The End of Evil

Chapter One The media would later dub him the “Copycat Killer.” But to those who knew him, Samuel Robert Kimball seemed like an ordinary, average guy. He blends in with the crowd and nothing triggers an alarm. The world wouldn’t know his true name or the nature of his crimes until much later. After all, another man had been found guilty of murdering five women. Kimball didn’t know the man; all he knew was that someone else was on death row for his crimes. The authorities had their man, the case of five butchered women closed, and the police in Adkins, Texas, satisfied that their killer was going to die by lethal injection. Kimball was now free to kill again. Kimball left Adkins out of fear; the cold dark fear a serial murderer experiences when he thinks the police are getting too close. In hindsight, Kimball didn’t have to worry because his arrogance served him well. He made only three mistakes, but they were crucial and to some degree fortuitous. They led to the arrest of someone named Jack Leon Purdy who was now sitting on death row at Huntsville State Prison. Good luck came in many forms. Kimball left Adkins when he retired from his job as head of the largest bank in the region. As president, he was able to cash out his stock for millions and that gave him the freedom to roam the country looking for fresh kills. He knew he couldn’t help himself. He figured that out a long time ago. The art of killing he’d long ago perfected. He was cunning, utterly ruthless, and devoid of human emotion. He enjoyed killing because his victims were surrogates for striking back at his mother. He hated that woman who showed no mercy, so why should he show mercy? Killing was fun and he enjoyed it. Kimball didn’t know the Atlanta bar scene. In fact, Kimball hardly drank at all. But this time he had to if he was going to find his next kill. His modus had changed significantly since his first victim. Instead of bringing his victims to his basement “workroom,” where he could slowly and methodically torture them to death, Kimball now enjoyed driving the interstate system looking for fresh kills. Atlanta was now “his” town and in it were hundreds, if not thousands, of potential victims. It was a cornucopia of women ripe for picking. Kimball’s first victim was a blonde-haired woman who frequented the Blue Moon bar on west 27th Street. Her name was Ashley Mills, a 37-year-old who worked for All-Star Towing during the day and bar hopped at night. Mills had been twice married and twice divorced. With her luck running out as well as her looks, Mills had no choice but to work the bar scene in hopes of finding a man who would love her. Kimball didn’t care about love. Quite the contrary, he despised women. The only things he loved were the hunt, the deception, and the kill. Nothing else mattered. When he found Ashley Mills, phase one of his plan was complete. He would now stalk the girl, which he knew would terminate in yet another murder. Kimball chose his victims carefully. They had to be blonde and sexy. The sexier the better because it stimulated Kimball’s libido, and once his blood was up, bad things happened. Kimball wasn’t ashamed of who he was, a cold-blooded narcissist who fed on the weakness and naïveté of others. He manipulated, cajoled, and conned his way into the lives of his victims, even before they were aware of his presence. He was very skillful and his victims paid for it with their lives. Kimball was a psychopath. No one told him this; he instinctively knew it early on. The fantasies, the fetishes, the dismemberment all fit a perfect pattern of psychopathy, yet on the surface he appeared to be perfectly “normal.” He knew this because he’d fooled many others to include his colleagues, bank customers, and the women he murdered. On the surface, his victims saw him as just another interesting man, not a serial murderer. In fact, Sandra Walsh even liked the masculine and handsome bank president, the man who once loaned her $20,000. How ironic. The only woman who survived his brutal attack now became the only woman he desperately wanted to kill. For Sandra Walsh, Samuel Kimball was the consummate professional. Yet there was something about him that told her to be cautious. She had no idea what that was. She was only able to put the pieces together when Kimball finally surfaced as one of the nation’s most prolific serial killers. Ashley Mills worked at All-Star Towing for 11 years. During that time, she had many lovers, but nothing serious. What she looked for in men, only she could answer, and not very well. Her reputation wasn’t good and men took advantage of her loneliness. She dated often, but nothing long-term. Most of the men who showed interest were either married, cheating on their wives, or users. She made no excuses for the men in her shattered life; they helped pass the time until something better came along. Yet nothing better ever seemed to come along. Ashley Mills was predictable and the men around her knew that. She would come to work; always five minutes late, stay until closing, lock the business, and then go to her favorite watering hole hoping to meet a different type of man than the night before. That would never happen after she met Samuel Kimball.