Beyond The Boardwalk

Harold Dow Reports On Four Grisly Killings In Atlantic City

(CBS)  Whatever the killer’s religion, Kelly feels strongly that he’s left a more important clue - one that could be the key to the case: all the victims were found barefoot. “He's taken their shoes and he's taken their socks. I have to believe we're looking at a serial killer with a foot fetish here,” Kelly says.

The foot-fetish theory reportedly led police, and 48 Hours, to an ex-con named Mark Hessee, who’s now an aspiring minister. At the time of the murders, Hessee was living at a flop house on the track, the Fox Manor Hotel. He once offered a woman there a foot massage.

“Do you think you became a suspect because they heard about you massaging someone's feet?” Dow asks Hessee.

“Yeah,” he replies. “I admire women that take care of their bodies. I mean, you know, and when I see a woman in sandals, and her toes are all painted up. And her feet are taken care of. I will compliment her.”

During his stay at the Fox Manor, Hessee crossed paths with both Kim Raffo and Barbara Breidor. He remembers trying, unsuccessfully, to get Kim to give up prostitution. “And that's what bothers me the most. Is these people that are not ready to come to the Lord, and walk away. A lot of 'em end up dead,” he tells Dow.

Asked if he killed those four women, Hessee says, “No. No I didn't. I can't kill anybody. I never have. Never will.”

Hessee is apparently not the only man in town with a thing for feet. Denise Hill, an experienced prostitute, told police she had a close personal encounter with a foot freak at a Best Western the same week the bodies were discovered.

“He was talking my shoes. He liked my shoes. But at this time I didn't know anything about the murders. But he was so obsessed with my shoes,” she recalls.

Denise says she even gave the john a pair of her shoes. “I got him the shoes. They were just like this color, same color,” she says.

But then the date went from strange to terrifying. “He was talking about some crazy stuff. He was talking about like really bizarre stuff like he's killed some people,” she explains.

If Denise had seen the killer, what did he look like? To find out, 48 Hours hired criminal image profiler Jeanne Boylan, who frequently works with the FBI. Boylan is the artist behind thousands of famous sketches, most notably the Unabomber.

Denise told Jeanne she spent several hours with the man, and though he was wearing glasses and a hat the entire time, she claims his face is seared in her mind. Getting that image on paper took all day. But by nightfall, the sketch revealed what had been locked in Denise’s memory for months.

Looking at the sketch, Denise was convinced it was the same man she had spent time with in the hotel.

48 Hours sent the sketch to investigators, but Prosecutor Blitz would not comment on Denise’s story. Still, Boylan thinks it can be useful, despite its limitations.

“The likelihood is that this is a common outfit for him, something that might trigger a memory with a landlady, a neighbor,” she says.

In fact, the sketch caught the eye of Barbara Breidor’s daughter, Dominique. She thinks the man may have come by her parents’ house years ago. “Well when I was in the middle of playing with my mom she opened the door. He tried to sell her something. I've just seen him. And I'm pretty sure it is him,” she explains.

Still, as the months roll on, none of these leads pan out. Schlue, Coles, and Hessee are never charged with the murders. And some of the victims’ families grow frustrated.

But soon, and suddenly, a new suspect was about to emerge. After five months of dead ends, the harsh spotlight of the investigation turns toward this man - 35-year-old Terry Oleson.