To Die For (15 page)

While Greco and Bentley were gone, another officer had been watching her. The color had returned to her face and she had recovered her composure to the point of being rather nonchalant, given the platoon of officers invading her home, and that she was sitting handcuffed in the back of a police car. One of the back-up officers who'd arrived later had retrieved a pair of white Birkenstock sandals from her bedroom and had put them on her feet. He noticed that she had perfectly manicured purple toenails.

“What's this all about?” she asked as Greco and Bentley approached.

Her question caught Greco a little off-guard. He didn't want to start talking to her right then. He had to follow procedure. He had learned a whole routine for interrogation that had worked for him in the past. He had used it to get quite a few confessions and he wanted to start from the beginning and do it right.

“Let's talk about it when we get to the station,” he said.

He got into the car with Dana. She sat directly behind Bentley. Greco sat right next to her and turned slightly to face her so he could keep an eye on her. In the bright glow of the car's dome light, Greco saw that Dana was wearing a very loose-fitting, tie-dyed purple, orange and yellow dress. It was a handmade batik-print dress from Indonesia, a fashionable, somewhat expensive item often sold at art fairs, but Greco regarded it as an ugly muu-muu. He scanned her face, arms and hands for bruises, cuts and scratches but saw nothing. He also caught a whiff of soap. She must have just gotten out of the shower.

Bentley got in the car and started the engine. He thought it was a good sign that she was asking questions because it probably meant that she'd be more open to being interviewed. From his point of view, he thought it was important to establish a rapport and to make the suspect feel comfortable. He wanted to keep her talking. He and Greco hadn't taken the time to discuss how they would handle the interview.

Bentley said something about making certain her rights were protected, so they didn't want to discuss anything of any substance before they performed a formal interview. But he was curious about one thing.

“Was that your mountain bike?” Bentley said. “I liked your bike.”

“Thanks,” Dana said.

“You do much mountain biking?” Bentley asked.

“Yeah, I do,” Dana said. “I just got that for Christmas.”

“Yeah?” he said.

“It
is
a nice bike,” she said. “It's a Trek. I put it on layaway and Jim paid it off and got it for me for my Christmas present.”

Bentley nodded his head and, glancing at her in the rear-view mirror, caught a glint of something.

“Where do you like to ride?”

“Well, sometimes I go down to Newport and take my dog,” Dana said. “He loves going. He loves the beach.

“How long is this going to take?” she asked. “You know, Jason has a bedtime and it's really going to mess him up if he isn't in bed on time.”

“He'll be taken care of,” Bentley said. “Don't worry about Jason. We all have kids, so we know how important bedtimes are …

“So, do you go down to Newport Beach a lot?”

“Yeah, I do silk-screening and I sell crafts down there,” Dana said. “I go down there quite a bit—about every other week. I was just down there, as a matter of fact.”

Bentley glanced in the rear-view mirror again. This time he caught the glint. It was her earrings. She was wearing diamond drop earrings. He wondered if they were the same ones she'd bought with June's credit card.

7:05 P.M.

The ringing phone startled Jeri.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Jeri. It's Joe. I just wanted to let you know that we have her, we have Dana in custody. She's here at the police department. We're going to be talking to her.”

“Thank you,” Jeri said, hanging up the phone.

This was the moment she had been dreading. Jeri had thought about it all afternoon and wanted to break it to Russell as gently as possible.

The police had arrested the person they thought was responsible for killing Norma and June, she began carefully. “It's the person that Jason calls ‘Mom.'”

“You mean Jason's mom did all this?” Russell barked.

“No,” Jeri said, shaking her head. “It's Dana.”

Russell refused to believe it.

Jeri knew that Russell would probably never understand this tragic turn of events, but she took a deep breath and tried her best to explain it to him.

7:25 P.M.

Greco was nervous. But at the same time, he felt strangely confident. He was hoping she'd confess.

Dana was sitting in the interview room by herself; James and Bentley were outside the door waiting for him and half-keeping an eye on her. Instead of bringing Dana in through the enclosed garage, which was the usual procedure for transporting prisoners, Greco and Bentley had brought her in through the back door of the police station and walked her down the hallway to the interview room. Other than asking, “What is this all about?” she was very cool. Greco just kept putting her off until he finally sat her down in the room where she settled into a big, comfy armchair. He politely asked her if she needed to use the ladies' room or if she wanted a glass of water or some coffee. It was weird. Here was a brutal murderer and he was playing the host and being nice to her. But being nice would make her comfortable, maybe comfortable enough for her to talk to them. He didn't want to lose this case. The stakes were too high. This was it. This interview could make or break the case.

Dana had asked for water and Greco told her he'd get her some. But first he walked over to the detectives' wing to a file cabinet behind his desk. On the view camera there, he could see Dana fidgeting in her chair and blowing her nose into a tissue. Dana didn't know it, but she was being videotaped. The interview room in which she was sitting had a tiny, hidden camera and a state-of-the-art microphone that would pick up her voice even if she whispered. The controls and the videocassette were hidden in the file cabinet. He wanted to check on the equipment and insert a blank cassette. Greco saw that the camera was working, though it wasn't recording, and he could hear Dana's sighs and nose-blowing, so the microphone was also functioning.

Greco walked back to the supply room to grab a couple of blank videocassettes. As he walked by the report-writing room, he recognized a Riverside County homicide detective who was on the phone, and asked him what was going on. The detective cradled the phone, and told him that an elderly woman had been killed in Sun City that afternoon. Greco nodded, got a handful of cassettes, loaded one into the machine by his desk, got a Styrofoam cup of water and joined McElvain and Bentley outside the room. He wanted to make sure they were all on the same page in terms of their approach during the interview.

Greco felt uncomfortable with the prosecuting attorney in the room while they were interviewing a suspect who hadn't even been formally booked. He thought that would reduce the chance of her telling him everything, and he also thought it would be harder for her to talk with three people asking questions instead of just two. Or maybe just him. He feared that she would think they were ganging up on her. But he didn't feel like he had the authority to tell Bentley he couldn't come in. Greco still felt a bit of insecurity and didn't feel comfortable confronting Bentley while his suspect was in there waiting for them. This was the woman who left knives buried to the hilt in Norma Davis's body, who strangled a woman in broad daylight and strangled and bludgeoned June Roberts, only to go on a dizzying, two-day shopping spree. They walked into the room.

Dana was curled up in the comfy armchair, her knees drawn under her chin, her arms draped around her leg. There was a table to her left. She straightened up when they walked into the room. Greco, McElvain and Bentley introduced themselves by their first names and they sat down facing her, their backs to the camera. Greco started right away with questions. He intended to go by the book and ask a series of questions from the interrogation seminar that he and James had attended. He wanted to get her talking and get a personal history—the correct spelling of her name, her address, employment history, education, family history, where she was born and raised, her marital history. This took a few minutes and Dana answered dutifully: She was born about 50 miles away in Pasadena, earned Bs and Cs in school, became a nurse, was fired and now took care of Jason, who was Jim's son from a previous relationship. She said she was awaiting paperwork from the court that would make final her divorce from Tom Gray, whom she married in 1987. Dana said she was “job searching. I've done a few screen-printing jobs but I've been interviewing and phone calling and going to the unemployment office.”

“How do you feel today?” Greco asked.

“Today? Right now?”

“Right now.”

“Depressed. I want to know what's going on. I'm really worried about Jason,” Dana said as she started to cry.

It was her first show of tears. Greco watched her carefully as she reached for the tissue box and at the same time he attempted to comfort her.

“OK. That's why we're here. That's why we're here. I'll explain everything, OK?” Greco said.

With no prodding, Dana volunteered that she was on her period, said she had been depressed as a result of her separation and divorce, was visiting a psychiatrist and a counselor and was taking anti-depressant medication. She gave Greco an alphabet soup of medications she had been taking and spelled out the names of the drugs—Paxil, an anti-depressant; Darvocet, for back pain and cramps; and birth control pills. She admitted having had a vodka and water that evening.

A discussion of Dana's medication got Bentley thinking about her defense options. If Dana was taking an anti-depressant like Paxil, available only by prescription, that meant she had to be undergoing some kind of treatment by a psychiatrist. If you put the medication together with the counseling, the intense brutality of the murders, and the post-killing compulsion for spending, Bentley expected her attorney to mount a mental defense or even have her plead insanity.

At the same time, Greco was trying to make sure that if Dana decided to discuss the killings, her remarks would be admissible. He didn't want to get some great statement from her and then find that he hadn't asked the right questions to determine if she had been under the influence of alcohol, medication or anything that would give a trial judge a reason to find that she was unable to make a clearheaded decision when talking to police. Greco thought the videotape of her calmly answering questions would also show that she was in a rational state of mind. Satisfied that she was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs, Greco decided to discuss her Miranda rights.

“We do this with everybody, OK? You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be used against you in court. You have the right to talk to an attorney before and during any questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before questioning if you wish. Do you understand each of these rights I've explained to you?” Greco held his breath for a second.

“Yes,” Dana said.

“OK, having these rights in mind, do you wish to talk to me?”

“Well, I don't mind talking to you, but I'd like to call my dad.”

Greco breathed a sigh of relief.

“OK. You will get your phone calls,” he said.

“What am I being charged with?” Dana asked.

“I—I need to find out a little bit more about where you're coming from 'cause I really don't understand the clear picture either. OK? I need to put this together in my mind,” Greco said.

Dana had verbally agreed to the Miranda rights, but he wanted her to sign the form to prevent a defense attorney months down the road from challenging the interview in court.

He asked for her signature and she signed.

“OK, Dana,” Greco said. “Can you tell me in your own words why you think we're talking today?”

“Well, it obviously has something, um, to do with the search warrant,” Dana said. “With, with June.”

“OK.”

“With June Roberts.”

“OK,” he said.

“That's what I saw on the search warrant,” Dana said. “It was a little description. That's why they were searching my house.”

“OK, how do you feel about talking to me about that?”

“I'm comfortable,” Dana said. “I just, I don't understand, you know, why you guys are talking to me in connection with her.” Dana started to cry again. “I mean, she's been a longtime friend. She went to our wedding. I met her husband before he died. And you know, we talked a lot about health stuff because she was really knowledgeable. She used to help me with recipes and stuff like that.”

Greco let her cry for a few moments, watching her. This is just the beginning, he thought. Dana's display of raw emotion suggested that she finally realized she'd been caught. None of those tears were for June. She was crying for herself.

“If you had anything to do with this, OK, I want you to tell me now,” Greco said.

“Do with what?”

“What do you understand about what we were looking for?”

“I understand they were looking for stuff of June's in my house,” Dana said. “But I don't know what.”

“Basically, we were looking for items that were purchased, OK, so if you had anything to do with that, I need, I need to know now,” Greco said.

“Purchased what?” Dana said. “I mean, ‘items that were purchased'?”

“Yes,” Greco said.

“I don't understand.”

“With June's credit card. OK? So you don't know who did this?”

“Who did?”

“Did this with June's credit cards,” Greco said.

“No, I don't.”

“OK. Do you have any idea who did it?”

“I have no idea,” Dana said. “I'm kinda still in shock over that, you know. It was a big deal for our family.”