It was early in the morning when a car horn honked twice in front of the Kings’ house. From the window, James saw an unusual scene: his son Brian chatting for a few seconds with the driver. The father didn’t give it any importance and went to the bathroom. Minutes later, James looked out again, but the vehicle was already gone. He then went downstairs to ask his son who it was. He didn’t find it.
Then, he went to his stepdaughter Christina’s room. She wasn’t there either. The two minors had disappeared and she only had the memory of a tan car at the door of her property. Why would they have left without warning? Two days later, the children’s bodies were found brutally mutilated and murdered. A murderer was on the loose.
Jason Eric Massey was born on January 7, 1973 in Ellis (Texas), into a broken family. His alcoholic father and his drug-dependent mother used violence and abuse against the little boy. The beatings were almost daily and Jason grew in a spiral of aggression and beatings, which led to attacks of rage and anger against the animals. The boy tortured and decapitated cats, dogs and cows, and then kept their heads as trophies.
A childhood friend even explained that Jason killed animals for “the adrenaline, the excitement and the pleasure of mutilating,” emotions that he captured in detail in his diary. Furthermore, our protagonist also developed completely disturbing behavior in the middle of school time.
Jason enjoyed making phone calls or writing threatening letters to his classmates. In those letters, he described his bloodiest fantasies: he dreamed of killing them. In fact, one of his victims found his dog dead and mutilated and his family’s car smeared with the animal’s blood. Years later, it would be discovered that Jason had recorded everything about the grim incident in his diary. This stalking continued until he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in June 1991.
His mother found some of his writings and, upon reading them, asked for specialized help. Among his pages were explicit texts about violent fantasies of rape and murder, a fascination with starting fires, mentions of famous serial killers such as Ted Bundy or Charles Manson, in addition to his strong desire to become one of them.
Psychiatrist Kenneth Dekleva evaluated the teenager, analyzed the diaries and came to the following conclusion: Jason wanted to begin a “sacred journey” as a serial killer, he wanted to attack society and reap immense pain and suffering, and, to do so, he I had everything studied and planned. He wanted to leave a mark on history: kill 700 people in 20 years.
Ultimately, the doctor diagnosed him with antisocial personality disorder and stated that the young man posed an imminent threat to others. However, two years later he was able to leave the psychiatric hospital and continue stalking, animal abuse, armed robberies and, later, the double murder of two stepbrothers.
In the late spring of 1993, Jason was arrested for the first time: the police found marijuana in his car, a Persian cat with a rope around its neck, a three-pronged knife, and a diary that listed some names. At that time, these pages went unnoticed by the agents and they only took him to jail for a crime against animal abuse and another against public health. Days later he was released.
In mid-July of that same year, Jason accompanied his friend Christopher, 20, to see a friend in Nowlin. Her name was Christina King, 13 years old. She and Jason flirted and the killer suggested he pick her up another day to go for a walk. She accepted, and on July 27, the young man showed up, honked, and Christina and her 14-year-old stepbrother Brian drove away with her new friend.
What the victims did not know is that Jason had stolen a .22 caliber pistol from his cousin, that he had bought the bullets in a supermarket and that he had also taken two knives and some handcuffs. After traveling several miles, Jason parked in a secluded area, pulled out his gun, and shot Brian twice in the head. He died instantly.
Christina then tried to escape, but Jason quickly hunted her down. He threw her to the ground, brutally raped her and, after shooting her, he stabbed her to the point of mutilating her, cutting off her head and hands. Finally, he threw the bodies and parts of both minors over a bridge into the Trinity River. All that was left was to clean the car and get rid of evidence, but when he was in a car wash, the owner interrupted him and left hastily.
Passersby found the bodies of the minors two days after their disappearance, about 50 kilometers from their home. Brian’s body could be easily identified, but Christina’s could not. The lack of head and hands complicated everything. In the end, investigators were able to confirm who he was thanks to a recent x-ray for an ankle injury. From that moment, the agents began investigations into the victims’ closest circle. Neighbors, friends, acquaintances, family…
Several testimonies, including that of the children’s father, pointed out a tan-colored Subaru brand vehicle. And someone remembered Christopher, Jason’s friend, who had visited the teenagers in the days before the disappearance. The young man did not hesitate to implicate Jason in the events.
With Jason in their sights, the police focused their efforts on collecting incriminating evidence and distributing his photo to the press as the main suspect. On the one hand, the bullet fragments recovered from both bodies were .22 caliber and Jason’s cousin had a gun with this caliber, but he had not seen it at home for days. In fact, there were witnesses who claimed to have seen Jason with this gun.
On the other hand, the owner of a supermarket recognized the photo of the murderer when he went to buy ammunition, as also happened to the owner of the car wash where Jason went on car night.
The scientific police searched the laundry containers – the witness believed he had seen the young man throw something in the trash – and they found other evidence: a red scarf with blonde hair, car windows and the Kentucky Fried Chicken payroll with the name of Jason Massey. That was where he worked.
Given this clear evidence, the investigators proceeded to search the house of the alleged murderer and there they found definitive evidence that linked him to the Kings’ crimes. We talk about two newspaper articles about the murders, handcuffs and a box of knives, a refrigerator with 31 heads of cats and dogs, and the famous diary where Jason calculated how many people he would have to murder per month until he reached a total of 700.
Regarding the search of his car, the interior was a niche of evidence against him: the dashboard, steering wheel, seats, floor and mats tested positive for blood, even though he had cleaned it thoroughly; In the trunk he had duct tape, tissue paper, a wrench, a screwdriver, a denim shirt, the head of a hammer and a jacket. As for DNA testing, it revealed a genetic match between Christina’s blood and the blood found on the car seat, duct tape, and hammer.
A subsequent comparison of the blonde hair found in the car, the hair from the red bandana recovered from the car wash, and those found near Christina at the crime scene confirmed a new match. Another would be found in the fibers of the car mats, since they coincided with a fiber located in one of Brian’s shoes.
With this string of evidence, the authorities proceeded to arrest him for two crimes of murder and, a year later, the trial began. It was March 17, 1994, and Jason Massey pleaded not guilty to all charges. He was lying, of course.
The Prosecutor’s Office put on the table all the evidence collected during the investigation of the case, and even read some paragraphs from the diaries written by the accused, although it was more similar to a horror book. “He wanted to be the greatest multiple murderer in history. I think he did it because he found it pleasurable,” said prosecutor Clay Strange, addressing the jurors.
“It’s almost a miracle that we caught him so quickly in his career. He is as evil as anyone I have ever met. And I have met many bad people, but no one more evil,” added the lawyer. He supported his words with the opinion of psychiatrist Kenneth Dekleva, who had examined Jason years before. According to his report, the murderer was a future danger to society and he could not be rehabilitated.
On October 6, 1994, the jury found Jason Massey guilty of all charges and the judge sentenced him to the death penalty. The following years, the prisoner filed several appeals, even making a habeas corpus petition, but he was denied absolutely everything. The execution date was set for April 3, 2001.
Meanwhile, Jason converted to Christianity and gave several interviews to the media. “I have changed and people change. As we grow, we change… I have a lot of anger for the stupid mistakes I made and at the same time I recognize that anger is just an emotion,” he told the Ennis Daily News from death row a month before he died.
“I want them to know that I did it, that I regret having done it. I want you to know that Christina didn’t suffer as much as you think. I know you want to know where the other parts of her body are. I threw them into the Trinity River,” Jason Massey said minutes before her execution. His words were addressed to the relatives of the victims present in the Huntsville (Texas) prison room. At 6:20 p.m., the would-be serial killer died from lethal injection. He was 28 years old.
James King, Brian and Christina’s father, was always glad that his children’s murderer was hunted down so quickly, that his bloodthirsty fantasies were cut short so quickly. “He is the devil. “He would have been worse than Ted Bundy… It’s a shame he started with kids,” he told The Dallas Morning News.