人物:美国史上最致命连环杀手(2)

Williamson was at a cold-case conference in December 2017 when she and Texas Ranger¹ James Holland, an expert on interviewing sociopaths, happened to hear about Little, who— despite dozens of arrests for violent crimes

2017年12月威廉姆森参加了一个悬案会议，当时她和反社会者面谈专家、德州骑警詹姆斯·霍兰德碰巧听说了利特尔，——尽管数十次因暴力犯罪被捕

—had eluded² murder convictions until 2014, when his DNA³ connected him to the late-1980s Los Angeles murders of Audrey, 35, Carol Alford, 41, and Guadalupe Apodaca, 46.

——利特尔直到2014年才被定谋杀罪，那时他的DNA将他与上世纪80年代末发生在洛杉矶的谋杀联系起来时，受害者是35岁的奥黛丽(Audrey)、41岁的卡罗尔·阿尔福德(Carol Alford)和46岁的瓜达卢佩·阿帕代卡(Guadalupe Apodaca)。

Williamson and Holland had a hunch⁴ that Little—who at first denied those murders but had run out of appeals by then—might have information on cold cases that had long vexed⁵ them.

威廉姆森和霍兰德有这么一点预感——利特尔起初否认那些谋杀，但到那时已经不能上诉了——长期困扰他们的悬案，此时可能有了一点眉目。

So with Williamson and FBI analyst⁶ Christie Palazzolo listening from across the hall with a pile of case files and access to the FBI database, Holland first met with Little at the California prison in May 2018, gingerly poking⁷ into the 1994 unsolved murder of Denise Brothers in Odessa, Texas.

所以，2018年5月，威廉姆森和联邦调查局分析员克里斯蒂·帕拉佐洛(Christie Palazzolo)带着一堆案件档案和联邦调查局数据库，在大厅的另一端聆听霍兰德的讲述时，霍兰德第一次在加州监狱见到利特尔，小心翼翼地调查了1994年发生在德克萨斯州敖德萨的丹尼斯兄弟谋杀案。

"Jim was talking about, 'Did you ever do anything in Texas?' And threw out city names, threw out Odessa. And Little just unloaded, basically the contents of the Odessa case file that Christie and I had in front of us," says Williamson.

“吉姆说‘你在德州做过什么事吗？没有说城市的名字，没有说敖德萨。利特尔就不再防备，侃侃而谈，基本上，我和克里斯蒂面前的敖德萨案件档案的内容就是这样。”威廉姆森说。

"That's how all the cases have come out. He just kept talking, telling us what he did, where he did it, listing off cities, approximate years. It was dumb founding."

“所有的案子都是这样了结的。他只是不停地说，告诉我们他做了什么，在哪里做的，列出城市，大概有多少年。这是一个愚蠢的发现。”

All told, Holland logged more than 700 hours of one-on-one interviews with Little, plying⁸ the killer⁹ with peanut M&Ms and Dr.Pepper to keep his confessions¹⁰ coming.

话虽如此，霍兰德总共对利特尔进行了700多个小时的一对一采访，用花生巧克力豆和胡椒博士来逼供。

To gain Little's trust Holland even talked Ector County, Texas, District Attorney Bobby Bland¹¹ into waiving¹² the death penalty in exchange for Little's guilty plea in Brothers's murder.

为了获得利特尔的信任，霍兰德甚至说服了德克萨斯州的埃克特县的地方检察官鲍比·布兰德放弃死刑，以换取利特尔对兄弟谋杀案的认罪。

"That broke open the floodgates, and he started confessing to a bunch of cases," Bland says. "The details he gave were so uncanny that they had to be true."

“这打开了闸门，他开始坦白一系列的案件，”布兰德说。“他说的那些细节太离奇了，肯定是真的。”

And Little seemed to relish¹³ reliving his crimes, most of which played out before DNA testing and surveillance cameras were ubiquitous.

利特尔似乎喜欢重温自己的罪行，其中大部分都是在DNA检测和监控摄像头无处不在之前发生的。

"You have a person who enjoyed what he did and wanted to remember the details for his own gratification," says Bland.

布兰德说:“这个人，他喜欢自己所做的事情，并希望记住其中的细节以满足自己。”

At one point prison guards showed Williams on and Palazzolo portraits of celebrities¹⁴ that Little had drawn¹⁵ and taped up in his cell. "They were pretty decent, and we could tell who everyone was," Williamson explains.

有一次，狱警给威廉姆斯和帕拉佐洛看了利特尔在牢房里画完贴起来的名人肖像。威廉姆森解释说：“他们相当出名，我们可以分辨出每个人是谁。”

"So Ranger Holland was like, 'Hey, you really like talking about your victims. Would you like to draw them?' Little said, 'Yeah.' He would stay up all night drawing."

“所以霍兰德说，‘嘿，你那么喜欢谈论你的受害者。你想把它们画出来吗？利特尔说：“好的。”’他会通宵达旦地画画。”

Soon Holland invited other cold case detectives, like Miami-Dade, Fla., Police Det. David Denmark, to take a crack at Little on their own unsolved cases.

不久，霍兰德又邀请了其他的悬案侦探，比如佛罗里达州的迈阿密-戴德，警官戴维·德马克(David Denmark)对自己未侦破的案件进行了调查。

"We were all ears, and he was all mouth," says Denmark. "We were like, 'Holy crap!' He knows he's going to die in prison, and here he is telling us he wants to help us out."

“我们洗耳恭听，他只管说就好，”德马克说。“我们说，‘天啊!’他知道他会死在监狱里，而现在他却告诉我们他想帮助我们。”

1 ranger   

n.国家公园管理员，护林员；骑兵巡逻队员

参考例句：

• He was the head ranger of the national park.他曾是国家公园的首席看守员。
• He loved working as a ranger.他喜欢做护林人。

2 eluded   

v.（尤指机敏地）避开( elude的过去式和过去分词 )；逃避；躲避；使达不到

参考例句：

• The sly fox nimbly eluded the dogs. 那只狡猾的狐狸灵活地躲避开那群狗。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The criminal eluded the police. 那个罪犯甩掉了警察的追捕。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

3 DNA   

(缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸

参考例句：

• DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell.脱氧核糖核酸储存于细胞的细胞核里。
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code.基因突变是指DNA密码的改变。

4 hunch   

n.预感，直觉

参考例句：

• I have a hunch that he didn't really want to go.我有这么一种感觉，他并不真正想去。
• I had a hunch that Susan and I would work well together.我有预感和苏珊共事会很融洽。

5 vexed   

adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论

参考例句：

• The conference spent days discussing the vexed question of border controls. 会议花了几天的时间讨论边境关卡这个难题。
• He was vexed at his failure. 他因失败而懊恼。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

6 analyst   

n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家

参考例句：

• What can you contribute to the position of a market analyst?你有什么技能可有助于市场分析员的职务？
• The analyst is required to interpolate values between standards.分析人员需要在这些标准中插入一些值。

7 poking   

n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢

参考例句：

• He was poking at the rubbish with his stick. 他正用手杖拨动垃圾。
• He spent his weekends poking around dusty old bookshops. 他周末都泡在布满尘埃的旧书店里。

8 plying   

v.使用（工具）( ply的现在分词 )；经常供应（食物、饮料）；固定往来；经营生意

参考例句：

• All manner of hawkers and street sellers were plying their trade. 形形色色的沿街小贩都在做着自己的买卖。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• It was rather Mrs. Wang who led the conversation, plying Miss Liu with questions. 倒是汪太太谈锋甚健，向刘小姐问长问短。 来自汉英文学 - 围城

9 killer   

n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者

参考例句：

• Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
• The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。

10 confessions   

n.承认( confession的名词复数 )；自首；声明；（向神父的）忏悔

参考例句：

• It is strictly forbidden to obtain confessions and to give them credence. 严禁逼供信。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Neither trickery nor coercion is used to secure confessions. 既不诱供也不逼供。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

11 bland   

adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的

参考例句：

• He eats bland food because of his stomach trouble.他因胃病而吃清淡的食物。
• This soup is too bland for me.这汤我喝起来偏淡。

12 waiving   

v.宣布放弃( waive的现在分词 )；搁置；推迟；放弃（权利、要求等）

参考例句：

• Other steps suggested included waiving late payment charges, making quicker loan decisions and easing loan terms. 其他测试还包括免去滞纳金，尽快做出贷款决定和放宽贷款条件。 来自互联网
• Stuyvesant Town offers the same perk on some apartments, along waiving the broker's fee. StuyvesantTown对于他们出租的某些房子也提供同样的好处，顺带还省略了中介费。 来自互联网

13 relish   

n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味

参考例句：

• I have no relish for pop music.我对流行音乐不感兴趣。
• I relish the challenge of doing jobs that others turn down.我喜欢挑战别人拒绝做的工作。

14 celebrities   

n.（尤指娱乐界的）名人( celebrity的名词复数 )；名流；名声；名誉

参考例句：

• He only invited A-list celebrities to his parties. 他只邀请头等名流参加他的聚会。
• a TV chat show full of B-list celebrities 由众多二流人物参加的电视访谈节目

15 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。