The Shoe Fetish Killer of Salem: The Dark Legacy of Jerry Brudos

The name Jerome Henry “Jerry” Brudos is still synonymous with horror and revulsion today. He was an American serial killer and necrophiliac who terrorized the tranquil town of Salem, Oregon, in the late 1960s. Known as the “Lust Killer” and the “Shoe Fetish Slayer,” Brudos committed a series of gruesome murders of young women between 1968 and 1969. His crimes reveal the deep-rooted psychological abyss of a man driven by fetishes and an insatiable urge for control. Brudos’ murders took place either in his car or in his home workshop. All of his victims were killed by strangulation, some were photographed before and after their deaths, and three of them were dismembered after they died. Particularly disturbing is Brudos’ motivation: a shoe fetish manifested in his childhood and an obsession with women’s feet, lingerie, and shoes led him to keep body parts of his victims as trophies. These depths of his character are reflected in his nicknames and were central points in his sentencing to life imprisonment. Jerry was born on January 31, 1939, in Webster, South Dakota. He was the younger of two sons born to a modest couple. His mother, who had desperately wanted a daughter, made no secret of her disappointment at having another son. Her emotional coldness and hard-heartedness shaped Brudos and drove him into an imaginary world where he found comfort in an understanding neighbor. This early rejection by his mother led to a lifelong quest for female recognition and control. Brudos discovered his fascination with women’s shoes at an early age. He had a formative experience at around the age of five when he saw a young woman’s high heels and couldn’t resist touching them. Later, while rummaging through a junkyard, he found a pair of high-heeled pumps, which he took home and secretly tried on. When his mother discovered them, she burned the shoes, which only intensified his obsession. He was so fascinated by women’s shoes that he stole his elementary school teacher’s shoes, which she kept in her desk. Brudos’ tendencies intensified during puberty. Although he was shy and plagued by acne, he began stealing women’s underwear and secretly wearing it. He photographed strange women and developed increasingly violent fantasies. At sixteen, he even built an underground hideout where he planned to keep women captive as his sex slaves. A serious incident occurred when he lured a young girl into his room under false pretenses, returned wearing a mask, and forced her to undress. His manipulative abilities were evident when he later claimed to have been locked up by an imaginary twin brother. Such deceptions and the gradual development of a criminal career characterized his later life. After his arrest for assaulting another 17-year-old girl who had refused to undress, Brudos was admitted to a juvenile psychiatric ward. Doctors diagnosed him with schizotypal personality disorder but concluded that he was sane. His growing sexual inclination toward violence was only marginally addressed. After nine months in the psychiatric ward, he graduated from high school in Corvallis in 1957. After failing college and attending a technical school, he joined the army but was soon discharged as mentally unfit. This was prompted by army psychiatrist Captain Theodore J. Barry after Jerry told him about his bizarre obsessions. After his discharge from military service, Jerry moved back to Corvallis with his parents, where he lived in their shed. Jerry continued to have violent fantasies, which culminated in him following a girl one night after running errands and choking her unconscious in order to steal her shoes, which he then secretly wore. After Jerry obtained an FCC license, he started working at the Corvallis radio station, where he met his future wife, 17-year-old Darcie Metzler. Shortly thereafter, they married, and in 1962, their daughter Megan was born. Jerry earned a living as an electrical engineer, but he couldn’t hold down a job for long, which is why the young couple moved frequently. In 1967, their son Jason was born. Everything seemed perfect because, despite his deviant tendencies, he lived a normal life on the outside, but behind closed doors, he forced his wife to perform bizarre sexual rituals. His wife’s growing domestic responsibilities alienated the couple, and Brudos increasingly turned to imaginary and criminal activities. In 1967, his behavior escalated again when he began stalking and attacking women once more. Despite his arrest for stealing women’s underwear, his urges continued unabated and eventually led to the brutal murders that made him infamous. Between 1968 and 1969, Brudos kidnapped and murdered four young women. His methods were always the same: he kidnapped the women, strangled them, and arranged their bodies post mortem in erotic poses, then photographed them. He often had sex with the dead women. His first victim was 19-year-old Linda Slawson. She worked for a book publisher and was out selling encyclopedias in the Portland neighborhood on January 26, 1968. Eventually, she passed by Jerry’s single-family home. When she rang the doorbell and Jerry opened the door, he dragged her into his basement, beating her as he did so, and strangled her. He then removed her left foot, which he placed in a freezer, before driving to the Willamette River to dispose of her body, which was never found. He kept the foot as a trophy, which he dressed in high heels and photographed. Thanks to his burglaries, Jerry had amassed a considerable collection of shoes. In fact, the most gruesome aspect was his practice of keeping body parts for his fetish collection. His next victim on November 26, 1968, was 23-year-old Jan Susan Whitney, a college student at the University of Oregon who was on her way home from Thanksgiving celebrations. She probably had car trouble, and Jerry came by as a helpful rescuer, who strangled, abused, and mutilated her. On March 27, 19-year-old Karen Sprinker became Jerry’s next victim, whom he abducted from a shopping mall, strangled, and abused. As a souvenir, he cut off Karen’s breasts and stuffed her bra with brown paper towels. Jerry then attempted to kidnap two women, but the attempts failed. First, on April 21, Sharon Wood, and a day later, 14-year-old Liane Brumley. Just one month later, Jerry kidnapped 22-year-old Linda Dawn Salee from a shopping center. Her body was found on May 10, 1969, by a fisherman in the Long Tom River. Just two days later, the body of Karen Sprinker was discovered only 15 meters away from Linda’s body. In May 1969, Jerry began calling the dormitories at Oregon State University to arrange blind dates. Finally, a student agreed to a blind date, which she quickly broke off because the tall man with red hair and freckles was acting strangely and kept asking about the bodies that had been found. As the police were questioning students about the murders, the student went to the police and told them about the strange man. When he contacted her again, she alerted the police. They drove to the dormitory and questioned the man, who turned out to be Jerry Brudos. At first, the police let him go, but kept Brudos under surveillance. After five days, the police had secured enough evidence, including Polaroids of his victims and macabre souvenirs of their bodies, to arrest Jerry. In June 1969, Brudos finally pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. In the years that followed, he remained an inconspicuous prisoner, but was regularly abused by his fellow inmates. Until his death on March 28, 2006, the families of his victims ensured that he was never released. Brudos died of liver cancer, but his legacy of horror lives on in the memories of his victims’ families. The intangible darkness that pervaded his life and the relentless brutality of his crimes remind us of the dangerous depths of the human psyche. His case impressively illustrates the complexity of criminal minds.