Is He Dead?

  IS HE DEAD?

  This book is based on a true story of rape, incest, child abuse, torture, spouse abuse, murder and the endurance to survive it all. Written by the original homicide investigator, it is based on an after-the-fact police investigation into the lives of two innocent children, their mother and a not-so-loving stepfather.

  Written by Rick H Drew

  Edited by Pauline Hamian and Iris Baker

  Cover Design by Marcos Conde

  © 2014 Rick H Drew

  “One day we will be grown up and out of here,” Amanda told her little brother. “What if he doesn’t let us grow up?” Robert replied.

  The moon hovered above with cascading streaks of dull light through the canopy of cypress trees. The murky creek water trickled southward with a blanket of rotting leaves and moss. The large cypress trees towered like skyscrapers above the shallow creek bed. Closer to the water line, large, ghost-like cypress knots extended from the ground. Just as Tom shut off the motor, there was a loud splash in the water. A six or seven foot long alligator whipped his tail across the surface.

  He ordered both Amanda and Melissa out of the truck. He pointed to a grassy area next to the water and demanded, “You stand right there and don’t fucking move!”

  “What about alligators?” Melissa cried. Tom opened a tool box that was mounted on the bed of his truck and removed a large machete. “It’s not going to matter in a few minutes,” he said coldly as he removed a machete from its canvas cover and walked over to Amanda and Melissa.

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to a young police officer, Thomas Alan Bartholomew who was killed in the line of duty in Kissimmee, Florida during an act of heroism.

  Index (47 Chapters)

  1: Shots Fired, Man Down

  2 A Child’s Tearful Confession

  3 Was it Murder or Self Defense?

  4 Where it all Started (April 1974)

  5 Adoption Celebration

  6 Don’t Ever Say a Word

  7 Robert Left his Tonka Toys on the Floor

  8 The Sitter Discovers Abuse

  9 Grandmother Takes a Stand

  10 Over the Line

  11 Runny Eggs

  12 Left Alone at Home

  13 Tom Shoots Up a Gas Station

  14 Off to Jail

  15 Don’t Spy on Us

  16 Robert Killed a Squirrel

  17 Don’t Play in the House

  18 A Painfully Bad Report Card

  19 Amanda’s Teacher Suspects Child Abuse

  20 Amanda Runs Away

  21 Child Services Begins an Investigation

  22 A Botched Medical Examination

  23 Don’t Tell

  24 Tom Starts a Logging Business

  25 No One is Home; Tom Pitches a Fit

  26 The Night of the Fish Fry

  27 Starting a Logging Business

  28 The Business Needs More Money

  29 Tom Gets Shot

  30 Don’t Hide the Hair Brush

  31 A Florida Vacation

  32 Tom Rapes his Pre-Teen Sister-in-law

  33 New Mini Bikes

  34 Amanda’s Friend Files Rape Complaint

  35 Human Services Foul up

  36 Tom Rapes his Sister-n-law Again

  37 Partnership Dissolution

  38 Tom and Melissa Skip Town

  39 Final Investigation in Tennessee

  40 Amanda has a Boyfriend

  41 Bad Report Card and Suicide Attempt

  42 The Last Straw

  43 Amanda Discovers 38-caliber Pistol

  44 Caught in a Lie

  45 Rehearsal How to Kill Dad

  46 911 Call

  47 The Grand Jury Investigation

  One

  The story you are about to read is true. Even the most case-hardened police officers were shaken as the evidence in this case began to unravel. I have changed the names to safeguard the blameless victims whose lives were forever altered by the man you are about to meet. The children in this case were able to survive for almost a decade under some of the most unpardonable conditions. Some of what they endured you may find difficult to believe, but these sorts of things do happen in our society as much as we hate admit it.

  I worked for a medium-sized police department in the metropolitan Orlando area, a town known for its ranching, cowboys, and Disney World. And me, I was a narcotics investigator, and I was on call on the afternoon these events began to surface.

  On call didn’t officially begin for me until 5:00 p.m. I left the police station at 4:30 p.m. My work was done for the day so I decided to go home a little early. I stopped at a 7-11, and had just re-filled my Big Gulp cup.

  Minutes from my home a radio tone alert sounded. It’s a grisly sound, sort of like the sound a computer makes when it connects with the internet, but much louder and it really gets your attention. The dispatcher gave the call out to a patrol officer. My supervisor came over the radio and instructed me to respond. I unenthusiastically agreed and responded in my unmarked police car.

  The call was dispatched as a subject down, possible gunshot victim. I got there a little after 5:00 p.m. The paramedics were loading a white male victim into the ambulance. The officer on the scene advised me that when she arrived she found him on the ground, bleeding and cursing. She went on to say it appeared he had run from an apartment and had collapsed a few feet from the street.

  She explained that she had asked him what happened and he had replied,

  “My son shot me.”

  I stepped up into the ambulance,

  “What happened?” I asked.

  He replied, “No questions.”

  I asked him again and his response was the same. So, I stepped out of the ambulance and shut the double doors as its crew was preparing to drive off. My supervisor just arrived and yelled out to me.

  “Go with them, get in!”

  “Damn it!” I thought. So much for going home early.

  Being a narcotics agent I didn’t want to be stuck with a shooting investigation, but I had no choice at that point. So I hopped up and in.

  Riding in the back of an ambulance speeding down the street with its emergency lights and siren on is not the most comfortable place in the world to be. Ambulance drivers are much worse than police officers. They really drive crazy. But I tried to make the best of it. I asked him what his name was. He responded again, “No questions.”

  He yelled this time. So I asked him again what happened and who shot him. He blurted back at me words that, I guess if I was in his shoes, I may have used myself.

  He said, “Fuck you, I will handle it.”

  “Hey buddy, that’s not how we do things, you don’t have to cuss at me like that” I responded.

  “I just want to know who shot you,” I said, with all the compassion a discontented policeman could assemble.

  He yelled back at me, “I’ll take care of it myself!”

  Even though he was being nasty to me I still felt sorry for this man. I didn’t like to see people in this condition. From what I could gather, his son had shot him, but why? He started looking pretty bad. His face was losing color and his body began to convulse. My guess was he was about to die. He was gurgling and that usually means the end is pretty close. However, I needed to know who shot him. I knew the only way to attain a dying declaration was if the person giving it knew he was dying. So I said,

  “Listen to me buddy, you’re going to die. Do you understand that? I need to know who shot you.”

  Oh my God, at that very moment all hell broke loose. You would have thought I had shot the man. The paramedic let me have it with both barrels.

  “Are you crazy? You can’t say that to my patient!” she scolded.

  I realize the paramedic’s job is save li
ves and for me to tell the patient he was going to die was contrary to that objective, but that’s the only way a dying declaration can work.

  A couple of years back, the same paramedic and I responded to a pretty bad traffic accident. A young man riding a motorcycle had been hit by a semi-truck. She was talking to the victim and trying to stabilize him. She asked me to check his lower extremities. When I looked down at his feet, I discovered they were barely connected. Hell, I wasn’t used to that. I exclaimed, “Oh my God!” A little too loud, I’m afraid.

  The kid immediately went into shock. She ran me off then too, so I guess she held a grudge. The boy lived, but his feet were a mess.

  When we arrived at the hospital the paramedics rushed him into the emergency room. I sat outside for a moment then walked to the ambulance entrance.

  The entrance was an automatic door that opened when a gurney rolled onto a pressure pad, but when I stood on the pressure pad it didn’t open. I jumped up and down on it, to no avail.

  “That figures,” I thought. So I walked around to the patient entrance of the ER.

  All the movies and TV shows in the world can’t prepare you for the real drama in an emergency room. I watched as this man went into cardiac arrest. The ER team went to work. I stood back and looked on in amazement. He was a pretty big guy. My guess at the time was he was close to 200 pounds and in his mid-thirties. He must have been at least six feet tall. He had medium brown hair that fell just below his ears. He looked like the kind of guy who just didn’t want to let go of the seventies.

  His body convulsed as the electricity charged through it. Hell, I even jumped when they did that. The doctor repeated the same ritual two more times. He was passing out orders like a Marine drill sergeant. I watched as he held up a huge hypodermic needle and stabbed it directly into the man’s chest.

  “Damn!” I said out loud.

  If he had been conscious, that would have hurt like hell! The team’s pace was slowing down and the doctor seemed to be running out of options. A few minutes later, he yelled, “Time?”

  A nurse blurted out, “18:33”.

  Immediately the doctor replied, “Time of death: 18:33”.

  They all stepped back and began removing their surgical gloves and gowns. They just walked away and left him there with all the tubes and wires protruding from his body. I stood there for a minute just staring at him. There was blood on the floor, along with all sorts of medical waste and sterile bandage wrappers. No matter how you look at it, death just isn’t pretty. The skin loses color almost immediately. The smell of death fills the room fast. It’s a musty smell. I just don’t think you can ever get used to it. I took a deep breath walked over to him and covered his body with a sheet.

  I thought that was the least I could do.

  Two

  The emergency room receptionist walked up to me and said, “He has family in the lobby, you know.”

  I walked out and saw a small-framed woman. She introduced herself to me as Melissa Jenkins. She said she was the victim’s wife. Just looking at her, one might think she had lived a pretty rough life. Another lady sitting next to her introduced herself to me as Kelly St. Francis. She said she was Melissa’s employer at a local restaurant. There was a third woman, a teenager with short brown hair and freckles. Her name was Amanda and she was the victim’s daughter. They didn’t know he was dead yet. I asked Melissa if she had a son. She replied, “Yeah, I have a son. His name is Robert. Why?”

  “Do you think Robert could have shot his dad?” I asked.

  Before she could answer, Amanda interrupted me and asked to speak with me privately. Her Mom sat quietly so I agreed and we walked outside. She was very uneasy and shaking like a leaf. “But who wouldn’t be under the circumstances,” I thought to myself. She wanted to know if he was dead. I said, “I don’t know.”

  She asked again, “Is he dead?”

  Well, of course I knew he was dead, but delivering death notices was not my favorite part of police work, and we were at the hospital, so I told her she needed to ask the doctor. She was persistent and said, “My God, he’s going to kill us!”

  I asked, “What do you mean? Amanda, is your brother involved in this?”

  I watched her eyes swell and turn red as tears began rolling down her face. She just stared at me, she didn’t say a word. Who knows what she was thinking at that moment? She took a big breath and as she spoke her voice cracked. But her response was very clear.

  “We’ve been abused and we stole a gun,” She blurted.

  My face dropped and I know my expression had to be one of pure shock. This time, I took a deep breath and said,

  “Amanda, stop. Don’t say anything further, not right now, not right this minute, okay?”

  She stood there silently and seemed to be waiting for me to tell her to continue. A murder is a big case and it’s best to consult with someone with more experience. I stepped aside called my lieutenant on the radio. I explained to him what had just taken place. I asked him to send a detective to the hospital as soon as possible and he replied,

  “10-4, I have one there.”

  “That’s a relief,” I thought. And then I realized he was referring to me.

  Amanda and I walked back inside just as the doctor was breaking the news to Melissa that her husband was dead.

  “Something isn’t right here,” I thought.

  The doctor had just informed her that her husband was dead and all she did was shake her head from side to side. No tears and no outburst of emotions. It wasn’t normal. I hated delivering death messages because I just couldn’t bear the aftermath. Some people, mostly women, fainted when they heard that a loved one had died. I would guess that in almost all cases of the messages I had delivered in the past, the recipient had at least cried.

  The lieutenant arrived a few minutes later and together we advised Melissa Jenkins (Amanda’s mother) that we needed to conduct an interview with her daughter. She didn’t even ask why. She just agreed. I also told her I would be advising Amanda of her constitutional rights.

  Amanda was transported first to her house to get her shoes, and then escorted to the police station. Mrs. St. Francis drove her Mother to the station.

  Meanwhile, the SWAT team was scouring the area for the shooter. The details were not very clear at the time, but Robert Jenkins was a suspect. I was told he was only 14 years old and we didn’t have any idea where he was.

  It was after 9:00 p.m. when we finally settled down to conduct an intense interview. Just as I was about to get started the captain invited himself to participate. He was the kind of person that the average guy just didn’t like. He was very intelligent and he let everyone know it. He used huge words to intimidate his listener. I guess it made him feel smarter. I didn’t want him there, but I didn’t complain. Hell, he was the boss.

  Reading Amanda her rights was an emotional experience for everyone.

  “You have the right to remain silent. Do you understand that?” I asked.

  She responded with a very respectful, “Yes, sir.”

  I continued, “You have the right to an attorney before any questions. Do you understand that?”

  Again she responded, “Yes sir.”

  When I had completed advising her of all her rights, I asked Amanda and her mother if they both understood their rights as I had explained them. They each replied they did, and agreed that Amanda would waive her constitutional rights.

  I had Amanda sign a rights card acknowledging that she had been advised and waived. She agreed to provide me with a sworn taped statement.

  “It started almost ten years ago,” Amanda began.

  “We was abused ever since Tom came into our lives,” Amanda continued. She was fidgeting in her seat and breathing hard as she spoke. Her story was horrific and incredible. It sounded almost rehearsed. We talked for more than two and a half hours. I mostly listened. Having been in law enforcement for five years, I didn’t think there was much left out there that could shock me. This y
oung lady and her brother had conspired, planned and orchestrated an elaborate plot to kill the man they both called dad.

  Three

  I felt like a tremendous burden had been dumped on me. If her statement was true and this man had tortured her and her brother, then I would somehow have to prove it to be true. Being a policeman isn’t just about making an arrest, as so many people may believe; it’s about uncovering and reporting the facts.

  After the interview I had to follow procedures.

  “Amanda, you have to go to the juvenile detention center.”

  “Why? I just want to go home with my mom!” she cried.

  She was becoming very emotional. She grabbed her mother and held on tight. I had to pull them apart and it wasn’t easy for me. I think everyone in the room was crying at that point.

  A patrolwoman responded and knocked on my office door. She didn’t have a clue what we all had just gone through in the interview room. She walked in and told Amanda to stand up against the wall. She told her to spread her legs apart and proceeded to search her.

  “Put your hands behind your back,” the officer said to Amanda. The officer removed her handcuffs from her handcuff pouch and placed a cuff, first on Amanda’s left hand, then on her right.

  "Mom!” Amanda cried.

  Finally, there was an outbreak of emotions from her mother. Melissa sobbed loudly as the officer walked Amanda out of the room.

  Meanwhile, the SWAT team was still turning the west side of town upside-down looking for Robert Jenkins, Amanda’s little brother. The K-9 unit was out searching with their dogs, but somehow this little boy had managed to slip through the dragnet.

  The next morning I had to appear in juvenile court to testify on behalf of the state at a hearing before the judge of the Circuit Court. The press had blanketed the courthouse lawn scouring for information on this high-profile murder. The fact that two children had turned against and killed a parent caught the attention of Good Morning America and other TV programs nationwide.