Dead Men Talking (25 page)

A jogger, running through the grounds of the Uncas-on-Thames Hospital in Norwich, found the partially clothed corpse of Robin Stavinsky under a pile of leaves. Police retrieved the remainder of the dead woman’s clothing from the Thames River, after Michael’s arrest.

The brutal murder of Robin Stavinsky was to prove a dreadful watershed in Ross’s killing career. Previously, he had murdered out of the fear of recognition if his victims survived. However, he had always hoped that one day he would achieve his ultimate sexual thrill: that of ejaculation as his victim’s death supervened. So far, the murders had provided him with only part-realisation of this fantasy. The overwhelming emotions, topped up with feelings of power, domination and the act of murder were there, but he reasoned that Robin Stavinsky had short-changed him. She had provided him with none of the sickening criteria because she had collapsed limp and helpless as he dragged her into the scrub. Nevertheless, he strangled her and raped her after death. He told me later, ‘I was surprised, ya know. It was a pretty good thrill, but not the best.’

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Two schoolchildren, both fourteen, and from Griswold, disappeared in eastern Connecticut on Easter Sunday 1984. Leslie Shelley and April Brunais, inseparable friends and neighbours, had decided to walk into Jewett City, 2.6 miles from where they lived. For the girls, it would have taken them around an hour to walk this distance, with stops and starts, at best. Both girls were aware that their parents would not have permitted them to walk back during the hours of darkness, so each said that the other’s parents had agreed to drive them home. It was a childish deception that would cost them their innocent lives.

As darkness fell, the girls phoned their parents; both were ordered to walk back as punishment. At 10.30pm, when neither girl had returned, their parents called the police who listed the kids as ‘runaways’.

The exact time Ross stopped and offered the girls a lift is unknown. It is known, however, that April, who was the more assertive of the two, climbed into the front passenger seat, while the petite and fragile Leslie sat behind. Both were understandably startled when Ross drove right past the end of their street, and despite their protests that he had missed their turning, he wouldn’t stop. April pulled out a small pocket knife with which to threaten their abductor, but Ross easily disarmed her. Driving east out on Highway 165, he headed for Voluntown, and nearby Beach Pond, a vast expanse of water holding back the Pachaus River, which separates the states of Rhode Island and Connecticut.

After the nine-minute drive, and parking up at a still undetermined location, Ross tore off April’s jeans, cutting them into strips which he used to bind his victims’ hand and feet. He shut Leslie into the truck of his car and then dragged April a few yards and forced her to her knees. There can be no doubt that the terrified Leslie overheard her friend arguing with Ross. April put up a spirited fight for her life before he raped her and strangled her to death.

Ross now turned his attention to Leslie. He said that the girl made a great impact on him:

At this point during his interview with me, Ross showed the first signs of stress and remorse. He stopped talking, lowered his head, and sucked in a lungful of stale prison air. His three burly prison guards almost stopped breathing. When he resumed his sickening account of the murder of Leslie Shelley, there were tears in his eyes – maybe crocodile tears.

With that, Ross burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, before explaining that he had dumped the bodies of April and Leslie at another location near Beach Pond, and over the state line into Rhode Island, occasionally revisiting the site to masturbate over their remains. ‘I’d just sit there, just to look at their decomposing bodies. Like my childhood fantasies, they were there for me and they gave me pleasure when I needed it.’

Ross took police to the bodies of April Brunais and Leslie Shelley shortly after his arrest on Tuesday, 28 June 1984, although the precise location of the murder scene was never established. This was put down as an ‘oversight’ by the Connecticut State Police, and later proved in court enquiry to be a deliberate attempt by them to avoid a jurisdictional boundary dispute between Connecticut and Rhode Island – the latter now having to pay millions of dollars to foot the bill for the murder enquiry. The issue of moving bodies over state, or county lines, or from one law enforcement jurisdiction into another, is endemic throughout the United States, especially in the poorer counties where the cost of a murder enquiry and the subsequent trial can all but bankrupt a local authority.

The enquiry judge gave several officers from the Connecticut State Police a severe roasting; the implication being that they had actually shifted the two bodies over the state line, into Rhode Island, leaving the RI police to pick up the tab. But the question was, however: if the CST had moved the bodies, how was it that Michael Ross knew where they were in Rhode Island? Ross had the answer. The police had found the bodies, and, working a deal with Rhode Island law enforcement, that he would not face further charges in that state for their murders, he would say that the Rhode Island police had described the place where they lay.

It was an awful mess, one that would take this author weeks to figure out, and the real truth came from Ross in correspondence:

Michael was now nearing the end of his run; he was mentally out of control, and his work at the Prudential Insurance Company was suffering as a result. Faced with the prospect of dismissal, as he was failing to bring in new business, Mike was also coping with his turbulent relationship with Debbie Wallace which had taken a more active turn. Her father had died while she and Michael were on vacation and, after the funeral, on the return journey home, they had argued. A major rift followed and, once again, he felt alone and rejected.

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For seventeen-year-old Wendy, the daughter of Roger and Cindy Baribeault, Wednesday, 13 June 1984 was the final day of examinations at Norwich Free University where she was a junior student. She was well liked by her fellow students and friends, who described her as ‘a caring and sensitive person who enjoyed life’. She liked going to the movies and hanging out at the beach. She loved music and would sit in jam sessions with a local band that played some of her favourite tunes. She had stopped at her parents’ home, in Lisbon, after studies; leaving a note to say that she was catching a bus back the 2.3 miles to Jewett City to visit a convenience store. It was a fine afternoon, so she decided to walk back and, at around 4.30pm, she was seen, by a passing motorist, walking along the fairly busy Route 12. But she was not alone, for other witnesses later came forward to say that she was being followed rapidly by a man on foot. He was about 6ft tall, white, clean-shaven, of medium build and had dark hair. Other witnesses saw this man get out of a blue, compact car with a rear window wiper, and they recalled that he walked briskly off in the direction of the young woman who answered Wendy’s description.

When Wendy failed to return home, Cindy reported her as missing the following day. Hundreds of police and local residents launched an immediate search of the area, and, two days later, her body was found by a fireman. The corpse was about 100 yards from the road – just a quarter of a mile from her home – in dense woods, and an attempt to hide the body in an ancient stone wall was evident. She had been raped and strangled.

Ross later told me that he had intended to go to work that day, but had cut himself while shaving and blood seeped on to the collar of his only clean shirt. After phoning in with the excuse that he was ill, he dressed himself in smart, casual clothes, and hung around his apartment, reading pornographic material and masturbating. At around 2.00pm, he went for a drive, and later on he saw Wendy walking along the road towards her home.

After swinging his car around and parking up at the entrance of a gravel track, he dashed across the road and asked Wendy if she would like to go to a barbecue that night. When she turned him down, Ross dragged her into a clearing in the woodland bordering the highway. Here, in a dappled, sunlit clearing, he rolled her over on to her stomach before strangling her. He said that he ejaculated almost immediately, so he throttled her again. She struggled and kicked, and her body twitched. Michael had cramp in his hands as he fought to strangle the life out of his victim. When he stopped to massage his hands, she heaved and squirmed under him until he re-applied his grip. Finally, a kick of her legs told him she was dead.

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Known for disarming suspected criminals with his boyish smile and supportive ‘good-cop’ manner, Connecticut State Police Detective Mike Malchik has used his investigative skills to crack even the toughest of homicide enquiries, including 40 or more which were considered ‘unsolvable’ by his colleagues. A legendary figure in Connecticut law enforcement, the fair-haired, blue-eyed cop often worked alone and unpaid on these jobs, such was his dedication to policing. The case of Wendy Baribeault was no exception.

The Ross investigation is obviously one of the high points of Mike Malchik’s career, and this becomes all too apparent when one visits his spacious, up scale home, set in lush, green grounds. Photos of him, with Ross, hang on the wall, and, despite the horrific nature of Ross’s crimes, Mike Malchik still refers to Ross as ‘Michael’.

Most US cops seem to love being in front of a camera, and Mike Malchik is no exception. Wearing a tight, white T-shirt, and stone-washed blue jeans and white running shoes, he accompanied me, and my film crew, to several of the most important locations in the Ross story. He explained that he had already formed solid links between the murders of Debra Smith Taylor and Tammy Williams, and when he placed Robin Stavinsky and Wendy Baribeault into the equation, he knew that he was hunting a sexual psychopathic serial killer who would not stop murdering until he was arrested and brought to justice.

Indeed, Mike Malchik’s experience in homicide cases was such that he didn’t need to consult the FBI for advice, but, to confirm his belief, he did speak to a colleague at the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, Quantico, Virginia. Malchik already knew what type of suspect he was looking for. ‘He would be a young, dark-haired Caucasian male in his later twenties or early thirties. He would be of the “white-collar” type, who worked in Norwich, yet lived further south, and this man would frequently travel along Route 12, between his place of work and his home.’ To Malchik, Griswold seemed a good bet for the suspect’s locus and now there was the extra bonus knowing that the man drove a blue, foreign make of car.

Using what Malchik calls ‘basic common sense’, he reasoned that whoever murdered Wendy who would want to flee the crime scene as quickly as possible, and he reasoned that his target was a local man. He telephoned the Vehicle Licensing Department and asked them for a print-out of all vehicles, and their owners, in the locality. For this service, the VLD charged the Connecticut State Police $12 per car, which, as it turned out, proved to be a cheap investigative tool. When the list rolled out of his teleprinter, Malchik started looking for a blue, foreign make of car. At number 27 on the list was a vehicle owned by one Michael Bruce Ross who lived in Jewett City.

Ross seemed intrigued when Malchik arrived on his doorstep on Thursday, 28 June, to question him. He invited the detective in for a cup of coffee and enjoyed the attention of the police. For his part, Mike Malchik actually felt that the personable Ross could not have been a serial killer. As he was about to leave to rejoin his colleague, Detective Fran Griffen, outside in their car, Malchik was asked a question. Ross wondered if such a murderer would be declared insane, and escape the electric chair, if he was convicted. It was such a pointed question that it prompted Malchik to return to Ross’s sitting room. As Keith Hunter Jesperson observes: ‘Ross must have been questioning his own sanity ever since he started his perversions. Now he wanted a professional’s opinion from a detective looking into one of his murders…not a very smart move.’