Jerry Brudos
Jerome Henry "Jerry" Brudos was an American serial killer and necrophile known as the Lust Killer and the Shoe Fetish Slayer who committed the kidnap, rape, and murder of four young women between 1968 and 1969 in Salem, Oregon. He is also known to have attempted to abduct two other young women.
All of Brudos's murders were committed inside either his car or the basement or the garage workshop of the two homes in which he resided during the period he committed his murders. Each victim was killed by strangulation; several victims were photographed before and/or after death, and three of his victims underwent post-mortem dismemberment. Brudos is known to have engaged in acts of necrophilia with his victims' bodies and to have retained selective body invariably the severed breasts or of three of his victims to both demonstrate his domination and to satiate his sexual fetish for women's feet, lingerie, and shoes.
Sentenced to three consecutive terms of life imprisonment, to be served at Oregon State Penitentiary, Brudos died of liver cancer while incarcerated at this facility in 2006.
Brudos became known as the "Lust Killer" due to the primal motive behind his crimes; he also became known as the "Shoe Fetish Slayer" due to his lifelong shoe fetishism.
Early life
Childhood
Jerome Henry Brudos was born in Webster, South Dakota, on January 31, 1939, the younger of two sons born to Marie Eileen and Henry Ervin Brudos. His mother had wanted her second child to be a girl and was very displeased that she gave birth to another son; she would frequently emotionally abuse and belittle her younger son, making no secret of the fact to Brudos she had wanted a daughter as opposed to another son. By contrast, Brudos's mother doted on her older son, James.The Brudos family lived a modest and pious lifestyle; Brudos's father typically held casual and often seasonal employment, whereas his mother was a homemaker. Although Henry was a short-tempered individual, he was seldom physically abusive toward or emotionally critical of his children, whereas Marie was a harsh, matriarchal and prudish individual who reserved the majority of her denigration for her younger son. As a direct result of his lacking of maternal acceptance, as a young child, Brudos formed a close friendship with a neighborhood woman of a similar age to his mother. This individual was both compassionate toward and accepting of him throughout his visits and Brudos later confessed to occasionally fantasizing she was his true mother; however, the woman suffered from diabetes and her declining health forced her to cease permitting visits from him or other neighborhood children. Shortly thereafter, a female childhood friend the same age died of tuberculosis, leaving Brudos inconsolable.
Brudos was an unremarkable and sickly child with few friends and who frequently complained of throat pains and migraines; he typically achieved average grades as opposed to his academically achieving and popular brother. In high school, Brudos remained an unremarkable individual to his peers and teachers alike. He seldom engaged in extracurricular activities, although he is known to have been the secretary-treasurer of a youth club in his early teens.
Largely due to Henry Brudos's seasonal work, the family frequently moved home — typically around the Pacific Northwest — throughout Brudos's childhood before permanently settling in Salem, Oregon. This property was also located upon farmland.
Fetishisms
Brudos harbored a lifelong shoe and foot fetish; he later recollected his fascination for women's shoes and feet sourced from an incident when he, aged approximately five years, observed the teenage daughter of a family friend lying asleep on his bed, having been allowed to do so by Brudos's parents after she complained of feeling unwell. According to Brudos, he was "transfixed" by the sight of the girl's high-heeled shoes and attempted to pry them off her feet; the girl awoke and simply told him to leave the room. On another occasion at age five, Brudos discovered a pair of leather high-heeled shoes with a rhinestone-studded clasp while exploring a local junkyard. Brudos took these shoes home, then slipped them on his feet to show his mother. In response, Brudos's mother shrieked he was "wicked" and ordered him to remove the shoes and return them to the junkyard. Upon learning her son had secretly retained the footwear and that he frequently secretly wore them, Brudos's mother severely beat him before burning the shoes in his presence.Two years after this incident, Brudos attempted to steal the high-heeled shoes of his first grade teacher; when caught, Brudos confessed to his actions although when asked why, he claimed not to know why he had attempted to steal the footwear. By the onset of puberty, Brudos had also developed a fetish for women's underwear and lingerie. According to Brudos, he was introduced to the practice of viewing, fondling and smelling female underwear by a neighborhood boy with several older sisters and with whom he occasionally sneaked into the girls' bedrooms to perform these acts, which invoked deep erotic feelings within him which he initially failed to understand. As a teenager, Brudos would steal underwear from female neighbors upon moments of opportunism, some of which he would later wear.
Puberty
By the onset of puberty, Brudos had still not learned of the act of sexual intercourse, although he became obsessed with viewing a naked female peer; however, he was markedly shy around girls in his neighborhood and at school. Moreover, his height and severe acne further decreased his confidence in his ability to appeal to girls. By approximately 1953, Brudos — still oblivious to the act of intercourse — had begun to masturbate. He later claimed to fail to ejaculate during the act of masturbation as a teenager, although he frequently experienced wet dreams. Whenever his mother discovered semen stains on his bed sheet, he was punished and forced to wash his own sheets.First offenses
Brudos began stalking local women in his early teens — several of whom he discreetly photographed. He also stole and retained numerous items of lingerie and footwear. However, none of these initial offenses were violent in nature, although by his mid-teens he had begun developing violent fantasies of forcibly possessing a woman.At the age of sixteen, Brudos dug an underground tunnel and alcove close to his family home to symbolically enact his developing fantasies regarding captive women. He spent numerous hours within this lair, hoping to entrap a captive. Although no women were confined at this location, Brudos did lure a neighborhood girl to his bedroom under innocuous pretences to facilitate his sexual fantasies at age sixteen. Shortly after luring the girl, Brudos exited the bedroom, only to reappear minutes later wearing a mask and brandishing a knife. He forced the girl to strip naked and took several photographs of her before fleeing. Minutes later, Brudos reappeared wearing his original shirt, with his hair in disarray and with a minor scuff mark on his cheek, claiming the intruder had locked him in the family barn at knifepoint.
Within a year of this first known violent offense, Brudos had established a pattern of abducting girls his own age or younger — typically at knifepoint — and forcing them into a barn upon his family farm before ordering them to disrobe and photographing them. He would then lock these girls in a corn crib before reappearing several minutes later, wearing different clothing and with his hair combed in a different fashion. He would then release the girl, explaining he was "Ed, Jerry's twin brother" and feign shock at her account of her ordeal before asking, "He didn't hurt you, did he?" Brudos would then claim his twin brother "Jerry" was "in therapy. This is going to set him back a bit" before pleading with the girl not to inform anyone of her ordeal and promising to locate and destroy the camera "Jerry" had used. None of these girls were subjected to physical sexual assaults beyond tentative fondling and — likely as a defence mechanism — none are known to have informed authorities of these experiences.
Arrest
On one occasion in April 1956, Brudos persuaded a 17-year-old girl to accompany him on a date. Upon driving the girl to a deserted road, he ordered her to undress. However, the girl refused, whereupon Brudos dragged her from his car and proceeded to beat her, breaking her nose. The girl's screams and the general altercation attracted the attention of a young couple driving by, who stopped and intervened. Brudos lamely claimed the girl had fallen from the car before changing his story to claim the hysterical girl had been attacked by "some weirdo" he had overpowered. His story was not believed, and the couple drove the two to the nearest police station, where Brudos admitted attacking the girl but claimed that his intention had been to simply intimidate her into removing her clothes in order that he could photograph her. He denied having ever committed any previous acts of this nature and insisted his temper had simply gotten the better of him.Arrested upon charges of assault and battery, a subsequent search of Brudos's bedroom revealed his extensive collection of female clothing plus numerous Polaroid photographs of teenage girls, one of whom they were able to identify. The girl was contacted, and revealed her ordeal at the hands of "Ed's twin brother" the previous August. Brudos was remanded in custody, to be referred to the Polk County Juvenile Department.