John Gerard Schaefer
The Killer Cop

 

 

This homicidal Broward County, Florida, ex-policeman, though convicted in 1973 of only two mutilation murders, is believed to be responsible for at least thirty more killings. A sadistic sex-beast by nature, Schaefer would lure young women off the roads with the help of his badge to rape, torture, mutilate and murder. He enjoyed tying his victims to trees and leaving them there while he went to work as a police officer. Teeth, jewelry and clothing from several missing girls and young women were found in a trunk in his mother's attic.

He once gave his wife a suede purse that belonged to one of his victims. As he was convicted for first degree murder of two teenage girls, Schaefer's wife divorced him and became engaged to his defense attorney. Not the resentful type, Gerard retained the attorney to continue handling his appeals.

Gerard also considered himself a bit of a novelist, publishing while in prison a collection of lurid tales of sex and gore that he marketed as a mail-order book called Killer Fiction.

Oddly, Sondra London, an old high school girlfriend who helped Gerard with his writings, subsequently became engaged to Danny Rolling, another sadistic killer awaiting execution for killing five students in Gainsville. On December 3, 1995, Gerard was found dead in his cell at the Florida State Prison in Starke. He had been stabbed numerous times around one eye and slashed across his throat.

His sister, Sarah Schaefer, claimed that her brother was murdered because of information he had obtained on the murder of Adam Walsh, the 6-year-old Hollywood, Florida, boy who's abduction and murder led to changing the legislation on missing children. Coincidentally, Gerard had befriended serial killer and cannibal Ottis Toole who once claimed he killed young Adam but later recanted. Authorities believe Gerard's death was linked to money he collected for his activities as a jailhouse lawyer.