Читать книгу Dead Center - Frank J. Daniels - Страница 12

= chapter 4 =

An Accident, A Suicide or Murder?

Since it was uncertain whether Bruce Dodson’s death could be a homicide, the Sheriff’s Department assigned two crime scene technicians to respond to the scene to assist with the investigation on the day of Dodson’s death. It had been a bit unclear who was in charge of the whole situation with the presence of so many officers.

One of those who became involved was Captain Warren Smith, a tall, dark, handsome, smooth-talking, western-dressing, well-meaning man in his mid-forties who had been the sheriff down in La Plata County a few years back before losing an election by getting crosswise with the NRA crowd. During the last election in Mesa County, Investigator Armand found himself supporting the losing side of an internal battle that had half of the department backing the eventual loser and the other half backing the eventual winner. By the time of the Dodson case, most of those who had supported the loser were gone from the department, voluntarily or otherwise. Armand was still there. Hired as a captain, Warren Smith had been brought into the department to restore order. Technically, Captain Smith now was the incident commander on the Uncompahgre, but the lack of a clear chain of command created some problems.

The two crime scene technicians were Carl Todd and Victor Poste. Carl is a forty-something, pleasant-looking, average-sized man with a peaceful demeanor, close cropped brown hair and above average intelligence. He is the kind of person who can do just about anything that needs to be done, from building a house to applying CPR to save someone’s life. Victor is about the same age but taller and also had his blond hair cut military-style. He usually carries a worried look on his face. Carl and Victor arrived at the hunting camp around 4:15 P.M. When they arrived, Deputy Patrick briefed them.

As the investigators proceeded with the case, they sent me reports as to what they found. Todd’s descriptions of what he observed that day added to my concern. He wrote:

The camp is located about 200 yards off Brushy Ridge Trail, about 4 1/4 miles from Divide Road. When we arrived we were met by Deputy Patrick who was there taking the report and doing interviews. I could see that there were two tents to the rear of the vehicles, off in the oak brush. The tents belonged to a Marshall, Texas man and his hunting partner. About 160 feet to the north of these tents were two vehicles. One vehicle was a VW camper van and just to the rear of that was a red and white Ford Bronco. These vehicles belonged to the shooting victim and his wife. I could see that there was a pair of blue denim bib overalls hanging from the passenger side mirror of the van. The bottom twelve inches of the pant legs were muddy. There was a pair of woman’s hiking shoes on the ground next to the pants. They were covered with mud. The sliding side door of the van was open and the pop-up roof was up. There was a green Coleman-type camp stove stowed in a recessed area above the cab of the van, held down with bungee cords. The Ford Bronco was about ten feet behind the van and the tailgate was lowered. There were various items in both vehicles that would normally be found on a hunting/camping trip.

Investigator Armand showed Deputy Poste and me the crime scene, located about 175 yards to the north of the van in a small clearing near a barbed wire fence. There, lying on the ground about 20 feet to the south of the fence, was the body of a man. There were several wires with plastic flags in the ground noting the location of various pieces of evidence. One of the wooden fence posts was flagged and I could see that it had a hole through it that appeared to have been made by a bullet. The south side of the post was blown out, indicating that the bullet was coming from the opposite side of the post from where the body was found. There were several Division of Wildlife officers and Forest Service officers on the scene. Investigator Armand had everyone go on the other side of the fence where we formed a search line and walked through the area where the shot was thought to have come from. We were searching for a cartridge casing that may have been ejected in the area by the shooter. We searched for several minutes, but we didn’t find anything.

After finishing with the collection of the evidence that was flagged, we assisted the deputy coroner with the recovery of the body and helped to load it into his vehicle for transport. We then went back to the camp area. Investigator Armand and Deputy Patrick were talking to the victim’s wife and Brent Branchwater, the hunter from the adjacent camp. Investigator Armand was examining the rifle in the back of the Bronco and he put that rifle in a case for collection as evidence. The victim’s wife, Janice, had been sitting in Mr. Branchwater’s camp during our time there. She became very distraught and we felt she was going into shock. I noticed that she didn’t start shaking real bad and acting shocky until Investigator Armand got in the back of the Bronco and started looking at the rifle. Until then she was pretty calm. Captain Smith felt that Janice was going into shock and he asked that I start up my unit and place her in it with the heater going. As we started to switch vehicles, Janice passed out. Captain Smith had Air Life respond to transport her to Saint Mary’s Hospital for medical treatment. I drove up to the landing zone and we transferred Janice to the helicopter. After the helicopter left, Deputy Poste and I went to several campsites along Brushy Ridge Trail. We contacted the hunters in those camps and asked for information and checked identifications. We covered about six or seven hunting camps. We drove back to Grand Junction and made plans to return the next day.

On October 16, 1995 at about 10:20 A.M., we returned to the shooting scene with representatives of the Mesa County Search and Rescue Team, Palisade Police Chief Rory Clark, Division of Wildlife and Forest Service officers, and several Sheriff’s Department officers. Chief Clark had come with a metal detector to aid in locating any spent rifle cartridges or other metallic evidence. The Search and Rescue Team members were there to conduct a ground search for footprints, spent cartridges, and any other evidence that might be found in the area. I started to search the vehicles for ammunition that would go with the weapons found in the vehicle and at the shooting scene. I started with the VW Van. When I got to the rear of the van, I found a tan paper bag with a Gibson’s Discount Store logo on it. This bag was on the passenger side of the rear storage area. I looked in the bag and found two boxes of Federal brand rifle ammunition. One of the boxes was a box of twenty 7 mm magnum, 165 grain boat tail, soft-point ammo that contained 15 live rounds. The other was a box of twenty-four .243-caliber 100 grain, Hi-Shock soft-point ammo that contained 20 live and one spent cartridges. I collected these boxes of ammo as evidence. I also collected the muddy boots and the overalls from the van.

While I was searching the vehicles, Chief Clark found a shell casing in the area that the shot was thought to have come from. I put on gloves and picked up the casing noting that it was a .308-caliber rifle cartridge casing. I placed it into a small brown paper bag and labeled the bag as evidence. Deputy Poste and I used a tape measure to document the location of the casing in relation to the fence. We also measured the distance from the post with the hole in it to the VW van and the distance from the van to Mr. Branchwater’s tents. I talked to Captain Branchwater who told me he remembered a few things he forgot to tell Deputy Patrick. He told me that while he was helping to keep Janice away from her husband’s body she started talking about Bruce’s dad. She said he had been an executive with R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and that he had bought a lot of stock when he worked there. She said that he left a lot of insurance money to Bruce’s mother as well as the stock. She said that Bruce’s mom would send them as much as $10,000.00 every so often as a gift just to get rid of some of the money. She said that she met Bruce’s mom and that Bruce had told her that his mom liked her more than she liked him. She also mentioned that Bruce didn’t want to come hunting and that she told him she was going hunting with or without him.

I was told that some footprints had been found and was instructed to make castings for evidence. I took a camera and casting materials to some footprints located about fifty yards from the fence and about one hundred yards northwest of where the body was found. After taking photos of the prints, I then made casts which I collected when dry. Later I made diagrams from my notes and sketches.

Each insight and report about Janice Dodson added to the questions about her. She seemed agitated at one moment, exceptionally poised the next. A loving wife? A devious planner? Which was the real Janice Dodson?

On the afternoon of October 15, the day of Bruce Dodson’s death, numerous officers spread out to contact as many hunters in the area as possible. Because hunting camps are so transitory, this had to be done right away. One of the officers involved was Harvey James, a Division of Wildlife officer. Harvey is the strong silent type, right out of an old western movie. He even has a slow, western drawl. He has been the game warden assigned to the Uncompahgre Plateau for the past twenty years and he knows it as well as anyone. During hunting season, he would be checking hunting camps routinely anyway, so this just added a few questions and a higher level of concern. About five miles down Brushy Ridge Trail from the crime scene, Harvey located a camp of Texas hunters. He checked their licenses and asked them the same set of questions he was asking everyone that afternoon, “Where have you been hunting? Have you seen anything unusual or suspicious? Do you know Janice Dodson and Bruce Dodson?” and so on. Well, it turned out that two of the hunters in this camp did know Janice and they knew her quite well. These two hunters were Terence Morgan and his wife Carla. They lived in the town of Pollock in East Texas. Not only did they know Janice, Terence told Harvey, but Janice’s ex-husband, Mark Morgan was Terence’s brother, was also hunting in the area.

“Can you tell me the location of Mark’s camp?”

Terence nodded, “Its about five miles back down Brushy Ridge Trail and on the jeep road about a mile past the intersection where the trail takes a sharp turn to the west after you round Snipe Mountain, down over the hill, and off to the east in a grove of aspen near a stock pond.”

Harvey immediately knew the camp from the description. When Harvey returned to the crime scene that evening, he turned all of his contact information over to Captain Smith and made sure to point out this information. He thought it was a bit coincidental.

At the 8:00 A.M. briefing at the Sheriff’s Department the next morning, all details known up to that point were discussed, including this new information about Mark Morgan. This was obviously something that needed to be explored. Deputy Victor Poste was going to have a busy couple of days. A few minutes after the briefing, he and Deputy Todd left to return to the scene on the Uncompahgre. After helping Deputy Todd for a while, Victor teamed up with Harvey James to contact Terence Morgan so they could locate Mark Morgan. They arrived at Terence’s camp at 12:05 P.M.

Officer James and Deputy Poste got out of the car, slammed the doors and strode over to a man standing outside a tent.

“Are you Terence Morgan?” Poste asked.

At the man’s nod, Poste continued, “I’m Deputy Victor Poste and this is Officer Harvey James from the Division of Wildlife. I believe you spoke with him yesterday.”

Again, Terence nodded. “That’s right.”

“We want to speak with you again. You know that your brother Mark Morgan’s ex-wife was also hunting in this area and her new husband of three months was killed yesterday by a gunshot wound.”

“If it’s Mark you’re after, I haven’t seen him in two days. We were not hunting together nor sharing a campsite. He’s been in the area hunting, but not here.”

“When did you last see him?”

“On the fourteenth, about one-thirty in the afternoon. I went to his camp to see how he was doing and have a cup of coffee with him.”

“Where exactly was Mark camped?” Poste asked.

Terence gave the men a detailed description of how to get to Mark’s campsite, but added, “He’s not still camped there. He told me he was going to break camp and leave on Sunday evening because he had to be back at work on Monday morning.”

“Where does your brother work?”

“He works for a concrete outfit and he said they were doing a job on a military installation. He lives in Layton, Utah.”

“Who was Mark hunting with?” Bock asked.

“His boss, Gary Dalton and his girlfriend, Marcy. I understand they got a deer Saturday morning but didn’t bring it back to camp.”

“Does your brother know Bruce Dodson?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“What about problems after Janice married Bruce?” Poste asked. “Were there bad feelings between Janice and Mark after her marriage?”

“Not that I know of,” Terence responded. “You know, Janice came to Texas in July and I think she wanted to try and get back with Mark. But she learned during her visit that everything was over between them and she left. Wasn’t long after that, we heard she married this guy Bruce Dodson.”

Terence did not have an address for Mark in Utah, but was able to provide a phone number. After taking Terence’s statement, Deputy Poste gave him a business card and told him if he came in contact with his brother to have him get in touch. Deputy Poste and Harvey James then went to the area of Mark Morgan’s camp as described by Terence. They found the camp vacant and made note that one had to cross a mud bog to get to it. They did not get out of their vehicles or cross the mud bog because they could see that the camp was empty from where they were. Deputy Poste returned to the crime scene and reported what he learned to Captain Smith. After helping with photographing and evidence collection at the scene, Deputy Poste went back to Mark’s camp with Harvey James, Dan Faed and Chief Rory Clark to see if they could find any foot prints, shell casings or other evidence. No evidence was located. Dan Faed noted that this was the cleanest camp he had ever seen. “There was not so much as a gum wrapper or a cigarette butt,” he noted. There were some boot prints, but none that matched the two found back at the crime scene.

That same day, a somewhat disturbing report came into the Sheriff’s Department that had to be checked out. I felt from the beginning it had nothing to do with Bruce’s death. However, I had concerns that it could be used to confuse a future jury if this was judged a homicide. “All it takes,” I told a deputy, “is one confused juror to upset a trial verdict.” The incident came to light when someone had called the Montrose County Sheriff’s Department complaining of another shooting incident on the Uncompahgre Plateau the same day as Bruce’s murder.

October 15, 1995

A deputy was dispatched to the Hanton Motel in reference to the report of a shooting on the Divide Road.

He contacted Clarence Taylor in room number 209. The deputy said Mr. Taylor told him that he and his father were hunting about a quarter mile from the road on the Uncompahgre Plateau near Windy Point. Taylor said he was sitting on a chair next to a tree stump at about 1430 hours, when he saw two hunters walking about twenty yards from where he was. Taylor watched the two hunters walk toward the north, he heard them break off a stick, and then they fired a gunshot into the stump next to the chair he was sitting in. Taylor went on that he could still see the two hunters’ orange clothing; he thought they were about thirty yards away. He yelled at them to stop shooting. One of them yelled back in a gruff voice and fired a second shot, hitting the stump. Both shots went clear through the stump. He was about four feet from the stump.

Taylor described the two hunters; one was about 6’ 0”, grayish hair, 240 pounds, about forty-five years old wearing blue jeans and brown boots; the second hunter was about 5’ 10”, 160 pounds, possibly in his teens.

It was obvious to me that if these two would have had anything to do with shooting Bruce to death, they would not have traveled down the road and created a commotion. It appeared to be a case of two idiot hunters, something we see too much of around Colorado.