Читать книгу Murder In The Heartland - M. William Phelps - Страница 31

Beyond trying to cut through the red tape of getting an Amber Alert issued, Sheriff Ben Espey had several other problems as the critical hours after the murder ticked away. Most important, he had to rally several different law enforcement agencies and undertake the daunting task of knocking on doors in Skidmore, with the hope of gathering as much information as he could about the last minutes of Bobbie Jo’s life.

While Espey was in the investigation room in the basement of the Nodaway County Sheriff’s Department, filling his blackboard with information, a lead came in that seemed, at least on the surface, extremely promising. The first twenty-four to forty-eight hours of any investigation are vital to solving the case. With an infant born prematurely—and under the most inhumane circumstances imaginable—time becomes your biggest opponent. Espey hoped someone in the neighborhood had seen something, anything. The murderer was, likely, covered with blood—maybe the baby, too. There was also an indication the murderer had blond hair. Crime-scene technicians had uncovered several strands of blond hair from both of Bobbie Jo’s hands.

Then a call came into the sheriff’s department regarding a resident at a nearby nursing home who supposedly had been involved in selling black-market babies for $6,000 each. Espey sent two deputies to fetch the man. When they got him back to the department, however, they realized immediately that getting anything out of him was going to be almost impossible, or at least a long, tedious process that would eat up crucial hours they didn’t have to spare.

“The guy was a deaf mute. I had to sit,” explained Espey, “and write out all of my questions to him. We spent all night trying to get things out of him.”

While that was happening, Espey had to brief the media, who were clamoring for a story. He stepped out from the basement of the department and held a short press conference in the back parking lot of the station.

“Someone was wanting a baby awful bad,” Espey said. “The victim was killed no more than an hour before she was found. She may have struggled with her killer…. Blondhair was found in her hands.”

Reporters shot questions at Espey in rapid-fire succession. He could give out only certain information. The investigation was ongoing. A killer was at large. A baby was missing. Compromising the investigation at such an early stage by giving out the wrong information was something Espey didn’t want to do. “There were no visible signs of forced entry into the home,” added Espey when pressed.

Reaffirming that the investigation was multipronged, Espey commended the many different law enforcement agencies helping out, “all over northwestern Missouri,” including the St. Joseph Police Department (PD) nearby, which had sent in a CSI team. “They are very well-trained…and very good.”

Espey made it clear Bobbie Jo’s husband, Zeb, was no longer considered a suspect, because he had an alibi: he was working at Kawasaki Motors when the murder occurred and had several witnesses to confirm his whereabouts.

Eight FBI agents were sent to the region and became part of the task force. A murder committed in the course of a kidnapping was a federal crime, especially with a suspect possibly crossing state lines.

As Espey saw it, the FBI’s presence early on was a godsend—specifically two agents who arrived hours after the murder.

Outside the department, on the street, Espey was still briefing reporters. “The doctors who examined Bobbie Jo gave us information indicating we probably would have a live child if we could find her….”

As twilight turned the Missouri sky as black as the ocean floor, police in Atchison County, Missouri, radioed in a report of sighting a “red car.” They were in pursuit of it.

Could it be?

But as cops tailed the car, they couldn’t get a good bead on the driver. As they approached the car to get a closer look, the driver turned off the headlights and, racing along the back roads of northwestern Missouri, took a turn into the woods alongside the main road. Within minutes, it vanished.

A glimmer of hope for Bobbie Jo’s family was gone as quickly as it came in. It would be the beginning of a long night of highs and lows for Ben Espey, as varying reports flooded the system.

“That red car in Atchison County,” said Espey, “that wasn’t our car. I knew it right away.” He could feel it, he said.

Espey had his own hunch about the case he was about to follow through on—a gut feeling that, in the end, would help solve the case.