Monster (62 page)

On a hunch, he contacted a company that pumped the outdoor toilets for the forest service. An employee there remembered that in the spring of 1993, he was pumping the toilet at the Clear Creek Campground near Empire when he saw a bra and panties in the sludge. But those items, and whatever may have been with them, had long ago gone to a landfill, he said.

Richardson located the woman who had reported her gun stolen. Ann Parson said her ex-husband had given it to her. The theft had occurred just as the Eerebout boys had described.

Having the serial number of the gun and placing it in Luther’s hands was vital information. They might never recover the weapon, but John O’Neil, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, had told Richardson that the ATF could try to find the guns made just before and after Parson’s gun.

“I just testified in a case where the murder weapon couldn’t be found,” O’Neil said. “So we did ballistics tests on the prior gun manufactured. The ballistics between that gun and the bullet recovered from the victim were nearly identical.”

Even if they never located either gun, knowing the make and model could be critical to the prosecution case. Every gun manufacturer uses a slightly, and sometimes more than slightly, different rifling—called lands and grooves—in its barrels to put a spin on the bullet. The marks on the bullet fragments taken from Cher might rule out some models and narrow it down to others.

The next day, Richardson got a panicky call from Babe Rivinius. J.D. had been arrested for burglary and was in the Jefferson County Jail with his brother, Byron. But that wasn’t what was worrying her.

Rivinius said when she went to visit her sons at the jail, she noticed a group of their friends standing outside the building. As she approached the other young men, she heard a loud banging from above.

Looking up, she saw inmates hitting the windows, trying to get the attention of her boys’ friends. Then one held up a sign that read, “Tristan Byron J.D. KILL!”

Two years to the day that Cher Elder disappeared, there was a memorial service in a Golden church for those who had been unable to attend her burial the week before in Grand Junction. A photograph of Cher, a copy of which hung on Richardson’s office wall, leaned against the altar. The steps and floors leading to the altar were covered with dozens of white roses.

When everyone was seated, Earl Elder walked up to the altar, turned, and faced the crowd with tears streaming down his face. He expressed his gratitude to the Lakewood Police Department, “especially Scott Richardson.”

“Cher was our daughter, our sister, our granddaughter, and our friend. She will always have a very special place in all of our hearts,” he said.

“Cher, all of us who were part of your life, miss you so very much. We are heartsick that we will no longer be able to hug you, or kiss you, or laugh with you, or cry with you, or just spend a moment with you.

“My darling daughter, we love and miss you—a piece of all of us left with you. We pray you are at the foot of God’s throne and that one day we will rejoice when we meet again.”

As Earl stooped to pick up several roses to distribute to family members, Richardson walked to the altar and began to speak as the family had requested.

“It is unnatural for parents to outlive a child,” he said. “You paid the ultimate price, you lived a parent’s worst nightmare. For two years, you have remained silent so as not to hamper her recovery. You gave me your trust to find your daughter’s body. I’m not sure if it was my own child, I could have done the same.

“The most beautiful things in the world can’t be seen or touched. They must be felt in the heart. And Cher Elder is felt in our hearts today.”

The next day, Richardson rode to Empire on his motorcycle, leaning into the curves as the interstate coursed around granite walls, past the remains of old mines that dotted the hillsides like the diggings of large gophers. He was still tracking down itty bitty pieces of the case when he stopped in the store where J.D. Eerebout said Luther picked up a box of rat poison. The store carried the poison in a box identical to that described by J.D. He bought one for the evidence locker.

Instead of turning back down the interstate for Golden, Richardson veered west, toward Empire. He passed through the town and pulled into the turn-off.

Climbing off the Harley, he trudged through the snow, turned slushy by the warm spring day, to the clearing. He stared down at the hole where Cher had lain for two years without knowing why he had come. There was something about that hole in the ground. Something lonely, a void that ached to be filled.

He stooped and picked up a bowling ball-sized stone and dropped it into the grave. He found another and placed it there, too. And then another, and another.

Once, as a boy, he had carried large rocks from one pile to another out of fear of his father. Now he placed rocks in a hole until it was filled, out of love for a friend.

On April 23, 1995, Detective Scott Richardson and P.C. Anderson, an investigator for the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office, flew to West Virginia. They carried with them a Governor’s Blue Warrant for the extradition of Thomas Luther.

Blue warrants were the result of interstate agreements stating that when a governor of one state demanded extradition from another state, it would be immediately granted. The warrants were difficult to obtain and most often used when an incarcerated suspect was likely to fight extradition.

The pair drove to Delray where they were met by Trooper Phillips, who filled them in on the details of Luther’s sexual assault case, much of which they had not yet heard. Of particular interest were comments Luther was said to have made to his brother-in-law, Randy Foster, and Debrah Snider. To the first he had asked, “What is ailing me? What causes me to do this?” And to the latter he stated, “I did it again.”

Richardson also noted that Luther threw his bloody clothes into a river. Healey said he’d done the same after burying Elder. And Byron Eerebout said Luther advised him that the best way to get rid of evidence was to toss it in a river. Luther was following a familiar pattern.

That evening, Richardson called Debrah Snider and asked if she wanted to go out to dinner. She was surprised to hear they were in town but agreed to meet with him and Anderson.

Richardson had talked to Snider several times in the past couple of weeks. She called once to tell him that Luther was changing his story again; now he was saying that Byron and Southy had gone to the bingo hall where Cher’s car was found that Sunday after he returned with her from Central City. They abducted and killed her that night, according to Luther.

“It’s a lie,” Richardson said. “It was incorrectly reported in the newspapers that Cher was seen at that bingo hall. It was actually a different bingo hall where she was seen, and it was the day before she disappeared. The true story just never appeared in the media.”

The day before Richardson left for West Virginia, Snider called again to say that Luther was talking about pleading guilty to Elder’s murder. “Now he says he wants the death penalty,” she said.

She sounded so sad that he almost told her that he was coming the next day, but he wanted to surprise Luther. “Ya know Deb,” he said instead, “you ought to get your ass back out here.”

“I know,” she responded. “I wanna come home. But I can’t so long as Tom is here.”

At dinner that night, Snider said Luther had added to his story. “Now he says Cher was killed because she got in the middle of a drug deal. Southy picked her up at the bingo parlor where you found her car and killed her.”

Tom, she added, “lusts after women but hates ‘bitches.’ He likes sexually aggressive women, but he hates women who stand up for their rights.”

When they drove her back home, Debrah handed Richardson a box of several hundred letters Luther had written to her. “He never admits to killing her,” she said. “But I think there are some pretty revealing things about his character in there.”

“Thanks, Deb,” he said. “Well, I guess we got to be goin.’ We’re gonna try to talk to Randy Foster and Luther’s sister, Becky, tomorrow.”

“Randy might talk,” Snider said. “But you won’t get anything from Becky. She hates cops.”

There was an awkward pause. Richardson didn’t know what else to say. They’d told Debrah they were in West Virginia as part of the investigation, not to extradite Luther. He smiled and turned to go.

“Do me a favor,” Debrah asked suddenly.

Richardson paused, wondering what this could be. “What’s that?”

“By your own admission, you neglect your wife,” she said, her voice breaking. “I want you to send her some flowers. I think being neglected is about the worst thing in the world.”

The next day, Richardson and Anderson located Randy Foster at a construction site. “Don’t introduce me,” Richardson said. “Just say I’m your partner.” He figured Foster had probably heard plenty of bad things from Luther about the detective who pursued him. No sense antagonizing Foster.

However, Foster wouldn’t talk to Anderson, a big, tough former cop. “Fuck you,” Foster said and started to walk away.

Richardson stepped in front of him. “I’m Scott Richardson,” he said. “Just answer a couple of questions for us.”

Foster stopped and looked at the detective. “So you’re the guy?” he said. However, instead of being put off, he seemed intrigued. “Well, you got about a minute before Becky gets here, and I don’t want her to see me talkin’ to you. The last time I talked to the police about Luther, she left me for five months.”

“Did he ever say anything about this case in Colorado?” Richardson asked.

“Tom told me that he dropped that girl off at Byron’s place,” Foster said. “He said that Byron strangled her in his bed. He said all he done was move the girl’s body and buried it under a large pile of rocks. He said you’d never find it.”

Foster also conceded that after the West Virginia rape, “Tom said ‘What’s ailing me’ ” and said he ruined his life by beating that girl.

As they talked, Foster grew increasingly nervous. Becky was due any moment. “She hates cops and will do anything to protect Tom,” he said. “Their mother seems to realize the truth, though.”

“Did he ever tell you that Cher was killed because she was a police informant?” Richardson asked.

“No,” Foster answered. “I heard Byron did it because of some dope deal. But then, there’s a whole lot of lying going on about this. Tom says that he feels like writing it all out, and after he’s dead, everyone would know what happened.”

Foster grew more evasive. Several times he answered Richardson’s more specific questions, such as, “Did he ever tell you he killed her?”, with, “I can’t answer that because it’ll get Tom in trouble.”

“Would you mind if we went to your place and looked around,” Richardson asked. Specifically, he said, he was interested in a backpack Luther brought with him from Colorado, his “rape kit.”

Foster shook his head. “Can’t,” he said. “Becky would get mad as hell. You’d need to get a warrant.”

As if on cue, Becky, a skinny little woman, drove up. Anderson went up and introduced himself and asked if he could talk to her.

“Fuck off,” she replied. She began to drive away as Anderson ran alongside. “We just want to talk to ya,” he puffed.

But Becky just glared and started rolling up her window. “He never hurt no girl in Colorado,” she yelled through the glass. She ordered her husband to get in the car and then drove off with her tires spinning in the gravel.

Richardson shrugged. He hadn’t expected to get much from Becky, and it had been pretty humorous watching ol’ P.C. Anderson trotting alongside the car, trying to conduct an interview. There weren’t many men who’d stood up to Anderson that way. They got in their car with Richardson still laughing and drove to where Bobby Jo Jones lived.

“He was punching me like I was a man,” Bobby Jo said when Richardson asked her to recount her ordeal. “Then he began choking me. I thought he was going to kill me. Then I thought he was going to take me to his cabin and kill me. Nobody would know where I was or who done it.”

However, Jones said she didn’t want to testify against Luther in Colorado. “I don’t want to go through that again.”

Late that afternoon, Richardson and Anderson finally arrived at the West Virginia State Prison. It was an imposing edifice of old stone, built during the Civil War to hold prisoners of war. Cold, dark, and brooding, it was known as “The Dungeon.”

They planned to extradite Luther back to Colorado the next day, but first Richardson wanted to make one last stab at talking to him before he “lawyered up.” Luther, he was warned by a prison official, had been spending a lot of time in the law library looking up statutes on the interstate transportation of prisoners. “He asked if he could get a medical excuse so he wouldn’t have to fly,” the official said. “He wants to be transported in a vehicle. Sounds dangerous to me.”

Richardson nodded. He’d received information in Colorado from a confidential informant that Luther had been in contact with friends in Chicago. If he could arrange to be transported on the ground, they would ambush the vehicle.

Richardson asked the guards to get Luther, telling him only that he had a visitor. When Luther entered the visiting room and saw the detective, the smile disappeared off his face and hatred blazed in his eyes. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he snarled.

“Just wanted to talk to you, Luther,” Richardson said, sitting down in a chair and smiling.

“You kiss my ass,” Luther said and turned to the guard who brought him. “Just take me back to my unit.”

“Okay,” Richardson shrugged. “It you don’t want to talk to us ...”

“Fuck no, I don’t want to talk to you,” Luther yelled, facing the detective again. “You know I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t even know why you even fucking came here. I ain’t got nothin’ to say to you.”

“Well, I got something to say to you,” Richardson replied. “We’re been working this case for two years—and it’s over.”

“I know that,” Luther sneered. “So whadda you want me to do?”