the police department — anyone — to take another look at Jerry’s death.
At the time, she insisted that she was doing all of this for herself. According to Ellie, she needed to see that son of a bitch William Summer — the man finally connected to the College Hill Strangler pseudonym — take full account for his victims, including Detective Jerry Hatcher. She needed to see her father vindicated.
But Roberta knew there was more to it. Her daughter rarely did anything for herself, and this campaign to declare her father’s death another College Hill murder was no different. Ellie was doing it for her family. That is what Ellie had done for nearly as long as Roberta could remember — taken care of her and Jess.
Ellie knew that, more than ever, Roberta could use that money from Jerry’s life insurance and pension, long ago denied to her. Suicides, Roberta had been informed, were not in the line of duty. And death by suicide was what they called it.
Her husband was found in the driver’s seat of his car, pulled to the side of a country road north of Wichita. A single bullet was discharged from his service revolver, into the roof of his mouth, through his brain and skull, and lodged into the roof of his Mercury Sable. Gunpowder residue was found on Jerry’s hands, in a pattern consistent with a self-inflicted gun wound, she was told. He left no note , she pointed out repeatedly. That wasn’t uncommon, the department’s shrink explained. Jerry had, after all, been raised Catholic.
Jerry had also been depressed, the department emphasized. And obsessed. And disenchanted. On these points, Roberta could not argue. Her husband had certainly changed from the man she knew twenty years before his death. She, Jerry, their marriage, and their family had all begun to change on February 2, 1978, when he was called out to what became one of the city’s most notorious crime scenes.
The dead were a single mother and her two children. All three of the victims were bound, blindfolded, and strangled. Semen on a rag found near the twelve-year-old daughter’s body suggested that the killer got to the young girl last and —
Roberta tried to block out the details of the scene as she took another sip of vodka. Unfortunately, the images — and those from the murders that would come later — were far too ingrained in her memory. She could only imagine how they affected her daughter. Little Ellie, sneaking all the time into that damn basement to be a part of her father’s hobby. Roberta should have insisted on a padlock.
In theory, Jerry should have stopped working the case when the Wichita Police Department disbanded the College Hill Strangler task force a few years after his last known kill. When the trademark communications and murders appeared to stop, everyone assumed the man was either dead or in prison.
But not Roberta’s husband. The files, the photographs, a killer’s self-aggrandizing letters to police and the media — the College Hill Strangler investigation itself — continued to decorate tabletops, nightstands, and every surface of her basement walls for another decade. After Jerry’s death, the department seized it all. All that Roberta and her children were left with were the memories — of Jerry, and of the case he could never put behind him.
After all these hours of all these nights over all these years, she honestly didn’t know what to believe about the facts surrounding her husband’s death. But she knew that, regardless of who pulled the trigger on Jerry’s gun, William Summer was responsible for what happened to her and her family.
The repeat she was watching of a sitcom about nothing ended, and the network moved on to a drama about police officers who solved crimes by analyzing physical evidence. Roberta changed the channel with a click of the remote control, then took another sip of vodka.
She glanced at the digital clock that sat on the top of the television. Nine o’clock. Pretty soon Ellie
At the time, she insisted that she was doing all of this for herself. According to Ellie, she needed to see that son of a bitch William Summer — the man finally connected to the College Hill Strangler pseudonym — take full account for his victims, including Detective Jerry Hatcher. She needed to see her father vindicated.
But Roberta knew there was more to it. Her daughter rarely did anything for herself, and this campaign to declare her father’s death another College Hill murder was no different. Ellie was doing it for her family. That is what Ellie had done for nearly as long as Roberta could remember — taken care of her and Jess.
Ellie knew that, more than ever, Roberta could use that money from Jerry’s life insurance and pension, long ago denied to her. Suicides, Roberta had been informed, were not in the line of duty. And death by suicide was what they called it.
Her husband was found in the driver’s seat of his car, pulled to the side of a country road north of Wichita. A single bullet was discharged from his service revolver, into the roof of his mouth, through his brain and skull, and lodged into the roof of his Mercury Sable. Gunpowder residue was found on Jerry’s hands, in a pattern consistent with a self-inflicted gun wound, she was told. He left no note , she pointed out repeatedly. That wasn’t uncommon, the department’s shrink explained. Jerry had, after all, been raised Catholic.
Jerry had also been depressed, the department emphasized. And obsessed. And disenchanted. On these points, Roberta could not argue. Her husband had certainly changed from the man she knew twenty years before his death. She, Jerry, their marriage, and their family had all begun to change on February 2, 1978, when he was called out to what became one of the city’s most notorious crime scenes.
The dead were a single mother and her two children. All three of the victims were bound, blindfolded, and strangled. Semen on a rag found near the twelve-year-old daughter’s body suggested that the killer got to the young girl last and —
Roberta tried to block out the details of the scene as she took another sip of vodka. Unfortunately, the images — and those from the murders that would come later — were far too ingrained in her memory. She could only imagine how they affected her daughter. Little Ellie, sneaking all the time into that damn basement to be a part of her father’s hobby. Roberta should have insisted on a padlock.
In theory, Jerry should have stopped working the case when the Wichita Police Department disbanded the College Hill Strangler task force a few years after his last known kill. When the trademark communications and murders appeared to stop, everyone assumed the man was either dead or in prison.
But not Roberta’s husband. The files, the photographs, a killer’s self-aggrandizing letters to police and the media — the College Hill Strangler investigation itself — continued to decorate tabletops, nightstands, and every surface of her basement walls for another decade. After Jerry’s death, the department seized it all. All that Roberta and her children were left with were the memories — of Jerry, and of the case he could never put behind him.
After all these hours of all these nights over all these years, she honestly didn’t know what to believe about the facts surrounding her husband’s death. But she knew that, regardless of who pulled the trigger on Jerry’s gun, William Summer was responsible for what happened to her and her family.
The repeat she was watching of a sitcom about nothing ended, and the network moved on to a drama about police officers who solved crimes by analyzing physical evidence. Roberta changed the channel with a click of the remote control, then took another sip of vodka.
She glanced at the digital clock that sat on the top of the television. Nine o’clock. Pretty soon Ellie
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