Part 13 (2/2)
”Did you like to drive?”
”Oh, yes. I put about eighty thousand miles on it in ten months.”
”Why did you like to drive so much?”
”I just liked to travel. It gave me a sense of freedom. I didn't have to worry about what I did. I didn't have to worry about answering to people.”
Ken Lanning leaned forward, fingers clasped together.
”Barry, you indicated earlier that you had these tremendous urges that kind of drove you. Yet in some cases you'd rob and burglarize and not s.e.xually a.s.sault. What are some of the factors that determined whether or not you s.e.xually a.s.saulted a victim?”
”The victims herself plays a part in that,” he answered. ”If they'd show fear or apprehension, sometimes I'd feed off that. That might cause me to make a s.e.xual attack. Some I had no s.e.xual contact with at all. I don't know why.”
”Were there ever practical reasons why you wouldn't s.e.xually a.s.sault?”
”Well, sometimes if the a.s.sault jeopardized getting away with the robbery, I wouldn't.”
”Did you ever take anything that wasn't valuable?” Hazelwood wondered. He knew that many s.e.xual offenders take away souvenirs of their crimes.
”Just some articles of clothing, and maybe a driver's license on a few occasions. They were just temporary things to hang on to.”
”And what did they represent to you?”
”Like a trophy. Kind of a reminder. It helped me visualize in my mind the scene when I reenacted the fantasy in my mind.”
”You said you'd dress in a particular way for your a.s.saults. What would you do with that material later?”
”Oh, I'd always discard it. Put it in Dumpsters. Rip it up and throw it out the window along the interstate. Usually, this was a long distance away. I'd never dump it right there in the community where I committed the crime.”
”What would be your first response when a woman resisted you?” Roy asked, lighting his second or third Lucky Strike of the afternoon.
”In the early stages, if they would have put up a scream it probably would dissuade me from sticking around.”
”What would happen later on?”
”It would have been a point of agitation to me and I would probably have retaliated by taking a physical action against them.”
”Such as?”
”Beating them. Or kicking them. Or burning them. Any way to inflict pain to get them to be quiet.”
Lanning asked Simonis to describe the a.s.saults.
”Well, their hands were tied, and usually their feet were, too, but not always. Uh, I'd slam my fist to their b.r.e.a.s.t.s or into their stomach. Sometimes I hit them across the face. There were times I'd light a cigarette and touch it to their b.r.e.a.s.t.s.”
Roy reminded Simonis of the police officer's wife.
”She said you were being a gentleman, and then you a.s.saulted her.”
”Correct. I struck her across the mouth a couple times.”
”What was the reason for that?”
”I felt she was trying to patronize me. Like she was talking down to me. Treating me like a child. It irritated and agitated me. I decided to let her know I was in control and she would not dictate to me what was going on.”
Simonis's sharp loathing for women was evident. What he said reminded Roy of Mike DeBardeleben's extended reflections on the same subject, handwritten and tape-recorded material he'd just recently had a.n.a.lyzed for the Secret Service. DeBardeleben and Simonis had much in common.
”You mentioned compulsive urges just a moment ago,” said Lanning. ”Yet you were able to control the urge so as not to bring harm to yourself. If you had an urge to a.s.sault but you knew the area to be dangerous, what would you do?”
”My safety came first. If I thought I could pull it off, I would pull it off. If not, I'd go somewhere else, or try from a different angle.”
”So you did not have an irresistible impulse?”
”No. Not total domination. Later on it did get to where it controlled me a lot more than I wanted it to. But I wasn't at its mercy completely.”
”I'd like to talk a little bit about p.o.r.nography,” said Lanning. ”Did you ever view or collect it?”
”Yes. I had a small note binder full of different pictures I'd get from Playboy magazine and other skin books.”
”How did you use these pictures?” Lanning asked.
”I'd look at them for masturbation.”
”Did you ever view p.o.r.nography when you were younger?”
”Yes, I did. But not to get off on it. I was about six or seven, I think, the first time I actually came in contact with any kind of p.o.r.nography. It was something like Stag.”
Simonis explained that from his very earliest memory, s.e.x was connected to violence and pain in his imagination.
”It had an artist's conception of a woman, completely nude, with her hands tied together and bound above her head, tied to a rope that went up to the ceiling, and there was a man standing there with a smile on his face, holding a large knife. It looked like he was getting ready to inflict bodily harm, a form of mutilation, almost.
”It wasn't so much the nude woman that excited me. It was the overall picture.”
”Do you think the picture had an impact on you?”
”I think it did. It's stayed in my subconscious all these years. I'm not saying it was a contributing factor to me doing the things that I did. I have to take full blame for that. But I think it does contribute in some way.”
”A while back we were talking about s.e.xual bondage,” Roy said, ”and you mentioned tying your victims in a variety of positions. Where did you get the idea for that?”
”From magazines.”
”Was it your goal to inflict pain on your victims?”
”Yes, that was the most stimulating part, I guess. To inflict pain and terror to a woman. The attacker kind of feeds off it. It's kind of like adding fuel to the body. The more you see it the more it stimulates you, the more it gets a person going.”
”Is the pain itself the goal? Or is it the victim's response?”
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