Jerome Henry Brudos (January 31, 1939 – March 28, 2006) was an American serial killer and necrophile who murdered at least four women in Oregon between 1968 and 1969. His killings are primarily known for centering around Brudos' fetish for women's shoes.
Early life
Jerry Brudos was born in Webster, South Dakota, as the younger of two sons. His mother had wanted a girl and was very displeased that she had another son instead, and constantly subjected him to emotional and physical abuse as a result. As a child, Brudos and his family moved into different homes in the Pacific Northwest before settling in Salem, Oregon.
Brudos harbored a fetish for women's shoes from the age of five, after playing with stiletto heeled shoes at a local junkyard. He reportedly attempted to steal the shoes of his first grade teacher. Brudos also had a fetish for women's underwear and claimed that he would steal underwear from female neighbors as a child. He spent his teen years in and out of psychotherapy and psychiatric hospitals.
In his teenaged years, Brudos began to stalk local women, knocking them down or choking them unconscious, and fleeing with their shoes. At age 17 he abducted and beat a young woman, threatening to stab her if she did not follow his sexual demands. Shortly after being arrested, he was taken to the psychiatric ward of Oregon State Hospital for nine months. There it was found Brudos' sexual fantasies revolved around his hatred towards his mother and women in general. He underwent a psychiatric evaluation and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Despite being institutionalized, Brudos graduated from high school with his class in 1957. Shortly after graduation, he became an electronics technician.
In 1961, Brudos married a 17-year-old girl with whom he fathered two children and settled in a Salem suburb. He asked his new bride to do housework naked except for a pair of high heels while he took pictures. It was at about this time that he began complaining of migraine headaches and "blackouts," relieving his symptoms with night-prowling raids to steal shoes and lace undergarments. Brudos would undergo a period of transvestitism, where he used the female persona as a form of escape mechanism. Brudos kept the shoes, underwear and (for a time) the bodies of his victims in a garage that he would not allow his wife to enter without first announcing her arrival on an intercom that he had set up.
Murders and incarceration
Between 1968 and 1969, Brudos bludgeoned and strangled four young women and attempted to attack two others:
