Evidence of Murder

by Samuel Roen

  “I’m sure that this will interest you, too,” Tyler told them. “The next guest who checked into the room that Huggins occupied at the inn found a toy gun and turned it in to the front desk.”

  “Well, that is strange. I’d be interested in seeing that,” Weir stated.

  “I was sure you would, so I arranged a meeting for you with the manager of the inn.”

  “Oh, that’s great. We sure appreciate that,” Linnert said.

  The sergeant also gave Weir a copy of the phone calls that John Huggins made while staying at the motel in Salisbury.

  At the conclusion of the briefing with Sergeant Tyler, while John Huggins was being transferred to an interview room, Detectives Weir and Linnert drove to the Salisbury Inn and met with Marjorie Bush, general manager.

  The attractive, well-dressed woman welcomed the detectives. “How may I help you gentlemen?”

  Cordially Detective Linnert explained that they were in Salisbury on a case in Florida, and asked to see the toy gun from room 234 that was turned in to the desk.

  “Of course,” she agreed. “Let me get it for you.”

  As Weir accepted the plastic gun, he noted that it bore a serial number 96656230. Turning to Linnert, he said, “This looks exactly like a large-frame semiautomatic handgun.” Weir passed it to him.

  “This thing shoots BBs or pellets,” Linnert remarked. “I wonder what Mr. Huggins was doing with it.”

  “Let your imagination run wild,” Weir answered.

  Returning the plastic piece to Ms. Bush, Weir thanked her for her cooperation and told her that she would be hearing from Sergeant Tyler of the Salisbury Police Department. Weir intended to make an official request for the plastic weapon.

  Back at police headquarters, Detective Weir gave the sergeant an account of their visit with Ms. Bush. The sergeant assured the detectives that he would arrange for the plastic gun to be collected and sent to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

  When the detectives had interviewed Nancy Parkinson, they noticed that she was a heavy smoker. They asked her if John Huggins also smoked. She assured them that he did and his favorite brand was Marlboro. On the way back to the jail for their interview, the two detectives stopped to buy a pack of cigarettes. Their purpose was to get DNA samples from the ones Huggins smoked.

  Since neither of the detectives smoked, they tossed a coin and Linnert lost, so he had to smoke with Huggins during the interview. “There’s no limit to what I’ll do to solve a crime,” Linnert joked.

  The two detectives waited in the private conference room for John Huggins to be brought into the room for the interrogation.

  The detectives placed disposable ashtrays on either end of the table so Huggins’s butts would be totally separate from Linnert’s.

  The door opened and John Steven Huggins, shackled at the wrists and ankles, was escorted into the room. He sat at a table opposite the Florida detectives, who came many hundreds of miles for this special moment.

  Introductions were made by Sergeant Tyler, with little acknowledgment by the men, only curt nods. The 6’ John Huggins casually gazed around the large room with his hazel green eyes, basically ignoring the detectives. He seemed totally disinterested in the surroundings and the men. It was clearly evident that he was not happy to be in this meeting.

  The detectives studied John Huggins’s appearance. They were somewhat shocked at the sight of him. He was an unsightly man, excessively overweight, with long, unkempt brown hair swept into an ugly ponytail cascading down the back of his shoulders. He had a bearded face, cold, hard eyes, and was dressed in a discolored T-shirt and pants. But what struck both of the investigators forcibly was that there was little if any resemblance to the composite drawings made of the suspect from the eyewitness accounts.

  Linnert pulled the pack of cigarettes from his pocket and started to light one. Immediately Huggins asked, “Could I have one?”

  “Have all you like,” Linnert invited.

  Bringing the purpose of the meeting into focus, Detective Weir began. “Mr. Huggins, our purpose in making the trip from Florida to be here was already explained to you. We would like to ask you some questions. But first I want to advise you that you have certain constitutional rights that I am about to read to you.”

  Weir also explained to Huggins that they set up a tape recorder to make a record of this session. (There was also a hidden camera filming the meeting.)

  Detective Weir then read John Huggins his constitutional rights from an official form.

  “Do you have any questions, Mr. Huggins?” Weir formally asked.

  “No. No questions. I am waiving my rights and am willing to answer your questions,” he responded quietly.

  “Fine,” Weir answered. “For the record, Detective Linnert and I are investigating a crime that occurred in Orlando, Florida, on June tenth of this year.”

  Huggins nodded his head and said, “I know that.”

  Weir stated, “It concerns the disappearance and death of Carla Larson.”

  The detective paused, letting the name Carla Larson sink into Huggins’s mind. The homicide detective continued. “We know that at the time of Carla Larson’s disappearance, you were in the area where she was shopping at the grocery.”

  Calmly Weir told Huggins, “In a video surveillance from the Publix supermarket parking lot, you, Mr. Huggins, were seen.” He stopped again, his deep brown eyes focused on the hostile eyes of John Huggins. “You were in that parking lot at the time of Carla Larson’s abduction.”

  In an unexpected reaction Huggins rose. “I was in Kissimmee during that time. I was with my wife, Angel.”

  Detective Linnert said, “Please sit down, Mr. Huggins. Now explain to us where you were, exactly, on the afternoon of June tenth.”

  Huggins panned from one detective to the other before answering. “I did leave the hotel room that day. I went to a strip mall shopping center to meet a guy. I met him and completed a drug deal with him. As part of that transaction, I had to drive a vehicle back to Melbourne.”

  “Who was the man you met?” Linnert asked.

  “Detective, you know better. If I were to give up this guy’s identity, I’d be killed in quick order.”

  Detective Weir followed up, asking, “What kind of a car were you to drive to Melbourne?”

  “It was just a brown Jeep.” He glared at Weir.

  Detective Linnert questioned him next. “Mr. Huggins, your wife, Angel, and others told us that they saw you driving a white Ford Explorer. The kind of car that Carla Ann Larson was driving. How do you explain that?”

  “That’s easy to explain,” Huggins retorted. “You wouldn’t know this, but my wife is a bitch.” Huggins lit up another cigarette and took a few puffs before continuing. “My wife was just being vindictive toward me for being with her sister. That’s all there is to that.”

  Detective Weir turned to a new subject. “How about drugs? How deep are you into them?”

  Huggins pulled on his wrist cuffs. “I don’t have any problems like that, even with the medications that I take.”

  “We would like to have a saliva sample from you, Mr. Huggins,” Detective Weir explained. “The purpose of the saliva is for its use in DNA evidence comparison with what was found on Carla Larson.”

  “You’ll get no damn saliva sample from me. I don’t have to comply with that and I sure as hell am not going to,” Huggins answered in a firm, unshakable voice.

  Detective Linnert leaned closer to Huggins and asked, “Do you know that a radar detector was found at your friend Kevin Smith’s place, and it was determined that it was from the white Ford Explorer that you reportedly were seen driving? Tell us about that, Mr. Huggins.”

  “I don’t know anything about any radar detector.” He stiffened and said, “I never had no Ford Explorer at Kevin’s home or anyplace else.”

  Losing some of his cool facade, Huggins went on. “Kevin was just telling those stories. He wanted to get me out of the way.” He rubbed his
head, hampered by the handcuffs laced on his wrists, and added, “He had his eye on Angel. He wanted her.”

  Linnert looked at Huggins and asked, “Tell us about you going to Kevin’s home with Nancy Parkinson, you know, when you went to buy some marijuana.”

  John Huggins did not acknowledge the question. He sat and stared at the detectives defiantly.

  Weir tried another approach. “Mr. Huggins, we have it on good authority that you left the Ford Explorer at Kevin’s home.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I did not leave a vehicle behind Kevin’s house.”

  The interview went on, and for every question the investigators asked, John Huggins gave a fanciful or vague answer.

  Reversing the procedure, John Huggins pushed his head forward, with his green eyes blazing, and demanded to know it if was true that “you two detectives questioned my son, Jonathon?” As he delivered his question to the detectives, his face reddened with anger.

  “Yes,” Weir answered positively. “We talked at length with Jonathon.” He smiled, further annoying Huggins. “He’s a nice boy.”

  “You had no damn business talking to him, a ten-year-old boy.”

  “Mr. Huggins, let me point out to you,” Detective Weir corrected. “No one can tell us who we can or cannot talk to, and that goes especially for you.”

  Huggins sat sullen. Detective Weir continued. “Your boy, Jonathon, said that you were driving a sport utility vehicle with a radar detector and other features similar to that of the Larson vehicle.”

  The experienced detective pressed the upset father. “Would you say that your son, Jonathon, was a liar?”

  Shaking in fury, with the handcuffs clinking, John Huggins stated flatly, “Jonathon would not lie.”

  Weir, not surprised with the reaction from Huggins, turned to Linnert, “I don’t see any purpose of wasting any more time with this man, do you?”

  “Not at all.”

  The detectives summoned Sergeant Tyler and returned Huggins to Maryland custody.

  The interrogation was over. It ran approximately two hours and ten minutes.

  The gleeful detectives gathered the separate disposable ashtray they provided for Huggins. There were three cigarette butts that the suspect smoked during the interview. They were collected as evidence, and later used as a comparison source of DNA testing.

  Both Orange County detectives thanked Mark Tyler and extended a warm wish for a Florida visit. “We’ll be glad to see you in the Sunshine State.”

  CHAPTER 15

  That evening just before eight, Detectives Weir and Linnert drove to Trappe, Maryland, to meet with Angel Huggins’s former husband and seven-year-old son at their residence.

  The father, in a good mood now that his son was returned, indicated his willingness for the officers to talk with the boy.

  “Austin, we would like to ask you a few questions,” Detective Weir began in a friendly approach.

  Looking to his father for approval and support, the little boy had a puzzled expression on his face. “It’s all right,” his parent assured him.

  “We’re going to talk to you about your visit with your mother in Florida,” Weir said.

  A smile crossed the boy’s face with the mention of his mother, and he nodded slightly.

  “You remember that your daddy drove you to Florida and left you with your mother for a visit?”

  “Yes,” the boy answered. “I remember. We had a nice ride to Florida.”

  “Do you remember seeing Mr. John Huggins, who is now your mother’s husband, when you got to Florida?”

  Austin nodded. “Yes, I remember.”

  Weir described the time that the boy saw John Huggins with the group of his step-and half brothers and sisters when they stayed at the Holiday Inn and then the Days Inn suites, which Austin recalled. But when he asked the boy if his mother argued with John Huggins while they stayed at the Days Inn, Austin said that he did not see or hear any arguments between his mother and Huggins.

  In answer to a final question from Detective Linnert, the boy told the detective that he did not see John Huggins driving any car other than his mother’s.

  The questioning of Angel’s son was concluded.

  As they drove away from the residence, Weir sighed. “I guess that was a no-score.”

  “You don’t catch a fish with every cast,” Linnert philosophized. “But that doesn’t mean that we have to stop fishing.”

  On Saturday, July 12, Weir and Linnert discussed the progress of their investigation. They decided to talk to Nancy Parkinson again before they returned to Florida.

  Linnert suggested, “She’s had time to do some thinking about our visit. Maybe she remembered something more. What do you think?”

  “My mother used to say, ‘It couldn’t hurt.’ Let’s try.”

  At Nancy Parkinson’s residence, the two Florida detectives held a second interview with her.

  “It’s nice to see you again,” Nancy greeted skeptically.

  Linnert smiled. “We’ll try to make this painless for you.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to be so concerned. I know that you’re just doing your job.”

  “I’m glad you understand,” Weir said.

  “How can I help you this time?” Parkinson inquired.

  “First of all, Ms. Parkinson,” Weir began, “we would appreciate your making this a sworn statement for the record. Is that all right with you?”

  Nancy Parkinson agreed to have her statement sworn and tape-recorded. When they began, she told the detectives she had done a lot of thinking since they last talked to her about the time she spent with John Huggins, and she recalled more details.

  She said she wanted to tell the detectives about being with John Huggins and her friend Melanie Cramden at the Cocoa Beach pier on June 26.

  “Sure, tell us about that,” Weir agreed.

  “We were having a good time and I was looking at some jewelry in a display case when John asked me why I wasn’t wearing earrings.” Nancy reached up and felt the lobe on her right ear, as if to check for an earring. “I thought that was an odd question for a man to ask. I didn’t think that men paid much attention to earrings. I never heard a man say, ‘Did you notice the pretty ruby earrings Jane was wearing?’ ”

  Nancy watched the detectives for their reaction, then continued. “I told John that I left my earrings at home and that I really didn’t have much jewelry anyway.

  “He looked at me like he felt sorry for me. And I was sorry that I said what I did, about not having much jewelry. He told me that he had a pair of diamond earrings. He just looked at me then, as if he was expecting me to say something, maybe ask him for them. But I didn’t say anything at all. Then out of the blue, he asked me if I would like to have them. I thought about that and, naturally, I told him, ‘Yes, I would like to have them.’ There was no more conversation about them and I never saw any diamond earrings from John Huggins. The issue was never discussed again.”

  “That’s interesting,” Detective Linnert commented, thinking about Carla Larson’s missing diamond earrings.

  “What else?” prompted Cameron Weir.

  “John called me from jail. Collect,” she added with a tinge of asperity. “He asked me to come and see him. I knew from his serious voice that it had to be important. I agreed to go to the jail.”

  Parkinson paused to light a cigarette. “When I met him at the jail, sitting on the opposite side of a separator, he was in a happy mood. He pushed as close to me as possible so he wouldn’t be overheard, and kind of stage-whispered, ‘I want you to do something.’ I stared at him; I had no idea of what was coming next. Evidently, the jail authorities gave him permission, because he passed me a check.

  “I saw that it was made out to me, in the amount of thirty-five hundred dollars. I asked what it was for. He explained that three thousand was for his mother. I was to pass it on to her. He told me the other five hundred was for me. Not to buy my silence, he said, it was just to he
lp me with my expenses. He emphasized that.”

  “I guess even a bad apple has some good portions to it,” Detective Linnert remarked.

  “What else can you tell us about your friend Huggins?” Weir prodded.

  “I imagine you’ll want to hear about this. I spoke with John by phone the day before you two interviewed him. He was in a good mood, and I thought that he might be willing to talk freely with me, tell me things.

  “There are times when he is as silent as that big Rock of Gibraltar, and there are times he flows out with everything like the Mississippi River. But you never know which channel he’s into. I just figured that I would ask him some of the things that were in the back of my mind. The worst he could do is answer no. So that night I asked John if he blew up that car in Cocoa Beach.” She stubbed out her cigarette.

  Detective Linnert straightened in his chair as he and Weir waited expectantly.

  “What did he say?” Linnert asked.

  Parkinson said calmly, “He just laughed.”

  She said that he explained, “Angel was just trying to get revenge.”

  “Did you ever ask John if he murdered the woman at Walt Disney World, in Orlando?”

  “I never asked him that,” she said flatly. She lit another cigarette to give herself a break.

  The detectives sat silently, waiting for her to continue.

  Parkinson picked up her conversation. “I didn’t want to ask John too many questions. I didn’t want him to get mad at me.”

  “Did he know that we talked with you?” Linnert asked Parkinson.

  “Oh, yes, I told him that. And he told me that I didn’t have to talk to you officers.” She laughed. “And then he said that I should not talk to you anymore.

  “Before we finished our conversation, John said he wanted me to do something.” She said he explained that he was going to be transferred and he wanted her to come to the jail before that occurred. He wanted her to pick up his belongings and ship them home for him.

  Parkinson said that Huggins asked her to look into his suitcase and carefully go through all of his personal belongings for what looked like a gun or weapon and get rid of it. Linnert thought, Did Huggins forget that he left that plastic gun in the Maryland inn? Or did he have another one?