AK AK - Jack Trawick admits to other killings in AL & Pacific Northwest

"ATMORE - After asking for forgiveness from those he hurt, twice-convicted murderer Jack Trawick died by lethal injection Thursday evening, as relatives of the victims watched.

Trawick, 62, who also had claimed to have committed another Birmingham-area murder and two in the Pacific Northwest, was executed for abducting, stabbing and strangling Stephanie Gach, 21, of Irondale on the night of Oct. 9, 1992."BBM

This thread is for trying to find out who else Trawick killed.

Article about Trawick's history of mental illness:

http://www.eji.org/eji/deathpenalty/jacktrawick

Does anyone know about a murder surrounding an Alaskan/Canadian cruise ship in 1978? Trawick mentioned this, I believe.

When I was 12 years old, my mom use to take me to the Antique Store that Jack delivered furniture for. My mom and the woman who owned the store were good friends so we visited her often and that's how we came to "know" Jack. He called me little Kim and he even nicknamed my mother, Frenchy, cause she was from France and has a very strong accent. I was left alone with Jack on several occasions and actually remember him to be quite gentle and friendly. Finding out he killed a woman, then his confession of possibly killing more, left us baffled. I guess serial killers put on an act of normalcy because he just didn't seem like the aggressive type. My mother is now 72. When I found his letters on the net, I told her about them. She was in disbelief of it all and really feels that Jack was telling some tall tales. She said he was the type to always try to make himself seem larger than what he really was. While she does believe he did kill a woman or may even have ties to another, she thinks he was trying to make himself look more notorious then he really was. Just my 2 cents

Thanks Lilsleuth. It is always good to hear the memories of those who actually knew the person.

I can understand your mother being reluctant to believe that he killed. That is just not anything you want to think of from someone you know, maybe even like a little. And to think that perhaps there was more than one, it would be almost unthinkable.... definately almost unbelievable. Still there is that possibility that he was trying to brag to make himself bigger and badder than what he really was.

Do you know anything about his history, his life? Where he had lived before, how he got along with his family or anything at all that you remember.

And yes, many serial killers before they are caught have good friends, are seen as a nice person. That is part of their ability to be successful for so long. Because no one would believe that they were capable of killing.

A history
http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/trawick1168.htm

I was going to post some of those letters, but nope no way. This dude was truly one of the sickest I have seen. You would have to be pretty horrific to even think of some of that .........
He does mention a Kim and an unnamed mother and daugther in the letters. That is pretty scary.

I know that he came from a good family that was pretty well off financially and that they did travel out of the country when he was a child. He never spoke of any siblings but did talk about his mother often. I don't know the exact dates but he did come to Alabama when he was a young man then moved around quite a bit. To where I'm not exactly sure, but his mother was living here, so he eventually settled in Birmingham. I also know he left for California for a very short time during the later part of the 1980's. After returning, he moved in with his mother. She was in her 70s and had health problems. My mother said he was a "momma's boy". He worked at the antique store for about 4 years up until he was arrested. The van he used to commit his crimes in belonged to the store owner. I do remember him taking pride in cleaning it and making it look nice.


Mysteriew: It is very scary. In one letter he penned.. he talks about the murder of Kim. He describes her as being a woman that worked at a Quick Mart down the street from the store. Well, there WAS a Kim that worked there. She wasn't in her early twenties like he said, more early thirties, blond hair, very attractive, and I remember her to be super friendly and social. That store did eventually close down and that was the last I saw of her. Was she a victim? I'm not sure. Also, in another letter, he describes an 8 year old victim. He mentions this was in 1991. Well, he was definitely living in Birmingham and working at the store at that point.

I think the cold hard fact is no one will probably ever know if Jack was stretching the truth or not. The hard part would be separating fact from fiction.

Looking at the letters my guess would be that he is a sexually based serial. He objectifies not only the women, but also their body parts. He does appear sexually sadistic and he took a lot of enjoyment in not only the pain, but also the humiliation of his victims.

Yes I think those letters were written to shock. And these letters might have been fantasies rather than actual crimes. But when you think about it, it takes a pretty depraved individual to even write them. And since he has no other way to victimize other than to publish his fantasies, that may be his substitute for not having physical access to victims.

If you look at newspapers from that time period, were there any missing persons? Any named Kim? Any mother/daughters? Though less attention was paid to missing persons at that time, they were often assumed to have left voluntarily. Did your mother know the store owners name, where you might be able to contact the owners and inquire about the clerk named Kim?

The antique store was located in Bluff Park which is approximately 10 minutes from Birmingham. It was considered a middle class small town during that time. There was only one grocery store, a few ma and pa stores, and two gas stations, just to give you an idea of the area. No, I'm not sure who owned it but it is possible my mother knows. I will ask her when I speak with her. The Quick Mart was basically put out of business by a larger gas station that sat right across the street from it.

I don't remember hearing about any missing women or children from the Birmingham area at the time. Again, I will ask my family if they can recall anything.

I did a newspaper search for missing or murdered women (named Kim or otherwise) within the Birmingham area but came up empty handed. It seemed all the articles I came across were eventually solved and another perpetrator caught. When I researched missing children, I came across Brenda Kay Green who went missing in 1988. She was only 15 and lived in Brookwood, Alabama. Sadly, there are few details about her disappearance. Brookwood, however, is about a 30-45 minute drive from Bluff Park. It was a similar small type town at the time. Yet even though Jack had full control of the store owners van, he would have had a limited time span to commit his crimes unless he committed them late at night. He reported to work everyday, and from what I remember, he was basically on call as well. What I mean by that is if the store owner needed him after hours or weekends, he would have had to come right then and deliver furniture. The store owner never had a problem with him as far as showing up or being late. She was very close to him and always spoke highly of him.

When I looked at the prison photos of Jack, he really didn't look like the same person I remembered. Believe it or not, he was actually a nice looking man back in those days who took pride in his appearance. My mother said he spoke about dating women and never seemed to have a problem in that area. She use to kid him about flirting with customers or whatnot and he would just be playful back. He seemed very harmless, and again, there was never any clues to this other side of him. Who knows what really lurked inside his mind though. I agree about the fantasy aspect of him.

When I told my mother about his last words before his execution, she said, "You see? A man with that kind of sickness does not usually apologize in the end for being that way" and maybe she's right or perhaps she just doesn't want to accept the fact that he was more sick then she ever could imagine. It's a lot to take in. For me, I do believe if he killed one woman then it is more than possible that there were many, many others. How do you track a completely secretive man's footsteps when his words just don't add up? It's mind boggling.