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.