“Yes,” Rylla answered immediately, there was no doubt in her mind.
“But he used a different name each time. How do we know it’s the same person?” Heidi persisted, her narrow, bony face was serious and focused, just like it always was when they were in the middle of a major investigation.
“Different names but we’re positive it’s the same person. The chances of two killers stalking victims in the same online dating community are basically non-existent,” Matthew said.
“But different names, different stories, it could be two different men,” Heidi persisted. “Could be too different motivations for the murders. One personal, one random. Or both personal.”
“Too many similarities between both the names and the stories that he gave to the women,” Rylla countered. “With the first victim, Jeannie Jones, he approached her in the ‘Happily Ever After Club’ as Brenden Ranalt, if you look up the meaning of the names Brenden means prince and Ranalt means charming or wealthy. Prince Charming. He did his research Brenden is an Irish name, as is Ranalt, and he told Jeannie that he was originally from Ireland but moved here shortly after his parents’ deaths in a car accident when he was in his early twenties. Brenden claimed he was now approaching forty and recently lost his wife to cancer, and her dying wish was that he finds someone special to spend the rest of his life with so he wasn't alone and sad.”
“With the second victim he went with a similar story, just changed a few details,” Matthew said. “The name he used with Tillie Schueman was Galahault Bonnie, again Galahault means name of a prince, and Bonnie means beautiful or charming. Prince Charming. He took the theme of the website and really played it up. The women there wanted a Prince Charming and he gave them one. Galahault called himself Gal and made a few jokes about being lumbered with such an unusual name. He said his parents were Scottish, as both names have Scottish origins, and that they moved here while his mother was pregnant with him. He said his wife had recently broken his heart and left him after almost ten years of marriage, and that he was looking for someone special, someone the opposite of his wife, who would never hurt him like she had.”
“How do we know that their murders had anything to do with them looking for love in an online chat room?” Heidi asked, twirling a pen around her fingers so fast it was a blur. Their boss was a ball of energy who hated to be still.
“Both women disappeared when meeting with their date from the website for the first time,” Rylla replied. “Both were excited about finally meeting in person, both believed they had in fact met their Prince Charming, both were sent beautiful princess type dresses by their date, and both were picked up for dinner but never seen again. Jeannie was missing for almost two months before her body was discovered, Tillie a little over a month.”
“Ireland and Scotland, could it be true that he is from the United Kingdom since he mentioned it in both his fake personas?” Heidi asked.
“Possible.” Rylla nodded. “My guess is he just wanted to choose a name that meant Prince Charming and happened upon those names then made up the connection to the countries to fit in with the name.”
“He also mentioned losing a wife in both stories,” Heidi continued. “Do we think that’s true?”
“Could be a trigger,” Matthew suggested. “His wife cheats, or leaves him, and they divorce so he’s looking for the perfect wife. Or he lost a wife he loved and wants to replace her with someone he sees as perfect.”
“Do we have pictures of him?” Heidi asked.
“Yes. Well not of him,” Rylla clarified. “He sent pictures to his victims, but we traced them, and they’re pictures of models from a website. He picked a model then downloaded a whole lot of photos of him and used them so that he didn't look suspicious only having one photo of himself. And yes, we tried tracing the account he bought the pictures from but it didn't lead us anywhere.”
“We think he has another victim, is that correct?” Heidi asked.
“Kane found evidence of another person there last night. There was fresh blood and an earring similar to the ones Jeannie was wearing when we found her,” Rylla explained.
“Do you know who she is?”
“Not yet,” she answered her boss. “She might not even have been reported missing yet. If she lives with someone then they likely know she had a date and might assume she just spent the night with him. Her work might notify a relative when she doesn’t turn up and doesn’t notify anyone. We’ll go through all missing persons reports of women in their twenties or thirties. It shouldn’t be hard to find one who disappeared after a date with someone she met online. Once we find her, we can confirm she’s the next victim by matching her DNA to the blood found at the scene of Tillie’s murder.”
“The completely different modes of murder is concerning me,” Heidi said thoughtfully. “One is extremely up close and personal. The other is much more distant and less hands on. They don’t seem like they were committed by the same person.”
That was true. The murders were completely different, but she was sure that the same man had committed them. “First one he might not have been confident enough to kill her himself, especially if Jeannie was the first person he had ever killed. Plus, it seemed to fit with his theme. The princess thing is important to him and he’s clearly associating each woman with a different fairytale. Jeannie Jones was Beauty and the Beast. She writes and she grows award winning roses. Maybe it wasn't even about being hands on or not it was just about killing her in such a way that fit with the Beauty and the Beast theme.”
The killer had broken into the local zoo one night and thrown Jeannie into the Grizzly Bear enclosure.
Alive and drugged.
Unconscious and unable to defend herself or get herself to safety, Jeannie had been mauled to death and found when the zookeepers arrived in the morning.
Killed by a beast.
In keeping with the killer’s fairytale princess theme, she had been dressed in a beautiful silk dress, with diamond jewelry, her makeup applied, and hair done.
“And Tillie Schueman was obviously Cinderella,” Matthew continued. “She was forced out of a sizeable inheritance when her stepmother tricked her dying husband into rewriting his will and leaving everything to her. And he killed her by stabbing her with a shoe. A glass slipper. A genuine glass slipper.”
Rylla hadn’t even realized that real glass slippers existed outside of the classic fairytale. But apparently there was a way to manufacture shoes made of glass that a person could walk around in without them breaking. “That murder he committed himself because he wanted to do it with the shoe. He has to kill them in such a way that fits with whatever fairytale princess he identifies them as.”
“Can we use that to find who he might choose next?” Heidi asked.
“We’ve tried going through the women on the website but there are too many of them, and we don’t know what exactly it is about them that’s going to spark something in him. Once he’s killed them and we know which fairytale he matched them to then it’s more obvious what attracted him to them, but before that it’s too hard to know, it could be anything,” she replied.
“Do we have anything on either Brendan Ranalt or Galahault Bonnie?”