Kiss Me, Kill Me and Other True Cases

  He said that he found the world around him “despicable.” He related that he used marijuana and LSD but did not remember how many times he had dropped acid because “after ten or twenty trips you lose track of them.”

  In the same flat voice, devoid of affect, Lansing gave his version of the events of July 17, 1970. He recalled meeting Victoria Legg about a month earlier. That day or that week, she had accepted a date to go to a tavern with him.

  “I was enjoying the evening very much—it seemed kind of pleasant. We danced and talked a lot. It wasn’t deep conversation—just lighthearted.”

  The defendant said he had then suggested that they drive to Cowan Park and play on the swings, but when they arrived there the swings were occupied, so they decided to walk. After walking for a while, Lansing spread a blanket on the ground for them to sit on. Perhaps Victoria Legg had already begun to sense danger; perhaps not. At any rate, Lansing told the jury that she made a remark that suddenly made her seem threatening to him; he could not remember just what it was, but he felt that she was part of a conspiracy from California and that it was somehow connected with his own castration.

  In response to that, he said he had tightened his arm around her neck and ordered her to perform a sexual act upon him. When she panicked and tried to run, he tackled her. “I don’t know what happened except that I started beating her. I remember being fascinated with beating her—there was the joy of each punch and this feeling that it was my obligation to have sex with her.”

  The 220-pound defendant told of sitting on his victim and holding her by the ears while he beat her head against the ground.

  “Somehow I knew that if I didn’t have sex with her, I would either be killed or castrated or both.”

  As Pat Harber cross-examined Lansing, he answered quite calmly that he had raped Victoria Legg because “I wanted to degrade her.”

  “Isn’t it true that you stuffed wild ferns and leaves down her throat because you heard voices in the park and wanted to silence her cries for help?”

  “No,” Lansing replied. “I did that because I was fascinated with cruelty and torture.”

  He told the jurors that after he strangled and raped his victim, he got partially dressed, picked up his stained socks and T-shirt—which he threw away later—and walked back to his car and drove away.

  “I thought she was still alive when I left.”

  A psychiatrist for the defense, Dr. David Clarke, characterized the defendant as a paranoid schizophrenic. He said that Lansing had hallucinations after the homosexual “rape incident” in the California jail and warded off “demons” by a confusing process of “forcing them into the spaces between molecules.”

  As an example of the thought processes in the defendant’s mind, Dr. Clarke read one of many poems that Lansing had written:

  Imagine the mindless

  Oxen

  Careening madly

  Through a field of roses

  Watch the beggar

  Rape the girl child.

  Her blood flow—

  Like a new-made fountain

  Nomadic man-made

  Beasts

  Swarm across the horizon

  locust fashion

  Devouring maiden roses.

  The courtroom was hushed after that example of the defendant’s poetic images. This, then, had been the man that Victoria Legg had chosen to date because he resembled someone she knew and trusted.

  • • •

  After a lengthy Saturday session, the jury retired to ponder their decision on the guilt or innocence of Calvin Archer Lansing and to decide whether he should receive the death penalty and be hanged for the murder of Victoria Legg if found guilty. They had been sequestered for three weeks. Now they would evaluate the almost two hundred pieces of physical evidence introduced and thousands of words of testimony.

  It took almost four days, with time off to sleep, but after thirty-one hours of deliberation, the jury sent word to Judge Noe that they had reached a verdict: guilty of murder in the first degree—but with no recommendation of the death penalty.

  One month after this verdict was returned, Cal Lansing underwent another evaluation of his mental condition. He was found to be psychotic and not mentally capable of understanding the nature and seriousness of his sentence. Instead, Judge Noe ruled that the 22-year-old man should be held in maximum security at Western State Hospital.

  One interesting—and odd—side effect of Cal Lansing’s trial was that his father, Cal Sr., was so intrigued with murder trials that he became a fixture in the courthouse. For years, he appeared at every major trial and showed up almost daily in the courthouse and in the Public Safety Building across the street. He came to consider himself an expert on courtroom procedure, and apparently bore the homicide detectives and prosecutors no ill will for convicting his son of murder.

  • • •

  If—and when—Cal Lansing Jr. should ever be adjudged competent, he faced a sentence of up to life in prison. But Lansing vanished into the system. If he is alive today, he is 55 years old. He is not listed in death records, nor does he appear to be an inmate in any Washington State prison. Patients in mental hospitals are protected by privacy laws.

  If Victoria Legg were alive today, she, too, would be 55. I cannot help but wonder what her life could have been like if Cal Lansing had failed to call her for the second time on July 17, 1970. She would have gone shopping at the mall with her girlfriend, rather than dancing with him. No one can ever know at what point during their date Victoria began to realize that Lansing was not at all the person she had expected him to be. While they were dancing? As they ate their Chinese takeout in his car? As they walked toward the swings in the park? A girl as shy as she was would never have walked down into the dark ravine with him.

  Tragically, she was too naive to know how to turn back until it was too late.

  The Highway Accident

  Maybe it is true that there is nothing new under the sun, and that even the most shocking crime stories in today’s headlines are really just reruns of what has happened before throughout ancient and modern history. Two of the most media-saturated murder cases in 2004 are, of course, the Laci and Connor Peterson homicides in Modesto, California, and the more recent Lori Hacking tragedy in Salt Lake City. As I write this, neither the Peterson nor the Hacking cases have been fully adjudicated in a court of law. However, Scott Peterson is in the midst of his trial as the defendant charged with the murder of his wife and the son who was within a month of being born. And Mark Hacking has been charged with the apparent shooting death of his pregnant wife and the subsequent disposal of her body. We know that Laci’s and Connor’s remains were found in San Francisco Bay. Lori Hacking’s remains were found on October 1, 2004, buried in a landfill.

  • • •

  Despite our horror at the shocking number of females who fall victim to infamous serial killers, the truth is that the largest percentage of women who are murdered are killed by men they once loved and trusted: lovers, husbands, ex-husbands, and ex-lovers. Most women believe they can judge a man and perceive any aberrance that may exist in his secret heart. In the majority of cases, that is true. And those women who have made the right decisions about their love lives are sometimes too quick to judge women who guessed wrong.

  That isn’t fair. Some of the most intelligent women are fooled by men with perfect facades. And deluded for a very long time. I am not talking about the slick married man who convinces an innocent woman that his wife doesn’t understand him, or the con man who marries wife after wife (some of them concurrently rather than consecutively) so he can get his hands on their money or property, or the sexual cheater who cannot be satisfied with being intimate with just one woman but must have multiple liaisons.

  I am speaking now of the men—and, to be fair, of the women—who live lives that are totally fabricated. These deceivers leave their homes in the morning headed for jobs or for classes that don’t exist. They promise a wonderful future,
even though they must know that eventually the truth will come out. How carefully they have to choreograph their hours and their days, how many lies they have to tell, how many financial ledgers that require juggling and double entries. The true sociopath doesn’t mind lying to his own family and friends. Indeed, he often lies even when there is no point in the falsehood; it would be simpler to tell the truth. For years, those who love the liar believe—because they do have consciences, and don’t expect someone they love to lie to them. The very thought of the deceptive games people whose whole lives are phony must play all the time sounds exhausting.

  • • •

  Mark Hacking, 28, allegedly convinced his wife of five years, Lori, 27, that he was attending the University of Utah for two years after he had dropped out of school. He even sent out announcements of his “graduation” in 2004. The couple made plans to move to North Carolina, where Mark said he had been accepted at the University of North Carolina’s Medical School.

  It was as prosecuting attorneys of earlier decades liked to say, “all a tissue of lies.”

  On July 18, 2004, when Lori Hacking found out that her husband’s name was unknown at the North Carolina university’s registrar’s office, she was stunned. How could that be? They were packing up their apartment, preparing for their move across the country. Mark had a new stethoscope with his name engraved on it. He was going to be a doctor—like his father. One moment, Lori had it all; she and Mark had been about to embark on a great step forward in their future, she believed that she was five weeks pregnant and she was thrilled, and the couple were even scheduled to attend a goodbye party that night thrown by their many friends. They went to the party, despite Lori’s doubts, and she smiled as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

  • • •

  The Hackings were caught on the security cameras of an all-night convenience store later that night, and Lori—who had been cheerful at the party—no longer looked happy. Hours later, Mark Hacking came in alone. The next morning, he frantically called police to say his wife had not returned from her morning jog. He said he had run her regular route twice, desperately looking for her. Local law enforcement investigators found that he was actually buying a new mattress during the time he said he was racing the jogging path, looking for Lori.

  But a nearby garbage can was puddled with blood, and the Hackings’ old mattress had been disposed of.

  • • •

  In Modesto, California, Laci Peterson was also pregnant—very pregnant—and, according to her husband, Scott, she had gone for a walk with their aging golden retriever on Christmas Eve morning, 2002, and had failed to return. Scott, of course, hadn’t known that, he said, as he’d been fishing in San Francisco Bay that Christmas Eve.

  Everyone who can read or who watches television knows the Peterson case, and the Hacking case is sure to garner as many headlines. They are both heartbreaking stories.

  I read somewhere that the Mark and Lori Hacking story may well be a “textbook case,” one for the record books in the field of criminology. I doubt that. When I think of the emails and letters I have received from beguiled and duped women over the years, I remember so many that were shockingly similar. One woman with three sons lived for years believing that her husband had died in a terrible accident—only to find him living quite happily and successfully 2,500 miles away. Another married a “professor” who simply disappeared one day. He turned up, too, teaching at another college. He’d done it several times before; when one life got boring, he simply fashioned himself a new identity.

  And then there was the case of an Oregon couple who everyone thought were the perfect match. I covered that story in Salem in 1976. That was almost thirty years ago, and it appeared to be an anguishing twist of fate for a young man and wife who were so much like the Hackings. She was a schoolteacher and he was about to graduate and begin an exciting career. She was finally able to fulfill her longtime dream of becoming a mother, and she was so proud of him. All her sacrifices to support them and pay his tuition at Oregon State University were more than worth it.

  She was planning his graduation party when their life together ended in what appeared to be a terrible accident on a curving road near the Oregon coastline.

  When I first heard about the disappearance of Lori Hacking in Salt Lake City, I experienced a haunting sense of déjà vu. As you read this case, I suspect you will agree.

  • • •

  One proviso: as you read this, realize that I have had to change some names, and block out some photos. The reason? The guilty person in the Buckleys’ story in Oregon was out of prison in a little more than ten years. The ending of the story was not at all what I expected. Was justice done? That is up to you to decide.

  The sounds coming through the bedroom wall in the duplex apartment in suburban Salem, Oregon, were too loud and too disturbing for anyone to sleep through. It was very early in the morning on February 25, 1976, when both Marilee* and Doug Blaine* had the same dream, or rather, the same nightmare. Wrenched from deep sleep in the dark winter night, they sat up in bed. Doug fumbled for a light.

  They could hear a woman screaming over and over, “No! No! Don’t!” Then there was only silence, which was followed by a softer sound that was almost like a moan. That was suddenly cut short.

  Blaine looked at the clock beside their bed and saw it was three A.M. He and his wife discussed what they should do. Although they had never heard the couple in the adjoining duplex fight before, they agreed that they were probably overhearing a domestic squabble. They hated to interfere in something that was none of their business. What should they do—go knock on the door in the next unit and ask, “What seems to be the problem?” Maybe pound on the wall? They couldn’t phone because they didn’t even know the last name of the people next door, much less their telephone number.

  There were no more screams, now. They tried to get back to sleep, but Doug Blaine was troubled and he tossed and turned, watching bare tree limbs bend grotesquely over the streetlight outside as the wind pushed them.

  After a while, he thought he heard someone open the front door of the adjacent duplex. Blaine got out of bed and, without turning on any lights, crept to his living room. Feeling somewhat like a busybody, he eased out of his front door silently and stood in the frigid dark where he knew he was hidden by his car. Everything seemed perfectly normal. Both of the neighbors’ cars were parked in the driveway: a Volkswagen Beetle and a Chevy Vega. Far off, a dog barked and the trees creaked in the wind, but there was no other sound.

  Back inside, Blaine heard nothing but the ticking of clocks and the furnace blower. He crawled back in bed and he and his wife tried to go back to sleep.

  It was quiet for about twenty minutes, but then they heard drawers being opened and shut next door, closet doors squeaking, and bedsprings settling. Beginning to feel like a fool, Blaine looked out his front window once more. This time, the man next door was carrying what looked like laundry or bedding to the Vega. He made several trips back and forth to the car. Then he got in and started it up. Without pausing to let the engine warm up, he backed out, accelerating as he disappeared down Cedar Court.

  Wide-awake, the Blaines discussed what they should do. It looked as if their neighbors had had a spat and the husband had left to cool off. They didn’t know the couple except to nod and say “Hi” when they happened to meet. The wife was always friendly, but her husband seemed aloof. If they didn’t even know the couple’s names, they certainly hadn’t the faintest idea about the state of their marriage. The only times they had heard any loud noise from the other side of the wall was when the couple had parties, and that had not happened very often.

  It was after 4:30 A.M. when the Blaines finally decided they should notify the police; they couldn’t forget the screams they had heard. If the girl next door was all right they would feel a little foolish, but feeling foolish was worth peace of mind.

  Their call came into the Marion County Sheriff’s radio room at 4:47 A.M. Corporal
Tim Taylor and Deputy Ralph Nicholson were dispatched to Cedar Court. They knocked on the door of the neat duplex, but there was no response. Since the Blaines didn’t know their neighbors’ last name, Taylor gave the radio operator the license plate number on the Volkswagen parked there and asked for a check on the registered owner. The owners came back as Lori Susan* and Walter Louis Buckley.* Taylor asked the operator to look up the Buckleys’ phone number and telephone the residence. Soon, he heard the lonely sound of a phone ringing again and again in the empty apartment.

  It there was anyone inside, they either would not—or could not—answer the phone.

  The Blaines were positive that the woman who lived next door had not left with her husband in the Vega. They pointed out that her car, the Volkswagen, was still parked there. Tim Taylor contacted the man who owned the duplexes. Even though it was still very early in the morning, he said he would be right over with a key to open the door for the deputies.

  • • •

  The door to the Buckleys’ duplex swung open and the deputies stepped in. They saw that the place was immaculate. Tentatively, the two sheriff’s officers peered into each room, calling out the Buckleys’ names. No one answered. There wasn’t that much to look at; there was a living-dining area, a kitchen, and two bedrooms. The southeast bedroom looked as if it were being used for storage. A drawer had been left pulled out in one chest. Oddly, there was a pile of walnuts on the floor in front of it.

  The master bedroom—the southwest bedroom—was the room that shared a common wall with the Blaines’ bedroom. It was as neat as the rest of the house. The queen-sized bed had been stripped of sheets, and clean sheets rested atop the mattress as if someone had begun to change the bed linen.