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.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
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.
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.
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