UBC: Rule, Mortal Danger

Mortal Danger and Other True Cases by Ann Rule

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



"Mortal Danger": Gold Beach OR 1999, Gig Harbor WA, 2007. Every Woman's Nightmare, twice. John Branden, aka John Williams, beat, raped, and very nearly murdered his long-time girlfriend when she had the temerity to try to end their relationship. He eluded police and vanished. Under a new name (one of many), he charmed a divorced lady in Gig Harbor into a common law marriage, then became increasingly controlling, abusive, and paranoid, until in 2007, when she found out something about that previous relationship, he shot her, shot his "best friend," who was trying to mediate between them, then shot himself. The friend survived, blinded. Branden/Williams and his girlfriend (I just can't use the word "partner" in this context) died.

"Written in Blood": Graham WA 2007: Kill Me Twice: The vicious, pointless murder of Brian and Bev Mauck by Daniel Tavares, a man who'd served 16 years in Massachusetts for murdering his mother with a carving knife; the judge at his bail hearing for two attacks on prison guards believed his attorney that Tavares was rehabilitated and not a flight risk. He kept two appointments with his parole officer, then skipped out, traveling across the country to marry a woman he met online. Not very long thereafter he murdered his neighbors Brian and Bev Mauck for reasons that remain unclear, beyond Tavares' father's assessment that Daniel Tavares was pure evil. Google tells me that he was arraigned in 2015 for another murder, one that Rule actually talks about in "Written in Blood."

"If I Can't Have You ...": Sea-Tac Airport 1976: Every Woman's Nightmare: Amelia Jager fled from her abusive, controlling husband in Switzerland back to her family in Seattle. He followed her (despite Swiss authorities having assured her he would not be grated a visa). As they were at the airport trying to get him on a plane back to Switzerland, he pulled a knife from where he'd secreted it in his bag, fatally stabbed Amelia and seriously injured her sister, who tried to stop him. The jury at his trial did not buy his insanity defense.

"Thirty Years Later": Seattle WA 1978: Clarence Williams abducted and murdered Laura Bayliss (aka Julie Costello), the night-shift clerk in a 7-Eleven on Beacon Hill, and was convicted because he was caught on the security cameras. He insisted it was a case of mistaken identity. In 2007, still serving his sentence for Laura Bayliss' murder, Williams was convicted of the 1978 rape and murder of 15-year-old Sara Beth Lundquist based on DNA evidence from samples that detectives at the time had had the wits to take and preserve. Williams entered an Alford plea, refusing to admit guilt just as he had done in the Bayliss case. He was sentenced to an additional 30 years in prison.

*"Not Safe at Home": Marysville WA 1978: 56-year-old Traia Carr was raped and murdered by a 17-year-old neighbor who--as it turned out--was a ticking time bomb of sociopathy and sexual sadism. No one had any reason to suspect he was dangerous before Carr's death. He was tried as an adult on charges of first-degree murder, first-degree rape, first-degree kidnapping, first-degree theft, and riding in a motor vehicle without the owner's permission (Snohomish County threw the book at him to be sure that something would stick). He was found guilty on all five counts.

(In a creepy coincidence that Rule swears she didn't plan, Sara Beth Lundquist and Traia Carr were murdered the same July 4th weekend of 1978.)



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