Gerald and Charlene: The Sex Slave Murders

1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:08,720
In September of 1978, two girls walked out of a shopping plaza in Sacramento and a nice

2
00:00:08,720 --> 00:00:11,640
young woman offered to get them high.

3
00:00:11,640 --> 00:00:18,040
She was 21, she was small in polite, and she was the reason at least 10 people are dead.

4
00:00:18,040 --> 00:00:22,160
But before we get to her, you need to know all about the man she moved in with and the

5
00:00:22,160 --> 00:00:23,680
father he never met.

6
00:00:23,680 --> 00:00:46,240
[Music]

7
00:00:46,240 --> 00:00:53,160
Gerald Armand Gallego was born in Sacramento on July 17, 1946, and the deck was stacked

8
00:00:53,160 --> 00:00:55,920
against him from before he could even walk.

9
00:00:55,920 --> 00:01:00,240
His mother worked as a prostitute, and by the time he was old enough to be useful, he

10
00:01:00,240 --> 00:01:02,800
was running errands for her pimps.

11
00:01:02,800 --> 00:01:06,160
The man moving through that house beat him and abused him.

12
00:01:06,160 --> 00:01:10,440
He was hungry and dirty most of the time, and years later he said what he wanted most

13
00:01:10,440 --> 00:01:13,680
as a boy was for someone to hug him.

14
00:01:13,680 --> 00:01:18,800
His father was already locked up in San Quentin for auto theft when Gerald was born, and

15
00:01:18,800 --> 00:01:22,600
the two of them never once laid eyes on each other.

16
00:01:22,600 --> 00:01:27,520
Gerald Albert Gallego got out, skipped parole, and drove to Mississippi.

17
00:01:27,520 --> 00:01:33,240
In May of 1954 he shot and killed a police officer in ocean springs during a traffic stop.

18
00:01:33,240 --> 00:01:38,040
He landed on death row, then killed a jailer while escaping with another inmate.

19
00:01:38,040 --> 00:01:44,480
On March 3, 1955 he became the first man executed in Mississippi's brand new gas chamber, and

20
00:01:44,480 --> 00:01:47,440
the equipment malfunctioned badly.

21
00:01:47,440 --> 00:01:52,000
Nobody told Gerald any of this, the family line was a car accident.

22
00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:57,920
He learned the truth about his dad at 16 years old in 1962, back when the emotional support

23
00:01:57,920 --> 00:02:03,640
system available to a teenage boy was shrugging and saying that's life.

24
00:02:03,640 --> 00:02:05,840
His own record started pretty early.

25
00:02:05,840 --> 00:02:08,960
He was arrested for burglary at 10 years old.

26
00:02:08,960 --> 00:02:14,400
At 13 he sexually assaulted a six year old girl and got sent to a youth facility.

27
00:02:14,400 --> 00:02:20,380
By his early 30s he had roughly two dozen arrests, five marriages, several prison stretches

28
00:02:20,380 --> 00:02:23,780
and an escape that involved sawing through a cell door.

29
00:02:23,780 --> 00:02:29,260
A car wreck in the late 60s left him comatose for a week with frontal lobe damage, which

30
00:02:29,260 --> 00:02:34,380
his defense attorneys spoiler alert would later lean on very hard.

31
00:02:34,380 --> 00:02:39,620
There was one more item in his history that nobody had uncovered yet.

32
00:02:39,620 --> 00:02:45,980
Charlene Adel Williams was born in Stockton on October 19, 1956 and grew up in Sacramento

33
00:02:45,980 --> 00:02:50,060
in a house with money in it and a corporate executive for a father.

34
00:02:50,060 --> 00:02:54,420
She was sharp enough to land in the California Scholarship Federation and played violin well

35
00:02:54,420 --> 00:02:59,340
enough to be invited to practice at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

36
00:02:59,340 --> 00:03:04,220
By 13 she was using amphetamines, drinking and smoking weed.

37
00:03:04,220 --> 00:03:06,380
She lasted one semester of college.

38
00:03:06,380 --> 00:03:11,380
She married a soldier and that marriage was annulled after one single day.

39
00:03:11,380 --> 00:03:16,100
She survived a chemical exposure at work that permanently damaged her lungs and she attempted

40
00:03:16,100 --> 00:03:18,180
suicide at least twice.

41
00:03:18,180 --> 00:03:24,700
Forensic psychologists used the word "hybristophilia" for women drawn to violent men.

42
00:03:24,700 --> 00:03:30,540
Katherine Ramzlin has written that some believe they can tame the dangerous one and some find

43
00:03:30,540 --> 00:03:34,940
in his violence an intensity that fills something missing in them.

44
00:03:34,940 --> 00:03:40,780
That is the framework and no court has ever seen that Charlene was diagnosed with anything.

45
00:03:40,780 --> 00:03:47,180
Gerald and Charlene met on September 29, 1977 in the poker room of a club in Orange

46
00:03:47,180 --> 00:03:48,180
Vale.

47
00:03:48,180 --> 00:03:50,220
He sent roses to her the next day.

48
00:03:50,220 --> 00:03:52,260
Within a week she had moved in with him.

49
00:03:52,260 --> 00:03:57,140
The relationship was set ohmasticistic from the very start, with Charlene in the submissive

50
00:03:57,140 --> 00:03:58,140
role.

51
00:03:58,140 --> 00:04:03,100
A few months in, Gerald brought home a 16 year old dancer for a threesome and he laid down

52
00:04:03,100 --> 00:04:07,540
one rule which was that the two women were not to touch each other.

53
00:04:07,540 --> 00:04:10,220
He came back from work and found them together.

54
00:04:10,220 --> 00:04:14,860
He threw the teenager out of a window, beat Charlene and then announced that he had lost

55
00:04:14,860 --> 00:04:17,100
all interest in sex.

56
00:04:17,100 --> 00:04:20,300
Charlene had decided that he was cheating.

57
00:04:20,300 --> 00:04:25,860
Gerald offered his own explanation which was that what he needed to function again was

58
00:04:25,860 --> 00:04:27,620
a sex slave.

59
00:04:27,620 --> 00:04:33,980
She stayed and never told anyone that same month she bought a 25 caliber pistol.

60
00:04:33,980 --> 00:04:39,500
Ronda Sheffler was 17 and Kippie Vault was 16 and they were shopping at Country Club Plaza

61
00:04:39,500 --> 00:04:41,100
in Sacramento.

62
00:04:41,100 --> 00:04:45,660
A friendly young woman close to their own age walked up and offered to get them high.

63
00:04:45,660 --> 00:04:51,340
The van across the lot read as harmless because the person walking them toward it seemed harmless

64
00:04:51,340 --> 00:04:53,340
and that was the whole machine.

65
00:04:53,340 --> 00:04:58,980
Charlene was 21, small, well spoken, the young woman mothers approved of.

66
00:04:58,980 --> 00:05:02,340
But Gerald was inside that van with a gun.

67
00:05:02,340 --> 00:05:06,020
The girls were driven to the Sierra foothills and both were raped.

68
00:05:06,020 --> 00:05:10,700
The next day Gerald walked out across the field, struck them with a tire iron and shot

69
00:05:10,700 --> 00:05:11,700
them.

70
00:05:11,700 --> 00:05:16,540
Everybody's were found two days later and that item from Gerald's history surfaced the

71
00:05:16,540 --> 00:05:17,980
same week.

72
00:05:17,980 --> 00:05:23,140
His own daughter from his first marriage had gone to the authorities about years of molestation

73
00:05:23,140 --> 00:05:27,860
and detectives were already hunting him on incest and rape allegations.

74
00:05:27,860 --> 00:05:34,060
The couple ran, married under the names Stephen and Charlene feel and kept going.

75
00:05:34,060 --> 00:05:41,620
On June 24, 1979 at the Wachow County Fair outside Reno, Brenda Judd was 14 and Sandra

76
00:05:41,620 --> 00:05:46,620
Colley was 13 and Charlene offered them a job handing out flyers.

77
00:05:46,620 --> 00:05:50,700
Their remains would not be identified for more than two decades.

78
00:05:50,700 --> 00:05:55,540
Their families spent those years in the dark, partly because of how 1979 worked.

79
00:05:55,540 --> 00:06:00,740
There was no amber alert, no DNA testing and no national system for tracking missing kids

80
00:06:00,740 --> 00:06:02,460
across state lines.

81
00:06:02,460 --> 00:06:07,660
A missing teenage girl went into a file marked "Run Away" and stayed there.

82
00:06:07,660 --> 00:06:13,460
Finding a person meant a phone book and a detective knocking on doors like a very determined neighbor.

83
00:06:13,460 --> 00:06:15,660
April 24, 1980.

84
00:06:15,660 --> 00:06:21,340
Stacey Reddaken and Karen Chipman Twigs, both 17, were taken from a Sacramento mall and

85
00:06:21,340 --> 00:06:26,300
driven into Nevada, where they were killed in Limerick Canyon with a hammer Gerald Bought

86
00:06:26,300 --> 00:06:27,660
on the way.

87
00:06:27,660 --> 00:06:31,580
Afterward he paid for breakfast with their money and made a joke about it.

88
00:06:31,580 --> 00:06:34,900
June 6, 1980, Gold Beach, Oregon.

89
00:06:34,900 --> 00:06:36,740
London to Aguilar was 21.

90
00:06:36,740 --> 00:06:39,300
She was hitchhiking and she was also pregnant.

91
00:06:39,300 --> 00:06:43,220
She was found in a shallow grave with sand in her airway.

92
00:06:43,220 --> 00:06:47,340
July 17, 1980, Gerald's 34th birthday.

93
00:06:47,340 --> 00:06:51,340
Virginia Mochel was 34 and Tended Bar in Clarksburg.

94
00:06:51,340 --> 00:06:55,020
She was walking to her car after closing when she was taken.

95
00:06:55,020 --> 00:06:57,740
She had children waiting for her at home.

96
00:06:57,740 --> 00:06:59,580
November 2, 1980.

97
00:06:59,580 --> 00:07:04,380
Craig Miller was 22 and Mary Sores was 21 and they were engaged.

98
00:07:04,380 --> 00:07:08,820
And they had just left a fraternity dance at Sacramento State when Gerald forced them

99
00:07:08,820 --> 00:07:12,180
into a car at gunpoint in a crowded parking lot.

100
00:07:12,180 --> 00:07:18,140
A friend of Craig's saw it happened and walked over, confused, and Gerald shoved him away.

101
00:07:18,140 --> 00:07:22,460
Standing in that lot, probably so mad he could feel his pulse in his ears, he did the most

102
00:07:22,460 --> 00:07:25,700
useful thing anyone did in this entire case.

103
00:07:25,700 --> 00:07:28,020
He memorized the license plate.

104
00:07:28,020 --> 00:07:31,020
It came back to Charlene's parents.

105
00:07:31,020 --> 00:07:36,820
The couple ran to Reno, then Salt Lake City, then Omaha, living on stolen identities.

106
00:07:36,820 --> 00:07:38,860
What ended it came down to money.

107
00:07:38,860 --> 00:07:42,700
Charlene needed some and the only people that she knew of that she could ask for money

108
00:07:42,700 --> 00:07:44,020
was her parents.

109
00:07:44,020 --> 00:07:51,060
On November 17, 1980, FBI agents sat on a Western Union office and arrested her while she collected

110
00:07:51,060 --> 00:07:54,420
the wire transfer her own parents had sent.

111
00:07:54,420 --> 00:07:57,780
In 1982, prosecutors agreed to a deal.

112
00:07:57,780 --> 00:08:03,820
Charlene pleaded guilty to two counts of second degree murder for 16 years and eight months.

113
00:08:03,820 --> 00:08:09,300
And in exchange, she testified against Gerald and led the investigators to a macrame rope

114
00:08:09,300 --> 00:08:11,540
used to bind victims.

115
00:08:11,540 --> 00:08:13,220
Her testimony convicted him.

116
00:08:13,220 --> 00:08:16,780
He was sentenced to death in California in 1983.

117
00:08:16,780 --> 00:08:21,860
And then again in Nevada in 1984, by the same method that killed the father that he never

118
00:08:21,860 --> 00:08:23,180
met.

119
00:08:23,180 --> 00:08:27,940
In other words, Gerald told a court psychologist that he had the feeling his father was inside

120
00:08:27,940 --> 00:08:28,940
him.

121
00:08:28,940 --> 00:08:34,620
The prosecutor in Nevada called the deal essential and set out loud in a perfect world that Charlene

122
00:08:34,620 --> 00:08:38,860
would have also received a death sentence herself.

123
00:08:38,860 --> 00:08:44,860
Gerald's Nevada death sentence was overturned in 1997 over a faulty jury instruction,

124
00:08:44,860 --> 00:08:50,660
reimposed in 1999 and his final appeal was denied in 2001.

125
00:08:50,660 --> 00:08:58,580
He died of colorectal cancer on July 18, 2002, one day after his 56th birthday.

126
00:08:58,580 --> 00:09:01,900
And for that cancer, he refused treatment.

127
00:09:01,900 --> 00:09:07,380
Charlene was released in July of 1997 under a new identity and has lived quietly in the

128
00:09:07,380 --> 00:09:09,620
Sacramento area since.

129
00:09:09,620 --> 00:09:13,500
She served about 16 years for 10 murders.

130
00:09:13,500 --> 00:09:19,160
There's a theory on this case and I'm flagging it right now as a theory, but it's that her

131
00:09:19,160 --> 00:09:22,400
role went way past the recruiting.

132
00:09:22,400 --> 00:09:26,280
Inmates said that she bragged about the killings in prison.

133
00:09:26,280 --> 00:09:30,960
Defense investigators later argued in a new trial motion that Charlene bought that rope

134
00:09:30,960 --> 00:09:33,720
that was used to tie the victims up herself.

135
00:09:33,720 --> 00:09:39,120
She had a job as a meat delivery driver and her route ran past one of the burial sites.

136
00:09:39,120 --> 00:09:44,840
The Nevada Supreme Court rejected the motion and her actual role in this whole case has never

137
00:09:44,840 --> 00:09:46,440
really been settled.

138
00:09:46,440 --> 00:09:48,720
10 people are confirmed dead.

139
00:09:48,720 --> 00:09:53,980
Charlene told a reporter in 1984 that she believed there were more victims and she's still

140
00:09:53,980 --> 00:10:07,520
out there living under a name that nobody knows.

141
00:10:07,520 --> 00:10:11,240
Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder, bingeable True Crime Stories.

142
00:10:11,240 --> 00:10:13,840
I'm Joe, I'm the host, hello.

143
00:10:13,840 --> 00:10:17,520
Here is an email, subject, settle a bet at my job.

144
00:10:17,520 --> 00:10:22,360
There are six of us on second shift, we have a running argument that I'm submitting to

145
00:10:22,360 --> 00:10:24,080
you for a ruling.

146
00:10:24,080 --> 00:10:28,880
The question is whether you would rather know the exact date you're going to die or not

147
00:10:28,880 --> 00:10:29,880
know.

148
00:10:29,880 --> 00:10:34,440
Three of us say that we would like to know, the other three say we don't want to know.

149
00:10:34,440 --> 00:10:35,720
Nobody will butch.

150
00:10:35,720 --> 00:10:40,280
Marcus in receiving says knowing would let you plan, but Denise says knowing would ruin

151
00:10:40,280 --> 00:10:43,920
every holiday coming up in between now and when you die.

152
00:10:43,920 --> 00:10:47,800
You cover people whose dates got picked for them by somebody else, so I figured you've

153
00:10:47,800 --> 00:10:51,920
thought about mortality more than your average person walking around.

154
00:10:51,920 --> 00:10:56,120
We listen to your show on the line, well I listen, Denise listens to a show about a woman

155
00:10:56,120 --> 00:10:59,920
who sells essential oils and I think she's an occult.

156
00:10:59,920 --> 00:11:02,560
Thanks, Vic in Erie, Pennsylvania.

157
00:11:02,560 --> 00:11:03,960
Vic?

158
00:11:03,960 --> 00:11:07,720
That's a tough one to unpack, but let's give it a shot.

159
00:11:07,720 --> 00:11:12,520
If I could know the date of when I was going to die, what I'd like to know.

160
00:11:12,520 --> 00:11:14,560
I think the answer is no.

161
00:11:14,560 --> 00:11:17,760
Part of me wants to say yes because you can plan it out.

162
00:11:17,760 --> 00:11:22,480
You can make sure the people that you care about know that you care about them, but I'm also

163
00:11:22,480 --> 00:11:26,840
of the mindset that you should tell those people regardless.

164
00:11:26,840 --> 00:11:30,880
You care about someone, you should remind them of that as often as you can.

165
00:11:30,880 --> 00:11:33,920
But I think Denise might be right on this one.

166
00:11:33,920 --> 00:11:36,520
It would ruin certain things.

167
00:11:36,520 --> 00:11:40,920
She says it would ruin Christmas, but I think it would ruin almost everything that's

168
00:11:40,920 --> 00:11:43,360
not planning for your death.

169
00:11:43,360 --> 00:11:46,280
Like let's say there's a movie that comes out and you'd like to see this movie, but you

170
00:11:46,280 --> 00:11:50,160
can't enjoy that movie because the whole time you're sitting there watching it, or at least

171
00:11:50,160 --> 00:11:54,520
for me because I'm a bit of an overthinker, I would be thinking about the whole time, you

172
00:11:54,520 --> 00:11:58,160
know, doing the planning of, well I've got this death coming up.

173
00:11:58,160 --> 00:12:00,520
What have I not checked off the list here to do?

174
00:12:00,520 --> 00:12:02,040
And I wouldn't be able to focus on the movie.

175
00:12:02,040 --> 00:12:06,840
I wouldn't be able to focus on literally anything other than planning for my death.

176
00:12:06,840 --> 00:12:09,240
So I think it would ruin living for me.

177
00:12:09,240 --> 00:12:12,560
That makes any sense, knowing when I would die would ruin living.

178
00:12:12,560 --> 00:12:15,080
But I can definitely see both sides of it.

179
00:12:15,080 --> 00:12:19,320
Alright, hey, if you're brand new to listening to this podcast, welcome.

180
00:12:19,320 --> 00:12:24,840
Do me one huge favor, and that is to subscribe to 10 Minute Murder.

181
00:12:24,840 --> 00:12:27,240
If you're already subscribed, you enjoy the podcast.

182
00:12:27,240 --> 00:12:32,000
If you wish the episodes were a little bit longer, you can subscribe to my other podcast.

183
00:12:32,000 --> 00:12:34,080
It's called True Crime Blueprint.

184
00:12:34,080 --> 00:12:36,120
The stories are still about true crime.

185
00:12:36,120 --> 00:12:38,600
They're a little longer, more information, more detail.

186
00:12:38,600 --> 00:12:43,800
You can find that podcast on every podcast listening app that's a major one.

187
00:12:43,800 --> 00:12:46,160
So probably where you're listening to this right now.

188
00:12:46,160 --> 00:12:49,760
If you're an OG listener, I love you, keep sharing the podcast with your friends and your

189
00:12:49,760 --> 00:12:54,720
family, keep interacting with the content that you see me put online, and keep emailing

190
00:12:54,720 --> 00:12:58,520
me, letting me know what stories you'd like to hear on the podcast.

191
00:12:58,520 --> 00:12:59,520
And that's going to do it.

192
00:12:59,520 --> 00:13:01,120
That's your episode for today.

193
00:13:01,120 --> 00:13:04,120
Thank you again for listening to 10 Minute Murder.

194
00:13:04,120 --> 00:13:04,600
See you next time.

195
00:13:04,600 --> 00:13:14,600
[BLANK_AUDIO]