THE NEXT FBI meeting I attended with Manning, his boss Gregory Wharton, and the rest of the bureau’s “Wanderer” team was different from the first one. Not better, just different. The mood toward me being there had changed from shocked disapproval to a mere grudging acceptance of my unwanted presence. I tried to stay as quiet and unobtrusive as possible at the beginning while Wharton updated everyone on the status of the investigation.
They had focused mostly on the five female victims where a definite link now had been determined from the crime scene evidence. There had also been some investigation done on the cases on the list where there had been a possible or likely DNA link, but their main concentration right now would be on the five definite matches that gave them the best chance of pursuing more evidence that might provide a clue to the killer.
The five definite links from the victims’ list were:
LEIGH STOCKER, 1992—Ohio University coed; 21 years old; killed while hitchhiking home for spring break from the OU campus in Athens, Ohio, to her home outside Youngstown; body found stabbed to death and mutilated in a wooded area alongside Interstate 71. She was last seen at a rest stop fast-food place along the highway. A manager there remembered her talking to a man at a table before her murder, according to police accounts at the time. The manager couldn’t remember much about the man, but he positively identified Leigh when shown a picture of her.
MONICA CARSTAIRS, 1994—A 24-year-old gymnastic teacher in Denver. She was found stabbed to death inside her car in the gym parking lot one night. Authorities at the time believed it was a random robbery or attempted sexual attack—and never linked it to any other crimes.
TONI GENARO. 1997—Schoolteacher in Allentown, PA. Stabbed to death in a wooded area near the school by an unknown assailant. Police had suspected either a troubled student or a disgruntled parent, but no arrests had ever been made.
SANDI NESS, 1999—19-year-old waitress at a beachside restaurant near St. Petersburg, FL. She was found strangled on the beach not far from where she worked. There were minor stab wounds, but the cause of death was determined to be strangulation—with the killer using his hands, not a rope or other device. Friends said Sandi liked to take long walks on the beach, and the assumption was that was where she had been confronted by her killer.
WENDY HILLER, 2001—Divorce attorney in Seattle, WA. She was the oldest victim at 36 years old. Found stabbed and strangled in her bedroom by her boyfriend when he returned home. The boyfriend was a suspect for a while. So were some of the clients and their spouses involved in messy divorce cases. But Wendy Hiller’s murder remained unsolved nearly two decades later.
“In all of these cases, the murder was initially determined to be an isolated, random case by local law enforcement officials. There was never any indication they might be part of a larger spree of killing,” Wharton told everyone.
“As you can see from the material I passed out, the circumstances were different in each case. The majority of victims had brown or black hair, but some were blond and one—Wendy Hiller—was a redhead. Their ages vary from nineteen to thirty-six. Different parts of the country—with no apparent link between any of the locations. And the method of murder varied between stabbing—in most of the cases—to strangulation and even physical beating. A gun was never used. In many cases—but not all—rope was used to restrain the victim prior to the murder.
“There never was—and I believe this is highly significant—any evidence of a sexual attack on any of the victims. No semen, no bruising around the sexual organs, and all of them were still fully clothed when they were found.”
“If the motive wasn’t sex, what was it?” one of the agents asked.
“Oh, it still could have been sex,” Wharton replied. “Just not the kind of sex we can identify with. But we presume the killer got some sort of sexual thrill out of what he was doing. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have targeted attractive young women the way he did. Except he never made an effort to claim credit for any of the murders. They were all done under the radar with no publicity. Other serial killers have wanted public attention. Not this guy. That’s what makes him so scary. He breaks all our rules.”
Wharton pointed to a map on the wall that displayed the Wanderer’s murders and the locations of each. All of them—both the confirmed DNA ones as well as the others on the list.
“Several of the early murders were in the eastern part of the U.S.,” he said. “That made us suspect that was the killer’s original location where he targeted women, but that theory didn’t hold up. The second killing was in Denver, and many of the later ones jumped all over the place—Florida, Nebraska, Alabama, Texas, California, then back to Massachusetts and the East Coast.
“We’ve been in touch with local law enforcement authorities at each of these locations to get them to reopen their investigative files. Maybe we’ll get lucky and stumble onto something significant by combing over it all again like this.”
I found that last part disturbing. That meant a lot of people were now aware of the existence of this serial killer. I understood the FBI’s need to do this. But it increased the chances of a leak to other media. If that happened, I would be scooped on my own story.
I’d have to talk to Faron about this when I got back to the office. At some point, we might have to reconsider our decision to work with the FBI—and go with the story we had. But I’d worry about that later.
“Does anyone have anything else to add?” Wharton asked, looking around at everyone else in the room while at the same time managing to avoid eye contact with me.
“What about the Russell Danziger angle?” I asked.
“Russell Danziger?” an agent said. “The political powerhouse? What’s he got to do with this?”
I looked over at Manning. He hesitated for a moment, or so I thought, but then nodded and joined in. “Clare uncovered a possible link between Russell Danziger and one of the murders on the list. Nothing specific yet. But she—well, we both—feel it deserves further examination.”
“Which murder?” someone asked.
“Becky Bluso.”
The other agent chuckled. “The only murder that doesn’t have any connection to any of the others. Beautiful. Just what you’d expect from a dumb-ass reporter, looking for something at the one murder we don’t really care about.”
I ignored the “dumb-ass reporter” remark and simply recounted everything I’d found out about Danziger and the library money, plus his curiosity about the Bluso case when he was in Eckersville. I also told them about his military background and how he’d moved around the country over the years, as we believed The Wanderer did.
“Are you saying that these military assignments matched up with locations of all these murders?” someone asked.
“Not exactly, but …”
“What does any of this even mean then? Lots of people move around the country. Lots of people donate money to worthwhile causes like building a library. So what?”
“I don’t know what it means,” I said. “But I want to find out.”
Wharton had not made any comment yet. But he was glaring at me again so I could tell he was unhappy. I knew Manning had briefed him about all this before the meeting. The fact that he hadn’t mentioned it meant he didn’t take it seriously. Or maybe he didn’t want to ruffle any feathers with someone as powerful and politically connected as Danziger. In any case, I knew I wasn’t going to get any support from him.
“I don’t want to waste any of our valuable time or resources on a wild goose chase like this,” Wharton said. “So, the man donates money to build a library in a town where one of the murders took place—and asked some questions about it while he was there. Why should I even care about that?”
I decided I’d been polite for long enough.
“You should care,” I said. “Because your whole vaunted FBI investigative team here has turned up jack squat so far. There’s nothing you told me here today that I didn’t already know about this story. A story, by the way, you wouldn’t even know about except for me. So far, there’s only been one person we know about with any possible link to any of the murders. That’s Russell Danziger. If the FBI chooses not to pursue this information about Danziger I’ve provided, I will do that for my TV station. You can either work with me on this or watch it on the Channel 10 News.”
That was a bluff. I didn’t have any information about Danziger I could put on the air at this point. Only suspicions and unanswered questions. But I figured the threat of my doing it would get their attention. I was right.
I looked over at Manning, who looked as if he wished he could hide under the conference table. Everyone in the room, especially Wharton, seemed shocked at my outburst. This was the ultimate fear for them. A goddamned reporter in the midst of their mass murder case going rogue—taking it public—in the middle of their investigation.
“Okay, we’ll look at Russell Danziger,” Wharton finally said. “Make some checks, find out a bit more about him.”
“That isn’t going to be easy,” one of the agents said. “No one knows much about this guy.”
“Then we need to talk to someone who does know something about Danziger,” Wharton said.
He looked around the room.
“Does anyone here have a contact who actually knows Russell Danziger very well?”
“I think I do,” I said.