From the pages of
Originally published
May, 2013
Part 4
In my mind, the Vampire was a wretched mental patient, discharged from the castle on the hill. He lived in a filthy downtown rattrap. One night he witnessed something terrible. He had a story to tell, and no one to he could safely tell it to. This was no ordinary monster, but Police Chief Joe Zikuski of the Binghamton, PD. New messages appeared even on days that were so cold no one in the city but myself and the Vampire were crazy enough to leave our homes or places of employment. I poked my nose in forgotten holes to find the fragmented messages. Should I ever be caught trespassing, my camera was loaded with images claiming the Binghamton top cop was a vicious murderer.
While he still liberally adorned the walls of the Ice Factory, most of the messages were penned in quiet locations where they would easily be missed. Size and length varied with the amount of security. Behind a Front Street storage mall, I discovered a long narrative across the back of each building for the benefit of any flood wall hikers. The vampire icon appeared along side many, apparently representing Zikuski himself, though the real chief of police lacks the distinctive mustache, not to mention the giant vampire teeth.
The Vampire decorated overpasses, underpasses, the walking bridge to the South Side, the statues on the Riverwalk, and any wall that was left unattended a few minutes. Under the Clinton Street bridge he gave grisly details of several crimes. On the paved path through the field between the long straight section of 81N he painted an arrow to the place a human finger bone was allegedly discovered. The messages on Front Street past the ice factory told the story of a body dumped in that location, possibly Bambi Madden, possibly Michele Harris. The ice factory would be painted over, and the Vampire would strike again a week later.
Bambi Madden was his favorite subject, but he now claimed Zikuski committed Binghamton’s oldest unsolved murder. Terry L. Dittman was a prostitute that was beaten and stabbed behind a Public Works building on the North Side. Bobby Jo Hatchcock had been a prime suspect since the 1997 murder. His semen was in the condom still inside Dittman when she was found. Hatchcock denied the charges, but also admitted they were possible, as he’d been smoking crack with the victim either that night or the night before. He wasn't sure. He asked the leader of his Bible study group if a murderer could be forgiven. Other samples were recovered from the body that cast reasonable doubt on Hatchcock, and the case stagnated for 11 years.
The Vampire’s magnum opus was the back of a bridge support facing the Chenango River, where Rt 17 crosses Front Street. The canvas was covered with cartoons and script. The left panel depicted a shark rising toward “Dracula” Zikuski, who kneeled in a raft, his onion-shaped head staring down at certain demise. Another panel showed Madden and another woman driving stakes into “Dracula,” who maintained a giant, spurting erection. Text in black marker surrounded the figures, discussing the crimes and the conspiracy in detail.
A rumor in City Hall held the Vampire to be a mental patient and the start/stop nature of the messages marked periods of hospitalization. The Vampire had been silent in 2008 when Bobby Jo Hatchcock was arrested and all through the trial. Hatchcock was convicted on new analysis of old evidence. I patrolled the streets relentlessly, searching for the Vampire's response. Part of me feared Hatchcock himself had been the author I’d followed.
While the story about Zikuski seems unbelievable, could the Vampire know something true? Hatchcock’s story changed repeatedly. While he was undoubtedly with Dittman the night she died, he could never be sure he was the killer. The day after the murder, Hatchcock told his brother in law he knew the identity of the killer. Was he talking about himself, or another person? In the face of overwhelming evidence, Hatchcock was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life. He was nearly freed when his first appeal ended in mistrial. For eleven years Hatchcock was allowed to walk free with blood dripping from his hands despite his virtually unquestionable guilt.
Bambi Madden was a known prostitute and drug abuser. One rumor puts her not en route to a gas station for beer or cigarettes when she vanished, but turning a trick in the hotel above the former Sarah’s Bar on Clinton Street. The dive was notorious for cocaine blown freely on the bar, and outsiders were not welcome. Could Hatchcock be responsible for this or other murders during this time? I kept my eyes open for any word from the Vampire to see if he really knew something about the crimes he wrote about.
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