EXCERPT FROM THE NIGHT STALKER

"Dedicated to all who have lost their lives at the hands of serial murderers. Those who are unhappy clutch at shadows, and to give themselves and enjoyment that truth refuses them, they artfully bring into being all sorts
of illusions."

~The Marquis de Sade, Crimes of Love

CHAPTER 1: THE HUNTED AND THE HUNTERS

"Swear on Satan you won't Scream."

~The Night Stalker

The downtown area around the Los Angeles Greyhound Bus Terminal is a very dangerous place after dark. Colorful legions of thieves, muggers, fences, crackheads, junkies, alcoholics, and ten-dollar whores prowl like hungry sharks around a bleeding man. Known as skid row, people here often sleep in the filthy, vermin-infested streets where they dropped the night before. If the great, grand City of Angels had an asshole, the downtown area around the terminal would undoubtedly be it.

It was from this place that he came, nameless and nocturnal, as silent and deadly as cyanide gas. He always wore black, with the brim of a black baseball cap pulled down low; even his socks and shoes were black. Thus attired, he moved about in shadows, blending and becoming one with them, rarely seen until it was too late.

At 8:30 on the evening of June 27, 1984, he copped two grams of cocaine from Roberto, a skinny Colombia who sold pure rock from the little park with the benches and palm trees just in front of the terminal. It was a simple matter of saying, "Two grams" and shaking Roberto's hand, and all of a sudden the coke was in his hand. Roberto shook hands with dozens of people a day and was adept at passing the drug without being see. It was like a magic trick.
Tonight, the man in black was driving a stolen dark-blue Toyota. However, no one paid particular attention to what he was driving; that was his business and, for the most part, people who moved through the underground empire of degradation and crime in downtown Los Angeles mined their own business. It was a very easy place to get lost in. There were transient hotels all over that rented rooms or eight to twelve dollars a night, no questions asked, no ID necessary. The Huntington, Cecil, Rosslyn, Ford, and Frontier were some of the places he'd go and binge on cocaine for several days straight, not eating or sleeping, answerable only to his addiction and the hot winds of his psychosis.

But tonight all his money had gone for the cocaine and he'd have to make do out in the open. He got into the car, drove a few blocks, and parked. He knew the mean, stinking urine-stained streets and alleys as intimately as the palms of his large-knuckled hands. He had prearranged places where he'd go to get off without being disturbed. He got out of the car and walked to the back of an abandoned building just off Pico, anxious and in a hurry to get the drug into his system.

He removed two of the four glistening rocks from a neatly folded piece of aluminum foil and put them into a cut-down Pepsi can he carried in a little paper bag. He then spilled a tablespoon of bottled water into the can and quickly the coke melted and became one with the liquid. Moving his long, powerful fingers deftly, he took a syringe out of the bag and drew the cocaine-laden water into it. He then tied a piece of cord around the sinewy bicep of his left arm and waited for the basilic vein to swell.

It was a clear, hot summer night. He used light from a street lamp to see. Rats scurried about, not happy about his presence. When the vein stood out like a thick purple worm, he untied the cord and slowly slid in the needle, injecting the drug. The cocaine raced to his brain and limbs like a speeding train on its way to no good. He put the works and rocks back in the bag, stashed it, and hurried to the car-the drug heightening his senses, dilating his pupils.

Sweating, he began to cruise downtown, driving up and down its foul, sweltering streets-thinking about a hooker, a specific kind of sex. But he had to have money for that.

By trade he was a burglar, and he was good at his chosen profession. He knew how to get into any kind of home, even one with an alarm system, though he avoided alarms and dogs when possible. He drove in widening circles around the terminal. While he cruised, he listed to heavy metal music-Judas Priest, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Billy Idol. He found the frantic beats and often violent lyrics stimulating. To him there were hidden, important messages in the music he related to and made his own. He thought that Idol's "Eyes without a Face"-about a murderer on a bus-very much reflected what he was about, for he often fantasized about killing people he saw on the bus as he was returning downtown after dropping of a hot car.

He returned to the alley a third time, shot up the rest of the cocaine, and resumed his cruising. He saw a few street hustlers who made his slow down and wave, but none who made him want to stop.

Money! To get what he wanted he had to have money.

As he drove and watched people walking on the sidewalks of Main, Broadway, and Spring, sitting in their cars waiting for red lights, he thought about violent sex and domination. The right time and place were essential for successful murder. He'd later reveal: To be a good killer you have to plan things out carefully. You've got to be prepared in every way when the moment comes to strike; you cannot hesitate.

Under the influence of cocaine, time goes by quickly; he was beginning to come down. The euphoric rushes he'd be traveling with were leaving, replaced by an edgy, nervous anxiety, which could only be relieved with more cocaine.

He got on the 10 Freeway and drove for a few exits, got off at Alhambra, and looked for a situation he could exploit. He couldn't find one, returned to the freeway, and drove over to Glassel Park-small community inhabited by low-income working people. Its population was 42,000. He drove without directions or map, his dark eyes searching the night, looking for a place where he could get in, get what he wanted, and get out.

He parked on Chapman Street, which ran parallel to the gentle, peaceful rolling hills of Forest Lawn Memorial Park. He sat in the car a few minutes and collected himself, put on dark-colored gardening gloves, and made sure no one was watching him.

When he was satisfied he was unobserved-he had a sixth sense about such things-he got out of the car and walked along the dark green cemetery wall, staying in shadows, taking long, silent steps.

Above, an ink-black sky was punctuated with glistening stars. Light from the stars and street lamps put a kind of luminous frosting on the tombstones, all neatly lined up and well cared for. Gauze-thin, silky clouds scudded across the night, momentarily blocking out the stars. In his mind he heard the howl of a wolf, imagined he was walking through thick fog.

He stopped in front of a two-story pink apartment building, not too well cared for, fifty feet wide, a hundred fifty feet deep. It was a barracks-li ke structure with an alley on the right that ran to the back of the building. The apartments were off this alley, five on the upper level, five on the lower, connected by rusting outdoor metal stairs.

He walked to the yard, studying the odors and windows with the experienced eye of a seasoned jeweler looking through a loupe. He quickly decided not to break into one of the rear apartments. If things went wrong back there, he could be trapped. He started back toward Chapman and stopped at apartment 2, the home of seventy-nine-year-old Jennie Vincow.

Jennie had thinning hair as white as salt, was 5'9", and weighed 190 pounds. She had two sons: Jack, who lived in apartment 9, upstairs, and Manny, who resided in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.

Jennie had been living in Brooklyn with Manny until November 11, 1981. Manny had some "mental problems," Jack would later say, and he often fought with his mother. He had even struck her on several occasions. Jack thought it best if he brought his mother out to sunny California, where he could watch over he and get her what she needed. She had a very low electrolyte count and was always tired; just the act of walking was strenuous for her.

On this night her window was open, but there was a screen covering it. He made sure he wasn't being observed. A tall, bushy palm tree at the front of the building blocked any light from the street. He had no idea who lived in apartment 2, but it didn't matter. He'd make it his, neutralize whoever was inside and take what he wanted. He'd dominate; he'd control.

He was certain that Satan, archenemy of Christ, of all things good, was traveling with him, and that Satan would protect him so long as he stayed evil in his heart and showed no mercy.

The gloves made getting the screen off difficult, and he had to remove one. He rarely took off his gloves, but tonight he was wired and jammed with the coming down of the cocaine, and his motor movements were off.

Carefully he pried the screen loose, silently put it down inside the apartment, and opened the window ever so slowly. He put his glove back on, grabbed the sill, and hoisted himself up and into the apartment in two easy movements, cat-like, as silent as the turning of a page. Inside, he got down low and let his eyes adjust to the dark.

It was, he could quickly discern, a one-bedroom, and as soon as his eyes registered the poverty in which Jennie Vincow lived, he knew he'd come to the wrong place. It made him angry. Furious. Anger was a very difficult emotion for him to control.

Staying low, on the balls of his feet, he walked toward the bedroom and made out the form of Jennie Vincow, sleeping deeply under a brown-and-white plaid blanket, her breathing slow and labored. When he was sure she was alone, he took out a penlight and looked around the apartment. There was just about nothing worth stealing there, except, of course, Jennie Vincow's soul...

He spotted a suitcase at the foot of the bed and silently went for it, hoping there might be something in it he could sell-turn into currency, cocaine and sex. He open it and found wrinkled clothing. There was a dresser against the wall. Soundlessly he went through its drawers, but again he found nothing of value-no jewelry, no hidden cash. He stared at the sleeping form of Jennie Vincow, hate and anger welling up inside him, contorting his face into an animal-like snarl. He took out a razor-sharp six-inch hunting knife, approached the bed, and stood there, his heart now beating rapidly. He could feel hot blood pulsating at his temples and at the backs of his eyes.

Sexually excited by the prospect of what he was going to do, he raised the knife and plunged the full length of the blade into Jennie Vincow's chest. She woke up screaming; he kept stabbing her. She tried to fight him off, but that was impossible: he slammed his hand over her moth, raised her chin, and stabbed, then slashed her throat from ear to ear, cutting so deeply he nearly severed her head. Her body shook violently. She choked and gagged on her blood. The last image her dying eyes registered was of him-standing over her, killing her.

He pulled down the blanket and stabbed her deeply in the chest three more times, sexually charged by the plunging of the blade, propelled and spurred on by the certainty that he was one with Satan-one with evil.

Fascinated by what he'd just done-the blood, her gaping wounds, his omnipotent power-he excited himself for nearly an hour, drinking glass after glass of water, the small, hot, humid room filling with the fetid smell of blood, sweat and death.

Finished, he washed his hands in the bathroom sink and left the apartment as soundlessly as he'd come, taking a small portable radio. Quickly, though not so fast that he'd draw attention to himself, he made his way back to the stolen car, got into it, and drove toward the corner.

It was now 5 a.m. and dawn was slowly filling a sad, tranquil sky. The horizon in the east was a deep indigo above big, puffy clouds that were stitched with the fiery threads of the rising sun. It was the time filmmakers call the "magic hour," when there is no glare in the air and color and dimension are sharper and more defined. People on their way to early-morning jobs. Sparrows and finches chirped in trees that dotted the cemetery and lined the block.

He came to a stop sign on the corner of Weldon Avenue. He was going to run it, but something made him slow down; something held him back. As he started out again, an LAPD black-and-white came to a slow stop on the corner to his immediate right. His heart rolled over at the sight of the cruiser. The officer watched him pull away just half a block from where Vincow had been murdered. He had her blood all over his clothes and was in a stolen car with stolen property.

But Lucifer was with him, and he drove one way as the police cruiser took a left and moved in the opposite direction.

*

At 1:20 that afternoon, ten hours after the killer had left, Jack Vincow went to visit his mom. It was his custom to look in on her about that time every day. She like Chicken McNuggets, and he'd gone and bought her some. He wanted to surprise her with them.

Jack was a pharmacist who had recently been laid off. The air conditioner in his car hadn't been working properly and he'd had it fixed that morning. Jennie like to take rides in the cool car, and Jack thought today he'd take her for one after she'd had her McNuggets.

As soon as he got to the front door, he noticed the window screen was missing. Strange. He turned and looked for it but couldn't find it. He took out his keys to open the door. He expected it to be locked an didn't want to make his mom get up, but the door was open. That, too, registered as peculiar; his mother always kept the door locked. Chapman Street was not in a good area, and there were often break-ins and burglaries. As Jack entered his mother's apartment, he saw the screen sitting in the middle of the living room floor. There were blood smears on the walls, and the house had been ransacked.

"Mother...Mother, are you here? Mother?" he called into the ominous silence. There was no response. With trepidation he walked toward Jennie's bedroom, a feeling of dread welling up in him. The light in the bedroom was not good. Jennie was covered by a blanket. H grabbed it, lifted it, and saw the terrible destruction-the gaping, obscene wounds, the nearly detached head. He turned and ran from the apartment, yelling, "My mother's been murdered! Call the police!" He went straight to the managers of the building, a married couple named Laui and Rene Trinque, and banged on their door, calling out, "My mother's been murdered. Oh, God, please call the police!"

Rene hurried to the phone and dialed 911. Jack thought he'd better call, too. He ran up to his apartment, dialed 911, and repeated, "Someone's murdered my mother; please come quick!" He gave them the address and was told a car had already been dispatched.

He returned to the front of the building to wait for the authorities. It was now 1:40 p.m., hot and sticky. Up and down the block word spread quickly that there had been a murder, and a crowd was gathering. Jack walked back and forth, tears streaming down his face, sobbing, brokenhearted. He returned to his mother's apartment, opened the drapes, looked about for a few seconds, then went back outside.

The first police officer to get there was Lt. Buster Altizer. He'd been the watch commander at the LAPD Northeast Station on North San Fernando Road when the call, a 187-a murder-had come in over the radio. The station was four blocks from Chapman, and Lt. Altizer was there in minutes. He parked out front and reluctantly got out of his air-conditioned car; it was a suffocating 96 degrees. Jack Vincow approached.
"Police?" he asked.

"That's right."

"I called; my mother's been murdered."

"Was it you who found the body, sir?"

"Yes...in her apartment, in the house. I'll show you."

Lt. Altizer followed Jack, dazed, round-shouldered, still crying, to the doorway of apartment 2. Jack did not want to go back in. He couldn't take seeing his mother like that again, he said.

"She's in the bedroom," he told Altizer, and pointed.

As soon as Altizer entered the apartment he could smell the murder; human death has a very distinct odor, one never forgotten once experienced. Slowly he made his way to the bedroom and saw the ransacking, the blood on the walls. He approached the bed, took in the destruction, the glassy stare in her eyes, and knew immediately this was a murder, a particularly sadistic, very brutal one. His job now was to contact LAPD Homicide and to seal the apartment. He went back outside and called for back-up and Homicide people. He then used yellow crime-scene tape he'd gotten out of the trunk of his car and cordoned off the alley and apartment. He asked Jack a few questions that jack answered as best he could, but he was distraught, and talking coherently was difficult.

Seasoned homicide detectives Jesse Castillo and his partner, Mike Wynn, were the next to arrive. Altizer took them into the apartment. They saw the screen on the floor, the ransacking, and knew what it meant; they noted blood in the bathroom sink and surmised the killed had washed blood from his hands.

As they entered the bedroom, they took note of a dresser in the room with its drawers open and things strewn all over. They moved closer and studied Jennie Vincow's wounds. Homicide detectives all over the world are a hard lot; not much fazes them. But even for a homicide man, it was very unpleasant to see the murder of an elderly person.

Hard-jawed, cold-eyed, Castillo called for finger print people, photographers, criminalists, and someone from the coroner's office. Before the body could be disturbed in any way, it was legally mandated that a representative of the Los Angeles Coroner's Office arrived, the blanket covering Jennie's body was removed and bagged as evidence.

Now, for the first time, they all saw that Jennie had been stabbed repeatedly. There were wounds on her hands, indicating that she had tried to defend herself, to ward off the stabbing thrusts. On her back, neck, arms, and posterior, Hererra noted lividity (coagulations of blood settling due to gravity). She had been wearing a blue nightgown and it was pushed up over her waist; he noted the crotch area of her girdle had been cut out and that there was a deep stab wound on her left inner thigh. Rigor mortis was present. Hererra used a scalpel and made an incision in Jennie Vincow's rib cage, then put a cooking-type thermometer into her liver. Its temperature when compared to the air temperature would give the approximate time of death. Her liver temperature was 94 degrees and the room temperature was 81 degrees, tentatively indicating she had been dead between eight and ten hours. Jennie was placed in a black body bag and taken to the county morgue for autopsy.

It was LAPD fingerprint expert Reynaldo Clara's job to find any latent prints the killer might have left. He arrived and dusted all over the house, tables, doorknobs, dresser drawers-anywhere there were smudges of blood-but he didn't find a single print. Clara and Castillo decided to ninhydrin the bathroom. Its surfaces were far too smooth for the powders to be effective in raising prints. Ninhydrate is a chemical that is sprayed on floors and walls. Its fumes attach to any prints, which can then be removed with lifting tape. But the chemical is very strong and toxic, and the process would not be done, it was further decided, until 9:30 a.m. the following morning.

Last, Clara focused his attention on the window, the probable source of entry. Wearing gloves, he took the screen into the bright California sunlight so he could see better. He dusted the screen and white fingerprint powder, finding four prints, three of them partially discernible, one smudged.

"Bingo!" he called out, the other detectives and tech people came over. He showed them what he'd found-perhaps the clue that would solve the case. Clara lifted the prints with a special tape and glued the tape to a lifting card. He proceeded to dust the window itself and found two more prints, one usable, the other too smudged to be helpful, but he had found four reasonably good prints that could be used to identify the killer. It would take years for fingerprint experts to manually compare these partials with the millions of prints on file with LAPD. Before they could be of any use to them, a suspect would be needed to compare them to.

Dets. Castillo and Wynn questioned whoever they could find home at the Chapman apartment building, but no one had seen or heard anything. They searched the alley, a garbage dumpster out front, the street, the curbs, and the sidewalks for the knife, but couldn't find it. Detectives even climbed the cemetery wall and looked for it there-thinking the killer might have thrown it over the wall as he departed; they found nothing but some coins, dead flowers, used condoms, and empty beer bottles.

The following morning, LAPD fingerprint experts returned and sprayed the bathroom with ninhydrin. No additional prints were discovered.

At 11 a.m. an autopsy was done on Jennie Vincow by Dr. Joseph Cogan. He took particular note of the unusual wound to Jennie's neck: it was actually two deep stab wounds, one on either side of the windpipe, connected by a very deep slash. Her murderer, Dr. Cogan knew, had experience at killing and was good at it. Beyond that, however, he could offer little to further the investigation.

Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals connected
to this story.