Sex and Murder Magazine

By Connley Landers

Killing people in mass is not terrorizing. One at a time is the way. That’s why Jack the Ripper and Ted Bundy are still written and talked about and those psychos that are called terrorists don’t measure up. The so-called terrorists overestimate the victim’s ability to visualize their own demise. Terror is a function of the imagination. They don’t understand that the potential victims can’t conjure enough fear from the thought of mass murder. It’s so impersonal. Cold. Murder shouldn’t be that way. Intimacy is crucial.

But, kill one at a time with a hanger around the neck like I did—that will make them have nightmares that grow, seep icily into their spinal fluid, make nerves jitterbug and turn bones into a quivering jell. Using a common wire hanger was—can I call it genius. Not that it was consciously premeditated on my part, but obviously my subconscious was at work there. Give some credit. A household item like that would make people shudder every time they opened the closet. Best of all it was neat and clean. No blood. I was nauseated by the sight of it.

Last month, during a surprise visit at my house, John Sumer, my parole officer, was telling me that that leaving the state of Texas without his written consent was a violation.

I said, “But, I just went to the Winstar Indian Casino barely across the Red River into Oklahoma. That river’s not really red, you know. Not really, really red; had to keep telling myself that it wasn’t. If it was I’d be queasy as I drove over the bridge.” John’s expression didn’t change. “I was there for only three hours! Everyone in Dallas does it!”

“You have to follow the rules like everyone else, Bill. You don’t want to go back to Huntsville, do you. Now, I have to put this in your report, and I don’t know what they’ll do.”

John had his alligator leather briefcase opened on his lap. Its breath-smell reached across the coffee table. It had his initials, JES, on a brass plate by the handle. Nobodies feel more important if they brand their stuff—dogs marking territory. I looked down at my feet. John finished the report on his laptop computer, fed it to his briefcase and snapped it closed like a guillotine slicing down. It made me jump.

“No John, I can’t go back there.” It’s funny; I felt the briefcase’s snap right in my neck, too. Felt the toss in my guts as if I was going over a hump in a rollercoaster. Saw my head drop into a wicker basket with a thunk-tha-thunk. Somehow, I heard that guillotined, no-body, head scream, “No!”

That’s when my subconscious took over and I grabbed the hanger. From behind I put it around his neck. All those black, wire garrotes in closets everywhere substituting as real skinny people’s frames wearing the clothes, keeping them straight, until needed by their owners—or me. Imagine the possibilities. Little triangle garment racks waiting patiently for a higher calling in someone’s death. They’re coming out of the closet for a forensic future. Like me.

I had to sit on John until he stopped kicking, or he might have run off to God knows where like a chicken with… Anyway, he couldn’t even squawk—just his shoes clunking, skritching on the floor. It was a little embarrassing that it gave me an erection. It was intimate. You know, feeling the vigor flow out of him that way. Like sex—violent and strong, then the release of life, the relaxation.

A three year stretch at Huntsville allowed me to get in touch with my other side. It’s odd; I killed a guy with my hands in a drunken fight at a bar. Those joints on Greenville Avenue had other delicate-looking guys and they didn’t look at me with that hate-stare—just the opposite. But, this drunk that I’d just won twenty dollars from playing pool wouldn’t let the next guy have a turn. He called me a queer, spat on me and shoved me against a wall. All drugs are bad. Don’t blame it on the booze. I’m just saying that there were some mitigating circumstances.

People had teased me since high school about my effeminate appearance. Occasionally, I had to beat hell out of someone just like my Dad did me. “Flog the freaky fag out of you!” He’d slur with beery spittle. He wasn’t always like that, but after two tall-boys you had to be careful around him. When he went to the fridge to get the six-pack my heart would beat faster. The anticipation was the worst part. It would start with the stare that fermented to frown.

Heightened sensory perceptions were necessary for survival. Were there hops in the air. Listen… pssst… a pop-top. Watch for the telltale change in cloud formations on Dad’s face. Tempest brewing. Danger!

At times he would grab what was near and lay into you with it. He’d hit you with anything handy: belt, dog leash, hanger. Bawling wasn’t an option—I was determined about that. Sissies cried. Dad used Mom’s old, stiff-wire-bristle hairbrush one time, got it turned backwards, and left little bleeding holes all over my thighs. I was ashamed of the blood drops that oozed, and against my will, wept almost as though they were tears. The hanger made unmistakable impressions on my back that the kids in gym class thought was funny.

Mom had run off years ago and it was just me and him. He had to go to my school to see Principal Bradshaw about another fight.

Mr. Bradshaw looked at Dad and said, “Mr. Letal, Bill’s been in his second scrap this year and if it happens a third time we’ll have to expel him.”

“I didn’t hit him, Dad!” Once, last year, after school during a basketball game, going for a rebound I’d given Doug Davis a bloody nose with my elbow. I passed out when I saw it.

Bradshaw said, “Coach Conner said that Bill here choked one of his All-State linebackers. Took three guys to pull your son off the kid!” I watched Dad’s face—waiting for that stare to storm to frown, but it didn’t.

Dad said, “They pick on him, you know. It ain’t right for them to do that to the boy.”

*****

Time in prison is called a stretch for a reason. Everything has a bright side. I was out of the closet too. There was a brief consideration for having sex with John’s remains before he got cold and stiff. But, I’m not a necrophiliac. I’m gay, not crazy.

We talked about our orientation in prison. My cellmate, Harlon, use to say with a laugh, “Just because I fellatio once in a while, don’t make me queer.”

You can pull the hanger’s triangle to a square (so it will fit over the vic’s head) with one finger, noose it down and twist real hard like closing a bread bag with a twist tie. A tie. Ha. That’s it. From garment rack to real garment. When they say “put a round peg into a square hole,’ picture that.

That wasn’t the only hole I put him into. Burying John in the crawl space under my house was sweaty, hard work and took all night. Replacing his bad report on me with a more favorable one was easier. It was left in the briefcase so they could find it with all the paperwork in his car that I parked outside his office building. Then I walked home, crashed on the sofa, and slept the whole day.

A pounding on the door woke me up. At first, it sounded like shoes thumping the floor and I couldn’t breathe. They questioned me about John. I told them when I’d seen him last. Left out the part about his new neckwear. Lying to them was harder than offing John. Ethics have always been important to me. A killing here or there doesn’t make you all bad.

Everyone has talents they can bring out if they try. Mine was murder. Burying John was like stifling my aptitudes in a closet. Can you imagine Picasso painting then shoving his masterwork into the dark. You want others to share. So, I started to leave the bodies where they were.

*****

The media was ecstatic. By the third one they’d named me The Hanger Homicide Hombre. Richard Luna of The Dallas Morning News used it first. I liked his alliteration and how he reflected the area’s Spanish heritage. Two of the first three victims were Mexicans. I didn’t realize that until Richard reported it. I made sure that the next few were racially representative of the DFW area. Fair is fair.

Richard’s feedback was important and I called him from one of the victim’s cell phone.

“Richard, this is The Hanger Homicide Hombre.”

“How do I know you’re really him. Tell me something about your victims that….Oh, never mind. My caller ID says you’re using the last victim’s phone.”

“Richard, I hadn’t seen your byline before the story on me?”

“I didn’t have one. They put me on this because the assistant editor knew I had a degree in psychology and wrote a couple of papers on serial killers and how to profile them. I was only a part-time contributor until this. Now, I’m fulltime. This is getting a lot of attention in the national media too. Our paper’s circulation has gone up considerably.” I heard him clear his throat. “What’s your real name?”

“Oh, get out. Why don’t I just shoot myself right now?”

“Well, I’ll call you…Harry.”

“Yes, yes, Hanger Harry.”

“The hanger part distinguishes your work from others that…”

“Like an artist signing their work at the bottom of a painting.”

“It’s partly why there is so much focus on this. Jack the Ripper only killed five people, but as far as serial killers go he’s small potatoes as to numbers. It’s the media sensationalizing it that made Jack.”

“Oh, yeah. I see.”

“And you did another last night?”

“No, no. I watched Monday Night Football.”

“Just a copy-cat, I guess; One-Hit-Wonder trying to horn in on your coverage. Cops found a homeless guy in an alley Downtown. He was strangled with some barbed wire.”

“God no! Not me. I only use hangers. Ewe, gross. You straighten this out for me Richard, and I’ll give you an exclusive after every new piece.”

“Piece?”

“Project. You know, Victim.”

“Oh, sure. Harry, you’re aware that some of those phones have GPS capabilities. They can find you if you stay on for long. Here’s my personal cell number. Use it from now on.”

“Right. Bye.

*****

By the ninth one all of North Texas was in a state of terror. In one of his articles, Richard Luna quipped that I had made Texas “The Loon Star State” to the rest of the world. “First, Kennedy, now this. Everything’s bigger and badder in Texas!” Richard’s writing kept ramping up the tension with every piece. He called it, “Upping the ante,” like he was writing a novel.

He did a column about the bowling alley where they’d found number six and, now, how all the bowling alley’s business had dropped. The same thing happened at a skating rink where they’d found seven, and a movie theater with eight. Number ten was outside Plano High School’s football stadium on a Friday night. The next Friday all high school football games in the area had increased attendance. Go figure. Richard wrote about that NASCAR mentality in Texas. “We’ll slow down at highway wrecks—gore-gawkingest folks on the planet. We’re NAS-scarred.”

The mayors of Dallas, Ft. Worth and Plano got together and told the media that I was not only killing people, but I was killing business in their towns. Sales tax revenue was going down. “Enough is enough,” they said. That muffled thump sound was the feces affecting fans. A special taskforce made up of ex-cops, bounty hunters and mercenaries was formed to find me. A million dollar reward was raised.

Richard was interviewed by CNN and NBC News. He’d said in his column that the killer had contacted him at his office.

A reporter asked him, “Does he trust you?”

He said, “I think so. Dallas County’s District Judge Thomas, has threatened me with jail time if I don’t cooperate with the police to help catch the killer. But, I told them everything I know. Now, the killer’s afraid the office lines are bugged and he hasn’t called me back there since.” Richard looked at the camera when he said that—big, innocent, blue eyes and square jaw. I knew he was telling me to be careful. Our relationship was like Lois Lane’s and Superman’s, or maybe he was Jimmy Olsen. Anyway, I was the Superstar with the whole word wanting to know what, or who, I was going to do next.

*****

I called Richard with number twelve’s cellphone. “Twelve is in a dumpster behind the SevenEleven on the corner of Harry Hinds and Oak Lawn Avenue.”

“Twelve, huh. You’ve just passed Henry Lee Lucas who was convicted of eleven murders. I know because I wrote a paper on him.”

“You wrote about him?”

“Yes, but I’ve never been able to write about a real serial killer—live. One article I wrote was about the Macdonald Triad that postulates that many serial killers have these three commonalities in their childhood: animal cruelty, enuresis (which is bed-wetting) and pyromania. Does that describe your experience?”

“You’re like Truman Capote researching his book, In Cold Blood. Did you know that Capote had an affair with one of those killers, right there in prison, while he was interviewing him for the manuscript. Do you want me to say yes. Would it help if I said that I tore the legs off my teddy bear, set it on fire, and put the golden stream on it?”

“I just want the facts, Harry. I’ve spent the last five years of my life researching serial killers. If the authorities can understand what makes them tick… What’s it like when you kill. How do you feel?”

“Peace. Nothing can hurt them now. Death is wasted on the dead.”

There was a long pause and I was getting ready to hang up when he said, “Are you going to go for the Jeffrey Dahmer record of seventeen?”

Of course people need goals. It wasn’t as if I was just mindlessly killing people. The creative process requires a presence of mind, openness to new ways and boldness. Me, me, me.

*****

Fox News gave Richard a thirty minute show every night during prime time to report on me. Bill O’Rielly, Richard’s Fox News, conservative, talk show friend, called me the HaHoHo killer, short for Hanger Homicide Hombre, like J. Lo for Jennifer Lopez, or Li Lo for Lindsey Lohan.

“Richard,” I said, “It made me sound clownish and I didn’t care for it. Did he mean Ho Ho—like calling me a “Twinkie’?”

Richard said, “The media is always trying to abbreviate to save ink, paper and air time. It wasn’t meant disrespectfully. We’re trying to be green. Besides saving time and money, it’s like a promotion of your status—and mine.” He was right. When he explained it that way it did make my work seem lighter.

I needed that because I hadn’t been sleeping very well. The odd hours I kept didn’t help. Bad dreams woke me up in a cold sweat. Nightmarish images in Technicolor of chickens running around headless, somehow squawking through their bleeding neck hole, their shoes thump, thump, thumping on the floor. Scalding showers helped wash the dreams away and after some warm milk, I could go back to bed. It seemed to be getting worse though. It wasn’t caffeine. I would never defile my body with drugs again.

Richard’s show was all about me and serial killers. Fox News did the same thing for hurricane Katrina and the Hati earthquake. People just couldn’t get enough of it. HaHoHo was like a force of nature. Maybe I’d… we’d get another promotion and they’d shorten it to “Ha,” like other one-name celebrities. I thought of Elvis and Prince and Cher. My name would be even shorter than theirs. Every time someone laughed they would think of me.

It was getting harder to find people out alone. The whole state was on alert. They were terrorized. Richard helped a lot. I called him with seventeen.

“You’ve matched Dahmer.” The excitement in his voice made me smile. In my rearview mirror the dark circles under my eyes seemed a contrast to that smile and made it fade like Richard’s voice which was saying, “Harry…Harry, you still there. Bundy… Ted Bundy had thirty-five confirmed kills. Are you going to go for that. That would be so huge.”

Confirmed kills. I had an image of an unduly red tri-plane; a World War I ace fighter pilot with a fluttering scarf around his neck. He looked like Richard, was smiling and pointing to icons on the fuselage that represented his downed opponents. His scarf morphed into a hanger and his smile faded too.

“Hell yes, I am, Baron Richard. Bundy or bust, buddy.”

*****

I was dead tired. Sleep was nearly impossible. Number twenty was a drug dealer and he had a massive supply of amphetamines—Red Devils. I think I lost my soul when I started taking those damned things. You do some weird things when you’re so driven.

The cops were everywhere. Carelessness had somehow crept into my craft. My brain was too wired. Cops careless crept craft closet closet closet.

Number thirty-four was lying next to me in a janitor’s closet near the food court at Plano’s Collin Creek Mall. Near closing time in the restroom I’d surprised a mall cop, Jerry Priest, according to the name tag, and dragged him into my closet. His carotid artery had sprung a crimson leak that led them right to me; a Hansel and Gretel trail.

I said, “I’m sorry, Jerry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

I fainted on top of him. The other mall cops had me cornered and I’d locked myself in. I heard them call the special task force and they were on their way. Endgame.

Leaving Richard a note in my pocket was sticky. Since I didn’t have a pen or pencil I had to use Jerry’s holy blood on a piece of cardboard torn from a case of toilet paper. The note kept fading to black and spinning. Tried to grab something close to stop the twirl and vomited in a mop bucket. Jerry dried up half way through like a Magic Marker with a lost cap and I had to finish with my own. Shame, shame!

Dick, I know you think that I am two short of breaking the Bundy record, but you’ll find John Sumer, my old parole officer, buried in the crawl space under my house at 1221 Woody Drive in Plano and you’ll have my body dangling by a hanger wired to a pipe in this closet’s ceiling. Give me credit. That makes thirty-six. Ha Ha.