Serial killer Jason Massey filled four journalsThe Slayer's Books of Deathwith writings and sketches imagining how he would fulfill his ambition to become the world's most prolific serial killer. His journals were hidden in a scuffed and rusty red cooler (pictured above right) which was found by a hiker who was walking through the woods. Opening it, the man was shocked to find the skulls of several dozen animals 31 in all. With them, bagged in plastic, were four red and yellow spiral notebooks filled with a crooked, ominous script labeled The Slayer's Book of Death: The thoughts of Jason Massey, with each volume labeled one through four. The hiker knew enough about Massey, then on trial for two murders, to realize that this was an important piece of evidence, so he called the police.

The journal entries began in 1989 and ended in 1993, the month in which Massey had begun the realization of his fantasies with the double murder of two teenagers in Texas. In the journals, among other things, Massey described killing the dog of a seventh-grade girl, smearing the blood on her car. He also stalked the girl and wrote her threatening letters. More tellingly, Massey's recorded fantasies directly reflected the precise acts committed against the female murder victim in the case for which Massey was on trial. It was like finding the blueprints of an architect.

After reading them, there was no doubt among prosecutors how thoroughly obsessed Massey had been for years with murder and torture. He had wanted to become a "murder machine." During the trial, prosecutors relied on Massey's own words from his journal to prove the aggravating circumstances showing a depraved mind. His greatest ambition, he wrote, was to become America's most famous serial killer. "My goal is 700 people in twenty years."

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