The Devil In DISGUISE: GERARD SCHAEFER

Gerard Schaefer

Okay, so we are going to start out by saying straight away that this is one of those cases that, unfortunately, there is just more info out there regarding the perpetrator than there is about the victims.  Gerard Schaefer is sometimes referred to as Florida’s first serial killer, or the “Killer Cop.”  While he was convicted of 2 murders, he is no doubt responsible for more, having confessed during his incarceration.  But, at some points, his confessions start to feel a little “Henry Lee Lucas.” From the day he was arrested, Schaefer always publicly denied any and all charges against him, proclaiming his innocence, but it was privately that he confessed to multiple murders of girls and young women. 

Where do we start though?  Let’s start with Gerard’s childhood and how he grew up!!

Gerard Schaefer was born in Neenah, Wisconsin in March of 1946.  Neenah is a not too big, not too small town along the coast of Lake Winnebago, with a population of around 27 thousand, according to the 2020 US Census.  Looking at the history of the town, there isn’t anything major that sticks out that really sets it apart from any other small towns across the world other than the fact that Kimberly Clark was founded there.  Kimberly Clark is a corporation that sells paper based consumer products; sanitary paper products and surgical and medical instruments.  Kleenex, Kotex, Cottonelle, Scott, Huggies diapers and wipes… you get the idea, they’re a big player in the bathroom paper products game. 

With many of the stories we do, when it comes to a small town like this, it’s fun to look at other people who have come from the area.  When looking into Neenah, there are a few athletes that have played in the NFL, NBA, or MLB, but there are like… a lot of politicians that came out of this area.  We’re not gonna say that there were hundreds of politicians that came from this area, but for being a small place and having a small footprint, there just seems to be quite a few politicians coming from this small Wisconsin town… must be something in the cheddar. 

Butttt, back to Schaefer.  He was the first of three children born to Gerard Sr. and Doris.  His father was a traveling salesman and his mother a homemaker.  Early on, the family moved to Nashville, TN where Schaefer was raised before they relocated again to Atlanta, GA where they spent some time before moving again to Fort Lauderdale, FL.   Moving to FL in 1960 seemed to be the permanent move the family was looking for, because that’s where they stayed.  Schaefer would later say that his childhood was “troubled & turbulent” because of all of the moves.  Also … his father was an alcoholic who verbally abused his wife and children.  Since he was a traveling salesman, he was away from the home frequently, but when he was there his relationship with his eldest son was described as “difficult.”  Gerard Jr resented his father because of the constant belittling, and he suspected that his father favored his sister above him.  Jr. was very close with his mother though, as she was extremely protective of all of her children. 

Growing up in Florida, an outdoor paradise to many people, Schaefer himself became an avid outdoor enthusiast.  He liked to collect guns, and go hunting and fishing.  On some occasions when their relationship was in a good place Schaefer and his father spent time together hunting and fishing, but it never lasted and their relationship always shifted back to a bad place.  In school, his classmates said that he wasn’t really a member of any particular group or clique.  He was more of a loner who preferred to take part in his interest alone.  Almost everyone looked at him as an outdoorsman who would eventually become a forest ranger or something along those lines. 

By the time he was a teenager, Schaefer had begun to develop erotic fantasies about women he deemed “worthy of his contempt.”  He leaned into sadomasochism and bondage fantasies, and found pleasure in causing pain to himself.  Schaefer admitted to wearing women’s underwear and later cross dressing when he was a teenager and to taking part in autoerotic asphyxiation.  His actions escalated to the point where he would find a rural area with no one around and tie himself to a tree for his sadomasochistic rituals.  Gradually, these thoughts took over and became almost the only thing he would think about during the day.  

In his high school years, Schaefer dated here and there, but for the most part the girls who attended school with him looked at him with disdain.  You see dear listener, by this time Gerard had also become a bit of a peeping tom.  A woman who attended school with him said, “I can’t remember him being friends with any of the guys. He was always on the outside looking in. As a matter of fact, the only thing I really remember is that I always had to tuck my skirt under my legs because [Schaefer] would practically stand on his head to look up a girl’s skirt.”  

Teachers all said that Schaefer was an excellent student.  He was a member of the varsity football team and was known to be an excellent golfer.  After he graduated from High School, he worked briefly as a fishing guide before applying to St. John’s Seminary to try to join the priesthood.  He was promptly rejected because they felt he didn’t have enough faith.  He had been a practicing Catholic and attended years of daily Mass, but after his rejection he decided that he had been under some kind of “Catholic mind control thing,” and he abandoned the church.  

Next, Schaefer found himself enrolling at Broward Community College in Fort Lauderdale.  In college, he got okay grades and was studying for a Social Studies major, but he later switched his focus to getting a Bachelors in Education.  While attending the community college, Schaefer spent more time hunting in the Everglades than studying.  At the time he was in a relationship which felt more like therapy than love.  Schaefer told his girlfriend about the urges he felt to kill women who aroused him, mentioning a neighbor who he had seen changing through her window, or another who had sunbathed in the privacy of her own backyard; how dare she!!  Eventually, his girlfriend broke up with him, which led to him stalking her as she dated other men, but eventually he moved on from her. 

While attending the community college, Schaefer actually traveled with a musical troupe, Sing-Out 66.  The troupe was a traveling group of super patriotic “Moral Rearmament” members.  Fun fact: actress Glen Close was a member of the chorus in Sing-Out 66!  In the group, a woman named Martha Fogg from Boston caught Schaefer’s eye and the two dated the summer while they toured and prepared for a European tour.  Butttt, Schaefer got measles and had to miss the tour and lost touch with Martha.  

He also confessed his homicidal urges to a creative writing teacher.  The teacher referred him to one of the college’s counselors.  Schaefer told the counselor that he wanted to join the Army because he “would like to kill things…”  He said that he would shoot cows on local farms, which escalated to him beheading livestock with a machete, then performing sex acts with their carcasses.  

After his sophomore year, he applied to Florida Atlantic University and was accepted on scholarship to pursue his teaching certification.  Buttt, his grades were too low to support a student deferment and he was told to report for an Army physical, which would have led to him serving during the Vietnam war.  Before his physical though, he left a note in his dorm saying he was going to kill himself and ran.  His roommate found the note, then searched for him, finding him at a local shooting range they frequented.  Schaefer admitted that he wrote the note to help him get out of having to go to war with the Army.  He was referred to have emergency psychiatric testing, which found no suicidal urges, but did find that his “psychological disorganization is severe and his frustration level low.”  But, he did receive a Y-1 deferment for “mental, moral, or physical” reasons.  With that, he was able to dodge the draft and avoid going to war. 

Around this same time, his parents’ marriage finally fell apart after his fathers decades of drinking, abuse, and extramarital affairs.  They divorced and Schaefer reacted by quitting his construction job and going to Michigan on a hunting trip. He later returned to Florida with….. Martha Fogg, from Sing-Out 66 and announced they were engaged.  They married in December of 1968.  The relationship was short lived, and they would divorce in May of 1970 due to his constant demands for sex and spending all of his free time hunting.  Martha cited his extreme cruelty as the reason for their split. 

People Start to go Missing

In August of 1969, Leigh Bonadies, a neighbor from Schaefer’s childhood, married her husband Charles.  Their marriage was rocky from the start, with frequent fights and arguments.  One thing they fought about was the fact that Leigh was interested in taking a job from her childhood neighbor, Gerard Schaefer.  She told her husband that Schaefer had offered her a position with the CIA that paid $20,000.  On September 8th, Charles came home to a note that said that Leigh had gone to Miami, her car was later found in a parking lot in Fort Lauderdale.  Leigh’s brother reached out to Schaefer who told him that she had asked him for a ride to the airport because she was leaving her husband.  He claimed that she said she was going to Cincinnati, but she never called him back with a departure time for her flight, so he assumed that she had changed her mind.  Exactly what happened to Leigh remains unknown, but we do know that Schaefer was somehow involved, more on that later. 

Schaefer began a student teaching internship at Plantation High School in Plantation, FL on Sept 23rd 1969 and was fired by November 7th.  They cited his refusal to accept advice from his supervisors as well as constantly trying to impose his personal beliefs upon the students as reasons for his dismissal. The school had received several complaints from parents regarding Schaefer.  After he was fired, he tried to apply for a teaching position at a high school in Boca Raton, but was denied the job. 

Carmen Marie Hallock was a 22 year old cocktail waitress who lived in Broward County.  She met with her sister in law on December 18th, 1969 for lunch and she was excited about a date she had planned for that evening.  She said that she was meeting a teacher who had offered her a job doing “some kind of undercover work for the government.”  She said that the job would involve international travel and lots of money.  Marie missed work the next day, and by Christmas day, her family hadn’t heard from her.  They used a spare key to check her apartment.  They found her dog locked up, unfed and the bathtub was full of water, as if she had filled it up to take a bath then suddenly left.  They filed a report, and Marie’s car was found in a parking lot a few days later.  Her body has never been recovered, but again, we know that Schaefer was involved.  

About four months after he was fired from Plantation High School, he got another teaching internship with Stranahan High School in Ft. Lauderdale.  He started on April 2, 1970.  By all accounts and reports, he was terrible at this job.  His superiors noted that he was extremely arrogant, and that he seemed to have very little knowledge of geography, the subject he was teaching.  Seven weeks after he started teaching, he was informed by the principal that the school was withdrawing the internship and he was being terminated.  That ended his teaching career. 

After being fired this time, he decided he needed a little vacation, so he vacationed for about a month around Europe and North Africa before returning home.  

Upon his return, he didn’t work for a while and pretty much just sat around stewing about his failure at joining the priesthood and as a teacher.  As time marched on, Schaefer found himself “convinced that indecent women and prostitutes should be destroyed for the welfare of society.”  In October of 1970, Schaefer was still attending FAU and was in need of tuition money.  He took a job as a security guard for Florida Power and Light.  While there, he met Teresa Dean, who worked as a secretary.  They started dating and got married shortly after Schaefer graduated from FAU in August of 1971, with a bachelor in geography.  By this point, he had pretty much been black listed when it came to getting his teaching certificate, so his degree really did him no good. But, he had already chosen a new line of work.  He felt like he was unable to “do the right thing” as a priest or as a teacher, so the only logical step was to become a cop. 

In September of 1971, he got a job with the Wilton Manors Police Dept.  They sent him to the police academy at Broward Community College, where he had previously attended.  He completed the police academy in December of 1971 and began his six month probationary period with the police department.  Three weeks into his probation period, Belinda Hutches (22) went missing.  She was a cocktail waitress and also did sex work to earn money.  In January of 1972 her husband and 2 year old daughter watched as she climbed into a blue Datsun with an unknown man behind the wheel.  She vanished and was never heard from again, but.. Again, we know that Schaefer was involved in her disappearance. 

Chief Bernard Scott said that Schaefer was as poorly suited for police work as he was for the classroom.  He used poor judgment and did dumb things.  Chief Scott said that it didn’t take long for him to decide he didn’t want Gerard Schaefer around.  When he was planning to fire him, Schaefer unexpectedly got a commendation for a drug bust he participated in.  It saved his job briefly.  His fellow officers said that Schaefer was “badge happy,” and he was known for giving out traffic tickets at an extremely high rate.  He frequently pulled over young women and asked them out on dates.  Chief Scott was going to fire Schaefer on March 16th 1972 before he got his commendation, then, about a month later, he called Schaefer into his office for a “come to Jesus talk.” He told him that after all the BS and dumb mistakes he was going to fire him.  Schaefer begged for another chance with tears in his eyes and Scott gave him one last chance.  The next day, Scott found out that Schaefer had applied for a job with the Broward County Sheriff’s office and fired him on the spot.  

Schaefer didn’t get the job with Broward County though, because he failed to pass their psychological exam.  He then applied to different local departments all over the area, which sent Sheriff Scott’s phone into overtime, fielding all the questions.  He said that he told everyone that “I would put on a uniform and walk the streets myself before I would have him back.”

In June of 1972, Scheafer was hired by Sheriff Richard Crowder in Martin County Fl.  He came with a glowing recommendation letter from Sheriff Scott, which Sheriff Crowder later learned was completely forged. 

First Arrest

Schaefer took his job seriously like before and was known to give out traffic citations like they were water in the desert.  On the afternoon of July 21st 1972, he encountered two teenage girls, Nancy Trotter and Paula Wells, who were hitchhiking.  He was on duty and in his patrol car and stopped to talk with them.  He warned them of the dangers of hitching and offered to give them a ride to their destination.  Once there, he learned that neither girl was from Florida and he offered to give them a tour of the area and show them around Jensen Beach, where they were planning on going the following day.  They agreed and made plans to meet at 9:15 the following morning. 

The next day, Scahefer arrived at the prearranged meeting spot in plain clothes and his personal car.  The girls were a little concerned about him not being in his uniform or patrol car, but he convinced them that he was on duty, just under cover, so that’s why he was driving an unmarked vehicle.  As they made their way to their original destination, Schaefer started driving somewhere else.  He told them that he was going to show them an old Spanish fort that was in the area.  While driving, he lectured them about accepting rides from strangers and the dangers associated with it, including being sold into “white slavery.”  

As they drove further into the rural and remote area, he kept getting more and more intense with his lecture before stopping.  He handcuffed and gagged both girls before taking one to a tree close to the nearby Indian River.  He tied her legs to the trunk below her knees and put a noose around her neck, tied to branches above.  She was standing on roots on the ground to counteract the noose keeping her from breathing.  He then got the second girl and took her to another nearby tree and tied her up in a similar fashion.  He told both girls that they were going to be raped and murdered.  Then, he got an urgent call on his radio telling him he needed to go to the police station.  He told them not to try to run because he was only going a short distance down the road to talk to the men he was going to sell them to. 

About two hours later, he returned to the area and discovered that they had escaped.  He immediately left and went home.  Once there, he called Sheriff Crowder and told him, “I’ve done something very foolish; you’ll be mad at me.”  He then explained that he was trying to teach some girls a lesson about the risks of hitchhiking, but he “overdid the job.”  He explained that he abandoned them in the area by the Indian River.  

Sheriff Crowder and a Lieutenant set out on the highway toward the area.  Once in the general vicinity, they saw a young woman in a river near the road.  She was doing a flutter kick to get through the water and once on the shore, she waved around trying to get their attention.  They removed the gag from her mouth and she said her name was Nancy and that her friend was still out in the woods.  They told her that her friend had been picked up about 45 minutes before her and she was already at the police station.  

Nancy was driven to the station where she and Paula told everything that happened to Sheriff Crowder.  They told how they escaped by carefully moving against their restraints and loosened their gags with their teeth while maintaining their balance on the tree roots to keep from hanging themselves.  They gave a description of their captor and identified Schaefer as the man who took them.  Schaefer maintained his innocence saying that he was just teaching them a lesson, but none of the officers believed him.  Crowder ordered his officers to file charges of false imprisonment and aggravated assault.  

About two weeks after his arrest, Schaefer made bail and was released.  He went back home and his wife and family didn’t notice any change in his behavior or demeanor.  They believed his claim that he was just trying to teach them the dangers of hitchhiking.  He was free until his scheduled trial was to take place in November of 1972.  

Susan Place & Georgia Jessup

On September 27th, 1972, while out on bail waiting for his trial, Schaefer abducted Susan Place (17) and Georgia Jessup (16).  The three had met at an adult education center in Fort Lauderdale.  He told them that his name was Jerry Shepherd and that he was from Colorado, where he was going to return after a brief vacation to Mexico.  On the day they went missing, Susan’s mom arrived home to find Susan straightening her room while Georgia was in the living room.  

They introduced her to Schaefer, who she noted was just strange and a bit older than them.  Susan told her mom that the three of them were going to the beach to just hang out and play guitar.  She was suspicious, and “Jerry” assured that his intentions were nothing but noble.  Even with his reassurance, she jotted down the license plate and a description of the 1969 Datsun they drove off in.  Susan’s mother had suspected that her daughter was trying to run away, Susan told her that she was going to be gone for “just a little while,” but would make sure to call her and stay in contact.  They left Susan’s house at 8:45 PM. 

Four days later, she contacted Georgia’s mom.  She said that Georgia had run away on the 27th, the same day that Susan went missing.  Georgia’s mom confirmed that she hadn’t heard from either girl since that day.  They went to the police and reported both girls missing.  Susan’s mom gave them the information she jotted down about the car and the license plate number as well as a physical description of “Jerry.” 

They traced the registration from the license plate she provided, which led to a completely different vehicle in St. Petersburg whose owner didn’t remotely resemble “Jerry Shepherd.”  The man also had a firm alibi for the dates the girls vanished.  There was a Jerry Shepherd with a registered address in Ft. Lauderdale, but he was also eliminated as a suspect by the police.  The girl’s disappearance quickly turned into a cold case. 

Schaefer went to court for the abduction of Nancy Trotter and Paula Wells in December of 1972.  Upon advice from his lawyer, he took a plea bargain and pled guilty to one charge of aggravated assault.  He was given a year in prison, with the possibility of parole in six months and three years of probation.  When his sentence was given on Dec 22nd, the judge said “It is beyond the court’s imagination to conceive how you were such a foolish and astronomic jackass as you were in this case.”  The court allowed Schaefer to start serving his sentence after the holidays, and he began serving on January 15th, 1973.  

In March of 1973, Susan’s mother was going through Susan’s room and belongings when she found a letter that she had saved that was written by “Jerry.”  She went to the return address and spoke with the building manager.  The manager informed her that Jerry Shepherd had never been there, but the property had been registered to Gerard Schaefer, who had just been sent to prison for abducting two girls. 

As Lucille and her husband drove around the county, she had a realization.  She thought that it was possible that the police had been looking the registration up in Pinellas County, and not Martin County.  License places from Martin County began with a 42, where Pinellas County was just a 4 then random numbers.  This was back in the before time, when counties were more sectioned and regimented and it wasn’t just type a number in a computer to get a result for the entire state.  Now, how the investigators never thought of this is mind boggling, but she spoke with the police and they learned that the license plate was in fact registered to a Datsun in the name of Gerard Schaefer.  Upon questioning, Schaefer denied ever meeting the girls or their families.  Susan’s mom picked him out from a photo lineup as Jerry Shepherd. 

Discovery, Trial, and Death

The afternoon of April 1st, some men were walking through a wooded area in Port St. Lucie, Fl.  They were looking for aluminum cans that could be turned in for recycling when they came upon the extremely decomposed remains of two people.  They were in a grave that had been ravaged by wildlife and just the general Florida elements.  The graves were a little over 200 feet from the nearest road and little over two feet deep.  A nearby tree had deep scratch marks on the base.  One of the victims was completely nude and the other had tattered remains of blue jeans with a roadrunner patch on them.  A pile of clothing was found nearby with grass growing over it.  The gravesite was six miles from where Nancy and Paula had been held captive prior to escaping. 

Both of the bodies had been bound and murdered.  Their spinal cords were severed and several bones were completely severed with a knife or machete. They had been decapitated and their jaws sustained numerous fractures.  It was later determined that Susan sustained a gunshot wound to her lower jaw from a .22 caliber pistol.  Markings on the bark of a nearby tree indicated that they had been tied to it.  The initials G.J. were also carved into the tree along with several deep markings from a knife, machete, or ax along with sections of torn clothing. 

They were identified as Susan and Georgia via dental records and healed bone fractures.  When Schaefer was informed of the identification of the two bodies, he immediately requested a public defender.  Due to the similarities between the gravesite and the abductions that Schaefer performed earlier, search warrants were given in Broward and Martin Counties for his home, cars, and his mother’s home.  

The search warrant in Martin County covered Schaefer’s home.  Investigators recovered several knives and firearms from a utility shed.  They found what they described as an “extensively blood stained” pillow case that had been washed several times as well as two human teeth that were stored in a small plastic container in the master bedroom.  Schaefer’s wife, Teresa, was found to be in possession of a purse that matched one that belonged to Georgia Jessup.  She told investigators that he had given it to her the previous November. (The girls were killed in September.)  Schaefer’s brother in law told the police that after the discovery of the bodies in April, he told them they should discard the purse because the police would try to use it to make up evidence against him at some point. 

The search warrant in Broward County allowed investigators to search Schaefer’s mothers home.  Inside they found countless stories that he had written about various ways to kidnap, humiliate, rape, and murder women.  They found around 300 pages worth of stories.  Some included crude drawings that he made as well.  Two of the stories included women named Belinda and Carmen, both names of women who had disappeared previously.  They also found guns and tons of ammunition, thirteen hunting knives, rope and tons of softcore porn magazines, some of which he altered to show the women as dead / hanging / shot.  They found polaroids of women tied up and some of Schaefer tied up in women’s garments with fecal matter smeared across his backside.  

They found a gold jewelry box that contained jewelry, passports, and clothing of several young women.  With several of these items, the police were unable to connect them to any missing girls.  But, they were able to link a few items.  One gold locket was inscribed with the name Leigh and belonged to Leigh Bonadies, Schaefer’s former neighbor who disappeared.  They discovered a passport that was linked to a missing woman and a driver’s license belonging to another. They recovered teeth and sections of bone that were later linked to at least 8 different victims.  

In May, investigators had enough evidence to link Schaefer to nine murders or unsolved disappearances from 1969 to 1973.  A newspaper published an article in which they linked him to as many as twenty eight different missing women.   

On May 18th, Schaefer was formally charged with first degree murder for killing Susan Place and Georgia Jessup.  He was held without bond and sent to a State Hospital for psychiatric examinations.  They concluded that he was suffering from paranoia, psychosis, and acute sexual deviation.  And that he viewed himself as an “eliminator of women he deemed immoral.”  They also deemed him mentally competent to stand trial.  

The trial commenced on September 17th, 1973.  The prosecution called several witnesses including the men who discovered the bodies.  Susan Place’s mother testified and identified Schaefer as the man that was with the girls the day they disappeared.  They had doctors testify and go through all the evidence found during the autopsies and about how they identified the remains.  Nancy Trotter and Paula Wells testified about how Schaefer abducted and tied them up in the woods before they were able to escape.  They presented the tree limbs that the girls were hung from and showed the jury the deep gashes and markings that had been left from how long they were tied up.  They also submitted Schaefer’s own writings where he detailed “how to properly execute” a woman.  

The defense tried to discredit the witnesses that testified for the prosecution.  They called a hunting friend of Schaefer’s who said that when the two would go out, Schaefer always carried a bag similar to the one he had given his wife.  They claimed that the gravesite had been dug after Schaefer was already incarcerated.  To be completely honest, they didn’t really have much to go on when it came to the defense.  When both sides rested, the case was put in the hands of the jury.  They deliberated for five hours and ten minutes, before returning two guilty counts for the first degree murder charges.  Schaefer continued to declare his innocence.  He was given two concurrent life sentences.  Schaefer and his lawyers filed appeals, which were all denied, and he claimed that he was being railroaded by “overzealous prosecutors, corrupt law enforcement officers, and his own defense attorney.   

The only time his wife Teresa visited him in prison was to serve him with divorce papers.  She would later marry his defense attorney Elton Schwartz.

In prison, other inmates suspected that Schaefer was a snitch for his own personal gain.  He was placed in solitary confinement several times for different offenses including mail offenses and trying to convince the public to send him women’s underwear.  He also wrote what was described as “killer fiction” (this was later the title of a book of short stories he wrote), a genre that he described as not glorifying violence, but one that enables the reader to see the acts of murder and necrophilia.  He claimed they were all fictional, but investigators feel like the writings contained his own murders and assaults.  

After his life imprisonment, Schaefer was never brought up on any more charges related to other murders or missing women.  This situation is similar to others we have seen; in many people’s eyes, he was going to be locked up for the rest of his life, so there was no need for further trials to make that happen.  Also, while there were more victims, having additional trials would put their families through all the pain, loss, and heartbreak having to relive the events leading up to their loved one’s deaths.  

On December 3rd, 1995, Schaefer was attacked in prison and stabbed over forty times in the face, head, neck and body.  His throat was slashed and his right eye “destroyed.”  He had several broken ribs.  His body was discovered after a fellow inmate reported it to guards.  It was reported that he was killed because of an argument he got in with another inmate over who was going to get the last cup of hot water one day (presumably to make coffee).  The man who killed him received 53 years and 10 months added to his sentence.  Others said that Schaefer was killed because he was an informant.  Multiple times, other inmates threw human waste into his cell, and twice they set his cell on fire.  Schaefer’s classification officer publicly said that he was murdered because he leaked confidential information about a well respected, powerful inmate and the hot water story was just a cover. 

When she found out about his murder, Georgia Jessup’s mother said “I’ve always believed he was going to get this. I just wish it had been sooner rather than later.”

Schaefer claimed to have killed Nancy Leichner (21) and Pamela Nater (20).  They were last seen alive hiking around a recreation area of the Ocala National Forest.  Originally authorities believed they had died by drowning while swimming, but that was later disproved.  After his arrest, Schaefer confessed to their murders. 

Leigh Bonadies (24) was Schaefer’s neighbor who disappeared after telling her husband about a job opportunity with the CIA.  Schaefer claimed she never returned a call to him regarding a time she needed a ride to the airport, but it is believed that he murdered her as well.  Her skull was found on a construction site in Palm Beach County in 1978, with three bullet holes in it. 

Carmen Hallock (22) disappeared after talking with her sister in law about a date she was going on later that night with Schaefer where they would discuss a government job he was offering.  She was wearing a black chiffon dress.  One of the stories that Schaefer had written prior to his arrest was about the mutilation and hanging of a woman wearing a black chiffon dress.  Two of the teeth that were recovered at Schaefer’s home were determined to be Carmen’s along with a gold shamrock pen that she wore. 

Schaefer wrote a letter to his girlfriend when he was in prison confessing to the murders of two young girls, Peggy Rahn (9) and Wendy Stevenson (8).  The authenticity of this confession has been questioned by several experts because the individual last known to have seen the girls alive had observed both girls, still clad in their bathing suits, in the company of a man whose physical description markedly contrasts with Schaefer’s.

Belinda Hutchens (22) was the cocktail waitress who left with Schaefer in his blue Datsun.  She was never seen again, and the police recovered an address book she was known to carry in Schaefer’s home.  It contained the name Jerry Shepherd as an entry for Schaefer. 

Deborah Lowe (13) disappeared walking to school.  Her books were discovered later in a trash can about a block from her home.  While her body has never been found, Deborah’s family strongly believes that Schaefer was responsible for her disappearance.  He had worked with her father and had previously visited the family’s home, so he knew where she would be. 

Bonnie Taylor (20) was known to have been pulled over by Schaefer while he worked with the Wilton Manors police.  She disappeared shortly after being pulled over by him and has never been found.  

Elizabeth Wilt (22) was in Florida from Arkansas for the Republican National Convention.  The last correspondence her family received was a letter saying she was going to return home soon.  She disappeared and her body has never been recovered.  While there might not be any direct evidence linking Schaefer to her disappearance, it’s suspected that she fell victim to him because he was active in the area at the time. 

Mary Alice Briscolina (14) and Elsie Lina Farmer (13) disappeared while hitchhiking to a restaurant. Their decapitated bodies were found by construction workers buried 600 feet apart in January of 1973. A distinctive gold chain and Madonna pin belonging to Briscolina were later found in Schaefer’s jewelry box.

Suzanne Gale Poole (15) . Suxanne was a Fort Lauderdale teenager reported missing by her family shortly before Christmas 1972.  Her partial skeletal remains were discovered on June 16, 1974, bound to a mangrove tree in a swampland area.  The remains were identified in May 2022 via genetic genealogy.  The circumstances of her disappearance and murder led authorities to believe she may have been a victim of Schaefer, who had been temporarily freed from court one day before the estimated date of Poole’s disappearance.

Collette Marie Goodenough (19) and Barbara Ann Wilcox (19) were both native to Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  The women disappeared while hitchhiking from Sioux City to Florida, just days before Schaefer began serving his jail sentence for the abductions of Trotter and Wells.  Personal property identified as belonging to both women was later recovered from Schaefer’s home.  Their bound bodies were discovered along a canal bank in St. Lucie County in January 1977.  Both victims were formally identified by dental records on January 8, 1978.  

There is no consensus for when or where Schaefer started killing.  With his death in prison, we will never know the actual number of victims who died at his hands.  Like Henry Lee Lucas, Schaefer did very little to dissuade any speculation when it came to linking him to potential victims.  He always proclaimed his innocence publicly, but privately he claimed to have killed as many as thirty plus women and girls.