Colorado killer details gruesome murders

updated 8:08 p.m. ET July 29, 2006

DENVER - Robert Charles Browne says he shot some of his victims and strangled others, in one case with a pair of leather shoelaces. He knocked out one woman with ether, then used an ice pick on her. He put a rag soaked in ant killer over another victim’s face and stabbed her nearly 30 times with a screwdriver.

If Browne is telling the truth about killing 49 people across the country, his crimes practically constitute a manual on the many ways in which to kill.

“None ever got away; never gave the opportunity,” Browne told investigators during a series of prison interviews. “If you’re going to do it, just do it.”

It may have been the variety in his methods that kept authorities from connecting the crimes until Browne sent a taunting letter to prosecutors six years ago.

“Sometimes killers do not replicate things from one crime to the next,” said criminologist Robert Keppel, a professor at Sam Houston State University and author of the 1997 book “Signature Killers.” “That makes it hard on police.”

Colorado authorities announced Thursday that Browne, 53, claimed to have committed scores of killings between 1970 and his arrest in 1995. He has pleaded guilty to two slayings and is serving a life sentence for murdering a Colorado girl in 1991.

Court papers paint a picture of a predator who loathed women and thought he was justified in killing them because they were cheating on their husbands and boyfriends — in many cases, with him.

Killings were never planned, Browne said
Browne, who has been married six times, said he has been disappointed with women his whole life. “Women are unfaithful, they screw around a lot, they cheat and they are not of the highest moral value,” he told investigators. “They cheat and they are users.”

INVESTIGATORS'   AFFIDAVIT The 44-page affidavit is a chronology of Robert Charles Browne’s contacts with investigators and a case-by-case narrative from those investigators. The document contains profane language and graphic descriptions. Click here for the .pdf file.

He told investigators he rarely if ever planned a killing, choosing his prey at random. He met his victims in everyday settings — a motel bar, a convenience store where he worked. In one case, he was familiar with a victim’s apartment because he had changed the locks there as a maintenance man.

He said he used different types of guns and sometimes beat his victims. One died after he put a rag soaked in ant killer over her face while she was asleep, he said.

Investigators so far have been able to corroborate Browne’s claims in six slayings — three in Louisiana, two in Texas and one in Arkansas, El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa said.

In some cases, however, investigators have been unable to confirm some of his claims to have dumped bodies in certain places. And in other cases, he cannot remember enough details for investigators to check out what he is telling them.

An Army veteran who served in South Korea during the 1970s, Browne described killings committed with unspeakable cruelty. He said he dismembered Rocio Sperry, whose remains have never been found, in a bathtub, “just popping” her joints and taking the body apart, investigators said. He said he was worried about being spotted carrying the body outside.

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