Serial Killer Jerome Brudos #truecrime

Jerome Brudos

Many killers have bizarre fixations and act out twisted fantasies on their victims. The monster featured in this video murdered at least 4 Oregon women in barely over a year then treated their remains as objects for his sick pleasure. Not only did he kill the 4 women viciously, but he kept some body parts and made molds out of others to keep as souvenirs.

Jerome Brudos, the Shoe Fetish Slayer

Jerome Brudos was born in Webster, South Dakota on January 31 1939. He had one older brother. His mother had wanted a daughter and due in part to this, she subjected her youngest son to verbal and physical abuse throughout his childhood.

Jerome’s fixation on feet and womens shoes began early. When he was 5 years old, he found a pair of high heels in a junkyard and brought them home. His mother reacted by taking them and burning them. He also reportedly tried to steal his first grade teachers shoes and his females neighbors underwear off their clotheslines.

His family moved around alot until they eventually wound up in Salem Oregon. Throughout his childhood, he was in and out of psychiatric hospitals. When he was a teenager his violent assaults began.

Brudos began stalking girls in the area and in some cases he would attack them. Running up behind them he knocked them down or strangled them unconscious before taking their shoes and fleeing. At age 17 he was arrested for kidnapping a girl. He had beaten her and threatened her at knifepoint to obey his depraved commands.

When he was arrested for the assault, Jerome was sent to oregon state hospital psych ward. He spent 9 months there and in therapy sessions, described how his hatred of women and his mother specifically had driven him to attack girls. He was also determined to be schizophrenic.

Brudos graduated high school in 1957 and went on to become an electrical technician. In 1961 at age 22, he married a 17 year old girl named Darcie Metzler and the pair had 2 children. He commanded his wife do housework in the nude wearing high heels. He soon began complaining of terrible headaches that he claimed caused him to blackout.

During these blackouts, Brudos would steal shoes and underwear from his neighbors. He would wear these stolen items alone in his garage, where he would later kill and store his victims. Brudos also set up an intercom system and insisted that his wife let him know before she ever entered the garage.

After 7 years of marriage, the sick creature escalated his activities from theft to murder. On January 28 1968, 19 year old Linda Slawson came to his home selling encyclopedias. He told her that he did not want to disturb his family but that he was interested in buying a set of books and took her into his basement.

Once they were alone, he knocked Slawson unconscious with a piece of wood, then strangled her to death. Once she was dead, he dressed her in the stolen underwear and shoes he had collected then photographed her in various poses. Brudos also sawed off her left foot which he kept in his freezer. The rest of her was dumped in the Long Tom River, where he would dump

On November 28 1968, Jerome Brudos came across 23 year old Jan Susan Whitney. Her car had broken down on interstate 5 near Salem. He picked her up on the pretense of bringing her to a phone to call a tow truck. Instead he strangled her using a strip of leather and assaulted her body.

When he got home, Brudos hung the body in his garage from a pulley he had installed. For the next several days, he dressed her up, posed and photographed her. Even more depraved than these heinous acts, he removed one of her breasts and made a resin mold out of it to use as a paperweight.

Once he was done abusing the remains of Whitney, Brudos tied a metal railroad tie to the body and dumped it in the Long Tom river. At this time, he also dumped the Linda Slawsons foot, since the foul trophy had begun to rot.

Several months later on March 27 1969, the monster struck again. He came across 18 year old Karen Sprinker as she walked to meet her mother for lunch at a local department store. Brudos commanded her at gunpoint to get into his car and took her to his garage of horrors.

Once again, he dressed her up in the stolen underwear and shoes that he had collected, but this time she was alive as he did so. He assaulted and photographed her throughout the ordeal. Eventually he hanged her from the same pulley he had used on Jan Whitney.

After her death, he continued to assault her and again made a mold of her breasts before stuffing one of his stolen bras with paper towels to fill the void where it had been. Brudos disposed of her by tying her body to a car engine and dumping her into the Long Tom river.

The monster failed in his next 2 attempts to kidnap a victim. On April 21st 1969, less than a month since the murder of Karen Sprinker, Brudos approached 24 year old Sharon Wood with a toy gun and tried to abduct her from a where she worked at Portland University, while she was on her way to a parking garage.

He approached from behind with the plastic pistol, and grabbed her. But she fought back intensely sensing the evil in Brudos. Wood bit into her attackers hand and did not let go until she was nearly unconscious from his bashing her head into the ground. The noise spooked Brudos and he fled the scene as a vehicle approached.

When she woke up, Sharon Wood was on her way to the hospital. She had been found by students who called for an ambulance. Once she recovered from the ordeal she was able to give Police to get a description of her attacker.

After the failed attempt at kidnapping Wood, he tried again the very next day. 15 year old Gloria Jean Smith was walking along the road on April 22 when Brudos pulled his car alongside of her. He leapt out with his toy gun and tried to force her into the vehicle. Smith fought back and was able to get free of his grasp. Meanwhile a neighbor saw what happened and shouted out, forcing the creature to drive off.

After 2 failed attempts at kidnapping a victim, Brudos was becoming desperate for his next kill. The day after attacking Smith, he was once again prowling the streets of Portland. He came across 22 year old Linda Salee as she was shopping for a birthday present for her boyfriend.

She was last seen around 5:30 PM from a jewelry store when Brudos brought her to his garage and murdered her. After the creature finished with Salee he tied her to a car transmission and dumped her in the river. On May 10th she was discovered by a fisherman.

Investigators began to put the various crimes that occured in the area together. The disappearances, assaults, and now murder all seemed linked. This was further reinforced when they dredged the river and found the body of Karen Sprinker, still tied to an engine block. Upon examination they found the horrific mutilations done to her at the hands of her killer and the stolen bra.

On May 14th, university students reported that a strange man had been calling their dorms and soliciting dates. One woman who had met him have a description that eas very similar to the one given to them by Sharon Wood.

The police told her to arrange for a second date with the stranger then they prepared to surprise him at the meeting place. When the man came to pick her up, it was revealed that the stranger was Jerome Brudos. They questioned him and he was let go.

Police visited his house the next day and found the bizarre setup of he had in his garage. Suspicion grew stronger when they found similar ropes to those used to anchor the bodies they had found with the same knots on them. They learned that Jerome’s mother had the same kind of car as the one driven by Gloria Smiths attacker, a green VW Karman Gia.

Brudos attempted to flee with his family, but was soon caught and arrested. Smith confirmed that Brudos was the man who attacked her. A more thorough search of his home and more importantly, garage turned up the horrific photographs of 3 of his victims that he had taken during their torture, abuse, and murder. Because Linda Slawsons body had not been found and there were no photos, Brudos was only charged with the 3 later murders.

Due to the level of evidence in these murders and the forethought that had gone into planning them, Jerome Brudos’s lawyers entered a plea of guilty rather than the insanity claim they had planned. The monster also gave investigators information leading to the recovery of Jan Whitney. He recieved 3 life sentences to be served consecutively.

His wife also fell under suspicion as some thought there was no way the vicious murders could have occured right under her nose without her knowledge. However she was not convicted in any of her husbands crimes.

While in prison, Brudos wrote to womens footwear company’s to request catalogs and covered the walls of his cell with them. He was Oregons longest serving inmate at 37 years behind bars when he died on March 28 2006 of liver cancer.