Serial Killer's Sex Tapes Shock Officers
Teresa
BY BILL BRYAN
Of the Post-Dispatch
© 2002 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
06/18/2002 08:37 PM
Police on the serial killer task force braced themselves before playing
videotapes discovered in the basement of the home of suspected serial killer
Maury T. Travis. Now their boss is ordering them to get counseling to help
deal with what they saw.
In one tape, law enforcement sources said, Travis stands over a kneeling
woman. She is heavily bound with rope, and handcuffed. Suddenly, Travis
grabs a belt and wraps it around her neck.
Then, holding each end of the belt, he snaps his hands apart, cinching the
strap tight. The woman goes limp. Travis looks up and declares: "That's
Number One!"
Police don't know for sure whether the woman died. They don't know who she
is. But the chilling tape, found hidden in Travis' house in Ferguson,
appears to be the strongest suggestion yet of what happened to 10 or more
women that detectives think he may have murdered, sources close to the
investigation said.
Travis, 36, who apparently turned the basement of his ranch-style house in
the 1000 block of Ford Drive into a torture chamber, committed suicide in
jail June 10, without admitting to the crimes or revealing their extent.
St. Louis police Capt. Harry Hegger, who heads the team of detectives
investigating Travis, refuses to acknowledge details of the tapes.
"They're very disturbing," he told a reporter. "That's all we're saying
about them."
St. Louis Police Chief Joe Mokwa, who also won't divulge the contents,
confirmed that he ordered all his officers who saw them to get psychological
help.
"People recognize the inherent danger of police work, but real emotional
trauma can be an issue in the sordid knowledge gained from investigations
like this one," Mokwa explained. "I appreciate what police officers endure
in a search for the truth."
Sources said the tapes may show another murder too, plus scenes of Travis
having rough, bondage-related sex with four or five other women.
Only one of the women shown on tape has been identified. She is Betty James,
who was found dead in a crime for which Travis was charged with kidnapping
shortly before his own death. James' killing is not shown on the tapes.
James was 46 when her body was found May 23 last year in an alley at the
rear of the 5700 block of Kennerly Avenue in St. Louis. She had been bound
with duct tape and beaten.
Prosecutors charged Travis in a federal complaint this month with kidnapping
James and a second woman after tires on a car used by Travis matched the
tread of an imprint on James' leg.
While investigators may never know how many victims there were, Hegger said
the best estimate at this time is at least 10 but fewer than 20.
In a letter to the Post-Dispatch that was eventually traced by police to
Travis' computer, the author indicated he had killed 17 women.
"We're not prepared to set a number," Hegger said.
Travis, known as a polite, attentive waiter who lived alone, has been linked
to the deaths of seven prostitutes and an attack on an eighth, who survived
with brain damage. He also was connected to the unidentified remains of a
woman found along Highway 67 in St. Charles County. She was found by police
using directions sent with the letter to the newspaper.
Investigators also are interested in Travis in connection with the remains
of three unidentified women found along major highways in the Metro East
area.
Police sources said they have added the death of Mary Shields, 61, to the
list of victims tentatively attributed to Travis. Her body was found July
31, 2000, dumped in chest-high weeds at the end of Piggott Avenue, near 20th
Street in East St. Louis. She had been strangled.
Investigators previously had no suspect in Shields' killing but have come to
believe it fit Travis' style.
The bodies of four prostitutes had been found nearby earlier in 2000, but
detectives did not believe Shields' case was related. A man from East St.
Louis, Donald E. Younge, was recently charged with first-degree murder in
three of those other four cases, and he is considered a suspect in the
fourth. Younge and Travis are not believed to have any connections.
Hegger said investigators are carefully categorizing and archiving all DNA
samples so that bodies found can be identified.
Detectives said they believe most or all of Travis' victims were killed in
his basement.
Sources said a woman who had fled Travis' home naked on July 4 now cannot be
located, leading investigators to wonder if she later became another murder
victim.
In that incident, Ferguson police were called to Travis' home and wound up
charging him with assault under a city ordinance. Travis claimed the woman
had robbed him; neither Travis nor the woman would press charges, sources
said.
Reporter Bill Bryan:
E-mail: bbr...@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8950
tiny dancer
"Teresa" <ctfedor@at&tbi.com> wrote in message
news:QKRP8.249600$cQ3.11680@sccrnsc01...
> Suspect's sex tapes shock officers
> BY BILL BRYAN
> Of the Post-Dispatch
> © 2002 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
>
> 06/18/2002 08:37 PM
Very disturbing.......wouldn't like to see those tapes either.
td