C
HAPTER 4
“I S
AW
B
LOOD
U
NDER
H
IS
H
EAD
.”
Around one-thirty that afternoon, Miriam was escorted into an interview room at the Mesa County Sheriff ’s Office. She was wearing the same pair of blue jeans, striped red T-shirt, and shoes that she had been wearing when she found Alan lying on the floor of their home.
The interview room was very spartan, with no photos or anything on the walls, and a small round table in one corner. Miriam and a blond-haired female detective named Beverly “Bev” Jarrell sat down on chairs near the table. The interview was being videotaped, and off camera in the room, there was a male detective, Danny Norris, sitting on another chair.
Miriam was sniffling a lot, on the verge of tears, so Detective Jarrell handed her a box of Kleenex, which Miriam used throughout the interview. Both Jarrell and Miriam spoke in low, soft voices, as if trying not to awake a sleeping individual.
Jarrell said, “I know this is going to be difficult. What happened when you got up this morning?”
Miriam said that she and Alan got up around the same time; they made coffee and went out to sit on the deck and talked about what they were going to do that day. He had a lot of errands to run, and so did she. Miriam told Jarrell that Alan was self-employed, and she didn’t work. Miriam related that Alan had a long list of things to do—one of the activities was to go by a power company in Clifton because of land he wanted to develop. Then he was going to go by Big O Tires in Grand Junction, and he had about ten things on his to-do list.
Jarrell asked if anyone else was there in the morning, and Miriam replied, “No, our son-in-law Josh had already gone to work. He stays with us because he’s on call from his job at Halliburton. He left before six
A.M.
He stays downstairs in, like, a kind of apartment. It has a kitchenette and we hardly ever see him.”
Jarrell said, “What’s your relationship like with Josh?”
Miriam responded, “It’s okay. It’s normal. We’re not real chatters.”
Miriam said that Josh was married to Alan’s daughter, Portia, and Portia lived in Delta, about twenty-five miles away. Miriam added that Alan had two other daughters, Kristy, who lived in Seattle, Washington, and Wendy, who lived in Denver. Miriam thought that all three daughters were in their thirties.
Jarrell wanted to know if Miriam had any children, and she said that she did. She had a son named Chris, by a previous marriage. Chris lived in Florida. Getting back to Josh, Miriam said that because of his irregular hours, he might be at the house one or two days a week, or gone for a long time. He was on call when it came to working for Halliburton, so his hours were very erratic.
Jarrell asked if there was any dialogue between Alan and Josh that morning. Miriam said no, and then outlined Alan’s morning. She and Alan had discussed their divergent plans for the day, and then he had gone to take a shower. She had gotten into their blue Oldsmobile and had driven off after 8:00
A.M.
to do her tasks.
From off camera, Norris asked, “What kind of vehicle does Josh drive?”
Miriam had to think about it, and finally said that it was an older model blue pickup. Alan had sold that used truck to Josh in years past. Miriam added that it was “kind of beat-up.”
Getting back to her errands for the day, Miriam said that she had driven to City Market in Orchard Mesa, where she bought two packs of cigarettes and a cold drink. From the parking lot, she had phoned Sue Boulware, who was their horse trainer. With Sue, Miriam discussed Alan’s granddaughter’s future riding lesson.
Jarrell related, “You seem to be a pretty quiet person.”
Miriam admitted that she was.
“Always been that way?”
“Yes,” Miriam responded.
“Okay, so you finished talking with Sue. Then what did you do?”
Miriam said that she went to a Walmart to buy shirts—barn shirts, as she called them. These were inexpensive shirts that would get dirty out in the barn. Along the way there, she had called Alan on her cell phone, but he didn’t answer, so she left a message. From there she went to buy carrots, because, as she put it, “we needed a really big bag of them, because we feed them to the horses.”
Miriam said she bought the bag of carrots at a Safeway on Horizon Avenue in Grand Junction, and then she wanted to get some coloring books for Alan’s granddaughters. She drove to a Hastings Bookstore across town and “piddled around in there for about twenty minutes.”
Jarrell asked, “Had Alan called you back yet?”
“No,” Miriam replied.
“Was that odd?”
“Yes. But I figured he was running a lot of errands, too. Um, he was also planning to go by and see an attorney that was connected with his land deal. It was property that we didn’t live on.”
“How much property do you have?”
“I don’t know. He’s trying to split off those parts in front of the house. And he also has a project in Clifton. It’s not really—well, they won’t allow him to do so until it passes inspection or something. And then we have a lot of groundwater down at the bottom of our property. And he was going to go by and talk—um, he was going to go talk to some group or something about that. Anyway, it was on his list. He had about ten stops to make today.”
“You spoke of a daughter coming to visit. Which daughter was that?”
“Kristy from Seattle.”
Jarrell asked where Miriam went from Hastings, and she said that she went to a Chinese restaurant on North Avenue. She and Alan were supposed to meet there for lunch. Miriam couldn’t remember the exact name, but she thought it was “Great Wall,” or something like that.
Jarrell wanted to know how long Miriam waited there for Alan, and Miriam said that she waited until about eleven-fifteen and then drove home. “I wasn’t happy that he hadn’t called me back.”
“Were you upset with him?”
“Not really, upset, but kind of miffed. ’Cause normally, he’s Johnny-on-the-spot. I drove down North Avenue, and then onto . . .” She had to think a long time. Finally she admitted, “I’m not good with road names. I just know left and right.” Miriam started crying again, then wiped her nose with a Kleenex.
Jarrell asked, “Okay, you’re driving to Siminoe Road. What did you see?”
Miriam responded, “Just the same thing as always. Everything was normal. I saw his truck. And I walked inside from the garage, and I saw him on the floor.” Now she really started crying.
Finally Jarrell asked, “What happened then?”
Miriam sniffled as she said, “I saw blood under his head. I didn’t know what had happened. I kind of shook him, to try and wake him up. Then I called 911. They kept me on the phone a long time. Trying to do CPR. But it didn’t work.”
Jarrell said, “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to back you up. I’m going to have to walk you through this. You drive up. What do you do with your car?”
“I opened the garage door and parked my car inside.”
“Anything unusual in the garage?”
“ No.”
“You accessed the house. From the garage?”
“Yes. I took two of my bags from the car and walked in through the door into the laundry room. Through the laundry room, you see a wall, and you have to kind of turn to the right to go into the house. It goes to the kitchen area. I went in there and that’s when I saw him on the floor. I dropped my bags and purse on the floor when I saw him.”
“Where was Alan?”
“On the kitchen floor. He was lying kind of catty-corner to a desk near the wall.”
“And what position was Alan in?”
“He was on his back.”
“Describe the position his body was in. How was he lying on the floor?” Then Jarrell said, “I’m a visual person.” She handed Miriam a pad and pen, and had her draw a sketch of what she observed. All while she did so, Miriam was sniffling and quietly crying.
Miriam drew an outline of Alan’s body as it lay on the kitchen floor. His arms were out by his side, one of them touching a liquor cabinet. Miriam drew the location of his head and feet.
Jarrell asked, “Then what happened?”
“They (the dispatcher) asked me to do CPR.”
Jarrell interrupted her, “Did you see any weapons? Anything out of the ordinary?”
“I saw his wallet on the floor.” Miriam marked on her sketch where that was located in relation to Alan’s body. “And I saw some drawers pulled out.”
Jarrell asked, “Did you have any important papers in there?”
“No. The only important papers were in his desk.”
“Was his wallet open or closed?”
“It was like a cloth wallet. Not one you carry around in your pocket. More like a travel wallet. It was lying out flat.”
“What did he carry in his wallet?”
Miriam thought for a moment and answered, “Credit cards. Fishing license. A card to get into the national parks. And cash.”
Jarrell wanted to know how much cash, and Miriam said, “A few hundred dollars. He gave me two hundred dollars today. And he gave me a credit card to use if I needed that. But I didn’t need it today.”
“What credit cards did he carry?”
Miriam replied that Alan had two credit cards, both of them from Bank of America. He had given her the one with the lower credit amount to use.
Jarrell asked if Alan was the primary holder on both cards, and Miriam said yes. Then she added, “We’ve been married for two years. And we had a prenup. Everything was in his name.”
Jarrell said, “Okay, this prenup . . . I don’t know that much about them. Explain to me about it.”
“In a nutshell, it said that I didn’t have rights to the things he owned before we got married. Those assets went to his kids. I can get it (the prenuptial agreement) if you want. It was my suggestion.”
“Your suggestion?”
“Yeah, because his daughters were learning to like me. And I wanted to make sure they knew I loved him and wasn’t after his things. They’d just lost their mother a couple of years before.”
Jarrell replied, “It had to be very difficult, not only for you, but them also.”
Miriam responded, “I think it was good to do. They seemed to have some issues about their mother. They thought I was going to come in and take the china.”
C
HAPTER 5
“W
E
H
AD A
W
ONDERFUL
L
IFE
T
OGETHER
.”
Getting Miriam back to what she saw, Jarrell said, “You walk in here, Miriam, and see Alan. Did you see anything missing? Anything out of the ordinary?”
“No. Just drawers that had been opened and a garbage can turned over. My desk is kind of a mess, so I couldn’t tell on that.”
“Anything missing off of his desk?”
“I didn’t look.”
Jarrell asked if the doors to their house in Whitewater were generally locked. Jarrell was surprised when Miriam answered that they never locked them. The same went for the downstairs door where Josh went into the house.
Asked why they didn’t lock the doors, Miriam said, “Alan didn’t think it was necessary.”
Incredulous, Jarrell said, “He didn’t think it was necessary!” In light of what had happened, maybe it was necessary.
But Miriam added, “He didn’t even know we had keys to the house until a couple of months ago. We never had any trouble out there.”
Moving to a different topic, Jarrell said, “Tell me about Alan. Did he have any enemies? Did he have any problems with the contracting that was going on?”
Miriam shook her head no.
So Jarrell asked, “Would he share that with you if he did?”
Miriam responded, “I think so. He shared a lot with me. I didn’t really understand the business end of a lot of things. He was trying to help me understand it. Not that I knew everything he was up to.”
Jarrell turned to Detective Norris, who was off camera. He said to Miriam, “Speak about his land projects and distributing water. Any neighbors have any problems with him developing that land? Any neighbors have problems with him and the water?”
Miriam said that she didn’t think so. “He hadn’t gone through the process far enough to even tell them about it. But I hadn’t actually kept up with it all.”
“How did he get along with the neighbors?”
Miriam replied that everything with them was fine. The only neighbors they really knew were a young couple that had a play set in the front yard. Otherwise, they didn’t socialize in the neighborhood. Then Miriam said that Alan was kind of a hermit and he didn’t even know for sure if he wanted to develop the property in front of their house and have anyone live that close to them.
Detective Jarrell spoke up and said, “Why does that not surprise me? The way you talk about things in your relationship.”
This elicited a small smile from Miriam, who agreed with her.
Jarrell asked, “Any firearms in the house?”
Miriam thought for a while and said, “I know he’s got a rifle. I think it’s a twenty-two. He used it when we had prairie dog problems. He’s got a shotgun. And a box with a handgun in it.”
“Do you know the caliber of the handgun?”
“No.”
“Is it like a small derringer? Or is it a larger gun?”
Miriam said that it was small and could fit in the palm of a person’s hand. “He put it on the back shelf in a closet. And he has bullets there. He had his rifle out the other day, and he thought I should learn how to use the pistol. He showed me how it fired, and how to pull the handle back on it, which I didn’t do. I told him I don’t do guns. So he put it back where I wouldn’t see it.”
Detective Jarrell wanted to know what Miriam meant by “handle.” They finally agreed that she meant a slide on the small handgun, which opened the breach where a bullet could be placed into the firing chamber.
Detective Norris spoke up again. “The prenup—did he have a lot of assets, where this is an issue with his family?”
Miriam appeared as though confused by this statement. She lifted back her head in thought. Finally she said, “You know, I don’t know if it’s been an issue with them or not.”
Norris asked, “Is he a wealthy person?”
Miriam replied, “It’s all in dirt.” (By this she meant that it was all tied up in real estate and planned projects.) “He had a title company in Delta and he sold that, like, two months ago. And he had two hundred forty acres in Delta County, but it’s just dirt. He’d been looking into whether he could run electricity and water to it before he could sell it. That was kind of offset by money he owed to investors and the bank.”
Bev Jarrell responded, “Did that ever concern him, financially?”
Miriam answered, “He never let on if he had any financial problems. There was a time when he told me to tighten my belt, but I didn’t handle the money, anyway. He did.”
“Any depression going on with him about his financial dealings? It sounds like he had a lot of money tied up in investments?”
Miriam said, “If he did have any [depression], he didn’t tell me about it. Sometimes he’d tell me stuff. Sometimes he doesn’t.” Then she corrected herself. “
Didn’t.
I kind of liked it that I didn’t have to worry about the bills, that he handled all the finances. We had a wonderful life together and did so much together.”
Moving on, Detective Jarrell asked, “Did anyone else know where he kept his firearms?”
Miriam said, “No, not that I know of.”
Jarrell then wanted to know if Miriam stayed home most of the time. She said that she and Alan usually traveled around together, unless he was doing business. But if it was just for running errands around the area, they usually did that together.
“How about the landscaper? Would that person come to the house?”
“Yep.” And then she gave the company name. Miriam said that there had been a beef between Alan and that company. Miriam added, “Alan was kind of upset with them because our sprinkler system was not working. They were supposed to have installed it two years ago, but it broke. And they wouldn’t come out to fix it. Alan was on him and on him and on him. Finally he did fix it, but it was too late for the plants. We used to have nice plants in front, but they died because of the lack of water.”
Jarrell wondered if any words had been exchanged between Alan and the landscaper. Miriam replied, “I don’t know, because Alan has always handled that.”
Asked if there was anyone else that Alan had problems with, she said that Alan tried to keep his business dealings separate from the house. And he had an attorney for the business end of things—a man named Bill Coleman. As far as an attorney for his will, Miriam said it was a different attorney, and she didn’t know that person’s name.
Jarrell asked, “Who did your prenup agreement?”
Miriam said, “Alan wrote it up and I signed it. I don’t know who handled it after that. There’s probably a copy of it in his desk drawer.”
Danny Norris spoke up and asked, “Did he have prescription drugs for medical problems?”
Miriam responded, “Um, he quit smoking cold turkey last year. He ended up having to go to the doctor because his blood pressure shot up. And they also put him on Wellbutrin, because he had emotional issues with that. (The blood pressure going up.) But he wasn’t taking that lately.”
“You mentioned three daughters. Does he have a son?”
For the first time, Miriam brought up the fact that he did. “Alan Jr.,” she said. “I think he lives in Alaska now. Um, Alan wasn’t really on good terms with Alan Jr. He was supposed to be coming to Denver to meet Kristy (at the airport) and they were coming here.”
According to Miriam, Alan was only going to allow Alan Jr. to stay with them for a few nights, because there were problems between him and his son. And everything said about Alan Jr. now came through Miriam’s perspective. A lot of the things she had to say about him were fairly negative.
All of this was important, and Jarrell asked with surprise, “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”
Miriam replied, “Because Alan didn’t like to talk about it. Alan tried to keep Alan Jr. at arm’s distance, because there was always a fight or something going on when he was there.”
Obviously, the mention of a fight and problems was disconcerting to the detectives. Jarrell asked, “When did Alan last talk to Alan Jr.?”
Miriam said that had been about a week and a half before, so Jarrell followed up with, “When was Alan Jr. supposed to arrive?”
Miriam thought he would be flying to Denver and would then make arrangements with Kristy. Kristy was supposedly going to fly to Denver, rent a car and they both would come out to Whitewater.
As far as where Alan Jr. was presently living, Miriam said, “He just went up to Alaska and no one really knows where he’s living at.” When asked how long ago he had moved up there, Miriam replied, “Three or four months ago.”
Jarrell wondered, “What was the relationship like between Alan and Alan Jr. three or four months ago?”
Miriam responded, “The same. It’s been that way for many years.”
“Did Alan Jr. know where you guys lived now?”
“Yes, he did.”
Jarrell wanted to know how old Alan Jr. was. Miriam didn’t know an actual age, but thought that he was in his early forties. Then Jarrell asked if Miriam had ever witnessed any fights between Alan and Alan Jr.
Miriam said, “No. He was on his best behavior at home.”
Detective Jarrell took a long time digesting all of this. While she did, Detective Norris asked, “How was Alan Jr. to get from Alaska to Denver?”
Miriam said, “I don’t know for sure. That never came up. I know that every time Alan Jr. called, Alan would get kind of prickled.”
“Prickled?”
“Not mad, but very cautious. Kind of like the hair goes up on the back of your neck.”
“Did Alan ever talk about any concerns about Alan Jr.? About him showing up unexpectedly?”
Miriam replied, “Oh, yeah. I think he told him in the past not to show up unexpectedly. Because Alan really didn’t want him to know where we lived. And Alan Jr. would say to Alan, ‘All I want to do is go fishing with you.’ But Alan would reply, ‘No, you want something else.’ Alan tried to be real guarded about his son, but he prickled up pretty good every time Alan Jr. called.”
“Did Alan ever express any concerns about his daughters’ well-being around Alan Jr., as well as his own?”
Miriam replied, “He never really expressed it. But he did tell me, ‘If Alan Jr. ever shows up, call the cops.’ That’s when I realized, this was an area where I shouldn’t step.”
Of course all the statements about Alan Jr. were from Miriam’s perspective of the situation.
While Miriam had been talking about Alan Jr., both detectives had been busy writing down notes. In light of Alan being murdered only hours before, this information was being taken very seriously.