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Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast. The podcast dedicated to serial killers. Who they were, what they did, and episode 222. I am your humble host, Thomas Roseland Weyberg Thun. And tonight, I bring to you, dear listener, someone who I would almost classify as a serial killer superstar.
Not quite in the stratosphere, such as Zodiac, Bundy, or BTK, but still infamous and, most of all, terrifying. I am, of course, talking about none other than John Gerard Schaefer, the killer cop. Suspected murderer of at least 30 young women, although he was only ever convicted of two. Enjoy.
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And of course, if you wish to donate $15 a month, that's only $7.50 per episode, you are more than welcome to join the ranks of the TSK Producers Club too. So don't miss out and join now. Imagine, if you will, dear listener, the end of a hot and sunny day in America's sunshine state, Florida.
The Florida sun had baked Nancy Ellen Trotter, aged eighteen, and Paula Sue Wells, aged seventeen, to a mottled crisp. Their laughter, once bright as the turquoise water they'd splashed in all day, now came in gasps as they trudged along the sun-baked shoulder of Highway 1A.
Jensen Beach, with its sugary white sand and promises of endless summer, felt a million miles away. Now all they craved was the cool anonymity of their temporary digs in Stuart, a sleepy little town that felt more like a forgotten gas station stop than a haven. Hitchhiking wasn't exactly high fashion, but these girls weren't about fashion. They were about adventure.
The kind that came with a scraped thumb and a gnawing fear that gnawed at your gut worse than the midday sun. Nancy, or Sunshine, as Sue had dubbed her for the perpetual golden glow, was all blonde hair that tumbled past her shoulders and a smile that could charm the wrinkles out of a dried-up alligator.
Sue, on the other hand, was a study in contrasts, dark, sharp eyes that missed nothing, and hair like a raven's wing, perpetually windblown. They'd met on the road, two moths, drawn to the same flickering neon sign of escape.
that beckoned them away from their dead-end towns. Chicago was a dream they'd both abandoned, traded for the promise of a Florida suntan and whatever destiny awaited them down this dusty highway. Now, with each passing car that ignored their outstretched thumbs, the tan started to feel less like a souvenir and more like a target painted on their sunburned backs.
The sheriff's cruiser materialized out of the shimmering heat haze like a bad dream. One minute they were lost in the drone of cicadas. The next, a shadow stretched across the cracked asphalt, cutting their laughter short. Nancy and Sue hadn't seen a soul for miles. Just the endless ribbon of highway and the scrub pines that seemed to whisper secrets in the breeze.
Now, suspicion curdled in their already sunburned bellies. Sure, they were lookers, especially in their bikinis that clung to their teenage curves like a second skin. But good manners, drilled into them by mothers with stern lips and watchful eyes, dictated the flowy shirts covering their suits. Both girls hailed from towns so small they probably shared the same tired gas station on the way out.
Places where everyone knew your name and your business, where morals ran thick as molasses and curiosity gnawed at you like a hungry rat in the wall. The kind of curiosity that drove girls like Nancy and Sue to chase the horizon, to trade small-town whispers for secrets the highway held close.
The radio squawked, a harsh intrusion in the sticky silence. They turned, eyes squinting against the glare, to see the cop car idling beside them. The sheriff, all mirrored sunglasses and a uniform creased from too many long shifts, stared at them through the green-tinted glass. To serve and protect, the words probably emblazoned on his badge or the side of his car. A joke, maybe.
Here, in the middle of nowhere, those words felt like a twisted promise, a reminder of the invisible lines you could so easily cross. This was not a knight in shining armor. This was the law, and the law in these parts sometimes had a mind of its own. The deputy unfolded himself from the cruiser like a heat ripple taking shape. Hitchhiking, huh?
His voice scraped like gravel on asphalt. Nancy and Sue exchanged a panicked glance. Didn't know it was illegal, sir. Sue offered her voice barely a squeak. A flicker of something unreadable crossed the deputy's face, behind those mirrored shades. Was it amusement? Maybe even a hint of pity? He lumbered back to the car, climbed back in, then waited.
The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. Nancy dared a peek at Sue, seeing the same gnawing dread reflected in her dark eyes. Finally the radio squawked to life. The deputy spoke into the mic, his voice low and clipped. Got two lost souls here, he drawled. Says they don't know any better. Permission to escort them home? A crackle of static, then. Copy that. Use discretion.
The deputy slammed the radio shut. He got out again, the same unsettling smile playing on his lips. "'All right, ladies. Looks like you're getting a ride.' He jerked open the back door. "'Hop in.' There was something about his offer, the way his gaze lingered a beat too long, the way the air around him seemed to crackle with unseen tension.
But with the sun sinking lower, painting the sky in bruised purples and oranges, and the prospect of another night stranded on the side of the desolate highway, they had little choice. Nancy climbed in first, her heart hammering, a franting tattoo against her ribs. Sue followed, the back seat suddenly feeling as enclosed and suffocating as a tomb. The deputy slid back behind the wheel, the cruiser lurching forward.
As they sped down the highway, the setting sun casting long skeletal shadows across the deserted landscape, Nancy couldn't shake the feeling they'd just traded one kind of danger for another. The heat pressed down like a suffocating hand. July in Florida wasn't a season. It was a punishment. Each step on the cracked asphalt felt like they were leaving footprints of molten lead.
Relief. A tepid kind of thing in this oppressive weather flooded Nancy and Sue as they climbed into the back of the cruiser. Air conditioning, a miracle of modern science, blasted them with a wave of icy salvation. They couldn't complain. A ride, especially from a seemingly friendly sheriff's deputy, was a stroke of good luck in this desolate stretch of highway. Deputy... what was his name again?
It danced on the tip of their tongues, just out of reach. Didn't matter. He was a badge, a uniform, a symbol of safety in this sun-baked wasteland. He even seemed nice, spinning tales of his own hitchhiking days across dusty American roads and cobbled European streets. Talked about the thrill of the unknown ride, the gamble he took with every passing car.
laughed about the times a single vehicle would appear on a deserted highway only to take you who knows where there was a darkness in that laughter a hint of something sinister lurking beneath the surface they ignored it chalked it up to nerves and the relentless heat
This was Deputy Gerard, they finally remembered. A good old boy. Someone described later as looking like Haas, from that old western show. Friendly facade. A charm that would later be questioned. He was new, barely a month on the job, and there were whispers about a forged letter of recommendation from his previous department.
Whispers that wouldn't reach Nancy and Sue until long after the air-conditioning turned frigid. The friendly banter ceased, and the highway stretched before them no longer a promise of escape, but a chilling unknown. Schaefer hadn't bothered with introductions. His smile a little too eager, a little too sharp. He dangled a carrot. "'I ride to the beach the next day.'
Naive teenagers, sunbaked and trusting, saw it as a lifeline tossed by a friendly phrase in uniform. "'Meet me by the band, Shell,' he had purred, the heat haze distorting the image of the rearview mirror. "'We'll get you those tans.' Saturday crawled in. Across America, some celebrated the weekend with hangovers and cartoons. The McDonald's clown hawking his greasy wares on flickering screens,
nancy and sue by the gleaming banshell felt the familiar florida heat prickle their skin they waited a flicker of doubt flickering in their eyes maybe a cop had more important things to do than being chauffeur to teenagers the doubt did not last long
A blue car, a beacon in the morning haze, pulled up. Not the patrol car, but Schaefer himself shedding his official skin for a civilian disguise. Switch to plain clothes, he'd mumbled. A flimsy excuse that snagged in their tired brains. Observations, he'd added, the word hanging heavy in the air. They piled in. Nancy in the front, Sue relegated to the back.
stared them away from the familiar shores of jensen beach weaving a story of a hidden spanish fort the sun climbed higher the air thickening with unspoken ease then with a sickening lurch the pavement gave way to a dirt track leading deeper into the suffocating embrace of the woods
Hutchinson Island, a once familiar landmark transformed into a labyrinth of shadows and the promise of a tan curdled into a cold dread. This wasn't a beach trip. This was something far darker. The highway, once a symbol of escape, had become a dead end, and the friendly deputy, a predator closing in on his prey. The island loomed,
A finger of sand and scrub separating the glistening Atlantic from the murky Indian River. Back then, in 1972, condos hadn't sprouted like grotesque mushrooms from the salty earth. It was a lonely place, home only to a few rich folks, with beach houses facing the sunrise and the rustling ghosts of the past.
Schaefer steered them off the main drag, the car crunching over loose gravel. The air hung heavy, thick with the smell of secrets. And something worse, something decaying. He parked by a ramshackle shed barely clinging to existence by dint of rust and the dense foliage that swallowed it whole. The guttles climbed out, feigning excitement at the prospect of a Spanish fort, his appointment clawed at their throats.
This wasn't some grand relic, just a rotting husk of a building, boards turning black with age, the air inside thick with the stench of damp and despair. Creatures unseen but undoubtedly present scuttled through the floorboards. Schaefer pointed a meaty finger across the river, weaving a tale of Spanish galleons and forgotten glory. The girls shifted their weight, impatience prickling their skin.
They had come for sunshine, not history lessons in a moldy shed. Still, they plastered smiles on their faces, eager to get back to the beach. But something had shifted in Schaefer. The easy charm was gone, replaced by a cold indifference. His questions came sharp and unexpected, his gaze flickering around like a predator searching for a weakness.
His movements grew jerky, mechanical, as if following a script written in blood. His shoulders hunched, his mouth a thin, angry line. Excitement, a dark and predatory kind, flickered in his eyes. The friendly deputy had vanished, replaced by something far more terrifying, a hunter closing in on his prey.
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For me, one non-negotiable activity is researching psychopathic serial killers and making this podcast. Even when we know what makes us happy, it's often near impossible to make time for it. But when you feel like you have no time for yourself, non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever.
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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. Gerard Schaeffer's own writings perhaps best describe what he felt, and undoubtedly what he planned to do. The following is an actual excerpt from his writings that would later be seized in a search of his belongings.
What follows is graphic in nature, and I quote him directly using the first-person pronoun: "In order to remain unapprehended, the perpetrator of an execution-style murder such as I have planned must take precautions. One must think out well in advance a crime of this nature in order for it to work.
We will need an isolated area accessible by car and a short hike away from any police patrols or parking lovers. The execution site must be carefully arranged for a speedy execution once the victim has arrived. Ideally would be two sawhorses with two by four between them.
a noose attached to the overhanging limb of a tree and another rope to pull away the two by four preferably by car a grave must be prepared in advance away from the place of execution the victim could be any one of the many women who flocked to miami and fort lauderdale during the winter months
Even two victims would not be difficult to dispose of, since women are less wary when traveling in pairs. In any case, it may be more preferable to bind and gag the victims before transporting them to the place of execution. And again, depending on what torture or defilement is planned for them, other items may be useful. Bars of soap and water. These are useful if you would want to wash a woman before her execution.
induce her to urinate and then wash her. Soap provides an excellent lubricant for anal intercourse. Beer is useful to induce urination and make the victim groggy and more cooperative. Soap can also be forced into the rectum to induce defecation when the victim has no particular desire to relieve her bowels. Possibly she may want to defecate since people generally have a desire to do this when they are scared.
A douchebag may be helpful in degrading her further and is also useful for a soap suds enema which would be a great indignity especially if one victim was made to urinate or defecate on the other. This would be a gross indignity. Nylon stockings are useful to tie the hands and feet of the victim. The victim should be made to strip to at least her underwear. If stripped completely nude
An attempt can be made to excite her sexually. The effect would be especially interesting if the victim had her neck in the noose and hands behind her back. A white pillowcase should be placed over her head and her mouth gagged. Her panties should be pulled down enough to expose her genitals and clitoral stimulation applied.
During the height of her excitement, the support would be pulled away and she would dangle by her neck. She may be revived before death, if desirable, and subjected to further indecencies. After death has occurred, the corpse should be violated, if not violated already. The body should be possibly mutilated and carried to the grave
and buried. All identity papers should be destroyed, and the place of execution dismantled. End quote. Schaefer, now flush in the cheeks and rather wild-eyed, asked the girls if they had heard of white slavery. He told them about people who still buy people today, as they did in early American history.
They use them for whatever they want. For mates, for pleasure, for porno movies, for killing. There are rich sheiks who'll pay handsome wages for young white girls. Then he asked the girls if their parents would pay money for their release. He was obviously enjoying himself. Sue, angered, mustered her courage and blurted out, Well, go get your sheik and sell us. Then the girls hushed.
They were sweaty and hot, and bound against their wills. They fought back by refusing to talk to him. Oddly, they were not as much afraid as they were disgusted and feeling foolish for getting into this mess. Now they would probably go to jail, and for what? Then they'd had to call their parents and go through all means of legal hassles. Meanwhile, angered by the girl's silence, Schaefer began to seethe.
He sat for a moment, gripping the car's steering wheel, hands twisting, knuckles stretching against skin. Suddenly he burst from the car. He walked quickly around to the trunk, opened it and withdrew a length of thick sizzle rope and some sheets. He opened the doors of the car and made the girls get out. He put gags, torn from the sheets, over their mouths. If one of you tries to get away, he said, I'll kill the one I have.
Then I'll come and catch and kill the other. Nancy, who survived, later stated the following, and I quote, He took Sue out in a field. He had my beach blanket, and he put it on the ground. He made her sit on it, and he tied her legs together. And then he made another loop around her shoulders, so that she was tied hand and foot, handcuffed and gagged.
I was scared then. I could have run away, but I couldn't because he had Sue there." Schaefer sat in front of Sue and said, and I quote, "Go ahead and try to get away. I have Nancy, and if you get away, I'll kill her. Then I'll come and kill you." He got up and went back to Nancy and took her down to the river.
through the thick growth of trees the river was indian river a massive leg of brown-green brine water that separates hutchinson island from the mainland of florida there were small islands of trees jutting out of the damp ground
He took Nancy to one of those. The tree trunks were subject to the fluctuating tide of Indian River. At low tide, the large roots, some eight to twelve inches thick, were exposed above the muddy earth. Some of them were exposed to the point of sticking out of the ground almost a foot high. He made Nancy get up onto one of those roots, so she would have been as much as eighteen to twenty-four inches off the ground.
He made a noose and slid it over Nancy's head and tightened it around her throat. She started to cry then. He put a rope over a branch above her and then tied it onto another branch. The rope went up and down and then hooked onto another piece of branch. Then he told her not to get away. If she had fallen off of those roots, she would have been hanged to death. While Nancy stood there tottering on the slippery roots, she sobbed.
The hard, rough root hurt her feet. The scratchy sizzle rope raked her soft skin of her neck and seemed to grow tighter with each move she made. Schaefer watched her a while, pleased with his work. Toying with her, he reached back and pinched her buttocks. She looked at him disgusted. He laughed and told her he could rape her right there and then if he felt like it.
Nancy's heart pounded in her throat, pounded against a tightening rope, pounded so hard she was sure he could hear it. Suddenly he turned and left her there, apparently remembering Sue. As soon as Schaefer was out of sight, Nancy began to try to break free. She could turn her head enough to see the knots of the noose. She worked the gag from her mouth and began to chew on the knot.
The rope left little coarse hairs in her mouth, which ground into her gums as she chewed, and it tasted like car oil. Her legs were also tightly bound with rope around her knees. She tried desperately to work her legs free, but to no avail. The attempt seemed only to cut the blood flow to her feet, making them numb, and consequently making it difficult to keep a firm footing on the root.
Finally, she turned around and fell against a branch where the other end of the rope was tied on. The rope was looser from chewing on it, and she could untie it with her hand behind her back. She undid the knot herself and then got all the ropes off. It didn't take very long, maybe 10 or 15 minutes, but she still had the handcuffs on.
She picked up the ropes that moments before had held her captive and ran, keeping low. Thinking quickly, she hid the ropes because earlier she noticed he'd taken most of the ropes out of his trunk. Without ropes, if she was captured again, at least he could not hang her. Feeling like she was in a movie, she...
sneaked back behind the ramshackle wooden building that he had called a spanish fort and peeked out the other side and saw his car was still there nancy reasoned that the best thing for her to do would be to try to get away and get help she could not be of any help to sue in her present condition and even if she wasn't handcuffed schaefer could undoubtedly overpower her
besides she did not know where he had taken sue or if she were even alive the swamp sucked at nancy's legs with every step the lukewarm water feeling like a second skin slick and wrong scum clung to the surface
and the air reeked of rotten vegetation and something deeper, more unsettling. Mosquitoes whined in her ears. A maddening chorus, punctuated by the occasional splash as a gator disturbed the stagnant water. Her heart hammered. A frantic rhythm against her ribs, a counterpoint to the rhythmic squelch of sinking mud. Those damn handcuffs! They scraped raw against her wrists with every frantic push.
throwing her off balance and sending her sprawling more than once each fall sent a fresh wave of pain lancing through her already throbbing ankles courtesy of a hundred tiny razors disguised as broken clam-shells on the river-bed then it came again a muffled shout her name carried on a fetid breeze nancy froze breath catching in her throat was it sue
Or Schaefer, toying with her, using Sue as bait. The very thought sent a fresh jolt of terror through her. Her blonde hair, tangled and heavy with muddied water, plastered itself to her face. She forced her eyes to adjust to the glue beneath the overhanging branches, squinting into the wall of emerald green. A flicker of movement. There, a flash of familiar denim.
relief flooded nancy warring with a cold sliver of doubt it could still be a trap for a moment she teetered on the edge of indecision the swamp whispering its own brand of madness in her ear but the thought of sue alone with that monster spurred her on
Gritting her teeth, she pushed forward, ignoring the burning in her lungs, the screaming protest of her abused muscles. Every rustle, every flit of a bird sent her heart lurching. The silence between the noises was almost worse, heavy with anticipation. Then the mosquitoes. A fresh wave descended, a buzzing, biting torment. Handcuffed, she could do nothing to swat them away.
The frustration, the sheer misery of it all, threatened to tip her over the edge. But Nancy wasn't one to give up easily. She forced herself onward, following an unseen path, traveling the cursed river. Thorns snagged her clothes, branches whipped at her face, leaving red welts in their wake. The jungle pressed in on her, a suffocating green labyrinth. Finally, exhaustion claimed her.
The dense undergrowth became an impassable wall of vines and twisting branches. Tears welled in her eyes, a mixture of pain, frustration, and the gnawing fear of what might find her in the gathering darkness. Exhaustion gnawed at Nancy's bones, a monstrous hunger that dwarfed the hollowness in her stomach. Her feet, pumping senselessly through the undergrowth, left trails of blood in their wake.
The handcuffs, once merely an annoyance, had become instruments of torture, squeezing her wrists until they were numb and swollen. The jungle finally spat her back at the river, a brown serpent slithering through the emerald hell. Hope, a fragile butterfly with tattered wings, fluttered in her chest. The highway, A1A, a lifeline across the water.
was her only hope following the river's sluggish flow nancy waded in the water slick and tepid clung to her like a second skin every submerged rock every submerged log sent chills of terror spiking through her downstream the distant hum of the highway grew into a maddening symphony with a grunt
She rolled onto her back, swimming with her hands bound. Was a grotesque parody of freedom. A clumsy side-stroke, fueled by sheer desperation, propelled her forward. The murky water, the color of forgotten dreams, held secrets in its depths. A searing pain erupted on her shoulder. Then another. Jellyfish, transparent assassins, pulsed their silent wrath.
Were there more? A school of them, perhaps, waiting to turn her into a weeping mess of welts. The current, a whisper at first, became an insistent tug. Panic clawed at her throat. Her breaths came in ragged gasps, her muscles screaming their protest. Just when her lungs felt ready to burst, her feet brushed the bottom. Relief, a sweet poison, flooded her.
But even that meager victory was short-lived. Dragging herself onto the muddy bank, she collapsed, utterly spent. The A1A shimmered in the distance, a cruel mirage. Tears mingled with the river muck on her face as she screamed for help. Her voice, raw and desperate, was swallowed by the roar of passing cars. Except one.
A sheriff's cruiser, identical to the one that had brought them home the day before, slowed to a stop. Her heart hammered a frantic tattoo against her ribs. She became certain it was a trap. The man who stepped out looked for a moment very much like Schaefer. His smile, friendly and welcoming, stretched too wide, revealing a glimpse of something sharp and predatory beneath.
Nancy crumpled to her knees, the last vestiges of her fight draining away. This was it. This was how she died, she thought.
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We come to the end of part one, covering the saga of the killer cop Schaefer. Next episode we'll continue his saga, so as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned.
