Authors: Robert Mayer
Kerner thanked Officer Campbell for the information. As he hung up the phone on his desk, and gazed through the one-way glass wall, the name Elmore City was ringing in his head like a gong. He’d found a pickup that resembled the one in the Haraway case parked near a trailer in Elmore City. The police had told him drink-and-drug parties were held in Elmore City with some of Ada’s running crowd attending. Now the two kidnap suspects in the Thompson case, who were from Seminole, had been linked to what looked like a sex-torture chamber—in Elmore City.
The investigator called Dexter Davis in Seminole. The assistant chief said he, too, was very interested in the Oklahoma City kidnapping by the men from Seminole. Kerner summarized for Don Wyatt what Davis told him: “Davis explained that there is a connection between Dale Austin Shelton, one of the two Seminole men, and the missing Seminole convenience store girl. This connection is that Shelton lived with his parents approximately one mile from the foster father of the missing convenience store girl in Seminole. On one occasion prior to the Seminole girl’s disappearance, her foster father discovered someone had raped his mare in a barn on his property and after doing this inserted a piece of pipe crossways in the mare’s vagina. Davis explained that Shelton’s wallet was found there in the barn; but no charges were ever preferred against him in this incident.”
Reading Kerner’s report, Don Wyatt ran through the growing list in his mind:
Rogers and Sparcino.
Larry Jett.
Marty Ashley and Jay Dicus.
Now Shelton and Hawkins.
He was up to his ears in possible suspects, up to his ears in scenarios about what might have happened to Denice Haraway. But he couldn’t prove any of it, couldn’t prove any of these men had been involved. The trial was less than two weeks away, and the prosecutors still held the trump cards: Ward and Fontenot, on those gruesome, lie-filled tapes, saying they had done it.
Richard Kerner swung his car off Arlington Boulevard into a service station. He did not pull up to the pumps; he did not need gas. He parked not far from the office. He wanted to talk to Jim Moyer.
Routinely, Kerner wanted to interview all those who had placed Tommy Ward at or near McAnally’s. He had spoken to Jack Paschall several times; Paschall had stuck to his identification of Ward, had not identified Fontenot. Karen Wise, whose testimony had been the same, continued to avoid him. Now he would see what Moyer had to say. Perhaps there would be some useful detail that the D.A. had not brought out at the preliminary hearing.
Moyer had testified that on the night of the disappearance he had stopped at McAnally’s about 7:30 to buy a pack of cigarettes; two men had been inside along with the clerk, he had said, and they had been acting suspicious. He’d testified that at police lineups, he had picked out Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot as the men.
Now, at the gas station, Moyer told Richard Kerner—who indicated that he was investigating the case—that he was upset. He had been calling Bill Peterson all summer, he said, but the secretaries at the D.A.’s office would not put the call through unless he told them what it was about. And he did not want to tell the secretaries, he said; he wanted to tell Peterson personally.
“What is it you want to tell Peterson?” Kerner asked.
“I want to take back my identification of Karl Fontenot.”
“Why is that?”
Moyer told Kerner about the man in the back of the courtroom during the hearings: the man he thought looked much more familiar than Fontenot. He told how he had asked Karen Wise about him, and how Karen had said the same thing, and how she had seemed afraid of the man.
All this was news to the defense. Kerner, excited, cursed himself. He had expected a routine interview; he had not been prepared for this. He wished desperately he had gotten this conversation on tape—but his recorder was in his briefcase, in his car.
They continued talking. Traffic was heavy, noisy on Arlington in mid-afternoon. He asked Moyer more about the man in the back of the courtroom.
He had letters carved on his belt, Moyer said. A word. A name.
A name?
L-u-r-c-h (name changed).
Cars stopped for gas. Moyer had to fill the tanks. Kerner told him that he would wait in his car, that perhaps they could talk more there; it would be quieter. Cooler.
Moyer said okay.
Kerner went to his car. He opened his briefcase, took out his microcassette recorder, switched it on, placed it on the backseat. Over it he draped a towel. It was a good recorder; it would pick up well from there.
The investigator waited behind the wheel. When the customers left, Jim Moyer got in on the passenger side. Kerner switched on the air conditioner. The following conversation ensued:
RK:
Hi, Jim. We will get a little cool air here agoing.
JM:
Who are you with?
RK:
I am a legal investigator working on the behalf of Tommy Ward, who is in jail for this crime, and for his attorney Don Wyatt. What is your full name? James—ah…
JM:
Middle initial C.
RK:
James C. Moyer Jr. Okay, on April 28, 1984, in that convenience store, these two guys walk in. Do you identify these guys later in a lineup or anything?
JM:
Yeah.
RK:
You identified one as Ward and the other as Fontenot, or did you identify the other one?
JM:
I identified the other one, but didn’t know the name at that time.
RK:
Okay, since that time you have seen the tall guy elsewhere?
JM:
Right, at the preliminary hearing. That’s where I saw him.
RK:
Okay, so you’re—
JM:
You see, that’s nearly a year later.
RK:
And the tall guy that’s in the convenience store then is not the one that’s in jail at the present time? Not Fontenot?
JM:
Not when I saw him. I’ve been trying to get ahold of Peterson to let him know, but he’s hard to get ahold of. I wanted to let him know.
RK:
Okay.
JM:
But, ah, I didn’t see this other guy that much, but I remember when I was standing up at the counter he was walking the back aisles and I got kind of paranoid because I felt like I was being watched and I turned around and I remember he looked up at me…
RK:
This tall guy you saw at the preliminary hearing had R-C-H on his belt? On a leather belt?
JM:
I thought it said like L-U-R-C-H.
RK:
Oh, Lurch. Okay.
JM:
He knows Tommy. When they took Tommy down to go to the bathroom, he said something to him.
RK:
Was he Indian-looking or what?
JM:
Kind of, but not like full Indian.
RK:
Not like full Indian?
JM:
Maybe only a quarter or so.
RK:
So, at least at the upcoming trial you are going to be saying then that the tall guy which is Karl Fontenot is not the one you saw in the store that night that the girl disappeared?
JM:
Right.
RK:
You saw this guy with Lurch on his belt at the preliminary and he spoke to Tommy and he was the tall guy?
JM:
Yeah, he kept staring at Karen, and I noticed she was nervous, and without saying who or anything, I just asked her while we were waiting downstairs, I said, “Is there someone here who looks kind of more familiar?” And she said, “Yes,” and said the same guy. And I didn’t tell her who. But whenever he came in view, she kind of slid around the corner so he wouldn’t be staring at her. I don’t think he recognized me because I changed my hair quite a bit from straight to getting it permed and maybe no moustache and that night I had curly hair and a moustache.
RK:
(
Laugh.
)
JM:
It probably would be hard for someone to recognize me.
RK:
Oh boy, looks like you are going to get busy here…(
Moyer opens the car door
.)
RK:
But you’re still sure on Tommy Ward as being with this guy in the store that night?
JM:
Yeah, he walked up real close right in front of me.
RK:
You didn’t know Tommy before or anything?
JM:
No. When I worked over here, there used to be some kid come in on a little bitty motorcycle. This kid was probably sixteen or eighteen years old, and he set up this tile thing. Well, that night I thought that’s who it was walking in and I started to say hi to him. This guy that walked in, he had his head kind of down and looking real low, and I didn’t say hi to him, but that’s who he reminded me of at first—this other kid. That helped me remember him. He reminded me of someone else.
RK:
Lurch on the belt may mean nothing, but he’s what—six feet or what?
JM:
Probably, with his boots on.
RK:
He was taller than Fontenot?
JM:
Taller than me.
RK:
Slim build?
JM:
Yeah, tall and slim.
RK:
Did he have long hair?
JM:
Yeah, about like…(
He gestures
.)
RK:
Shoulder-length hair—shoulder-plus hair?
JM:
That Wyatt guy got me all messed up that shoulder-length hair. When I talk about shoulder-length hair, I mean from the side.
RK:
Well, this kind of changes things, because now one of the witnesses says Fontenot was not with Tommy Ward.
JM:
Well, for all I know he could have been passed out in the truck. I didn’t look in the pickup as I passed by. I was going to get a tag number.
RK:
What color do you remember on your memory bands of that pickup’s main color?
JM:
Ah, a dark color like gray, or no, it could have been green with those crazy lights there. I think they had some yellow lights out front.
RK:
Could it of been off-white or a dull off-white looks gray?
JM:
No, it would have reflected that light out front.
RK:
And this is all you know. You see them and you leave, but they made you suspicious, especially the tall guy messing around in the back?
JM:
Well, he was watching me—if somebody came into a store and was looking for something—then, ah, they wouldn’t just hit all the outside aisles, they would go up and down the aisles and that’s what brought my attention to him.
RK:
What age bracket do you think he might be in?
JM:
Ah, twenty-two to twenty-four.
RK:
Did they get in whether Ward had a long-sleeve or short-sleeve shirt on?
JM:
Yeah, thinking back on it I think it was a white T-shirt.
RK:
You don’t remember the fact that he had tattoos on his arm. No one seems to remember Ward’s tattoos?
JM:
I don’t remember any.
RK:
You have no doubt on Tommy Ward being one of these two guys?
JM:
No.
RK:
And you are reasonably sure the guy at the preliminary with Lurch on his belt is the second man and he knows Tommy and spoke to him at the preliminary?
JM:
Right.
RK:
Did you hear what he said or anything?
JM:
Ah, it probably had something to do with how the case was going. Was it rough or something like that?
RK:
Okay, he had cowboy boots on—that’s a clue.
JM:
Some kind of boots. I don’t know if they were cowboy.
RK:
And just jeans and shirt, I suppose.
JM:
For the preliminary he was wearing a long-sleeved shirt like with snaps on the sleeves, cowboy, western-style. I don’t think his boots had pointed toes. I gotta go service some cars.
RK:
Okay, thanks a lot, Jim.
JM:
You got it?
RK:
I think so, yeah.
JM:
I might be helping the wrong people.
RK:
Yeah, you wouldn’t want to give me a recorded statement on this?
JM:
Oh, I would rather not.
RK:
You would rather not. Okay, but you are going to say the same things that you told me at the trial, right?
JM:
Yeah, that’s why I’ve been trying to get ahold of Bill Peterson. To let him know that I’ve changed my mind on this one guy.
RK:
Peterson don’t know it yet, huh?
JM:
He’s so busy, every time I call up they want to know who is calling and what is it about. “I’m not going to get him unless you tell me what it is.”
RK:
He’s not going to be too happy that one of his witnesses backed out on one of the two guys in jail. But you have to tell the truth. Hell, whoever it helps or hurts, you can’t—
JM:
Well, I don’t want the wrong person to get convicted.
RK:
That’s right.
JM:
Whoever is responsible should have to pay, but I don’t want to get the wrong person. That’s what I want to do, just get everything all straight.
RK:
As I recall, even on the times, yours was somewhere around seven-thirty—it could have been plus or minus?
JM:
Well, whoever did it might have chickened out then and came back a second time.
RK:
Came back?
JM:
That’s probably why they were shooting pool in the meantime at J.P.’s.
RK:
Sure. You might have scared them off the first time. Okay, Jim, I appreciate it.