Leslie Slavin’s abduction

Leslie Slavin’s abduction is identified as the Trawler’s final victim-taking in Los Angeles County. Her disappearance on a crowded Saturday night in Westwood punctures Bret’s increasingly celebrated story that Robert Mallory was the Trawler: the crimes continue afterward, and a letter verified by the Los Angeles Police Department claims the Trawler’s authorship while exonerating Robert.

Circumstances and Disappearance

By the time Leslie vanishes, Bret has been telling his classmates that the Trawler was Robert, and that Robert died after being exposed and trying to kill him. The story brings Bret attention and sympathy, but the narrator notes that something interrupts its continuation. Leslie’s disappearance provides that interruption: she is seventeen, leaves friends at Yesterdays on a crowded Saturday night, and walks to her car in a garage on Glendon Avenue. She does not return.

The account gives a precise date and setting—November 21 in Westwood—but does not describe the abduction itself or establish how Leslie was taken. Its emphasis is on the ordinary public circumstances surrounding her last known movements, and on the abrupt uncertainty that follows.

The Trawler’s Claim

After Leslie disappears, a limited number of home invasions begin again. They are described as less violent than the attack at the Reynolds residence on North Canon Drive, and the Trawler denies that the Beverly Hills attack was his, while tacitly acknowledging other invasions. These developments make the disappearance part of a renewed pattern rather than an isolated unresolved case.

A letter sent to the Los Angeles Times and verified by the Los Angeles Police Department confirms the Trawler’s connection to the crimes. It refers to Robert not by name but as “the God,” and says a further gift had been left for him at the Benedict Canyon house he sometimes visited. The letter identifies that gift as Audrey Barbour, joining her to the earlier victims, including Katherine Latchford. It also says that Audrey had been held in the house’s soundproofed basement for days before being killed and discovered. The letter thus assigns responsibility for Audrey’s death to the Trawler and rejects suspicion of Robert.

Consequences and Significance

Leslie’s abduction changes the meaning of Bret’s apparent victory over Robert. Bret has presented himself as the survivor who identified and defeated the Trawler, and his classmates accept that account; the renewed crimes and verified letter show that this resolution is false. Robert is not named in the letter, but the Trawler’s language explicitly clears “the God” of wrongdoing and resents the suspicion directed at him.

The episode also extends the story’s recurring pattern of delayed recognition. Earlier home invasions were associated with advance warning calls, rearranged household objects, and missing neighborhood pets, while witnesses offered inconsistent descriptions of the masked intruder. Leslie’s disappearance does not itself explain those clues, but it arrives within a sequence whose authorship has been obscured by Bret’s self-serving version of events. As the Trawler claims credit for the crimes and identifies Leslie as his final Los Angeles County victim, the narrative’s supposed closure gives way to renewed uncertainty and a correction of blame.