Sadistic Killers: Profiles of Pathological Predators (15 page)

He tied up a third prostitute then hit her in the face, telling her that she was evil. He also slashed one of her feet, threatening that he was going to cut it off. She got free of her bindings and jumped naked from the truck, after which he returned to his senses and gave her back her clothes.

By November 1986 he was getting closer to his first kill, binding a 23-year-old prostitute and biting her breasts, buttocks, shoulders, back and feet for three or four hours until she was incoherent with pain and terror. Eventually he carried her, naked, from his truck and dumped her in the street, saying that he hoped she would die. Over the next few years, he would bind and torture dozens of prostitutes in similarly fetishistic ways. Some went to the police and told them about the man who called himself Steve the gambler, 124

Sadistic Killers_INSIDES.indd 124

29/12/2006 09:59:05

Dayton Rogers

but most settled for hobbling about on crutches for a few days, warning other call girls of how dangerous Steve was.

Countdown to murder

By the mid 1980s Dayton’s business was prospering but it wasn’t enough to make the deeply damaged young man believe in himself. He’d been told all his life that he was evil and he continued to feel self-loathing. His migraines intensified and only the prospect of sex with a prostitute gave him something to look forward to, an outlet for all of his hate. Even then, he had to have three or four vodkas during a session in order to relax. His wife gave birth to his son in 1985, giving him additional pressure, and he escaped to the bars and sidewalks several nights a week in search of extra-marital, foot-and-bondage-based sex.

By spring 1987, he’d begun to disintegrate, finding it impossible to sleep at nights. He spent less and less time at his garage, so numerous work orders remained unfulfilled. He also lost two and a half stone in weight.

A victim escapes

On 7 July 1987, Dayton picked up a prostitute and began to drive her to a remote location, telling her that he was going to tie her up and rape her. Realising from his manner that he intended to kill her, she jumped out of his moving truck, sustaining a concussion. A passing driver picked her up and drove her to the nearest hospital. Sadly, Dayton’s next targeted victim wouldn’t survive.

The rst murder

On 8 July, he picked up Maureen Ann Hodges, a young heroin addict who supported her habit by shoplifting and through 125

Sadistic Killers_INSIDES.indd 125

29/12/2006 09:59:06

SADISTIC KILLERS

prostitution. She’d had an argument with her boyfriend and was pleased to see Dayton’s friendly looking face. He offered her a generous amount of money to get into his truck, took her into the woods, bound her and stabbed her, concentrating the eventually lethal mutilations on her feet.

The second murder

Three days later he picked up Cynthia Diane DeVore. Like most of his victims, she’d had an unhappy childhood as she’d been born to an alcoholic mother and spent much of her life in foster care. Now the end of her life was as painful as the beginning, as Dayton Rogers took her to a secluded location, tied her up and stabbed her five times in the back.

The third murder

On 21 July, he espied 16-year-old Reatha Marie Gyles who had many friends who were prostitutes. She herself had been arrested for prostitution just a fortnight before. Dayton drove her to the forest, bound her and tortured her for an unknown period with his sharpened knife. He also sawed at her left foot until he was 80

per cent of the way through the bone, then manually snapped the limb off. At some stage during this prolonged abuse, Reatha died.

The fourth murder

Two days later, at 2am, he picked up Lisa Mock, a heroin addict.

He bound the girl, tortured her with his knife and hacked off both of her feet. Her corpse was eventually identified by a tattoo which said Biker Harley Davidson Bitch.

The fth murder

Later that same month, Dayton picked up 26-year-old Nondace Cervantes, known as Noni to her friends. She had a drug 126

Sadistic Killers_INSIDES.indd 126

29/12/2006 09:59:06

Dayton Rogers

and drink addiction, so was glad of the proffered cash. The serial killer took her into the forest, tied her up and cut her left nipple. Experimenting further, he stuck his machete in her vagina before ripping it all the way up to her chest, effectively disembowelling her.

The sixth murder

Christine Adams, a prostitute whose three children had been taken into foster care, was also picked up in the same time frame by the killer and taken to the Mollala Forest where she was tied up, tortured and eventually murdered. (Christina’s 15-year-old daughter would later give evidence at Rogers’ trial, testifying in tears that studs found in the killer’s woodburning stove had once decorated her mother’s jeans.)

The seventh murder

Dayton Leroy Rogers took at least one other young woman to his killing ground where he stabbed and cut her. But, due to the advanced decomposition of her body when it was found, she has never been identified. What’s certain is that the sadist hurt and demeaned each victim as much as possible – several of the women had been bound with wire coat hangers and had then had dog collars fastened around their necks. They were also extensively and repeatedly bitten and stabbed.

The last murder

Just after midnight on 6 August 1987, he left his workplace and drove around until he found a prostitute. It was 1.30 a.m. when 25-year-old Jennifer Lisa Smith stepped into his van. Dayton promptly drove the mother of two to a dark car park near a Denny’s restaurant, where Jennifer took off her clothes. The 34-year-old serial killer swiftly bound her hands with laces, 127

Sadistic Killers_INSIDES.indd 127

29/12/2006 09:59:06

SADISTIC KILLERS

then made her kneel, the way he’d been forced to kneel during his childhood beatings many years before.

He cut her back, enjoying her screams and writhings. When she twisted around, he turned his attention to her breasts, slashing both and cutting one of the nipples. His sadism increasing, he tortured her with the knife again and again. But, unknown to him, her screams hadn’t been sufficiently muffled by the van’s closed windows and a man sleeping in a nearby apartment had heard.

Meanwhile Jennifer was struggling so hard that she broke her bonds and grabbed for the knife, which cut both of her palms. Still fighting she fell, naked, from the vehicle. But the killer was close behind her and he stabbed her multiple times.

Her cries were heard by several Denny’s diners and, as they rushed towards the bloody scene, Dayton cut her throat and slipped away.

Luckily a sharp-eyed passerby saw him getting into his truck and followed in his own vehicle, reaching speeds of 100 miles an hour before being able to make out Rogers’ number plate.

He then gave the licence number to the police.

Arrest

Though one of the customers from Denny’s tried to resuscitate Jennifer Smith, she died before the ambulance arrived so Rogers was facing a murder charge. The police went to his compulsively neat workshop and interviewed him there. They noticed that his hand had been cut – murderers often accidentally cut themselves with the murder weapon

– but he said that he’d hurt it on a hacksaw earlier that day.

He added that he’d been working all night, but police were able to disprove that when they found that his truck engine was still warm.

They also noticed that he had miniature bottles of vodka on the premises, the type that many of the prostitutes had 128

Sadistic Killers_INSIDES.indd 128

29/12/2006 09:59:06

Dayton Rogers

seen their torturer – the supposed gambler Steve – drinking.

Dayton explained that by saying his wife didn’t approve of alcohol so he could only drink at work.

Arrested and read his Miranda rights, he refused to make further comments, but the evidence soon stacked up against him when one of Jennifer’s tennis shoes was found burning in his stove. Buttons and zips from numerous other articles of women’s clothing were found and the detectives suddenly realised that they were dealing with a serial killer.

The body farm

No one knew who Dayton had killed or where he’d stashed the bodies until August of that year when a deer hunter made a grim discovery, finding a naked body in the Molalla Forest. The woman’s left foot had been cut off at the ankle.

Within minutes of being called to the scene, investigative detectives had found a second nude female who’d had both feet chopped off. A third naked corpse was found 15 feet away and had been disembowelled. By the end of the first day’s search they’d found five naked corpses, all of which had been extensively mutilated. The following day they found two more.

One woman still had her hands bound in front of her, whilst another bore cut marks to her ankle, as if the killer had been disturbed whilst sawing through the bone.

The rst trial

Indicted on 4 February 1988 for Jennifer Smith’s murder, Dayton Leroy Rogers made the incredible claim of self-defence. It was a gift for the prosecution, who noted that, whilst supposedly defending himself, he’d pursued the naked and bleeding woman from his truck, thrown himself on top of her and cut her throat.

129

Sadistic Killers_INSIDES.indd 129

29/12/2006 09:59:06

SADISTIC KILLERS

They called prostitute after prostitute who described being bound by the sadistic serial killer and having a knife used on their breasts, buttocks and particularly their feet. He’d had to carry several of them from his truck as they were too wounded to walk. Others spoke of limping from the vehicle with their shoes filled with blood.

Surprisingly, Dayton Leroy Rogers took the stand, saying that Jennifer Smith had lunged at him with a knife and that he’d fought her off, killing her by accident. Less surprisingly, the jury returned a verdict of guilty of aggravated murder.

Prior to the sentencing phrase, they heard about Dayton’s horrendous childhood. A psychiatrist for the defence noted that the killer had frontal lobe dysfunction and that this, coupled with intense depression following an abusive childhood, had fuelled his desire to kill. He noted that the sadist bore scars from long-ago beatings on his back, buttocks and behind his knees. He was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment.

The second trial

On 4 May 1988, he was indicted for the murders of Maureen Hodges, Cynthia DeVore, Reatha Gyles, Lisa Mock, Nondace Cervantes and Christine Adams. Though he wasn’t charged with the murder of the unidentified prostitute found beside the other bodies, his attorney admitted in court that Dayton was responsible.

Almost a year later – on 30 March 1989 – the trial began in Clackamas County, with the defendant still protesting his innocence. Again, prostitute after prostitute testified to how he’d tortured and terrorised them and the jury heard that remnants of clothes and shoes from the murdered women had been found in Dayton’s stove.

130

Sadistic Killers_INSIDES.indd 130

29/12/2006 09:59:06

Dayton Rogers

Within hours the jury had found him guilty on all counts, and the trial moved into the penalty phase. The defence pleaded for his life to be spared, noting that he was running church services in prison for the other prisoners. In turn, the prosecution noted that he was a violent time bomb which could explode again. The jury believed the latter, and he was sentenced to die by lethal injection.

Legal madness

Dayton Leroy Rogers remained on Death Row until 1992, whereupon the death sentence was thrown out as the US Supreme Court ruled that all juries should consider additional factors in such cases. Rogers then attended a second sentencing hearing, after which the jury reimposed the death penalty.

But in 2000, Oregon’s state supreme court overturned the death sentence again, insisting that the jury must consider the option of sentencing him to life without the possibility of parole. Meanwhile the sadist refused to talk about his crimes, admit the identity of his Jane Doe or show any remorse.

In March 2006, he was returned to court for a third time so that the court could again decide his fate. By now the formerly slender sadist had gained weight and was sporting a pot belly. This enraged the relatives of the victims as he was clearly thriving in prison whilst their loved ones had long since turned to dust. The court heard how Rogers considered that he was now a different person, having spent 18 years in prison. But the jury suspected otherwise and reimposed the death penalty for a third time.

Many Oregonians fear that Oregon’s State Supreme Court will again overturn this decision, at an untold cost to the 131

Sadistic Killers_INSIDES.indd 131

29/12/2006 09:59:06

SADISTIC KILLERS

taxpayers – but whether he dies by lethal injection or natural causes, Dayton Leroy Rogers is destined to die in jail.

132

Sadistic Killers_INSIDES.indd 132

29/12/2006 09:59:06

CHAPTER TEN

ROBERT CHRISTIAN

HANSEN

Hansen is the worst known serial killer in Alaskan
history as he murdered at least 17 young women
and raped numerous others over a 12-year period
spanning the 1970s and early 1980s. A classic sadist,
he would torture victims in his remote cabin then
set them free in the Alaskan wilderness, only to track
them down like animals and shoot them dead.

Firstborn

Robert was born on 15 February 1939 to Edna and Christian Hansen in Esterville, Iowa. Christian, who had a Dutch father, stuttered badly and his grasp of spoken English was poor. He was also an extremely critical parent. Both he and his wife were deeply religious and the family ethos was based on hard work and strict discipline.

When Robert was three the Hansens moved to California, and when he was eight they gave him a baby sister. Two years later the family moved back to Iowa, this time settling in Pocahontas, and started a bakery there. By now Robert – who had always had to perform numerous chores to please his house-proud 133