The title of this documentary is slightly misleading and more than slightly understated. The crime spree started in Oklahoma with the murder of an older man. Ed Cash was beaten and strangled to death in his own home. In the space of a month, Gary Alan Walker murdered five people, four of them women.
Leaving aside the wanton sadism, Walker's behaviour was odd in the extreme. When the son of his first victim - also named Ed - returned home after being questioned by the police, he found someone inside watching television. He retreated to phone the police, and the man escaped, but his fingerprints matched those at the murder scene. Next, a woman disappeared off the face of the Earth. Then a woman was murdered in her own home and her car stolen.
The police had their first real break when a woman reported being kidnapped and raped; she managed to give Walker the slip, if she hadn't, she would surely have been murdered. Then a young mother was kidnapped. Then another woman who was abducted at knifepoint and raped contacted the police. This time, incredibly, Walker released her.
Obviously there was never any possibility of him getting away, the real problem was damage limitation. In the end, Walker was arrested without a struggle and confessed freely to his myriad crimes. His various trials are not detailed here, but he was finally executed by lethal injection on January 13, 2000.
The documentary makers spoke to relatives of the victims and also to some of the men involved in the investigation.
What is most notable about this case in our near total surveillance state is that Walker was caught on surveillance video with one of his victims, and the quality was absolutely terrible. Contrast that with regular smartphone footage and the CCTV cameras that are now everywhere; chances are this psychopath would have been brought to book earlier.
Leaving aside the wanton sadism, Walker's behaviour was odd in the extreme. When the son of his first victim - also named Ed - returned home after being questioned by the police, he found someone inside watching television. He retreated to phone the police, and the man escaped, but his fingerprints matched those at the murder scene. Next, a woman disappeared off the face of the Earth. Then a woman was murdered in her own home and her car stolen.
The police had their first real break when a woman reported being kidnapped and raped; she managed to give Walker the slip, if she hadn't, she would surely have been murdered. Then a young mother was kidnapped. Then another woman who was abducted at knifepoint and raped contacted the police. This time, incredibly, Walker released her.
Obviously there was never any possibility of him getting away, the real problem was damage limitation. In the end, Walker was arrested without a struggle and confessed freely to his myriad crimes. His various trials are not detailed here, but he was finally executed by lethal injection on January 13, 2000.
The documentary makers spoke to relatives of the victims and also to some of the men involved in the investigation.
What is most notable about this case in our near total surveillance state is that Walker was caught on surveillance video with one of his victims, and the quality was absolutely terrible. Contrast that with regular smartphone footage and the CCTV cameras that are now everywhere; chances are this psychopath would have been brought to book earlier.