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“Everyone urinates. You take the average guy, he messes himself. But a younger girl, they just urinate. The older ones, they do both.”

I couldn’t believe the conversation’s direction. Slowly, Lucas had forgotten that he was talking about killing in general and had segued into his own experiences. At least it appeared that way.

“So, how do you find victims?” Jason bore in, dropping the pretense about consulting for a movie.

“That’s easy. You can find people anywhere—motels, clubs, parking lots, grocery stores. If you like kids, you can go to schools or find them on the streets. You can drive anywhere, see what you want, and just get it. But you gotta have the nerve. If you don’t have the nerve, don’t bother.”

“Makes sense,” Jason deadpanned.

“Yeah, you got to get people away from others ‘cause they scream a lot. You make short cuts,” said Lucas, showing us in pantomime how to torture a victim with a knife. “You kind of design ’em, is what you call it.”

Jason and I both nodded our heads. I was dumbfounded. Couldn’t say a word if I’d wanted to.

“Never commit a murder the same way,” Lucas continued, “that is, if you want to get away with it.” He seemed to be checking things off in his head. And all the while I couldn’t stifle the thought that these rules he was listing matched exactly the methodology he had used to commit his own crimes.

“You need to travel a lot, always switch cars, do it different each time, a different way.”

Yes, this is exactly what he did.

“Do your stuff at night,” he instructed, his one good eye (the other is glass) looking off into the distance as if he was fondly recalling favorite murders. Then his eye locked back on us, and his characteristically soft voice became firm: “You gotta pick someone up at night.”

He continued, checking off another dozen items that any self-respecting serial killer should take into consideration when practicing his craft. Finally, he got to the last on his list.

“Most of all”—he laughed briefly, then coughed into his hand—“don’t confess.” Then he started laughing again.

As amazed as I was by Lucas’s frankness, I was more impressed by the skill Jason had shown in procuring this information.

Even now, I look at him and can’t believe how young he is.

• • •

In the end, what are we to make of Jason’s story?

Even before publication, this account has found sufficient readers to make it possible to categorize the most common reactions.They are:

(1) “Jason is probably a budding sociopath and serial killer himself—he did this research so he wouldn’t make the same mistakes as those who got caught.”

(2) “Jason is some kind of weirdo who’s confused about his sexual identity and who used his correspondence to try out different roles.”

(3) “Jason was a self-centered kid whose youth pre- vented him from appreciating how dangerous and misguided his actions were.”

(4) “Jason is a complex, nervy risk-taker driven at times by noble objectives and at other times by motives deeply rooted in his unusual upbringing.”

It is the last category of opinion that I think comes closest to the truth. I can assure you that Jason is hardly a budding criminal, nor is he sexually confused. True, he can come across as self-important, but remember, these were the actions of an eighteen-year-old boy trying to prove himself. He was attempting to escape conflicts at home, yet afraid to venture too far away. He wanted to distinguish himself in some way but felt he could only do so by competing with others. Such was the emptiness of his egoistic pursuits that he continually found himself taking on more grandiose projects, hoping for the triumph that would bolster his esteem and prove to others he was special.

• • •

Like most of us, Jason has a dark side, a part of himself that is both repulsed by and drawn to violence and murder. The difference is that rather than merely read books or see movies about killers, he wants to get still closer to these predators, perhaps even to slay them symbolically. There is certainly an altruistic motive to Jason’s behavior; he really does enjoy