Hometown Killer. Carol J. Rothgeb

      6

      I’m saying that somebody was sitting there watching me . . . and waiting for me to leave.

      —Sergeant Michael Haytas

      Incredible. Almost unbelievable. The pond had been drained. They had crawled on their hands and knees in the mud looking for anything that might help them solve these horrible murders. The rocks were not there. Now, seven days after the bodies had been discovered, two of the rocks had mysteriously reappeared. Who took them? Who brought them back? Why? Was someone watching?

      Earlier in the week, Mrs. Strahler, whose family owned and operated Strahler’s Warehouse, had reported to Sergeant Moody that there were three large lava rocks missing from the spot where the bodies had been found. They had been part of the landscape. She even had pictures of them.

      The huge stone that had been left on Phree’s head was not one of the lava rocks. Except for its enormous size, it was not unusual.

      There was no doubt that the colorful lava rocks were missing. They had not been there when the crime scene was processed and did not show up in any of the many photographs taken. The area had been gone over with the proverbial fine-tooth comb.

      Sergeant Moody was astonished when Mrs. Strahler called on Sunday afternoon and told him that she had just found two of the rocks in the pond. She had managed to get them out of the water with a rake.

      This discovery was nothing less than eerie. In their original state these rocks had been embedded in the dirt. The killer had moved the rocks and then placed the victims’ faces in the remaining “holes.”

      Sergeant Haytas had left the scene about one hour before Mrs. Strahler caught sight of them in the pond, just north of the place where Phree and Martha had been found. He had been there finishing his drawings and diagrams documenting the area and he was absolutely sure that the rocks were not there when he left. Between 1:00 and 2:00 P.M., a mere sixty minutes, the person(s) who had taken the rocks had returned them to within a few feet of where the girls’ feet had been. Without being seen.

      Had the killer taken them as a souvenir? Where was the third rock? Was the killer attempting to taunt the police officers? It was one of the most bizarre things any of them had ever heard of in all their combined years of investigative experiences.

      They were, of course, aware that many serial killers do take a trophy, but there was no evidence at this time that these were serial killings. However, many killers, serial or otherwise, will return to the scene of a murder for various sick reasons. Was this one somehow trying to insert himself into the investigation by returning pieces of evidence?

      After mysteriously reappearing and then being recovered by Mrs. Strahler, the two lava rocks were collected by Officers Lisa Westerheide and Linda Powell and submitted to the crime lab in the hope that the rocks would hold some sort of clue still clinging to their colorful surfaces. The investigators were not optimistic, however, since they had been found underwater. But they had to be sure.

      Crime scene personnel returned to the pond area on Monday morning to make sure nothing else had been returned to the scene.

      In the afternoon, with the assistance of the Springfield Sewer Division, they opened a nearby sewer manhole. Officer Beedy and two sewer workers searched the Mill Run sewer line for possible evidence.

      A sewer suction truck was called to remove the debris from a storm catch basin on Lagonda Avenue, under the Route 40 overpass. The sludge was dumped at a site on Mitchell Boulevard, and Officer Beedy and Sergeant Haytas went through it, by hand, hoping to find something—anything—to help them with their investigation.

      Over the next few days, several strange letters were received by the police department, the local newspaper, and members of the victims’ families. They were all anonymous letters with many misspelled words and very little punctuation. The printing was childlike. The letter sent to Jettie Willoughby, Martha Leach’s mother, read:

      I don’t want to hurt you But Thouh you should no

      Dear MRS. Leach. my heart go out to the parents of These 2 little grils But There is something you A MRS Marrow Both Should no The police Dept is Saying your grils were proistues That why they were there This is The inside word They ARe Releasing iT To The pouple They ARe also Blaming A encene person whom was home Asleep at The Time

      A similar letter was sent to Bennie Morrow, Phree’s father.

      The letter to the Springfield News-Sun that was obviously written by the same person read:

      The police DepT sTinks We are one of your best customs Here A inside scop if you want To prienT iT

      To whom iT may concern Here is some inside info on The 2 Little grils found They The police DepT or saying The 2 grils wre prosiTues And They Are Trying To frame A encene young man They have been Hassing foR 2 nigHTs He cant even Ride Around wiThouT being follow by The police They Have Retarted man qustioning him. They Think He done The killing of The grils

      And in the margin of the three-holed notebook paper, it read: “I hope To see part of this in you paper Anyway”

      The police department received several letters containing “tips” about men that the writer considered suspicious, cars in the area, and asking if anyone had looked inside the warehouse.

      In all, there were seven letters received by family members, the newspaper, and the police. Each and every one of them contained the misspelled word “grils” at least once.

      The family members who had been out searching for Phree and Martha on the night of August 22 informed the detectives that Bennie Morrow had been the one to lead them to the Lion’s Cage and the pond.

      On September 9, 1992, Bennie submitted to having his blood drawn for DNA testing. When the results came back from the FBI, his DNA did not match the DNA in the semen found in the girls. It was just a very strange and eerie coincidence that he had led the group to the very area where the bike was found and to within feet of where the bodies were discovered.

      A few weeks after the murders, in an effort to learn more about Phree’s family life, Sergeant Steve Moody and Detective Robert Davidson interviewed Bennie’s girlfriend, Andria Wells:

      Davidson: Did you know both these girls? Or just Phree?

      Andria: I spent the last seven years of her life with Phree. I had met Martha one night—and that was the night they went skating—that Friday night.

      Davidson: Why don’t you tell us how you felt about Phree? What did she like to do? What kind of kid was she?

      Andria: Well, she was ornery—but what kid isn’t ornery? She pulled the wool over her father’s eyes lots of times. I caught her in different lies. But we had a pretty good relationship up until the time she was going to her mother’s. There was different days that she went to her mom’s to spend the night and, I don’t know, it was like she was a completely different person after she went down there. She wasn’t the same little girl.

      Davidson: So, about three weeks previous to her being murdered, she started going down there a lot?

      Andria: Yeah, and he went down to pick her up to make sure she was being fed.

      According to Andria, Bennie worried about Phree’s eating habits at her mother’s. Susan didn’t always have enough money to have supper on the table. Sometimes Bennie and Andria would bring Phree home to eat supper with them and then take her back to her mother’s later in the evening or the next day. But then Phree balked at having to leave her mother’s house even for that brief period of time, so they would pick her up and take her out to eat and then take her right back to Susan’s house.

      Davidson: