Lawrence, William

William grew up in the small town of Lincolnwood, a suburb of Chicago, was raised by a strict mother, who forbade him from any relationships with girls, which later had a detrimental effect on William's psyche. For the first time the boy was detained at age 13 for carrying a loaded weapon. After a search of the house where William lived, the police found hidden weapons in the attic and sent Hyrens to a correctional school. William confessed to several burglaries, but claimed that he did it solely for fun. After serving in a correctional school, Hyrens did not improve, and shortly after his release, he was sentenced to three years of stay at the St. Bede Academy, where he showed himself to be a diligent student, and reaching the 16th birthday enters the University of Chicago ( University of Chicago).

On June 5, 1945, a 43-year-old woman, Josephine Ross, was found dead. The victim's body was streaked, and a tuft of dark hair was clutched in his hand. The police assumed that the woman took the thief by surprise, and in order to avoid witnesses to the thefts, he killed her. But contrary to speculation, nothing was lost from the woman’s apartment, and her husband, like Ross’s lovers, had an undeniable alibi. Interviewing witnesses also did not give the police any clue.

On December 20, 1945, a divorced woman, Frances Brown, was found dead in her apartment with numerous stab wounds. None of the valuables from the apartment was lost, but on the wall the killer left a message written in red lipstick: “For heaven’s sake, catch me before I kill more. I can’t control myself. ” This time, the police took fingerprints from the door handle, and made an approximate description of the killer’s appearance according to witnesses.

On January 7, 1946, 6-year-old Suzanne Degnan disappeared from her bedroom. Not finding the girl in the apartment, the parents immediately turned to the police. The case of the disappearance of the child received wide publicity, and the police zealously pursued the search. Outside Susan’s bedroom window, police found a note demanding a ransom of $ 20,000 for a girl. The abductor repeatedly called the girl’s parents, but each time he hung up the phone without telling where the money would need to be delivered. Later, another call led the police to a sewer outlet, not far from the Degnans' house, where they found the girl’s legs, torso and head. Hands were found only a month later, three blocks from the Degnans' house. Evidence found by the police after a search of nearby buildings led to the basement of one of them, where there was a laundry room with four bathtubs, and everything indicated that the child was dismembered here.

Police identified about 350 suspects, of which 170 were interviewed on a lie detector. William Hyrens was detained on June 26, 1946, when he was only 17 years old. According to him, the police knocked out his confession of torture, starved him and did not allow his parents to visit him for four days. Psychiatrists interviewed William without parental consent, and under the influence of sodium pentanol, he admitted the existence of his alter ego, who allegedly committed all the killings. After other evidence of Hyrens’s guilt, information about the capture of the serial killer leaked to the press, and William’s lawyers, realizing that the possibility of a favorable outcome, was tending to zero, persuaded Hyrens to make a deal and confess to the killings. He died in custody in a Dixon penitentiary in 2012. He refused all his confessions and claimed to be a victim of police brutality. Also, from the point of view of modern criminology, a lot of evidence is in doubt.

• Crime Library ~ William Heirens "William Heirens: Lipstick Killer or Legal Scapegoat?