about,” Bruno told Ned.
On the other hand, with the right plea bargain, Ned realized, he could avoid a murder charge in Middlesex and walk out of prison one day—if only he admitted to it and accepted a lesser charge.
And so Ned came clean. He admitted to Bruno that he committed the murder, but, of course, it was the same old story: self-defense. The Rutgers woman had come on to him, and when he refused her advances, he had no other choice but to strangle and stab her to death.
But she had forced him to do it, of course. What was he supposed to do?
The murder had occurred in 1983. Same set of circumstances.
“He looks like a Boy Scout,” Fred Schwanwede told the court during one of Ned’s plea hearings. “He doesn’t look at all dangerous. He looks like he could be the boy next door.”
Wasn’t that what made Ned even more dangerous—that he looked like and could portray the friendly neighbor?
The Good Samaritan.
The salesman.
Softball player.
Life of the party.
Ned didn’t have that evil look of a serial killer, or the rough look of a multiple murderer. In public, he was warm and funny and forthcoming. Just a pleasure to be around.
Ted Bundy redux, in other words. Bundy, who chose mostly college girls and worked his way into their good graces with his all-American pretty-boy looks and charming demeanor, liked to sexually mutilate his victims. In one case, he broke into the dorm room of Lynda Ann Healy, a university student, knocked her unconscious, dressed her in jeans and a T-shirt, wrapped her in a sheet, and tossed her into his car without anyone seeing. Healy’s body was found about a year later—she had been decapitated and dismembered.
28
I
Fred Schwanwede—a name, he professes, that he shares with no one else in the United States—was chief of sex crimes with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office. He knew from looking over the file that Mary Ellen Renard was, he said, “extremely lucky to be alive.” Most of the cases resulting in the injuries she had sustained hadn’t turned out so well. “Had Miss Renard not been so lucky,” Schwanwede speculated, “this case probably would have gone on unsolved. If he had killed her, chances are that unless he did something else subsequent to that and left a print or some other identifying forensic evidence somewhere else, Miss Renard’s homicide, if it had become that, would have never been solved.”
Ned had never been arrested. There was absolutely no connection between him and Mary Ellen until that night when they met at the singles dance. Aside from Ned and Mary Ellen’s chance meeting at Kracker’s, there would have been no way to tie them together. Even the print Ned left on Mary Ellen’s windowsill wouldn’t have done any good. There would have been nothing to compare it with.
Looking at the case, Schwanwede was fortunate, he knew, that Mary Ellen lived to tell her story. Going after a homicidal maniac and, with any luck, putting him away was what Schwanwede got up in the morning to do. If there was one prosecutor who could go after Ned, and pull in that Middlesex County case to make sure Ned’s jury knew the type of fanatic for blood he was, it was Fred Schwanwede.
As Schwanwede sat one morning and read the file on Mary Ellen, he was appalled by the sheer intimidation and manipulation Ned had obviously used to gain her confidence and trust.
II
To Mary Ellen Renard, allowing her attacker to skate on a plea of twenty years—suffice it to say after she was told he had also murdered a woman five years before in a strikingly similar fashion—made her sick to her stomach. The fact that Ned could be out in eleven years made her body ache, her mind race.
Mary Ellen later said the prosecutor’s office came to her and told her it was going to allow Ned to plead out his case. “At first, I was upset. It was not OK with me,” Mary Ellen later insisted.
She had explained to the prosecutor’s office that she was fully
On the other hand, with the right plea bargain, Ned realized, he could avoid a murder charge in Middlesex and walk out of prison one day—if only he admitted to it and accepted a lesser charge.
And so Ned came clean. He admitted to Bruno that he committed the murder, but, of course, it was the same old story: self-defense. The Rutgers woman had come on to him, and when he refused her advances, he had no other choice but to strangle and stab her to death.
But she had forced him to do it, of course. What was he supposed to do?
The murder had occurred in 1983. Same set of circumstances.
“He looks like a Boy Scout,” Fred Schwanwede told the court during one of Ned’s plea hearings. “He doesn’t look at all dangerous. He looks like he could be the boy next door.”
Wasn’t that what made Ned even more dangerous—that he looked like and could portray the friendly neighbor?
The Good Samaritan.
The salesman.
Softball player.
Life of the party.
Ned didn’t have that evil look of a serial killer, or the rough look of a multiple murderer. In public, he was warm and funny and forthcoming. Just a pleasure to be around.
Ted Bundy redux, in other words. Bundy, who chose mostly college girls and worked his way into their good graces with his all-American pretty-boy looks and charming demeanor, liked to sexually mutilate his victims. In one case, he broke into the dorm room of Lynda Ann Healy, a university student, knocked her unconscious, dressed her in jeans and a T-shirt, wrapped her in a sheet, and tossed her into his car without anyone seeing. Healy’s body was found about a year later—she had been decapitated and dismembered.
28
I
Fred Schwanwede—a name, he professes, that he shares with no one else in the United States—was chief of sex crimes with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office. He knew from looking over the file that Mary Ellen Renard was, he said, “extremely lucky to be alive.” Most of the cases resulting in the injuries she had sustained hadn’t turned out so well. “Had Miss Renard not been so lucky,” Schwanwede speculated, “this case probably would have gone on unsolved. If he had killed her, chances are that unless he did something else subsequent to that and left a print or some other identifying forensic evidence somewhere else, Miss Renard’s homicide, if it had become that, would have never been solved.”
Ned had never been arrested. There was absolutely no connection between him and Mary Ellen until that night when they met at the singles dance. Aside from Ned and Mary Ellen’s chance meeting at Kracker’s, there would have been no way to tie them together. Even the print Ned left on Mary Ellen’s windowsill wouldn’t have done any good. There would have been nothing to compare it with.
Looking at the case, Schwanwede was fortunate, he knew, that Mary Ellen lived to tell her story. Going after a homicidal maniac and, with any luck, putting him away was what Schwanwede got up in the morning to do. If there was one prosecutor who could go after Ned, and pull in that Middlesex County case to make sure Ned’s jury knew the type of fanatic for blood he was, it was Fred Schwanwede.
As Schwanwede sat one morning and read the file on Mary Ellen, he was appalled by the sheer intimidation and manipulation Ned had obviously used to gain her confidence and trust.
II
To Mary Ellen Renard, allowing her attacker to skate on a plea of twenty years—suffice it to say after she was told he had also murdered a woman five years before in a strikingly similar fashion—made her sick to her stomach. The fact that Ned could be out in eleven years made her body ache, her mind race.
Mary Ellen later said the prosecutor’s office came to her and told her it was going to allow Ned to plead out his case. “At first, I was upset. It was not OK with me,” Mary Ellen later insisted.
She had explained to the prosecutor’s office that she was fully
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