The Evil That Men Do Part 30

First she tried to fend him off with her hands, and received several wounds to one hand. Then she tried to back away, sustaining four shallow chest wounds as he lunged at her with the blade.

Finally, Vetter fell to the floor of the kitchen. The stab wound to her leg probably occurred while she was on her back, kicking up at him as he tried to subdue her. The two deep stab wounds to her chest, his final blows, likely were inflicted as he straddled her on the kitchen floor, determined to stop Vetter's struggles.

Once she did go limp, he cut off her clothes, dragged her into the living room, slipping in her blood as he did so, and violently raped her as she expired. When he was through, he got up, slipped the b.l.o.o.d.y knife under the chair cushion, and walked out the front door, not even bothering to pull it completely shut.

After presenting their profile to the a.s.sembled investigators that Sat.u.r.day morning, Hazelwood and Wright suggested he'd probably committed similar rapes in the past. Perhaps a linkage a.n.a.lysis could establish his pattern.

A careful review of all rapes and attempted rapes that had occurred within one mile of Donna Vetter's apartment in the previous year yielded thirty-two such incidents.

Hazelwood and Wright looked at the behavior in each crime, and selected out seventeen a.s.saults in which a single white female was attacked in her apartment by a black male who punched her three or four times in the face, raped her, and then left. One such a.s.sault occurred September 15, just eleven days after the Vetter slaying. In another of the cases, coincidentally, a potted plant was knocked over and then set upright by the intruder.

On September 19, the police implemented a second investigative strategy at the FBI agents' suggestion. Hoping to convince anyone close to the UNSUB that the killer probably was a danger to them as well, Hazelwood and Wright advised the San Antonio police they might try releasing selected portions of the profile to the local press, emphasizing the UNSUB's violent nature.

"FBI: Secretary's killer has 'explosive temper' " read the headline over reporter Bill Hendricks's Sat.u.r.day, September 20, story in the San Antonio Express-News.

"The rapist-killer of a young secretary at the FBI's San Antonio headquarters has an 'explosive temper,' and might vent his rage on anyone who suspected his guilt in the stabbing," wrote Hendricks.

No suspect has been identified but police and FBI investigators say they are hoping their profile reveals new information in the case.

Agents who drafted that profile believe the killer is in his early to mid-20s.

"He works at convincing others that he is a macho male, and this will be reflected in his dress and lifestyle," the agents concluded, adding, "He has a poor work record and experiences difficulty with co-workers and/or bosses."

The profile concluded, "Based upon the type of crime involved, we have reason to believe that someone close to the killer who may suspect his involvement in this crime may, in fact, be in danger."

One key conjecture that pointedly was not released to the media was Roy's belief that the UNSUB was black. This was standard operating procedure. If Roy was wrong in his conjecture, he did not want a reader with a strong reason to suspect a white male to ignore their misgivings in the belief the killer had to be African-American.

Hazelwood recalls that within hours of Bill Hendricks's story hitting the streets, the police received the payoff call.

"My partner killed the FBI woman," the caller said.

He explained that he and twenty-two-year-old Karl Hammond, a black male, robbed liquor stores together. Since the Vetter homicide, the caller continued, Hammond had turned trigger-happy, shooting store employees "for no reason," the caller reported, "and it's scaring the h.e.l.l out of me."

The caller further reported Hammond had confessed Vetter's murder, claiming to have found her Bureau ID card while rifling Vetter's purse. "So I decided to murder her because she was an FBI b.i.t.c.h," the caller quoted Hammond.

Hazelwood knew that part of Hammond's story was a lie. FBI file clerks don't carry Bureau ID: The killer had learned of her employment in the papers.

The rest of the caller's information quickly was borne out by investigation. Roy and Jim Wright happily congratulated each other on their strategem's success, until they learned the caller hadn't seen the paper at all. He was illiterate, and only contacted the police because he genuinely feared Hammond, who was arrested at his older sister's house, a short walk from Donna Lynn Vetter's apartment, on Wednesday evening, September 24, less than three weeks after the murder.

Hammond was identified by all seventeen rape victims, and was tied to the Vetter murder by DNA evidence, as well as his footprint in the kitchen, his fingerprint on the murder weapon, and a palm print taken from a telephone table.

How accurate was the FBI profile?

Roy had believed the UNSUB was twenty-six. Wright said twenty-two. Wright was right. The two also were correct that the killer was single, had never been in the military, and lived with an older sister. Hammond dropped out of high school in the ninth grade. His appeals attorneys would later argue he was mentally r.e.t.a.r.ded.

One of Hammond's relatives told reporters that he worked intermittently as a construction laborer.

His rap sheet began when he was seventeen, in 1981, with a no-contest plea to a rape charge. Within three days of entering the plea, Hammond was arrested for burglary. In February 1982 he was sentenced to concurrent six- and eight-year prison terms on the two offenses.

He was paroled from prison in August 1985, a month after his twenty-first birthday, under a controversial mandatory release program designed to relieve prison crowding in Texas.

At the time he killed Donna Vetter he had been charged with armed robbery in connection with the liquor-store stickups, and was awaiting further armed robbery charges.

As far as can be determined, Hammond had never met Donna Vetter (and never confessed to her homicide). He was not known to be doing drugs in September 1986.

His capital murder trial lasted for three days in late March 1987.

On Monday the thirtieth, the jury required two hours to return a verdict of guilty. That night, after an hour-long meeting with his attorney, Hammond burst through an unlocked door in the county jail's second-floor visitation area, leaped over a counter, and raced barefoot down the staircase to freedom.

As an estimated thousand officers fanned out across San Antonio in search of him, the fugitive found a telephone and called the local FBI office to warn he would "off" an FBI agent, and a San Antonio policeman, before he was caught.

Nothing quite so dramatic occurred.

Tuesday evening, an off-duty San Antonio policeman spied the fugitive killer sneaking out a hospital door and into a Dumpster, where he was arrested. Roy later was told Hammond had been dallying upstairs with a nurse.

The following day in the interrupted penalty phase of his trial, the jury considered together for just ninety minutes before voting Hammond death by lethal injection. Donna Lynn Vetter's mother, Virginia, endorsed the decision, but told reporters the method of execution was too humane.

"I think he should be beaten to death slowly and left on the street for people to come by and kick him," Mrs. Vetter said as she left the courthouse. "He needs to feel what she felt."

Eight years later, on the evening of June 20, 1995, Karl Hammond ate his last meal: a double cheeseburger, French fries, chocolate milk, and dessert. Just after midnight, he was strapped onto a gurney to receive his sentence.

"I just wanna say I know it's so hard for people to lose someone they love so much," Hammond spoke into a microphone above him. "I think it's best for me to just say nothing at all."

Then the chemicals overtook him. The thirty-year-old killer snored loudly for a moment, and was dead.

AUTHOR'S NOTE AND

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

To undertake any serious book is an act both of hope and hubris-an invitation to make G.o.d laugh.

The Evil That Men Do was conceived in just that ambitious spirit, and gestated over several momentous years in my personal life; a period during which my wife, Susan, and I made a wrenching relocation from New York City to Texas; our wonderful twins, Alexandra and Spencer, made their surprise debut; and I toiled disconsolately at a woeful community daily covering gra.s.s fires and jackknifed 18-wheelers.

Evil was written mornings, evenings, and on weekends, time stolen from Susan and the twins, who all were patient if not wholly sympathetic with, or understanding of, Dad's obsessive project. I apologize once again to all three for those long absences at the computer.

I also wish to thank five colleagues for their generous a.s.sistance in helping research the book. They are Kay Melcher at the Birmingham (Alabama) Post-Herald; Ken Dilanian at the Philadelphia Inquirer; Jan Fennell at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram; Mike Dunne of the Baton Rouge Advocate; and Angie Mitch.e.l.l of the Walker County (Georgia) Messenger.

Finally, a nod of appreciation to Charles Spicer, my editor at St. Martin's, for sticking by the project, and a warm embrace to Elizabeth Kaplan, my new agent, who is also the proud parent of twins.

SOURCES.

Bruni, Frank. "Arguments and Tirades As Brawley Case Opens."The New York Times, December 4, 1997, p. A-23.

Burnside, Scott, and Alan Cairns. Deadly Innocence. New York: Warner Books, 1995.

Busch, Alva. Roadside Prey. New York: Kensington, 1996.

Callahan, Bill. "Beach Rapist Gets 96 Years." San Diego Union-Tribune, May 26, 1995, p. A-l.

Dettlinger, Chet, and Jeff Prugh. The List. Atlanta: Philmay Enterprises, 1983.

Douglas, John, and Mark Olshaker. Mind Hunter. New York: Scribner's, 1995.

"Expert: Apartment Prints Match Suspect." San Antonio Express-News, March 24, 1987.

Foy, Nicole. "Woman's Killer Resigned As He Goes to Death." San Antonio Express-News, June 22, 1995, p. 1A.

Ganey, Terry. St. Joseph's Children. New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1989.

Groth, A. Nicholas. Men Who Rape. New York: Plenum, 1979.

Hill; Bob. Double Jeopardy. New York: William Morrow, 1995.

Jeffers, H. Paul. Who Killed Precious? New York: St. Martin's, 1992.

Lancaster, John. "Admiral Besmirched by Tailhook Scandal to Retire 2 Months Early." The Washington Post, February 16, 1994, p. A-5.

McGuire, Christine, and Carla Norton. Perfect Victim. New York: Dell, 1989.

Newton, Michael. Hunting Humans. Port Townsend, Wash.: Loompanics, 1990.

Ressler, Robert K., and Tom Shachtman. Whoever Fights Monsters. New York: St. Martin's, 1992.

Report of the Grand Jury of the Supreme Court, State of New York, County of Dutchess. 1988.

Russakoff, Dale. "Decade After Tawana Brawley Episode, Trial Looms." The Washington Post, November 17, 1997, p. A-1.

Scales, Joe. "Agents Followed Suspect for Days." Baton Rouge Advocate, December 1, 1981.

Scott, Steve. "Suspect in 12 Deaths Faces Trial; Defense Says Two Others Are Linked to Slayings." Dallas Morning News, March 17, 1996, p. 37A.

Von Krafft-Ebing, Richard. Psychopathia s.e.xualis: A Medico-Forensic Study. New York: Stein and Day, 1965.

SELECTED HAZELWOOD.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

ARTICLES.

Hazelwood, Robert R., and John E. Douglas. "The l.u.s.t Murderer." FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, April 1980.

Hazelwood, Robert R., Ann W. Burgess, and Park Elliott Dietz. "The Investigation of Autoerotic Fatalities." Journal of Police Science and Administration, vol. 9, no. 4 (1981).

Dietz, Park Elliott, and Robert R. Hazelwood. "Atypical Autoerotic Fatalities." Medicine and Law, vol. 1 (1982), pp. 307-319.

Hazelwood, Robert R., Park Elliott Dietz, and Ann W. Burgess. "s.e.xual Fatalities: Behavioral Reconstruction in Equivocal Cases." Journal of Forensic Science, vol. 27, no. 4 (October 1982).

Hazelwood, Robert R. "The Behavioral-Oriented Interview of Rape Victims: The Key to Profiling." FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, September 1983.

LeDoux, John, and Robert R. Hazelwood. "Police Att.i.tudes and Beliefs Toward Rape." Journal of Police Science and Administration, vol. 13, no. 3 (September 1985).

Dietz, Park Elliott, Harry Bruce, and Robert R. Hazelwood. "Detective Magazines: p.o.r.nography for s.e.xual s.a.d.i.s.ts?" Journal of Forensic Science, vol. 3, no. 1 (January 1986).

Hazelwood, Robert R., and Joseph A. Harpold. "Rape: The Dangers of Providing Confrontational Advice." FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, June 1986.

Hazelwood, Robert R., and Ann W. Burgess. "An Introduction to the Serial Rapist: Research by the FBI." FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, September 1987.

Burgess, Ann W., Robert R. Hazelwood, et al. "Serial Rapists and Their Victims: Reenactment and Repet.i.tion." Current Perspectives in Human s.e.xual Aggression in Annals, New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 528 (1987), pp. 277-295.

Hazelwood, Robert R., and Kenneth V. Lanning. "The Maligned Investigator of Criminal s.e.xuality." FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, September 1988.

Hazelwood, Robert R., and Janet I. Warren. "The Serial Rapist: His Characteristics and Victims." Parts I and II. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, January and February 1989.

Hazelwood, Robert R., Roland Reboussin, and Janet I. Warren. "Correlates of Increased Aggression and the Relationship of Offender Pleasure to Victim Resistance." Journal of Interpersonal Violence, vol. 4, no. 1 (March 1989).

Dietz, Park Elliott, Robert R. Hazelwood, and Janet I. Warren. "The s.e.xually s.a.d.i.s.tic Criminal and His Offenses." The Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, vol. 18, no. 2 (1990), pp. 163-178.

Hazelwood, Robert R., and Janet I. Warren. "The Criminal Behavior of the Serial Rapist." FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, February 1990.

Hazelwood, Robert R., Park Elliott Dietz, and Janet I. Warren. "The Criminal s.e.xual s.a.d.i.s.t." FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, February 1992.

McCormack, Arlene, Frances E. Rokus, Robert R. Hazelwood, and Ann W. Burgess. "An Exploration of Incest in the Childhood Development of Serial Rapists." Journal of Family Violence, vol. 7, no. 3 (1992).

Hazelwood, Robert R., Janet I. Warren, and Park E. Dietz. "Compliant Victims of s.e.xual s.a.d.i.s.ts." Australian Family Physician, vol. 22, no. 4 (April. 1993).

Byard, Robert W., Stephen J. Hucker, and Robert R. Hazelwood. "Fatal and Near-Fatal Autoerotic Asphyxial Episodes in Women." The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, vol. 14, no. 1 (1993), pp. 70-73.

Ault, R. L., Robert R. Hazelwood, and R. Reboussin. "Epistemological Status of Equivocal Death a.n.a.lysis." American Psychologist, January 1994.

Hazelwood, Robert R., and Carlos Schippers. "Behavioral Support in Criminal Cases: An Aide in s.e.xual a.s.sault Cases." Modus, no. 5 (November 1995), pp. 4-7.

BOOKS.

Hazelwood, Robert R., Park Elliott Dietz, and Ann Wolbert Burgess: Autoerotic Fatalities. Lexington, Ma.s.s.: Lexington Books, 1983.