“Copies cannot be released,” the airport said, “at this time due to a terrorist threat. . . .”
Another roadblock.
The next step was to check out all the rental-car agencies in the area and see if any familiar names turned up, or if a Chevy Malibu had been rented and returned with a broken taillight.
After a check, no luck there, either.
Another friend of Gail’s came forward and explained that Gail had confided several things about her marriage that seemed significant now that Gail had been murdered: “The woman [Donna] had come here . . . and had met with Gail at a motel in Rochester. She (Donna) told Gail she was terminally ill and she wanted [George] to come and take care of her. She had a letter from a doctor stating this, Gail told me.”
Further, Gail’s friend told police that Gail was certain George had broken off the relationship with Donna by July 1999, and that Donna had then turned around and called Gail’s mother in Texas and told her that Gail was suicidal!
“Anything else?”
“Well, Gail told me that either she or George had contacted the doctor and he said he had never written that letter.”
What it looked like to Sergeant James A’Hearn and Detective Chris Wundrach, the more they studied the interviews the OCSD had conducted, along with the evidence as it presented itself thus far, was that the OCSD needed to put together a team and head down to Florida. There were answers there somewhere, for certain. Donna Trapani needed to be interviewed in person.
After a few days to clear her head and wrap her mind around what was the worst situation life could throw at a person, Emily Fulton was back at the Lake Orion Township Substation sitting with investigators, searching for answers. Emily had had some time to think about things in a more coherent manner. She was somewhat impassive and lucid, now that she’d had nearly two days to process her mother’s untimely, violent death. The past twenty-four hours had been rough, but Emily was determined to convince the police that she knew who had murdered her mother, why, and how it was done. What were they waiting for? Why wasn’t a team of cops heading to Florida to grab Donna Trapani?
“Come in,” the detective said, greeting Emily at the door. “Sit, please. Thank you for coming.”
Emily looked tired and, at the same time, manic. She was determined to get her point across and make some noise about how she felt.
“Donna is responsible for my mother’s death,” Emily said. “She’s a psycho!”
Emily felt she had been saying this for the past twenty-four hours—why wasn’t anyone
doing
anything about it? The impatience of a college sophomore. It was something Emily knew she had to get a handle on. In the due course of time, she was confident that if she pounded the drum loud enough, the OCSD would hear.
“I really think it was a professional hit,” Emily added.
“Why would you say that?”
“Whoever did this knew what they were doing. They waited for my mother. They knew her schedule. They flattened her tire and shot her in the body and in the head. No kid could have done this. A kid wouldn’t be able to shoot like that!”
It all made sense. But when the “kid” of the victim was telling cops that someone else did it, and she was providing very
specific
details of the crime, not yet released to the public, she was essentially pointing a finger back at herself—or, in this case, at her brother and father.
“Look, if Donna didn’t do it, she paid someone to.”
The investigators interviewing Emily kept looking at each other.
“She wanted my mother out of the picture.”
It was as simple as that, according to Emily. Donna Trapani was behind this murder.
“I have met this woman,” Emily said, explaining briefly how she and Donna met at the ConCorde Inn back in July. “She told me she wants to be my mother. She told me she had a photo of me she took from my father’s wallet . . . that she showed it to people and told them I was her daughter. My
dad
even thinks she’s a psycho. He told me.”
The investigator encouraged Emily to talk more about Donna Trapani.
“My mom had the locks changed on the house after Donna came by once, unannounced.... Donna wanted to take my mother’s place.”
Investigators told Emily to stay in touch. If anything else came up, she should get ahold of the police immediately.
Emily left the substation. Getting into her car, she sat for a moment.
That’s
it
? Why are they not going to Florida right now?
Investigating a murder of this type boils down to checking the obvious off a list, while moving forward on the evidence that the police have in front of them—not on the speculation and advice of family and friends. OCSD investigators took pride in the fact that in order to uncover what happened to Gail Fulton, and by whom, a victimology chart had to be established in the most benign, cautious manner. Part of this investigatory approach involved a search warrant served to George Fulton at his Talon Circle home. It was time to get into the house and have a look at the paper trail and evidence—if any—Gail (and maybe George) had left behind.
George was not thrilled about opening up his home to the cops and allowing them to search through his most intimate possessions. But what could the man do? Investigators had interviewed Barbara Butkis again, Gail’s boss, the woman who had found Gail in the parking lot. Still shaken considerably by the death of her friend and employee, Barb had called the OCSD and reported that George had left “a harassing telephone” message on the library’s answering machine. In her report to police, Barb did not go into detail regarding what George had said, but it had scared her enough to call them. A report of the incident said that Barb thought it was “odd” that Mr. Fulton had called. She had never met the guy before Gail’s death. But here he was, according to her, harassing them at the library for no apparent reason.
It was strange.
Beyond those common domestic items every household has lying around, not much of anything was uncovered inside George’s house that was going to help move the investigation into a checkmate position. George kept meticulous financial records, which was part of what he did for a living. Gail had kept a calendar, which would have to be read through painstakingly. The financial papers would be helpful as investigators checked George’s records against withdrawals and deposits. If George had paid someone to whack his wife, he had probably made a few mistakes along the way. Many would-be murder-for-hire masterminds make mistakes financially—money leaves an imprint everywhere in the banking industry. There potentially could be an odd withdrawal here, or a deposit that doesn’t make sense there.
Next, the OCSD Crime Lab came in with its report of the crime scene, which yielded no clues that jumped out at investigators. It did, however, lend a hand to moving the investigation in the right direction. A spent projectile was uncovered underneath Gail’s body; a set of “inked finger impressions” were found on Gail; the lab collected clippings from underneath Gail’s fingernails, hairs, all of Gail’s clothes, which contained blood and additional trace evidence. The lab also had collected three weapons (George’s) from the substation: a Browning 9mm handgun, a Spanish semiautomatic .380/9mm handgun, and a Ruger .22 caliber. These were rounded up, along with a six-shot .22-caliber cartridge and four .380 cartridges, along with—perhaps more important than any other find—one
empty
gun clip.
Then word came of an interesting discovery, especially here within the first forty-eight hours: a 1998 Honda Accord LX, silver, a vehicle located and photographed inside George’s garage.
The lab report stated:
Collected from the vehicle . . . 1—suspected blood from rear driver’s side door frame ; 1—suspected blood from rear quarter near gas tank, driver’s side; [and] 1—disposable camera from front passenger floor.
Why did a car in George’s garage have blood inside it? And whose blood was it? Had George shot his wife, rushed to her side after feeling guilty, gotten blood all over himself, panicked, and then taken off? After all, he had an alibi—his mistress. But that was only a phone call. Couldn’t George and Donna have planned Gail’s murder together? They could have connected via telephone; then George could have left the phone on a desk while he speedily drove to the library, shot his wife, and rushed back home. By reporting that his dad was downstairs during the entire time period Gail had been murdered, Andrew could be either covering for his father—under the duress and threats of dear old dad—or been fooled into thinking George was home.
There was plenty for investigators to think about. And every time the OCSD turned around, another piece of the puzzle was backed up with factual evidence. For example, several interviews had yielded information that Donna Trapani was in town during July 1999. Two detectives were sent over to canvass the hotels and motels in the “M-59 and Opdyke corridors of Auburn Hills and Rochester Hills.” They were looking for the names George Fulton and Donna Trapani. This was an area from Lake Orion south, down toward Mosteiro and Pontiac, east and west, heading toward Otter Lake, Elizabeth Lake, Loon Lake, Shelby Township, and several other areas where a majority of the hotels were located. It took some time, but during an inquiry at the ConCorde Inn in Rochester Hills, investigators made a discovery. Someone going by the name of Donna Kaye Trapani, from Fort Walton Beach, Florida, had checked in on July 3, 1999, and checked out on July 7, 1999. Telephone records indicated that Donna had made an obsessive number of phone calls, not only to George’s house, but several additional numbers in Oakland County.
“You have any information about the type of car she was driving?” investigators asked the hotel manager.
After a complete search the manager said, “No.”
So Donna was either picked up and driven to the hotel, or she hid the type of vehicle she had rented.
14
G
EORGE FULTON TOOK A
ride over to the substation to pick up a few of Gail’s personal belongings, which the OCSD was ready to release. It was 3:00
P.M.
, October 6, 1999, almost forty-eight hours after Gail’s murder. The embattled husband, about whom the town was now whispering and gossiping behind his back, sat in the lobby by himself. His right palm was supporting his chin.
Detective Chris Wundrach walked into the room and greeted George. “Come on in,” Wundrach said, beckoning George to follow him.
George stood. He didn’t say much of anything unless prompted.
“Would you like something to drink?” Wundrach asked cordially.
“Some water would be fine,” George replied.
No sooner had they settled into the empty interview room than George broke down and, as Wundrach later put it, began to “tear up.”
“I have been so busy,” George explained, almost as if issuing an excuse, “that I have not had time to grieve the loss of my wife.”
Wundrach guessed George meant making arrangements for Gail’s funeral was keeping him busy, although George never said what had kept him so consumed that he had not felt much sorrow for a woman he had been married to for twenty-three years.
Was this some sort of act?
When George was finished with his brief meltdown, and “regained his composure,” he said, “I hope when you catch the person who did this, the justice system does its job!”
“Yeah. . . .”
“Because if not,” George continued, without paying mind to what Wundrach was about to say, “I will be sure to finish it myself !”
“We’re doing everything in our power to catch whoever is responsible, Mr. Fulton.”
Wundrach stood. He told George to hang on a moment. He had to leave the room.
When the detective returned after going to his office to retrieve Gail’s purse, he handed it and its contents (in a separate bag) to George, saying, “You’ll have to sign a receipt for the purse and contents.
“Where?”
George got up to leave. Wundrach considered they were done.
Before walking out the door, George stopped, turned to Wundrach, and said, “I need a favor.”
“What’s that?” Wundrach answered, his attention piqued.
“If there comes a time when you have to arrest me, I hope that you do not do it at the airport or in front of my children. I will come in here anytime you want me to.”
Police officers for the OCSD started off, as Chris Wundrach later explained, in corrections, serving the needs of the prison system. It was 1992 when Wundrach made the move from corrections to the OCSD road patrol division in Lake Orion Township. He had been promoted to detective just a year before Gail Fulton’s murder.
Wundrach was a local boy. He grew up in Oakland County and went to college in the area. He earned a bachelor’s in criminal justice, never intending to go into police work. He had entered college with accounting as his major, but he soon found the math and all those numbers buzzing in his head to be boring and cumbersome. “I hated it.” One thing led to another, and after several entrance exams, Wundrach went through avionics and a few other career choices before settling on criminal justice.
The thing about being an Oakland County substation detective, Wundrach explained humbly, is that a person works on everything. It’s not just murder cases, as one might be led to believe by the glorifying way popular culture and television promote the gold shield aspect of law enforcement. There are retail fraud cases, assault, rapes, robberies, burglaries, drug cases—or, as Wundrach put it, “all crime.”
In the thirty-six-square-mile township of Lake Orion (the county, in other words), there are about 55,000 to 60,000 residents at any given time, so the detective bureau of the OCSD is busy all the time.
“It’s not as bad as the inner cities,” Wundrach remarked, “but we get our share of everything.”
Within all of that crime on any given day, week, or month, however, murder is “pretty rare.” It’s not as though the OCSD was running around the county investigating one murder after the next, as they do in Detroit or Pontiac. For Wundrach, Gail Fulton’s murder was his first.