She spent years making an attempt to uncover a serial killer’s motive. Then she acquired too shut | EUROtoday

Night after night time, journalist Laura Greenberg ran a shower, pressed play on a tape recorder, and listened to a person describe the heinous murders he had dedicated.

The voice of serial killer Douglas Gretzler got here from behind jail partitions as he spoke into the recorder, spilling his deepest, darkest secrets and techniques to a girl who held on each phrase.

For 4 many years, Greenberg exchanged 1000’s of letters and greater than 500 hours of audio recordings with Gretzler, some of the prolific mass murderers in American historical past, but one whose case shortly light from the headlines.

Her aim was to grasp why Gretzler, at age 22, and his confederate Willie Steelman went on a three-week killing spree throughout two states in 1973 which left 17 individuals lifeless, together with two kids.

“We were both obsessed with the human mind,” Greenberg revealed in an unique clip shared with The Independent. When requested what sparked a connection, she stated: “He was scary smart. I had to really use my brain.”

The tapes will probably be heard publicly for the primary time Saturday in a brand new Oxygen documentary, “Charmed by the Devil,” that traces Greenberg’s decades-long pursuit of Gretzler’s motives and the emotional toll of getting dangerously near a killer.

Over time, the boundaries blurred, giving solution to an obsessive, deeply intimate relationship.

“Eventually I thought about him all the time,” Greenberg stated in a current on-camera interview, holding a lock of Gretzler’s hair that he had mailed her. “He had very nice hair actually.”

She added: “He was my secret life and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed having something for myself.”

A highway journey and a killing spree

In October 1973, Douglas Gretzler, 22, and Willie Steelman, 28, set off from Denver, Colorado on a highway journey to rob individuals for medication and cash. They had met only a yr earlier when Gretzler moved throughout the nation from New York.

Steelman took Gretzler below his wing, instructing him find out how to steal purses and wallets. The two grew to become shut buddies with a mutual need for making fast money, irrespective of who acquired of their approach.

They started with petty robberies in Arizona – stealing small quantities of money, stolen garments and jewellery. They robbed a pair sunbathing in Globe, Arizona, and stole $5. They picked up a hitchhiker on their solution to Phoenix, tying him to a tree, stealing $20, his garments, and a hoop, that they later pawned.

But the violence quickly turned lethal.

The pair met up with buddies, Ken Unrein and Mike Adshade, and realized that Steelman’s acquaintances, Bob Robbins and Yafah Hacohen, had been dwelling at a close-by trailer park in order that they paid them a go to. Gretzler and Steelman then kidnapped Unrein and Adshade, stole their Volkswagen van and drove to Stanislaus County, California. On October 17, 1973, they stabbed them to dying, dumping their our bodies and drove off within the van till it konked out.

Just a few days later, whereas hitchhiking, Gretzler and Steelman kidnapped a younger couple who stopped for them close to Petaluma, California. Steelman raped the lady, however finally each victims had been launched at an underground storage, the place the killers stole one other automobile.

The pair then grew to become involved that Robbins and Hacohen may join them to the killings of Unrein and Adshade, in order that they returned to Arizona to silence them. On the way in which, they picked up one other hitchhiker, killing him and dumping his physique within the Superstition Mountains. On October 25, they shot and killed Robbins and Hacohen.

On November 2, once more hitchhiking, the pair had been picked up by Gilbert Sierra. That night time, they murdered him and deserted his automobile. The very subsequent day, the lads kidnapped Vincent Armstrong who stopped for them in Tucson. But Armstrong escaped and went to the police.

After the failed carjacking of Armstrong, the pair pressured their approach right into a condominium owned by Michael and Patricia Sandberg. They certain and gagged the couple, dyed Gretzler’s hair to keep away from detection, and took the Sandbergs’ garments. Then shot each victims, utilizing a pillow to muffle the sound.

Gretzler and Steelman then fled the state and made their approach again to California the place they pressured their approach into the house of rancher, Walter Parkin, forcing him to take them to his close by retailer the place they stole a number of thousand {dollars} from the protected. During the assault, the pair managed to bind and gag seven adults, a few of whom had been there after they arrived and a few who confirmed up later. They had been all killed, together with two kids who had been shot lifeless whereas they slept. Steelman shot one youngster, and Gretzler shot the opposite.

Gretzler and Steelman had been arrested days later in Sacramento after a resort clerk acknowledged the latter from police photographs.

Gretzler confessed to the murders, pleading responsible in California to 9 counts of first-degree homicide, and obtained 9 concurrent life sentences. Steelman pleaded no contest to 9 counts of homicide and 5 counts of theft in alternate for the kidnapping cost to be dropped. They had been each convicted and sentenced to life in jail.

Both males had been subsequently extradited to Arizona, which had the dying penalty, to face extra fees. In November 1976, Gretzler was sentenced to dying for the murders of Michael and Patricia Sandberg.

Steelman was convicted of two counts of homicide, considered one of kidnapping, two counts of theft, and one rely of housebreaking. He was sentenced to dying, plus 80 to 95 years for the kidnapping of Vincent Armstrong, and the housebreaking and theft of the Sandbergs. He died of cirrhosis in 1986.

While on dying row in Arizona, Gretzler shut down. For 12 years he didn’t converse concerning the murders.

In 1988, Greenberg, was a reporter for the City Magazine in Tucson who had discovered her area of interest on the crime beat. When she acquired a tip about two males on dying row, whose story had lengthy disappeared, she wished to know extra.

“It was the biggest mass murder story in 1973,” Greenberg stated. “But as quickly as the murders unfolded, they were completely forgotten.”

She was fixated on the unanswered query on the heart of the case: why? So she despatched a letter to Gretzler in jail asking him that very query.

“I wanted to know how could a man kill 17 people,” she stated. What adopted was many interviews at Florence State Prison. Gretzler instructed Greenberg that he had not had a single customer till she got here in 1988.

At first, their conferences passed off with a glass partition between them and different inmates round. After a yr and a half, they had been granted contact visits, which meant they might sit in a room with a desk and two chairs.

“I went and visited Doug 350 times in prison,” Greenberg says within the documentary. “We wrote hundreds of letters and we recorded 500 plus hours of audio tapes. I wanted to understand the monster.”

Blurred strains

During her first go to to the jail, Gretzler instructed Greenberg that her letter had intrigued him.

They then bonded over their related upbringings. They had been each initially from New York, with Greenberg from Queens and Gretzler from the Bronx.

“He started to open up more and that’s when I realized that neither one of us ever fit in anywhere,” Greenberg stated. “That was our glue.”

She defined that she wished to know what made him kill, and why he had killed a toddler. “Can’t get much colder than that,” Greenberg explains within the documentary, including that she was “disgusted” however eliminated herself from a “feeling state” with the intention to get info from him.

Gretzler blamed these killings on his associate however added that it didn’t take a lot for him to do one thing so heinous.

“Because Willie told me to,” he instructed her. “It didn’t take me a lot to kill, Laura. I didn’t have standard roadblocks in my mental roadway that would have stopped me from killing.”

After their jail conferences, Gretzler requested if he may additionally share his story on audio tapes. So Greenberg would ship a recorded tape of herself asking questions and he would reply.

The killer particulars his household’s darkish previous within the recordings. Gretzler instructed her about his brother, Mark, his father’s favourite and will do no fallacious – till he broke into faculty and stole take a look at solutions.

The household organized a gathering to speak about getting Mark assist. But he didn’t present up, and when Gretzler went to get him from his bed room, he discovered his teen brother lifeless of a self-inflicted gun shot wound.

“When my brother committed suicide, my father just shut me out,” Gretzler might be heard saying on one tape. “I was made to feel like my father wished it was me who died.”

But regardless of many years of conversations, Gretzler remained elusive on the motive behind the litany of murders.

At one level he instructed Greenberg: “I wanted to show [my father] that I was cool, cold and f***** in the head as he was.”

Still, the interviews continued however the tone of the tapes grew to become extra private, and flirtatious. “We started chit chatting about everything,” Greenberg recalled. “I would fill up the bathtub and I would listen to him talk to me about murder.”

Gretzler requested her for a lock of hair, and despatched one again in return. He requested the journalist for footage of herself in a washing swimsuit. She obliged.

At one level, the serial killer instructed her in a recording: “I love you. And I am still in love with you.”

“I called him the romantic serial killer,” Greenberg stated. “He had a romantic streak that was insane.”

She continued to this point males outdoors of her relationship with Gretzler, however years handed earlier than she settled down.

“I just felt like we were in a different type of relationship, one that was in some ways more important than my romantic ones, which I had been a failure at,” she stated. “I blur lines in every relationship I’ve ever had.”

When Greenberg acquired married to man named Kevin, Gretzler was not glad, she stated. “I’m just incredibly jealous of him,” Gretzler says on the tapes. “Incredibly jealous.”

On June 3, 1998, Gretzler was executed by deadly injection. Greenberg joined a few of his relations on the jail.

She says she doesn’t remorse their shut relationship. “Very few people really knew me,” she stated. “Gretzler knew me.”

But was she in love with a serial killer?

“There were 17 dead people that stood between us – and that’s a lot of people,” she stated. “But I still miss him.”

Charmed by the Devil premieres December 13, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Oxygen.

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