Rampage (26 page)

An hour later, Carlos Rivera helped close up, and headed out with Imeson to continue drinking at the home of a third man named Douglas. While they were there, Douglas snapped several photographs, including an image of Imeson with his arm around Rivera and tongue protruding suggestively toward his nipple. The party broke up at 6:00 a.m., and Imeson and Rivera headed to Imeson’s boarding house on Erie Drive in Rivera’s silver Honda Civic. Douglas had insisted that Imeson, the less intoxicated of the two, drive. What happened at Imeson’s home is a matter of some controversy. Imeson claims that he awoke to find Rivera performing oral sex on him. Enraged, he grabbed a canvas belt and strangled him to death. Though possible, this is not the most probable account of the murder. Consider the evidence:

1. Imeson was seen “hitting on” Rivera by clients at The Tap.
   
2. A sexually suggestive photograph of the two was taken the same night at Douglas’s house.
   
3. Imeson drove Rivera back to his place.
   

Perhaps most crucial was the discovery of Imeson’s semen in Rivera’s mouth. Though it is certainly possible that Rivera may have fellated the sleeping Imeson, it seems unlikely that he would have been able to bring Imeson to climax without waking him. More probable was that an unstable and sexually confused Imeson willingly allowed Rivera to pleasure him. After ejaculating, Imeson’s Id subsided, and his Superego took over. Rather than feeling good about the experience, he realized that his masculine, heterosexual self-image had been compromised. Due to his personality disorder, he was unable to accept responsibility for his own choice to engage in a homosexual act, projected his anger and self-hatred onto Carlos Rivera, and strangled him.

Whatever the true explanation, when Imeson saw what he had done, he would have realized that not only had he killed a man in his own apartment, but he had also left DNA on his body, and a slew of eye witnesses who could put them together on the night of the murder. At 8:00 a.m., he called his cousin Samantha from Rivera’s cellphone in tears. He arranged to pick her up later that morning, then called Brooke, his ex-girlfriend and the mother of his daughter, but got her voicemail:

Sorry about how things have to be. You’ll hear about everything. I made a big mistake tonight and, uh, something I have to do but that’s all right. And, ah, you’ll understand. It’s not how it sounds, the media makes things look one way, whatever. The matter is Brooke, I love you so much, take care of our baby.
[48]

Soon after, Jesse Imeson appeared at his cousin’s house in Carlos Rivera’s Honda Civic, and he drove her to the cemetery to talk. “I did something really bad,” Imeson explained by his father’s grave. “I killed a guy last night.” He went on to feed Samantha his account of being sexually assaulted by Carlos Rivera, and claimed he had left the body in his room.

Bidding her goodbye, Imeson fled north in the Civic, stopping at a Walmart to purchase a CD and a pair of sunglasses. By the time he rolled into the resort town of Grand Bend that night, the manager of The Tap had already called Douglas to ask why Carlos Rivera hadn’t arrived for his shift. Suspicious, Douglas contacted the police at 11:00 p.m. Meanwhile, Jesse Norman Imeson was using his good looks to his advantage.

Scrapper

Jesse Norman Imeson had always been a troubled child. But when, at the age of nine, he stumbled upon the body of his father Jeff, who had committed suicide, he lost his tenuous grip and went into free fall. Unwanted by his mother, Jesse was placed into foster care and shuffled between homes in Windsor and Leamington, before finally settling with family in Amherstburg, Ontario. Though a neighbour remembers him as a “good kid” who was always running over from his grandparents’ to visit his cousins two doors away, students at the various schools he passed through recognized that Jesse had problems. Upon becoming a legal adult, he was removed from the foster system. He dropped out of General Amherst High School around grade eleven. Left to his own devices, Imeson alternated between short stints in roofing and construction, and petty crime, regularly abusing alcohol and cocaine. Imeson served time in Windsor Jail for drug offences and possession of stolen goods. One Corrections Canada worker referred to him as “career criminal as you’re going to get.”

Nevertheless, Imeson dreamed of becoming a police officer, enrolling in a law and security course at St. Clair College. Despite his problems, his friends considered him a likable guy: easy to get along with and generous. He also possessed above-average intelligence, with an IQ measured at 123. When he wasn’t in school or prison, Imeson could be found at the casino or drinking draft beer and shooting pool at the Fort Malden Hotel. At times he was an angry drunk, and got into fist fights. “He could always handle himself,” said lifelong friend Jim Bondy. “He’s no super tough guy, but he ain’t no pushover, either.” Due to his propensity for brawling, Imeson was prohibited from entering a roadhouse near his grandparents’ property. A fan of mixed martial arts, he often sported Tap Out–brand clothing and, to further this tough guy image, covered himself with tattoos, though his choices were fairly uncreative. He was a frequent client of Ideal Imagery in Windsor, where owner Jeff Vella permanently inked the “Imeson” surname in 2.5-centimetre letters over his belly. On other occasions he decorated Imeson’s arms with Japanese symbols. However, Vella was irritated by his client’s constant hyperactivity. During one appointment, Imeson requested that the tattoo artist ink an elaborate tribal design along his right arm. Vella started the procedure, but Imeson was unable to sit still for more than five minutes, and left with the work unfinished.

In November 2006, at the age of twenty-one, Jesse Imeson returned to Windsor Jail to serve a six-month stint for robbery and break and enter, and was placed on suicide watch. After parole, he spent a brief period at a homeless shelter in Windsor before moving into the boarding house on Erie Street. Around February 2007, he returned to Ideal Imagery and showed Vella a shoddily executed tribal tattoo from another shop, asking him to fix it. Vella agreed, but soon after he started, found that Imeson was similarly problematic.

“He would get up, go to the washroom, make a phone call, have a smoke, whatever.… It’s more preferable to sit for at least an hour at a time,” Vella told the
London Free Press
. “I was fed up. I was just like, ‘If you are not going sit still, there are a lot of tattoo shops in the city.’ I told him not to bother coming back.”

There are several possible explanations for Imeson’s restless behaviour. It may have been a sign of the irritability and irresponsibility commonly found in individuals with anti-social personality disorder. Certainly, one can draw parallels between the ages and early criminal careers of Imeson and
Robert Raymond Cook
(Chapter 4). More sinisterly, it could reflect a psychopathic proneness to boredom and poor behavioural control. A third explanation, which could also work in tandem with either of the previous two, is that Imeson was suffering from cocaine withdrawal. In June of that year, he had completed a forty-day Salvation Army drug rehabilitation program, but relapsed the day after.

Nick Cesljar, the man who had accompanied Imeson to The Tap on the night of the murder, had also witnessed the dark side of Imeson’s personality. The two had met months earlier while Imeson had been working construction in a building where a friend of Nick’s lived. They soon found out that they had a lot in common: partying, girls, and a love of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Cesljar never recalled seeing Imeson sober, and remembered his volatile temper: “Every time we’d watch [Ultimate Fighting Championship] fights, afterwards we’d get rowdy, you know, some grappling matches. When he loses, man, he … freaks out. We’re like Jesse, man, calm … down.” This inability to accept defeat in a mature manner could indicate symptoms of narcissistic or anti-social personality disorders, as well as psychopathy. As did his repeated lies about serving in Afghanistan and being dishonourably discharged for possessing cocaine. “Everything that came out of his mouth, now I know, was a lie.”

Cesljar also remembers Imeson expressing suicidal fantasies. On Saturday, July 14, they had attended a drug- and booze-fuelled party in McGregor. “He was saying that if he wasn’t socializing with us, if he wasn’t hanging out, he’d be out there thinking about committing suicide,” Cesljar recounted. “All this crazy shit about his girlfriend, his daughter.”

Crazy Li’l Chick

Grand Bend, Ontario, is a scenic beach community on the shores of Lake Huron, often referred to as “Florida north” by local business people and politicians. Most of the year this sleepy resort town hosts two thousand residents, but when Imeson rolled in during tourist season on Wednesday, July 18, 2007, the population may have been as high as fifty thousand. Parking the stolen Honda Civic, the tall, dark stranger headed toward the Rod and Gun Sports Lounge, armed with Carlos Rivera’s credit cards and a thirst. He sat down for a few beers with a stranger, Bruce Gallman, and after half an hour, the two drinking buddies took the party next door to Gables bar. There, Imeson met teens Kaylee Barrett and her blonde cousin Lindsey Glavin, the latter describing herself on Facebook as “a crazy li’l chick” whose interests included “mostly just partying and chillin’.” Rather than remaining inconspicuous, Imeson ingratiated himself, bragging to his companions that he was the owner of the silver Honda Civic. He joked with the other punters and spun fantastical yarns about serving in Afghanistan. Considering he had strangled Carlos Rivera to death less than twenty-four hours ago, Imeson’s easy gregariousness points again to a major personality disorder. When Gables closed, Lindsey drove Imeson and Barrett back to her family home at 69401 Airport Line in Exeter, where they spent the night. The next morning, Barrett left for work. Glavin and Imeson drove back to Grand Bend, where they passed the day relaxing on the beach before paying a visit to the local liquor store.

Meanwhile, at 9:00 p.m. back in Windsor, police investigators had located Carlos Rivera’s strangled corpse lying supine on Imeson’s bed, nude save for a golf shirt, and partially covered by a blanket. A canvas belt with metal rings was looped twice around his swollen neck, and his arms and legs spilled out from under the covers like a turtle. Rivera had also sustained an injury to the face. Immediately, Jesse Norman Imeson became the number one suspect in the slaying.

At 9:30 p.m. the following evening, Jesse and Lindsey entered Gar’s Bar and Grill in Exeter. Imeson drank beer and Glavin rye. According to their server, Imeson “was a nice guy, a normal guy with manners,” and he and Glavin “looked like a couple. I thought they were together a long time.” Imeson spun a tall tale about serving in Afghanistan with the Canadian armed forces. They left at 11:30 p.m. and he stayed another night at the Glavin home.

Sometime the next day, on Friday, July 20, Lindsey’s mother saw a television report warning of a dangerous fugitive on the loose. To her shock and horror, the screen flashed a photograph of the young man who had spent the last two nights under her roof. Imeson was promptly asked to leave, and Lindsey drove him out to Bronson Line — a country road — where he fled on foot. Reaching the Muller farm in Bluewater, Imeson broke into the dwelling and made off with a .22 -calibre rifle, two hundred rounds of ammunition, and a green coat.

Common sense did not seem to run strong in the Glavin family, as neither Lindsey nor her mother called 911 to inform authorities about the whereabouts of Ontario’s most wanted homicidal predator. Instead, the “crazy li’l chick” waited until the next morning to persuade her ex-boyfriend to call Crime Stoppers on her behalf.

On Monday, July 23, the bodies of seventy-two-year-old William Regier and his seventy-three-year-old wife, Helene, were discovered in their Mount Carmel home. At 10:00 p.m. on July 22, Imeson had attempted to kick down the door of the little farmhouse on Bronson Line, but had failed. Instead he broke a window and entered, leaving shoeprints from his size 12 Nikes on the floor. Brandishing his newly acquired rifle, Imeson herded the couple into the basement, where he tied them up with clothesline, telephone wire, and an extension cord. Once they were incapacitated, he fired the rifle seven times, striking Helene Regier in the right shoulder, neck, chest, and chin, and Bill in the right temple and twice in the chest. Leaving the bodies in the basement, Imeson stole William’s money and identification and loaded a suitcase with food, clothing, and knives. Hurried, he sped off east in the Regiers’ silver 2006 GMC Sierra, forgetting the suitcase altogether.

Staff Sergeant William Donnelly of the OPP lamented that if the Glavins had called 911 immediately, he had “no doubt” that Imeson would have been caught, and the Regier double murder could likely have been prevented. Instead, Jesse Norman Imeson was allowed to graduate to the level of spree killer, slipping along the multifarious tentacles of Ontario’s highway system like slime into a vast, dark ocean.

And the Law Won

Fortunately, Imeson was leaving a trail of breadcrumbs wherever he ran. Aside from credit card purchases, Carlos Rivera’s silver Honda Civic had already been found abandoned in Grand Bend on Friday, July 20, leading police to widen their manhunt to Lambton County. Soon all of South Huron was being scoured by ground and air. The break-in at the Muller residence on Babylon Line, in which the firearm had been stolen, was linked to Imeson by Sunday, along with the discovery of the Regiers’ bodies the following day. A description of the Regiers’ missing silver GMC Sierra was released to the public in an attempt to produce leads. By Wednesday, the fugitive and select details of his crimes appeared on the
America’s Most Wanted
website. The next day, police as far away as Calgary, Alberta, and Whistler, B.C., had joined in the search. Imeson had contacts in both locations and had spoken of moving out west shortly before the murders took place. With Imeson on the lam for over a week, on Saturday, July 28, investigators announced that his appearance might have changed significantly. The dark-haired, clean-cut murderer whose face had been seared into the minds of Ontario residents could now very well be a bearded bleach-blond.