by Leslie Rule
The flowery, romantic wording was as foreign to Neil as the complex sentence structure, Gloria insists. “Neil” wrote that he missed Shanna’s “beautiful face” and that he wished he could “hug and kiss your beautiful body from head to toe and make sweet love to you all over again.” He proposed marriage, and even signed one of the letters, “Love your husband, Neil John Munson.”
The fourth letter, dated May 10, 1999, contained the first damaging passage:
. . . As my wife to be, I need you to come back up here and tell my attorney that on Thursday, the 29th of February the reason you called me from work at eight-thirty p.m. was because you had dropped Cody from about four feet, which then caused Cody to stop breathing. So then, you shook Cody, not to do any harm, but to get him to start breathing again. Please Shanna, this is what will set me free because they are trying to pin it on me. Please, I love you with all my heart and soul . . .
Cody had actually died on January 29th, but the letter writer had forgotten that. The fifth letter, dated May 11, made things worse:
. . . Hi honey. Hey, what I said in the letter to you on May 10th, about what to say that you dropped Cody, forget about it. That is wrong of me to ask you to say something that you didn’t do like that. I’m just scared, but I went to court and it went well . . .
The Battle Creek Enquirer reported that Morris Astene realized that the letters destroyed the defense theory and quoted him. “You could tell by the look on the jurors’ faces. You could tell it was all over.” Astene spoke to his client during the next break, and together they decided it was time to surrender. The young man pled guilty, and the trial was over. If indeed he did not write those letters, he didn’t speak up for one of three reasons. One, he put Shanna’s needs before his own. Two, he didn’t understand the significance of the letters. Or three, he didn’t think anyone would believe him.
Neil’s apology with his guilty plea echoed the statements the cops had coaxed from him during the ambush interrogation in the back of the police car. He had learned then what he was expected to say. He was probably greatly relieved the trial was over but didn’t fully comprehend what the future held.
The record of Shanna’s testimony, including her reading of the incriminating letters that put Neil behind bars, was confined to a videotape that had slowly begun to disintegrate with the beginning of the new millennium. When I ordered the transcripts of Shanna’s testimony, I was told that no typed version of the trial transcripts had ever existed. The transcriptionist would have to watch the old video and type a transcript from that, but the tape was so fragile they could make no guarantees. There was a chance the tape could turn to dust as the reels began to churn, and Shanna’s lies would be swept into a dustpan with the fragmented pieces of a drama long past.
But as it turned out, the transcriptionist was very careful, and “babied the tape along.” She recorded Shanna’s every word, and presented me with seventy perfectly typed pages. I’ve tried to get copies of the actual letters, so the handwriting can be studied to determine if they’re forgeries. As of this writing, the letters have not materialized and may have been destroyed when old files were cleared. The only solid evidence to show Neil Munson did not write the letters comes from comparisons of linguistic styles. But if anyone had been paying close attention, they would have noticed another odd thing. “Neil” had written in one letter that Raymond was wondering where Shanna had gone, implying that he and Raymond had had a discussion about her whereabouts. Not only were the two men not friends, Neil was in jail. Raymond is adamant that he never had that conversation with Neil.
While he served his time and was paroled years ago, if Neil is innocent, it’s terribly unfair that he should carry the stigma of someone else’s evil deed. It’s possible Neil was manipulated into believing the death was his fault. The cops’ obsession with his “tossing game” might have convinced him he had caused the injuries.
Neil spent eight and a half years in prison. His parents and siblings stood by him and never believed for a moment he could harm a child. A father of two now, his care of his children has always been above reproach. And yet, the other suspect in the baby’s death was eventually proven to be a sadistic killer. All of this makes me question if justice was served in Cody’s death.
According to Gloria, there was another important witness expected to testify, and she never got a chance to take the stand. The would-be witness was an acquaintance of Shanna’s and allegedly claimed that Shanna had told her she’d had another child who had died of SBS, and this was relayed long before Cody was stricken. If Shanna really did tell that story, was it fact or fiction? Either way it’s suspicious.
Shanna seldom returned to Michigan. She feared arrest and avoided the state. Ray remembers brief visits when she showed up incognito. She owned two wigs, one blond and one brunette, and when she ventured into The Great Lakes State, she did so as stealthily as a secret agent. The felony warrant for the car theft still stands. Authorities knew she’d moved to Omaha and could have extradited her, but the cost was prohibitive. She was a known fugitive from justice but didn’t make it onto any “most wanted lists.” No one realized she was dangerous.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DAVE KROUPA HAD A CLOSE CIRCLE of pals in Sioux Falls, friends he’d known since high school, and they’d kept in touch over the years. Some of the guys in the group dated some of the girls, but others were platonic friends. Tayandy Braver was a platonic friend, but her best friend, Heather, describes herself as Dave’s “friend with benefits,” though romance between them occurred only when they were both single. They cared about each other, but their relationship had never been serious. It was simply a fun, comfortable friendship with a strong physical attraction.
In January 2014, they were both single. Heather had recently broken up with her boyfriend, so Dave invited her to visit. She made the three-hour drive from Sioux Falls to Omaha and remembers that “It was the coldest day of the year.” Shortly after she arrived, one of Dave’s male friends stopped by. “We had a few beers with him,” Heather remembers. The guy soon left, and she noticed Dave’s cellphone was blowing up with texts and calls. “What’s going on?”
Dave sighed. “This girl, Cari, won’t leave me alone. She keeps stalking me. The cops haven’t been able to do anything about it.”
It was upsetting news! She wished he’d warned her. Dave tried to reassure her, and they moved into the bedroom but were interrupted by a rattling noise. “It sounded like someone was trying to open the patio door.” Heather shudders at the memory. Dave told her not to worry. The stalker’s shenanigans were commonplace. It might have been normal for him, but she was scared. She screamed as glass shattered. They found a brick on the bathroom floor, amidst shards of glass, as the icy winter air poured through the broken window.
Dave was surprised by how frightened Heather was, and she couldn’t understand why he was so calm. “Call the police,” she cried, but he balked. There was no point, he told her. The stalker was long gone by now. But Heather was adamant, so he made the call. The police showed up to take the report, but just as Dave had predicted, there was nothing they could do. The only sign of the stalker was a jumble of footprints in the snow, some outside the bathroom window, and others outside the patio door. Dave told Heather more of the story, explaining that “Cari” was also stalking Liz, one of his girlfriends. He added that he and Liz had an open relationship, but he kept Wednesdays reserved for her.
The whole scenario struck Heather as fishy, and she ventured, “Maybe Wednesday Girl threw the brick.” It made no sense that this Cari would not want to see him face to face. If she was so in love with him, why hadn’t he seen her in over a year? Dave knew it was a whacky situation, but it had been going on for so long he’d stopped trying to make sense of it. He shrugged off Heather’s suggestion that Liz was the real culprit. He and Liz had been together many times when she’d received threatening texts, and he’d seen with his own eyes how frightened she was. He was worried about Liz n
ow because it was unusual for the stalker to break a window when he was home. Why had she suddenly changed her pattern? The nut must be extra riled up. “We need to check on Liz to make sure she’s okay,” he said. They went by Liz’s place, but there were no cars in the driveway and no tracks in the snow. No one had been there for hours. Heather found that suspicious, but Dave wasn’t interested in her theories.
Heather was annoyed, frightened, and miserable. It was so cold with the broken window that it was impossible to sleep. She grew more irritated when she spent the next day alone in the freezing apartment when Dave went to work. She would have been even more frightened had she known Cari had disappeared from that very apartment. Heather felt the same visceral terror Melissa Strom had experienced a decade earlier when Liz trapped her in her boyfriend’s apartment. Both Heather and Melissa had been dismissed by men who suggested they were overreacting. Both women survived because they trusted their own instincts. Heather cut her visit short, and she and Dave parted on a sour note. He knew she was shaken but didn’t realize how angry she was at him for not warning her. He’d grown so used to the constant harassment that it was no longer a big deal to him. While they remained in touch, their friendship cooled, and their rendezvous during Omaha’s coldest days of 2014 was to be their last romantic encounter.
A few months later, Dave invited Liz along to keep him company when he drove to Sioux Falls to see family and friends. It was a casual visit, he remembers, stressing that it was not a special trip to introduce his girlfriend to his parents. He still had no desire for a commitment. After Heather’s unfortunate visit, some of his friends snidely referred to Liz as “Dave’s Wednesday Girl,” though most weeks she managed to see him on additional days not allotted to her.
Dave and Liz stopped by Tayandy’s house. They’d first met as children, when Tay was best friends with Dave’s older cousin. One day, when the girls were playing together, they were asked to sit on the porch and keep an eye on Dave. “Dave was in diapers,” Tay remembers. She would know him forever, and they would grow up to be good friends, but her first impression of him was forever tattooed upon her memory banks. He was an adorable tyke with sunrays highlighting the ginger tones of his hair as he toddled around the yard. She would always think of him as a little brother.
Tay warmly welcomed Dave and Liz and would have been surprised to realize that Liz was jealous of her. An attractive blonde, Tay is a mother of two and has been married to her husband, David, since 1998. The walls of her home are adorned with photos of her kids and pets, and it should have been obvious to anyone visiting that her life was grounded in her family. After a pleasant visit, Tay walked them to the door and casually mentioned to Liz that she should come back sometime. It wasn’t an actual invitation, just something polite that hostesses say without expecting to be taken seriously. Tay would come to regret her good manners.
Not long after the visit, Tay received an email from Dave, and when she opened the attachment, she was shocked to find herself watching a sex video starring Dave and a dark-haired woman whose face was not visible. Annoyed, Tay called Dave and demanded, “Why did you send me that?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied.
She sent the video back to him, and he recognized the images. He was aware that Liz had used her phone to record a few seconds of intimacy between them, but he wasn’t thrilled to learn that the X-rated flick was being sent to his friends. He figured that the stalker had hacked into Liz’s phone and accessed the naughty movie. A few weeks later, Tay was looking forward to relaxing at home with her husband in the upcoming weekend when she got an unexpected call from Liz, who asked, “What are you doing this weekend?”
“Not much,” Tay answered honestly. “Just hanging out here.” Before Tay realized what was happening, her polite “invitation” from weeks earlier had come back to haunt her. Liz had taken the invitation literally and announced she wanted to visit for the entire weekend. Though disappointed that her plans were ruined, Tay always put other people’s feelings first. She told Liz she was welcome to come, explaining now, “I didn’t want to be rude.”
Liz soon arrived with her packed bags but seemed surprised to find a house full of people. “I think she thought I was going to be alone here, because my husband often works away from home overnight. Also, she didn’t realize that my father-in-law had moved in with us. I went around and introduced Liz to everyone, and she did not seem at all impressed. She asked, ‘So, where are we going to go spend girl time?’ I said, ‘Here!’ I had no intentions of going anywhere else. Where did she think we should go? To a bar? I’m not a big drinker, and I didn’t want to go to a bar.”
“Girl time” would just have to take place at Tay’s kitchen table. Tay poured coffee as Liz launched into a monologue about “Crazy Cari.”
“She said she was frustrated because Dave wouldn’t do anything to stop Cari from stalking them, and she had to get out of town for a while because the whole thing was stressing her out.” She told Tay, “The Omaha cops are stupid” because they couldn’t catch the stalker. As Liz griped, Tay tried to sympathize but grew weary when it turned into an exhausting monologue. Tay was relieved when Heather dropped in.
“Heather, this is Dave’s girlfriend, Liz,” said Tay.
“Heather?” Liz’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, you’re the one who came to see Dave. He should have brought you to my place when Crazy Cari threw the brick through the window.”
“I don’t even know you,” Heather said coldly. “Why would I stay at your house?”
Flustered by Heather’s attitude, Tay shot her best friend a warning glance. Why was Heather being so rude to poor Liz? But Heather ignored Tay, instead locking eyes with Liz, who asked her, “What were you doing at Dave’s?”
“You know,” Heather said slowly. “Dave and I have been friends with benefits for decades. I will always be here. I was here before you, and I will be here after you. You’re just the Wednesday Girl.” Then Heather walked out, leaving a fuming Liz glaring after her. It had been a tense exchange, but at least it got Liz’s mind off of Cari. Now Liz wanted to talk about Heather, and she asked Tay how often Heather and Dave had sex. “I don’t know,” Tay told her. “I don’t keep track of it.”
Then Liz wanted to know if Tay had ever had sex with Dave. Tay laughed and said, “Kroupa is like a little brother to me!” She told Liz about meeting him for the first time when he was a toddler in diapers, but Liz was skeptical. “She didn’t believe me, and she asked me over and over again if I’d ever slept with Kroupa. I kept telling her that we were just friends.”
Liz said she was aware that Dave had been intimate with several other women in the group. If Dave had slept with those women, why hadn’t he slept with Tay?
“We’re not attracted to each other,” Tay said patiently. “And I’m married!”
“Why aren’t you attracted to him?” Liz prodded. “What’s wrong with him?”
“There’s nothing wrong with Kroupa, but he’s like a little brother to me! And I don’t think it’s a good idea to sleep with your brother!”
Liz asked her to explain again about how she and Dave had met, so Tay repeated the story. “Seriously,” Tay told Liz. “Kroupa is just a friend!”
“If he’s just a friend, then why do you have a pet name for him?”
“A pet name? What do you mean?”
“You call him Kroupa.”
“I call him Kroupa because I’ve got so many friends named Dave. Even my husband’s name is Dave.” Tay tried to explain that Kroupa was not a term of endearment, but a way to distinguish him from multiple Daves and reduce confusion.
“Why do you text him so often?” Liz asked.
Tay told her that she regularly texted a number of her friends, just to say hi or ask how they were doing. After a while, Liz switched gears and suggested they visit Dave’s parents, who lived a few blocks from the Braver home. Tay phoned Dave’s mom and asked if they could come. Patricia “Trish” Kroupa was
surprised by the call. She didn’t know either Tay or Liz well, but she graciously invited them over. Tay remembers that they sat down at the Kroupa kitchen table, drinking coffee, as Liz began to gripe about the stalker situation. Tom and Trish appeared worried as Liz told them that “Crazy Cari” was very dangerous.
The Kroupas were aware of the stalking and had been concerned enough that Tom had recently given Dave a gun for protection, but Tay recalls that Liz went on and on about it until she had the couple worked up into a panic. “Tom finally said that maybe Dave should have more guns, and Liz got excited and said, ‘Yes, we need more guns!’”
Trish Kroupa recalls that the most peculiar part of the visit was when Liz started to obsess over Dave’s child-support payments. Liz felt that Dave was handing over way too much of his hard-earned cash to “greedy” Amy and suggested that Trish speak to her son about it. Maybe with input from his mother, he would finally realize that Amy was taking advantage of him.
Trish was astonished by her gall but kept her voice level as she responded, “Dave is a grown man. He can make his own decisions.” Trish had two other encounters with Liz that left her shaking her head. Once, Dave had gone to his parents’ home to see his cousin, Trish (named after her aunt), who was visiting from out of town. They hadn’t seen each other in a long time, and everyone was laughing and reminiscing when Dave got a call from Liz. Though they could hear only Dave’s side of the conversation, it was apparent to everyone listening that Liz wanted to join him, but he very clearly told her not to come. They were shocked when Liz showed up a few hours later. She claimed she had been nearby, attending a meeting, and, since she was already in the neighborhood, had decided to drop in. Dave’s mother remembers that her niece took her aside and with a worried look exclaimed, “There’s something really wrong with her!”