Stan's van and home are thoroughly examined. Learn what the police find inside the antique trunk and who put the items there... be ready to shiver! If you get scared at night, you might pass this one by.
Chapter 5 ~ Evidence and Trunk of Trophies
The door to the trace evidence garage opened wide enough for Officer Franklin and Crawley to get Stan's white van inside. Immediately, the van was covered with a huge blanket of part silicone, part plastic. A trace evidence female officer opened the door on the right hand side of the van. She commenced to searching for any clue that might become useful. The handheld Dust Buster was used on the seats, the roof of the van, the floorboards, the fabric on the doors, and in between the seats. All was swept; even the crevices of the back seat. The back seat was completely removed and all the areas were vacuumed.
Another officer, a young rookie named Jim Sampson, opened the glove box, removing everything in it. Every item located in the van was bagged and placed inside brown paper bags. Visors were pulled down and mirrors were dusted fro prints. Floor runners and door facings were dusted for prints. The outside and inside of each window was dusted. No stone was left unturned.
"This man was smart, Jim," the female officer, Midge commented.
"Ummm," was all that came back from Jim. He was too busy discovering a pair of socks under the back floor mat. The socks were still wet with blood. A diamond barrette had been found in the cup holder where a normal driver would have placed a Dr. Pepper instead.
The barrette was not all they came up with from their first search. Under the floor mat on the passenger's side Stan had senselessly placed the garret he used to restrain the women from time to time.
Very seldom had the murders been bloody. Most of his victims went out as a result of Stan using the tiny insulin needles. The medicine he used most often merely sedated or tranquilized the ladies in order for him to feel powerful enough to have forced his sexual ways on them.
Stan's sexual problems started when he was with his father when he'd pick up the girls. Stan would get excited about knowing a girl or being able to see a girl later on his own. Then, his dad would remove them by strangling them. Hence, he lose an erection as soon as he got very close to the woman if she were alive.
Using the antique trunk given her by her Grandmother Consuella seemed brilliant at the time. For years, the trunk remained the solution for storing her husband's trophies. What could be found inside the trunk would have excited any woman. Near the top, there were beautiful diamond rings, solid gold bracelets, Rolex watches, and garnet and emerald necklaces. Underneath that menagerie, lay many different items; some of which were slips, bras, a few pair of lightweight sandals and a couple of black clutch-style handbags. Traveling even further inside the trunk lay scarves, belts, and panties of many colors, sizes, and shapes. The panties were all folded to perfection and it appeared as if Helena had taken great pains to get them comfortable in their new home.
Inside this trunk of trophies, there were items, which seemed out of place, such as cans of mace, ivory handled knives, tiny pistols and several small calculators. Not the type of item one would think to find in a trunk full of women's clothes and jewelry.
The attic itself did not have the normal amount of other antiques beside it to cause the trunk to look appropriately placed. In fact, it stuck out as being unusual for the atmosphere of Helena and Geraldo's attic. Later, when the investigators entered their home with a search warrant; they climbed into the attic it was the first piece of furniture that they walked over to first. The trunk was a magnet from start to finish. It played a huge role as to why Helena did not beg Geraldo to stop killing the women. Spending hours upon hours, looking at the cache, she would obsess about the type of item to steal from the next body. At times, Helena was so engrossed with her thoughts on where she would put the next pair of earrings, that she would stare at women in cars to see if she could see the ones that they were wearing.
Developing the trunk layout was also a problem. This became a problem. At times, Helena would be standing in line at stores. All of a sudden, she would begin going over the layout of the trunk. More and more often, her behavior began to appear unstable. People watched her stare at women's clothing, shoes, hands, and such. Everyone began to wonder what was wrong with her.
"Damn!" Sergeant Hamilton said to his sidekick in a shocked state of mind. "This is impossible! Why there must be hundreds of items in this one trunk. This load of stuff will take our crime lab months to pilfer through in order to log everything in as evidence."
Moving some of the articles around, Hamilton spoke again, "Shit… if they decide to check for DNA on each piece, it could take years to get all of this straightened out enough to have a solid case."
"Man, you are for sure right about that," Montgomery agreed with Hamilton. "What you say we call for someone to just remove the trunk as is and bag everything individually at the station?"
Hamilton thought for a moment. "Naw. I believe we better get the crime crew here. We ought to let them take it piece by piece right here; just in case there is a mix-up of how many pieces there are and what goes with what. I sure do wonder if each of these items represent only one woman. Hope it means that they took several things from each woman. Wouldn't it just be too sick to think each piece represents only one woman. Damn, Jack, that would mean that they could have killed hundreds of ladies."
Both of the officers knew that DNA would be the only way a good trial lawyer could narrow the conviction in on Geraldo. Without DNA evidence, it would be next to impossible to get each item claimed. Relatives of missing women were called. They were asked to identify items belonging to their missing wife, daughter, sister, aunt, or even mother. The list of missing women in (city in Columbia) had risen to over two hundred. All killings seem to stop when the police took Geraldo to jail.
Chapter 6 ~ Stan is Jailed
Sentenced to four life terms without the possibility of parole.
Minimum of 1,000 years before he could be released, he would be required to serve 25 years… double life.
Stan had a permanent half-smile that caused him to always appear serene with laughing eyes.
Even with the information of all he done, he managed to look like a man everyone would care to know. The horror of the lives of the women started to unfold. Little did the world know that the actual dates and partial identities were being logged.
Stan had learned well how to operate his Windows XP personal computer. Unlike his father, Geraldo, who would never have learned how to send an email. Using America-On-Line (AOL, as the world called it) Stan would enter his password and wait for the personal computer to boot up, then he'd write an email. If someone walked by while Stan was creating his confessionals, it would seem as if he was simply writing to a particular person. Afterwards, he would store the email; but not send it.
As each murder occurred, he'd write a new email and store it also with a name attached and if he didn't know that, he'd use the date of the murder.
Often Stan would write about his father and his mother's antics. He'd write about his father digging the graves and his mother covering the bodies. Creating the memorial emails had a cleansing effect on his soul. He used the process to represent a confessional. Having been raised a Catholic, he was accustomed to telling a priest about his actions and his thoughts when they did not seem normal. Somewhere along the way… as he matured, he began to go less and less to confessionals because he found he was unable to stop doing what he was admitting. Also, he found that there were many things he was doing that he could not admit to a priest at all.
Once, Stan stored a separate email describing that it was like listening to the click of the key in the front or back door indicated his mother had arrived home from her part of the bargain… the burying of the bodies. Stan, sitting at his computer in his room, would hit the "store, or save" key and walk away from the computer. This also meant his father had returned first from the night's gruesome happenings and that he was already fast asleep.
One of Stan's first email confessionals read: "Dear Sally, "If you were able to say something to me at this time, what would it be?" Ha! You can't! With my big strong hands I robbed you of your breath… I stole from you your sight. I ripped out your ability to speak. My power rendered you lifeless. You are without recourse of any kind. What you'd ask me, I'm sure is… why? Why did I kill you? My answer would be something you, much less anyone else would never understand… because you remind me of my baby sister who died long ago. Ha! You'll never get a chance to grow into an old woman. I've even robbed you of your life exactly as was my sister's life was taken. My job is to free the world of every woman who has a similar appearance to my baby sister. These burials are my only way of justifying my being allowed to stay alive. You do not have to forgive me. It is no one's job to forgive me for what I do. What I have done is unforgivable by everyone but my sister. She forgives me because she loves me and wants me to hurry and be with her in purgatory."
This email was signed "Love Geraldo." Stan had found this letter in his father's desk drawer one day and decided to type it up as his own. Each and every word of this particular email matched the one he had found.
None of Stan's family was ever made aware he was storing the facts about each murder. Psychiatrists later tried to get the sentence lessened by showing that Stan had planned storing where the bodies were buried in order for the parents to acquire the whereabouts of their daughters. The majority of them could be found… only a few would remain undiscovered.
Somehow, by detailing the whereabouts of the bodies he could stay connected to letting people know there was two sides to him. Stan wanted people to know that he did have some inkling of a concern about how the feelings of the parents of the victims. Kill and then care; strange combination. What is most interesting is that during the ritual, Stan knew that his capture was inevitable.
Now the numbers were rising to a level, which if he wasn't keeping the email records, even he would be losing count (if that was possible.)
Along with the words, Stan drew an artist sketch of the body. Again, his ulterior motive (unknown by anyone but him) was after he was dead, or in prison, was to help the parents of the dead women to locate their daughters. Therefore, he kept notes in his computer containing what he remembered about the appearance of the women or girl's bodies.
Assistant County Attorney Ken Anderson spends his weekends drinking and running around. After waking up with another hangover, Ken decides not to drink so much anymore. Ken and his buddy, Tony, go out to eat and see Mia Correa and Faye Kincaid at the
Raised on Black and White TV is Carol Denise Mitchell’s intimate, unflinching memoir of growing up in a world where television became both a refuge and a mirror. Through the glow of classic black‑and‑white programs, she learned about fami
