Post by almagata on Oct 3, 2017 6:46:08 GMT
I just finished reading All His Father's Sins by Lt. Ray Biondi and Walt Hecox and A Venom in the Blood by Eric van Hoffmann. Both books are about the serial murdering couple Gerald and Charlene Gallego who were active in the Sacramento Area 1978 - 1980. The couple picked up victims to be their sex slaves but only kept their victims for a matter of hours before killing them.
All His Father's Sins was a fairly typical true crime paperback that did not dive too deeply into the depravity of the crimes. A Venom in the Blood, was rather graphic and highlighted Charlene's intense involvement in the crimes as a complete partner. In most of the abductions, she lured the victims to the van with some ruse. She actively participated in the sexual assaults, however, she swears that she never murdered any of the victims. She plea bargained to two second degree murder charges and a prison term of 16 years in exchange for her testimony against Gerald. Without her testimony the case against them was thin. Also, the police were not aware that the Gallegos were responsible for the murders of a number of the victims without Charlene's admission.
Here are a few excerpts from the book that I thought were interesting.
pg 198-199
She [Charlene] didn't realize that your average big city homicide officer has more unsolved cases in this file than he can crack in two life-times, that clues helped solve crimes for the convenience of one-hour TV scripts, and that those TV clues would be totally inadmissible in a real court unless they had been obtained under a search warrant, which required that clues be enumerated prior to issuance of that search warrant. The scale of justice is in the fact tilted in favor of the criminal, and every DA prays for a 180-degree turn someday that would enable him to go back to the good old days of solving crimes with clues rather than hard evidence. But in the meantime, it's forget the clues and gimme a good believable informant anytime, because without that informant or a confession in a stranger-killing-stranger homicide, my chances of even accidentally cracking that case is about as likely as my ex-wife letting me have the house back.
pg 201
Gerald wondered whether they should do a creepy-crawly Charles Manson attack and sneak into one of the houses where they spied at least a couple of females with no man in sight. But they decided it was too risky and reluctantly gave up the idea.
pg 206
At 5:00 A.M. Betty was lying on the bedroom floor of the house on Bluebird Lane. She was fully conscious but had lost count of the number of sexual indignities that had been inflicted upon her during the last three hours. Her kidnappers had used an illustrated paperback book on S&M as an instruction manual.
pg 211
"We had this sexual fantasy, see, so we just carried it out...I mean, like it was easy and fun and we really enjoyed it, so why shouldn't we do it?"
pg 212
Charlene was a fake, an habitual liar who couldn't keep her hands off other men and talked incessantly about "weird sex." Her favorite sexual fantasy was a ménage à trois with two woman and a man. On top of that, she would't wear makeup of fix her hair, she dressed like a hippie, and said that if her natural beauty wasn't enough, to hell with everyone.
pg 213
Just prior to Gerald, Charlene had had a powerful, sexually satisfying affair with a married man. She discovered that she loved to have sex with him if he told her he'd just made love to his wife. She would sometimes sneak over to his house late at night and meet him in the garage where they'd make wild, passionate love on a cot in the corner. The fact that the man's wife was sleeping in her bedroom just a few feet away always drove Charlene into an extra-special fantasy-fed sexual frenzy. On at least one occasion, after they'd finished in the garage, Charlene insisted that he go back to his bedroom, raise the window shade an inch or two, turn on the light wake his wife, and make love to her while Charlene peeped through the crack.
All His Father's Sins was a fairly typical true crime paperback that did not dive too deeply into the depravity of the crimes. A Venom in the Blood, was rather graphic and highlighted Charlene's intense involvement in the crimes as a complete partner. In most of the abductions, she lured the victims to the van with some ruse. She actively participated in the sexual assaults, however, she swears that she never murdered any of the victims. She plea bargained to two second degree murder charges and a prison term of 16 years in exchange for her testimony against Gerald. Without her testimony the case against them was thin. Also, the police were not aware that the Gallegos were responsible for the murders of a number of the victims without Charlene's admission.
Here are a few excerpts from the book that I thought were interesting.
pg 198-199
She [Charlene] didn't realize that your average big city homicide officer has more unsolved cases in this file than he can crack in two life-times, that clues helped solve crimes for the convenience of one-hour TV scripts, and that those TV clues would be totally inadmissible in a real court unless they had been obtained under a search warrant, which required that clues be enumerated prior to issuance of that search warrant. The scale of justice is in the fact tilted in favor of the criminal, and every DA prays for a 180-degree turn someday that would enable him to go back to the good old days of solving crimes with clues rather than hard evidence. But in the meantime, it's forget the clues and gimme a good believable informant anytime, because without that informant or a confession in a stranger-killing-stranger homicide, my chances of even accidentally cracking that case is about as likely as my ex-wife letting me have the house back.
pg 201
Gerald wondered whether they should do a creepy-crawly Charles Manson attack and sneak into one of the houses where they spied at least a couple of females with no man in sight. But they decided it was too risky and reluctantly gave up the idea.
pg 206
At 5:00 A.M. Betty was lying on the bedroom floor of the house on Bluebird Lane. She was fully conscious but had lost count of the number of sexual indignities that had been inflicted upon her during the last three hours. Her kidnappers had used an illustrated paperback book on S&M as an instruction manual.
pg 211
"We had this sexual fantasy, see, so we just carried it out...I mean, like it was easy and fun and we really enjoyed it, so why shouldn't we do it?"
pg 212
Charlene was a fake, an habitual liar who couldn't keep her hands off other men and talked incessantly about "weird sex." Her favorite sexual fantasy was a ménage à trois with two woman and a man. On top of that, she would't wear makeup of fix her hair, she dressed like a hippie, and said that if her natural beauty wasn't enough, to hell with everyone.
pg 213
Just prior to Gerald, Charlene had had a powerful, sexually satisfying affair with a married man. She discovered that she loved to have sex with him if he told her he'd just made love to his wife. She would sometimes sneak over to his house late at night and meet him in the garage where they'd make wild, passionate love on a cot in the corner. The fact that the man's wife was sleeping in her bedroom just a few feet away always drove Charlene into an extra-special fantasy-fed sexual frenzy. On at least one occasion, after they'd finished in the garage, Charlene insisted that he go back to his bedroom, raise the window shade an inch or two, turn on the light wake his wife, and make love to her while Charlene peeped through the crack.
