Twisted - Gerald and Charlene Gallegos "Sex Slave Killers" ---
Uploader: forthedishwasher ---
We have a few stock images that spring to mind when we think of serial killers. Maybe we see, when we're inclined to think of such things, a Jeffrey Dahmer-type character-quietly savage, a misfit loner who practices his unspeakable avocation under society's radar. Or maybe Ted Bundy is our archetype-a conscienceless charmer who leaves mutilated bodies as his peculiar calling card. We probably do not, however, associate married couples with our notions of serial killing.
But the fact is that couples do commit serial murders, and quite efficiently indeed. Though such murders have not been common enough to entrench themselves in the public psyche, they have occurred with some regularity over at least the past thirty years. Probably the most lurid of these cases is that of Paul and Karla Bernardo, an attractive young Canadian couple who, in the early nineties, gleefully kidnapped, drugged, raped and/or killed a number of women and carefully captured many of their perverse exploits on video tape. The furor over the Bernardo arrests and Paul Bernardo's subsequent trial coincided roughly with shocking revelations coming out of Gloucester, England regarding Fred and Rosemary West. Over many years the Wests murdered several women and girls, including some of their own children, and buried the bodies in various locations in their house, garage and garden. Also in England, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley worked as a serial killer team preying upon children.
A strictly American couple was the Sunset Strip Killer Doug Clark and his girlfriend Carol Bundy, a Los Angeles strain of the same psychopathic syndrome. And even before the sensational cases of the nineties, killer couples were at work. Alvin and Judith Ann Neelley of Georgia, had they not been quite so inept, probably would have taken a greater toll than the thirteen-year-old girl and the woman they kidnapped, raped and killed in late 1982. At least as high a toll as that exacted by Gerald and Charlene Gallego. In the late seventies, the Sacramento, California couple kidnapped and killed ten people. Most of their victims were teenage girls, lured and captured in well-planned schemes, the ultimate goal of which was to provide a steady procession of disposable "love slaves." Depending on whose story you believe, Charlene Gallego was either a reluctant facilitator of, or a willing participant in her husband Gerald's tragic extended binge. After the couple's apprehension, Charlene claimed that Gerald had beaten and intimidated her into helping him, but Gerald, for his part, insisted that she had taken part in the assaults and killings. "We had this sexual fantasy see, so we just carried it out," Charlene later recounted chillingly. "I mean, like it was easy and fun and we really enjoyed it, so why shouldn't we do it?"
Meanwhile, Gerald and Charlene were coming unglued. Gerald, who had always been quick to use his fists with Charlene, became even more violent. In September, Charlene moved out, returning to live with her parents. Gerald left town for a bit, rekindling a previous romance. But by November he had returned and Charlene agreed to see him again. On the night of November 1, they borrowed Charles and Mercedes Williams Oldsmobile, saying they were going to dinner and a movie.
Gerald and Charlene got drunk that night, and it wasn't long before Gerald announced his intention of capturing more love slaves. Charlene drove as he scanned crowds at various shopping centers for candidates. It took a while, and Charlene, realizing that the game was getting ever more dangerous, was ready to give up for the night and head home. But early on the morning of November 2, Gerald ordered her to stop the car at Arden Fair, a popular shopping center. She was shocked to see that his intended victims were not two young girls, but a man and a woman, probably college students.
Charlene pulled the Oldsmobile into a parking space and Gerald got out, approaching Craig Miller and Mary Elizabeth Sowers with a .25 caliber handgun. Hoping their acquiescence would keep their drunken assailant from hurting them, they complied. They even kept quiet when a fraternity brother of Craig's, who had attended the same dinner the couple, was leaving, leaned into the car and asked what they were doing. Just then Charlene, still in the driver's seat, began shouting at the man and pulled away quickly. Not quickly enough, though. The fraternity brother wrote down the license number of the Olds as it sped away.
Charlene drove for a while out into El Dorado County until Gerald told her to stop. He ordered Craig out of the car and shot him three times in the head, then told Charlene to drive to his apartment. When they arrived he took Mary Beth into the bedroom. When Gerald was finished assaulting Mary Beth, she drove the two out into the country again.