Dark Dreams: Sexual Violence, Homicide And The Criminal Mind by Roy Hazelwood, Stephen G. Michaud

however, he confronted her as she emerged from her tub, naked and wet, and became aroused.
    From his confession it might appear that Billy Lee Chadd was an opportunistic rapist , a term I use to describe a man who arrives intent on committing one crime, usually robbery, but seizes the opportunity to commit another—rape.
    But Chadd was also a sexual sadist who left nothing to chance. He took the woman to the bedroom and raped her. Afterward, realizing that she could identify him, he decided to kill her. That is the essence of his confession.
    As an investigator, I would have been happy to obtain such a straightforward admission of guilt. It meant that the case was closed and Billy Lee Chadd would be taken off the streets for a long, long time.
    But then came a twist. In jail Chadd handwrote a manuscript that he titled “Dark Secrets.” Its contents certainly merit the title.
    When “Dark Secrets” came into my possession, I prevailed upon my wife-to-be, Peggy Driver, to type the manuscript. She presented me with fifty-seven pages of appalling typescript, double spaced. The fact that she later married me, despite the assignment I had pressed on her, attests to Peggy’s selfless nature.
    Self-Portrait of a Killer
    “Dark Secrets” is Chadd’s intimate reflection on his crimes and why he committed them. Portions of the text are graphic. Throughout the document, Chadd casts himself in the most positive light possible. His intelligence is evident, as is his belief that he is essentially normal. In both regards, he is an archetypal ritualistic offender.
    He says he led “a double life,” a husband and father who nevertheless had this little problem—a violent streak toward women. He rationalizes his behavior by noting that he came from a broken home. Both his mother and stepfather were alcoholics. From the time he was eight, Chadd writes, he can remember very few times his mother was out of bed before noon. Friends taught him how to steal at an early age. He boasts that by age eleven he could drive a car, and that he stole them “quite frequently,” without suffering any serious legal consequences.
    At age fifteen Chadd fell in love with his future wife, with whom he says he “began having sex when I was sixteen… We made love almost daily until July of my 16th year. Then all hell broke loose in my life.”
    Chadd describes his first real trouble with the law, a rape case, as a miscarriage of justice. This is the aberrant offender’s familiar pattern of blame projection. It’s always someone else’s fault.
    One midnight, he writes, a visiting friend, drunk and also high on drugs, announced that he wanted to go across the street to rob a house. Chadd claims he stayed in his friend’s truck, only to be awakened some hours later by flashlights and voices. It was the police, and he was under arrest. According to Chadd, he could not have committed the crime because of his unspecified physical abnormality, which the victim could not help but notice had he been her attacker. Yet she made no mention of it in her testimony. Chadd’s attorney apparently refused to pursue the matter. “I even told him to ask these questions. I wasted my breath. I was found guilty on her testimony and a partial footprint found in her driveway…. I was sentenced to two years.”
    Chadd escaped from the California Youth Authority (CYA) on two occasions. The second time, he writes, he “really did” rape someone.
    A subsequent sexual assault begins with a random knock on a door. “Bad luck for the poor lady that she was home. I told her our car had broken down and I asked if she would let me use her phone. If she would have said no and closed the door, nothing may have ever happened to her. She did say no, but she then explained that her husband was at work and she never let strangers in when she was alone. ALONE.”
    Chadd returns to the house, breaks through the front door with a brick, and discovers the woman in her bathroom. He grabs