The man who abducted, raped, photographed and killed several California women - and who may have killed Boulder's famous Jane Doe 52 years ago - was into masochism at age 4, his mother told a New York judge.

She said she caught him in his bedroom with one end of a string attached to a drawer and the other end attached to his penis, a Court TV account of his life reports.

He did well in school, though, and had a few friends. But he was jug-eared and homely, had no self- confidence, and was deathly afraid of girls, according to profiles and newspaper accounts.

In 1938, when Glatman was 11, the family moved from the Bronx in New York City to Denver. He seemed to fare well at Sherman Elementary School, but one night, his parents came home to find rope burns around his neck, evidence of a more advanced form of erotic masochism.

Before long Glatman was carrying a rope wherever he went. "Ever since I was a child, I have been fascinated by rope," he later said.

When Glatman was 17, he was arrested in the act of breaking into an apartment window in Denver. Police found a rope and a .25-caliber pistol on him.

He confessed to being the "phantom terrorist" who had held up and bound at least four Denver women. At the time, he was two months away from graduating from East High School.

A month later, while out of jail awaiting trial, he abducted Norene Laurel [Lauer] and drove [walked] her up Sunshine Canyon west of Boulder. After fondling her, he drove [walked] her back to Denver [Boulder].

He was sentenced to a year in Colorado prison. When he got out, his mother sent him back to New York for a fresh start.

There, however, he continued assaulting and robbing women. He was sent to a reformatory, then spent time at Sing Sing prison.

He served less than four years [more than five years].

His mother summoned him back to Denver, where he didn't get into much apparent trouble.

But Boulder Sheriff's Detective Steve Ainsworth believes Glatman was ramping up his nerve and still acting on his perversities.

Glatman likely was the person who picked up the pretty young stranger that no one knew in April 1954, Ainsworth said. Dubbed Jane Doe, her naked body was found by hikers below Boulder Falls.

"It doesn't make sense that he would have done what he did . . . at 17," committed more crimes for a couple of years in New York "and then done nothing for 10 years" until the California murders began, Ainsworth said.

Meanwhile, Glatman finished his probation and moved to Los Angeles in early 1957. Within a year and a half he had killed three women there and nearly killed a fourth.

His modus operandi was to pose as a photographer. He'd call agencies, asking if he could shoot one of their attractive models for the covers of detective magazines.

Using the name "Johnny Glenn," Glatman bought some expensive camera equipment and an old car and lived out his fantasies of rape [sexual assault] and murder.

After his arrest, Glatman told journalists, "I really didn't like to kill. I didn't have the urge. It was just that I got to that point of no return."

His mother, Ophelia, was quoted in the Rocky Mountain News as saying about his involvement in the murders: "Oh, my God in Heaven. Not my boy. He was always so good. He never hurt anybody."

On Oct. 31, 1958, during his confession to police, Glatman denied any connection to the Jane Doe murder in Boulder four years before. Ainsworth said it's typical of serial murderers to freely admit to killings they know the police know about, but to plead ignorance about others.

Los Angeles police said Glatman passed a lie detector test when he denied involvement in the Jane Doe death.

On Sept. 18, 1959, Glatman was executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin prison in California.