Ep. 34 - The Serial Killer and the Devil's Tree

Gerard John Schaefer had been a Florida Law Enforcement Officer. Police are some of our most trusted public servants. Our default position when it comes to police officers is to trust them. And most of the time, that position is correct. But sometimes it can be wrong. Very wrong. That was the case with Gerard John Schaefer. He was a prolific serial killer during the heyday of serial killers in the 1960s and 1970s. There are those who say he made Ted Bundy look like a Boy Scout. Many serial killers have a particular place they gravitate to for dumping bodies. Schaefer had a place he liked to torture and kill young women. That place is known as the Devil's Tree. 

Oak Hammock Park is a popular waterfront park in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Trails encircle a lush hammock with an area of pine trees. Large live oaks that have stood as sentinels for centuries make up the rest of the landscape. This park is hard to find as it sits in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Everything about the location translates to serenity and beauty. But that is not the case here. There is a macabre history. A terrifying one. And one tree in particular, the Devil's Tree, played witness to it all and perhaps absorbed something. It was here that serial killer Gerard John Schaefer committed some of his wicked and cruel murders.

Gerard John Schaefer, Jr. was born in Wisconsin in March of 1946. The Schaefer family moved around a bit, residing in Nashville for awhile and then Atlanta, Georgia. They finally settled in Fort Lauderdale in 1960. Schaefer's father was away from extended time as he worked as a traveling salesman, but when he was home, things were not good. Gerard Sr. was an alcoholic who was verbally abusive. Junior and Senior had a hard relationship, but Junior loved his mother. He resented the close relationship he thought his father had with his sister. Schaefer enjoyed the outdoors and spent much of his time outside of school hunting and fishing. Where things went wrong is hard to say, but Schaefer followed the same path as so many serial killers. He hurt animals, even going as far as disemboweling cows from a neighbor's field, and he developed weird fantasies, began cross dressing and peeping on women. Most of his fantasies incorporated sadomasochism and bondage and he practiced this on himself for sexual pleasure. Schaefer liked autoerotic asphyxia and he would tie himself to items and inflict pain on himself. This all started when he was still an adolescent. 

Schaefer graduated from St. Thomas Aquinas High School in 1964 and started classes at Broward Community College, which he attended through Sophmore year and then he moved to Florida Atlantic University, FAU. He not only was continuing the proclivities he had developed through high school, but now he was acting out violently. On October 2, 1966, a woman named Nancy Leichner, who was 20, and another woman named Pamela Nater, who was 21, had joined their boyfriends in Alexander Springs Park in the Ocala National Forest. The men were part of a skin-diving club called Aquaholics and they were going to try out their wetsuits. But the conditions weren't suitable and the guys decided to go hiking, leaving the girls to sunbath near the lake at a picnic area. It was the last time the men saw their girlfriends. The boyfriends looked for their girlfriends and when they couldn't find them, they called the police. The women were never found and their cases would remain open until 2007 when authorities announced that they were convinced that Schaefer had killed them and closed the cases. Much of their evidence came from jailhouse confessions and their possessions were found at Schaefer's mother's house.

Gerard met Martha Marti Fogg at FAU and the two began dating, becoming engaged quickly. They married in December of 1968. The marriage was brief, ending in divorce in 1970 with Marti citing extreme cruelty as her reason for leaving. Schaefer eventually graduated and started a student teaching internship in 1969 at Plantation High School. This guy liked to push his belief on others and said lots of inappropriate things and despite being warned by his superiors, Gerard continued to teach in the way he wanted. Parental complaints finally lead to his firing. He managed to get an internship at another school, but this was soon rescinded because of his arrogance and lack of knowledge of the subject he was teaching. 

It was time for a change and Schaefer got a job as a security guard, which inspired him to become a police officer. One can only imagine the pleasure it must have brought him to think he could have legal authority over other people. Schaefer glided in without any background checks and he lied about his work record. At 25-years-old, he was inducted into the Broward County Police Department as a patrolman. Schaefer met a woman named Teresa Dean and he married her in 1971 before becoming a police officer. This marriage worked out better because Teresa was willing to do pretty much anything Schaefer wanted to do and she seemed quite smitten with him. And clearly, she had no idea about his extracurricular activities.

Gerard had been a cop for six months and his superiors were not pleased with his performance. On top of that, it had come to light that Schaefer was pulling over female drivers for minor traffic offenses and then using their license plate numbers to get more information about them and then calling them for dates. He was fired. Gerard forged a recommendation letter and applied at the Martin County Sheriff's Office.

Schaefer had only been working for the Martin County Sheriff's Office for a month when he pulled up to two female hitchhikes, 18-year-old Pamela Wells and 17-year-old Nancy Trotter. It was July 21, 1972. He told the girls that hitchhiking in Martin County was illegal, which was a lie, and he drove them to where they were staying. He asked them to join him at the beach the next day, but he didn't take them to the beach. Rather, he drove to a swampy area called Hutchinson Island, which is just across the way from where the Devil Tree sits. He hogtied one of the girls and then took the other one 50 feet away, so that they couldn't see each other. He tied this one's hands behind her back and stood her on a slippery fallen elm tree and put a noose around her neck, so that if she slipped, she would hang. He tortured each girl for a bit and then left because he had to go to work. While he was gone, both girls managed to get themselves free seperate of each other. Neither knew the other was free and they hadn't gone to each other because they thought Schaefer was still nearby. One flagged down a trucker on the road and the other swam across the causeway and flagged down a police officer who knew what was going on because the other girl was already at the sheriff's station. 

Gerard told the Sheriff that he had done something stupid. He was trying to teach the girls a lesson and so he had tied them up. He was immediately fired and arrested. Schaefer decided to take a plea bargain and he was sentenced to a year. The holidays were coming and Schaefer asked if he could wait until after the holidays to start serving his sentence and this was granted. This was a very bad mistake as it is believed that Schaefer abducted and killed six women during this time. It was during this time that Schaefer killed Susan Place and Georgia Jessup. Their dismembered remains were found at Oak Hammock Park while Schaefer was in jail and because the killings were so similar to the attempted killings he was serving time for, the police secured a search warrant for Schaefer's mother's house. They found short stories written by Schaefer that were disturbing, 11 guns and 13 knives, and items that belonged to possibly 30 women from the area who had disappeared, which included jewelry, clothing, driver's licenses, passports and some teeth.

Schaefer was brought to trial in St. Lucie County before Judge Trobridge for the murders of Place and Jessup on September 17, 1973. Unfortunately, at this time in Florida capital punishment had been ruled unconstitutional, so life imprisonment was the harshest punishment that could be sought. Schaefer was aloof during the entire trial and stared coldly at witnesses when they took the stand. He would smile at the press, however. Lieutenant Patrick Duval testified about what he found at the crime scene and one of the revelations was that it was clear that the shallow graves that the bodies had been in, had been dug into at least twice. Just like Ted Bundy, Schaefer liked to return to his victims' dead bodies and commit necrophilia. Susan Place's parents testified that Schaefer was the man with whom their daughter left their house with her friend Georgia. And Georgia's purse was in the possession of Schaefer's wife, so apparently he gave it to his wife as a present. The Defense tried to discredit all the witnesses, there were closing arguments and then the jury went off to deliberate. It took only a little over five hours for the jury to come back with a guilty verdict on two counts of 1st degree murder. Schaefer declared that he was innocent and then asked to be sent to a psychiatric hospital. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, but with the possibility of parole.

Schaefer went forward with appeals, citing that he had poor representation. One of his defense lawyers had been having an affair with his wife and eventually married her. There was also no Grand Jury called before the trial and Schaefer felt that was wrong as well. He spent much of his time in prison suing people, including the author of the book "American Ripper: The Enigma of America's Serial Killer Cop" by Patrick Kendrick. In an interview on the podcast "Most Notorious," Kendrick said that he had told another author that Schaefer had become doughy and wasn't a dangerous person anymore and Schaefer sued him over it. Multiple times. Schaefer's other favorite hobby in prison was writing macabre stories and it was hard to tell what were fiction and what were details about things he had actually done. An old girlfriend named Sondra London rekindled things with him and she got several of his stories published in a book entitled "Killer Fiction" in 1989. The couple became engaged for a time in 1991, but then London met another Florida serial killer that she found more desirable, so she left Schaefer for Danny Rolling, the Gainesville Ripper.

Somehow, a couple of cells on solitary confinement were left open on September 3, 1995. A fellow inmate from Cuba, named Vincent Rivera, stabbed Schaefer 42 times and slit his throat. Rivera's reason for killing Schaefer was never made public. Some say it was over a cup of coffee and others say Schaefer was framing inmates for money or owed some money and Rivera was asked to do some pay back. Whatever the case, if you live by the knife, you should die by the knife. Although he was only convicted for two murders, it is thought that Schaefer was very prolific. The possessions of some of Schaefer's victims were found in his mother's house and these victims include: Leigh Bonadies Hainline (25) who disappeared on September 8, 1969; Carmen Marie Hallock (22) who disappeared on December 18, 1969; Peggy Rahn (9) and Wendy Stevenson (8) who disappeared December 29, 1970; Belinda Hutchins (22) who disappeared on January 5, 1972; Deborah Sue Lowe (13) who disappeared February 29, 1972; Elsie Farmer (14) and Mary Briscolina (14) who disappeared on October 23, 1972; Barbara Ann Wilcox (19) and Collette Marie Goodenough (19) who disappeared January 8, 1973. 

In 2022, the skeletal remains of 15-year-old Susan Gale Poole were identified. She had been found in a Florida mangrove swamp at Singer Island in 1974 after disappearing from her family's Broward County trailer park just before Christmas 1972. A man and his sons were looking for driftwood when they found Susan's skeletal remains tied with wire to a tree. It is believed she was a victim of Schaefer as well. People believe he killed between 28 and 30 women. And that brings us back to the Devil's Tree in Oak Hammock Park.

The Devil's Tree itself looks twisted and mutilated. The ancient trunk is heavily scarred by time and man. People have tried to cut it or carve occult symbols into it and there are burn marks. Some parts of the tree have been filled with cement. There is a second old live oak further into the woods that is believed to be the actual tree where Schaefer did his misdeeds. On this tree, about 10 feet off of the ground is a knot that people think looks like a goat’s head with horns. This was the perfect place for Schaefer to bring his victims. There was no park here at the time and it was remote and wooded, so no one would hear any screams. He enjoyed hanging his victims from the tree while he tortured them. And that has left this tree cursed and haunted.

Satan worshippers may have come here before Schaefer chose it as a murder and burial spot, but regardless of timing, rumors have circulated for years that hooded figures dance around the tree. The disembodied screams of women are heard on quiet evenings. The women's restroom at Old Hammock Park also features the screaming of women and the doors slam on their own. Cold spots are felt near the Devil's Tree. In 1992, a priest performed an exorcism at the tree and left a cross at the base. It didn't drive the satan worshippers away. Two boys claimed in 1993 that a group of hooded figures chased them through the woods. When the city decided to establish the park, they decided to cut down the tree. Several attempts to cut down the oak were made, but every time they put a chainsaw to it, the chainsaw would break down. So they tried a two-man cross-cut saw and all the teeth fell out of the saw blade. Finally they tried an axe and the axe head came off of the handle. Outside the park, people have captured orbs and mists in pictures and people claim that the hitchhiking ghosts of Jessup and Place are said to haunt people by banging and scratching on doors or being seen in the mirrors. 

These stories all could just be legend and ghost lore, but Gerard Schaefer clearly made the existence of monsters in this world very real. He came to the end he deserved. Unfortunately, we'll never know how many victims he really had or where all of their resting places are located. If there is any justice for the victims, Schaefer himself is trapped in the Devil's Tree forever.