Bad Girls (6 page)

“I’m told,” McAllester explained to Boetz, “that they have something.” Richard and Kathy Cruz thought they knew who the potential shooter might be.

“All right, I’ll finish up here and get down there as soon as I can,” Boetz said.

With McAllester gone, Detective Boetz focused on the computer desk and PC in the living room. Computers, cell phones, BlackBerries, iPads—electronic devices of all kinds that people use on a daily basis—are what detectives seek first and foremost beyond the most obvious clues. Those electronic gadgets and machines can tell a lot about a person and the final movements of their lives, and often leave behind a trail to follow.

Boetz first focused on several photos of females he found on the computer. After studying them closely and going back into the bedroom where the murder had occurred, he saw that there might be a connection.

The corners of the photos that were torn off the walls inside the suspected murder room displayed partial images that seemed to match the corners of the photos on the computer. The setting was certainly the same. The context of each photo taken from the wall matched some of the photos of several girls on the computer.

“It was obvious,” Boetz said. And the more he studied this, “[I] realized the pictures were of the same people.”

They had faces now to those missing pictures ripped from the walls in the bedroom. And yet, was it significant, or just another dead end? Did the person who killed Bob Dow remove the pictures? Were they photos of the murderer? There could be, after all, a simple explanation to the missing photos, or a thousand different reasons why they had been ripped off the wall.

“These [images on the computer] were certainly people of interest that we wanted to find and interview,” Boetz said.

In the photos that Boetz found on the PC in the living room, most of the girls were young. They were partying in a lot of the shots. What was also clear was that they were willing participants. It looked as though they were having fun mucking around, kissing each other, and kissing an older man, who appeared to be partying
with
them.

Bob Dow?

It was.

There was booze and weed and harder drugs being used in the photos. One photo depicted one female having oral sex with another female, one of her breasts exposed. Boetz couldn’t really make out the faces. Digging deeper into the computer, Boetz discovered girls who appeared to range in age from their young teens (minors) to adults in their forties, drinking alcohol, popping pills, smoking weed, meth, and even crack cocaine. As he searched deeper into the PC, he uncovered videos. Shocking, raunchy videos. Triple X. Lots of the girls were having sex and showing off their naked bodies. Some were giving oral sex to an older man and to each other. There were mock snuff films of girls pretending to kill one another with knives and guns. Some were extremely graphic. Some were tame. Others were obviously made under drunken circumstances, which the parties involved would probably like to forget. Still, the films were certainly made inside the house, with what appeared to be a dozen or more different girls—some of whom seemed to be underage.

In total, Boetz and the MWPD would uncover some six hundred photos and videotapes of young girls and women doing all sorts of
Girls Gone Wild
antics, including illegal things—some sexual, some not. A number that later came out was in the thousands. Clear throughout was that only one man showed up in the photos and videos and appeared to be behind the camera most of the time, directing the girls.

Bob Dow.

“He was the one filming, and he was the one calling the shots,” said a law enforcement source. “He was the man behind the camera and sometimes not just behind the camera.”

Best thing here for Brian Boetz was to get all of these photos and videotapes tagged and bagged. Then Boetz needed to head over to the MWPD and see how McAllester was making out with the Cruzes. Maybe begin there. Get some of these photos (the more respectable ones, anyway) out into the community and start asking around to see if anyone knew the girls. The Cruzes had led the MWPD to the crime scene. There was a good chance Kathy Cruz and her husband knew a lot more—and maybe even knew some of the girls in the photos.

CHAPTER 6

S
HE STOOD WITH
her arms by her side. She wore a black tank top. A tattoo of a sad sun dotted the side of her bicep, a way for the world to see and understand how she felt inside. The first time Audrey Sawyer saw Bobbi Jo Smith, Audrey thought the tank top–wearing, tattooed young girl was a “little boy.” Bobbi had cropped hair, cut in a crew cut of sorts, dyed white gold, streaks of brown and black shaved tight into the sides. Bobbi sported one of those genetically lean, petite bodies. She sometimes wore baggy jeans, a chain wallet, black boots, a spiked leather wristband, and a belt to match. Bobbi had a bump in her step. She cared about the way she looked and carried herself. Bobbi was a lesbian and damn proud of it. Not in a GLAAD-like way, marching in parades and waving rainbow flags, but rather flaunting herself in front of other women and putting the package out there on the market. One friend later recalled Bobbi’s eyes and how charming and yet gloomy they seemed, as if she’d had her share of bad luck, rough times, and had managed to survive by will alone. Several people, one prosecutor, and the murder victim, Bob Dow, called Bobbi “a chick magnet.” One of Bobbi’s strengths, which she didn’t have to work hard at, was a penchant for making friends with girls, regardless of their sexuality. Bobbi was likeable in so many ways: easygoing and easy to get along with. Yet, if you didn’t know Bobbi and didn’t take the time to
get
to know Bobbi, you might misunderstand this young woman and make snap judgments about her.

“Once I got to know her, I realized that she wasn’t at all like people had tried to make her out to be,” a good friend of Bobbi’s told me, recalling the moment they became friends, which was months after they first met. “Bobbi never tried to clear up what people said about her, because in her mind she felt like she didn’t have to defend lies. I used to tell her that I saw greatness in her, and that she had the potential to
be
great. When I told her that, it was hard for Bobbi to see what I did, because she lacked the self-esteem to understand that she had that greatness within. I would remind her of this all the time. Not everyone has it, but Bobbi does. And anyone being honest with themselves that truly knows Bobbi will agree.”

Holding Bobbi back during that period when she first met Audrey was a voracious appetite she’d developed for drinking and drugging. Beyond anything else, partying was Bobbi’s life, her true passion. She hadn’t known anything different for quite a while. Getting high, Bobbi was hooked on that feeling of slipping away from all of the pain of the past. The drugs and booze deadened that emotional ache she felt, like nothing else ever had.

Still, that same friend explained, “Even when she was at her worst, I’d witness Bobbi give her last, whatever it was—even when she didn’t have her last to give. And the thing is, Bobbi would give it to the
very
person that talked about her behind her back—her enemies. She used to always tell me how she never wanted to become like the people who cursed her and made fun of her and hated on her.”

Bobbi had an uncanny knack for turning “nothing into something, or a bad situation into something positive and good,” added her friend. “For example, someone I once knew wanted to have cards made. You know, like thank-you cards.” Bobbi was known for her artwork. She had the touch. “And there was this girl who originally made up the cards, but she charged an arm and a leg for what looked like what a grade-school kid might have done. I told Bobbi about it. How this girl was overcharged for crappy work. Bobbi redid all of my friend’s artwork for free. And you see,
that’s
who Bobbi is. She’s loyal. She’s real. She’ll say things how they are. She’ll speak the truth even if it hurts
her.
She won’t ever argue. She’ll always try to defuse a bad situation. And
that’s
what some people don’t like about her.”

There are other aspects of Bobbi’s character that alienated people in her circle. It’s hard for some to be around a strong personality, like Bobbi: someone unafraid of standing by her truth.

“Bobbi doesn’t kiss ass,” that friend concluded. “That’s not what I mean. But she will not hesitate to make a situation right, even if she wasn’t in the wrong. And that’s just her. She will respect and value your beliefs and opinions without coming down on you. The loyalty that I have seen her exhibit blows my mind. Once she’s your friend, watch out—that loyalty will be there until the very end. I could go on and on about the things that make Bobbi special. Look, I’m so not saying she’s flawless, because she has her days, like most anyone else, and she’s done things she’s not proud of. But her good far outweighs any of that.”

The one characteristic Bobbi’s friend said she displayed more than any other?

“If Bobbi does something wrong, she’ll
own
it. And regardless of the consequence, she’ll admit her flaws. That’s who she is. And
that’s
what I love about her.”

It was late February/early
March 2004. There was a party in the middle of the courtyard in the center of the Spanish Trace Apartments. Audrey Sawyer lived at the Spanish Trace complex with her half sister Jennifer Jones, Jen’s father, Jerry, and another sister. Bobbi was standing with some friends, drinking. Audrey spotted her, but she didn’t think too much of this rather interesting-looking girl with the sun tattoo.

Audrey had been with guys, but she was a bona fide lesbian—that much she had never denied herself. But this girl, Bobbi, Audrey never thought for a moment on that day she would ever find herself falling for. And yet that was Bobbi: As soon as you got to know her, you realized how genuine and sincere and likeable she was, not to mention how much she cared about people in general.

A few days after Audrey saw Bobbi standing, partying at Spanish Trace that first time, a friend called. “Hey, I want you to meet someone.”

“Yeah,” Audrey said, “who?”

Audrey was skeptical. In Mineral Wells, everyone knew everyone. And in the lesbian community around town, the circle was very small. Audrey probably knew the girl already.

“Name’s Bobbi Jo Smith,” her friend said.

Audrey thought about it. She went back to that day she saw Bobbi in the courtyard. A chick like Bobbi might be just what the doctor had ordered for Audrey, who had gone through a bit of a rough patch lately.

“Come on over,” Audrey told her friend.

Jennifer Jones and Audrey Sawyer
grew up in the same house with two other siblings. Jen and her sister, Stephanie, have the same father, Jerry; Audrey and their other sister, Emily, Jen’s two half sisters, have different fathers. The girls were all born to the same mother, Kathy Jones.

They were reared in Lone Camp, a relatively nice area in central Palo Pinto County. Life was good, Audrey explained, adding how there were fine memories etched in the walls of that old house they called home. And yet, Audrey was quick to point out, those warm family recollections came with a price.

And didn’t last long.

“My mom left when I was six,” Audrey said.

“Jennifer was almost four and Stephanie was almost two when I left the house,” Kathy Jones told me during an interview.

“We moved around a lot,” Jen later said.

Before the bottom of the family unit fell out, Audrey stated, their mother was a “traditional” mom. Kathy taught Sunday school at the local church. The entire family attended church services every weekend and helped out where they could. Kathy worked at a church day care. It was Kathy, Jerry, Jennifer, Audrey, and their two siblings. The family thing was working. Jerry was employed by a local oil company. The kids attended school regularly. They all got along and did things together.

“My mom took us places,” Audrey said. “The park. The zoo. Normal things. We had a huge area where we lived. There were acres and acres surrounding the house.”

The kids went about their early childhoods with carefree spirits, doing what it is kids between the ages of two and nine do: playing and hanging out with neighbors, watching cartoons, having fun. Kathy wasn’t Betty Crocker, but she wasn’t
Mommie Dearest,
either. She loved her children, arguably loved her husband, and wanted what was best for everyone. But the devil soon found his way into their lives and began wreaking havoc quickly, once Kathy had a taste of his poison.

“My mom and Jerry got into it because my mom wanted to get a ‘real job,’” Audrey explained.

The door had opened. In church, the family learned that you don’t allow an entryway for evil, or the master of lies will find his way into the home and destroy it. And once he’s allowed in, no matter how, he’ll spread his wrath so subtly, no one will ever see it coming.

“Jerry didn’t want her to work like that,” Audrey insisted. Jerry was old-school: The husband worked, and the wife stayed home with the kids.