The Boston Strangler (22 page)

To call such drugs “truth serums,” however, Dr. Alexander would point out, was incorrect. Sodium pentothal—and sodium amytal, similar in effect—worked by suppressing the higher critical faculties of the brain so that one more easily revealed his feelings. Under it a man was less inhibited, more gross, more blunt, more tactless. Learned behavior went by the board; natural behavior came out. Natural behavior was not necessarily true or honest behavior. One could lie in a most fanciful manner, because the drug also released the imagination. Yet it did loosen one's tongue, and an experienced practitioner could often catch a subject off guard. Though Dr. Alexander in principle did not approve of using the drug to elicit secrets, Mr. Gordon was clearly a special case. The problem here was to put him under chemical hypnosis and by skillful questioning lead him to reveal whatever there was to reveal.

Dr. Alexander was ready to contribute his services. Mr. Bottomly had called Thursday, March 19; the psychiatrist could take Gordon on Saturday, when he had no patients scheduled. Dr. Brancale, too, agreed to cooperate although he was hesitant about accepting the invitation. Not long before he had been asked to come to Cleveland to administer a truth-serum test to Dr. Sam Sheppard, the Cleveland osteopath fighting his conviction for the murder of his wife. The invitation had been extended by F. Lee Bailey, a Boston lawyer who was handling Sheppard's appeal. Dr. Brancale had refused. This, however, was an invitation by the state, and he wanted to do his part. Like Dr. Alexander he had used the drugs for years and agreed they did not necessarily produce the truth. Sometimes the subject verbalized fantasies, fantasies so real to the patient that he would swear upon his life they actually occurred. Dr. Brancale had not used the drugs to determine guilt or innocence of offenders in New Jersey, but mainly to uncover motivations for behavior.

Since inquisitorial use of a hypnotic drug raised delicate legal-medical issues, both physicians asked that a legal agreement be drawn up, stating clearly what was being done and why.

When Gordon, accompanied by his lawyer, arrived Saturday morning, March 21, 1964, at Dr. Alexander's office, the document was ready. Dated that day, signed in quadruplicate by Gordon, his attorney, Bottomly, and Doctors Alexander and Brancale a few minutes before Gordon took his journey into the depths of his own psyche, it must stand as something unique in the history of crime detection.

It read:

Whereas the parties hereto are desirous of developing further information from the said Paul Gordon relating to the so-called “Strangulation Murders” which have occurred within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from June 14, 1962 to the present time, and it is proposed by the parties hereto that in order to obtain such information the said Paul Gordon be interviewed while under the influence of hypnosis and/or hypnotic drugs.

Now therefore in consideration of the mutual promises herein the parties agree:

1. That the purpose of the interview is to develop information concerning the above-described crimes.

2. That the interview is to be conducted under the medical supervision and direction of Ralph Brancale, M.D., and Leo Alexander, M.D.

3. That the said Paul Gordon does hereby release and discharge the said Ralph Brancale, M.D., and Leo Alexander, M.D., or any medical personnel acting under the direction of either of them, from any and all claims or causes of action arising from the application of hypnosis and hypnotic drugs to the person of the said Paul Gordon during the course of the said interview.

4. That the said Paul Gordon's attorney shall be present at all times during said interview in his capacity as his legal representative.

5. That any party hereto may employ the use of recording devices during said interview, and that such recordings shall be the sole property of those parties who employ the use of same.

6. That by cooperating in this manner the said Paul Gordon does not waive any rights, past, present, or future, that he may have in regard to his qualification for any rewards that have been, or may be, offered for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons who have committed said homicides.

7. That the said Paul Gordon acknowledges without reservation that no influence, coercion, or duress has been exercised upon him directly or indirectly by any law enforcement official or agency or by any other person to submit to this or to any other interview.

8. That Paul Gordon may discontinue at any time his cooperation with any law enforcement official or agency. No inferences may be drawn from the withdrawal of such cooperation.

9. That at no time during his contact with law enforcement authorities has Paul Gordon been deprived of his right to counsel, and that this interview has been arranged through his said attorney and that Paul Gordon signifies by signing his name in the left margin of this paragraph that he has read this agreement in its entirety, and that he has adequate time to consult with his said attorney regarding this agreement prior to signing it.

Gordon lay on a couch, in a room made dark by drawn blinds in the rear of Dr. Alexander's office. The group, which now included Detective DiNatale, Mellon, and Steve Delaney, watched silently as the anesthetist inserted a needle into Gordon's vein at the crook of his left arm—the procedure reminded Jim Mellon of a blood transfusion—and the drug, a mixture of Methedrine and sodium pentothal, began to flow. Dr. Alexander stood at the head of the couch, watching Gordon's eyes closely. A subtle change in expression would indicate when the subject was under. “We shall keep the needle in the vein throughout the interview so we can regulate the state of emotional expressiveness as we see fit,” he told the others, in a low voice. Drop by drop the drug entered Gordon's bloodstream; two tape recorders were slowly turning, one attended by his attorney, the other by Delaney.

Suddenly Gordon laughed. “I see two Phils, two Jims … I guess I better be quick because this stuff is beginning to work … I hear my speech thicken …”

“Are you comfortable, Mr. Gordon?” Dr. Alexander asked. “Fine, fine,” came the answer, “except that I see everything in duplicate and triplicate.”

“Good.” Then, almost formally, “Now tell us about Mary Sullivan,” Dr. Alexander began; and for the course of the next six hours, save for a half-hour rest for coffee and sandwiches that were brought in, Gordon was interrogated as he lay on the couch, mainly by Dr. Alexander, sometimes by Dr. Brancale, and on occasion by DiNatale and Mellon.

The latter two, as well as Dr. Brancale, were all but exhausted. Dr. Brancale had been able to get to Boston only late the night before, and Phil and Jim had stayed up with him in his Parker House suite, briefing him on Paul Gordon, playing tapes of their interviews with him until past 3
A.M.

Tired as he was, he found the officers' summary fascinating. They had reviewed Arnold Wallace's case for him and explained why attention was now focused on Gordon, either as a key to Arnold, or as a suspect himself. Phil and Jim had checked exhaustively on the ESP man. They had visited his apartment, inspected his tropical fish, viewed his impressive collection of weights and lifting apparatus. Gordon had once casually remarked that his hands were weak—he had injured them years ago. (An alibi? The Strangler must have strong hands.) “But,” said Phil, “when he left the room for a moment I tried lifting one of the weights and it took all the strength in my arms and wrists to do it.” They noted that Mrs. Gordon was older than her husband, twelve to fifteen years older. They had also been struck by her resemblance to the older victims: the same round face, full jaw, even metal-rimmed spectacles.

From other sources they had heard that for a time before his marriage, Gordon had shared an apartment with his mother, who was said to be very affectionate to him; sometimes she gave him his haircuts, she called him endearing names and fussed over him as though he were a small boy.

Dr. Brancale said nothing. Many men who marry women considerably older than themselves are choosing as much a mother as a mate.

Finally the two officers had found Gordon's mother. They discovered her to be a woman of seventy, living alone. She greeted them in excellent humor, at one point patting Phil on the cheek, with, “Oh, you're a good-looking policeman!”

While that was going on, both men were trying to keep their wits. This old woman might have been an older version of Gordon's wife. The round face, the generous jaw, the metal-rimmed spectacles. So now Gordon's wife and his mother resembled most of the Strangler's victims.

Were they mad? Had they lost their perspective completely? Perhaps all elderly women looked alike if one searched for similarities. They had to give up trying to make sense of it.

But Gordon's mother told them little about her son. Instead, she phoned him. He asked to speak to Phil and then furiously ordered them both to leave his mother's apartment at once. There was no reason for her to be harassed by police questioning, he said angrily. They left.

Now for Dr. Brancale the two officers played the tapes of their interviews with Gordon: Gordon expanding on the stranglings, explaining how Arnold got into the apartments, what went through his mind, what drove him …

Dr. Brancale was interested in observing this puzzling man on the couch who so blithely, so confidently, offered to undergo this ordeal. If he was the Strangler, what egomania to assume that he could fence with the psychiatrists and detectives examining him—and even under drugs, outwit them!

“Tell us about Mary Sullivan,” Dr. Alexander had ordered, and now Gordon, sounding a little drunken, responded. “Well,” he was saying, “I came up with a mental image of a guy and you could talk me out of it if you come up with a better suspect.”

“What did he do to Mary Sullivan?”

“Now, now,” said Gordon. He sounded annoyed. “Strangling to me is repulsive. I don't like it. I don't know what happened there, I don't want to know.”

“You say Arnold did this. Whatever he did, how did he feel about it? What was he going through at the time?”

“Oh, the poor guy suffers! How he suffers!” The drug had taken hold. Gordon spoke with surprising emotion. “I feel so sorry for that guy, nobody understands him …”

“Can you visualize Arnold in the Nina Nichols case? What is he going through at that point?”

“His crazy urge, this desire … He's killed his mother; sometimes he's aware of this.”

“What is he doing to her?”

“He hates her! If she'd only say to him, ‘Arnold, come to me,' put her arms around him, say, ‘I recognize that you have problems, I'd like to help you, you poor thing … you poor soul … You need a mother that loves you, someone to help you over the rough spots'… He didn't think, ‘This woman resembles my mother and therefore I'm going to strangle her.' No, he saw her as a source of love.”

“What did he actually do to that woman?” his questioner persisted.

(Softly.) “Why, he
killed
her. He didn't mean to kill her. He meant to get them into a condition where they had to listen to him. He'd have used this method, this pentothal method, if he thought he could. He wanted to get them into a passive state and his only method of getting them into a passive state was to choke them until they were unconscious.”

“Would that satisfy him? Just to kill them?”

“No, because he wants to go back, to start everything all over again. Everything is wrong.”

“Was there some sexual element in that?”

“Yes, but not in the way you'd look at it,” Gordon retorted. “You see, you want everything cut and dried: he-did-it-for-sex. Well, he didn't do it for sex. He has a sexual frustration, but he didn't do it for sex. He didn't think, ‘Well, now she's dead, I can rape her whether she'll like it or not.' He did it to get them into a passive state, and then they were too passive, and he resented it. He would like them to be alive. Remember”—here Gordon's voice died away, then grew strong again—“when he sees them he thinks, You're not my mother but you look like a mother; when you come to, if you understood me, even though you're not my mother you would treat me as a son because you'd understand me. You see, nobody understands me. This is the way he looks at it.”

“What's his reaction when he sees this woman, who is the representation of his mother, strangled?”

Gordon's voice burst forth with deep emotion. “Oh God, it was terrible!” He moaned. “He broke down. Oh, the poor guy. He cried, oh, he cried! It was so final … He didn't mean it this way—”

“Did he try to cover his tracks? He sees his mother strangled, is he trying to—”

Gordon broke in, sounding annoyed. “She wasn't strangled. She died in the hospital.”

“I'm talking of this Nichols woman who symbolizes his mother to Arnold.”

“Well, she's not his mother. He knows that. But psychologically she fits the pattern.”

“All right. She's strangled now. He didn't cover his tracks in any way?”

“You mean as far as somebody coming in looking for clues, and so forth? No. It never entered his head. He may have, unconsciously, without realizing it, but, it's a situation. It was the same with the others. On his mother's death bed if she looked up at him and said, ‘Arnold, I forgive you, I know I was wrong, I've made mistakes …' He knows it's not his mother, but God damn her, she shouldn't be so much like her, she shouldn't resemble her so much …”

“What was he trying to do to her after she was strangled?”

“He didn't know what to do. He took her into the living room onto the blue chair. It's not all blue, a decorator's chair. He was going to sit her in the chair and talk to her. But then he knew she'd be like the others. Dammit, she died.”

“How did he stop her from talking?”

“He put a gag in her mouth, maybe like a stocking …”

“What were his sex feelings at that moment?”