The Killer Across the Table by John E. Douglas

Author:John E. Douglas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

15

Power, Control, Excitement

“Joe, describe to me the feelings that you have—what they are during the sexual assault, the raping and the killing?”

As I enter into the final phase of each prison interview, I want to get the subject to summarize or affirm what was happening in his head immediately before, during, and after the crime, because the ultimate research goal since the beginning has been to correlate what was going on in the offender’s mind with the evidence left at the crime scene and body dump site, the risk level of the crime both for perpetrator and for victim, and the post-offense behavior that might be observed by those around him. I particularly want to confirm the role that fantasy plays. If I had understood Kondro correctly, there wouldn’t be much; indeed, far less than someone like Rader, who lived for the fantasy.

“For me, it was power, control, excitement, I guess.”

That certainly squared with my impressions. “Okay—that you never felt that in your own life, or something you needed then?”

“Yeah. Like I said before, it was revenge; it was a revenge type of thing. But as far as my victims are concerned, it was just the power that I had over them, you know. You get really high when you—at least I do, I get really, really high on adrenaline—when you commit a murder like that.” It wasn’t the planning; that was just something he had to do. It wasn’t being able to relive the assault afterward through souvenirs or his own memory; once it was done, it was done, and the aftermath was just a matter of hiding the body. Unlike most sexual predators I’ve encountered, Joseph Kondro seemed to live primarily in the moment.

“When you perpetrate the crime, you get this adrenaline rush, you said. But what does it feel like for you, physically, psychologically? I mean, it feels good?”

“Let me give you an example. When I was hiding Kara Rudd, that Volkswagen down there that I placed her body under, was sitting flat on the ground and I had so much adrenaline in me at that time that I actually picked that body of the car up and leaned it up against the tree by myself. And they [the police] came in and they had to use winches and all sorts of things to get that body off—I mean, to get the body of the car off her. And I just picked the thing up by myself. I am not lying when I say that. That’s how much adrenaline I had going through my body at that time. It’s like a high.”

“So if I confront you right after a crime, well, what would you look like? How would you react?”

“I would be just like myself right now.”

“You wouldn’t be hyped up, sweating?” Like most sexual killers I’ve examined.

“No, not really. I wasn’t like that when I killed my victims. I was calm as could be.”

“So if I was an investigator doing an interview with you, you wouldn’t—as

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