Eyes of a Pedophile Detecting Child Predators

Great Falls, Montana 1996

Early one February morning, ten-year-old Zachary Ramsay got up and dressed in his favorite blue jersey with Ramsay printed in gold across the back. The third grader looked terrific for the special Good Guy Breakfast. Many fathers would be at Whittier Elementary to join their kids, but Zach’s dad wouldn’t be there. After losing a contentious custody battle, his military father lived in another state. His mother’s boyfriend recently moved out, so he couldn’t be there either to see Zach being honored for his artwork.

Zach went alone.

Weighing in at ninety pounds, Zach resembled a young football star as he walked out the front door of his apartment building sporting his team jacket. The boy took his usual six block route along a narrow alley. He passed familiar cluttered backyards and derelict cars. In the 46 degree weather, a brisk west wind ruffled his curly black hair.

The bright artistic student had many friends at school. Being with them distracted him from problems at home. Zach was so distressed one day that he ran away from home. It wasn’t long before he called his mom and was back with his little brother and sister.

Zach hurried on to school alone—but he wasn’t alone.

That morning, the attractive boy became a target in the eyes of a pedophile.

When Zach didn’t show up for class, his friends worried. The concerned teacher telephoned Zach’s mother. One hour later, she called police and reported her son missing.

Zachary Ramsay has never been found.

Author's Note

An evidence video of Zachary Ramsay’s route to school scanned the alley like Zach’s eyes would have that morning. Jerky movements seemed to follow the boy’s jaunty step, stopping occasionally and then proceeding. As I watched, I sensed I was walking behind Zach, watching him through the eyes of a stalking predator—a hunter waiting for the right time to strike.

As pedophiles stalk victims, sexual fantasies dominate their thoughts. Like other hunters, they target specific prey. Pedophiles hunt children.

To achieve sexual arousal and gratification, these predators choose children of a specific age, appearance and gender with the thrill of acting out fantasies undetected. They live among us in plain view, often working close to children. In positions of power, they ingratiate themselves to parents and groom children to trust them.

Most attackers are not strangers.

This book examines David Brown’s life from his religious beginnings to becoming the violent pedophile Nathanael Bar-Jonah. His deciphered coded writings and letters from prison, legal documents, testimony of his victims and those who knew him unravel the chilling crime history. Bar-Jonah harmed many children. His coded writings reveal he killed and cannibalized Zachary Ramsay.

At the time of Bar-Jonah’s arrest, I was working as an emergency physician in a hospital located across the street from his residence. My close proximity and access to information through cooperation from law enforcement and legal teams enhanced my ability to accurately detail this case. Consolidating information from many sources and extensive research on pedophile and sexual predatory behavior provides the foundation for this book.

My purpose is to educate people about child predators. I have seen terror in the eyes of innocent children raped by pedophiles and deep emotional scars in my sister, cousin and friends from unreported childhood rapes. I hope the information opens eyes and minds to the importance of reporting and prosecuting pedophiles. If it saves even one child from harm, my time has been well spent.

Chapter 1

Evolution to Violence

Abuse victims often become abusers themselves but not always. Attorney author Andrew Vachess aptly stated: "While early childhood experiences may impel, they do not compel. In the end, evil is a matter of choice."

In the cycle of abuse, the prey becomes the predator. In Bar-Jonah’s case, he is a victim of abuse who exemplifies the cycle. Above average intelligence and without obvious psychopathology, he learned to fit in well. He didn’t look or act like what most people envision when they think of a crazy person. But pedophilia is a mental illness, defined as a Paraphilia in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Evidence of the disorder only becomes apparent when they offend.

If you had met Nathanael Bar-Jonah, you would understand how mothers came to trust their children in his care. His loving mother taught him appropriate social skills and ways of the church, but the dark side of their perfect family eventually surfaced.

From the beginning, Phil Brown resented his wife Tyra’s pregnancy. Over forty-years-of-age at the time, it is likely her pregnancy was a surprise and unplanned. After David’s birth, Phil’s disdain turned to horror when he looked into his son’s face. The healthy blond boy had one blue eye and one brown eye, the same strange eyes as Phil’s father, a man who spent most of his life as a mumbling vagrant eating from garbage cans.

David said he never met his outcast grandfather and maintained his own eyes changed color after birth. Heterochromia iridum (different colored irises) is an inherited variation in eye pigment common in dogs and other mammals but not prevalent in humans. Nor is it associated with mental illness, but Phil may have thought otherwise.

Growing up believing he was flawed, David felt inferior. Every time he looked in a mirror, David was reminded he was different. Later he used his wild eyes as powerful weapons.

When David’s mother visited a woman and her two daughters who lived on the first floor of their three story apartment building, they welcomed her. Through babysitting, the girls and their mother got to know the Brown family well. Phil’s mean streak was no secret to them. One girl described Tyra as a sweet, simple woman with the patience of a saint who would invite them to stay for dinner. They rarely accepted her offer because of Phil. Her sister said, Phil would come home irritated. I would leave quickly. He had a weird look about him…I was afraid of him. The anger in his eyes frightened me. If I heard him coming up the stairs, I’d go out through the back window and climb down the big apple tree so I wouldn’t have to see him.

With little income as an automobile mechanic and another mouth to feed, Phil moved the family to Florida seeking better employment. A Florida photograph shows six-year-old David standing in a suggestive pose, wearing a girl’s two-piece swimsuit and a blond wig. The photo could be an indication of early gender confusion sometimes seen in sexual predators

When David continued to wet the bed after age two, an age when most children are trained, Phil beat him with a belt. Little David tried to stop wetting, but he couldn’t. Tyra didn’t stop Phil’s beatings; instead, she coddled her son with food.

A Seattle Times newspaper article noted the prolific Green River killer, Gary Ridgway, had the bed-wetting problem, too. Growing up, he experienced demeaning ritual genital cleansing at the hands of his mother. Many sexual deviants reported they suffered punishment for bed-wetting. In both Ridgway and Bar-Jonah, childhood violence against them for bed-wetting may have skewed normal development resulting in abnormal sexual imprinting requiring violence to reach orgasm.

Bed-wetting (enuresis) is an involuntary behavior that is embarrassing to a child and frustrating to parents. It may be due to inadequate neurological connections between the immature brain and a full bladder signal, something the child cannot control. The cause is unknown, but experts agree children should not be spanked for bed-wetting.

Similar to other sexual predators, David had low self esteem and no love from his father, only beatings. Beatings he submitted to for problems he couldn’t control. Nothing David did was good enough for Phil. Like his babysitters, David hid from the man, isolating himself in his bedroom or the garage to avoid his father’s wrath.

At the time of his birth, David’s siblings, Lois and Bob were much older. At ages eight and nine, there was little camaraderie and no indication they protected their little brother from Phil’s beatings. David’s escalating frustration erupted in violent outbursts. When playing with a small neighbor girl his age, he flew into a rage over an Ouija board. David attacked and choked her. Tyra heard the commotion and came running. The obese volatile six-year-old experienced the thrill of overpowering his playmate. After that incident, Tyra told her friends, I don’t know how to control him.

When David later described the incident, he smiled, savoring the story, Mother screamed over and over for me to stop. She might have screamed twenty times before I let the girl loose.

On David’s personal record of victims he listed this little girl as number one.

A U.S. Department of Justice bulletin noted most serious and chronic offenders show signs of abnormal and violent behavior as early as preschool age. David learned thrusting the humiliation and pain he endured at the hands of his father onto smaller children provided a feeling of power and relief. As with other sexual deviants, bullying younger children became his pattern.

After the financially strapped family returned to Massachusetts, Tyra took David to programs at the Assembly of God Church. There he found friends and later became a youth leader in charge of younger boys. Like other pedophiles who enjoy the company of young children, David began seeking positions in control of children. At home, he was powerless. At church, David was in charge.

David’s mother enrolled him in Park Ave elementary. The single-story sprawling brick structure sits in a lush neighborhood where large trees form a canopy over the street. A second grade classmate described David as chubby and odd, and without friends. Even as a seven-year-old, his appearance and behavior brought attention and unhappiness to him. As David’s abduction patterns matured, the Park Ave neighborhood and other elementary schools became successful hunting grounds.

As soon as his siblings could leave home, they did, abandoning David to their father’s harsh treatment. When Phil was no longer able to work because of a bad heart, Tyra took a job and left David with Phil’s undivided attention.

In FBI interviews with convicted sex offenders many of them reported growing up in violent households. Throughout childhood, David’s world was not safe. He was stressed and fearful except in his bedroom or in the garage where, in isolation, he found solace.

Like other pedophiles, he collected toys and learned his toy collection brought children to him. At neighborhood garage sales, David purchased games and toys to sell at his own garage for profit. He enjoyed both the company of children and the extra money.

Because his siblings were so much older, David was like an only child. At age seven, his doting mother began teaching him to cook. Rejected and beaten by Phil, David found comfort in the kitchen with Tyra. With continued bed-wetting and his weight ballooning, David isolated himself more and more. In the safety of his room, he began copying long lists of names from telephone directories. Tyra noted David also began hoarding recipes and food. Compulsive behaviors continued throughout his life.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) exists in one percent of the general population and half of these are considered severe. Many people suffer from compulsions such as a need to be orderly, but when taken to extremes, ritual collecting and repetitive behaviors disrupt lives. Like an addiction, they can’t stop. With pedophiles, some compulsions appear more ominous than frequent hand washing. They collect pictures—sometimes explicit photos of adults in sexual contact with children. They often photograph themselves with children, clothed or unclothed, then organize and tediously log photos of children who fit the age and sex of the child in their erotic fantasies. Some purchase the photos or download them from the Internet, but because child pornography is illegal and prison sentences are stiff, pedophiles try desperately to hide their secrets and protect their collections. If you identify inappropriate photographs or computer images, this ominous behavior must be reported.

While looking at pictures or souvenirs they’ve kept, pedophiles relive encounters with children they molested. Years later, when the victimized child is an adult, the photo remains a treasure because it captured the child at the pedophile’s desired age and the photo refreshes erotic feelings. The face and memories are locked in time. For David, treasured collections filled the void of human interactions and the photos fueled secret fantasies.

When David was eight years old his family moved to nearby Webster. In this scenic neighborhood on the shores of Lake Webster his sexual aberrations and violence matured. To most, the neighborhood looked serene but like its unpronounceable Indian name there was a clear message in its interpretation: The Boundary Fishing Place-Neutral Meeting Ground or You fish on your side, I’ll fish on mine and nobody fishes in the middle.

The same uneasy truce existed in the neighborhood of Bonnette Acres from the time the Browns moved there. Wild flowers and bushes covered vacant lots near the Brown’s white one-story home on Elaine Street. Colorful rhododendrons bloomed along the house and large trees shaded the swimming pool at the back of the house where David played alone. The location was a magnificent improvement from their previous residence, but from the start an undercurrent of turmoil churned beneath the peaceful surface.

Neighborhood feuds occurred and continued for years. If a ball strayed into the Brown’s yard, Phil snatched and kept it. He threatened both kids and dogs who entered their yard. Even though the Browns lived next door to the Duponts for years, brothers Kevin and Alan only remember being invited inside the Brown’s house once. On that visit, they watched home movies under Phil’s threatening glare, an experience so uncomfortable the boys never returned. Kevin and Alan recalled Phil had ordered them to stay out of the kitchen. They remembered thinking it was an odd demand, certainly not like in their home with many other siblings. News about Phil’s unwelcome treatment spread through the neighborhood.

Maybe his thin small-stature father was trying to control David’s eating by placing the kitchen off limits. The strange command is something David carried to adulthood. He also forbade people to enter the kitchen in his apartment in Montana. But then it wasn’t to keep them from eating his food. In his case, the curtain over the doorway hid a sinister rope dangling from the ceiling over a pulley.

David’s joy in eating added to his weight and his problems. When kids called him names, his mother told him, Do God’s will, David. Turn the other cheek.

David’s only friends were imaginary.

When the Duponts’ beloved white poodle named Snow was poisoned and died in the arms of Kevin and Alan’s mother, they all suspected David. The grieving family buried the little dog in a corner of their back yard. A few days later, they were shocked to find the grave disturbed and Snow’s corpse missing.

Cruelty to animals is an early step in progression to violence against humans. Like Jeffrey Dahmer, a sexual predator cannibal who kidnapped and drugged young men before killing them, many violent predators began by killing and dissecting animals.

If a child shows violence against animals, early intervention and a full psychological evaluation might interrupt the journey to violence against humans.

David vehemently denied knowing anything about Snow’s death and disappearance. His lies were convincing. With practice, David became adept at lying. Through the years, lying worked well. He covered his trails with lies.

After more squabbles with the Browns, the Duponts returned home one day to find their beautiful row of property-line pine trees disfigured. On the Dupont side the trees were bushy, but on the Brown side it looked as if they’d been cut straight down the middle. Phil had chopped all the limbs off flush with the trunk. Like David, the trees bore permanent scars. But David defended Phil. He explained, If he did it, he probably wanted to make them healthier or keep them from dropping debris into our yard. Besides, my father didn’t like the Duponts. He called them ‘white trash.’

After that incident, Mrs. Dupont marched straight to a lawyer but received no satisfaction. The lawyer told her a lawsuit would likely accelerate conflict. After he recommended no action, she had a tall stockade fence constructed to keep peace and physically separate the families.

As David grew older and taller, he became so obese his weight interfered with any sport he tried. A victim of ridicule, he avoided kids his age and began hanging around with boys much younger.

Unhappy at home, his self-esteem already low, teasing made David feel worse and eat more. At age ten and still bed-wetting, he was almost as big as Phil. In spite of his size, the demeaning spankings continued. Tyra didn’t intervene. Instead, she comforted David and involved him in more church activities. Each summer, she sent him away to the Charlton church camp. Year after year, David camped with other children and became intimately familiar with this wooded area. A child on his victim list attended the same church camp.

From camp, David wrote letters to small neighborhood boys asking them to play with him when he returned. It was there in the dark forest where he later brought two kidnapped boys and tried to kill them. (Chapter 3)

Tyra maintained a close relationship with her own family and was active in the fundamentalist Assembly of God Church located near their home just across the Massachusetts state line in Putnam, Connecticut. Tyra was later instrumental in starting an Assembly of God Church in Webster. The religious woman instilled strict church tenets in David: no dancing, no dating, especially no contact with girls in the family’s swimming pool where David often floated in the cool water talking to himself.

Fat and ridiculed, he tried to suppress his turmoil. He isolated himself and focused on his collections, but like the mirror-calm lake where storms sometimes blew up crashing tumultuous waves ashore, emotions ripped through the Brown household.

The Duponts said David was on his best behavior when Tyra had summertime church picnics in their front yard. The boys said it looked like a carnival with David barbecuing hot dogs and entertaining church children. In the garage, he devised games such as balloons with little prizes inside to pop. It was in this garage, playing with imaginary friends that his fantasies turned violent.

After the singing and prayers were over, after dark, David learned a different side of life. He sneaked down the street to the Webster Academy where he interacted with violent antisocial boys housed there under court order. His parents didn’t know he visited the Academy, but David was so traumatized physically and emotionally at home that he needed an escape. In his eyes, Academy boys treated him better than the neighborhood children. There he found camaraderie and learned more about sex.

The Academy burned to the ground. The Brightwood Academy built in its place burned, too. No one knew how the suspicious fires started. Setting fires in youth correlates with adult crimes. Many serial killers have a history of the triad of animal torture, bed-wetting and fire-starting. There is no record of David starting fires but he learned other behaviors from the incorrigible boys.

Like many kids, David had fears. Intense fears and exhausting nightmares of man-eating fish in pursuit and visions of shocking electric beds occurred over years. Terrified of fish, David refused to swim in Lake Webster with neighborhood children.

Children who lived in the area played in deserted Quonset huts near swampland on the east end of Elaine Street, but they didn’t venture into the swamp. Like David, they feared quicksand would swallow them without a trace. Yet, they didn’t fear the dead or ghosts in a cemetery at the other end of Elaine where they played. In the summer, children took short cuts through the cemetery to a little store to buy candy. Sometimes David went with them. Alan and Kevin Dupont recalled David talked about his Tutti-Fruiti eyes as he walked along munching Good and Plentys and Tutti-Fruiti candy.

In winter months, children careened on sleds through adjacent wooded slopes and down Cemetery Road. While sledding near the cemetery, David was only ten when he lured a five year old boy half his size into the woods away from the boy’s sister and other children to urinate. The shocked preschooler experienced violence and fear which lasted a lifetime when David suddenly threw him onto his little sled and pinned him down. David sat on the child’s chest. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream and couldn’t move. David exposed himself and thrust his penis into the child’s mouth––then threatened him not to tell.

He didn’t tell.

That same winter just before David turned eleven, he suffered a serious injury while sledding on a make-shift sled made from a piece of slick aluminum sheeting. With the edges curled up, it worked well until he struck a rock that spun him around. The metal gouged a large chunk of muscle and skin from his thigh. The wound bled profusely after nearly cutting through to his femoral artery.

Hospitalized for treatment, David said, They forcefully held me down for painful debridement, surgical closure and skin grafting. When David was recovering, his father tried to spank him. David recalled this as the only time Tyra stopped Phil. She didn’t want the wound to break open.

Beatings at home combined with the painful hospital bondage experience likely embedded a strange twist in his young psyche. The injury left a large excavated defect extending across much of his upper right thigh and into the groin. Like his eyes, the scar was a constant reminder of torture and disfigurement.

After the injury healed, David knocked on doors and displayed the ugly scar near his genitals to startled neighbors. The scar bothered him physically and psychologically throughout his life. He asked young victims to rub it because it provided sexual stimulation. Years later, David told a counselor that he sometimes experienced severe pain in the scar and, When the pain gets too bad, I sort of step aside and watch myself behave violently. This description suggests a dissociative disorder which removed him mentally from some situation. Dissociation sometimes occurs in individuals after a life-threatening trauma, rape or in child abuse and is thought to be a defense mechanism.

The graveyard had never scared the Dupont brothers until one day while playing there the boys found a stash of detective magazines filled with gory sexually explicit pictures. The stories of violence and death frighten them so much they avoided the cemetery after that. The brothers wondered who left the magazines. They thought it might have been boys from the Webster Academy, but knew the boys weren’t free to mingle with local kids.

David denied ever seeing the detective magazines. If he did read them, it could have been a step toward imprinting aberrant sexual behavior and violence on his young mind. Sexual predators reported to FBI researchers their fantasies became more twisted after seeing violent pictures and reading true detective stories.

David’s childhood left him physically and emotionally scarred. He was fat, disfigured, had funny eyes, was physically abused