The Anniversary Man (12 page)

On Thursday, June 12th, 1980, the naked bodies of two attractive teenagers were found on an incline off of the Ventura Freeway in Hollywood. Their names were Cynthia Chandler and Gina Marano. Cynthia had been shot twice with a .25 caliber weapon, the first bullet entering the back of her head and lodging in her brain, the second penetrating her lung and causing her heart to burst. Gina Marano had been shot twice also, one round entering her head behind her left ear and exiting near her right eyebrow, the second through the back of her head. Two days later a woman called the LAPD Northeast Division at Van Nuys. She told the detective who answered the phone that she thought her lover might be a murderer. ′What I′m trying to do,′ she said, ′is to ascertain whether or not the individual I know, who happens to be my lover, did in fact do this. He said he did. My name is Betsy.′ Before the call ended she changed her name to Claudia, and added, ′He has curly brown hair and blue eyes. His Christian name is John, and he′s 41 years old. I′ve found a duffel bag in his car, full of bloody blankets, paper towels, and his clothes.′

To date the full details of the killing spree perpetrated by person or persons known as the Sunset Slayers are not fully clear. Three people were involved - Douglas Clark, Carol Bundy and John ′Jack′ Murray. They killed Los Angeles prostitutes, at least five of them. Carol Bundy and Jack Murray were lovers. She loved him so much that on Sunday, August 3rd, 1980, she shot him twice in the back of the head, repeatedly stabbed him with a heavy boning knife, and then decapitated him. For a while she drove around with Jack Murray′s head in the passenger seat of her car. Carol Bundy ultimately went to prison for life, Douglas Clark to Death Row at San Quentin.

And now, twenty-six years later, on Monday, June 12th, the bodies of 15-year-old Ashley Nicole Burch and 16-year-old Lisa Madigan Briley were discovered by a travelling sales representative called Max Webster.

In the locale of the emergency exit off Franklin D. Roosevelt drive, in a bank of trees in the East River Park, the two bodies were found a little after nine in the morning. Both girls had been shot with a .25 caliber weapon, two bullets each. The pattern of wounds was precisely that of the June 1980 Chandler/Marano killings.

It has often been stated that once is circumstance, twice coincidence, and yet a third time indicates conspiracy.

Such must be considered in light of the most recent case.

John Wayne Gacy, one of America′s more infamous serial killers, was responsible for the murder of a 17-year-old teenager called John Butkovich in Chicago. Butkovich maintained and raced his ′68 Dodge, an expensive hobby which he supported by doing remodeling work for Gacy′s firm, PDM Contractors. On Tuesday, July 29th, 1975, Butkovich, believing that Gacy had withheld some of his pay, went to Gacy′s house. Employer and employee argued bitterly. The argument did not resolve, but later Gacy called Butkovich over to the house. Apparently, he apologized to Butkovich, agreed there had been a misunderstanding, and after offering the teenager a drink he killed him. Gacy wrapped the body in tarpaulin and dragged it into the garage. There it stayed until the smell became an inconvenience, so Gacy, unable to easily move the body to another location, dug a drainage hole approximately three feet by one and a half feet in his garage floor. Due to rigor mortis Gacy had to jump up and down on Butkovich′s body numerous times. When Butkovich′s body was finally recovered the coroner determined that he had been strangled to death with a rope.

On July 29th, just eight days ago, the body of 19-year-old James Wolfe was found in a three-by-one-a-half-foot hole in the concrete floor of the Wang Hi Lee Carnival & Firework Emporium on East 39th Street. He had been strangled to death with a rope.

The only additional, and perhaps most disturbing aspect to this case, was the fact that James Wolfe had been dressed as a clown. His face had been painted, and on his head he wore a bright red wig. The attire in which he was found is significant. John Wayne Gacy was a dedicated public figure, apparently philanthropic, an organizer of the Polish Constitution Day Parade, an event where he was photographed shaking hands with Rosalynn Carter, then-First Lady. Gacy raised money for retirement homes; he was Secretary-Treasurer of the Norwood Park Township Lighting District, and finally part of the ′Jolly Joker′s Club′ - that band of individuals, too old to be Jaycees themselves, yet still allied to the River Grove Moose Lodge. It was in his capacity as a Jolly Joker that he dressed as ′Pogo the Clown′ to entertain children at parties and in hospitals. It was Gacy, finally on Death Row, who was quoted as saying: There ain′t nothin′ more scary than a clown after dark.

Three individual murder cases, a total of four victims, each of them precise in manner of death, precise also as to date. Each of them almost identical in method and manner to earlier killings perpetrated by people who have since been executed, or are still held within the confines of the Federal penitentiary system. There are facts unknown at this time. In the case of Mia Grant, did her killer use a hammer to inflict the fatal wounds to her head as Harvey Carignan did in the original Kathy Sue Miller case? Only the County Coroner and those intimate with the specific details of that case would know such a thing. And after the gun killings of the two teenagers found by Max Webster off the East River, did an anonymous female call the police and leave a message identical to that left after the deaths of Cynthia Chandler and Gina Marano in June of 1980? If so, then who? And, more importantly, why?

These questions remain unanswered, as does the matter of the killer or killers′ identity. Is this a case of the present echoing the past? Does New York have a serial killer that chooses to murder his teenage victims in a very particular and individual manner, or is this a rare and extraordinary case of remarkable coincidence? The latter, given the facts, seems most unlikely, and thus we are faced with the inevitable conclusion that one or more perpetrators are still at large.

Harvey Louis Carignan is now seventy-nine years old, secured within the confines of the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Still-water, Minnesota. John Murray is dead, Carol Bundy is serving two life sentences, and Douglas Clark awaits his appointment with the executioner in San Quentin. John Wayne Gacy made his appointment and was executed by lethal injection on the 10th of May, 1994 in Stateville Penitentiary, Crest Hill, Illinois.

The question thus remains: Is New York playing host to a serial killer who is mimicking past murders? Representatives of the Fourth, Ninth and Fifth Precincts remain unavailable for comment, as does the public relations department of the police, the Chief of Police and the Mayor′s office.