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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 180. I am your Norwegian host, Samas Roseland Weyborg Thun.
Last episode we finished our sojourn into the life and crimes of Edmund Kemper. It was a four-episode-long expose that I hope you, my dear listeners, enjoyed. In this episode we embark on a new series, but it will not be as long as Kemper or Green River. However, I do hope it will be riveting.
The world around us seems to be burning, and watching the news is a sure way to develop depression and anxiety. Hopefully, having the Serial Killer podcast transport you back in time can help. Psychopaths are also a good reminder to us all that true evil exists, and that no matter how bad things get, it can always be worse. Far...
As a father to a young boy, this episode was heartbreaking to research and write.
"'You see, our subject at hand is one of the most depraved and vile serial killers to ever have walked the earth. He did not kill very many people, only three confirmed kills to his name. But the victims he carefully chose, and the way he murdered them, makes him the pinnacle of true malice.'
I am, of course, talking about none other than Wesley Allen Dodd, the Vancouver child killer, pedophile, rapist, and murderer of three innocent young boys.
As always, I want to publicly thank my elite TSK Producers Club. Their names are...
Magic Man, Marilyn, Meow, Missy, Nick, Oakley, Operation Brownie Pockets, Robert O., Robert R., Russell, Sabina, Skortnia, Scott, Sputnik, The Radio, Trent, Val, and Vanessa. You are the backbone of the Serial Killer podcast, and without you, there would be no show.
You have my deepest gratitude. Thank you. I am forever grateful for my elite TSK Producers Club, and I want to show you that your patronage is not given in vain. All TSK episodes will be available 100% ad-free to my TSK Producers Club on patreon.com slash the serial killer podcast.
No generic ads, no ad reads, no jingles. I promise. 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, the last days of summer vacation for most schoolchildren from all over the Pacific Northwest of the United States of America and Canada. In the brief heat of noon, the corn, so green, grew sere and dry, and in the mist the plowman's team moved silently, as if in a dream, and it was Indian summer on the plain.
The poet Hamlin Garland gave us that verse regarding Indian summer. It is a term coined in the United States of America in the nineteenth century, but is now used all over the West. It means a period of unusually warm weather during autumn. In the U.S. and Canada, it is mostly a happy occurrence, and in this early September day, many people were outdoors.
There they set up barbecues and drank beer beneath the slightly cooler shade of the towering Douglas fir trees of the region's many parks and recreational areas. It also had brought out the children, lots of them, who played carefree under the balmy sun, naturally oblivious to their surroundings and to the stranger waiting in the shadows.
The dark figure lurking there wanted, more than anything else in the world, to rip the children's innocence and happiness away. He wanted to hurt them, to torture them, to rape them, and to murder them. This Labor Day in Vancouver and Washington would turn out to be a day forever remembered in infamy. It was the day Wesley Allen Dodd brought his depraved dreams to life.
In the days leading up to this bright, sunny, nightmarish day, Dodd lay awake much of the night in the small, hot apartment that he had just moved into and fantasized about the day that he had been planning for so long. He lay on his bed, naked and sweaty in the warm evening air. A chronic masturbator, he brought himself to climax again and again, using a dirty gym sock to wipe himself off between sessions.
The only manner in which he gained sexual arousal was from fantasizing about molesting children. In particular, he recalled several of the previous incidents in which he had molested young children. When he was completely spent, his penis aching from the repeated abuse, he wrote his thoughts in a diary he kept. The diary had become a very special and intimate part of his life.
In it, he complained that he had been kept awake most of that night by a stiff erection. He liked erections, to be sure, but only those that succumbed to his fantasies coupled with masturbation. He wasn't at all happy when they lasted all night. He had thought that by masturbating furiously until he was completely spent, he would fall asleep. When this proved unsuccessful, he wrote in his diary the next day what had worked.
He managed to get to sleep only after convincing himself that torturing, raping, and killing a young boy was the only thing that could satisfy him. Dodd had only recently moved to Vancouver from the Seattle area, but he had quickly spotted a park filled with young children while driving along Northeast Anderson Road. The park was very convenient as a hunting ground.
it was located about a mile or one and a half kilometers northwest of his apartment in addition to being a psychopathic pedophile dodd was also quite frugal with his money the idea of saving on gas while he was out hunting kids was very appealing to him
In his apartment, he had drawn up a detailed map of the park, highlighting the south and west sides of the park as initially good places to commit his depraved dreams of destroying a young boy's life. However, he quickly realized that children would not venture into the dense woods so far away from the playground areas. Instead, he opted for the area that ran from east to west of the park.
After walking the park, doing reconnaissance, he finally opted for a place near one of the trailheads. On the 2nd of September, a Saturday, he sat down in the shadows and waited. He sat in almost complete silence and stillness from 6.10 to 6.40 p.m., but he only spotted three young boys, none of them venturing off alone.
To pass the time, he daydreamed about raping and killing all three boys. Ultimately, he decided to not try and attack the boys, probably because doing so would attract too much attention. As the day was drawing to a close, he got up and went home to masturbate. Between masturbatory fantasies and napping in the nude, Dodd spent much of that evening preparing a photo album, which he labeled Key One.
It was to fit neatly into his scheme of things, and would eventually become as intimate a souvenir as his diary. He organized the album according to a letter key, which was explained by him at the start of the album. It went like this, and I quote, P. Photos by other photographers, old and new, some art,
C. Photos of children I see nude or get them to pose for me but I have no sex contact with. V. Photos of children in a more than once sexual molestation relationship whom I trust to keep quiet. Some of these photos may have me in them also. M.
Photos of children who I forced, or they cooperated, either way ending in murder. End quote. The next morning, Sunday the 3rd of September, after hastily drinking a cup of coffee to revive him from yet another virtually sleepless night, Dodd returned to David Douglas Park, where he intended to spend up to five hours to obtain what he so desperately wanted.
While he sat and watched, lying in wait, like the predator that he was, he again considered whether he would rape and murder his victims at the site, or kidnap them and take them to his apartment, where he could commit his vile acts and take as much time as he wanted, with far less fear of discovery. Before leaving his apartment, he had written in his diary the following, and I quote,
If I can get it home, I'll have more time for various types of rape, rather than just one quickie before the murder. End quote. Notice, dear listener, how he refers to his potential victim as an object, an it, not as a human being. By 2 p.m., Dodd realized he would not be able to pick up a victim that day either. He was also hungry.
he returned home for lunch and reflected about the quote-unquote possibles he had encountered that day he hastily scribbled in his diary that he had seen two boys earlier that day about nine and ten years old who had interested him the oldest boy had been big for his age too big in dodd's opinion
But the younger of the two had aroused him sexually. He decided that he would have taken the smaller boy to rape and murder if the boy had been alone. He further detailed how he had watched two girls for a while, estimating their ages to be seven and twelve. He had liked the younger one, and, as before, would have raped and murdered her if she had been alone.
But a girl would only do as a last resort. Even though Dodd's main sexual drive was the destruction of innocence and inflicting pain upon children, regardless of the victim's sex, Dodd still had a sexual preference for boys before girls.
Dodd finished his lunch, and his hastily written notes, prepared a cup of tea to go, and resumed the hunt by 2.25 p.m. Over the next hour and a half he considered the four boys and two girls, who ranged in age from eight to ten as victims, but backed away when he saw that they were accompanied by two adult females.
Frustrated and angry, he went home at 4 p.m. and decided that he should be better equipped for future hunts. He bought tape, shoelaces to be used as ligatures, and a knife at the local supermarket. While shopping, he ogled the various young children there, almost completely losing control at one point when he saw a young boy without a shirt on and only wearing small shorts.
He managed to pull himself together and returned home for yet another sleepless night, filled with furious masturbation. He swore to himself that the next day he would not return home until he had a victim with him. Dodd awoke at 9.35 a.m. on Monday, the 4th of September, 1989, Labor Day.
after deciding that he probably would not want to return home before he accomplished his self-imposed mission of death dodd packed a lunch to take with him to the park he also began to reason again that he would be better off to take his victims somewhere else to murder them
If he left murdered children in the park, he decided, he would likely lose his hunting ground for up to two or three months. Police would start watching the park, and parents would be afraid to allow their children to go there unaccompanied. And he could not allow that to occur. Ryan Reynolds here from Intmobile. With the price of just about everything going up during inflation, we thought we'd bring our prices down.
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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.
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.
If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Everyone needs someone to talk to, even psychopaths, even your humble host. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp.
Visit betterhelp.com slash serialkiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash serialkiller. At 1.15 p.m., he spotted two boys, each perhaps nine to ten years old, on their bikes. They stopped along the trail, and Dodd walked past them for a closer look.
After passing by, he watched them from a distance for a couple of minutes, and then walked by them again. As he walked away from them the second time, they followed behind him for a short distance. He became excited when he thought that he had finally found his perfect victims, even if they were a little big. In the next instant, he turned to confront them, hoping to separate them, if possible,
But they did the unexpected. They turned off onto the fork of another trail and peddled quickly away from him without looking back. Dodd was enraged by having his plans foiled, but refused to give up. A few blocks away, in a middle-class home, located in the 300 block of Council Bluffs Way, two young boys raced towards their bicycles, which were parked near the front porch of their house.
They were William and Cole Near, aged ten and eleven. The boys appeared not to have a care in the world. Their father, Claire Near, who adored them, often wished that he had only one half of their energy. The boys yelled to their father that they were going hunting for golf balls. The golf course manager had agreed to give the boys a penny for each ball they returned to him.
With the pennies they earned, the boys bought candy, baseball cards, and toys. It was a few minutes past four p.m. when the boys left their home, and it was the last time that Mr. Neer saw his sons alive. By six-fifteen p.m., William, who everyone called Billy, and Cole had found all the golf balls they cared to find.
They were getting tired and hungry, and after collecting their money, decided that they should head for home, wanting to arrive home in time for dinner. They took their favorite shortcut through David Douglas Park, along one of the secluded dirt bicycle paths barely a half mile, about a kilometer, from their house.
Unknown to Billy and Cole, Wesley Allen Dodd had begun walking down the same trail only moments before they had turned on to it. Dodd quickly saw them, and deliberately stood in the middle of the trail to force the boys to stop. They were about the age that he wanted, and there was no one else around. He approached them as they looked at him curiously, and instructed them to get off their bikes.
Both being obedient children, they did what they were told. He told them to follow him, and that they could bring their bikes. Dodd had sensed that Cole was going to leave his bike behind, and he did not want someone to easily find it and begin looking for its owner. The boys, either out of fear, curiosity, or a feeling that the stranger needed their help, followed Dodd down the path.
Along the way, Dodd examined the boys carefully. He realized that their complexion was darker than that of a Caucasian, and he felt like they were of a different race. He had always limited himself to molesting only white children, and did not really like the idea of raping children he viewed as foreigners. However, he had promised himself he would commit, and had waited for far too long already to stop.
If anything, discovering the boy's complexion only fueled his anger and cemented his will to kill. As they walked along the trail, they passed two teenagers at one point. Dodd warned the boys to remain quiet, not to talk to them. Billy and Cole looked at each other quizzically, but obeyed. After the teenagers were out of sight, Dodd asked the boys their names and ages.
He was a little disappointed when they told him their ages. They were both older than he had initially thought, certainly older than he liked his boys to be. But there was no turning back now. They veered off the trail at one point, and following Dodd's instructions, the boys laid their bikes down just off the edge of the path where they couldn't easily be seen.
Dodd led them several yards up a hill into the trees and bushes, out of sight of the trail in case someone walked or rode by. He then commanded the boys to stand back to back. Billy kept quiet, but Cole kept asking, "'Why?' at every command. Dodd proceeded to tie their wrists together tightly, effectively binding the two brothers together with one of the ten-inch shoelaces he had purchased at the mall."
Confident the boys were securely bound, Dodd then knelt in front of them. He noticed that Cole was wearing shorts and Billy was wearing blue jeans. When Dodd commanded Cole to pull down his shorts, the boy again asked why. Dodd answered that he was going to perform oral sex on him. Being a truly innocent young child, the boy asked if it was going to hurt.
Todd answered in the negative before he pushed Cole's button-down shirt up so that he could slide his fingers into the waist of Cole's shorts and underpants, after which he pulled them down to his knees and began to fondle his genitals. Still not satisfied, he performed oral sex on the boy. At this time, the younger boy, Billy, had started to weep, tears running down his cheeks.
Both boys were terrified and did not understand what was happening to them. It is important to remember that this was the late eighties. The internet and early sex ed was still far away in the future. After molesting Cole for a while, Dodd repeated the process with Billy, after what had probably felt like an eternity. Dodd finally stopped and looked up at Billy.
He said he wanted Billy to do to him what he had just done to the boy. The boy simply continued to cry, only louder. Annoyed, Dodd got up and commanded the boys to get down on their knees. In order to do what he wanted, he realized that he would have to cut the boys loose. He raised his pant leg and removed the knife from its sheath, held in place around the calf of his right leg by his sock, and cut the shoelace that bound the two boys together.
Conscious about not leaving behind any evidence that could identify him, he placed the shoelace pieces in one of his pockets. Billy, at that point, offered to go and tell their dad that they would be late. Dodd answered, and I quote, You can go in a couple of minutes. I'm almost done. End quote. Dodd had Billy lean back onto his heels so that he could not make a fast getaway, then returned his attention to Cole.
with colesbier buttocks towards him dodd unzipped and pulled his jeans and underwear down in the front only exposing him hoping to attain an erection dodd began simulating intercourse between the boy's legs from the rear but unable to get an erection he quickly gave up
Dodd, frustrated, made a mental note that he was in too much of a hurry, and told himself that he must slow down and relax more next time. "'There's just one more thing,' said Dodd with a grim smile, as Cole turned to face him. Dodd again took the knife from its sheath. Both boys now faced Dodd in a crouched position about a foot apart, with Dodd centered in front of them.
They shrank back in terror when they saw the knife blade in Dodd's clenched hand. He was poised, ready to strike. Ten-year-old Cole cried out and pleaded with Dodd not to kill them, that they would not tell anyone what had happened. Dodd did not answer. Instead, he reached out with the knife and in one swift movement shoved the sharp, thin blade deep into Billy's stomach.
Dodd, thinking that Billy would drop to the ground, turned to Cole, who was now horrified after seeing what Dodd had done to his brother. He started to turn and rise to his feet, but he was too late. Dodd lunged at Cole's stomach, but the blade caught him in the side. By then, Billy had grabbed his stomach and had started to run away.
Without looking back, he headed off in the direction of the sounds of automobile traffic on Andreessen Road, and to what he hoped was safety. At the same time, Cole was on the ground, writhing in agony. Dodd jumped on him and stabbed the knife into his stomach, pulled it out, and jabbed it into his chest. Finally, Cole lay still. He was dead.
Fearing that Billy would reach the busy road, Dodd quickly rose and ran after the boy. Both running, Dodd soon caught up with the much smaller Billy and grabbed him by the right arm. The boy cried out, and I quote, "'I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' end quote. As he spun around in Dodd's grip, Dodd stabbed him in the lower side, then again in the left shoulder as he fell to the ground."
Dodd did not stick around to make certain that Billy was dead, fearing that he would leave fingerprints on the boys' bloody clothes or get some of Billy's blood on himself. He didn't attempt to drag the body into the bushes to conceal it, as Coles was. Instead, he left Billy right where he had fallen. The total time Dodd had spent with the boys was twenty minutes.
As Dodd happily left for work, confident that the boys were dead, a seventeen-year-old young man named Danny Miller was heading home from his shift at McDonald's. He stopped as he saw a figure lying on the ground, who at first he thought was one of the regular drunks being passed out from boozing in the sun. On closer inspection, he realized he was looking at a seriously injured child, no more than eleven years old.
Fearful that he would cause further injury by moving the boy, Miller ran as fast as he could towards the nearest telephone, located at a convenience store about three blocks north of the park. Lieutenant Roy Brown, assigned to patrol and a team of officers from the Vancouver Police Department, were the first to respond to the 911 call. They arrived at the scene within minutes, as did paramedics from a nearby fire district station.
Miller led them to the boy who was lying just a few yards or meters from the busy boulevard. One look was all it took for the cops and paramedics to realize the boy was not an accident victim. He had been stabbed repeatedly in the upper chest and had what looked like defensive wounds on his legs. Although they observed that his vital signs were weak and that he was obviously only barely alive,
the attending paramedics none the less felt there was a glimmer of hope that the boy might be saved they quickly called a helicopter as they realized it would take too long to help him in an ambulance the high school was the nearest site where the helicopter could safely land billy was picked up by the aircraft in the school's large parking area a few minutes later billy was barely breathing as a nurse
and the paramedic feverishly treated his wounds during the short flight to portland despite their heroic efforts they finally realized that there was just no way they were going to be able to save him his injuries were too extensive and he had lost far too much blood he might have had a chance if they could only have reached him a few minutes sooner but they had not and his precious life-light was fading fast
I don't know.
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That we come to the end of part one in the saga of Wesley Allen Dodd. Next episode will continue the story of his life and crimes, so as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned. What follows is a message to my dear Norwegian listeners in Norwegian. Hi! Thomas here with a gladness I think you will like. The 19th of September the serial murder podcast will be released. Yes, you heard it right.
Finally, I wish to thank you for listening.
If you like this podcast, you can support it by donating on patreon.com slash the serial killer podcast by leaving a review on Apple podcasts, facebook.com slash the SK podcast, or by posting on the subreddit, the SK podcast. Thank you. Good night. Good luck.
