Hometown Killer. Carol J. Rothgeb
Martha Leach came in nearly every day, so Pat knew her well, but she had just started seeing Phree Morrow recently. She liked the girls, even though there had been some problems with Martha earlier in the summer. On more than one occasion, Martha and some other kids had stood outside the door of the bakery and asked customers for money.
The two girls came in together on Friday afternoon, August 21, 1992, and bought a small chocolate cake. They asked Nancy Gilmore*, the clerk, to write “We Love You” on the cake. Pat watched as Nancy decorated the cake with a purple rose made out of icing, and she wondered why the young, pretty girls would be wearing so much makeup.
Martha came in the bakery again the next day, late in the afternoon, with a young man. The man told Martha she could have whatever she wanted and she picked out nine doughnuts and two “happy face” cookies. He handed Pat a $20 bill.
On this particular Saturday, Phree, with her dark auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail, and Martha, with her curly blond hair, were anxious for school to start the following week. Phree liked school; music was her favorite subject and she was learning to play the violin. She would be starting the seventh grade at Franklin Middle School. Martha’s twelfth birthday was only a few days away, and on Wednesday she would be starting classes at Schaefer Middle School. The only problem was, since they went to different schools, they wouldn’t be able to spend as much time together.
Martha had stayed all night with Phree (at her father’s house) on Friday night. It was the first time Bennie had seen his daughter’s new friend—and, tragically, it would be the last. Martha was quiet, perhaps shy, in the presence of adults that she had just met. Bennie would later say that she seemed like “a nice kid—a good kid.”
Early in the evening they had a cookout, and then he dropped the girls off at the roller-skating rink on the other side of town.
On Saturday morning, when Bennie took the girls to Susan’s house, he warned Phree as she got out of the car: “This is it.” She would not be spending so much time at her mother’s—it was time to get serious about school starting the following week.
Another thing the girls had in common was that one of Susan Palmer’s ex-boyfriends was Martha’s uncle. Also, Deon Stevens, Martha’s cousin, was one of Phree’s “boyfriends.” Tim Stevens, the uncle, and Deon were father and son. Phree’s half sister Dawn Wilson was Jimmy Stevens’s girlfriend. Jimmy and Deon are brothers.
Sometime in the afternoon, Susan sent Phree and Martha to the tavern down the street to get her some cigarettes. No one in Kinsler’s Bar was surprised to see the young girls come in. Frequently Phree came in looking for her mother.
When they got back from the neighborhood bar, Susan asked Tammy Martin*, a sixteen-year-old girl who was staying with her, to walk with the girls to West North Street, the home of Tim Stevens’s ex-wife, Tina—over sixteen blocks away. Susan had written a note for Phree to give to Tim.
Tina Stevens would later confirm that Phree had knocked on her door that afternoon and said that she was looking for Tim.
After the three girls stopped at the house on West North Street, they decided to walk over to the Dairy Mart on West Main Street. On the way they were shouting at guys in cars and asked one if he wanted a girlfriend. After leaving the convenience store, they headed back to West North Street to look for Tim Stevens. Shortly after that, a neighbor of Tina’s gave the three girls a ride back to Susan Palmer’s house.
Later that day, Susan, Dawn Wilson, Jimmy Stevens, and John Stevens (another of Martha’s uncles) left to go swimming at Mad River. There wasn’t enough room in the car for the girls and they really didn’t want to go anyway. They asked if Phree could spend the night at Martha’s house.
Soon after that, Deon and his best friend, Matthew Rude*, rode over to Martha’s on their bicycles and the four of them sat around in the backyard, talking and laughing. The girls told Deon and Matthew that they were going to a party that night and then Martha started talking about getting some doughnuts.
She walked around the corner to the house where a twenty-three-year-old neighbor, Richard Patterson*, lived, and when she came back, she had $2 that Richard had given her for her birthday. Then Phree and Martha playfully persuaded Deon to lend them his bicycle so they could ride it to the bakery. The girls left together on Matthew’s bike. (Deon came back later to get his bike, but the girls weren’t back yet.)
Late that afternoon, Phree and Martha had asked Martha’s mom if they could go to Schuler’s Bakery. At first, Jettie wasn’t too concerned when the girls didn’t return right away. Kids get distracted sometimes. But then as afternoon slipped into evening, Jettie began to worry. The bakery was only a few blocks down the street and they had had more than enough time to get there and back. What was taking them so long? It would be getting dark soon.
Finally Jettie decided to walk around the neighborhood and look for the girls. She asked Tim Whitt, her boyfriend, to go with her.
Shortly after dark, Dawn Wilson and Jimmy Stevens left the house on Main Street to walk to the beverage dock on Lagonda Avenue. As they approached the corner of Main and Lagonda, they saw Jettie and Tim coming toward them.
Jettie fretfully told Dawn that the girls had gone to the bakery hours earlier and had not returned. They decided to ride around the neighborhood in Jettie’s car to search for Phree and Martha. They even drove several blocks away to ask John Sargent*, one of Phree’s boyfriends, if he had seen the girls, but he had not seen them at all that day.
By then, it was about 10:30 P.M. They drove over to Bennie Morrow’s house in the south end of town.
Bennie and his girlfriend, Andria, were getting ready for bed when Dawn came to the door and told them that Phree and Martha were missing. Without even taking the time to put his shoes on, Bennie jumped into his car and drove to the house on East Main Street where his ex-wife lived. Jettie quickly followed. There he got into her car with the rest of the group and they continued the frenzied search.
Phree’s mother had gone to Whitie’s Tavern soon after returning from Mad River earlier in the day, so she was still unaware that her daughter could not be found.
When she came out of the bar, she was looking for a ride to another bar, the Key Lounge, where she was supposed to meet her boyfriend, David Atkins. By chance, Jettie drove by Whitie’s at that time, saw Susan, stopped, and told her what was going on. Susan turned around and walked back into the bar.
Jettie was incredulous. She turned to Bennie and said, “Do you believe that?”
He replied, “That’s the reason I have custody of Phree.”
Shortly after that, a friend of Susan’s drove her to the Key Lounge. She went in and told David that the girls were missing. He finished his beer. And then they also drove around searching for the two young girls.
After checking back several times, the group in Jettie’s black Nova eventually found Susan at home around midnight. The distressing news was traveling quickly throughout the family; Bennie’s mother and one of his sisters were also there.
Several times during the evening, Bennie mentioned that he knew a place where Phree liked to play. After returning to his house to get his shoes and a flashlight, he took the same group that had been in the Nova to the area known as the Lion’s Cage, which is part of the Mill Run Sewer System Collection Point. The “cage” is near the railroad tracks that run underneath the bridge on East High Street. East High Street runs parallel to East Main Street.
It is such a secluded area that it is difficult to imagine that they were only one block from this busy street. With the tall trees and the brush, they could barely see anything with only the small circles of light from their flashlights to guide them. As they approached the Lion’s Cage, the sound of the rushing water obliterated the noise of the crickets playing their nighttime tunes and the sounds of the passing cars on the nearby street.
Meanwhile, Officer Keith Hopper of the Springfield Police Department had been dispatched to that area to check a suspicious vehicle at Penn and Railroad Streets. South of Railroad Street, a portion of Penn Street was closed off,