Now Rachel was texting that she was going to get Sarah, that she was all staked out, and Sarah was going to have to come home sooner or later. Sarah’s parents were also calling, saying that she had to go home. Joshua told Sarah that for security reasons, he didn’t think she should leave.
Janet had a full house. Sarah and Jilica and his brother James, and his niece and nephews, were all there. Joshua knew Rachel had driven down the block a few moments before because Janet was outside smoking and saw it. So he texted Rachel: Why are you down this street. Go home.
Joshua said that Rachel texted back: I’m waiting for Sarah to come out.
“Before your sister told you about the car on her street, you were conversing with Rachel. Isn’t that correct?”
“She had texted me.”
“Did you call her back?”
“No, I did not.”
“I want your complete honesty here, because I am going to take your phone records and compare them against what you tell me. If I see you are calling her when you say you weren’t calling her, I am going to have a problem with that.”
Joshua said that was fine. He did not talk to her. He only texted her. They should check his cell phone, which was in his name. T-Mobile had the records.
Lynch became direct with Joshua. This data he was getting made a lot more sense if Joshua was sneaking over to visit Rachel every now and again. That would be the thing that would explain why Rachel and Sarah feuded, the reason why tempers were running so hot. They really were sharing a man.
Lynch said he had every reason to believe all of that was true. He’d heard a lot about Joshua. “The bottom line is you’re a player,” Lynch said. “You are stringing all three of these girls along—Erin, Rachel, and Sarah.”
“The reason I see Erin is because of my baby.”
“I understand that, and you’re just trying to be involved with the baby’s life, right?”
“Yeah.”
There was a pause and Joshua took the opportunity to correct something Lynch had said earlier. When he said there were no incidents during the three weeks before the stabbing, he didn’t mean that he and Rachel hadn’t had conversations. Well, they had had the same conversation several times.
“Rachel wanted to be with me—and I told her no,” Joshua said. He said no because, to be blunt, because of the skank factor: “Guys who knew where Rachel’s apartment was would come up to me—say, I was in a store—and they would say, ‘Hey, you know Rachel Wade?’ And they would think that I was still having sexual relations with her—but I don’t.” She had a mess of boyfriends, so many that Joshua couldn’t convince people he wasn’t one of them.
The way Joshua spoke made it seem as if there was a lull in the drama, Lynch analyzed, and then, all of a sudden, Rachel was suddenly furious with Sarah, texting threats to her.
Joshua agreed that there was a suddenness to it. “That’s why I didn’t want Sarah to go out there,” he added.
“But Sarah is twice Rachel’s size,” Lynch said.
“Rachel is small, which meant she had people with her, or she had something. Nobody in her right mind would want to go fight somebody….”
“What was the exact wording of the text? What was she going to do to her?”
“She said she was going to ‘beat her ass. I want my one-on-one.’”
“Are you aware of other incidents involving the two of them, chasing each other in cars all around the city, and crap like that?”
“Yeah.”
“And you couldn’t put a stop to that, right?”
“No.”
“So she was on your sister’s block. At some point did she leave? Did you go outside to see Rachel?”
“No, I didn’t want to go outside. I knew that Sarah would go outside, too, if I did. My brother went outside to smoke a cigarette and said that Rachel’s car had gone by again.”
Joshua sent Rachel a fresh text, telling her to go home. She just said she was going to get Sarah. “If I don’t get her now, I’ll get her at home,” Joshua recalled Rachel texting.
And all this time, Sarah’s stress level was on the rise, like one of those cartoon thermometers that pop, as her parents called telling her to get home. Sarah didn’t want her parents to worry so she didn’t tell them about Rachel’s threats. She lied and said she was in the middle of a video game and would be home soon.
Sarah finally said, “I’m going to go home.”
Janet Camacho said, “I’m not going to let you go by yourself.”
Since Sarah and Janet were going, Jilica went, too. His brother Jay left around that same time also, so Joshua was stuck at the house to watch Janet’s kids.
“And then I got a call,” Joshua said, voice quavering.
“They were going to go and get McDonald’s. Know anything about that?”
“No. I thought Sarah was going home.”
“If Sarah drove, how were Janet and Jilica going to get back home?”
“They were going to walk. We don’t live far from Sarah’s house.”
“How far?” Lynch asked. When he received no response, he added, “Are you sure that’s why they got in the car?” Lynch pointed out that from Janet’s house, Sarah’s house and Javier’s house were in opposite directions. One did not pass by one on their way toward the other.
“I don’t know what happened after they left, honestly.”
“Well, you’ve talked to your sister about it, obviously.”
“No, not that night. After that, I went to the hospital, and I—”
“No, I said you talked to your sister since it happened, right?”
“Yeah, I talked to her, but I didn’t talk to her about that.”
“They didn’t think Sarah was capable of driving home alone?”
“No, my sister wanted to make sure Sarah had people with her for when she got out of the car, in case someone jumped her outside her house.”
“So Janet wanted to be there as protection for Sarah?”
“Yes.”
“After they left, did you call or text your sister, or Sarah, or Rachel?”
“I called Sarah at one point and I said, ‘Where you at?’ And she was like, ‘I’m going to call you back in a minute.’” He didn’t know why she said that.
“That ride from your sister’s house to Sarah’s house should have taken two minutes. During that time, you called her?”
“Yes. I called right after they left. I asked her what she was doing. I wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to go after Rachel or anything like that.”
“When she called back, what did she say?”
Joshua started to cry. “She said, ‘It hurts,’” he said with a gasp. “I asked her, ‘What hurts?’ And the phone just went dead. I called my sister and I heard screaming. I ran to her dad’s house, and I had him drive us down to Javier’s house, and she was lying on the floor.”
“You mean to tell me she called you and said, ‘It hurts’?”
“Yes, and when she said it, I didn’t know what she was talking about.”
“When you called your sister’s phone, what did she say?”
“She didn’t say anything. All I could hear was screaming.”
“Then how did you know that they were at Javier’s house?”
“My brother told me. My brother had drove by there.”
“Was your brother driving a little white car, by any chance?”
“No, it was a brown car.” He knew nothing of a white car. “Right after he called Janet, I called Jilica. She was like, ‘We are outside that boy’s house.’ And I said, ‘What boy?’ And she was like, ‘Sarah got stabbed.’”
Lynch tried again to get Joshua to talk about conversations he might have had with his sister or her friend about that night. Joshua emphasized that he had not seen his sister since that night. There had been conversations, but not about this.
The last time he saw Janet, he called her from the hospital that night and asked her to come pick him up. When she did, he
told her that Sarah had died, and Janet cried.
They started to drive away, but Janet had a panic attack and was hyperventilating. Joshua took over the wheel and drove Janet back to the same hospital from which they’d come.
“After that, I went to my parents’ house,” Joshua concluded.
“Are you telling me that you haven’t spoken to your sister or Jilica about how they ended up at Javier’s house that night?”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
“Well, I don’t believe that for a moment,” Lynch said. “I want to be sympathetic toward you because you are obviously upset about Sarah, but please do not insult my intelligence. Anyone who was in this position would want to know what the hell happened. You can’t tell me you didn’t talk to your sister about this.”
“I am telling you the truth. I don’t know how that happened.”
“They were the last two people with your girlfriend when she died.”
“Every time I try to talk about it, I just start crying. I can’t talk about it.”
There was a pause as the detective wrote notes.
When Lynch resumed the interview, he returned to an old point. “Why were Sarah and Rachel on the phone? Why were they texting each other?”
“I don’t know. I know that Rachel said, ‘After I stab you, I’m going to stab your Mexican boyfriend.’”
“How would you know that?”
“Because my sister told me.”
“You told me that you hadn’t talked to her about any of this.”
“She talked to me before.”
According to Joshua’s time line, the Mexican boyfriend comment arrived on Sarah’s phone while Sarah was in her car, still in Janet’s driveway. Janet ran into the house to give Joshua the house keys and told him at that point the kind of stuff Rachel was texting.
“Why would you need the keys to the house if they were going to drive the few blocks to Sarah’s house and walk back?”
“You see?” Joshua said. “That’s the part I don’t understand.” All he knew was that Rachel said what she said, and everyone heard because of speakerphone. “And I was like, ‘Just take her straight home and come back.’”
Lynch was getting angry. “Why did Sarah go to Rachel looking for a fight? Did you ever ask your sister? Why did your sister take your girlfriend, who is now dead, to that house? Did you ever ask her that? She would still be alive if you had just taken her straight home. You didn’t say that to your sister? You sent your sister with Sarah to protect her, right? And, instead, they end up going to a house looking for a fight. Are you pissed at your sister? Are you going to say anything to her? Do we need to get your sister in here and ask her why, while you’re here? Why didn’t she take Sarah home, like she was supposed to? Why is that? Can you explain it to me?”
Joshua said he didn’t feel that Janet was responsible for what had happened.
“You sent her to go.”
“I didn’t tell anyone to go. I told Sarah to stay there. I told my sister—”
“You said, ‘Please escort her home.’ Isn’t that right?”
“I told Sarah not to go. She said her dad was going to be pissed.”
“And you told Janet and Jilica to go with her to protect her, right?”
“No, I didn’t tell them to go with her at all. I didn’t ask her—”
“How do you detour from going to Sarah’s house to going over there and getting into a fight? I’d be pretty pissed at my sister if I lost a girlfriend that way,” Lynch said. “And you haven’t even asked why they changed destinations.”
“I haven’t talked to anybody.”
“I have more than one person confirming that you were on the phone with Rachel, talking on the phone, last night. Rachel sat in front of that residence for an hour on the phone. With you and with Sarah. And I’m telling you these cell phone records are not going to lie.”
“I’m telling you, the only time I talked to Rachel that night was while I was running to Sarah’s dad’s house.”
“I’m talking before that.”
“Before that, I didn’t talk to her at all.”
“How many text messages did you leave?”
“There was a lot.”
“So you were texting her.”
“Yes. A whole lot. That was when I told her to go home, when she was on my sister’s street.”
Lynch again said that wasn’t what he was talking about. Rachel was in front of Javier’s house for an hour before the incident, on the phone, arguing, growing agitated. Joshua said there were just texts; and if it was true that he was still communicating with her when she was at Javier’s house, he didn’t know where she was at the time.
“How do you think your sister, your girlfriend, went—instead of going to where it was safe—went to where Sarah was in danger? How did it happen? Why couldn’t they just do the safe thing? Have you asked yourself that question? Do you know what it sounds like to me? Sounds like the three of them were going to a beat down!”
“I know how Sarah is,” Joshua said. “If anyone says they want to fight her, she doesn’t care who it is, she doesn’t back down. Before she left, she said she was going home. If she had said she was going looking for Rachel or going someplace to get in a fight, I would have never let her leave.”
Lynch reiterated the bad job Janet did of protecting Sarah. He added, “I was told by Rachel that you were encouraging her to fight Sarah. That you said, if she loved you, she would fight for you. Is that true?”
“That’s a lie. I would never want Sarah to fight nobody.”
“What about Rachel? Did you care if she got into a fight?”
“No, I don’t care about her. I only cared about her when we were living together, and it all went downhill from there. That’s why I never went back out with her.”
“That’s not the way it’s being portrayed. Everybody is saying that you are playing the field, and seeing this girl behind her back, and seeing that girl behind her back.”
“No, that’s not true. I know everybody is saying that, but it’s not true.”
“I’m not saying that. The newspapers are saying that. Sarah’s own parents are saying that. Where are they getting that information?”
“I don’t know. People talk. They say things about me that aren’t true.”
“This is a girl that you say you loved. Why are Sarah’s parents telling me that you were screwing around behind their daughter’s back?”
Joshua was angered at the mention of Charlie and Gay Ludemann. “That’s what I don’t understand. If they were saying those things, then why wouldn’t they tell their daughter?”
“They did tell her,” Lynch said, his voice rising with excitement.
“Then why wouldn’t Sarah tell me?” Joshua asked.
“Because she loved you. Her parents tolerated you.”
“No parent would tolerate their child getting played on.”
“Unfortunately, they did—and it was the same thing with Rachel’s parents. They are devastated and destroyed as well. Same thing. So you are telling me that you are the kind of guy who has one girlfriend at a time?”
“That’s right. I wasn’t—”
“And you weren’t pitting these two against one another? You didn’t say to both of them that they should fight, with the winner getting you?”
“No. That’s why she was at Janet’s so late. I didn’t want there to be a fight.”
“Okay. What about Rachel? She’s saying you cared for her. That she should fight Sarah—and you would be the prize.”
“I never said that. I never sent it in a text.”
“Okay, you said that your phone was shut off.”
“Yeah, I went to the company about that and they say I got to pay an extra thirty dollars because that’s how the psychics [sic] work.”
“What do you mean?”
“Thirty dollars for when my phone turns off. Nothing would get erased—my call logs or anything. And I told them that was
bull. Why would I have to pay them thirty more dollars added onto my bill every month just so my stuff could get saved.”
“Everything worked fine until that night?”
“Yeah, my phone died at the hospital that night.”
“Just mysteriously stopped working at that point?”
“Everything went away.”
“That’s a miracle, huh?” Lynch said.
“It had happened before. That’s why I went to the company.”
“Why would it delete?”
“It doesn’t delete from them. They still have it, but it deletes from my phone.”
Lynch reiterated that Joshua was in big trouble if the T-Mobile records deviated from what he was saying. One call, one text different and, as Lynch put it, “you and I are going to be back in here again, and it isn’t going to be as friendly as it is now.”
“I understand you.”
“Because that’s what Rachel is telling me. She’s telling me that she was so afraid Sarah and Janet constantly chasing her around. And that she’d finally had enough and wanted to end the situation.”
“That’s what I don’t get. If she is so afraid of my family, then why is—”
“She wasn’t saying you. She was saying Sarah and Janet. She was upset with you, obviously the dating thing. She was under the impression that you guys were still together in some capacity. She said she only found out that night that you were breaking up with her.”
“The last time I talked to Rachel, I swear, I was running over to Sarah’s house. I asked Rachel where she was and she said she was still in front of Javier’s house.”
“When was the last time prior to that, that you spoke to Rachel?”
“I don’t remember. That was the only time I talked to her that night. All the rest was texts.”
“So during that hour she was at Javier’s and she was yelling into the phone and getting upset? Who was she yelling at?”
“Was she at Javier’s house before she drove down my block?” Joshua asked.
“No, this is all after,” Lynch said.
Joshua knew that wasn’t true. There was no way an hour lapsed between Rachel being on his block and Sarah getting stabbed. It wasn’t anywhere near that long.
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