'A chamber of horrors'

mysteriew · #1 12-18-2005, 01:56 PM

West First Avenue in West Deptford had been a relatively quiet dead-end street until about two years ago.
Then one day a flatbed truck with a steel shipping container rolled up the block, stopped at a blue rancher, and deposited the box in the backyard.
Neighbors thought Jerome L. Wigmore Jr., a drywall contractor who lived there with his wife, Betty, and mother-in-law, Alice Boozer, was using the container to store his work equipment.
According to police, Wigmore held at least two women captive in the padlocked container, which he had turned into living quarters complete with air-conditioning units.
The women were kept on a raised platform bed in a secret back compartment in the container, guarded by a pit bull named Snow, police said.
"When he left, he locked the women inside so they couldn't get out," West Deptford Police Chief James Mehaffey said in an interview this month. "They couldn't get down off the bed to get out. If they got down, the dog got them."
During days-long captivity, Wigmore sexually assaulted and tortured his victims, burning one woman's leg with a blowtorch and punching her in the chest in July, according to prosecutors and police.
The unidentified victims are black women whom Wigmore picked up off Camden's streets, police said.
Relatives and neighbors described Wigmore as a menacing presence who zoomed up and down the block on a dirt bike with a plate that read "666" - a number associated with the devil - and yelled racial slurs at black children in the neighborhood.
Neighbors nicknamed him "Psycho Jerry" or referred to him simply as "the Menace." He beat his dog with his fist and accused neighbors of "spying" on him, residents said. He recently "head-butted" Boozer, giving his 75-year-old mother-in-law a black eye, Mehaffey said. By all accounts, Wigmore was, as one person on the block put it, "the neighborhood terrorist."
Boozer, a widow and retired fruit packer, said she saw Wigmore take "crack whores from Camden" into the container on a few occasions but thought they had gone voluntarily to get high.
On Oct. 27, a police SWAT team broke into the container with a bolt cutter during a drug bust and found a 27-year-old Camden woman inside. Police said that the woman, whom they did not expect to find, had been in the steel box for nearly two weeks.
"It's not like he said, 'C'mon, Mom, want to see what I've got going on in there?' " said Boozer, who likes to spend time stocking her many bird feeders and throwing peanuts to the squirrels in her wooded backyard. Wigmore rigged two video cameras on top of the container and placed a third camera in a nearby tree so he could use a monitor inside to see anyone approaching, Mehaffey said.
Some neighbors also could see what Wigmore was watching - on their home televisions because the cameras apparently sent a signal that nearby TVs could pick up. Neighbors said they saw a steady stream of people come and go.
"We would watch his backyard on Channel 14," said Koen, who lives two doors away. "Here this guy is selling drugs and he has a camera that's broadcasting it to the whole neighborhood. How stupid is that?"
Detectives arrested Wigmore after a two-month investigation. During the October raid, police found a "substantial" amount of drugs inside the container, as well as the captive woman.
Like Boozer, neighbors said they thought the women they saw entering the container were free to leave, though there were signs suggesting otherwise.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/n...y/13431204.htm

mysteriew · #2 12-18-2005, 03:04 PM

Superior Court Judge John Tomasello refused to reduce Wigmore's bail from $100,000 full cash. Wigmore is being held in Gloucester County Jail.

On Wednesday, West Deptford police charged Wigmore with additional counts of aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping and aggravated assault against the Williamstown woman.

Wigmore's attorney, Joseph C. Corbi, said after the hearing that he could not comment specifically on the allegations against his client.

But, he said of the women's accounts of being held against their will, "the question is, were they willing participants and was it consensual?"

The container sat behind a house Wigmore shared with his wife and mother-in-law.

After the bail hearing Friday, Wigmore's mother-in-law, Alice Booser, smacked Courier-Post photographer Al Schell on the back and cursed him in a court hallway. Booser is charged with owning a vicious dog.
http://www.courierpostonline.com/app...511190354/1006

mysteriew · #3 12-18-2005, 03:09 PM

In her argument against bail reduction, Curwin pointed to Wigmore's nine felony convictions and called him "a career criminal."

Superior Court Judge John Tomasello refused to lower Wigmore's bail, which had been increased to $100,000 after charges regarding the 31-year-old woman were lodged on Wednesday.

Police are looking into the possibility of additional charges against Wigmore, who has served a little more than a year of a three-year prison sentence for drug possession in Camden County, records show.

The 8-by-20-foot shipping container was rigged with a makeshift living area, two small air conditioners and at least two infrared video surveillance cameras on the outside, investigators said.
http://www.nj.com/news/gloucester/in...470.xml&coll=8

"We are looking into the possibility of other victims," he said.
http://www.courierpostonline.com/app...511180374/1006

GreenEyedGirl · #4 12-18-2005, 10:43 PM

That's sheer insanity! Crazy, I tell ya!

mysteriew · #5 12-18-2005, 11:57 PM

I can't get over the mother in law. She keeps defending him, but evidently he has blacked her eyes. No quotes from his wife. She is probably afraid to talk, or maybe her mother won't let her.

mysteriew · #6 12-19-2005, 02:26 PM

Jerome L. Wigmore turned the metal shipping container in his backyard into a torture chamber, a prosecutor said Friday.

Wigmore, 36, twice used a blowtorch to burn the leg of a woman he imprisoned in a metal shipping container behind his West Deptford home in July, Assistant Gloucester County Prosecutor Audrey Curwin said Friday during a bail hearing. Wigmore also repeatedly sexually assaulted the 31-year-old Williamstown woman and punched her several times in the chest during the five days she was held captive, according to Curwin.

Superior Court Judge John Tomasello refused to reduce Wigmore's bail from $100,000 full cash. Wigmore is being held in Gloucester County Jail.

Wigmore also is accused of imprisoning and sexually assaulting a second woman for about a week in October.

Curwin noted Wigmore has nine prior felony convictions, making him eligible for an extended prison sentence as a career criminal.
http://www.courierpostonline.com/app...511190354/1006

Linda7NJ · #7 12-19-2005, 03:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mysteriew

Jerome L. Wigmore turned the metal shipping container in his backyard into a torture chamber, a prosecutor said Friday.

Wigmore, 36, twice used a blowtorch to burn the leg of a woman he imprisoned in a metal shipping container behind his West Deptford home in July, Assistant Gloucester County Prosecutor Audrey Curwin said Friday during a bail hearing. Wigmore also repeatedly sexually assaulted the 31-year-old Williamstown woman and punched her several times in the chest during the five days she was held captive, according to Curwin.

Superior Court Judge John Tomasello refused to reduce Wigmore's bail from $100,000 full cash. Wigmore is being held in Gloucester County Jail.

Wigmore also is accused of imprisoning and sexually assaulting a second woman for about a week in October.

Curwin noted Wigmore has nine prior felony convictions, making him eligible for an extended prison sentence as a career criminal.
http://www.courierpostonline.com/app...511190354/1006

If this freak goes to trial I am going to go, it's very close to my house and I just have to hear his defense! LOL

SewingDeb · #8 12-19-2005, 05:10 PM

I look forward to hearing what kind of defense he thinks will get him acquitted.

mysteriew · #9 12-19-2005, 05:11 PM

Report back on what you hear, will you please?
I just wonder how long he has been doing this?

mysteriew · #10 12-20-2005, 08:07 PM

Three surveillance cameras poked from the top of the 20-foot shipping container that Jerome Wigmore kept in his mother-in-law's backyard in Gloucester County.

Inside the steel-gray box, video screens at one end allowed Wigmore to monitor visitors and cars as they approached. At the other end, police said, a large bed sat under a mirrored ceiling.

And if the "Posted" and "Beware of dog" signs weren't enough to keep unwanted guests at bay, neighbors said, Wigmore would release Snowy, an ill-tempered white pit bull, to chase them away.

Yesterday, West Deptford police had the container hauled away and held as evidence.

Wigmore had been hauled away Monday for the second time in less than a week and charged with sexually assaulting a 27-year-old Camden woman he allegedly held captive in the box for almost two weeks.

He remained in the Gloucester County Jail last night, also facing kidnapping, criminal-restraint and drug charges, West Deptford Chief James Mehaffey said. Snowy was lodged at an animal shelter, he said.
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/130...printstory.jsp

concernedperson · #11 12-20-2005, 08:12 PM

OK, we have evil man, evil dog....what else do prosecutors need? This is just horrendous in every fashion. To think that relatives are silent about this shows extreme denial or extreme fear.

cheko1 · #12 12-20-2005, 11:07 PM

This is just plain sick........what a flipping moron!

mysteriew · #13 01-10-2006, 04:43 PM

Backed by one of the women, a man says allegations he locked up and abused prostitutes are all wrong.

Not so, said Wigmore and one of the women he is accused of keeping hostage. To them, the metal box was a refuge.
"He would bring me out there to get away from all the havoc that's going on out here," said T.Y. Jones, 27, a Camden prostitute whom clients call "Terry Cake."
Wigmore and Jones tell a story very different from police, one of an unlikely friendship between a Swastika-tattooed ex-con and black prostitute living together in an adult version of a clubhouse.
But officials are sticking to their version of events and successfully argued Friday to keep Wigmore's bail at $150,000 cash, keeping him in the Gloucester County Jail.
One area of dispute is whether Jones was, as police contend, a captive or, as she put it, a guest.
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/13588048.htm

SewingDeb · #14 01-10-2006, 04:56 PM

That is just wild! They came there to get their "rest on". Now I've heard everything.

mysteriew · #15 01-10-2006, 05:01 PM

This one just facinates me.
Wife doesn't talk.
MIL, says he wasn't a bad guy, but him and her dau. couldn't get along and he was abusive to her and dau.
One prostie says that he kidnapped her. The other one says, no way we were just partying together. He was giving her a 'rest'.
He says he is too good looking to have to kidnap a woman, they run after him. (so why is he using prostie's?).
I think they are all scared to death of him, and afraid he will come after them when he gets out of prison.

SewingDeb · #16 01-10-2006, 05:24 PM

Either that or he is paying them to keep their mouths shut.

Belinda · #17 05-13-2010, 04:29 AM

Jerome L. Wigmore

Admission Date: 02/10/2006
Release Date: 03/10/2010

Offense Date: 10/09/2004
Sentence Date: 02/10/2006
Offense: 1 count CDS/Possession
Sentence: 4 years

Offense Date: 05/31/2005
Sentence Date: 02/10/2006
Offense: 1 count CDS/Possession
Sentence: 4 years

Offense Date: 10/27/2005
Sentence Date: 04/07/2008
Offense: 1 count CDS/Possession
Sentence: 6 years

Offense Date: 10/31/2005
Sentence Date: 04/07/2008
Offense: 1 count Criminal Restraint
Sentence: 6 years

So, this guy has a total sentence of 20 years and actually did only 4. Wonder why there are criminals running all over the place?

Sheromom · #18 05-13-2010, 05:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Belinda

Jerome L. Wigmore

Admission Date: 02/10/2006
Release Date: 03/10/2010

Offense Date: 10/09/2004
Sentence Date: 02/10/2006
Offense: 1 count CDS/Possession
Sentence: 4 years

Offense Date: 05/31/2005
Sentence Date: 02/10/2006
Offense: 1 count CDS/Possession
Sentence: 4 years

Offense Date: 10/27/2005
Sentence Date: 04/07/2008
Offense: 1 count CDS/Possession
Sentence: 6 years

Offense Date: 10/31/2005
Sentence Date: 04/07/2008
Offense: 1 count Criminal Restraint
Sentence: 6 years

So, this guy has a total sentence of 20 years and actually did only 4. Wonder why there are criminals running all over the place?

Are you kidding me?!!! How can this possibly be? I just do NOT understand! Too many explaination points but I just do NOT get it!

believe09 · #19 05-13-2010, 09:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Belinda

Jerome L. Wigmore

Admission Date: 02/10/2006
Release Date: 03/10/2010

Offense Date: 10/09/2004
Sentence Date: 02/10/2006
Offense: 1 count CDS/Possession
Sentence: 4 years

Offense Date: 05/31/2005
Sentence Date: 02/10/2006
Offense: 1 count CDS/Possession
Sentence: 4 years

Offense Date: 10/27/2005
Sentence Date: 04/07/2008
Offense: 1 count CDS/Possession
Sentence: 6 years

Offense Date: 10/31/2005
Sentence Date: 04/07/2008
Offense: 1 count Criminal Restraint
Sentence: 6 years

So, this guy has a total sentence of 20 years and actually did only 4. Wonder why there are criminals running all over the place?

Thank you Belinda for continuing to educate us.

No rape, not torture, no kidnapping charges. That I can see. Criminal Restraint? The women went voluntarily with him possibly-but they signed up for this treatment?

He doesnt have to register as a sex offender. Women and children of any ethnic minority should be very, very scared. Because next time he will just kill them and bury them in his yard.

Filly · #20 02-09-2012, 06:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Belinda

Jerome L. Wigmore

Admission Date: 02/10/2006
Release Date: 03/10/2010

Offense Date: 10/09/2004
Sentence Date: 02/10/2006
Offense: 1 count CDS/Possession
Sentence: 4 years

Offense Date: 05/31/2005
Sentence Date: 02/10/2006
Offense: 1 count CDS/Possession
Sentence: 4 years

Offense Date: 10/27/2005
Sentence Date: 04/07/2008
Offense: 1 count CDS/Possession
Sentence: 6 years

Offense Date: 10/31/2005
Sentence Date: 04/07/2008
Offense: 1 count Criminal Restraint
Sentence: 6 years

So, this guy has a total sentence of 20 years and actually did only 4. Wonder why there are criminals running all over the place?

Wait, wait, wait. This guy is out? I remember this.

I remember that mom being interviewed.

wfgodot · #21 02-09-2012, 07:04 PM

One of the original Philadelphia Inquirer articles, by Wendy Ruderman (mysteriew links it at #13 above but that link is dead). This was linked by a site calling it "The weirdest news story ever written in recorded history."

Backed by one of the women, a man says allegations he locked up and abused prostitutes are all wrong.

Quote:

"He was cool peoples to me," she said. "I miss him... . I love him."

Filly · #22 02-09-2012, 09:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wfgodot

One of the original Philadelphia Inquirer articles, by Wendy Ruderman (mysteriew links it at #13 above but that link is dead). This was linked by a site calling it "The weirdest news story ever written in recorded history."

Backed by one of the women, a man says allegations he locked up and abused prostitutes are all wrong.

Brilliant.

Worse than her backing her obvious connection is the use of "He was cool peoples to me".

How about how they busted his wife for dealing and the mom for running a nuisance house? Ya think?

Oh I so wish LindaNJ could have went to a trial across the bridge there.

"I miss my drugs. I mean I miss him" "I love drugs. I mean I love him"

Bless her and hopefully she got the help she needed so badly.

BTW I wanted to link to a City Paper article, but there were too many curses as in ya know like "Whaaaaaaaaatttttttt?"