Review Written By Bernie Weisz, Historian, Vietnam War April 9, 2013 Pembroke Pines, Fl. USA Contact: BernWei1@aol.com Title of Review: "The Sex Slave Murders: The True Story of Serial Killers Gerald & Charlene Gallego"
This book, "The Sex Slave Murders" by R. Barri Flowers, published in 1995, is the story of Gerald and Charlene Gallego, a husband and wife serial killing team that over a 26 month period between 1978 and 1980, the pair went on a rein of terror covering 3 states, and committed crimes including kidnapping, sexual assault, rape, torture and murder. Although led by Gerald Gallego's "sex slave" fantasies (Charlene was a willing accomplice), their actions led to the brutal deaths of nine women, one man and one unborn child. As the reader will discover, had it not been for a fortuitous stroke of luck, the two would have continued fulfilling their macabre fantasies. Who was Gerald Gallego? He was certainly a sociopath that started his life seriously lacking a positive father figure. Born on July 17, 1946, when Gallego was 9 years old his father was executed for the murder of a prison guard while incarcerated.
He began his killings on Sept. 10th, 1978 when he raped and shot Rhonda Scheffler, aged 17 and Kippi Vaught, aged 16, after his wife Charlene enticed the girls into the car. Charlene Gallego, born Oct. 10th, 1956, was instrumental in all of her husband's murders, luring the victims with promises of marijuana and money. The two teens were shopping at a California mall. Charlene picked them up and put them in the back of the couple's van. At gunpoint, Gerald repeatedly raped the two victims throughout the night in Baxter, California. The following day, the Gallego's drove to Sloughouse, Ca., where Gerald got Rhonda and Kippi out of the van. He then made them walk out in the field to a ditch where he hit Kippi first with a tire iron and then he swung around and hit Rhonda. Finally, he shot each girl in the head with a .25 caliber pistol. As he was returning to the van he saw Kippi Vaught move because the bullet had only grazed her skull. He returned and pumped three more bullets in her head, executing her. Charlene's trick of luring victims continued, as Gerald's desire to rape and murder innocent young women grew unabated.
On June 24th, 1979, at the Reno Rodeo County Fair in Nevada, Charlene lured Brenda Judd, aged 14, and Sandra Colley, aged 13, into the Gallego's van on Charlene's promise of the girl's making money delivering leaflets. While Gerald held the girls at gunpoint, Charlene drove the van northeast out of Reno, Nevada on I-80. In the back of the van, Gerald repeatedly raped the two girls while Charlene watched in the rearview mirror. Charlene then parked their van in a desolate area known as "Humboldt Sink", Nevada. For the next several hours, Gerald raped and sodomized the girls as Charlene watched and did nothing to stop these horrible acts. Then Gerald marched the girls out of the van and beat both girls to death with a hammer. Their remains were found in 1999 by a tractor driver. Charlene confessed to the killings at the Gallego's 1982 trial. The killings would not stop there. To throw off the police, the couple took on the alias of Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Feil.
Next, in gruesome detail, Flowers describes how on the morning of April 24, 1980, Gerald awoke Charlene and demanded; "I want a girl! Get up!". After driving around for awhile, he spotted two girls, both aged 17, named Karen Twiggs and Stacy Ann Redican, leaving a bookstore. Charlene approached the two girls and offered them to join her in the van on the pretext of free marijuana. The girls eagerly agreed and followed her to the van, sealing their doom. As the girls got into the back of the van, Gerald greeted them with a .357 magnum pistol. He quickly ordered Charlene to drive and commanded the girls to undress. After repeatedly raping and sodomizing the girls, he had Charlene drive to a secluded area where he murdered and buried them, forcing Charlene to view the graves. More sex slave murders continued. On June 7th, 1980, while traveling down the highway, Gerald and Charlene spotted a lone pregnant woman hitchhiking named Linda Aguilar. After gladly accepting a ride, Charlene drove as Gerald pulled out his .357 and pointed it at Aguilar's face. After a short drive to a remote area, Gerald raped Linda, and then beat her over the head with a rock.
To satisfy himself that she was dead he strangled her corpse for good measure. On June 22, 1980, German tourists discovered Linda's badly decomposing body. After an autopsy was completed, it was determined that Gerald was unsuccessful in murdering Linda. She had actually awakened after her captors left, and in her panic and struggle to get free, she suffocated in the sand. Unfortunately, Flower's story of the Gallego's carnage doesn't end there. On July 22, 1980 (Gerald's 34th birthday and Charlene two months pregnant with his child) he abducted Virginia Mochel (also aged 34) as she walked from the tavern where she walked as a barmaid. Bizarre as it sounds, Flowers points out that Charles and Charlene knew Mochel and had been served drinks by her on numerous occasions. Similar to the other instances, Charlene drove as Gerald held Virginia at gunpoint. After repeatedly raping her, she begged Gerald to kill her, and he gladly obliged and strangled her. He dumped her body by a pond. On Oct. 3rd, 1980, a fisherman discovered the nude decomposed remains of Mochel in some brush.
The last murders the couple pulled turned out to be their undoing. You will have to read the book to find out how they were caught. At any rate, On. Nov. 1st, 1980, Gerald once again told Charlene, "I'm getting that feeling." He did not need to explain further what he meant, as Charlene knew. Briefly, Craig Miller and Mary Beth Sowers were abducted on Nov. 1st, 1980 in Sacramento, Ca., and were found dead in separate locations. The Gallego vehicle was spotted and identified during this latest abduction. After finding out that the police came to Charlene's mother's house to question Charlene (the investigators found substantial evidence at the residence such as bullet casings and suspicious tools) the couple fled to Omaha, Nebraska. Running out of money, Charlene called her father to wire money to a Western Union in Omaha, Nebraska. Fearing that Gerald might hurt his daughter, Charlene's father called the authorities and informed them of Gerald and Charlene's whereabouts. They were promptly arrested and Charlene quickly confessed and ultimately proved to be the star witness in her husband's trials.
Starting in 1984, Flowers details how Gerald was tried for murder in both California and Nevada. In both instances, Charlene testified against him. In exchange for her testimony, Charlene was not charged in California and agreed to plead guilty to murder in Nevada. She received a sentence of 16 years and 8 months in Nevada, and in August, 1997, at the age of 40, was released on parole from the Dept. of Prison's "Woman's Center" in Carson City, Nevada. Gerald didn't fare so well. Acting as his own attorney, he was convicted and sentenced to death in both states, and awaited execution. Although Flower's book ends at this point, Gallego's death sentence in Nevada was overturned in 1999 and he won the right to a new sentencing hearing, but the new jury also sentenced him to death. On July 18, 2002, Gerald Gallego died after a losing battle with rectal cancer. Gallego died before the appeals in his death penalty case were exhausted and is yet another resident of death row to not be executed before their natural death. He did not make any last minute confessions, insisting he was innocent until he drew his last breath.
It is interesting to note that Gerald Gallego posted on the CCADP Web site before his death (Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty) the following request for a pen pal: "My name is Gerald Gallego. I am 54 years old and I will soon be starting my 21st year on Death Row. I was arrested on Nov. 17, 1980, in Omaha, Nebraska. I was returned to California. In 1983, I was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. I was then extradited to the State of Nevada. On June 24th, 1984. I was convicted of murder in the State of Nevada and sentenced to death. I have been fighting the convictions and death sentences in both states throughout all these years. My family is dead and gone. All my friends somehow vanished after my arrest. Over these 20 years, I have had very little to do with the outside world. My appeals is starting to come to an end (in both states) and I am looking for a friend."
Gallego Continued his post: "I am looking for a person that is honest in words and sincere at heart. Someone that will stand with me and befriend me until the end. I'm not looking for a lot of friends-just one true one. As you can see by my poor writing, my misspellings, etc., I am not a well educated man. I don't know if I have anything to offer anyone except my friendship. I guess what I'm saying is to say is I just don't want to go down the road by myself anymore....I don't have any picture of myself...maybe you know someone that might want to write me. I am not very good at letter writing, and someday's are harder than others. But I will try and be a very good pen pal to someone. Sincerely Yours, Gerald Gallego". Was Gallego afraid of dying in jail alone? Was his "conscience" finally eating at him? Did Charlene Gallego get off too easily? These are questions this book will make you ponder. What was Charlene's explanation why she went along with Gerald's demonic requests? !Although she told the jury during the trial that she deserved to die for her role in the murders, Flowers gives Charlene's poignant explanation. She stated under oath: "It was my duty, my responsibility to please Gerald, to be what he wanted me to be. I was to accept him...to accept my role.
I knew I would never find anyone else who wanted me. I was afraid of him at the time. I was afraid he would kill me. The only way he would end this relationship was to kill me because of what I knew". Believable? Another woman, Eva Braun, had a unique view of Adolf Hitler's conquests of Europe, his brand of Nazism and the killing centers of the concentration camps, because she dedicated her life to him. Let us also remember that after nearly seventeen years as Adolf Hitler's faithful companion, Eva Braun finally married him in a bunker under the flaming ruins of her bridegroom's Third Reich. Three hours later he poisoned her to death. Finally, I felt that R. Barry Flowers told an excellent, well constructed and eloquent story of a very sick, twisted relationship that cost the lives of 10 innocent people. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is because I felt that it was Flowers obligation to explore why Charlene Gallego got off so lightly. Just because she testified against Gerald, does that lessen her guilt? Where was her conscience when these murders were going on? This was the only stone Flowers left unturned. Regardless, it was a book I couldn't put down until the last horrifying page was turned. An excellent story
- ISBN10 0330355317
- ISBN13 9780330355315
- Publish Date 11 July 1997 (first published 15 October 1996)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 12 October 2001
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Pan Macmillan
- Imprint Tor
- Format Paperback (A-Format (178x111 mm))
- Pages 288
- Language English