"It's a False Accusation": Gerard Schaefer in a French Documentary, Part 1

In a prison interview filmed for a French documentary, Gerard Schaefer called the accusations against him false, and the Martin County sheriff who hired him recalled the 1972 phone call that unmasked him.

Subject

Gerard John Schaefer

Runtime

6:39

Content warning: Concerns the abduction of two teenage girls and the murders of young women.

The Interview

This is the first of four excerpts from a French documentary on serial killers that Sondra London posted on YouTube in 2008, in its English-language version. It introduces Gerard John Schaefer, a former Florida police officer and sheriff's deputy convicted in 1973 of murdering two teenage girls. Schaefer appears briefly, filmed in prison. Asked what he is accused of, he says he was "originally accused of killing 34 women" and calls it "a false accusation". Asked about his conviction, he says he was convicted of "killing two in Fort Pierce" and was "never shown to be at the crime scene".

Historical Context

Schaefer, born in Wisconsin in 1946, worked as a police officer in Wilton Manors, Broward County, before joining the Martin County Sheriff's Office as a deputy in June 1972. In July 1972 he picked up two teenage hitchhikers, took them into woods on Hutchinson Island the next day and left them bound; they escaped and reported him. He was dismissed, and in December 1972 pleaded guilty to aggravated assault. In April 1973 the remains of Susan Place, 17, and Georgia Jessup, 16, who had disappeared in September 1972, were found in Port St. Lucie. Schaefer was convicted of their murders in 1973 and sentenced to two concurrent life terms. He was suspected in many other disappearances, but never charged with them.

Circumstances of the Interview

The documentary is narrated in English and draws on the French author Stéphane Bourgoin, who says he spent "many hours" interviewing Schaefer. Bourgoin is reported to have filmed interviews with Schaefer, Ottis Toole and Edmund Kemper in autumn 1991, and the footage here is probably from that shoot. The documentary's title, maker and date are not given by the uploader. Former Martin County Sheriff Robert Crowder, who hired Schaefer, describes the Saturday morning phone call in which Schaefer told him about the two girls.

What the Interview Covers

The narration opens with Schaefer's crimes and his death in prison in 1995, followed by a general definition of a serial killer. Bourgoin, in a translated voice-over, calls him "the worst serial killer I ever interviewed". Schaefer denies the wider accusations and disputes the evidence for his conviction. Crowder recalls Schaefer's application, his "apple-cheeked, wholesome appearance", and his account of the hitchhikers, whom Schaefer said he meant only to "scare" about the dangers of hitchhiking.

What Makes the Recording Significant

Schaefer died in 1995, and filmed interviews with him are few. This part records his own denial in his own voice, alongside the testimony of the sheriff who employed him.

Archival Importance

With part 4 (a separate page), the excerpt preserves the documentary's interview with Schaefer as Sondra London chose to post it; parts 2 and 3 are not yet in the archive.

Important Caveats

Schaefer's denials are his own claims; a jury convicted him of the two murders in 1973. The narration calls him "a sheriff"; he was a sheriff's deputy. The victim totals quoted in the narration (34, and 80 to 110) are estimates, not convictions. Stéphane Bourgoin admitted in 2020 and 2021 that he had fabricated parts of his own biography and exaggerated the number of killers he had met; his commentary here should be read with caution. The two girls Schaefer abducted in July 1972 are not named in this part and are not named here. Several short voices in the opening montage are not identified.

Narrator: Gerard John Schaefer was a sheriff in Florida when he was denounced by two victims who had only just escaped from his grasp. He used his badge to gain trust from his prey.

Unidentified Speaker: He is absolutely the worst person that I've ever seen. He looked into my eyes and he said, "You don't understand, because you're not a serial killer."

Narrator: Condemned to life in prison in 1973 for the murder of two young women, he is initially considered responsible for the deaths of 32 other victims before another hundred are cited. Gerard Schaefer was killed by another inmate in 1995.

Unidentified Interviewee: If he had ever come out of prison and then confronted me or put me in any fear of harm, I was totally prepared to kill him. [00:54 to 01:14: music, no speech]

Narrator: A serial killer is defined as an individual who has committed at least three murders in a space of a few days to several years. A psychopath, characterised by their excessive appetite for murder and the pleasure they extract from their actions. Their crimes make them feel all-powerful, to the point where they feel they'll never be caught. A pathological pervert, an individual with a cold and calculating temperament. Other people are simply objects to be manipulated and dominated in order to achieve their aims.

Stephane Bourgoin: He is the worst serial killer I ever interviewed. He could look you right in the eye and you know he wanted to kill you, and he'd smile, he had a smirk on his face. He was such a mixture, such a hodgepodge of different types of deviants. Cruel, inhumane, cold and calculated as it comes. During the many hours of interview with Gerard Schaefer, he was always full of smiles, very charming, but I knew I was in front of the darkest of any abyss in front of Gerard Schaefer. I had literally the impression of a psychological rape on his behalf.

Interviewer: What are you accused of?

Gerard Schaefer: Well, I was accused of, originally accused of killing 34 women, but nobody has ever managed to come up with 34 names, jurisdictions, or anything else. It's a false accusation.

Interviewer: And what is your conviction?

Gerard Schaefer: I was convicted of killing two in Fort Pierce. I was never shown to be at the crime scene. There was never any link between me and the people that were killed, except the testimony of the mother of one of them.

Narrator: Stéphane Bourgoin says he felt that it was someone who was evil, because in his eyes you don't exist, the other person doesn't exist. The other person has denied their individuality and their humanity. This is a case of perversion that's rarely seen, thank God.

Narrator: Gerard Schaefer is condemned to life in prison in 1973 for the murder of two young women. The police will later attribute a further 34 victims to him, but estimate that he may have killed between 80 to 110 people. In 1972, Robert Crowder is already the sheriff of Martin County in Florida.

Robert Crowder: I met, uh, Gerard Schaefer when he was an applicant for a position as a deputy sheriff. At that particular time he was a police officer in Wilton Manors, Florida, in Broward County, and he was looking for a job as a deputy sheriff in another county. And at the time he had, uh, what's been described as an apple-cheeked, wholesome appearance, [unclear: "could be" / "was, could be"] very pleasant, almost charismatic in the way he would deal with people. But later we began to see that there was a different face underneath that facade.

Narrator: Schaefer moves into a house a few kilometres away from the sheriff's office. He seems perfect for the position of deputy sheriff. But exactly 28 days later Schaefer makes a grave error and is unmasked by his superior.

Robert Crowder: I was home that Saturday morning, mowing my lawn. Telephone rings, my wife calls me and I go to the telephone, and it's, uh, Schaefer. And he says, "You are really going to be mad at me. I really did something stupid." And I said, "Well, tell me what's going on." He says, "Well, yesterday when I was working, there were these two girls, teenage girls, hitchhiking, and I stopped to talk to them and gave them a ride and tried to impress upon them how dangerous it was for young girls to hitchhike. There were a lot of problems they could get into, trouble, bad things that could happen to them, and they just laughed at it and didn't take me seriously.

Robert Crowder: "So I arranged to meet them today, and I was going to put a scare into them and show them, convince them that it's dangerous, so that nothing would happen to them later, if they would do what I said." And he said he took them into the woods and then told them he was going to sell them into slavery, and then he said, to scare them, he left them there to sit for a while, and then he was going to come back and let them loose. But when he came back they were gone. They had managed to get loose from the ropes. [excerpt ends] ---