Sometime during the Christmas of 1989 and New Year 1990 – the dates and details are sketchy at best – James Dalla Rosa picked up Lee who showed him a photo of two children and said that she was a high-class call girl who lived in a $125,000 home. She pulled from her bag a plastic case with various business cards – formerly the property of Lewis Gratz Fell. ‘These are some of my customers,’ she told James, who felt very uncomfortable with the situation and didn’t feel that everything was as advertised. Lee quoted $100 for sex in a motel, $75 for sex in the woods and $30 for oral in the car – rates that she was to keep until she was arrested. Sensing that the man had money, she said, ‘I prefer to go into the woods,’ Dalla Rosa later testified.
When he spurned her offer, she became agitated, ‘moving jerkily, bouncing in her seat, snatching at her purse’, as the driver described her behaviour. ‘She became angry after I was not receptive to her offer. Her demeanour changed tremendously.’
He dropped her off near an interstate where she slammed the door and stormed off.
PART TWO
‘OF COURSE I DIDN’T REALLY WANT TO KILL THEM IN MY HEART, BUT I KNEW I HAD TO.’
CHAPTER FOUR
RICHARD MALLORY
THE TRICKS? MAN, HOOKERS ARE THE SAME AS CAB DRIVERS. YOU GET GOOD FARES AND BAD FARES. SOME GUYS ARE OK AND GIVE RESPECT. OTHERS TREAT YOU LIKE SHIT. SOMETIMES YOU GET PAID, OFTEN THE JOHNS COMPLAIN. STRAIGHT HO’S STRIP, ROUND THE WORLD, MAYBE A BLOWJOB. I AIN’T NEVER BEEN A SOCIAL WORKER. DON’T GIVE GREEN STAMPS. THEY WANT TO FUCK… THEY PAY, OK? THEY FUCK UP MY HEAD, RAIN ON MY PARADE, THEY GOT WHAT COME TO THEM. MALLORY? HE WANTED TO CUFF ME AND RAPE ME, YOU KNOW. THAT’S WHAT DID IT FOR ME.
THAT CANCER-RIDDEN FUCKING JUDGE SAID I KILLED HIM FOR MONEY. HEY! I HAVE BEEN WITH HUNDREDS OF MEN WHO HAD MONEY. I ONLY KILLED SEVEN, SO WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU? AND THAT’S THE FUCKING TRUTH. THE COPS KNEW I KILLED MALLORY. I LEFT MY PRINTS EVERYWHERE. THEY JUST COVERED IT UP. HEY, I JUST WANT TO GET IT OVER WITH. NO TEARS. TOUGH IT OUT AS MUCH AS I CAN. JUST LAY ON THAT TABLE, SMILE, AND GET OUT OF HERE.
IT WAS HIS CHOICE. KILLING MALLORY WAS NOTHING TO ME. I WAS COLD AND WET. JUST TRYING TO HITCH A RIDE AND THIS GUY GOES PAST, STOPS AND COMES BACK. HE WAS OK AT FIRST… HE HAD A BOTTLE OF VODKA THEN WE STOPPED FOR BEERS AT A GAS STATION, HE GOT DORITOS AND STUFF. SURE, HE JUST CHATTED. HE WAS RUNNING LATE BECAUSE OF THE TRAFFIC AND THEN WE TALKED ABOUT SEX. THAT’S ALL THEY FUCKING WANT.
I DON’T RECALL THE TIME, MAYBE AROUND 3AM. WE CROSSED A RIVER TOWARDS DAYTONA BEACH. HE PULLED OFF THE ROAD, UP A TRACK AND INTO WOODS. WE WERE IN THE FRONT SEATS. I STRIPPED AND WE DRANK MORE BEER, SMOKED AND KISSED FOR A WHILE. JUST STUFF. HE WAS LIMP AND HE GOT PISSED WITH ME. HE HIT ME. WANTED TO FUCK ME WITH HIS LIMP DICK. I GAVE HIM A BLOWJOB AND THEN HE WENT FUCKING CRAZY. LIKE A CRAZY MAN. SLAPPED ME SOME AND HELD ME DOWN, AND FUCK YOU, MAN, NO MOTHERFUCKER DOES THAT TO ME. HE WAS GOING TO RAPE ME. I AM TELLING YOU, LIKE I TOLD THE JUDGE, HE WAS RAPING ME…
WHAT I’M SAYING… YOU WANT THE TRUTH? I
WANT TO TELL IT AS IT WAS. I’M TELLING YOU THAT I WAS ALWAYS GOING SOMEWHERE, AND MOST TIMES I HITCHED A RIDE. THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF GUYS AND WOMEN OUT THERE WHO’LL SAY THEY GAVE ME A RIDE, AND WE GOT ON JUST FINE, YOU KNOW. THEY GAVE ME NO HASSLE. I’M A GOOD PERSON INSIDE, BUT WHEN I GET DRUNK, I JUST DON’T KNOW. IT JUST… WHEN I’M DRUNK IT’S, DON’T MESS THE FUCK WITH ME. YOU KNOW? THAT’S THE TRUTH. I’VE GOT NOTHING TO LOSE. THAT’S THE TRUTH.
I WAS ALWAYS SHORT OF MONEY, SO I GUESS SOMETIMES I BROUGHT UP SEX. MALLORY WANTED TO FUCK STRAIGHT OFF. HE WAS A MEAN MOTHERFUCKER WITH A DIRTY MOUTH. HE GOT DRUNK AND IT WAS A PHYSICAL SITUATION, SO I POPPED HIM AND WATCHED THE MAN DIE. SPEARS WAS MADE OUT TO BE A NICE, DECENT GUY. THAT’S SHIT. HE WANTED A QUICK FUCK. HE BOUGHT A FEW BEERS AND WANTED A FREE FUCK… AND YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE THIRD ONE? HOW DO YOU THINK HE GOT UNDRESSED? WISE UP. HE WANTED SEX… GOT UNDRESSED. ASK YOURSELF, WHAT’S THAT ALL ABOUT IF HE DIDN’T WANT A CHEAP FUCK? THE COPS DIDN’T SAY ABOUT THE OTHERS… NEVER FOUND THE JOHNNIES. YEAH, OK, MAN. LOOK, YOU GOT TO UNDERSTAND THAT GUYS DON’T GET NUDE WITH SOME BROAD IF THEY DON’T WANT SEX. THE LAST ONE… I CAN’T REMEMBER WHAT HIS NAME WAS… JESUS CHRIST… HE WAS FUCKING ENGAGED. HE BOUGHT A SIX-PACK. THE DIRTY MOTHERFUCKER.
AND I DO HAVE ONE THING, THOUGH, THEIR FAMILIES MUST KNOW, THAT NO MATTER HOW THEY LOVED THE PEOPLE THAT I KILLED, THEY WERE BAD BECAUSE THEY WERE GOING TO HURT ME. I SUPPOSE YOU THINK I REALLY SUCK, RIGHT?
I JUST SHOT MALLORY IN HIS RIGHT ARM. DIDN’T AIM. NOTHING. JUST SHOT HIM MAYBE THREE OR FOUR TIMES RIGHT THERE. HE BEGGED FOR HELP, BUT I WATCHED HIM DIE… SURE I ROBBED HIM… SO WHAT?
I will cut straight to the chase here. As Lee would suggest, ‘Cut the fucking crap.’ The police knew it, many potential witnesses knew it and the prosecutor knew it. The judge refused to admit it at trial, and the jury lived in sublime ignorance of the fact that Richard Charles Mallory was a sexual deviant.
‘He didn’t attempt to rape you,’ roared the judge. ‘You brutally shot Mr Mallory for his money.’
Lee’s sentiments: ‘Fuck you. I hope you, your wife and fucking kids die of cancer.’
The jury at Lee’s trial had no way of knowing this, but there is no doubting that Richard Charles Mallory liked to put himself about. The 51-year-old owner of a Clearwater electronics-repair business used to close up shop abruptly and disappear for a few days at a time on binges of heavy drinking and perverted sex. It was his secret life.
With no male friends, he was an extremely secretive, paranoid loner. It has been claimed that Mallory changed the locks to his apartment many times in the three years before his death. It is also said that he had been involved with an ambassador’s wife; he certainly appeared paranoid whenever this woman was mentioned. He thought he was being followed and wanted to have plastic surgery to get his nose altered, presumably so he wouldn’t be recognised. He was a strange fellow indeed, this Richard Mallory.
He employed staff only long enough to clear the backlog of work that accrued during his disappearances, and let his workers go once his repair orders were up to date. Perhaps this was a prudent, financially astute move for a man whose credit cards were no longer valid, a man who needed every dime for something far more appealing…
Unbeknown to the jury, the only constants in Mallory’s life – apart from his unexplained absences from work – were heavy alcohol consumption and an insatiable desire for sex. He used the services of hookers, visited strip joints and was seriously into hardcore pornography. He also used drugs. Apart from a recent girlfriend, no one – including the jury at Lee’s trial – was aware that he had served the better part of ten years in the Maryland State Mental Institution for an attempted rape.
Mallory was a private man, and an enigma to everybody. Living alone in a multi-family apartment complex called The Oaks, few people came to know him on account of his erratic lifestyle; at his television-and video-repair shop, Mallory Electronics in Palm Harbour, his absences were frequent and unexplained.