Nebraska Neighbors

In 1964 the nation was scandalized as Kitty Genovese was murdered in stages, screaming for help, in the NYC borough of Queens while 38 people watched from their windows and did nothing. Not likely to happen here. On our state capitol is"The salvation of the state is the watchfulness of the citizen," a motto Nebraskans frequently quote, use on websites, and certainly act by.
Nebraskan neighbors caught the Dundee rapist for us, thankfully for Omaha's frightened women. (Actually, that mid city section, once a village by that name, was where Thomas Freeman committed a number of rapes but not the only area he stalked women.) These neighbors helped eight women, sobbing on the witness stand, get justice, as well as several unknown victims. As last Sunday's Parade magazine cited, only 36% of rape victims report the assaults, and the Omaha Police Department, hereafter OPD, estimated that Freeman raped somewhere around 20 or more.
First, our serial rapist. Freeman had been convicted of second-degree murder for stabbing his girlfriend. Don't ask me why, but, despite a life sentence, he was paroled--not once but twice. He began his spree shortly after the second parole. He apparently had a black father and a white mother. A very muscular, athletic 6'2", TF had converted one of his girlfriend's bedrooms into a weight room, just so you understand what women had attacking them usually from behind in the dark. (He had a job moving furniture when he was finally caught.) He was very particular about his victims not seeing his face, using their clothing or handy items like pillowcases or towels while ordering them not to look at him, in one instance even using a Halloween mask. The mask didn't prevent that victim's noting his neck and hands were black, and another victim got a vague glimpse of him as he rushed into her bedroom. He usually had a knife placed to their throats to threaten the women--the victim in her bedroom got a defense wound when she threw her hand up to fend him off--but once claimed to have a gun, which the teenager said she felt but never clearly saw, the only (weapons) charge he wasn't convicted of. He had trouble initially achieving an erection, often asked for tongue, i.e., French kissing, and occasionally became rough when angry. He demanded money "to go to Kansas City," rifled drawers and stole jewelry, in one instance a coin collection and a VCR. Twice he insisted upon raping the women in her child's bedroom (the daughter and the son were fortunately gone in those two instances). After the rapes he demanded the women wash themselves thoroughly and often stood by to insure they did in bathwater or shower. The strong suggestion is that he trawled for victims, perhaps stalking them, for most of the rapes occurred in early morning hours, women coming home alone from work or socializing. Many of the rapes were on his day off, another pattern. I list these characteristics, called his modus operandi, the Latin favored by attorneys translated into Standard Operating Procedure, because their repetition certainly helped a jury decide in our big second trial for the eight victims willing to testify. TV addicts familiar with the forensic series so popular now, such as CSI and its spinoffs, know that serial criminals have such signature behaviors.
The key to identifying our serial rapist was the best eyewitness I ever had the pleasure of reporting, and I'm using his name, because I've always thought he deserved a medal of some kind, for enduring the police and legal proceedings for so long that he went from living in a southwest Omaha apartment with his girlfriend and baby daughter to being a married man with two children and a new job in Council Bluffs, which is how long justice took in this case. Terry Michael Bock was angry because his car had been broken into and parts stolen several times, so one remarkable night he was sitting up all night by his patio doors on a cooler, shotgun at hand, watching his car in the parking lot. A particular car drove up and down the lot a few times, alerting his interest, and, when it finally parked, he headed toward it. He actually nearly collided with Freeman at a corner near a bush so that both exclaimed, "You scared the shit out of me!" simultaneously. Not only did Terry get a close-up view of Thomas in his all-black clothes but also noted a boning knife sticking out of Freeman's back pocket. Our rapist claimed to be coming home from work.
The victim that early morning--this is around 4:00, 4:30 a.m.--had been talking out an argument with her boyfriend, then was walking alone back to her apartment after the boyfriend drove off. She was suddenly flattened from behind, with a knife to her throat, the usual threat, but managed to scream. Besides Bock, another neighbor, sleeping very close by, was extremely irritated by the noise at that hour and rushed out yelling. Having returned to his apartment, Bock also ran out of his apartment with the shotgun, and both men came upon Freeman on top of the girl. Bock yelled for him to get off, which Freeman did with speed neither man could match, though the other man ran after him. Knowing where Freeman had come from, Bock took a shortcut and beat Freeman back to his car. Our bold rapist ignored Bock's demand to stay put and got in his car and took off, nearly backing over Bock, who was loath to shoot him, understandably. But Terry had an excellent view of the car: that and his face-to-face encounter would be the key for the detectives, who had no such identification from any of the victims and merely some fingerprints and a partial palm print from another, earlier attempted rape.
Given the number of times Terry Bock had to repeat his testimony and the usual obnoxious, repetitious defense efforts to discredit him--he did get a bit testy by the final trial--I have to say I had wonderful satisfaction when the defense attorney tried to attack his identification of the automobile by year, make, and color. How did he know it was a 1987 Pontiac Grand Am, metallic gold flake paint, honeycomb hub caps (with no license plate)? Well, besides seeing the rear emblem when Freeman almost backed over him, he'd worked in a body shop for two years previously. Uh-huh. With the help of an FBI agent, the OPD detectives traced the car back to Freeman's then girlfriend, found out TF also used the car, had his name--and, after visiting his job, a photo--and then could match the fingerprints. Today I think OPD links to IAFIS, Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, a computerized database maintained by the FBI; but at that time it had to have a name before it could go to its own files of fingerprint cards to try to match unknown prints found at crime scenes.
To detour briefly, as mentioned, in another attempted rape some fingerprints and a partial palm print had been found, but OPD had no way then of matching them to any known files. In that attempt a young woman whose husband had left for Minneapolis that morning was out shopping late, pulled into a relatively dark garage area, and was attacked from behind when she had begun getting her groceries from the passenger's side. She had been shoved into the car, clothes pushed up and down to leave her nude from shoulders to knees, threatened, but screamed anyway. (Freeman's prints were on the door post.) An apartment neighbor and his dogs, who'd seen her earlier, were in the nearby laundry room and ran out to see what was going on, the door slamming behind him and apparently scaring off our unfriendly Dundee rapist (this was one of the Dundee events). At the same time, undoubtedly more cause for Freeman's fleeing, a young woman at a neighboring complex was taking a bath, heard the screams, ran to the window, and was shouting down, asking if she should call 911. Again, great neighbors to have!
So the puzzle pieces began forming a clear mosaic: car leads to name leads to fingerprint identification. Freeman fled to Colorado Springs, having been alerted by a police visit, from where he was extradited by the FBI and OPD. And Bock again won my utter admiration. Naturally, the resultant lineup was for him, the guy who almost collided with Freeman and saw him not once but three times, including under a floodlight. He identified TF before the lineup even got started: "Right away I said, "That's him right there, that one right there,' and I picked him out. . . . There was no question in my mind. I knew for a fact it was him." The detectives had to insist upon the formality of going through the whole lineup procedure, but Bock never budged from his absolutely positive identification. You understand now why I think Terry Michael Bock deserves a medal?
"The salvation of the state is the watchfulness of the citizen."