Extraction from the book: Children in Chains by author Clifford L. Linedecker

If there were an Olympics for chicken hawks, John Paul Norman would rate a gold medal for persistence. He is a veteran of more than a quarter of a century in the Boy-Love business and has a record of more than a dozen arrests in cities including Los Angeles, Sacramento, Santa Monica, and Santa Ana, California; Dallas and Houston, Texas; and Chicago and Homewood, Illinois. For 25 years he has been a traveling salesman if sex, dealing in children’s tears. He has sodomized children; photographed and sold pictures of nude boys engaged in various homosexual acts; established a series of sex ring trafficking in the bodies of boys delivered to hungry chicken hawks across the country; and published several B-L journals.

A former musician and producer of television commercials, he has an active, fertile mind that enabled him to hatch one nefarious scheme after another to peddle the sexual services of young boys. One of Norman’s earliest and most traumatic brushes with the law occurred when he was caught in the fall-out from the sex murders in Houston committed by Dean Corll and his accomplices. According to author Robin Lloyd, Norman had set up the Odyssey Foundation in Dallas, offering memberships for $15 enrollment fees and an additional $3 for a catalog with photographs and descriptions of hundreds of boys. (It should be emphasized here that the Odyssey Foundation bears no relation whatsoever to Dr. Densen-Gerber’s Odyssey Institute or to Odyssey House. It appears to be a coincidence that the same name should be used by one of the nation’s most notorious chicken hawks, and by a leading crusader against the sexual abuse of children.)

The boys were called ‘’Fellows,’’ and meetings were offered for fees ranging from $20 to $40 per day, plus air fare. Fellow were recruited by answering and placing ads in gay periodicals, and reputedly, by cruising bus terminals and other locations where boys were likely to be found. The Machiavellian plot collapsed after a young man replying to one of Norman’s ads stayed overnight with him. Looking through Odyssey literature the next morning, his eyes widened in alarm when he perceived that several Fellows were missing and the word ‘’Kill’’ was stamped on their pictures and descriptions. It was 1973 and the deaths of the 27 boys known to have died in the sex and sadism slaying in Houston were still fresh in everyone’s mind.

The young man notified staff members of a gay newspaper, and they in turn referred him to the FBI. Both the FBI and representatives of the newspaper knew that the word ‘’Kill’’ is a printer’s term indicating material that is no longer usable. Primarily because of the recent horror in Houston, however, a memo was forwarded to Dallas police. Norman’s apartment was raided the next day, and police carried away a pickup truck full of photoengraving equipment, cameras, and files containing sex literature and thousands of names and addresses.

Norman was booked on preliminary charges of contributing to juvenile violation of state drugs laws. The investigation did not link the lean, wavy-haired chicken hawk to the Houston slayings. But a check on his background disclosed that the Odyssey Foundation was not the first project of its kind he had established. He previously operated in several cities in California, for a time using a post office box in San Diego under the names ‘’Norman Foundation,’’ and ‘’Epic International.’’ He had a long list of arrests for sex offenses in Southern California and had also been previously picked up in Houston on charges of child molesting and sodomy.

Even more intriguing and promising, however, was the collection of some 30,000 index cards taken from Norman’s apartment listing presumed or prospective sponsors of the Foundation. The cards carried names of men from almost every state and Canada. Several of the names were of prominent people, some, of individuals known to be federal employees. Dallas investigators mailed their only copies of the cards to the State Department in Washington. There, the cards were destroyed. Officials determined that they ‘’were not relevant to any fraud case concerning a passport,’’ a spokesman later told Chicago Tribune.

The newspaper noted that it was not explained why the cards were not passed on to the FBI or postal inspectors, and were studied only from the standpoint of passport irregularities. Norman jumped bail. The next time he surfaced, he was living in Homewood, Illinois, a few miles south of Chicago in the home of one of his correspondents from Epic International. He was calling himself Steven Gurwell and was arrested after a tipster notified police that he had lured several boys into engaging in sexual acts with him by plying then with beer. Norman’s host later told Homewood police that the lanky panderer once supplied him with a sixteen-year-old Missouri boy whom he took to Europe on a $4,500 tour.

Again police confiscated pornography and another collection of names and addresses. The number had dwindled to 5,000. Only seven months after his arrest in Dallas, Norman was lodged in the Cook Chicago County Jail on charges of taking indecent liberties with juveniles. Chicago’s aged Cook County Jail is known for its escapes, overcrowding, and brutality. In a single year, 39 prisoners broke out, and critics complain that some of the city’s toughest street gangs, such as the Black P. Stone Nation, the Insane Unknowns, and the Latin Kings, wield as much authority inside the walls as do the guards.

This jail had held Richard Speck and was later to hold John Wayne Gacy. Consequently, if Norman’s activities in the jail were overlooked for a while when he first took up residence, it is perhaps not surprising. He kept busy and out of trouble. He had met a young criminal, Philip R. Paske, and hatched another scheme. Paske was jailed on murder charges after he was accused of being the driver of a getaway car in a robbery slaying. The newest contrivance depended on what Norman described as Delta Dorms, established in various states.

He explained that each dorm was in reality ‘’a private residence where one of our sustaining members acts as a don (authorities define a don as a boy-lover who sexually exploits a child under the guise of providing protection or management) for two to four cadets.’’ Significantly, he advised that whatever occurred between cadet and sponsor was their business. Information about his newest project was disseminated by John Norman’s Newsletter. Three issues of the journal were produced before authorities learned that it was being printed with facilities in the Cook County Jail. The project kept Norman too busy to get into trouble with other inmates.

By the time the operation was uncovered, the twenty-five-year-old Paske had pleaded guilty to attempted armed robbery in a plea-bar-gaining agreement and was free on probation. He reportedly helped continue Norman’s newest program outside the jail, with mailing directed to a Chicago post office box registered in both his name and that of his mentor. Paske was later hired as a summer employee by the city of Chicago and assigned to the Fire Department gymnasium pool near Navy Pier as part of a Federal Comprehensive Employment Training Act program. He was fired from the $4,75-an-hour job a few weeks later when his background was publicly disclosed.

Norman not only offered pictures and descriptions of young boys and an explanation of the Delta Project in his newsletter but added eloquent pleas for help raising bail money for himself—and, prior to his friends’ release, for Paske, whom he identified as ‘’Phillip, my right-hand man here.’’ He said the primary purpose of the initial newsletter was to raise a defense fund for bail, attorney’s fees, and associated costs. He frankly admitted that the reason for his jailing had ‘’nothing to to do with the Foundations and arises from my own damned foolishness, ’’but’’ nevertheless, immobilizes me and limits operations.’’ He indicated he was anxious to be free so that he could continue with his foundation work.

A skeleton operation was maintained. Through contact ‘’with former Fellows—and a few recruits who I feel are of Foundation caliber,’’ he said, he was attempting to retain interest. The lead page of the first newsletter was topped with headshots of five of his recruits: Reggie, from Maine; Phillip in New York; Ray in Florida; Jimmy in Texas; and Gary, whose home state was not mentioned. ‘’It’s an interesting crew and there’ll soon be more joining us,‘’ Norman wrote.

He pointed out that sponsors could visit youths to join them on trips or to visit in their homes. ‘’You provide round-trip fare and pay a daily stipend—part of which goes to my Defense Fund, part of which goes to youth’s own self-development fund. ‘’You have my guarantee that the Fellow will be sincere and honest, presentably dressed, and on time. Nothing more is required of him. The Fellow are all friendly and adaptable, however, and warm friendships are possible between them and their sponsors. Return trips are common, in fact,’’ Norman described himself as a man who had ‘’been a positive influence on youths I’ve encountered.’’ Integrity and character were goals of the Foundation program, he said, and personal qualities he had encouraged in young people ‘’by precept and example.’’

At least one person must have been impressed. A supporter in California responded with money for Norman’s bail. Norman remained free until almost 1976, when he pleaded guilty to eight counts of indecent liberties with a child and was sentenced to prison. Eighteen months later, Norman was arrested in Chicago on charges of contributing to the delinquency of minors. Police learned that he had served less than a year in the Illinois state prison at Pontiac before he was paroled on condition that he avoid the company of boys under eighteen unless their parents were present; neither possess nor deal in pornography; and obtain psychiatric treatment.

Chicago police Sergeant Ronald Kelly, head of a special child pornography unit, explained that Norman was accused of taking nude photographs and engaging in sexual relations with two boys, sixteen and seventeen, who were wards of the Department of Children and Family Services. He was additionally accused of violating his parole. Kelly disclosed that Norman had also revived his old project, renaming it the ‘’Creative Corps.’’ The journal was renamed Male Call, a component on M.C. Publications. The policeman said that the two state wards had revealed that Norman planned to send their photographs to a don in Canada. If the man was pleased with their appearance, they would presumably follow their photos across the border. The newest arrest netted more pornography from Norman’s north side apartment and another file of names of his correspondents.

Police said that more than 50,000 men from every state, including Alaska and Hawaii, and from several foreign countries were listed in the file which also carried information about sexual preferences. Some of the pink cards had photos of the clients attached. Paske was present in Norman’s apartment when the raid occurred but was not arrested. He was identified in Mae Call as manager of a mail-order concern. The first issue of the newsletter was published from 3795 Mission Boulevard, San Diego, for $1 per copy and listed Earl Snyder as president and managing editor. An introductory statement on the front page pointed out that the basic purpose of the newsletter was to serve as a conduit for personal contacts.

The ads used the most explicit terminology to describe physical characteristics and listed sexual preferences for such practices as sadism and masochism, bondage, Greek (buggery), and French (fellatio). One ‘’affectionate male’ from San Francisco sought meetings with ‘’very obese’ males of 300 pounds to 350 pounds if short, 350 to 400 pounds or more if tall. ‘’Big rears and big thighs’’ were preferred, Some ads were accompanied by standard head and shoulder photos. Others were of nude men sprawled on beds or sofas and displaying their genitals. Male Call carried a form requiring the signature of prospective advertisers, certifying that they were eighteen or older. The newsletter also carried a plea for contributions to John Norman’s Defense Fund, which were to be used by Norman to assist ‘’other guys, mostly gay, who need funds for bail, for lawyers, or for getting started on the street.’’

A sinister development in the history of police contact with Norman occurred when three teenage boys were found dead of multiple stab wounds in a car parked behind a north-side gas station. All had their throats slit and were victims of what police said was an almost ‘’ritualistic stabbing.’’ One of the boys, Michael Salcido, seventeen, was a ward of the DCFS and had been expected to testify against Norman in an upcoming trial. A couple of days after the discovery of the bodies of the boys, including Salcido’s nineteen-year-old brother, Arthur, and the sixteen-year-old son of a suburban grocer, Homewood police disclosed that a seventeen-year-old boy who had helped implicate Norman on the child molesting charges six years earlier had also been mysteriously stabbed to death. The youth was walking home from his job in a gas station when he was stabbed six times in the back.

The triple murders of the Salcidos and their friend occurred barely two months after investigators had begun unearthing the remains of the victims of John Wayne Gacy from beneath his house in suburban Norwood Park township, and the public was especially sensitive to the homicidal tendencies of some chicken hawks. The news media immediately published disconcerting stories about the link between John Norman and two dead boys.

A few weeks later, however, police announced that the multiple slaying in Chicago had been solved and was the result of local street gang rivalries and a tragic case of mistaken identity. Reputed members of the Latin King street gang were charged with murder. Police said the younger of the two Salcidos had approached members of the King under the mistaken belief they belonged to the rival Latin Eagles, and tried to make a marijuana buy. The out-of-town youth were instead lured to a quiet location and killed.

By some improvident happenstance, it was Norman’s fate to time his troubles and presence to coincide with the two most ghastly case of mass murders of boys by homosexual sadists in the history of the United States. Norman’s name also cropped up during an investigation of the publication of Hermes, which at the time was one of the premier B-L journals in the country. But the publisher of Hermes was Eldon Gale ‘’Rusty’’ Wake, who, until a few days prior to his arrest, was an employee of the audio-visual department of Trinity College several miles north of Chicago.

Norman’s name turned up because he was one of the kingpins of a loosely organized national network of chicken hawks who shared common goals of money and pleasure obtained though the sexual exploitation of young boys. His name was also found in New Orleans on a list of Halverson’s contacts. Guy Strait had met Norman and said he had also written a story for Hermes. Unconfirmed stories circulated that Frank Shelden (North Fox Island) had a financial interest in the clandestine newsletter, as well.

Wake also an associate of one of the men who was arrested in the investigation of the chicken movie filmed in Chicago. The child pornography suspect from Chicago and another man, who was connected with a gay newspaper and operated a citizen’s band radio show for homosexuals, were identified as principals in the publication of Hermes. The Chicagoan reportedly worked on layouts, and the other man, who had a police record for sodomy and escape from a mental hospital, was said to screen prospective subscribers. Wake, the forty-year-old father of two children, was arrested on eight criminal charges, six of them linked to publication of the Xeroxed sex journal. The other charges accused him of distrusting a tape recording, titled Richard, that described a young boy’s first sexual experience with an adult male; and with distribution of a calendar showing two boys engaged in a sexual act.

Both Wake and his wife, Wanda, a special education teacher in a suburban Chicago school, were co-signers of a bank account for the newsletter. Hermes was said to be selling about 5,000 copies bimonthly and contained coded advertisements enabling readers to contact each other and to locate boys for pornographic modeling or prostitution. Articles on boy-love, line drawings of naked boys, photographs, and the editor’s column, ‘little squirts by russ,’’ also appeared in the publication.

It was explained in one issue that Hermes was the Greek God of commerce, invention, cunning, and theft, who was also messenger for the other gods, patron to rogues and travelers, and conductor of the dead to Hades. Significantly, he was also patron god of boys. Feasts involving homosexual acts were dedicated to Hermes and celebrated by boys in the Gymnasia. The magazine was dedicated to ‘’the Greek ideals of boy-love in the emotional and physical realm, ‘’the publishers claimed. They stated that the newsletter did not ‘’encourage or promote illegal pederasty,’’ although they believed that the age of consent should be lowered. ‘’We feel that the responsible boy-lover can fulfill a real need in the lives of many boys.’’

Investigators said that when they arrived at Wake’s home to arrest him, suitcases were open and clothing strewn everywhere. The couple’s children, six and seven, had already been sent to Florida a few days earlier. Wake attempted, in a federal suit, to have his arrest ruled invalid because the Illinois obscenity law under which he was charged was previously declared illegal by a three-judge federal panel. But shortly after his suit was filed, the United Sates Supreme court reversed the power court ruling and restored the obscenity law.

Edmund Leja has a knowledgeable although reluctant familiarity with obscenity laws. He has been struggling with them for more than a quarter-century. Also known as Edward Lee and Ed Lea, he is owner and publisher of Crismund Publications, a group of nudist magazines, and, according to his own testimony before a U.S. Congressional committee, an innocent victim of the controversy over child pornography.

Magazines in the Crismund line published in Studio City, California, where those most often shown in television presentations and in newspaper and other photos from publications accused of containing kiddie porn. Nudist Moppets, especially, has been singled out for its cover pictures of nude little girls. The children depicted in Leja’s magazines are not photographed in overt sexual activities.

Other magazines are more explicit and shown children engaged in sexual behavior with their peers, adults, and animals, and obviously are not suitable for reproduction in the conventional media even when kiddie porn is the subject. Leja pointed out that when hard-core pornography first became easily available it almost killed the nudist magazines, which had existed in this country since about the 1930s.

In the early 1960s, there were 40 or so nudist publications, but after the introduction of hard-core smut there was a period when there were no nudist magazines at all. They could not compete with the more bluntly candid product that showed simulated or actual sexual acts.

The witness told congressmen that his best selling magazines had a circulation of only about 13,000, compared of sales of 50,000 or more of some explicit pornography. A sales figure of 10,000 barely permitted him to break even, he explained. ‘’So I have to have a winner each time.’’ He defended the publications as the only media available to nudist parks and families because other sources of communication have traditionally shut the movement out. Even telephone companies have refused to use the term ‘’nudist’’ or ‘’nude’’ in their listing, he said.

Consequently, magazines like Nudist Moppets, The Joys of Nudist Youth, Moppets and Teens, and All Color Digest in his package of publications were the only sources available to serve as a conduit of information for the nature movement. Leja told the congressmen that children comprise about 25 to 50 percent of the population of nudist parks on a given weekend, and, thus, they are represented in the nudist press.