Chameleon Serial Thriller
At the Anchorage Diner in Port Aransas Texas, a man walks into the restaurant and tries to make a connection to a waitress in the restaurant. He’s sniffling and spasmodic as the amphetamines in his system course through his body. Ignoring those telltale signs, the bored waitress finds him exciting, and one thing leads to another.Review and recap The ChameleonTwo weeks later, that “another” leads to the Sands Motel, in San Antonio, Texas where the same man, a serial killer and Sara Clark, the waitress, hold Pamela Jackson captive twelve days.
During that time, the captive is repeatedly raped. During the violent act, he tells the victim he really cares for her, and that’s why she’s not dead already.The time is 1981. The cars are long and finned, few people use seatbelts, and there were pagers but no cellphones. In the early 1980s, another murderer is on the loose in the same area.
The police are on to him as he drives through the desert with his victim. “You’re lucky the cops interrupted, sweet meat, I was ready to go another round,” he cackles.
This time too the victim was at least half lucky, in that she survived. The perpetrator was forced to abandon his vehicle and run through the desert scrub brush in a bid to escape. Edward See, who also went by the name of David Penny was arrested for the kidnap and rape of Carole Douglas.It’s all part of the horrifying three-part series on Investigation Discovery channel on Stephen Peter Morin, who used several aliases, but is sometimes referred to as Robert Generoso.
The reason this story of serial killer Morin stands apart is simply that he is far less well known than, say, Ted Bundy, the Poster Boy of all serial killers. Bundy’s name at one time was almost a household word. Not so with Morin. Mention of his name is likely to produce the response: “How come I never heard of him?” One reason may be because of the tag the police gave him – the “Chameleon.” Morin changed his look, his place, his style and his name so many times that he was virtually invisible for the decade of his crimes.Few criminals are more frightening than a serial killer.
Serial Thriller Id Channel
Perhaps it’s because there is no species more frightening by nature of their stealth, cleverness, recklessness, and predatory instincts. The number of murders Stephen Peter Morin actually committed is believed to be around thirty, though estimates have been as high as fifty-four. The manipulative killer and pathological liar used several aliases and disguised himself so well that witnesses were unable to pick him out in books of mug shots where he was the only subject.The ID Channel presentation was obviously produced on a low budget and yet managed to create a mood appropriate to the subject.
The use of blue filters and smoky lenses helped to set up the murky world in which the killer operated. The casting director helped the presentation a great deal. The characters are such as you might find in the lonely outposts of western towns. The western saloon where the first episode of the three part series begins features a mix of bikers, lonely hearts, drugstore cowboys, loud music, smoke, drink. A pretty girl dances with a bearded guy who presses a knife flat against her back, suggesting something awful might happen to her.Soon people start finding bodies along the road or in the desert. The cop who figures mostly in the IC presentation is Mike Brady.
Lean, lank, and spare in his use of words, the detective studies the crimes scenes for links. It’s early 1980s and DNA matching, which might have prevented some women from being murdered, is in its infancy. Even if the Morin had no criminal record and there was no trace of his DNA in criminal data banks, DNA analysis could have at least helped them in one of the most difficult tasks police face when tracking down multiple murders. Are the murders in cases linked through DNA?The same DNA found on multiple victims would set that concern to rest. If the DNA was a match, you have a serial killer.
If there is no DNA match among victims, then you have isolated and different killers. Determining that is a crucial first step in multiple victim murder investigations. In the 1980s, the best evidence of similarity between murders was blood evidence. But blood clues were not always left at crimes scenes as whereas DNA evidence often abounds at crime scenes.In the television production “The Chameleon,” the lead detective is talking with an associate about four other murders with a single connection.
The Chameleon Serial Thriller
A fifteen year old girl, Kim Bryant, murdered from blunt force trauma to the head; Linda Jenkins, beaten, strangled, then dumped in the desert; twenty-two year old Sheila Griffith, strangled; Susan Belotte, 18, also strangled and dumped. All the victims were kidnapped from Las Vegas and murdered within the space of a single year.Though the main force behind the three-part series was Stephen Morin, detectives failed to link any of these four murders to Morin. DNA analysis would have revealed that the killer of one of these women, Sheila Griffith, was Edward See, who eventually admitted to killing her and four other women. Yet, it was while investigating these four, that Detective Brady got on the trail of Stephen Peter Morin.The break in the case occurs when Cheryl Ann Daniels is kidnapped and murdered, then dumped in the appropriately named Hell Hole Canyon.
In the course of that crime, Morin dropped his wallet and in that wallet was the name and address of another woman the killer was stalking: Sara Pisan. Sara turned out to be a co-worker of Cheryl Ann Daniels. She had met the killer, who had introduced himself as “Andrew,” but spurned his overly aggressive advances. When Detective Brady tracked down Sara Pisan, she told them about Morin and that she had become suspicious of him when her friend didn’t show up for work one day. But having identified a possible serial killer is not the same as apprehending one and Morin’s whereabouts were unknown.
His modus operandi was to move from town to town, picking up jobs on occasion and then drifting on. His ability to disguise himself, and his unpredictable movements from town to town, made him dangerous for everyone he came in contact with.
Stephen Peter Morin killed on whim, after which he would move on to the next town and the next victim.You could say that God came to the rescue – assuming the Investigation Discovery version of Morin’s killing spree was entirely accurate. During one of his escape attempts, he came upon Margaret Mayfield Palm, a young woman who was devoutly religious. Palm was either fearless or hid it very well as she, preparing to die, began reciting scripture. Whether this had any effect on the killer is debatable but, in any case, he was trying to avoid capture. Morin tells her to drive him to a bus station in Kerrville, Texas. From there, he’ll head to Houston. He doesn’t kill Margaret Palm, he doesn’t rape her, and he even gives her a chance of escape.
When he separates from her near the bus station, she gives him her book of psalms, which he is apparently reading at the bus stop when the police point their guns at him. Palm told police later that they drove around for ten hours reading from her handwritten journal of Bible verses and listening to tapes by Mr. Copeland, a Texas evangelist.At the time of his arrest, Morin was a suspect in thirty seven violent crimes. Though never convicted for the murder of Cheryl Daniels, Morin was executed by lethal injection March 13th, 1985, for the 1981 murders of only three women: Carrie Scott, Janna Bruce, and Shelia Whalen in Golden Colorado.