By Courtney Wood
"He was one of the true monsters of the United States or the world perhaps." - James Stovall, the Salem Oregon detective who tracked down Jerry Brudos.
Sexual deviant killer Jerome Brudos murdered four women and attempted to abduct a few more, between January 1968 and April 1969. He would strangle the life out of his unfortunate victims, steal body parts directly from their corpses to use for gratification later, sexually violate their dead bodies and then dump their remains in a local river with absolutely no regard for human life. This almost ritualistic process would excite him to the degree that afterwards he would dress in high heels and masturbate. In the true crime world, there have been countless sexually deranged killers, but not many are more depraved than the man who would be given the name "Shoe Fetish Slayer" and "The Lust Killer" by the press.
Jerome Henry Brudos, commonly referred to as Jerry, was born on January 31st, 1939 in Webster South Dakota. His family included parents Henry and Eileen and older Brother Larry. From birth, his mother was hostile to her second son and was never shy about wanting a daughter. Eileen was never able to hide her disappointment and treated Jerry terribly. When he was five years old, Jerry found a pair of high heels in a nearby dump and took them home to wear around the house. When his mother found the shoes, she was so disgusted she burned them in front of her son proclaiming that “such things were wicked”. Many experts have theorized that this was the beginning of his lifelong shoe fetish as it made shoes “deliciously forbidden” and further explained that he was attracted to high heel shoes specifically as Eileen wore “sensible” footwear and this was a way of rebelling against her. This fetish popped up again in Kindergarten when he stole his teacher’s shoes. Confusing to the young boy, once his teacher found out what happened she had a kind response; making his relationship/ attraction to shoes more complex. By the time he was sixteen years old, Jerry became sexually aroused by shoes to the point where he would use them to masturbate. To fuel this deviant desire, he went around his neighborhood and stole women’s shoes. The petty theft for sexual gratification did not stop at footwear, he also began stealing women’s underwear; most often right off his neighbor’s clotheslines. Naturally he had to hide all these items from his mother, making them even more enticing.
At seventeen his fantasies became dark, as he started dreaming about capturing a girl and forcing her to obey his every command, while begging for mercy. To make these twisted thoughts a reality he dug a deep hole in a hillside to keep girls as slaves. Soon after this, he used a knife to kidnap a seventeen-year-old girl and forced her to strip so he could take photos of her in humiliating positions. Fortunately, an elderly couple happened to be around and called the police. When authorities arrived, he told them he happened to be there just like the couple were, but they did not believe him. For this, he had to spend nine months in the Psychiatric ward of Oregon State Hospital. The doctors concluded that his sexual fantasies centered around hatred for his mother and was his way of getting revenge on all women in general. While in therapy Jerry confessed, he fantasized about “placing kidnapped girls into freezers so he could later arrange their stiff bodies in sexually explicit poses.” Jerry was given an early diagnosis of “adjustment reaction of adolescence with sexual deviation and fetishism”. Despite dreaming of terrible things and starting to act on them, the doctors did not view him as dangerous and said he just needed to “grow up”. His official diagnosis before being released was “borderline schizophrenic”.
When Brudos was twenty, he joined the United States Army. He was stationed at Fort Ord in California after completing basic training in Fort Gordon in Georgia. It would not be long before he was discharged by Captain Theodore J Barry for “strange delusions”. With his military prospects gone, Brudos got work as an electronics technician. In 1961, at just twenty-two years old, he married seventeen-year-old Darcie Metzler. The couple had two kids; their daughter Megan was born in 1962 and their son Jason was born in 1967. Their marriage was not a healthy one for Darcie as she was forced to clean the house wearing only high heels while her husband watched. She obeyed him, even staying out of his “workshop” and their home’s attic without question. Even though he was married, old desires came back, and he started stealing women’s underwear again. In one instance he walked up to his wife while wearing some of his stolen underwear, she was repulsed by the unexpected sight and the couple never talked about it again. Things got worse and far more disturbing for Darcie when she found a paperweight shaped like a woman’s breast and caught Jerry developing pictures of naked women.
In May of 1967 he followed a woman home simply because he liked the shoes she was wearing. He waited until she was asleep and strangled her, raped her then stole her shoes. It would take a few years before he was charged for this despicable crime. Horrifically, this was just the beginning and everything that had happened to this point was going to happen again, just far worse.
All Brudos’s dark deplorable dreams came true on January 25th, 1968 when a door to door encyclopedia salesman knocked on the wrong door; she was never heard from again. Nineteen-year-old Linda Slawson was selling these informational books in Portland Oregon to earn money for college when she mistakenly attempted to make a delivery at an incorrect address. Brudos sent Linda to his workshop, hit her with a two by four and strangled her to death. In order to act out a lifelong fantasy, he sent his family away to get hamburgers. Once he was alone, he undressed the dead body, redressed her in women’s underwear he stole, chopped off her left foot with a hacksaw and placed it in the freezer. For weeks after the unique crime, Jerry took pictures of the severed foot in several pairs of shoes. Tragically, her body was never found, even though he later confessed to dumping it (and most of his other victims) in the Willamette river. In July of 1968 Stephanie Vikko went missing in Portland Oregon, Jerry was never officially charged with a crime, but most believe he was involved.
On November 26th, 1968 twenty-three-year-old Jan Susan Whitney was supposed to come home from the University of Oregon to join her family for Thanksgiving dinner; sadly, she would never make it to that meal. Jan’s car broke down on Interstate 5 (between Salem and Albany Oregon) and she along with two male friends were forced to wait for help. Brudos spotted the broken-down Rambler on his way home from work and offered what seemed to be a helping hand. He dropped the two gentlemen off and took the young lady to his home to get the tools needed to fix the car. He told her to stay in the car while he talked to his wife. Instead of leaving, he came from behind, told her to close her eyes, placed a leather belt around her neck then strangled her to death before having sex with her lifeless body. He took her body to his workshop, dressed it in his women’s clothes and took a lot of pictures. Just as he had with Linda Slawson, he cut off a body part, this time it was Jan’s right breast. In an interview with Ann Rule he gave an explanation saying, "I was going to make a plastic mold of it and then I could make paper weights”. Interestingly, he hung her body from the ceiling with a hook-and-pulley system and left it there for days. The successful completion of these two crimes made him feel invulnerable, even after a car crashed into the side of his house. Instead of panicking he invited the police to investigate after wrapping Jan’s body in plastic and moving it to another building in his yard. He was so confident (it was reported) that while talking to police Jerry said “that was close” while inwardly smirking. As soon as everything was calm again, Brudos used a nylon rope to tie a railroad iron to her leg (in order to weigh everything down) and dumped Jan and Linda Slawson’s foot in the Willamette River. Jan Whitney would not be found until the summer of 1970.
On March 27th, 1969 nineteen-year-old medical student Karen Elena Sprinker was home from Oregon State University and was supposed to meet her mom for lunch, but never made it. Jerry took her from the nearby store, brought her to his workshop, raped her and forced her to pose wearing clothes he picked out. Eventually, Brudos hung her by the neck from a hook, removed both of her breasts and had sex with her dead body. Once he was finished, he used a nylon rope (the same kind he used with Jan) to tie a six-cylinder car engine to her leg and dumped her in the Willamette River. Her car was found in the parking garage for the store where her mom was waiting. Shoppers in that area said they were suspicious of a tall man and a “strange looking” woman they saw walking around; the woman they were describing was Brudos wearing women’s clothes. When Karen’s body was discovered (May 12th, 1969), she was found in clothes that her mother recognized but was wearing a black lace bra that was way too big for her. This bigger bra was padded with brown paper towels that were used to soak up the blood from where her breasts were amputated.
On April 21st, 1969, twenty-four-year-old Sharon Wood was attacked in a parking lot by Brudos, who she described as a “tall, pudgy man with a gun”. He tapped the young secretary on her shoulder, told her not to yell and put her in a headlock. The brave Sharon knew if she did not fight back that he would kill her, so she kicked him as hard as she could, ironically while wearing high heels, and tried to grab the gun. He overpowered her and put his hand around her mouth, she bit down and refused to let up even when she drew blood. He threw her to the ground which forced her to break the bite, at that moment a car came so he grabbed his gun and left. The next day he tried to force fifteen-year-old Gloria Gene Smith and (later that day) fourteen-year-old Liane Brumley into a borrowed sportscar. Both incidents occurred right outside of their schools in Salem Oregon. Miraculously, both girls were able to escape and give their similar stories to the police.
After three failed attempts Brudos would be more successful when he claimed his fourth and final victim; Linda Dawn Salee. On April 23rd, 1969 Jerry approached the twenty-two-year-old in a parking garage. While posing as a cop, he flashed a fake badge and confronted her about shoplifting. The argument lasted long enough for him to be able to throw her in his car. Once home, he bound her in his workshop then left her there while he ate dinner. When he came back, he tried to strangle her, but she fought back as hard as she could before he inevitably raped and strangled her to death. Just like the others, Brudos had sex with her dead body, but surprisingly he did not cut off any body parts; in later interviews he said that he did not want her breasts because her nipples were “too pink”. What is extremely unique about Salee’s time in the workshop was he put wires in her ribcage then used an electrical current to “make her dance”; it did not work to his satisfaction. Three Weeks after disappearing (May 10th, 1969) a fisherman found Salee’s remains in the Long Tom River, south of Corvallis Oregon. She was bound to a car transmission by a nylon rope and very specific knot, which was the same type of rope and same knot used with the other victims. The copper wire found was twisted in a such a specific way that indicated the perpetrator was an electrician.
Police decided to question students at Karen Sprinker’s college in Corvallis Oregon in order to find out anything that could be helpful. Many female students said they received strange calls from a man trying to lure them out by claiming to be a lonely Vietnam veteran. One brave girl offered to assist police by agreeing to go out with the man. The date happened in May of 1969. Afterwards, she told authorities he talked to her about the missing girls and asked why she was not afraid he would strangle her. The courageous co-ed gave a description that was very similar to the ones given by the other surviving victims; tall, light colored hair with freckles. With all this information, the police asked her to set up a second date so they could identify him. Jerry did not seem to be rattled when officers showed up instead of his date, he answered all their questions very calmly. Police had no evidence to officially charge him with, so they had to let him go; but chose to keep him under surveillance. They learned he worked as an electrician, just like the suspect they were looking for and five days later Brudos was arrested on a weapons charge.
When police searched Brudos’s home on 3100 Center Street they found the same type of nylon rope that was used in all the crimes, the hook-and-pulley system, a mold for the breast paperweight, lots of women’s shoes (in various sizes) bras, girdles, panties, slips, photos of him in women’s underwear and some pictures of his victims wearing a black hood. In all the pictures of the victims the head was cut off for him to enjoy just the female body. The most damming picture found was of a victim hanging from his ceiling where one can see Brudos in the reflection of a mirror. There was other damming evidence against Brudos, one of the girls he tried to abduct identified him in a photospread.
Brudos’s defense lawyers Dale Drake and George Rhoten initially entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, which meant he had to see doctors to prove his competency. On June 4th, 1969 he was psychologically tested by seven experts and was found to have an above average I.Q., deemed not criminally insane and was diagnosed with an “anti-social personality, manifested by fetishism, transvestitism, exhibitionism, voyeurism, and especially sadism.” What this lengthy diagnosis meant was he was mentally fit to stand trial since he was aware of what he was doing and more importantly meant he would not be able to be rehabilitated. Once the results came back, Brudos changed his plea to guilty for the murders of Jan Whitney, Karen Sprinker and Linda Salee. He also confessed to the murder of Linda Slawson, but since her body was never found he was never prosecuted. Later his lawyer, Gary Babcock, filed an appeal stating they should not have accepted his guilty plea and thus should not have had life sentences; this appeal was ultimately denied.
Darcie Brudos was arrested as an accomplice. A neighbor claimed she witnessed Darcie help Jerry carry a body from their garage but was quickly discredited. Darcie was acquitted due to a lack of evidence. In August 1970 she ended her eight-year marriage, changed her name and moved with her children to an unknown location.
Even though in 1995, the Oregon state parole board voted to keep him in jail for the rest of his life, he is still allowed to address them every two years. Every time he has come up for parole, letters flood in from concerned residents pleading for him to stay where he is. In many of these annual hearings, Brudos has tried to blame his crimes on the abuse he endured from his mother and went as far as to say that when they occurred, he was suffering from “blackouts”; no one has believed these claims. In one of his lengthier speeches he stated, “I think I’ve got a whole new personality” and is certain that he will not kill again but cannot say why; the board responded by declaring that he will never be released. Jerry Brudos became the inmate who has spent the most time incarcerated in Oregon state history. By all accounts Brudos was a model inmate and took advantage of his time. He could walk around unsupervised, became a computer whiz and earned two undergraduate degrees (one in business and one in general science and counseling) and worked on earning a master’s degree in counseling. Shockingly, he could sell leather key fobs with his name engraved and even more surprising survivor Sharon Wood purchased one of these fobs. Author Ann Rule wrote that Wood did this as a symbol of feminine empowerment and hoped it encourage women to fight back if physically attacked. Unbelievably, he could have shoe catalogs, which he used as a substitute for pornography. His time in prison however was not all positive as he was once assaulted with a bucket of water then beaten by inmates. Things got worse for him on January 1st, 1970 when he was treated for rectal bleeding most likely from a sexual assault.
On March 28th, 2006, at 5:10 a.m., Jerry Brudos died at the age of sixty-seven of colon cancer.
Even though his name is not as commonly known when compared to others who have committed similar crimes, he did undoubtably impact popular culture. There have been a few documentaries, books and songs influenced by the strange, evil man who hated women and was too fond of their shoes. Popular true crime writer Ann Rule wrote about Brudos in her book “The Lust Killer”. Rule said she wrote this book to “add psychiatric research that may one day treat aberrant minds before they explode into violence”. The heavy-metal band Macabre wrote the song ‘Fatal Foot Fetish’ about Brudos and the deathcore band Through the Eyes of the Dead used a quote of Brudos in their song ‘Truest Shade of Crimson’. In the 1981 movie Polyester, the character of Dexter used pictures of shoes as pornography. Most recently, actor Happy Anderson portrayed Brudos excellently on the very popular Netflix true crime show ‘Mindhunter’.
Editor's note: this article ran in Serial Killer Magazine and is reproduced as written, less five picture captions for images the archive does not hold. The record matches. This archive carries Jerome Brudos at three to four deaths, which is exactly the split the article sets out: he pleaded guilty to the murders of Jan Whitney, Karen Sprinker and Linda Salee, and confessed to killing Linda Slawson, but was never prosecuted for her because her body was never recovered. Stephanie Vikko is named here as a disappearance widely attributed to him and no charge was ever brought, and the 1967 killing described before the series is likewise uncharged. The three women and girls who got away, Sharon Wood, Gloria Gene Smith and Liane Brumley, are named as they were in the original; the first of them broke the case. Darcie Brudos was acquitted. He died in prison in 2006.