As investigators unearthed two metal drums containing the dismembered remains of two of David Alan Gore’s six victims, he smirked as if to say, 'Yeah, this is my work.'
Gore is scheduled to be executed Thursday for murdering 17-year-old Lynn Elliott on July 26, 1983, a sentence many say is long overdue.
Gore and his cousin, Fred Waterfield, committed a series of horrific rapes and murders, shaking the trust of this quiet coastal city of Vero Beach, Florida.
Through the years: Gore has been on death row
since 1984; his execution date has been pushed up to April 12 in part
because of the graphic boasting in his letters
'I looked in his eyes. If the devil had eyes, that's what they'd look like,’ said former prosecutor Bob Stone who stood next to the serial killer as police dug up the bodies.
‘They were red in the center. It was like a fire had come out of his eyes. You could see all the way through `em. That was the strangest sight I ever saw. If there is a human that's got the devil in him, he's it.'
That characterization was echoed by family members of the victims who were fighting for years for Gore to be put to death.
'He's an animal. A terrible animal,' said Carl Elliott, 81, whose daughter was Gore's sixth known and final victim.
'He's worse than an animal. He was an evil monster,' Jeanne Elliott, Lynn's mother, replied as the now divorced couple sat at his kitchen table with a photo of the girl she lovingly describes as a young Farrah Fawcett.
Life too short: Lynn Elliot was 17 when she was abducted, raped, and murdered by Gore
'He's the devil's seed to begin with,' Carl Elliott added.
Mr Elliott remembers seeing his daughter's body immediately after the murder. He wanted the image of the injuries seared into his memory so he would never change his mind about wanting Gore to die.
'I said “I'm going to go in and I'm going to look at her body and I'm going to see every mark on her.” I said, “If I ever get soft and really feel that Gore shouldn't be executed, I want to remember those marks, and those gunshot wounds.” I looked at every one.
‘I saw the skin marks on her knees from where he drug her off to the side and then shot her. I wanted to remember that and I do.'
Gore and Waterfield hunted women and girls to satisfy sick urges. Gore admitted to killing Lynn Elliott, confessed to five other murders and led authorities to the remains of four victims.
Crazed: Letters that serial killer David Alen Gore wrote detail a deeply disturbed mind
There is no doubt he committed the crimes.
And letters Gore wrote to Tony Ciaglia of Las Vegas, recently published in the Pete
Earley book Serial Killer Whisperer leave no doubt that Gore has no remorse. If anything, he still gets pleasure thinking about his crimes.
His death sentence is for Elliott's murder but bears no mention of his other victims.
She and a 14-year-old friend were hitchhiking to Wabasso Beach and though she had her own car, the tire treads were thin and her father wouldn't let her drive it until he could get new ones put on. He wanted her to be safe.
Waterfield and Gore picked the girls up.
Back at Gore's parents' house, the girls were bound in separate rooms before
Waterfield left.
Elliott freed her feet from the ropes as Gore raped her friend. She ran naked from the house, hands tied behind her.
Gore, also naked, chased her, caught her and started dragging her along the dirt driveway back toward the house. She kicked and screamed, he pulled her to a palm tree and shot her twice in the head.
A boy riding his bike saw the killing, rode home and his mother called 911. Police
arrived at the house and saw blood dripping from the trunk of Gore's mother's car.
Gore at first tried to divert officers by calling 911 and reported a girl being chased through the groves, but he eventually surrendered.
Police searching the house found the 14-year-old bound naked in the scorching hot attic.
While still haunted by the murder, the Elliotts take comfort in knowing that if not for
their daughter's attempt to escape, her friend also would've been killed and Gore would've continued hunting for victims.
'She really was a hero. She was, and we know that,' said Mr Elliott. 'She did her part.'
Lee Martin knows, too, as her daughter was the girl who was rescued.
More victims: Gore was convicted of killing 14-year-old Barbara Ann Byer (left), and Judy Kay Daley (right), 35
'I'm lucky my daughter survived. I'm so grateful,' Ms Martin said through tears.
'How Lynn ever managed to escape, only God knows. The lacerations around her ankles! How did that girl get out of that? Unbelievable. Her ankles were raw from the rope around them. Oh my God, the pictures we had to look at were horrendous, but if Lynn had not escaped my daughter would not be alive today. And who knows how many others?'
'I looked in his eyes. If the devil
had eyes, that's what they'd look like. They were red in the center. It was
like a fire had come out of his eyes. You could see all the way through
`em. That was the strangest sight I ever saw. If there is a human that's
got the devil in him, he's it.'
-former prosecutor Bob
Stone
The killing began in February 1981 when Gore, an auxiliary Indian River sheriff's deputy, flashed his badge and got Ying Hua Ling, 17, into his car and drove to her house in a remote area among orange groves.
Her mother, Hsiang Huang Ling, 48, was home, so he kidnapped her, too. Gore later described how the mother, tied to a tree, slowly choked to death while he and his cousin raped her daughter. Their body parts were stuffed into steel drums - one drum contained three arms, the other contained the remaining one.
Their remains were the ones uncovered as Stone watched.
Five months later, Gore drove down Route A1A and spotted Judy Kay Daley on secluded Round Island Beach. He disabled her car and waited.
He watched as Daley, 35, couldn't start the car and offered to help. He later called her relatives when he realized the California woman was supposed to pick up her daughters at another beach and people might start looking for her.
Abducted: Elliot and a 14-year-old friend were trying to hitchhike to Florida's Vero Beach when they were kidnapped by Gore
He said she ran out of gas at Wabasso Beach 15 miles to the north and he was helping her.
'I drove all the way up to Wabasso and I couldn't find the car,' said Paul Schwey, Ms Daley's brother-in-law. 'I thought, `Well, she said something about going down to Round Island, I'll go down there.' I saw the car sitting there and looked around and didn't see her ... I popped the hood up and the first thing I saw was the coil wire pulled and thought, `Oh my God! Something's bad here.''
After Ms Daley’s brother-in-law started looking for her, a search began, but no trace of Daley was found. Gore became a suspect in the disappearance - he was seen near the beach and Daley's hair was found in his truck - but there wasn't enough evidence to charge him.
Days later, Gore was found in the back seat of a woman's car. He was shirtless and had a cocktail in one hand and a gun in the other. He also had handcuffs, rope and a police scanner. Gore was sentenced to five years in prison, though he was paroled and served only about a year-and-a-half. He soon began killing again.
In May 1983, Gore and Waterfield picked up two 14-year-old hitchhikers, Barbara Ann Byer and Angelica LaVallee. The girls were raped, killed and dismembered. While Gore says Waterfield was his partner throughout the killing spree, this was the only case that earned Waterfield a murder conviction. He is serving back-to-back life sentences.
Neater: He also typed up letters to pen pals outside of prison
Pen pal: In a series of letters, Gore detailed the specifics of his horrific crimes
'She was 14 years old. Kids do silly things,' Nancy Byer, Barbara's mother, said of her daughter’s decision to go hitchhiking.
'She was in the wrong place. They were the ones that went out hunting. They picked them up like prey.'
Like the Elliotts, Mrs Byer wonders if Barbara would have had children and where her life would be now.
'We miss her terribly. They'll always be that age that she died in your mind,' she said.
LaVallee's father, Richard, carried the guilt of his daughter's death to his grave, blaming himself even though he shouldn't have, said his widow, Gerri LaVallee.
'A daddy always wants to protect his daughter,' said LaVallee, who believes the toll of the murder contributed to his diminishing health and his death in 1997.
'He never really could accept the fact that it wasn't his fault.'
In a letter to Governor Rick Scott pleading for Gore's execution, Mrs LaVallee said her husband's last words to her were, 'Don't let Angel be forgotten.'
Strangely polite: Gore said in one letter:
'Please feel free to ask ANY question you want about anything. You can
NOT offend me in any way'
Enlarge
Gruesome: Gore detailed how he gutted one victim
and put her intestine on the table, and put a smiley face at the end of
the sentence
'IT WAS A PERFECT EXPERIENCE': CHILLING WORDS OF A CONVICTED RAPIST AND MURDERER
Gore corresponded with Mr Ciaglia and others for some time - most of the letter's contents are too graphic. In one, he tells of how he raped and murdered young girls in the 1980s.'I drug both bodies into the woods where I disposed of them.
'Oh and you can believe, I collected hair. It took a couple days to recover from that. It was a perfect experience,' Gore wrote.
In another letter, Gore described his uncontrollable desire to kill.
'It's sort of along the lines as being horny. You start getting horny and it just keeps building until you have to get some relief,' Gore wrote.
'That is the same with the URGE to kill. It usually starts out slow and builds and you will take whatever chances necessary to satisfy it. And believe me, you constantly think about getting caught, but the rush is worth the risk.'
In yet another piece of correspondence, he described what it was like to open up his victim's stomach.
'At the drop of a hat, or (sic) slip her stomach open and not think nothing of it. Once I sliced open her stomach, I’d reach in and pull her intestine and all out. Sometimes I’d put all her intestine on a table and dissect each (of) them just to see what it all looked like. I’ve probably seen things even Drs. Haven’t seen :) '
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