Still Missing: Rethinking the D.B. Cooper Case and Other Mysterious Unsolved Disappearances (6 page)

JACKIE: I personally did not, no.

ATTORNEY: Did anyone on your behalf?

JACKIE: Not on my behalf.

ATTORNEY: Well when you were arguing with Equitable, do you know whether or not your attorney made any attempt to find out whether he purchased an airline ticket?

JACKIE: I really don’t know.

ATTORNEY: Were any people contacted at the airport as to whether or not they had seen him?

JACKIE: I do believe the law enforcement agency checked the airport.

ATTORNEY: Do you know what their findings were?

JACKIE: To the best of my knowledge their findings were that there was no one that answered his description that bought a ticket on that particular day.

ATTORNEY: You’ve testified as to those items that he did not take, such as antiques and books which may have be voluminous, 12 volumes at least. Could you tell me what items he did take?

JACKIE: The clothes on his back.

ATTORNEY: What were they? How was he dressed?

JACKIE: He had a pair of blue jeans on, sweater, and a fingertip raincoat type, you know, it was a coat.

ATTORNEY: Was this on weekend?

JACKIE: I think it was the middle of the week.

ATTORNEY: Did he customarily wear blue jeans to go to work?

JACKIE: That particular week was their harvest of savings or something sale at the store, and they were all dressing in blue jeans.

ATTORNEY: In the same exhibit 16, excuse me, 17, subsection d, the question is, “Did the missing person express dissatisfaction with surroundings at work, home conditions etc,” and again you marked yes, that he had expressed dissatisfaction. What did you mean by answering, yes?

JACKIE: He was dissatisfied with his job at times.

ATTORNEY: What about his surroundings, the neighborhood, his friends?

JACKIE: No, he never expressed any dissatisfaction over our home or friends or anything like that.

ATTORNEY: Had you had a recent argument with him?

JACKIE: No.

ATTORNEY: The day prior to his disappearance?

JACKIE: Not that I recall.

ATTORNEY: The only dissatisfaction that you’re aware of is perhaps his work?

JACKIE: That’s correct.

ATTORNEY: Again perhaps your attorney can clear this up, but I’m somewhat confused as to why you’d respond with such positive answers on such significant questions. Had your husband ever have any problem with his mental health? Did he ever have a nervous condition? Had he ever been in a hospital for nerves?

JACKIE: No, he’d never been in the hospital for nerves. He was a very high-strung person.

ATTORNEY: Had he ever received any psychiatric care or counseling?

JACKIE: No.

ATTORNEY: Any contact with the county mental health center?

JACKIE: Not to my knowledge.

ATTORNEY: Were you active in any church? 

JACKIE: We belonged to St. Mary’s Church. We weren’t real active, no.

ATTORNEY: Were you on first name basis with your pastor or priest?  JACKIE: Yes.

ATTORNEY: You ever talk to the priest or pastor after your husband’s disappearance?

JACKIE: No.

ATTORNEY: Your husband ever discuss with you counseling with the priest? 

JACKIE: No.

ATTORNEY: Had your husband always lived in Michigan?

JACKIE: No.

ATTORNEY: Where was he from? Chicago?

JACKIE: He was born in Chicago.

ATTORNEY: How long did he live there?

JACKIE: He lived there for 18 years and then we were married and then we lived there for a couple years after that before we moved back to Michigan.

ATTORNEY: How long had you lived in Michigan?

JACKIE: Other than a couple years I lived in Chicago, I’ve lived in Michigan all my life.

ATTORNEY: Where was your original base? Where did you grow up and go to school?

JACKIE: In Grayling. I was born in Grayling.

ATTORNEY: You indicated on direct examination that there were, as I understood it anyhow, I thought that there were insurance policies, plural, more than one.

JACKIE: That’s correct.

ATTORNEY: Did the other companies pay in full face value of their policies?

JACKIE: The remaining company, I believe Mr. Miles can tell you that they were still in litigation.

ATTORNEY: There’s still litigation going on? What company?

JACKIE: John Hancock.

ATTORNEY: Did you your husband have a bank account at the Grayling State Bank at the time he disappeared?

JACKIE: You’re talking about a savings account?

ATTORNEY: No, I’m looking at your statement again, exhibit 17. I don’t whether it was a savings or the checking, but it indicates that there was a bank account and I was wondering if it was savings or checking or what?

JACKIE: I don’t believe we had a checking account at that time and I believe that the savings account was just in my name. We didn’t have any joint savings or anything.

ATTORNEY: You have any other assets were taken or signed off by him prior to his disappearance?

JACKIE: Not to my knowledge.

ATTORNEY: He left you everything in the checking—

JACKIE: I don’t believe we had a checking account.

ATTORNEY: If you didn’t have a checking account and you had the savings account, what account would he have had?

JACKIE: We didn’t, the account was the loan account for the bathroom and everything. We did have, you know, an account at the bank, a loan, an industrial loan. I’m fairly certain, it’s very difficult for me to recall all this stuff, but I’m pretty sure we didn’t have a checking account. I paid everything with bank money orders and things like that, and I now I had a checking account in my name with very few dollars in it.

ATTORNEY: You know if he ever kept any accounts secret or confidential from you?

JACKIE: No, if he kept them, he kept them very secret because I don’t know about them?

ATTORNEY: Did he receive any mail at a P.O. Box?

JACKIE: Not to my knowledge.

ATTORNEY: Recall if he ever had any mail sent to his employment address?

JACKIE: If he did, I don’t know about it.

ATTORNEY: All of the mail came to you?

JACKIE: That’s correct.

ATTORNEY: You were the financial manager of the family so to speak?

JACKIE: So to speak.

ATTORNEY: Did you pay all the bills?

JACKIE: Uh huh, yes.

ATTORNEY: What kind of arrangement did you have? We all have our own.

JACKIE: He would usually give me money for household expenses and to make, you know, regular payments as they came due and grocery money and that sort of thing and keep $10, $15, $20, you know, for lunches or whatever, cigarettes, miscellaneous little things, stamps.

ATTORNEY: You testified that your husband had no mental health problems as far as you were aware or being treated. Had he ever expressed any suicidal tendencies or threats?

JACKIE: One time prior in our marriage, he had made the statement that we’d all be better off if he were dead cause then we could collect his insurance and go about our business.

ATTORNEY: Prior to when?

JACKIE: I can’t recall the year. It’s when we lived in Gaylord.

ATTORNEY: Did you take that statement seriously?

JACKIE: Well, I was upset by it, yes, I was upset by it.

ATTORNEY: That’s the only indication?

JACKIE: That’s the only time he ever mentioned anything like that to me.

ATTORNEY: What kind of person was he as far as character, moods and was he a moody person, hyper or what?

JACKIE: He was moody.

ATTORNEY: Did he have highs and lows that were extremes?

JACKIE: Well, that’s difficult for me to—

ATTORNEY: Well, you’d have to relate it perhaps to, was he ever depressed to the point where he would not go to work, he’d stay home or lock himself in a room and stay alone?

JACKIE: I don’t believe he ever missed work because of it, but yes I’ve seen him so depressed that he’d go off in the house by himself to the basement to work on wood things or go to our room and close the door and just be there, you know.

ATTORNEY: Was this frequent?

JACKIE: There again we have to know what’s frequent, you know?

ATTORNEY: Well, was this a weekly or monthly occasion?

JACKIE: I can’t see any pattern to it. I guess I just got used to his moods and when he did those things, he, it’s one of those moods and I left him alone until he came out of it.

RE-EXAMINATION BY ATTORNEY

ATTORNEY: Mrs. Lepsy, you mentioned that your husband would keep some of the monies from his paycheck for his own personal items that he wanted to take care. You mentioned one of them was cigarettes? Is that correct?

JACKIE: That’s correct.

ATTORNEY: Was your husband a heavy cigarette Smoker?

JACKIE: I would say about a pack a day.

ATTORNEY: Subsequent to the automobile being left in Traverse City, the company car being left in Traverse City, and that being the last locations for it, at the airport, were there personal items in the automobile that were returned to you?

JACKIE: Yes, there were.

ATTORNEY: Did those items include any cigarettes at all?

JACKIE: A half pack.

ATTORNEY: Where was that half pack of cigarettes located at, do you know?

JACKIE: I really don’t know, they just gave things back to me.

ATTORNEY: Thank you. I would ask that Mr. Hunter testify at this point in time and you’ve already been sworn, Mr. Hunter, you understand that, don’t you?

JACKIE: Yeah.

ATTORNEY: And you know what this means, don’t you?

JACKIE: Yes.

EXAMINATION OF WITNESS BY ATTORNEY:

(The witness, Mr. Hunter, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows :)

ATTORNEY: Mr. Hunter, what is your present occupation?

FATHER-IN-LAW: I’m retired now.

ATTORNEY: Prior to your retirement what was your occupation?

FATHER-IN-LAW: Register of deeds, Crawford County Michigan.

ATTORNEY: How long were you Register of Deeds for Crawford County, Michigan?

FATHER-IN-LAW: 27 ½ years.

ATTORNEY: Your daughter and Mr. Lepsy were married in 1955, is that correct?

FATHER-IN-LAW: Well, yes, I assume around there someplace, I really don’t remember.

ATTORNEY: Prior to the time of their marriage, how long had you known Mr. Lepsy?

FATHER-IN-LAW: I think probably about three or four years.

ATTORNEY: So if we assume under the circumstances as testimony has indicated, they were married in 1955 then you first started or a relationship was started to know him in ’51 or ’52?

FATHER-IN-LAW: Somewhere along there.

ATTORNEY: So you had known him for approximately 16 or 17 years before his disappearance?

FATHER-IN-LAW: Right.

ATTORNEY: At the time of his disappearance, were you familiar with the state of the home in which he and Mrs. Lepsy and the children were living?

FATHER-IN-LAW: Yes.

ATTORNEY: There’s been testimony to the fact that it was purchased for $6500 and it was approximately $5000 worth of improvements put into it, which would mean that the evaluation from a cost standpoint is about $11,500. Based upon that particular information which is testimony at this point in time, are you in a position, based on your experience as register of deeds, to be able to indicate what in your estimation would have been the value of that house in late 1969?

FATHER-IN-LAW: Yes, it certainly was worth that much.

ATTORNEY: Would it have been worth more than that?

FATHER-IN-LAW: Oh yeah, I think it would have been worth around $17,000, $17,500.

ATTORNEY: Mr. Hunter did you have occasions during the –from 1955 to 1969 to visit with your daughter and son-in-law and grandchildren?

FATHER-IN-LAW: Oh yeah.

ATTORNEY: Did you do this on many occasions?

FATHER-IN-LAW: Oh, yes.

ATTORNEY: Did you have a good relationship with your son-in-law?

FATHER-IN-LAW: I thought I had a very good relationship with him.

ATTORNEY: Did you and he ever do anything together of any nature?

FATHER-IN-LAW: We went on picnics, things like that. We went on a vacation one time to Chicago and I think on two occasions only, because he wasn’t much of a sportsman, but I tried to get him to go deer hunting, and he went a couple of times, but that was it. He didn’t fish and of course, I fish, but he didn’t fish. It was more picnics and around home things, more things around home, than anything.

ATTORNEY: Did you ever have any conversations with him in relationship to the state of his marriage?

FATHER-IN-LAW: About problems or anything?

ATTORNEY: Uh huh.

FATHER-IN-LAW: No.

ATTORNEY: Did you ever, were you ever present when he became agitated or angry, and so forth at his wife?

FATHER-IN-LAW: No.

ATTORNEY: Would you be in a position to categorize what the relationship was between your daughter and your son-in-law as far as you perceived it to be. Was it a reasonable relationship, a good one, a bad one?

FATHER-IN-LAW: I thought it was a good one.

ATTORNEY: Were you also in a position to view his relationship with his children?

FATHER-IN-LAW: Definitely.

ATTORNEY: Was he the type of father who did things with his children, or did he more or less leave that up to the mother.

FATHER-IN-LAW: No, I can recall specifically, for instance the daughter, how he’d buy the little girl something.

ATTORNEY: That was his only daughter?

FATHER-IN-LAW: That was his only daughter and that was his little girl.

ATTORNEY: Did the children used to go with you on these picnics or did he spend time with them on his days off and so forth?

FATHER-IN-LAW: Right. They went on these picnics with us. I can’t remember if they went to Chicago with us, but I— 

ATTORNEY: I have no further questions of Mr. Hunter.

EXAMINATION OF WITNESS BY ATTORNEY:

ATTORNEY: Lisa you know you’re also under oath. You understand that don’t you?

LISA: Yes, I do.

ATTORNEY: Lisa, on the date that your father disappeared, do you know how old you were at that time?