It was the same place where, as an unwanted orphan, he had once spent his summers. In the damp basement of the old mess hall, Kravitz committed his first murder. Then, to destroy the evidence, he used what would become his signature method.
At the same market where he worked, he had earlier stolen a heavy butcher’s cleaver. With that crude tool, he methodically dismembered Marina Skurat’s body. He packed the remains into sturdy feed sacks and dumped them into a deep river.
He drove her car to another part of town and left it in an ordinary apartment complex lot. He acted on instinct, but with chilling calm and efficiency. It was as if he had been doing this all his life.
Local police quickly wrote off the disappearance of the wealthy business owner as some kind of criminal dispute. Her operation was larger and more profitable than those of the women who would follow. No one thought to connect the case to a grim warehouse laborer.
That first success showed Kravitz what he was capable of. He realized he could take everything from the “people who had it all” and walk away untouched. He felt no fear—only a dull, dark satisfaction.
He quit his low-paying job right away and began hunting with purpose. Now the killer acted with more planning, more patience, and far more caution. He no longer waited for chance. He actively searched for victims.
He spent time around upscale wholesale centers and new commercial strips, quietly watching people. He focused on confident, financially comfortable women who ran their own businesses alone. Women who gave orders and expected them to be followed.
In his warped mind, they represented everything unfair about the world. He would approach them during busy moments and offer help with heavy lifting. His size and strength worked in his favor every time.
They saw him as a dependable helper, maybe even a possible security hire. He spoke little, never argued, and kept his eyes down. It created the perfect impression of a harmless, hardworking man.
Kravitz won their trust quickly while learning their schedules and usual routes. That was how it happened with Eleanor Velasco—and with another victim who was still unidentified at the time. Her name was Irene Samuels, a successful owner of a chain of hair salons.
She was found exactly one month after the brutal disappearance of Eleanor. Or rather, what was left of her was found. Early one August morning, two fishermen pulled a heavy canvas sack from the water.
When they dragged it onto the sand and opened it, they nearly got sick. Inside was a human torso without a head or limbs. The responding investigators immediately began dragging the riverbed with nets.
By the end of the day, divers had brought up two more sacks. One held legs. The other contained severed arms. The woman’s head was never recovered.
The remains were tentatively identified by a scar from an appendectomy. Later, the identification was confirmed through missing persons records. The victim was thirty-eight-year-old Irene Samuels, who had vanished three weeks earlier.
As in the other cases, her upscale car had been found abandoned on the edge of town. And once again, the interior had been cleaned so thoroughly that no forensic evidence remained. The medical examiner concluded that the body had been dismembered with strong, precise blows.
Investigators immediately suspected the killer knew anatomy well or had extensive experience butchering meat. Detective Lieutenant Savelly, a hard-bitten investigator in his fifties, laid three thick case files on his desk. Three different victims from different parts of the region, with no obvious connection.
But his instincts told him the same man had done all of it. Every victim was a successful, assertive, financially secure businesswoman. Every one vanished with her car, which later turned up scrubbed clean…
