Crime scene technicians looked around Your Kidz & Mine, paying close attention to the back where Lisa was seen. They found a hidden stash of pornographic magazines, as well as two nearly inconspicuous holes drilled into the wall of the dressing room, apparently for peeping. They also saw dark stains on the carpet in two separate places and a smear of blood on the office door. When they lifted the vacuum cleaner, thanks to the reporter’s tip, they could see a few strands of dark hair caught on the roller. They confiscated it to examine the bag’s contents. They also collected samples from the other areas of interest, and removed parts of the carpet. In addition, they confiscated Fairley’s 1994 Ford Escort to look for hair and fibers.
As Ruth Fairley supervised, another team went through her son’s messy room. They asked for his clothes from the day before, which he’d dumped on the floor of his room, and bagged them. On Fairley’s wall were posters of Spider-Man and the X-Men. His cherished books were by Anne Rice, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien. He was also an avid consumer of bondage pornography and sex paraphernalia. Investigators found electric masturbation devices, X-rated videos, bondage materials, and numerous role-playing card games with occult themes.
Along with acquiring evidence, investigators worked hard to develop a clear sense of who Caleb Fairley was. They did not have to prove or explain his motive, but everyone was curious. How could a guy who’d once been a choirboy and had few disturbances on his record suddenly assault and strangle to death a mother and child? They surmised that he’d seen Lisa come in and had fixated on her as his perfect type, the woman of his dark dreams. As she moved to the back of the store, he’d finished with the only other customer and then locked up. Moving to the back and keeping a tall rack between them and the window, he’d forced Devon from Lisa’s arms and used his 250-pound weight to pin Lisa to the floor. They did not yet know if he’d raped her. Once she was dead, he’d beaten and strangled Devon. Then he’d taken both bodies out the back door. He’d tossed Devon from the car as he’d rounded a hairpin turn in Valley Forge Park, and had then dumped Lisa where she was found.
One of his friends told them that Fairley had aspired to be a marine biologist and he’d hoped to get married and raise a nice family. In 1989, his 4-year-old brother had accidentally killed himself with their father’s handgun, and Fairley had taken the death hard. He blamed his parents for it. He did not feel much support from them, he’d confided to several friends. His IQ tested above average—around 140—but he’d dropped out of two colleges. He had worked at a few ordinary jobs, such as washing dishes, but never for long. He’d resented his mother for forcing him to quit a job at which he was actually losing weight in order to assist in her new store, although he liked staring at the women who came in. Other friends said that Fairley’s mother often berated him and did not allow him to have friends over. She wanted to know his every move. He resented her.
“He was obviously a loser that life had dealt a bad hand to,” Castor observed. “He was overweight and unattractive, and had a personality to match, so he was likely to be a person who would not make friends easily. He would have every reason to resent the world and everyone in it. He had one of the most extensive collections of pornography that I had ever seen. I had spent a year working sex crimes, and even I had not seen some of those devices before. His pornography was extensive and peculiar. He was clearly a very disturbed individual. You knew he had no chance in life, because when we searched his house and recovering these items, his mother was standing right there, and she didn’t think this was unusual.”
Among his collection was the role-playing game, Dungeons & Dragons, which Christopher had said he and Fairley enjoyed playing together. They also liked Magic: The Gathering.
Interactive role-playing games had evolved from the popularity of war games played with toy soldiers during the 1960s, which typically focused on the world wars or the American Civil War. Soon, game developers accommodated fans of medieval times, and in 1974, Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) was born. This game advanced beyond board games played with dice to real settings outdoors. People “became” lords and warriors. D&D became highly popular and soon generated imitators, as well as evolving into more advanced versions.
During the mid-1990s, the card game Magic: The Gathering, developed a strong following. Two or more players engaged in an imaginary battle as powerful wizards. Players started with “life points,” which increased or decreased as the game progressed. Players could lose life points when attacked by a creature or a spell. The deck at this time contained cards with demonic images and occult themes.
What really caught the investigators’ attention, however, was the black shirt that Fairley had worn to the club. Just as Christopher had described, it featured a vampire figure biting the throat of a brunette woman who was the very likeness of Lisa Manderach. “She fit to a T what Fairley’s conception of a Gothic princess would look like,” said Castor. This image even sported a lacy black tank top that resembled the one Lisa had worn when she’d gone shopping. This case had taken a chilling new turn.