The Quick-fire Killer (A short story)

The Quick-fire Killer

There’s a reason for most things, and there was a reason no one could catch the killer…, let me correct that, no body could keep the killer long enough to secure him safely in a jail.
Bell Edwards Lynn, he was no Jessie James, but he killed almost as many as Jessie did. Born 1947, in Minnesota, wanted by the FBI since, 1985, and no one have ever caught him, or kept him long enough to serve over 18-months in anyone jail.
Why? This is the story of killer, his victims, and why he has never been confined (and there is much truth surrounding this story).
His motives for his spree of killing, loose at best, but that is for you to decide, to me they were mostly—not all—what I’d call accidental. My name is Henry Lowell; I worked for the Bureau of Prisons, in Minnesota, where this all started many years ago, and lingers on to this very day. And I had him for a client once and only once, while working in a halfway house as his psychologist, along with the other forty clients there, on a work release program.
I worked in Minneapolis, on Lake Street, in those far-off days, that are all I can say, and I worked there from 1978 to the 1986, and thereafter went into private practice.
Mr. Lynn, he was brought to the halfway house for three months, for pretrial waiting to go to court. That is when I counseled him. He was trying to make bail—in-between, his hideous crime he was dating a 25-year old girl, this being in 1984, he was 37-years old then, they were on their second date, she tried to avoid his sexual advances, parked in downtown St. Paul, over looking the cliffs, a few hundred feet up. Below the terrain was rocky, and a little further out, the Mississippi river, and he threw her over: the alleged crime at this time, and under investigation, but he ran, and that is when it all started.

In February, 1995, some ten-years later, he was spotted, allegedly, and I drove down to Huntsville, Alabama to identify him, he was in the county jail on new charges, and I was the only one that had a picture of him, besides the FBI, who borrowed mine, this time he was in jail for rape, witnesses saw him, calling this young girl to the car, and he shot her several times when she approached, but the day before he had been put into jail under an alias name, for raping this girl, and had served 18-months at the work farm. The next day he got his revenge.
By the time I got there, I identified him, and when they walked him to the court house, he escaped, like a fly ready to be swatted, he was gone.
But this did not stop there, in 1999, in Columbus, Ohio, in the month of January, he shot a security guard after a dispute over a woman, he was trying to rip off her fur coat. This time he escaped the moment the police showed up, as if he had antennas in his head.
In June of 2004, he was involved in a shooting of a male family member, a nephew, in Portland, Oregon. They still don’t know how he escaped, they were ready to put handcuffs on him, and he disappeared like a flash. I mean, he didn’t really disappear, like a ghost, but with a blink of the officer’s eyes, he had swiftly, made his escape, and all the several officers were dumbfounded.
I had went to see the Chief of Police, Marty Wheeler, and tell him what I thought was the problem, but he said, “We don’t need psychologists, we need alert police,” and he put all seven of those officers on suspension for neglect of duty.
It was in 2006, in Falstaff, Arizona, in December; the next sighting of Bell came about, his victim this time was an armored car guard, shot and killed outside by a movie theater, witnesses said, it was purportedly Bell, and after I looked at the video they had, I confirmed it was, still I was working in private practice, but this case haunted me, and seemed to follow me, and took on a life of its own, with me. So I followed up on every clue I ever got.
The last sighting was in San Francisco, May of 2007, during a robbery, a tourist was shot to death, they thought the cameras had picked up another—female— accomplice.

Well, you might think, this was the end of the story, but it wasn’t, I was called into the FBI office, and asked, by one of the agents,
“You once were going to give some advise on this person’s behavior, that might help us catch him, unfortunately, the Chief of Police, Marty Wheeler didn’t care all that much, but we’re willing to listen. I had found later, that Wheeler had called the FBI up to ask me that very question, he was embarrassed and grieving, for the person shot in Falstaff, was his nephew.

I explained it in the following manner, to agent Michael Bair, and his assistant, Richard Fitzgerald:
“Bell is a peculiar human being, with exceptional qualities, that he can often be one step ahead of his aggressors, it is not a matter of finding out where he is, or even catching him, but holding on to him, if indeed he wants to be in a defense mode. One out of ten-million people have this rare asset, if you read his IQ scores, and his Army background, and so forth and on, and the way he escapes, you will come to the conclusion, or you should, he has what I call, quick-fire intelligence. Once he senses you, he automatically goes ahead and creates a plan. He quickly calculates the location of the threat, and an escape plan, this all happens in 100-milliseconds of spotting his aggressor, and thus, positions himself, body, arms, legs, the route he will take. He is not magical, but has a rapid brain, that processes sensory information faster than the average man can think. Therefore as you are trying to subdue him, or thinking about what you are going to do next, he has already made his planned movements prior to take-off, his body is in position, he sees where the worse threat is, and the weakest points; this happens the second he notices an approaching risk, and now that he is a fugitive, his skills are sharper, and he sees all bodies as a threat. He knows somehow, the large or small postural changes needed to be made for his pre escape; he even corrects his posture as you are standing in front of him.”
“So,” said Agent Michael Bair, “it all has to do with anticipation, and flight?”
“Something similar to that!”
“How would you suggest for us to capture him?” asked his assistant.
“As I said before, you folks seem to get him, he just escapes, next time throw a net over him,” and that was the last time I heard of Bell, or the FBI. But who knows, that was only a year ago.

Written: 8-29-2008