Peggy said she had no explanation. Who knew? What was important to her and Bob was that they wanted her to come back to Littleton with them. She could get her own apartment—heck, her grandparents would probably pay for that, too.
Jacine shook her head. No, she sobbed, she had to stay in Colorado Springs until she graduated. Her grandparents were counting on her.
The Luiszers said that it didn’t matter. Her grandparents would be just as proud if she finished her degree at the University of Colorado campus in Denver or Boulder. She could go home, rest, get healthy, and then finish whenever she wanted.
Jacine wouldn’t budge. “Don’t worry,” she said, drying her tears. She was just having a bad day. Her health was improving and besides, she had a new boyfriend, Tim, and she didn’t want to leave him. Reluctantly, Peggy and Bob left her in Colorado Springs and went home to Littleton.
A few nights later, Jacine left her apartment. On the way out, she told her roommate, Tisha Terrell, she was going to Tim’s place where he was fixing them a late dinner.
Jacine pulled up in the right lane at the stoplight on Austin Bluffs Drive. She didn’t turn to look at the two young men—one dark-haired, the other with a shaved head—who were staring at her from the car in the far left lane. Nor did she notice when they followed her to the apartment complex where Ratican lived.
Getting out of her car, Jacine walked toward the security door so she could be buzzed in to the building. She was dressed in a light gray sweatshirt, shorts, and black sandals. Although she was carrying her purse with her credit cards and $157 in cash, she was not concerned about the two men who walked behind her. There were 120 apartments in the complex, and someone was always coming and going.
Then one of the men grabbed her from behind, wrapping his left arm around her waist and placing his right hand over her mouth. He yanked her violently backward toward his companion, who grabbed her legs. Freeing her mouth from her captor’s grasp, she began to scream for help.
CHAPTER FIVE
“We’ll get you one!”
After hitting the jogger in the Garden of the Gods, Salmon and Woldt had returned to the condominium, where they settled down to a game of Monopoly with Bonnie and one of Bonnie’s female friends, Rachel Strattman. An hour earlier, they’d assaulted a woman and come within a hairbreadth of abducting, raping, and killing her. Now they were happily squabbling over imaginary pieces of property, rolling the dice and hoping to avoid the following instructions: Go to Jail. Go Directly to Jail. Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200.
When the game was over, Strattman announced that she had to go home. George Woldt immediately volunteered to drive her, but she declined his offer. It wasn’t that far, she said she’d rather walk.
Apparently, that wasn’t satisfactory to Woldt, who repeated that he and Salmon would take her home. He was clearly agitated when she again said thanks but no, thanks.
A little later, she was outside talking to Bonnie before leaving when she noticed Woldt staring at her as he talked to Salmon. Whatever it was he was saying, she knew it had to do with her, and that he was really angry and not just with her. As he spoke, he nodded his head toward Rachel, but Salmon kept shaking his head no. The conversation between the two men ended with Woldt accusing his friend, loud enough for the women to hear, of being “a faggot.”
Strattman left and the two men and Bonnie went inside for dinner. During the meal, Salmon polished off two beers. They then got up, with Woldt announcing they were going to the Comer Pocket.
The pair drove to the pool hall, where they played for a couple of hours. Salmon drank several more beers, but not Woldt, who was not twenty-one yet and could not legally drink.
The waitress who brought the beers, Laura Shugart, did not enjoy serving the strange-looking bald one. He made her nervous the way he followed her everywhere with his eyes, as if he were looking beneath her clothes. She was glad when they left.
Although they were using his Thunderbird, Salmon asked Woldt to drive. He didn’t want to get pulled over and arrested for drunk driving. As they headed down the road, they started talking about the events of the afternoon and how they’d had their fantasy woman in their grasp. They were ready, Woldt declared, for “a little of the ol’ in-out.”
They headed for one of the popular nightclubs, determined to make their fantasy a reality. They pulled into the parking lot and went into the club to see if they could spot any likely targets. There were plenty and when one would leave, they’d quickly follow her out the door, stalking their prey toward her car. But every time they started to move in, a car would pull into the parking area or some males would exit the club.
Frustrated, they at last gave up and decided to go back to the Woldts’ apartment. Tomorrow would be another day. Tomorrow they would find a victim.
On the way home, they pulled up to the stoplight and looked over at the small red car in the right lane. She was young, maybe late teens or early twenties, blond and attractive. They decided to follow her. “Yeah, we’ll get you one,” Woldt said.
They trailed her to the apartment complex and pulled into the lot after her, parking near the entrance. Woldt came up with the idea of pretending they were just visiting. They got out of the car and followed the woman toward the security entrance. She was a moment from buzzing to be let in when Woldt grabbed her with one arm around her waist and the other over her mouth; Salmon had then moved in to grab her legs. She screamed as they carried and dragged her to their car, but they were beyond caring.
CHAPTER SIX
Scenes of the Crime
Officer Greg Wilhelmi was on routine patrol when the dispatcher sent him to check on the possible abduction of a woman from an apartment complex at the north end of town. He pulled into the complex about 11 p.m., where he was met by a half-dozen people who claimed to have witnessed the crime.
A ten-year veteran of the Colorado Springs Police Department, Wilhelmi had dealt with a lot of different criminals. In this instance, the suspects were either inept or they hadn’t cared who saw them.
Although the case would probably be handed over to detectives later, Wilhelmi talked to the witnesses to try to establish exactly what had transpired. If the initial report was correct, a woman was in trouble and time might be of the essence.
Jacine was abducted from this apartment complex in north Colorado Springs. (Photograph courtesy of the El Paso District Attorney’s Office)
Wilhelmi began with four women, Mormon missionaries who’d been in the parking lot of the apartment complex across the street when they heard a woman scream. One of the women, Glenda Hansen, said that when she first heard the woman cry out, “Help me! Help me!” she thought it was one of the teenagers in the neighborhood playing around. But the screams were too real and when she looked across the street, she saw a struggling woman being dragged across the other lot by two white males. Hansen had told her companions to cross the street to see what they could do. In the meantime, she ran to a telephone and dialed 911 to summon the police.
Another of the women, Margaret Zarate, ran across the street. She saw that the victim was a young blond woman and noted that the suspects’ car was an older, gray sedan: “I think a Ford Thunderbird.”
The two men forced their victim into the backseat of the car, but not without a fight. Zarate said she saw from a distance of about twenty feet that the bald male in the front seat leaned over toward the back, trying to hold the woman down as she screamed and kicked at the roof and windows. The dark-haired suspect, who appeared to be in his twenties, was straddling the woman and punching her in the face.
Zarate estimated that the dark-haired man struck the woman for a full minute before the other man turned around, started the car, and drove off. The car passed close enough that she clearly saw the face of the man in the backseat illuminated by streetlights, three times in fact. The first time he looked up at her, he seemed merely curious as if he couldn’t understand what she was doing there. The second time, she thought he seemed sc
ared. But then he glanced down at his victim and when he looked up again, she saw that he was smiling.
The strange thing was that he continued smiling even though he had to have noticed that one of the other women with Zarate, Torina Homer, was writing down the license plate number of the car. It was a Colorado license plate with the green mountains and white numbers and letters: KBN6729.
The Mormon missionaries weren’t the only witnesses. Several of the residents in the apartment complex also heard the screaming and came out to see what was going on.
In her third-floor apartment, Linda Glaza had just turned in for the night when a woman’s cries made her sit up in bed. She rushed out onto her balcony above the parking lot and saw two men by the rear door on the passenger side of a gray sedan, trying to force a blond woman into the backseat. The woman was putting up a good fight and had gripped the sides of the door frame to prevent them from forcing her inside the car. But one of the men, the bald one, raised his clasped hands above his head and smashed them down on the woman’s arms and broke her grip.
Glaza yelled down, demanding that the men let their victim go, but they acted like they never even heard her. When they got the woman in the car, the dark-haired kidnapper crawled into the backseat with her. Meanwhile, the bald one walked quickly to the driver’s side, looked around as if checking for witnesses—of which he had to have seen there were a few, then hopped in the car.
Other residents had appeared on their balconies and yelled at the men. Some emerged from the building to try to help, but they were too late to rescue the woman. All that was left were memories of the terrifying scene, as well as some items left behind by the victim. A pair of black sandals lay on the pavement near the door as if the owner had stepped out of them for a moment and forgotten to come back.
The witnesses also pointed out a woman’s black wallet for the officer. It contained a driver’s license with a photograph of a young, smiling blond woman by the name of Jacine Renee Gielinski, date of birth January 16, 1975.
When Wilhelmi pulled out the driver’s license for a better look, Zarate shouted, “That’s her. That’s the person who was grabbed.” So there was little question it had belonged to the victim.
The wallet also contained a checkbook, a Social Security card, credit cards—all registered to Jacine Gielinski—and $157 in cash. Apparently, the kidnappers weren’t after money.
As soon as he got the suspects’ license plate number from the witnesses and a description of the car and occupants, Wilhelmi called it in before continuing his investigation. From there, the Colorado Springs Police Department moved quickly—a BOLO (be-on-the-lookout) bulletin was put out on the radios and updated as more information came in—and more officers were dispatched.
The police soon had a telephone number for the address listed on Jacine Gielinski’s driver’s license and called it. A young man who identified himself as Allen Crumb answered and was joined on the line by Tisha Terrell. They said they were Jacine Gielinski’s roommates. They said the last time they saw her was a little after 10:30 p.m., and she was heading out the door to go to her boyfriend’s apartment. She drove a red Geo Prism and her boyfriend was Tim Ratican.
Crumb and Terrell were asked if they were aware of any volatile domestic problems Jacine might have been having with a boyfriend or former boyfriend. They said she’d recently broken up with her longtime boyfriend, Mike Lemon, but they knew of no problems. Crumb identified Lemon as a police officer and said he was a good friend.
They also said they didn’t know of any problems between Jacine and Ratican. She’d experienced some bouts of depression lately having to do with her father’s death, they said, but the bouts seemed short-lived and she was otherwise happy and outgoing.
The police asked if Jacine had any identifying marks and were told she had a small tattoo of the Tasmanian Devil cartoon character at her bikini line. Otherwise, there wasn’t much they could add except she worked the 3-11 shift at the hotel and before that had worked as a waitress at a Colorado Springs sports bar.
A detective called Ratican, who, confused, said he was waiting for his girlfriend, Jacine Gielinski, to show up. He was asked to go to the parking lot and talk to a police officer there. Ratican and his roommate, Greg Dana, went outside and spoke to Officer Mark White, who had arrived on the scene.
Ratican was bewildered. He identified Jacine’s car in the parking lot but hadn’t known she’d even arrived.
White asked if he knew of any trouble between Jacine and her former boyfriend, Mike Lemon. Ratican nodded. Nothing specific, but she was afraid of Lemon, he said. Greg Dana added that in a private conversation he’d had with Jacine, she also said she was afraid of Lemon and that he’d been “physically abusive.” Other than that, the two roommates said, they didn’t think Jacine had any enemies.
Meanwhile, Crumb had supplied a telephone number for the missing woman’s parents, Bob and Peggy Luiszer, who were then called by a detective. All he could tell them was that their daughter had disappeared under “suspicious” circumstances and that her purse had been found at the scene. They wanted to drive down to the Springs, but he advised them to stay put until they knew more.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Did she suffer?”
For whatever reason, the first time someone tried to call about their daughter Jacine that night, the telephone didn’t ring in the bedroom where Peggy and Bob Luiszer were sleeping. But Bob heard the answering machine go off in the kitchen and got up to see who would be calling at 11:30 at night.
He was surprised to hear the voice of Jacine’s former boyfriend, Mike Lemon. “Have you been contacted by anyone in Colorado Springs about Jacine?”
“Who’s calling?” Peggy wandered into the kitchen. “What’s the matter?”
It had been a long day. After she got off work at a child-care center, she and Bob drove to a local hospital to visit one of his coworkers who had just had a baby girl. Returning home from the hospital, they’d stayed up long enough to watch the ten o’clock news and then turned in for the night.
As they closed their eyes and fell asleep, they were just a nice, middle-class couple, living a quiet life in a pleasant neighborhood of tree-lined streets, well-groomed lawns, and small, ranch-style homes in Littleton, Colorado—a satellite city of Denver. There was nothing out of the ordinary about their lives. She worked at the child-care center and he as a project planner for a company that made aerial lift trucks, the sort with a bucket or cherry picker on the end of a boom.
Every year, they spent their summer vacation visiting a friend who lived in San Diego, stopping at sites like the Grand Canyon along the way. The most extravagant trip had been the week they spent in Jamaica when Jacine, or “Jace” as she was known to family and friends, was twelve. Otherwise, like any other average American family, they worked during the week and looked forward to the weekends, especially during football season when they gathered on Sundays to watch their beloved Denver Broncos play and hoped for the day when star quarterback John Elway would finally win a Super Bowl.
At the hospital that evening, Peggy had held the other woman’s infant—inhaling the sweet and sour baby smells, all of them good—and envisioned Jacine making her a grandmother. She hoped that her daughter would live nearby so that her grandchild could walk to Highlands Elementary School—just a few blocks from her home in Littleton, a small city grafted onto the southern end of Denver—as Jacine had done.
Of course, the thought of twenty-two year-old Jacine brought its worries, too. Peggy was concerned about her daughter’s health, which had been on a downhill spiral for months.
Bob Luiszer helped raise Jacine with his wife Peggy. He dreamed of walking her down the aisle on her wedding day. (Photograph courtesy of Peggy Luiszer)
Having the doldrums was unlike Jacine, who had always been such a strong, confident, enthusiastic bundle of energy and joy. Peggy put the onus of Jacine’s problems, physical and mental, on Lemon. He had, in Peggy’s estimation, taken advantage
of her daughter financially and emotionally, as well as directly causing some of her health problems.
The first time Peggy met Lemon, she was struck by how much he reminded her of Jake Gielinski. She wondered if that wasn’t part of the attraction for Jacine. Maybe even the uniform had reminded her of her father.
Otherwise, Peggy didn’t think much of him. At Christmas in 1993, he and Jacine came up to visit and Peggy got a chance to talk to him with one of her friends when Jacine went out on an errand. Most of the time was spent listening to him talk about himself and all the wonderful things he’d done in his life. He said he’d been a professional ski racer and was an army veteran who’d fought in the Desert Storm campaign.
Peggy thought Lemon was a liar, and her suspicions seemed confirmed when she called the college he said he’d graduated from and they had no record of him. In that respect, he was a lot like Jake, but there were also some similarities to her first husband, especially the way he seemed to control Jacine. A red flag went up when she learned that he and Jacine sometimes came to Denver to visit his sister, who lived only a few miles from the Luiszers, but he wouldn’t let Jacine call or visit her parents. By now, Peggy knew that separating their girlfriends and wives from family and friends was how guys like Mike maintained control over them.
Peggy suspected that Jacine was giving Lemon money. She learned that her daughter was working at a pizza joint so she could make payments on a bank loan she’d taken out to buy Lemon a jet ski.
When Peggy mentioned her misgivings to Jacine, her daughter didn’t want to hear it. They’d always been more like best friends than mother and daughter, but Jacine told her to stay out of it. Her daughter had grown more distant and stopped calling as frequently.
A CLOCKWORK MURDER: The Night A Twisted Fantasy Became A Demented Reality Page 7
