The two principals in this violent drama that would come to a fatal conclusion on a stormy February night in 1976 could not have been more different. The chance that they would one day meet was as remote as a head-on collision on a lonely road.
Jonathan Lewis “Jackie” Emerson* was born on October 16, 1951, in Yakima, Washington, right at the peak of the apple harvest. The central Washington city has exactly the right climate for apples, peaches, pears, cherries and plums, and the hills of Yakima County are dotted with fruit trees as far as the eye can see. Both of Jonathan’s parents were hard workers, which was fortunate because he joined a family that already had six children.
Jonathan never really had time to know two of his sisters; one died within three days of her birth of pneumonia and another—Rose—succumbed to spinal meningitis when she was three years old. His older sisters thought their baby brother looked like Rose, and they started dressing him up in girls’ clothes, trying, perhaps, in their innocent way, to bring back the sister they had lost. He was so young that he wouldn’t remember that, but his mother told him about it.
The dress-up games may well have been for a different reason. For as long as Jonathan could remember, he had been far more comfortable playing with dolls than he ever was with a toy truck or a BB gun. He didn’t have much male influence around the house; his father worked all the time, and even when he was home, Jonathan remembered that “he was so busy he didn’t know what was going on around him.”
Once his father found him playing with dolls, and Jonathan froze, waiting for an explosion. At some level, he knew that his father would disapprove. “But all he did was tell me to put them away. And the next time he caught me, he didn’t say a word.”
When Jonathan received masculine toys like footballs and guns, he gave them to his brother. He had absolutely no interest in playing sports, or in watching sporting events on television. He had a fight with his brother once, who had tried to force him into a football game.
His mother seemed to find no fault with the way Jonathan was; she kept him very close to her and was somewhat overprotective. She had lost her two little girls and she wasn’t taking any chances with Jonathan. She called him “Jackie,” and he felt that she always thought of him as a daughter rather than a son.
The first memory “Jackie” Emerson had of his sisters dressing him in female clothing was one Halloween night when he was six. The frilly dress and wig was supposed to be only a costume, but he loved it. He felt right in those clothes.
Mrs. Emerson worked at a hospital in Yakima and wasn’t home much more than her husband was. They both had to work overtime to support their family. Jackie seemed content enough and she never had any problems with him. Unlike his lost sisters, he was healthy and easy to raise. His mother’s extended family and the neighbors accepted him easily as a different sort of child. He played with his cousins who treated him as they would a girl, and the older folks in the neighborhood always referred to him as “a pretty boy.”
As Jackie neared puberty, he saw his father even less; his parents’ marriage was strained and his father began dating other women. “I’m glad he was gone,” he would remember. “I’m glad he didn’t interfere with my life, and make me be something that I couldn’t be.”
But someone else did interfere with Jackie Emerson. When he was twelve, one of his father’s male friends sexually abused him. In pain and shock, he cried to himself—but he never told his father. Perhaps he kept the secret because he had felt some sexual release. “He kept leading me on, and I wanted to . . .
“After this, doors started opening. I realized what I was; this is what I wanted. That man brought me out. The only guilty feelings I had were that I had to hide my feelings.”
Jackie would never be much bothered by guilt; he took what he wanted. When he was thirteen, he was arrested for shoplifting. He was not prosecuted. A few months later, he was arrested for assault. He was puzzled by that; he had “only been throwing rocks at a bum near the railroad tracks.” He was not prosecuted. When he was about fourteen, he was arrested for auto theft. His father wouldn’t let him have the family car for a prom at school, so he “took someone else’s.” Jackie was sent to the Youth Center for a week or two, and then to an outpatient program.
Sometime during his adolescence, Jackie Emerson came to see himself as a woman. He identified with his grandmother more than any person in his life. She had been the closest person to him, and she was always there while his parents worked. During psychological testing, he actually drew himself as a female, as this was his inner picture of himself.
His mother, who had thought it was “cute” to have a passively sweet little boy, was horrified to find that her sixteen-year-old son was still dressing in women’s clothes. Since she had encouraged his wearing little girls’ dresses when he was eight or nine, it seems odd that she was so surprised to find he had never stopped.
“Jackie could never accept himself as a male,” his aunt once said. “He was high-strung, and he’s still argumentative sometimes because he feels people won’t accept him. He’s insecure too,” she added.
Jackie Emerson never managed to graduate from high school; he was always running away from home. Some of his relatives were sure he was working as a homosexual prostitute, although his mother would never accept that. Eventually, he started working on his GED (General Equivalency Diploma) and told his friends and family that he was going to save up for surgery so he could become a real woman. Until then, he said, he planned to study to be a beautician.
Jackie Emerson was slender and doe-eyed, far more feminine than masculine. His mother finally threw her hands up and conceded that Jackie was more her daughter than her son. A formal picture of the family taken in the early seventies included Jackie in full female regalia.
Even so, Jackie’s sexual identification warred with his strict Baptist upbringing. “I was scared that I would go to hell if I got my sex changed in an operation,” he recalled once. But he read the Bible until he found a passage that he felt was meant for him. “God does not expect flesh in heaven,” he explained. “He expects your soul.”
Had Jackie Emerson lived within the strict parameters of the Bible quotations he found, tragedy might have been averted. But Jackie had a heedless, wild streak, and a kind of ruthless pride that would get him into trouble time and again.
Jackie’s rap sheet as an adult began in 1970, and he had arrests all up and down the West Coast: “Offering and Agreeing,” “Resisting Arrest,” “Gross Indecency,” “Hitchhiking,” “Prostitution,” “Obstruction of Public Thoroughfare,” “Larceny Shoplifting,” “Grand Larceny,” “Resisting, Offering and Agreeing.” Some of his arrests were for parking tickets and for having no driver’s license, but most were connected to prostitution and stealing. Usually, he walked away clean or had to pay a small fine. Jackie Emerson had long since learned that he could do just about anything he wanted and get away with it. He rarely told the truth about anything, and soon began to believe his own self-serving version of events.
On February 23, 1974, Jackie Emerson approached a man who was visiting Seattle in his motor home. Jackie looked very pretty that night and it’s unlikely that the “John” had any idea that he had made a date with a man. Jackie suggested that the man park his motor home under the freeway where they “wouldn’t be disturbed.” When they were settled, Jackie poured himself a drink and suggested that the man take a shower to freshen up. He pretended to be looking in the other direction when his customer placed his wallet under a seat cushion, but he could see everything beneath his lowered false eyelashes.
An embarrassed “John” went to the police. “I hired this girl for, ahh—certain sexual privileges. I was washing up, and I heard the door slam,” he said. “When I looked, that girl—Jackie—was gone, along with $200 in cash, and a check for $783.49.”
Jackie was arrested and convicted—and sentenced to three years’ probation. He was not the “ideal probationer,” according to his probation offic
er. He failed to report time and again, and bench warrants were issued. He forged his sister’s name on her income tax refund check, cashed it, and kept the money. On July 21, 1975, his probation was revoked and he was given a suspended sentence of fifteen years on the condition that he serve three months in the King County Jail.
Twenty-one-year-old Brad Lee Bass was completely masculine. Born in the mid-fifties to a California family, he, too, had once been a sensitive child as Jackie Emerson was described, but Brad’s sensitivity was about the feelings of other people and not directed toward his own desires. Brad never forgot a birthday or a holiday that meant something to someone else, and he always showed up with a card or a present on time, even if he had to walk miles to deliver it in person. He dragged home stray cats and dogs, grinning and saying, “Look what I found.” But Brad was also the kind of kid who played all-star Little League baseball and junior high basketball.
Brad had a brother, Dalton*, who was a year older than he and an avid scholar, but he himself was a somewhat lackadaisical student. He loved to read, however, and would spend hours with a book—but you couldn’t tell him to do it. He tired of the restrictions of organized education after his junior year in high school and dropped out.
When his parents divorced in 1966, Brad Bass’s father had gained custody of his sons and took over their care, settling with them in California. Neither of them gave him any trouble, particularly not Brad. Within a year or so, Brad Bass grew to be a muscular six feet, three inches and 195 pounds.
Disappointed when Brad dropped out of high school, his dad was pleased and relieved when Brad immediately enrolled in evening classes in a junior college. Brad received his high school degree there, and went on to a four-year college. But he didn’t graduate, the way his brother Dalton had. His interests lay elsewhere.
Brad had always been fascinated with the intricacies of mechanics, and he bought himself a 1957 Chevrolet pickup truck in a sad state of repair. The teenager didn’t know anything about machines but he read manuals, talked to mechanics, and, all on his own, he replaced the engine, overhauled the transmission, clutch, differential and brakes. When that was finished, he reupholstered the interior and finally painted the whole truck, making it a work of art.
At twenty, Brad Bass was a powerful man who swam, jogged, and lifted weights. In 1975, he moved to Renton, Washington, from his father’s home in California, and he and Dalton shared an apartment. Brad found work as an apprentice shipfitter, and he and his brother returned to their lifetime relationship as best friends. It happens that way with brothers sometimes, and theirs became an incredibly strong bond.
They weren’t alike, except for their common background. While Dalton Bass was completely comfortable in social situations and dated frequently, Brad was still shy around women. He was ill at ease socially. He was a loner and an observer, but not a joiner. He had a low-key sense of humor and, when he felt comfortable, he could be hilarious. He had lots of friends at work.
By the mid-seventies, Brad Bass had become a very handsome man, tall and muscular. He had recently grown a mustache which suited him, but he remained reluctant to approach women.
He explained to Dalton that he couldn’t bring himself to go up to girls on beaches or in taverns and just ask them out. He froze at the thought of it. Ironically, there were undoubtedly a hundred girls in the Seattle area who would have been delighted to date the good-looking shipfitter, but he lacked the courage to ask them.
And so occasionally, Brad Bass had gone to prostitutes. He could be sure that they wouldn’t turn away when he talked to them. Later, Dalton estimated that Brad might have sought out a prostitute about every two months, and Brad had told him he’d only been with the ladies of the downtown Seattle streets three times. He was not the first young man to seek out such company, and he surely will not be the last. Despite his imposing build, Brad, was somewhat naive and inclined to believe the best about people. He thought the women really liked him.
“Jackie” Emerson had yet to get his GED, and he bemoaned that fact. “I have a natural ability in hair, makeup, and clothing design,” he bragged. “The only thing that keeps me from it is I need a GED. When I set a goal, I stick to it.”
But Jackie had not stuck to any educational goals at all. He was more interested in changing his gender at all cost. He had had many chances to work toward his GED, and he hadn’t taken them. He had his head in the clouds about being a wealthy designer and he couldn’t lower himself to get a high school certificate. First, he would have his surgery and that would make him a complete woman. Then he would become famous doing what he liked. But Jackie’s dreams had no grounding at all in reality.
Although he worked as an aide at a Seattle nursing home, he wasn’t paid nearly enough to afford an operation to change the mistake he felt nature had made. He was not a valued employee—not even in a job he felt was beneath him. “Her quality of work and attitude are poor,” a supervisor wrote on Jackie’s evaluation. The nursing home managers recalled that she bristled at any “constructive criticism” and resented having to show her identification that gave her true name and Social Security number. But they didn’t know Jackie’s deepest secret. Since he had been hired as a female, his reticence was understandable.
Jackie had long since left Yakima behind, working briefly in Seattle, and traveling on to Los Angeles, where he had no work—not officially, at least. “Jackie” was working as a prostitute in the guise of a woman. He found a doctor there who gave him female hormonal therapy with prescriptions for 100 milligrams of stilbestrol. In 1974, he visited Tiajuana, Mexico, where he received silicone enlargements of his “breasts.” He paid three hundred dollars for three treatments, but only took the first one. All he got for his money was one injection that settled into a hard lump within a day or so. That frightened him, and he didn’t go back.
Moving back to Seattle, Jackie Emerson again started stilbestrol therapy, but he felt cheated. “That doctor was watering the pills down,” he complained.
Jackie not only had a problem with his female hormone therapy, he also had a problem with drugs. By 1974, he was hooked on heroin. He was “strung-out” for a year, and needed sixty to seventy dollars a day to take care of his habit. He had tried amphetamines and barbiturates, but they never had the power over him that hero-in did. He also used marijuana and alcohol, although Jackie didn’t feel those were a serious complication in his already murky life.
Jackie Emerson did not consider himself a homosexual; he continued to insist that he was a woman in the wrong body. He applied for public assistance—and received support—as “Miss Emerson.” Jackie, who had a rap sheet as long as his arm, was a highly skilled con man. Welfare workers didn’t know about his criminal activities; they saw only a confused and tearful boy/girl who didn’t seem able to face life or employment because of her unfortunate sexual situation. The State of Washington paid for extensive dental work for Jackie, and for an operation that removed an undescended testicle. “It is hoped that this corrective surgery will aid in the rehabilitation for Miss Emerson. She seemed hopeful and optimistic,” a naive caseworker noted in 1974.
However, Jackie could not see “herself” in a job until she had undergone a complete sex change operation. “I can’t get a job,” he lamented. “I can’t pass the physical.”
Jackie Emerson told a psychiatrist about his sad life, apparently unable to see that he had any responsibility at all for the troubles he had encountered. Emerson’s only income for four years had been through prostitution and welfare, and he had been jailed thirty or forty times in California, the last time for robbery.
If Jackie had bewilderment over his gender, his confusion was nothing compared to that of the doctors and social workers he encountered; they never could decide whether to call him “he” or “she,” and his voluminous file was filled with studies that called him both.
“Diagnostically,” one psychiatrist wrote, “she is best categorized under the heading 302.3 [in the Diagnostic Stat
istical Manual—the psychiatrist’s bible], Transvestitism. She also has some hysterical features in her makeup, tends to rationalize her behavior, to be quite gullible and somewhat given to fantasy. There is a fairly substantial antisocial element in her makeup. She tends to overly emphasize her need for surgery as a prelude to undertaking self-support . . . Her current employability is very much to be questioned, on the basis of her emotional stability, her history of prostitution, and her transvestite situation. Some counseling would seem appropriate for her to assist her in a more realistic appraisal of the opportunities open to her and how to make the best use of her resources.”
This psychiatrist had chosen to identify Jackie Emerson as “she,” and clearly he/she did have a sexual identity problem. But so had—and have—myriad others who had not turned to crime for support or to pay for a hoped-for operation.
Jackie Emerson was five feet, ten inches tall, and weighed 145 pounds. He had a fury in him, waiting to be unleashed if anyone questioned his persona or threatened him. The pretty face with the big eyes and the soft skin were a remarkable mask, a mask that made him more dangerous because he was not what he seemed to be at all.
February 13, 1976—Friday the 13th—turned out to be an incredibly unlucky day for Brad Bass. He certainly had no reason to be worried about his physical safety when he stopped into an all-night restaurant for a bite to eat and a cup of coffee. He was big enough and strong enough to take care of himself.
Larry’s Take 5 at 601 Pike Street was deep in the heart of the downtown section of Seattle. It was up and running twenty-two hours a day, with a cocktail lounge and a restaurant. It was also in the middle of the “stroll” in Seattle; Pike Street was prostitution territory, although those who sold sex for a price were sorely besieged by the Seattle Police Department’s vice squad. Pimps turned their women out along Pike Street and sat back in their zebra-upholstered Cadillacs to wait for their money. The hapless girls got arrested often and, when their faces became too familiar to the vice detectives, they were moved around the circuit to Portland or San Francisco and replaced with new faces. They were as expendable as women could be, trapped by circumstances and the lack of enough money to escape.