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Jerome Brudos

Also known as: Jerry Brudos, The Lust Killer, The Shoe Fetish Slayer

Active

1968–1969

Region

Portland and Salem, Oregon, USA

State

OR

Kind

Serial

Status

Pleaded guilty

Victims

4

Jerome Brudos killed four young women in Oregon in 1968 and 1969: an encyclopedia saleswoman who came to his Portland home, a motorist stranded on Interstate 5, an Oregon State University student taken from a Salem department-store parking lot, and a woman abducted at Portland's Lloyd Center. Two of the bodies were found in the Long Tom River in May 1969, and police traced him through phone calls he had made to OSU students. Arrested on May 29, 1969, he pleaded guilty to three murders that June and received three life sentences. He died at the Oregon State Penitentiary in 2006.

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Victims

We remember the people whose lives were taken.

• Linda Kay Slawson, 19 · January 26, 1968

  An encyclopedia saleswoman from Aloha, Oregon. Brudos was charged with her murder in Multnomah County but never tried; her remains were never found.

• Jan Susan Whitney, 23 · November 26, 1968
• Karen Elena Sprinker · March 27, 1969

  An Oregon State University student.

• Linda Dawn Salee · April 23, 1969

  A secretary and part-time Portland State University student from Beaverton.

Timeline of locations

1. 1968
   Brudos's home, Salem (Killer's residence, approximate area)

   Brudos moved to a house in a Salem suburb in summer 1968. Whitney, Sprinker and Salee were killed at the house or in his garage workshop.

2. January 26, 1968
   Brudos's home, Portland (Crime scene, approximate area)

   Linda Slawson, selling encyclopedias door to door, came to the Brudos home in Portland in January 1968 and was killed there. Brudos later moved his family to Salem.

3. November 26, 1968
   Interstate 5 between Salem and Albany (Abduction, approximate area)

   Jan Whitney's car broke down on Interstate 5 near Albany, and Brudos offered her a ride.

4. March 27, 1969
   Meier & Frank parking lot, downtown Salem (Abduction, approximate area)

   Karen Sprinker was abducted from the Meier & Frank department store parking lot in Salem.

5. April 23, 1969
   Lloyd Center, Portland (Abduction, approximate area)

   Linda Salee disappeared from the grounds of the Lloyd Center mall in Portland.

6. May 10, 1969
   Long Tom River (Recovery site, approximate area)

   Linda Salee's body was found in a shallow stretch of the Long Tom River on May 10, 1969, and Karen Sprinker's about 20 yards away two days later. The exact spot is not given in sources.

7. June 1969
   Willamette River near Independence (Recovery site, approximate area)

   After his arrest, Brudos indicated where he had put Jan Whitney's body in the Willamette River; it was found about a mile downstream, near Independence.

8. June 27, 1969
   Marion County Circuit Court, Salem (Court / trial, approximate area)

   Brudos pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder before Judge Val D. Sloper and was sentenced to three consecutive life terms.

9. June 27, 1969
   Oregon State Penitentiary, Salem (Prison)

   Brudos entered the penitentiary on June 27, 1969, and died there of natural causes on March 28, 2006, after nearly 37 years. Victims' relatives opposed his release at repeated parole hearings.

Watch, listen, read

Sources

• Jerry Brudos (Wikipedia)
• Oregon's longest-held prisoner dies of natural causes (AP via The World, Coos Bay, 2006)

Each location also lists its own sources in the data file.