Jerry Brudos

Jerome Henry "Jerry" Brudos (January 31, 1939 – March 28, 2006) was an American serial killer and necrophile known as the Lust Killer and the Shoe Fetish Slayer who committed the kidnap, rape, and murder of four young women between 1968 and 1969 in Salem, Oregon.

He is also known to have attempted to abduct two other young women.

All of Brudos's murders were committed inside either his car or the basement or garage workshop of the two homes in which he resided during the period he committed his murders.

Each victim was killed by strangulation; several victims were photographed before and/or after death, and three of his victims endured post-mortem dismemberment.

Brudos is known to have engaged in acts of necrophilia with his victims' bodies and to have retained selective body parts — invariably the severed breasts or feet — of three of his victims to both demonstrate his Domination and to satiate his sexual fetish for women's feet, lingerie, and shoes.

Jerome Henry Brudos was born in Webster, South Dakota, on January 31, 1939, the younger of two sons born to Marie Eileen ( Alldridge) and Henry Ervin Brudos.

His mother had wanted her second child to be a girl and was very displeased that she gave birth to another son; she would frequently emotionally abuse and belittle her younger son — making no secret of the fact to Brudos she had wanted a daughter as opposed to another son.

By contrast, Brudos's mother doted on her older son, Larry.

The Brudos family lived a modest and pious lifestyle; Brudos's father typically held casual and often seasonal employment, whereas his mother was a homemaker.

Although Henry was a short-tempered individual, he was seldom physically abusive toward or emotionally critical of his children, whereas Marie was a harsh, matriarchal and prudish individual who reserved the majority of her denigration for her younger son.

As a direct result of his lacking of maternal acceptance, as a young child, Brudos formed a close friendship with a neighborhood woman of a similar age to his mother.

This individual was both compassionate toward and accepting of him throughout his visits and Brudos later confessed to occasionally fantasizing she was his true mother; however, the woman suffered from diabetes and her declining health forced her to cease permitting visits from him or other neighborhood children.

Shortly thereafter, a female childhood friend the same age died of tuberculosis, leaving Brudos inconsolable.

Brudos was an unremarkable and sickly child with few friends and who frequently complained of throat pains and migraines; he typically achieved average grades as opposed to his academically achieving and popular brother.

At high school, Brudos remained an unremarkable individual to both his peers and teachers alike.

He seldom engaged in extracurricular activities, although he is known to have been the secretary-treasurer of a youth club in his early teens.

Largely due to Henry Brudos's seasonal work, the family frequently moved home — typically around the Pacific Northwest — throughout Brudos's childhood before permanently settling in Salem, Oregon.

This property was also located upon farmland.

Brudos harbored a lifelong shoe and foot fetish; he later recollected his fascination for women's shoes and feet sourced from an incident when he, aged approximately five years, observed the teenage daughter of a family friend lying asleep on his bed, having been allowed to do so by Brudos's parents after she complained of feeling unwell.

According to Brudos, he was "transfixed" by the sight of the girl's high-heeled shoes and attempted to pry them off her feet; the girl awoke and simply told him to leave the room.

On another occasion at age five, Brudos discovered a pair of leather high-heeled shoes with a rhinestone-studded clasp while exploring a local junkyard.

Brudos took these shoes home, then slipped them on his feet to show his mother.

In response, Brudos's mother shrieked he was "wicked" and ordered him to remove the shoes and return them to the junkyard.

Upon learning her son had secretly retained the footwear and frequently secretly wore the garments, Brudos's mother severely beat him before burning the attire in his presence.

Two years after this incident, Brudos attempted to steal the high-heeled shoes of his first grade teacher; when caught, Brudos confessed to his actions although when asked why, he claimed not to know why he had attempted to steal the footwear.

By the onset of puberty, Brudos had also developed a fetish for women's underwear and lingerie.

According to Brudos, he was introduced to the practice of viewing, fondling and smelling female underwear by a neighborhood boy with several older sisters and with whom he occasionally sneaked into the girls' bedrooms to perform these acts, which invoked deep erotic feelings within him which he initially failed to understand.

As a teenager, Brudos would steal underwear from female neighbors upon moments of opportunism — some of which he would later wear.

By the onset of puberty, Brudos had still not learned of the act of sexual intercourse, although he became obsessed with viewing a naked female peer; however, he was markedly shy around girls in his neighborhood and at school.

Moreover, his height and severe acne further decreased his confidence in his ability to appeal to girls.

By approximately 1953, Brudos — still oblivious to the act of intercourse — had begun to masturbate.

He later claimed to fail to ejaculate during the act of masturbation as a teenager, although he frequently experienced wet dreams.

Whenever his mother discovered semen stains on his bed sheet, he was punished and forced to wash his own sheets.

Brudos began stalking local women in his early teens — several of whom he discreetly photographed.

He also stole and retained numerous items of lingerie and footwear.

However, none of these initial offenses were violent in nature, although by his mid-teens he had begun developing violent fantasies of forcibly possessing a woman.

At the age of sixteen, Brudos dug an underground tunnel and alcove close to his family home; this alcove was created to symbolically enact the developing fantasies within his mind regarding captive women, and he spent numerous hours within this lair at age sixteen mentally hoping to entrap a captive.

Although no women were confined at this location, Brudos did lure a neighborhood girl to his bedroom to facilitate his sexual fantasies at age sixteen.

Sentenced to three consecutive terms of life imprisonment, to be served at the Oregon State Penitentiary, Brudos died of liver cancer while incarcerated at this facility in 2006.

Brudos became known as the "Lust Killer" due to the primal motive behind his crimes; he also became known as the "Shoe Fetish Slayer" due to his lifelong shoe fetishism.