01x09 - Arthur Shawcross: The Genesee River k*ller

[bunniefuu]

- One detective asked me,

"If you had to do it over
again, what would you do?"

And I said, "I'd put
'em all in one hole

and you'd never find them."

- [Woman] There's a man
murdering prostit*tes out there.

Should Rochester be worried?

- [Reporter] People in
this city of 240,000

say they're scared.

- He's using his bare
hands to strangle them.

This shows his absolute rage.

- That gave him the name of
the Genesee River k*ller,

because that's where
he dumped these bodies.

- It had the city in its grip.

- These individuals
were weaker than him.

- Easily approachable,

easily isolated,

easily k*lled.

- There was something
not right about him.

Nobody understood him.

- He was getting back at
all those who had hurt him,

but doing so in an even
far more dreadful fashion.

- After it was over, I
was covered from sweat.

Everything was dead around me.

- If you ask somebody to think

about where serial
K*llers operate,

they're gonna tell you,
New York City, Los Angeles,

maybe bigger communities.

The possibility
that a serial k*ller

was operating in this community,

that can't happen in
Rochester, New York.

The Genesee River runs through
the heart of Rochester.

On the west side of the city,

the river runs through a place
called North Hampton Park.

- Couple hunters that
are out in the area

underneath this culvert,

they observed a
body in the water.

It was a female.

She was in her 20s.

There were no obvious
marks of trauma, knife,

b*ll*ts,

anything along those lines.

- At the autopsy,
around the neck area,

they observed bruising, some
damage around her throat area,

hemorrhaging of the
veins in the eyes.

So the cause of death,

she was strangled to death.

So the victim was later
identified as Dorothy Blackburn.

- So here you had a woman,
she just had a baby,

a six month old, who'd
she left with a neighbor.

She never came back
to pick up her child.

So then that's when the family
became especially concerned.

- Dorothy Blackburn
was last seen here

along Lyle Avenue on March 15th.

Police say it's an area
frequented by prostit*tes.

- Every city has a
place of ill repute

and Lyle Avenue was it.

A john could've k*lled
Dorothy Blackburn.

A drug dealer could've k*lled
her that she owed money to.

So initially it
was anyone's guess

how she was m*rder*d
or who k*lled her.

- Life was pretty disdained.

I can remember
when I was little,

we were out traveling somewhere.

We drove by the city jail

and I looked and I just
had a feeling inside

I'd land inside there.

- He told me it wasn't a
very loving relationship

between him and his mother,

because she was very
domineering and controlling.

Always criticized him.

And his mother would ridicule
him in front of the family.

His own family
would laugh at him.

He was like the odd man out.

- And imagine as a child, the
amount of shame that you feel

and what that could mean

is that you are trying
to please someone

that cannot be pleased.

- There were really no caring
parental figures in his life.

Without any of those
positive qualities,

it creates an opposite picture

as to how a young boy
is supposed to evolve.

- I would say "how are you?"

You know, we're
always in fights.

I didn't have no playmates

other than my sister
and brother and cousins.

- Nobody understood him.

All the kids in school
called him Artie Oddball

because of his
peculiar behavior.

He would talk baby talk.

He wasn't a normal kid.

- Things happened in my house,
our house, when I was four,

seven,

nine,

between my mother and my aunt

and being isolated way
out in the country,

what was I to know, you know?

It's hard to talk about.

- He said it started with the
aunt reaching into his pants.

Then the same thing
happened with his mother.

- Being molested sexually
by older family members,

mother and aunt,

he's gonna either feel incapable

of having a normal love
relationship with a woman

or going in the
opposite direction

and be very domineering.

Some people have a question mark

over Arthur Shawcross
having been sexually abused,

well my initial assessment
after speaking with him,

was that I believe
that they did happen

and that they contributed
to his destabilization.

- Was he making up some things?

Maybe he elaborated
and embellished

the story a little bit
just to get that attention.

- Arthur's ability to lie,

this becomes a
pattern, you know,

where there is fabrication.

It's a way to sort
of distance himself

from the reality of a situation.

- The police were called
to the Driving Park Bridge.

There was one individual
collecting bottles

and he came across originally
what he thought was a deer.

You know, it was bones.

This was the first time
I came across a skeleton,

so it was pretty unusual.

The medical examiner
can't even tell you

a conclusive cause of death.

- The initial challenge is,

you can't show a photograph
to potential individuals

who might know her.

- There's an anthropologist
down in the Syracuse area

who had recreated what he
believed was the interpretation

of the person when
she was alive.

- She had the very
distinct look.

Once the picture did
come out on the news,

it was her father who noticed
that this is my daughter.

Anna Marie Steffen.

She became estranged
with her father.

By turning to drugs for
a lot of these women,

they abandoned their families

or their families
abandoned them.

- They're out there
all by themselves.

So when you go away,
nobody knows you're gone.

- In these two cases,

there's no indicators
that they were related.

They weren't found
in the same location

and no physical evidence
that would tie anyone

into their homicide.

- Police were on the
scene of yet another body,

just the remains and this
one really concerned them.

- Another skeleton.

But the big thing was, there
was absolutely no skull.

- Police were really
trying to piece together

what was going on.

They had no idea what
they were dealing with.

This is coming more frequent

and this is becoming
more frightening.

- The remains of
a person are found

in the Genesee Gorge area.

- The head being missing
was the key to show,

not only were they m*rder*d,
their ends were violent,

but the police had
no idea who this was.

- They take the remains to
the medical examiner's office

to shed any light on the
identity of the individual.

- She was confirmed by
some medical staples

that they found to
be Dorothy Keeler.

She was just down on her luck,

would live in the
homeless shelters,

just walked around the street

and just looking for
somebody for companionship.

- It's this common theme.

Easily approachable.

Easily isolated.

Easily, unfortunately k*lled.

- I was at summer camp.

We were playing kickball

and the ball had rolled
into the back fence line

that's backed up to
the Genesee River.

Being five, six, you don't
know what you're looking at.

I just knew it
looked like a body.

And about five minutes later,
it was surrounded by police.

- I responded and parked the car

almost in the same spot
that I parked the car

for Anna Steffen.

And we found the remains
of a young woman covered

with some cardboard.

- The MEs determined
that she was

the victim of strangulation.

- After her
fingerprints were taken,

we identified her as
Patricia "Patty" Ives.

25 years old.

She was a prost*tute.

The night that she went out,
she said she was gonna see

if she could pick
up another john.

Where this body is found, you
could draw a straight line,

go down the gorge and there's

where Anna Steffen was found.

And you look down the river,

maybe three quarters of mile

and Dorothy Keeler found there.

It was a very tight area.

And I remember thinking
we had a problem.

We had a big problem.

- You had the
connection with water,

cause of death, it was
the same, strangulation.

- So you start adding 'em all up

and none of them are solved
and we began to think,

we got somebody k*lling
multiple people.

- Growing up as a kid alright,
where I did something wrong,

I'd put it on a shelf
and close the door,

forget about it.

- Arthur was very, I don't
know, he just wasn't right,

and he was a highly
sexual person.

- If we're to believe
Arthur Shawcross' stories

about being molested,

he is learning to be sexually
gratified by his mother,

which is also a taboo.

As Arthur goes into adolescence,

what you can see is
a slow ramping up

of inappropriate behavior.

This may be one
attempt at developing

or satisfying a sexual
urge that he has

as a, you know,
pubescent teenager.

- Well, I think if
indeed it took place

where he violated
animals sexually,

that could be very
closely related, you know,

to the bad mother-son
relationship.

The guy is deriving
a sense of power

of the sort that he
otherwise lacked.

- An animal wasn't
gonna call you stupid

and make fun of you.

- Arthur is generally
finding enjoyment

in inflicting pain on animals
and what he might do next,

is cause harm on something
other than an animal.

- We've had calls at
that station saying,

there's a man murdering
prostit*tes out there,

should Rochester be worried?

- Police put the tactical
unit out on the street

to interview prostit*tes
about suspicious individuals.

- We had people of interest.

I can't really
call 'em suspects.

There's probably 150 of
'em and each one of these,

you'd have to go through and
look at all their background,

look at their records.

It was incredible the amount
of work that was going on.

- The possibility
that a serial k*ller

was operating on the
streets of Rochester

came to the forefront.

Papers started running bylines.

- These women were found
along the Genesee River,

thus giving him the name of
the Genesee River k*ller.

- [Reporter] Police see no
danger for the public at large,

but some people in this
city of 240,000 say

they're still scared.

- I don't dare go out,
I don't think now.

- When you did go out at night,

you made sure there
was no one behind you.

- Women working in the Lyle area

were very conscious of the fact

that certain people
who they had seen

were no longer on the streets.

- We tried the best of
our ability to tell them

that there was a danger.

- June Cicero was a
prost*tute on Lyle Avenue.

She was tough and she was
considered the queen bee.

- June Cicero was cautioned
and her comment was,

"He's not gonna get me."

- It was just like having a wife

without having the paperwork.

She worked at night and
the money was great,

but asked a number of
times for her to stop,

but it didn't matter.

It is I don't care,
I'm gonna get the money

and go on about my business.

- I am the only
child by my mother.

She was human,

smart, beautiful,
head-strong person.

Unfortunately, she
wasn't strong enough

to fight those demons.

- And then another
Lyle Avenue sex worker

is reported missing.

Maria Welch.

Soon after that, another body
is discovered, Frances Brown.

At this point, the
trail has gone cold

of who this person is.

Obviously, maneuvering right
under the very noses of police,

we didn't know who would
be his next victim.

You have to find this guy and
get him off the streets now

before he kills again.

- We started a w*r room.

We start looking at these cases

and we start posting their
pictures up and their names

and where they're last seen.

I was thinking, "We need
somebody to just take a look

at all the stuff that
we had and help us out."

So I said, "Let me make a call."

- In the FBI profiling unit,

we analyze every decision
that the offender makes.

The victims are all
mostly white sex workers,

so the statistical probability
would be a white offender.

He doesn't have any
problem getting victims.

He's a regular client.

We felt that he probably

was having a problem
performing sexually

and it was the women who paid.

These are not
entry level crimes.

This is a mature offender.

Someone with a history
of sexual violence.

- I was drafted and
did my basic training

in Fort Benning and
shipped out to Vietnam.

- He was a very childlike
person, you know?

He was unassuming,
very non-threatening

when he went to Vietnam.

You know, you're a man,
you're gonna go to w*r,

you're gonna k*ll
for your country.

- It was a fire base in a valley

and I see this woman,
I took my machete

and I hit her three times

and her head fall off.

And I took the left leg
and had a little fire

and I was cooking that leg.

When I bit into it, the flavor
of it was like a pot roast.

I mean, I got blood
and stuff all over me

and I went to the colonel's tent

and he gets up and gives
me a hug and he says,

"You one sick son of a b*tch."

- This is just another example

of Arthur embellishing
the truth.

He doesn't get to have this
sort of w*r hero experience,

but he's witnessing, you
know, extreme brutality.

That could've
really fed his need

for more extreme levels
of excitement in his life.

- I have not the slightest doubt

that when he was being
misused as a kid,

that he would have in his mind,

thoughts of k*lling
whoever had hurt him.

Being over there
would have normalized

the whole idea of
k*lling someone

that he may have in his
mind fantasied doing.

- The military taught
you how to k*ll.

It didn't teach you how to stop.

- The FBI developed a profile.

A white male.

Comfortable with victims.

Strong, obviously
familiar with the area.

The police department

was on the street
interviewing prostit*tes.

One individual described
someone by the name of Mitch,

because he creeped her out.

The only way he could reach
orgasm is if she played dead.

- We thought that's the kind
of guy we're interested in

and he was a known client,

a regular with the sex
workers on Lyle Avenue.

He worked at a food
service, this G&G Cheese.

- This individual
provided the composite.

Now, he had a prominent nose

and he did look like
an older white male.

- Finally, they have a face.

Sex workers, the people most
affected by this serial k*ller

that cops would
consider arresting,

became the most critical people

to helping them get this
serial k*ller off the streets.

So what a different
relationship.

- The investigators
showed the composite

to people who work
at the G&G Cheese,

but no one recognized him.

- The fact that there's no Mitch

was kind of a deflating moment.

This is just another dead end.

- Thanksgiving day.

We gave everybody the day off,

except the lieutenant
and myself.

A guy was out there
in Turning Point Park

walking his dog

and they ran over
to this carpet,

which had some snow on it.

- They pulled the carpet off

and they find the
body of a woman.

She has been eviscerated.

- This body was
not only strangled,

she was basically gutted
from the top of her chest

all the way down to the
bottom of her pubic bone.

- It was different behavior.

It was a sadistic act and we're
worried about the next one.

- This guy was becoming bolder

and he was becoming more violent

and he had to be found.

- Another body is found
like Thanksgiving day.

You know, it's a day where you

should kinda be
home celebrating.

June Stott was cut from
the base of her breast bone

down to her pubic area.

- I'd say if there was a low
point of the investigation,

it's probably that day.

- It was bitterly cold.

I have a picture which I
will keep forever of myself,

Captain Johnson,
another officer.

- You can just tell by
the posture of the people

who are walking down this
path in this desolate area,

is like, what is going on?

- June Stott was
developmentally disabled.

Again, these women
were so vulnerable.

- Another photograph
went up on the wall.

It's another one
of these tragedies.

- The offender's
behavior can evolve.

After she was dead, she
was obviously turned over

and we could tell,

that wound was a post
mortem wound after death.

Now, that tells us
that the offender

is spending time with this body.

So this is the
evolution of violence.

And our prediction was that
we would see more of this.

- June Cicero would
work out on the streets.

When word got out
that she was missing,

with her intuition about johns.

Now that was a shocker.

- June's photo was
now on the wall.

- The next victim
was Elizabeth Gibson

and then Darlene Trippi.

There's a sense of desperation.

It had the city in its grip.

Rather than sit back and wait,

let's use his
behavior against him.

See if we can find this
offender returning to the scene.

They put troopers out there.

Helicopters are flying along
the streams and the waterways

using his behavior
to shape the search.

This is a trap we
can lay for him.

- I came back from Vietnam.

I'm home three days,
my mother says,

"Aren't you gonna
go see your wife?"

I asked, "Mom, what wife?

What are you talking about?"

I'd forgot I was married.

- He was very loving and
caring in the beginning.

There was a sensitive
side to him,

but I think he kind of got
married to be normal, to fit in.

I'll have the family life
that I didn't have as a kid.

- He is unable to perform
sexually for his wife

and things spiral
down from there.

- She always had doubts
about his sexual confidence.

It would tend to make him
more angry and heightened,

you know, his animosity
and hatred of the women.

- My wife was a blonde, you
know, when I got done with her,

she looked like a raccoon.

Two black eyes, you know,

like I was in a "Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde" type thing.

- Arthur's increasing
cruelty towards his wife

leads her to divorce him.

He has lost control
of his family.

He's lost control of
his sexual prowess

and within a short span of time,
he burns down a paper mill.

He is actually caught
and sentenced

to five years in prison.

Again, this has a
profound effect on him.

Arthur's anger is increasing.

- I went to, I
think it was Attica.

After you're there a while

and you get the
feel of the place,

you can learn about
every crime there is,

how to do anything you want.

Just didn't feel the
same when I was home,

like I didn't belong.

- We were asking people with
information to call the police

and anything you can do
to develop a little lead.

But park policeman found
a pair of black jeans.

It's not that far from where
Dorothy Blackburn was found.

Inside the jeans were
some identification

with the name of
Felicia Stephens.

We went to the mother's house

and she hadn't seen her
for a period of time.

So they did an all out
press, grid searching,

horses, dogs, helicopter.

And so it was December 31st,

January 1st, January
2nd, they're looking,

trying to find out where she was

and we believed it
wasn't gonna be good.

- The senior state trooper
gets to the helicopter

and he's gonna take one more
look for Felicia Stephens.

As they pass on a bridge,

they see frozen

in the creek, a body.

- But when they got
down to the ice,

it wasn't Felicia Stephens,

This was June Cicero.

- She was supposed to
come by for the holiday

and she never showed up.

- The last time I saw her, she
was walking down Main Street

and I was in the
car with my father

and as we rode past, he
said, "There's your mother."

And we stopped.

And I got to sit with
her for about 20 minutes.

Last time I saw her alive.

- He was five or six years old.

He didn't understand
what was really going on.

He just knew she
wasn't coming back.

- About 12 to 15 feet
above where the body is,

they see a gray Chevrolet
Celebrity stopped,

and what do they see?

They see the person pull away.

Whoa, you know,
what are the chances

that somebody's gonna be
just coincidentally stopped

in this bridge?

- So this thing
now is exploding.

This was the behavior
that we were looking for,

that the k*ller would be
returning to the scene.

You can't let this
guy slip away.

This is the break.

- This was the break that
you couldn't anticipate.

The helicopter happened
to be passing over

at the exact time
they see the body

and the person in
the car drives away.

Police helicopter
follows this individual

to a nursing home.

Troopers respond
to the location.

They ask him about
what's going on.

He says, "What's the big deal?

I was just taking a piss."

- You're hoping this is the
guy, you can't really be sure.

Now, let's get this
guy identified,

let's find out who he is.

- And this is the first time
in this 21 month nightmare

that the name of Arthur
Shawcross surfaces.

As suspicious as it may be

that someone is stopped
15 feet above a body,

that does not amount to
probable cause to arrest him.

- You only have one chance
at these investigations.

So a consensus was made that
it would be the best thing

to let him go

so we could build a case.

- But he was tethered.

The surveillance was on him,

he wasn't going out
k*lling anybody that night.

- We wanted probable cause
to be able to arrest him.

So that was the plan.

We're gonna try to
find the prost*tute

who was able to pick
him out as a john.

- They put a photo
array together

and one of them
picked out Shawcross.

- The composite also closely
resembled Arthur Shawcross.

That provided probable cause,

the charge was
patronizing a prost*tute.

It was a crime.

- They took him into
the interview room.

There was no emotion whatsoever.

And they said, "Art,
you're here now.

Get it over with, you
know, clear it up."

- I'm not in the room,
but I'm close by.

So I'm going, "Man, we'd
better get this confession."

- We certainly didn't know
how long that was gonna take

or which he was gonna
admit to or not admit to.

- We found out that he
frequented the river,

that he was a fisherman.

But he was denying anything.

The point came where
they confronted him.

He was confronted.

At that point, he confessed

to the Elizabeth
Gibson homicide.

And then gave a written
signed statement

as to the details
of that homicide.

- It was a very good moment.

There wasn't gonna be any
more victims by this guy.

- Then the background
investigation continued

and then we find out
all of the details

that he in fact is on parole.

- Every station,
newspaper went wild

trying to find out the
background of this guy

and boy, when we found out
he had m*rder*d in the past,

that was shocking.

- So at 27, after serving a
few years in prison for arson,

Arthur Shawcross, he moves
to Watertown, New York,

the place where he grew up

and now he has to
re-enter society.

He goes to a local
area for fishing

and there he meets a 10
year old boy named Jack.

- I knew where all the good
fishing places were all around.

- Arthur lures Jack
into the woods.

He forces him to strip naked.

- Arthur seizes the
opportunity to violate the boy.

He himself was violated
when he was a boy,

not dissimilar, you
know, to the victim.

Now he's making somebody
else endure that misery.

- Jack becomes
afraid and runs away.

And Arthur starts chasing him

and he tackles him.

- Once you k*ll somebody,

k*lling somebody else is
a snap of a finger.

Once you k*ll, it
is easier then on.

You know, you don't forget it.

- Arthur lures
Jack into the woods

where the boy is alone
and is vulnerable.

Arthur r*pes him.

But Jack escapes

and Arthur chases him.

He grabs him.

Strangles him and murders him.

- After it was over, I
was covered from sweat

from top of my head, to
the center of my chest,

my hearing and my vision,
like purse in hands

and I couldn't hear nothing.

Everything was dead around me,

you know, and I was in a fog.

- I think for Arthur,

that was like getting back

at all those who had hurt him

when he was the age of that boy,

but doing so in an even
far more dreadful fashion.

- When you're doing
things like that,

you don't think about
it, it's just instant.

Just do it, get rid
of it and walk away.

- Arthur's first m*rder
of 10 year old Jack

could be seen as a precursor

for his later murders
of sex workers,

because these are individuals
that were weaker than him,

that he could dominate.

He is released and moves
to Rochester, New York

and this became his playground.

- They continued
to interrogate him,

showing him pictures
of the deceased women

and he starts dealing them out.

- He went through each
and every one of them

and gave his account of how
he k*lled each one of them.

- When you look at the
murders, he kept the same MOs.

Arthur Shawcross was
the type of k*ller

who went after easy prey.

- You meet a prost*tute
on the street,

yeah, I was like a kid
in a candy store, right?

- He's using his bare
hands to strangle them.

Not only is this intimate, but
this shows his absolute rage.

He is seeing the life
go out of their eyes.

- After I admitted to the 11,

it was like a big
weight fell off me

and then one detective asked me,

"If you had to do it over
again, what would you do?"

And I said, "I'd put
'em all in one hole

and you'd never find 'em."

- You're gratified that
there was a conviction,

but it's not gonna
bring those women back.

It's gonna be a long road
for recovery, if ever,

for the victims' families.

- [Charles] We should
always keep in mind,

the victims and their families

who certainly didn't deserve
to live with the aftermath.

- What happened to my
mother is his fault.

What happened to those
other ladies is his fault.

She was a beautiful lady.

The smile that she had.

That's what's important

to have that picture in my head.