Читать книгу Hometown Killer - Carol J. Rothgeb - Страница 14

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But Jesus said, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

—Matthew 19:14

The morning after the all-night search was like all other Sunday mornings at the bakery. Customers stood in line to buy doughnuts for breakfast or after-church brunch and desserts for their Sunday dinner. It was a beautiful summer day.

Bennie returned to his house in the south end of town a little after 6:00 that morning, told Andria that they still had not found Phree and Martha, and then went to bed. After tossing and turning for quite some time, he finally fell into exhausted sleep. Andria woke him up at about 8:30 and the two of them went looking for the girls again, to no avail.

Finally they went back home and made arrangements to meet the police at Susan’s house. When they pulled up to the curb, Jimmy Stevens came running out of the house and excitedly told them that Tim Whitt had found the bike. He said that he and Dawn had just gone in to wake David and Susan to tell them that the bike had been found at the Lion’s Cage.

What could it possibly mean? Only the bicycle was found? Where were Phree and Martha?

They all went to the Lion’s Cage to see for themselves, but it was very difficult to see the bicycle lying in the bottom of the large cage. Some of them had to have it pointed out; one of the tires was the only part that was visible. It seemed impossible that the bicycle could be in the water inside the steel cage. David thought that perhaps someone had put it down a sewer and it had washed into the cage.

When the police arrived, it was quickly decided that they needed help getting the bike out of the sewer tunnel. The fire division was dispatched to assist the police department. The firemen parked their truck on the bridge over the railroad tracks, on East High Street.

Deon Stevens was called and he came to identify the twenty-inch lavender bicycle.

When two of the firemen went back to their truck to get some tools, they saw two young boys running up the hill toward them. By the time Jay Martina* and Keith Casey* got to them, they were out of breath and Keith was almost hysterical. Captain Todd Bowser tried to calm the boys so he could understand what they were saying. Then it became all too clear.

Dawn Wilson was still at the Lion’s Cage when she heard someone calling her name from up on the bridge. The person yelled to her that two dead girls had been found.

The bicycle and the girls’ bodies had been found in two of the very same areas where the family members had been searching the night before.

The Crime Scene Unit returned to the murder scene about 8:00 Tuesday morning. With the assistance of the Springfield Sewer Division, they drained the water from the pond. Lieutenant James Keys and Officer Michael Beedy then crawled on their hands and knees in the drained pond searching for possible evidence.

The new police recruits—thirteen of them—were called upon to help with a search that ran west from Walnut Street to Spring Street and south from Buck Creek to the Conrail railroad tracks. They searched the woods and storm sewer catch basins, abandoned houses and buildings, abandoned and junked automobiles, fields, and along the railroad tracks and Buck Creek.

The crime scene was secured for another night at 5:00 that evening. Tarps and plastic sheets were used once again to protect the scene from possible bad weather. Uniformed police officers guarded the area.

Earlier in the day, the detectives learned from the two clerks at Schuler’s that Martha Leach had been in the bakery the previous Saturday afternoon, August 22, with a young man. Pat Gibson and Nancy Gilmore differed slightly in their descriptions of the man, so they each provided information for composite sketches. The two sketches were released to the public that evening.

The white male was described as being approximately 5’ 7”, 120 pounds, very thin, and between seventeen and twenty years old, with a sandy-colored crew cut and hazel eyes. They also said his cheekbones “stuck out” and that he was very pale, “almost anemic,” or “emaciated-looking.” They both said that he wore a blue stud earring in his left ear.

Also, a woman named Marcy Lavelle* reported to the police that she was in the area of the murders around 3:30 Saturday afternoon. She said she saw an “old, dingy, trashy” bluish green van sitting on Penn Street and a man walking back and forth on the sidewalk. She also said she saw a second man who was “older, scummy-looking” get in the van with a box of doughnuts and then they just sat there.

Al Graeber’s wife, Sharon, hadn’t seen him to talk to him for three days. He had been home to grab a few hours of sleep here and there and then he was right back on the job. He took every case seriously—even personally—but this one preyed on his mind. The fact that he had a seven-year-old daughter added to his intense determination.

This case “hit home” with everyone who was closely involved in the investigation—almost all of them had at least one daughter. Al Graeber had three other daughters by his first wife, who lived in Indiana with their mother. Steve Moody was the father of two girls, eight and three, and a five-year-old boy.

At Dayton radio station WTUE, Steve Kerrigan asked for donations to a reward fund for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible for the deaths of Phree Morrow and Martha Leach.

The Crime Scene Unit on Wednesday returned to the crime scene and searched the pond and island area for any evidence that might have been missed. With the help of the new recruits, another search was made of the same area that had been searched on Tuesday. Each officer searched in a different area than he had searched the day before, just in case he might spot something that another officer had missed.

The scene was secured with tarps and plastic sheets to protect it from possible bad weather at 3:30 that afternoon. Again it was guarded by uniformed patrolmen.

At 8:00 that evening, the area was opened and lab personnel “black-lighted” the scene to look for evidence. The whole area around the pond was sprayed with luminol, but no blood was found except in the spot where the bodies had been, which led the investigators to believe the girls were murdered right where their bodies were found.

Three hours later, the scene was again secured and guarded.

By late Wednesday afternoon, August 26, the police had received several dozen phone tips from the public regarding the composite drawings. They brought in extra personnel to help answer the telephones. They were determined to follow up on every possible lead.

A forensic artist worked with the bakery clerks to combine the two composite drawings into one single sketch of the man seen with Martha in the bakery on Saturday afternoon. Captain Richard O’Brien, the Public Information officer, stated that the artist was working with the witnesses to “come up with a more lifelike image.”

There was a viewing at the funeral home for Martha Leach that evening. The funeral home had been wired with surveillance cameras in the event that the killer was bold enough to show up there. From the basement Detective Barry Eggers monitored persons coming into and going out of the funeral home. Also, from time to time, he walked around among the mourners inside and outside the building and even worked the door for a while as a greeter.

At some point, between 6:00 and 7:00 P.M., he noticed a young man outside in front of the building wearing a “cheap” light blue suit and a tie. Detective Eggers thought it was strange because he never did see the man enter the funeral home. The man had simply walked by the front door and looked in and then disappeared. And when the detective reviewed his tapes later, the young man’s image had not been captured on any of the tapes.

Perhaps it didn’t mean anything, but it was odd.

Later in the evening, a man showed up who had just recently had all his hair cut off, and a mob of family members and friends, thinking he may have had something to do with the murders, was about to attack him. At that point Detective Eggers—frustrated at having to make his presence known—rescued the startled young man from the crowd. It turned out that the reason for the new haircut was not to change his appearance—he had just joined the armed forces.

A very thorough Detective Eggers also asked an employee of the funeral home to make him a copy of the sign-in sheet in the guest book.

Reverend Forest Godin conducted the somber funeral service for Martha Leach on Thursday morning, August 27, 1992—two days after what would have been her twelfth birthday. There were about 130 mourners, including Martha’s classmates, in attendance. A heart-shaped balloon floated near Martha’s open casket. After they played one of Martha’s favorite songs, “Wind Beneath My Wings,” the minister tried, with his words, to comfort the brokenhearted family members and friends who had gathered.

Afterward, a procession of about fifty cars headed west on High Street toward Ferncliff Cemetery. They slowly passed between the two locations where the bodies and the bicycle had been found, less than a block in either direction.

By this time the crime scene personnel had already been back to work for several hours. They raked the island area and placed the debris in bags and took them to police headquarters. The pond was searched again. The overflow grates on the north wall of the pond were removed. They removed the debris, sifted it, and examined it for possible evidence.

The entire area was searched again: the stacks of wooden pallets, the parking lot, and the wooded area. Since this was considered a final search of the crime scene, all the tarps and plastic sheets that had been used to protect against bad weather were returned to their owners. At 6:00 that evening, Captain David Walters released the scene from further protection.

Sergeant Haytas remarked, “We did everything but bring the fish in from that pond.”

Michael Haytas, a Vietnam veteran, had dreamed of being a police officer since he was a child. Originally from New Jersey, his tour of duty in the air force brought him to nearby Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. He liked the area and decided to stay.

His first attempt to join the Springfield Police Department was rejected because of a height requirement. Several months later, the department eliminated the stipulation and he was hired. He had a reputation for being thorough and meticulous.

Haytas was the father of two sons and a daughter. His daughter was twelve years old.

At 10:00 that night, the crime scene personnel returned to the Lion’s Cage, where the bicycle had been found, to “black-light” the area to look for possible evidence. This area, too, was sprayed with luminol, but the results were negative.

More than two hundred people gathered at the same funeral home on Friday to mourn the loss of Phree Morrow. Even though it was late August, the temperature had dropped significantly and it was a cloudy, fall-like day.

Pastor Timothy Dotson, of the First Church of Christ in Christian Union, compassionately expressed a deep understanding of the overwhelming emotions present in the room. He told the Bible story in which the disciples tried to shoo the children away from Jesus.

Grief-stricken family members and friends filed through the alcove past the open, but white veiled, casket. A nearby table was covered with stuffed animals and an assortment of other gifts.

Afterward, a procession of fifty cars slowly headed east to Rose Hill Mausoleum. Away from the crime scene—away from where the bicycle was found. But they couldn’t get away from the heartache and the pain, and, of course, the anger.