After reading this book, you'll be able to walk in the shoes of some of Alaska's most infamous killers and you'll see the things they saw during their brutal, heinous acts. By interviewing and living with these killers, I've been able to walk their bloody trail and listen to their victim's screams. You as a reader can now search for what most police departments are too overwhelmed to notice: the patterns. You'll learn to look beyond the background noise of everyday crimes, of routine blood-shed and begin to see the hot spots. When you live each day with these killers, you begin to see them re-live their gruesome crimes within their own mind; this is what makes the difference between a man convicted of murder and a true murderer.

WITHIN THESE WALLS

By Ken F. Gage

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Ken F. Gage
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4634-1893-9

Chapter One

CLARK RICHARD ELMORE

Prior to ever coming to prison or experiencing the life of a killer, I was a novice to this world of incarceration. The closest I ever came to a murderer was a man I once worked with in Bellingham, Washington by the name of Clark Richard Elmore (aka: James Dickey). I think that his crime touched a little closer to home with me than the other men named in this book because of the fact that I knew him prior to his arrest and I also knew his victim and his family. Although Clark Elmore is not an Alaskan killer, it was because of this man that I chose to write a book about life behind bars. I needed to see what made these men so different than you or I. I needed to try and understand what it was that could make a person so angry that they would take the life of another human being. The story you're about to read will let you into the life of Clark Richard Elmore.

Her eyes were full of fear as she stared into the eyes of a monster. His cold rough hands wrapped around her throat, his body on top of hers. He had just violated her young body and now it was time to silence his crime. As his hands squeezed tighter around her neck, she begins to fade in and out of consciousness. He takes her own belt and cinches it tightly around her soft, delicate neck. She knows that she's going to die but her body fights the reality. Naked from the waist down, her small body begins to shake as her life is squeezed from within her. Still not convinced that the strangling is doing the job he intended, he reaches over and grabs a long steel spike. Unable to speak, she looks up in horror as he puts the pointed end of this cold steel spike into her left ear. With several blows, he forces the spike deep into her brain. The sound of bone and tissue being crushed gives and eerie sound as the spike enters her skull. His rage continues to boil; knowing that there's no turning back and being too coward to look into her eyes as this young innocent girl stares up at him, he covers her face and head with dark plastic as he takes a small sledgehammer from his toolbox. He begins crushing her skull as she lies motionless on the ground. When he's finished, he takes the tarp and covers her beaten body and leaves her in the woods to rot as he goes about his day as though nothing ever happened.

While her friends are about to begin their day at school, Kristy lies motionless in the woods near Lake Samish. Wearing only a pair of socks and a sweater that's been pushed up over her shoulders by her killer, her body is merely an empty shell now.

Without looking back, he walks away from his fourteen year old step-daughter as her blood begins to seep into the cold, damp earth beneath her body. Into the night, the smell of fresh blood attracts small animals as they scurry over to investigate. The temptation is too great as they approach her motionless body and begin to consume portions of her ears to fill their small bellies.

Although her body is dead, her spirit continues to fight as she creeps into the head of her killer and reminds him that there is nothing more that he can do to her. Now it's her turn to torture him. Every child he sees will remind him of the things he did to her; each police car that passes will make his heart pound in fear that they've discovered his heinous crime.

Knowing that there's no escape from his conscience, he turns himself into the police. Confessing everything; not wanting a trial would appear to be a noble act, at least on the surface. But as you look at the gruesome details of his crime, you begin to see that he merely wants to keep his crime secret from society. He fears that society will see him for who he really is; a child rapist and murderer.

By the time it's all over, he'll be sentenced to death, most likely by lethal injection as he's requested. A more appropriate death would be a slow and painful one; however, activists complain that this is cruel and unusual punishment. Forget about his victim; his fourteen year old daughter, who he raped, beat and tortured and then left in the woods to rot like a piece of discarded trash. Show me the humanity in that death.

He covered her face with dark plastic as he crushed her skull, because he was too much of a coward to see the results of his gruesome crime and now he'll die a coward's death as they insert a needle into his vein and inject his ticket to hell.

In 1990, while living in Bellingham, Washington, I picked up a part-time job repossessing vehicles for a couple of used car lots. The money was good and it was an adrenaline rush at times. I was also doing work as a Bail Enforcement Agent for Cascade Bail Bonds and for the Whatcom County Prosecutors Office.

Lifestyle Motor Company had a contract with a mechanic who would be on-call in case a vehicle needed to be towed or repaired during repossessions. The mechanics name was James Dickey. He was an older, Vietnam Vet who wore two hearing aides and was fairly quiet. I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that he had a speech problem do to his hearing loss.

On a few occasions, I had to call James in the middle of the night during repossessions. He and I would work on the car and as soon as we either got it running or hooked up to his tow truck, we would haul ass out of there before the owner's woke up.

In 1992, I bought an Audi 4000 from Lifestyle's. It was a nice little car, but it was fuel injected and German made. It was my first foreign car, and I knew nothing about it. One day the car didn't want to start, so I called James and he drove out to take a look at it. I was at my in-laws with my wife and daughter when the car broke down. When James arrived, I introduced him to my father-in-law and we all stood outside in the cold as James looked over my car. After about an hour, James decided that we should tow it to his house so that he could pull it into his carport and work on it. My wife and daughter got a ride home from her parents and I went with James in his tow truck back to his house to work on the car.

When we arrived at his house, we went inside to warm up and get some coffee before working on the car. While we were inside, he introduced me to his family. He first introduced me to Sue, who he said was his wife. She was feeding their youngest daughter, Kayla, who was still in a high chair. As we went into the living room, his older daughter came in wearing her nightgown. He introduced her as Kristy. As James and I began talking about my car, Kristy, who was about ten years old, kept coming back into the living room as she showed me pictures that she had colored. The more that I complimented her on her work, the more she seemed to bring out for me to see. She was a sweet little girl with long blond hair.

After a couple of hours of working on my car, James explained that he was going to need some parts for it and I'd have to leave it at his house for a few days. I said goodbye to his family and James drove me home. That was the last time that I would ever see his wife and kids. A few days later he fixed my car and then towed it to the car lot for me to pick up.

In 1993 I moved from Washington and came here to Alaska. A couple years later I was shocked by the news that I received. My wife at the time often kept in contact with her parents in Washington, in fact they would come up about once a year to visit us.

On May 8, 1995 my wife received a call from her mom. I heard my wife say, "Oh...