The Shoe Fetish Slayer

2020-11-14 12:31:39 Written by Varun Kumar

Jerome Brudos was a notorious serial killer who killed several women in Oregon during the 1960s.

Many serial killers kill people because they feel alive or feel good. Jerome had an odd story. In 1944, when Brudos was just five years old, he discovered a woman’s heeled shoe at a junkyard. Brudos was excited by it and took it residence.

 

Brudos got infatuated with women’s shoes. He stole shoes from his teachers and his mother to fulfill his growing obsession. This same obsession was converted into a deadly fetish. When his mother discovered him wearing the shoes he discovered as a boy and hence found his obsession, she took them away from him and threw them away.

 

Anger

 

Frequently opposed by his mother and further repressed sexually, he turned his irritation and passion inward. His anger turned into brutal bitterness for not only his mother but for all women. Jerome began his series of crimes at the age of 17 when he sexually attacked a woman. He spent some time in prison, after which he appeared to have cleaned up his act; he got married and spent some time in the army. He was released from the military after being diagnosed with schizophrenia.

 

Despite his wedding, he kept following his strange fetishes outside of his marriage. Brudos targeted a woman because he loved her shoes and followed her residence. He went into her house, and he sexually assaulted her. He then left, taking some of her shoes with him. Brudos was not linked to this rape until much later.

 

Linda Slawson was an encyclopedia saleswoman who came to Brudos’s residence on business. He attracted her in and finally strangled her to death. Jerome saved her corpse and did unspeakable things with it. He cut off her foot to wear shoes on it for his hobby.

 

 

Thus started his 18-month series of killing, raping, and committing necrophilic acts with five more women. Two of his victims fled before he could murder them. The police discovered the corpses and contacted one of the victims’ roommates. They set up a sting operation where the roommate invited him on a date, and he was arrested.

 

Jerome confessed to all of his crimes in his interrogation. The police received a search warrant for his home. There, police discovered nylon rope, pictures of the dead women, and most horrifyingly the body parts of his victims that he had hidden. This was more than enough proof against him.

Brudos served 37 years in prison, before his death, by natural reasons in 2006. Netflix’s Mindhunter has shown Brudos’ crimes along with other gruesome murders. Brudos’ case fueled by his sexual repression, absurd dreams, and schizophrenia is one of the strangest ones I’ve ever seen.

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