Murdered Innocents (6 page)

Despite the profile provided by Ed Richards, Austin police detectives were still frustrated with their lack of progress. The number of worthless tips continued to increase. The large number of false confessions was driving Sergeant Jones and the task force crazy. One particular tip, however, seemed promising. Sergeant Jones decided to take action.

The name Clair Lavaye, an alleged High Priestess of an Austin Devil-worshiping cult, came across Jones’s tip lines numerous times in connection with the murders. Lavaye was an alleged member of the People in Black, the unofficial name given to the Austin youth involved in the Goth and vampire scenes. The PIBs, as they came to be known, consisted of disaffected teenagers and college-age kids who wore lots of black, frequented dance clubs and punk rock bars, and overdosed on music by the Cure and Bauhaus.

Unusual looking to many people, they were basically harmless.

In March, the news program
48 Hours
broadcast the February 28, 1992, search and seizure of Lavaye’s West Campus duplex by Austin police. Officers Jones, Huckabay, Polanco, and several others made some interesting discoveries in Lavaye’s crypt. Amongst the bloodied Christ figures and Lestat-influenced decor were hundreds of bones and a skull. The officers on the broadcast were certain that they were looking at a genuine human skull.

It wasn’t.

It turned out to be a sculpted wax skull.

 

 

Nearly 250 people, including Mayor Bruce Todd, gathered inside a courtyard at Amy Ayers’s school. They were there to celebrate what would have been her fourteenth birthday. The school planted a fifteen-foot-high crepe myrtle tree in her honor. It was the perfect symbol of Amy’s love of nature and life.

“She wasn’t about dying,” her father said. “She was about living. She was about happiness. She was about love.”

Students of Burnet Middle School adorned the memorial tree with numerous white ribbons with messages of love and birthday wishes written in glitter. Less than a month later, a time capsule was buried beneath the tree and designated with a pink granite marker with the inscription
AMY L. AYERS—A LIFE THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN SPARED
.

 

Another tip came in that sounded even more promising than the Clair Lavaye tip. A twenty-year-old African American drag queen by the name of Shawn Smith landed himself in jail on burglary charges. Smith, also known as “Buddha,” was a flamboyant, homosexual club kid, according to his acquaintances Lori Ann Hoefling and Justin Vick.

Vick also stated that Buddha was a drug dealer. Another acquaintance, Craig Davis, considered Buddha to be “a loud, obnoxious kind of guy.” Davis was not buddies with Buddha, but more of a fellow club scenester. Obviously, Buddha’s “friends” did not think much of him.

He apparently did not think much of them either.

Buddha sat down with Sergeant Hector Polanco in the interview room of the homicide division. Sergeant Jones received a call at his home that Polanco was interviewing Smith and that Smith was naming names. Jones darted out of his home, headed directly for the police station, and hustled into the tiny interview room. Jones nodded toward Polanco and sat down with Smith. The young man apparently had some surprising news for the sergeant. He wanted to get something important off his chest. He was inside the yogurt shop on the night of the murders. Not only was he inside the shop, but he knew who killed the girls.

Buddha claimed he was awoken at 11:00
A.M.
on December 6, 1991, by Davis and Vick. Buddha dragged his ass out of bed, got dressed, and eventually showed up at their duplex on Ohlen Road, near Lanier High School, around 1:00
P.M.
When he arrived, he noticed that Davis was raving mad. He was screaming at the top of his lungs about some girl who had ripped him off.

“Dude, that fucking bitch is sticking it to me,” Davis allegedly fumed. “I gave that fucking cunt two thousand dollars’ worth of weed and she fucking ripped me off!” The girl, evidently, was supposed to take the marijuana and sell it to a Mexican man who lived in a nearby duplex.

“Dude, do you know of a way we can get even with her?” Davis asked.

“What exactly do you want to do, man?” Buddha answered a question with a question.

“Kill the bitch!” was Davis’s reply.

Buddha stood there quietly in front of Davis. Vick and his blond-haired girlfriend, Hoefling, sat on the beaten-up couch. The couple nodded their heads in unison. Buddha was not quite sure what to make of the situation. He began to joke with Davis about how they could kill her. They began to discuss various methods of execution.

At the top of the list was a Colombian necktie—when a killer slits a victim’s throat, reaches inside the gaping wound, grabs the victim’s tongue, and yanks it out of the freshly bloody hole so that it dangles out. Next up, Chinese water torture followed by hog-tying their victim. Buddha laughed as they devised nefarious methods to slaughter this girl.

The bag of weed they smoked did not hurt either.

“So, you want to help us get even with Eliza?” Davis asked.

Buddha had no idea who Eliza was, nor did he want to know. He continued to laugh, but he could tell the tenor of the atmosphere had changed drastically. He looked into Davis’s eyes and knew this was no joke. He remembered how Davis and Vick talked just a few months back about committing murder and getting away with it. He did not take them seriously. He assumed they were just fucking around.

This time was different.

Davis was pissed and a girl named Eliza was going to pay.

“I’m gonna grab my gun,” Davis informed Buddha. “D’ya wanna come along and watch me scare this bitch?” he asked as he got up to retrieve his gun.

“Sure. Why not?” Buddha said.

He watched as Davis vanished into his bedroom. He looked over at Vick. He knew Justin was packing. He always carried a small revolver with him for “protection.”

Davis walked back into the living room, looked at Buddha, and patted his waist through his T-shirt. “I have my gun.” An outline of the automatic pistol was clearly visible inside the waistband of the skinny Davis’s jeans.

Buddha continued telling Sergeant Jones his story. Jones diligently took notes, kept his mouth shut, and listened to the young man.

“We all—Craig, Justin, Lorrie, and I—got into Justin’s car,” Buddha continued, “and headed toward the I Love Yogurt Shop on Anderson Lane.”

Jones did not bat an eye at Buddha’s incorrect naming of the store. “What time was this?” he asked.

“Before the yogurt shop closed. When we got there . . . the door was locked, but we could see Eliza and three other girls inside. Eliza came to the door. There was one behind the counter and two in a booth. Eliza came to the door and let us in. I knew it was Eliza, because when [Craig] saw her, [he] started saying, ‘There she comes, that bitch.’”

Buddha claimed that Eliza let them all inside the store. Vick supposedly locked the door behind them. Davis approached Eliza and demanded to speak to her in private.

“Don’t do this here. I can get fired,” Eliza allegedly appealed to Davis.

“No, we need to deal with this now!” he screamed at her as he pointed a finger into her face. He pushed Eliza to the floor and hovered over her.

“What happened to my money?” he demanded.

“I don’t know,” she cried.

“Fuck that shit,” he yelled at her. The two younger girls kept quiet in the booth. Jennifer Harbison, however, stepped out from behind the serving counter and walked right up to Davis.

Bad move.

Davis whipped out his pistol and pointed it at Jennifer.

“Everybody, go to the back!” Davis ordered. “We are going to get this shit straight.” The three girls did as they were told, as did Buddha, Vick, and Hoefling. As they corralled the girls in the back of the store, Eliza and Davis started to scrap. Suddenly a gunshot was fired. Buddha heard the sounds of the bullet ricocheting off the walls. He and Vick immediately turned around and headed for the front of the store. He saw Davis holding Eliza from behind.

“Go get something to tie them up with,” Davis ordered Vick. He turned his attention to Eliza and said, “This bitch is gonna tell me where my fucking money is.” Amy, Sarah, and Jennifer began to cry. Davis turned around and smacked Sarah in the face.

“Shut these bitches up,” Davis commanded Smith and Hoefling. Buddha froze. Vick, meanwhile, was reassuring the girls that everything would be cool just as soon as Davis got his money back.

Sergeant Jones broke up the remembrance by asking Buddha if Vick was brandishing his gun. No, he did not, recalled Smith, who continued to tell the story. He spoke of Hoefling telling everyone to be quiet and how Davis screamed at Eliza.

“This bitch is going to pay me back somehow.”

“How?” Eliza wondered through tears.

“This bitch is going to pay me back or I’m gonna take it out of her ass. I want my money today. Now!”

Vick returned with something that resembled stage cord. He tied Jennifer’s hands in front of her with the long, skinny cord. He tied Amy’s hands together. Buddha tied up Sarah.

“She and I were the only calm ones,” he recollected.

Davis got fed up with Eliza’s denials.

“I don’t have any money.” She begged him to leave her alone.

Davis had enough. “Well, fuck it then.” He pointed the gun toward Eliza. “Strip,” he commanded. He looked over at Vick and Hoefling and told them to strip the other three girls.

“What the fuck’s your problem?” Buddha wanted to know.

“You’ll get over it.”

Buddha watched as Vick and Hoefling grabbed the girls and tore the clothes off their bodies. He stood silently as Davis ripped off Eliza’s clothes. He did not move as Davis tore her panties off and shoved them into her mouth. Buddha joined in and shoved Sarah’s panties into her mouth as well.

Buddha told Sergeant Jones that Davis tossed Eliza to the hard floor and began to rape her. Eliza screamed at Davis, calling him a “fuckhead” and “bastard” and threatening that “they’re going to get you for this. You-all are all going to jail.”

Davis just laughed as he continued to rape her. “I’m gonna get my money’s worth.”

When he finished with Eliza, he walked over to Jennifer. He proceeded to rape her as she lay on her side. When he finished, he motioned to Vick, who dropped his drawers quicker than a greased-up pig on a Slip ’n Slide. Vick jumped on top of Jennifer and began to rape her. His girlfriend, Lori, sidled over next to Jennifer and restrained her arms as her boyfriend continued to brutally rape her.

At this point, Amy bolted for the back door. Davis, who went back to rape Eliza, dismounted and yelled at Vick, “Shoot her. Stop her!”

“You shoot her,” Vick yelled back. Both boys pulled out their guns and simultaneously shot Amy, who crumpled to the floor.

The other girls’ screams could be heard through their gags. Davis began to freak out.

“Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it.” He turned toward the three surviving girls. “I want you all on the floor, face first, now,” he screamed at them. The girls did not comply, so Davis walked up behind them, took his foot, and pressed it on each one of their heads until their faces were mashed into the floor. He calmly walked up behind Jennifer, stuck his gun to the back of her head, and pulled the trigger.

Then Sarah.

He saved Eliza for last.

Just like that, they were all dead.

Buddha stood in dumbfounded silence. Vick stared off into space. Hoefling leaned against a kitchen wall and slid down to the ground. Vick snapped out of it and walked over to Davis. He began to push the bodies of the dead girls together in a big pile.

“What are we going to do with the bodies?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” replied his girlfriend.

“Let’s burn them and get rid of them,” Davis asserted. “Go get that lighter fluid out of the car,” he ordered.

“I ain’t moving.”

Instead, Hoefling got up, left the yogurt shop, walked through the parking lot, crossed the street, opened the car door, grabbed the yellow plastic lighter fluid bottle, and walked back into the store. She handed the container to Davis, who poured it over the pile of bodies. He handed the bottle to Vick, who also doused the girls.

Buddha left the building. He could not take it anymore. He ran toward the front door, through the parking lot, onto Rockwood Lane, up to Foster Lane, and then to the Metro bus stop, where he caught the number 3 Burnet Road bus. He had no destination in mind. He just wanted to get rid of the images that he witnessed.

Buddha did not see Davis, Vick, or Hoefling again for almost ten days, until the couple stopped by to score some Ecstasy. The buy went down and nothing was said about the night at the yogurt shop. Everything seemed back to normal.

Shawn “Buddha” Smith completed his disturbing recounting of the yogurt shop murders. Sergeant Jones asked that he commit his statement to paper. It would be the first of such written statements in the case.

After Smith wrote and signed his statement, Jones asked if he could conduct a polygraph examination on him. Smith agreed, but asked during the preinterview, “What if my statement is a lie?” Nothing was said and the polygraph was administered.

The results came back negative.

Smith’s story was bullshit.

When asked why he lied, Smith stated that after his conversation with Sergeant Polanco, he believed he was at the scene of the crime. He claimed that Polanco told him they had videotape of him at the yogurt shop. Smith also claimed that he and some buddies sat around one night at a party and discussed how they would have committed the crime. He blamed these factors for why he falsely confessed.

Back to square one for Sergeant Jones.