Chapter 3 preamble

This is the only logical explanation.I was naked and tied up.The pain of flesh and blood is unbearable.My limbs are being dismembered by some kind of blade, piercing every hole in my body.Something stuck in my throat and I couldn't breathe.The sharp object penetrated my penis and rectum, and I felt like I was falling apart.I was sweating profusely.Then I realized what was going on: All the murderers, rapists, and child molesters I'd sent to jail during my career were killing me.Now I am a victim, but I am powerless to fight back. I know the modus operandi of these guys, I've seen it many times.They all share a need to have their prey at their disposal.They all want the power to decide whether their victims live or die, or how they should die.They would not let me die so easily as long as my body could bear it; they would revive me when I was fainted or dying.Anyway, they tortured me as much as they could.Some of them can be so sadistic for days on end.

They wanted to show me that they had complete control and that my life depended on them.The more I shouted, the more I begged for mercy, the more I fueled their arrogance and inspired their evil fantasies.Begging for mercy, withdrawing, or crying for their parents will only make them worse. That's what I've been rewarded for six years hunting down the heinous. My heart was racing and I was exhausted.I felt a bone-piercing pain as they plunged the sharp stick deep into my cock.My whole body convulsed with pain. Please, God, if I'm alive, let me die quickly.If I am dead, let me quickly escape the torment of this hell.

Then I saw a strong, bright white light, like the kind I've heard say a dying person sees.I expected to see Christ, or an angel, or a devil—I'd heard about those things too.But all I saw was the white light. However, I did hear a voice, a soothing, reassuring voice, the most calming voice I've ever heard. "John, don't worry. We'll do our best to save you." It's the last thing I remember. "John, did you hear me? Don't worry. Don't be nervous. You're in the hospital. You're very sick and we'll try to get you better." That's what the nurse said to me.She didn't know if I could hear her, but she repeated it in a comforting tone.

Little did I know at the time that I was in the intensive care unit of Swedish Hospital in Seattle, where I was unconscious for days on life support.My hands and legs were strapped, and I had IVs and various other catheters inserted into my body.No one thinks I can escape the gate of death.It was early December 1983, and I was 38 years old. The story begins three weeks ago, on the other side of the United States.I was in New York, giving a presentation on criminal personality profiling to about 350 officers from the NYPD, the Transit Police Department, and the Nassau and Suffolk County Police Departments on Long Island.I have done this kind of speech no less than hundreds of times, and it can almost be said that I can recite it backwards.

Suddenly asked, I began to absent-minded.I knew I was still speaking, but suddenly my body broke out in a cold sweat.I thought to myself: How the hell am I going to handle all those cases?I was wrapping up consulting work on the Wayne Williams child murder case in Atlanta and the .22 caliber shooting in Buffalo.Previously, I was invited to participate in the investigation of the "Woodpath Killer" case in San Francisco.I also advised Scotland Yard on the detection of the Yorkshire Murder case.I shuttled to and from Alaska for the case of Robert Henson, an Anchorage baker who preyed on prostitutes and took them into the wilderness to play hunter on prey.I took over the serial arson attack on a synagogue in Hartford, Connecticut.In two weeks, I have to fly to Seattle to consult with the Green River Task Force, which is solving the worst serial murders in the history of the United States, mainly committed by prostitutes and passing clients in Seattle's Tacoma area.

For the past six years, I have been working on a new type of crime analysis.I am the only full-time case handler in the Behavioral Science Department, and the rest of the staff in the Department are lecture instructors.I had about 150 unsolved cases on my own at the time, and I was traveling 125 days of the year instead of staying in my office at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.The pressure from the local police is very high, and these police officers themselves are also under tremendous pressure from the community and from the families of the victims to solve the case, so I deeply sympathize with them.I've been trying to prioritize my work, but every day new cases keep coming.My colleagues at Quantico used to joke that I was like a male whore: not saying no to clients.

During this talk in New York, I kept talking about criminal personality types, but my mind kept coming back to Seattle.I know that not everyone on the Green River Task Force wants me to solve the case, and that's to be expected.Whenever there is a big case, I am often asked to provide a new method of solving the crime, and most of the police and many officers in the department regard it as one step away from witchcraft, so I know this time You have to do some "self-promotion".I must appear persuasive in my speech without appearing overly confident or arrogant.I had to make it clear to them that I thought their investigation was thorough and professional, while also reassuring skeptics that the FBI might help them solve the case.Perhaps most frustrating of all, instead of the traditional FBI agent who can say "just tell the facts, ma'am" and get away with it, my job also requires providing insight into the case.I've always been very aware that if I made a mistake, the serial investigation could go astray and more people would die.Equally bad, it would kill off a whole new project of criminal profiling and crime analysis that I've worked so hard to put into practice.

Besides, there is the hard work of running around.I have been to Alaska several times. I have to fly through four time zones, take a plane close to the water with trepidation, and finally land in the dark. After meeting the local police almost at the destination, I have to board the plane again and return to Seattle. . This unprovoked anxiety lasted about a minute.I kept saying to myself: Hey Douglas, pull yourself together.Take control of yourself.So at last I pulled myself together again.I don't think anyone in that lecture hall knew that something was wrong.But I just couldn't shake the feeling of impending doom.

I couldn't shake the feeling of foreboding, so when I got back to Quantico, I went to the personnel department and got additional life insurance and income protection insurance against disability.I can't tell what the purpose of doing this is, but there is a vague and strong sense of fear in my heart.I was exhausted, exhausted and probably drinking too much to cope with the stress.I had trouble falling asleep and when I did I was often woken up by calls for emergency assistance.When I go back to sleep, I force myself to dream about the case in the hope of being inspired.Looking back now, it is easy to see the clues, but at the time I seemed helpless.

Just before heading to the airport, for some reason I stopped by the elementary school where my wife, Pam, taught reading to students with learning disabilities.I told her about the extra insurance. "Why are you telling me this?" she asked me worriedly.I had severe pain on the right side of my head. She said my eyes were bloodshot and I had a strange expression. "I just wanted to tell you everything before I leave," I replied.We had two daughters at the time: Erica was eight and Lauren was three. On this trip to Seattle, I took two new agents, Brian McIlwain and Ron Walker, and let them work together to solve the case.We arrived in Seattle that night and stayed at the Hilton Hotel in the city center.When I opened the bag, I found only one black leather shoe.Either I didn't put the other black shoe in the bag, or somehow I lost one on the way.I was scheduled to give a lecture at the King County Police Department the next morning, and I couldn't do without black leather shoes.I'm a very well-dressed person, and even when I feel exhausted and stressed, I can't forget that I need black shoes to match my suit.So, I hurried out of the hotel and went to the commercial street in the city center to search around. Finally, I found a shoe store that was still open and bought a pair of black leather shoes that I wanted.By the time I got back to the hotel I was feeling more and more exhausted.

The next morning, Wednesday morning, I lectured for the local police and a case team consisting of representatives from the Port of Seattle and two local psychologists who had been hired to help with the investigation.Everyone is interested in what I teach about perpetrator profiling, such as whether there is more than one perpetrator and what type of person it might be.What I try to get them to accept is that perpetrator profiling is not always so important in such cases.I'm pretty sure it will eventually be discovered what kind of person the perpetrator was, but I'm also sure there will likely be many who fit my description. I told them that even more important in solving this ongoing cycle of murders was the proactive approach in which the police and the media worked together to lure the killers into their hands.For example, I suggest that the police could hold a series of community meetings to "discuss" these crimes.By deduction, I am certain that the murderer will be present at one or more meetings.I also thought it would be helpful to know if we were dealing with more than one murderer.Another tactic I want the police to try is to announce to the media that someone has witnessed one of the hijackings.I feel like doing this might prompt the killer to adopt his own "proactive strategy" of coming forward and explaining why he was "innocently" seen near the crime scene.The one thing I am most certain of is that whoever is responsible for these murders is not going to let it go. I then told the group how to interrogate the suspects involved in the case, both those who self-exposed and the many hopeless eccentrics who inevitably turn themselves in in high-profile cases.McIlwain, Walker, and I spent the rest of the day checking out several dump sites, and by the time I got back to the hotel in the evening, I was exhausted. We had a drink at the hotel bar to relax and I told Brian and Ron I wasn't feeling well.I still had a headache and thought I might have the flu, so asked them to cover up my illness to the local police the next day.I thought I'd be fine with just bed rest the next day, so after exchanging good nights, I hung a "Do Not Disturb" sign on my door and told my two colleagues to join them again on Friday morning. I just remember feeling bad sitting on the edge of the bed and undressing.Two fellow Secret Service agents returned to the King County Capitol Thursday to continue the strategy I had outlined the day before.At my request, they left me alone all day so that I could get a good night's sleep and get over my flu. But when I skipped breakfast on Friday morning, they started to worry.They called my room.Nobody answers the phone.They came knocking on my door.No one answered. They returned to the main station very nervously, asked the manager for the key, went back upstairs and opened the door, only to find that the safety chain was buckled backwards.But they heard faint groans coming from the room. They kicked open the door and rushed in to find me - as they say - lying on the ground like a frog, half dressed, apparently trying to grab the phone.I was twitching on the left side of my body, and Brian said I was "hot all over." The hotel called the Swedish hospital, which immediately dispatched an ambulance.Meanwhile, Brian and Ron stayed by the phone to keep in touch with the emergency room, giving them some key data from me.Body temperature is 41.6 degrees, pulse 220 beats.The left side of my body was paralyzed, and I was still convulsing in the ambulance.According to the doctor's report, my eyes were doll-like: wide open, glazed and blank. As soon as I entered the hospital, the doctor immediately applied ice packs to me and injected a large dose of phenobarbital luminal sedative intravenously to try to control the convulsions.The doctor told Brian and Ron that I would be given enough sedatives to put the entire city of Seattle to sleep. The doctor also told the two agents that despite everyone's best efforts, I would probably die.A computed axial tomography scan showed that the right side of my brain had ruptured from a high fever and I had had intracranial hemorrhage. "In layman's terms," ​​the doctor told them, "his brain has been blown to pieces." It was December 2, 1983.My new insurance started the day before. My section chief, Roger Dipper, went to Pam's school to tell her the bad news in person.Pam and my father, Jack, then flew to Seattle to be with me, leaving the two daughters in the care of my mother, Dolores.Two special agents from the FBI's Seattle station, Rick Mathers and John Byner, met them at the airport and took them straight to the hospital.Only now did they realize how critical the situation was.The doctor prepared Pam for my death and told her that even if I survived, I might be blind or in a vegetable state.Pam, who is Catholic, had a priest come to do the last sacrament for me, but when the priest learned I was Presbyterian, he was reluctant to pray for me.Brian and Ron tricked him and found another priest who had no such concerns.They asked him to come and say their prayers. For a whole week, I remained in a coma, wandering on the borderline between yin and yang.The intensive care unit allowed only family visitors, so two of my colleagues at Quantico, Rick Mathers, and the rest of the Seattle station were suddenly my next of kin. "You have a big family," one nurse once joked to Pam. The term "extended family" is in some ways not entirely a joke.At Quantico, led by Bill Hagemeier of the Behavioral Science Division and Tom Columbel of the FBI National Academy, some colleagues launched a fundraiser so that Pam and my father could stay with me in Seattle. .Before long they were receiving donations from police officers across the country.At the same time, arrangements were made for my body to be transported back to Virginia to be buried in a military cemetery in Quantico. Nearly a week into my illness, Pam, my dad, the agents, and the priest formed a circle around my bed, holding hands and holding my hand in prayer.Late that night, I woke up from a coma. I remember being surprised to see Pam and my dad and not knowing where I was.At first I couldn't speak, the left side of my face was drooping, and the left side of my body was still largely paralyzed.With the recovery of speech function, I began to speak slurred.After a while, my legs were able to move, and gradually more parts of my body regained movement.My throat was so sore from the life support tube.The seizure control drug was also changed from phenobarbital and luminal to pethidine.After various tests, scans and spinal taps, doctors finally made a clinical diagnosis: viral encephalitis triggered by stress and general debilitating condition.I was lucky to save my life. However, the recovery process can be painful and frustrating.I had to learn to walk again and I had memory problems.To help me remember the name of the attending doctor, Siegel, Pam brought a small seagull statuette made of seashells on a cork base.The next time the doctor came for a mental test and asked me if I remembered his name, I mumbled, "Of course I do, Dr. Seagull." Despite all the enthusiastic support I have received, I am still very frustrated with my physical condition.I've never been able to stand sitting around doing nothing or dawdling in things.FBI Director William Webster himself called to cheer me up.I told him I probably wouldn't be able to raise a gun and shoot again. "John, don't worry about that," the chief replied, "what we need is your brains." What I didn't tell him was that I'm afraid even brains won't work. I finally left the Swedish hospital and returned home two days before Christmas.When I was discharged from the hospital, I sent a plaque to the emergency room and intensive care unit, expressing my deep gratitude to the medical staff for everything they did to save my life. Roger Dipper met us at Dulles Airport and drove us back home to Frederick.An American flag and a broad "Welcome Home John" sign awaited my return by the door.My weight has dropped from my normal 195 lbs to 160 lbs.Erica and Lauren were so devastated by my morbidity and the fact that I was in a wheelchair that for a long time afterward they were terrified whenever I had to travel. Christmas this year was deserted.I didn't meet many friends other than Ron Walker, Brian McIlwain, Bill Hagemeier, and another Quantico agent, Jim Horne.I am able to move without relying on a wheelchair, but I still have a lot of trouble getting around.It is also difficult to talk to people.I found myself crying at every turn, and my memory was not very reliable.When Pam or Dad took me for a drive around Frederick, I would notice a building and not know if it was new.I felt like a stroke patient and wondered if I would ever be able to return to work. I'm outraged that the FBI got me like this.Just in February of the previous year, I had reported to Deputy Director Jim McKenzie.I told him I didn't think I could keep up with the fast pace of work and asked if he could find someone to help me. MacKenzie expressed sympathy for me, but with a solid view. "You know what's going on in this institution," he told me. "Until your work is recognized, you have to keep working until you lie down." Not only did I feel unsupported, but I also felt that my efforts were not appreciated.In fact, it is thankless.Exactly a year ago, I tried my best to deal with the Atlanta child murder case, and after the arrest of Wayne Williams, I was arrested by the bureau for an article in a newspaper in Newport News, Virginia. admonishment.A reporter from the newspaper once asked me what I thought of the suspect Williams, and I replied that he was "possible" and that if it was confirmed that he was the murderer, he might be involved in several cases. Even though the FBI asked me to be interviewed at the time, they thought I had made an inappropriate statement about a cold case.They claim that I was admonished in an interview with People magazine a few months ago.This is a typical government office style.I was referred to the Professional Liability Unit at the Washington headquarters for investigation.After six months of official investigation, I received a disciplinary action.Later, I was awarded a certificate for this case.But that was because the bureau acknowledged my contribution to solving what the press dubbed the "crime of the century." Much of what law enforcement officers do is difficult to talk about with anyone, not even a spouse.When you're surrounded by dead bodies and amputated limbs all day long, especially when the dead are children, you don't want to bring that topic home.You would never say at the dinner table, "I did a rape-murder case today. Now let me tell you about it." That's why cops tend to love nurses, and nurses love cops. Reason: These people are able to relate each other's work in some way. Sometimes when I'm out in the park or in the woods, with my daughter, I'm often visceral and think: This is a lot like the crime scene of so-and-so, where we found a murdered eight-year-old.Although I am very worried about the safety of the children, I have been exposed to too many tragedies, so I don't care much about their minor scrapes and bruises.Once when I got home, Pam told me that a daughter had fallen on a bicycle and needed several stitches for the wound. I immediately thought of the autopsy process of a murdered child of the same age, and how many stitches were needed for the forensic doctor to bury her. on the wound. Pam had her own circle of friends who were interested in local politics, which I had no interest in.With so much of my time away working on cases, the burden of raising the kids, paying the bills, and supporting the household fell on Pam alone.It was one of the many problems in our marriage, and I knew that at least my oldest daughter, Erica, was aware of the tension between us. I'm bitter about the bureau allowing this to happen.One day, a month after I got home, I was burning fallen leaves in my backyard.On impulse, I went into the house and took out all the archives and written articles stored at home, and burned them all.It makes me happy to get rid of these things. A few weeks later, I was able to drive again, and I went to Quantico National Cemetery to see where I was supposed to be buried.The graves are sorted by the date of death, and if I did die on December 1st or 2nd, my grave would be a terrible place to be.I noticed that the grave next to it happened to be the grave of a little girl who was stabbed to death in the driveway not far from my house.I have investigated the case and it is still pending.As I stood pondering over the graves, I recalled how many times I had advised the police to monitor cemeteries that I thought might be visited by murderers.How ironic it would be if the police were watching the neighborhood right now and apprehended me as a suspect. Four months after being ill in Seattle, I was still on sick leave.My legs and lungs were bruised from complications and bed rest, and I still felt like I was struggling to get by every day.I don't know if I will be physically able to go back to work, or if I will be able to go back to work, if I will have the confidence.During this period, the workload of Roy Hazlewood in the Behavioral Science Teaching Group increased greatly. He took on the important task of continuing to handle the cases I had taken on. I first returned to Quantico in April 1984 to lecture to a group of fifty or so active agents from the Bureau's field stations.I walked out of the classroom wearing flip flops, my legs still swollen from bruises, and was greeted with a standing ovation by agents from all over the United States as soon as I walked in.The response was heartfelt and genuine because these people understand better than anyone else what I do and what I'm trying to build at the Bureau.For the first time in months I felt valued and appreciated by others.I still have a feeling of coming home. A month later, I started working full time again.

---

Notes: