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Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast. The podcast dedicated to serial killers. Who they were, what they did, and how. Episode 224. I am your humble host, Tomas Roseland Weyborg Thun, and tonight we continue the tale of the killer cop, John Gerard Schaefer. Last episode, we ended with one of the most disturbing diary entries of Schaefer's.
Tonight we take a closer look at his youth and upbringing. Enjoy!
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Nina, Wisconsin, was a picture-postcard lie. Tourists flocked there, seeking solace on the shores of Lake Winnebago, a watery escape from the urban grind. They reveled in the summer sun, casting lines for bass and paddling canoes across the placid surface. But beneath the veneer of tranquility, something sinister lurked.
Lake Winnebago was a stagnant beast, a catch basin for the sluggish river oozing out of Green Bay, itself a sickly finger reaching south from the vast brooding moor of Lake Michigan. Highway 41, a concrete scar sliced through the heart of Nina, a vein pulsing with the desperate hope of escape.
Tourists, fleeing the oppressive weight of Milwaukee, used it as their escape route, heading north, towards the lake, farm to lark, lay along the way, offering a fleeting glimpse of normalcy, the restored Galloway House, a monument to a bygone era, or the pioneer village, a saccharine tableau of forgotten lives.
Those seeking solace from the opposite direction, venturing south from Green Bay, found themselves on the same artery. Appleton, a stone's throw from Nina, offered a detour into the history of papermaking, a fitting irony considering the secrets some papers hold. The paper mills were the lifeblood of the town, their rhythmic hum a constant backdrop.
Yet beneath the idyllic façade, a darkness festered, even the name of the nearby hilltop. Bute the Mort, the Hill of the Dead, whispered a truth most chose to ignore. It was in this cradle of contradictions where beauty met brutality that Gerard John Schaeffer arrived on this earth with a whimper, not a bang.
John was the firstborn of Doris and Jerry. A healthy babe, they said. Normal. A little too normal, perhaps, for the shadows that would soon stretch across his life. Two more followed, Sarah Jean and Gary. But John, or Junior as they called him, was the apple of his father's eye.
Jerry, a traveling salesman for Kimberly Clark, reveled in the open road. New faces, new towns, a constant escape from the monotony of domesticity. Doris craved a different kind of escape, one from the constant burden of raising three children practically alone. She understood the need for a breadwinner, of course, but the strain etched itself onto her face, a truth she could only occasionally voice.
Before John could even grasp the alphabet soup of grade school, the Schaffers were uprooted. Nashville. Then Atlanta. A restless waltz across the map. Public schools blurred into one another. The children adapting as best they could to this nomadic existence. Finally, in 1960, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, became their supposed haven. Yet, home was a concept Jerry struggled to grasp.
His job remained a jealous mistress, demanding his constant attention. When he did manage to be present, it was spent teaching John the finer points of hunting and fishing. Jerry, with a memory colored by rose-tinted glasses, would later claim John was great with a hunting rifle. A chillingly apt description, considering the darkness that lurked beneath the surface.
The cracks in the façade began to show. Hairline fractures at first, then widening chasms. Jerry's escape from domesticity morphed into something more sinister. The clink of glasses, the reeking breath, a slow descent into the bottle, the disintegration of the family. Slow and insidious at first had begun. It was a festering wound.
one that would eventually bleed into John's own life, staining it a shade of crimson far too familiar.
Fourteen and adrift, with his father a ghost on permanent business trips, young Schaefer found solace in the tangled embrace of the Florida woods, a labyrinth of emerald, laced with brown water canals teeming with strange, slithering creatures the locals called shell-crackers, crawdaddies, and the unsettlingly named mudpuppies.
here amidst the whispering pines and the symphony of insects john carved out a niche for himself some blinded by a surface sheen would later call him an outdoorsman a nature lover little did they know the darkness that bloomed beneath neighbors their memories as faded as snapshots left too long in the sun offered conflicting glimpses of the boy
John Keefe, another teenager at the time, recalled fishing trips once in a while. He knew John no more, no less than the other kids, yet remembered a shared passion for hunting and fishing. Keefe painted a picture of normalcy, a boy who drank a little, dated no more than anyone else, a perfect blend into the suburban tapestry. But cracks began to show beneath the brushstrokes.
Peter Maddock, another neighbor, offered a different perspective. John, in his eyes, was consumed by a singular pursuit. Girls. Sports held no interest. The thrill of the hunt replaced by a different kind of chase. He was preoccupied, Maddock said, a word heavy with unspoken implications.
John, somehow, possessed a magic touch, getting girls with an ease that belied his age. Yet these conquests were fleeting, a carousel of phases with no single heart to claim. One memory, though, stuck out. A night spent regaling his friends with tales of his so-called adventures with girls. Young, naive heirs drank in the details, a hunger for experiences just beyond their grasp.
John, the supposed everyman, the perfect blend-in, was already carving a path far darker than they could have ever imagined. Gary Hainline, brother to the vanished Lee Hainline Bonadise, remembered Schaefer with a grimace that stretched back years. Back then they were pretty good friends, a bond forged in the humid Florida air, a skinny kid with perpetually grass-stained knees,
John seemed to exist in two states, either a fixture on the canal banks or swallowed whole by the woods for stretches that could last an entire day. But time, that relentless sculptor, had transformed the dirt-smeared youngster. John sprouted, tall and lean, a jock in the making, his grades surprisingly good.
He still craved the outdoors, primal pull that tugged at him like the moon on the tides. Yet a new hunger had begun to gnaw at him, a hunger fueled by hormones and the restlessness of youth. Other things were beginning to take hold of John's mind. The change wasn't sudden, more like a slow, sickening creep.
The fascination with guns, once a prideful display of a young boy's collection, morphed into something more sinister. He took pleasure in the kill, not the bounty it provided. Songbirds, their sweet melodies silenced with a single brutal crack. Land crabs, scuttled across the sand only to meet a leaden demise.
These were the trophies John craved, not sustenance, but a chilling dominion over life and death. The boy who once played by the canal now held the power to extinguish the spark of life in living creatures, a darkness blooming beneath the veneer of a good student and budding athlete. June of 1964.
The year Gerard John Schaeffer shed the last vestiges of boyhood, graduating from St. Thomas Aquinas High, summer stretched before him. A hazy mirage, shimmering with possibility. He claimed to be self-employed that summer, a hunting and fishing guide in the Everglades Emerald Labyrinth, a coin dealer with pockets jingling with phantom profits. But truth, like a stubborn fish, refused to be reeled in.
no records existed to support these grand pronouncements schaefer ambitious and undeniably intelligent wasn't one to wallow in aimlessness for long after a summer of sun-baked indulgence the kind most high school graduates craved he set his sights on higher learning
Broward Junior College, soon to be known simply as Broward College, welcomed him into its fold for the fall semester of 1964. We all have dreams. Dream home renovations, dream vacations, or sending our kids to their dream colleges. But finding straightforward ways to turn those dreams into realistic goals?
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This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. As a family man with three kids, I know firsthand how extremely difficult it is to make time for self-care. But it's good to have some things that are non-negotiable. For some, that could be a night out with the boys, chugging beers and having a laugh. For others, it might be an eating night.
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Visit betterhelp.com slash serialkiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash serialkiller. This, it seemed, was where the rot truly began. His academic journey started with a noble goal, a social studies major, a desire to understand the tides of history.
But somewhere along the way, the compass spun wildly. He veered off course, drawn to the College of Education, a teacher's path with a focus on physical education. It was there, amidst dreams of coaching sweaty teenagers, that his problems, as they would later be euphemistically called, began to sprout like poisonous mushrooms after a summer rain.
The seeds of darkness, long nestled within him, started to push through the surface, seeking the harsh light of day. Initially, Schaefer's college career was like that of many freshman students, bouncing inconsistently from such subjects such as general zoology, from which he withdrew and later upon, repeating the course, failed, to golfing, at which he excelled.
His other courses were mostly required subjects, and his grades tended to run about average. In the first semester of the 65-66 academic year, Schaefer began to have difficulties in school, perhaps because he had taken an overload of subjects. He was taking eight different courses, out of which he would quickly withdraw from three. Scuba diving, women's instructional swimming,
and again general zoology. His remaining courses landed him C's and B's, except world literature, which he failed, and creative writing, in which he received an A. It is this last class that is most significant. Teaching the class was Harry Cruz, author of A Feast of Snakes, Carr, and several other critically acclaimed novels.
as well as being a successful writer for several magazines, including Playboy. Cruise says he remembers Schaefer being a student of his, but claims he did not really stand out. At any rate, Cruise did give Schaefer an A, and it was most likely this high grade that would compel Schaefer to begin thinking of himself as at least a pretty fair writer.
Up to that point, he had only received one other A, in golfing. Schaefer enrolled in the second semester of the 65-66 academic year, again taking an overload of classes. He withdrew from all of them. He left school for a while and began again in the first semester of the 66-67 academic year.
Throughout this year, he maintained overloaded schedules and withdrew accordingly. He did, however, finish his sophomore work at Broward, applied and was accepted at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, where he began his studies in the winter quarter of 1968. Schaefer's years at FAU were much more coherent in that he did not withdraw from any classes.
His grades ran from average to above average, and he seemed, at least outwardly, to be adjusting well to his college schedule. In 1968, while attending FAU, Schaefer met, and would later marry, Martha Louise Fogg, or Marty, as she was known to her friends. Marty was still attending classes at Broward College when the two of them met.
At first, Marty and Gerard seemed to be an ideal couple. Both were hard-working students, endeavouring to better themselves, and they both had an interest in creative writing. Both had some of their work published in a college literary magazine called Pancou. It was most likely this common interest that drew them together. This, and an interest in the sciences.
Marty was a biology science major, and Gerard was now working toward a bachelor of arts degree with a major in geography. There was trouble, however. The marriage of the young students began to fall apart almost immediately. Marty would forever refuse to discuss exactly what caused the couple to separate,
But Gerard would complain that their biggest problem was in an incompatible sex life. Schaefer was now increasingly taking more science-related courses and, rather interestingly, more human behavior and psychology courses. Perhaps he was taking these courses to better understand himself and his now failing marriage. While still a newlywed,
Gerard penned a suicide note, which was found and delivered unto the hands of Dr. Raymond Killinger. Killinger referred Schaefer to Dr. R. R. McCormick, a psychometrist who studied Schaefer.
Dr. Killinger was interested in projective testing which would assess the extent of disorganization and support any consideration for urgent action requiring intervention in order to protect John or the community. John reported to the testing center as requested, on his own, and rapport was quickly established with him.
He appeared to be seeking assistance for his difficulty and had confidence in Dr. Killinger, who had sent him for this testing. After several tests and evaluations by McCormick, Killinger then sent Schaefer to the Henderson Clinic of Broward County, where he began a program with a Dr. Charles W. Long, a psychiatrist who continued to see him until May of 1971.
throughout his short-lived marriage, which ended abruptly in 1970. Schaefer's divorce was as quiet and passionless as his marriage. Schaefer made no more attempts on his own life, but his role in society, as far as functioning in a normal capacity, was becoming questionable. In March 1969,
Schaefer first applied for a student teaching internship, which would begin the following academic year in September 1969. He was accepted and allotted an internship which was to have run from the 23rd of September through the 16th of December 1969 at Plantation High School in the city of the same name.
His college supervisor was Dr. Charles Bates, and his supervising teacher at Plantation was Mr. Robert Dunn. The director of the internship program was Dr. Louis Camp. Schaefer began the program having listed his area of specialization as geography, though he was given social studies as his topic to teach.
During the first month, his parents ended their 22-year marriage, when Doris Schaefer was granted a divorce on grounds of extreme cruelty, chronic drunkenness, and adultery. Gerard Schaefer Sr. entered a hospital in Nashville, Tennessee to cope with his drinking. By the 7th of November, things had taken a turn for the worse for John's internship.
Dr. Bates had left the progress report blank, but noted comments were listed on the back of the report. The comments were, and I quote, In conference with Mr. Dunn, as well as other members of the school's faculty, it was decided to withdraw Mr. Schaefer from the program.
There are also seven bullet points following this that goes on to explain that John Gerard Schaeffer lied to his class about his failure to enlist in the armed forces, did not cooperate well with his superior, and parents called the school to complain about John and how he was not a proper influence on the students. When confronted about his behavior, John was defiant and obstinate.
Although fired, John did not let that stop him, and applied successfully to another internship. This time his supervising teacher was the astute Mr. Richard Goodhart, and his college supervisor was the equally perceptive Mrs. Betty Morris. His new assignment was to run from the 2nd of April through the 10th of June, 1970.
The school where he would be teaching was Stranahan High School in Fort Lauderdale. It was at Stranahan where he most likely first spotted a beautiful young student named Susan K. Place. She would become a most significant factor in the strange case of Gerard John Schaefer.
As with his first internship, John failed miserably in his second. The feedback he received indicated that he was a failure in all aspects of the job. He did not take criticism well, he did not know the subject matter he was supposed to teach at all, he left school too early, and he did not effectively teach students what they were there to learn.
In May of 1970, Gerard Schaefer began to reveal a rather odd facet of his character. He seemed to have developed an interest, indeed a growing obsession, with capital punishment. In particular, hanging. The following letter, written on Florida Atlantic University letterhead, was sent to Kandar Publishing, Valley Stream, New York.
It was post-dated the 15th of May 1970, just two days after his supervisor had written a letter asking for Schaefer's removal from student teaching, and probably the same day he was verbally informed that he was being withdrawn from the program. I quote...
Dear sirs, while attending school this year in Kansas, I was in charge of gathering data for a paper one of the professors was doing on the evils of capital punishment. In Kansas, the legal method of execution is hanging. To gather information on this subject, I turn to English history, since that method of execution has been practiced in that country until just recently.
arthur koestler in his book reflections on hanging attempts to play on human emotion by describing the grossities and horrors of execution by hanging detailed descriptions of executions are apparently at a minimum in most libraries
which does not help the research assistant at all in his book koestler states women are required to wear waterproof underwear on the morning of their execution that statement brought questions to mind that i have had little success in finding answers to
I thought that a magazine such as Man's Action would be able to aid me in finding the answers, or refer me to material that would contain this information. 1.
We know that hanging is a particularly degrading death and that the victim, either male or female, in addition to suffering bodily disfigurement, will urinate and defecate due to the loss of control when the rope tightens and the social need for it. The question is, why is it that a woman is required to wear waterproof underwear?
Does a society that does not flinch at taking a human life become offended at the sight of urine dripping from a hanging corpse? Are men also required to wear similar underwear? If not, why not? Koestler makes no mention of this practice in regard to men. Are the procedures when hanging a man different than when hanging a woman?
Are there any regulations in regard to what a victim must wear? For instance, are women required to wear slacks instead of a skirt, for purposes of modesty? Are victims encouraged to empty their bladder and bowels before their execution? Due to the delicate and rather gruesome nature of these questions, it is understandable why information is not readily available.
However, a magazine with such a broad spectrum as your own may be able to obtain this type of information easier than myself. I will appreciate any help you may be able to give in answering these questions. I will be looking forward to your reply and the next issue of Man's Action. Sincerely yours, G. John Schaefer Jr., Research Assistant. End quote.
There are, of course, no records of Schaefer ever attending any schools in Kansas. Additionally, Florida Atlantic University has no records indicating that Schaefer worked as a research assistant for any class, or professor, or even remotely interested in such a topic. Kandar Publishing was a company who used to publish pulp men's adventure in magazines with a somewhat sexual slant.
One such was Man's Action. They simply responded back, Sorry, we can't help you with any information on this subject. Indeed, they could not. The content of their magazine was usually some bawdy party jokes and true-life adventure stories and had nothing to do with capital punishment.
Other letters were written, some to foreign countries, where he described himself as a research student in sociology, seeking information on the subject of legal life-taking. Again, there were questions pertaining to the victim's bodily excretions. He did not have any more success in receiving the lurid details he lusted for with those letters than the one sent to Man's Action magazine.
Fort Lauderdale's suburbs held no solace for Schaefer anymore. His rented house, a crumbling testament to his own downward spiral, mirrored the state of his life.
Marty, his alienated wife, had flown the coop, leaving him and a dusty dog to fend for themselves. This young, rather eccentric college student, as some charitably described him, was adrift. He was truly alone for the first time and unraveling at the seams. Gone was the aspiring Arnold Palmer, the trim jock with a golf club permanently attached to his hand.
His once muscular chest surrendered to gravity, merging with his thickening waistline. A bloated lethargy now defined his movements. The sun-kissed hair, once a source of pride, had dulled and retreated like a receding tide, exposing a growing forehead. Rejection, a double whammy from a failed marriage and a scorned internship program, had etched itself onto his face.
The
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A haircut and a decent, although rumpled, suit could still fool some. His college spiel, rolling off the tongue with practiced ease, although his speech had begun to resemble a mumble. He was a paradox, a man whose appearance and personality shifted like desert sands in a sandstorm. One person might call him a human chameleon, another a walking contradiction.
Whatever the label, Schaefer remained an enigma. A puzzle wrapped in an enigma shrouded in the gathering darkness. And with that, we come to the end of part three, covering the saga of the killer cop Schaefer. Next episode will continue his saga. So as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned.