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Oregon's longest-held prisoner dies of natural causes
Wednesday, March 29, 2006 | No comments posted.
SALEM (AP) - Serial killer Jerome Brudos, the longest-held prisoner in the Oregon State Penitentiary, died Tuesday of natural causes, state officials said. Brudos was 67.
Admitted to prison on June 27, 1969, Brudos was serving three life sentences for murdering three women in his Salem home.
In a brief news release, the state Department of Corrections said he “passed away of natural causes” at 5:10 a.m.
Brudos pleaded guilty in 1969 to the strangulation murders Jan Susan Whitney, 23, and Karen Elena Sprinker and Linda Dawn Salee, both 19.
Oregon did not have the death penalty at the time.
Brudos, whose crimes were detailed in the Ann Rule novel “Lust Killer,” expressed no remorse for the murders. Relatives of Brudos' victims had asked during parole hearings, often tearfully, that he be kept in prison for the rest of his life.
He cut up some of the bodies and dumped all three corpses into local rivers.
Whitney was murdered after her car broke down on Interstate 5 near Albany in 1968 and Brudos offered her a ride. Sprinker vanished in March 1969 from the Meier & Frank department store parking lot in Salem. Salee disappeared in April 1969 on a trip to the Lloyd Center shopping mall in Portland.
Brudos also was charged in Multnomah County with the killing of Linda Kay Slawson, 19, of Aloha. She disappeared in January 1968 while selling encyclopedias in the Portland neighborhood where Brudos then lived. He was not prosecuted after the first three convictions in Marion County.
Brudos had tried repeatedly to win release.
During a parole hearing three years ago, Brudos said he was a good candidate to re-enter mainstream society.
“I think I've got a whole new personality,” Brudos said.
At the time, he said his daily routine included working as an orderly and making handicraft projects in the prison hobby shop.
“One day's like another day in here,” he said. “I tend to lose track.”
During parole hearings, Brudos told of having a troubled childhood, saying that he was mentally abused by his entire family. When he was 13, Brudos said, his family barred him from the house. As an adult, Brudos said he experienced blackouts and became increasingly detached from the world around him.
Asked at a parole hearing whether he hated women, Brudos said no. But he declined to delve into his homicidal impulses, saying only that killing helped him let off steam.
Admitted to prison on June 27, 1969, Brudos was serving three life sentences for murdering three women in his Salem home.
In a brief news release, the state Department of Corrections said he “passed away of natural causes” at 5:10 a.m.
Brudos pleaded guilty in 1969 to the strangulation murders Jan Susan Whitney, 23, and Karen Elena Sprinker and Linda Dawn Salee, both 19.
Oregon did not have the death penalty at the time.
Brudos, whose crimes were detailed in the Ann Rule novel “Lust Killer,” expressed no remorse for the murders. Relatives of Brudos' victims had asked during parole hearings, often tearfully, that he be kept in prison for the rest of his life.
He cut up some of the bodies and dumped all three corpses into local rivers.
Whitney was murdered after her car broke down on Interstate 5 near Albany in 1968 and Brudos offered her a ride. Sprinker vanished in March 1969 from the Meier & Frank department store parking lot in Salem. Salee disappeared in April 1969 on a trip to the Lloyd Center shopping mall in Portland.
Brudos also was charged in Multnomah County with the killing of Linda Kay Slawson, 19, of Aloha. She disappeared in January 1968 while selling encyclopedias in the Portland neighborhood where Brudos then lived. He was not prosecuted after the first three convictions in Marion County.
Brudos had tried repeatedly to win release.
During a parole hearing three years ago, Brudos said he was a good candidate to re-enter mainstream society.
“I think I've got a whole new personality,” Brudos said.
At the time, he said his daily routine included working as an orderly and making handicraft projects in the prison hobby shop.
“One day's like another day in here,” he said. “I tend to lose track.”
During parole hearings, Brudos told of having a troubled childhood, saying that he was mentally abused by his entire family. When he was 13, Brudos said, his family barred him from the house. As an adult, Brudos said he experienced blackouts and became increasingly detached from the world around him.
Asked at a parole hearing whether he hated women, Brudos said no. But he declined to delve into his homicidal impulses, saying only that killing helped him let off steam.
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