"Records show he was born Oct. 25, 1965, the son of Sandra A. and Michael V. Travis, who lived in the Carr Square public housing complex just northwest of downtown. He attended St. Louis Public Schools from 1971 to 1975.
He was 10 when his family moved to a simple ranch house in Ferguson. Records show his parents divorced in 1978. The records also show that his mother remarried, but divorced again in 1993.
A neighbor in Ferguson described Maury Troy Travis as a quiet, respectful boy who sometimes mowed her lawn without being asked and showed her how to use an electric hedge trimmer.
She knew him by his nickname, Toby, and said he was a pleasant child with a soft heart.
"I don't believe he could kill a fly, " she said.
Other longtime neighbors said they have virtually no recollection of the boy.
Records in the Ferguson-Florissant School District show he was enrolled in 1981 as a ninth-grader at Ferguson Junior High School. By 1982, he was a student at McCluer High School.
Several students who attended McCluer at the same time said they cannot remember Travis. If he is pictured in any of the yearbook photographs, he is not identified.
Sue Hanan, a retired English teacher at McCluer, said she immediately recognized Travis' name and photograph at the time of his arrest.
She remembers him as a student in her basic English class, for students who failed an earlier English course.
She describes him as "very quiet and withdrawn, incredibly quiet for a teenager."
"Even the quiet ones can be noisy sometimes, but not him, " she said.
School records show Travis graduated in 1985. Other documents indicate he then served two years in the Army Reserve, working as a medical and dental assistant. He took a variety of jobs with trucking companies in the area and volunteered at a local nursing home.
By 1987, at age 22, Travis enrolled at Morris Brown College in Atlanta, a school with some 2,000 students and affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Hooked on what he described as a $300-a-day cocaine habit, and short on cash, Travis robbed five shoe stores in north and west St. Louis County in an eight-day period in March 1988.
Joe Spiess, who as a St. Louis County police detective arrested Travis based on a car description, said recently: "He was respectful and quiet and reserved. He wasn't your typical type of criminal."
Travis pleaded guilty of the robberies on Jan. 19, 1989, telling the court that he had used a plastic toy gun to steal money to pay for drugs. He told the judge he was so strung out that he barely remembered the robberies.
At the sentencing hearing six months later, St. Louis County Circuit Judge Steven Goldman said letters of support seemed to indicate the crime spree was "an aberration in your character" resulting from the drug habit.
Travis told the judge he had gone through a drug rehabilitation program and was "clean."
"I got all that stuff out of my system, " he said, adding that he was "rehabilitated."
Among the documents in Travis' court folder is a one-page letter from former U.S. Rep. William L. Clay. Written on congressional stationery, it asks the court for leniency.
"I have known Mr. Travis and his family for a number of years and I feel he is deserving of special consideration in this matter, " Clay wrote.
"Since January 1988, Mr. Travis has conducted himself in such a manner as to pose no threat to society. I am pleading that he be given leniency and probation with the condition of voluntary service at a charitable community agency . . ."
Reached last week, Clay says he does not remember Travis or his family.
During his congressional career, Clay said, he sent "thousands" of similar letters.
On July 5, 1989, the judge sentenced Travis to 15 years in prison. He was four months from his 24th birthday.
Two months later, Travis wrote a three-page letter to Goldman from the Farmington Correctional Center.
Carefully hand-printed on yellow legal paper, the letter pleaded with the judge to reconsider the sentence.
"Daily and hourly also at any given moment I think of taking my life, " Travis wrote.
"The condition here are excruciatingly tormenting to say the least. Staying in my cell and crying myself to sleep most every night will not help, but it's so very hard to believe this has happened to me.
"This whole situation is horrid and phantasmic.
"If it weren't for such a caring cellmate, I'm very sure Id've committed suicide after my first day here at this institution."
The letter complains of homosexual rapes, cramped living conditions, poor food and a proliferation of drugs. There is no specific claim that he was raped.
He asks that his sentence be replaced by a 120- or 180-day "shock" imprisonment.
Shortly after Travis was paroled on June 14, 1994, he moved into a duplex in the 8800 block of Lucas & Hunt Road.
The Rev. Linda Harrison, whose home shared a common wall with Travis', said there was "not the tiniest" of problems while he was there.
Once, she said, she was in the basement of the building doing wash when he surprised her coming down the stairs.
"He startled me, " she said, "and he was so apologetic. He said 'Ms. Harrison, I'm so sorry.'"
After that, she said, each time Travis came down into the shared basement, he would break into a hum or a song to let her know that he was coming.
Harrison's son, Zabray Harrison, said he often drank a couple of beers with Travis in front of their homes.
"I don't have a bad thing to say about him, " Zabray Harrison said. "I guess you never know what happens behind closed doors."
In the years that followed - between two more prison stints on drug-related charges - Travis worked several restaurant jobs. During the summers of 2000 and 2001, he was a waiter at the restaurant at the Mayfair Hotel downtown.
A co-worker, Dave Wucher, remembers Travis counseling him on the dangers of drugs.
"He told me that crack and heroin were the worst thing that God put on this earth."
Wucher said Travis also talked "every day" about his 2000 black Mitsubishi Eclipse. "He told me how to wax my car, how to take care of the engine."
Wucher called Travis' car his "pride and joy."
Once, Wucher said, he told Travis about a friend whose car was stolen and later found burning in East St. Louis.
"Maury told me that East St. Louis was a good place to dump things because there's not many police around, " Wucher said. The bodies of at least four of Travis' suspected victims were found in the East St. Louis area.
Sachs would sit with Travis in an interrogation room for the next three hours, until almost 2 p.m., trying somehow to work his way into Travis' mind, trying to understand what had made him who he was.
Sachs asked him about girlfriends.
Yes, Travis said, he had dated.
He asked him about prostitutes.
Yes, Travis said, he had paid for prostitutes.
Had he been abused as a child, Sachs asked him.
"No, " Travis said. "How about you?"
At one point, Sachs said, he talked to Travis about the debate over whether the kinds of crimes Travis was suspected of committing were "inherent" or "learned" behavior.
"He said I would never understand, " Sachs said. "He said he was born like this. He said he'd been like this since he could remember."
Police said that during their interview, Travis seemed to show genuine affection and concern for only one person - his mother.
"He seemed very fond of her, " Sachs said.
But throughout the nearly eight hours of questioning, police said, they never saw any remorse, any feelings of guilt.
"Absolutely none, " Sachs said.
Sachs questioned Travis for nearly eight hours, before giving way to Douglas and Walker, who immediately began a more direct, more "in your face" confrontational interview that had produced results with past suspects.
Just 19 minutes into the interview with Douglas and Walker, police said, Travis asked for an attorney, and the interview was stopped.
"I am not going back to prison, " Travis told his interrogators. "I am not going back."
Three days later, without being questioned by police again, he was dead - a pillowcase pulled over his head and his hands tied behind his back - in a hanging that Clayton police and the St. Louis County medical examiner agreed was very odd but a suicide nonetheless.
A woman from Pagedale whose daughter dated Travis just last year said she never could have imagined that he was what she called "a real Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."
"He always seemed so happy, so laid-back, " said the woman, who wanted her name withheld.
"He was the perfect gentleman."
SIUE students help state police identify Jane Does in cold cases linked to serial killer
Travis made references to various books and Web sites relative to bondage and torture. He had books, which referenced the Marquis De Sade, as well as other written materials relating to
• How men should enjoy every aspect of their sexuality
• How women should be used and abused
• How women should be tortured and kept in bondage, degraded, and humiliated
This offender was heavily into S&M and had videotaped some of his activities as he acted out his fantasies with his victims. The investigators located this videotape in a secret compartment in the suspect’s basement. There were a number of episodes recorded on tape that eventually led to the identification of the victims. One portion of the tape began with the camera focused on a nude, black female who appeared to be between the ages of 30 and 40. The camera recorded her performing oral sodomy on Travis. Her hands were free. She was wearing a military cold weather pile cap. Her eyes were covered with some type of cloth material, which was covered with duct tape. She was on her knees on the bed facing Travis, who was apparently sitting against a pillow on the bed. The next scene showed the victim lying face down on the bed with her hands apparently secured to the headboard of the bed in some unknown manner. Travis is engaged in anal sex with the bound victim. The victim was heard to moan as Travis thrust himself into her. She began to cry and plead with him. She told him that it hurt. Travis told her to shut up. Travis then began to thrust harder and you could hear the victim moaning and crying out from the pain. When Travis was finished, he left the victim lying on the bed moaning. Suddenly, Travis reappeared and smacked the victim across her bare buttocks. He told her to sit still.
Travis then focused the camera on her vagina. He fondled her vagina while holding the camera and filming closeups of his activities as he probed her. The victim continued to repeat, “You are the master and it pleases me to serve you.” Travis said to her, “Clearer,” which obviously meant to keep speaking those words. Travis then jammed his finger into her vagina and you could hear the woman cry out in pain. Travis then replaced the camera on its tripod. He took a Corona beer bottle and inserted the neck of the bottle into the female’s vagina. The victim gasped out in pain. Travis told her, “Spread your legs. Spread them wide.” During this activity, the victim was constantly made to repeat the above phrase: “You are the master, and it pleases me to serve you” (Figure 2.25).
The next scene continued in the bedroom. The nude female is lying back on the bed with her legs spread. Her hands were cuffed together and she is heard to say, “You are the master and it pleases me to serve you” over and over again. Travis told her, “Say it clear. I can’t hear you.” Travis then pushed the bottle up into the victim’s vagina. The victim was losing her concentration as Travis pushed the bottle into her vagina and wasn’t speaking clearly enough. Travis told her, “Stop. Say it. You are the master and it pleases me to serve you.” The victim continued to say, “You are the master and it pleases me to serve you.” Travis then told her, “Spread you legs. Put them all the way up.” Travis then said, “What were you saying?” The victim continued to say the phrase. Once Travis had her legs spread open to expose her anal cavity, he began to insert the Corona bottle into her anal cavity. You could hear the victim saying the phrase and crying out from the pain he was causing her. The victim is clearly in pain. But, Travis continued to make her utter the phrase. He told her, “Move your hands,” as she attempted to protect herself. Travis told her, “Put your hands over your head.” She was crying out in pain as she uttered the phrase. Travis told her, “Shut up or I’ll put this mother fucker (meaning the bottle) up your mother fucking stomach.” Travis then rammed the bottle into her anal cavity and then yelled at her, “Put your hands over your head. Shut up. Concentrate.” The victim continued to utter the phrase. Travis then got mad at her for complaining and he slapped her across the face. Travis said, “Sit your fat ass down, you dumb ass bitch. Lay down on the bed and close your eyes.” Apparently, out of camera range, the victim tried to take the tape off her eyes. Travis got mad and said, “I’m gonna put a plunger up your ass and I ain’t pull’n it out till I see blood. Do it again. Take that tape off again and see what happens.” Travis then said to the female, “Are you sorry you jumped into a car with a mother fucker? The female said she was sorry for jumping into a car with a guy. Travis raised his voice as if he was irritated and said, “Say it like I said it: You are sorry for jumping into a car with a mother fucker.” The female repeated what he told her to say. Travis then asked her if she had any children. She told him that she did. Travis asked her if she was raising her children and she said yes. Travis said, “You’re not raising nothing, you are out there laying on your back, getting money for crack.” In the next scene, you observe Travis attaching a chrome-colored chain to the female’s neck. During the process of attaching the chain, the female began choking. Travis said to her, “Shut up, Bitch; I’m not going to hurt you, at least not yet. I think I’m going to keep you for a couple of weeks.” The tape ended at this point. This victim was later identified as one of Maury Travis’s serial murder victims.
He left a suicide note. In the lower right hand corner of the letter, Travis wrote the following: “To whom it may concern; please give this to my mother; it’s also proof that you guys didn’t kill me.”
Travis had an extensive collection of written materials, which dealt with bondage and sexual slavery. He had also made plans to build a concrete block cell in his basement. While conducting the search of the basement, the detectives located a secret wall. Upon checking behind the wall, they located a VHS tape, which investigators dubbed, “the wedding tape,” along with an 8 mm porno videotape. Ten other videotapes were also seized, which contained various sexual acts; however, there was no bondage or physical abuse on the tapes. “The wedding tape” provided the most compelling evidence. Travis had recorded his sexual assaults and tortures on the VHS tape using the wedding footage as a cover. The actual wedding lasted approximately 1 hour and 26 minutes. The remainder of the tape contained video showing Travis torturing and killing a young woman. The tape then continued with various video clips, which depicted Travis torturing a series of victims, who were subsequently identified as homicide victims Travis had dumped in Illinois and Missouri (Douglas, personal interview, 2002).
A Case History: Video Documentation
This is a portion of videotape referred to as the “Wedding Tape” by the investigator because the offender used a videotape of a family wedding to hide the recordings of his sexual tortures of some of his victims. In Chapter 10, the author presented the case of Maury Travis, a serial killer who videotaped some of his torture sessions with his victims. In this section, I have provided a description of one of the killer’s videotapes entitled, “First Kill.” It was an extremely disturbing tape to view as you watch the offender sexually torture the young woman, who he then killed on tape. I have also provided a description of one of the sexual tortures in which the offender makes the victim refer to him as “master” as he brutally tortures her. This first portion of the tape began at 0:31:15 and ended at 0:42:50.
First Kill
The first victim was a black female. The offender has used a family wedding tape to record his perversions using the title of the tape as a cover. The tape was recovered in a secret compartment in the basement of the serial killer’s home. The videotape begins with a family wedding. The wedding ceremony is suddenly replaced with the videotaping of the victim. The camera was focused on the vaginal area of the female victim. The young woman was lying on her back on the floor. Her hands were secured behind her back with handcuffs. The offender, Maury Travis, was observed probing her vagina with his fingers. He spread the labia and focused the camera on her genitals as he gave her orders, “Sit still before I bust you upside your fuck’ing [sic] head.” Travis then tells the victim, “Roll over on your stomach.” When she did roll over, you could observe duct tape wrapped around her eyes and head. Her hands are secured with handcuffs and the handcuffs are joined by a chain to leg irons. As she was lying facedown on the floor, she began to squirm from the discomfort of her bindings. Travis told her, “Sit still. Sit the fuck still. Did anybody tell you you could move your shit?” He kept the camera focused on the victim as she lay on the floor. Travis then picked up the woman onto her knees and positioned her in front of him as he sat nude on the couch. He ripped the tape off her mouth and pushed her head onto his penis. He makes the female, who is on her knees in the floor area of the basement, perform oral sodomy on him. He then began to manipulate her head onto his penis. When the oral sodomy was complete, Travis puts his foot on her chest and pushed her backwards onto the floor as he lay back on the couch. Travis then got up and left the view-finder of the camera. The victim was observed lying sideways with her hands and feet bound and the remainder of the duct tape wrapped around her neck. She is heard to be whispering, “Momma, momma, momma” over and over again. Travis, who was still nude, appeared a short time later with a pair of scissors in his hand. He cut the duct tape from the victim’s neck and then pulled the remaining tape off her neck causing her body to jerk. She cried out in pain. Travis reappears in view of the camera with a belt in his hands. He approached the female and put the belt around her neck. He put the end of the belt through the belt buckle. He pulled on the belt and the belt buckle apparently broke. He took the belt and placed it around the female’s neck and pulled the ends of the belt in a Psychopathic Sexual Sadism 735 loop around the victim’s neck. Travis straddled the young woman as he literally strangled her to death.
As Travis pulled the belt tighter and tighter around the victim’s neck, you could observe the victim going into spasm and convulsion. You can hear the victim as she moans, gags, coughs, and chokes as Travis pulls the belt tighter around her neck. Her movement was limited due to hog tie restraints. However, you could observe her body convulse against the floor as Travis bent over her and pulled the belt and twisted her body around the floor. In the next scene, Travis is observed sitting next to the dead female’s body as she lay on her back on the floor. Travis then got up and put on his under shorts. A short time later the camera focuses on the victim’s body, which is now face down on the floor with the restraints removed. Travis who has now redressed enters the room out of the eye of the camera. Travis is then heard to say, “This is first kill, number one.” “The first kill was 19 years old.” He then said, “Name, I don’t give a fuck,” Travis is observed flipping the body over onto her back as if she was a piece of meat. He drops her head onto the floor. He then focused the camera onto the victim’s body and said, “First Kill, it was nice” (From the author’s files and personal interview with Detective Roy Douglas).
Torture Tape
The victim is observed on the basement floor totally nude with her arms bound behind her back. Her eyes are covered with duct tape. She appears to be approximately 40 to 50 years of age. Travis, who was carrying the camera around with him, enters what is believed to be a storage closet and retrieves a plunger and returns to the location of the victim. He takes the stick end of the plunger and inserts it into the woman’s vagina. He inserted the plunger handle, which appears to be six to eight inches long, into the vagina of the female and then removed it and appears to be measuring the amount of the handle he had forced into the female. Travis then told the woman, “Put your legs all the way up and grab them.” Travis then laughed and said, “Oh, that’s right, you can’t grab them.” (This was because the woman’s hands were cuffed behind her back.) Travis again inserted the stick into the woman’s vagina and she moaned in pain. Travis said, “Shut up. Shut the fuck up.” As he jammed the stick into the woman, she let out another moan. Travis then threatened, “Shut up bitch. Before I go into this asshole. “Now put those legs back up.” The victim complied. Travis continued to insert the plunger handle into the vagina of the female. Travis then said, “Your pussy’s loose as hell, all that bullshit.” Travis asked her if she was sorry that she got into a car with a motherfucker you didn’t know. The victim stated she was sorry for getting into a car with a guy she didn’t know. He said to her, “Say it like I told you to say it, you got into a car with a motherfucker you didn’t know.” The female then answered and said it the way Travis wanted it to be said.
He continued to jam the plunger handle into her. Travis then said, “Shut up,” as the victim cried out. Travis then took the stick and jammed it up into her anal cavity. She cried out. Travis said, “Shut the fuck up.” Put your legs all the way up, all the way up. Stupid ass bitch. You smell like shit too.” The victim then screamed out, “Oh please don’t do this. Oh God please, please, please.” You could then hear Travis smacking her and beating her. Travis said, “You stupid ass bitch.” Travis then told her to say, “You’re sorry.” He asked her name and made her say it again. Travis then asked how old she was. He then questioned her about her kids. In the next scene, the female is standing up in the basement area as she turns around you observe that her arms are secured behind her back. Her forearms are next to each other with her right hand holding her left elbow and her left hand holding her right elbow. Her arms are taped with duct tape from elbow to elbow. Travis directed her to turn around for the camera. He said, “Spread your legs, lay on your back, show that pussy goddamn.” Show big daddy that pussy. Show him how fat it is.” Travis then focused the camera onto the vaginal area and began to probe her vagina. He spread her labia and inserted his fingers into her. When the victim complained, Travis said, “Shut up, bitch. If I tell you to shut up, bitch, what does that mean?” The tape ends with Travis probing the victim’s vagina.
Torture Tape
This videotape depicted a nude black female between the ages of 20 and 30. She was light skinned, with a slim build. The victim was handcuffed and duct taped behind her back. Her eyes were covered with duct tape as well. The videotape showed the victim lying face down on the bed as Travis entered the room and straddled her. There wasn’t any sound on this recording. So, you do not hear the dialog. Travis picked her up and threw her down on the bed and spread her legs. He lubricated her buttock area and then mounted her from the rear. The victim appears to be unconscious or out of it because as he thrusts into her she doesn’t move. Travis then flipped her over onto her back, spread her legs, and entered her from the front. When he finished, he looked into the camera with a what could best be described as a face of evil. The next scene was in the basement. The victim was on her knees on the floor and Travis was sitting on the couch. The victim’s hands were secured behind her back as she performed oral sex on Travis. Travis then repositioned the camera on its tripod, this time with sound. He sat back down on the couch and held the camera as he was filming. He told her, “Suck it.” The victim begins to choke and gag. Travis then said, “Choke yourself.” Travis told her, “You throw up on me and I’ll fuck you up.” You could hear the victim gagging. He told her, “You had better not throw up on my dick,” and then stated, “Your life depends on it. “ Travis then told her that she had better swallow. At one point her teeth apparently rubbed against his penis. Travis told her to get her teeth off of his dick and then slapped her. Travis then said, “You got them teeth on my dick again. Now suck this dick right. Get those teeth off me, bitch. Go all the way down. Keep sucking.” During this time, you can hear the victim choking. In the next scene, the victim was observed lying on the floor of the basement. Travis asked her what her name was. She tells him. Travis then zoomed the camera into the vaginal area and videotaped his probing and “examination” of the victim’s genitalia. Travis then probed her anal cavity. End of tape. Both victims were subsequently identified as murder victims.
(Source: Sex-Related Homicide and Death Investigation Practical and Clinical Perspectives, Second Edition by Vernon J. Geberth)
This is the most interesting case ever to me and it's so frustrating that he killed himself because so many questions are unanswered.😡
https://tinatrent.com/mr-x-did-the-state-of-georgia-let-a-serial-killer-go/
"One of the stories that circulated was about a Mr. X: in 1994, a woman’s body was found with a note that said: “I’m back in Atlanta, Mr. X.” The woman was a prostitute, and she had been strangled. This morning, in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, there is a story about the upcoming trial of Michael Harvey, who is linked to her murder through DNA.
That’s where the story stops making sense.
The newspaper is reporting that Michael Harvey was linked to the murder through DNA in 2005 and arrested in 2008. It isn’t clear why it took three years to arrest him. Was he on the run? Was he being held on other charges? It doesn’t say. But it seems to me that if the police had been looking for him all this time, somebody would have said that. And if he had been in custody in Fulton county pending charges after the DNA match, somebody would have said that.
Because the alternative is so extremely disturbing. The alternative is that Michael Harvey was identified as a murderer, likely a serial killer, in 2005, and then nobody did anything about it for three years. In the age of DNA, that can’t possibly be true, can it? I hope I am missing something here.
Since 2000, all felons sentenced to state prison in Georgia have had to provide DNA samples to the state, to be added to a DNA database. That law was passed thanks largely to recently deceased feminist activist Vicki McLennon and Lt. Governor Mark Taylor, and it has solved many sex crimes and saved lives.
In 2002 or 2003 (it isn’t clear from the state database), Michael Harvey was convicted of an aggravated assault in Fulton County. The crime occurred August, 2002. He was sentenced to six months and spent February to June, 2003, in state prison. At that time, he should have given the state a DNA sample. He also had a prior false imprisonment and attempted sexual assault conviction on his record. Wouldn’t the DNA from anyone with a sexual assault conviction be carefully checked for other sexual assaults? In any case, if the law was followed, Harvey gave the state a DNA sample no later than June 2003. His DNA was matched to a stranger serial murder in 2005. He was charged with that murder in 2008.
So somebody has some questions to answer:
If he was in fact released, why was Michael Harvey, a convicted sex criminal, released from prison in 2003 without his DNA sample being entered into the state database?
Why wasn’t he arrested and charged with murder in 2005, when the GBI linked his DNA to a serial murder?
Why did it then take three more years to charge him with the crime? Is this a screw-up that should be laid at the feet of Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard?
And some larger questions:
Was he really convicted only of aggravated assault in 2002/3, or was that a sex crime charge pled down to mere assault by some willing prosecutor and judge? Were any other convictions actually sex crimes that got pled down, too?Why did Michael Harvey get only three years for attempted rape and false imprisonment in 1996? Three years for trying to rape a woman? Nice.
Why didn’t the state of Georgia bother to take a DNA sample from Harvey when he was convicted of rape in 1996? DNA was being widely used by then, and as a sex offender, Harvey probably had to provide a sample, even though the state law requiring DNA of all felons had not yet been passed. Did he give the state DNA? Why wasn’t it tested, if it wasn’t tested? Is that sample one of the thousands shelved and forgotten by a criminally careless criminal justice system?
Does Michael Harvey’s DNA match any other crimes, especially crimes committed since the state last cut him loose?"
https://www.11alive.com/article/news/investigations/gone-cold/the-hunt-inside-stranglers-playground-amid-96-olympics/85-520602426
"Valerie Payton, 39, was found dead in a field near Kenyon Street on Oct. 19, 1994. She had been raped, sodomized, strangled and stabbed 50 times. Her nude body was found with a hand-written note on her chest that stated, “I’M BACK ATLANTA, MR. X.”
“[The note] made us wonder who this guy is, where had he been, and of course had he done something like this before,” Agan said about the possibility of a serial killer on his turf.
“My inclination would be he’s probably good for some other murder that we’ve never connected the dots to.”
But, police at that time, he said, didn’t want to just rely on their hunch.
“Of course, the sensational story is ‘serial killer is at large, and police won’t say.’
Well, the police weren’t saying ‘serial killer’ for certain for a reason—and that’s because we didn’t know,” Agan revealed. “These were for the most part individual crimes with no identifiable suspect and we were doing the best we could with what we had,” Agan said.
The killer was quickly dubbed “Mr. X” for the note, as well as for leaving an “X” carved into at least one victim’s genitals.
“This is somebody that’s saying, ‘Hey, look at me. I’ve done this. You can’t catch me,’” said Agan, who started working with the APD in 1974.
It was “a horrific crime, left out in an open field where she could easily be discovered, and with this note here that almost a taunt to the police of, ‘Screw you; I’m here.’”
Agan knew he was dealing with a completely different type of offender with Mr. X.
“Committing a murder, and leaving a body posed in a provocative, shocking way – is something psychological that I can’t get my head wrapped around. But I know there’s something at play here that’s making this guy do what he’s doing.”
And a serial killer won’t stop.
“If he is in fact a serial offender, if he does it once and enjoys it, he’s gonna do it again,” he said. “They’re gonna do it. They’re gonna do it, until they get caught, or until they can’t do it anymore.”
Michael Harvey was arrested in 2008 for Payton’s murder.
He was charged and convicted on malice murder, rape, aggravated sodomy and aggravated assault in connection with a strangulation death.
While three witnesses testified to similar experiences with Harvey, he was only convicted of Payton’s murder—although in his appeals, he maintains his innocence."
https://www.ajc.com/news/local/from-1994-police-probe-similarities-slayings-women/tjmEJisAGhdvSkz201DkcO/
"Police searched today for the killer of a 39-year-old woman whose slaying may be linked to the killings of seven other prostitutes in southeast Atlanta.
The stabbed and slashed body of Valerie Payton was found in high weeds near railroad tracks in southeast Atlanta on Wednesday. A sign taped to her nude body said, "I'm back in Atlanta.""
"Police would not discuss details of the crime scene but said they are looking for any similarities to the unsolved slayings of seven other crack-addicted prostitutes."
"A CSX railroad employee spotted the body just before 2 p.m. Wednesday.
Agan would not discuss the sign found on the body - neighbors said it was taped to her chest - nor would he speculate on whether the woman was killed where she was found or her body dumped there.
Atlanta police developed a list of 21 cases of unsolved homicides involving women dating back to 1988 and have tentatively narrowed it to seven with similarities. No notes were reported found with any of those bodies, and all were strangled.
But according to documents obtained by The Atlanta Journal- Constitution, detectives are investigating a possible connection between the slayings and the June 22 rape of a woman on John Wesley Dobbs Avenue who was stabbed and bitten during the attack.
She told police her attacker had dreadlocks and a big nose. A man with dreadlocks and black eyes was seen with at least two other of the murder victims, according to the documents."
https://qconline.com/news/illinois/police-send-dna-samples-of-maury-travis-to-atlanta/article_2467781c-56ed-5844-bed3-d73bc889dbfe.html
"Police have sent DNA samples of Maury Troy Travis, the suspected kidnapper and killer linked to deaths of St. Louis area prostitutes, to authorities in Atlanta.
Detectives fear that Travis, who committed suicide in the St. Louis County Jail Monday night, might have been responsible for a similar series of murders in the Georgia city, where he once lived."
"A similar pattern of deaths appeared in Atlanta in 1994, where the bodies of at least six prostitutes were dumped, most apparently strangled and some with rope marks on their wrists, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Wednesday. Travis could have been in the city at that time; he lived in Atlanta during the mid-1990s after he was released from prison in Missouri."
http://www.renderotica.com/community/forums.aspx?g=posts&t=77047&p=1#post77047
"wasn't lakota the artist who used to do those bitching Indian Pics..The name says it all as I think she was part Cherokee and then left in a huft cuz someone did a render of an hanged Indian and the site would not remove it.?"
"Even Thrallord had a thing about rendering Nazi's"
According to these quotes.....Arthur Canfil created art depicting female nazi's in extreme bondage and torture situations and another member created art of a dead Native American hanging from a noose. It's safe to say all of these people were into some sick and depraved stuff.
Thralldom.org was run by a man named Arthur Canfil who used the pseudonysm's "ThralLord" and "Scientific Magik". He operated the website out of Half Moon Bay, California which is south of San Francisco and Aberdeen, Washington. On the sidebar of the page.....Thralldom had classifieds, personals, a chatroom (which later seems to have been removed), and galleries for artwork. At one point the website had 30,000 free members even though one of the early archived pages suggest it was a paid membership before hand. He also apparently programmed and released an RPG gamed called Taipan! in 1979 and attended a re-release party in 1982 in San Francisco which lines up with part of the story but according to a bio on the game's website.....Arthur Canfil retired and moved to the Philippines in 1998 which throws off the timeline and possibly by design. On his FB page it states he was a former deck seaman for the US Navy Seventh Fleet and was Communications Technician for the Minicomputer Maintenance Group with Pacific Bell. He passed away in September 2017.
http://taipangame.com/about
https://www.fastpeoplesearch.com/arthur-j-canfil_id_G8495780929292871407
https://web.archive.org/web/20010309032342/http://www.thralldom.org/siteware/index.mv
https://web.archive.org/web/20020212025853/http://www.thralldom.org/siteware/index.mv
https://web.archive.org/web/20021210084734/http://www.thralldom.org/siteware/index.mv
In late 2003 an interesting message appears on Thralldom:
https://web.archive.org/web/20031204044216/http://www.thralldom.org/pages/1/index.htm
Welcome!
Why is there no kinky art here now? Perhaps a little bit of history might help:
This is the third (and by far the worst) version of Thralldom.Org.
I started "T.O" in its orginal incarnation in 1998, as a purely amateur venue for my own Poser artwork. This was a very simple site, using pages hand-written in HTML. Each new image required revisions by hand, and a new display page. But T.O gradually became rather popular.
Within about a year, I was getting a great deal of bandwidth on the site. I found this cost me serious money. I then learned about and switched to A1 Hosting Co.'s "Siteware." This site software allowed me to easily publish the artwork of others, while also allowing me to open an online store, selling kinky Poser 3D objects online.
This worked very well for many months, but gradually the income from the online store was not enough to pay for the bandwidth costs. Despite generous monetary contributions from many of T.O's Members, the bandwidth expenses just kept rising, while income from the store did not.
I eventually had to stop displaying images on the site altogether, though others were kind enough to create off-site galleries which I linked to. My debts to both my hosting company and my online Vendors grew. This was already the situation when two personal emergencies forced me to abruptly leave home and deal with these crises for a period of forty days. I first copied passwords, links, and email addresses from my desktop computer to a CD to use on the road with my notebook, but I was unable to make these work. So I was stuck without contact with Moderators, Vendors, or administrative abilities for forty days.
While I was thus offline, a hacker struck, deleting the site bit by bit, over a period of several days. Meanwhile, some individuals were making wildly hostile claims, posting these on a competing site, charging that I had deleted Thralldom.Org in order to avoid my debts! This is not true. I still intend to pay both my Vendors and former hosting company, even if this takes some time.
As for those who deleted the site and immediately blamed me for the deed, I can only say that I have nothing but contempt for such criminals and liars.
My former hosting company expressed no interest in rebuilding the site, given that I already owed them a good deal of money. (Indeed, I understand this, and have not even asked them to try to rebuild the site.) Also, their programmer has another project going, and is no longer interested in this kind of work.
My plan now is to eventually create two interlinked sites, Thralldom.Org and Thralldom.Net. The new Thralldom.Org will be much like the old site, but without a online store. Thralldom.Net will be an adult pay site, and will finance the expenses of both sites. If this model works, the first money will go toward paying my debts to Vendors and my former hosting company.
So I'm sorry that there are no images here.
But, as they say: "Watch this space!"
--ThralLord, November 8, 2003
The last archived image from Thralldom was on September 25, 2004. None of the future plans stated by Arthur Canfil ever came to fruition. Some of the artwork that was displayed on the website still exists but most of content has been scrubbed and/or memory holed.
Is it possible that Maury Travis was shooting bondage/torture/snuff films for Thralldom members who were willing to pay for it? It seems very likely.
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/11/us/internet-used-to-find-man-who-is-charged-in-2-of-10-killings.html
"Four days later, investigators determined that the return address on the letter, ''I THRALLDOM,'' was a Web site featuring bondage and sexual torture. Thralldom is defined as the condition of a servant or someone in moral or mental servitude."
https://books.google.com/books?id=BDXNBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA476&lpg=PA476&dq=thralldom.org&source=bl&ots=QFVR9546-t&sig=ACfU3U1h8wUymudA1wPAx3cUf6S_CCvnaQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwji9-P9rLHmAhUFwFkKHekuCh4Q6AEwAHoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
"The Post-Dispatch witheld a number of details pending the police investigation. The return address on the envelope included the words, "I Thralldom", which referred to slavery or enslavement. The Post-Dispatch informed the investigators of a possibly related Website which shows graphic pictures of partially dressed and nude women in chains and assorted torture devices. The site is located at www.thralldom.org."