Gitchie Girl: The Survivor's Inside Story of the Mass Murders that Shocked the Heartland (9 page)

The Boss’s demeanor changed. His jaw tightened and he seethed, “I gave a warning shot and said,
Hold it!”

Sandra remained as composed as she could. She’d learned that showing fear had seldom been to her advantage. “No you didn’t! I heard a gun, and then Stew yelled, ‘
I’m shot! They shot me!’”

“Well, I had to shoot a couple of them because it’s easier to take them in that way.”

“But why did you shoot Mike? His hands were in the air!”

“Because he smarted off to me! That don’t work. I lost my temper and shot him!” the Boss sputtered. Sandra could feel his anger swelling, and she worried she had pushed him too far. He’d become agitated so she switched gears.

“Who else did you think was a girl?” She tried to turn the tables, make it sound like she was questioning him without sounding accusatory.

“That long-haired fourteen-year-old. That
hippie.”

“
He is not! He’s a sweet kid. His hair is long, but it’s always clean and never dirty like some guys with long hair.”

“When I say hippie, I just use that as a word to call them or describe them. There’s really not any hippies around here like in California and those places.” He seemed to be grasping at explanations, and Sandra let his words sink in while planning her strategy. The engine hummed, and Sandra noticed an occasional clunking sound. The radio was off, the dash was dirty, and papers and cans were strewn about the floorboard. It wasn’t how she pictured an official police vehicle. The Boss was tense and talking seemed to calm him. His scattered conversation broke her concentration.

“You know, all night tonight your friends will be blowing up balloons every hour on the hour. Then the police can tell just how much grass they’ve been smoking.” He kept glancing in his rearview mirror. “I wonder where my buddies are. Every time there’s a drug raid, they drive around in the cars while I have the truck.” She wasn’t sure what he even meant by that. “Just in case the sheriff insists on seeing you, you need to drink this Coke,” he said, handing her a can of soda. “Drink it, and they won’t be able to tell you’ve been smoking. There’s a certain acid in this Coke that kills the scent of the grass. Then they can’t bust you.”

Sandra agreed to drink it even though she’d never heard of such a thing. Her gut instinct told her things didn’t add up. It was all so strange. Yet she had no choice but to go along with him. She was also desperate to avoid getting busted. She wanted to believe him. They drove down back roads, some paved, some gravel, turning here and there. Sometimes the Boss was silent for long stretches. Always his head was bobbing back and forth, and every so often he’d crane his neck toward the windshield as if looking for a certain landmark or road up ahead.

Suddenly he let out a deep sigh and tapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. “I remember! I was supposed to meet my buddies back at the next drug raid.” He pulled a wide U-turn on the road, and in no time they were headed back from where they’d come. He continued driving, and Sandra began to wonder how many dark country roads surrounded by endless fields they would have to traverse. Finally, she could no longer stand the nerve-racking quiet.

“Where are we going?”

“An abandoned house where we think drugs are stored,” he answered quickly, which surprised her. “We have to raid one more place tonight.”

They continued, making occasional turns until he finally slowed and turned into a long drive leading to what appeared to be an abandoned house with sagging windows and the dilapidated remains of a former barn. A rusty barbed-wire fence that leaned nearly to the ground in places surrounded the house. The soft glow of headlights from a car already in the farm yard slashed through the still night.

“They are already here,” the Boss said.

Sandra’s heart jumped. She hoped that when the Boss said “they” he meant his partners and the boys.
Maybe the cops decided to bring the boys with them
. She hoped to see Roger in the backseat and sat up expectantly, tilting her head at just the right angle to avoid the glare of the window, striving to get a glimpse of his face. Instead, the car door opened to reveal the stern silhouettes of J.R. and Hatchet Face. The Boss jumped out of the pickup, gave Sandra a don’t-you-dare look, and left the door partially open while the three men stood halfway between the two vehicles. Sandra saw J.R. and Hatchet Face exchange puzzled looks when they saw her, and she thought they seemed very surprised that she was here at the drug raid.
Maybe they thought I’d be with the sheriff or something.

Hatchet Face spoke first.
“
We needed to take care of some other business. We told the sheriff she was just drunk,” he said, nodding toward Sandra. “But he still wants to see her, so keep her with you. I’ll talk to him on the radio later and get it all straightened out because she’s kind of dumb and scared right now.”

The Boss seemed edgy. “What did you guys do back at the park after I left?”

“Ha! All four of them tried to get away,” J.R. laughed.

“Did they say anything? Ask about the girl?”

“Yeah, that Roger asked where she was.” His voice dropped on the last word as if to indicate it was a stupid question.

Sandra perked up at the mention of Roger’s name. A damp gleam of hope sprang into her eyes.

“How are the four boys?” she asked.

J.R. sneered. He glared at Sandra; his fixed stare bored right through her. Creepy and deviant, his appearance alarmed Sandra. There was an ugly feel to him.

“When he came to, they all tried to get away,” he finally answered coldly.

“Roger came to from the tranquilizer gun?” she asked quietly. He wasn’t as easy to talk to as the Boss. There was something unsettling about him, like a curled snake that could strike at any moment.

The man nodded. In spite of the horrors of the last hours, her hopes soared at the thought of Roger waking groggy but safe from the tranquilizer.

The Boss seemed to have more questions, but J.R. brushed him off. He had his own agenda.

“I’ll stay here and make sure she don’t go nowhere,” he told the Boss and Hatchet Face.

To Sandra’s dismay, once the two men stepped away from the vehicle, J.R. came over to the pickup, his thick figure filling the open doorway. He climbed in next to her. His mouth was curled into a lewd half-smile, and his eyes looked ravenous.

J.R.’s awkward hands descended on her body almost immediately. “Take your pants off!” he ordered through gritted teeth. His foul breath was an assault on Sandra’s nostrils and she automatically twisted away from his revolting bulk. “Your underpants too!”

Sandra froze. Her mind couldn’t process these words as his coarse hands groped at her body. His evil voice and harsh touch made her feel that fighting back was useless. Trembling, she began unsnapping her jeans and felt bile rising from her stomach. J.R. felt she was moving too slowly, so he shoved her hands away and yanked her pants off. He threw himself on her like a beast, and a sharp pain pierced her body. His labored breathing was hot against her neck, and he swung his forearm aggressively, knocking her head against the door of the pickup in the process. J.R. grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her head up, staring into her panicked eyes.

The pain continued, the violence escalated. From somewhere deep within, a survival instinct kicked in, mentally removing her from the situation, and she immediately felt a sense of detachment. It was as if she were floating and looking down on her body. Her mind was reaching to make sense of what was happening.
The girls at school are not going to believe this when I tell them what happened!
The thoughts didn’t match what was happening to her body, but then it seemed as if only a moment had passed and just as quickly, the loathsome man was lifting himself off of her. She heard the door slam behind him and found herself alone in the silent, dark cab of the pickup. The open door had let in a stream of cool, fresh air yet his repugnant scent still lingered at the tips of her nostrils.

Demoralized, Sandra sluggishly pulled her underwear and pants back on, crossed her arms over her stomach, then with one hand reached up subconsciously and pulled her long hair to the front, stroking it over and over and pulling lightly to smooth out the tangles that had formed moments ago. She felt defiled. The man was just outside the door leaning with his back against the truck and waiting for his partners’ return. A white-hot flash of terror spread from the pit of her stomach through her trembling body. She thought she might vomit but choked back the urge. It gave her a small feeling of control. Sandra’s experiences at the hands of a cruel foster family and heavy-handed nuns had taught her that adults in charge often abused their power. In her traumatized mind, she still wanted to believe that he was a cop. This was what she had to live through to get out of the charges and avoid spending the rest of her teenage years in a detention center.

When the Boss and Hatchet Face emerged from the darkness a short time later, the three men stood near the pickup. A strange energy had developed among them now, and they all seemed to be talking at once then occasionally breaking into uncontrollable laughter.
They’re talking crazy,
Sandra thought
.
Their conversation jumped from one idea to the next, and every other sentence was punctuated with a wild whoop or laugh. It sounded as if they didn’t know where to go next. Stay here. No, go to the lake. Go to the farm. Nearly an hour had passed since they’d arrived at the abandoned house, and their words pounded in her ears. Sandra closed her eyes and took deep breaths to stave off the shaking. It was hard to think straight.

The three killers walked toward the abandoned house and stood in a circle, speaking in hushed voices out of earshot of Sandra.

“You screwed up!” Hatchet Face directed his words at the Boss.

“I didn’t have time! I—”

“I’ll do it,” J.R. offered in a steady voice.

“Shut up! I’ll take care of the girl. I have a club, or I have my shotgun.” The Boss already had blood on his hands tonight. He was ready to take down another innocent victim to eliminate any witnesses.

“Let’s take care of her right here,” Hatchet Face countered.

The Boss ignored him. “I’ll take care of the girl. We’ll meet back at the farm.”

They returned to the pickup where Sandra had been left waiting. “Look,” Hatchet Face told her, “I talked to the sheriff on the radio, and he was bragging about making this next drug raid himself and taking all the people alone so he gets all the credit. That ain’t gonna happen.” He turned to J.R. “I’m going to find the sheriff. You coming with me?” The two men got in the car and drove off, leaving Sandra and the Boss in the blackened farm yard with only a dome light illuminating the face of the psychotic killer and the girl who’d lost her innocence a short time ago.

Hatchet Face gave J.R. a shove on the arm and howled uncontrollably before gaining composure. “I better get you back to your second home before you get us all in trouble. You were supposed to be back a looonnng time ago.”

“Don’t forget your
job
either. Don’t screw up like the Boss did back at the farm. With that... girl,” J.R. said.

The car sped toward downtown Sioux Falls until it came to a stop in front of a large brick building. It was the Minnehaha County Jail, J.R.’s second home. He’d been incarcerated in the county jail on various convictions. The jail had a work release program where, if granted permission by the administration, an inmate was allowed to sign out and return to lock-up following a work shift. J.R. had obtained a job at a towing company which allowed him the liberty to work flexible hours since the tow trucks operated around the clock. He had checked out of jail at 6:30 AM on November seventeenth and clocked out of his job at 3:00 PM. He didn’t check back into jail until 2:30 AM on November eighteenth. When word of this eventually came to light, enraged citizens demanded an explanation, and the entire work release system was revamped.

After dropping off J.R., Hatchet Face drove to a large slough, known as Grass Lake, northwest of Sioux Falls. The two men had concluded on the drive into town that they needed to ditch their weapons. Hatchet Face had stolen his shotgun anyway, so easy come easy go. He grabbed the two shotguns from the trunk and walked to the water’s edge. He grasped the barrel of one shotgun and heaved it, watching it flip end over end before making a loud splash and disappearing beneath the murky water. The second shotgun soon followed, and Hatchet Face wiped his hands on the sides of his jeans before heading back to the car with a satisfied smile on his face. He was certain J.R. would be pleased with this, although not much ever seemed to please J.R. He hadn’t slipped up like the Boss, who’d failed to get rid of that girl back at the farm. They’d given the Boss a second chance though, when he’d told them that he was thinking of using the club on her.
She’s probably dead by now,
he thought briefly before a disturbing realization crossed his mind. Deer hunting season was around the corner, and now neither of them had a slug gun.

Inside the cab of the truck, Sandra felt as if her insides had stopped. Just completely stopped. Her breathing, her heart, even her blood felt as if it had just stopped while her brain tried to make sense of what had happened to her body. Images of the loathsome J.R., his revolting breath, and awkward hands on her body flooded through her mind. Sandra gulped quick, shallow breaths and tried to regain her composure.

“What’s going on?” she asked the Boss, breathing out each word faintly and fearing what she thought was about to happen.

The Boss didn’t respond.

“I was a virgin, you know.” She shrugged, her voice deflated.

“No you weren’t!” he said in a wary voice.

“I’m only thirteen.”

The Boss stared silently with his brow wrinkled in deep concentration. He seemed unmoved, but her words had affected him in a way that changed the course of the night. “I’m gonna see how much guts you have,” he finally said.

She felt as if her mind had been trapped in a wheel spinning around and around but going nowhere yet Sandra forced herself to get out of the vehicle at his command. She thought she knew what was going to happen next, but her mind wouldn’t accept it. Every action was blending together, and nothing was making sense. Next to her, the Boss began shoving away used cups and papers from under the passenger’s seat and soon pulled out a large, broken ax handle that he’d occasionally used as a club on pesky farm dogs that wouldn’t leave him alone. He then reached in the glove box and removed a flashlight, which he handed to Sandra.