Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 11

II IMC 11 Killer more, she mailed him a timeline and news clips. Her tip revived the investigation. By April, authorities considered Nicholaou one of their three strongest suspects, Rowland said. The other two suspects are still alive. Police can't check their DNA without probable cause.

That's not the case with Nicholaou. "His profile fits the profile of somebody that would commit this type of crime," Rowland said. "There's no question about that" He has been a cop too long to get his hopes up. :1 But he was intrigued by Nicholaou's rocky childhood, his war trauma, his capacity for violence and his issues with women. And Nicholaou had traveled into the Connecticut River Valley area during the time of the murders.

And so Rowland agreed. He would have someone compare Nicholaou's DNA with DNA gathered during investigation of the serial kill- ings. i i John Philpin, a criminal psychologist shown at home in Vermont, helped police profile the Connecticut River Valley killer in the 1980s. This year, a St. Petersburg private investigator contacted him about Michael Nicholaou.

He called it the first "major lead" in the killings in several years. i Timet photo DOES HE FIT THE PROFILE? Criminal psychologist John Philpin's profile of the Connecticut River Valley serial killer, compared with characteristics of Michael Nicholaou: Michael Nicholaou Nicholaou had military training and I owned a collection of war mementos In 1997, when a neighborhood kid pushed Nicholaou's son, Nicholaou set the neighbor's car afire. Though his family disowned him, he always returned to his mother. His birth father was a convicted sexual offender. His stepfather may have been physically abusive.

Nicholaou, who served in Vietnam, was later diagnosed with, posttraumatic stress disorder and had flashbacks. Nicholaou was charged with obscenity related to his porn shop. Nicholaou would wake his children in the middle of-the night and take them on cross-country trips. They were homeless for a while and slept in their car. Nicholaou chanted a lewd mantra while driving with his wife Aileen, she latertold her sister.

Timet graphic Eight days later, 600 miles away, Bernice Courtemanche set off hitchhiking in Claremont, looking for a ride east to Newport, where she planned to meet her boyfriend. She wasn't far from Leo's Market when she left She never showed up. Carty jotted a note on a copy of a 22-year-old news clipping from the Progress, circling Nicholaou's quote. "Look what Nicholaou had to say about the murder and the police," Carty wrote. In her mind, his time in Virginia was no alibi.

By all accounts, Nicholaou had plenty of reasons to drive north. He was in Vermont over from 10A got away from him, Carty recalls her saying. Had she been afraid of Nicholaou? Carty says Susan screamed the answer: What do you think? I The conversation was over. Susan Nicholaou declined to speak jwith the St. Petersburg Times.

Nicholaou's own mother denied knowing him until she learned that her name and phone number were noted in a Tampa Police Department homicide report It was about Nich-plaou's December suicide and the shooting deaths of Aileen Nicholaou find her daughter Terrin Bowman. He and Aileen had met through a newspaper personal ad before melding their families in the late 1990s. ZZl threw him out years ago," his flKlther, JoAnn Sobotincic, told the Times. "He stole mv car and tank off. haven't seen him or heard from him since." nicholaou had told his wife Aileen Qffl his mother molested him when fcejras young.

Sobotincic said Nicholaou was never sexually abused, but that her husband, Rudy, hit him. His birth father, Edward Stafford, is sex offender in South Carolina. His mother divorced Stafford on grounds of "extreme cruelty" tjien Nicholaou was 3 years old, records show. She told the Times Stafford was a child molester. Nicholaou rode a motorcycle to high school in Farmingdale, N.Y., where he was a wrestler.

He enlisted in the Army in 1968, in Brooklyn. In Vietnam, he flew helicopters fpr tiie 335th Aviation Company, called the Cowboys. Interviews with ajdozen Cowboys reveal a brave and duty-bound man with a dark side. He earned a Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star and Air Medal, among other honors, flying into hot zones to drop supplies and recover the wounded. But at least once he left camp on his own, carrying only a knife and seeking hand-to-hand combat with the enemy.

It became a legend in the company. In May 1971, the government charged Nicholaou and seven other helicopter crewmen with murder for strafing innocent civilians while on a flight in the Mekong Delta the year before. The military dropped the charges because of insufficient evidence, according to news accounts from the time. Days after the charges were dropped, Nicholaou was released from active duty. When he returned to the United States, his homecoming celebration was short He worked odd jobs and moved from place to place, never staying anywhere for long.

Friends began to notice evidence of posttraumatic stress disorder, a mental illness for which he later sought treatment in Miami and Tampa. His mother said she heard little from Nicholaou. But FBI agents have contacted her three times in the past 15 years looking for him, she said. Once, they asked about Susan Nicholaou's baby. The other times, they didn't say why they wanted him.

By 1977, he was living off and on in Virginia. Police in Charlottesville busted him for dealing drugs and used him as an informant according to former Chief John Bowen. For years afterward, Nicholaou told people he was cop, or that he worked for the CIA. He opened a porn shop called the Steer from 1A Researchers have found that the high often settles into position in July and stays put for a few months. Once set, the giant system isn't quickly moved.

Its stability helps forecasters determine generally where hurricanes might go. It's an important piece of a large rjtlzzle each season, said Robert Weisberg, a marine sciences professor at the University of South Florida. Its current position east of the U.S. mainland bodes well for Florida this season, he said. But it's still too early trTsay for sure.

it stays to the east, that's good," he said. "The more west it moves, the more nervous we get" "Atmospheric physicist Steve Smith, who leads catastrophe modeling efforts for Carvill, a reinsurance company, predicted that the Bermuda High will have a greater effect this season than it did in 2005. Conditions this year could produce more classic Cape Verde storms that form near Africa, he said. Cape Verde storms tend to track more closely to the Bermuda High than storms that form in the southwest Caribbean Sea or the Gulf of Mexico. "It should have a significant effect this year," Smith said.

"Depending on where it settles, that can be good or i riot very good at all." Scientific uncertainty "The Bermuda High can stretch more than 2,000 miles across and rise thouy iads of feet into the atmosphere. A DANIEL WALLACE Christmas gifts out of a station wagon with wood-paneled sides. The surviving victim had told police her attacker drove a wood-paneled Jeep Wagoneer. Carty felt guided by the spirit of Michelle's mother, who had died without answers to her daughter's disappearance. Carty had often yearned for a better relationship with her own mother.

She resolved to finish the job she started. It had been a month since Carty had first spoken to crime profiler Philpin. He was saying all the right things. The man who had helped police on hundreds of homicides, including the Gainesville student murders of 1990, agreed that Nicholaou could be the killer. "This is the first, I'd call it major, lead in three or four years," Philpin later told the Times.

Carty didn't understand what was taking so long. It was February. Nicholaou was dead but families deserved answers. She felt there must be DNA evidence from the woman who survived the attack. Again, she wondered: Couldn't someone test Nicholaou's DNA? She dialed the New Hampshire State Police.

At least once a week, a tie-wearing detective named Steve Rowland climbs a narrow wooden staircase into the past He riffles through thick volumes of murder files in the third-floor cold case morgue of the major crimes unit in Concord, N.H. Back at Rowland's desk, a bulletin board posts the faces of women killed decades ago, their deaths never solved. It had been six months since someone had called about the valley murders. Rowland usually hears from family members seeking updates, or people who want to share theories about the killer. But Lynn-Marie Carty had more.

Carty rattled off what she knew, keeping Rowland on the phone for half an hour. It was the first time Rowland had heard of Michael Nicholaou. Carty answered Rowland's questions before he asked them. She told him of the matching cars and Nicholaou's links to the area. When he asked for The Bermuda High can set up closer to the East Coast or on top of the eastern United States.

In those cases, the "alley" shrinks or disappears and the hurricanes cannot turn north before striking land. That's what happened during the 2004 hurricane season, when four hurricanes plowed over Florida. Hurricane Charley, for instance, rode the winds of the Bermuda High into the Gulf of Mexico before it turned east into Punta Gorda. Last season, the system settled in a similar position but with an extension that sat on top of north and central Florida, protecting the Tampa Bay area. The system, along with other factors, guided Hurricane Katrina across the Everglades and into the gulf.

Katrina rounded the western edge of the system and turned north. A frontal system from the west pinned the hurricane against the Bermuda High's western edge, helping guide it toward New Orleans. The system also contributed in another way to last year's record-setting season. Forecasters blamed record high sea surface temperatures around many parts of the Atlantic Basin. Part of the reason for the warmer waters was that the Bermuda High was exceptionally weak in the winter of 2004-05 and did not provide the usual cooling of Atlantic Basin waters.

The waters started off above average and nothing kept them from getting even warmer as the summer went along. The good news is that the Bermuda Rowland now has Nicholaou's fingerprints from Tampa police, and he's trying to get DNA from 1 the Hillsborough County Medical Examiner's Office. He plans in the next few weeks to compare the fin- gerprints with some gathered from Boroski's car. It will be up to the forensics lab to test the DNA, but the lab is backed up with current homicide case Rowland said. On average, Carty e-mails Rowland seven times per week, asking him to hurry the process along, he said in April.

Rowland said he doesn't expect an answer until late in the summer, but he has already dug through physical evidence from three of the old cases, and he thinks that the killer must have left his DNA behind. He wouldn't be surprised if the killer was Nicholaou. Carty grows antsy, waiting. Between paying jobs, she scours the Internet for unidentified murder victims who might fit Michelle's description. She digs through other cold cases, including several deaths in Texas, another in Massachusetts.

Nothing moves fast enough for her. She thinks about calling America's Most Wanted at Dr. Phil. By June, she has convinced a 48 Hours producer to fly to Florida to hear her out Michelle's sister, Tammy Patkj doesn't talk to Carty anymore. Patla blames Carty for jeopardizing her relationship with Nicholaou's chili dren.

Carty's claims upset Nick. "I don't deserve this," says Nick Nicholaou, 18. "I dont know what this lady's talking about" The private investigator still trades e-mails with Jane Boroski, the suri viving victim from New Hampshire, who encourages her efforts but like1 Rowland, hesitates to be too optimistic; Boroski looked at a recent photo of Nicholaou and couldnt say whether he was her attacker all those years ago. Carty won't entertain the idea that the DNA might not match. She still has no solid answers, but the killer's shadow creeps into her nightmares.

In them, she's alone in the dark, outside Leo's Market in Claremont talking on a pay phone. Times researcher Cathy Wos and Carolyn Edds contributed to this report. Ben Montgomery can be reached at bmontgomerysptimes.com or (813) 661-2443. Alexandra Zayas can be reached at azayassptimes.com or (813)226-3354. High was stronger this past winter.

The trade winds stirred up the Atlantic and cooled the sea surface. Tem-' peratures remain above average, but not as high as last year at this time; 1" That should help keep the early part of the season quieter than last, year," Collins said. A slew of factors The Bermuda High alone cannot be credited for every hit or miss of. the United States. Hurricane paths are influenced a slew of meteorological Cold fronts, trade winds, the Gulf Stream, even the storm's own intensity.

Troughs of flowing air can often' shove the Bermuda High or subtly' change its shape, like pushing on the side of a giant marshmallow. In August, for instance, Hurricane Irene looked like it might make landfall in the Carolinas. But another weather system or weakened, the Bermuda western edge. The change allowed; Irene to turn sharply east away from the coast The Bermuda High, once settled' is best used to indicate general areas vulnerable to strikes, Smith said. It helps forecasters determine if the Carolinas are more likely to get hit than, say, South Florida or the Gulf, Coast It doesn't help much in determining whether Miami is more likely to get hit than Tampa Bay.

"It's gives a strong indication of where landfalls might occur," Smith, said. "But it's not that precise." Graham Brink can be reached at brinksptimes.com or (727) 893-8406. ABOUT THIS STORY St Petersburg private investigator Lynn-Marie Carty contacted the St Petersburg Times after Michael Nicholaou's December murder-suicide and spoke of her suspicions about Nicholaou. For this story, reporters and researchers relied on interviews, public documents and e-mails. They visited New Hampshire and Vermont and interviewed New Hampshire Detective Steve Rowland, Vermont criminal profiler John Philpin and others with knowledge of the Connecticut River Valley killings.

They spoke with Nicholaou's friends and family, the family of Michelle Ashley, the family of Aileen Nicholaou and many others. ON THE WEB To tour the Connecticut River Valley on the Web and meet criminal psychologist John Philpin, visit links.tampabay.com. Christmas some years, and his ex-wife Susan lived in Connecticut The butterflies on Carty's shelves made way for her growing collection of The Shadow of Death copies. By spring, she would own 11, thinking they might become valuable one day. Early on, her dog tried to drag the first copy outside.

He knows it's evil, she thought She spent thousands of dollars searching records. She asked strangers to compare a composite sketch of the valley killerwith a photograph of Nicholaou, pointing out the dark-framed glasses that both men wore. Day and night, she sent e-mails to Michelle's family members, asking questions they couldn't answer. At first they were helpful, but gradually they questioned her persistence. Carry felt she had no choice.

How could she ignore the clues? There was the note in Michelle's abandoned baby book that placed her and Nicholaou in a Hanover, N.H., hospital on Thanksgiving, 1986. A nurse from the same hospital disappeared in January 1987, miles from the Vermont home where the Nicholaous spent Christmas and the weeks that followed. And what about his car? Relatives remember, in the mid 1980s, taking Times graphic Storms still travel west toward the United States along the Bermuda High's bottom or southern edge. But eventually the system's clockwise rotation turns the storms north into the alley. Instead of striking the United States, they keep turning around the Bermuda High's western edge and eventually head back toward Europe or break up over cooler northern waters.

"It's a bit like the storms cling to the (Bermuda High)," said Jennifer Collins, an assistant geography professor at USF. The sooner the storms can turn north, the less the chance that they will hit the east coast" Steering storms to Florida Florida doesji't always get so lucky. The profile Calculated attacks, attention to detail and routine would suggest the killer is a collector. Outbursts of rage. His most significant relationship is with his mother.

His father was abusive or absent. His violence shows he could be recreating an early experience. History of voyeurism. Reliant on his car and spent a lot of hours on the road. Driving was a form of self-hypnosis.

Pleasure Chest in Charlottesville in 1983, a year after his divorce from Susan. He was living with his business partner and the partner's wife. Nicholaou would leave town alone sometimes, later telling friends he had gone to New York or Miami. Two weeks after the porn shop opened, Nicholaou and his partner were charged with selling obscene materials. A jury convicted them.

Months later, police raided again. This time another jury returned a not guilty verdict Nicholaou talked to the local newspaper, the Progress. "Evidently the police don't have enough serious robberies, murders and rapes to occupy their time," he said in a story published May 22, 1984. Think of it as an elliptical mass of air that wobbles around the subtropical region of the North Atlantic, changing subtly as it interacts with other weather systems. The system spins clockwise, pushing warm and humid air from the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico through the eastern United States.

Researchers don't know for sure what causes the high to settle in different locations or exactly why it's strong some years and weak in others. "I wish we knew," Smith said. "There are many things that we still just don't understand." In the early 1900s, meteorologists recognized that hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin moved north out of the tropics, unless they ran into an area of high pressure, which tended to move storms to the west They saw that a large high pressure system, often centered over Bermuda, appeared to dominate the western Atlantic in the summer and fall When the system shifted, the trade winds shifted with it Hurricanes can't go very far on their own, so they hitch rides on those winds. And just like a hitchhiker, a hurricane's limited transportation options can force it to take a circuitous route. That's why hurricanes, no matter how powerful, don't take a straight course through the Bermuda High's inner core.

Instead, they flow around the periphery, riding the high's strongest winds. Forecasters sometimes describe the storms as logs floating in a river. They go where powerful currents take thrn. STEERING THE STORMS As the massive area of high-pressure known as the Bermuda High spins clockwise, hurricanes are steered by its circulation. If the high-pressure system is over Bermuda, left, storms are thrown northward.

If the Bermuda High moves closer to the United States, right, it swings incoming hurricanes directly into the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico. Qyfi my Source: ESRI; Wetssnd.com "In climatological terms, hurricanes are pretty small events compared to broader scale weather like the Bermuda High," Smith said. They are like pinballs getting belted around by all the other factors." In years when few hurricanes hit the United States, the massive system acts like a goalkeeper deflecting storms away from the coast Smith said. Despite a significant increase in the average number of storms since the mid 1990s, a below average number struck the United States from 2000 to 2002. One main reason: The Bermuda High steered them away.

In those years, the Bermuda High sets up away from the coast of the United States. The position creates an "alley" between the system's western edge and the U.S. mainland..