The Dead Priest of Sedona

by Charles Williamson

  “If we find graves, that state forensic team will be a huge help.” I opened my map and explained the search plan I had worked out. I also told the sheriff about my conversation with Chad regarding the Wood family and the unusual name for their bar. He said he would have someone check on them while we were searching the Sean Murphy crime scene.

  About half an hour before the press conference, the Sheriff’s administrative assistant would prepare a summary of anything that was new in the case from today’s investigation. The sheriff and I would decide how much to include in the answers for the press briefing. When we heard the approach of several helicopters, we went to the parking lot to watch their landing.

  Outside, we found that the guardsmen had arrived in five big duce-and-a-half military trucks. Five choppers set down in the area of the parking lot that had been reserved for their use. Major Howard introduced himself and assembled his men up to hear my instructions. I explained that a team from the sheriff’s office would go to the search area and mark a search grid in the snow using a biodegradable orange paint. We would use GPS receivers to get an exact location for each grid. Each three-person team would search his assigned area. They would probe the snow with steel rods looking for soft soil. Because the bedrock was only inches from the surface on most of the plateau, much of the area would not have deep enough soil to bury a body. The guardsmen would clear the snow if they found any indication that the ground had been disturbed, and a team using ground sonar would set up in promising locations to try to determine if a spot was worth excavating. Sheriff Taylor explained that Major Howard and I would set up and man a command post within the circular pine grove.

  Chad and I traveled with ten other men and women from the Coconino Sheriff’s Department in the first helicopter. The National Guard troops would follow in half an hour. Each pair of us had a GPS receiver and a photocopy of the map with grid lines I had prepared. All of us also carried two cans of orange spray paint. As we neared Pagan Point, I could see that the white of the snow was broken in some places by traces of darker earth. It had not been cold long enough for the ground to have frozen under the remaining snow pack, and that would improve our odds of finding disturbed soil.

  The chopper flight from Flagstaff was striking. The cloudless sky was an intense blue. The San Francisco Peaks, buried in heavy snow and rising to 12,600 feet, provided a dramatic landmark behind us as we flew south from town. Spreading below us was a remnant of the old growth ponderosa forest. The tall trees created a dense canopy from the air. Their broad orange-brown trunks were widely spaced at ground level. The old growth trees formed an open forest with little underbrush. There were only dormant grasses under the deep green canopy. Old growth forest is rare in the Flagstaff area where the timber business was one of the principal reasons for the early growth of the community.

  Ahead we could see the sharp edge of the escarpment that formed the Mogollon Rim. The 2,000 foot higher altitude of the Colorado Plateau was made conspicuous by the sharp break in the cover of snow at the Rim. Soon I could see the circular grove with the huge juniper in the center, which looked so unnatural from the air. The odd grove of trees was in an open meadow near the edge of the deep cut through which the West Fork Creek flowed. The point was cut into a “V” by a small tributary of the West Fork Creek, which met the main creek from the south.

  This gash through the plateau this far upstream was less than five hundred feet wide, but over six hundred feet deep. The sheer walls cut by the creek through the soft pink and tan sandstone undulated and, in places, overhung the perpendicular walls, hiding parts of the rocky creek bed from view. Southwest of our target promontory with the strange circular grove was a similar natural high point called West Buzzard Point.

  CHAPTER 20

  We landed in the same clearing used by the helicopter on Monday. As I stepped off the helicopter, my foot sunk into three inches of wet snow. We discussed our plan for marking the search grids and divided into five teams to begin our assignments. One team member would walk forward with the GPS receiver one hundred meters at a time; the other would follow marking the snow with orange paint to form the grid. When we dodged around trees and rock outcroppings, we would use the GPS receivers to get back into the proper line. The marking went quickly; about as fast as we could walk, the orange grid of one hundred meter squares took shape.

  After about forty minutes, I could hear the helicopters bringing the National Guard troops. They were well organized, and the search was quickly underway. Sheriff Taylor, Major Howard, Chad, and I set up a map and communication station within the circular grove. For lack of anything else requiring our immediate attention, we probed the grove area with poles looking for soft soil.

  About 11:00, we got news of the first spot that might be disturbed soil deep enough for a burial. We sent the group’s sonar team to investigate the grid square. Chad and I went with them while the sheriff stayed at the command post. Within minutes we found that it was a false alarm.

  As Chad and I walked back toward the grove, I head someone shout for us to come to their grid. It was one of the search grids closest to the precipice that overhung the West Fork Creek. When we got to the edge, a young corporal was looking down at the nearly six-hundred-foot drop below her position. She pointed down into the narrow canyon that stretched below us.

  I saw nothing but the dramatic slot canyon, cut deep into the plateau. The drop was almost vertical to the canyon floor where the West Fork Creek flowed down to meet Oak Creek. The corporal, who I learned was Marcia Hoag, had me stand next to her and follow the point of her arm. She was indicating a tan sandstone rock formation that had broken from the canyon wall forming a rock outcropping that pressed against the steep cliff about three hundred feet below us.

  Something white was caught between the top edge of fallen sandstone formation and the steep wall cut by the creek. It was not the white of snow. The white areas might be formed by rocks, fallen from the gray limestone layer above. It might be bones. When we walked along the ledge closer to the rock outcrop, the view of the possible bones disappeared; the cliff walls above the area blocked them from view. The only place along the whole rim where we could see the white objects was the exact spot where Corporal Hoag had noticed them.

  Even when Chad got the binoculars from the crime kit, we couldn’t tell for sure if these were bones or rocks. The sheriff joined us and suggested that we take a closer look from the air. We boarded one of the helicopters, but from our high viewpoint the area with the potential bone debris was not visible. Utah juniper and piñon pine had grown from the top of the broken fragment of cliff obscuring the view. The helicopter could not fly close enough to the canyon wall for us to look straight down into the cut.

  The soft sandstone that formed the cliff was very unsuitable for climbing. The sheriff called the Fire Station # 3 Technical Rescue Team. They were the best in the area in working in these canyons. He sent two of the helicopters into Sedona to pick up the fire fighters and their equipment. The Technical Rescue Team would need to rappel down the three hundred feet from the top of the escarpment to the area of potential bone remains.

  We continued the ground search while waiting for the firefighters. After about thirty minutes the six members of the rescue team were setting up their ropes and equipment. They secured their lines to several substantial ponderosa pines rather than trying to anchor their equipment in the soft stone near the edge of the escarpment. Each line ran through a diesel-powered winch. Climbing a three hundred foot rope was not a good idea even with their strenuous training. By noon the team was ready to descend. The National Guard teams had stopped for lunch, and many of them joined us near the cliff’s edge to watch the firefighters make the dangerous descent.

  The firefighters wore microphones, which transmitted to a receiver set up near where Chad and I were standing. The team leader was about half way down when I heard a single word come over the speaker; “Bones.”

  Within a few minutes we were getting more details.
Over the receiver came the report, “I’m now holding a position about twenty feet above the remains. I can see at least a dozen human skulls. The bones are scattered about as if animals or birds have been active. Some of these bones seem quite old. This is definitely a crime scene. Sheriff Taylor, do you want us to descend to the cleft where we might disturb the remains.”

  The sheriff looked at me. “Sheriff, I think we should get a complete photo record before we set foot on the ground and disturb the area.”

  The sheriff passed those instructions to the rescue squad still hanging from their ropes above the bleached bones. They took photos from above, passing the digital camera among the team’s members to get different angles. After taking about fifty photos, some from only a few feet above the remains, the diesel winches brought the team back to the rim.

  We loaded the photos into a laptop that the rescue team had brought along. The scene was a grisly jumble of human remains, stripped clean of flesh. A couple of the skeletons still had some cartilage connecting the bones. The leg and foot bones were visibly blackened. There were no remnants of clothing or jewelry. Some of the remains were clearly old, and it was likely that burned, naked bodies had been tossed over this cliff over a period of decades.

  The sheriff took the satellite phone and walked across the plateau where he could call Governor Garman without being disturbed. I got my copy of the map to mark the exact point where the remains were found. I noticed that directly across from the jumble of bones was the area of the map marked West Buzzard Point. How long ago was the point named? Could the long history of crimes have attracted the birds for which the area was named? The map was dated 1963. The circular grove of ponderosa was at least that old.

  When the sheriff finished his phone calls, he returned to where Chad and I were waiting. “Mike,” he said with obvious stress in his voice, “we’re going back to Flagstaff to get ready for the press conference. The governor would like us to not disturb the bones until the state forensic teams get here tomorrow. Before we head back to Flag, I need to talk with Major Howard. Chad, you should come back to Flagstaff with us. There is some computer work I’d like you to do before the press conference.”

  The three of us walked over to Major Howard, who was meeting with his officers to discuss their search results. “Congratulations Major on the success of your team,” the sheriff said. “Corporal Marcia Hoag will be getting a commendation from Coconino County. If she hadn’t spotted the bones down in that cleft, all of this effort might have been wasted. I’ve just finished talking with Governor Garman. She’ll be contacting General Montoya about your good work here today, but there’s more to be done. The governor will be asking your unit to secure this area with armed guards. You should also remove the roadblocks set up by the Forest Service. Your troops will need to remove enough trees along this abandoned road to get trucks to this plateau.” The sheriff indicated the ground route that would lead to the plateau on a map.

  “Governor Garman will personally clear this with the Forest Service for us. This is a federal wilderness area. Don’t do any damage that you can avoid. The FBI will be taking charge of the forensic efforts here. They will be leading a team that will include twenty Arizona experts and several Feds. You will need to set up the largest military tent you can requisition for the group to use. I think we’ll need a couple of dozen folding tables for the remains. There is no snow forecast for the next few days, but you’ll need to set things up to withstand a twenty inch snowfall. We can get one at any time up here. We’ll need to find some sort of equipment to provide easier access to that bone filled cleft. We can’t expect all of these experts to repel three hundred feet down a sheer cliff.”

  The major replied, “Sheriff Taylor, we have several large tents designed for heavy snow conditions at the armory. We have diesel generators, heaters, and lights. We’ll also set up a tent with cots for rest breaks and a portable kitchen. I can check with a mining expert who is a Guard member to see if we can get a mining hoist to access the area of the remains, or maybe we can use a crane. It will still be dangerous work. All I need to get started is the order from General Montoya. If you let me borrow your satellite phone, I’ll give him a call right now.”

  After the Major confirmed his orders, Chad, Sheriff Taylor, and I headed for a helicopter.

  CHAPTER 21

  We got to the sheriff’s office about 2:30. With an hour and a half till the press conference, we had some time for preparation. Chad went to work on the project he had started yesterday. He was trying to fill in the blanks for the years where there were no known victims from the Flagstaff area.

  The sheriff and I set up the computer projection unit in the briefing room and began to discuss the details of the press conference. We had the updated report prepared by his administrative assistant. The VIN number indicated that the 2001 Lincoln Navigator had been stolen from the long-term parking lot at LAX sometime between October 1 and October 13. The California license plates were taken from another vehicle in the same lot. The vehicle fire had destroyed any fingerprint and DNA evidence, but the tires matched the tracks found on Tuesday near the Sean Murphy crime scene. This vehicle had been at the scene of both the Sean Murphy murder and the Kevin Riker murder. It proved that the two crimes were closely linked.

  We put together a presentation using the digital photos of the ponderosa grove where Father Sean was murdered. We planned to ask the public to report if they knew anything about the site and who might have used it. We included a photo of the empty cage in the hope that someone might recognize it. Finally, we chose three photos of the bones in the cleft near Pagan Point. We made a chart listing each year since 1969, with the names of the missing next to each year. We knew that the crimes predated 1969, but we were not certain yet how far back they went. By counting the visible skulls in digital photos, we knew that there were at least thirty-two victims. There were almost certainly more skulls buried lower in the heap of murder victims. We decided not to mention the footprints. The ones found up at Pagan Point and the ones found running from the burning Navigator were men’s size seven and a half.

  Chad joined us in the briefing room at 3:30. He had four names to add to our list, which now covered almost every recent year. The new victims had disappeared from Kingman, Arizona, from Needles, California, from Barstow, California, and from a truck stop near Ludlow, California. All of them had disappeared from places on Interstate 40 between Flagstaff and LA. I could see that the sheriff was anxious to establish that the murderers might be from California rather than Coconino County. The Sean Murphy and Kevin Riker cases both involved a vehicle stolen from the Los Angeles airport.

  I suggested that we mark each disappearance on a map and use it in the briefing. We would not mention California, but the reporters could draw their own conclusions. Once we had the digital map ready, it was obvious that most of the victims disappeared here in our county. However, a trail led west on Interstate 40.

  The sheriff’s assistant came to the briefing room to let us know that five TV stations, three network affiliates from Phoenix, CNN, and FOX, would like to set up their equipment. They would be breaking into programming here and in Phoenix to cover the press conference live. CNN also planned a live national broadcast. We were told that they had been called by the governor’s office and warned that there would be a dramatic announcement this afternoon. We retreated to the sheriff’s office to give the news broadcasters twenty minutes to set up their gear.

  At fifteen minutes before the briefing, the sheriff received a call from Major Howard. While they were preparing to open the road into Pagan Point, a National Guard soldier had found a rock shed with a green metal roof. It was hidden near the road and about twice the size of a portable toilet. It was the perfect size to hold the cage used in the Sean Murphy murder. They had not disturbed the building. The major would secure it for examination by the forensic unit tomorrow.

  I mentioned that we should get someone from Northern Arizona University’s Forestry Dep
artment up to look at the circular grove. They could tell us the age of the pines. I ran through the slides and my notes while Chad and Sheriff Taylor peppered me with rapid-fire questions in simulation of excited reporters. Finally, they ran out of questions. Although I had only a few more minutes to prepare for the most stressful presentation of my career, I knew my nervousness would disappear when the press conference actually began. Nevertheless, those few minutes after completing preparations but before beginning to talk were the toughest. I was already starting to sweat.

  CHAPTER 22

  I wished for another day or two to prepare, but it was time for the press conference, and I walked into the briefing room with Chad and Sheriff Taylor. Reporters and the curious filled every seat, and they were crowded along each wall. I made my way through the noisy crowd to the front of the room while Sheriff Taylor and Chad stood at the back examining the crowd. There was a chance one of the perpetrators might be stupid enough to attend the event. It has happened several times in other cases. The TV stations had set up their cameras, and the lights were so bright at the podium that I could not tell if Margaret and the Rikers were in the audience.

  The noise of the crowd stopped completely when I said, “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I’m Lieutenant of Detectives Mike Damson of the Sedona substation, Coconino County Sheriff’s Department. Sheriff Taylor has asked me to brief you on the current status of the investigation of the murders that have occurred in the Secret Mountain Wilderness area.