Jerome Brudos: The Shoe Fetish Slayer

In the psychoanalytic sense, fetishism is considered to be a disorder in which a person can only become sexually aroused by a particular object. The object is usually associated with the opposite sex. The most common preferred objects among fetishists include shoes, underwear and stockings. Other fetishists are aroused by a certain body part, usually the feet. They are so obsessed with the object/body part that their sexual partners become secondary. A typical fetishist is more aroused by the object/body part than by his partner. Fetishism among normal individuals is harmless; among psychopaths it can be fatal. According to John Douglas, 72% of serial killers exhibit some form of fetishism during the early years of their lives. It is the fetishism of many killers that motivates the taking of an item and/or body part from the victim. The "trophy" is used to achieve sexual arousal at a later time. It allows the killer to relive the excitement of the murder in between killings. Jerome Henry Brudos was a shoe fetishist. While in and of itself a shoe obsession is harmless, when combined with extreme psychosis it can and did prove to be lethal.

Jerry Brudos was born on January 31, 1939 in Webster, South Dakota. He despised his domineering mother who often belittled and ignored him. It is not clear exactly how or why he developed an obsession with women's shoes; it is only known that he exhibited such behavior at the tender age of five. It was at that age that he discovered a pair of women's stilettos at a nearby dump. He took the shoes home, at which point they were confiscated and burned by his mother. During his adolescent years, Jerry stole shoes from his sister. By the age of 16, he and his family had moved to Oregon and he was stealing women's undergarments from the neighbors' clotheslines. He even began breaking into people's homes to steal women's underwear and shoes. At the age of 17, he held a young lady at knifepoint and forced her to remove her clothes. He was arrested and sent to Oregon State Hospital. In March 1959, Jerry joined the army for nine months. He was discharged from service on October 15, 1959 after telling the army psychiatrist of his recurring delusions. He returned to his parents' home and lived in their tool shed. Unbeknownst to his family, he began stalking and attacking local women. He would follow them and knock them down or render them unconscious before running off with their shoes.

By the age of 23, Jerry was employed as an electrician. He met and impregnated a 17-year-old girl, whom he married out of obligation. He forced his wife to be nude while she completed her housework so he could photograph her. He also enjoyed lounging around the house in women's attire and undergarments. By 1967, the couple and their child had settled in the suburb of Aloha in Portland, Oregon. It was at that time that Jerry began complaining of migraines and blackouts. On the night that his wife was in the hospital giving birth to their second child, he broke into a woman's home, ransacked her closet, choked and raped her and made off with her shoes and underwear.

It was in 1968 that Jerry's violence escalated to murder. On January 26, he forced a 19-year-old door-to-door saleswoman named Linda Slawson into his home. She was taken to the garage, where she was beaten, raped, bludgeoned and strangled. He dressed her corpse in some of the attire that he had stolen over the years and photographed her. He amputated her foot and froze it as a trophy before disposing of her body in the Willamette River. Her abandoned car was subsequently located, but it provided no evidence of her murder or whereabouts.

The second murder took place that July. Stephanie Vikko, 16, disappeared from Portland. On November 26, 23-year-old Jan Whitney's car broke down and she was offered a ride by Jerry. She accepted and did not live to regret it. She was driven to Jerry's garage, where he strangled her and violated her corpse. He dressed and photographed her body before suspending her from a hook on the ceiling. He kept her that way for two days before he amputated one of her breasts and dumped her body in the river. The breast was treated with epoxy resin and fashioned into a demented paperweight.

On March 18, 1969, police officers received their first big break. Up until that point, the officers assumed that they were dealing with a series of missing person cases. It was on that day that the remains of Stephanie Vikko were located in a wooded region. Detectives then realized that Stephanie was murdered and they began investigating the possible links to the other "missing" ladies.

Nine days after the discovery of Stephanie's body, the next victim was claimed. A young woman named Karen Sprinker vanished from a parking lot. She was kidnapped at gunpoint by Brudos, strangled and violated. Brudos then removed both of her breasts and placed a paper-stuffed bra on the body before dumping it in the Willamette River.

The final victim was claimed on April 23, 1969. Twenty-two-year old Linda Salee was abducted at a shopping mall. She was taken to Brudos' garage, where she was strangled, raped and hung from the ceiling. He posthumously tried to electrocute her, but did not amputate her breasts as he claimed that they were discolored. Her body was recovered from the river on May 10, 1969. The corpse had been weighed down by an auto transmission.

Just two days later and not far from the Salee recovery site, the body of Karen Sprinker was located. The body had been weighed down with an engine block. Police questioned some of the local college students. Many of them reported stories of a Vietnam veteran who frequented the campus looking for dates. Brudos fit their description and was picked up and interrogated several days later before being released. Five days later, while in custody for a concealed weapon charge, he confessed his murders to the police. Brudos' home was searched and a massive collection of women's shoes and underwear were found. There was also an abundance of incriminating photographs that featured his victims. In one particular photograph, Brudos had placed a mirror below his suspended victim and inadvertently caught his own reflection in the photo.

Brudos was charged with three counts of first-degree murder to which he plead guilty on June 27, 1969. Oregon did not have the death penalty at the time, so he incurred three sentences of life imprisonment. He was in prison for 37 years, making him the longest-incarcerated prisoner at Oregon State Penitentiary. He died on March 28, 2006 of natural causes at the age of 67.