The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (49 page)

Eberle remained missing until September 21 when Three separate investigations were conducted at Bexar searchers pulled his body from a roadside ditch. Par-County’s hospital between November 1981 and February tially stripped, he had been stabbed repeatedly and then 1983, all without solving the string of mysterious deaths.) dumped where he was found. Detectives noted bite On November 21, 1983, Jones was indicted in San marks on the body, and his ankles had been bound Antonio on charges of injuring four-week-old Rolando before he died.

Santos by deliberately injecting him with heparin, an On December 2, 12-year-old Christopher Walden

anticoagulant, in January 1982. Santos had been under-disappeared while walking to school in Papillon, going treatment for pneumonia when he suffered Nebraska, three miles from the scene of the Eberle mur-

“spontaneous” hemorrhaging, but physicians managed der. Stabbed repeatedly, his corpse was found by pheas-to save his life. Their probe continued, authorities ant hunters two days later, hidden in a grove of trees branding Jones a suspect in at least 10 infant deaths at outside of town.

Bexar County’s pediatric ward.

Six weeks later, on January 11, 1984, a suspicious Genene’s murder trial opened at Georgetown, Texas, young man was seen loitering around a Bellevue on January 15, 1984, with prosecutors introducing an preschool. Challenged by a staff member, he shoved her, ego motive. Jones allegedly sought recognition as a hero threatened her with death, then ran to a nearby car, and for “saving” children in life-or-death situations. Nurses sped away. The woman memorized his license number, from Bexar County also recalled Genene’s plan to pro-and the rented vehicle was traced to 20-year-old John mote a pediatric intensive-care unit in San Antonio, Joubert, an enlisted man at nearby Offutt Air Force ostensibly by raising the number of seriously ill chil-Base. A search of Joubert’s quarters turned up rope dren. “They’re out there,” she once told a colleague.

identical to Danny Eberle’s bindings; more rope and a

“All you have to do is find them.”

hunting knife were found in his car when Joubert was Jurors deliberated for three hours before convicting arrested that night.

Jones of murder on February 15, fixing her penalty at In custody the suspect confessed to both local mur-99 years in prison. Eight months later, on October 24, ders, warning detectives that he might kill again if she was convicted of injuring Rolando Santos in San released. Charged with two counts of murder on Janu-Antonio and sentenced to a concurrent term of 60

ary 12, Joubert was held in lieu of $10 million bond years. Suspected in at least 10 other homicides, Jones pending trial. He pled guilty to both counts on July 3, was spared further charges when Bexar County hospital 1984, and a panel of three judges fixed his sentence at administrators shredded 9,000 pounds of pharmaceuti-death.

cal records in March 1984, thus destroying numerous A native of Portland, Maine—reportedly obsessed pieces of evidence then under subpoena by the local from childhood with fantasies of CANNIBALISM—Jou-grand jury.

bert had also been making headlines at home. Detec-See also MEDICAL MURDERS

tives noted similarities between the two Nebraska murders and the Stetson case, instantly bumping Joubert to the head of their short suspect list. Hair samples
JOUBERT, John J.

and dental impressions were obtained from Joubert in On August 22, 1982, 11-year-old Richard Stetson dis-February 1985, and he was indicted for Richard Stet-appeared while jogging near his home in Portland, son’s murder on January 10, 1986. Convicted nearly Maine. A motorist found his body the next morning, five years later, in October 1990, Joubert was sentenced lying beside a rural highway, and while he was initially to a term of life without parole, then returned to believed to be the victim of a hit-and-run, autopsy Nebraska to await execution. Appeals prolonged his results showed that Stetson had been strangled, then life for another five years and nine months before he stabbed several times in the chest. Bite marks on his was executed on July 17, 1996.

body were inflicted by a set of human teeth.

Investigators had no solid evidence to work with, and a year elapsed before a suspect, 24 years old, was
JUVENILE Serial Killers

booked for Stetson’s murder. Charges were dismissed in Unlike “normal” murderers, who commit their first and February 1984, by which time there were two more vic-only homicide as adults in a conflict with relatives or tims on the list some 1,500 miles away.

friends, serial killers often start young, graduating to Danny Joe Eberle, age 13, was delivering newspapers murder from a childhood pattern of violence directed in Bellevue, Nebraska, when he vanished on the morn-toward animals, siblings, playmates—even adults.

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JUVENILE Serial Killers

About 1 percent of identified serial slayers—including 1997–98—has prompted some states to lower the legal CARROLL COLE, PETER KURTEN, and Herman Mudgett—

age at which offenders may be tried and sentenced as are known to have claimed their first victim before the adults. Of 38 states with CAPITAL PUNISHMENT statutes age of 10. Another 26 percent kill for the first time while in place, eight specify no minimum age for execution, still in their teens. Conversely, the older a potential killer but U.S. Supreme Court rulings have effectively barred becomes, the less likely he or she is to act out homicidal the death penalty for defendants under 16. Twelve fantasies: 44 percent of known serial murderers began states permit execution at that age, four more at 17, killing in their twenties, 24 percent in their thirties; a while 13 (and the federal government) bar capital mere 4 percent killed for the first time in their forties, charges below 18 years of age. (New York requires a and only two individuals committed their first murder death row candidate to be at least 19.)

beyond age 50. (Age at first kill is disputed or unknown Harsh punishment for juvenile offenders, even multi-for the remainder of identified serial slayers.) ple murderers, remains a subject of heated debate in Juvenile killers present a special problem for society, American society. On balance, it appears that a major-since nearly all American jurisdictions limit the length ity of citizens believe defendants who commit “adult of time a youthful offender may be detained for any crimes”—murder, rape, and so on—should face adult crime, regardless of the charge. In general, statutes penalties. Even some hard-liners rebel at the thought of mandate unconditional release by age 18 or 21, and executing killers younger than 16, but serial killers are juvenile records are frequently sealed (even to police recidivists by definition, and the tiny number of success-scrutiny) when the offender becomes an adult, thus ful paroles in such cases—four of 1,500-plus offenders effectively erasing criminal records that include convic-released to date without (apparently) killing again—is a tions for multiple murders, rapes, and other felonies.

telling argument against the view that “anyone can be The dramatic increase in violent juvenile crime—includ-reformed.”

ing a rash of sensational schoolyard shootings in See also INCARCERATION; TRIAL

140

K

KALLINGER, Joseph Michael

By 1974, Kallinger was reportedly hallucinating con-Born December 11, 1936, in Philadelphia, Joseph was stantly, holding animated discussions with a disembod-surrendered for adoption as an infant, finding a home ied head (dubbed “Charlie”) and receiving personal with Austrian immigrants Stephen and Anna Kallinger

“orders from God.” The divine orders included

in October 1938. His childhood was bizarre, to say the demands that Kallinger murder young boys and sever least, marked by parental abuse in the form of floggings their genitals, an urge that he confided to his son, 13-with a cat-o’-nine-tails, beatings with a hammer, and year-old Michael, on June 26. When Joe requested repeated threats of emasculation. In the summer of Michael’s help, the boy responded with enthusiasm: 1944, Kallinger was sexually abused at knifepoint by a

“Glad to do it, Dad!” Eleven days later, they murdered gang of older boys, prompting subsequent episodes in José Collazo, a Puerto Rican youth, in Philadelphia, which he masturbated while clenching a knife in his fist.

first torturing their victim and then cutting off his penis.

Kallinger married his first wife at age 17, the stormy Kallinger next set his sights on one of his own chil-relationship producing 10 children before she aban-dren, Joseph Jr. In his first attempt Joe tried to make the doned their home for another man in September 1956.

boy back off a cliff, cartoon-style, while posing for pho-A year later, Joseph was hospitalized with a suspected tographs. Failing in that, he took both boys along on a brain lesion, but tests revealed a “psychopathological July 25 arson run, bungling an attempt to trap Joe Jr. in nervous disorder.” Married a second time in April a burning trailer. Finally, three days later, Kallinger and 1958, Kallinger soon torched his own home for amuse-Michael drowned their victim at a demolition site; the ment, reaping a fringe benefit of $1,600 from fire insur-body was recovered by authorities on August 9, 1974.

ance. Committed to a state hospital in July 1959

Questioned as a suspect in the murder, Kallinger was following a suicide attempt, Kallinger would set fire to not arrested due to lack of evidence.

the family’s second home on four separate occasions—

That autumn, the father-son team began ranging far-twice in May 1963, once in August 1965, and again in ther afield in their search for victims. On November 22, October 1967.

they burglarized a house in Lindenwold, New Jersey, but By 1972 the Kallingers had six children at home, no one was home. At their second stop, victim Joan including two from his failed first marriage. On January Carty was tied to her bed and sexually assaulted by Joe 23 of that year, Joseph branded his oldest daughter’s Kallinger. Eleven days later, in Susquehanna Township, thigh with a hot iron as punishment for running away.

Pennsylvania, five hostages were bound and robbed at Arrested a week later, he was found incompetent for knifepoint, the Kallingers making off with $20,000 in trial, held for 60 days’ mental evaluation, and ulti-cash and jewelry after slashing one woman’s breast.

mately ruled fit for trial in June. Conviction on child Striking next in Homeland, Maryland—a Baltimore abuse charges earned him four years’ probation with a suburb—father and son held a woman captive in her provision for mandatory psychiatric treatment.

home, forcing her to fellate Joe at gunpoint. On January
141

KEARNEY, Patrick Wayne

Kallinger received a mandatory life sentence to run consecutively with his time in Pennsylvania.

Kallinger’s violent outbursts continued in prison, with Joseph setting himself on fire in March 1977. A month later, he assaulted a fellow inmate before lighting a fire on his cell block. In March 1978, he slashed another convict’s throat in an unprovoked attack, but his victim survived. Ten years later, in televised interviews, Kallinger expressed his continuing desire to slaughter every person on earth, after which he hoped to commit suicide and “become God.”

By that time, Kallinger had been tried and convicted (in January 1984) of murdering José Collazo and his own son Joseph Jr., drawing two more consecutive life sentences. Briefly transferred to Pennsylvania’s Fairview State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in 1990, after a new spate of suicide attempts and “religious” hunger strikes, Kallinger was back in state prison on March 26, 1996, when he choked to death on his own vomit in the prison infirmary.

KEARNEY, Patrick Wayne

On July 5, 1977, authorities in Riverside, California, announced the confessions of two male suspects in a grisly series of “trash bag” murders, thought to include 15 victims in five different counties since 1973. The suspects, Patrick Kearney and David Douglas Hill, were charged in only two cases—both victims slain in March Joseph Kallinger (left) (Author’s collection)

1977—but on the same day, Kearney led detectives to six alleged body-dumping sites in Imperial County. Evidence recovered from Kearney’s home, where Hill 6, the ritual was repeated in Dumont, New Jersey, with resided as a live-in lover, included fibers matched to another female victim.

those found on several corpses, plus a bloody hacksaw Two days later, on January 8, Kallinger and son used in the dismemberment of certain victims.