Jerome Brudos: The Shoe Fetish Slayer
Overview
Jerome "Jerry" Henry Brudos was an American serial killer, rapist, and necrophile known as "The Lust Killer" and "The Shoe Fetish Slayer." Between 1968 and 1969, he murdered at least four young women in Oregon. An electronics technician who appeared to be a quiet family man, Brudos harbored dark, lifelong fetishes for women's shoes and undergarments that escalated into abduction, murder, and post-mortem mutilation. He kept gruesome trophies from his victims, including severed feet and breasts, and took photographs of them before and after their deaths. His crimes came to an end in 1969 after a failed abduction attempt led police to his Salem home, where they uncovered a house of horrors. He confessed to the murders and was sentenced to three consecutive life terms in prison, where he died of cancer in 2006.
Early Life and Background
Jerome Henry Brudos was born on January 31, 1939, in Webster, South Dakota, the younger of two sons. His mother, Eileen, had desperately wanted a daughter and was openly disappointed with having another son, subjecting Jerry to emotional abuse and neglect throughout his childhood while doting on his older brother. This maternal rejection is believed to be a foundational element of his later hatred toward women.
Brudos's infamous shoe fetish began at age five when he found and tried on a pair of women's high-heeled shoes from a junkyard. When his mother discovered him with the shoes, she reacted with fury, beat him, and burned them in front of him. This act of repression seemed to intensify his obsession. Soon, he was stealing women's underwear from neighbors' clotheslines. As a teenager, his behavior escalated to stalking women, choking them into unconsciousness, and stealing their shoes.
At 17, Brudos was arrested for abducting a young woman, forcing her to undress, and photographing her. He was subsequently institutionalized at the Oregon State Hospital for nine months, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and found to have fantasies involving revenge against women. Despite this, he was deemed fit for release, graduated high school in 1957, and later became an electronics technician. In 1961, he married a 17-year-old woman, Darcie, and they had two children, settling into a suburban life in Salem, Oregon, that masked his escalating violent fantasies.
The Murders
Brudos's fantasies turned to murder in 1968. He killed four women over a 16-month period, luring them into his car or home, where he would strangle them.
His first victim was Linda Slawson, a 19-year-old encyclopedia salesperson. On January 26, 1968, she knocked on Brudos's door in Portland. He feigned interest, lured her inside, and then bludgeoned and strangled her to death in his garage. He kept her body for several days, dressing it in his collection of women's lingerie. He later confessed to police that he amputated one of her feet to model a high-heeled shoe before throwing her body into the Willamette River. Her body was never recovered.
On November 25, 1968, Janis "Jan" Whitney, 23, was stranded after her car broke down near Salem on her way home from a Thanksgiving visit. Brudos stopped, offering assistance, but instead strangled her. He took her body back to his home, where he engaged in acts of necrophilia. Her car was found abandoned at a rest stop on Interstate 5.
Karen Sprinker, a 19-year-old student, was abducted at gunpoint from a Meier & Frank department store parking lot in Salem on March 27, 1969. Brudos took her to his home, where he forced her to pose for photographs in various outfits from his collection before raping and strangling her. He then dismembered her body, keeping her breasts as trophies. Her body was later found in the Long Tom River on May 12, 1969.
The final victim was 22-year-old Linda Salee. On April 23, 1969, Brudos abducted her from the Lloyd Center parking lot in Portland, possibly by impersonating a security guard. He took her to his garage, strangled her, and performed sexual acts on her corpse over a 24-hour period. He made plaster molds of her breasts but did not keep them. He discarded her body in the Willamette River, where it was discovered on May 10, 1969.
The Victims
- Linda Kay Slawson, 19 — January 26, 1968, in Portland, Oregon. An aspiring and hardworking young woman, she was selling encyclopedias door-to-door when she was murdered. Her body was never found.
- Janis Susan Whitney, 23 — November 25, 1968, near Salem, Oregon. She was returning from a Thanksgiving gathering when her car broke down, and she was abducted while seeking help.
- Karen Elena Sprinker, 19 — March 27, 1969, in Salem, Oregon. A chemistry student at Oregon State University, she was on her way to meet her mother for lunch when she was kidnapped.
- Linda Dawn Salee, 22 — April 23, 1969, in Portland, Oregon. A secretary and part-time student, she was planning her wedding and had gone to a shopping mall to buy a gift for her boyfriend.
Investigation and Capture
The investigation into the disappearances was hampered by a lack of evidence connecting the cases. A break came from Brudos's own recklessness. In April 1969, he attempted to abduct two different young women on consecutive days. On April 22, a student at Oregon State University, Gloria Smith, reported that a man had tried to force her into his car. She provided a description of the man and his distinctive vehicle.
An OSU student who heard about the attack remembered seeing a man who fit the description and gave police a partial license plate number. The police traced the car to Brudos. On May 29, 1969, Gloria Smith identified Brudos in a lineup, giving police probable cause for his arrest and a warrant to search his home.
The search of Brudos's house and garage uncovered a horrifying collection of evidence. Police found thousands of photos of his victims, both alive and dead, posed in lingerie. They discovered a severed human foot in his freezer, a preserved breast on his mantelpiece that his wife believed was a paperweight, and plaster molds he had made of his victims' bodies. Faced with the overwhelming evidence, Brudos confessed in detail to the murders of all four women.
Trial and Sentence
On June 4, 1969, Jerry Brudos was formally charged with three counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Jan Whitney, Karen Sprinker, and Linda Salee. He was not charged with Linda Slawson's murder because her body had not been recovered. He initially pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. However, after extensive psychiatric evaluations concluded that he was legally sane and understood the difference between right and wrong, his defense strategy crumbled.
Three days before his trial was set to begin, on June 27, 1969, Brudos changed his plea to guilty on all three counts of murder. He was sentenced by Marion County Circuit Judge Val D. Sloper to three consecutive life sentences, ensuring he would never be eligible for parole. He was incarcerated at the Oregon State Penitentiary.
Aftermath and Imprisonment
Brudos's wife, Darcie, was initially charged with aiding and abetting in Karen Sprinker's murder based on a neighbor's testimony, but she maintained her innocence and was acquitted in October 1969. She divorced Brudos in 1970, changed her name, and moved away with their two children, obtaining a court order to prevent him from contacting them.
Jerry Brudos spent the remainder of his life in prison. At the time of his death, he was the longest-serving inmate in the Oregon prison system. He continued to indulge his fetish, ordering and keeping catalogs of women's shoes and underwear in his cell. He was reportedly assaulted by other inmates but refused to identify his attackers. His parole was denied in 1999, with the board assuring the victims' families he would never be released. On March 28, 2006, Brudos died of liver cancer at the age of 67. His body went unclaimed.
