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Jerome Henry Brudos (31 January 1939 - 28 March 2006) was an American serial killer and necrophile who killed and raped (in that order) four women in Oregon from 1968 - 1969. He was known as The Shoe Fetish Slayer due to his fetish for women's shoes. He would often steal shoes from women and then masturbate to them, doing this with all four of his victims.
Biography
Brudos was born in Webster, South Dakota. He was subjected to regular physical and emotional abuse by his mother, who had wanted a girl, causing him to develop an extreme hatred of women. From the age of five he had an obsession with women's shoes after playing with a pair of stilettos in a junkyard, developing into a sexual fetish in his adult years. He often stole shoes from women and reportedly attempted to steal his first grade teacher's shoes. He also had a fetish for women's underwear and would steal them from his neighbours.
As a teenager Brudos often stalked local women, beat or choked them into unconsciousness and stole their shoes to masturbate to them. He was eventually arrested at age 17 for abducting a young woman and attempting to rape her at knifepoint and was committed to the Oregon State Hospital, where it was determined that his sexual fantasies revolved around his deep-seated hatred of women. He was released from the hospital after nine months.
In 1961 Brudos married a woman named Darcie, with whom he fathered two children. He asked her to do the housework naked except for a pair of stilettos and kept stolen women's shoes and underpants (and, for a time, his victim's bodies) in a garage that his wife was not allowed to enter without announcing she was doing so over an intercom. He also went through a transvestite phase where he would dress in women's clothes. After committing a murder he would masturbate while wearing high-heeled shoes.
Between 1968 and 1969, Brudos murdered four women and attempted to attack two others. His first victim, 19-year-old Linda Slawson, was an encyclopaedia saleswoman who knocked on his door on 26 January 1968 while he was home alone. Brudos lured her down into his basement, knocked her out with a wooden plank and strangled her to death. He dressed her body in different clothes and shoes and masturbated over it before cutting off her left foot, which he used to model his collection of high-heeled shoes, and dumping the rest of the body in the Willamette River.
On 26 November 1968 Brudos picked up 23-year-old Jan Susan Whitney, strangled her to death and raped her corpse. He kept the body hanging in his garage for several days, during which time he had sex with it multiple times and photographed it. He also cut off one of her breasts and used it to mold a paperweight. Afterwards he disposed of the body in the Willamette, along with Slawson’s decaying foot. On 27 March 1969 he abducted 18-year-old Karen Sprinker and brought her back to his house, where he forced her to pose for photos dressed in different shoes and undergarments before raping her, strangling her to death and raping her again afterwards. He cut off her breasts to mold them before disposing of her body in the river. On 23 April 1969 Brudos abducted, killed and raped 22-year-old Linda Salee before dumping her in the river. He also tried and failed to abduct two more women, Sharon Wood and Gloria Smith.
In May 1969 the bodies of Salee and Sprinker were pulled from the river by a fisherman. Police surveyed students at a nearby university campus about suspicious men and were pointed to Brudos, who had been trying to pick up students. Police’s suspicions were heightened when Brudos gave a false address during questioning. Police searched Brudos’s house and found photos of Whitney, Sprinker and Salee and copper wires similar to those used to tie Sprinker and Salee. Brudos was arrested and confessed to the murders, as well as that of Slawson. However, as he had not photographed Slawson and her body was never found there was not enough evidence to verify his claims to have killed her and he was only charged with the murders of Whitney, Sprinker and Salee. He pleaded guilty and received three life sentences.
Brudos died in prison from lung cancer on 28 March 2006. At the time of his death he had served 37 years, making him the longest serving inmate in Oregon state history.