Every Town - The Shoe Fetish Slayer: Jerry Brudos

Episode Date: August 1, 2025

Today we’re looking at a man that wasn’t your typical serial killer, if there even is such a thing. This guys was obsessed with women’s shoes, lingerie… and murder. So let's head over to Oregon and check out all the details on about Jerry Brudos — the shoe fetish Slayer. 👀 Watch This Episode On Youtube: https://youtu.be/7m2GpAlsFJw 👁 Check out our movie AN ANGRY BOY for FREE! ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvtlOlODQ8g&t=5238s⁠ ⁠https://tubitv.com/movies/100029672/an-angry-boy⁠ International & Other Ways To Watch: ⁠https://www.anangryboy.com/⁠ 💀 MERCH: ⁠https://scary-mysteries.teemill.com/⁠ 💀 Free 7 Day Trail on Exclusive Episodes, Podcasts & Perks! ⁠https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries⁠   🎧 Our Other Podcast Scary Mysteries: ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZooEZMoZ421WdsOVJhVkT⁠ 👁 X: ⁠https://x.com/ScaryMysteries1⁠ 👁Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/andrew.fitzg⁠ 👁 TikTok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewfitzgerald⁠ 👁Facebook: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/scarymysteriesofficial⁠ 👁 X: ⁠https://x.com/ScaryMysteries1⁠   🗣 Business Inquiries, questions and comments hit us up at ⁠[e-mail]⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Into the dark, where true crime meets the eerie unknown. Every town has a dark side. In a quiet Oregon neighborhood, a husband kissed his wife, good night, tucked in his children, and disappeared into the garage. To anyone looking in, he was just another blue-collar guy, an electrician with freckles, a pudgy face, and a soft-spoken voice. But behind that garage door was something else entirely. A secret room, a homemade pulley system, a shelves lined with women's shoes, and a freezer holding something no one should ever keep. Jerry Brutus would be a lust killer. The lus killer will kill and have sex with him after him.

and so necrophilia is one of his primary motivations. Over the course of just over a year, young women around Portland started disappearing. And when their bodies finally surfaced, mutilated, bound, and anchored with car parts, the real truth came along with them. Hey guys, it's Andrew, and thanks so much for tuning in to another episode of Everytown. For today, we're looking at a man that wasn't your typical serial killer, if there even is such a thing. This guy was obsessed with women's shoes, lingerie, and murder.

So, let's head over to Oregon and check out all the details about Jerry Brutus, The Shoe Fetish Slayer. It was January 26th of 1968 when 19-year-old Linda Slossett, knocked on the door of a modest home in Portland, Oregon. She carried with her a large briefcase filled with encyclopedias, going door-to-door trying to make some sales while she saved up for car. college. The man who answered the door seemed friendly enough, an electrician in his late 20s who listened politely as she gave her sales pitch. He was interested and invited her

inside to continue their conversation down in his basement workshop. Alinda had picked the wrong door, though, that day, and she did not leave that house alive. The man who killed Slosson was Jerry Brutus, but the world would come to know him by other names. But, the world will come to know him by other names, the lust killer, the shoe fetish slayer. And he targeted female college students, kidnapping them with the intention of torturing and killing them. Afterward, he'd put on their high heels and clothes to pleasure himself. And he kept detailed records and photos of everything he did.

Lured her down to the basement, the pretense wanting to not bother the people upstairs. And once he had her down in the basement, walked up behind her and hit her. over the head with the two before. The blow was severe, knocked her unconscious instantly. When she was on the floor, he climbed on top, wrapped his hands around her neck

and squeezed tightly till she stopped breathing. But for Jerry, killing Linda wasn't the end. It was just the beginning of his ritual. While his wife and children were upstairs, totally unaware of what was happening right below them,

Brutus spent hours with Linda's body. He removed all her clothes, and was especially fixated on the red lingerie she had on underneath. It completely obsessed him, and it always had. He slid out a stash of women's underwear and high heels that he had stolen over the years and kept hidden behind his tools, the place he knew of his wife and kids would never find. He then started dressing and undressing Linda in different outfits, acting like she was a model, and he took photos of each new look.

But what he did next went far beyond anything, even the worst killers were considered doing. He took a hacksaw and cut off one of her feet. He saved that as a trophy, put it in the freezer that he had, periodically took it out. It was a fetish item and put a female shoe on it, masked guffs and arousal from it. As for the rest of her body,

well, he tied it to an old car engine to weigh it down and dumped it on in to the Willamette River. In the weeks that followed, he kept up appearances as a normal father, going to work, eating meals at the kitchen table and playing with his kids. But whenever he got a moment alone, he'd sneak on down to the basement and take that foot out of the freezer. He'd slip on different pairs of high heels onto it and snap photos from every angle. For him, this disturbing ritual felt like he was finally living out the fantasy he'd been obsessed with for years. and close to a year later, he was in need of a new model, so to speak,

and the opportunity presented itself in a way that was too easy for Brutos to pass up. A 23-year-old college student, Jan Whitney, was driving home for Thanksgiving when her car broke down on Interstate 5. He stopped. I thought she was nice looking, was another potential victim. Reed would fix her car, but he had to go to Salem to get some tools. And when a friendly-looking man pulled over and offered his assistance, she didn't hesitate. And Jan had no idea she was getting into a killer's car. And Brutus chatted easily as he drove her to a gas station,

racking small jokes and asking about her holiday plans, and everything felt normal. And when she was comfortable enough with them, he then asked her to close her eyes and describe how to tie a shoelace without looking, just a silly sounding game. While she talked, he quietly grabbed hold of a leather luggage strap, wrapped it around her neck, and strangled her, all while keeping one hand on the wheel and one eye on the road. He then drove her over to his house and pulled into the garage and closed the door. At this point, he had outfitted the garage with some additions, things that would come in handy for a moment just like this. The locks, of course, to ensure his family or anyone else couldn't get in, as well as a large metal pull.

that hung from the ceiling. Brutus and his sick desires are taking him places he's never been before. He's now ripping a woman's dead body, and then finally at the end of that, leaving her hanging from a hook like a piece of meat in his garage. And for the next couple days, whenever the urge hit, Brutus dressed her up in outfits from his stash, performed acts of necrophilia and snapped his photos.

And just like with Linda, he'd a see. decided to keep a trophy. This time, though, he removed one of Jan's breasts, planning to use it as a paperweight. He tried to preserve it, an epoxy, but failed, so he instead stuffed it with sawdust and mounted it on a wooden board. When all this was happening, his wife and kids were upstairs, cooking dinner and watching TV, with no idea of the horror going on just below their feet. By March of 69, Jerry had grown Boulder. He wasn't just hunting anymore, he was performing. On March 27th, he decided to use his stash of clothes for another purpose. He put on a long dress, threw on a wig, and drove on over to the Mirren Frank apartment store in downtown Salem. In disguise, he wandered through the parking garage, looking for

the right victim. When he saw Karen Sprinker walk into her car, he knew she was the one. And she was 19, a chemistry student at Oregon State University, wearing exactly the kind of high heels that drove him wild. And Karen was supposed to meet her mother for lunch. She had no idea that the strange-looking woman approaching her in the dim parking garage was actually a man with a gun. Brutus pulled the weapon and spoke in a calm and measured voice. And he told her not to scream,

that he wouldn't hurt her if she just came with him quietly. I believe a toy pistol, and he abducted her with that pistol. Terrified and confused, she did what most people do when faced with a gun. She complied. She sat in the passenger's seat of a station wagon, probably trying to figure out what was happening to her and how to get away. Bruton's made conversation during the 20-minute drive, even promising her she wouldn't be harmed. To his workshop, and apparently she... She tried everything and her power to save her life.

Once in there, Karen begged for her life, and she told him she would do anything he wanted if he just didn't kill her. When he asked if she was a virgin, she said yes, adding that she was having her period, maybe hoping this would make him lose interest. And it didn't. He forced her to strip, and then made her pose in different pairs of high heels

while he took pictures. After he was done with that, Brutus abused Karen on the cold concrete floor of his workshop. Then he placed a rope around her neck and asked her if it was too tight. When she said, yes, he threw the rope over the ceiling beam and pulled. And Karen's feet left the ground, and she kicked and struggled as the life was squeezed out of her, but it only lasted a few moments, and then she stopped. Again, he kept her body hanging from that rope for half. hours, dressing and undressing it like a life-sized doll.

He had developed new fantasies by this point. He cuts her breasts off. He makes a cast from them, and then he attempts to make some kind of bronze bust of a woman's breast. When the police found her body weeks later, she was wearing a bra, stuff with brown paper towels to hide what he had taken from her. But before that would happen, Brutus' Aputte's Aput. for these rituals was growing stronger, not weaker. Just four weeks after murdering Karen, he was hunting again. On April 23rd, 69, Linda Saley was shopping at the Lloyd Center Mall in Portland.

She was 22, worked as a secretary, and was taking classes part-time at Portland State University. She had bought gifts for her boyfriend, a pair of slacks and a watch band for his birthday. And just like Karen, she was walking. walking back to her car in the parking garage when a man approached her. He confronted her and with a badge saying that he was a security officer. And they'd been getting a lot of shopliftings going on and she'd have to come down to a police station for further questioning. Linda protested, of course, she hadn't stolen anything and had the receipts for everything she had bought. But still the man was insistent.

He seemed official, too, authoritative. When someone claiming to be a police officer tells you to come with them, well, a lot of people don't argue, and Linda didn't either. Bruton's letter to his car and told her to get in. Once they were driving, he changed his story. And now he said she was being kidnapped for ransom that someone would contact her family about the money. None of it made sense, but she went along with it because,

well, what choice did she have at that point? He was already in the lion's den. When they arrived at his house, he took her into his workshop. He goes to dinner. He sits dinner. He comes back out. And the girl was sitting there, untied. She must have had in her head that he was going to release her.

Oh, this has never been substantiated. Neither way, though, what he did do for sure was choke her repeatedly with a leather strap. getting her just to the point of falling unconscious before letting loose and then doing it all over again. He played with her like a cat does a mouse before killing it. After Linda was dead, Brutus hung her body from the same hook where Karen had died just weeks before, but he had developed a new experiment for this one. He took hypodermic needles and inserted them into a rib cage, one under each armpit. Then he connected them to electrical wires and,

used a car battery to send current through her dead body, trying to make her move and dance like some grotesque puppet show. When this failed to produce the effect he wanted, he grew bored and disposed of her body like the others, tying various car parts to her and dumping her in a river. On May 10th of 1969, two fishermen discovered what they thought was a large package, floating in the Long Tom River. When they pulled it closer, though, they realized they were looking at a human body, weighed down by car's transmission.

And the victim was identified as Linda Saly through dental records. Just two days after that, divers found another body, Karen Sprinker, only about 50 feet away. She had also been tied to a heavy object and bound with the same kind of rope and copper wire. The specific kind of wire used, and of course the car parts, let authorities know that likely the killer was either a mechanic or an electrician. The knots were very specific, and they pointed to someone with technical training, and so the hump began. It's strange, the human mind. Even our own can play tricks on us. Because it appeared that even though Jerry was a sick and sadistic monster, it was a part of his brain,

even a very small part that wanted to get caught, as if he knew it was the only way he could stop the madness. Because around the same time that the bodies were being pulled from the depths of the wall, waters around Oregon. Female students at Oregon State University were getting creepy phone calls from a guy claiming to be a lonely Vietnam vet. M.O. has just hung up, but one woman, feeling a bit sorry for him, actually agreed to meet. The date was unsettling, to say the least. The guy was tall, heavy set with reddish hair and freckles, but what really creeped her out with the things he said. At one point, he straight up referenced, the bodies found in the river.

And then he asked her how she didn't know he wouldn't take her there and strangle her too. That was enough to send her straight to the police. And they asked her to let them know if he ever called again. In exactly one week after Linda Saly's body was found, he did. And she agreed to set up another date, only this time the police were waiting. And the man was Jerry Brutus.

Now they couldn't hold him just yet. They didn't have enough to charge him, but when they looked into his past, a much darker picture started a form. Now, Brutus had a history of mental health issues. He lived just blocks from where Karen Sprinker had vanished. And maybe most important of all, he worked as an electrician in the same area where the bodies have been discovered. The copper wire, the knots, it all started to line up. And then came the final piece. A 15-year-old girl who had escaped from an attempted abduction a few months earlier picked Brutus out of a photo lineup. That was enough for a warrant.

On May 26, the 1969 investigators then entered Jerry Brutus' home and workshop. And what they found inside was horrifying. Taped to a drawer of a red craftsman tool chest. And there were pictures of all of the... slain women in various states of dress and undress, some alive, some deceased. One was of Karen Sprinker while she was alive standing, as I recall, without clothes other than high heels, and the look on her face is a look that you don't forget. Her hands were clenched in fists that spoke volumes about the fear and the terror that he had

instilled in her. Hundreds of Polaroids showing women, some terrified, some clearly lifeless. One image in particular stopped detectives cold. He had put a mirror under her body and was shooting a photograph that would reflect up into a private area. And while leaning over to take the picture, took his own picture as well in the mirror. They also found the severed breast, coated in epoxy, displayed like some kind of trophy. and coils of copper wire matching the bindings on the bodies, a rope tied in the same distinct knots, the ceiling hook, the pulley system.

And when confronted with this overwhelming evidence, Jerry began to confess, but his confessions revealed something that went far beyond simple murder. He had a fetish obsession that he simply couldn't control. And to understand where it came from, you've got to go all the way back to his childhood. Brutus was born in 1939 and from day one his life was shaped by rejection. Jerome Brutus was born to a woman who really wanted a girl. Now we always hear about families or fathers who say, I really want a boy, but to imagine a mother who says, I really want a girl.

I don't want a boy. While his older brother got all the love and attention, Jerry got criticism and coldness. That kind of emotional neglect leaves a mark. And when the family moved constantly, thanks to his father's seasonal work, and Jerry never had a chance to build the stability or connection with any friends or lovers he craved. At just five years old, Jerry found a pair of high-heeled shoes in a junkyard, and he was mesmerized. And they had shiny rhinestones on them, so he brought them home and tried them on like any curious kid might. But when his mother saw this, she exploded.

She called him wicked and gave him a beating. and then burn the shoes right in front of them. He started to associate that simple arousal with that aggressiveness, with the forbidden aspect of the shoes, and that blossomed into this very strong fetish. As he got older, his obsession grew, from shoes to women's underwear, from dressing up in private to stealing lingerie from clothes lines.

By 17, it turned violent. He lured a girl to his car under false pretenses, and beat her when she refused to undress, and was only stopped when a couple happened to drive by. And he was arrested, evaluated, and diagnosed with borderline schizophrenia. And doctors noted his disturbing fantasies, especially his hatred towards women. But in the end, they said he just needed to grow up, so he was released. In the years that followed, Jerry drifted through jobs,

got kicked out of the military for his behavior, and eventually married a much younger woman named Darcy. He controlled her completely, making her do chores in nothing but high heels, photographing her constantly. And for a while, that kept him satisfied in the dark impulses at bay. But after their daughter was born and Darcy started pulling away, the old feeling of rejection came roaring back. Jerry had no option and turned outward again,

stalking women. breaking into homes and stealing whatever he could. Eventually, that wasn't enough either. So what made Brutus cross the line into murder? Because let's be honest, a lot of people have fetishes, but most don't become killers. According to psychiatric studies, Brutus was different. He didn't just have a fetish. He had a paraphylic disorder, which is a condition involving intense and persistent sexual interests

and objects, situations, or individuals that are atypical, and often considered devian or socially unacceptable. And mixed in with that were antisocial traits, the ones he picked up as a defense mechanism after not being able to make any real connections with people in his childhood. In other words, if he couldn't make friends, well, his brain then turned him into believing that it was fine, and he didn't want any. His crimes weren't just about sex. I mean, they'd definitely were, but not entirely. They were also about control, power, and revenge. Every shoe he stole, every photo he took, every life he snuffed out. It was his way of reclaiming power from a world that had denied him any. After his arrest, psychiatric evaluations also

revealed that Jerry had necrophiliac tendencies. According to forensic expert, Anil Agrawl, necrophilia isn't just one thing. It ranges from harmless, role play to the most extreme version, killing just to have sex with the body. And Brutus checked multiple boxes. He was a necromulomaniac, so he got off on dismembering his victims. In the end, he became the most dangerous kind, a homicidal necophile, someone who killed to bring his fantasies to life. But at what point does a fetish become a compulsion? When does a psychological disorder become an excuse for evil? Well, the answer is that it doesn't.

Yes, he had serious psychological issues, but he was still sane, and he knew exactly what he was doing, and most importantly, that it was wrong. He planned his crimes, hid the evidence, and just made conscious choices to hurt people. For all this, he was sentenced to three life terms. In prison, he was quiet, worked with computers, and never showed real remorse. He blamed his mother, of course, claimed he blacked out when he killed and kept asking for parole, but he was always denied. He appeared before the parole board on numerous occasions.

It became very obvious he was not ever going to get out of the penitentiary. Yeah, I've gone a lot of places and done a lot of things. I'm assuming that I never heard anybody because I never got any complaints from anybody. In the span of 15 months, he had four victims, Linda Swanson, who was never found. Jan, Karen, and Linda Saly, who were found in rivers. But authorities are unsure if those are the only ones. He hinted at times that there were more, in considering what he did in such a short amount of time,

I wouldn't doubt it. Gross is the personification of cold, deliberate evil, and I'd blight he's not living in me. And Jerry died of liver cancer in 2006 at 67 years old, and he took any secrets along with him, never telling authorities the entire truth. And so that's going to do it for this week's episode of Everytown. I hope you all enjoyed it.

And if you like this type of work, we do and you want more, check out some of the links down in the description. More podcasts and videos from us to go through, merch, and our movie and Angry Boys available too. I appreciate you all very much for tuning in. Remember to come on back next week for another episode of Everytown filled with scary, strange, and mysterious stories, because you never know. Maybe your town will be next.