First I assembled the facts. Jimmy Evans, now 29, was a Brooklyn native. The signs were there early in his life-abandoned by his father, promiscuous mother with multiple marriages to the wrong man, abusive grandfather, and the mysterious disappearances of neighborhood pets. Finally behind bars, Jimmy had admitted to thirty-two murders of males, usually middle-aged to elderly. Odd, I thought. Serial killers usually go for a younger generation. That just meant I would have more digging to do into his twisted mind to reveal his true motives.
It was a rainy Monday afternoon in October when I entered Winslow Prison outside New Albany with my tape recorder and notebook. It was all I was allowed to bring in. After the body search, they led me to a room where Jimmy sat in his ornage jumpsuit handcuffed to a table. Two prison guards flanked his side. Again I was struck by his youth since the newspaper's picture had made him look much older and sinister. Sitting quietly at the table and smiling like he didn't have an impending date with an electric chair, Jimmy said, "Hi! How you doing? How's the weather out there?" It was hard not to like him.
I made my introduction and took a seat. I turned on my tape recorder and got down to business. "Tell me about Hank Givens, your first victim," was my first question.
"He wasn't my first," Jimmy calmly replied. "That's why I asked you here. To set the record straight." I didn't say another word for the next thirty minutes as Jimmy took me back into his childhood.
No one was more surprised than Jimmy when his Irish soccer coach showed up for the game only a week after his wife's funeral. Cedric Ferguson led the team to victory by shouting, calling the refs names, and picking fights with parents. Cedric was a forty-year-old bully, but he usually got his way. The team always won the city championship, but someone had to be carried off the field on a stretcher.
Jimmy, the eleven-year-old goalie, had always liked Mrs. Ferguson. She made cookies for the team, iced their knees, and cheered them on each season. Her sudden death, a nasty fall in the bathtub and subsequent drowning, had hit Jimmy hard. The coroner had ruled the death an accident, but Jimmy wasn't so sure. He'd always had a feeling about Coach Ferguson. Beneath his professional facade, Jimmy sensed a dark hole of evil. Cedric was a seething volcano on the field, threatening kids and parents alike. Some weaker kids went crying to their mothers and left the team. But not Jimmy. Deep down he felt he and Coach Ferguson were soul mates of the bad sort. That's why Jimmy always kept his cat strangling cord in his pocket. It made him feel like the coach's equal.
After the game, Jimmy watched the coach come over to his mother and strike up a conversation. The words "dinner" and "movie" floated to Jimmy and he felt the darkness growing inside of him. His mother like male attention.
"His wife just died, Jimmy. He's lonely. I'm lonely too. It's been two years now since your father ran out on us. Aren't I entitled to a life? Some fun?" she argued with him in the car on the way home.
"I think he killed his wife," Jimmy stated flatly. "You could be next."
"Don't be silly, Jimmy. It was an accident. I know he's a little rough around the edges, but I'm not going to turn down a free dinner."
But Jimmy wouldn't let it go. When Coach Ferguson arrived at the door later in the evening, Jimmy stopped him. "I think you killed your wife," he stated again. He expected to be punched, but instead, the older man just smiled.
"I can do the same to you, bud, if you don't watch yourself." He thumped a finger on Jimmy's chest and whispered in his Irish accent, "Accidents happen. Who's the adult here? You can't do a thing." Then his mother came to the door and Jimmy stopped talking. On the way out, Coach Ferguson turned and said, "You be good now," and winked.
Jimmy was many thing, but good wasn't one of them. The police never found the killer of Cedric Ferguson. His body, minus his head, was found in the First Street Motel by the maid. His car was parked outside and the parking lot camera showed the coach leaving his car. He checked in but he never checked out. A bloody hammer and saw were found on a homeless man's pile for sale around the corner. He claimed he had just found the set on the sidewalk. Several people at the coffee shop swore that his claims were true. They had walked around the items themselves just lying in a bloody pile on the cement. The DNA matched Cedric's. They also said they saw a boy in a black ball cap walking by with a bowling ball bag.
Dogs traced the scent of blood to the subway station and the E train. Cameras recorded the picture of a boy, his face completely obscured by the cap, sitting quietly on the train with his bowling ball bag between his knees. When he got up, a puddle of blood reamined on the floor. Here the trail ended as the boy disappeared out the doors. No one knew where the head was. Then another call came into the police station.
Sam Henderson, Battery Park city worker, arrived at the Irish Hunger Memorial on North End Avenue to trim the lush grass. As he headed up the path, he came to stones depicting Longford County, Ireland, when he noticed a soccer ball embedded in the grass. Sam was used to finding potato chip bags, condoms, and empty coke cans. He reached down to retrieve the ball for his grandson to play with, but dropped it when he saw what was under it. Looking up at him were the blue Irish eyes of Coach Cedric Ferguson. The ball rolled down the path while Sam dialed 911, barely able to keep his lunch down.
Most of the soccer team turned up for the funeral of Coach Cedric Ferguson. Police interviewed parents and searched the crowd for the ball cap. No one recognized the boy in picture.
"But your mother," I finally interrupted. "She must have known. She would have recognized the cap and the bag. Your father's, right?"
"I buried the cap, jacket, and bag. Even then, I knew how important it was to destroy the evidence. Of course she knew, but she didn't want to believe I was capable of luring the coach to a motel, hammering in his skull, and cutting off his head with my neighbor's saw. We never talked about it."
"Wouldn't you say you were awfully lucky to get away with it?" I insisted.
"I did learn a lot from Coach Ferguson. You might say he was a role model for me in several ways. Shame about my mother later on. Nasty fall in the bathtub. But then, we all have to die of something, don't we?"
