The Courier-Mail

MAD­MAN COULDN’T LET IT GO

Vain killer ob­sessed by days as a $2000 es­cort

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RICH­MOND, Vir­ginia: The sav­age killer who shot dead two of his for­mer col­leagues live on tele­vi­sion was ob­sessed with his fad­ing looks and missed his glory days as a $2000-a-night male es­cort.

Vester Lee Flana­gan made the shock­ing con­fes­sions to his friend Robert Avent af­ter he killed re­porter Ali­son Parker, 24, and cam­era­man Adam Ward, 27, (be­low) last week.

Mr Avent, Flana­gan’s ex-flat­mate and gym buddy, re­ceived a pack­age filled with typed and hand­writ­ten letters, pho­to­graphs, driver’s li­cences and stu­dent IDs sent by the mad­man be­fore he took his own life.

The con­tents drew a clearer pic­ture of Flana­gan, who went from be­ing a male pros­ti­tute to a dis­grun­tled TV re­porter and fi­nally to a cal­cu­lat­ing killer.

The ram­bling letters sent to Mr Avent see­saw be­tween the cheer­ful and apolo­getic. Flana­gan di­vulges his phys­i­cal inse­cu­ri­ties to Mr Avent and ap­pears to lament the end of his glory days of easy sex.

“I do NOT wanna get old ... HELL NO!!!” Flana­gan wrote. “Please keep work­ing out player – when the heads stop turn­ing, it’s AW­FUL!!!”

Flana­gan also re­calls his time as a male es­cort and boasts how he could at­tract a fee of $2000.

“I to­tally CAN­NOT score right now,” Flana­gan wrote. “And this is from a man who used to be paid hun­dreds an HOUR to sleep with men ... one was a hot YOUNG guy in SF ... he once asked, ‘Can I f--- you?’ He of­fered to give me $1000 ... I play­fully said, ‘ No.’ Well, he gave me 2k.”

Mr Avent also told the New York Daily News of his last phone con­ver­sa­tion with Flana­gan in the lead-up to the mur­derer’s sui­cide as po­lice closed in. The killer had sent a bizarre text mes­sage to his friend in the early morn­ing, say­ing he did some­thing “very bad” be­fore apol­o­gis­ing and say­ing, “I had no other choice”.

Later that morn­ing and un­aware of the mur­ders, Mr Avent rang his old room­mate. Flana­gan replied, calmly say­ing, “Oh, I did some­thing this morn­ing ... I shot and killed two peo­ple.”

Stunned by the news, Mr Avent im­me­di­ately rang him back. Flana­gan told him he was “just rid­ing” in his car but “not go­ing to jail”.

“Man, I’m not go­ing to prison. I’m go­ing to shoot my­self in the head,” he told Mr Avent.

?? ?? OUT­RIDER: Vester Lee Flana­gan was an­gry at los­ing his ca­sual sex life and told his ex-flat­mate he had ’shot and killed two peo­ple’ and would shoot him­self rather than go to jail.
OUT­RIDER: Vester Lee Flana­gan was an­gry at los­ing his ca­sual sex life and told his ex-flat­mate he had ’shot and killed two peo­ple’ and would shoot him­self rather than go to jail.

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