Part 22 (2/2)
Hazelwood next spent four more days in deep a.n.a.lysis of the case material.
Besides the paramount question-which, if any, of the six unsolved murders did Roy believe Ferrari committed?-two other puzzles hung over the investigation. Why had the killer so readily conceded guilt in four of the cases, but no others? And why did he apparently prey on both boys and girls?
The police believed the answer to the first mystery was that Ferrari did not want to be known as Europe's worst-ever child killer. The most victims attributed to a single killer in Europe at the time was six. Ferrari directly told his questioners that he was not as bad as other child killers, and even held out a hope he could be cured.
Hazelwood came at this question from another perspective. He suggested that a sense of hopelessness led Ferrari to confess some of the cases. At the time of his arrest, Hazelwood pointed out, Ferrari knew he'd been positively identified, and was in serious legal jeopardy because of his previous conviction for killing a child. His personal prospects were grim, and he was aging.
”Forced s.e.xual a.s.sault and murder is basically a young man's crime,” says Hazelwood. ”While nonviolent child molesters (those who rely on obtaining the voluntary compliance of their victims) may continue to operate well beyond Ferrari's age, the use of force requires a high degree of physical and emotional stamina.”
Werner Ferrari may have had the stable and comparatively attractive life of an inmate in mind.
”Ferrari,” Roy wrote in his report to commander Borer, ”may rationally have decided that all of his problems could be resolved by confessing to a sufficient number of crimes [to] guarantee his being taken care of for life.”
On the issue of victim selection, Hazelwood turned to Ken Lanning's research.
Lanning has found that pedophiles of Ferrari's type who prey on prep.u.b.escent children frequently have no gender preference. Those who prey on older children often focus on boys or girls, but not both.
The offender of Ferrari's type also often was s.e.xually abused as a child (in Ferrari's case, any s.e.xual abuse probably occurred while he was inst.i.tutionalized); had limited social contacts as a teen, and little s.e.xual interest in his age-mates; makes frequent and sudden moves, often because his s.e.xual orientation has been discovered and the offender is ”run out of town”; has been arrested before for s.e.xual offenses against children; has multiple victims; has made bold (high risk to himself) and repeated attempts to secure victims; is skilled at identifying vulnerable children; relates well to children on many levels; easily manipulates children; often dates women in order to gain access to their children; frequents places and events (playgrounds, fairs) where children congregate; and maintains a supply of toys and other objects of interest to children as bait.
Werner Ferrari met at least seven of the listed criteria, but because so much was known about Ferrari and his crimes, Hazelwood believed an even closer categorization was possible. Ferrari, he thought, was a member of Lanning's subtype ”introverted preferential child molester,” and cited four reasons for his thinking.
First, Roy wrote, the introverted molester has a preference for children, but lacks the special skills to seduce them. He therefore may resort to violence, as Ferrari apparently did on occasion.
Second, the introverted offender usually molests strangers, or victims too young to identify him.
Third, his s.e.xual interest in children is rooted in deep-seated insecurity, as well as curiosity.
Fourth, he often cannot express anger and hostility in normal social intercourse, so he acts out against nonthreatening children.
Ferrari either lived near where the six officially unsolved cases occurred, or knew the areas from past experience. All victims whose remains were recovered were found in woods or fields. All victims were between the ages of seven and ten, and all were slightly built. Again, all but one, Imhof, was alone at the time of abduction, which occurred in all but one case (Rebecca Bieri's) in the late afternoon or evening.
Ferrari also made some sort of important life change, from relocating his residence to breaking up with a girlfriend, within two months of each child murder.
Hazelwood declined to speculate whether Ferrari killed any of the three children whose bodies were never found: Peter Roth, Sarah Oberson, and Edith Trittenba.s.s. He lacked sufficient evidence to make the necessary linkage a.n.a.lysis comparisons.
Ruth Steinmann, he thinks, ”very probably” was killed by Werner, an inference drawn from the extraordinary number of similarities between her death and those of the children Ferrari confessed he had murdered.
These range from MO similarities-such as abduction sites, the fact that all victims except Fabienne Imhof were alone when he accosted them, and the use of the woods as disposal sites-to shared factors that plainly spoke to Ferrari's psychos.e.xual needs.
The children were all slightly built and prep.u.b.escent (save for Steinmann, who had slight breast development), and showed no defensive wounds or antemortem bondage. Plus there was no s.e.m.e.n recovered from any of the bodies or clothing, nor was there any evidence of penile penetration.
To the contrary, Ferrari told police that when he was angered he placed sticks in his victims' orifices. The evidence that Ruth Steinmann was violated in that way suggests perhaps that he'd been upset by her, too, possibly because she was not completely immature s.e.xually. Steinmann also suffered the only known bite mark, on her breast.
As for Rebecca Bieri and Loredana Mancini, both discovered as skeletons, Roy would not render a definitive opinion, except to say the cases' similarities to those of Ferrari's known victims were ”interesting.”
In June 1995, Werner Ferrari was sentenced to life in prison by a criminal court in Baden.
18.
”He Wanted to Be My Boyfriend”
Roy's testimony as an expert in linkage a.n.a.lysis is especially effective in s.e.xual crime cases where eyewitnesses are absent, such as the Ray Ward prosecution, or if the witnesses are less than absolutely certain, as was the case of Kenneth Bogard, the Pacific Beach Rapist.
Molly Iverson* was his first known victim.
She lived alone in a first-floor apartment in Pacific Beach, an oceanside family tourist destination with a large singles population, about five miles north of downtown San Diego.
At about 11:15 on Thursday night, August 13, 1992, Iverson was awakened from her sleep by a noise. Then she saw him, an intruder dressed only in red Converse high tops and a ski mask.
He had entered her bedroom via the open patio door. In the dark, he appeared to be a white male in his late twenties. He held a hunting knife in one hand. The other covered his p.e.n.i.s.
When Iverson jumped up and began to scream, he pushed her down on the bed and told her to be quiet. ”I'm not going to hurt you,” he said, pulling her hair back.
”Who are you?” she asked.
He said his name was Johnny, and rea.s.sured her, ”I'm not going to go inside you,” as he instructed Iverson to remove her camisole and shorts.
”Johnny” then told the thirty-one-year-old divorcee to roll over on her stomach. He sat on her legs, stroking her back, and talked to her.
”You have a nice a.s.s,” he said, placing his hands between her legs.
Iverson resisted, pus.h.i.+ng herself up, ”Don't do it! Don't do it!” she said.
”Okay, okay, okay,” he answered, and began to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e. In a few moments, Iverson felt his e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e on her back.
He tried to clean himself.
”Don't wipe that s.h.i.+t on my blanket!” she snapped.
”Okay,” he answered, and rose to leave.
”Remember to lock that door, okay?” he said on his way out.
Iverson, incensed at the a.s.sault, reported it to the police, and then began the slow process of reclaiming her life. But barely had she begun to put the incident behind her when her world again was shattered by an intruder.
The next month, at 12:30 a.m. on Friday the eighteenth, Iverson was standing in her living room when a man she believed was ”Johnny” walked through her unlocked door. This time he was wearing shorts along with the red high tops and ski mask. He had a knife, too, and a bottle of ma.s.saging oil.
”I came to treat you,” he said, tiptoeing toward her as he gestured with the bottle.
Iverson, surprised and furious, yelled obscenities at him until he retreated out the patio door and disappeared.
The following May, at 10:50 p.m. on the tenth, Dana Holly,* twenty-six, also of Pacific Beach, was awakened in her bedroom, much as Molly Iverson had been. Only this time Holly noticed he was wearing a ski mask and nothing else.
She screamed. He jumped onto the bed and put his knife to her throat.
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