Don Cheney circa 2008
By Tom Voigt | Founder: Zodiackiller.com | tomvoigt@zodiackiller.com |
By late 2001, I was used to receiving weird phone calls from Don Cheney. This occasion was not an exception. Immediately after I answered the phone, Don identified himself and quickly offered an unexpected revelation:
“Yeah, there’s one thing – probably more than one thing – uh, nobody ever asked me about. I had moved to the New Bedford area and taken a job there…uh, in the late 1980s. My, uh, my route to work and back made me into a possible suspect.”
Me: “Hmmm…a possible suspect? For what, exactly?”
Don continued:
“They uh, during that time, there was a bunch of women killed out there. Murdered. And uh…for a time there, uh, the cops thought I could have done it.”
My Internet connection was via America Online, which meant I couldn’t multitask by talking on the phone and surfing the Web at the same time. Instead, I had to wait for Don to finish before I could hang up, get on the ‘net and attempt to research his shocking claim.
“So let me make sure I understand this,” I said. “You were a murder suspect in…New Bedford? Where exactly is that? In Massachusetts?”
“Yeah. But nothing ever came of it.”
At the time, I was living in a vintage apartment in Portland, Ore., right in the heart of the Hollywood District. There was a Chinese restaurant outside my bedroom window, and that morning I had decided to break my strict diet in order to pig out on General Tso’s chicken. But that was before Don called. Now my plans would have to wait.
I verified a few more details with Don regarding his bizarre admission, then hung up and hit the Web. Don was aware that I recorded all of my phone calls, and he didn’t ask me to keep our conversation private. It was clear that Don wanted his New Bedford claim to be known and shared, even if it was some kind of a sick joke.
My default Internet browser back then was Netscape Navigator. It was even slower than AOL. I typed in “new bedford unsolved murders” and waited. To my amazement, one of the first search returns was for a book called “Killing Season: The Unsolved Case of New England’s Deadliest Serial Killer.” Sure enough, Don was right — there really was a still-at-large serial killer in New Bedford! Published in 1994, the author of the book was named Carlton Smith. I knew of Smith from a book he previously co-authored about the Green River killer. Luckily, Smith was still living in Seattle, and I located his home telephone number from an online directory. General Tso’s chicken would have to wait until after I called Carlton Smith.
Smith answered immediately, and I got right to the point.
“Don Cheney…Don Cheney…yeah, that name is very familiar,” said Smith. “Although I have to wonder why he’d want it known that he was a murder suspect. In my experience, that’s quite unusual.”
TO BE CONTINUED.
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