Chasing the Boogeyman

Presented as a true-crime memoir complete with photographs, newspaper excerpts, and interview transcripts, the novel blends autobiographical detail with fictional events to create a metafictional account of a serial killer terrorizing a small Maryland town in 1988.

In early June 1988, 22-year-old Richard Chizmar, a recent University of Maryland journalism graduate, moves back into his childhood home on Hanson Road in Edgewood, Maryland, a working-class suburb northeast of Baltimore. Rather than pursuing a journalism career, he plans to write fiction, launch a horror magazine called Cemetery Dance, and prepare for his January wedding to his fiancée, Kara. Three days before his arrival, 15-year-old Natasha Gallagher, a neighbor's daughter, is abducted from her bedroom. Her strangled body is found the next morning in nearby woods, propped against a tree with her ankles crossed and hands in her lap. Her left ear has been severed. There are no signs of sexual assault and no suspects.

Chizmar provides an extensive portrait of Edgewood, tracing its history from farmland through its transformation by the Edgewood Arsenal military complex into the diverse suburb of roughly 18,000 people he knows. He recalls childhood adventures with close friends, local landmarks like the dreaded Meyers House, a Victorian structure believed to be haunted, and town legends including the Phantom Fondler, a real-life intruder who had been entering women's homes and touching them as they slept since 1986.

As the investigation stalls, Chizmar reconnects with Carly Albright, a childhood friend of Kara's who works as a reporter at the local Aegis newspaper. She becomes both an invaluable source and a trusted friend. Through Carly, Chizmar learns of a detail withheld from the public: a hopscotch grid drawn in blue chalk on the sidewalk in front of the Gallagher house, with the number three in every square.

On June 20, a second 15-year-old, Kacey Robinson, vanishes while walking between houses in the neighborhood. Her body is found that night at a school playground, positioned at the bottom of a sliding board. She has been beaten, sexually assaulted, bitten, strangled, and her left ear severed. The media dubs the killer "The Boogeyman." Another withheld clue surfaces: a fake missing-dog poster near the Robinson home featuring a phone number dominated by the number four, continuing a numerical pattern.

The town descends into fear. Residents install dead bolts and security systems. Detective Lyle Harper, the lead investigator, takes charge of the case and interviews Chizmar as part of routine questioning of local men, meticulously taking notes in a small spiral notebook. Meanwhile, Chizmar begins receiving unsettling phone calls at his parents' house: silence on the line followed by a hang-up, and on one occasion, the caller asks for him by name, listens to his voice, and disconnects. During a ride-along, Harper shares his belief that the killer is a local who has lived in Edgewood his entire life.

During a visit from his childhood friend Jimmy Cavanaugh, the two approach the Meyers House late at night and see a pale shape floating toward them in the darkness, resembling a face or mask. They flee. Jimmy calls the anonymous tip-line, but nothing comes of it.

On August 10, 18-year-old Madeline Wilcox disappears from her driveway. Her body is found 48 hours later beneath Ricker's Bridge, an area police had already searched twice, meaning the killer deliberately placed it there as a taunt. She has been held captive, sexually assaulted, bitten, strangled, and her left ear severed. Five pennies are found lodged in her throat, continuing the numerical sequence: three, four, five. A curfew is imposed, national media flood the town, and Harper announces a new task force including the FBI.

On September 9, the killer attacks again but fails. 17-year-old Annie Riggs is grabbed from behind while walking home from field hockey practice, but she sprays her attacker with pepper spray. He flees, dropping a crude burlap mask. Annie's statement describes a large, silent attacker with short dark hair and a pronounced chin. A police sketch is broadcast nationally.

Days later, Carly discovers someone has been lurking outside her window at night. Crime-scene technicians find a boot print beneath her window that cannot be linked to any known suspect, and Harper assigns police to watch the Albright house.

On Halloween night, Chizmar spots a masked figure standing motionless across the street from his parents' house, watching him. He dismisses it as a prank. Four hours later, 16-year-old Cassidy Burch is dropped off at her home after a party and never makes it inside. Her body is found at a cemetery, surrounded by lit jack-o'-lanterns, beaten, sexually assaulted, strangled, bitten nearly a dozen times, and her left ear severed. FBI profiler Robert Neville provides a public assessment: The killer is a white male in his twenties or thirties, a local, likely single or divorced, who targets young women with long hair because someone fitting that description hurt him in the past. Neville states, "He likes how it feels to kill, and he'll do it again if we don't stop him" (269).

In November, Carly discovers the killer has been adding hidden numerical marks to each victim's public memorial. In December, Chizmar realizes that a woman who photographed trick-or-treaters on Halloween may have captured the masked figure in the background. Harper locates the woman, develops the film, and obtains a clear photograph of the masked man.

In January 1989, Chizmar and Kara marry and move to Baltimore. He and Carly co-write an article about the victims' families for the Aegis. Shortly after its publication, Natasha's father, Russell Gallagher, walks into the woods where his daughter's body was found and kills himself with a revolver. At a dinner in March, Harper reveals that police have obtained the killer's DNA from a blood trace on a headstone and on Cassidy's costume. However, on April 2, Harper announces publicly that DNA analysis, still in its infancy with no national database, has returned no matches. The four murders remain unsolved.

Over 30 years later, in September 2019, Carly calls Chizmar: "They caught the Boogeyman!" (334). The killer is Joshua Gallagher, Natasha's older brother, now 54. Lieutenant Clara McClernan of the Maryland State Police cold case unit cracked the case using Detective Harper's personal notebooks, discovering that Joshua was never DNA-swabbed in 1988 due to a bureaucratic oversight. McClernan's investigation reveals that Joshua was expelled from Penn State for stalking his ex-girlfriend Anna Garfield, a woman with long chestnut hair, and that Joshua was secretly adopted, meaning his DNA would never show a familial match to his parents' profiles. After covertly obtaining his DNA, McClernan confirms a match.

Gallagher confesses to all four 1988 murders and three additional killings. In a prison interview with Chizmar, he describes a lifelong sense of something broken inside him, beginning with violent fantasies at age seven and escalating through animal torture. He explains that his fixation on long-haired women stems from his relationship with Anna Garfield, whose rejection shaped his compulsions. He reveals he always planned to kill Natasha, luring her into the woods by claiming a friend needed help, and staged the open window himself. He selected other victims by spotting them in public; their long hair and smiles triggered him. He severed their ears as punishment, kept them in a coffee can, and later dumped them in the Gunpowder River. He also admits to killing his father, Russell, who had caught him torturing a dog as a child and, after Natasha's murder, began growing suspicious.

The novel concludes with Chizmar and Carly visiting Detective Harper's grave at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore. They leave flowers and a wreath, share a laugh about who gets to tell Harper they finally caught the Boogeyman, and walk out together, their laughter echoing across the snow-covered hills.