Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Roadside Strangler” Michael Bruce Ross Pt. 1

Episode Date: December 6, 2021

After experiencing severe emotional abuse as a child in the ‘60s, Michael Bruce Ross got a fresh start at Cornell University. But in his senior year, as his relationship with his fiancée began to unravel, he started acting out his perverse childhood fantasies — thrilled by the terror he could instill in his victims. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of murder, suicide, sexual assault, rape, and animal abuse that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. On May 12, 1981, 25-year-old Zungnachtu hunched over a pile of paper she was grading in the library at Cornell University. A little after midnight, the graduate student decided she'd worked enough for the day. and packed up her stuff to head home. Zung left the library and started walking home, enjoying the warm breeze and the calming silence

that hung over the picturesque campus. Despite the quiet, Zong wasn't alone. 21-year-old Michael Bruce Ross was following her, and when they entered a dark deserted area, he pounced. Michael grabbed Zung by the neck and dragged her behind a building. As hard as she tried to resist, the tiny woman was no match. With his hand still around her neck, he forced her to undress, then sexually assaulted and raped her. When he was finished, he instructed her to put her clothes back on and to get onto her stomach.

But he wasn't done yet. Michael's night was only just beginning. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. This is Serial Killers, a Spotify original from Parcast. Every episode, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today we're exploring the life of Michael Brewers. Bruce Ross, a killer who turned his darkest fantasies into real-life nightmares. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson.

Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Today, we'll look into Michael's unconventional childhood as a chicken slaughterer and how medicine may have disguised his disturbing inclinations until it was too late. Next time, we'll discuss Michael's brutal killing spree, how he got caught and the treatment he says eliminated all of his sadistic urges. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us.

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Choose the salad over the burger. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Most of these decisions regard our own lives and well-being. Our physical, emotional, or financial health, our careers, our studies, our relationships. We have to actively choose not to give in to our wants and our cravings. But what if you can't ignore those urges, and what if that puts other people at risk? What if your decision to do or not to do is the difference between life and death for someone else? For Michael Bruce Ross, control was something he struggled with his entire life.

At first, he lived under the tyrannical rule of his mother. When he broke free of her, his own violent urges took over, leading him down a dark and deadly path. But to understand how he got there, we have to go back to the beginning. Michael was born in 1959 to parents Pat Lane and Dan Ross. Pat was a senior in high school when she began dating Dan in 1958. While Pat's life had barely begun, Dan had already completed some college, served in the Marine Corps, and was working as a chicken farmer in his hometown of Brooklyn, Connecticut. Shortly after the pair started dating, Pat became pregnant.

This being the 50s, they got married and moved into. together on Dan's farm in Brooklyn. Five months later, Michael was born. After that, Pat became a full-time chicken farmer's wife and mother. She was picking up eggs and caring for a baby and husband. This was a far cry from the life she'd hoped for. Perhaps feeling like she'd lost her independence and her youth, Pat started dating an old boyfriend.

The relationship might have been an escape from her life on the farm, but it wasn't enough to stop unhappiness from swelling inside her as the years passed by. By 1964, Pat and Dan had four children, and as their family grew, Pat sunk deep into depression. She began speaking of suicide, and according to medical reports, harshly punished her children.

According to his siblings, Michael was his mother's favorite, but doctors who later assessed Michael found that theirs was more of a love-hate relationship. They believed that the bulk of Pat's anger and violence was directed at young Michael, perhaps blaming, him for stealing her youth.

Maybe Pat believed that if she hadn't gotten pregnant, then she wouldn't have had to marry Dan, but she did. And now she was a young mother of four trapped in an unhappy marriage. Doctors later determined that Pat's declining mental health may have been the result of untreated postpartum depression, a condition affecting one in nine women who give birth. Vanessa's going to take over in the psychology here and throughout the episode. As a note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist. But we have done a lot of research for this show.

Thanks, Greg. It's pretty normal for women to get the blues after they've given birth. But some experience severe depressive episodes that include suicidal ideations and thoughts of harming their baby. Research suggests that PPD happens in part because of changes to the stress and hormones in a woman's body after pregnancy. While all women can get it, there are risk factors that make some more likely to experience PPD than others. Young women are more prone to the condition than older women, as are those with less education. And for women in unhappy marriages, the thought of a child further anchoring her to her partner could be especially demoralizing.

Pat seemed to have all of those things working against her. We know she got pregnant with Michael when she was just 17. She was also unhappy in her life with Dan. In 1964, she attempted to run away with her longtime boyfriend. Pat's father chased her down and dragged her. back home. After her brief brush with freedom, her bitterness toward her children increased, and by October of that year, Dan admitted her to a psychiatric facility. Doctors determined that Pat was emotionally unstable and noted that she was extremely hostile

to her husband. It's unclear what her treatment was, but she was released into Dan's custody a month later with the recommendation that the couple seek relationship counseling. Unfortunately, the counseling didn't help. In 1966, Pat reconnected with her boyfriend, who she hadn't seen since before her stint at the psychiatric facility. They tried to make a run for it again, but this time Dan found her and had her readmitted. As the years passed, it seems Pat softened a little to her children, but her reportedly volatile temperament remained. The Ross Kids, in response, became experts at reading her moods and adjusted their behavior accordingly. According to a family friend, her abuse was

sometimes physical. But Michael's sister Tina claimed it was mostly verbal. She reportedly left the beatings to be administered by Dan. According to Michael, if he got in trouble with Pat, Dan would make him go out to the barn and pick the switch that he would beat him with. If he cried out in pain or squirmed, the lashings came down harder, so he learned to endure them silently. Despite the beatings, Michael still admired his father. If anything, he interpreted the violence as an extension of Pat's cruelty. Other than his conflicted relationship with his mother and his respect for his father, Michael didn't really connect with his family. His siblings were close to each other, but excluded Michael from their play. They were reunited when it came to surviving Pat's temper, but otherwise

they shunned him. The only person Michael was really close to was his teenage uncle Ned, who worked on the family farm. Michael would sometimes accompany Ned as he worked his chores on the property, helping out wherever he could. But Ned was battling demons that young Michael wasn't old enough to understand. Ned was gay and had never found acceptance in the small town of Brooklyn. That pain eventually became too much for him to bear. In 1967, when Michael was eight, 16-year-old Ned died by suicide. The Ross kids were told that their uncle died in a shooting accident,

and his family rarely talked about him after his death. With Ned gone, Michael seemed to have lost the closest person, he had, and while dealing with his loss, he was also now expected to take over Ned's chores. His responsibilities were to tend the farm's 5,000 chicks. The birds were raised at his grandfather's coop for five months before becoming layers on the family's chicken farm, Eggs, Inc. Michael woke up every day before dawn and headed over to the coop to start his chores. He had to make sure they were warm, fed, and watered. He also had to collect any dead birds and throw them into a pit.

He also had to call the weak and sick birds. It was a daunting task for anyone, but especially a young boy. He had to simultaneously learn to care for the animals and to kill them. To do that, Michael needed to learn to be unemotional and detached, to kill without feeling. The technique to slaughter the birds was horrific. Michael's grandfather taught him how to break their necks in a quick and clean way. But when he tried to replicate his grandpa's technique, Michael pulled too hard and the head came off, spewing blood everywhere. After some practice, he improved and quickly started bragging that he

could kill them in his sleep. Very young chicks, on the other hand, were a little harder. Because their bodies were so small, it was nearly impossible to break their necks. Instead, Michael opted to smack the tiny birds against a post, hopefully hitting hard enough to kill them the first time. Aside from being traumatizing, the job also kept Michael so busy that he wasn't able to engage in any extracurricular activities, like other kids his age. He started work at the farm before school and headed back right after. With very little time for play, Michael developed a very active fantasy life. When he was around 10, he began imagining himself as a hero, rescuing women in distress and taking them to his special underground place, where they worshipped and fawned over him.

Though he says the fantasies weren't sexual, they could suggest that Michael wanted to control women while also wanting to be wanted by them. Dr. John Seagallis, a psychiatrist who examined Michael later on, believed that the fantasies were a reflection of his emotional desire to be loved and accepted by his mother. He also suggested that for Michael, sexuality and aggression were intimately connected. His troubling relationship with women only worsened the older he got. When he was around the age 12 or 13, Michael molested a young girl who lived nearby,

he coaxed her to follow him into the woman. Woods, where he forced her to undress before molesting her. He got caught when the young girl told her mother what was happening. In addition to a severe beating from his father, Michael was no longer allowed to work at his grandfather's chicken coop, which was close to the girl's house. Instead, he had to work on the main farm doing menial tasks until he could earn back his place. Pat was deeply concerned about Michael's behavior. In addition to attacking little girls, Michael was getting into trouble at school.

His teachers reported that he often acted impulsively and was disruptive in the classroom, hoping for answers she took him to the doctor. The doctor reportedly dismissed the molestation as a phase and assured Pat that Michael would grow out of it. They attributed his disruptiveness and impulsivity to hyperactivity and prescribed him Ritalin, a drug used to treat ADHD. Ritalin increases the neurotransmitters dopamine and norophenephrine in a person's brain, helping control. their concentration and focus. However, Michael took Ritalin three times a day for six years, something the physician's desk reference at the time didn't suggest. Instead, it was recommended

that children who take Ritalin take breaks from the drug periodically, so doctors could assess any changes to their condition. Even though the medication did help to bring his hyperactivity under control, there were other components of his life that Michael was unable to keep in check. Over the years, his fantasy world became overly sexual, and he masturbated excessively, unable to curb the rising tide of desire building up within him. Perhaps the only thing more frustrating than his constant urges was his mother's obsession with catching him in the act and shaming him for it. According to Michael, Pat seemed to love any opportunity to catch him and humiliate him.

According to Michael, she once found a pair of stained underwear underneath his bed. When Michael came home from school, she was ready and waiting. She tossed the dirty underpants at him and ordered him to wear them on his head for the rest of the afternoon. Whatever her reasons were, it seemed Pat needed to maintain a firm grasp on her eldest child. But as Michael neared the end of his senior year at high school, things were about to change. He was finally ready to escape from her grip. Coming up, Michael receives a letter that changes everything. Hello, I'm Hannah McGuire.

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Their mother Pat was abusive, and every penny the kids made working on the farm had to be saved for their future education. They weren't allowed to use any of it for fun. That wasn't entirely a problem since they weren't able to have many friends outside of school anyway. If they did chance bringing someone over, they risked people. being humiliated if and when Pat flew into an unprovoked rage. To Pat, it seemed the most important thing was that her kids did well in school and completed

their chores at home and on the farm. Having friends was inessential. Perhaps this is due to her dissatisfaction with her own life. She might have hoped that if they focused solely on what was important, they'd avoid getting trapped in lives they didn't want like she had. Michael, however, didn't seem to mind the absence of a social life very much. He loved working at the farm. For as long as he could remember, Michael dreamt of one day taking over the family business, and he worked hard to prove to his family that he was capable.

While in high school, his hard work paid off. His family made him vice president of Egg's Inc. And gave him a 10% share of the business. He was one step closer to achieving his dream. But before he could fully immerse himself in the family business, he had to attend university. And Michael set his sights high. He didn't just want an education,

but the best one money could buy. So in 1976, he applied to Cornell University. Every day, like clockwork, Michael checked the mailbox nervously, waiting for an answer. One evening in December, he was finishing up chores at work and getting ready to leave for the night when his mother arrived early to pick him up. But she didn't come empty-handed.

She had an envelope with Cornell University's red and white insignia printed on the front. Michael's heart raced when she handed it to him. the contents of that envelope would determine his future, either crushing his dreams or bringing them closer than ever. Michael opened the envelope slowly, holding his breath as he pulled out the folded piece of paper inside. As he scanned the page, he cried out in delight. He'd been accepted.

Pat celebrated with her son. She'd been tough, but perhaps she thought it was the control that had brought them to that moment. But Michael was ready to be free from Pat's oppressive rain over his life, And while he was at it, he wanted to free himself of the other presence that held a grip over him. Ritalin. During the winter of his senior year, without consulting with his doctors, Michael stopped taking his medication. He wanted to head off into this new phase of his life completely independent, reliant on nothing and no one.

What Michael didn't know was that Ritalin helped keep his thoughts, feelings, and concentration ability in check. He would soon find out that his decision could be potentially. dangerous, not just for him, but for everyone around him too. But for now, all Michael could think of was the future that lay ahead of him. In the fall of 1977, he drove the five and a half hours from Brooklyn, Connecticut, to Ithaca, New York. Finally free of the confines of his family, he was determined to make friends, and, more importantly, to start dating.

He quickly got to work, dedicating himself to the task of meeting women as compulsively as he had to chores back home on the farm. And while he excelled at farm work, his social skills left a lot to be desired. Michael was inexperienced, and perhaps a little too aggressive in his approach. In the first week at his new dorm, he handed out flowers to nearly all of the women in the building.

Within months, Michael quickly became enamored with a woman Will call Jody, who lived in a dorm nearby. Michael could see into her room from his own, and he watched her obsessively. Finally, he worked up the nerve to ask her on a date, and to his surprise, she said yes. After their date, Michael started calling Jody all the time. He waited by his window at night watching for the light to turn on in her room.

That's when he would pick up the phone and dial her number. She quickly became fed up and started avoiding him. Eventually, he took the hint and backed off. After that, Michael realized that finding women to go on dates with wasn't difficult, and he got much better at it. Michael sometimes went on three or four dates a week. It seems what he really wanted, though, was a relationship, something serious, someone to care for and who would care for him.

The fantasies he'd been having were still a constant in his mind, but they were evolving, becoming darker and more sexual. He imagined himself forcibly saving women from evil forces and making them his sex slaves, an aggressive departure from the fantasies he had as a boy. His desire for control and domination over women was growing, as were his urges to act on them. He didn't know it then, but as his cravings increased, his ability to control his impulses was lessening. When he wasn't fantasizing about dominating women and going on dates, Michael also began partying quite hard. Now that he was free from his mother, he wanted to have as much fun as possible.

But dating and binge drinking were both expensive. So to save money, Michael joined a cooking club with some of the food. his dormates. That's where he met another freshman will call Sam. After sharing a few meals together at the cooking club, Michael wanted to hang out with Sam alone, so one time after dinner, he asked if he could take her out. She agreed. For the first date, they went out to dinner in a disco club to dance, then spent the rest

of the night and the next morning walking and talking. By the time he dropped her home, Michael was smitten. Pretty soon they were inseparable, spending several nights a week together. With Sam, Michael was able to find two things he'd never truly had before, a friend and a lover. As his relationship with her progressed, he became more immersed in university life and culture. In his sophomore year, Michael was recruited into Alpha Zeta, an agricultural fraternity on campus. Soon, Sam and Michael were spending more and more time together. He brought her to the Frat's weekly date nights and spoiled her with attention.

Sam gave him the tenderness and acceptance he'd always craved from his mother. Everything in their relationship was going well, until Sam revealed some concerning news. In December of 1978, right before Michael was supposed to go home to Brooklyn, Sam asked him to come by her place. When he got there, she told him she was pregnant. Michael was stunned, but he told her that everything would be okay and they'd figure it out together. The thing was, he wasn't convinced of that himself. They agreed that abortion was probably their only option, but that was as far as the conversation went.

After that, they both went back home for Christmas break. When they returned to school in January, Sam told Michael that she'd gotten the abortion. Michael was torn. He was relieved, but part of him was also disappointed in himself for not being there for her. After that, things were never the same between them. Over the course of the year, they drifted apart and began seeing other people. Michael's failed relationship with Sam and the abortion seemed to have affected him deeply. After the breakup, his fantasies developed more violent and aggressive undertones. He imagined himself outsmarting or tricking women into having sex with him.

Sometimes he even fantasized about rape. Despite his violent musings, Michael was still able to put on an affable and charming front. Days after his official breakup with Sam in September 1979, he attended a future Farmers of America meeting where he met a freshman will call Olivia. He was immediately struck by Olivia's beauty and was desperate to know more about her. After the meeting, Michael offered to give her a tour of the campus

and to walk her back to her dorm. Michael was relatively handsome and seemed smart, so Olivia accepted his offer. The night went well, and the pair shared a few kisses and agreed to meet the next night for a real date. At the end of the next evening, they headed to Michael's room at the frat house.

There, Olivia confided in him that she'd experienced a traumatic sexual assault the previous year, which made intimacy difficult for her. Michael listened and tried to comfort her. His attentiveness and gentle demeanor helped him gain her trust, and she fell for him. They became a couple quite quickly. In November, while Michael was in the hospital recovering from mouth surgery, Olivia had a nurse deliver him a note, declaring her love for him. In it, she spoke of her dreams of one day, man.

marrying him and owning a farm together. Michael was touched. For as long as he could remember, Michael dreamt of owning and running his family farm. It wasn't hugely ambitious, but he was a simple man, and that was more than enough for him. He was grateful to have met a woman who wanted similar things. He was excited for where their relationship was heading,

the future shining bright. Michael would later say that his junior year was the happiest of his life. Unfortunately, the happiness was short-lived. According to Michael, as their relationship progressed, Olivia grew up and started finding herself. Part of that discovery was realizing she had bigger ambitions than owning a farm. She realized she wanted to become an executive of an agricultural company, and she didn't want to compromise her dream for Michaels.

She began pressuring him to consider getting a job somewhere else, and to abandon his dreams of returning to Brooklyn. Her dreams were bigger than his, and would be more than his. and would be more lucrative for them both. She also jokingly called Michael her house hubby, a moniker that incensed him to no end. As the troubles in his relationship intensified, Michael also learned that his parents had separated

and were preparing to get divorced. But that wasn't all. His mom decided she wanted 50% of the family farm, even if it meant selling it. Michael felt like the women in his life, both of them fierce, competitive and controlling, were actively sabotaging his dreams. Olivia was dogged in her determination to forge a path of her own,

even if it meant sacrificing what Michael wanted, but still he loved her. He was more terrified of losing her than he was of having to compromise on what he wanted. He even applied for a job with a big farming company and got it. At around Christmas in 1980, in a desperate attempt to save the relationship, he proposed. Unsurprisingly, the engagement didn't magically solve their problems, The tensions between them created a rage within Michael, and he began fantasizing about physically hurting women, including Olivia. Michael knew about the sexual assault she'd survived, and he knew the power it had over her. He craved that overwhelming sense of control.

He wanted the ability to instill that level of fear in a woman. Michael later described these fantasies like a melody he couldn't get out of his head. Visualizations of raping, strangling, and murdering women. dominated his thoughts. They were especially clamorous when he was fighting with Olivia. Dr. Walter Borden, a psychiatrist who assessed him later, said that after Michael discontinued Ritalin, his impulsivity became heightened. Now it seemed his base desires held the reins.

In a senior year, in an attempt to ease the tension and ensure he didn't physically hurt Olivia, like he sometimes wanted to, Michael began stalking women on campus. When he first started following them, he did his best to hide did not be noticed, but eventually he wanted to be seen. He wanted them to know he was there, to feel a sense of control over them. The fear that he felt radiating from the women as he followed them was exhilarating, and he began to crave it more and more, the rush a constant high he was chasing. But the more he gave into the urge, the more demanding it became. And soon,

stalking wasn't enough to satisfy him. He was ready to take things to the next level. Coming up, Michael's violent urges take a deadly turn. Now back to the story. During Michael Bruce Ross's senior year at Cornell University, his life took an unexpected turn. His relationship was unraveling, and his dreams of returning to Connecticut after he graduated seemed further and further away. To release tension, he began stalking women on campus.

But soon, the stalking women on campus. But soon the stalking wasn't enough. He needed to actually physically feel their fear. One night, he saw a woman walking alone through campus and began to follow her. Then he did something he'd never done before. He grabbed her and dragged her to the ground. But that wasn't a part of his plan, and he didn't know what to do next. Panicked, he got up and ran away, leaving the terrified woman trembling in the dirt.

Michael felt a mixture of excitement and horror, almost unable to believe he'd actually done it. He'd almost acted out one of his fantasies. The thought of it both fascinated and terrified him. It was around this time that he started to feel like he was two different people, like there was a monster lurking beneath the surface of who he really was. Little did he know that monster was just beginning to show its face. A few weeks after that first attack, Michael grabbed another woman on campus, dragging her to an isolated area.

Again, he ran away without physically harming the woman. but this time that was part of his plan. He just wanted to strike fear in his victim to see the panic in her eyes. The thrill of absolute terror was becoming like an addiction. But as his cravings increased, the attacks also evolved into becoming more violent and aggressive. In 1981, the spring of his senior year, Michael carried out his most brazen attack yet. He followed a woman as she walked towards the dorms. When they reached a dark stretch on the path, he rushed towards her.

He had just wrapped his hands around her neck and was dragging her through the woods when he heard voices. Startled, he pushed the woman to the ground and ran away. He later admitted that if he hadn't been interrupted, he probably would have raped her. By this time, stalking women was as much of a part of Michael's daily routine as studying and attending class. He barely took any precautions to hide his identity from the women he followed and attacked, only going so far as to remove his glasses. Even when the women reported the attacks, Michael was never suspected of any wrongdoing. Getting away with it only bolstered his belief that it was a monster acting out his fantasies,

and not the real him. It was becoming a vicious cycle. He would stalk the women to satisfy the monster and feed his fantasies. But the further he went, the more sadistic they became. Experiencing their fear wasn't enough anymore. He needed them to suffer pain and humiliation. But he knew just what to do to satisfy. satisfy that urge.

On May 7, 1981, Michael was on campus grading papers. He'd gotten a job as a teaching assistant, and the extra work kept him at school late most days. But as he sat with a stack of work in front of him, all he could think about was his most recent fight with his fiancée, Olivia. Unable to concentrate, he decided to head home for the night. But as he climbed into his car, he saw a woman walking alone. His mind narrowed in, and he could think of nothing else but getting closer to.

to her. He started driving, allowing the woman to cross the street in front of him, watching her the whole time. Eventually, he was ready to make his move. He got out of his car and fell into step behind her. After a while, heart pumping madly in his chest, he lunged. He wrapped a shoelace around her neck, covered her mouth with his hand, and reportedly told the woman that if she screamed, he'd kill her. He dragged her to an isolated area and pushed her to the ground. He tied her wrists using the shoelace. Then he forced her to undress and sexually assaulted and raped her. When he finished, he left her on the ground, bound and battered.

After that, he ran back to his car, drove home, and climbed into bed next to his sleeping fiancé. That night, it was like a damn broke within Michael. He'd fed his inner monster its biggest meal yet. going farther than he ever had before. Now there was no turning back. He acted out one of the vicious fantasies that had been rattling around in his head for years. He'd raped a woman.

But despite his elation, living out his twisted dream wasn't all he'd hoped. After the assault, Michael felt immense shame at what he'd done, and he even contemplated suicide, but he didn't seem to blame himself for his actions. No, what he'd done had been the fault of the moment. monster that lived inside him.

It was as if he was outside of his body, watching the stalking and assaults happen, rather than being an active participant in the violence. Dr. James Merrickangas, a psychiatrist who worked with Michael later, said that this may have been an early inkling into a depersonalization disorder. But what causes someone to step outside of themselves to detach from their own bodies? According to a 2001 study in the American Journal of Psychiatry, abuse in childhood is one the most significant predictors of depersonalization disorders. Kids who are emotionally abused are especially susceptible. Michael had experienced severe emotional abuse from his mother his entire life,

and he may have experienced detachment as a method to cope with the pain. Now he could have been using the coping mechanism as a way to distance himself from the abuse he inflicted on others. To Michael, it wasn't him committing the axe. It was a separate entity that lived inside him. It may been the only way he knew how to detach from what he was doing, and to prevent the monstrous side of him from spilling into his other life. But that became more difficult as his senior year drew to a close. Graduation was looming, and that meant that he and Olivia would be separated. He was heading to North Carolina to start a new job, and Olivia was staying behind at Cornell to finish school. Their relationship was already being stretched to its limits, and the couple

disagreed fiercely over what their future would look like. Michael wanted to know, nothing more than to return to Brooklyn and work on his family farm, but Olivia wanted Michael to go wherever she went, depending on the career she got. Olivia thought she was likely to make more money than Michael, so it seemed fair that he should follow her, not the other way around. Little did Olivia know, the control she had over Michael was triggering a deep and vicious rage, and it was about to explode. Late after midnight on May 12, 1981, 21, 25-year-old Zung Noctu was in the library, finishing up some work. Zung had come to Cornell in 1980 to complete a graduate degree in agricultural economics. She was tiny, only 4-11 and around 95 pounds, but she had a

huge heart. She worked as a big sister to disadvantaged girls, sponsored orphans through the mail, and volunteered at the local hospital. She wanted to make the world a better place. That night, after a day spent studying, she packed up her stuff and was ready to head home. It was the last day of classes, and a tranquil stillness had settled over the school. Zung was enjoying the warm spring night and the peaceful walk toward Beebe Lake, a lake on campus that was ringed by forest. Meanwhile, Michael had also been working late. It's likely he had seen Zung before on campus, since she worked just down the hall from him

and they attended the same agricultural class, but it seems they had never formally met before. Not that he needed an introduction. When he saw her walking alone, an intense urge. compelled him to follow her. According to Michael, as they approached a dark, isolated stretch on the trail, Michael grabbed Zung by the neck and dragged her behind a building. The lake was just a few yards away, but they were completely out of sight. With his hand still clutching her throat, he forced her to take off her clothes.

Then he sexually assaulted and raped her, taking pains to prolong the degradation for as long as possible. When he finished, he instructed her to put her clothes back. on. It's possible that at this time, Zung recognized Michael, and perhaps she let him know. We can't be sure why, but at that moment, Michael made the decision to kill her. He told her to flip onto her stomach, straddled her back, wrapped his hands around her tiny neck, and squeezed until her body went limp. When she was dead, Michael knew we couldn't leave her there. So we pushed her body into Beebe Lake and watched her sink beneath the surface. Then pulse racing.

he ran to his car. When he got home, he woke Olivia up to have sex, impassioned by the brutality and power he'd fantasized about for years. Michael's fantasies and then actions had been escalating over the past year, but now they reached a climax, and the experience was exhilarating for him. It wasn't even the rape that aroused him, it was the kill and sense of power it gave him. Michael became intoxicated with pleasure. It was a feeling he'd never felt in his life. And he was hungry for more. Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers. We'll be back soon with part two of Michael Bruce Ross's story.

We'll watch as Michael continues as a killer, perfecting his M.O. with each new kill. And even when his killing streak ends, his story is far from over. For more information on Michael Bruce Ross, amongst the many sources we used, we found The Man and the Monster Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer by Martha Elliott, extremely helpful to our research. You can find more episodes of Serial Killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify.

We'll see you next time. Have a killer week. Serial Killers is a Spotify original from Parcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, sound designed by Nick Johnson, with production assistants by Ron Shapiro, Trent Williamson, Carly Madden, and Bruce Kitovich. This episode of serial killers was written

by Sarah Hussein, with writing assistants by Joel Callan, fact-checking by Adriana Romero, and research by Brian Petrus and Chelsea Wood. Serial killers stars Greg Polson and Vanessa Richardson. You aren't supposed to know about them, unless they want you to. Powerful groups with their own very specific agendas. And if you find yourself on the inside, good luck getting out. Hi, I'm Hannah Maguire. And I'm Sarutibala.

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