“So I’m like, ‘That’s it?’ ” She giggled. “I mean, that wasn’t a big deal after everything that had happened, you know. I’m like, ‘Okay, Will. I don’t care about the money.’ I said, ‘Okay, I forgive you for lying to me about how you lost your money.’ So then I said, ‘Wait a minute. So what’ve you been doing all this time?’
“And he says, he’s still been doing work for the CIA. It’s just been undercover, under another boss, and . . . it’s not approved by the President. It’s just a boss paying him to do these killings, in these countries and stuff. So it’s like—mercenary killings?
“. . . And he said that’s why he was really gonna leave. It wasn’t because I accused him of lying; it was because he had been a liar. And yet he was lying more.” Martin chuckled. Then her chuckle rolled into laughter. “That’s the ironic thing. He sat out there and made up a big, big lie to cover up the other ones, and then was upset that I—he had lied. God,” she moaned, “he’s unbelievable.”
Martin talked about getting Hatton’s truck out of impound. Breathlessly she said she had nearly told Todd Brunner about the murder, while getting the cash from him for Bernie’s towing services. “I was so close.... I wanted to tell somebody.” She laughed. “Half the time I was with Will and this was happening, I wanted away from him, and away from the whole situation, I wanted to tell my parents. But then the other half, I loved him. . . . I could see no wrong in him. I wanted to stick it out with him all the way....
“And so, every—anytime I’d entertain the thought, I would just put it out.... I was more dedicated to Will than telling. So, when . . . with Todd”—she stuttered—“I came close. And you know why I didn’t?” Martin swallowed. “Because I thought if I told him”—she began to giggle—“. . . he would say something to Will, and then Will would kill him. And then kill me.
“. . . I didn’t think I could trust Todd to be quiet. I figured Todd would go out there and say, ‘You bastard, da-da-da-da,” you know. . . . I didn’t know if I wanted to tell him anyway. So, I didn’t.”
That night, said Martin, they drove to the movies and checked to see if there were any Cinemark theaters in Colorado. She laughed and stated that they had planned to hide out in the mountains. “And, of course, we thought we were also going to be changing our names, disguising ourselves, all that.”
They stayed at the theater and watched the movie
Demon Knight.
She chuckled at the name of the movie. “We thought we could get into it and relax and take our mind off things. Sad, huh?
Demon Knight,
right.
“Then we went back home. Got something to eat. We were always getting something to eat because I wasn’t in the mood to cook,” she explained, with a light and facetious laugh, “to say the least.”
Nor, she said, was she in the mood to make love. “But at one point, [Will] wanted to. It was like on a Thursday. It was like Thursday or Friday, a few days after the murder. I remember that he kinda tried to [make love], but—” She laughed. “I was always willing in the past, okay. We had wonderful—we had a good sex life, right. But I didn’t want to. I didn’t.
“And there was, uh.” Martin stuttered and stumbled again. “I didn’t”—She paused. “It’s not that I was”—she groaned—“I don’t know how to explain it.” She thought. “From—from the murder on out, like I said, things were weird for us. There was a dark mood. We were . . . not close. We weren’t huggy. We weren’t kissy.”
The cops who watched the EZ Pawn video disagreed.
“It was a horrible thing that had happened, and we were feeling the effects of it.... That’s what I felt. I don’t know about him. . . . I think he was too—feeling the effects of it. But I think he was also more in another world, too.”
The late-afternoon noises of prison life began. Doors slammed. People yelled.
Former friends had said Martin had wanted to kill someone, that she had been excited by the thought.
“Being around a dead body,” laughed Martin, when told of the idea. “Up until—it was. All the adrenaline was pumping those few days before it happened. All of that was exciting. All of that was real exciting. But after he shot him, cleaning up the dead body, and being around all that blood, no, that was not fun. That was not fun. Wasn’t fun at all.”
It was time for Stephanie Martin to be led back to her cell.
Epilogue
Just after Independence Day, 1999, Lieutenant Rick Whitehead of the Travis County Sheriffs Office walked into his office and tossed onto his desk a completed FBI case profile. Unknown to Stephanie Martin, Whitehead had been at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, profiling her and Will Busenburg.
“Neither one of them, Martin or Busenburg, is telling the truth,” he said, leaning back in his swivel chair. “Chris Hatton was probably bound and tortured.” Whitehead backed up and stated that “tortured” was, perhaps, too strong a word.
“They messed with him for a couple of days trying to get the money out of him. . . . They bound him and coerced him . . . before they finally got frustrated and killed him.”
That belief, he stated, was based on the adhesive tape residue on Chris Hatton’s mouth and the ligature marks on his wrists.
Whitehead admitted, however, that liberties had been taken in coming to such conclusions—limited information had been utilized, officers’ reports, the autopsy, and photographs.
Still, there was one certainty, believed Whitehead. Martin and Busenburg consistently lied and continue to lie.
As proof, Whitehead pointed to his FBI study on statement analysis. “It works best if you’re the suspect but claiming to be the victim,” he noted. Stephanie Martin had first claimed to be the victim of attempted rape.
The way an alleged victim writes his or her statement, the words he or she uses, the order of the words he or she uses, raises flags, Whitehead explained. If Stephanie Martin had said “I,” then stuttered and stumbled and changed it to “he” or “we,” her subconscious had been voicing the truth the first time.
The same, said Whitehead, applied to where Martin gazed while speaking. According to the officer’s studies, if Martin had stared at the wall rather than the interrogator while talking, that indicated deception.
“I thought it was right in line with what we suspected,” said Detective Manuel Mancias of Whitehead’s report. He recalled Martin’s statements to others that she had wanted to know what it was like to blow someone’s head off. “And lo and behold, poor Chris Hatton gets his head blown off.”
To Detective Mancias, there was little difference between saying one wanted to blow someone’s head off and clarifying that one
simply wanted to know,
or was curious about, what it felt like to kill someone.
But many would disagree: Sandra and Robert Martin; private investigator Drew McAngus; and, of course, Stephanie Martin.
Author’s Notes
“If you’re a woman and if you meet someone who says they have everything, do not take it at face value without some solid verification from somebody else,” said Robert Martin, as he sat in his Round Rock living room. He paused and thought. “I guess that’s what went wrong. But that doesn’t justify what happened. That just tells you how she got to know him and met him and he moved into her apartment. That doesn’t justify her not running like hell after what happened, as soon as it happened.”
As I researched and wrote WAGES OF SIN, I was wracked with worry over what we could learn from this crime . . . because for me, there is no reason to write true crime unless we can learn something from it.
Continually, I asked the friends, the family, the investigators, the lawyers, “Is there a moral or a message to this story?” Each time, they shook their heads and looked at me blankly.
Then, as I sat with Stephanie Martin for the very first time and heard her version of the events, focusing that day on Will Busenburg’s stories, I too shook my head and stared blankly. “Lord, how could this girl believe this stuff?” I muttered in my mind.
Stephanie shivered from too-cold air conditioning. The guard, bored, and also freezing, joked a bit. And I, crazed by the fact that Stephanie could believe such “stuff,” suddenly realized I knew a woman who’d dated a guy who’d hinted that he’d been in the CIA. Like Stephanie, my friend had bought it.
Months later, I was on a radio show promoting my previous book, WASTED, and talking about abuse and denial and how they combine to destroy lives, when, WHAM, came the phrase “Con Men of Love.” I suddenly knew what WAGES OF SIN was about—women (and men) who look successful and confident on the surface, but who, underneath, are so lonely, frustrated, and scared that they will believe anything to be loved and accepted.
Often, they subconsciously are seeking self-confidence by being with someone they perceive as being more successful and exciting than they. So, they are attracted to con men of love.
I remembered another woman I know who’d been swept away by her lover’s outrageous stories and I realized that this is a very common occurrence. Try to point out the inconsistencies in the boyfriend’s stories and the reply is often, “Why would he lie to me? What can he gain from me? I have no money to give him.”
They follow those lines by talking about how perfect, wonderful, successful, and changed the boyfriend is—just like Stephanie’s love had changed Will.
I thought about what my friends and Stephanie have in common. Stephanie’s father admits that he slapped her and yelled at her. My friends have fathers who physically or verbally abused them. And I’m back to abuse and denial combine to destroy lives.
Since then, I’ve talked to others who have worked in strip clubs and I’ve learned that the CIA line is frequently used and often believed. I’ve read about men who are sucked into financial schemes and defrauded of their life savings. Frequently, the con artist says to them, “I’ve got CIA clearance.”
1) If someone says they work for the CIA, run! If they work for the CIA, unless they’re a receptionist, secretary, or the like, they can’t be telling people what they do!
2) If your father hurt you physically or emotionally, find a qualified therapist and go.
3) If you find yourself asking, “What does he (or she) have to gain from me? I have no money,” reply, “Self-esteem. He (or she) can take self-esteem from me.” That’s what Will Busenburg got from Stephanie—it made him feel “big” that he could get a stripper because Chris Hatton had told him that strippers were really hard to get.
4) If someone shows up at your door who seems to be in costume, remember that costume shops are open year-round. If they have degrees or certificates on their walls that back up their claims (or stuffed in their closets to purposely look nonchalant), remember desktop publishing is easy and there are copy shops on every corner.
5) If friends you have loved and trusted for years try to talk to you about a new love in your life, breathe deeply, and listen . . . without trying to defend. Love can be blind. And in that state, we often believe only what we want to believe. In times like that, friends can be perfect eyes.
6) Find yourself a Ben Masselink.
Everyone needs a Ben Masselink in their lives. Ben was my professor at the University of Southern California Masters of Professional Writing program. He became my friend, then my mentor, and finally my hero and father figure. I didn’t realize that, though, until he died in January of 2000.
I always called Ben my “Zen Marine” because he was an old, drunken Marine who got himself sober and swam every day off the Pacific with a hook and line tied to his toe. That’s the way he caught his supper. And that’s the way he lived. Enjoying nature while moving forward and working.
He wasn’t perfect and never claimed to be. He typed his manuscripts on a collection of old Underwoods so that keys missed their marks and sometimes didn’t print at all and typos were left uncorrected. But his words were always filled with humor, love, passion, and encouragement.
Every letter Ben wrote to me for the past ten years always said, “You can do it! You’re almost there! Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. love, love, love, love, Ben.”
He loved me unconditionally.
Everybody needs a Ben Masselink in their lives. Chris Hatton. Will Busenburg. Stephanie Martin.
Just months before Ben died, he told me he’d written the Lesley Ann Warren TV movie, “Portrait of a Stripper.” We laughed because with that we knew we were bound for life.
To Ben Masselink, thank you for helping me with this life.
To my mother, my sister Siba, my aunt Jeane, and my best buddy Beth, thank you for being there for me every day. I couldn’t survive without any of you.
To Karen Haas, this book wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for you. Thank you. Paul Dinas, you keep me smiling.
Most of all, thanks to Jane Dystel. God intervened when Paul sent me to you. And I am most sincerely blessed.
Heartfelt thanks to Holly Frischkorn, Lisa Pace, Glenn Conway, Elizabeth Conway, Cathy Blackson, and Marni Broyles for sharing their love, sorrow, and loss with me. I know it wasn’t easy.
Holly, thank you for your kindnesses to me and your concern for my family. You’re in my prayers.
As Will Busenburg declined my invitations for an interview, thank you to Holly, Glenn, Marni, and Lisa for giving me insight. Thank you to Mike Wright of the Texas Baptist Children’s Home for giving me a tour and a glimpse of life there. It is a loving organization worthy of your donations—P.O. Box 7, Round Rock, Texas 78780-0007.
A very special thanks to Allison Wetzel and Frank Bryan who painstakingly read me their interviews with Will Busenburg, providing me with his side of the story, and Stephanie Martin.
Thanks also to Chris Gunter who talked to me about Will, and Ira Davis and Drew McAngus, who talked to me about Stephanie.
Stephanie, herself, spent hours and hours with me over three days, as well as writing me countless pages of letters, and permitting me unrestricted access to her attorney and her letters to Will, other inmates, and her parents.
Thanks to Robert and Sandra Martin, who shared their love and hurt, as well as Roxy Ricks. I wish you the best, Roxy. You’ve overcome a lot and have a lot going for you.
Thanks to park ranger Michael Brewster, court reporter Jim King, Rosalinda Fiero from the Travis County District Attorney’s office, and TCSO officer Dolly Day. Dolly provided me with photographs and hundreds of pages of reports and letters. She put up with me for more hours than anyone should have to.
Mark Daughn provided the photos of Stephanie Martin as well as insight into the life of strip clubs. Thank you. Thanks also to Don King, manager of the Yellow Rose, for not throwing me out of the club and a special thanks to David Marion Wilkinson and Frank Campbell for accompanying me to the Rose. I know that was tough research, fellas.
Detectives Manny Mancias, Tim Gage, and Lieutenant Rick Whitehead were more than generous in their help. Sgt. Mancias, thank you for your patience.
Jim Bob McMillan, executive director of the Austin Writers’ League, thank you always for your constant support.
And a very special thanks goes to my favorite novelist Louise Redd. The words you write inspire me, make me laugh, make me cry, make me work harder, and make me applaud you both as an author and a friend.