Ebenezer wanted our family to shift to South Africa permanently. My mom liked the idea and she accepted. We were living happily in South Africa. Though I was not very happy, I felt South Africa a better place than Chennai. One day, I was playing cricket with the neighbour kids (Allen did not join us because he didn’t like any outdoor game) for a long time from morning 10 till 6 in the evening, even without lunch. After finishing the game, I went to home only to find mom and Allen dead. This was the greatest despair in my life. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I started to run. I had to run until I escape from death which had consumed my mum and bro.
I continued my run for one full night. The next day I woke up and found that I was lying in a comfortable bed. ‘Was all this a strange dream?’, I thought. A stranger appeared in front of me (confirming it was not a dream) and told that I was lying unconscious in his farm and I looked very tired and dehydrated. So he took me into his home inside the farm. He asked me who I was. I told him about my mom and bro but didn’t tell about Ebenezer. I told him that my dad was dead. I started to weep. I was only 10 years old on that day. I couldn’t control my emotions. The stranger told that his name was
Police stated that they had identified 26-year-old
I could very well understand that it was my family’s story on the news paper.
From that moment I lived as Son of Sam only. My dad (
Till that I had solved only simple puzzles.
This one sounded tough. But after working for about half an hour I solved it. It was Leonardo Davinci. It was quite tough for me because I had just heard the name and it wasn’t a very familiar name.
He taught me everything in puzzles from Caesar cipher to Simple riddles. We used to play daily with his puzzles. As time proceeded, he also imbibed lateral thinking into me. He asked me, a puzzle:
A man wanted a clock for the wall, the traditional kind with an hour hand and a minute hand; but he wanted its hands to move counterclockwise. Why?
I was thinking. Why someone would want time to be reversed, because he might have wanted to see the time in a mirror.
When I told this to my dad, he I could see that he was impressed but he hid that and told me, “Son, you are pretty close. Think further!”
I thought for a while and got the answer. How did I miss it the first time?
The man must have been a hairdresser and wanted a clock where he could see it and tell time easily, but where his customers could see it and tell time, too. He did not want a small clock on his counter, because the counter space would have been so limited. He could not mount anything on the large mirror in front of his customers. Therefore, he wanted a backwards clock for the rear wall, so that it would appear correct to customers who looked in the mirror. He knew that he could learn to tell time from it after a bit of practice (subtracting time from twelve would be the trick!)
Dad was very happy with the way I was solving his puzzles.
In few months I became an expert in puzzles like my dad. He also taught what out of the box thinking was. He gave me nine dots and asked me to connect those dots with only four straight lines without pausing anywhere.
I was staring at those dots.
My dad was very happy with this solution. He told me that I had out of the box thinking. Generally people form a box with these nine dots and they can’t solve it at all. Only when one comes out of the box, this puzzle would be solved. But, I never formed the box. My dad told me that, ‘I was special’. That was the first time someone called me so. I was on cloud nine.
Ten years passed. That day he asked me a very good puzzle, he asked me to decode this cipher:
UJBFITDBJCLSTMQM
It might be tough for a stranger like you. But since I was now an expert in Puzzle it took me less than a minute to decode it. The answer was Brazilian football player
I employed Caesar cipher with shift key as 1.
The result was TIAEHSCAIBKRSLPL
Wrote it in the Caesar Square
T I A E
H S C A
I B K R
S L P L
and read from the top down.
THISISBLACKPEARL
Adding spaces to the plain text, 'THIS IS BLACK PEARL' is obtained, which is the nick name of Brazilian foot ball player
From using the computer I learnt about e-mails, Internet and many other things. I learnt about cryptography and that was my area of interest. I had to leave my dad temporarily to learn more about it. And after two years, I returned back to home. I got a job too.
After a month of rest I had to join the job. I had to do cryptanalytic attacks on the codes of the terrorists. It was for a government organization (I cannot reveal more about my job). Cryptanalytic attacks vary in potency and how much of a threat they pose to real-world cryptosystems. The majority of results found in modern cryptanalytic research are of this type. Essentially, the practical importance of an attack is dependent on the answers to the following three questions:
In simple words, this was puzzle solving once again!
It was dad’s birthday. It was special because, it was his fiftieth birthday. A stranger came home that day. It was an old woman, with the creepy looks of a witch. Dad was surprised to see that woman. He then introduced here to me that she was his step mother. And her name was Groenewald Marthmari.
Dad introduced me to her as his adapted son. I was surprised at her arrival. Dad had never spoken about her in all my years with him. She told that her son had a rift with her that his dad didn’t give any of his property to them in his will. And, her son was more like her unlike Sam who was more like his dad. She couldn’t live with her son any longer. So she came to live with her step son, rest of her life. Dad was happy to have her at home. But the first impression I got on her would never change, the creepy witch.
One month had passed and I left to join my job. One day, I got a phone call from Groenewald Marthmari. She told that, Sam was dead due to heart attack. That was the greatest shock in my life. I immediately left to my home. By the time I left, dad was buried. Since, I was only his adopted son and he had not written any will, all his properties were now inherited by his half brother. I could not concentrate on my work. He was one person who remained in this earth for me and he too had left. I was surprised at his sudden death. I took this matter to investigation. Checked out the entire house and placed secret tapes in my home too. That’s when I came to know about the dad’s step mother’s cruel plans.
She had killed my dad with poison and made the world believe that he had heart attack. She had done this for his properties which he would have given them, if they asked for it. I planned to kill dad’s step mother, but she died naturally even before I finished planning. My life went into misery due to polygamy. My dad’s life went into misery due to polygamy. Polygamy was the villain in mine and dad’s life. Or rather polygamists were the villains. I had to stop them. I decided to start it from the place where it all began.
I returned back to Chennai. I got a new job because of my profound experience in my previous job. I wanted to kill Ebenezer first. But the message would not be conveyed. I collected information about famous personalities who were suspected of polygamy. And selected the candidates where the children where either unaware of their parent or unhappy with their parent.
I wanted to play a game with the police department, the cat and rat chase game. All my life I had been solving the puzzles. I formed certain puzzles with my candidates. I had decided to give that as a clue to the police department. I wanted to match my power with the police department. The shock of my dad’s death had created an alter ego in me of which I was very much aware of.
I had used my pet name SOS for the police to get confused. I used to sign my letters or clues or messages as
SOS
I'm feeble, polite ogre.
It was a clue for the police which they had not solved and would never solve. It was an anagram of “Miles to go before I sleep!” It meant that I would be continuing my murders.
I had selected the primeth prime series for my murders. I discovered this series when I was solving a puzzle given by dad.
2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 31
were the prime numbers in a month I had chosen for murders, May.
I was more specific with the dates by selecting the primeth prime series.
2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 31
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Choosing the second, third, fifth … prime numbers from the list of prime numbers formed the primeth prime series.
The top five candidates in my list were:
Doctor Dhananjay
Actress Angelina
Politician Harsha Nidhi
Businessman Ebenezer Jacob Francis
Doctor Ravindhra Bhat.
They were persons I met during different stages of my life. Some way or the other, they had been associated with my life (I don’t want you to know about that). All that you should know is, they are weeds in this society and I am removing them from this field.
I forgot to mention that, the one special talent I had was, I could write in three different handwritings which were entirely different. I used one of those in my letters and clues to the police.
I had been successful in killing all my candidates. I never thought I would end up as a serial killer. I would enter into a period of hibernation after one last murder. My last murder would be me. Yes, it’s the killing of the killer inside me.
