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A Florida native, born in 1951, David Gore resembled the stereotypical Southern "redneck," tipping the scales at 275 pounds, so enamored of firearms that he studied gunsmithing in his free time. He studied women, too, but in a different fashion, losing one job as a gas station attendant after the owner found a peephole Gore had drilled between the men's and women's restrooms. A year younger, cousin Fred Waterfield was another product of Florida's Indian River County, a high school football star whose ugly temper and taste for violent sex perfectly meshed with Gore's. In 1976, they put their heads together and decided to combine their favorite sports by stalking human game. Their early efforts were embarrassing. Trailing a female motorist outside Yeehaw Junction, Waterfield flattened her tires with rifle fire, but the intended victim escaped on foot. Later, they followed another woman from Vero Beach to Miami, giving up the pursuit when she parked on a busy street. Their first successful rape took place near Vero Beach, and while the victim notified police, she later dropped the charges to avoid embarrassment in court. By early 1981, Gore was working days with his father, as caretaker of a citrus grove, patrolling the streets after dark as an auxiliary sheriff's deputy. Waterfield had moved north to Orlando, managing an automotive shop, but he made frequent visits home to Vero Beach. Together, they recognized the potential of Gore's situation -- packing a badge by night, killing time in deserted orchards by day -- and Fred offered to pay cousin Dave $1,000 for each pretty girl he could find. It was a proposition Gore could not refuse. In February 1981, Gore spotted 17-year-old Ying Hua Ling disembarking from a school bus, tricking her into his car with a flash of his badge. Driving her home, Gore "arrested" her mother and handcuffed his captives together, phoning Waterfield in Orlando before he drove out to the orchard. Killing time while waiting for his cousin, Gore raped both victims, but Waterfield proved more selective. Rejecting Mrs. Ling as too old, Fred tied the woman up in such a fashion that she choked herself to death while struggling against her bonds. He then raped and murdered the teenager, slipping Gore $400 and leaving him to dispose of the corpses alone, in an orchard a mile from the Ling residence. Five months later, on July 15, Gore made a tour of Round Island Park, seeking a blond to fill his cousin's latest order. Spotting a likely candidate in 35-year-old Judith Daley, Gore disabled her car, then played Good Samaritan, offering a lift to the nearest telephone. Once inside his pickup, Gore produced a pistol, cuffed his victim, and called cousin Fred on his way to the orchard. Waterfield was happier with this delivery, writing out a check for $1,500 after both men finished with their victim. Two years later, Gore would spell out Judith Daley's fate, describing how he "fed her to the alligators" in a swamp ten miles west of Interstate Highway 95. A week later, Gore fell under suspicion when a local man reported that a deputy had stopped his teenage daughter on a rural highway, attempting to hold her "for questioning." Stripped of his badge, Gore was arrested days later, when officers found him crouched in the back seat of a woman's car outside a Vero Beach clinic armed with a pistol, handcuffs, and a police radio scanner. A jury deliberated for thirty minutes before convicting him of armed trespass, and he was sentenced to five years in prison. Rejecting psychiatric treatment recommended by the court, he was paroled in March of 1983. A short time after Gore's release, his cousin moved back home to Vero Beach, and they resumed the hunt. On May 20, they tried to abduct an Orlando prostitute at gunpoint, but she slipped away and left them empty-handed. The next day, they picked up two 14-year-old hitchhikers -- Angelica Lavallee and Barbara Byer -- raping both before Gore shot the girls to death. Byer's body was dismembered , buried in a shallow grave, while Levallee's was dumped in a nearby canal. On July 26, 1983, Vero Beach authorities received an emergency report of a nude man firing shots at a naked girl on a residential street. Converging on the suspect house -- owned by relatives of Gore -- officers found a car in the driveway with fresh blood dripping from its trunk. Inside, the body of 17-year-old Lynn Elliott lay curled in death, a bullet in her skull. Outgunned by the raiding party, Gore meekly surrendered, directing officers to the attic where a naked 14-year-old girl was tethered to the rafters. As the surviving victim told police, she had been thumbing rides with Lynn Elliott when Gore and another man picked them up, flashing a pistol and driving them to the house, where they were stripped and raped repeatedly in separate rooms. Elliott had managed to free herself, escaping on foot with Gore in pursuit, but she had not been fast enough. Gore's companion had left in the meantime, and detectives turned to their suspect in quest of his identity. Gore swiftly cracked in custody, enumerating crimes committed with his cousin, turning state's evidence to save himself from the electric chair . On January 21, 1985, Fred Waterfield was convicted in the Byer-Levallee murders, receiving two consecutive life terms with a specified minimum stint of 50 years before parole. Gore received an identical term, with, charges dismissed in four other cases to avoid redundant prosecution. |
