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I decided to be blunt. “Jason, nobody cares about Gacy anymore. The guy died, what, four years ago? There’s another one to take his place, somebody new the public wants to know about.”

“Yeah,” he jumped in again, “but Gacy was special. There’s been nobody like him. And besides, this book wouldn’t just be about Gacy. Remember, I also communicated with Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer and Richard Ramirez, and—”

“I realize that, Jason,” I quickly interjected. “It’s just that books have been written about Gacy and these other guys before—”

“So?” he interrupted. “What are you saying? That I shouldn’t do this? That all this work I put into—”

“No, quite the contrary. What I’m saying is that the book shouldn’t be exclusively about these serial killers but also about you. People would want to know why an eighteen-year-old kid contacted Gacy and the others in the first place. They’d be curious what would drive someone so young to want to study and control them. You have to admit, that’s not the usual hobby for someone just out of high school.”

I laughed as I said this—until I noticed Jason’s pained expression. He was used to being seen as a bit different from others his age.

“In order to understand your motives and what drives you,” I continued, “we’d have to start from the beginning.”

“I already did that in the thesis. I started with the first letter I wrote to Gacy.”

“No, I mean from the very beginning. People will want to know about your family and background. How you got into this sort of stuff. How you managed to convince your parents to let you do this, how you hid other things from them. In some ways, this story is too incredible to believe. We’d have to lay the foundation.”

Indeed, the first thing I did was corroborate everything I could related to Jason’s thesis. I conducted interviews with Jason’s parents, separately and together, comparing their versions of the same events. I talked with his brother and friends. I spoke with other faculty who knew Jason. I looked through the hundreds of letters he’d received from various killers, following them sequentially. I listened to tapes of conversations he’d had with Gacy. At one point I even traveled with him on one of his research excursions to Death Row.

Once I was able to confirm and document the details of Jason’s story, I investigated the context of what occurred. Slowly, a more complete picture of this young man began to take shape. He was obviously a precocious, talented kid, mature beyond his years. His parents, both working-class and down-to-earth, had no idea what to do with a son who constantly challenged and mystified them. Since they couldn’t seem to control their child’s behavior, and since he had never, ever gotten in trouble or, in an academic setting, performed in less than exemplary fashion, they found it easy to give in to him. When they did try to rein him in, he still found ways around them.

Although blessed with high intelligence and formidable verbal and athletic skills, Jason was vulnerable and insecure. He received a number of paradoxical messages growing up: at the same time that he was insulated from graphic violence and forbidden to see horror films, his mother was a true-crime aficionado who left lurid books lying around the house. He found his parents’ behavior volatile and unpredictable. He learned to be a chameleon as a way to protect himself, changing forms according to others’ moods. He honed his talent for pleasing others to a fine art, reading perceptively what others most desire and then presenting himself in ways designed to win trust.

A natural mimic and fearless risk taker, Jason studied psychology systematically, hoping to land a job someday as a famous prosecutor or FBI agent. Nobody who knew him scoffed at what he might be capable of accomplishing: this was a kid who was going places. Certainly, nobody had more determination and ambition. The one discordant note was that his very existence depended so much on being seen as special and unique.

In the story that follows—written in Jason’s own words with my assistance—you’ll