01:08 AM EST on Sunday, January 16, 2005

BY KAREN LEE ZINER
Journal Staff Writer

The killer was cordial. He was an Ivy League graduate. That's what Michael Bruce Ross told the detective who knocked on his apartment door in Jewett City, Conn., on June 28, 1984. White, wiry and clean-cut was Ross. Behind his aviator-style glasses, one eye was slightly off center.

A few hours later, Ross spilled horrible secrets to Michael Malchik, then a 38-year-old detective with the Connecticut State Police Major Crime Unit in Eastern Connecticut, and his partner, Frank Griffin.

The detectives were investigating the murder of Wendy Baribeault of Jewett City, whose body had been found days earlier buried in a stone wall off Route 12 near her home. Malchik suspected that whoever killed Baribeault was tied to the deaths and disappearances of five other young Connecticut women in the previous two years.

Yes, Ross told them eventually. He killed Wendy Baribeault. Grabbed her off Route 12. Raped her. Strangled her. Tucked her body into the wall.

What about the other girls? Malchik asked, as the questioning wore on.

Where should I start? Ross replied.

He rattled off his victims' names: Tammy Williams. Debra Taylor. Robin Stavinsky, and "those two girls from Griswold," whom Malchik knew were Leslie Shelley and April Brunais. Said he'd raped all but one. Climbed on their backs and strangled them, dumped them like trash. Culverts and swamps became charnel houses for bodies turning to bone.

No one had connected the dots. No one, until Malchik traced Ross through a list of people who owned late-model Toyotas. That's the car witnesses said a white male in business clothes emerged from, who then skulked behind Baribeault.

Between 1981 and 1984, Ross left a trail of assaults, rapes and murders that zigzagged from New York to North Carolina, to Illinois, Ohio, and then Connecticut. Ross left at least eight bodies in his wake.

Journal photo / John Freidah

Serial killer Michael Ross is set to be executed in 10 days. Michael Malchik, above, the man who stopped him, worries that something will come up to delay the sentence.

Could Ross have been caught sooner? Could lives have been spared? Did investigators ignore signs? Did Ross's family protect him?

These questions haunt Malchik, even as Ross -- New England's most notorious serial killer since the Boston Strangler -- prepares for execution by lethal injection in 10 days.

Ross will be the first person to get the death penalty in New England since 1960. That is, if the execution goes forward.

THE INTERCEDING years have etched strain in Malchik's face. His trademark blond hair has dulled. A double stent keeps his heart beating.

After retiring from the state police, Malchik worked several years as a state investigator, opened his own private investigation firm, went nights to law school, and became a lawyer. He is now a practicing attorney in New London County.

By his own estimation, Malchik was at the top of his game when a supervisor handed him a file on the disappearance of Tammy Williams in 1982 -- nearly two years before Baribeault's murder.

Over his career, Malchik had cracked a number of headline homicide cases, and had a special talent for solving cold cases that had gone unsolved for years. They included the case of Clifford Kaba, who murdered a man in Connecticut, then moved to California. Malchik tracked Kaba down, extracted Kaba's confession on the phone, then had Sacramento police arrest the man.

Malchik had admirers, but he knew his big ego irked a few people.

He ignored it.

Retired State Police Lt. William Sydenham, who became Malchik's boss after Ross's capture, says of Malchik, "I always remember in the back of my mind, one of the things that would come out of his mouth when people would get on him is, 'If you can do it, it ain't braggin,' "

"To his credit, he usually was able to do it. He's got a lot of successful investigations under his belt, and Michael Ross is only one."

After a long day when everyone else went home exhausted, Malchik would leave, but then, says Sydenham, "he would lay everything out he had on the living room floor and go over things in his head and make notes." He was thorough, with pitbull determination. "That's probably one of the things that makes him successful as an investigator. He hates to fail."

TAMMY WILLIAMS, 17, was last seen struggling with a white male on Route 6 in Brooklyn, Conn., on Jan. 5, 1982. Debra Smith Taylor, 23, was last seen in Danielson on June 15, 1982. Hunters found her remains on Oct. 30 of that year, in a dried-up stream in a remote Canterbury cornfield.

Malchik suspected a link. The girls disappeared within 5 miles of each other. They were similar in height, weight, looks and age.

Malchik asked to work both cases, but says his supervisors thwarted him because they didn't see any connection -- or didn't want to.

Malchik grabbed the Taylor file from the other detective's desk, and took it home without him knowing.

Malchik also suggested turning to the press for help. "You have to stir up some publicity," he said. Investigate them as homicides. The bosses said forget it. Treat them as missing persons cases. No alarming the public.

Despite that, Malchik called a Norwich Bulletin reporter, and leaked his theory that the cases were connected -- and if so -- the suspect likely had previously been arrested for a sex crime or assault.

The leak landed him in hot water. He says he was told to keep quiet, forget the serial killer business, or face transfer. Or maybe lose his job.

At this juncture, the case stalled -- and Malchik fumed.

Ross later told Malchik he'd read the Norwich Bulletin article with the serial killer theory, and panicked.

"He said it was the first time anyone had put two and two together," says Malchik, "and he thought about turning himself in."

But then the heat died down. The serial killer theory vanished from the front pages, and the serial killer kept on killing.

AFTER HUNTERS found Taylor's body in Canterbury, Malchik and Griffin helped process the crime scene. Other detectives from Troop D in Danielson interviewed owners of the cornfield where the body was found.

Who dumped manure in the cornfield, those detectives asked the farm owners. The farm owners said, " 'Well, Dan Ross comes down here and dumps his chicken manure,' " according to Malchik.

Dan Ross, owner of Eggs Incorporated in Brooklyn, father of Michael Ross. At this point, in late 1982, detectives had not even heard the name Michael Ross. They didn't know he existed.

In the interview, Dan Ross "gave the names of people who came down with the dumptruck, but he didn't give Michael's name," says Malchik. "He tells them A, B and C, and leaves out D."

The police also did not know that Dan Ross's son, Michael, was in an Ohio prison at that time, for assaulting an off-duty policewoman in her home.

Dan Ross, who still lives in Brooklyn, declined to speak to a reporter.

Malchik says Patricia Ross, Dan Ross's former wife and Michael's mother, remarried and moved away; a reporter was unable to locate her.

Twenty months would pass before Malchik knocked on Ross's door in Jewett City. Twenty months, during which time four more girls were killed.

ROSS GOT out of prison in Ohio in December 1982, and returned to work at Eggs Incorporated, the family farm. After omitting his conviction on a job application, Ross took a job in May 1983 with Prudential Insurance Co. of America in Norwich, as a traveling insurance salesman.

On Nov. 16, 1983, Robin Stavinsky, 19, of Norwich, disappeared. Her body was found seven days later on the grounds of a Norwich hospital. Her purse was found in Preston, in a river.

On April 22, 1984, Leslie Shelley and April Brunais, both 14, disappeared while walking to a Jewett City pizza parlor.

Two months later, on June 13, Wendy Baribeault disappeared while walking from her home in Lisbon to a nearby convenience store.

But this time, there were several witnesses. They described a white male, in a short-sleeved white shirt, dark pants, with short dark hair, who got out of a blue, late-model compact car.

Two days later, searchers found Baribeault's body.

ONE WITNESS said he thought the suspect was driving a Datsun. Malchik got a state computer printout of people who owned late-model blue Datsuns.

Business clothes. Commuter road. Commuter hour. Instead of fleeing the killer took a wall apart and put her inside. Malchik thought it added up to someone who lived locally.

The plan "was to start from the body and move outward." Detectives fanned out, did hundreds of interviews that went nowhere, then grumbled.

Something wasn't working.

Sure enough, when they re-interviewed a witness who had earlier spoken with other detectives, the witness said he'd decided it was a Toyota. He'd called the state police, but the message got lost in the shuffle.

Malchik got a computer printout of people who owned late-model Toyotas.

"I took the four names closest to the body as the crow flies." It just so happened, Ross's name was the first one, out of 3,600 names.

On June 27th, he went to Ross's house at about 5 p.m.

He wasn't home. But there was a card on the front door of his apartment: Michael Ross, Prudential Insurance. "I thought, well at least he's got the type of job where he could move around -- a businessman. His business was local."

The next morning, Malchik went back. This time, Ross opened the door.

Malchik saw a clean-cut man in glasses, who was wearing a bathrobe.

"He was very -- kind of average. Non-flustered. Non-plussed . . . he was very pleasant. He said he'd been waiting for us [the police]. He knew we were looking for light-blue Toyotas. He knew my name. I remember thinking he knew more about me than I knew about him."

"I kind of thought he wasn't the guy. He was so normal-acting, I just didn't know . . . "

Ross invited Malchik into his living room. Malchik noticed, it was messy.

They talked. They talked about Cornell, about classes he'd liked, and classes he didn't like. They talked about Ross's girlfriend, , with whom he lived. Ross said he wanted to take over his father's egg farm.

Malchik asked Ross a routine question. Had he ever been arrested?

The answer gave Malchik a jolt.

"I guess you guys will find out anyway," Ross said, and told Malchik about the assaults in Illinois and Ohio.

What kind of assaults?

"The regular kind," Ross said.

Did it involve a woman? Malchik asked.

"Yeah."

Then Malchik asked Ross what he had been doing on June 13 -- the day Baribeault disappeared. Ross recited everything in detail, until about 4:30 p.m., (when witnesses spotted Baribeault and the suspect on Route 12), then said he couldn't remember after that. That raised a red flag for Malchik.

"I asked him if he'd mind coming down to the command post and answering some questions." Not a problem, Ross said.

MALCHIK AND GRIFFIN sat down with Ross at a temporary murder command post set up at the Lisbon Town Hall.

Several hours into the interview, Ross said he had been under the care of a psychologist.

Then, he said, "If someone were to go back under the care of a psychologist in a situation such as the death of Wendy Baribeault, was there a chance they wouldn't be arrested?" according to Malchik's testimony at trial.

"I said no, that wouldn't be possible," Malchik said.

"Do you think I killed Wendy Baribeault?" he said.

Yes, Malchik replied. Yes he did. And he thought Ross would go on killing, he said, so the important thing was, the killing had to stop.

"You're right," Ross said. "I killed Wendy Baribeault."

Malchick asked Ross if he wanted to waive his rights. He did. Then Ross repeated his disclosures, nearly word for word into a tape recorder.

It was just after noon. Detectives brought Ross to the site where Baribeault had been found. They took photos as Ross pointed: Here's where he grabbed her. Here's where he raped her. Here's where he killed her.

They took him back to his apartment, to collect some belongings. (As a result of a subsequent search warrant, other investigators would later shoot photos of piles of newspapers in Ross's bathroom with articles about the murders).

Later that afternoon, Ross led detectives to the bodies of April Brunais and Leslie Shelley; they were partly skeletonized and under branches and tree limbs, in a culvert.

He also pinpointed where he had buried Tammy Williams' body in a swamp off Route 6 in Brooklyn; investigators recovered those remains the next day.

Finally, Ross led them to a river, "and pointed to where he had wrapped Wendy Baribeault's clothes around a rock, and thrown them in." Divers found them.

Later, Ross said he'd raped and strangled a woman and left her for dead in a soybean field in Rolesville, N.C., but learned the next day that she'd survived. Ross's confession exonerated another man who'd been arrested, and remained a suspect although he had not been indicted.

Much later, Ross told a psychiatrist he'd killed two women in New York while attending Cornell: Dzung Ngoc Tu, a fellow student who was found dead in a gorge in 1981, and Paula Perrera, 16, of Wallkill, N.Y. He also tied himself to a number of unsolved rapes on campus while he was a senior there.

He was sentenced to up to 25 years in prison in the Perrera case, but was never prosecuted in Dzung's case. Nor was he prosecuted for the New York rapes.

AFTER THE CAPTURE, Malchik went from upstart detective to hero.

"Details Hold Keys for Homicide Detective." "Hunches, Leg Work, Led Detective to Ross." "Skilled Work, Determination, Led to Killer." Malchik -- "The Man Who Stopped Ross."

Some writers noted Malchik's disarming, California surfer looks and his empathetic face. Others cited his past accomplishments.

As the accolades accrued, prosecutors and investigators sought his opinion in the Jon Benet Ramsey and O.J. Simpson cases. Reporters called him about the Chandra Levy case.

Malchik says his success was largely about method.

"I call it 'The Curse of the Homicide Investigator,' " he laughs. "I've learned that the littlest thing can solve the case."

Malchik's wife would come home to case notes scattered across the floor and a husband who couldn't kick back after a day's work. "I'm wondering -- is it something I've missed? . . . it's like a curse. It can drive you crazy. You're thinking, am I looking at it the wrong way? Or is this just the case that can't be solved?"

He'd look and look, and then try another theory. He'd keep an open mind.

MALCHIK IS 59 now. In some ways, the case has swallowed his life.

"It seems like it's always there. I told the parents, you have to keep the ups and downs [in perspective]. They wanted everything to happen right away -- but even I didn't think it would be 21 years later."

He left police work to become a lawyer. He liked working on cases. Then came the heart blockage, forcing an ambitious workaholic to adopt a part-time schedule.

"I feel a little bit cheated," he says. "I had big plans."

Still, Malchik is proud of being the guy who caught Ross. If that's his biggest professional achievement, then that's quite enough.

"You only live your life once, and if I was able to accomplish that -- it was worthwhile. If it's affected my health -- I'm not sure. But I'm proud of the fact that I may have saved somebody else's daughter or granddaughter. And since he [Ross] said he would keep on doing it, and statistics bear that out, I think it's true."

Something else troubles Malchik. Did Ross kill others he hasn't named?

From what Malchik knows about serial killers, "these people don't just stop for six or seven months and start up again. And there are some blocks of several months," where Ross's murderous activities stopped.

Or did they?

That's a question Malchik hopes Ross might answer before he's executed.

MALCHIK PROMISED the families he'd see the case through to the end.

He attends every court hearing, and Dec. 28, 2004, is no exception.

Malchik watches from the third row in New London Superior Court, as Inmate 127404 hobbles across the room in ankle chains and takes the stand. The day marks what could be the last time Ross appears in public.

The facial features of Connecticut's most famous prisoner are softer than when he was captured 20 years ago, and somehow feminized, accented by a chestnut ponytail that curls under like a woman's chignon. "The dude looks like a chick," says one reporter in the press section.

Michael Bruce Ross is fighting for his death. The judge must determine, is Ross mentally competent to decide he should die?

Dozens of spectators witness the sight of a serial killer crying on the stand, dabbing his tears with a white handkerchief.

"I'm not incompetent and they know that. And then they say I'm trying to do state-assisted suicide, trying to use the machinery of the state to exinguish a life that's not worth living. They know damn well it's not the truth."

"It's my right. You may not agree, people may not agree -- but for 10 years I've been trying to do this. I don't think I'm crazy. It's something I have the right to do." Ross says he's doing it so the parents will no longer suffer. "I'm doing what I believe is good."

The judge pronounces Ross competent to make that decision.

Outside the courthouse, Malchik looks disgusted. "He's running a game on us." In this case, the death penalty fits, and it's time to get this over with, Malchik says. "He's been convicted and sentenced to death by two different juries. It's bordering on ludicrous."

December 28th marks a cresting of floodwaters.

In the weeks that follow, lawyers file a blizzard of lawsuits to halt the execution. Ross's father files one, claiming that lethal injection causes an excruciating death. Ross's former public defenders file several. One claims that Ross is mentally incompetent. They get turned down, they appeal. Supreme Court. Superior Court. Supreme Court.

From around the country, the antideath penalty forces begin massing in Connecticut.

Malchik has a bad feeling. "It's not going to happen. I just don't think we'll see this."

Karen Lee Ziner can be reached at (401) 277-7375 or kziner [at] projo.com.