Sleep In Heavenly Peace. M. William Phelps
a nearby town, at a retail-clothing outlet. It wasn’t what she wanted to do, she said, but it passed the time, kept her away from her mom, and, simultaneously, earned her a little cash.
Jonathan Schwartz, a broad-shouldered man with a square jawline and Cary Grant–type allure, had caught Dianne’s eye from the moment she saw him at work. Jonathan spent his days in the warehouse. He and Dianne would run into each other every so often. Throughout 1973 and partly into 1974, they developed a close friendship that grew, she said, into love.
The relationship, however, was flawed from the get-go. Jonathan grew up in a Jewish family and had never dated a Gentile. Dianne was Latino and white. She looked more white than Latino, and race or religion meant little to her. She liked Jonathan and they got along well. He treated her with respect and turned out to be the first male figure in her life to show her any type of admiration and respect, which she believed she deserved.
“I really, really did love him,” Dianne recalled.
On January 8, 1974, Dianne and Jonathan, in what was a small ceremony, got married. After a brief honeymoon, they moved into an apartment near the lake, just below where Dianne had been living with Mabel for the past few years. Inside the first year of their marriage, though, things didn’t go as Dianne or Jonathan might have planned. In great physical shape most of his life, Jonathan developed severe health problems not long after he and Dianne married.
“He got very, very sick and ended up having complete renal shutdown,” Dianne said, “and had to go on dialysis.”
What made it hard for Dianne to care for Jonathan, she said, was Mabel, who was stuck on the notion of Dianne marrying into wealth and insisted she do whatever Jonathan wanted. Despite Mabel’s hatred for Jews, she would tell Dianne, “You take care of him, Dianne, and do what he says.” Mabel believed Jonathan had money, and if Dianne catered to his every need, some of it would trickle down into Mabel’s hands.
Jonathan was soon placed on a list. As soon as a replacement kidney was available, he would get it. Until then, Dianne believed it was her job as his wife to care for him.
2
Thomas and Weddle had always viewed the babies in boxes as a homicide case. Homicide and murder cases are entirely different from both a legal and investigative perspective. By definition, murder is not an act of contrition; it is an act of “willful killing.” One person sets out to kill another and completes the act, generally, in a violent manner. Most of the time, there is premeditation involved and the person committing the crime is considered to be of sane mind. Homicide, on the other hand, is the killing of one person by another in “which intention is not considered.” A drunk driver doesn’t necessarily set out to kill another human being when he gets into a vehicle drunk and begins driving down a crowded street.
“Officially, homicide—under New York state penal law—includes murder, manslaughter, criminal negligent homicide, and abortion (illegal),” a former New York state cop with over twenty-five years of law enforcement experience explained. “Murder first and second are actual charges, whereas homicide is not. When you investigate a ‘homicide,’ it’s not necessarily a murder. But when you investigate a murder, it’s always a homicide.”
At first, Thomas and Weddle believed that whoever was responsible for wrapping up those babies and hiding their bodies had not, perhaps, intended to kill them, but rather had been there when something terrible happened and decided to cover it up. They weren’t so sure it was Odell, yet they had good reason to consider she either knew who had done it, or had participated in it with that person.
After Weddle explained to Odell how they had found photographs of family members among her items, Odell admitted she had left the photographs behind. It was, essentially, the first time she had admitted to anything.
“I didn’t take anything,” she said, “that wasn’t absolutely necessary, like the kids’ clothing, my clothing, clothing that they needed, you know, that we needed to change into.”
Thomas and Weddle wondered why a mother—obviously a poor mother, struggling to make ends meet, someone who couldn’t even afford to pay for the storage unit—wouldn’t take her children’s clothing. The only conclusion that made any sense was that Odell and her family were running when they left Arizona. Otherwise, why would they just up and leave without taking all of their personal possessions?
Thomas, sitting, listening, decided to take the questioning down a different path. It was time to stop dodging the issue, put the facts on the table, and see how Odell reacted.
“Do you have any idea,” Thomas asked, “why the bodies of three babies would be in these boxes inside the boxes that were taped shut and marked with your identification, such as ‘Mom’s, Doris’s, Alice’s, all your court papers, anything like that?”
Whoever had packed those babies had packed them in such a way that he or she didn’t want them to be found. It was clear from the way they were packaged so carefully.
Odell shot back immediately, “No, no idea. Holy cow. I would have no idea. I’m sorry. I wish I did.”
“We would, too,” Weddle said. He was understandably frustrated. He could sense Odell knew more than she was willing to concede.
“This is…all new to me,” Odell said.
“Is there any way any of these babies could have come from any of your kids without your knowledge? Did anything like that ever happen in your home, or did your daughters ever say anything to you about being pregnant? Anything like that?”
“Not that I’m aware of. No.”
“These aren’t miscarried fetuses,” Weddle added, letting Odell know they knew more than they had been giving away, “just a few weeks old. These are full-term babies.”
Neither Thomas nor Weddle had heard from forensics by this point, but every doctor involved had given an early opinion that the babies were born full-term, which meant the babies could have been delivered alive and killed afterward, or had died during delivery. It wasn’t a long shot to think someone Odell knew had hidden pregnancies, decided to deliver by herself, and discarded the children. It happened. Today, perhaps, more than any other time, teens were having children. Every year, there were stories of girls showing up at their high-school proms, giving birth in the bathroom, and trying to flush the babies down the toilet. Babies were found in Dumpsters, on the side of the road, in back alleys. It wasn’t such a stretch, Thomas and Weddle assumed, to believe one of Odell’s children had delivered the children and discarded them.
“Now, these babies,” Thomas said, “are currently being processed for DNA. Would you be willing to give us your DNA so we can compare it to these babies?”
“Sure,” Odell said.
Over the course of the next fifteen minutes, Thomas questioned Odell about Sauerstein, asking if he had any knowledge of the babies. Odell said he didn’t. After that, they talked about Odell and Sauerstein’s move from Utah to Arizona, and if she had remembered ever moving boxes that were never opened. Finally Weddle asked why Odell had left so many personal items behind, adding, “That was hard for us to understand. Why a family that has so many children, why they would leave behind that many things.”
Odell had no answer. She just shook her head, shrugged her shoulders.
Next they talked about the storage unit and asked if Odell had ever been contacted about not paying her bill. It seemed entirely unbelievable that if Odell had indeed left the babies behind, she would have stopped paying the bill. Why would someone do that, knowing what the eventual outcome would be?
Odell said she was never contacted. She had even called the owner of the storage facility at one point, she added, but never followed up or received word back.
“Do you have any ideas where those babies would have come from?” Thomas asked.
“No, I don’t….”
Weddle asked Odell if she watched television—especially the news.
Odell