Killer Triggers

  Also by Joe Kenda

  I WILL FIND YOU:

  Solving Killer Cases from My Life Fighting Crime

  Copyright © 2021 by Joe Kenda

  E-book published in 2021 by Blackstone Publishing

  Cover design by Kathryn Galloway English

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced

  or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the

  publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental

  and not intended by the author.

  Trade e-book ISBN 978-1-982678-37-1

  Library e-book ISBN 978-1-982678-36-4

  True Crime / Murder / General

  CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress

  Blackstone Publishing

  31 Mistletoe Rd.

  Ashland, OR 97520

  www.BlackstonePublishing.com

  I dedicate this book to my wife, Kathy;

  our son, Dan; and our daughter, Kris,

  because they were kind enough to stand by me over the years

  despite the toll taken by my career in pursuit of killers. I’m doing my best

  to make it up to them by sharing in the rewards of my more recent—

  unlikely and totally unexpected—second career as a true-crime

  television show host and author.

  CHAPTER ONE:

  A Runner’s Fatal Walk

  the trigger: money

  Once I became the lieutenant in charge of the homicide division, my role was like that of a symphony conductor. I’d walk into the scene of a murder and try to pick up on the melody so that I could orchestrate the investigation.

  My team of detectives were like symphony musicians. They each had distinct talents and levels of experience. My job was to get them to work in harmony. Sometimes, things went smoothly. Other times, we’d have to stop and start over, maybe even more than once.

  As the conductor, I had to monitor our progress and make sure we were all in tune and in sync while moving toward a resolution. Murder investigations rarely compare to beautiful music. They are more like a cacophony of clashing notes, but it is in the clashing that crimes are solved—clashing alibis, clashing eyewitness reports, and clashing interrogations.

  We didn’t like complications, but we were very good at sorting things out. This case from 1993 had many complications. It began when our 911 operators received a call from an east-side laundromat operator who reported that a customer had found a man shot in a nearby shopping center parking lot.

  “A lady came in and told us we should come outside, and we saw a woman bent over an older man giving him CPR and screaming, ‘Breathe, motherfucker! Breathe!’ ” the caller said.

  Our officers rushed to the scene and found an older man dressed in pink running shorts, a red T-shirt, and fancy running shoes. He had been shot once. The small-caliber bullet passed through his left arm and into his chest. Although he had been breathing when the woman found him, he died shortly after our EMTs took him to the hospital.

  His wallet and its contents were intact, and his driver’s license identified him as Robert Elshire, seventy-one, of Heber Springs, Arkansas. My guys also found a card from a local executive-suites hotel, room 2G, which was within walking distance of the crime scene.

  I sent a couple of detectives over to check it out.

  As these initial reports came in, I tapped my baton and asked my team of detectives to answer the first flurry of questions that came to mind:

  Who killed Robert Elshire, and why?

  What was this midwestern guy even doing in my town?

  And what the hell was the deal with the dozens of neon-colored packets of condoms scattered all around the crime scene and along the killer’s apparent flight path?

  We’ve found a lot of crazy stuff at crime scenes, but the six-months’ supply of condoms was a strange twist. At that point, we had no idea whether they were connected to the murder.

  We rounded up several witnesses who had seen two young males, one Black and one Black or Hispanic, running from the parking lot after the shooting. One woman was driving by when the two suspects ran from the scene. She had to hit the brakes to avoid hitting one of them. She got a good look at him, saying he’d worn a bandanna over his face and gray pants.

  Several others in the area heard Mr. Elshire yelling before a shot was fired. Then they heard a younger man scream out before running away and joining another across the street.

  Early indications were that Mr. Elshire might have resisted during an attempted robbery. We would soon learn that this World War II veteran, union electrician, and fitness enthusiast wasn’t easily intimidated. He was a strong, tough guy, but he’d taken a bullet directly to his heart. It had passed through his left arm and into his chest, where it punctured his lung, passed through his heart, and lodged in his spine.

  breaking bad news

  There is no easy way to break the news to the family of a murder victim. We receive no training for it, but we take it upon ourselves to do it as gently as possible. Otherwise, the coroner would do it, and that was the worst possibility. They’d just call family members and say, “Your son is dead.” It was that cold.

  I always tried to soften the blow somehow, which was futile most of the time. The heart never heals from this sort of tragedy.

  As a homicide detective, all too often you find yourself standing on the front porch, in a cheap suit and holding a badge, and then the door opens and you can see it on their faces. Someone is not home who should be home. They haven’t heard from a family member who usually calls. They know it’s coming, and you have to be the bearer of the worst news they’ll ever hear.

  I’m very sorry to inform you that your (fill in the blank) is no longer alive.

  I never said “killed” or “murdered,” because those words are like bullets. I’d just say they were no longer alive, and wait for the reaction. I’ve seen all types. Some people just stare at you. Some laugh nervously. Some scream, or collapse, or punch the messenger.

  I always told my guys just to do it quickly, gently, and as simply as possible, and then be prepared for anything and everything in response. You just never know whether the loved ones will collapse on you, turn on you, or throw you out the door. In another murder investigation, when we told a woman her husband had been killed, she grabbed a rookie detective’s tie and went down, yanking him to the ground and nearly strangling the poor guy.

  In this case, our detectives pulled into the hotel parking lot and saw a woman on the balcony outside room 2G. She looked distraught, especially after she spotted their car.

  “That must be his wife, looking for him,” one of our detectives told the other.

  Helen Elshire opened the apartment door with her hand in front of her mouth.

  “Oh, God, what has happened to my husband!”

  One detective embraced her immediately because he was afraid she might collapse in grief.

  “Your husband was shot in an apparent robbery attempt,” he told her.

  She slumped against the hallway wall. Her knees buckled, so our detective held her tighter. She convulsed with sobs and moans.

  “How bad is he hurt?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid he did not survive the gunshot wound to his chest,” the detective said.

  You won’t often see a television or movie detective serving as a compassionate grief counselor, but that is part of the job, too. Some are better at it than others, of course, an
d this detective was a very empathetic guy.

  He waited patiently for Mrs. Elshire to gather herself, at least momentarily, and then he offered to help her reach out to other members of the immediate family. He knew that the poor woman needed to do it before he could question her.

  In this case, our guy went above and beyond. He even helped Mrs. Elshire find her family phone book and stood by while she called several relatives. He later arranged for a police chaplain and members of the Senior Victim Assistance Team to talk with them and to stay with Mrs. Elshire that night since she had no family members in town.

  Spouses and other family members have been known to die of grief upon losing a loved one. We did not want that to happen.

  Mrs. Elshire’s mourning was all the deeper because, as she told us that night, her husband had left the safety of their hotel room to go to the Walgreens to get her some antacid pills for her upset stomach.

  We had found them and a local newspaper in a paper bag alongside his body.

  Mrs. Elshire also told us that she and her husband had come to town just a couple of days earlier.

  “He wanted to run in the Pikes Peak Marathon one more time,” said his wife of forty-eight years. “He’d run it four times in the past, sat out a couple years, and planned on making this his last trip up the mountain.”

  the trigger

  Robert Elshire was a very fit man for his age, but the single gunshot had done extensive damage once it entered his chest. Smaller-caliber bullets tend to ricochet around inside the body, while more powerful rounds will go straight through. If the larger-caliber bullet doesn’t hit any vital organs, chances of survival are pretty good. That’s not the case with the less powerful ammunition commonly carried by young street criminals.

  They are more concerned about protecting themselves than hurting anyone else. They get these Saturday night specials on the cheap. Most are traded, stolen, and passed around constantly. We always figured if a gun was stolen in a burglary, it would change hands at least ten times in the first two days. Trying to control their movement is a fantasy. There are too many of them out there already, and they aren’t owned by law-abiding citizens.

  Armed robbers wave a gun in the face of their targets to scare them into complying. They don’t usually intend to shoot them, but if the victim fails to comply, resists, or somehow “disrespects” them, they may fire out of fear.

  Yeah, it’s crazy, but that’s the way these idiots think. And they’ve got the gun, so it’s their way or else. If you don’t make a move that scares them—or insult their sensitive souls—and just hand over your wallet and watch or whatever, you have a decent chance of avoiding injury or death.

  Maybe. Don’t hold me to that.

  The other danger is that the trigger pulls on those cheap guns are very light. Many automatically cock when a bullet is in the chamber, and you can’t tell whether it’s cocked by looking at it. Not that many of these brainless street bandits ever had any gun training, which makes them all the more dangerous with these cheap weapons.

  They don’t train, and they don’t plan. They just grab a gun, walk up to a stranger, and demand cash. These robbers did not plot this out over several weeks or days—or even hours. They couldn’t plan a party of one.

  That’s the sad part of this. The Elshire family lost their patriarch, by all accounts a good man, because a couple of dopes needed rent money, booze money, or drug money.

  dumb and dumber get axed

  Now, you may think me cruel and disparaging to label our two suspects “dopes,” but within just a few hours after killing a beloved husband, father, and upstanding person, they proved themselves to be dopes of the first order. If they had simply holed up somewhere or found a way to get the hell out of town, we might never have nabbed them.

  Instead, the bozos returned to the scene of their crime, which usually happens only on television shows like CSI Dubuque. Okay, it does happen from time to time, which is why we always keep an eye on any crowd gathered around a crime scene.

  We do the same at funerals and burials. If we have reason to believe the killer might show up, we’ll have a guy tucked away in a van or behind a tree, taking videos and photos. Sometimes, perps feel remorse and have this strange need to apologize or at least show they’re sorry. Not every killer is cold-blooded. Some are capable of remorse.

  Others may just want to see the person they killed put into the ground. More twisted killers may want to see the family and friends grieving. This is particularly true in arson cases. Arsonists are known to enjoy watching the suffering and horror they created.

  We do surveillance and, afterward, go over the video and the photos, trying to identify everyone there. On occasion, we will identify a suspect at a funeral or graveside service. But that happens mostly on television.

  And yet, three and a half hours into our investigation of this murder, while searching the area near the parking lot, one of our sharp-eyed K-9 patrol beasts spotted two teens on the run.

  Earlier, the dog and its handler, Officer Matthews, had found more of the mystery condom packets scattered near a fence by a condominium complex. He figured they may have jumped the fence or ditched the gun nearby, so he returned to search more thoroughly.

  The four-legged partner of this K-9 team was a black German shepherd named Ax—a beautiful beast who was very good at his job. He was an aggressive alpha dog and didn’t take shit from anyone, human or otherwise. Most other dogs wouldn’t go anywhere near him, and even Officer Matthews was a little scared of Ax.

  And yet, for some reason, Ax loved me.

  I found that very endearing. He really was a very smart animal. If I even just whispered his name, Ax would come running, wagging his tail.

  He never wagged his tail at anyone else.

  “How do you do that?” his handler would say.

  “I believe we are kindred souls,” I’d reply.

  Officer Matthews did not disagree with that.

  Ax must have felt the same way, because he was very protective of me. For example, when I took my friend Kenny on a crime scene visit one time, Ax was either jealous or sensed that Kenny was in real estate. He growled at him several times.

  “What the hell kind of animal is that?” Kenny asked.

  Ax had that effect on people, which was a good thing.

  The giant black beast glared at Kenny as if to say, “Who the fuck are you?”

  Kenny nearly shit himself.

  “Just don’t make any sudden moves, especially in my direction,” I whispered to him. “Ax is my wingman, and he’s vicious.”

  The entire time we were at the crime scene, Ax kept checking out Kenny, glaring at him with a look that said, “I don’t know you, so watch your ass, because I sure am.”

  I’m a big fan of police dogs. They perform a great service, and I have no doubt that they’ve saved many lives. I especially loved Ax. Some said we had the same personality. I actually tried to adopt Ax when they retired him, but his hips had given out and his big heart had weakened. They had to put him down. It was very sad because that dog was a real hero.

  In the Elshire case, when Officer Matthews put Ax on the trail of our suspects that night, the shepherd suddenly stopped and gave a bark alert. His handler followed the dog’s line of sight and saw two young males who matched our suspects’ description.

  Yes, Dopey and Dopey-er had returned to the scene of their crime. It wasn’t out of guilt or any desire to turn themselves in. They were just looking for the three guns they had ditched, because the gangbanger they borrowed them from wanted them back.

  Apparently, they were more afraid of pissing off that guy than getting caught and sent to prison. Stupid criminals often made my job easier—just not often enough.

  The two sprinted in opposite directions, but Officer Matthews cornered one of them and threatened to unleash Ax. That was all it took. Eve
n a really stupid kid can figure out that surrendering is better than being ripped to shreds by a massive German shepherd.

  Our guys swarmed the neighborhood, and the second kid quickly gave himself up, too. We cuffed them and took them in for separate interrogations.

  Then the real fun began.

  lie detection

  One of the suspects was Allan Lucero, age seventeen. The other turned out to be Darnell E. Dimond, though he gave a fake name at first. This was not a big surprise. Young assholes on the street follow the standard juvenile-dirtbag code: “Never tell an adult the truth.”

  Kids begin lying to their parents shortly after they learn to speak. I’ve suspected that they plan their lies while still in the womb.

  “No, I didn’t eat that cookie. Doggie did!”

  If the parents let it go, thinking it’s cute or not important, the kid thinks, I lied and it worked!

  That sort of parenting breeds the kids like those who shot Robert Elshire. That shouldn’t shock you, but the parents of juveniles always seem stunned when we arrest their darlings and say, “Your child is a criminal.”

  The parents look at us like, “How can that be?”

  Well, it is the result of parenting without penalties. If your child lies and no punishment is rendered, the lies will continue, and they will grow as the child grows. The only way to really get to a child is through fear. They must fear the consequences of bad behavior. Many people don’t believe in corporal punishment, and that’s fine, but your kids must at least fear your disapproval and disappointment, if nothing else.

  Most of the successful people I know were spanked as kids, but they claim the thing they feared most was disappointing the parents who cared so deeply for them. Criminals rarely spring from that sort of parenting.

  The people we arrest, juveniles included, likely come from broken or otherwise messed-up families, and they are practiced liars. The kids will lie out of instinct and out of self-preservation—even out of habit.