A Knife in the Heart. Michael Benson
Kish’s office, Geissenberger learned that Rachel had been in school but left when Hernandez called her from outside. Hernandez did not have permission to take her out of school, and she did not have permission to leave.
Kish was particularly wary about this situation because she knew Rachel’s parents and knew that a few days earlier they had caught Rachel in Hernandez’s car engaging in sexual activity. Since he was nineteen—although still a student at PPHS—and she was fifteen, they were very worried about the situation and threatened to have the young man prosecuted if it didn’t stop. She would say she was going to walk the dog, but then she’d disappear. This morning’s movements near the high school led Kish to believe that Jose and Rachel hadn’t stopped having sex.
Geissenberger called the Wades, reported the new information, and asked if they still wanted Hernandez prosecuted. They said they did. The officer had an office in the high school and went there. He summoned Rachel Wade, who reported to him, appearing somewhat sheepish.
He explained that he was there because of her ongoing, inappropriate, and illegal relationship with Hernandez, and he was going to have to ask her a series of pretty personal questions.
Rachel was quiet for a few moments and then asked Geissenberger how much he already knew. He told her, and then asked her how long she’d been seeing Hernandez. She said it started right at the beginning of the school year, which that year had been August 3.
“You have been seeing him the whole time since the beginning of school?” the cop asked.
“No, our relationship has been off and on,” Rachel replied.
“Are you sexually active with him?”
“Yes.”
“How many times have you had sex with him?”
Pause. “Two or three,” she said. All of the sex had been vaginal intercourse; all of it was consensual.
“Oral sex?”
“No.”
“Why did you have sex with him, Rachel?”
“He pressured me to do it with him,” she said. She held out for a while, but they kept getting closer and closer to doing it; then one day “it just happened.”
Geissenberger asked about contraception. Rachel said they had used protection every time. Condoms at first, but she eventually went to the health department and got birth control pills, without telling her parents. Rachel said she and Hernandez had not had sex since they were caught. They’d only done it three times—once in his car and twice at his house.
He asked her about that morning. She said she hadn’t been feeling good; and besides, she wanted to talk to Jose, so she left school, met him, and they drove around for an hour or so. Then she came back, and that was when Geissenberger saw her.
The officer put Rachel in a separate office with the door shut. He didn’t want Rachel socializing and potentially interfering with the investigation.
Geissenberger found out which classroom Hernandez was in and pulled him out of class personally. In the cop’s office, Geissenberger advised Hernandez that he was conducting a criminal investigation and read him his Miranda rights.
“This is about Rachel Wade, isn’t it?” Hernandez asked.
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s because she’s a minor, right?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You want to talk to me because I’m having sex with a minor, right?”
Geissenberger said that was precisely right. “I’m going to ask you very direct questions about your relationship, and it would be in your best interests to tell me the whole and absolute truth.”
“I understand. I’ll tell the truth.”
His answers jibed with Rachel’s, at first. They’d had sex only two or three times. Always consensual. Always vaginal. Then his answers diverged from hers.
“Have you ever performed oral sex on one another?” the detective asked.
“Yes.”
“Who does it to who?”
“In most cases, I do it to her, but she has done it to me as well, yes.”
Hernandez told the cop about that morning. He said it was he, rather than she, who hadn’t felt okay. Rachel came out of school and got in his car. They drove to his house, but they just talked there. No sex.
“You know, I’ve already talked to Rachel, and I think you are lying,” Geissenberger bluffed.
Hernandez bit, and fessed up that he and Rachel had had vaginal intercourse that morning. He had also performed oral sex on her.
“Tell me again how many times you and Rachel have had sex?”
“Um, about twenty or thirty times,” Hernandez said, although he maintained that it was always consensual, and usually took place either at his house or in his car.
Hernandez interrupted the interview and asked if he could call his boss at work and tell him that he was running late. The cop would not allow him to use his cell phone, but said it was okay to use the office phone.
He then asked if he could get his lunch from the cafeteria, and again Geissenberger said that was okay. The detective waited, and Hernandez returned with his lunch and ate as he answered further questions. The detective gave him a form to fill out, and then he went to talk to Rachel again.
“You lied to me about the number of times you had sex with Jose,” he said.
“Sorry.”
“And you lied about oral sex, too.”
“It’s embarrassing to talk about that stuff. I wanted to tell you the truth, but I’ve never been able to talk about that with anyone,” she said.
“You have performed oral sex on Jose?”
“Yes.”
“And he has performed oral sex on you?”
“Yes.”
“And you and he had sex this morning, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you have had sex between twenty and thirty times with him?”
“No!”
“How often?”
“Maybe fifteen times.”
Rachel got a ride home from Ms. Kish. Hernandez was arrested by Detective Geissenberger and charged with lewd and lascivious battery in connection with unlawful sexual activity with a child.
Rachel was home only a matter of minutes when her mother called the police. Rachel came home spitting mad that her parents had told her school that she’d been caught having sex. It was humiliating beyond words. An officer came to the house and stayed long enough to make sure everyone had calmed down; then the cop left.
On November 20, 2005, Rachel’s mom called the police. Detective Geissenberger responded. Janet said Rachel was out again with Jose Hernandez, the adult ephebophile who was illegally having relations with her daughter.
Police officers took all crime seriously, but some didn’t feel Janet’s plans to prosecute Jose were promising. The adult-having-sex-with-a-child thing seemed less perverted when one considered that Rachel and Jose attended the same school. Jose might have been an adult, technically, but he wasn’t forty, either. The trick here, they suspected, was getting Rachel to keep her pants on. If it wasn’t Jose, it was going to be someone else.
While the officer was questioning Rachel’s mom, Rachel called, said it was no big deal, and she was on her way home.
“I still would appreciate it if you could fill out a