Harvey Glatman served eight months of his twelve-month sentence before being paroled from Colorado's state prison. He walked out the gates on July 27, 1946. One of the first things his mother did was bring him to a psychiatrist as a means to ward off further rash acts such as the ones that sent her boy to the calaboose. The doctor recommended that Harvey's problem was based on his abnormal fear of the opposite sex. Solution? That Harvey begin activities, such as dancing, that set him right in the midst of women to squelch that fear.

Harvey listened well. He returned to his native New York state and partook of many activities that involved women -- however, not the kind that the good professional had in mind.

It had been mother Ophelia's wish that Harvey leave Denver because of the black mark on him there. She earnestly believed that he could get a fresh start in a new climate among new faces; meet friendly people, get a job and make something of himself. Leaving Albert at home for a few weeks, Ophelia escorted her son to and set him up in a tidy little flat in Yonkers. She even stood by as he got a job in a television repair store. He had learned the trade in prison workshop and could now put that knowledge to good use, she told him.

Convinced that Harvey was on his way to a normal life, Ophelia returned to Denver.

As for Harvey, once mama was gone, he set out to the streets in search of excitement. Not taking the chance to try to procure a gun – possession of one would send him back to prison for a long, long time – he instead bought a cap gun from a five-and-dime that he thought looked authentic enough to pass for real. The pocket-knife he carried, though, was not a toy. And the rope, of course, too, that was the best-made hemp, guaranteed not to slip:

There was no imitating the embracing powers of real hemp.

Around midnight of August 17, 1946, lovers Thomas Staro and Doris Thorn were approached by a man they later described as being a bit shorter than six feet, 140 pounds, with messy hair, horn-rim glasses, large ears and pock-marked. The stranger, brandishing a pistol, ordered the couple off the sidewalk and into the darkness under a grove of trees. Removing Staro's wallet from his trousers, he tied his legs together and made him lie on the lawn. Turning to Thorn, he began touching her breasts, keeping her in place and quiet with the threat of the gun barrel at her abdomen. Immersed in the wonders of womanhood, Harvey failed to see that the boyfriend had worked himself free from the sloppily tied knot and was tip-toeing from behind.

Staro grabbed Harvey, but the latter wiggled free from his grasp, simultaneously producing his pocket-knife. With a slash, he caught Staro's shoulder, a cut that even though not lethal sent the other recoiling in terror. Harvey escaped into the umbrage.

He didn't stop running until he was safe on the first train to Albany.

Denver, Yonkers, Albany, it was all the same to Harvey Glatman. The place didn't matter, as long as it had women to caress. Renting a flat in his new town, he spent the next couple of days scouring the neighborhood around his flat on Commercial Street in preparation for more adventure. By August 22nd, he was ready.

His first target in Albany was off-duty nurse Florence Hayden. Coming up behind her from the darkness of Main Avenue, he grabbed her purse straps and shoved her into an adjacent yard. Jostling her, he dug his gun barrel into her side and demanded that she remain quiet while he bound her wrists together. But, as she told police later, "I realized he was using both his hands (to tie the rope) and no longer held the gun. So I wheeled around, pushed him hard, and screamed – but loud."

The mugger absconded, Hayden said, more frightened than she.

Not discouraged by his latest run of bad luck, Harvey determined to succeed when he took a stroll along Hollywood Avenue the following evening. For a while, the cupboard looked bare as every woman he saw was with a male companion – and he had had enough with scrapping with muscular males after that Yonkers incident. His libido itching, he impulsively went after the only unescorted females he saw passing him on a deserted street corner – two women walking together, Evelyn Berge and Beverly Goldstein. But, once he had cornered them with his toy gun, he lost nerve. Two women were too much! Mumbling, fumbling, he ordered them to turn over their pocketbooks, and after they obliged he again mumbled, again fumbled before shrinking into the shadows.

His crimes so far being small potatoes, the Albany Police Department nevertheless considered this phantom a danger. His modus operandi was striking at women, and that scared the bejesus out of Police Commissioner James Kirwin. Descriptions given to the authorities by Hayden, Berge and Goldstein matched, so they knew it had been the same assailant in all cases. He had already attempted to sexually molest the nurse. Kirwin assembled his forces and commanded, Get this clown!

Patrolmen moved quickly. Within two days they had Harvey Glatman in custody. Two officers had spotted the suspect, description matching to a T, following a woman down Western Avenue. Pausing him, they frisked him. In his pockets, they found a toy gun, a pocketknife and a roll of rope. Scared, he confessed.

Yonkers wanted him returned to face charges of assault on Thorn and Staro, but the city of Albany was rejoicing in its professional squelching of this goon and flat-out refused. Four days after his arrest, Glatman was indicted in Albany's Municipal Court for the attack on Flo Hayden. Even though the other women did not file charges, the city DA knew that this Glatman, who had already done time in Colorado, was no spontaneous small-timer. Harvey suddenly faced a prison term in the big league category.

Ophelia and Albert Glatman were stunned when they heard the bad news. All this time they had thought their son had reformed and was living clean, still in Yonkers. Ophelia rushed east to plead for leniency, but her tears won no results.

In October, her and Harvey's fears materialized. Judge Earl Gallup, with prodding from the DA's office, hammered the gavel down on the two-time loser: Five to ten! he proclaimed. Harvey was going back up the river, this time to the rock pile. Because Harvey was not yet 21 years of age, Judge Gallup recommended that the convicted begin his term in Elmira (New York) Reformatory, but, in due course, be committed to serve the remainder of his time at maximum security Sing Sing.

Prisoner Number 48337 spent nearly two years in Elmira. During that time, he was medically researched and evaluated. At the end of that time, Dr. Ralph Ryancale diagnosed Harvey as a "psychopathic personality – schizophrenic type" having "sexually perverted impulses as the basis of his criminality." He strongly recommended that further studies on Harvey Glatman be resumed after his removal to Sing Sing.

Unfortunately, no records of his psychiatric examinations at Sing Sing have survived, apart from a case study performed just after his ingress. That perfunctory report apprises the new inmate as "not definitely mental defective or psychotic," but suggests that he should be "psycho-educated and if still anti-social should be segregated even if schizophrenia does not seem developed."

Parole reports which have survived the years show that Harvey was a model prisoner, had a high IQ, demonstrated ability and eagerness in his prison duties and responded positively to sporadic medical exams. Crime author Michael Newton who, for years, has studied Harvey Glatman and the serial killer mind in general, is unimpressed. He states, "Sociopathic sex offenders learn to 'play' the system early on, sometimes as children. After they have been arrested several times and spent time in jail, as Harvey had, they know exactly what to say and how to act in any given situation, whether dealing with police, attorneys, or psychologists. Despite solemn assurances to the contrary, many sociopaths...are fully capable of 'beating' polygraphs, manipulating the results of psychological evaluation tests and making therapists believe they have been 'cured'."

Harvey evidently played the game very well. Benefits accrued for "good behavior" severed a percentage of time off his minimum five-year sentence; after only two years, eight months behind bars, Harvey Glatman was paroled. Stipulations, however, decreed that he must return to the care of his mother, acquire a full-time job and remain under court observation for another four and a half years.

Going home to parental custody in Denver, Harvey worked a number of odd jobs and generally stayed out of mischief. Parole follow-ups refer to a spotty employment record, citing difficulties adjusting to a full-time work life. Harvey lived with his parents until after his father Albert passed away, at which time mother and son began to bicker. Allowed space to go on his own, he rented his own flat, continued to find on-again-off-again employment and visited his parole officer regularly and on time.

In September, 1956, Harvey Glatman received full liberty. With no more monthly updates to complete, no more authority-contrived check-ups, Harvey did what he'd been dying to do for years. Put Denver and Ophelia and courts and police records behind him.

With dust rising at his heels, he left the Mile High City and went west. Perhaps the horizon was blurry, but as he drove and drove down dirty highways, somewhere along the way he decided that Los Angeles was the place to go.