Gerard John Schaefer

According to prison officials and prosecutors, a 32-year-old fellow inmate named Vincent Faustino Rivera had killed Schaefer following an argument over who received the final cup of hot water from a dispenser days prior to his murder. Rivera was convicted of Schaefer's murder in 1999; he received 53 years and ten months' imprisonment added to the sentence of life plus twenty years he was already serving for a double homicide committed in Tampa in 1990. Rivera never confessed to the crime nor gave any motive for the murder. It is suspected Schaefer was killed for being a prison informant, as in the year prior to his murder other inmates had repeatedly thrown human waste at him and twice set his cell on fire. Reportedly, Schaefer's classification officer confirmed that he was murdered in a direct response to his leaking confidential information to authorities pertaining to a well-respected and powerful inmate.

On December 3, 1995, Schaefer was stabbed to death on the floor of his cell. He had been stabbed over forty times about the face, head, neck and body, with his throat also being slashed, his right eye destroyed, and several ribs fractured. His body was discovered after a fellow inmate informed staff of his death.

There is no consensus on when or where Schaefer began killing. As Schaefer himself was killed in prison in 1995, the true number of victims he had claimed will never be known. While incarcerated, he frequently encouraged speculation as to how many victims he had claimed, while simultaneously denying he had ever committed murder and claiming the numerous writings discovered at his mother's residence were purely fictional. Author Patrick Kendrick believes the most likely year Schaefer began killing is 1969, and that his true victim count stands at around eleven, although the commonly held belief is that he may have claimed up to twenty-eight victims.

Schaefer also filed several frivolous lawsuits while incarcerated. One of these lawsuits was filed in 1993 against true crime writer Patrick Kendrick, who responded to a letter from Schaefer—masquerading via an outside contact as a college student—purporting to seek advice as to how to overcome his intimidation when meeting the "deadliest killer ever" who was believed to be "worse than Ted Bundy". In response to this letter, Kendrick had tersely responded there was little reason to be intimidated by Schaefer, whom he described as "a middle-aged, pale and doughy wimp, who preyed on victims that were physically and psychologically weaker than him." In response, Schaefer filed a $500,000 lawsuit which was ultimately settled out of court with prejudice. Kendrick agreed to provide Schaefer with a copy of the section of his manuscript which contained the revised list of his proposed victims, including those which Kendrick's research had revealed he could not have committed. He also sued true crime authors Sondra London, Colin Wilson, and Michael Newton and former FBI agent Robert Ressler for describing him as a serial killer in printed works.

London ended her collaboration with Schaefer in 1991, shortly after publicly repudiating his claims that he was merely a "framed ex-cop" who wrote lurid fiction. Upon hearing that he had been publicly rebuked by London, Schaefer allegedly repeatedly threatened her life. One of the many frivolous lawsuits he filed was directed against her for publicly referring to him as a serial killer in print format. In support of London's defense against this lawsuit, she compiled an exhibit of photocopies of five hundred incriminating pages of Schaefer's handwritten correspondence. The judge immediately dismissed Schaefer's lawsuit. His aforementioned lawsuits against Newton and Wilson were likewise dismissed after London provided copies of the five-hundred page exhibit to them; his lawsuit against Kendrick was still ongoing at the time of Schaefer's 1995 murder.

In 1983, Schaefer was transferred to the Avon Park Correctional Institution; here, he assisted authorities in obtaining sufficient evidence to secure the conviction of pedophile Mervyn Eric Cross, who had been discreetly operating an international softcore child pornography operation while incarcerated. The information Schaefer provided also resulted in the arrest and conviction of two individuals in Seattle and Los Angeles (one a schoolteacher), the seizure of thousands of indecent images of children across four states and Cross being transferred to Florida State Prison and placed in solitary confinement, with his mail closely monitored. Schaefer was himself returned to Florida State Prison in August 1985.

Contemporary statutes indicated the possibility of parole for Schaefer after he had served between fourteen and nineteen years' imprisonment, although his presumptive parole release date was revised in May 1979 to indicate the likelihood of parole in 2016. Schaefer appealed his conviction, contending he had never been indicted by a grand jury and thus requesting a new trial. This appeal was rejected in June 1974.

Described by the prosecutor at his trial as "the most sexually deviant person" he had ever encountered, Schaefer was sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment at his 1973 trial, to be served at Florida State Prison. He was stabbed to death by a fellow inmate while incarcerated at this facility in December 1995.

When Place had not returned after four days, Lucille first contacted Jessup's mother, Shirley, only to learn her daughter had "run away" on September 27, and that she likewise had not heard from either girl since. Both girls were subsequently reported missing to the Oakland Park police. Lucille provided investigators with the vehicle registration she had noted, in addition to a physical description of the man the girls had left her home with. The registration was traced to an entirely separate model of vehicle belonging to a St. Petersburg resident who did not resemble "Jerry Shepherd", and who had a firm alibi for the date of the girls' disappearance. The sole Jerry Shepherd registered as living in Fort Lauderdale was also eliminated from police inquiries and by early 1973, the teenagers' disappearance had largely become a cold case.

Three months later, on January 11, 1973, hitchhikers Collete Marie Goodenough and Barbara Ann Wilcox (both 19) disappeared while hitchhiking from Sioux City, Iowa, to Florida. Both were last seen alive in Biloxi, Mississippi. Their disappearances occurred while Schaefer remained free prior to beginning his sentence for the abductions of Trotter and Wells. He is known to have made a long-distance phone call from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to his Florida residence shortly before Goodenough and Wilcox's disappearance, and may have encountered the two while returning to Florida. Their scattered skeletal remains were discovered close to a large tree and an orange crate in January 1977. Both victims had been bound together with baling wire, and impressions upon the tree branches—coupled with the actual positioning of the orange crate—indicate one or both victims had been suspended from the tree as their murderer sat or stood upon the orange crate.

Upon passing sentence on December 22, Judge D. C. Smith lambasted Schaefer, informing him: "It is beyond the court's imagination to conceive how you were such a foolish and astronomic jackass as you were in this case." He allowed Schaefer's formal sentencing to be postponed until "after the holidays", and he began serving his sentence in Martin County jail on January 15, 1973. Upon leaving court on December 22, Schaefer informed several reporters: "I made a stupid mistake. There was no sex involved... no one was hurt."

In March 1973, Lucille Place discovered a letter penned by "Jerry Shepherd" in her daughter's bedroom; she drove to the return address upon the letter—333 Martin Avenue in Stuart, Florida—only to learn from the building manager that "Jerry Shepherd" had registered at the property under his real name, Gerard Schaefer, and that he was recently sent to jail for the abduction and attempted hanging of two girls.

Schaefer was brought to trial on September 17, 1973. He was tried in St. Lucie County before Judge Trowbridge. The prosecution team consisted of Stone and Philip Shailer, assisted by Richard Purdy and Anthony Young. Schaefer was defended by Schwartz and Bruce Colton, assisted by James Brecker.

Also to testify in the opening days of the trial was a clerk within a county courthouse, who revealed Schaefer's vehicle had been registered at his Martin Avenue address one month prior to the murders, thus proving the license plate Place's mother had noted indeed belonged to Schaefer. Next on the stand was Lieutenant David Yurchuk, who outlined the April 1973 search of Schaefer's mother's home and the evidence retrieved. Dr. Richard Souviron testified as to the autopsies he had conducted upon the victims, and their formal identification via dental records and distinctive healed bone fractures. Souviron withstood vigorous cross-examination from Schwartz as to the actual caliber of firearm which had inflicted the gunshot wound to Place's lower jaw, remaining adamant the bullet used to shoot Place was .22 caliber and not a .25 caliber cartridge. A Dade County medical examiner named Dr. Joseph Davis also detailed the restraining of the victims prior to their deaths, the dismemberment inflicted upon their bodies, and the numerous knife marks evident upon the victims' bones.

Schwartz attempted to discredit much of the state's evidence and witness testimony in his closing argument. He dismissed the accuracy of Lucille Place's identification of Schaefer and his vehicle before referencing speculation as to the actual date of the victims' deaths, which he suggested may have occurred after January 15, 1973 or on a date Schaefer is known to have been out of state. With regards to the personal artifacts of the decedents introduced into evidence, Schwartz inferred towards testimony from his client's family that the artifacts had actually belonged to Schaefer himself.

In the years following his conviction, Schaefer maintained his innocence in the Place and Jessup murders and denied his culpability in any others; insisting he was framed by what he termed "overzealous" prosecutors, corrupt law enforcement personnel and his own defense attorney, Elton Schwartz, who ultimately married Schaefer's second wife on December 21, 1973. Although maintaining his innocence and claiming to have never met either girl, Schaefer frequently—and falsely—described Place and Jessup as heroin users, police informants, and promiscuous. He was also known to have insulted their parents.

The initial list of twenty-eight potential victims was first published in a Florida periodical in the spring of 1973, although this list—which also includes seven males whose personal artifacts were recovered from his mother's home—contains the names of several individuals later discovered to have still been alive at the time of his arrest, or to have died at a later date. For example, one of the young women on this compiled list, 14-year-old Katrina Marie Bivens (reported missing in January 1970) was located alive in June of the same year, whereas one of the males upon the list, Michael Angeline, died in a plane crash in 1981.

Schaefer's tenure with the Wilton Manors police lasted only six months. Although he earned commendation from his superiors on one occasion relating to his conduct during a March 1972 police raid on a drug house, his general performance was considered poor. He was dismissed from his position when his superiors discovered his habit of stopping cars driven by female motorists who had committed minor traffic infractions, then entering their license plate numbers into a database to obtain further personal details about them before contacting them to request dates.

Shortly before this dismissal, Schaefer had begun searching for a better-paying law enforcement position elsewhere. He began his service as a deputy with the Martin County sheriff's department on June 23, 1972, having forged a letter of recommendation from Wilton Manors endorsing his application. A standard background check revealed he had no criminal record.

On the afternoon of July 21, 1972, Schaefer encountered two teenage hitchhikers named Nancy Ellen Trotter (18) and Paula Sue Wells (17) while on official police duty; he drove the pair to their intended destination of Stuart, although he cautioned the girls against the perils of hitchhiking. Upon learning neither girl was native to Florida, and that the two intended to travel to Jensen Beach the following day, Schaefer proposed to drive them to the location. The girls accepted his offer, and agreed to meet him at a bandstand on East Ocean Boulevard at 9:15 a.m.

Approximately two weeks after his arrest, Schaefer posted a $15,000 bail, thus meaning he remained at liberty prior to his scheduled November 1972 trial. He returned to the house he and his second wife rented in Stuart; his wife and in-laws noted no change in his demeanor—believing his claim to have simply been "trying to teach [the hitchhikers] a lesson". As Schaefer awaited trial, he obtained menial employment at Kwik Chek.

On September 27, 1972, Schaefer abducted two teenage friends named Susan Carol Place (17) and Georgia Marie Jessup (16). The two had encountered Schaefer while all three attended an adult education center in Fort Lauderdale. Schaefer introduced himself to the girls as "Jerry Shepherd", claiming to hail from Colorado and stating that he intended to return there following a trip to Mexico; he likely feigned interest in Jessup's fascination with the concept of reincarnation and ESP in addition to Place's love of music in order to ingratiate himself with both girls and gain their trust.

Mary Alice Briscolina (14) and Elsie Lina Farmer (13) vanished while hitchhiking to a Commercial Boulevard restaurant from a Lauderdale-by-the-Sea motel on October 26, 1972, less than one month after Place and Jessup were last seen alive. Their bodies were separately recovered in undergrowth close to Sunrise Boulevard, not far from the city of Plantation, early the following year—both with legs spread apart. Briscolina had been extensively beaten about the head, with one blow to her skull proving fatal. Several of her fingernails had been torn from her body, indicating a ferocious physical struggle with her killer. Farmer had also been bludgeoned to death.

In December 1972, Schaefer appeared in court in relation to the Trotter and Wells abductions. Due to a plea bargain his attorney strongly recommended he accept, Schaefer was able to plead guilty to just one charge of aggravated assault, for which he received a sentence of one year in jail with the possibility of parole after six months, to be followed by three years' probation.

The strategy of the defense was to discredit previous witnesses' testimony regarding the identification of Schaefer, to contend one or both decedents had been alive after September 27, 1972, and to contend the gravesite had been dug on a date after Schaefer began serving his sentence in Martin County Jail on January 15, 1973. Several of these individuals—including Schaefer's sister and wife—testified as to his physical characteristics and attire differing from those described by Place's parents. Also to testify on Schaefer's behalf was a hunting companion named Edward Harris, who stated he always carried a purse similar to that identified by Jessup's parents and sister when the two went target shooting.

One of the final witnesses to testify on behalf of the defense was a representative from the Fort Pierce City Water Plant, who testified as to the records the firm had retained of rainfall in an area close to Oak Hammock Park between September 1972 and April 1973. Upon cross-examination, this individual conceded the records presented related close to the vicinity of the crime scene, but not the vicinity of the crime scene itself.

Sheriff Robert Crowder—who had worked alongside Schaefer for four weeks prior to his July 1972 abduction and assault of Trotter and Wells—would recollect of the case in 2009: "I think [the case] just made law enforcement more aware of the [actual] existence of serial murderers ... It made us aware of things to key on when we have a crime like this [where] there is the potential for it being one perpetrator and multiple victims." In reference to his victims, a fellow panelist at the meeting in which Crowder spoke also stated: "The [homicide] victims are not the only victims; the victims are also the families. The victims are also the law enforcement who work these cases. None of these people who worked this were ever the same."

In January 1971, seven months before Schaefer began his career as a police officer, he met a 19-year-old secretary named Teresa Dean while still working as a security guard. The two soon became engaged, and married in Fort Lauderdale on September 11 that year. According to Schaefer, his second marriage was more harmonious than his first. His second wife willingly acquiesced to his frequent demands for sex, and also shared his passion for fishing in locations such as the Florida Keys.

A letter dated July 20, 1971, from an individual in Brunswick East, Victoria, Australia, whom Schaefer had become acquainted with as the two traveled in Morocco in the summer of 1970, contained scores of Polaroid images this individual had taken of a "village in the Sahara" the two had encountered, following what his companion termed a "wog massacre" of both Europeans and Arabs. Several of these images depicted women who had been extensively disembowelled and otherwise mutilated with knives and axes.

Closing arguments to determine the sentence Schaefer should receive began on October 3, and saw the defense argue he should be involuntarily institutionalized under the 1971 Baker Act, in contrast to the prosecution's argument of life imprisonment to be served in Florida State Prison. The following day, Schaefer was sentenced to two concurrent terms of life imprisonment. When asked if he had anything to say prior to sentencing, Schaefer proclaimed his innocence before requesting he be sent to a psychiatric hospital as opposed to prison.

In December 1968, Schaefer married his fiancée, Martha "Marti" Louise Fogg, a fellow FAU student two years his junior whom he had met at Broward, and with whom he had briefly toured in her patriotic singing troupe Sing-Out 66, which offered an alternative to the contemporary hippie movement. The couple rented a property on SW 22nd Street in Fort Lauderdale, although their relationship soon soured both due to Schaefer's incessant demands for sex and his spending much of his free time hunting. The two divorced on May 2, 1970, his wife citing Schaefer's extreme cruelty as the reason for their separation. Shortly thereafter, Schaefer formed a brief relationship with a physically disabled woman whom he encountered at a Fort Lauderdale mental health clinic, although the couple soon separated.

Four months later, in March 1970, Schaefer successfully applied for another teaching internship. This application was accepted, and he began teaching geography at Stranahan High School on April 2. Contemporary progress reports indicate Schaefer performed poorly at Stranahan High, with his superiors noting both his arrogance and his "very limited" knowledge of the subject he taught. Seven weeks after Schaefer commenced this teaching position, the principal of Stranahan High informed him the school's decision to withdraw him from the internship by May 18. His career as a student teacher formally ended the following day.

Shortly after the termination of Schaefer's teaching career, he vacationed in Europe and North Africa before returning to Florida, where he briefly worked for the Wackenhut Corporation as a security guard as he pondered his next career move. On September 1, 1970, Schaefer applied for a vacancy within the Wilton Manors police department. He failed to disclose the fact he had twice been fired from student teaching positions within the previous year, instead falsely claiming to have acquired two years' experience as a research assistant at FAU and to have recently returned to the U.S. from Morocco. Schaefer's previous work history was not verified, and he was formally inducted into the Broward County Police Department in September 1971, graduating as a patrolman at the end of the year at age 25.

Stone delivered his rebuttal argument on the afternoon of September 26. He began by dismissing one of Schwartz's tactics in his closing argument: the illustration of the circumstantial evidence as not being definitive proof of his client's guilt and of simply accusing him due to similar fact evidence regarding the Trotter and Wells incident. Stone then stated that the prosecution's case was constructed from both physical and circumstantial evidence—all collectively illustrating Schaefer's guilt. Referring to those who had testified, he began by defending the testimony of Lucille Place; emphasizing the crucial role in her accurate recording of Schaefer's license plate to ultimately linking him to the murders before inferring to the testimony of numerous individuals who had also testified, substantiating her identification of Schaefer and his vehicle. Stone also hearkened toward the positive identification of Jessup's purse by her mother, sister, and friend, who had each positively identified the item as belonging to Jessup, before inferring the defense witnesses who had also identified the item had lied to protect Schaefer, stating: "How many of them picked it up, looked at it? The first thing they [all] did was say, 'Yes, I recognize it. He brought it back from Morocco in 1970.'" He then referenced the testimony of Schaefer's own wife, who had stated to the court she had been given the item by her husband as a gift in November 1972, and had never seen the item prior.

In March 1969, Schaefer successfully applied for a student teaching internship at Plantation High School. He began this position on September 23, primarily teaching geography, but was fired on November 7 for refusing to accept advice from his superiors and for continuously attempting to impose his own moral and/or political opinions upon his students, which had led to the school receiving numerous complaints from parents of his pupils. Shortly thereafter, Schaefer unsuccessfully applied for a student teaching position at Boca Raton Community High School.

On the afternoon of their disappearance, Place's mother, Lucille, arrived home to find her daughter "straightening her room" as Jessup sat upon a chair in the bedroom; both introduced Lucille to a man in his 20s whom they referred to as "Jerry". Place initially informed her mother that she, Jessup and "Jerry" intended to travel from Fort Lauderdale "to the beach and play guitar". Although Place's mother remained suspicious, "Jerry" assured her his intentions were noble; nonetheless, she noted the number of his 1969 Datsun. Place confirmed her mother's suspicions that she intended to leave home, although she tearfully assured her that she would be gone "just for a little while" and that she would remain in contact. The girls left the Place household with Schaefer at approximately 8:45 p.m.

Inside a gold jewelry box, investigators discovered personal possessions such as jewelry, passports, and clothing belonging to several teenage girls and young women. Some of these items—such as a distinctive heart shaped charm inscribed with the initials "M.T.N."—investigators were unable to link to missing or murdered individuals; others were identified as belonging to young women who had been reported missing in recent years. One gold locket, inscribed with the name "LEIGH", was determined to belong to a missing woman named Leigh Hainline Bonadies, who had been a neighbor of Schaefer's when both were teenagers and who had been missing since September 1969; also recovered was a driver's license belonging to Barbara Ann Wilcox and a passport belonging to Collette Marie Goodenough—both of whom had been reported missing in January 1973. Furthermore, teeth and sections of bone later identified as belonging to at least eight victims were also recovered from the property.

By May 12, investigators had gathered enough physical and circumstantial evidence to link Schaefer to nine murders and unsolved disappearances dating between 1969 and 1973. The same month, a periodical published a list of twenty-eight murdered or missing individuals believed to be linked to Schaefer. The majority of these individuals hailed from Florida, although two victims each hailed from Iowa and West Virginia. At a press conference held on May 14, Chief Investigator Lem Brumley Jr. informed the media that, "in terms of scope and bizarreness", the case was the biggest he had encountered in his career to date.

London noted that at the time Schaefer was corresponding with her, he was publicly proclaiming his innocence and threatening to sue anyone who labeled him a serial killer. In one letter, Schaefer claimed to have begun murdering women in 1965, when he was aged 19; in another, he claimed to be responsible for the December 1969 disappearance of two schoolgirls, nine-year-old Peggy Rahn and eight-year-old Wendy Stevenson, whom he claimed to have kidnapped from Pompano Beach and cannibalized. Publicly, Schaefer had denied any involvement.

Schaefer was considered a promising student by his teachers; contemporary records reveal his being a member of the varsity football team during his sophomore and junior years, and he is known to have been an excellent golfer. He graduated from St. Thomas Aquinas High School in June 1964, and briefly worked as a fishing guide in the Everglades before enrolling at Broward Community College.

Schaefer initially enrolled as a social studies major at Broward Community College in September 1964 before switching his focus to teaching, in which he achieved average grades. Upon completion of his sophomore year at Broward, he applied for and was accepted for scholarship at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in Boca Raton, where he began his studies in 1968 with aspirations to obtain a Bachelor of Arts in education.

London, who had been Schaefer's girlfriend in high school shortly prior to his 1964 graduation, interviewed Schaefer at length following his conviction; she gradually served as his co-author in his writing genre, later publishing a compilation of his short stories and drawings entitled Killer Fiction in 1990. A second book, Beyond Killer Fiction, followed two years later. The stories within Killer Fiction and Beyond Killer Fiction typically involve the savage, graphic torture, mutilation and murder of young women, usually penned from the perspective of the killer, who is often a rogue police officer.

Schaefer remained adamant the stories he authored were pure fiction and that he had actually begun writing stories of this nature in the 1960s, having been inspired to do so after watching Herschell Gordon Lewis's 1963 splatter movie Blood Feast. However, police and prosecutors viewed the content as thinly veiled descriptions of his actual crimes. In private letters to his attorneys, Schaefer admitted these speculations were true, claiming one story, "Murder Demons", specifically recounts the murders of Briscolina and Farmer.

Gerard John Schaefer Jr. (March 26, 1946 – December 3, 1995) was an American murderer and suspected serial killer, known as the Killer Cop and the Hangman, who was convicted of the 1972 murder and mutilation of two teenage girls in Port St. Lucie, Florida. He is suspected of up to 26 further murders.

Gerard Schaefer was born in Neenah, Wisconsin, on March 26, 1946, the first of three children born to Gerard John and Doris Marie (née Runcie) Schaefer. His father was a traveling salesman, and his mother a housewife. He was raised in Nashville, Tennessee, and, later, in Atlanta, Georgia, where he attended Marist Academy until his family permanently relocated to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1960.