Born to Lose

by James G. Hollock

  “In high school, Linda was very active and smart; everyone knew that,” recalled good friend Vickie Mullen.

  She probably didn’t have to work so hard at schoolwork but she did. Linda earned, oh, I don’t know what-all laurels, but she made National Honor Society three years straight, sang in the chorus, was editor-in-chief of our yearbook, class plays, cheerleading … On top of all this she was so pretty— beautiful smile, greenish-blue eyes, with lovely blonde hair reaching her shoulders. With one person so favored, you’d think she could be resented, high school kids being what they are, but that was impossible, really. Once you met her, you liked her. She was a friend. And oh, yes, Linda was our class valedictorian, and I’ll tell you a little story about that.

  It must have been the spring of her senior year. Linda and I were on my back patio. I had to hang the wash, so we dragged out a record player and played Beatle albums. She said to me, “Vickie, you’ll never guess what!” Linda was referring to her biological father Mr. Stewart when she said, “Dad said if I made valedictorian he’ll buy me a car.” Knowing her father had been as generous as he could be all along, often at sacrifice, Linda said she hugged him around the neck but told him he would do no such thing. Mr. Stewart waved this off, saying how proud he was of her and that he wished things could have been different.

  On graduation day at Bruce High, June 6, 1966, the accomplished Linda Stewart gave her valedictorian speech. She could look to a bright future. Hadn’t her classmates voted her “Most Likely to Succeed”?

  Harold Stewart’s pledge materialized as a two-seater MGB, which Linda spent an inordinate amount of time washing and waxing. It was a good time, this summer. Linda held down a part-time job, but, with the studies and activities of school over, she was as carefree as she had ever been. In the autumn, Linda would enter Potomac College in Keyser, West Virginia—but then Linda fell in love.

  In July, after graduation, Linda and a girlfriend took a weekend trip to boat and relax at Deep Creek Lake State Park, twenty miles west of her home. Here she met a good-looking, slender young man named Gerald Peugeot, taller than she by six inches and with neatly combed hair of a color exactly matching her own. The two canoed and shared dinner before Gerald Peugeot had to head back to Beaver, Pennsylvania, twenty-five miles northwest of Pittsburgh. Gerald had a good job at Babcock and Wilcox Steel in Beaver Falls and had recently joined the Navy Reserves.

  It wasn’t long before Linda and Gerald saw each other again, then again. Each was introduced to the other’s parents. As September rolled around, Linda began classes at Potomac College, but her heart was elsewhere. She missed Gerald and wanted to marry him, so when he proposed it took no thought at all for her to nod and say yes, her tears flowing.

  After the wedding, the couple found an apartment in Beaver, Pennsylvania. Gerald carried on at the steel mill while Linda did office work. Both were delighted when Linda announced she was pregnant. In 1967, on September 23, daughter Lori Mae was born.

  Such a whirlwind courtship and marriage would worry any parent, but Edna Thompson knew her daughter to be sensible and grounded. Further, the young man who took her daughter’s hand was a hard worker, a military man, too, and showed his new wife every affection.

  Linda knew her mother was concerned that she wouldn’t follow through with college now that she was married with a child, but Linda told a relieved Edna that once Lori Mae got a little older and Gerald was done with the Navy, she planned to go back for her degree.

  In the spring of 1969, Gerald was called to active service, to be stationed in Jacksonville, Florida. Gerald went to Jacksonville first, in April, to take up his post as boatswain’s mate, third class. Linda and Lori Mae joined him in May. Since Gerald’s car was becoming unreliable and Linda’s MGB, while dependable, was too small, the Peugeots sold both cars to make a partial payment on another in early June. Wanting a car solid and safe enough to transport their baby, they purchased a 1969 GTO from Platt Pontiac in Jacksonville.

  Gerald, Linda, and Lori Mae moved into a small place near the naval base. They thought living together in Florida would be cheaper, allowing them to save money, but the opposite proved true. Housing was expensive, as were other essentials. It did not take long before the family budget was strained. Since Gerald would soon be going to sea for two months, wouldn’t it make sense for Linda and Lori Mae to return to Maryland to stay with her mother? They had already concluded that after Gerald had completed his stint with the Navy they would not stay in Florida but go back home to be near family and Gerald’s job in the mill.

  Edna Thompson was ecstatic. Of course her daughter could come home and stay as long as she wanted. Truth be known, Edna hadn’t wanted Linda to go to Florida in the first place but she’d held her tongue, not wanting to meddle. In mid-August, Gerald and Linda packed the GTO. A plush car seat made the long trip home as comfortable as possible for little Lori Mae. The couple planned for Gerald to come up for Labor Day weekend via military flight before the start of his extended sea duty.

  Edna couldn’t get enough of having her granddaughter in the same house, and the family dog, Duke, a miniature poodle, became Lori Mae’s constant companion. Meanwhile, Linda looked for a part-time job. Staying with her mother was better financially for Linda, but she would not accept her parents’ accommodations without contributing.

  Linda’s job search led her to Fred Warner. Everyone knew of Warner’s Deutsches Restaurant. Though located in out-of-the-way Cresaptown, Warner’s German Restaurant was a favorite spot for people from miles around. The restaurant had been opened by Fred’s parents in 1928, and its dishes were created from recipes taken from Warner’s private collection of over seven hundred cookbooks, some dating back to 1865 and others from as far away as Berlin. It is folklore now, but true, that President John F. Kennedy had a craving for one of Warner’s marvelous Bee Sting cakes. Since the president could not come personally, Senator Jay Glenn Beall from Cumberland brought the cake to him, flying to Cresaptown by helicopter to pick up the cake and then delivering it to the Man of Camelot.

  Fred Warner’s “strong right arm,” his wife Marian, hired Linda, who was an immediate success. She liked the restaurant’s old stone and timbers, its century-old relics, and the steins on its walls and shelves. The waitresses usually wore traditional German garb, and Linda delighted in making her own. Seeing Linda arrive at work with her blonde hair braided and wearing a colorful dirndl was the same as watching a pretty girl emerge from a Bavarian village.

  Linda felt so at home there that she would occasionally stop at the restaurant with Lori Mae on her day off, catching up on the local news, laughing over gossip, and imparting the latest information about Gerald, her “handsome sailor-man.” Forty-six-year-old Nellie Blauch, who had been a cook for some years at Warner’s, would go home to tell her husband, Ken, of the wonderful girl who had started at the restaurant: “very attractive, so nice and energetic, and she has the most beautiful little girl on God’s green earth.”

  After working the night of September 21, Linda Peugeot was looking forward to two days off. Early on the morning of the 22nd, Edna Thompson was up and about with Lori Mae and seeing her husband off to work. Edna recalled that morning: “The baby went into Linda’s room and woke her up. Linda came out in her long nightgown, her hair mussed up. She put her arms around me, as she would do, smiled, and asked me if I loved her. All she had for breakfast was a cup of coffee. She asked if I wanted to go to Cumberland with her but I had to clean my stove.”

  In mid-morning, Linda and Lori Mae left the house to shop, for the next day was Lori Mae’s second birthday and Linda was planning a party. Linda first went to a bank in Cresaptown to cash a check, a gift from her mother-in-law in Toledo. She then decided to go to Kings Department Store in LaVale.

  . . .

  About five hours earlier, just as Linda was being nudged awake by Lori Mae, Stanley Hoss was carefully but quickly making his way out of Wheeling in the white Impala Super Sport he’d taken from the hospita
l parking lot. Hoss headed to Uniontown in southwestern Pennsylvania and there connected with Route 40, the scenic national highway, which he followed into Maryland. Hoss kept a nervous eye on the gas gauge, which showed near-empty. He had no money and could ill-afford the car cutting out in some spot which could draw attention if he had to abandon it and walk off. He passed through Frostburg, and nearly reached Cumberland, but Hoss could not risk going any further. At the moment, Hoss was driving through the small community of LaVale. Noticing a parking lot on his right, he decided to pull in, think things through. The asphalt sloped down fifty yards to Kings Department Store. Hoss parked the Impala midway down, making sure he had a good view of those entering and leaving the store. It was 11:30 A.M. He waited.

  Minutes past noon, Linda Peugeot turned left off Route 40 into the Kings lot. She parked, got Lori Mae from the car seat, then walked to the store’s entrance, her daughter toddling along at her side, holding mommy’s hand.

  Straightening from his slouch, Hoss watched a slim, good-looking woman cross the parking lot with a little girl in tow. After they disappeared into the store, Hoss looked at the woman’s car. He appraised the car, not believing his luck. A GTO—the Gran Turismo Omologato. The Goat. Best of all muscle cars. And look at this one … dual exhaust, hood scoop, mag wheels, redline widetrack Goodyears. Hoss knew the stats by heart … engine 400 cubic inches, 350 horses. Yes, this would get Hoss where he wanted to go. The woman didn’t look bad either, her hair reminding him of his sister Betty’s. He’d take her and the Goat. He could do without the kid, but what the hell.

  Inside Kings, Linda walked the isles, browsing. She ran into Jim Knott, a friend from high school, home on leave for two weeks from the army. He told Linda he had been drafted two days after graduation and had served eighteen months in “the Nam” but was now posted at Fort Bliss in El Paso. After goodbyes, Linda went to the bike section, where she talked to employee Larry Wilson for about ten minutes, then chose a red Radio Steel wagon, the smallest one in stock. Wilson placed a boxed one in her cart.

  Outside, Hoss was impatient. It had been forty-five minutes since the woman and baby had gone into the store. What the hell was in there that would keep anyone in a store that long? He was worried, too. About twenty other cars were in the lot, people coming and going. He didn’t want anybody to get a good read on his face or notice him sitting there forever and maybe call the cops. Besides, he thought, if she’s in there that long, is she spending all her money? Where is the bitch?

  At 12:50 P.M., Shirley Clites drove onto the Kings lot and parked beside a light green, white-top GTO. Clites was twenty-nine years old and pregnant with her fourth child. Her three-year-old son, Robert, was with her as well as her sixteen-year-old brother, Luther Piper. Shirley and Robert stayed in the car while Luther went in to buy a gallon of paint. “As I sat there waiting on Luther,” Shirley related, “I looked to the side behind me, farther up on the lot. I saw a man in a white Chevy looking at me. He kept staring. I noticed he needed a shave. I glanced back every now and then and he’d be looking my way, or so it seemed.”

  Linda was nearly finished shopping but dawdled over small items for the next day’s party. Finally, she approached the checkout counter, where she was greeted by cashier Mary Green, who rang up the red wagon and, among other things, party hats, cake decorations, and a “Happy Birthday” banner. Another employee put Linda’s purchases in two bags and Linda said she could take it from there. Then Linda, with Lori Mae holding on, walked out of the store—and onto the most sordid page of Maryland crime.

  “I just looked at my watch,” Shirley Clites recalled, “wondering when Luther would come out with the paint. It was 1:00 P.M. I saw a very pretty lady and a little girl come out of the store. The first thing I noticed was the blonde hair on the little girl, because I’ve always loved blonde hair. As they got closer to their car, I saw the man in the white Chevy get out of his car and walk down to the side of her car.”

  When he saw the girl and her baby come out of the store, Hoss got out of the white Chevy, taking with him the items he wanted. He wouldn’t be returning. The J. C. Higgins revolver was stuck in his waistband. He gauged his gait to arrive at the GTO the same moment as the mother and child.

  Linda had reached the driver’s side of her car. Letting go of Lori Mae’s hand and putting her purchases on the ground so she could open the car door, she was surprised to see a man come out of nowhere, standing not two feet from her. Linda’s back was to her driver’s door, and Lori Mae was standing beside her. The man faced her, standing altogether too close for someone she did not recognize. Before she could blink, the man threatened, “If you open your mouth, I will blow your head off.” It was only then that Linda saw the gun. He held it low, at his belt. She grabbed for Lori Mae’s hand. “Hear me?” the man said. “I’m not playing around. Get in the car.”

  Shirley Clites, her car parked beside the GTO but on its passenger side, watched as the man said something to the young woman. “They spoke for a few seconds,” Clites said, “but I couldn’t hear them. It didn’t seem so unusual but something nagged at me. In the next moment, the woman got behind the wheel while the man got in the back with the child, him seated directly behind the woman.”

  Just as Clites witnessed this interchange, Bob Mullen and his wife, BeLinda, were walking toward Kings through the parking lot. BeLinda recalled “seeing a GTO, and I liked that car so I paid attention to it. There was a man standing there wearing a blue denim jacket and dark pants, and he needed a shave. He was there with a girl I thought I recognized. I said to Bob, ‘Isn’t that the girl you went to school with?’ He looked over his shoulder and maybe didn’t see her and he just kept walking. Going by, I took another look at the GTO and it seemed to me the guy and girl were having an argument, then they were getting in the car. Maybe it was her brother or something. It was none of my business. I caught up with Bob and we went in the store.”

  Shirley Clites continued to watch as the three occupants of the GTO got situated. “The baby in the back with the man,” Clites said, “was not properly secured in the car seat. The woman kept looking back at the little girl. The woman was also looking either out her side of the window or straight ahead. All this took place in a brief time, half a minute or so.”

  Then came the few seconds that would come to haunt Shirley Clites for the rest of her life: “The woman turned her head my way. She looked me in the face and pulled the door lock either up or down while looking at me. Our eyes were locked. I heard her say to the man, ‘You won’t hurt her, will you?’ But then the key was turned and the car moved forward. The little girl was crying as they drove away.”

  Inside the store, Bob and BeLinda Mullen stopped by the window and waited for the GTO to come around. “She was driving, the girl I thought Bob knew,” recalled BeLinda. “There was someone in the back, but he was down in the seat like you couldn’t see too much and I thought the baby was in the front. Bob said, ‘Yeah, that’s Linda, we graduated together,’ and then we went about our business.”

  The GTO turned left out of the lot onto Route 40. Hoss had already climbed from the back into the front passenger seat. Linda Peugeot’s first cousin, Norman Gordon, was at a gas station only a mile from Kings. “At a distance, I seen a GTO I thought was Linda’s,” Gordon remembered. “I watched it go by and it was sure enough her. There was someone else in the car but I couldn’t see who it was. I just thought it was her mother. They were heading toward Eckhart, so I guessed they were going to my house because they come up all the time. So when I got home, asked my wife, I said, ‘Are they here?’ and she said no.”

  “When my brother came out of Kings,” Shirley Clites said, “I told him what I saw and said it didn’t look right. When I got home I called my sister-in-law, Shelby Gable. The next day Shelby called me and said she heard on the radio a woman and her daughter were missing. I called Deputy Sheriff Tyree because I knew him. In no time him and two other officers were at my house. Sheriff Tyree told me if I had
had a newer car it might have been me. I drove a ’56 Chevy with a wire hanger for an antenna. I relive this day over and over again. I wish I’d done something different but it was the late sixties and this just never happened in Cumberland, Maryland.”

  Eight miles west from LaVale on Route 40, Linda Peugeot pulled into a gas station. She listened to instructions from her captor. “ … And if you don’t act right,” she heard, “you’re dead, but the baby gets it first.”

  Linda spoke as normally as she could to the attendant, then used money from her purse to pay for the filled-up tank. As they left the station, Linda was told to keep going west on Route 40; twenty minutes later, the gun-toting man beside her said, “See the 219 sign? Take it north.” Linda did so, and in a dozen minutes the GTO had crossed the Mason-Dixon Line into Pennsylvania.

  Linda often looked in the rearview mirror to check on Lori Mae, who was alternately crying, fussing, or merely staring wide-eyed at her mother or at the strange man who, her child’s sense told her, was not nice. At times, Linda would reach her hand back to touch her daughter and say soothing things. After a few such gestures, Linda heard, “For Christ’s sake, stop that. You’re gonna wreck the car. Keep both hands on the wheel and keep drivin’!”

  After passing through Meyersdale, Pennsylvania, Linda spoke to her abductor. “Sir, I don’t know what to say. I can barely think of what has happened here, but won’t you please let us go? We’ll just stop and get out, and Lori Mae and I—that’s my daughter’s name, you know, Lori Mae, and mine is Linda— we’ll get out real fast and walk away. The car means nothing, please have it. We can walk and find a ride home … so, does that sound okay?”

  Linda started to slow the car, hoping her idea was acceptable. It wasn’t. She saw the gun point her way. “Don’t slow down, don’t speed either. Stay on this road and keep goin’.”