Media Justice

by Dennis Carstens

  With the unruly mob now more or less under control, Cale began calling on reporters and taking questions one at a time. For the next fifteen minutes a reasonably polite exchange took place between the press and the sheriff. When it was done, he had revealed everything his office knew which was mostly covered in the handout each had received.

  “Obviously our main priority is to return this little girl to her family. In your information packet, you’ll find our 800 number. We would appreciate it if you good people would publicize it and let the public know to call us with any information to help us accomplish that.”

  This last statement caused all four detectives to silently cringe. With a case like this, the four of them could easily spend weeks, maybe months, running down false leads. Every goofball, crackpot and member of the aluminum foil helmet club would be calling. On the other hand, sometimes these notifications led to legitimate information.

  “Now,” Cale continued, “if there are no other questions…”

  A hand went up in the front row, raised by the reporter Cale suspected had broken the story, Gabriella Shriqui. The sheriff would have loved to have known who her source was but knew she would never reveal it.

  “Sheriff,” Gabriella began, “is the mother, Brittany Riley a suspect in your investigation?” It was a question everyone at the briefing wanted to know but for some inexplicable reason had not asked.

  Instead of simply answering “no” he added an innocuous; “not at this time” onto his answer. With that, another loud buzz went through the crowd and a half dozen hands shot up.

  Without understanding the significance of his seemingly innocent statement, Cale said, “That’s all I have folks. We’ll keep you posted. Thank you.” With that he turned to his deputies and indicated he wanted to see them. As he walked away, a dozen voices could be heard yelling the word, “sheriff” in a vain attempt to get his attention.

  Cale, the four detectives and Patty Dunphy beat a hasty retreat toward the entry to the sheriff’s department. Waiting inside the door was Cale’s personal assistant, Louise Shaffer. Shaffer stepped up to Cale and the six foot four inch sheriff bent over as she whispered in his ear to let him know he had visitors. The Riley family was waiting for him in his office.

  As they walked down the hall toward his office, Cale quietly asked Louise, “What do they want? Did they say?”

  “To see you,” Shaffer shrugged. “To find out what’s next, I guess.”

  Cale stopped, turned to his deputies and said, “Shannon, you and Patty come with me. You three go into conference room A. We’ll meet in there.”

  A minute later, Cale, Dunphy, Shaffer and Shannon Keenan, entered Cale’s office. Shannon Keenan was one of the department’s senior investigators. She was an average size woman who dressed mostly in jeans, cowboy boots and casual coats and blouses. Her one indulgence to vanity was blonde highlights in her light brown hair. She was exceptionally good at family matters especially those involving children. At the age of forty four and the mother of three teenage boys, she had plenty of hands-on experience.

  Waiting in his office were all four Rileys, Barbara, Floyd, Brittany and her brother Tim. When the greetings, introductions and handshakes were completed, Cale took the chair behind the large oak desk, leaned forward on his forearms and asked, “How are you folks holding up?” He paid close attention to Brittany who was looking past him at the wall behind his desk.

  Flanked by the state and U.S. flags, the sheriff’s vanity wall was filled with plaques, awards and pictures of the sheriff with various politicians. What Cale found most curious was the blank, almost indifferent look on Brittany’s face and her emotionally empty eyes. He expected them to be red and puffy from crying. Instead they were quite dry and she looked almost uninterested.

  “How did the press conference go? Will they publicize Becky’s disappearance? Do you think it will help?” Barbara asked.

  “The press conference went fine,” Cale answered while stealing a quick peak at Dunphy who slightly nodded her head and shrugged her shoulders a bit. “And, yes, they’ll publicize this. In fact, they’ll be all over it. You folks are going to be in for a rough ride from them.”

  “Why?” Brittany asked.

  “Because they’re going to want to know your story. They’ll probably be camped outside your house wanting pictures, interviews, you name it. I can’t tell you what to do but you might want help handling this. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to get a lawyer to represent you and help you with this. Once word gets out, you’ll have dozens of them wanting to represent you.”

  “It’s all right,” Barbara said glaring at Brittany. She turned back to Cale, smiled and said, “Why would we need a lawyer?”

  “Just to help you handle everything.”

  “What about a reward?” Barbara asked. “We could put up fifty thousand dollars.”

  Cale paused for a moment before answering and, instead, Shannon Keenan spoke up. “Mrs. Riley, why don’t we hold off on that for at least a few days? We’ve barely begun. Let’s see how it goes first.”

  “Okay,” Barbara said a little disappointed while looking at Shannon who was standing in back with Patty Dunphy. “What next?” Barbara asked turning back to Cale.

  Again, it was Keenan who answered. “Brittany, tomorrow I want you to come here at 8:00 A.M, You can come with me and we’ll start searching for Bob Olson. Is that okay?”

  “Sure,” Brittany answered, looking at Shannon and showing real interest for the first time.

  “We would like to organize a search ourselves,” Barbara told Cale. “You know, get some volunteers to look through parks and other places.”

  “That would be okay,” Cale replied nodding his head. “Why don’t you meet with Patty tomorrow and she can help you with that. Get some publicity going and things like that. Is that good with you?” Cale asked Dunphy.

  “Sure, no problem,” she said as she handed a card to Barbara. “Come in tomorrow at 8:00 and we’ll start on it.”

  Cale and Shannon Keenan took their seats at the conference room table. “Tomorrow?” Cale asked everyone seated at the table.

  “Stu and I will start running down known pedophiles in the appropriate age and race group, white males in their twenties to mid-thirties,” Paul Anderson said.

  “And all Bob Olson’s in the Metro area. We’ll expand outstate later if we need to,” Doyle added. “Same age and race.”

  “You’ll get a shitload of them,” Cale said to Doyle.

  “We have to start somewhere,” Doyle shrugged. “We’ll have Curt Thomas run DMV on Bob and Robert Olson spelled with an o-n or e-n and pull photos for Brittany to go over.”

  “Speaking of Brittany,” Cale said turning to the two women, Shannon and her partner, Kristin Williams. “We need to discreetly start looking at her.”

  “She acted about as upset as if we were talking about her neighbor’s cat running off,” Shannon replied. “We’ll see where this search goes but, I’m not too hopeful.”

  “I’m not the only one who senses she knows more than she’s telling us?” Cale asked looking at Shannon.

  “No, you sure aren’t,” she answered.

  NINE

  The morning after the press conference, a few minutes before 8:00 A.M,, Barbara, Floyd and Brittany Riley arrived back at the sheriff’s office. Barbara and Floyd went with Patty Dunphy to set up a public search for their granddaughter while Brittany went into a conference room with the two female detectives. The four investigators, with the sheriff’s approval, decided to let the two women handle Brittany. Their thinking was that until she could be ruled out as a suspect, she must be considered to be one. Their job was to handle her carefully and try not to intimidate her and risk losing her cooperation. Specifically, they needed to keep Stu Doyle away from her as long as possible.

  The three women each took a chair at the conference room table. The two investigators were on one side facing Brittany who looked to be a little frightened. Kristin Williams, the o
ther female detective whom Brittany had not yet met, introduced herself and said, “You look a little nervous, Brittany. Believe me, we’re here to help you,” she finished with a reassuring smile.

  “I know,” Brittany replied, nodding her head.

  “Good,” Kristin said. Kristin was ten years younger than her partner, Shannon. A little taller, slimmer and also married but no children, she had been a detective for only two years but had learned a lot from the more experienced Shannon.

  The three of them spent the next half hour listing all of the places Brittany could remember having been with Olson. Additionally, even though Brittany had done this herself, they went over a list of all of the investment firms in the metro area hoping that if she heard the name, it would jog her memory. Several of them sounded like possibilities to Brittany but she could not be sure.

  “Wait here, Brittany,” Kristin said as she stood and walked to the conference room door. “I need to get one of our other guys in here.”

  “Get Paul,” Shannon said.

  “I will,” Kristin answered as she stepped through the doorway into the hall. She walked down the hall and into the room where the detectives’ desks were located. To her relief, she saw Paul Anderson at his desk and Stu Doyle nowhere in sight. Kristin motioned for Paul to come to her, which he promptly did looking around to make sure Doyle didn’t see them.

  “Where’s Doyle?” Kristin asked as they walked toward the conference room.

  “Probably in the john admiring himself in the mirror. What’s up?”

  “C’mon in and talk to her for a minute.”

  “Hello, Brittany. I’m Paul Anderson,” he said with a disarming smile after entering the conference room as he shook hands with Brittany. “I’m a detective and I’ll be working with Kristin and Shannon to find Becky,” he finished as he sat down next to her. Anderson was the oldest member of the sheriff’s office, next to the sheriff himself. A receding hairline, a slight paunch and a bit of a rumpled appearance belied a sharp mind and one of the best case closure rates in the state.

  “She can’t remember the name of the investment firm where Olson told her he worked,” Shannon said as Kristin sat down again.

  “Okay,” Anderson said. “I guess we’ll have to check all of them.”

  “You’re going to need subpoenas,” Shannon said.

  “I think we can get a blanket one to cover all of them. It would be helpful if you could remember,” Anderson said turning back to Brittany. “Did you ever go there with him?”

  “No,” she answered.

  “You’re sure it was downtown Minneapolis?”

  “Yes,” she answered quickly. “That I remember for sure. At least that’s what he told me. And, he said he worked in the bond department, whatever that is.”

  “Okay,” Anderson said in his kind, fatherly way as he patted Brittany on the back of her hand. “You keep thinking about it and try to remember, okay?” He looked at the two women across the table and said, “I’ll put Doyle on this. He’s actually pretty good at it. And Brittany,” he said as he turned back to her. “We’re getting photos and information on every Bob and Robert Olson in the Cities. In the next day or two, if we haven’t found him, we’re going to have you go through them. Okay?”

  “Yes, of course,” she replied. “Will somebody please tell me something,” she continued as she made eye contact with each of the detectives. “Am I going to get my baby back?”

  It was the fatherly Paul Anderson who answered her. He took her right hand in his left, looked directly into her eyes and softly said, “I can promise you this: we will do everything we possibly can to make that happen.”

  With Brittany in the back seat of the unmarked, four door sedan, the three women pulled into the parking lot of the Buck Hill Apartments. This was the third apartment complex on County Road 11 they had been to that morning. Since Brittany could not remember with any certainty which apartment it was, they decided to check them all.

  Of the first two, one of them did have a Bob Olson as a tenant. Even though he was a sixty four year old retired postal employee, they checked on him anyway. Fortunately he was home, very pleasant and cooperative. Obviously not the Bob Olson they were looking for.

  Though uncertain of it, the complex they were currently at was in fact, the one Olson had taken Brittany to the night before the kidnapping. Like most people when they are passengers in a car and not driving, Brittany had not paid close attention to where they had gone that night. Assuming Olson knew what he was doing, where he was going and having no reason not to trust him, she simply wasn’t watching.

  There were three large three story brick buildings housing a total of one hundred and twenty apartments. It also had two long buildings that housed sixty single car garages and a large, open parking area. Kristin Williams parked in a visitors slot in front of the building that housed the management office.

  As the three women walked toward the office door, Brittany looked around and said, “I’m pretty sure this is the one. In fact,” she continued as she stopped and pointed at the building directly across the parking lot, “I’m almost positive that’s the one there.”

  The two detectives stopped, turned to her and Shannon said, “But you didn’t actually see him go in,” a statement, not a question.

  “No, sorry. We were parked over there I think,” she said pointing at a spot in the lot away from the door. “It was raining, starting to get dark, Becky was in the back seat and we were just waiting for him.”

  “Okay, let’s go see the manager,” Shannon said.

  The office manager was a well-dressed, professional looking young woman in her late twenties. The detectives introduced themselves, showed her their badges and credentials and explained their purpose to her. As they had done with the previous places they had checked, they showed her the drawing of Olson. The manager could not identify him but, after a search on her computer, she did come up with two Robert Olsons as current tenants. She also did a search for former tenants who may have moved in the past year and came up with two more. Of the four of them, only one was in the appropriate age group. He was listed as married with one child and was a current tenant.

  “We’d like to check them all out anyway,” Shannon told the manager. “We’ll need you to print off the information for each of them.”

  “Um, jeez, ah, I’m not sure if I can do that, even for the police.”

  “This is a kidnapping investigation,” an impatient Kristin Williams said glaring at the woman. “A little girl is missing!”

  “Oh, my God! Seriously? Okay. I’ll get them for you right away.”

  Kristin winked at Shannon as the young woman hurried to comply. Barely five minutes later, with the information in hand, and the apartment manager in the lead, they entered the building that was home to the married Bob Olson. They found the right apartment and, after knocking on the door, a harried looking woman in her mid-twenties opened the door holding a small boy.

  They introduced themselves and explained the purpose of their visit to the obviously distraught young mother. She let them in and politely answered their questions, even getting them a picture of her Bob Olson.

  Brittany stared at the photo for thirty to forty seconds then said, “With glasses, a mustache and goatee, it could be him. I mean maybe…” she stammered.

  The young mother, whose name was Carly clutched the young child a little too tightly and said, “No, that can’t be. He would never… when did this happen?”

  Shannon told her the time frame for when Becky went missing. Carly assured them they were out of town visiting her relatives in Bemidji that weekend.

  Kristin who had taken the photo from Brittany asked, “How tall is your husband?”

  “Six foot three, six-four?” she answered.

  “Too tall,” Shannon said then apologized for the intrusion. As they were leaving, a visibly relieved Carly put a hand on Brittany’s arm and said, “I hope you find your little girl. I can only imagine the hell you
must be going through.” Later, after everything had settled down, Carly, found herself thinking that Brittany didn’t look very upset at all.

  Before moving on to the next apartments, as they had done with the first two places they visited, they left copies of the drawing of Olson. The apartment managers would post these along with instructions to call if anyone had information about him.

  The three women spent the rest of the morning stopping at every apartment complex between County Road 42 and Highway 13. They obtained information on a total of eleven Bob Olsons that were either current or former tenants. Of those, aside from Carly Olson’s husband, there were only two others that could be listed as possible, in the right age range and race. One had moved several months before and one was still living in the apartment. They placed a quick call to the employer of the Bob Olson living at the apartment they were checking. It was a small trucking company in Shakopee. The owner told them this Bob Olson was currently out of town in his truck. Shannon left her name and number and told the man to have him call when he returned.

  By 2:00 that afternoon, they had finished the apartment search. Their only interview was with Carly Olson but they had obtained more names to run down. After arriving back at the sheriff’s department, they handed Brittany over to Stu Doyle to go over pictures and bios of the Bob Olsons he had collected from the DMV.

  TEN

  The two women detectives left Brittany with Stu Doyle to begin going through the photos of all the Bob and Robert Olsons the DMV had provided. In the immediate Twin Cities area alone, narrowed down to the appropriate age and race group, there were over three hundred possibilities. Doyle had also asked the DMV to give him a list of all of the Bob Olsons in Minnesota outside the Twin Cities. The DMV came back with an additional eight hundred from outstate; almost two hundred of those were age and race appropriate. He decided to put aside the ones from outside the metro area and just concentrate on those from the Twin Cities.