Masen Valtross

Masen is not a tragic case. He did not have a bad childhood, or a vindictive ex, did not experience abuse or injustice at a young age. The scariest thing about the man was how slightly above average his life was. He came from an extremely large family line, all members of which were well off and lived close by (he was an only child but his cousins and such were close enough to consider brothers and sisters) He was an extremely charming little boy, an extremely charming teen and extremely charming young adult. He could have very well lived his entire life in his home state, surrounded by people and family who adored him, his looks, privileges and personality granting him whatever or whoever he wanted. But Masen was born with a hole inside his soul that had never gotten close to being filled.


The scariest thing about Masen was no matter how perfect his life could have been, he was always destined to kill.


Masen sees killing someone as the ultimate act of intimacy. It isn’t sexual, but it is a sick twisted way of Masen getting “the closest to another human as any human will ever be”. While his family and hometown might have considered being content with their connections, Masen never saw any of it as enough. His urge to be close to another human being, closer than anyone else, not only drove him to kill, but specifically his method of killing.


Masen’s sort of timeline goes as follows. He finds a particular human being that catches his eye and interest. The scary thing about that is he does not seem to have a specific “type” like most serial killers do. If he does it isn’t obvious. It can be a man, woman, someone of any other gender, old, young, traditionally beautiful or ugly, smart or simple, rich or poor. His only sort of standard is he only ever targets adults: but this doesn’t come from a morality standpoint. He sees his victims as his closest friends, and wouldn’t you want to be friends with those in your age range?


Once his new buddy is picked out, Masen goes through great lengths to memorize their every sort of patterns. Work schedules, personal life, the friends and family they see or don’t see, he learns every little detail he can to gain more intimacy with the victim. During this time he’s more than capable of doing it all without ever being noticed or detected-but he goes out of his way to let the new buddy know they are being watched, being followed. He snaps branches around their windows while stalking their homes, follows them in his truck on empty roads, allows the flash of his camera to go off while they lay in bed. He wants them paranoid. Fear is something he very much enjoys, and again he feels like being the most terrifying thing in this persons life brings them closer. The final stage is him finding a way in their home, living inside it for a period of time. In the attic, in the basement, even in their own room. He takes time to go through all their stuff, savoring the layout of their home, taking the final set of pictures to remember them by before finally-after he feels like he’s satisfied enough, he takes them in their sleep, tying them up and throwing them in the back of his rig, driving them far from their home.


When they wake he does take time to “attempt” conversations with his buddies. Of course it’s usually one sided, but in his head it’s a polite thing to do before they die, as it will be the last conversation they ever have. His absolute need to be as close as humanly possible and his carnal desire for intimacy is telling of his method of killing-slow strangulation, a painful experience where he takes his time to do it, on and off, until the victim finally takes their last breath-or their neck is crushed. After this, he gives the victim a “gift”-a handcrafted noose special for them, and hangs them up on a tree, or street lamp, or anything similar depending on their location. Surprisingly enough he does not take any pictures of the dead body, it’s assumed the reason behind this is either he does not see them as truly dead-which fits with his delusions that they are his buddies-or he feels the smallest sliver of guilt and does not wish to be reminded of what he did.


After the deed is done, Masen leaves town, and doesn’t seem to have any sort of cooling off period. He drives and drives until another seemingly random person catches his eye. And the process starts all over again.