Cruel Death Read online

  HIGHEST PRAISE FOR M. WILLIAM PHELPS

  NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN

  “This riveting book examines one of the most horrific murders in recent American history.” —

  New York Post

  “Phelps clearly shows how the ugliest crimes can take place in the quietest of suburbs.”

  —Library Journal

  “Thoroughly reported . . . The book is primarily a police procedural, but it is also a tribute to the four murder victims.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  TOO YOUNG TO KILL

  “Phelps is the Harlan Coben of real-life thrillers.”

  —Allison Brennan

  LOVE HER TO DEATH

  “Reading anything by Phelps is always an eye opening experience. His writing reads like a fiction mystery novel. The characters are well researched and well written. We have murder, adultery, obsession, lies and so much more.”

  —Suspense Magazine

  “You don’t want to miss Love Her To Death by M. William Phelps, a book destined to be one of 2011’s top true crimes!”

  —True Crime Book Reviews

  “A chilling crime . . . award-winning author Phelps goes into lustrous and painstaking detail, bringing all the players vividly to life.”

  —Crime Magazine

  KILL FOR ME

  “Phelps gets into the blood and guts of the story.”

  —Gregg Olsen, New York Times best-selling author of Fear Collector

  “Phelps infuses his investigative journalism with plenty of energized descriptions.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  DEATH TRAP

  “A chilling tale of a sociopathic wife and mother willing to sacrifice all those around her to satisfy her boundless narcissism . . . a compelling journey from the inside of this woman’s mind to final justice in a court of law. Fair warning: for three days I did little else but read this book.”

  —Harry N. MacLean, New York Times best-selling

  author of In Broad Daylight

  I’LL BE WATCHING YOU

  “Skillfully balances a victim’s story against that of an arrogant killer as it reveals a deviant mind intent on topping the world’s most dangerous criminals. Phelps has an unrelenting sense for detail that affirms his place, book by book, as one of our most engaging crime journalists.”

  —Katherine Ramsland

  IF LOOKS COULD KILL

  “M. William Phelps, one of America’s finest true-crime writers, has written a compelling and gripping book about an intriguing murder mystery. Readers of this genre will thoroughly enjoy this book.”

  —Vincent Bugliosi

  “Starts quickly and doesn’t slow down.... Phelps consistently ratchets up the dramatic tension, hooking readers before they even know they’ve been hooked. His thorough research and interviews give the book a sense of growing complexity, richness of character, and urgency.”

  —Stephen Singular

  MURDER IN THE HEARTLAND

  “Drawing on interviews with law officers and relatives, the author has done significant research and—demonstrating how modern forensics and the Internet played critical, even unexpected roles in the investigation—his facile writing pulls the reader along.”

  —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  “Phelps expertly reminds us that when the darkest form of evil invades the quiet and safe outposts of rural America, the tragedy is greatly magnified. Get ready for some sleepless nights.”

  —Carlton Stowers

  “This is the most disturbing and moving look at murder in rural America since Capote’s In Cold Blood.”

  —Gregg Olsen

  SLEEP IN HEAVENLY PEACE

  “An exceptional book by an exceptional true crime writer. Phelps exposes long-hidden secrets and reveals disquieting truths.”

  —Kathryn Casey

  EVERY MOVE YOU MAKE

  “An insightful and fast-paced examination of the inner workings of a good cop and his bad informant, culminating in an unforgettable truth-is-stranger-than-fiction climax.”

  —Michael M. Baden, M.D.

  “M. William Phelps is the rising star of the nonfiction crime genre, and his true tales of murderers and mayhem are scary-as-hell thrill rides into the dark heart of the inhuman condition.”

  —Douglas Clegg

  LETHAL GUARDIAN

  “An intense roller-coaster of a crime story . . . complex, with a plethora of twists and turns worthy of any great detective mystery, and yet so well-laid out, so crisply written with such detail to character and place that it reads more like a novel than your standard non-fiction crime book.” —Steve Jackson

  —Steve Jackson

  PERFECT POISON

  “True crime at its best—compelling, gripping, an edge-of-the-seat thriller. Phelps packs wallops of delight with his skillful ability to narrate a suspenseful story and his encyclopedic knowledge of police procedures.”

  —Harvey Rachlin

  “A compelling account of terror . . . the author dedicates himself to unmasking the psychopath with facts, insight and the other proven methods of journalistic leg work.”

  —Lowell Cauffiel

  Also By M. William Phelps

  Perfect Poison

  Lethal Guardian

  Every Move You Make

  Sleep in Heavenly Peace

  Murder in the Heartland

  Because You Loved Me

  If Looks Could Kill

  I’ll Be Watching You

  Deadly Secrets

  Cruel Death

  Death Trap

  Kill For Me

  Failures of the Presidents (coauthor)

  Nathan Hale: The Life and Death of America’s First Spy

  The Devil’s Rooming House: The True Story of America’s

  Deadliest Female Serial Killer

  The Devil’s Right Hand: The Tragic Story

  of the Colt Family Curse

  Love Her to Death

  Too Young to Kill

  Never See Them Again

  The Dead Soul: A Thriller (available as e-book only)

  Murder, New England

  Jane Doe No More

  Kiss of the She-Devil

  CRUEL DEATH

  M. WILLIAM PHELPS

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  HIGHEST PRAISE FOR M. WILLIAM PHELPS

  Also by

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  Part 1 - Memories Are Like Raindrops

  1 - Ebb & Flow

  2 - Intuition

  3 - Backtracking

  4 - Moving Forward

  5 - New York Born and Bred

  6 - Third Wheel

  7 - Star Athlete

  8 - The Ghost Husband

  Part II - Snakes, Crocodiles, Drugs, Murder

  9 - Pill Snorter

  10 - Everyone Has Secrets

  11 - Don’t Shoot

  12 - Natural Born Lovers

  13 - Hot Tub

  14 - Stranded

  15 - The 130 Ways to Torture a Person

  16 - Control Freaks

  17 - “911 . . . ?”

  18 - “Guilty Pleasures”

  19 - The Abuse Excuse

  20 - “I’m Sure in My Brain . . .”

  21 - Military Man

  22 - The Civilians

  23 - “What . . . Did You Do?”

  24 - All Jacked Up

  25 - The Inconceivable

  26 - Dump Site

  27 - The Real Me

  28 - Killer Wife

  29 - Fish T
ales

  30 - Purse Strings

  31 - Guns Don’t Kill People . . .

  Part III - Oh, the Mistakes We Made

  32 - Missing

  33 - Greene Turtle

  34 - Busted

  35 - Hostages

  36 - There Are No Coincidences

  37 - Probable Cause

  38 - The Robot

  39 - The Trade-off

  40 - Girls on Film

  41 - Fifty-Fifty

  42 - Pulling Teeth

  43 - Black and White

  44 - Lawyer Up

  45 - A Picture’s Worth . . .

  46 - Let’s Make a Deal

  47 - The Great Pretender

  48 - Hometown Girl

  49 - Hubris

  50 - Circumspect

  51 - Unfathomable

  52 - Just Another Roll of the Dice

  53 - Midnight Special

  54 - The Search Begins

  55 - What Remains

  56 - Divine Intervention

  57 - The Fighter

  58 - No More Tears

  59 - The Right Button

  60 - Training a SEAL

  61 - Hide in Plain Sight

  62 - The Test

  63 - Door Problems

  64 - Truth or Dare

  65 - Her (Latest) Story

  66 - Snakes on a Plane

  67 - Déjà Vu

  68 - “People with Diseases”

  69 - The First Cut

  70 - My Girl

  71 - Can It Be True?

  72 - Horror Show

  73 - Deal’s Off

  74 - Technicalities

  Part IV - He Said, She Said

  75 - Judgment Day

  76 - The PI

  77 - Letters

  78 - Flashbacks

  79 - Love (Jail) Birds

  80 - Mind Games

  81 - Dead Serious Talk

  82 - Brutally Honest

  83 - Break These Chains

  84 - A SEAL Finally Squeaks

  85 - The Blame Game

  86 - Whose Idea Was It?

  87 - Showdown

  88 - On the Ropes

  89 - The Details of a Crime

  90 - Closing One Door

  91 - Shock and Awe

  92 - Stealing the Spotlight

  93 - Her Turn—Again

  94 - Pathology

  95 - Pain and Loss

  96 - The Setup

  97 - Subtlety

  98 - Daddy’s Turn

  99 - The Ring

  100 - “Miss Scrapbook”

  101 - Circumstances

  102 - Judgment Day

  103 - The Butcher

  104 - The End of Her Humanity

  Epilogue

  Update 2014

  Teaser chapter

  Picture Section

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Copyright Page

  For Peter Miller, the roaring literary lion.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you . . .

  Deborah Dawkins, Donna Dudek, Amanda Evans, and everyone else at Jupiter Entertainment. Deb, Donna, and Amanda were extremely helpful to me during the early stages of considering this case for a book, introducing me to the right people, and pointing me in the right direction.

  The Ocean City Police Department (OCPD) as a whole was incredibly obliging. Several detectives opened up their lives and made this book truly what it is. I can never thank them enough for their time, input, expertise, and commitment. Scott Bernal and Brett Case were always willing to answer my questions, even when those answers did not suit their own needs; and that, to me, shows immense integrity and honesty. Scott Bernal inspired me in ways I could never explain. He is one of the most candid, passionate, dedicated lawmen I have ever met. Finally, great appreciation to OCPD chief Bernadette DiPino for allowing her detectives to speak with me about this case.

  Kensington editor Mike Shohl and copy editor Stephanie Finnegan.

  I dedicated this book to my agent, Peter Miller, president of PMA Literary & Film Management. Peter has been championing my career for years, and any success I achieve would not be possible (or worth much to me) without his guidance and friendship. Likewise, without the help of Peter’s assistant, Adrienne Rosado—well, I would be far less efficient.

  Of course, none of this would be possible without my editor, Michaela Hamilton, who has been by my side for all ten books, or my family.

  Law without a foundation in morality becomes injustice.

  —Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), The Spirit of the Liturgy

  Author’s Note

  Throughout my years of writing true crime, I’ve always drifted away from the more gruesome cases. Granted, every murder is an act of evil; every untimely death a tragedy. But I have not waded in terribly bloody waters, if you will excuse my frankness. I have generally written about those murders we tend not to cringe at—those deaths that have been quick and rather painless.

  That being said, as I began this book, I knew it would involve a certain amount of horror I had not yet covered: the brutal dismemberment of two human beings. What I didn’t know was that this act of savagery by the killers was only the tip of the iceberg. What I would uncover while researching and writing this book—some of which has not been yet reported—affected me in ways I had never experienced, in all my years reporting on murder. There were times when I had to leave the book alone for a day or two to catch my breath and think about things. Now and then, as you write these books day in and day out, you can get caught up to a point where some of what you’re doing doesn’t seem real. Sure, I used dozens of interviews, thousands of pages of court records, trial transcripts, photographs, police reports, military reports, depositions, interviews with the perpetrators, and scores of other documents to write this book. A process of which becomes, at times, like putting together the pieces of a puzzle. But here, within this case, the way the victims were treated before, during, and after death was so profoundly evil and cruel—there are not enough adjectives in the English language to describe the treatment these people received—that as I wrote about it, a part of me began to drift into a despair I had not experienced while writing true crime. It made for an incredibly bumpy experience—emotionally. There were days when I had to put this project aside—due to the graphic nature of what I had uncovered—and work on something else. There were also days when I thought I could not go back to it.

  In the end, though, I am glad I did.

  There are sections of this book family members of the victims should not read—parts of this case that were never made public. For some time, I weighed whether to include all of my findings in the text. I have left things out of this book that were not important to the story, the dynamic of understanding these crimes, or the psyche of the murderers. I wish certain things in this case did not happen and I didn’t have to report them. As a reporter, however, I believe that what I have included is imperative to the greater scope of these crimes; it allows us to take a deeper look into the most evil part of the human soul in order to recognize what some people are truly capable of.

  My goal is always to tell the most complete, unreported story I can. In addition, it is a story that needs telling. If one person reads this book and understands that the strangers we meet at clubs and bars and out in society at various places and stages of our lives every day might not be who they claim to be, it was well worth the effort.

  Part 1

  Memories Are Like Raindrops

  1

  Ebb & Flow

  It was midmorning, May 29, 2002, when Ocean City Police Department (OCPD) detective Scott Bernal took a call from Fairfax City, Virginia, police officer Mike Boone. Fairfax City was a good three-and-a-half-hour hike from Ocean City on a good day, without traffic. Although the OCPD routinely received calls from various police departments for different reasons, Detective Bernal sensed right away that this call had a different smell to it. Something, his gut instinct told him, was amiss.

/>   “We have a woman whose coworkers are reporting [her] missing,” Boone said. “This woman never misses a meeting, apparently. She had a meeting scheduled with fifteen coworkers for yesterday at ten. She didn’t show up or call.”

  “She came here?” Bernal asked, meaning Ocean City.

  “Yeah, with her boyfriend. I called his employer. He hasn’t returned to work, either—and should have on the same day.”

  Bernal took down a description of the couple’s vehicle. It was a red or maroon Acura with the recognizable license tag that few would have a tough time forgetting: GENEY C.

  “Where are they staying?”

  Boone said, “Atlantis Condominium.”

  “Let me check it out.”

  Bernal finished up what he was doing at the station house in midtown Ocean City and took off down the strip to check out the Atlantis.

  There is a repetitive, soothing, and rhythmic flow to the steadiness and cyclical nature of ocean waves. No matter how high or low the tide, waves begin from an unknown, initial source out in the middle of the sea and ripple into shorelines around the world at a continuous, melodic pace, speeding up and slowing down. One can sit for hours and become mesmerized by their sheer beauty and elegance, while getting lost in the meditative genuineness, sound, feel, and even smell of simple seawater lapping against beach sand. Perhaps a gull or two squeaking in the remote background adds to the ambiance. But ask those who live for it, and you’ll hear about an unexplainable grace assigned to the ocean that they all crave: the one place where your troubles seem to melt into the salty foam left over along the shoreline after the baptismal power of the water fades into the wet sand.

  How healing.

  How omnipotent.

  How uncomplicated.

  Ocean City, Maryland, is one of those places along the East Coast where one can indulge in such summer splendor and magnificence. For some, though, mainly the younger crowd, Ocean City is more of “Party Town, USA,” where you can let your hair down when the sun sets, violently crack crab legs with wooden mallets, and party at any one of the scores of nightclubs and seaside bars located along “the strip,” or as Random McNally deems it, “the Coastal Highway.” In fact, the one day of the year that almost every bar owner, resort keeper, hotel manager, and seasonal worker waits for is the Friday before Memorial Day. This is the day when summer unofficially begins, and tourists and beachgoers and partiers and graduates start filing into town: to spend money, sun themselves, dance, drink, eat, and hang out poolside. Interestingly, between Labor Day (September) and Memorial Day (May), Ocean City is home to about twenty-five thousand people. Just a normal community of working-class folks, who love living by the sea. Yet between those two summer holidays, the number of people fluctuates from 250,00 to 500,000, depending on weekend weather.