IN THE WINTER OF 1946, THE CHAT 'N CHEW RESTAURANT WAS LOCATED...
AT THE CORNER OF COLFAX AVENUE AND JASMINE STREET in Denver, Col0rado. The first General Assembly of the United Nations had opened in London on January 10th of that year, which happened to be on the same day that a young girl was found stuffed inside of the trunk of a tan 1936 Chevrolet in the Chat 'N Chew parking lot, half-frozen but still alive. Great piles of snow had filled the lot for a couple of days, and the police were baffled by the fact that nobody had noticed the automobile or heard her screaming for help. Her name was Geri Derryberry. Geri was my next door neighbor.
Through our living room door that evening came Bobby Nix, gruff, friendly, our neighbor from across the street, and his wife Martha, followed by his neighbor Donald, tall and lean and grave, and his wife, Nellie, who was chubby and large and sobbing uncontrollably. They all looked grim. They talked in whispers. My Dad went to the front window and peered through the curtains out at the street darkened street. My Mother cried. For a long time, I sat on the living room carpet near the window, watching everyone, wondering what was going on. My Dad told me what had happened to Jerry. The two of us were 10 years old. Geri and I had lived through the war years. We had laughed together. We had played together. We had told one another our most intimate secrets. She was my best friend. Nothing like this had ever happened to any of the kids in the neighborhood before. When the telephone rang, my Dad answered it, listened for a moment, then hung up. An extended silence followed before my Dad said that Geri had died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital...
The radio was filled with the news. The tan Chevrolet had belonged to her father. He was missing. As was her mother. In the windows of the neighborhood now you saw people peering out through their curtains out at the street, watching the police entering and exiting the Derryberry house. We were no longer allowed to walk to school by ourselves. The neighborhood was filled with fear. Rife with rumor. Like other families, we had no idea what had happened to her mother and father or why she had gotten stuffed into the trunk of the family car. Do you think her mother and father put her in the trunk? I asked my mother one night. She could not give me an answer.
Her father, Dewey, had worked at the main office of a Denver firm named Toner's, a manufacturer of peanut butter, which was housed near Lowery Air Force Base, several miles from where we lived. Her mother, Iris, would pack lunch for Geri, give her a kiss out on the front porch every morning, and the two of us would walk to school together. She always seemed happy. Now she was dead. On some days, police detectives would come to Montclair Elementary School, to question us about Jerry. We all pretty much told them the same thing: that she was a nice, average girl with a wonderful sense of humor. Within days, I knew that my life would now be different, and the principle reason was: I was now afraid of strangers. I would imagine them moving along the street behind me, scurrying into alley corners so that they could not be seen. At night, I was afraid that they would come through my bedroom window and kidnap me. And then I would cry, because I still missed Geri.
In the fall, we started school again. We learned songs. We made paintings and studied English and math. Then it was winter again. Piles of snow filled the schoolyard for weeks; and once on a class trip to City Park I took a great mound of pure fresh-driven snow in my mittens and began to toss it against the branches of a snow-laden pine tree. I didn't know exactly know why; the snow was so clean and white, and it somehow made me feel as safe and secure as I had once felt when Geri was still alive. I wondered why the police hadn't solved the mystery of her death or her mother and father's disappearance. There were more questions than answers. Eventually, throughout the oncoming years, the unsolved mystery would eventually fade into distant memory and the neighborhood would, once again, feel safe. Unfortunately, although we did not know it at the time, our neighborhood was far from safe...
...We were unaware that a 19 year old young man behind our house on Kearney Street daily tightened a rope around his neck, running it through the tub drain, pulling it tight until he was almost choking himself to death; all done in order for him to derive sexual pleasure. He had recently been diagnosed as antisocial and sadomasochistic, but his psychiatrist assured his mother that he "would grow out of it." He didn't.
His name was Harvey Murry Glatman.
In the fall of 1946, seven months after Jerry had died and her mother and father disappeared, Harvey packed his bags and went off to Boulder, Colorado, kidnapped a young woman and then went away to jail for 8 months. Upon his release, he took a trip to Albany, New York, where he slammed 3 women to the ground, was caught by the police, diagnosed as a psychopath, and spent a bit more time behind bars at the Reception Center in Elmira New York, then went off to Sing Sing Prison for the next 10 years.
Harvey sat in his cell, wishing he were home, so he returned to Denver after his release in 1957, was back in his mother's loving arms, and landed himself a job as a TV repairman without a background check. But Harvey soon grew tired of Denver and his father's nagging, so he moved out to Los Angeles later that year, and became a photographer of female models for pulp fiction magazines. He wasn't sure how to control his urges, which were growing by leaps-and-bounds, so he decided to lure his models to his apartment, strangle them as he photographed them easing into their deaths, placed their bodies in his 1951 Dodge Coronet, dumped their remains in the desert; and was tabbed by the Los Angeles press as "The Lonely Hearts Killer." He was then finally arrested when he had been caught in the act of kidnapping a 4th victim, led the police to the toolbox containing pictures of 3 other victims, which were taken as he was strangling them to death, was found guilty, and then executed in the gas chamber of San Quentin Prison on September 18th in 1959.
That winter, I had returned to Denver for Christmas vacation during my first year of graduate school, and my Dad and I watched through the kitchen window as Mrs. Glatman was shoveling the snow off of her back porch. He said that she and Mister Glatman had turned into recluses, hardly ever leaving their house, no longer speaking to neighbors, nor were the neighbors speaking to them, mostly due to the fact that they did not know what to say, particularly after Mrs. Glatman told Bobby Nix's wife Martha that Harvey had been a busboy at the Chat 'N Chew shortly before Geri's mother and father disappeared and Geri was stuffed inside of the trunk of a tan Chevrolet. Harvey's lurid desires had yet to be detected by the authorities, but prior to the discovery of Geri inside of the Chevrolet trunk, Harvey had suddenly up and quit his busboy job, and was last seen speeding-off of the Chat 'N Chew parking lot in his new 1946 Dodge Custom Convertible...
...And for some odd reason, upon hearing what Harvey had done, and wondering what had really happened to Geri's mother and father, I somehow immediately thought of Lizzie Boren and the poem: Lizzie Borden took an ax, gave her mother 40 whacks, when she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41..."
AT THE CORNER OF COLFAX AVENUE AND JASMINE STREET in Denver, Col0rado. The first General Assembly of the United Nations had opened in London on January 10th of that year, which happened to be on the same day that a young girl was found stuffed inside of the trunk of a tan 1936 Chevrolet in the Chat 'N Chew parking lot, half-frozen but still alive. Great piles of snow had filled the lot for a couple of days, and the police were baffled by the fact that nobody had noticed the automobile or heard her screaming for help. Her name was Geri Derryberry. Geri was my next door neighbor.
Through our living room door that evening came Bobby Nix, gruff, friendly, our neighbor from across the street, and his wife Martha, followed by his neighbor Donald, tall and lean and grave, and his wife, Nellie, who was chubby and large and sobbing uncontrollably. They all looked grim. They talked in whispers. My Dad went to the front window and peered through the curtains out at the street darkened street. My Mother cried. For a long time, I sat on the living room carpet near the window, watching everyone, wondering what was going on. My Dad told me what had happened to Jerry. The two of us were 10 years old. Geri and I had lived through the war years. We had laughed together. We had played together. We had told one another our most intimate secrets. She was my best friend. Nothing like this had ever happened to any of the kids in the neighborhood before. When the telephone rang, my Dad answered it, listened for a moment, then hung up. An extended silence followed before my Dad said that Geri had died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital...
The radio was filled with the news. The tan Chevrolet had belonged to her father. He was missing. As was her mother. In the windows of the neighborhood now you saw people peering out through their curtains out at the street, watching the police entering and exiting the Derryberry house. We were no longer allowed to walk to school by ourselves. The neighborhood was filled with fear. Rife with rumor. Like other families, we had no idea what had happened to her mother and father or why she had gotten stuffed into the trunk of the family car. Do you think her mother and father put her in the trunk? I asked my mother one night. She could not give me an answer.
Her father, Dewey, had worked at the main office of a Denver firm named Toner's, a manufacturer of peanut butter, which was housed near Lowery Air Force Base, several miles from where we lived. Her mother, Iris, would pack lunch for Geri, give her a kiss out on the front porch every morning, and the two of us would walk to school together. She always seemed happy. Now she was dead. On some days, police detectives would come to Montclair Elementary School, to question us about Jerry. We all pretty much told them the same thing: that she was a nice, average girl with a wonderful sense of humor. Within days, I knew that my life would now be different, and the principle reason was: I was now afraid of strangers. I would imagine them moving along the street behind me, scurrying into alley corners so that they could not be seen. At night, I was afraid that they would come through my bedroom window and kidnap me. And then I would cry, because I still missed Geri.
In the fall, we started school again. We learned songs. We made paintings and studied English and math. Then it was winter again. Piles of snow filled the schoolyard for weeks; and once on a class trip to City Park I took a great mound of pure fresh-driven snow in my mittens and began to toss it against the branches of a snow-laden pine tree. I didn't know exactly know why; the snow was so clean and white, and it somehow made me feel as safe and secure as I had once felt when Geri was still alive. I wondered why the police hadn't solved the mystery of her death or her mother and father's disappearance. There were more questions than answers. Eventually, throughout the oncoming years, the unsolved mystery would eventually fade into distant memory and the neighborhood would, once again, feel safe. Unfortunately, although we did not know it at the time, our neighborhood was far from safe...
...We were unaware that a 19 year old young man behind our house on Kearney Street daily tightened a rope around his neck, running it through the tub drain, pulling it tight until he was almost choking himself to death; all done in order for him to derive sexual pleasure. He had recently been diagnosed as antisocial and sadomasochistic, but his psychiatrist assured his mother that he "would grow out of it." He didn't.
His name was Harvey Murry Glatman.
In the fall of 1946, seven months after Jerry had died and her mother and father disappeared, Harvey packed his bags and went off to Boulder, Colorado, kidnapped a young woman and then went away to jail for 8 months. Upon his release, he took a trip to Albany, New York, where he slammed 3 women to the ground, was caught by the police, diagnosed as a psychopath, and spent a bit more time behind bars at the Reception Center in Elmira New York, then went off to Sing Sing Prison for the next 10 years.
Harvey sat in his cell, wishing he were home, so he returned to Denver after his release in 1957, was back in his mother's loving arms, and landed himself a job as a TV repairman without a background check. But Harvey soon grew tired of Denver and his father's nagging, so he moved out to Los Angeles later that year, and became a photographer of female models for pulp fiction magazines. He wasn't sure how to control his urges, which were growing by leaps-and-bounds, so he decided to lure his models to his apartment, strangle them as he photographed them easing into their deaths, placed their bodies in his 1951 Dodge Coronet, dumped their remains in the desert; and was tabbed by the Los Angeles press as "The Lonely Hearts Killer." He was then finally arrested when he had been caught in the act of kidnapping a 4th victim, led the police to the toolbox containing pictures of 3 other victims, which were taken as he was strangling them to death, was found guilty, and then executed in the gas chamber of San Quentin Prison on September 18th in 1959.
That winter, I had returned to Denver for Christmas vacation during my first year of graduate school, and my Dad and I watched through the kitchen window as Mrs. Glatman was shoveling the snow off of her back porch. He said that she and Mister Glatman had turned into recluses, hardly ever leaving their house, no longer speaking to neighbors, nor were the neighbors speaking to them, mostly due to the fact that they did not know what to say, particularly after Mrs. Glatman told Bobby Nix's wife Martha that Harvey had been a busboy at the Chat 'N Chew shortly before Geri's mother and father disappeared and Geri was stuffed inside of the trunk of a tan Chevrolet. Harvey's lurid desires had yet to be detected by the authorities, but prior to the discovery of Geri inside of the Chevrolet trunk, Harvey had suddenly up and quit his busboy job, and was last seen speeding-off of the Chat 'N Chew parking lot in his new 1946 Dodge Custom Convertible...
...And for some odd reason, upon hearing what Harvey had done, and wondering what had really happened to Geri's mother and father, I somehow immediately thought of Lizzie Boren and the poem: Lizzie Borden took an ax, gave her mother 40 whacks, when she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41..."
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