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With Harry Grissom’s help, we soon had Ott ensconced in an interview room at the Thirteenth Precinct. It might’ve been the fastest I ever got a murder suspect from the field to a full-blown interview.
The room was wired for sound and video, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. He was a tech guy, probably studied engineering. That meant he would be working the room, looking for an escape hatch. Not this time.
I sat behind a cheap wood-veneer table on an uncomfortable plastic chair facing Daniel Ott, who was struggling to get used to the constraint of having his hands cuffed behind his back. He kept knocking the metal against the back of his plastic chair.
I pulled out my notebook and my tape recorder.
There was also an old-style two-way mirror. We couldn’t see anything in the outer room, but I could imagine how many people were crammed in there to hear this interview of a killer who had bested law enforcement for nearly a year, though his streak could’ve been even longer.
I had already gotten a few calls, with increasing frequency, from Emily Parker at the FBI. She probably wanted to tip me off that the FBI was about to horn in. Typical. She’d been too busy to access FBI resources when I needed them, and now that I’d found our suspect without her help, I was too busy to talk.
It’s unusual to interview a suspect solo. Partners practice the substance and order of their questions, who will do the asking and who will take notes. This was not a usual situation. Thank God I had a boss who had faith in me. He realized I’d be better off on my own.
I read Ott his rights and made sure he understood each of them. I asked him the usual questions, like name, age, and marital status. He didn’t seem to hold back any information. He told me about his wife and two daughters in Omaha. Then he surprised me by saying, “I read that you have ten kids. How does that work?”
This guy was a level beyond most criminals. He was the first suspect ever to confess that he’d researched me, and I was completely thrown when he started questioning me in the middle of a police interview. Usually the person whose hands aren’t cuffed is the one asking the questions.
I decided to answer him, thought it was a step in the right direction for building rapport. “It usually works pretty well,” I said, “but organizing ten kids can be a challenge.”
There was nothing threatening about his physical appearance. He was a pleasant-looking, clean, reasonably well-dressed man. Most people wouldn’t have a problem talking to him.
I did. I was the father of six daughters, and he’d killed more women than I had in my entire family.
He seemed so normal, or The man I knew could never murder people, I could already imagine Ott’s neighbors saying when the media descended upon them.
I asked, “You need anything? Something to eat? A drink?” Suspects were quick to claim mistreatment, and I wasn’t about to lose this crucial statement on that account.
Ott looked me right in the eye and said, “I’m not hungry. And your process is inefficient. I can save us all some time.”
“How’s that? From the moment you committed your first murder you were on stolen time. You stole years of your victims’ lives that they and their loved ones will never get back.”
“That’s one way of looking at my actions, Detective Bennett,” Ott said. “I see them differently.”
We were approaching a stalemate, so I changed tack.
“How do you choose your victims?” I asked.
“American women with their attitudes and smart mouths set me off,” he said. “I heard an intern at an insurance office brag that she was studying communications in college so she’d never have to be a lonely telephone tech. Can you believe that? I am a grown man who provides for his family and that little bitch was looking down her nose at me.”
He was talking about Elaine Anastas.
“That’s why you killed her, and then wrote that threatening letter, ‘To the Women of New York’?”
“I was teaching them a lesson. I wrote that I would kill the ones who didn’t respect me, and I always do exactly what I say,” Ott sneered. “I’ve been killing women for ten years, Detective Bennett, longer than that partner of yours has been on the force. A significant portion of your own career.”
I can sit quietly through the most horrifying stories, nodding along with what feels like perverse encouragement. Lots of I see or Wow as a suspect continues detailing incriminating actions, when all along I really want to scream You sick asshole.
But in all my years interviewing suspects, this was the first time I had ever been left absolutely speechless.
I forced myself to continue the interview.
“Do I understand you correctly?” I said. “Are you making a confession?”
“I confess to committing the capital offense of first-degree murder. Many times over.”
“Mr. Ott, I’ve advised you of your rights,” I said. “Are you sure you want to continue?”
“Oh, I’m just getting started,” Ott said. “You have no idea what I’ve done, what I planned to be doing for the rest of my life, until you came along. You, who didn’t even understand the messages I left.”
