Ralph Bozeman was a very big man that stood six foot five and weighed just under three hundred pounds of fat and some muscle. He was a pale, average looking white man with dark eyes and brown hair that he kept clipped short. He owned his own business as an expert in sheet metal, gutters, and siding. He was also a locksmith. His job brought him around many families with children. He committed his first rape and murder when he was only 13. His family's property bordered a large campground.
He often hid in the woods spying on children camping and visiting there. One day he spotted a 19 year pretty girl walking with her little 18 year old sister. Bozeman had his sling shot along, which he used to stun squirrels, bunnies, birds, and cats. He'd torture the poor animals to death and it sexually excited him. He would masturbate on their bodies.
He felt an intense desire to go after the girls. Some dark force took control of Ralph as he looked at little 18 year old Stephanie. She looked very much like her cute big sister with long brown hair and bright blue eyes. He slowly stalked the unsuspecting girls with rising excitement. He drew his slingshot band back and aimed. The band snapped and the stone sped shattering the skull of Stephanie's sister, Lisa. She dropped dead with a stone in her head and her brain maimed. Stephanie only had moments to stare in shock at her fallen sister. Ralph rushed from the brush and snatched her up with a hand over her mouth to stifle any screams. He carried her further in the forest where he spent over an hour with her.
He choked her unconscious numerous times, loving the terror in her eyes as her mouth gaped wide after oxygen. He twisted and snapped both her tiny arms. He used rocks to batter her knees and shinbones while covering her crying mouth with her wadded up dress. She died choking on her own dress.
He carried her to the creek that ran deep on its way to the pond. He weighed her down with rocks in her torn clothes. Then he headed home feeling fear over what he'd done.
It was over two hours before the girls' parents noticed they were missing. They went out on the trail calling for her. The cops were called and K-9 units. It was sunset before they located Lisa's body along the trail. She was dead. More cops showed up to search for Stephanie. The dogs led them to the stream and pond. There was a lot of deep muddy water to search. It wasn't until morning that her body was found. Unfortunately in 1985 DNA was still in its infancy and they couldn't find any helpful evidence to identify the monster that killed the girls. The waters had also washed much of the evidence away.
The cops were frustrated and focused on a local sex offender. They hauled him into an interrogation room where he was held under intense questioning for over 38 hours. He had a very low IQ and made a false confession. The cops were hailed as heroes and an innocent man went to prison. He hanged himself to death less than a year later, after he was raped in prison.
Ralph was quite proud of himself. He managed to suppress his intense desires to kill again for a couple years. Between ages 16-18 he abducted two other girls he found at parks and campgrounds. He tortured, raped, and killed them and dumped the bodies underwater with weight to hold them down. By the time the bodies floated up, no evidence could be found.
But his 4th intended victim almost got him killed or caught.
He watched a cute, dark haired little girl named Sherri for two days at a campground. She was only 14 and camping with her dad. While her dad was in the available camp bathroom, Ralph dashed and snatched Sherri. She uttered a brief squeal of surprise. He darted into the woods escaping with his prey. Somehow her father sensed the threat. He burst out of the bathroom and bolted through the brush hard on Ralph's heels. Ralph glanced back at the small father following him. Ralph dropped the girl and pulled his pistol .He got one shot off before the dad crashed into him.
They rolled on the forest floor fighting for possession of the pistol. Despite Ralph's much greater height and weight, the smaller man was a jujitsu student of some skill. In the confusing blur of battle while ground grappling, the desperate dad bruised Ralph's ribs badly, along with shattering his cheekbone and gouging his eye. He even broke Ralph's finger to get the gun. Ralph panicked and fled from the fray. The father fanned a fusillade of fire after Ralph. Ralph was lucky to escape alive.
The dad died because Ralph's round had ground through the guy's gut. But he'd died saving his little girl from a monster. The police botched the investigation by failing to bag the dad's hands to preserve possible DNA of the perp under his fingernails. Instead his hands were dragged in the dirt during body removal from the scene. The cops got tunnel vision focusing on a recent parolee that demanded a lawyer.
The close call scared Ralph out of killing for a couple years. He took some self-defense classes and lifted weights to be better prepared for any fisticuffs in the future. He also excelled in his construction career and gradually built up his own business. He used hookers often and preferred the young ones that he would pay to dress and act like little girls. He would get them high on heroin and ask questions to learn more about them. He cunningly picked victims without strong family ties or close friends that would call cops concerned if they were missing. He tortured and murdered three hookers that way.
His mom was dead and his dad sat in an old folk’s home with Alzheimer's. Ralph paid the taxes on a hunting cabin with twenty acres of woods his dad still owned. Ralph took some victims there while they were still alive, bound and gagged. In that secluded cabin he committed slow torture, rape, and murder. He recorded his actions to later watch to relive the excitement. He buried the bodies on his property and would masturbate on the graves.
His most recent victims were an entire family. Ralph was installing the gutters and siding on a wealthy family's country home when he saw the sisters Lydia and Ellen. He knew he had to have them. Lydia was 20 and Ellen 18. He noticed the house didn't have any alarms and the locks were simple to bypass for a locksmith of his skills. He had a week of work there from dawn to dusk studying the family's schedule. At night he crept through the farm fields to watch with his night scope. They didn't even have a dog for protection.
He waited a few weeks after finishing the job to make his move. He wore a pair of night vision goggles as he bypassed the cheap door lock and entered the dark house. There were only a few dim lights on at night. He carried a 22 pistol with a homemade silencer. He crept less than surreptitiously because a few floorboards did creak under his feet. The parents didn't wake. He found them both in bed wearing sleep masks, oblivious to the danger. He shot them both in the head. The .22 made suppressed cracks firing and the bodies floundered around briefly on the bed as if confused.
He found the room of Lydia first, the elder girl. He woke her up by clamping a gloved hand over her mouth and injected her with heroin. He waited until she went limp and then quickly applied restraints and tape over her mouth. He did the same thing to Ellen. He left with both captives and drove to his dad's country cabin. He kept them three days there raping and torturing both girls in front of each other. It was the biggest thrill of his sadistic life seeing both sisters so scared and worried for each other.
He slowly butchered Ellen with a knife in front of Lydia.
When the tunnel of light appeared, Ellen went into it because her parents were calling her. Lydia ignored the light tunnel and her parent’s calls because she felt like she had to make Ralph Bozeman pay for what he did.
Lydia's mission led her to Sharon’s soul and the little girl's soul told Sharon her story. Sharon was a pretty blond-haired, blue-eyed, female, former FBI agent that was murdered and remained on Earth to help catch predators. She decided to take Lydia to meet Scot, a human psychic that could truly see and speak with the dead.
Sharon had a long relationship with Scot. He was a ruggedly good-looking, blond-haired, blue-eyed, very muscular, and tough as nails, former street thug with a lot of combat scars that included a robotic left hand from a mission gone wrong in Iraq when he served as an American military consultant there. Scot cooperated with certain detectives, federal agents and military members to catch serial predators and terrorists through the ghosts of their victims guiding Scot. Many murdered souls remained on Earth angrily seeking justice and revenge on their murderers and many of these ghosts found Scot and told him everything about their killers. Scot had a special hatred for rapists and human traffickers. Sharon was sure he would help.
***
Ralph came back to his dark shop alone after a long day's work. He was irritated and distracted. He suddenly spotted a short, shadowy figure in his way. Scot's Taser fired. The lines fluidly unspoiled like a fly fishing line and the metal tip pinchers snapped shut on Ralph’s coat. Due to the thickness of Ralph's coat, the electricity sizzling into him was greatly reduced. Ralph roared with rage and battle fury from the painful currents cutting into him. He charged the smaller, ski masked figure, intent on grounding and pounding the punk tasing him.
Scot fired his second Taser line at pointblank range. This time the metal clips nipped firmly in flesh and the full voltage force cruised through Ralph. He first seized up, shaking on his feet, gripped in the fist of the voltage. Then he toppled over and made strange shivers and sudden bucks floundering on the floor. Scot hit him hard with a long surge before he eased off the juice. Then he risked rushing in and wrestled Ralph's arms behind his back and zip cuffed them. He did the same to his ankles and put a dark pillowcase over his head after duct taping his mouth.
Scot waited until Ralph regained his senses somewhat after the stunning shocks through his system. Ralph tried to talk through the tape. Scot cut him off.
"This isn't a robbery. I'm here to get justice for the Rainer family. Recently you entered their home at night and shot them both dead in their bed. You murdered my brother and his wife. You kidnapped my little nieces Ellen and Lydia. You took them to your dad's hunting cabin and you spent three nights and days torturing and raping the girls in front of each other. Then you slowly butchered them to death and buried them on your property. "
"No!" Ralph blurted, trying to lie through tape. Scot punched him in the mouth. Then he pinned Ralph down, suffocating him. Ralph's frenzied flopping wasn't enough to stop Scot. Ralph passed out, just like his victims had. When Ralph woke up his hood was off. The ski masked man had removed Ralph's boots. Ralph thought he was hallucinating when he saw the bolt cutters the man had on his pinky toe. Wordlessly the masked man exerted a powerful push of the handles that snipped Ralph's toe off.
It took Ralph a few seconds of shock and horror before he felt the burning pain. Then he screamed into the duct tape. He'd never known such red hot searing pain. He couldn't believe the agony involved. Scot left him thrashing and screaming into the tape. Then Scot calmly spoke again.
"Listen closely. You killed my family. No lies you tell will work. You have two choices, you can confess to what you did on my phone video or I'm going to keep cutting off parts until you do."
Ralph tried to lie again by shaking his head no. Scot seized his foot and jammed the bolt cutters on another toe. Ralph's efforts to thrash his mass past Scot failed. Once again the bolt cutters took off a toe. Once again the most mind blowing anguish exploded through his system as he squealed into the tape.
"Confess or I keep cutting. The next thing I cut off you'll miss much more than your toes." Scot warned.
Sharon the ghost hoovered beside Lydia nearby. They watched the torture interrogation and Sharon wondered if she was making Scot into a monster.
***
Scot wore a pair of gloves as he handed his pretty, brunette, female friend and FBI agent, named Leia, a baggie on his kitchen table. She looked confused and tentative about touching it."What's this? “She asked.
"That's a burner phone. On it you'll find Ralph Bozeman's video murder confession about six prior victims. On the jump drive you'll find a copy of his own digital recordings he kept that shows how he tortured, raped, and murdered his victims. On the paper is a rough sketch showing where he buried six of his victims on his dad's property at a hunting cabin. I wrote down the address. His home is at the other address in Detroit, Michigan. I also listed his shop address. The keys open the doors to his shop, home, and cabin. You should have everything you need to take him down." Scot informed her.
"What have you done, Scot?" Leia looked apprehensive.
"No more needs saying. Sharon guided me on this and told me it’s everything you need to get him. I didn't leave my prints or DNA on that stuff. You should go check his workshop first. He should still be there. Take that with you. Don't look at it here. You should get going." Scot firmly advised.
"I'll call later." Leia got up to go with the evidence bag.
"I'll be here." he nodded and led her to the door. He felt no regrets about forcing the child killer’s confession.
The End
Bio:
Tom Kropp’s work has appeared in Chiron Review, Churches, Children and Daddies, Down in the Dirt, The Horror Zine, Freedom Fiction Journal, Short-Story Me, Dark Harbor, Blood Moon Rising, Flash Phantoms, Phantomania Anthology, Lowlife Lit, The Listening Eye, J Journal, Evening Street Review, Conceit, Spotlight on Recovery, Muscle and Fitness, Outdoor Life and many other magazines. His play Jailhouse Confessions was performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC in 2019. You can find more of his writings at tomkropp.wordpress.com. He has many audiobooks and eBooks available free at Google Play Books.
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