Fred Sullivan: Similar M.O.

Unlike some others, there is no doubt that Fred Sullivan is a predator.

Sullivan liked to take out ads in area newspapers (including the Tradin' Times, where Amy's mother worked). These ads promised jobs for young women. But first, they had to come to his apartment for an interview. At these interviews, Sullivan would say he would hire the women if they would sleep with him first.

I found Sullivan's name in Amy's autopsy report. Seems the coroner's office had analyzed a knife belonging to Sullivan to see if it contained any usable DNA (he wasn't the only person whose belongings have been analyzed by coroners--there was a bat owned by someone else, too). When I met with him in 2008, Sullivan told me he thought he had found a loophole in solicitation laws, and thought that the sex would be considered a legal transaction. Cuyahoga County prosecutors figured otherwise and have charged him several times with crimes including: compelling a 14 year old girl to take money for sex and the attempted abduction of a 23 year old woman from a Parma-area restroom.

This whole game of luring the women to him under false pretense is similar to the method used by Amy's killer, who called her on the phone and pretended he worked with her mother at the Tradin' Times.

I interviewed Sullivan for a half hour or so. He even brought me a knife similar to the one the cops took from him (his apartment door remained open during this odd encounter, thankfully). He's straight forward about his urges, too, stating "I like young girls. They make me feel young."

I have lost track of the man in the years since. But if you happen to hear from him regarding possible employment, best to stay away. Anyone with info can send it to me at becarriedaway@hotmail.com

Fear

I haven't forgotten about the updates I promised. They're coming soon. At the moment, I'm finishing up a novel and doing a bit of traveling (meetings in New York and research in New Hampshire on the Maura Murray case). Expect something next week.

In the meantime, I've been meaning to say a little something on the subject of fear.

I get a lot of emails from people who read this blog or my true crime books and they begin something like this: "What a scary world we live in" or "I'm never letting my daughter out of the house, again" or "You can't trust anybody these days". For some reason, many people believe this is the message I'm trying to get across in my writing. It couldn't be further from the truth.

I actually believe people are generally good. The fact that abductions and murders are so unbelievably rare says something great about the society in which we live. We think these things happen more often because when they do occur, the news writes a lot about them. But your daughter has a better chance of dying in a plane crash than she does at the hands of a serial killer. At yet we still fly.

The solution is not to be more fearful but to be LESS fearful. Instead of building walls around ourselves in order to keep us "safe" we should be doing the opposite. If every one of us took the time to really get to know the people living to the right of us and the people living to the left of us, these abduction/murders might never happen. If we all did this, we'd know right away if our friend next door was beginning to get dangerously depressed or if he started to build a tent compound in his back yard where he could keep his kidnapped victims. If we took the time to befriend them, we could get them help before they went crazy.

Take the time to know your neighbors. Befriend them. Care for them. We're talking a couple hours a month in exchange for a better place to live. That's the answer.