Chapter One: The Demon Within
For such men are false apostles, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve. -- 2 CORINTHIANS 11:13-15
Sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace. -- BOB DYLAN
It was not a typical Walsh family outing. Translation: For once, I wasn't running late.
I was driving up the Florida Turnpike, headed into Orlando. I had one quick speech to make, but then I was meeting the family for a long weekend, and as I'm pulling off the highway onto the exit ramp, I'm thinking, let me make this a trip for the kids.
People tell me I can get awfully somber. When you deal with the world of death and violence and darkness, you always see the worst of humanity, and you get pretty morose about that without realizing it.
So whenever I get home, I try to tell myself: You'd better put that all behind you, and start thinking about soccer and lacrosse and cheerleading and Rugrats and all the things your kids want you to think about.
So that's what I'm trying to do on this trip. Keep it light. Get the speech out of the way, and try to turn back into a regular person for a while.
The gas gauge is low, and I know I'm going to forget about it once I get into town and get busy. I actually have a little time, so I pull off into a gas station. As I always do, I pick up the local paper. It's a habit I got into a long time ago -- whenever I travel, I like to read the local papers. It gives me a feel for where I am, who the people are, what's going on in town.
And that's the first time I saw him.
Staring up at me, from the front of the local section of the Orlando Sentinel. There was something about his eyes -- even in a black-and-white photo, you could make out that they were piercing blue, but behind that dull, mugshot stare there was something more, something cold. After you've looked at a few thousand of these photos, you get to where you can read a lot into them. But there was something here I'd never seen before.
Then I looked over at the article, and saw what he'd done. And I gotta say, no matter how tough and macho you think you are; no matter how many people call you The Manhunter and tell you what a great asset you've been to crime fighting; no matter how many police reports you've read, how many forensic profiles you've studied, how many autopsy photos you've pored over -- nothing prepares you for something like this. You become hyper-alert at these moments: The adrenaline starts pumping, you start sweating a little bit, your hearing becomes strongly attuned. You smell the gasoline on the asphalt, hear the hum of the motor of the ice machine next to the minimart's front door, notice the missing hubcap of the car at the next pump.
I don't want this. Not now.
But there was no way around it. The ugly, dark, dank world that America's Most Wanted inhabits had somehow insinuated itself into this brilliant, shining Florida morning.
As I was pulling away, I was turning over in my mind what I'd read.
The news article had one unusual fact: this vicious psychopath who had preyed upon an innocent family was no stranger to his victims. They knew him well, and until this moment, considered him a good friend.
From what I read, I knew that this guy was probably already out of the state, meaning the local cops had virtually no chance of catching up to him.
I knew that we had to hunt this guy down. And fast.
He was too dangerous to be out on the street.
And now that he'd committed this horrible, horrible act -- possibly the most terrible act I'd heard of in my six years at America's Most Wanted -- now that he had done this, he had nothing to lose.
He was born Edward James on August 4, 1961, in Bristol, Pennsylvania, a small river town outside Philadelphia, but from the time he could speak, he believed his name was Edward Matlack. It wasn't until he was ten years old and looking through some family photos that he realized the man who was raising him was really his stepfather. His natural father had disappeared when he was two.
But shortly before Eddie's twelfth birthday, his dad showed back up on the scene. That's the first bad break in this story.
Eddie wound up living with his dad for a while. While his mom kept a tight rein on Eddie, teaching him right from wrong, his dad was more of a party guy, trying to teach Eddie the ways of the world.
"That's when I was introduced to drugs," Eddie says. His dad "told me what was going on, let me experience it and see what it was like."
It started off simply, with Eddie sampling the marijuana he says his dad shared with him. "He showed me how to roll a joint. Basically, he showed me everything that was going on, so I'd be aware and I'd know what to be careful to talk about."
So with that twisted logic, Eddie says, his dad brought him into the world of drugs. And here's the sick irony: Eddie's dad was a drug counselor.
"He made a joke out of how he was a drug counselor and he did more drugs than the people he was counseling," Eddie remembered.
Very funny.
Eddie was dumped back on his mom, Nancy, after a while. But she had her own problems. With her current marriage hitting the skids, she moved to Florida to be near her mother. They stayed at her mom's in Winter Park for a while, then wound up settling in the Orlando area, near a town called Casselberry.
By now Eddie was in the ninth grade, and was having problems in school -- problems like not showing up. And when he did, the school psychologist reported that Eddie said he was having blackouts.
"That's what he told them," said Nancy. "That he was having blackouts. I don't know if that's true. It would help me to think that he did have some mental problem, to tell you the truth. It would help me to believe that that led him to do what he did."
Nancy did all a mother could. She couldn't find a therapist to help her deal with her problem son -- "When you don't have money, there is no place" -- but begged and pleaded with a counselor at a local mental health clinic who agreed to see Eddie on the side, for free, twice a week. It did little good; Eddie kept getting more violent, more angry. His life by then was beginning to revolve around fighting and drugs. He'd graduated to angel dust -- but what he wouldn't graduate to was the twelfth grade. When told he would have to repeat his junior year of high school, Eddie dropped out.
When he turned seventeen, Eddie entered the army. You'd think that maybe the discipline of the army would help him get his head on straight -- but he was too far gone for that. He was stationed in Germany, in a town where drugs were easily accessible. For Eddie, it was a time to go wild. When someone would walk up to him and say, "Eddie, this stuff, can you get high off of this?" his standard reply was, "I dunno. Let me take some. Come back in an hour and I'll let you know."
It didn't take long for Eddie to earn a general discharge. The stated reason was "failure to conform." The admitted reason: drugs, alcohol, and fighting.
So Eddie was turned loose back on the streets of Casselberry, Florida. When he was straight and sober, he made friends easily, getting people to believe he was on their side in whatever little struggle the day presented. But when he was stoned, he was like a vicious, caged animal. The demons that welled up inside him were waiting to pounce, to strike out in pure rage.
Now, I don't want you to think for a minute that I'm telling you about Eddie James's background because I want you to feel sorry for the guy. Lots of kids grow up without a father, and some experiment with drugs, without be