Hometown Killer. Carol J. Rothgeb
Andria: He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it and then he got curious and was asking her why she had to be down there all the time. “What’s drawing you down there?” And she nonchalantly wouldn’t answer him.
Davidson: Do you have any idea what was drawing her down there?
Andria: Boys.
By the end of September, according to Captain Richard O’Brien, the police had spent “in excess of two thousand man-hours” on the case. They had received many hundreds of tips and had questioned more than two hundred people. But they still did not have a primary suspect.
It was mid-October before the police released to the public that Phree and Martha might have eaten a full meal between the time they disappeared and the time they were murdered. They thought it was possible that the girls had eaten in a restaurant.
It was also revealed that the girls were seen about 5:15 P.M. on Saturday, August 22, 1992, riding a boy’s twenty-inch purple bicycle. Martha was riding on the handlebars while Phree pedaled the bike and they were going west on East Main Street.
They also said that Phree and Martha were wearing short-sleeved shirts and shorts and tennis shoes the day they were murdered.
Captain Richard O’Brien asked that anyone who may remember seeing the girls anytime on August 22 to please call the police with the information.
In December 1992 at least five concerned citizens called the police department and reported that they had seen, or were still in the possession of, a $1 bill with a message written on it: “Vance Brown* killed the two girls.” Several of them turned the currency over to the authorities.
Brown was located and interviewed by Sergeant Moody and Detective Eggers. The middle-aged family man who had held the same job for twenty-seven years had obviously been the victim of a cruel hoax.
Six months after the brutal murders of Phree Morrow and Martha Leach, police revealed that they had two witnesses who had heard a child scream the night the girls disappeared. Sergeant Moody, along with Captain Walters and Lieutenant Schrader, was interviewed on a local radio station, WBLY, by talk show host Darryl Bauer.
Sergeant Moody explained that sometime within the previous month two men had come forward and reported that at about 11:00 on the night of August 22, 1992, they had heard a “bloodcurdling” scream coming from the area where Phree and Martha’s bodies were later found.
Shortly after that, the same two men saw a burgundy Grand Prix with a white top leaving the same area. There were two men and a woman in the car. They said the car went west on Section Street, ran a stop sign, and sped away.
The two men knew the information was important, but they did not come forward sooner because they had been involved in illegal activity at the time and were afraid they would be blamed for the killings.
This new information was released to the public in the hope that even more people would come forward with important information.
By this time more than ten people had had their blood drawn for DNA testing.
7
That was kind of eerie . . . going up to her house but not being able to tell her, ‘The guy living right next to you . . .”
—Sergeant Barry Eggers
The week after the detectives were guests on the radio talk show, they finally got a break in the case. Jamie Turner’s mother informed them that Jamie had been having nightmares and she had heard him screaming the names of the two dead girls. Jamie’s father had died and he and his mother lived together.
The investigators had talked to Jamie on several occasions since their first encounter with him. They had even taken him to the crime scene and had him “walk through” what he had seen on the night of the murders.
They had set the scene—as close as they could—to what the light, distance, etc., would have been, based on what Jamie had told them. According to Sergeant Haytas, “He’s saying he saw all this in detail? You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. He had to be there or know what was going on. He didn’t see it from that distance. He had to be involved in it. He’s saying things that he saw that you couldn’t see in the dark—not unless you were right up on it.”
Another time they had even arranged for the chubby, unsophisticated man to be hypnotized, in the hope that they might learn more details—to no avail.
Jamie, wearing faded blue jeans and a turquoise striped T-shirt, was brought in for questioning on the afternoon of March 1, 1993. During the interrogation Jamie, who had previously told the detectives that he saw a “Chinese guy” murder Phree Morrow and Martha Leach, implicated his cousin Alexander Boone*, someone named Damien, and someone named “Kevin.”
Graeber: Are you telling me he (Alexander Boone) is the one that killed the girls?
Jamie (his voice husky, but his speech childlike): He didn’t kill them. He watched.
Graeber: Who killed them?
Jamie: Kevin did.
Graeber: Who had intercourse with the girls, Jamie?
Jamie (briefly biting his lower lip before he answered): I didn’t. Alex or Kevin—I ain’t sure. They both did. Then I saw that guy kill the girls . . . Alex.
Graeber: Whose idea was it to meet the girls?
Jamie: It that Damien’s.
Graeber: Well, you told Allen—
Jamie: Allen is full of shit I tell him.
Graeber: And you told Chuck and Valerie.
Jamie (pouting): They got me in lots of trouble.
Graeber: You went down to the tree house, right?
Jamie: Yeah, I went down there and nothing to do with this. They having sex with the girls . . . Kevin and Alex.
(Jamie couldn’t seem to sit still. He fidgeted with his hair, smoothing it down with the palm of his hand, and then tugged at his left ear.)
Graeber: How did the girls get covered up?
Jamie: They covered them up. They told me if I didn’t help them, they’d kill me.
Graeber: So what did you do?
Jamie: Helped them.
Graeber: Help?
Jamie (scowling at the detective): Yeah. I told you who fuckin’ did it!
Graeber: Who had the rock?
Jamie: Damien.
Graeber: What did he do with the rock?
Jamie: Hit her head.
Graeber: Did they have their clothes on or not?
Jamie: No.
Graeber: What clothes didn’t they have on?
Jamie: Their pants.
Graeber: Did they have any clothes on at all?
Jamie: Yeah, had shirts.
(Jamie told Detective Graeber that the blond-haired girl [Martha] slapped him.)
Graeber: Why did the girl slap you?
Jamie (running his hand over his face and then almost whispering): Because they say I’m ugly.
Graeber: You were holding the blond-haired girl because she slapped you, right? How were you holding her?
Jamie (biting his lip again): Was holding her behind her. Up by her neck. I wasn’t doing nothing to her.
Graeber: And she was yelling at you, kicking you?
Jamie: Yeah.
Graeber: What did you do?
Jamie: Damien come down