The Castaway - Chapter 13

I spent the entire month of June 2007, checking any and all locations around Oceanside where I thought I might find Angel Martinez. No luck. A couple of weeks into my search, the parole officer called me and told me that Angel's arrest warrant had been recalled and cancelled. I argued with him and asked why Angel's parole couldn't be violated for not checking in with his parole officer. He told me that the prisons are just too full to send people back for non-violent offenses. Our parole system is a joke.

One of the houses I went to during my search for Angel was an old address he used in the early 90's. I didn't hold out much hope that I would find him there but I tried anyway. It was a gang neighborhood in a bad part of Oceanside. My standard-issue detective car stood out like a sore thumb. I heard the usual whistles and calls of warning as I cruised down the street looking for the address. Everyone within ear-shot knew the cops were here.

I parked in front of the house and noticed a little girl playing in the front yard. She was a pretty little dark-haired girl, maybe six or seven years old. I walked up to the gate and said hello. She looked at me suspiciously and didn't respond.

"Is Angel here?" I asked. No response.

A large Hispanic man in a wife-beater t-shirt came out of the house and onto the porch.

"You want something?"

The little girl turned to him before I could speak.

"He's looking for Tio." She told him.

"Isabella, go inside." He told her. She quickly obeyed and ran into the house.

"Hi," I said, as I flashed my badge. "I'm with the Sheriff's Department. I'm looking for Angel Martinez."

"He don't live here." Said the large man with the bad attitude. I noticed the curtains in the front window pulled back. I knew somebody in the house was watching but I couldn't see through the glass.

"Do you know where I can find him?" I asked. "He's not in any trouble, I just need to ask him a few questions."

I felt like an idiot even saying the words. There was no way in Hell this guy was going to tell the cops where to find Angel. All I was doing was giving him a stage for his machismo.

"You got a warrant?" He said loud enough for the neighborhood to hear.

Now, why do people ask that question? I never understood that. They must be watching old reruns of Dragnet on Nick-at-Night or something. The cop walks up and knocks on the door and produces a folded piece of paper. "Hello sir, we have a warrant to search your premises, please step aside." Give me a break. If I had a warrant I'd be asking him these questions with his face shoved into the carpet after crashing through his door with a battering ram.

"No sir, I'm not trying to arrest him, I just want to ask him some questions."

"Well he ain't here and I ain't seen him since he got out of Chino." Came the bullshit response.

"Okay, thank you."

The big angry Hispanic man went back inside. It seemed like a waste of time but now I had a location to watch. I knew Angel had been here and I knew he would be back. Hell, he was probably inside watching me through the curtain as I turned and walked back to my car.

I heard the front door open again and little Isabella came running out to the fence. I stopped at my car door and smiled at her.

"Are you taking my Tio back to jail again?" She asked.

"No sweetie, I just want to ask him a question."

She stood there with a sad look on her face. I opened my car door and started to get in.

"He's supposed to take me to the zoo," she said. "He promised he would take me to see the monkeys when he got out of jail."

I stopped and listened. She was so sweet.

"If you take him back to jail I won't get to see the monkeys."

Oh man, big lump in my throat.

"I'm not taking him to jail Isabella, I promise. When I see him I'll tell him he owes you a trip to the zoo."

She smiled. Then the front door swung open.

"Bella! Get your ass back in this house!" Yelled angry, wife-beater guy.

Her smile quickly vanished and she ran inside the house. As I climbed into the car I locked eyes with the big Hispanic guy on the porch.

"Another day, another time, asshole."

I drove back to Riverside and made up a Wanted poster for Angel Martinez with his most recent photograph. I wrote that Angel was wanted for "questioning" in a 187 PC Murder and I included the statement that he was not subject to arrest on this case. I sent the Wanted poster to Oceanside Police Department and made sure someone posted copies all over the station for the patrol officers to see. Oceanside was Angel's town and he was well known by the patrol officers. If he was still around, somebody would spot him.

Over the next few weeks I received about a half-dozen phone calls from Oceanside PD. Every phone call was the same - Angel had been spotted at various locations by patrol officers but they wanted to know why there wasn't a warrant for his arrest in the computer system. It was always a different person calling me and each one asked the same questions. They wanted to know the circumstances of the murder case and what Angel's involvement was. I was getting so frustrated. "Just bring him in and call me, please!" For God's sake, why was this so difficult to accomplish? The guy was on parole, they could bring him in without any probable cause.

In July my luck finally changed. One of the female forensic technicians at the Oceanside Police Department was walking through the booking area and recognized a man sitting in a chair. A police officer was sitting next to him writing out a citation. The forensic tech stared at the man for a moment and then asked the officer, "Is that Angel Martinez?" The officer looked up at her and said, "Yeah, do you know him?"

The forensic tech walked over and pulled the Wanted poster off the wall above the officer's head and handed it to him. Angel's shoulders dropped and he looked at the floor in defeat. He had been sitting in his chair facing the Wanted poster on the opposite wall and most likely saw it. "Oh shit," said the officer, "I was just about to let him go with a citation."

The forensic tech informed the officer that the Riverside County Sheriff's Department had been looking for Angel and those posters had been posted all over the station for about a month. The officer had pulled Angel over on a traffic stop and ultimately towed his car for driving on a suspended license. When the officer searched the car, he found a methamphetamine pipe and arrested Angel for the misdemeanor. Since Angel didn't have any identification, the officer transported him to the police station to get his photograph and fingerprints before releasing him with a citation. Another five minutes in the booking area and Angel would have been out the door.

I got the call at 5am on my cell phone. By 5:15am I was out the door and on the road to Oceanside. When I walked into the police station, Angel had already been placed in an interview room in handcuffs as I had requested. I thanked the forensic technician for her "heads up" observations and then I made arrangements to have the interview recorded by the hidden cameras in the interview room. I asked the original arresting officer to take Angel to use the restroom so that I could have the interview room to myself for a moment. The young officer jumped up and quickly complied. I took a playful jab at him as he walked down the hallway away from me. "Try not to let him go when you're done, okay?"

I was smiling in case he turned around to look at me, but his head just lowered in shame and he kept walking down the hallway.

While Angel was out of the interview room, I went in and rearranged the furniture. It was a standard 8' x 8' square interview room with one table and three chairs. One chair on one side of the table for the suspect, properly placed so the hidden camera had an unobstructed view. The other two chairs were on the other side of the table, one for each officer playing the good-cop / bad-cop roles. This was a standard interview set up. But it wasn't my style.

I looked around the room for the hidden camera and spotted it quickly, then I pushed the table out of the center of the room and into the corner. I took one of the chairs out of the room and put it in the hallway. I pushed Angel's chair up against the wall. Then I moved my chair directly in front of Angel's with about 3' of space between us. I left the interview room and went to the monitoring room down the hall where the recording equipment was kept. I made sure everything was working and the date/time-stamp was correct. As I watched the monitor, I saw the officer bring Angel back into the room. The officer stopped and looked around at the remodeling job that occurred in his absense but he didn't say anything. He sat Angel down in the correct chair and left the room.

I picked up my notebook and a can of Coke that I just purchased from the break-room vending machine and I headed for the interview room.

Angel was not happy to meet me. Carlton was right, Angel hated cops. He sat in his chair with his hands cuffed behind his back. He just glared at me when I walked in and introduced myself. Angel's tattoos were a little startling at first and added to his level of intimidation. In addition to his arms, Angel also had tattoos on his forhead, chin, and neck.

Angel's no dummy. He's most likely committed dozens of crimes that he's never been caught for but he certainly wasn't about to start talking about it with me. He knew I was going to try and strong-arm him into confessing to something. He knew I would threaten him with a parole violation and another term in prison if he didn't cooperate with me. The truth was, a parole violation caries a sentence of one year maximum and most violators were getting out in about 3 months. Angel could do 3 months standing on his head.

I didn't know about any of Angel's past crimes that he got away with and I didn't care. I wasn't here for that, but Angel didn't know it yet. I wanted Angel to snitch on somebody and that was much worse than getting arrested for any crime. Every convicted felon knows there's no lower scum than a snitch. Except for a child molester. In prison, the child molesters and the snitches are kept seperated from the rest of the general population. Those prisoners are regular targets for assault and they require extra protection. A prisoner obtains instant celebrity status for killing a child molester or a snitch.

Getting a hardened ex-con like Angel to roll over on someone takes a special touch.
I didn't have any real ammunition to threaten Angel with so I had to go about this another way. The first thing I did was look at his handcuffs with a surprised expression.

"Why the Hell are you in handcuffs?" I said as I pulled out my handcuff key. "I told these morons you were not under arrest."

Angel's expression changed from pissed-off to confused as I took his handcuffs off. He was trying to figure me out.

"I don't know," he said, "I told them I didn't do shit. I didn't kill nobody."

I over-played my disappointment as I rolled my head and tossed my notebook on the nearby table.

"Jesus," I said, "is it really that difficult for these guys to follow simple directions? I'm sorry Angel, you're not in any trouble and I know you didn't kill anybody. I appologize for the way these jerks have treated you. That was never supposed to happen."

Angel was really confused now. He was squirming in his chair like a little kid and looking me up and down like I was an alien. He didn't know what the Hell to make of me.

"Who the Hell are you?" He asked.

I quickly offered a handshake and introduced myself as a Riverside County Sheriff's Detective, definitely not from Oceanside.

Angel locked eyes with me and I stood there with my hand extended between us, waiting for that handshake to come. I could see the wheels spinning in Angel's head. He was trying hard to think of any crimes he might have committed in Riverside County, 30 miles away. I already knew the answer to that. I did my homework.

After a brief mental review, he must have realized he was clean from any felonies in Riverside County because a smile slowly rose in the corner of his mouth and he extended his hand to meet mine. His posture relaxed and he sat back in his chair. He grabbed the Coke from the table and cracked it open like he was celebrating with champagne. Angel took a sip, placed the Coke back on the table and clasped his arms behind his head like he was on a beach somewhere.

There it was. The perfect "come-on-in" posture I was hoping for. Angel knew that if I was there to talk about crimes in Riverside County, then he was free man. I would ask a few questions and Angel would look me in the eye and tell me he didn't know shit. Angel was confident he would win this battle. Let the games begin.

I sat down in the chair across from Angel. I pulled out the 1986 high school yearbook photo of Becky and held it straight out in front of me. As Angel looked at the picture, I was looking directly over the top of it at Angel's eyes. I wanted to see that instant, split-second reaction in his eyes when he looked at Rebecca's face.

Angel stared at the picture for a moment and then slowly shook his head. I didn't catch anything in his eyes.

"Don't know, who is she?" He asked.

"Her name is Becky Novell." I said, "She was reported missing back in 1986 and she's never returned."

I placed the picture on the nearby table and then I lied.

"She's probably just a runaway but we have to follow these things up anyway. The sooner I can find somebody who knows something, the sooner I can close this case out and move onto the next."

Angel looked at the picture again and then looked at me in disbelief.

"You want me to help you find a runaway kid?"

Angel laughed and I sensed a little more relief in his voice.

"Why would I help you find some girl I never even met? Besides, you said 1986? Isn't she like 40 now? And you're still looking for her? Man, you fucking cops get more incompetent every damn day! This is seriously like some Reno-911 shit!"

I laughed with him and discretely moved my chair a couple of inches closer to his. He didn't notice.

"Yeah, I know." I said. "My job sucks. But the computer won't let me take her out of the missing person system until we know she's okay. That's just the way the system works."

Angel got serious again and sat forward with his tough-guy approach.

"So what the fuck's this got to do with me? I told you I don't know her. I don't know where she is. Why the fuck you got Wanted Posters up with my picture on it?"

I watched Angel's eyes and posture very closely as I fed him some information.

"Becky used to date a friend of yours named Miguel. The last time anyone saw her she was with Miguel at a party. I'm trying to find Miguel so I can ask him where Becky went - if she ran away from home or what."

Angel stared at me, trying to read me.

"Miguel who?"

"I don't know his last name." I said, "That's why I wanted to talk to you. If I can get his last name I might be able to find him and ask him about Becky."

Angel looked away with a smirk on his face. He wasn't buying it. I slid my chair another couple of inches closer while he was looking away.

"Man, who the fuck do you think you're talking to?" He said. "I don't know nobody named Miguel and if I did I sure as fuck wouldn't rat him out to the cops."

I immediately responded, "Rat him out? I don't want you to rat anybody out Angel. I didn't say Miguel did anything wrong, I just want to ask him if he knows where Becky is."

Angel stared at me for a long, silent minute.

"She's dead, isn't she?" He finally asked.

Like I said, Angel's no dummy. This was too much effort for a missing 40-year-old. I didn't want to lose the momentum by getting caught in a lie so I immediately came clean. I was prepared for this phase of the interview. I reached into the folder and pulled out another picture. A pile of bones under a sage bush at the crime scene. I put the picture on the table next to Angel and he looked at it.

"Becky's body was found a few years ago. Somebody killed her back in 1986 when she was thirteen years old. Somebody raped her, murdered her, stuffed her naked body into a bag and threw her over a cliff to rot."

The words were sharp and to the point. Angel stared at the picture and visualized the actions that preceded the photo. He didn't speak. I moved my chair a little closer.

"I know Miguel was a friend of yours and I know you have no reason to trust me. I don't plan on writing down anything you say or naming you in any police reports. I just need to know who Miguel is so I can ask him about Becky. If he tells me he doesn't know anything, then I'm done and I move on."

Angel kept looking back and forth at the two photos. The pretty little blonde-haired girl posing for her school picture, and the aftermath of a twisted child killer. He still didn't speak. I was getting to him.

"Becky was just a kid," I continued." 13-year-old girls don't know shit about the real world. They still trust men and think a smile is always genuine. Somebody took advantage of that innocence and hurt this little girl. Shoving her body into a bag when he was finished and tossing her over a cliff just goes to show what kind of sick person he really is. And most of his friends and family probably had no idea there was an evil side to him."

I slid my chair another couple of inches. The space between us was nearly closed and I could reach out and touch him if I wanted to. It was time for the kill shot.

"This isn't about somebody getting drunk and trying to get laid. This is about raping a little girl who couldn't defend herself. What if this was somebody you knew? What if this was your own daughter?

I leaned forward and put my hand on Angel's knee.

"What if this was Isabella?"

Angel shot me a look of instand anger and disgust. I sat up and opened the space between us a little. If he snapped he could easily hurt me, there wouldn't be time to react. I had to put myself in a vulnerable position for a moment in order to get close enough for the touch. It's an interrogation technique that has worked for me well in the past.

Angel stared at me and for a moment I thought I saw his eyes going a little glassy. He turned his head and looked at the wall.

"Fuck it," he said. That piece of shit was always a pervert."

Angel looked back at me and said with full conviction, "His name is Miguel Sandoval. We used to hang out together after we dropped out of high school. We even worked together for about a year cleaning carpets at people's houses. But I haven't seen Miguel in like 20 years. I don't know where he is now."

I quickly jotted down notes of everything Angel had to offer. The street Miguel lived on, where he went to school, the name of a girlfriend, his little brother's name. I took the information and left the interview room for a few minutes.

I used Oceanside's computer and located Miguel rather quickly. I printed out a driver's license photo and went back into the room with Angel. I handed him Miguel's photo. He stared at it for a moment.

"No, that's not... wait... oh, shit, that's Miguel! Damn, he got fat!"

Miguel was 37-years-old, about 6' tall and 250 lbs. He probably looked a lot different than he did as a teenager in the 80's. I know I do. But Angel was certain this was Miguel.

Angel got serious again and handed the picture back to me.

"This mother-fucker better hope you find him before I do."

I thanked Angel and escorted him to the exit door. No handshake, no hug. Just an exchange of looks as he walked out the door that said, "Thanks for the respect."

I started to close the door behind him and I stopped.

"Hey!" I yelled.

Angel turned and looked back.

"You owe Isabella a trip to the zoo."

I'm pretty sure I saw a little bit of a smile. Angel shook his head and walked away.

I closed the door and looked at the DMV photograph I was still holding of Miguel Sandoval.

"I got you now you son-of-a-bitch."

The Castaway - Chapter 12

Carlton Williams was a sick man. He was tired and he was weak, but he was very happy to have someone to talk to. At least he was happy to have someone to talk to that wasn't sticking a needle in his arm or checking his blood pressure.

I started my tape recorder and walked up to his bedside. I introduced myself and told Carlton that I was working a case of a missing girl from 1986. I handed Carlton the picture of Becky and told him that Becky was last seen attending a party at his apartment on California Street.

I was quite surprised when he looked at the picture and said, "Oh yeah, sure I remember her."

"You do?" I said.

"Sure. It's not easy to forget waking up to a pissed off mother banging on your front door and screaming that her 13-year-old daughter was kidnapped from your house. That shit scared the Hell out of me."

Carlton looked at me with concern. "I swear to God detective, I thought she was at least 15 or 16."

It took everything inside of me not to reach over and rip the tube out of his arm and strangle him with it. 15 or 16 years old? Like that was okay?

"Tell me what you remember about that night Carlton." I calmly said.

"She was drunk." He said. "And I told those kids I didn't approve of them drinking. I told them I didn't want to go back to jail. They must have brought their own booze cuz I didn't give it to them."

Bullshit!

"You're not in trouble Carlton." I said. "Just tell me what happened."

"She got sick and passed out on the floor. Then Angel's friend got her out of there and took her home. I told her sister I didn't want no pooh-butt light-weight hanging out at my crib no more. That shit ain't cool."

Carlton was describing the same thing that Kelly told me. He knew Angel. I was trying to contain my excitement. I wanted him to talk faster but he was straining in between bouts of pain. Every time he winced I pictured Becky reaching down and squeezing his one kidney. I grinned a little, but I don't think he saw it.

"Tell me about Angel's friend." I said.

"Shit, I don't remember his name. He was always with Angel, they went everywhere together. Mexican kid about 16 or 17, drove a really nice little Toyota hatchback."

"Where did he take Becky? Where did they go?" I said.

"Shit I don't know, he never came back. All I know is the next morning this pissed-off lady is banging on my door and screaming at me. I said shit lady, he told me he was taking her home. That's all I know. I saw him again a few days later and I gave him shit for bringing that drama to my crib. I told him the cops better not come around asking questions or I would take that shit out on his face."

"What did he say happened to Becky? Did you ask?"

"He said he took her home. Said everything was cool. Shit, I just figured the girl didn't want to go home cuz she was drunk. Figured she went home the next day or whatever and everything was cool." Carlton looked at me with suspicion. "Are you telling me she never went home? She's still missing?"

"That's what I'm telling you." I said. "She never went home."

"Oh shit." Carlton said quietly. "That's messed up. Have you talked to him? What's he say happened to her?"

"I don't know who he is." I said. "That's why I'm here. I need your help to identify him."

"Well, he was Angel's best friend so he's probably in the same place as Angel."

"Do you know where that is?" I asked.

Carlton looked at me. "Most likely still in prison. That's where Angel usually is."

Carlton couldn't remember Angel's last name but he remembered the street Angel lived on. It wasn't far from California Street where Carlton lived. Carlton told me that Angel was in a local gang known as Los Coyotes. He said Angel had been arrested numerous times for narcotics, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon. Even without a last name I figured I had enough information to identify Angel.

"What was that other fools name?" Carlton said to himself, trying to remember.

I thanked Carlton for his time and gave him my card. "Please call me if you remember anything else. My cell phone number is on the card and you can reach me 24/7."

As I started to walk out of the room Carlton blurted it out.

"Miguel!" Carlton grabbed his side in pain and regretted the outburst.

I stopped and looked back.

"His name was Miguel! Mexican kid. He and Angel had a carpet cleaning business together. I don't know what ever happened to him but I'll bet Angel will know. Not that he'll tell you anything, Angel hates cops. Hates them bad."

As I left the kidney dialysis center I wondered how long Carlton would stay alive. Regardless of my personal feelings about Carlton, I needed him to stay alive long enough to testify in court against Miguel. Carlton's testimony would be powerful evidence in a murder trial and I had it all on tape, but I couldn't use anything he told me in a trial. Carlton had to testify to it himself. Stupid law.

I went straight to Oceanside PD and met with the same detective that I talked to previously. I gave her the information I had on Angel and, just as I expected, she had Angel Martinez identified within about 10 minutes. And just like Carlton said, Angel had spent a good portion of the last 20 years in state prison, but he was not currently in custody. Angel had been paroled about two months ago and his current address was in the nearby city of Vista.

I contacted Angel's parole officer and found out that Angel hadn't reported this month. That was a parole violation and, with a little persuasion, it was enough to generate a warrant for Angel's arrest for absconding.

The following morning I joined Angel's parole officer and members of the San Diego County Sheriff's Department in a Vista shopping center parking lot. Twenty minutes later we were crashing through the front door of Angel's house with an arrest warrant.

The rented house was only occupied by Angel's girlfriend and she was not pleased to see us. At least that's the impression I got when she jumped out of bed naked and ran through the house screaming. God I love this job. It's never boring.

After a barrage of colorful language that should never come from a woman's mouth, she informed us that she had not seen Angel in several days. I knew that finding Angel anytime soon just became even more difficult. Now Angel knows the cops have a warrant for his arrest and he'll be going underground.

I put an APB out on Angel Martinez and alerted all of the surrounding law enforcement agencies that he was wanted for questioning in a murder.

The waiting game begins.

The Castaway - Chapter 11

The next morning I hit the ground running, I didn't even go into the office. I've learned to keep my work car loaded with everything I need - evidence collection kit, digital camera, video camera, laptop with wireless Internet, tape recorder. My trunk is always packed with enough gear to do the job on the road. I even keep an overnight bag in there with a change of clothes and a toothbrush. You never know when you're going to get a hot lead that keeps you out for days.

This morning I was heading for Oceanside. I had to find the apartment where Kelly and Becky went to the party. She told me it was couple of blocks from their house but she didn't know the street names. It would have been much easier if Kelly could fly to California and point the apartment out, but that would have cost money that she just didn't have. It was time to get creative.

I pulled my car up in front of Kelly's old house on Nevada Street. I got out and took the digital video camera out of the trunk. I began video taping the front of house and the view from the front yard looking up and down the street. I kept the camera rolling and got back in the car. I placed the video camera on the dashboard facing forward and I started driving around the neighborhood. Street by street, block by block, I gradually worked away from Nevada Street and eventually out of the neighborhood.

About 30 minutes later I found a nice place to park on the beach. It was close to the pier and had a beautiful view of the crashing waves. I got out and set up my temporary office on the trunk of my car. The small scratches and dents all over my trunk lid were an indication of how many times I had done this before. One of the first things we do when we arrive at a crime scene is figure out where the command post will be and all too often it's somebodies trunk.

I opened up my laptop and found a wireless Internet connection. I plugged the video camera into the laptop and uploaded the video to my YouTube account. I called Kelly in Arkansas and walked her through the steps of getting access to the video. A few minutes later, Kelly and I were both watching the same video 2,000 miles apart from each other.

"Wow," she said as she watched, "the neighborhood has really changed. There's a lot of new houses. Oh, hey! There's my friend Julie's house!"

It was kind of exciting for Kelly to see the old neighborhood where she grew up. She missed Oceanside. She missed the beach. She missed Becky.

"There!" She yelled into the phone. "That was it!, back up, back up!"

I reminded Kelly that she was controlling her own video and we both hit pause at the same time. Kelly described what she was looking at so we could stay in sink and we both rewound our videos together.

"The blue apartment building on the left! The one with the three palm trees! That's where the party was, that's it!"

I was able to scroll through the video and figure out what street the apartment building was on. I told Kelly I would call her back in a few minutes and I headed toward California Street.

A few minutes later I was walking around the small apartment complex with my video camera in hand... and my gun tucked under my shirt. This was not a very nice neighborhood. I was in plain clothes, jeans and a collar shirt, but there was no mistaking me for anything but a cop.

"Get the fuck out of here five-oh!" I heard from a distant window. "This ain't your neighborhood!"

"Better put that video camera away before you lose it!" Came another voice. "It's worth more than your life!"

There's a lot of drugs in this neighborhood. A cop with a video camera is not very welcome. I continued walking around with the camera rolling as the sound of doors were slamming shut and blinds were being drawn. I filmed every building, every staircase and carefully made sure to get the address and apartment number on every door. Then I got the Hell out of there and went back to the beach.

I went through the same procedures again with Kelly on the phone and we watched the video together. A few minutes later she spotted the apartment.

"That's the one." She said. She was a little more quiet this time. "That's where the party was. That's where that bastard took Becky."

Now I had an address. It was another piece of the puzzle.

I went back to Riverside and gave the address to our Crime Analyst. She started working her magic and searching the dozens of databases that she has available. Old utility records and credit reports. So much information is available on the Internet if you know where to look for it.

She brought me back a list of 55 names. 55 people who had lived in that apartment or used that address in some capacity between 1980 and 1990. I was looking for a very large black man in his late twenties or early thirties according to Kelly's description.

I began eliminating the names one-by-one based on their description or when they were associated with that address. Eventually I ended up with about six potential matches. I obtained driver's license photos for each of the six and e-mailed them to Kelly. She was able to eliminate four of the men but two looked familiar.

"God, it's been so long." She said. "I can still see his face but it's a younger face than these two men here." There was a long silence on the phone while she examined the photos carefully and thought about it.

"Number two." She said. "I think number two was the guy who threw the party."

Carlton Williams. "Damn," I thought. That was the one guy out of the six I was hoping she wouldn't pick. Carlton didn't have any recent contacts or addresses in the computer. His driver's license expired ten years ago and his social security card hadn't been used for credit anywhere in nearly twelve years. There was no death record on file but for some reason the guy just disappeared off the radar a long time ago. I had the crime analyst do a full search for Carlton Williams. She located another man, Lamar Williams, who appeared to be a potential relative living in Oceanside.

The next day I was back on the road to Oceanside. I knocked on the door at the little apartment where Lamar Williams lived. No answer.

I started knocking on neighbor's doors and eventually found a nice lady who would talk to me. I asked about the man who lives in apartment 3D.

"Oh you mean Carlton?" She said.

Bingo. Carlton was probably using his relative's name and social security number to rent the apartment.

"Carlton goes to dialysis three days a week." She said. "They pick him up in the morning and bring him back at night. Poor man doesn't have much time left. It really takes a toll on your body, having just one kidney."

The kidney dialysis center was located just down the street. I walked in the doors and flashed my badge at the receptionist. She directed me to Carlton's room down a long bright hallway. Man I hate the smell of hospitals.

I stopped at the doorway to Carlton's room. There he was... lying in bed with all kinds of tubes connected to him and a big machine making this God-awful grinding noise. He looked old and weak. He was slowly dying. I could only hope that he would be able to remember the night 21 years ago that a teenage girl attended one of his parties.

I wasn't very optimistic.

The Castaway - Chapter 10

I woke up to the alarm clock at 6am. The two-hour time difference was like a lead weight tied around my waist. Or maybe it was just my age. I started the coffee maker and gradually made my way to the shower. 45 minutes later I was out the door with my complimentary Continental Breakfast (a cold bagel) and on the road back to Pine Bluff.

I arrived at the Pierson's and parked on the gravel driveway. A big 18-wheeler was parked across the front lawn. Charles was home. After hearing Valerie's story yesterday I wasn't as anxious to talk to Charles. He was no longer on my radar as a suspect but I needed to interview him anyway, just to cover all the bases.

Valerie invited me in and poured me a cup of coffee. Charles was sitting at the kitchen table and he greeted me with a warm smile and a firm handshake. For the most part, Charles had nothing else to add to the story. I sensed a little bit of guilt in his voice when he explained how Valerie's obsession with Becky's search caused him to move away. Now that he knew Becky was dead, he probably wished he had been a little more supportive.

"I figured she'd just run off." He explained. "That's what teenagers do. They don't think, they just act. Becky always talked about finding her mother and helping her mom get cleaned up and off the streets. I figured that's what she was off trying to do. I just figured she'd show up eventually."

Charles stared down at the kitchen table and Valerie came over and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Charles looked up at her and they shared an understanding smile. I could tell there had already been many conversations about his leaving and all was forgiven between them.

Valerie informed me that Kelly was unable to make the two hour drive down from Bentonville. There was an issue with child care and getting the time off work. I wished I had known that last night, I would have made the drive up to Bentonville early this morning. I looked at my watch and realized there was no way for me to make a 4 hour round trip to Bentonville and still catch my flight back home.

I decided to call Kelly and interview her over the telephone. It wasn't ideal, but it was the best I could do for now.

I talked to Kelly for nearly an hour on the phone. She told me about the night she and Becky went to a party. Kelly told me she heard about the party from another friend and it was at an apartment a few blocks from their house. Kelly said Becky had never been to a party before and really wanted to go, so the two walked there together after dinner. Kelly told me that Becky had never done any drugs or drank any alcohol before this night. Becky was very much against the things that destroyed her mother.

Kelly told me that a black man in his late twenties or early thirties was the primary resident of the apartment, but she couldn't remember his name. Kelly had never met the man before and she thought it was a little strange that he was hosting a party for high school kids. Kelly said there were about a dozen kids at the party and everyone was drinking alcohol that was supplied by the black man. Kelly said some kids were also snorting drugs.

Kelly said she was drinking alcohol but Becky was not. Kelly told me that Becky kept asking Kelly if she should have a drink and Kelly told her, "No." Kelly said that about an hour into the party she noticed Becky taking sips off other people's drinks. She said about two hours into the party Becky had her own drink and she appeared to be having a really good time.

Kelly told me that one of the boys took a liking to Becky and he spent a lot of time with her that night. Kelly recognized the boy from school but she didn't know him. She said the boy was refilling Becky's drinks.

Kelly said somebody approached her a little while later and told her that Becky was pretty drunk. Kelly found Becky outside sitting on the front steps. She went outside and sat down with Becky for a few minutes and asked her if she was going to throw up. Becky said she was fine and started apologizing to Kelly for drinking.

Kelly said the boy who was paying so much attention to Becky came outside and asked if he could help. Kelly asked him to keep on eye on Becky and Kelly went back inside to the party. Kelly said Becky came back into the house a few minutes later and asked for some water. Kelly gave her a glass of water and assumed Becky would be okay.

Kelly told me that a few minutes later Becky was passed out on the living room floor. When Kelly went to her side, Becky asked Kelly to take her home. Kelly asked Becky if she could walk because there was no way she could carry her all the way home. Becky said she didn't think she could walk.

According to Kelly, that's when the same boy approached and offered to drive Becky home in his car. Kelly said the boy told her he knew where they lived and he mentioned their house a few blocks away. Kelly wanted Becky to get home as soon as possible, so she agreed to let the boy take Becky. Kelly told me he seemed like he was genuinely concerned for Becky and Kelly trusted his intentions.

Kelly said she watched as the boy carried Becky to his car parked outside. She said he loaded Becky into the car and drove away. That was the last time Kelly ever saw her friend Becky.

Kelly paused several times while telling me the story and began to cry. She had undoubtedly carried a great deal of guilt on her shoulders for the past twenty-one years. Even more now that she learned what really happened to Becky that night.

Kelly told me that she stayed at the party for a couple more hours until after midnight. She said she returned home and quietly went to her bedroom without turning on any lights because she didn't want her parents to find out she had been drinking. Kelly said she didn't even know Becky wasn't in her bed until the following morning.

Kelly said she frantically helped her mother search for Becky the following day. She said the police refused to take the report or do anything to help. Kelly said they went to the apartment and spoke to the black man but he didn't know anything more than Kelly did. He told them that the boy never returned to the apartment after taking Becky home.

Kelly said it was summer vacation so she couldn't search for the boy at school, but she asked around the neighborhood for anybody who knew him. Kelly said she saw the boy about two weeks after Becky's disappearance. Kelly said he was walking down the sidewalk near the same apartment building and she ran up to him.

Kelly shouted at him, "Where's Becky you asshole?!" The boy was startled at the confrontation and he looked confused. He proceeded to tell Kelly that Becky started to get sick in his car right after they left the party. He told Kelly that he pulled over in the Circle K parking lot and told Becky to get out and throw up on the ground.

According to Kelly, the boy told her that Becky finished throwing up and then started walking away. He said he tried to get Becky back into the car but Becky wouldn't listen. The boy told Kelly that he just gave up and drove away. He said the last time he saw Becky she was walking down Hill Street.

Kelly said that was the last time she ever saw or spoke to that boy. She said she never believed the boy's story but she often thought about Becky wandering down Hill Street drunk and alone. She thought about who might have picked her up and what could have happened to a 13-year-old drunk girl getting into the wrong car.

Kelly's information was the best break I'd had in this case in five years, but there was still a lot of work to be done. Kelly couldn't remember the name of the boy who took Becky from the party, but she remembered that he was friends with another boy named Angel. Kelly told me that if I could find Angel, he would be able to tell me the name of the other boy. Unfortunately Kelly didn't know anything about Angel, other than he was a Puerto Rican with a Hispanic last name who looked Hawaiian.

Kelly remembered the boy's car that Becky left in. She said it was a really clean little hatch-back, like a Honda or Toyota, with a new paint job (baby blue) and shiny chrome rims.

I asked Kelly what street the apartment was on, where the party took place. She couldn't remember and neither could her mother Valerie. They both told me they could probably find the apartment again if they walked or drove the route from their old house on Nevada Street. Kelly told me she knew the name of the black man back in 1986, but she had long since forgotten it.

After my telephone interview with Kelly, I said my good-byes to the Piersons. Valerie gave me a long, meaningful hug and thanked me for being the first person to listen to her after all these years.

"Becky deserved a better life than what she got." Valerie said. "She saw things that a child should never have to see and her parents completely failed her. But still, she had so many dreams and so much spirit. She was determined to have a better life than her mother. You could just tell when you talked to her that she wasn't going to let anyone get in the way of her dreams. She deserved better than this."

A few hours later I was on an airplane back to California. I was anxious to take what information I had and make something out of it. I had to identify Angel. I had to find that apartment and identify the black man. Somewhere in all of this was the name of Becky's killer.

The puzzle was slowly coming together one piece at a time.

The Castaway - Chapter 9

One of my favorite things about this job is getting to travel and visit new places. I've been all over the United States on various cases. I love experiencing the way people live in other parts of the country and visiting places that I've only seen in movies and television. I've been to New York City, Miami, Seattle, St. Louis, San Francisco and many others.

I never thought I would be going to Pine Bluff, Arkansas. I never thought I would be going to Arkansas period. The pilot announced that we would be landing soon and I wondered if I would stand out like a sore thumb in my suit and tie. Maybe I could pick up a John Deer hat at a truck stop to help me blend in. I was sure I'd be able to find one in the airport. Hell, there was probably a John Deer shop in the terminal.

I stepped off the plane at the Little Rock National Airport and I admit I was surprised. I expected a small, hick-town with Confederate flags hanging from the windows of the general store and the barber shop. But Little Rock was actually a large metropolitan city with over a half-million people. It didn't look much different from Los Angeles.

Some yuppie in a business suit bumped passed me in the terminal like I was in his way. He continued without even acknowledging me and began yelling at an imaginary person, "Holy shit Jim, that's not enough time!" I saw the flashing blue light in his left ear and realized he was too busy with his telephone conversation to be bothered with something as trivial as respect. "Not much different from California at all." I thought.

I picked up my rental car outside the terminal and headed south on Interstate 530 toward the town of Pine Bluff. Within thirty minutes the highway became very open and quiet and I was clearly out of the city. I wasn't used to seeing this much green while travelling on the highway. Both sides of the Interstate were bordered by 100' trees. I don't know what kind of trees they were, but they were thick and green and standing side-by-side as far down the highway as I could see. And the northbound and southbound lanes of the highway were separated by this large grass median. It must have been 100' feet wide and continued all the way down the center of the highway to the horizon. The "city-boy" in me wondered how much time and money it took to plant all those trees and grass.

As the sun began to set, the orange sky cast a soft glow on the treetops and there was this incredible peacefulness all around. The Arkansas River followed along the eastern edge of the highway, not too far in the distance. It occasionally glanced at me through the thick blanket of trees like a dog running alongside me, curiously watching the new stranger in town.

I exited the highway and traveled a few more miles along a narrow, winding road. Occasionally I saw a house or two nestled back in the pine trees, looking lonely and forgotten. I didn't see any people around. Nobody riding bikes or jogging. No kids playing in front yards or throwing footballs in the street. It was kind of creepy. I swore for a moment I heard a banjo.

I turned onto the Pierson's dirt road and I could see a few mobile home trailers up ahead. A big, steel flagpole towered 50' in the air from one of the front yards. Proudly flapping in the wind at the top of the pole was a Confederate flag. "That's more like it," I said, "now I feel like I'm in Arkansas."

I spotted the Pierson's address spray-painted on the side of a big oak tree. I pulled into the gravel driveway and up to the single-wide mobile home. Two elderly men were sitting on the porch. One was sitting in an old rocking chair and one was sitting on a wooden stool. They weren't talking to each other. They were just sitting there staring at me. As I got out of the rental car with a friendly smile, the guy in the rocking chair spat a big, brown glob of something onto the dirt. Gross. Good distance, though.

I introduced myself and asked for Charles and Valerie Pierson. The man on the stool told me that Charles was on "a run" up to St. Louis. I assumed he was talking about a truck driving run and not a jog. He said Charles wouldn't be home until tomorrow morning. I realized these two men weren't old at all, maybe in their 50's, but those 50-something years had not been kind.

The man on the stool told me that Valerie was working and she wouldn't be home for a couple of hours. I asked where she worked and he told me, "The Jiffy Mart down on Hwy 365." I smiled, "Of course she does," I thought.

The man in the rocking chair asked, "Whadaya wannem fer?"

I hesitated for a brief second while my brain translated Arkeneez into English. I said, "I'm sorry, I can only discuss that with the Piersons."

Rocking chair guy spat another glob onto the dirt without breaking eye contact.

I thanked them for their time and 30 minutes later I was pulling into the Jiffy Mart on Hwy 365 in the town of Redfield. Two gas pumps out front offered customers a choice, "unleaded" or "diesel" at a "non-California" price of $1.85 a gallon.

The Jiffy Mart was small, but looked like any other convenience store. The windows were plastered with cigarette and beer advertisements. I walked inside with my notebook and asked the teenager behind the counter for Valerie Pierson. She looked me up and down while chewing her gum, then yelled over her shoulder, "Hey Val, there's a salesman here for ya!"

Valerie came out from the back room and looked at me rather strangely. I held up my badge and introduced myself as a detective from California. She smiled politely and said, "Well that would explain the suit." The clerk snickered and said, "And the funny accent."

Valerie invited me into a little office in the back of the store without even asking me why I was there. "It must be pretty serious if they put you on a plane from California." She offered me a chair. She didn't seem too concerned and I wondered if she had figured out why I was there but was just good at hiding it.

"I'm a homicide detective," I told her, "and I'm investigating the murder of Rebecca Novell."

Valerie's eyes widened and her hand immediately went to her mouth. "Oh my God," she whispered, "Becky's dead? When?"

"Probably about the same time she disappeared." I answered, and I saw tears welling up in her eyes.

Valerie seemed genuinely surprised and upset. She sat down at the desk and stared at me as if she was hoping I would say, "Never mind, just kidding."

Valerie said, "I reported her missing to the police but nobody would help me. I tried to get them to do something for months. They just kept telling me that I wasn't her mother so I wasn't allowed to make the report. I begged them to help me find her. I told the police that Becky's mother was on drugs and had abandoned her. I was the only mother Becky had."

I interviewed Valerie for about an hour. She told me about the night that Rebecca disappeared. A night that Valerie would remember for the rest of her life. Valerie told me that her daughter Kelly and Rebecca went to a party at a friend's apartment a few blocks away. She said the girls left the house before it was dark outside and they promised not to come home too late.

Valerie said the girls hadn't returned by bed time and she was very upset, but she didn't know where the apartment was located and there was no such thing as cell phones in 1986. Valerie was awakened later that night when she heard the girls come home. She didn't get up to check on them and just decided to yell at them in the morning. She was just glad they were home.

The next morning Valerie went into the girl's bedroom and only Kelly was there. She woke Kelly up and asked where Becky was. Kelly appeared confused and said that Becky was supposed to be getting a ride home from the party with some boy.

Valerie told me she jumped in the car and made Kelly take her to the apartment where they were the night before. Valerie said she pounded on the door and eventually a 30-year-old black man answered. Valerie demanded to know where Becky was and the man simply told her that one of the teenage boys took Becky home last night.

I asked Valerie if she could remember the name of the boy who took Becky home. She shook her head as she thought about it. "It's been over twenty years, I can't remember. I told Oceanside Police his name when I reported it, but they didn't even write it down. They refused to take a report because I wasn't her mother. They didn't even seem to care that teenagers were partying at the home of some 30-year-old man!"

Valerie told me that she went out the next day and tried to find Becky's mother, Patty Novell. She said she drove up and down Oceanside Blvd. and asked several of the local prostitutes but couldn't find Patty. Valerie told me that she continued searching for Becky every day. She took time off work and drove around asking Becky's friends and checking local hang-outs. She went back to the apartment several times and asked if that boy had returned. The man always told her, "No."

Valerie told me she was driving down Oceanside Blvd. about a week after Becky disappeared and she saw Patty standing by the bus stop. Valerie pulled up to the curb and yelled at Patty, "Where the Hell have you been? Becky's missing and I can't find her!"

Valerie said Patty looked confused and high on drugs. Valerie said to Patty, "I need you to come with me to the police station, they have to talk to you." She said Patty suddenly looked worried and then she turned and ran off. Valerie said she screamed at Patty to please help but Patty kept running. Valerie said she never saw Patty again.

Valerie told me how Becky's disappearance changed her entire life. She couldn't sleep, she couldn't eat, she neglected her family and obsessively searched for Becky day and night. She called Oceanside Police Department every week and asked if they had found Becky, but she always got the same response. Becky had just disappeared. Valerie eventually lost her job and then her husband left her and moved to Florida.

Valerie said that a few months went by and Kelly started using drugs and alcohol and getting into trouble. Valerie said she realized she was going to lose Kelly too if she didn't get her life back on track again. Valerie told me that she asked a friend to continue checking with Oceanside PD and keep her up to date on any progress. Valerie then packed up Kelly and all of their belongings and drove to Florida to reunite with her husband Charles.

Valerie said her friend called with weekly updates but the news was always the same, no sign of Becky. Eventually the calls from her friend came less frequently and eventually they stopped all together. Valerie said she and her husband Charles eventually moved to Arkansas where Charles had grown up and had family. She said Kelly got married and now lives a couple of hours north in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Valerie said she always prayed that Becky was okay someplace. She said she often thought about where Becky might be today at 34-years-old. She said she tried to imagine Becky with a husband and a family of her own. She said deep down she always feared that Becky was dead.

Valerie looked at me from across the desk. "Why wouldn't the police help me? This was a 13-year-old girl for Christ's sake! Don't they know what can happen to a 13-year-old girl out there alone?"

I didn't have an answer. My anger toward Oceanside PD was growing with every step of this investigation. Somebody seriously dropped the ball on this one. I knew I couldn't blame Becky's murder on the police, I knew better than that. Becky was let down by a lot of people. Her mother abandoned her and chose a life of drugs over raising her daughter. Valerie allowed her two teenage girls to attend a party without knowing anything about the friends or where they lived. And the police had an opportunity to investigate this immediately and get to the bottom of it. They could have discovered who Becky left the party with that night and they probably would have identified her killer.

But because of these mistakes, I was sitting in a Jiffy Mart in Redfield, Arkansas twenty-one years later trying to piece everything together. Instead of doing their job, the police chose to blow Valerie off and claim that a missing child can only be reported by the natural parents. That's bullshit. There has never been a law in California that require you to be the natural parent of a child in order to report that child missing. But I know from personal experience that it takes a lot of time and effort and paperwork to handle a missing child case and 99% of the time the kid's back home before you even finish the report. That allows for complacency. That allows for laziness and negligence on the part of the police and I saw it myself time and time again. "Just wait 24-hours before making the report." Cops used to say it all the time and it was just to save themselves paperwork. It was all bullshit.

Fortunately, in 1990 the Federal Government stepped in and mandated that any child under the age of 18 who was reported missing was to be entered into the national database immediately - regardless of who reported it. Unfortunately that law came four years too late for Becky.

I made arrangements for Kelly to drive down from Bentonville the following day for an interview. Charles would also be coming home and I would be interviewing him as well.

I drove back up to Little Rock and checked into a hotel at about 10pm. There were no hotels back in Pine Bluff or Redfield. I lay awake for a couple of hours thinking about the new twist on this story. Becky was last seen leaving a party with a teenage boy. Did they run off to Las Vegas together? Did they get into a fight and he dropped her off on some street corner? Did this kid rape and murder Becky and then dump her body? Of all the scenarios that had crossed my mind in this case, I must admit, I never thought of Becky's killer as a high school kid.

I wondered what Kelly was going to tell me the next day. Did she really tell her mother everything that happened? Had Becky's best friend been keeping any secrets for the last twenty years? What really happened that night at the party?

I drifted off to sleep with so many unanswered questions.

The Castaway - Chapter 8

I gathered as much information from Patty as I could about Rebecca's friend, Kelly Pierson. Patty remembered the approximate neighborhood where they lived in the city of Oceanside but she didn't know the street name. She said it was near Oceanside High School where the two girls went to school. Patty told me that Kelly was in the 10th grade and Rebecca was in the 9th grade. Patty told me that Kelly's parents seemed like nice people but she couldn't remember their names or where they worked.

I asked Patty if she had any pictures of Rebecca that I could borrow and show to witnesses during the interviews. That question was painful. Patty looked down at the ground and shook her head as the tears welled up in her eyes.

"I have nothing of Becky's." She said. "I lost everything years ago. I have no pictures, no cards or letters, nothing. I struggle sometimes just to remember her face. She was such a beautiful little girl and I don't want to forget her face. Sometimes at night I dream about her and I can see her so clearly, laughing and smiling. But when I wake up it's gone again."

Patty looked up at me and asked me if I had any idea who killed her daughter. I had to answer truthfully and tell her, "No." But I explained that, even though Rebecca was killed over twenty years ago and her body was found over four years ago, this investigation had just now begun. I promised her that I would figure it out.

I left the Women's Shelter in San Diego and drove to Oceanside to try and find the Pierson house. I arrived at Oceanside High School just as school was letting out for the day. I asked for Kelly Pierson's student records from 1986, but I got the answer I expected. The records had long since been destroyed. So much for the easy way out.

I stopped by the school library and asked if they had any of the school's previous year books. The librarian perked up and very proudly announced that she had been responsible for collecting all 100 yearbooks for last year's 100th Anniversary Celebration of Oceanside High School. When I asked to see the yearbooks, the librarian looked at me as though I had just asked to view the Ark of the Covenant.

I showed her my badge and said, "It's for a murder investigation. I promise I won't take anything, I just want to see some pictures."

The librarian reluctantly lead me down a hallway to a locked storage room. She watched me like a hawk as I browsed the room and pulled a couple of yearbooks from the shelf. I located the 1986 freshman photograph of Rebecca Novell. Patty was right, she was a beautiful girl. Blond hair, blue eyes and such a happy smile. I was glad to see that there were no signs of the horrible life her mother had just described. The Pierson's must have been taking good care of Rebecca. The librarian painfully agreed to let me take the yearbook down the hall to the scanner and make a copy of Rebecca's picture. I made two.

I left Oceanside High School and drove to the local middle school. I asked if they still had any student records from the 1980's. I was introduced to the Principal who asked me the reason for my inquiry. When I explained, she happily escorted me to an archive file cabinet where I located the 1984 student file for 8th grader Kelly Pierson. There was nothing on Rebecca.

Kelly's file showed her home address on Nevada Street and the names of her parents, Charles and Valerie. This house was a few blocks from the high school and in the same neighborhood that Patty had described to me earlier. Bingo. This was where Rebecca was living when she was murdered. I immediately left the middle school and went to the house on Nevada Street.

As I expected, the Pierson's no longer lived in this house and the current renters were no help. I obtained the name and address of the property owner and I took some pictures of the house with my digital camera.

I drove to Oceanside PD and asked for any records of police calls to the Nevada Street house from the 1980's. There was nothing on file. I was told that all records more than twenty years old were purged, except for murders. I asked the records clerk to look up the 1986 murder at the hotel room that Patty said she witnessed. I was surprised to learn that Patty's story was true, except that it happened in 1985. She actually witnessed that murder between her two clients and then helped to load the body into the trunk. According to the police reports, Patty disappeared shortly after reporting the murder. It turned out she didn't need to testify in court because the suspect plead guilty and received 25 years in prison. There was never any mention of Rebecca in this report.

It was getting late and it was time to call it quits for the day, but I had to make a detour first. I drove back down to San Diego and I gave the extra copy I made of Rebecca's photo to Patty. I didn't want her to wake up from another dream without it. I think she cried harder this time than when I gave her the bad news earlier that morning. But it was a different kind of cry.

The next day I was back in my office in Riverside working on the search for the Piersons. There were no current computer records for Charles and Valerie Pierson in California. I found both of them in old DMV records, but nothing since December 1986. It appeared as though the Piersons fled California shortly after Patty reported her daughter missing.

The Piersons' old DMV records gave me their full names and birth dates. With that information I was able to obtain their social security numbers and with a social security number I can obtain a lot more.

Within the next 30 minutes I had every address, home phone number and cell phone number that the Pierson's had over the last twenty years - courtesy of the Big-3 credit bureaus. They left California in 1986 and moved to Florida where they lived for about six years. In 1992 they moved to Arkansas and they were still living there today.

I entered the Pierson's address into Google Earth. Talk about modern technology. One day I didn't even know who the Pierson's were and 24 hours later I'm looking at the dirty swimming pool in the backyard of their home in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Satellites are spooky.

I zoomed the picture out to get a better idea of where in Arkansas this was located and I noticed something that caught my attention. Within a mile of their home was a military base. Was it a coincidence that their Oceanside home was also less than a mile from a military base? I quickly checked the Florida address where they lived for six years after leaving California. I typed it into Google Earth, hit enter, and bingo - it was right next to a military base. This couldn't be a coincidence. Three homes in three different parts of the country in twenty years and they were all next to military bases. And Rebecca's body was located off the back road to Camp Pendelton stuffed inside a U.S. Marine Corps duffel bag.

My brain was spinning. What was the connection. Charles Pierson had no military record. His 1986 California DMV record said he had a "Class A" driver's license - a truck driver's license. I ran his Florida driving record and then his Arkansas record. He was licensed in both states as a long-haul truck driver.

There are between 80 and 100 thousand US Military and civilian personnel working on and off Marine Corps Base Camp Pendelton on a daily basis. Was Charles Pierson a civilian contractor for the military? That would certainly give him an opportunity to obtain a USMC duffel bag. Did he rape and murder the beautiful little teenager who had been living in his house for a year? Did he transfer his job to another military base across country when Rebecca was suddenly reported missing by her mother?

The only way I was going to answer any of these questions was to interview the Piersons.

I couldn't take the chance of calling the Piersons in Arkansas and interviewing them over the telephone. If you want to know if someone is telling you the truth, you have to be able to see them when you ask the questions. Watching the eyes and the body language is much more important than listening to their answers. I had to go to Arkansas and show up on the front porch of the Pierson house if I was going to do this right.

I put in the request and two days later I was on a plain to Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

The Castaway - Chapter 7

I don't know if San Diego has a skid row but this certainly qualified. I counted six homeless people lying in doorways just within this block. The stench of urine overpowered the salty sea air. This was the part of San Diego you didn't see on postcards or travel brochures.

There was a secured entry so I rang the buzzer outside the Salvation Army Women's Shelter. A woman came to the door and greeted me with a pleasant smile. She probably didn't have too many people wearing a suit and tie come to the door. I showed her my badge and ID and she welcomed me into the lobby.

"I'm looking for one of your tenants," I said, "her name is Patty Novell. Does she still reside here?" I was thinking to myself, "Please don't make me go out on the streets searching for her in alleyways."

The woman gave me a peculiar look. "Yes, she's here, but she isn't one of our tenants. Ms. Novell is the director of this facility."

She lead me down a long corridor and I followed in somewhat of a daze. "She's the director?" I thought to myself. "Seriously?"

All of a sudden the game plan changed. When I arrived here I was ready to go after Patty Novell with contempt. I despised her because of what she represented. She represented the hundreds of drug-addicted mothers that I've dealt with in my career. The mothers who let their babies lie on dirty mattresses in flop houses, while they sit nearby putting needles in their arms, ignoring the cries of a hungry baby. The mothers who leave their children alone in a hotel room all day to fend for themselves, or worse, with some ghetto-rat boyfriend, while they go out to the streets and perform just enough fellatio to pay for the next rock of crack. Patty Novell represented the darkest ugliness of our world and I hated her before I ever even met her.

I wasn't ready to let that go and start singing her praises for turning her life around, but I admit, I was even more curious to meet her now. We arrived at the end of the corridor and the nice lady knocked, opened the door and peaked her head inside. "Ms. Novell, there's a Detective here to see you." She then pushed the door the rest of the way open and waved her hand for me to enter.

Patty Novell stood up from behind a big desk and came around to greet me with a handshake and a somewhat forced smile. "Good morning Detective, a personal visit usually means the news isn't good. Which one of my girls got into trouble this time?"

She must have sensed that it was worse because of the look on my face, or maybe my hesitation to respond. Patty's expression turned to a frown, "Oh no, please don't tell me one of them is hurt. Is it Katrina? She didn't come home last night."

Her motherly demeanor caught me a little off guard, but it appeared genuine. She seemed to really care for the women in this shelter.

"No." I said, "It isn't Katrina. This is about Rebecca."

Patty appeared confused for a moment while she searched her memory for a tenant named Rebecca. It was obvious that she couldn't place the name. Then it clicked. Patty's expression suddenly turned to something that couldn't be faked. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. Well, the shades were just pulled back on Patty's eyes and I saw directly into a soul that has suffered unspeakable pain.

"Becky?" She quietly asked.

My contempt for Patty was suddenly gone. I was now looking at the face of a mother who lost a child years ago and stored away the guilt and the pain for over twenty years.

I've had to make this notification more times than I can count. It's never easy, but I have found that saying the words is like pulling off a Band-Aid. Do it and do it fast. The faster the pain comes the faster it begins to subside.

"We found her body on a hillside about four years ago." I said. "It appears that she's been there the entire time."

Patty buckled over like I just punched her in the gut. She went to one knee and put her hand over her mouth. The nice lady who first let me into the building came out of nowhere and was suddenly at Patty's side. It caught me by surprise, I didn't even realize she was still in the room.

Patty sobbed for a moment and the other lady began whispering scriptures from the Bible as she held Patty. I glanced down at the folder I was holding that contained the pictures of Rebecca's bones. I didn't feel like throwing them out in front of her anymore.

After Patty had a few minutes to recover from the news, we went for a walk and she gave me a little tour of the Women's Shelter. Patty explained how this facility saved her life in 1991, when she was addicted to methamphetamine and suicidal over her missing daughter.

Patty didn't make any excuses. She was very up front and honest about her mistakes and the poor choices she made. She said she was a prostitute, a drug addict, and a terrible mother to Rebecca in the 1980's. Patty told me that she lived with her daughter in hotel rooms and "earned" their rent on Oceanside Blvd. while Rebecca was in school.

Patty told me that Rebecca began to understand what her mother was doing and started objecting at about the age of 10. Patty said that when Rebecca was 12 they began having serious fights about Patty's drug use and prostitution. Patty said Rebecca would take off and stay with friends for a couple of days at a time, but eventually the parents would always send her back home.

Patty told me that one day in 1985, Rebecca was at school and Patty was "earning the rent" in the motel room. Patty said one of her "regulars" showed up without an appointment and became angry over the other man being there. Patty said the two men argued and then her "regular" pulled out a gun and shot the man to death.

Patty went on to tell me how she helped load the dead man's body into the trunk of the killer's car. She said she was terrified that he was going to kill her next and all she could think of was getting them both out of the motel room before Rebecca came home from school.

Patty told me the killer drove away and she quickly cleaned up the blood in the motel room. Patty said the next day, while Rebecca was in school, she went into the Oceanside Police Station and reported the murder. Patty identified the killer and the police captured him shortly thereafter with the body still in his trunk.

Patty decided it was time to get her daughter away from this lifestyle. Patty said her next decision was the best and the worst decision she ever made in her life. She went to the home of Rebecca's best friend, Kelly Pierson, and spoke to Kelly's mother. She asked if Rebecca could stay with her for a couple of weeks while Patty tried to get her life back on track and establish a safe and secure home for Rebecca. The mother agreed and Patty said goodbye to her daughter.

Patty told me, "Becky hated me for leaving her there, I could see it in her eyes. She had a feeling she would never see me again. I promised her I would straighten up and make a home for her and we would be together again real soon."

Patty stopped walking and leaned back against a wall. "Becky knew me better than I knew myself. She was right, that was the last time I ever saw her."

Patty told me that her plan to improve her daughter's life just turned into more "tricks", more drugs, and more depression. Patty said she has long periods of her life that are completely gone from memory. Her clearest memories are during short periods of sobriety when she was in jail. Patty told me that whenever she was forced into sobriety by being locked up, she would start thinking about Rebecca.

Patty told me that she tried several times in jail to get someone to help her contact her daughter, but she was always told that had to be done after she was released. Patty said she always assumed that Rebecca was okay because Kelly's family was nice and it seemed like a better place for Rebecca to be.

Patty told me that she tried to locate Kelly's house when she got out of jail once, but she couldn't remember where it was. She said she went to the police and tried to get them to help her locate Rebecca, but she couldn't remember the name of the parents.

Patty told me, "The police never really put much effort into it. They always asked me if I thought it was a good idea to show up in Becky's life again when nothing had really changed."

Patty said she would become extremely depressed at her failure as a mother and quickly relapse into the drugs and prostitution again. She said it became a never ending cycle, in and out of jail, suicide attempts, and a vicious downward spiral over the years.

Patty told me she woke up in the Salvation Army Women's Shelter one day and her life was saved. She said she was taken in and cared for and she began a drug treatment plan and counseling. Patty said she met other women with similar stories and a common bond. As she became clean and sober, she became stronger and she began to help other women get through the tough times.

Patty told me that she never stopped thinking about Rebecca. She tried several times to get the police to follow up on it and track Rebecca down, but in 1991 Rebecca turned 18 and the police lost all interest completely.

"They told me she was an adult now and she was free to live her life as she wanted. They told me that Rebecca would find me if she wanted to. I've prayed every day for twenty years that she would walk through that door one day and tell me she forgives me."

Patty told me that she was given a job at the shelter because she was successful at turning her own life around and her experience was beneficial in helping other women do the same. Patty told me that she found salvation in helping young women like herself to get off the streets and get clean and sober.

"This shelter became my whole world. Every time I helped a woman get off drugs and off the street, it brought back a little piece of myself."

Patty just stared into space. There was no need to say anything else. She accepted the full weight and responsibility for what happened to Rebecca. Patty was doing a good thing here and she was probably responsible for saving the lives of countless women.

But none of that was going to bring back Rebecca.

The Castaway - Chapter 6

I was anxious to get the original police reports from Oceanside PD and start working on the Rebecca Novell case. I called ahead and asked for copies of the reports to be made and then I scheduled an appointment with one of their detectives. I needed to inform Oceanside PD that one of their runaways was located in our county and appeared to be a murder victim. It was a professional courtesy thing.

When I arrived at Oceanside PD, I was met by one of the detectives and handed a copy of the original runaway report from 1986. It was a thin report, about 5 pages, which is never a good way to start a murder investigation. That meant there wasn't a lot of work done on this case originally.

The detective who gave me the report was nice enough to sit down and talk to me about it, but she didn't have much to add. 21-years-ago when this report was taken she was a high school kid herself. She had no personal knowledge of the case. While we were talking, a man entered the room and identified himself as the Administrative Lieutenant for Oceanside PD. He thanked me for bringing this case to their attention and then he asked me how long it would take to gather all of my notes and files and hand them over. I said, "Excuse me?" The lieutenant then advised me that Oceanside PD would be taking over the murder investigation, since Rebecca Novell was originally reported missing from their jurisdiction.

I smiled and politely explained that it would be a cold day in Hell before he relieved me of this case. I told him I had way too much time and energy invested in this case over the last four years to simply hand it over. We agreed to disagree and I left with my 5 page report in hand. My administration would have to confer with the administration from Oceanside PD and decide who was going to handle the case. When I returned to Riverside I spoke to my Captain and strongly relayed my opinion about losing this case. He backed me up but the decision would be made further up the chain of command. In the mean time the case was put on hold and I was told not to take any further actions.

I sat down and read the 5-page runaway report. I learned that Rebecca Novell was reported by her mother, Patty Novell, upon being released from county jail in September of 1986. Patty was a drug-addicted prostitute in Oceanside and she had been in jail for the past two months. She told the reporting officer that she did not know where her teenage daughter was and she wanted help in locating her. Patty told the officer that Rebecca had been staying with a friend from school because Patty didn't want her daughter to be exposed to Patty's lifestyle. Patty gave the officer the name of the friend, Kelly Pierson, but she did not have an address or phone number.

According to the report, the officer did nothing to follow up the information himself. He wrote the report as a "missing juvenile" and forwarded it to the Detectives for follow-up. The case wasn't picked up by a Detective until two months later in November 1986. The Detective attempted to locate Patty Novell but there was no address or phone number for contact. The Detective went to the local high school and attempted to contact some of Rebecca's friends, but he didn't obtain any relevent information. The Detective then changed the report from a "missing juvenile" to a "runaway" without any further explaination. He entered Rebecca's name into the national computer database as a runaway and he suspended the case.

The next entry in the Oceanside Police report was written a year later in July of 1987. The same Detective that handled the case a year ago wrote that Patty Novell had written two letters from county jail asking if anyone had located her daughter yet. The Detective wrote that he would conduct further investigation into Rebecca's disappearance when Patty Novell was released from jail and could provide more information. The next entry from the same Detective indicated that Patty Novell never contacted him after getting out of jail, so he closed the case.

I was becoming more and more angry as I read the police report. How in Hell do you close a report on a missing person when the person hasn't been located yet? Especially when the person is a child with no parental support? There was no indication that Oceanside PD even identified the friend that Rebecca was staying with or where she lived.

The next entry in the police report was written 2 years later. This entry was made by another Detective with Oceanside PD. It was only 3 sentences long. The first sentence was that he was assigned to review the case. The second sentence was that he ran Rebecca's name in the computer and confirmed she was still missing. The third sentence was that Patty Novell could not be located to provide additional information. The case status was then changed from "closed" to "suspended" and it was put back on the shelf.

The next entry in the police report was in September of 1989, three years after Rebecca was first reported missing. Patty Novell was calling from Long Beach and she wanted an update on the status of her daughter's case. The Detective taking this phone call had not previously been involved in this case and was not familiar with Patty or Rebecca. He immediately asked Patty why she waited 3 years to inquire about her missing daughter. Patty told him that she had been strung out on methamphetamine for years and her memory was very poor. She told the Detective that she was now clean and sober and she was trying to locate her daughter.

The Detective met with Patty and obtained an old photograph of Rebecca. He then went to a dentist office in Oceanside where Rebecca once had x-rays taken. He obtained Rebecca's x-rays and submitted them into the national database with Rebecca's photo. Then the Detective wrote that Patty disappeared again, so he suspended the case and put it back on the shelf.

The next entry in the Oceanside PD report was made in February 2000, fourteen years after Rebecca had been reported missing. The Detective making this entry wrote that Rebecca was still in the system as a runaway. He wrote that attempts were made to locate and interview Patty Novell, but the phone numbers and addresses were no longer valid. This was the last entry in the police report and the last action that Oceanside PD ever took in this case.

I was furious about the lack of investigation given to this case by Oceanside PD. There was no excuse for such laziness and incompetence. This 13-year-old child was reported missing to the police but nobody bothered to look for her. Somebody raped her, murdered her, and dumped her body on a remote hillside and nobody knew about it for over twenty years. She deserved better than this. She deserved a better mother. She deserved a better police investigation. It was too late for me to save Rebecca, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let Oceanside PD take this case back and try to redeem themselves now. They had their chance, many times over.

Within the next two days I received two phone calls. The DNA match was confirmed, the bones of Janie Doe were a positive match to Rebecca Novell. And my Sheriff told the Chief of Police in Oceanside to go pound sand. The case was staying with me.

The first thing I did was go to the computer and try to find the elusive Patty Novell who Oceanside Detectives had such a hard time locating for so many years. It took me about 3 minutes to find her current address in downtown San Diego.

I immediately jumped into my car and headed to San Diego. I was anxious to meet this woman. I wanted to look her in the face and ask her why she abandoned her daughter 21 years ago. I wanted to ask her why she chose methamphetamine over caring for her own child. The photographs of Rebecca's bones were on the seat next to me. I glanced over at them and wondered if Patty would show any remorse when I put them on the table in front of her. I thought to myself, "This bitch better cry."

My hands began to ache and I realized that I was gripping the steering wheel with all of my frustration. I took a deep breath and tried to relax.

I pulled up in front of the address in San Diego and looked at the front of the building. I shook my head as I looked at the sign over the door. I don't know why I was surprised. "Salvation Army Women's Shelter."

"I guess she hasn't changed much." I said as I grabbed the photos and headed for the door.

The Castaway - Chapter 5

Boxing up the Shelly Phillips case was depressing. A year of hard work was just pulled out from under me in a single phone call. Not only was I back to having an unidentified 12-to-15 year old murder victim, but Shelly Phillips went back to being a missing person. What made it worse was now she was classified as a, "voluntarily missing adult," because she was a runaway who had since turned 18. That was the lowest priority she could be in, which meant nobody was ever going to look for her.

I boxed up all the notes and information I gathered on Shelly Phillips and the two Marines in the faded blue Oldsmobile and I shipped it to San Diego PD. It was their case now. I turned my attention back on trying to identify little Janie Doe.

I contacted the producers of the television show America's Most Wanted and asked about a possible broadcast of this story. Maybe somebody would remember this 5' 7" blonde in a purple Le Tigre polo shirt. The TV producers decided that it would be a great story, but only if we had a picture of Janie Doe to put on TV. They felt the story would only tug at America's heart strings if they could see the girl's face and make a personal connection. Think about those late-night commercials with the starving children in Africa. It's those sad little faces staring into the camera that makes people dive for their checkbooks.

I contacted the Coroner's Office and requested a Forensic Reconstruction of the skull. That's when an artist builds one of those clay molds around the existing skull in an attempt to re-create what the victim actually looked like. Like everything else in Government, the request took 2 months to get approved, but the skull was eventually shipped off to the artist so he could begin his work.

The forensics lab was carefully examining Janie Doe's remains for any evidence they could possibly locate. The only two clothing items found with the bones were the shirt and bra. This part bothered me every time I thought about it. That means she wasn't clothed from the waist down when her body was put in the duffle bag and tossed over the cliff. It doesn't take a genius to figure out how this poor girl spent her last remaining hours alive. Some sick bastard putting his filthy hands on her little body and breathing whiskey in her face as he forced himself on her. The images were painful but they keep me moving forward.

The other items located inside the duffle bag with Janie Doe's remains were interesting:

1. One blue, electric blanket. It appeared the body had been rolled up in this blanket and then stuffed into the duffle bag.

2. One piece of cotton rope about 15" long tied into a circle. It was extremely frayed and degraded. It was probably used as a ligature for strangulation.

3. One thin piece of nylon rope tied onto the metal eyelet of the duffle bag, probably used to secure the bag closed before it deteriorated and came apart. The knot used to secure this rope to the eyelet was significant. A fancy knot tied by someone with nautical experience.

4. Orange and brown carpet fibers. DOJ told me the polyester fiber blend was the type commonly used in residential carpets.

5. Black carpet fibers. The type commonly used in automotive carpets, interior and trunk lining.

6. Black and white cat hairs.

7. Numerous blonde hairs belonging to the victim.

This was everything I had. This was all I had to work with. Without knowing the identity of the victim I couldn't even start an investigation. I couldn't use her DNA to identify her from the NCMEC database because there is no database for the DNA of missing persons. DOJ only keeps the DNA of convicted felons on file.

Months went by, and then a year, with no word about the Forensic reconstruction of the face. It turned out the man who was hired to do the work had been on family medical leave. His wife was dying of cancer. It took me several more months just to get the skull returned to the Coroner's Office so I could look for someone else to do the job.

Apparently there was nobody else. You see, it's the responsibility of the Coroner's Office to identify any unidentified bodies, not the Sheriff's Department. So no matter how badly I wanted this done and how many people I called and yelled at, the Coroner's Office was just on cruise control and in no apparent hurry to get Janie Doe identified. There are litterally dozens of bodies in cold storage at the morgue waiting to be identified. And the Deputy Coroner who was in charge of the Janie Doe case had recently retired. This case just went cold. I had dozens of other cases to tend to so I put the Janie Doe case on the shelf next to my desk. And that's where it sat without any hope for another three years.

Every month I called the Coroner's Office and asked about Janie Doe. Every month I got the same answer - excuses about being short-staffed and extremely busy. I always knew what they were going to say, but I called anyway. I wasn't going to let them forget about her. I wasn't going to let Janie remain a number on a body bag.

One day I came across a website for Dr. Henry Lee, the Forensics Expert who is widely known for his work on high-profile cases such as JonBenet Ramsey, Laci Peterson, and O.J. Simpson. Dr. Lee has a Forensics Institute in Connecticut at the University of New Haven. I called Dr. Lee and asked him if he would be willing to take a look at this case. Dr. Lee invited me to present my case and all of the evidence to his Forensics class as an active case assignment. Dr. Lee told me he would oversee the investigation by his class and guide them in their work.

I boxed up the files and the evidence and I flew to New Haven, Connecticut to present my case. This was January 2007, four-and-a-half years after finding Janie Doe's remains on that hillside. I spent three days with Dr. Lee and a class of very intelligent, up and coming Forensic Technicians. They gave me some really good ideas and I learned about some new procedures being used in the field of DNA science. I was going to leave Connecticut with some hope of breathing new life into this case again.

On the last day I was there, as I was saying my goodbyes, I got a call on my cell phone. It was the Coroner's Office back home. Janie Doe had been positively identied by a match of the dental records... again. I withheld any excitement this time because I was duped the last time. I told the Deputy Coroner on the telephone that I wanted a DNA confirmation of the parents scheduled immediately.

I flew back home to California and found an envelope from the Coroner's Office sitting on my desk. I didn't want to open it because I knew the identity of another little girl was inside. I didn't want to get my hopes up again without the DNA match. I sat down at my desk and opened the envelope.

Rebecca Novell was a 13-year-old girl from Oceanside, California who was reported as a runaway in 1986. The name was immediately familiar to me. I pulled out my list of the original 12 names that I submitted to DOJ with the dental records over four years ago. The results I had received from DOJ four years ago was that #11, Shelly Phillips, was a match. Turned out she was not. I shook my head in disbelief as I looked at the list and saw the name Rebecca Novell in the #1 spot. They had Rebecca's name the first time and they matched the dental records to the wrong person.

I knew the only way to get a DNA match on Rebecca was to locate and visit her parents. That meant I was going to have to tell another mother that her missing child from 21 years ago had been located... and she wasn't coming home.

Here we go again.

The Castaway - Chapter 4

I contacted NCIS at Camp Pendleton and began the search for those two Marines. I was really shocked to learn that Camp Pendleton was home to approximately 36,000 Marines. There were approximately 6,000 homes located on the base and the rest of the personnel lived off the base in neighboring communities such as El Cajon.

This was the year 2002 and I wanted information about who lived off-base 14 years ago in 1988. I was told those records were archived in Washington DC and it was going to take weeks before they could be obtained. I was also told that it would require a physical search of the records by hand, since the computer program was designed to search for a Marine by name, not the neighborhood that he lived in. There were going to be thousands of records to search through.

I was confident that I was on the right track and following the right leads, but while I was waiting for the records from Washington DC, I started looking into some other possibilities for Shelly's murder.

Shelly had been sexually molested in 1986, a couple of years before her disappearance. Her attacker, a family friend, was arrested and sentenced to six years in state prison and he was still in custody at the time of Shelly's disappearance. It would have been rare and unusual, but not out of the question to consider that Shelly's murder was in retaliation for her testimony against that man. Convicted criminals seeking revenge will often pay a fellow inmate who is being released to carry out such deeds. But this was the murder of a child, very rare for even the hardest of criminals to consider. I made a mental note of the possibility and moved on.

I used the Internet and began reviewing the events and archived news reports from the 1980's in San Diego County. Whenever I'm working a cold case I like to familiarize myself with the local events at that time in that area. This is the kind of work that twenty years ago would have meant traveling to the local library and searching old newspaper clippings on microfiche. God bless the Internet. Most of the time this type of research is fruitless but occasionally it pays off. I don't ever want to be responsible for a case going unsolved simply because I didn't take the time to check out the little things.

I found a newspaper article from 1986 in the San Diego Evening Tribune that caught my attention. "Police suspect serial killer in San Diego." The article claimed that in the past five months, the bodies of 15 young women had been discovered dumped in remote areas of San Diego County. Most of the women were from the El Cajon area. Police did not have a suspect.

The more I researched this story, the worse it became. I discovered that San Diego County had one of the worst serial killing sprees in US history during the 80's. 43 young women had been murdered from 1985 to 1988. Most of the women had been strangled. Most of the bodies had been dumped off the side of the road in remote areas. Many of the women were from the El Cajon area and a couple of the bodies had been discovered near the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base. Was Shelly another victim of this serial killer?

My heart began to race a little as I read each of the stories covering the killings over the years. Each new article about the increasing body count - 18, 23, 28, 32! A monster was on the loose, the public was panicking and the only thing the police were catching was a lot of grief. The District Attorney's Office formed a multi-agency task force and poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the investigation.

The San Diego serial killer case was never solved. The killings stopped in 1988 and the task force was eventually disbanded without a suspect ever having been arrested. I had to ask myself if the task force ever knew about the Shelly Phillips case. Shelly was only in the system as a runaway and probably never made it onto the task force radar. If they had the information in 1988 about the two Marines in the pale blue Oldsmobile, they would have certainly been able to locate the house in El Cajon and identify the Marines.

I didn't want to get ahead of myself, but I couldn't help but get excited about the possibility that I might be holding the key to solving a serial killing spree of 44 murders.

Unfortunately, my excitement began to fade as the weeks and the months rolled by. It was mid-2003 now and I still couldn't get anything from Washington DC. Apparently asking National Archives for the home addresses of 10,000 Marines in 1988 was a big deal. Whatever.

I continued to do my own investigation and I even located one of Shelly's former friends that remembered the approximate location of the El Cajon house. He had dropped Shelly off in front of the house one time and he thought he might be able to find the street for me. I met him in the parking lot of a shopping center off the 8 Freeway. I shook his hand and said, "Okay, let's go find this house."

The painful expression on his face said it all. "I think we're standing on it."

The entire neighborhood where the Marines lived in 1988 was now home to The Corners Shopping Pavilion. Because Lord knows we need another fricking Starbucks. Terrific.

So I was going to have to do this the hard way. At least now I knew the general location of the neighborhood. The City Planning Commission would have the names of the former residential streets that occupied this area. I was guessing maybe twenty streets could have occupied this space prior to construction. With the street names I could obtain the names of each owner from the utility companies. I would have to track down each owner and find out who rented their property to a Marine in 1988. This was going to take a long time but what other choice did I have. This case wasn't about one 12-year-old girl anymore. This was about 43 other women as well.

Another six months had passed and I was making progress. I had all the addresses of every home that ever occupied The Corners Shopping Pavilion. I had a lot of the names, addresses and phone numbers of the former owners. The work was tedious and exhausting, but I kept my sights on the big picture. I kept Shelly's picture pinned up over my desk at work. A 6th grade school picture that I got from her mother. I saw her smiling face every day when I came to work and she kept me going. She kept me in the fight. This case was about 43 other women too, but 12-year-old Shelly was my motivation.

Then one morning everything changed. I got a phone call from a lab technician at the Department of Justice in Richmond, Calif. The news wasn't good.

The DNA results came back from the blood work I had done on Mrs. Phillips. She was not the mother of the little skeleton. The bones in the green duffel bag located almost a year ago were not the remains of Shelly Phillips.

Back to square one.