The Shoe Fetish Slayer: Inside Jerry Brudos' House of Horrors

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"You're listening to 10 Minute Murder."

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In 1968, a young woman selling encyclopedias, door to door, knocked on the wrong house in

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Portland, Oregon.

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The man who answered seemed interested in buying her books.

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He invited her inside his garage.

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She was never seen alive again.

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What happened in that garage over the next 16 months would become one of the most disturbing

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cases in American crime history.

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"So let's talk about Jerry Brudos.

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On the surface, this guy looked like the definition of "ordinary."

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Born on January 31, 1939 in Webster, South Dakota, he grew up and became an electrician.

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God married to a woman named Darcy.

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Had two kids lived in a regular house in Salem, Oregon.

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If you passed him on the street, you wouldn't look twice at him.

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And that's precisely the problem.

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As Jerry Brudos committed the kidnapping, rape, and murder of four young women between 1968

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and 1969 in Salem, Oregon.

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He earned two nicknames that tell you everything you need to know about his crimes.

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The lust killer and the shoe fetish slayer.

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And yes, we're going to talk about why that second nickname exists because the whole

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shoe thing is where this whole horror story begins.

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When Jerry was about five years old, he found a pair of women's high-heeled shoes in a

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junkyard.

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Something about those shoes triggered an intense reaction in him.

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He took those shoes home.

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He put them on his feet.

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His mother completely lost it.

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She scolded him repeatedly, forced him to give up those shoes, and eventually burn them.

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Now you might think that would be the end of it, right?

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But that's not how the human brain works, especially when you're dealing with a kid

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in a household where discussions of sexuality is completely forbidden.

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The research on this case talks about something called "insensitive salience."

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Basically, when you combine powerful, early arousal with intense prohibition and punishment,

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the forbidden object becomes irresistible.

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The shoes became Jerry's obsession.

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By age 12, his fetish had expanded to include women's underwear in lingerie.

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He'd sneak into neighbor's bedrooms with a friend to look at and smell women's undergarments.

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As a teenager, he progressed to stealing these items on his own.

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And here's the thing that makes this case so textbook for criminal profilers.

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He started wearing the stolen clothing in private.

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The fetish wasn't going away.

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The fetish was growing.

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In 1956, when Jerry was 17 years old, he crossed a line that should have been a massive

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red flag.

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He threatened a teenage girl with a knife and forced her to remove her clothes while he

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photographed her naked.

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When the police searched his bedroom after his arrest, they found an extensive collection

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of stolen women's clothing and numerous photographs.

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He got sent to Oregon State Hospital for nine months of psychiatric evaluation.

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The doctors determined he had a schizo personality disorder, which involves unusual thought patterns

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in behavior.

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And importantly for this case, they concluded that he wasn't delusional.

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He understood reality.

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He knew what he was doing was wrong.

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And here's the crucial part.

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The evaluations found that his violent sexual fantasies revolved around a deep hatred toward

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his mother and women in general.

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So what did they do?

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They released him.

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And roughly a year before his murder spree began, he was arrested again on the grounds

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of an Oregon State University women's dormitory for stealing women's clothing.

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At the time of his arrest, he was actively wearing women's petal pushers, high-heeled shoes,

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and women's underwear.

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It seems as though the system had multiple chances to stop what was coming.

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But they didn't.

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And let me just state for the record, if you're a guy and you want to wear clothing, usually

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meant for women, who cares?

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Where would it make you happy?

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There's no problem with that whatsoever.

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The problem with Jerry is everything that came along with that.

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On January 26, 1968, 19-year-old Linda Slauson was working as a door-to-door encyclopedia saleswoman.

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She accidentally entered Jerry Brudos' property having confused his address with a neighbors,

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believing she had an appointment with a homeowner.

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Jerry was working in his yard.

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He invited her inside, claiming he wanted to buy encyclopedias for his children.

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He didn't.

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What happened next in that garage is difficult to process.

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He knocked Linda unconscious and strangled her.

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But he didn't stop there.

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When he undressed her body, he discovered that she was wearing red lingerie.

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This triggered something in him.

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He spent hours dressing and redressing her corpse in different combinations of stolen

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underwear and shoes from his own collection, photographing the whole process while engaging

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in necrophilia.

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Then, it gets worse.

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He severed Linda's foot from her body with a hacksaw and kept it in the family freezer

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in the basement.

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He used that severed foot as a mannequin to model his collection of high-heeled shoes for

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his sexual fantasies until it decomposed.

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He also kept the two encyclopedias Linda had hoped to sell him.

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He bound the rest of her body to a heavy cylinder head and disposed of it somewhere in Marion

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County.

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Her body has never been recovered.

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On November 26, 1968, during the Thanksgiving holiday, 23-year-old Jan Whitney disappeared

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after her car broke down on the highway.

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Her car was found locked at a rest area near Albany, Oregon.

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Jerry had encountered her, offered help, and instead strangled her from behind with a leather

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strap before raping her corpse inside his vehicle.

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He brought her body to his garage workshop.

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This time, he had access to a ceiling pulley.

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He hung her body from it, dressed her in different combinations of lingerie and high heels, and

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took photographs.

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Jan's body hung in that garage for two full days while Jerry's children and wife lived

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in that same house.

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He later admitted to going out to that garage and violating her corpse whenever he felt

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the urge.

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Four months later, on March 27, 1969, 19-year-old Karen Sprinker went missing after parking her

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car at a downtown garage where she was supposed to meet her mother for lunch.

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Jerry abducted her at gunpoint.

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He raped and strangled her, then removed her breasts, post-mortem.

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Just four weeks after that, on April 23, 1969, 22-year-old Linda Saley disappeared from

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a shopping mall where she'd gone to buy a gift for her boyfriend.

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Her car was found abandoned with no signs of a struggle.

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Jerry had posed as a police officer or security guard to gain her trust, then he raped and

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killed her.

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In May 1969, fishermen discovered the bodies of Karen Sprinker and Linda Saley in the

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long-time river, weighted down with engine parts.

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To me, here's what makes this case incredibly disturbing.

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Jerry Brudos maintained a completely normal life on the surface.

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True crime writer Anne Ruehl described him as "quiet and gentle," an expert electrician.

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His wife Darcy and their two children lived in that same house where he committed these

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murders.

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His operational hub was his garage workshop, and he had one absolute rule for his family.

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No one could enter without first announcing themselves via an intercom system he'd installed.

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It was a sophisticated alarm system.

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It gave him time to hide evidence, bodies, or trophies if his wife for kids needed to come

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in.

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Inside that garage, police would eventually find a massive collection of stolen women's

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lingerie and shoes.

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Lists of phone numbers for sorority houses and college dorms and numerous polaroid photographs.

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They found photos of a deceased woman hanging from the garage pulley with a mirror positioned

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on the floor underneath her feet to capture both the high-heeled shoes she wore and, in the

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reflection, Jerry himself taking the picture.

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They'd also found a severed female breast that he'd coated in epoxy resin and displayed

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on the mantle piece in his living room, like a decoration in the house where his children

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lived.

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On April 22, 1969, a woman named Gloria Smith reported that a man driving a distinctive

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Volkswagen Carmingue had attempted to abduct her.

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Investigators discovered that while Jerry didn't own the vehicle, his mother did, and he'd

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been using that car on the day of the offense.

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Gloria positively identified Jerry as her assailant.

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That identification gave police probable cause for search warrant.

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On May 30, 1969, they searched his property.

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What they found was overwhelming and horrifying.

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The severed breast on the mantle, the severed foot in the freezer, copper wiring and engine

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blocks matching the weights used to sink the bodies in long-time river, shoes, and lingerie

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everywhere, and photographs documenting everything.

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They arrested Jerry immediately.

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Jerry was formally charged with three counts of first-degree murder on June 4, 1969.

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He initially pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but after extensive psychiatric

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evaluation, every expert reached the same conclusion.

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He was legally sane.

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He understood the difference between right and wrong.

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His personality disorder and psychological dysfunction did not meet the legal threshold

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for insanity.

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Faced with the overwhelming evidence, he eventually pleaded guilty to three murders.

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On June 27, 1969, he received three consecutive life sentences at Oregon State Penitentiary.

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He was never tried for Lisa Slawson's murder because her body was never recovered.

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But the nightmare extended to his family.

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Based on a neighbor's claim that Darcy had helped move a body, she was charged in August

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1969 with aiding and abetting in Karen's sprinkler's murder.

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She maintained her innocence and was found not guilty in October 1969.

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Darcy divorced Jerry in August 1970, moved away, changed her name, and obtained a court

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order forbidding their children from visiting or writing their father.

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She had to completely erase that chapter of her life to protect herself and her kids from

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the trauma.

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Jerry's time in prison was difficult.

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Records show he was frequently assaulted and beaten by fellow inmates.

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Despite the abuse, including being hit in the head with a bucket of water, he consistently

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refused to name his attackers.

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The shoe fetish never left him.

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Wiling carcerated, he was allowed to receive male-order catalogs featuring women modeling

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high-heeled shoes and underwear.

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He used this material for sexual gratification until the day he died.

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In 1999, he came up for parole, which was, of course, denied.

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The parole board reassured victims' families that he would never be released.

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Jerry Brudos died of liver cancer on March 28, 2006 at the age of 67.

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That's the story of the shoe fetish slayer.

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Jerry Brudos.

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Thanks for listening today and keep binging away if that's what you're doing right now.

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Quickly, here's an email from Vanessa in Denver.

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Subjects, dinner party disaster.

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Joe, I once made the mistake of casually bringing up a true crime case during a dinner party.

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Apparently, who do you think the real killer was?

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Is not an acceptable icebreaker when people are halfway through the appetizer.

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Since you talk about these stories for a living, how do you handle conversations with people

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who aren't into true crime?

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You turn it off completely or accidentally traumatize them like I did.

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Vanessa, I think I'm in the category that you're in.

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I traumatize people.

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I don't mean to.

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Sometimes I just be talking and I don't shut up.

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And what's creepier about me is I'm not what you would call an extrovert.

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I'm more of an introvert that can pretend to be extroverted, so I'm not super talkative

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around people that I don't really know that well.

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So when the quiet guy starts talking about serial killers, I do get some looks.

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And it's fine, I get it.

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It's not everyone's thing.

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It's our thing, but it's not for everyone.

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Hey, if this is your first time listening, hit subscribe right now so that you never miss

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a story.

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Leave a five star review until other true crime fans about the show.

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Check out 10minuteMurder.com to learn more about the podcast, Read the Blog, and Contact

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Me There.

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The episode that I'm working on that I know you're wondering about.

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Betrayed by Blood, the daughter who orchestrated her family's slaughter.

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Going to be sad, interesting, and disgusting as usual.

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I'm Joe, the host, until next time.

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You're listening to 10minuteMurder.

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