On this day, Sept. 10, in 1977, Gerald Gallego met a young woman, Charlene Williams, at a poker club in Sacramento. The smitten couple blossomed into one of the most violent serial killing duos in history.
After a year, Gallego decided he wanted to turn his sick fantasies into reality. Charlene Gallego convinced two girls, 16 and 17, to climb into their van. Gallego greeted them with a .25-caliber pistol and bound them. Charlene stayed in the van. When he returned hours later, he told his wife, “Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies.” Gallego then struck the girls with a tire iron and shot them dead.
The couple repeated this gruesome scene several times, killing 10 girls over two years.
They were caught when friends of a young slain couple wrote down Gallego’s license plate number.
Charlene was sentenced to 16 years and was released from prison in 1997. Gallego was sentenced to life and died of rectal cancer in 2002.
– Scott McCabe
