TRACE EVIDENCE: The Hunt for the I-5 Serial Killer (46 page)

As if Springer read his mind, she said, “Now for the really exciting stuff, guys.”

She reloaded a microscope. “Take a look.”

Biondi had no idea what he was looking at. Silvery and shiny, it had distinctive grains in alternating squares.

“That’s a piece of the white cordage from the Frackenpohl scene,” Springer said.

Once her eyes were focused, Maulsby saw what looked like tiny red spots on the glistening threads.

“Is that blood?” she asked.

“No,” Springer said. “Paint. Lots more than on the fiber. See the way it’s in little globs? You get that when paint is sprayed.”

Biondi wondered where this was going.

Springer placed another slide under the other microscope, and stepped back.

Biondi saw more shiny threads and tiny red dots. For a moment, he thought that he was seeing the same cord.

“What’s this, Faye?”

“A piece of the cordage from Tupelo,” she said.

Maulsby and Biondi looked at each other.

“There’s red paint on both?” Biondi asked.

“Not just red paint,” said Springer. She explained that she had taken these slides down to her old lab in
Riverside to use a very expensive ($275,000) piece of equipment not available at DOJ Sacramento: a scanning electron microscope so powerful it showed atom spacing in molecules. “I was able to determine that these particles are identical in both organic and inorganic composition. It’s the same
identical
paint, and it’s on all the cordage. All these cords were in the same environment when someone was spray-painting.”

The detectives returned to their office elated; Springer had strengthened the cordage evidence about 1,000 percent. Biondi and the other older hands were amazed at the type of evidence she had developed. They all knew about trace evidence from training and textbooks, but it was something they rarely got from their own
crime lab. The majority of murder cases went to court with only the basic physical evidence—the murder bullet matched the suspect’s gun, fingerprints, blood type, etc. In a sizable number of successful cases, there was no lab-analyzed evidence at all.

In the I-5 investigation, all they had been able to say heretofore was that the pieces of common parachute cord were similar; now, Springer could show that the cordage from a murder scene and Kibbe’s residence had been in the exact same place—perhaps a garage or storage locker—when someone was spraying red paint.

Early the next morning, Springer called Biondi with later-breaking news: Although the paint spill on the car floor mat—it was circular, suggesting someone had transported a dripping paint can—had proven not to be the source of the paint on the cordage, she’d found red paint on the two pieces of cordage from the
Debra Guffie crime kit that identically matched the paint on the other pieces of cordage.

“I’m sitting here hugging my microscope,” she said.

Biondi laughed. “Hug away. The next call I make is to a district attorney to see about a filing.”

Biondi realized that this intense and dedicated criminalist, in town for all of two months, had managed to do what a dozen detectives hadn’t been able to do in years.

Through microscopic evidence invisible to the naked eye, Faye Springer had deftly slipped a cord—actually, seven cords—around the neck of Roger Reece
Kibbe.

“T
HIS ISN
’
T
a good idea,” said Detective Vito
Bertocchini, warily eyeing the single-engine airplane being wheeled out of a garage attached to a custom ranch-style home at upscale Cameron Park, an
El Dorado County mountaintop suburban enclave 30 miles west of Sacramento where home ownership also bought access to a private airstrip.

Detective Pete Rosenquist had been hearing Bertocchini complain the entire drive from downtown Sacramento, and he thought it was hilarious that such a big, tough guy could be humbled at the idea of winged
flight.

“It’s just a small airplane,” Rosenquist said. “Nothing to worry about.”

“I’d rather drive,” Bertocchini said for the umpteenth time.

“We’re here, partner. Let’s do it.”

It was early afternoon on April 27, 1988—D-Day for the I-5 investigation, with multiple operations set to go off simultaneously in various locales in two states.

Bertocchini and Rosenquist’s assignment was to surprise Steve Kibbe, who was attending a cop school in Fallon, Nevada, with news of his brother’s pending arrest in the
murder of Darcie Frackenpohl. They were to solicit Steve’s help—he was, after all, not just Roger’s brother, but a sworn law enforcement officer. The hope was that Steve, with his brother’s arrest for murder now imminent, would shore up what they already knew with information as to Roger’s activities over the past couple of years, and also persuade Roger to talk to detectives about the I-5 murders.

At a strategy meeting held that morning in Sacramento to determine exactly who would do what and when that day, the El Dorado sheriff had offered to set up a
flight into Nevada for the two San Joaquin detectives on a friend’s plane. It would save them considerable driving time.

An El Dorado deputy had met them at the airport, and introduced them to the pilot who would be taking them to Fallon. Estimated flight time: forty-five minutes.

When the plane was ready to board, Rosenquist looked at Bertocchini
and said, “Piece of cake.” He climbed in the back and Bertocchini, less enthusiastic, joined him.

The pilot and El Dorado deputy climbed in front.

As the engine was warming, Bertocchini looked over the pilot’s shoulder and saw he was flipping through a book. He caught the title:
Learning How to Fly a Cessna 172.

“You’re kidding, right?” Bertocchini asked.

The pilot turned toward him. “Oh, let me explain something to you guys. This isn’t my plane. This is my neighbor’s plane. My plane is about the same. I just have to get familiar with some of the controls.”

“Where’s your neighbor?” Bertocchini asked.

“He’s down in Mexico on vacation. I don’t think he’d care if we used it for this purpose.”

“We’re in a stolen plane,” Bertocchini whispered.

“What the hell,” said Rosenquist.

Rosenquist, a veteran flier, noticed when they took off that the nose was unusually high and the pilot seemed to be correcting for a strong crosswind.

“Pete, something’s not right,” Bertocchini said.

Rosenquist saw his partner had gone pasty white.

“Just a crosswind,” he said reassuringly.

“Fuck! We’re popping a wheelie and flying sideways all at once. We gonna go like this all the way to Fallon?”

A few minutes later they were flying over Lake Tahoe. Rosenquist tried to point out the beautiful view but Bertocchini was too busy helping keep the plane in the air.

“Look, look,” he suddenly exclaimed, applying a death grip on Rosenquist’s arm. “A red light!”

Sure enough, a console light had flashed on.

“What’s up?” Bertocchini asked the pilot.

“What the hell is that?” the pilot said.

“Fuck, you don’t
know?
” Bertocchini exploded.

“It says ‘low voltage indicator,’” the pilot said calmly. “Could you look it up in that book behind my seat?”

Bertocchini found the owner’s manual, and went to the index. He could hardly hold the book steady. After reading aloud a sentence on “Emergency procedures for the electric system,” he gave up and practically flung the book up front for the pilot and El Dorado deputy to figure out.

Rosenquist couldn’t help it; he was cracking up.

Bertocchini looked at him with a menacing stare. “You know what,
Pete? When we go down, the first bullet is gonna go in this shit dump that’s called a plane. The second bullet is going in you for making me get on it, and the third is going in
El Dorado up there so they’ll know who did it.”

The red light stayed on the rest of the way. Shortly before landing, the pilot quietly explained—no doubt for Bertocchini’s sake—that because Fallon was surrounded by restricted military airspace, they would have to “dive rather steeply” to the airport.

Bertocchini, his lips fixed, shook his head in utter disbelief.

On the ground, the burly detective somehow was the first one out.

The pilot got out with the engine still running.

“Why don’t you guys go do what you’re going to do and get back as soon as you can,” he said. “I’m going to leave the plane running because the alternator is out. I don’t know if I can get it started again if it shuts off.”

Bertocchini, who had regained his confidence now that his feet were back on solid ground, swaggered up to the pilot and glared down at the shorter man.

“Fuck that plane,” Bertocchini hissed ominously, “and fuck you. I ain’t gettin’ back on. I want nothing to do with you or your fuckin’ neighbor’s plane. And if you don’t get out of here, I’m gonna arrest you for plane theft.”

With that, Bertocchini spun on his heels and headed for the terminal, where they were to be met by the sheriff of Churchill County, Nevada.

“You serious?” Rosenquist asked when he caught up.

“Yes, I’m fucking serious.”

“We might have a hard time getting back.”

“I’ll walk before I get on another plane today.”

A
NY HOPE
Roger
Kibbe may have had about going home early had to have been dashed when he saw an unsmiling Kay
Maulsby and another stern-faced detective waiting for him. In no way could their presence be mistaken for a social call.

It was 4:20
P.M.
on D-Day—a day before
Kibbe was to be released from jail, and sixteen months after detectives had first brought him in for questioning in the I-5 murders.

An hour earlier Kibbe had been told by a guard to “roll up your stuff.” He’d done so, and waited. A guard finally came and escorted him to the holding area, where Maulsby introduced him to El Dorado County Sheriff’s Detective Jim
Watson, who nodded curtly, then instructed Kibbe to put his hands out in front, palms down.

Kibbe did so, and Watson snapped on cuffs.

The detectives had already decided that if
Kibbe pressed them as to where they were going, they’d simply say “downtown to talk.” But the only thing Kibbe wanted to know was if he could call his wife.

Watson refused.

“Maybe later,” Maulsby added. She didn’t want him to go into complete shutdown as she knew he could do.

They exited the jail into the brilliant sunshine of a crisp California spring day; a homicide detective on either side of Roger Kibbe, who wore jeans, a royal-blue polo shirt, brown corduroy jacket, and tan boots. He had kept his salt-and-pepper beard, which was neatly trimmed.

Few words were spoken during the twenty-five-minute drive to downtown
Sacramento, none by Kibbe. They parked, entered the sheriff’s department building through a locked back door, and went up the three flights of stairs to the Homicide Bureau.

Kibbe was placed in interview room 3. A remote video camera was activated along with an audiotape machine.

After a few minutes alone in the room, Kibbe was joined by Watson, who had come in from South Lake Tahoe that morning. Because it was his case—a first-degree
murder charge had been filed by the El Dorado County district attorney and an arrest warrant signed by an El Dorado judge—he was given first shot at the suspect.

The detective advised Kibbe of his Miranda rights. Kibbe acknowledged he understood his rights, but did not waive them. He again asked to call his wife. He explained that Harriet was planning to visit him that night at Rio Consumnes. He didn’t want her to make the drive for nothing. “She has the number of a lawyer, too,” he added.

Watson and the other detectives had already discussed the likelihood that Kibbe would invoke his rights as he had previously. Aware that once an attorney came into the picture they would have no more opportunity to learn anything from Kibbe, the detectives had decided they would proceed with their questioning anyway. Once again, however, anything he told them would probably be inadmissible.

Watson was unsuccessful in getting Kibbe to talk.

The proceedings aired on a closed-circuit television in Lt. Ray Biondi’s office, where Biondi, Maulsby, and
Stan Reed huddled around the monitor, watching the show and discussing strategy.

Biondi offered, “Roger’s a real RV”—cop slang for a self-contained suspect who stayed calm and didn’t say much. The veteran detective had seen it before: When a murder suspect is brought in for questioning, an
innocent man will pace and fret, while a guilty suspect will look like he’s about to fall asleep.

When Watson emerged from the interview room, Biondi informed him that Vito Bertocchini had called. “Steve is willing to talk to Roger. They’re a mile or two away from a sheriff’s substation. They’ll call when they arrive.”

Maulsby decided to give it a try. She went into the interview room, closed the door, and sat down opposite Kibbe. It was a familiar position for them both, but the dynamics had changed. Previously, he had seemed bemused and coy, as if he thought he could get away with something. Now, he looked solemn and worried.

“I know you want to get in touch with Harriet,” she began. “I tried but can’t reach her.”

Kibbe perked up.

“Would your second choice be Steve?”

Kibbe nodded; he looked suspicious, but also cautiously hopeful it was a genuine offer.

“We’ll bring a
phone in here for you,” Maulsby said. She stood and opened the door. “We’re ready for the call to Steve whenever you are,” she announced.

Then she sat back down.

“You want the house number?” he asked.

“I think they have the numbers. As soon as they get him on the line, they’ll bring a phone in.”

“You can stand next to me,” Kibbe said.

Maulsby looked at him. He was doing his “Sad Sack” routine, seemingly so inept and vulnerable that it was difficult seeing him as a smart, conniving, smart-as-a-fox serial killer.

Roger Kibbe was handed the phone at 5:55
P.M.

“Hey, Roger,” said Steve Kibbe.

“Yeah.”

“I’m at the Fallon Police Department.”

“You’re where?”

“Fallon. In the middle of the desert. I was contacted here by two detectives. I know what’s happening. I know what went down.”