breasted jacket was open and the tan sweater she wore underneath was pushed several inches above her waist and a 24-inch-long yellow beeswax candle had been shoved upward between her breasts with such force both straps of her brassiere had broken . Her blue Levis and panties had been removed and the jeans draped across her body . A second , identical candle had been rammed into her vagina so violently that it snapped in the process .
Initially , it was assumed Arlis Perry had been strangled to death , however , during the autopsy , a 5½-inch icepick was discovered jammed into the base of her skull , tearing upward at a 45-degree angle into her right brain . Police had not seen the icepick because the attack was so intense the wooden handle of the instrument had broken off . The wooden attachment was not found at the scene , meaning the killer had taken it with him . The medical examiner determined Perry had not been raped , but there was a semen deposit on a nearby kneeling cushion left by a man who could have had type O blood . A partial hand print was lifted from one of the candles , but because 101 other prints were found , it was virtually useless . Noteworthy is the fact Arlis Perry had terrible eyesight and always wore glasses or contact lenses , yet neither was found at the scene .
A door on the west side of the church was ajar , suggesting the killer had broken out after Steve Crawford locked the church around midnight and after the doors were checked by both Crawford and Bruce Perry . Law enforcement officers received the descriptions of seven late visitors to the church that night , one of whom was a man described as approximately 5 ' 10 " -tall , of medium build with sandy brown hair . No one knew the man , or had seen him before , and he was never found .
During the investigation , Guy Blase , an attorney at the law firm where Arlis worked , revealed he had seen Arlis engaged in an intense conversation with a man on the afternoon of Friday , October 11 . Assuming the man was her husband , he thought nothing of it . His description of the white male was early 20s with curly , sandy blond hair , of medium build and approximately 5 ' 10 " in height . Her co-workers said the visitor was wearing jeans and a plaid shirt and recalled that Arlis seemed upset following her confrontation with the person whom everyone thought was Bruce Perry .
As soon as Arlis Perry ' s corpse was released by the medical examiner , her parents had their daughter ’ s body shipped home to Bismarck for burial . She was laid to rest Friday , October 18 , at Sunset Memorial Gardens . Less than two weeks later , on Halloween , her temporary grave marker was stolen and there are those who believe it was taken by local Satanists as a victory memento .
Three years later , in August 1977 , David Berkowitz , a 24-year-old postal employee , was arrested and charged with the “ Son of Sam ” murders which had begun in July 1976 . Berkowitz confessed , but many – including Maury Terry – considered his confession scripted and contradictory and Terry started his own investigation . He finally convinced the Queens district attorney and Yonkers police that Berkowitz had not acted alone and Berkowitz himself claimed he committed just two of the Son of Sam attacks while other members of a Satanic cult , of which he was a member , did the others .
During his 10-year investigation , Terry discovered a link between the Son of Sam killings and the murder of Arlis Perry and that link was the Process Church of the Final Judgment , which was formed in England in the 1960s by renegade Scientologists Robert and Mary Ann De Grimston . Shortly after the De Grimston ’ s founded their church , they were branded Satanists because their new
Bismarck native Arlis Perry was killed in CA in 1974 as part of the Son of Sam cult killings .
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