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The Disturbed Mind of Lance Andrews:
Inside a Serial Killer
“A serial killer is someone who commits three or more murders over a long period of time. In between their crimes they appear to be quite normal and often very pleasant and law-abiding (the so-called ‘mask of sanity.’) There is frequently - but not always - a sexual element to the murders.” Lance read this straight from his encyclopedia and smirked, proudly to himself. “No one suspects me at all. This is all so perverse, but it runs through my veins.”
August 10, 1998
The long days drive me now. It as to have something to do with the time I have spent alone - thinking - since she left me. Really, I still have a hard time believing it’s true. I mean, I feel like I’ll wake up some day and she will be there next to me. I dream they both are. Sometimes, I even wake up holding my pillow, and I know I was just dreaming of her, whether I can remember it or not.
She drives me too, you know. If it weren’t for her, I would be sane and they would all be alive. Actually, I can’t say that. They might still be dead. I think He had it planned for them all along, and I was merely a pawn. I still am, I suppose. I probably wouldn’t be sane, either, if she was still here. I’m not sure I have been in quite some time. My childhood was a joke. I wouldn’t even call it that. It was a miniature adulthood; taking care of my drunk parents; reversing roles. It doesn’t surprise me that I can’t take things seriously now. I had to be far too serious back then, and I hated it. I take that back, though. This is serious. I love it and live for it. The thrill of the fate of human life controlled by me; it is my vice. The power I feel is like energy to me. I don’t need to eat, drink, or shit to live; I need to kill.
It is a beautiful day in the neighborhood of Prescott, Iowa. It is a very small town with a population of just under 300. Everyone knows each other and everything about them. It is so hard to keep a secret in Prescott, especially when the sun is out. All the local women like to hang around the town park and gossip. Their children love it too because they can play on the playground. They don’t even realize how run-down it is, because they are so grateful to have something to plan on.
“Did you hear about Debbie Sherlock?!” Mrs. Randworth asked her good friend Sharon. Mrs. Randworth, known only to her good friends by her first name, Beatrice, was a woman in her mid-40’s with what everyone in town considered to be the ideal life. Her husband was a self-made millionaire; no one really knows what it is that he does, but he drives into the city every day. They have two beautiful children, a seven-year old boy, Lucas and a twelve-year old girl, Michelle. They live in the biggest house in town, and of course, is surrounded by a white picket fence, just like all the fairy tales.
“No, what happened?” Sharon asked. Sharon Reed was a substitute teacher at Grover Elementary. She was definitely very different from her best friend. She had little money, and much more compassion. She was very happy with her life, just like Beatrice, however. Sharon would probably be happy with whatever life handed her. She was not really turned on by material things. Really, the only other thing they had in common was that they both enjoyed a good gossip session.
“She was…” Beatrice paused, searching for the right words. “…servicing the men of Prescott.” She finished her thought quietly, out of pure embarrassment. Mrs. Randworth is known to be a very proper woman.
“You’re kidding!” Sharon shrieked, loudly. Many of the park patrons turned to look at her. “Sorry! I’ll pipe down!” she yelled to her onlookers. “I can not believe that, Bea! Who was it that they found her doing this with?” She too had lowered her voice.
“They found out she was sleeping with Mr. Andrews, for a small fee. They said there were more too! She was making a fortune off our men…” She answered her friend in a very somber tone, letting her voice trail off.
August 31, 1998
It is so ironic how things happen to me. And it is so crazy how the people here worship me. They were so concerned about my family finding out, and they were concerned about my name being defamed. They bent over backward for me that day. It is so funny that I spend an entire day at the barracks and they haven’t the slightest clue that as I’m admiring the flyers they have posted on their bulletin board, that really, I am not sad for the person and their family as they expect, I am admiring a job well done. I’m proud in that moment, and they see sadness. I am a great actor.
This past week, though, has been filled with plotting; not pride, not sadness, just anger and dementia. She is going to pay for the embarrassment she has caused me and the others in this town. It is my fault too, but who cares about that? I am a man. I CAN allow sex and addictions dictate my life; she can’t!
Ha! I always wonder what would happen if someone found my journal and read this entry, before I could get to her and killer. Would they be able to figure it out? Could they warn her in time? I don’t know why I think about it though. They won’t find this. I could leave it open on the desk and have a party and they wouldn’t find it. They worship me. I am an angel in their eyes; really, I am the devil in disguise.
As Beatrice Randworth picked up the newspaper off her front step, she could not believe what she was reading. “That’ll be the last time I go to bed so early…” she muttered to herself. How could she, the social goddess of Prescott, not know of a murder that happened right down the street from her before it was printed in the newspaper? It never has happened before.
“Double Jeopardy: Crime and Murder” was the headline in the local paper. Reading through the article, Bea was absolutely mortified. She could remember back a few years to a very similar murder in the next town over. There had never been a murder in Prescott as fas as she could remember, and she had been a local all her life! She could not bear the thought of the torture her friend had gone through before meeting her untimely death.
It was at that moment, the phone rang. Sure it was Sharon, she answered after only one full ring. “Sharon?”
“Bea, have you gotten the newspaper? Can you believe this?” It was apparent that she had been crying.
“I’m still in shock, Sharon. I mean our friend… she’s gone!” She couldn’t hold back tears any longer. “I’ll have to call you back Sharon…”
September 15, 1998
I attended her funeral earlier today. I put on a real show. I cried and everything. They all looked at me; they knew the story. Wait, they didn’t know the real story. They know what they read in the local newspaper. It kind of helps that these small-town, small-minded people think love and sex go together. I did not love that woman; they think I did though. Her husband was not allowed at the funeral today. They think he did it. It makes sense to me. He knew what a slut she was.
Maybe he and I will meet in jail someday. I think if he met me, he would prove he deserves to be there. His hatred for me is amusing, and I’m sure its intense. Because of me, and he knows I did it, he couldn’t be at his own wife’s funeral. I know I would despise someone if they prevented me from seeing my wife dead.
Allison Andrews sat staring out the window of the train. She was on her way home to see her father. She hadn’t seen him in years; five at least. She was very excited to see him. They had seldom spoken on the telephone, as well as written back and forth. Her father hated to use the telephone.
Allison is your typical twenty-year old woman. She is attending a state university upstate from her father. She lives with her two best friends in a townhouse they rent close to campus. She probably parties a little more often than she should and she hasn’t been a virgin in years. To her father though, she is an angel, but really the devil in disguise.
October 25, 2000
I never knew of this double life my father was leading. I am very sad to read through this and realize the allegations against him are true. He is not a monster to me. He will always be my father, the loving, caring, grateful man I knew… but he will never get close to me again. I can understand why it is that mom left us now. The Lance Andrews I know is a very compassionate, wonderful man, who would never even dream of hurting someone like this. Something has taken over my father. The last visit I had to this house made that apparent to me. He did not greet me with the warm, sparkling eyes I had grown to love. He was very stand-offish. It was almost as though he was putting on a show for me every time we spoke, which was not as often as I would have liked. I thought maybe he was still just upset about mom, because I knew he never got over her. But now, it is so obvious to me. It was right under my nose, and I could not even pick up on it. He even spoke to me about the deaths in Prescott since I left.
My father now sits in the state penitentiary and I think that is where he belongs now. I am left here, alone to contemplate fate. What made something take over my father like this? Why did he turn out like this? Was it simply because a year after mom left the two of us, I left him too to go to school? Was I the one that cause my father to end up like this? Was I indirectly the cause of the four locals who are now lying dead in their graves? Their families now have my family to blame when for so long they had no one and nothing to place blame on.
I hate that I must now feel shame in this town. I am packing up all my childhood memories, and my fathers belongings, and putting them in storage for the day the monster inside him may decide to come out, and someday I think my father may see his belongings again. If he does not, I will have peace of mind knowing that this is what he may have wanted before the monster took over. I am writing this last entry in hopes that the monster comes out and I may have my father back. I will know when he calls me, if it is really him. Until then, this journal will be in storage with the rest of his belongings, memories of me and mom, and his old life.
Signed,
Allison Andrews
Reading this through tears now, Allison was sobbing uncontrollably. Her father had passed on, and the monster had never left. She was still blaming things on herself, even though decades had passed. She was now happily married, although it saddened her that her father was not there to give her away. She also has two children, who are about to leave the house. She was not really sure how she would deal with it, but she was sure of one thing. She would never turn out like her father. After seeing the turmoil it had caused everyone in Prescott, including herself, she knew it couldn’t happen, she was too guarded.