Vignette: Method Killers
- cepmurphywrites
- 5 days ago
- 10 min read
By WM. Garrett Cothran
On the Sea Lion Press Forums, we run a monthly Vignette Challenge. Contributors are invited to write short stories on a specific theme (changed monthly).
The theme for the 67th contest was Slasher.
Method Killers: Dispelling the Myth of the Slasher
Introduction
The Bombay Bicycle Club is a restaurant which faces the Standford University campus, and if you look hard enough you can just make out the statue of Leland Standford and his family. You notice this as a school tradition is to put colorful hats upon Leland, his son, and his wife. Around Halloween it gets more macabre but in the general humor of most college students.
On one particular day, I was waiting for a veal meatloaf sandwich, which if one ever is in Stanford, California I highly recommend, and looking at the statues. Each one was in a black cloak with faint white masks upon their faces. Today someone would no doubt call this an homage to the Eastburrogh Killing [1] back in 1996. Of course, given that it was 1997 the entire thing seemed too close to home.
As I sat in the booth, I listened to conversations around me. As a psychologist and sociologist, this tended to be how I would get an idea or two for future research. Just as when I investigated the Satanic Panic [2] of Bakersfield, California and wrote essays on family annihilator Jeffrey MacDonald [3], it all came from some snippet from some conversation I overheard. On that day I learned about Slashers. I was familiar with them to a degree but what really took hold of me was what a man in a Standford University police uniform said.
"Kid was a high schooler and killed four people in a house party and everyone is making him into a hero."
"Another loner who snapped."
"You know the government is behind it."
"It was a cult."
Sitting there listening to the theories, conjectures, and ideas, I became aware that for only $3.99 this man, this police officer, could have gotten more information from a copy of Newsweek from the newsstand, back when they were common, than he would ever get from listening to gossip. He was, of course, speaking of William Hume aka Mr. Spooky. [4] This made me curious and inside of two weeks I had the outline for what would be this collection of essays upon Slashers, more correctly known as Method Killers. With a history in the United States ranging from the Axeman [5] to the Baker Motel Slayings [6], it seems there is a unique part of American culture that gives rise to Method Killers.
The focus will be not upon the rumors of government projects [7], dream walkers [8], immortal killing machines [9], or even ancient secret societies plotting to appease otherworldly gods [10]. Instead, it is an attempt to remove the more fanciful notions of the Method Killer and present it in a way which is easy to consumer for a layman. While the Doom Murders [11] would quickly overshadow these killings, this was the point I begin from as it is seemingly the moment that Method Killers went from an occasional event to an almost weekly occurrence.
While details of crimes and cases will be included, it must be stressed that if one seeks to learn about the gruesome details of masked killers wielding knives and axes, they should use this book more to help explain why individuals commit murders in this very specific manner. If one is seeking detailed accounts of specific Method Killers, one should look to the plethora of other materials covering it.
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The Eastburrough Killings occurred from December 20, 1996 to January 3, 1997. Seven people were killed by a Bowie Knife wielding figure wearing a simple “Mr. Spooky” Halloween costume. It was an event that shocked the nation as the details slowly were released by Eastburrough police. The killer was actually two high school seniors, William Hume (discussed below) and Stewart Norville, who enacted a revenge plot before turning on each other. At one point in the investigation Hume (discussed below) was held in police custody and interviewed but released following Norville killing another victim.
Hume and Norville are considered modernly as the start of the seeming rash of Method Killers in American society. The case also was the start of much confusion amongst the general public given the conflicting accounts, efforts by attention seeking reporters, and even the surviving victims all making claims that gave rise to the notion of the troubled loner who plotted revenge after years of rejection by his peers. Storms, Gabby (July 17, 1997). "Stab: The Truth of Eastburrough" Thomas Nelson Publishers.
In 1982, Alvin and Debbie McCuan's two daughters, coached by their step-grandmother Mary Ann Barbour, who had custody of them, alleged they had been abused by their parents, and accused them of being part of a "sex ring" that included Scott and Brenda Kniffen. The Kniffens' two sons also claimed to have been abused. No physical evidence was ever found. The McCuans and Kniffens were convicted in 1984 and given a combined sentence of more than 1000 years in prison. In 1996 the convictions were overturned and the two couples were released. This would be joined by thirty other parents convicted on similar evidence. All but two were acquitted. The last two died in prison rendering their conviction appeals moot. "Kern County settles last of molestation conviction suits". The Bakersfield Californian. Retrieved 14 December 2014.
Jeffrey Robert MacDonald (born October 12, 1943) is an American former medical doctor and United States Army captain who was convicted in August 1979 of murdering his pregnant wife and two daughters in February 1970 while serving as an Army Special Forces physician. MacDonald has always proclaimed his innocence of the murders, which he claims were committed by four intruders—three male and one female—who had entered the unlocked rear door of his apartment at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and attacked him, his wife, and his children with instruments such as knives, clubs and ice picks. MacDonald claimed the killers were masked knife wielding hippies saying, "Acid is groovy" and "Kill the Pigs."
Having occurred so close to the California Manson Murders, his claim was at first believed until evidence showed otherwise. Prosecutors and appellate courts have pointed to strong physical evidence attesting to his guilt. He is currently incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland. The MacDonald murder case remains one of the most litigated murder cases in American criminal history. "Three Murders and a 'Drug-Crazed Hippie'". The Washington Post. May 17, 1999. Revised 2021.
William Hume was born September 19, 1979 in Eastburrough, California to Hank and Patricia Hume. While the image of the brooding loner is constant, by all accounts William Hume was a handsome, popular young man with a wide circle of friends. This included Stewart Norville, whom Hume met playing soccer at the age of ten. His parents divorced when he was 14 in 1993. Based on writings this is when William Hume began his plot against his father's mistress. In 1996 Jordan Presley was found murdered with it being blamed on a local drifter. Hume then started a relationship with Niamh Presley, the daughter of his first victim and a survivor of his and Norville’s 1996 murders.
Hume and Norville traded emails, and notes explaining many of their motives. Yet these are often ignored in favor of a video showing a very agitated Hume in police custody making claims he had no friends and did not even have a girlfriend. This is untrue given that Hume lost his virginity at 15, had a string of girlfriends, and had the Senior "party house." Larsen, Richard W. (2009). William Hume: The Deliberate Stranger (Hardcover ed.). Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
The Axeman of New Orleans was an unidentified American serial killer active in New Orleans, Louisiana, and surrounding communities, including Gretna, from May 1918 to October 1919. Press reports during the height of public panic about the killings mentioned similar murders as early as 1911, but recent researchers have called these reports into question. The Axeman was never identified, and the six murders remain unsolved. Davis, Miriam C. (2017). The Axeman of New Orleans. Chicago Review Press Incorporated. I
Eugene Baker was born April 1, 1931, and was according to local authorities, "a nice friendly boy who kept to himself." He and his mother Norma Jean Baker (absolutely no relation to Marilyn Monroe) owned the Baker Motel off of Route 58 just six miles west of Bakersfield, California. His father died at an early age under circumstances; some claim point to Norma Jean killing the man for his life insurance. In 1956 Norma Jean "got sick" and was not seen in the local community of Mojave since. Eugene Baker had in fact killed his mother and using his taxidermy skills kept her "in her room" since.
Baker was a deeply disturbed man diagnosed with multiple personality disorder and manic-depressive schizophrenia by doctors at an insane asylum in 1964. He admitted to killing three women from 1957 to 1960. In or around April of 1960, Marie Samuels stopped at the Motel and was never heard from again. A private investigator sent to find Samuels was also never heard from again. Only when Alison Samuels and Sam Hume arrived seeking information would Baker be arrested next to his mummified mother's corpse. A photographer would photograph this image and solidify the image of the "sex criminal killer" for decades until the Babysitter Murders in 1978. Tresniowski, Alex; Breuer, Howard (April 19, 2010). "The Eye of the Storm: Norman Gene Baker Dies at 80". People. pp. 86–90. Retrieved July 25, 2021.
The uncontested facts are as follows. Eugene Baker killed the fiancé of Sam Hume, who went on to get a clinical psychology degree and become the primary doctor for Martin Miller. Miller killed his stepfather and two others before being declared insane and committed to the Overlook Sanitorium in Northern California. Miller in June of 1978 would escape from the asylum and go on to kill four people in his hometown of Curtis, California. William Hume's father Hank Hume is the nephew of a cousin of Dr. Sam Hume. Conspiracy theorists have taken this and twisted it into an argument that the US government had, using Dr. Hume, created a training program to turn Americans into Slashers. Some view this as an effort to make better soldiers, others to destabilize governments or communities, and still others think it is a government program that has "gotten away from their control." As with most conspiracies it depends on ignoring the facts and playing up some unseen narrative controlling the world. Haenggi, Michael (2003). Tinfoil around the Knife: The Overlook Theory. Zenith Press. p. 55.
Seemingly an offshoot of the Satanic Panic and child molestation hysteria of the 1980s. In the suburb of Milton Colorado, twenty minutes outside of Denver, four teenagers died in their sleep. Coroner reports point to drug use for one, two died from choking on their own vomit after passing out drunk, and one had committed suicide in a locked garage with the car turned on. The local coroner was tried for fraud in the death certificates but framed it as trying to protect parents from the truth of their children's deaths.
Milton was one of those "nice and safe" communities, yet it was also the site of the 1974 "Janitor Murder." A mentally challenged janitor named Edward Krug found the body of a dead child. He was arrested and found not guilty as Krug had an alibi as well as a lack of any physical evidence beyond blood on his uniform. He was later locked in the ground keeper's shack and burnt alive. His killer was never known until in 1985, the father of the teen who died of a drug overdose would admit to murdering Krug. What stuck was his statement of "Eddie is killing our children because of what we did to him." What we did to him implied the man was not acting alone. In conspiracy circles this is the "Dream Walker": a group of angry spirits preying on those who wronged them. Rick Worland, The Nightmare on Pine Road: Mass Hysteria in a Small Colorado Town (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), p. 106.
From 1980 to 1989 the United States saw eight separate murders occur at summer camps. General hysteria both led to the decline of such camps and gave rise to the idea that a single individual was responsible for all thirty-seven murders. The main narrative in the conspiracy theory is that the mother of Joshua Saunders, a young boy who had died in a boating accident, brought him back from the dead to take his revenge on the camp counsellors who did not save him. (Miranda Saunders was in fact guilty of a mass poisoning at the High Field Summer Camp in upstate New York where she killed fifteen people, two of whom were children, in 1980.)
From 1981 to 1985 another eleven people died during the Sleep-Away Slayings conducted by Horace Brittle. Brittle wore a mask and used a machete seemingly every year or so; he is of the few Method Killers whose modus operandi merged with serial killers, given he only committed his murders when the urge grew too strong to resist. He would be arrested by the Wisconsin State Police in 1985 as the Great Lakes Killer. Yet at his trial, Brittle argued he was possessed by the spirit of Joshua Saunders and thus began the conspiracy theory. Meslow, Scott (June 14, 2015). "How a skit on Saturday Night Live accidentally created a slasher conspiracy the President believes". The Week. Archived from the original on August 5, 2018. Retrieved August 19, 2018.
Martin Miller was at the Overlook Asylum before escaping to kill in 1978. The Twins Murder in 1978 and the Cabin Fever Killing in 1980 both occurred at Overlook Park. The Pi Pi Pi Sorority Killings began with killings at the Overlook Diner in 1974. One cabin in the Sleep Away Slayings was called the Overlook. All combined, it is another conspiracy theory rooted in a supposed belief that supernatural beings demand sacrifices every set number of years, and the US government and the Catholic Church arrange such killings to remain in power. Tinfoil around the Knife: The Overlook Theory. Zenith Press. p. 81.
On Tuesday April 20, 1999 the students of Columbine High School arrived eager to talk about the recent murder of a football player and a cheerleader the Friday before. As this was a week after a member of the bowling team was hit with a car many, parents and town officials included, wondered if they were seeing an Eastburrough occur in their town. Around lunch time twelfth-grade students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold chained the doors to the school shut and began moving around killing who they could with an assortment of knives, an axe, and in the case of Eric a handgun. All total they murdered nine students and one teacher. Five of the nine students killed were in the school library, where Harris and Klebold subsequently committed suicide. Twenty-one additional people were injured by gunshots, fire and stab wounds.
Called the Doom Boys in Eric Harris' journal, some blamed the violence on violent video games. In reality, Eric Harris had named himself after William Hume (who he had called “Willy Doom”). Yet the images went all over the news of the two men in their masks stalking their classmates created an image that seemed far more terrifying than what occurred in Eastburrough. Marshall Bender, Stuart (2017). Legacies of the Doom Boys. New York City: Springer Publishing. p. 48.
Wm. Garrett Cothran is the author of How Tall Is The Grass In Germany? and CSA All The Way, published by Sea Lion Press.