Part 13 (1/2)
”Yes.”
”How long did you continue to window-peep?”
”Oh, off and on until the times I was actually going into the houses.”
”You stopped at that time?”
”Well, I cla.s.sify window-peeping as just looking, and not doing anything else. There were lots of times I'd peek in a window and see women who might be undressed but it was more to get an idea who was home, and where they were at. It wasn't just looking and leaving.”
What about the exhibitionism?
Simonis said it started when he was in Europe in the army at age twenty-four.
”How long did that go on?”
”Off and on for about three years.”
”The purpose was to get a response from the women?”
”Exactly. A lot of times I got a stimulating feeling just on the reaction of people. A lot of times it was to induce fear, or surprise, and see how they responded to it. I would feed off this fear. It was like a source of fuel for me.”
Lanning asked about the telephone scatology.
”Ah, yes. That was around '77 or '78, around in there.”
Neither Hazelwood nor Lanning at first fully comprehended the importance of what Simonis had revealed about paraphilias: that they do not appear in isolation from one another. This important disclosure would later be borne out in research conducted by Dr. Gene Abel, an Atlanta mental health expert who specializes in the study and treatment of child molesters. Roy would be among the first investigators to make practical use of it.
”You also said you m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed a considerable number of times,” Lanning said to Simonis. ”What kind of fantasies did you have during masturbation?”
”It was a mult.i.tude of things. It might consist of bondage or the fantasy of a rape, or maybe multiple males and multiple females.”
”And how long did you m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e?”
”Sometimes four or five times a day. But there were times when it was as much as ten or twelve times.”
”During the time you were committing your rapes,” Roy asked, ”were you also having consenting s.e.xual relations?”
”Yes. Quite a bit.”
”Did you ever live with a woman?”
”Several of them, yes.”
This, Hazelwood would learn, was not atypical for rapists. Of the forty-one in his survey, only one was not in a consenting s.e.xual relations.h.i.+p at the time he was also raping.
”Why do you think you were so successful for such a long period of time?” Lanning asked.
”I think it was just a natural instinct I developed, and relied on heavily. It always paid off for me.
”It got to be a cat and mouse game with the police. I knew they were after me by 1980. From there on I figured that if I kept on going I just could not create a definite pattern. I had to stagger my attacks and my robberies in different states. Always change my clothing, have new stuff after every job. Throw the old stuff away. Never kept any evidence.
”I tried to think like the cops would think. For instance, after I left one job I figured they'd probably block the interstates. So I used the back roads. It was a kind of guessing game with them.”
Both Hazelwood and Lanning locked on to what Simonis was explaining. Both agents knew that criminals refine their MO over time, but Simonis was saying that an important part of the process was the guessing game he played with the police.
Clearly, just as the seasoned bank robber or jewel thief might alter his MO in order to avoid capture, so, too, did the more intelligent deviant offenders.
The message for police was not to become too predictable. If the investigators followed repeat patterns, the smart criminal would pick up on that and use it to his advantage, as Simonis did.
”Was traveling in a lot of jurisdictions part of those efforts?” asked Lanning.
”Oh, yes. Spreading them out. There was less chance of people a.s.sociating those crimes with me.”
”Did you ever use your occupation to select victims?”
Here, Simonis had chilling news.
”Oh, yes. When I worked in a hospital I had access to all the medical records. I knew where the patients lived; what their husbands did; whether he worked in or out of town; who was home during the day, and who wasn't.
”Also, if they were having surgery, I'd have access to their keys, which they usually left in their nightstands by their beds. I'd go down and have a copy made and return the original and copy down their address and later on use that to get in their house.”
”Did you ever take advantage of patients under sedation?”
”Oh, sometimes. I had neurology patients we had to sometimes sedate. So there were times for that, yeah.”
Halfway through the daylong interview three lunches arrived from the prison kitchen. Word was around Angola that the two suits talking to Simonis were federal agents, meaning that a surprise very likely was hidden somewhere in their meals, probably bodily excretions contributed by one or more inmates in the Angola kitchen.
Simonis advised Hazelwood and Lanning of that possibility, and was thanked for his consideration.
Lunch was returned to the kitchen untouched.
”What was the youngest victim you s.e.xually a.s.saulted?” Lanning resumed the questioning.
”Agewise I really don't know,” Simonis answered a little warily. ”About thirteen or fourteen.”
Consistent with his hypermasculine point of view, Simonis was careful that the agents didn't think him a baby raper-the lowest form of life in the prison cla.s.s system-or that he preyed on the elderly, also the sort of crime that is beneath the virile self-image of the macho offender.
”And the oldest victim?”
”There was one in Houston who was fifty,” he answered, then added, ”but she was really well preserved. She looked more like thirty-eight or forty.”
”You mentioned that you would take things that were easily transportable, easily concealed,” said Hazelwood. ”Why?”
”Well, in the beginning I took a lot of things like televisions and video recorders, but I was exposing myself to the chance of being caught. Later on, I started taking just jewelry. Easy to conceal and lightweight. It didn't bog me down in case I had to move or run or get away quickly.”
”What type of vehicle did you drive?”
”I started off driving a '78 Buick Regal. It was gray and I had it painted black. I also had a '79 Kawasaki motorcycle that I'd use especially out in the country, where I could conceal it quite well.
”Later on, I sold the Buick and the bike and bought an '81 red Trans Am.”