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.

[8] 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.

Minutes later, Brudos reappeared wearing his original shirt and with his hair in disarray and a minor scuff mark on his cheek, claiming the intruder had locked him in the family barn at knifepoint.

Within a year of this first known violent offense, Brudos had established a pattern of abducting girls his own age or younger — typically at knifepoint — and forcing them into a barn upon his family farm before ordering them to disrobe before photographing them.

His story was not believed, and the couple drove the two to the nearest police station, where Brudos admitted attacking the girl but claimed that his intention had been to simply intimidate her into removing her clothes in order that he could photograph her.

[16] Arrested upon charges of assault and battery, a subsequent search of Brudos's bedroom revealed his extensive collection of female clothing plus numerous Polaroid photographs of teenage girls, one of whom they were able to identify.

Although he became highly skilled in this profession, his military service was largely unremarkable and he gained a reputation among his fellow soldiers as something of a fantasist who repeatedly claimed to be in a casual sexual relationship with a "beautiful Korean girl" whom, he stated, sneaked into his bed every evening.

He became acquainted with Schwinler via a teenage boy who — being an amateur electronics enthusiast — frequently visited the radio station to observe and question Brudos as to aspects of his work and who had jokingly remarked about his shyness around female employees.

[12] Brudos was never physically or emotionally abusive towards his wife, although in the early years of their marriage he insisted she frequently walk around the house and perform housework naked save for a pair of high-heeled shoes, often as he photographed her before engaging in intercourse.

[27] By the mid-1960s, Theresa Brudos was a toddler — thus demanding more physical attention and nurturing from her mother; as such, Ralphene had begun to refuse to participate in the nude household high-heel modeling, photography and sexual rituals should her daughter view her parents.

[21] In May 1967, as his wife was in hospital giving birth to their second child, Brudos discreetly followed a young woman wearing attractive high-heeled shoes to her home; he waited until nightfall before entering her apartment, whereupon he proceeded to choke her into unconsciousness.

[15] Each victim was also subjected to acts of necrophilia and three were mutilated after death, with Brudos retaining the severed body parts to fuel his fetishes in addition to expressing his dominance.

[34] All were disposed of in the Willamette River,[35] although their shoes and underwear were retained and stowed within the household garage, which Brudos's wife and children were forbidden from entering without first announcing their intention via an intercom he had installed.

As Slawson sat on a stool and began advocating the sale of her encyclopedias, Brudos bludgeoned her about the head with a section of wood, then manually strangled her to death before concealing her body beneath the staircase to the basement.

Brudos later insisted this murder — much like Slawson's — was a crime of opportunity; he had simply encountered Whitney as he drove home from work and observed three individuals standing beside a broken-down Rambler alongside Interstate 5 between Salem and Albany.

A responding policeman had looked into the resultant damage, but due to the dust, debris and darkness and the fact the hole was at ground level, failed to observe Whitney's mutilated and suspended body.

[45] Sprinker was an 18-year-old Oregon State University chemistry student abducted at gunpoint from a parking lot outside a Meier & Frank department store while en route to meet her mother for lunch on March 27, 1969.

[3] Brudos — dressed in women's clothing at the time of this abduction[n 5] — had impulsively driven his station wagon into the parking lot after observing a young woman wearing high-heeled shoes and a miniskirt at this location.

[52] Salee was a 22-year-old removal firm secretary and part-time Portland State University student from Beaverton, Oregon, whom Brudos abducted from the grounds of the Lloyd Center shopping mall late in the afternoon of April 23, 1969.

[58][n 9] Upon closer inspection, they discovered the parcel was actually the bound, bloated body of a young woman, clad in a coat, weighed down by a large gearbox with copper wiring twisted in a manner in which electricians trim electrical lines.

[62] The most predominant factors in linking the deaths of Salee and Sprinker to the same perpetrator were the facts both young women had been bound with the same brand of electrical flex and that both had been weighted with car components, suggesting their murderer may have been an electrician or mechanic.

[63] She described this man as being Caucasian, in his late twenties or early thirties, slightly overweight, with thinning "blondish-red" hair and freckles; his vehicle had been a dirty station wagon "with kids' clothes in it", leading her to believe he had actually been married.

[52] The date itself had been a largely unpleasant experience, and Brudos had sensed the student's increasing unease in his presence, at one point indicating she had reason to be wary, stating: "Think of those two girls who were found in the river."

[43] Furthermore, although Brudos did not drive a Volkswagen Karmann Ghia, investigators discovered his mother owned such a vehicle and that he had been in possession of the car on April 22 — the date of the attempted abduction of Gloria Smith.

[56] Police also discovered a coil of copper wiring determined to be of precisely the same type used to bind the bodies of Linda Salee and Karen Sprinker to engine components prior to their disposal in the Long Tom River.

[57] Following this second arrest, Brudos was extensively questioned with regards to developments pertaining to the discoveries within his garage and his connection with regards to the missing and murdered young women — three of whom investigators had positively identified as Whitney, Sprinker, and Salee.

[70] In response to an entered plea of not guilty by reason of insanity at his initial arraignment, Brudos was subjected to a battery of psychiatric examinations by several doctors who unanimously concluded that he was sane and thus competent to stand trial.

[3] On June 27, 1969, three days before his trial was scheduled to commence, Brudos formally entered a plea of guilty to three counts of first-degree murder before Marion County Circuit Court Judge Val D. Sloper;[30] he was sentenced to three consecutive terms of life imprisonment with possibility of parole, to be served in Oregon State Penitentiary.

[72] These charges were initially filed in relation to an eyewitness account from an individual who claimed to have seen Brudos's wife assisting him in forcing a blanket-covered young woman into their property on the date of Sprinker's disappearance.

[81] Upon receipt of news of Brudos's death, the younger sister of Jan Whitney informed a reporter: "As soon as I heard he was dead, I started crying, and it wasn't for him; it was for our family.