THE SEX SLAVE MURDERS

by: R. Barri Flowers

St. Martin’s Press True Crime Library, ISBN 0-312-95989-3, paperback

The true-life story of America’s first husband and wife serial killer team. Gerald and Charlene Gallego used charm, skill, and luck to lure “sex slaves” to their deaths. Over a twenty-six month period, the couple kidnapped, sexually assaulted, bludgeoned, and murdered nine women and one man in the Western United States. Only a twist of fate led to their capture, ending their reign of terror and pitting the two against one another in an ultimate courtroom showdown. A must-read for any true crime fans!

EXCERPTS OF THE SEX SLAVE MURDERS

It began as a fairly quiet early Sunday morning of November 2, 1980 in California’s capitol city. By the end of the day, two lives would be lost forever and many others changed indelibly.

A gateway between the bustle of the San Francisco Bay Area, the idyllic beauty of the Sierra Nevada, and the gaming meccas of Lake Tahoe and Reno, Sacramento offered perhaps the best of all worlds. It retained much of its cultural and rural past, while steadily becoming an urban and suburban center with an eye on the future.

On this tepid Saturday night, the Arden Fair Shopping Center was the place to be, particularly if you happened to be the correct fraternity or sorority member at California State University, Sacramento. The Carousel Restaurant had been transformed for the night/morning into a Founder’s Day dinner-dance celebration, courtesy of Sigma Phi Epsilon.

Among those attending were CSUS seniors Craig Miller, twenty-two, and Mary Elizabeth Sowers, twenty-one. The all-American couple was engaged to be married on New Year’s Eve 1981. For Sowers and Miller, hope seemed eternal. They left the Carousel Restaurant just after midnight. Shortly thereafter, a fraternity brother happened by chance to notice Miller and Sowers in the back of an Oldsmobile Cutlass rather than Sowers’ red Honda.

After an exchange of words between the fraternity brother and the front seat occupants of the car—a woman was in the driver’s seat with a man beside her—the Oldsmobile sped off, with Miller and Sowers still in the back seat.

This was the last time Craig and Mary Beth were seen alive.

***

The two seemed as unlikely for each other as they did a couple capable of being, quite possibly, this country’s first husband-and-wife serial killers.

Physically speaking, Gerald and Charlene Gallego were definitely mismatched. He was a shade over five-seven with rugged features. An ape-like build seemed to dwarf his wife, who stood at five feet and barely tipped the scales at one hundred pounds. Charlene looked like a Barbie doll. Cute, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, diminutive, sweet, innocent…

Whatever the odds may have been for Gerald Armond Gallego and Charlene Adell Williams ever meeting, they somehow managed to beat them. It was mid-September 1977 when they first laid eyes on one another. From that point on, Charlene Williams was sold on this man, and he intended to take full advantage of it. Within weeks, they were living together in a duplex that Charlene was renting on Mission Avenue. And the troubles began…

In the spring of 1978, Gerald began to give serious thought to his sexual fantasies and now wanted to share them with Charlene.

“I have this fantasy,” he told her. “About having girls that would be there whenever I wanted them and do whatever I wanted them to. They have to be young, too,” he added, “ripe for the pickings.”

“That’ll only happen in your dreams, Gerry,” Charlene told him. She had no reason to believe that his erotic fantasies were anything more than wishful thinking and, therefore, harmless. She saw this as “competition for real love” in which she might well be facing a losing battle.

***

The sex slave fantasy took a brutal and deadly turn on September 11, 1978. That was the day Gerald Gallego decided it was time to bring his fantasies to life—even if it meant it would cost others their lives in the process.

He had been regularly molesting his daughter during his visits to Chico over the summer, but it was not enough to fill his growing desires. Not by a long shot. He woke up the one that was to be his partner in crime and the bait for his sex slaves.

“I want a girl!”

Charlene felt weird in going along with Gerry’s strange desire to have his own sex slaves, but she also wanted to please this man she loved. Maybe this whole thing was only a game—a test of love. Maybe this was his way of making her prove she was “the girl with heart” and therefore his “number one girl”?

Whatever convincing Charlene needed to do within, she did it. And the couple was off to put the plan into action. They took the 1973 Dodge recreational van that Charlene had purchased with the help of a loan co-signed by her always-dependable daddy. Gerry liked the van for its smooth ride and roominess in the back, where he and Charlene sometimes had sex. He also fancied the scenery painted on the sides of the van, which featured a mountainous region with vultures swarming overhead, as if they were zeroing in on their prey.

***

Rhonda and Kippi stepped into the back of the van looking for a terrific high. Instead what they got was a .25 caliber pistol pointed at them by a man who did not look at all like he was playing games.

Gerald drove the van expertly through and around the meandering road, across a fragile bridge, and finally found a lush spot off the road that he considered satisfactory to get the job done. The van was brought to a stop and his sex slaves were given his undivided attention. This was the one time when Charlene truly was not the number one or two girl for what he had in mind.

Charlene watched as Gerry unbound the girls’ ankles, helped them out of the van, and ordered them to start walking. He pointed in the direction away from the road where the trees made perfect cover and could easily distort sound effects.

“Wait here,” he told Charlene, and she did while he trailed his prey. He took with him a sleeping bag, blanket, and the .25 caliber gun.

***

“We’re not animals!” shouted Gerald Gallego in the Placerville, California courtroom where he and his seven months pregnant wife, Charlene, appeared for a bail and arraignment hearing.

Both defendants entered pleas of not guilty to the charges against each of one count of kidnapping and one count of first-degree murder. The judge ordered the defendants held without bail, pending a hearing, and remanded them back to the El Dorado County jail.

The case against the Gallegos had become a jurisdictional nightmare. Three Northern California jurisdictions were involved in the kidnap-murder of Craig Miller and Mary Beth Sowers. And the District Attorneys of each of them wanted to put Gerald and Charlene Gallego on trial.

The next step was to build a “can’t lose” case against Gerald Armond Gallego and Charlene Adell Gallego.

***

Two days after Kippi Vaught and Rhonda Martin Scheffler disappeared, migrant farm workers spotted the remains of two girls—or young women—it was hard to tell. They were lying in clumps of dead grass in a meadow, not far from the farm where the men worked.

According to the coroner, both girls had been sexually assaulted, bludgeoned, and shot to death. One of the victims had a bullet wound behind the left ear, the bullet grazing the skull. A second and fatal bullet was fired at close range into the back of the head. It has been speculated that this victim was the one to wiggle, catching Gerald Gallego’s attention. Had she not, she may well have lived and identified her assailant and his co-conspirator before any others could be victimized. Regretfully, this would be forever left to speculation.

***

Father’s Day in 1979 fell on June 24. In Reno, it also happened to be a day when the Washoe County Fair was going full steam, with the locals taking the spotlight over the thousands of tourists who flocked daily to the biggest little gambling town in the world. Young girls could be seen in adult bodies, tight shorts, and budding breasts beneath halter tops and body hugging T-shirts.

For two such girls, this would be the last Father’s Day they would ever see.

Once more, Charlene became the innocuous appearing lure for some unsuspecting, naïve, soon-to-be victims. She went off on her search, almost comfortably, in her adept skill at smooth talking and avoiding undue suspicion. If she had any second thoughts about her role in this insanity, Charlene successfully suppressed them well into the back of her mind, out of reach of her conscience.

Brenda Lynn Judd, fourteen, and Sandra Kay Colley, thirteen, typified most young girls who came to the fair primarily to see and be seen. They were at the age where boys meant just about everything. But first you had to be able to attract them. Both girls had little problem in that department. They were cute, street-wise, and precocious.

“If you girls want to make a few bucks,” Charlene said nonchalantly, “all you have to do is stick these”—she held up a handbill—“on car windshields.”

The girls looked at each other. Why not? they thought. Money was money and there never seemed to be enough. They had a little bit of time before their ride came. Why not make good use of it?

“Okay,” the girls said in unison.

They followed the small woman to a van, hardly noticing the man approaching from another angle. When they did notice him, it was too late. He had the .44 pointed at their faces.

“Care to go for a little ride?” Gerald grinned.

The Gallegos had added a mattress to the van since the last sex slaves. Gerald forced his two captives to lie face down on the mattress that was covered with two thin blankets. He then bound them hand and foot, and the real terror was about to begin.

Dusk turned to dark as Charlene continued to the drive to nowhere for what must have seemed like an eternity, while Gerry violated and abused his salves. She could hear the girls crying, moaning, and breathing. Similar sounds, oddly enough to her, came from Gerry.

Charlene got a bird’s-eye view of the raped, exhausted, scared victims. If she put herself in their shoes, it was but for a fleeting moment. She could not afford to be sympathetic. Had she been, it would probably drive her crazy. There was really nothing she could do for them, Charlene thought, but hope perhaps that Gerry might dump them in the desert and give them at least a fighting chance for survival.

She watched, almost turning a blind eye, while Gerald dragged the girl into the darkness of the desert. Moments later, he returned with the hammer and shovel.

“Are they dead?” asked Charlene meekly.

“What the hell do you think?” growled Gerald, as if to say, use your head for once, Charlene. You’re the one that’s supposed to be so damn smart. What other choice did I have?

***

Gerald Armond Gallego, Jr. was born on January 17, 1981, in a hospital prison ward. Charlene Gallego, twenty-four, was forced to witness the birth of her child while in custody as an alleged kidnapper and murderess. Her husband, Gerald, thirty-four, and co-accused, was also detained and unable to see his child come into the world.

It is doubtful that Gerald Gallego, who had forced his wife to have an abortion several years earlier, and who probably had more kids than he could count, cared that his namesake had survived nine months of hell. Gerald was too busy trying to find ways to save his own neck and make certain Charlene was not the one to chop it off.

***

Before Charlene Gallego could tell her tale of sexual slavery and serial killings, the prosecution was attempting to build its case against Charlene and Gerald Gallego for the kidnapping-murder of Craig Miller and Mary Beth Sowers. Deputy District Attorney James Morris would prosecute the case when and if it ever went to trial. That was never a given no matter how despicable the crime and disliked the accused. There had to be sufficient evidence, withstanding legal challenges by the defense, and sincere belief by the prosecution that there was a good—make that great—chance for conviction.

Then a strange new twist came about. Charlene Gallego dropped a bombshell on her new attorneys when she confessed that Miller and Sowers had been but the last in a string of abductions and murders that spanned twenty-six months and stretched across three states. Ten people were dead, she said, all but one females.

According to Charlene, she had acted as the lure and her husband, Gerald, had sexually assaulted and brutalized most of the victims before killing them. It was all part of a “sex slave fantasy” Gerald had created. Only it turned into a deadly reality for ten innocent victims, plus an unborn child who never got the opportunity to know the meaning of the word innocent.

***

Gold Beach is one of Oregon’s many hidden treasures. The Rogue River runs through this rugged, breathtaking stretch along the coast between Brookings and Coos Bay. A variety of shops counted on tourists to take home a little of Gold Beach with them. Few could imagine such an idyllic place at the scene of a brutal murder. But few could image the psychopathic personality of Gerald Gallego and a more than willing accomplice in his wife, twice over, Charlene.

On June 7, 1980, just two days after the couple’s second marriage, they reached Gold Beach, following a drive that took them through parts of the Cascades, Klamath Falls, and some small coastal towns.

Gerald was happy to be here in the rugged outdoors. He only wished it was with someone other than Charlene. Then he saw her. A woman was walking by the side of the road, all by her lonesome. Long hair, bouncy strut, not so bad looking. Her belly was sticking out. Just what he needed, Gerald frowned. Another pregnant woman.

But she would have to do.

“Let’s give the lady a lift,” he said sweetly.

“Let’s not,” replied Charlene firmly. “Can’t you see she’s pregnant?”

“So are you,” he scoffed. “You ought to know by now, I like my women pregnant…”

Linda Aguilar, twenty-one, was four months pregnant with her second child. She had picked up some items from a local store and was on her way home, even though things were not going well with her and her boyfriend. When the van pulled alongside her, she had paid it little attention until she heard a man’s voice say: “How ‘bout a ride?”

She said just what he wanted to hear: “Sure, why not?” She smiled at the nice couple, who smiled back. How safe could one be?

Charlene watched from outside the van as Gerry led his captive past a rock formation and out of her view. She expected to hear pops from his .357 magnum at any time. It never happened. She felt a false sense of relief. She hated the thought of shooting someone and leaving them for dead.

Gerald’s absence was less than half an hour. As always, he returned alone. He bragged to Charlene about beating his pregnant slave with a rock, then strangling her for good measure. It was almost as if he expected her to applaud his brutality and his cold bloodedness.

***

Charlene Gallego had found a way to spare her own life and ultimately become a free woman while young enough to be able to make something of it. The price was to testify against Gerald Gallego, her husband and the father of her nearly two-year-old son, Gerald, Jr. Her testimony was almost sure to get Gallego the death penalty if convicted. It was a price Charlene was prepared to pay.

In exchange for her testimony against her husband, Charlene was given a “guaranteed” sentence of sixteen years, eight months—a sentence equal to the minimum time that must be served in California for a first-degree murder. The sentence was to be served in its entirety, without possibility of parole.

***

It was one-thirty in the morning when Virginia Mochel, thirty-four, advised the Sail Inn patrons that the bar was closing. By two o’clock everyone had gone and Virginia was soon to follow suit. She was anxious to get home and tuck in her two children, Petra, nine, and Wesley, four.

Just after two on the morning of July 17, 1980, Virginia Mochel locked up the tavern and headed for her car. When she heard the knock on the window and saw the familiar face of the man from the bar, she rolled down the window.

Only then did she see the .357 magnum revolver pointed at her face.

Gerald Gallego was celebrating his thirty-fourth birthday as he forced the bartender at gunpoint into the back of the van. Once again he had a sex slave to do his bidding. So she didn’t look as much like Charlene as the others, not counting the pregnant whore. This was his birthday and she, like it or not, was going to be his present.

“Why don’t you kill me, you bastard?” sputtered Virginia Mochel from the bed in the back of the van where she had been violently sexually assaulted. Her worst fears had come true, along with the emptiness for living after such an ordeal.

Charlene suddenly felt a lump in her throat. The bartender had been nice to them at the bar. She had two kids. She wasn’t like the others. Why would Gerry pick her to be his sex slave? The lady bartender deserved a better fate, decided Charlene.

***

The unsolved mystery of Virginia Mochel’s disappearance came to a frightening end on October 3, 1980. Fishermen discovered her nude decomposed remains in thick brush near Clarksburg in southeastern Yolo County. Virginia’s hands were bound behind her back with fishing line. The terrible condition of the corpse made it impossible to determine the cause of death or if the victim had been sexually molested. Under the circumstances, it was probably best that only her killers new the unspeakable horrors that had been inflicted upon Virginia Mochel before her death.

***

They had plans, big plans. Indeed, the future had never looked brighter for Craig Miller and his fiancée, Mary Elizabeth Sowers. The California State University, Sacramento seniors were planning to be married on the last day of 1981 because New Year’s Eve was Mary Beth’s favorite day.

They left the Carousel Restaurant shortly after midnight and had planned to go straight home. When Craig and Mary Beth saw the portly man approaching them in the parking lot, they never really had a chance to react before they saw the gun staring straight at them. The man holding it, with a menacing look on his face, said flatly with alcohol on his breath: “Let’s go—”

Fearing the deadly power of a gun if used, Mary Beth and Craig played out their captor’s game, no doubt expecting an outcome they could all live with. But certainly not die for.

They underestimated Gerald Gallego and his motives. It would prove to be a fatal miscalculation.

***

“Gerald A. Gallego admitted killing a young Sacramento college couple,” prosecutor James Morris said in his opening statement before the jury in the murder trial of the accused, Gerald Armond Gallego, in the deaths of Craig Miller and Mary Beth Sowers.

The trial began in November 1982 and would pit Morris against Gallego himself. The defendant either had an enormous amount of self-confidence or was making the biggest mistake of his life, to date.

Charlene wore a white, lacy Victorian blouse and black skirt as she was escorted to the courtroom on January 10, 1983, to testify against Gerald Gallego. Her demure appearance belied the woman who had willingly participated in the abduction and murder of ten people, including a pregnant woman. Clearly, the People’s case against Gallego rested largely on the slender shoulders of the prosecution’s chief witness, Charlene Gallego. Her testimony was easily the most anticipated part of a trial that figured to last for months.

***

Read more about The Sex Slave Murders and other books by R. Barri Flowers at his website: http://barribythebook.homestead.com.

The Sex Slave Murders can be purchased on-line at http://www.Barnesandnoble.com, http://www.Borders.com or can be ordered at any local bookseller.