Beautifully Cruel Page 6

  Tracey said it was Michael who had been scheduled to give Dustin’s eulogy.

  Ben made additional notes.

  Mike is an . . . imposter, Tracey wrote to Trent near the end of the e-mail.

  Ben sat back. Was Trent Vileta looking at the wrong person for Dustin’s murder? Had Michael Roberts, Tracey’s ex-husband, been the one to set it up? Was he the mastermind here—the one who made Tracey the scapegoat for his way out of the marriage?

  “I’m not sure I can go through with this, Trent,” Ben said during a phone call sometime later.

  “Come on, stick with me here.”

  “I don’t know . . . I am not certain I can get on board with this.”

  11

  DESPITE HIS CONCERNS AND QUESTIONS, Ben decided to create a timeline. The case, as he began to take Trent’s lead and immerse himself in it, was far too cumbersome in its scope to keep track of any longer. By mid-spring 2011, Ben had worked hundreds of hours on it already; since 2008 and 2009, Trent had probably tallied more than a thousand hours. Ben was actually hiding the amount of time he spent looking at documents, studying reports, making calls, and talking to Trent. He’d wake up at night, think about a particular clue or seemingly important new piece of “evidence” he’d read, jot down an idea, and then call Trent. Everything became a revelation. Ben would sit at his kitchen table, unable to sleep, wake Trent in the middle of the night and ask him things.

  “You back on board now?” Trent asked.

  “I guess I am.”

  If he was going to prosecute Tracey Richter, Michael Roberts, or both, Ben realized he needed to tightly button up the package. The other—major—issue was that Ben Smith had never tried a murder case. Hell, he had never tried any case. And, not to mention, the former prosecutor, with all his experience, had not brought any charges against Tracey.

  “Look, I don’t want to sound like I am saying he was incompetent,” Ben recalled, speaking of his predecessor, “and I don’t want to blame him for not spending the time that I did.... It’s a combination of Tracey being as manipulative as she is, muddying the waters, and just the lack of resources available to everyone.”

  The 9/11 attack occurred shortly before Dustin’s death, Ben added, which sent the state detectives from DCI to a joint terrorism task force. No one had time for a small-town murder that had been written off as a justifiable, self-defense homicide.

  “A dead special-needs kid in Early, Iowa,” Ben commented, “was not a priority—and I understand that.”

  Ben was now riding a seesaw of emotions. He knew Trent was entirely sold and ready to go to court, but Ben, maybe a bit scared and fearful of that unknown, wasn’t. Every time he dug in, something new popped up, which only made the case bigger and Ben’s fragile emotional state closer to cracking. He was living at his grandmother’s house. She was in a nursing home at the time, and although his father was optimistic about her getting out, Ben explained, “We all knew it would probably never happen.”

  Ben said he played video games not because he enjoyed them, but it gave him a chance to communicate and interact and compete, which became an important release. It was one of the only ways he could manage to connect with friends and family (cousins, army buddies, brothers) and Trent.

  As Tracey’s case took over his life, everything that made Ben who he was stopped.

  “I quit exercising. I moved my bed and desk into the living room in my grandma’s house. I would work on the case until I couldn’t, then I would crash on the bed next to my desk. I always had the TV on in the background, but all I can ever remember watching were the infomercials that came on around three a.m., and that was after I left the desk for my bed. It got to a point where every minute of every day, all I thought about was this case.”

  Stuck within that obsession, while looking at an e-mail Tracey had sent to Trent in late March 2009, Ben noticed something. In the FROM: portion of the e-mail template, Tracey had changed her name. She was going by “Tracey von Richterhausen.”

  Trent told him he couldn’t believe it himself when it happened. But Tracey changing her name, Trent further explained, was not even the half of it.

  Back in February 2008, Ben soon learned, Tracey Ann Richter had filed an Affidavit and Agreement for Issuance of Duplicate License/ID with the Iowa Department of Transportation to officially change her name to “Sophie Corrina Terese Baronin Von Richterhausen Edwards.”

  A mouthful, certainly. But as an investigator, Trent asked himself, why would she do this? There had to be a reason behind it.

  Tracey claimed the documents she had provided to the Iowa DOT—a divorce decree and court order—were proof of this legal name change. She signed the application “Sophie C. Edwards,” her new name.

  “She used a forged court decree to change her name at the Iowa DOT,” Ben explained.

  This was a major crime. But also, Ben found out from Trent, a red flag.

  “She was getting ready to run,” Trent told Ben.

  “Leave the country! Right!”

  Trent believed that as he put pressure on Tracey, she felt it to the point where she was planning on taking off.

  What’s more, Tracey not only changed her name with “forged” documents, committing what was a federal offense, but on February 3, 2009, a little over a month before sending Trent that Richterhausen e-mail, she was issued a passport in the name of Sophie Corrina Terese Edwards—another felony to add to what were already welfare fraud and perjury charges, along with a later indictment for passport fraud.

  Then something else: Tracey claimed someone had left a bloody crime-scene photo of Dustin inside her car—the implication Tracey made was that Michael had done this. She was terribly upset by the photo, she had written to Trent. She said in her e-mail to Trent that the photo was VERY GRAPHIC AND VERY DISTURBING!!!!!!!!! She claimed that seeing it “triggered” her (self-proclaimed) post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and she had done nothing but cry and shake all day long after finding the photo. She accused the person who placed the photo inside her car of “clearly” leaving it to intimidate and destroy her emotionally.

  Ben was interested in the backstory of this photo. What happened? How had Tracey (or Michael) come by a crime scene photo of Dustin Wehde lying bloodied and dead on the floor of her bedroom? It was an open case. None of that evidentiary material should be out in public.

  Trent told Ben to take a look at a report of this incident.

  Ben read through the report, which detailed the entire photo incident. Not only did this report open up an entire new vein of the investigation into Dustin’s death, but it told Ben what Trent Vileta already knew: Tracey von Richter-whatever was capable of just about anything.

  12

  IT WAS MARCH 11, 2009. Douglas County (Nebraska) Sheriff’s Office (DCSO) took a call from a frantic woman: “Hi . . . this is Tracey Ann Richter.... My vehicle has been broken into. I need someone to come out here.”

  Tracey was living in Omaha. She claimed she went out to her car, which was parked among hundreds of other vehicles in the apartment complex where she lived, and found something on the passenger seat: a legal-size, manila envelope.

  “I found . . . a very disturbing photograph,” she told the 911 dispatcher.

  When police arrived, Tracey stood beside her car with her mother, Anna Richter. Her “demeanor,” the responding officer later detailed in his report, was “upset, as if she had been crying.” The officer’s report further stated: Richter’s body was also shaking in what seemed to be an uncontrollable manner.

  Immediately Tracey pointed to her ex: Michael Roberts. She said he had placed the photograph inside the car in order to terrorize her. She was certain it was Michael.

  “I’m in the middle of seeking a protection order against him,” she told the cop. “I fear for myself and my children.... We’re currently divorced, but engaged in a custody fight for the children in Iowa.”

  Deputy SJ Boulton, the responding officer, felt there was something amiss with Tr
acey’s story. It had a shallow feel to it. Tracey had been so quick to claim Michael left the photograph on her seat. But, Boulton wrote in his report, Richter began telling a story that . . . seemed to be a “Hollywood movie” type of story and possibly fabricated.

  “Here, take a look at this,” Tracey said to Boulton after he questioned her story. Boulton had a look of disbelief. Tracey handed the cop, as if she had it ready for him, a copy of a newspaper article detailing the events of December 13, 2001, when Dustin was killed. She explained what happened, how “traumatized” she had been by the incident. Perhaps this news story could put what happened—the photograph left on her seat—into context.

  Boulton sat with Tracey and her mother for two hours and waited for an investigator. One of the DCSO sheriffs to get involved was Lieutenant Mark Gentile. A smart cop, seasoned in investigating major crimes and domestic issues, Gentile smelled a rat right away, same as Boulton. The feeling was that Tracey had planted the photo and called 911 and accused Michael so she could gain the upper hand in the custody fight going on between them.

  Michael had every right to be concerned for the welfare of his kids. According to a hearing in which Michael brought in witnesses that talked about how erratic and sometimes bizarre Tracey’s behavior had been, one explained that when the Robertses lived in Early, they used to get fresh water from a filtered source in the main house. Michael had asked Bert, who was in the office, to fetch some water one day. The office was separate from the main house. Bert came running back into the office a few minutes later. “[Cassie’s] bleeding,” he said frantically, talking about his stepsister. “Bleeding . . .”

  “What?” Michael asked. He was alarmed and confused. “What’s going on?”

  “She’s upstairs bleeding. . . .”

  Michael ran from his office space to the main house.

  “Tracey was sitting,” the witness later explained, “downstairs, catatonic, in a chair. . . .”

  She was covered in blood. Totally immobilized. Staring into blank space.

  Cassie was upstairs, bleeding profusely—scared and screaming. Apparently, she had cut her chin somehow and Tracey went into shock.

  Michael wound up taking the child to the hospital.

  * * *

  Lieutenant Gentile decided to look further into the case of the crime scene photograph. He did not believe Tracey’s story. After finishing up with Tracey at the scene, investigating that same day, Gentile came upon a protection order. Yet, it was one that Michael had filed against Tracey and had been granted by the court in Sarpy County, Nebraska, where Michael was residing then. The court had approved the yearlong order to Michael on January 27, 2009. It was perfectly clear: Tracey was to have zero contact with him.

  When she was served the order, not to be outdone, Tracey turned around and filed one herself under “domestic abuse” protection status, making a claim that her ex-husband had abused her. It just so happened that a hearing in Tracey’s matter was scheduled for March 12, 2009, the day after Tracey had called 911 to report the gruesome photo had been left inside her car.

  During that March 12 hearing, the judge denied Tracey’s petition.

  Gentile decided to dig around some more. He went over to Tracey’s apartment on March 20, 2009, under the pretense of interviewing her about the photo. He wanted Tracey to understand that he was not letting it go. By now, Gentile was certain she had planted the photo. He wanted to confront Tracey with the allegation. If she had wasted everyone’s time and made an erroneous allegation against her ex-husband, she had committed another serious crime.

  “No,” Tracey insisted. “I didn’t plant the photo.” She was livid, appalled that Gentile had accused her of such a thing.

  Gentile left her apartment and was now convinced of Tracey’s guilt. When he got back to the station house, Gentile got hold of Trent and began a conversation. It was no secret to law enforcement that DCI was looking at Tracey as a potential suspect in the home invasion.

  “Hey,” Trent told Gentile at one point during their conversation, “we reopened the Dustin Wehde case last year and I was thinking that if you were going to speak to Tracey Roberts again, you could obtain her prints for us.”

  Sometime later, Gentile called Tracey. “We were hoping you could come into the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and provide us with prints. Special Agent Trent Vileta from Iowa requested them.” There was a long pause from Tracey. So Gentile said: “I was also hoping I could go over a few things with you about the photograph incident.”

  “I’ll be there today at two-thirty,” Tracey said.

  13

  WHILE STUDYING THE DCSO AND DCI reports, along with Tracey’s e-mails to Trent, during early spring 2011, Ben Smith was now more interested in digging further into Tracey’s life. He was back on what became a personal bandwagon of going after her. If she had illegally changed her name, gotten a passport issued under that fake name, planted photographs, and done God knows what else in her past, Ben believed cracking open her past life was going to tell a story that dictated her future—especially where those custody cases were concerned. As a lawyer, Ben knew that custody matters included recorded depositions with most of the parties involved. There had to be a file somewhere that included interviews or depositions with Tracey and Michael. Ben just needed to find it.

  Going back to that e-mail Trent had exchanged with Tracey in late March 2009, right around the time of the crime scene photo incident in which Gentile had become involved, Ben saw that Trent had answered Tracey’s e-mail concisely by saying, The photo thing is curious.

  Trent told Ben that he knew this would get a rise out of Tracey.

  Curious? Tracey began her response to Trent. It’s downright cruel!!!!!

  It was clear that Trent had gotten to Tracey—she was angry. This had been part of Trent’s plan from day one.

  She went on to write that the photo was nothing more than the “harsh reality of the photographer’s flash.” She wanted to know why it should be labeled “curious,” as Trent had put it. The photo had made her “cringe in disgust.” She felt a “flood of emotions” after seeing it there on the passenger seat. It brought her right back to that horrible incident so many years ago.

  Ben found the photo Tracey was referring to in her e-mail. It was numbered “00 00 38” and was one of the more gruesome crime-scene photographs the sheriff’s office had snapped. It depicted Dustin lying on his left side, wearing a brown leather or suede jacket, blue jeans. His right hand was stretched out in front of himself, his left hand not visible, tucked below and behind his body. The wood floor underneath Dustin’s body was covered in dark red blood. There was a large pool—a halo—of blood around Dustin’s head, spatter all around him. There looked to be a bullet entry or exit wound under his right eye, on the bridge of his nose. The one thing made clear by this photo was that Dustin had been shot in the back of the head—several times. A long trail of blood seeped from his head and into the grain of the wooden floor and ran along the back of his still body and followed the grain pattern of the floor.

  This man, clearly, was assassinated, Ben thought looking at the photo.

  Dustin’s death was not the result of firing a weapon in haste. Just about every shot of the nine that hit Dustin Wehde had been aimed to kill him.

  Tracey carried on in the e-mail, bashing the investigation and all of the cops involved in the early stages of it, referring to the investigation as “f*cked up.” She said she was “terrified” and “to this day” could not recall firing as many shots as “they” had said.

  “They” would become a word Tracey and her supporters often leaned on: They made it up. They lied. They fed bogus information to the press and anyone that would listen. Well, in this particular instance, the “they” was science. The coroner had reported nine shots had hit Dustin. There were several autopsy photographs clearly showing where those shots had landed. This was unmitigated, scientific, incontestable fact. It could not be disputed.

  Tracey tol
d Trent repeatedly in the e-mail to “find the other man.” The second intruder would be able to answer all the questions Trent and DCI had, if they could only find him and question him about Dustin’s motive and plans.

  * * *

  While creating an early timeline of Tracey Richter’s life, Ben focused on Gentile’s investigation into that crime scene photograph allegedly found inside the manila envelope on Tracey’s front seat. In an April 2009 FBI report that Ben located in a new batch of files, he uncovered how Gentile interviewed Tracey once again after that phone call Gentile had made asking if she’d come down to the station. Tracey had actually shown up. Thus, Gentile confronted her about the photo, once again accusing Tracey of planting it inside the car.

  “Did you place that photograph inside your vehicle to assist your upcoming protection order hearing?” Gentile pointedly asked Tracey as they sat inside an interview room inside the DCSO. Then Gentile made a good point: “Because, Miss Richter, if your ex-husband was responsible for this, he would have had to locate your vehicle, find that it was unlocked, and then place the photograph inside. It is also suspicious that the photo would show up the day before your hearing.”

  Tracey had a haughty manner about her; she could stare you down by wielding a dark look of utter disregard and hatred. Steely and determined, she possessed a gaze that anyone who knew her—and was honest—could say was altogether as frightening as it was cold.

  “No, no, no,” Tracey told Gentile. “I did not do it. Anyway, there is evidence on the back of the photo that proves Mike did it.”

  Trent had asked Gentile if he could, when he spoke to Tracey that day inside the sheriff’s office about the photo, get her consent for her finger and palm prints. No one thought she would cooperate.

  Gentile asked Trent why DCI wanted the prints.

  “She’s a suspect in a death investigation,” Trent told Gentile. “She was also involved in an alleged plot to kill Michael Roberts in Iowa in 2004.”