to look, but still kept their distance. Then after they looked around a bit (less than a minute later) I thanked them and held out the cash for them to come collect. This was my move. I gave two of the boys a dollar to get the rest as close and together as possible, and then I pulled a folding knife from my shirt pocket, opened it, and told them to do what I said or I'd stab them!
I expected them to freeze with fright, but instead they scattered. I made a grab for the youngest and most vulnerable one, but Anthony stepped in between us and pushed the younger boy away. I did not realize it at the time, but he was protecting the smaller boy, who happened to be his brother. So, I grabbed Anthony instead, and quickly pushed him into the backseat of the car, hitting him once on the back of the head and telling him to stay down on the floor or I'd kill him. Then I looked around hoping to maybe chase down and grab another boy, but they were gone. So I got in the car, backed quickly out of the alley, spraying gravel, and sped off with my prize.
I drove straight to the interstate and headed South again, speeding at close to a hundred as I went. I figured, correctly as it turned out, that I'd be pulled over if I was spotted whether I was speeding or not. So the best strategy was to get as far away, and out of sight completely, as quickly as possible.
I estimated I had less than an hour before the police would have enough information to begin any kind of organized search. So after about 40 minutes or so of flying down the interstate I decided to pull off and get out of sight.
My first stop was a shopping center parking lot, where I could blend in with all the other parked cars while I took inventory of the situation. I spoke to Anthony only periodically, to threaten him and keep him scared and under control. In the parking lot I pulled out my beard trimmers and shaved off the rest of my beard and mustache, and doffed the hat. Then I drove off, away from the freeway and other traffic to look for a secluded spot. Instinct led me out to a desert ravine road that used to be an access road to a national park, but was now out of service and washed out in spots. I got around the washed out areas with some difficulty, and drove until the road itself could no longer be traveled at all. Then I puled off and slightly up into a side gully where I could park and be out of sight.
It turned out to be the perfect place to hide out for the night and take my vengeance upon the boy. The police, I learned much later, convinced themselves that the man who kidnapped Anthony had to be from the local area because only a local could have known about that ravine. We were hidden not only from sight, but also sound. If the boy screamed, and he did, no one would hear.
I made the boy undress in the front seat and fondled him while I waited for night to come, which it did shortly. I spent the night in the ravine having my way with Anthony, orally, anally, and otherwise. I did things to deliberately humiliate him, like telling him to stand in front of the car in the cold desert night, naked in the beams of the headlights, while I sat in the warm car and masturbated. I also took some pictures of him in various states of undress with the Polaroid camera I had bought just for that purpose. Between episodes I talked with him. I told him that I had to kill him because if I didn't then I'd go to prison for the rest of my life, or worse. He told me he loved Jesus, so he'd go to heaven. He also told me that his only regret would be not being able to say goodbye to his mother. He seemed more worried for her than he was for himself.
At one point lights from another vehicle flashed over us as we sat in the car. I panicked thinking it was police spotlight. But it turned out to be just some men in an off-road pick up equip with lots of bright lights. I didn't know if they'd spotted my car or not, but they drove a little ways off and began firing guns at targets they set up in their lights. After a short time they left the way they came.
At sunrise I drove back down the ravine a ways looking for a place to kill the boy and then hide his body. I settled on a location near the ravine wall, where there was a rock slide that I could use to help cover his body. I told Anthony to take all his clothes off again, and used duct tape to bind his hands and feet, with a piece of tape over his mouth as well. Then I made him kneel, and began throwing large rocks aimed at the back of the head (I threw rocks in order to avoid getting blood splashed back on myself). He fell over as I continued throwing rocks until I thought he was dead, all of them aimed at his head. Then I positioned his body at the base of the ravine wall under the rock slide, and began pushing rocks from the slide down on top of him. As I did so I noticed his eyes were open and tracking me, watching me. I was being methodical and not enjoying the chore. I said, sardonically, “Aren't you dead yet?” Then I picked up in even larger rock and threw it down on his head, and finished burying him convinced he was dead at least, so could no longer feel any pain.
But he still wasn't dead. After I left he managed to unbury himself and somehow pull the tape down off his mouth, but that was all. He died some time later. At least that's how it appeared in the “crime scene” photos I was shown years later after I had confessed.
Before leaving the ravine after I tried to hide Anthony's body I had also hidden a small “souvenir” package that contained the Polaroid pictures I took of Anthony, his jockey underpants, and the folding knife I used to threaten the boys with in Beaumont, all wrapped in a plastic bag and then with duct tape. I placed it under some rocks away from the washed out road near the entrance to the ravine. The police never found it, not even after they discovered Anthony's body a couple of weeks later. So I went back and retrieved it a couple of months later after I had switched cars again with Dee in Spokane.
I then drove back toward the freeway and the small city (Indio, it would seem) where I had pulled off the night before to get out of sight. I knew I was still well within the police “search” area, so I needed to find some place to hole up during the day (I reasoned I could be too easily spotted from the air during the day if I stayed in the ravine, not to mention by more off-road traffic). I stopped at the first cheap motel I came to, and after parking the car out of sight, I registered under a made up name for a room, telling the clerk that my I.D. was in my luggage and I'd bring it by the office after I got settled; which, of course, I never did.
When I got to my room I turned on the T.V. and saw reports on several channels about the kidnapping, complete with a preliminary sketch of the suspect, which fortunately did not look anything like me. They described the car as a white sedan with California plates. Again a stroke of luck; I had Washington plates. Anthony himself told me he had noticed my plates were from Washington, which worried me. But now it seemed he was the only one that noticed the out of state plates.
I slept the day away at the motel. I hung a suit jacket and shirt on the clothes hanger hook in the car in plain sight so it'd look like I was travelling on business. I don't know if any of my many little ruses like that worked or not, but I did see a very suspicious car behind the motel with two white men in it... extremely unusual. Might they have been plain clothed cops checking out a “supicious person” call from the motel clerk? Perhaps, but I'll never know.
At dusk I left the motel without checking out and drove further South on local roads in order to avoid the interstate around a heavily populated area, which I knew would be under the watch and eye of local police. Along the way I discarded the rest of Anthony's clothes and other potential evidence in a dumpster behind a fast food restaurant. I eventually re-entered the interstate and continued South, this time obeying the speed limit. At one point I spotted a state trooper who appeared to be watching the South bound lanes from a “trap” position in an old abandoned gas station. It was night now, and this stretch of the freeway was lit up by the lights from the station so he could see the cars passing more clearly. It was a good “choke point” for traffic leaving the Riverside valley where the kidnapping took place. After I passed I saw the cruiser pull out toward the freeway entrance where he could enter the freeway and get behind me easily. So I pulled off the freeway directly in front of him; another ruse. I was hoping to appear like “local traffic” to the cop. I then turned North and followed a frontage road back in the opposite direction, which I knew the cop could also see and perhaps not bother pursuing me since it would no longer appear as though I was trying to “leave the area” like a “fleeing suspect”. It must have worked because I saw the cop turn around and (presumably) return to his “trap” position.
After consulting my map, which wasn't detailed enough to show local roads, I realized that I couldn't get past the cop without risking getting lost and possibly potted on the local roads. So I waited for a truck going South (of which there are many at night) then drove next to it in the passing lane past the “check point” so the cop couldn't see me. It worked like a charm, I got past the cop and continued on out of the state and into Arizona.
During this drive, on my way out of California and to “freedom” beyond, I remember a poem coming to me almost entirely in one piece. I called it “An Ode To The Killer”. I had little trouble remembering it, and even wrote it down in a little black book I had with me. I did not realize until after my arrest many years later, in 2005, how deep and prophetic it was.
“An Ode To The Killer”
I know the reason why.
I know the reason for your hate.
And, I know the reason for your pain.
I know the reason for my love.
And, I know the reason we're not the same.
God's Love.
God's Love is the reason.
And, God's Love will bring you down.
Note: Even back then I understood “God's Love” as a reference to the Universal Will and Intelligence behind everything we experience. Since then I have further realized that the word “God” is nothing more than a metaphor for something far greater, and loving, than any “God” of religious imagination ever was or will ever be.
