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On March 21, 2000, when police fired 27 bullets
into Joseph C. Palczynski,his life reached the violent ending he had
long predicted. In his last days, the 31-year-old man had followed through
on a persistent threat -- to harm the family of any girlfriend who dared
leave him -- and killed those who got in his way.
Over a span of 13 years, he had lured at least seven young women
into a fantasy relationship. And one by one, each had discovered
the truth of Joby's dangerously controlling personality.
Amie was 16 when he beat her and held her captive in 1987.
Kimberly was 16 when he blackened her eye, knocked her to her knees
and threatened her with a razor blade in 1988.
Sharon was 17 when he attacked her at her school and threatened "to
blow her brains out" in 1991.
A Gooding, Idaho, girl was 15 when Joby assaulted her in 1992.
Michella was 17 when he choked her and slammed her head against
the shower tiles on Christmas Day 1995.
Stacy had just turned 17 when Joe grabbed her by the neck, shoved
her against a wall and threatened to throw her off a balcony in 1996.
Tracy Whitehead, the last of his girlfriends, was also the oldest.
She was 20 when she met him. She was 22 when he murdered the couple
sheltering her, then kidnapped and terrorized her.
Joe Palczynski's story began to unfold publicly on March 7. For
two weeks, it held the citizens of Baltimore -- and many beyond --
spellbound in horror. But the unknown tale -- the lengthy pattern
of domestic abuse preceding Palczynski's rampage -- is chilling as
well. The women who shared their stories with The Sun hope that their
painful experiences can serve as cautionary tales, demonstrating
how difficult it is to stop domestic violence.
"The scary thing," says Stephen E. Bailey, assistant
state's attorney of Baltimore County and a prosecutor who faced Palczynski
in court, "is that the system worked fairly well."
To the former victims and their families, there was never a question
of whether Joby would eventually kill someone. The only question
was when.
These young women did exactly what they were supposed to: They
left their abuser, sought protective orders or filed charges. And
each time, their actions put them at even greater risk.
When he was no longer able to use the power of love to control
them, Joby turned to fear. He knew how to cultivate his "badness," to
make it a source of influence. He kept his body looking like the
lethal weapon he claimed it was, boasted loudly about his dark past
and often predicted he would "die by the bullet." Joby
believed he could make a girlfriend come back to him -- or drop charges
-- if she was terrified by what would happen if she didn't.
Often he threatened to kill the girl's parents and leave her alive
to suffer.
Joby liked people to be afraid of him, thrived on it, says George
Coleman, who became a close friend when he was 14 and Joby was a
high school senior.
Joby's male friends were almost always younger than he and easily
impressed by cars and weapons. In that circle, toughness equaled
status, and guns added to the equation. When Coleman first knew him,
Joby had a rifle and a Magnum handgun. He played Russian roulette.
He never possessed a high regard for life, Coleman says, and wanted
to make sure everyone knew it.
Fear controls people, Joby told his last girlfriend. And when it
didn't, when the young women persisted with their charges, Joby benefited
from powerful cultural stereotypes about domestic violence and its
victims: It's her word against his ... That's their private business
... He's always been so polite and well-mannered ... She doesn't
look beat up to me ... She must have done something to provoke him.
In one sense, their collective efforts did work: Joby went to jail
twice.
But when he was released, there was always another girlfriend,
another victim.
And with each soured relationship and each trip to court, Joby
grew more afraid of returning to jail. He would do whatever it took
to force his victims to drop their charges. At one point, he masterminded
a campaign of intimidation from inside the Baltimore County Detention
Center.
For Joby, the stakes reached their highest in March, when Tracy
Whitehead had him arrested for beating her. Another assault conviction
would violate his probation and send him to jail for 10 years.
In the past, Palczynski's lawyers had claimed that mental illness
was to blame for his actions. He was treated at mental health facilities
almost a dozen times between the ages of 15 and 28. He had gone in
and out of therapy, on and off medication. His diagnoses changed
-- and were often contradictory. He was identified as hysterical,
as depressed, as paranoid schizophrenic, as bipolar and as having
personality disorders.
To some his behavior read like the textbook description of a chronic
domestic abuser: manipulative, controlling, possessive, intimidating,
physically violent. Ordered by the courts to attend a program for
perpetrators of domestic violence, he was expelled because of his
constantly disruptive behavior.
When it came to rehabilitation, he tried just about everything
the criminal justice system had to offer.
But nothing, ultimately, could save George and Gloria Shenk, Jennifer
McDonnel and David Meyers from Joby's most desperate hours. The four
died in March during Joby's frenzied attempt to keep Tracy Whitehead
from leaving him.
At that point, Joby felt he had nothing to lose.
"I can't live no more," he told his mother the day before
he kidnapped his girlfriend. "I'm going to have to die."
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