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Behind the Mask: A True Story of Obsession and a Savage Genius (St. Martin's True Crime Library)

Behind the Mask: A True Story of Obsession and a Savage Genius (St. Martin's True Crime Library)
By Stella Sands

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Forty-year-old William Coday lived the quiet life of a scholar. He spoke six languages and held degrees in history, literature, and library science. As a librarian in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, he was known to be unfailingly kind and helpful. But you can’t always judge a book by its cover…

When Coday failed to show up for work one day, a concerned colleague looked for him at his apartment…only to discover the body of Gloria Gomez. Coday’s ex-girlfriend, Gomez had been bludgeoned to death with 144 blows by two hammers and a knife. Police at the scene had little doubt that Coday was the killer. But other, darker secrets from Coday’s past had yet to come to light…

In one of the most shocking crime cases and legal appeals in Florida history, an extraordinary courtroom battle began.What the jury did not know was that Coday, when he lived abroad, had beaten another ex-girlfriend to death; the courts there had deemed him insane. Who was William Coday: Mentally unstable? Or perfectly capable—and guilty—of murder in the first degree? Soon it would be up to prosecutors to prove who the real man was BEHIND THE MASK.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #70834 in Books
  • Published on: 2009-06-02
  • Released on: 2009-06-02
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Mass Market Paperback
  • 256 pages

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Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

A mild-mannered man who worked in a library.

Forty-year-old William Coday lived the quiet life of a scholar. He spoke six languages and held degrees in history, literature, and library science. As a librarian in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, he was known to be unfailingly kind and helpful. But you can’t always judge a book by its cover…

The beautiful woman who broke his heart.

When Coday failed to show up for work one day, a concerned colleague looked for him at his apartment…only to discover the body of Gloria Gomez. Coday’s ex-girlfriend, Gomez had been bludgeoned to death with 144 blows by two hammers and a knife. Police at the scene had little doubt that Coday was the killer. But other, darker secrets from Coday’s past had yet to come to light…

A history of obsessive love and brutality…

In one of the most shocking crime cases and legal appeals in Florida history, an extraordinary courtroom battle began.What the jury did not know was that Coday, when he lived abroad, had beaten another ex-girlfriend to death; the courts there had deemed him insane. Who was William Coday: Mentally unstable? Or perfectly capable—and guilty—of murder in the first degree? Soon it would be up to prosecutors to prove who the real man was BEHIND THE MASK.

 

With 8 pages of graphic photos!

About the Author

Stella Sands is Executive Editor of Kids Discover, an award-winning magazine with over 400,000 subscribers geared to children 7 to 12 years old. She is author of the true-crime book Baby-faced Butchers, as well as other works including Odyssea and Natural Disasters. Her plays, Lou Passin’ Through, Black-eyed Peas, and E-me, have been produced in Off-Off Broadway theaters in New York City.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

 

The Scene of a Crime

 

Librarians are a helpful lot. Dedicated, responsible, and eager to assist, they're counted on by the young and old for their patience, broad knowledge, and resourcefulness, though they're also often characterized as uptight. When 100 people were surveyed on the TV game show Family Feud and asked what a typical librarian's characteristics were, they responded: Quiet, Mean or Stern, Single/Unmarried, Stuffy, In Glasses. Admissions officers interviewed in several college library programs had a different take. They stated that the finest librarians have excellent communication skills, are eager to provide service, and have an outstanding ability to organize knowledge. Male librarians, by far the lesser-represented gender in the group, are considered equally resourceful and just as competent as female librarians. They are typically mild, civil, and intellectual. "Macho" men need not apply; eccentrics may. And one did.

 

William E. Coday Jr., 38, fit most of the characteristics offered by Family Feud contestants and the admissions officers. He was quiet, meek though occasionally stern, single, sometimes stuffy, bespectacled, eager to help, well organized, widely read, and highly intellectual. In 1995, Coday applied for the prestigious job of supervisor of the International Languages Collection at the Broward County Main Library in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and was hired on the spot. Among other duties he was expected to perform, he was put in charge of expanding the library's international language collection, which brought with it the special perk of travel abroad. It was a plum position—$33,000 per year— and Coday was a natural for it. Fluent in Spanish, German, French, and, of course, English, he was also proficient in Italian, Hindi, and Farsi. He held three degrees: a bachelor's degree in history and literature, a master's degree in library science, and a law degree. Plus, he had lived abroad in Germany and India for several years. What better person to fill the position?

 

The library, located on South Andrews Avenue in downtown Fort Lauderdale, was a bustling place— and a breathtaking site. Ultramodern, with a stepped glass façade that was punctuated with lush, landscaped terraces, the building was both eye-catching and inviting. From a reflecting pool on the first floor, an atrium rose six stories, allowing the Florida sunshine to brighten the central hall for the over 600,000 individuals who visited the library every year.

 

By all accounts, William Coday was a model employee for the two years that he worked there. Library official Steve Kerr called him an "intelligent, laid-back person . . . a very charming, bright, interesting, attractive young man," who was also "personable and very witty." Punctual, helpful, and resourceful, Coday was admired by his colleagues for his vast knowledge, and counted on by library-goers for his self-effacing assistance. Kathleen Imhoff, assistant director of Broward County Libraries stated, "He was an employee in good standing," and noted that he had been promoted the year after he arrived. Records indicated that he never missed a day's work without calling in ahead of time, and that missing work was an infrequent occurrence.

 

So when, on Saturday, July 12, 1997, Coday failed to appear for work at the front desk of the library, or call in sick, several staffers became concerned. Marjorie Moorefield, a co-worker, took it upon herself to cover the desk until he arrived. After all, Coday was her good friend, and friends help out friends in time of need. She wondered if perhaps Bill was hanging out in the back room, chatting with colleagues and enjoying a cup of coffee, and had somehow lost track of the time. But after making a quick check of the room, she knew for sure he hadn't shown up. In fact, no one she spoke to had seen him at all that morning.

 

Feeling uneasy, Moorefield asked one of the staffers to give Coday a call. Her first thought was that "he was reading one too many books and some car hit him." That's because the previous week, as she and her husband were driving home from Borders bookstore, they had spotted Coday crossing a street, deeply immersed in a book, blithely unconcerned and perhaps unaware of cars. She had said to her husband then that she feared for his safety.

 

The staffer called Coday and reported back to Moorefield that no one had answered his phone. She said she'd left a message on his machine. By 10 o'clock, Coday still hadn't shown up, and according to several librarians, Moorefield became "a nervous wreck" because "it's just not like him at all." Moorefield asked a fellow librarian to take her place at the desk so she could take a ride to Coday's apartment to check things out. By that time, three different messages had been left on Coday's machine, and still, there was no word back from him.

 

If it had been any other staffer besides Coday, Moorefield and others at the library might not have blinked an eye. But because "Bill had been meticulously on time and reliable as an employee," his absence was unusual. Plus, recently, things about him had begun to change. For one, he had lost a great deal of weight. For another, he had become extremely quiet, barely looking up from his desk to speak to his colleagues. And several times in the previous weeks, he had disappeared into the elevator without telling anyone where he was going, an act that was against library policy— staffers were not supposed to leave their desks without first telling someone where they were going, and making sure their post was covered. Plus, he often seemed oblivious to what was going on—out of it, in fact—and that was not like the Bill they knew. At one point during the previous week, Moorefield had realized that she was the only person at the library Coday was still speaking to. Other staffers also noticed that something was definitely out of whack with Coday. His appearance, which had been meticulous and appropriate, and his demeanor, which had been dignified and engaging, had deteriorated. It seemed that showers and clean clothes were a thing of the past. Some days, he even arrived at work unshaven and with stains on his shirt. Talking among themselves, some co-workers expressed fear that he might be suicidal. They all knew that he had recently broken up with a girlfriend, and had been very unhappy about it.

 

After a fellow librarian agreed to cover the desk for Moore-field, she and a colleague drove to Coday's corner apartment, 1B, at 1701 Northeast 5th Street, in the Victoria Park neighborhood. Perhaps Coday was sick. Perhaps he was too depressed to get out of bed. Perhaps— and they could always hope— he had reconciled with his girlfriend, and the two were having some fun.

 

As the librarians drove along, they agreed to each look at a different side of the street to see if Coday was walking to the library. After all, he had no car, and either walked or biked to work every day. It could be that he had simply forgotten what time he was supposed to show up that Saturday. His co-workers scanned the road, but Coday was nowhere to be seen.

 

By that time, it was around 1 p.m. As the two women pulled up in front of the apartment, their spirits soared. There, in the front yard behind the wooden fence lined with bursting, bright pink bougainvilleas, was Coday's trusty bicycle. Probably, he was still asleep. They were ready to tease him: sleeping in on a Saturday morning when he was supposed to be at the front desk. Shame on you! They knocked on the door. The air conditioner was on and condensation formed on the windows. Moorefield joked that "nothing could be alive in there, because it was too cold. You would be frozen stiff, [she] thought— at least I would have been." They knocked again and again and again.

 

With no response, Moorefield decided to locate the manager. Maybe he'd be able to help. She saw a note taped to the mailboxes giving the name and phone number of an acting manager who was on duty that weekend. After jotting down the information, a worried Moorefield and her colleague returned to the library, where they and staffer Donna Donzune immediately called their supervisor, Esther Roberts, and left a message on her machine. Library rules required that in cases of emergency in the library, supervisors must be called first. After a few minutes, Roberts called back. Donzune told her, "Marjorie is about to have a nervous breakdown. She just knows something happened to Bill." Roberts said she would call the acting manager of Coday's apartment complex right away.

 

Esther Roberts, department head of the reference and information services divisions, first tried Coday's number. Like the others who had phoned him before, she got no answer. Roberts then called the acting manager of the apartment complex. She identified herself as a library employee who was concerned about a fellow worker, a William Coday of apartment 1B, who had seemed depressed lately, possibly even suicidal. Would he mind checking on the situation? Thaddeus Janik, an electrical contractor who had worked in the complex, stated that he was not on site at the time, and although he didn't know Coday personally, he assured the caller that he would look in on the gentleman when he finished his project.

 

Around an hour and a half later, Janik stopped by apartment 1B and knocked on the door. No one answered. He peered through the window, hoping to see some movement, but saw instead only a messy apartment. Just to be sure every...

Customer Reviews

Riveting, Disturbing, and Thought-provoking5
"Behind the Mask" kept me awake half the night with its twists and turns. At the outset, it's about the senseless and brutal killing of Gloria Gomez by her ex-boyfriend William Coday, a seemingly mild-mannered librarian in Fort Lauderdale, FL. But the murder is just the tip of the iceberg. As the case unfolded, there were revelations about Coday's secret criminal past and the failure of the justice system to hold him to account for his previous actions that left my stomach in knots. What's more, Coday wrote his own creepy "novelistic" account of the murder that's judiciously and juicily quoted--and which essentially served as his confession. The death penalty trial that followed put the reader in the position of being the jury---presenting all the evidence for and against executing Coday. The trial is surprisingly gut-wrenching, and I was in nervous suspense as I turned the pages toward the final (surprising) outcome. If you're into the legal side of things, as I am (I'm a huge "Law & Order" fan), you'll especially appreciate what a great job the author does in illuminating the characters of the attorneys on both sides of this disturbing case, along with their strategies.

Stay Behind the Mask1
Being a big fan of true crime, I was interested in the topic of genius run amok...it's not very common in the annals of crime and I was looking forward to reading this book. However, over half way through, I was ready to set it aside. There was no one I cared about in this story: not the victim, not the perp - well maybe the parents of the first victim, but that was based on their photograph. There was no character development to speak of, no historical perspective and no insight into what went wrong with the perp. (See, I can't even remember his name and I was reading it last night.) Ultimately, it was a chronicle of the court case and as such, was quite unsatisfying, and worse, boring.

Beautiful Writing5
I loved this book. The writing was out of this world. Twice I arrived late to work because I was reading in bed. i love stories about geniuses-gone-awry. And I loved how beautiful the writing was. That's not a given in true crime. Sometimes good writing seems like an afterthought. But with this book, if the riveting plot and characters don't pull you through alone, the writing will. It's that good.