Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America's Most Fiendish Killer Read Online Free Page A

forever.
    And then, one day, on a mild afternoon in early 1927, he came back.
    It had been an unusually temperate winter, and, by mid-February, people throughout New York State were already detecting the first signs of spring. Pussy willows were budding in Watertown, new grass had begun to sprout in Saratoga Springs, and, even in the northernmost reaches of the state, robins, starlings, and blackbirds had returned from their winter migrations. In New York City, at a time of the year when children could normally be found playing outside in the snow, the streets were full of lightly clad youngsters, skipping rope, shooting marbles, or clattering down the sidewalks on roller skates.
    On Friday, February 11, the mildness of the weather was matched-by the pleasantness of the local news. The metropolitan pages of
The New York Times
were full of sunny stories: the early coming of spring; the first, exciting demonstration, held at Manhattan’s Rivoli Theater, of motion pictures with sound; the eightieth birthday of Thomas Edison, America’s greatest inventor, who favored reporters with his “billion-dollar smile” and declared that work remained his greatest pleasure.
    Even the day’s top crime story was strikingly tame. The most sensational event in the city was the police raid on a trio of supposedly immoral Broadway shows, including a drama called “Sex,” whose popularity had as much to do with its title as with the talents of its author and leading lady, Mae West.
    In short, anyone reading the news of that Friday would have assumed that February 11, 1927, was a remarkably uneventful day in the city, a day when nothing very terrible had happened.
    But—though it took a little while for the truth to sink in—something very terrible had.
    It was the speed at which it happened that made the horror so hard to believe at first—that and the fact that the only witness was a child of three.
    The Gaffney family occupied a small, sunless apartment on the second floor of 99 Fifteenth Street, one of several rundown tenements crammed between Third and Fourth Avenues in Brooklyn. Late in the afternoon of Friday, February 11, just around dusk, Billy Gaffney, a slender four-year-old with his mother’s cornflower blue eyes and auburn hair, was playing in the dimly lit hallway outside his apartment. With him was his three-year-old neighbor, the Beaton boy, whose first name was Billy, too.
    An older neighbor, twelve-year-old Johnny McNiff, who lived on the top floor of the tenement and who was home minding his baby sister, heard the sounds of the two friends at play and headed downstairs to join them, leaving the infant asleep in her crib. A few minutes later, however, the baby began crying. Johnny hurried back up to his flat to quiet her. When he returned to the second floor, no more than three minutes later, the two Billys were gone.
    Just then, Billy Beaton’s father, who was caring for his children while his wife was in the hospital, emerged from his flat and found Johnny in the hallway, looking puzzled. The boy explained what had happened. Mr. Beaton dashed to the Gaffney’s apartment, but the children weren’t there. Afraid that the boys might have wandered into the street, he ran down the two flights of stairs to the front stoop and began calling their names. But no one responded.
    Mr. Beaton’s apprehensions deepened by the moment. With Johnny at his side, he began a rapid search of the building, starting on the ground floor. But the two boys were nowhere to be found. As soon as they reached the top floor, however, Mr. Beaton heaved a sigh. There, alone by the ladder that led to the roof, stood his little boy.
    Taking his child into his arms, he asked what had happened. “Where were you? Where did you go?”
    Billy sounded excited. “We were on the roof,” he said, pointing overhead. “We saw chimneys and buildings and steamships!”
    Looking up, Mr. Beaton saw that the scuttle which opened to the rooftop had been shoved