Gerard John Schaefer - The Killer Cop
Described by prosecutor Robert Stone as "the most sexually deviant person" he had ever encountered, he is suspected of up to twenty-six murders.
Gerard Schaefer was born in Neenah, Wisconsin on March 26, 1946.
The first of three children born to Gerard John Schaefer Sr. and Doris Marie Schaefer.
His father was a traveling salesman and his mother a housewife.
Schaefer was raised in Nashville, Tennessee where he attended Marist Academy until his family permanently relocated to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1960.
Schaefer later described his childhood as "troubled and turbulent", largely due to the frequent family relocations, his father's alcoholism, and his father's frequent verbal abuse of his wife and children.
Although the elder Schaefer's occupation resulted in his being frequently absent from the household, he had a difficult relationship with his oldest son.
He resented his frequent belittling of him and believed his father favored his sister over himself and his brother.
By contrast, Schaefer was close to his mother, who was extremely protective of her children.
As a child, Schaefer preferred outdoor pursuits. By his adolescence, he had developed an interest in nature.
His primary interests as a teenager included collecting guns, hunting and fishing—activities that he and his father occasionally pursued together when his father was at home.
Although hardly a classic loner, classmates at St. Thomas Aquinas High School recall his "not being part of any clique".
He frequently pursued his interests alone, leading his family and peers alike to view him as an "outdoors man" who held aspirations to become a forest ranger.
Teenage Years
By his teenage years, Schaefer developed erotic fantasies of hurting women whom he deemed worthy of his contempt.
These fantasies gradually evolved into his developing a penchant for sadomasochism and bondage, and deriving pleasure from inflicting pain upon himself—occasionally as he wore women's underwear—until he achieved orgasm via autoerotic asphyxia.
Typically these rituals involved Schaefer tying himself to a tree in rural locations.
These fantasies would increase in terms of frequency and intensity with time, gradually dominating most of his time.
Schaefer also became a peeping tom in his mid-teens.
Although he dated in his high school years, several female classmates viewed him with disdain.
One former classmate, Barbara Krolick, later said: "I can't remember him being friends with any of the guys.
He was always on the outside looking in. As a matter of fact, the only thing I really remember is that I always had to tuck my skirt under my legs because [Schaefer] would practically stand on his head to look up a girl's skirt."
Schaefer was considered a promising student by his teachers; contemporary records reveal his being a member of the varsity football team during his sophomore and junior years, and he is known to have been an excellent golfer.
He graduated from St. Thomas Aquinas High School in June 1964, and briefly worked as a fishing guide in the Everglades before enrolling at Broward Community College.
Marriage
In December 1968, Schaefer married his fiancée, Martha "Marti" Louise Fogg, a fellow FAU student.
The couple rented a property on SW 22nd Street in Fort Lauderdale, although their relationship soon soured both due to Schaefer's incessant demands for sex and his spending much of his free time hunting.
The two divorced on May 2, 1970, his wife citing Schaefer's extreme cruelty as the reason for their separation.
Shortly thereafter, Schaefer formed a brief relationship with a physically disabled woman whom he encountered at a Fort Lauderdale mental health clinic, although the couple soon separated.
In March 1969, Schaefer successfully applied for a student teaching internship at Plantation High School.
He began this position on September 23, primarily teaching geography.
However, he was fired on November 7 for refusing to accept advice from his superiors and for continuously attempting to impose his own moral and/or political opinions upon his students.
This had led to the school receiving numerous complaints from parents. Shortly after, Schaefer unsuccessfully applied for a student teaching position at Boca Raton Community High School.
Four months later, in March 1970, Schaefer successfully applied for another teaching internship. This application was accepted, and he began teaching geography at Stranahan High School on April 2.
Contemporary progress reports indicate Schaefer performed poorly at Stranahan High, with his superiors noting both his arrogance and his "very limited" knowledge of the subject he taught.
Seven weeks after Schaefer commenced this teaching position, the principal of Stranahan High informed him the school's decision to withdraw him from the internship by May 18. His career as a student teacher formally ended the following day.
He then became a police officer.
On the afternoon of July 21, 1972, Schaefer encountered two teenage hitchhikers named Nancy Ellen Trotter (18) and Paula Sue Wells (17) while on official police duty.
He drove the pair to their intended destination of Stuart, although he cautioned the girls against the perils of hitchhiking.
Upon learning neither girl was native to Florida, and that the two intended to travel to Jensen Beach the following day, Schaefer proposed to drive them to the location.
The girls accepted his offer, and agreed to meet him at a bandstand on East Ocean Boulevard at 9:15 a.m.
The following morning, Schaefer arrived at the bandstand at the time. On this occasion, he was not wearing his uniform and driving his own vehicle, although he convinced Trotter and Wells he was still on duty.
He switched to plain clothes, undercover duties and was driving an unmarked vehicle.
Shortly after the girls entered the vehicle, Shaefer deviated from their intended route on the pretext of showing the girls an "old Spanish fort" near Hutchinson Island.
En route he again briefly lectured the girls against accepting lifts from random strangers and the dangers of being "sold into white slavery" before stopping the vehicle close to a shed deep inside a remote forest, where he handcuffed and gagged the girls.
He then took one victim to a large cypress tree close to the Indian River, tying her legs to the trunk just below her knees before binding a noose around her neck.
He affixed to a branch in such a manner as to force her to stand upon the exposed roots to counter the pressure from the noose. Schaefer then took the other victim to another tree a short distance away where she too was bound in a similar manner in which she was forced to stand upon a narrow exposed tree root as a makeshift, sloping plinth to counter the pressure from the noose around her neck. Both were informed they were to be raped and murdered.
At that moment, Schaefer received an urgent radio dispatch informing him to immediately report to the police station.
He left both girls bound and standing upon their plinths, vowing that he would soon return and exclaiming to one of his captives, "I gotta go!"
Both girls were warned not to "try to run away, 'cause I'm not going to be very far down the road", with Schaefer claiming he was to confer with the individual he intended to sell them to.
When Schaefer returned to the forest approximately two hours later, he discovered that both girls had escaped.
He immediately returned home to call his station, where he informed Sheriff Robert Crowder: "I've done something very foolish; you'll be mad at me."
Schaefer then proceeded to explain that he had decided to teach two girls "a lesson" on the risks of hitchhiking but "overdid the job".
He then proceeded to explain he had abandoned the two in the general swampland area of Hutchinson Island, not far from the Indian River.
Crowder and Lieutenant Melvin Waldron immediately proceeded to Florida State Road A1A, where close by the highway they discovered a desperate, partially-gagged teenage girl with her hands pinioned behind her back swimming via a flutter kick in a subtropical river.
As the officers slowed to a halt, they observed the girl clamber from the riverbank with sections of her jeans and blouse shredded, attempting to gesticulate for their attention.
Upon removing the gag from the girl's mouth, the officers heard her identify herself as "Nancy", sputtering her friend was somewhere in the forest.
To Trotter's relief, she was informed that a truck driver had discovered Wells staggering through the woodland in the direction towards the highway approximately forty-five minutes earlier, and that her friend was already at the police station.
His Arrest
Trotter was driven to the station, where she and Wells recounted their ordeal to Crowder.
Both girls stated they had managed to escape from their bindings by gingerly writhing against their restraints and loosening their gags with their teeth as they maintained their balance upon the exposed tree roots.
Each stated the process of freeing themselves had taken considerable time, and that they had been acutely aware that if had slipped they would have hanged.
Both girls provided a detailed description of their assailant and his vehicle, before formally identifying Schaefer as the individual responsible for their ordeal.
Although Schaefer repeated his insistence that he had simply overreacted in his efforts to demonstrate the dangers of hitchhiking to the two young women, his story was not believed.
He was dismissed from the force and placed under arrest, with Crowder instructing his officers to file charges of false imprisonment and aggravated assault against him. These charges were filed the following month.
Approximately two weeks after his arrest, Schaefer posted a $15,000 bail, thus meaning he remained at liberty prior to his scheduled November 1972 trial.
His Murders
On September 27, 1972, Schaefer abducted two teenage friends named Susan Carol Place (17) and Georgia Marie Jessup (16).
The two had encountered Schaefer while all three attended an adult education center in Fort Lauderdale.
Schaefer introduced himself to the girls as "Jerry Shepherd", claiming to hail from Colorado and stating that he intended to return there following a trip to Mexico.
He likely was interested in Jessup's fascination with the concept of reincarnation and ESP in addition to Place's love of music in order to ingratiate himself with both girls and gain their trust.
On the afternoon of their disappearance Lucille arrived home to find her daughter "straightening her room" as Jessup sat upon a chair in the bedroom.
Both introduced Lucille to a man in his twenties whom they referred to as "Jerry". Place initially informed her mother that she, Jessup and "Jerry" intended to travel from Fort Lauderdale "to the beach and play guitar".
Although Place's mother remained suspicious "Jerry" assured her his intentions were noble.
She noted the vehicle registration of his 1969 Datsun.
Place confirmed her mother's suspicions that she intended to leave home, although she tearfully assured her that she would be gone "just for a little while" and that she would remain in contact. The girls left the Place household with Schaefer at approximately 8:45 p.m.
When Place had not returned after four days, Lucille first contacted Jessup's mother, Shirley, only to learn her daughter had "run away" on September 27, and that she likewise had not heard from either girl since.
Both girls were subsequently reported missing to the Oakland Park police.
Lucille provided investigators with the vehicle registration she had noted, in addition to a physical description of the man the girls had left her home with.
The registration was traced to an entirely separate model of vehicle belonging to a St. Petersburg resident who did not resemble "Jerry Shepherd" and who had a firm alibi for the date of the girls' disappearance.
The sole Jerry Shepherd registered as living in Fort Lauderdale was also eliminated from police inquiries and by early-1973, the teenagers' disappearance had largely become a cold case.
Suspected further murders
Mary Alice Briscolina (14) and Elsie Lina Farmer (13) vanished while hitchhiking to a Commercial Boulevard restaurant from a Lauderdale-by-the-Sea motel on October 26, 1972 less than one month after Place and Jessup were last seen alive.
Their bodies were separately recovered in undergrowth close to Sunrise Boulevard, not far from the city of Plantation, early the following year both with legs spread apart.
Briscolina had been extensively beaten about the head, with one blow to her skull proving fatal.
Several of her fingernails had been torn from her body, indicating a ferocious physical struggle with her killer. Farmer had also been bludgeoned to death.
Subsequent questioning of Briscolina's friends revealed she and Farmer frequently visited a Lauderdale-by-the-Sea apartment rented by the older sister of Briscolina's boyfriend, and that an individual these acquaintances recalled as a "Gary Shepherd" had been known to Briscolina.
This individual whom several identified as Schaefer had also claimed to be an "ex-Wilton Manors police officer."
Three months later, on January 11, 1973, hitchhikers Collete Marie Goodenough and Barbara Ann Wilcox (both 19) disappeared while hitchhiking from Sioux City, Iowa, to Florida.
Both were last seen alive in Biloxi, Mississippi. Their disappearances occurred while Schaefer remained free prior to beginning his sentence for the abductions of Trotter and Wells.
He is known to have made a long-distance phone call from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to his Florida residence shortly before Goodenough and Wilcox's disappearance, and may have encountered the two while returning to Florida.
Their scattered skeletal remains were discovered close to a large tree and an orange crate in January 1977.
Both victims had been bound together with baling wire and impressions upon the tree branches coupled with the actual positioning of the orange crate indicate one or both victims had been suspended from the tree as their murderer sat or stood upon the orange crate.
Murder Charges
By May 12, investigators had gathered enough physical and circumstantial evidence to link Schaefer to nine murders and unsolved disappearances dating between 1969 and 1973.
The same month, a periodical published a list of twenty-eight murdered or missing individuals believed to be linked to Schaefer.
The majority of these individuals hailed from Florida, although two victims each hailed from Iowa and West Virginia.
At a press conference held on May 14, Chief Investigator Lem Brumley Jr. informed the media that, "in terms of scope and bizarreness", the case was the biggest he had encountered in his career to date.
On May 18, Schaefer was formally charged with first-degree murder for the killings of Place and Jessup he was held without bond pending trial.
He was transferred to Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee to undergo thirty days of psychiatric examinations before being returned to St. Lucie County jail on June 20.
The results of these examinations revealed Schaefer to be an individual suffering from paranoia, psychosis and acute sexual deviation who viewed himself as "an eliminator of women he deemed immoral", but nonetheless mentally competent to stand trial.
At a circuit court hearing on June 21, District Attorney Robert Stone successfully argued before Judge Cyrus Pfeiffer Trowbridge that Schaefer was sane, and thus competent to stand trial.
Schaefer vehemently protested his innocence, claiming the accusations against him were "a mistake" and informing one reporter he remained confident he would be exonerated.
Conviction
Following the closing arguments, the jury began their deliberations at 3:45 p.m.
They deliberated for five hours and ten minutes before returning with two verdicts of first-degree murder, which Judge Trowbridge formally announced to the court at 11:05 p.m.
Upon receipt of this verdict, Schaefer proclaimed his innocence, stating to reporters: "That's the roll of the dice. I had a good defense [but] I'm innocent."
Closing arguments to determine the sentence Schaefer should receive began on October 3, and saw the defense argue he should be involuntarily institutionalized under the 1971 Baker Act, in contrast to the prosecution's argument of life imprisonment to be served in Florida State Prison.
The following day, Schaefer was sentenced to two concurrent terms of life imprisonment.
When asked if he had anything to say prior to sentencing, Schaefer proclaimed his innocence before requesting he be sent to a psychiatric hospital as opposed to prison.
Place's mother expressed her satisfaction at Schaefer's sentence of life imprisonment as opposed to his receiving the death penalty, informing reporters: "At first I thought I'd like to see him dead, but I think people suffer more with confinement... death is the easy way out. Just as long as he's never on the streets again."
Contemporary statutes indicated the possibility of parole for Schaefer after he had served between fourteen and nineteen years' imprisonment, although his presumptive parole release date was revised in May 1979 to indicate the likelihood of parole in 2016.
Schaefer appealed his conviction, contending he had never been indicted by a grand jury and thus requesting a new trial.
This appeal was rejected in June 1974.
On December 3, 1995, Schaefer was stabbed to death on the floor of his cell.
He had been stabbed over forty times about the face, head, neck and body, with his throat also being slashed, his right eye destroyed, and several ribs fractured.
His body was discovered after a fellow inmate informed staff of his death.