Body Parts (26 page)

Freeman and Dawson walked beside Wayne up a short trail, less than one hundred feet long, to the tent where he’d been living for the past week. The area was dense with mature “second-growth” redwood trees, which get their names because redwoods keep growing even after they are chopped down and are often found next to stumps.

The team of investigators was still at work there, collecting and cataloging evidence. Knowing that they hadn’t been able to find the spot where he buried the thighs, Wayne pointed to two tall trees with high aboveground roots.

“It’s under that stump, under some leaves,” Wayne said.

Deputy Randy Held moved the leaves aside with his gloved hand and dug under the roots, exposing two white fleshy objects.

Wayne said they should keep digging because he’d also buried what was left of the victim’s breasts. Dawson asked if Wayne had cut the girl up at his trailer, and Wayne said yes, in his bathtub. He said he’d baked her breasts in the oven and poured the melted fat into a coffee can, which he kept under the kitchen sink.

Freeman asked Held to radio dispatch and have them send someone from the coroner’s office to take over the digging and to collect the remains.

Deputy Coroners Charlie Van Buskirk and Roy Horton, and pathologist Mark Super, soon arrived and did the honors, noting that the thighs were cold to the touch—too cold for having been buried in that dirt hole for long. They also seemed fresh and surprisingly pliable, given that they were separated from the torso more than a year ago.

In the same hole, they found two white plastic garbage bags, covered with a lumpy, sticky substance in neon rainbow colors that looked like cake frosting, along with three small pieces of what looked like human tissue, the largest being about four inches in diameter.

When they examined the body parts at the morgue the next day, they were hard and had a smoky odor mixed with a stale freezer smell.

From there, Freeman and Dawson drove Wayne to the Mad River, which was about twenty minutes away. Wayne led them to the gravel area on the riverbank, where he said he’d buried the head and other limbs. But there was no trace of them.

It had been more than a year since then, a year of storms and rain, not unlike most in Humboldt County. Freeman figured that nature had long since removed the remains from the sandbar and sent them west to the ocean, where the tides may have carried them north to Clam Beach or places unknown.

On the trip back to Eureka, they stopped to get Wayne a Whopper and an iced tea at Burger King, then took him back to jail.

Freeman knew it could become an issue whether Wayne had been properly advised of his Miranda rights enough to subsequently waive them, so he wanted to resolve the question sooner rather than later. There was no question in Freeman’s mind, but he wanted to create a record that would hold up in court, so he called Rodney Ford on a recorded line.

“Remember last night, after I saw your brother for the first time, and he indicated he wanted an attorney and stuff? And then I interviewed you and we got through the whole thing of how you ended up at our department?” Freeman said.

“Right,” Rodney said.

“And then I mentioned that I couldn’t talk to him anymore because he told me that you had suggested he should get an attorney?”

“Yeah, that’s correct.”

“Right, and then a short time later, the way I recall it, is that you sort of approached me in the office and asked me if I wanted you to go talk to him,” Freeman said.

“Basically, I told you that I wanted to talk to him because I wanted him to do the right thing,” Rodney said. “And if there was anybody that needed help, they needed to be helped, and at that point, I wanted to talk to my brother to try and convince him to do the right thing.”

Freeman wanted Rodney to confirm on tape that the detective hadn’t tried to strong-arm Rodney into persuading Wayne to be interviewed without an attorney.

“You did not ask me, you did not coerce,” Rodney said. “I did this on my own free will.”

“Okay, that’s good and then . . . So you visited with Adam . . . correct?”

“Yeah, that’s correct,” Rodney said.

“Okay, and then later on, you were sitting in my lieutenant’s office in the sheriff’s department and I was called in there, and then you told me I should go talk to him?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Very good. I just wanted to get all that settled and on the record and on tape because . . . actually our conversation was one of the more important things that’s gone on with this case,” Freeman said.

CHAPTER 18

“B
ABIES
”

On the afternoon of November 4, Detectives Frank Gonzales and Jeff Staggs and their sergeant, Mike Lenihan, jumped into a San Bernardino County Sheriff Department’s plane and headed for Humboldt.

They arrived in Eureka at 6:35
P.M.
, a little shaken up, after weathering a frighteningly bumpy ride and being knocked around by rain and thunderstorms. The visibility was so bad that the pilot had to fly using only instruments; they almost got diverted to another airport.

Although several media trucks were parked outside the typically quiet courthouse, no reporters approached the detectives as they walked inside.

Detectives Mike Jones and Joe Herrera, who had driven up from San Joaquin County, were meeting with Freeman when Gonzalez and Staggs got there around 7:45
P.M.
Knowing that Wayne would be arraigned within forty-eight hours, they all wanted to talk to him before he went to court, or “lawyered up.”

“I remember you, you brought a torso down to our office about a year ago,” Herrera said to Freeman.

“Oh, yes, I remember you, too,” said Freeman as they reminisced about the joke shoulder patch he had given Herrera, featuring a skeleton standing with a cane, labeled “Humboldt County Coroner’s Office.”

“I still have that,” Herrera said.

The detectives sat around a table as Freeman told them that Wayne was being cooperative; he liked to be called “Adam.”

Even though they were from three different jurisdictions, working three different cases, they all wanted the same thing—to keep Wayne talking.

“Once he says the word ‘lawyer,’ then none of us can talk to him,” Gonzales said.

Herrera told his counterparts from San Bernardino that he and Jones should go first. “Here’s the bottom line—if Adam decides not to speak to us, then we really don’t have a case,” Herrera said. “Even if he invokes his right to remain silent or asks for an attorney, you still have a case because of the DNA.”

“Well, you’re right,” Lenihan said. “Why don’t you guys go ahead.”

Jones and Herrera sat down with Wayne at 9:00
P.M.
, first making sure he was aware of his Miranda rights and that he still wanted to talk to them.

Jones took the lead, saying they wanted to ask him about a woman found in the Lodi area. Wayne mostly replied with abrupt responses and sentence fragments, rubbing his head as he tried to remember details. There were many long pauses as the detectives waited for him to answer.

Throughout the interview, Jones believed Wayne was being “somewhat deceptive,” telling the truth, but not the whole truth. He and Herrera tried to stay away from calling Wayne a murderer straight out. Being that direct with someone like Wayne would likely shut him down, so the detectives took a more gentle, compassionate approach.

“Do you know who we’re talking about?” Jones asked.

“Yes,” Wayne said.

Herrera told Wayne that if he was just guessing or couldn’t remember, he should say so.

Wayne said his mind didn’t “work real good,” yet he seemed to remember very specific details about Lanett White, with little or no problem. That is, until they got to the sexual activities that led to her death.

Wayne recognized her from a photo that Jones showed him, and asked if she was a prostitute. Herrera said she might be, but that the important thing was how Wayne knew her.

“I remember her tattoos,” Wayne said, saying one read, “
mi madre
something” on one side of her chest, and on the other side was a blue one written in blue capital and cursive letters.

Wayne said he met her off Highway 10 in southern California “close to a truck stop.”

“You know who she is?” Wayne asked.

But the detectives weren’t ready to go there yet. First they wanted to make sure he was talking about their victim. They were throwing out the names of cities and counties when Wayne blurted out the name of a street.

“Cherry Lane.”

“Okay, Cherry Lane. Do you know what town that’s in? . . . Is that associated with this girl?”

“Think so. Where did she live?” Wayne asked.

“She lives in that area.... There’s a Cherry Lane in the town of Fontana. It’s near the town of Ontario.”

Wayne said he thought that sounded right because he remembered leaving a truck stop on Cherry Street in Ontario, called Three Sisters, when he saw her walking up and down a street as he was turning left to go over the 10 freeway. He was hoping to get something to eat on the other side of the bridge. He stopped and asked her where to go, and she got into the truck with him.

He said she was wearing a beige or tan vest with some matching pants and tennis shoes, and was carrying a black purse.

“Seems like she was dressed nice,” Wayne said.

“So, when you stopped and talked to her, what did you guys talk about?” Jones asked.

“Babies,” Wayne said softly.

“Huh?” Jones asked. “I couldn’t hear you.”

“‘Babies’? Is that what you said?” Herrera asked.

“My baby,” Wayne said, explaining that his son was about to turn three.

Wayne said it was about nine or ten o’clock when they met, but they stayed on the road talking for a long time.

“I don’t know these things for sure,” he said.

Jones said he understood that Wayne had been with a lot of women and that they might run together. “Is that what’s happening?”

“Yes.”

Jones said he would try to help Wayne remember details if he ran into a wall.

Wayne said she told him she had a three-year-old and a baby son. Her sister had six kids, but he didn’t remember her name or her sister’s.

“Does the name Lanett or Nettie ring a bell to you?”

“No,” Wayne said. “She didn’t tell me that, if that’s what it is.”

Wayne said he could tell that she’d been drinking before they met up; she seemed upset and told him it was because of her kids. “Too much stress,” he said.

“When you guys were in the cab, okay, did you continue to talk, or did you do something else?” Jones asked.

“Something else.”

“Okay, what did you do?”

“Got intimate.”

“By ‘intimate’ you mean you had sex?”

Wayne continued to respond with one-word affirmative answers as Jones asked if they’d had sexual intercourse and oral sex. But when Jones asked for more specifics, Wayne changed the subject.

“She said she wasn’t a hooker,” Wayne replied, adding that he started kissing her because “she looked nice.” He said she took off her clothes, then he took off his and they gave each other oral sex at the same time.

As Jones asked for more details, Wayne acknowledged that he put his mouth on her breasts, but he wasn’t sure if he had ejaculated or not.

“You don’t remember if you had an orgasm or not?”

“I’ve had a lot of them,” Wayne replied.

Wayne said he didn’t remember how long they had sex, only that he was on top and didn’t wear a condom. He thought he’d probably had anal sex with her, but he said it could have been with a different woman.

“Did she ask you for anything in exchange for sex?” Jones asked.

Wayne paused and then said, yes, but he couldn’t remember whether it was $30 or $60.

Given that Wayne had just said she wasn’t a prostitute, Jones asked for clarification. Wayne replied that he’d actually asked her if she wanted money, not the other way around.

“So after you guys had finished having sex, what happened then?” Jones asked.

“Same point I got with the other one. I think I hurt her, but I’m not sure how or why.”

Jones said he wanted to hear more about this and help Wayne understand how this happened. He asked whether perhaps Wayne had been overzealous and whether, when he had sex with women, he got aggressive sometimes.

“Sometimes things just don’t, don’t make sense,” Wayne said.

“What things don’t make sense?” Jones asked.

“I remember giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation,” Wayne said, adding that they were both fully clothed by then.

This sequence of events didn’t make much sense to Jones, but as he tried to get Wayne to clarify his statement, Wayne said his memories often got confused. Before he could say what he remembered, he said, some other memory came into his head that didn’t make sense.

“I thought I remembered she dressed herself, then I remember I dressed her,” Wayne said.

Then, he said, he couldn’t remember whether they’d even had sexual intercourse. Jones reminded him that he had already said that he was on top.

“What were your hands doing while you were having sex with her?” Jones asked.

“Up by her head,” Wayne said.

“You think your hands may have been around her neck?”

“Might of.”

“Could your hands have been around her neck while you were having sex with her and something happened? And this is how she got hurt?”

“I think so,” Wayne said softly.

“Is it that you don’t remember how it happened, or it’s just real difficult for you to talk about how that happened?”

“Not sure.”

By this point, Wayne was shaking and nodding his head rather than responding verbally.

“But you think it’s possible it could have happened that way. You’re shaking your head yes. You think so? After she gets hurt, what did you do?”

“Try to make her breathe.”

Jones asked Wayne to run through the steps he took to bring her back, so Wayne recited the steps of CPR, as if he were reading them from a book: “Clear the airway. Tilt her head back. Cover the mouth. Breathe in it. First start off with one quick breath. Watch her stomach. Five-part compressions. One breath. Watch the chest rise. Continue to do that.”