Tracking the Matchbook Killer

The ongoing mystery of a manifesto, grotesque painting, online necrophile fanclub, and matchbooks*

* a fictional article for a fictional story

Rochester, NY — January 4, 2023

Watkins Memorial Park is sprawling, lush, and has beautiful views of the Genesee River seen from the abandoned bridges. It lies in the center, the bullseye of the city and the suburban towns encircling it. It was dedicated ninety-three years ago and seen its share of troubles in that time: fights, drug dealing, overdoses, and an escaped convict once hid there in 1940. It still rocked the communities to the core when, 5 years ago, four bodies were found within the park burned down to the bones. This sparked a period of fear and an ongoing mystery with frustratingly few answers, an abundance of bizarre details, a rambling manifesto, an internet group dedicated to the crimes, and a person-of-interest who ended up being the Matchbook Killer’s alleged last known victim.

The story doesn’t begin in New York. It was in Vermont during the year of 2009 where two bodies were found with the same MO as the seven bodies which were scattered throughout New York State: laid on their backs, arms crossed over the chest, soaked in kerosene, and set on fire by a whole matchbook. It was in Wood Hollow Park that the deceased Terrance Gallows and Tempe Windsor were discovered weeks apart by different hikers. Tempe Windsor would wind up being the first one found with a partially-intact matchbook, branded with the business of a Burlington restaurant: Joe’s Diner. The restaurant had closed in 2001. There was also a reference to the bible passage which has still not yet been released to the public but is speculated to be one of the passages found within the now-infamous manifesto. The Matchbook Killer’s manifesto had been sitting in an obscure corner of the internet since 2011 but would be only be discovered by law enforcement in 2019.

While on some bodies only a small staple has left behind to indicate it was there, from the matchbooks which had not fully burned, these were business branded. The matchbooks would end up being a dead ends and led to more questions and being no further along in cracking the case. There was also a reference to the bible passage which has still not yet been released to the public but is speculated to be one of the passages found within the now-infamous manifesto. The Matchbook Killer’s manifesto had been sitting in an obscure corner of the internet since 2011 but would be only be discovered by law enforcement in 2019.

In December 2018, the FBI was tipped off by an anonymous person who pointed out that the Vermont cases looked a lot like two cases in the small town of General, NY. When looking into it, the most recent victim, Gary Tennenbaum, at the time was further north Upstate having been found in August 2018. The city, upon learning this and after a second body was found in the park (still a John Doe), invited the FBI in February of 2019. By December of that year, another two people would be found burned: Johnny Besten and Darien Watts.

What interests everyone is that all of the victims, except for Darien Watts, were known pedophiles, rapists, pimps, and traffickers — men and women. This was in line with the manifesto where it was made explicit that this was a righteous endeavor “to rid the earth of the trash which is stuffed and stitched into a human skin[.]” After this became widely known, it was hard to paint the Matchbook Killer as a monster. They came to be viewed as a vigilante of sorts. It also hadn’t helped that in many of the communities where the victims were found and buried did not have a good relationship with the police forces. All departments had been under fire for corruption and police brutality in the years preceding and Darien Watts’ murder.

So why did the Matchbook Killer go after Watts, who didn’t fall into any of those categories? Even his age at 26 years old placed him as the youngest and outside of the killer’s usual 35-55 age range. The most commonly believed theory is this is a vigilante who devolved as his Christian zealotry deepened, leading them to kill Watts as an unfortunate victim of opportunity. There are also the less popular theories of Watts being a partner-in-crime who got out of hand or knew the Matchbook Killer’s true identity.

Watts was an aspiring painter early in his art career after having dropped out of his art program. He was known for his unique oil paintings with unsettling subjects, often on large canvases. Of particular interest was, and remains, the unfinished, life-sized painting of his then-girlfriend, Darla Taylor: naked, half burned, mushrooms growing out of her wounds, seemingly like a corpse on a morgue’s table pornified. It was found in his apartment after his death, partially smeared, and the place a mess.

One of his neighbors had heard some sort of commotion but, according to the neighbor, it was common to hear parties, arguments, and loud music coming from there. There was no reason to think anything was out of the ordinary. It’s been ruled out that Watts had been murdered in his place of residence, forensics having turned up nothing to support this.

However, for a time, Watts was a person of interest. When this was found out by the public, there was wild speculation as to why. It was later leaked that he had been part of an online group where photos of the Matchbook Killer’s manifesto typed out on soiled paper was shared. The group would post crime scene photos of each new kill to comment on, speculate, and write out fantasies involving the bodies. It was a shock to the people in his life and became a source of mystery and disgust for everyone. The postings ranged from sharing news article links to detailed, graphic stories that are believed to be fictional.

Taylor was the last person to see him alive, having gone over to see him after work. She was a bartender at the local strip club, the Classy Cat, and part time model. While many entertained the idea that she could have killed him, there was no evidence to suggest a motive or that she had any idea of his online hobbies. Taylor claimed she hadn’t known what the painting looked like until a photo of it had been leaked. This falls in line with Watts’ typical behavior as he had always kept a painting or two secret from everyone until the night of a gallery opening. He didn’t even share with his online group; a surprise since the grotesque portrait of Taylor was in line with their obsessive interest over the Matchbook Killer. Taylor has never publicly commented on the painting and has not responded for comment for this article.

Watts’ online group had been called The Gobsmacked, a name with no discernible origin or reference. Within the small, password protected forum subgroup, a group of eight people (all assumed to be men) would discuss, at length, the Matchbook Killer in disturbing detail. Much of the information was found through leaked police files (by whom is unknown) and from two of the members (mavericks_gun and slobonmynob) listening in religiously on police scanners from Vermont and New York. There is something to suggest that it was one of these who had tipped off law enforcement in 2018. All members had been meticulous in keeping their tracks hidden online, except for Watts (username FritzyDitz) who had let slip repeatedly which cities he had been moving to and the dates of his art shows.

The Gobsmacked’s fixation on the Matchbook Killer created intrigue but it was the rest of the content which would make them infamous within the True Crime community and beyond. It would bring Darien Watts’ paintings under extreme scrutiny and launch fruitless investigations into the identities of the seven other users. Graphic, sex crime photos were frequently shared as well as post-mortem photography. Mediocre drawings believed to have been drawn by the user bawlz_to_the_wawlz of quadruple amputees in compromising and outright pornographic situations. These were not of particular interest to the others despite being shared with semi-regularity and are in the most abundance from the defunct group. However, it would lead to lengthy discussions of each one’s darkest fantasies. It would be discovered by them and revealed to the world that they all shared a desire for necrophilia and would write out highly detailed stories involving the Matchbook Killer’s victims; usually of the female victims, although mavericks_gun did not seem to show a preference one way or the other. While seven of The Gobsmacked would chat online almost nightly, Watts would sometimes be gone for a month at a time but return with tediously long, painfully detailed, and exceptionally graphic short stories revolving around himself and the victims. Sometimes sketches of the scenes would accompany the stories, done in a style unlike his usual but appear to be his all the same.

There is no known origin to the group or how the people could be connected with each other. Whether it was their interest in crime scene photos or of the Matchbook Killer or something else entirely that brought them together remains as yet another question in all of this tangled mess. Very early on in their corner of the internet, photos of the manifesto surfaced to be laughed at, picked apart, and analyzed. No one knows who had taken or uploaded the photos originally, the metadata scrubbed. While it’s possible the Matchbook Killer could have participated in the group, no evidence of this has been found. On the announcement of Watts’ death, the group disbanded, profiles either deleted or banned, and the page removed. While it was archived, the hosting site is under legal fire for its actions in removal of potential evidence and impeding the investigation.

The manifesto captured the nation’s interest. The language reads almost as parody. It was typed out by a typewriter and several years old, if not older, and the paper poorly maintained — if it exists on paper at all anymore. There is no way of knowing from the photos how old the document is, however it is an indicator that the Matchbook Killer has been operating for longer than anyone originally thought and perhaps beyond the two states where the bodies were found. The pages which are available (the file download of the images are long gone with the original forum) showcase a jumpy stream-of-consciousness. While the end goal is clear, not much else is. It’s difficult to tell if the Matchbook Killer wished to save sex workers or regarded even associating with one as sinful. The meandering, distracted thoughts make for difficult reading and appear to be in sore need of the context we are missing.

Of particular interest in the manifesto is the language use. It reads as if the primary reading materials available to the writer was the King James Version of the Bible and Shakespeare’s plays, quoting from both. Online sleuths have pointed out some of the terminology could point to Virginia origins of the manifesto’s writer. So far, this hasn’t yielded clues. With no definitive first victim, it’s difficult to determine the age of this serial killer. Dormancy is assumed but they could be injured, in jail or prison on an unrelated crime, or dead. Maybe they had a partner. The last four murders could have been the work of a copycat killer.

Watts’ story is a dead end. The matchbooks are another dead end — even with the ones which were partially intact and some writing visible, the towns and cities where the business branded matchbooks came from did not have similar cases. Some of those establishment have been closed for decades now. Maybe a matchbook collector decided to give up their collection for what they believe to be a righteous cause. The manifesto has not given up anymore secrets and the internet founders have disappeared. In an age of metadata, facial recognition software, AI, and cameras poised on every corner and in every hand it is a wonder how anyone can get away with murder.

If you have any information about the Matchbook Killer or the circumstances surrounding Darien Watts, please contact the FBI’s tip line.

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I cannot stress enough that this is a fictional article about a fictional serial killer with fictional victims. This was written as an accompaniment to a still in-progress story slated to come out at the end of the month. Thank you for reading.