Sandra Martin looked at her daughter. “Stephanie, people are thinking you murdered him.” Her words were slow and deliberate.
“Mother, no one could believe I would murder someone.”
“Yes, Stephanie. They are believing it.”
“Mother, you don’t understand. Will can’t go to prison. If he went to prison, he would die.”
Mrs. Martin knew Stephanie was referring to Will’s incurable, deadly disease. Stephanie had already had her parents call Will’s mother to see if she could get him something to help his stomach.
Sandra Martin remembered how Stephanie had told her that Will Busenburg was everything she’d ever dreamed—caring, gentle, loving. “If he asked me to marry him today, I would do it.” He was perfect. “Plus, he needs me. He’s had such a bad life.”
She shook her head and sighed the frustrated sigh that only a mother can do.
Jon Noyes sat across from Detective Tommy Wooley and thought about the dances Stephanie Martin had danced in his lap, the kisses she’d placed on his skin.
“I only had about three total meetings with her,” said Noyes. “All of them were while she was working at the Yellow Rose. During this time, she called me at my house a few times.
“The last time I spoke to her was last August, when I ran into her at the Yellow Rose. She was always nice and friendly. But she seemed to always have some emotional problems and seemed depressed. She told me once that she was on antidepressants.”
They had some long conversations, said Noyes, and the last time he saw her was in late August, at the Rose. “This is when she told me she had met this guy who had been a hit man for the CIA, and that he had taken her to his house one night after work and he had showed her weapons and explained to her how he had killed people all over the world.
“She was very taken by this. She seemed impressed, as if this was some excitement that needed to be brought out in her. During the course of the conversation, she told me that she really wanted to kill someone. When she told me this, I asked her what she meant by this, and she said that she wanted someone to come into her house so she could blow his head off.”
Noyes added, “I never really thought anything of it at the time . . . until I saw it in the newspaper yesterday. I didn’t even know Stephanie’s last name until I saw her photo in the paper.”
Every time the Martins turned on the television or flipped open the newspaper, they saw the same thing about their daughter—Stephanie Martin, the topless dancer at the Yellow Rose; Stephanie Martin, the exotic dancer at the Yellow Rose; Stephanie Martin, the stripper at the Yellow Rose.
It irritated the hell out of the Martins that their daughter was portrayed as nothing but a stripper. “What does that have to do with what happened?” ranted Robert Martin. “Nothing.”
Nineteen
From county jail, Stephanie Martin finally phoned Roxy Ricks.
“Stephanie, what the hell’s going on?”
Martin relayed the rape and self-defense murder story.
“That sucks,” said Roxy, “but I’m sure you’re gonna get out.”
“Yeah, in about a week. A week or two, I’ll be out. Then I’ll tell you all the rest, and I’ll explain it. This will blow over. It’s no big deal.”
Roxy Ricks didn’t really believe her friend had murdered Chris Hatton. But something inside of her just knew that Stephanie Martin had cut off Chris Hatton’s hands.
Ricks stared through the glass partition at the Del Valle jail facility that separated her from Stephanie. There was a glare that hampered her view, so she leaned to the left and tried for a better angle.
“It was all Will’s idea to cut Chris’s hands off,” said Martin.
Roxy nodded. She remembered that Busenburg had read
Gorky Park,
a story where hands were cut off and teeth knocked out to hide the identities of victims.
Martin tapped nervously on the window and looked away. “I cut off his hands.”
Roxy looked up, despair wrinkling her face. “But, Stephanie, why? Why’d you do that?” As much as Ricks desperately yearned to deny it, she couldn’t anymore—her best friend had a dark side. “I heard that Chris’s head had been cut off,” she said.
“No,” answered Martin. “I shot him at such a range that his head was blown off.”
The next day, Gary Thompson, Hatton’s supervisor at Capitol Beverage and the man who had provided the cops with Hatton’s Social Security number, met Detective Mancias, in person, for the first time.
“Over the last few months,” said Thompson, “I became close with Chris to the point that he would come and visit me at my home. During this time, I never knew Chris to complain about his work. He was a good worker and was very reliable and he never missed a day of work.
“Chris was a quiet person, very quiet, but at the same time he was very well liked by his fellow workers and myself. I never knew Chris to be one that drank a lot or even to get drunk. I never heard him talk openly about being with women or make sexual remarks.
“Chris opened up to me and he told me about prior troubles in his life involving the death of his father and the trouble with his mother. I remember when Chris mentioned to me that he had moved into an apartment with someone, but he never told me who. At first Chris would tell me about him and his roommate and everything sounded as though things were good for him.
“But about three weeks ago, Chris began to mention to me that his roommate had begun to start dating a topless dancer and he was beginning to act ‘weird.’ ”
“You mean the roommate or Chris?”
“The roommate. Chris also mentioned to me that his roommate was coming and going out of the apartment, but hadn’t moved out. About that same time, Chris began to mention to me that there was some girl that was calling him and hassling him.
“Chris never did tell me why the girl was bothering him or who she was. Also around this time, Chris told me that he no longer had a phone, therefore for me to call him on his pager.”
Thompson wiped his brow; he had cared for Chris.
“The last time I spoke with Chris was when he called me at home from one of the stores and told me that he was running a little late.”
“When was the last time he worked?”
“Sunday, the eighth of January, when he checked out with another manager around nine-thirty
P.M
. On Wednesday, the eleventh, I was at work when the sales manager, David Miller, called me around noon and told me that Chris hadn’t shown up to work. I began to page Chris on his pager, but I never heard from him. When I got home that evening, I called Chris some more on his pager again, but again he didn’t return the calls.”
Thompson looked around. The room seemed awful hot for January.
“By this time, I began to feel that something was wrong, because this wasn’t like Chris. On Thursday, when Chris didn’t show up to work, again I really felt that something was wrong. It wasn’t until I read or saw the news, and they gave a physical description, that I began to believe that the person who was found dead might be Chris.
“On Friday, I continued to call him throughout the day, but I never got a call from him. That evening, when I got home around five
P.M
., I was still feeling that something was wrong with Chris. After a while, I went out driving around by myself in order to think. A while later, I saw some Round Rock police officers at a convenience store, and I decided to stop and talk to them.”
Thompson asked them if they knew where Holly Frischkorn was working.
At 7:30 that evening, Mancias sat down with June Conway, while Sawa sat down with her son Glenn. Once again, they told the detectives about Chris’s concern that Busenburg was dealing drugs and Chris’s lack of trust of Busenburg’s topless-dancing girlfriend.
June Conway specifically noted, “After reading in the newspapers the accusations Stephanie Martin said about the sexual advances Chris had allegedly done, I am not able to believe that. I have known Chris for eight years, and he never made any type of advances on my fifteen-year-old daughter. I would even trust him enough that he would stay at my house alone with my daughter while I was out of the house.”
Night after night, Glenn Conway Jr. was having nightmares of Chris standing at the sliding glass doors to the backyard and Chris trying to get into the house. Glenn always woke before he could get to the door and give Chris a welcoming hug and a “hello, brother.”
Conway kept that all inside as he talked to Sawa. “I never really considered Will a friend mostly due to the fact that he had a tendency to be both a liar and self-centered.”
The following day, Friday, January 20, 1995, Mancias talked with witness after witness.
Jennifer Luengas was another chemistry class study partner of Martin’s. She, too, had met Busenburg and had heard the many stories about the CIA and millions of dollars.
“It was during this time,” said Luengas, “that Stephanie began to tell me about Will’s roommate. She described him—I believe his name was Chris—as one who was emotionally disturbed. Stephanie would tell me that she didn’t like Chris and on numerous occasions she would call him an ‘asshole.’ Stephanie also told me that Chris was being a ‘leech’ and that Will was paying all the bills.
“Once while I was with Stephanie in the rear parking lot of the Riverside campus [of Austin Community College], she took out a large rifle-type gun. The gun was underneath the seat area of the truck, which was Will’s truck. She told me that she had gotten stopped by a cop and that she was worried about going to jail, because she didn’t have a permit for it.
“When Stephanie talked about her and Will, she told me how even though she had had a previous relationship that was bad, she felt different about Will. Stephanie told me that when Will and her would make love, it was the first time that she really enjoyed making love to another [person]. Stephanie once made the comment that ‘he needs me as much as I need him.’ ”
“I’m calling,” said Shawn Murphy, a coworker of Hatton’s, “because I keep seeing in the news that Stephanie Martin is accusing Chris of attempting to sexually assault her. I want to let you know that he was a shy and nice guy.
“I’ve gone out with him to the Post Oak”—a local country bar—“and the whole time we were there he drank maybe two beers. He’s not the type that would provoke anger out of anyone.”
“Chris was shy, nice, and sweet,” Karen Remmert, another coworker of Hatton’s, said to Mancias over the phone. “I recall that at our Christmas party, a bunch of us decided to go to the Lumberyard and continue partying. Chris went. He just kind of stood in the background alone. He was being quiet.”
“Did he get drunk?”
“No. He even turned down drinks when people offered them to him.”
“Was he the type of person who made sexual advances?”
“No. I know another female employee who liked Chris. She eventually quit trying to get his attention because he was so shy and hardly ever made any conversation.”
Roxy Ricks warily sat down with Mancias. She was predisposed to hate cops due to her father’s deadly run-in with the law.
“Were you ever involved in any black magic with Stephanie?”
“Black magic?” She laughed as though it was a ludicrous question. “No.”
Mancias watched her. Tiny, pretty, sweet smile, she looked more like an earth mother than a topless dancer. He asked her again about black magic.
“No,” she said, “I’m sorry, but no.” Ricks felt like the cop didn’t believe her, and she was irritated.
“Did Martin dabble in the occult?”
“No.” She also felt like he was harping on the subject. Martin had told her that she used to go sit in a cemetery and play with a Ouija board. But that had been during her senior year in high school, after she’d left Oklahoma and Roxy.
“I went to see her on Wednesday,” said Ricks. “She told me it was all Will’s idea to cut off Chris’s hands and cover everything up and not call the police.”
She told Mancias about Todd Brunner and that Martin had tried to borrow a tarp from him.
“Even though I know Stephanie shot someone, I don’t believe she acted alone. Stephanie was very naive, gullible, and easily influenced. Stephanie was also a very trusting person, and easily manipulated. When I last spoke to Stephanie, she told me that she did everything Will told her to do. She also told me that she felt bad about being manipulated by someone who wasn’t who he claimed to be.”
Ricks’s boyfriend, Colby Ford, sat down across from Mancias. “When I met Will and as I talked to him, I knew he wasn’t nothing but a liar.”
Ford was an average-height, nice-looking, dark-headed young man who loved motorcycles. “I feel that Stephanie was so gullible that she would try to protect Will. I feel that Will killed Chris and that somehow Stephanie is covering up for him.
“After Stephanie got arrested, she called Roxy and I at home. Roxy told me that Stephanie said not to say anything bad about Will, in reference to him working for the CIA, because it would just incriminate her.”
Mancias typed up the young man’s statement, Ford signed it, and finally Detective Manuel Mancias left for a weekend off.
Ricks told Ford. “When Stephanie gets out on bond, she can stay with us. No problem.”
“No,” he answered. “She’s not staying here. Nuh-huh. She’s crazy. She’s a murderer.”
“No, she’s not. You don’t understand.”
With the speed of the pulsating music, rumors flew through the Yellow Rose, Sugar’s, and every other topless club in the Austin area.
Martin and Busenburg had hung Hatton up by his ankles, bartenders said. The murder and mutilation were a Satanic ritual, bouncers said. “I don’t know if I want to talk to you,” a customer said to Roxy Ricks as she tried to dance. “You may be one of those crazy dancer girls.”
But the most frightening rumor the dancers spilled, and their customers drank up, was that Martin had cut off Hatton’s penis. “Your friend’s crazy!”
Stephanie Martin was a part of Roxy Ricks. She was her other half. Roxy walked out the doors of the strip joint and didn’t walk back in for a month. She also walked out of her classes at the University of Texas. She just couldn’t concentrate with Martin filling her mind. Roxy needed time to resolve for herself Stephanie’s crime.
Sunday, January 22, 1995, Raymond Busenburg picked up his son’s personal items from the Travis County Sheriffs Office. Those items included some of Chris Hatton’s belongings: his Navy identification card, Social Security card, a temporary Texas driver’s license, a Visa card, Exxon card, and a Sears card.
On Monday Detective Manuel Mancias sat down with Brian Hatton, who was the spitting image of his older brother, with the same sweet smile.
“We moved down from Alabama because our mom had a drinking problem,” said Brian, his accent thick and slow. “My brother and I were pretty close and we would do things together even after he moved out into his own apartment.”
“Did your brother drink much?”
Brian shook his head. “As far as I know, he’s never been drunk. I believe that he didn’t like drinking a lot because of the problem my mom had with her drinking.”
Like everyone else before him, Brian Hatton told Mancias of the problems Hatton had been having with Will Busenburg and Stephanie Martin. “He thought she was kind of weird.”
“When was the last time you saw Chris?”
“Tuesday, the tenth of January, around eight-thirty
P.M
. He called my uncle at the house and he told him that he had broke down in his new truck. Chris told us that he was broken down at the car wash in Round Rock and he needed us to go pick him up. My uncle Bill and I then drove to the car wash and helped him start his truck. It turned out that he needed a new battery, which he bought at the Auto Zone in Round Rock.
“After he bought the battery and started his truck, my brother said he was going to go meet with the person who had sold him the truck in order to sign some papers over. Before Chris left, he told us that he would come to our apartment on Wednesday so he could show us his new truck closer.
“The following day, my uncle paged him throughout the day, but he never called or came by.”
Brian seemed like a good kid.
Long, tall Bill Hatton sat down across from Mancias. Hatton told Mancias about his nephew’s problems in the Navy, the DUI, the discharge.
“On Christmas Eve, I went to Mike’s apartment in order to pick him up and take him with us to my parents’ home.” At that time, Christopher Michael told his uncle about the troubles with his roommate, whom Chris never mentioned by name.