Above: the corner of Fox Road and Grayson Drive in the fall
Did more than one predator strike three separate times—including a murder—on Fox Road over the course of 12 years in the 1980s and 1990s? Or was this all this evil the work of a single person?
In Part
32 of this cold case series I recounted a rape and an attempted rape on Fox
Road in 1982—across the street from where the skeleton of 15-year-old Tammy
Lynds (pictured below) was found in 1994.
The individual
or individuals responsible for these three attacks escaped justice. Indeed, the
two Fox Road victims in 1982 described a perpetrator who looked much different
than the 19-year-old who was convicted of three other rapes in the area during
that summer and fall.
The fact
remains that police believed there were two men responsible for a total of five
rapes and two assaults in the neighborhood that year. The brunet or dark brown-haired
predator who was sentenced to 8-10 years bore no resemblance to the attacker on
Fox Road, who was blond-ish and had a “stocky” build.
“The suspect
does not generally fit the description of the rapist we’re looking for,” said
Crime Prevention Bureau Sgt. Thomas Kelly shortly after the dark brown-haired man
was arrested. Police said they were still seeking someone who was blond—or had
dirty blond or light brown hair. His other physical characteristics: he stood
between 5-foot-7 and six feet tall, and he was in his late teens or early 20s.
Then, a month
after police released this description, a blond, stocky teen was arrested for
the second attack on Fox Road. But he was never prosecuted.
It was my hope
that by vividly describing the attempted rape of the 14-year-old girl on Fox
Road in this blog I would prompt others to come forward with information about
other possible attacks involving this dirtbag. That hasn’t happened. But a
woman from the neighborhood did report a bizarre incident in the area involving
a guy who was both blond and stocky.
She remembers
one summer day in 1982, when she and her friend, both 17, were walking on the
dirt road that connects the North Branch Parkway with the back of the Gateway
Village apartments—a popular pedestrian cut-through that cars couldn’t access
because its entrance at North Branch Parkway was blocked by the city with a log.
It was still a convenient walking route because you could march through
the woods to the Breckwood stores, including Louis & Clark and Dairy Mart,
instead of going on the much longer treks on side streets or on Breckwood
Boulevard.
“He drove by us
going toward the log, but I don't think we were really paying attention,” she
said. “Then we were sitting on the grassy side of the dirt road where the
Gateway Village apartments are. He drove by again, and I remember thinking
it was weird. Then, a few minutes later, he was standing at the side of
the road across from us where the woods were. I don’t know where his car was.
He was in his underwear.”
“What the
hell?” whispered her friend. “Do you see that?”
Both girls
agreed it was definitely time to leave. “He wasn't facing us, but was sideways
to us. He wasn't looking at us—he was looking straight ahead. We kind of
pretended we didn't see, and walked quickly back toward the stores.”
Her memory is
admittedly a bit hazy. “I am not sure if we went to Louis & Clark, or where
exactly. I don't remember if a police car was there or if we asked someone
to call.” She recalled both of them talking to a police officer, who proceeded
to drive them around to see if they could find the freak. No dice—he had disappeared.
“Then he drove us toward home. We happened to see my friend’s oldest
brother, who was on the police force, driving in the opposite
direction. The police officer stopped and waved at him. Her brother
stopped and saw us in the back seat and did not look happy seeing his sister
and I in the car, but then the officer told him what happened.”
She can’t
remember what his car looked like. “I knew cars back then, and I'm pretty sure
I would have known the make and model, and I would have told the police,” she
said. “I would say the guy had blond hair, not short, but not as long as
shoulder-length. I don't think he was a teenager. I had the impression
that he was older than that, maybe in his 20s. I think ‘stocky’ would be a
good description. Anyway, nothing ever came of it.”
Stripping himself down to his underwear wasn’t exactly the MO of the Fox Road rapist, who had been fully clothed in his assaults and therefore better equipped to make a clean getaway. But who can predict what a pervert is going to do? Maybe it was the same guy, and he knew that if he attacked two girls simultaneously he would have been taking the obvious chance that one of them could escape and run for help, so he decided to just freak them out? He was certainly not averse to risk-taking behavior—dragging victims into the Fox Road woods in broad daylight was an incredibly bold move, but it’s possible he chose his targets somewhat carefully.
However,
Rosemary (not her real name), the victim of the second Fox Road attack on
November 28, 1982, thinks her ordeal might have been a spontaneous act. I had
mentioned to her that it was odd he wore such identifiable clothing as matching
camouflage jacket and pants—which the police ended up finding in his room—and
that he kept his glasses on knowing that they could be knocked off during a
struggle. “It was probably not a planned event for him,” she reasoned. “The
opportunity presented itself.”
Perhaps. But if
I were a betting man, I’d wager all of it was premeditated—that he went out on
both those days with the intention of victimizing a woman, or a girl, at the
corner of Grayson Drive and Fox Road. Methuen Street, where the blond guy in
the second attack was walking from, is surrounded by woods, which is an ideal
place to observe the intersection unnoticed, especially if one is dressed in
camouflage.
Strolling from
Methuen Street, he crossed Grayson Drive onto Fox Road and pulled Rosemary into
the woods on the corner about 10 feet from where the Tammy Lynds banner is now.
When two Good
Samaritans stopped his assault on her, he ran through the woods up Fox Road
toward North Branch Parkway. Rosemary thought he could have been heading toward
the Colonial Estates apartments because she later learned that his family
apparently had once lived there, so he might have known the layout of the
buildings and grounds well. Beacon Terrace is the road that leads into the
apartments, but to get to it, the route along the North Branch Parkway would
have left him exposed. On the other hand, there are other ways to access the
complex, which is next to Mary Lynch School.
“I do not know
if he crossed at North Branch Parkway and continued through the Mary Lynch
schoolyard and into the woods there on the side of the school that leads to the
apartments, or if he crossed further up the road,” she said. “If it were me and
I was trying to run and hide, it would have been the first way. He could have
gone behind the school and no one would have seen him go to the apartments that
way. He wouldn’t have had to run to Beacon at all that way.”
* * * * * * *
After Rosemary’s
incident, the rapes suddenly ceased. Maybe the blond rapist was “scared
straight,” but we often hear that’s not usually how it works with sex
offenders. It’s presumed that these folks are difficult to treat and likely to
reoffend—society has a long-held assumption that their recidivism is
inevitable. That’s why there are sex offender registries. The truth is that the
recidivism of sex offenders is difficult to measure. Can a leopard change its
spots? Estimates of rapists’ recidivism rates are 14 percent at five years
after a conviction, 20 percent at 10 years, and 24 percent at 15 years. Nevertheless,
these numbers are undoubtedly low because relatively few sexual offenses are
reported to authorities (20 to 30 percent of them). And for every 100 rapes and
assaults of women and girls reported to police, just 18 lead to an arrest, and
fewer than 7 percent of them lead to convictions, according to a UMass
Lowell study.
With that being
said, the guy who was arrested for the second Fox Road assault, judging by his
Facebook profile, seems like a normal, loving family man. And maybe he is:
“desistance” is a relatively new term to those who study sexual aggression, and
it refers to a former predator “aging out” of offending. Stable jobs and
relationships will do that to sex offenders—sometimes even without therapeutic
assistance. Lo and behold, they finally figure out on their own that rape and
molestation are not good things to do, or if they lack a moral compass, they
are dissuaded from such behavior because it could land them in prison.
For all we know
this guy reformed. He even has a decent career, according to his LinkedIn
profile, and obviously being busy with a wife and kids would make it difficult,
but not impossible, to go out and victimize women and girls—although he didn’t
get married until a few years after the Tammy Lynds murder, so I guess it’s
plausible he might have acted out his dark side on Fox Road again in 1994.
A true
psychopath can certainly appear normal, lead a double life, and return to the
scene of his crime(s), reminisce, and strike again. Tammy’s skull wasn’t
fractured, so she might have been stabbed or strangled, and let’s not forget
that in 1982 the man held a knife to Rosemary’s throat to get her to stop
struggling.
Still, it’s
important to remember that this knife-wielding man’s guilt was never proven in
court, and it’s possible he wasn’t responsible for the other Fox Road attack
either. But I don’t believe in coincidences, especially since the incidents
occurred two months apart, and there was also the guy in his underwear behind Gateway
Village who also matched his general description.
* * * * * * *
I still think
it was someone in Tammy’s orbit of friends and acquaintances who killed her and
not a stranger. I have absolutely no evidence linking the blond rapist to Tammy’s
murder. So I’m afraid I jumped into a rabbit hole and I brought you in with me,
but I just can’t seem to get this blond guy out of my mind. The chance that he
graduated from molestation to murder certainly can’t be ignored—yes, even 12
years later. I stare at his yearbook and Facebook photos and try to imagine
what went on in his head to commit such savagery as an adolescent—and wonder if
he had truly gotten the evil out of his system in 1982.
An
FBI study estimated that 10-15 percent of serial rapists they interviewed
said they revisited the crime scenes. Did he do this more than a decade later
on a summer night and happened to see Tammy walking by? After all, it looks
like he returned to Fox Road to brutalize someone again two months after the
first rape.
We’ll probably
never know the answer, but I would love to see the case file of the attack on
Rosemary to see why police immediately fingered this guy—and if it’s truly
farfetched to think that a teen using a knife to quiet a victim during a rape
attempt might, as an adult, be capable of killing a girl a dozen years later on
the same road.
Rosemary stopped going to court back then—and the charges were dropped—because she was traumatized by describing her experience in detail. She didn’t want to relive the incident. Did HE? That’s the question.
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