An Act Of Murder (3 page)

“I suspect that was what the dog was smelling,” Mulligan said.

Bear then detected some kind of petroleum-based accelerant at a spot in between the room's two beds, which Mulligan later determined was the fire's point of origin. However, because lab tests did not detect any accelerant—Mulligan said it probably evaporated—he was not able to testify at trial as to what the dog detected.

“Dogs are like people—they get up on the wrong side of the bed some days and they don't want to work, so you have to go on the handler's ability to read the dog—whether he's working well, or not,” Mulligan said. “That day I think he was on the money—he had something there. Either I didn't collect the evidence properly, or I didn't recover enough of it so the lab could identify it, or it sat in the lab too long and it evaporated—but I think something was there. The dog's ability to detect parts per million is more sensitive than some of the equipment they have in the lab.”

Mulligan explained that the minute a light accelerant—like the fluid in a cigarette lighter, or almost any type of petroleum-based accelerant, whether it's gasoline, or diesel fuel, or kerosene—is exposed to the air, it starts to evaporate.

“The lighter it is, the faster it's going to evaporate,” he said.

And once you put a match to it, that type of accelerant will burn up in the resulting fire.

Both Mulligan and the state police believed Kimberly staged the scene to make it look as if Steve, who was drinking heavily, she claimed, had been masturbating. When Steve was found, his pants were down slightly and his penis was exposed—and it looked like he accidentally had set himself on fire. And there was a copy of
Playboy
magazine next to him. They later theorized she got him in a compromising position by promising him sex, then injected him with a powerful muscle relaxant, succinylcholine chloride, which is rapidly processed by the body and therefore undetectable.

“I think his heart was still pumping, but the drug shut down the ability of the diaphragm to pump air in and out of his lungs,” Mulligan said. “The drug stops his ability to breathe when she shoots him up with it, but even though his lungs aren't working, he had a certain amount of oxygen in his bloodstream, in his brain, so his heart is going to keep pumping. Just think how long you can hold your breath underwater—at least a minute or two. Steve could have known what was happening, but it depends on how soon she set him on fire after she injected him with the drug. If she waited four or five minutes before she lit him on fire, then there was a good chance he was unconscious before she sets him on fire. But if she gives him the shot, and as soon as he's immobilized, she torches him up, [and] then she burns him alive, he's conscious,” he said.

“My suspicion is she used something like that, like lighter fluid, and poured it on his face, and right around the pillow his head was on, to get the fire going,” Mulligan said. “I think it's backed up by the way his shirt was burned. It seems to me she hated him—she just didn't want to kill him, she wanted to embarrass him in death as much as she could. It fits—the head of his penis was pulled out above his pajama bottoms, like he was masturbating and the fact that she placed a
Playboy
next to him—it fits to me.”

In the Hrickos' room Mulligan worked Bear around the far wall, up around the far bed and then in between the two beds, and when he came to what he later determined was the point of origin of the fire, Bear gave him a hit.

“It was a real hard show that he was detecting some kind of petroleum-based substance right there,” Mulligan said. “I gave him a reward and worked him through the rest of the room, as small as it was, but he didn't give me more indications that there were accelerants there.”

When he was finished, Mulligan took Bear back outside and walked him around the parking lot and the dog again hit on the sample Mulligan had left out there originally—indicating that he was indeed working well. Mulligan then put Bear back in the car.

In the meantime the state police were beginning to show up and a couple of them went to interview Kim. At this point Schlotterbeck asked Mulligan to determine the fire's point of origin, which he concluded was the spot between the two beds where the dog detected some kind of accelerant. Schlotterbeck also asked Mulligan to figure out what caused the fire.

“By that time our supervisor, Jake Kinhart, had arrived on the scene from his home in Salisbury, and with Jake's help I did the origin-and-cause investigation of the room,” Mulligan said.

“You're looking for where the fire began, and once you determine the point of origin, you look for what the ignition source was. And the way those investigations are done is you go from the amount of least damage to the amount of most damage—the theory behind that is where the most damage is the fire has burned the longest,” Mulligan said. “A least-to-most assessment of the fire damage [in the Hrickos' room] led to a point approximately three inches from the corner of the double bed nearest the bathroom.”

Mulligan noticed an accumulation of burned debris at the foot of this bed, in the center aisle between the two double beds. At this particular point the fire had burned down through the carpet and padding. Mulligan also observed deep charring on two wooden blocks that kept the legs of the bed off the carpet. The charring was on the side of the blocks closest to the center aisle.

“There were two-by-four blocks that they used to hold the bed up and the sides of the two-by-fours that were facing where Stephen's head was lying were charred and the char on that side nearest the center aisle was much deeper than the char on the other side,” Mulligan said. “The wooden bottom framing of the box spring had deep char from the corner nearest that point and for approximately fifteen inches toward the head of that bed. It was scorched from one corner almost to the corner near the wall separating the main room from the bathroom.”

Mulligan said the bedspread was destroyed by the fire except for the portion that was farthest away from the point of origin. There was a narrow scorch on the headboard of this bed along the wall and through a glass picture frame on the wall. The scorch mark began on the mattress at the spot where a pillow would normally be placed. The heat cracked the glass in the scorched picture frame. The fuel source for the fire creating this scorch was traced to a pillow left on the bed. This was confirmed by the melted remains of the fiberfill used in the pillows that Mulligan observed on the carpet and the base of the headboard below the scorch.

“I believe Kim took [two] pillows and put [them] under her husband's head, but one of them was left on the bed at the headboard,” Mulligan said. “There was a burn pattern on the wall and the heat from that pillow burning cracked the picture frame that was right above it. And when we looked on the floor under that burn pattern, we found a brown glop, like melted plastic. And there was also that same melted plastic at the point of origin and we had a suspicion that that was probably from the melted pillow.”

Later that morning, Mulligan, Kinhart, and State Trooper Richard Fey, from the crime lab, used one of the other pillows in the room that hadn't burned to see what would happen if it was exposed to a flame.

“We did a burn test on it that morning. Out in the back, on the water side of the complex,” Mulligan said. “At first we held a match under it or a cigarette lighter, or something like that with a small flame—and nothing happened. And somehow in the parking lot we found a newspaper and we rolled the newspaper in the shape of a torch, set the newspaper on fire, and then held that under the pillow; and when we did, the pillow burned very hot and it melted into the consistency of what we had found at the point of origin and also under the headboard.”

In the room Mulligan also observed two nearly full bottles of beer, as well as a wallet, keys, and an electronic key card on the nightstand in between the two beds.

“Significantly, a plastic Pepsi-Cola soda bottle with a paper label was centrally located, away from the front wall, on the nightstand,” Mulligan said. “The heat radiating from the point of origin melted this plastic soda bottle to a degree that it folded over toward the point of origin, so that the top of the soda bottle would point in the direction of the point of origin. This plastic soda bottle serves as a pointer from the nightstand to the fire's point of origin.”

Mulligan and his team looked at all the burn patterns in the room and decided the scorch spot on the rug in front of the woodstove and between the two beds was where the fire started. When Mulligan looked closer at the burned debris at the point of origin, he noticed a circular swatch of what appeared to be cotton gauze, approximately two inches in diameter. That brown gauzelike fiber—later determined to be a piece of the pillowcase—was connected to the brownish ceramic-looking deposit, which Mulligan determined was the remains of a pillow.

“The approximately two-inch circular section of unburned pillow fiber matched up with an area on the rear of the victim's head,” Mulligan said. “An approximately two-inch-in-diameter area of the victim's hair was not burned off the back of his head.”

Fire damage in the room was confined to the bed, the headboard, and the wall above the headboard. The carpet was scorched or burned by a piece of the burning bedspread that had fallen down onto the floor. It appeared the burned debris on the floor was the remains of two pillows, Mulligan said. Stephen Hricko was burned from his chest up to the top of his head. The well-insulated room contained the smoke and smothered the fire before it could spread any farther. An unburned pillow—the fourth in the room—was found near the fire's point of origin. A
Playboy
magazine was opened on this pillow at the time of the fire. Mulligan knew this because the pillow was covered with soot except for the area that had been covered by the magazine. The
Playboy
was opened to a page revealing the photograph of a nude woman. Beneath the pillow Mulligan discovered an eight-pack of Backwoods cigars. One cigar was missing from the package.

Later, after looking at a photo of the scene, Mulligan made an eerie observation.

“I noticed from a black-and-white photo of the scene that you could see the silhouette of where Stephen was lying. The soot that came down during the fire fell everywhere in the room, but where he was lying, not as much soot fell there because it was protected by his legs.... And when you look at the photograph, you can see this eerie shadow of where he was lying, which put his head right at the point where that scorch mark was,” Mulligan said.

Around 4:00
A.M.
, on February 15, Corporal Keith Elzey, the on-call criminal investigator for the Easton State Police Barracks, and Sergeant Karen Alt, also a state trooper, arrived at Harbourtowne to take over the investigation. At that time the state police did not have a homicide unit, but rather a special investigative unit that assisted the local barracks.

After getting briefed by fire and police personnel, Alt and Elzey went into the lobby of Harbourtowne and interviewed Philip Parker and Elaine Phillips, who told the officers what transpired earlier. Alt also spoke with Bonnie Parker, Philip's mother. Bonnie told Alt about something that happened that she found a bit odd.

According to Bonnie, when she arrived at the Hrickos' room, Philip's fiancée, Traci, was already there waiting in the parking lot in front of the room for Philip and Elaine, who were around back. When Bonnie went up to Traci, the young woman whispered in her ear that the victim was dead. Bonnie told Alt that she didn't think Kimberly, who was standing at the front door of the room, was close enough to hear what Traci said. She said she thought it was strange that Kim kept saying she “wanted to see his body,” rather than saying she wanted to see Steve or Stephen or her husband, especially since no one had told her Steve was dead. Bonnie also told Alt that she thought it was unusual that Kim stayed in the front of the building, rather than go around back because that's where Philip and Elaine entered the room.

While in the lobby, Elzey also spoke with Steve's best friend since junior high, Mike Miller, who was Harbourtowne's golf-course grounds superintendent.

Mike and his wife, Maureen, were supposed to watch Sarah while Steve and Kimberly were at Harbourtowne, but at the last minute Kim called to say Sarah was going to spend the night with a friend and she and Steve were coming down by themselves. Kim told the Millers they didn't have to worry about watching Sarah.

“I was pregnant at the time—it was early in the pregnancy and I wasn't feeling all that well, so we were going to just stay in anyway,” Maureen said. “When we found out we weren't watching Sarah, we went out to dinner and we were thinking about going down to Harbourtowne—we hadn't been seeing them much as a couple—to see if everything was going okay. We thought we'd have a drink with them, but then we thought, no, let's just let them be, and if things go as planned, it will be a nice romantic weekend for them. So we just went back to the house.”

Shortly after 1:30
A.M.
, on February 15, the Millers' telephone rang. Thinking something was wrong with Mike's dad, Maureen quickly answered it. The caller asked for Mike. It was someone from Harbourtowne who told Maureen that there'd been a fire at the resort and that Steve had been badly injured. The caller said Kim was asking if Mike could go to the resort to be with her. Maureen handed the phone to Mike, who said he'd be right there. Mike hung up the phone and started getting dressed. But since old habits die hard, Mike turned on the television and started searching for a weather report.

“It's this thing with golf superintendents that whenever they leave the house, they have to know what the weather is, and Mike was so out of it that he turned the TV on looking for the weather,” Maureen explained. “I said, ‘What are you doing? You have to get down to Harbourtowne.' He said, ‘I don't know what I'm doing, I'm half-asleep.' So he finished dressing and left.”

Not knowing what was going on, Maureen started worrying about Kim. So she called Mike back into the house—he was outside scraping the ice off his windshield—and called the general manager of Harbourtowne to ask what was happening.

“Maureen, I think he's dead,” the general manager told her.

Maureen put the telephone down and told Mike to hurry and go to Harbourtowne because Steve was probably dead. She asked Mike to call her as soon as he got there. Later, she realized she should have let Mike find out about Steve's death when he got to Harbourtowne so he wouldn't have to think about it while he was driving.

Mike ran back outside, jumped in his truck, and flew down to Harbourtowne, getting there in half the time it would normally take him. All the while he kept thinking how weird it was that there was a fire in the Hrickos' room.

In shock Maureen got back on the line with the general manager and asked him what happened. Instead of answering her, the general manager started questioning her about Steve's behaviors.

“Did Steve smoke cigars?” he asked.

Maureen said no, Steve would never smoke.

“Well, apparently he was smoking tonight and fell asleep and lit the room on fire and he died in the fire,” the general manager said.

Maureen told him Steve would never smoke, ever. The general manager explained that Kim said he'd also been drinking a lot that evening.

“That doesn't sound like Steve, either,” Maureen said. “I've never known him to be drunk.”

“Something's not right here, Maureen, and Mike needs to get here,” the general manager said.

Maureen told him Mike was already on his way.

Maybe Steve was drinking too much and maybe he was smoking cigars, Maureen thought. After all, the Millers hadn't seem much of him lately and he was under a tremendous amount of pressure because of his marriage. But even though the Steve that Maureen knew would never have done that, she just put the general manager's questions out of her mind.

Around 2:30
A.M.
or so, Maureen decided to call Mike's parents in Pennsylvania to ask them to come down to Easton. She knew if Steve was dead, Mike was certainly going to need his parents. Mike's parents left their home in State College about an hour after Maureen's call. Maureen also called Mike's friend Ken and asked him to go to Harbourtowne so Mike wouldn't be alone.

When Mike arrived at Harbourtowne, he parked his truck in front of the main lobby. As he got out of his truck, he saw people standing outside the hotel.

“Somebody from Harbourtowne was there and said that there was a fire down in the room, that Steve was in the fire, and that Kim had come into the lobby to report the fire, and at that point she was up in one of the other rooms,” Mike said. “They told me Elaine Phillips and her cousin, Philip Parker, pulled Steve out. Philip's family was at Harbourtowne for the weekend and they had a suite of rooms, and Elaine told me Kim was in her aunt's room.”

Immediately Mike ran up to the room and knocked on the door. Elaine Phillips's aunt Bonnie Parker opened the door and Mike asked for Kim.

“It was all kind of surreal. I was trying to figure out what the hell went on and what was going on,” Mike recalled. “And I walked into this room and I didn't recognize these people and this woman said Kim's in there and pointed to an adjoining room. And then she asked me if I wanted a drink. I don't remember if I took a drink or not. And when I walked in—it was cold. Something felt wrong when I walked in that room.”

As he stood in the room, Mike flashed back to something that had happened several hours earlier. While Mike was washing dishes at home, he picked up a sharp knife and had a weird feeling that somebody was hurt, or somebody had been stabbed with a knife, and all he wanted to do was put the knife down.

“It was just a weird feeling,” he remembered. “And then to have this happen.”

When Mike went into the room where Kim was staying, he noticed that she was lying on her side, her back toward him, on the bed farthest away from the door. Mike walked over to Kim and she sort of got up and looked at him.

“Oh, thanks for coming,” she said as she started toward him.

Mike was struck by Kimberly's utter lack of emotion. Sure, people grieve differently and maybe she was in shock, but it didn't seem like that was the case—she was totally unemotional.

“You would have thought, knowing how long we'd known each other, there would have been more there,” Mike said. “She didn't even give me a hug when I hugged her, she just stood there. She was just cold. She was void of any emotion. It didn't feel right, something was wrong. Something weird or evil.”

Mike sat with Kim for a bit, but she didn't say anything to him and he didn't know what to say to her. Soon she went back and lay down on the bed and eventually fell asleep—which Mike also thought was weird. Mike then went downstairs to talk to the people from Harbourtowne to find out what was going on and whether or not Steve was alive. Mike soon learned that his best friend since junior high was dead.

“Somewhere along the way someone said something about Kim saying Steve had been smoking cigars and I said that's impossible because he doesn't smoke,” Mike explained. “And so I started hearing these things that she was feeding to these other people. But to me it just wasn't clicking—something wasn't right—what she was trying to say was Steve was just not Steve and that he had been smoking cigars and he had been drinking. I said there's just no way.”

The more Mike heard about what Kim was saying regarding the events preceding Steve's death, the more he knew something just wasn't right—and the more he began to think Kim had something to do with Steve's death. In fact, Mike had a gut feeling the moment he walked into her room that she was somehow involved with the death of his best friend.

“When I told Elzey [that] Steve didn't smoke cigars, he said, ‘Really?' And I said, ‘No, he didn't.'”

Elzey told Mike that during the investigation of the Hrickos' room, officers found a package of cigars, an empty bottle of champagne, and some empty beer cans. But Mike again told him that Steve just didn't smoke. And, he said, there was no way he would have been drinking heavily that weekend.

“Steve told me on the phone before they went to Harbourtowne that he wanted to do this for Kim—it would be something special to rekindle the relationship,” Mike recalled. “Steve viewed it as their first date and he wanted it to be special and he wanted to take her down there and show her a nice time, and he told me, ‘I'm a red-blooded male and Kim and I haven't been together sexually for a long time, and it is in the back of my mind that that's what I want to do, but it's probably one of the farthest things from my mind as well. It's just a chance for us to get away and kind of rekindle our relationship.'”

Steve told Mike if sex with Kimberly happened, it happened, but that really wasn't the reason he planned the weekend. And, according to Mike, contrary to what Kimberly was telling police and anybody else who would listen, Steve never said he and Kim agreed not to have sex while they were at Harbourtowne.

Steve also told Mike he was on medication for his depression and he wasn't drinking because of the medication. So when Mike started hearing that Steve was smoking cigars and drinking and trying to force himself on his wife, and then turning to
Playboy
when that didn't work out, he knew Kimberly was lying.

“This was all about Steve trying to start up the relationship, so why would he go down there and totally blow it?” Mike asked. “Why would he get all liquored up and force sex on her? It just didn't add up.”

The whole
Playboy
thing was ludicrous, Mike said. And the way the
Playboy
was laid out next to Steve's body really smacked of a setup.

“I had never known Steve to view pornography. I mean, I can remember in high school, but he wasn't an addict and he never viewed it online,” Mike said. “And I know they were given a bottle of champagne and Kimberly said he drank it, but Steve drinks beer and he chewed tobacco—Skoal—that's the only tobacco product he used. He never smoked in the time I knew him. From junior high school to high school to college, I can't recall him smoking a cigar.”

 

 

A little after 5:00
A.M.
Alt and Elzey, along with Deputy Fire Marshal Paul Schlotterbeck, went up to room 1016 to interview Kimberly, who had been sleeping most of the morning. After she woke up, Kimberly told the officers pretty much the same story she had been telling everyone else, but with a few additional details.

Kimberly explained that she and Steve had been having marital problems for about three months and decided to attend the Valentine's weekend hoping to revive their marriage. According to Kim, Steve got “sloppy drunk” during the evening, drinking all but one glass from the complimentary bottle of champagne that was left in their room, as well as drinking wine at dinner, more champagne, and beer. And, after the dinner show, the couple purchased more beer to drink back at their room. Kim told the officers that Steve was taking several types of prescription medicine for his depression, including Xanax. She said he was also taking the over-the-counter liquid cold medicine Theraflu. According to Kim, Steve took the Xanax and Theraflu around 7:00
P.M.
, just before they went to dinner. Kim also told the officers that her husband regularly chewed tobacco and always smoked cigars when he drank. However, she said she didn't think Steve bought or brought any cigarettes or cigars with him to Harbourtowne. She said she didn't, either.

Kim said when she and Steve got back to their room they watched the movie
Tommy Boy
and then started watching the 11:00
P.M.
news when Steve began “pawing” her. Kim said she was surprised because she and Steve had agreed there would be no sex during the weekend. She also said she was surprised at her husband's advances because when he wanted sex he usually turned to pornography, not her. She said she left the room because of the fight over Steve's drunken behavior, adding that it wasn't a physical fight. Kim explained that Steve had never been physically abusive toward her.