Snider worried that the stresses of the past year had finally driven her crazy. But the voice kept insisting and she decided church might not be such a bad idea.
Although she attended irregularly, the church had given her something to cling to in the dark days when she had been in prison. Maybe the beast that sometimes raged in Tom’s soul would be tamed in the presence of God.
But once again, it was too late.
Sgt. Bob Burkhart of the Bureau of Criminal Investigations, West Virginia State Police, wasted no time contacting Scott Richardson in Lakewood, Colorado. If what the Snider woman said was true, he thought he’d best find out everything he could about Luther.
Richardson responded by faxing Burkhart a five-page report on Luther’s “particulars.” Luther, he said, was a suspect in the disappearance and murder of Cher Elder, as well as a suspect in the January 1982 deaths of Bobby Jo Oberholtzer and Annette Schnee in Summit County. A third girl had been raped, beaten, and left for dead a month later, but lived to identify him and send him to prison.
Luther’s victims tended to be petite white females, 19 to 22 years old, with shoulder-length hair, Richardson reported. Luther worked by picking up hitchhikers and watching places like bus stops for likely targets. It was thought that he would beat, strangle, and sexually assault his victims.
Burkhart agreed to find out where Luther lived and check into the information Debrah Snider provided regarding the guns. “We’ll get back to you with what we find,” he said.
Richardson hung up the telephone, relieved. He had lost contact with Snider, who seemed to have abandoned her ranch and family to chase after her man. Now, apparently, she was coming back around again.
The detective was satisfied with the results of Byron Eerebout’s trial. He and Deputy District Attorney Minor talked it over with the judge and told him that they hoped for a stiff sentence to apply pressure to Eerebout in the hopes of solving the Elder case.
Sentencing had been set for September, after which Richardson would play a waiting game. The FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit had suggested waiting sixty days after the sentencing before approaching Eerebout again. It would give him enough time to get a taste of penitentiary life without becoming established in the convict world and deciding to do his time in silence.
A few days after they first talked, Richardson got another call from Burkhart. They had located Luther’s cabin. He was driving a Ford truck and the blue Geo Metro. While he was away one afternoon, detectives got close enough to take photographs of the cabin. They’d also come across information that Luther was buying ammunition for a shotgun and a rifle. “We’re trying to get enough for a search warrant,” Burkhart said.
“Thanks, bud,” Richardson replied. “I’ll send you some recent photographs of him. When you get a minute, you might want to get a notice out to nearby states to see if anyone has any murdered or missin’ women.”
Chapter Nineteen
August 21, 1994—Delray, West Virginia
Unaware that he had already been brought to the attention of the local police, Luther was driving along a rural highway in his Geo Metro when he stopped to pick up two hitchhikers. A man and a 32-year-old woman with dark, shoulder-length hair. Her name was Bobby Jo, an irony that would not be lost on police investigators.
A few miles down the road, they met up with another woman, the man’s girlfriend, who didn’t appreciate that Bobby Jo Jones was there. She suspected that her boyfriend and Bobby Jo were having an affair. While the man and his girlfriend argued, Luther and Bobby Jo left—she wanted to buy some cocaine in nearby Virginia, and Luther agreed to drive.
However, Luther first took her to his cabin where he announced that he wanted to take a shower. “Care to join me?” he said slyly. Bobby Jo declined and went outside to wait. As she left the cabin, she noticed a Colorado license plate hanging on the wall.
Fifteen minutes later, Luther came out of the cabin carrying a backpack. “I might need this,” he said pleasantly, but didn’t elaborate.
The pair drove to Virginia and purchased cocaine from Jones’ connection, most of which they promptly consumed. Bobby Jo later recalled that Luther was a good conversationalist as they drove back to West Virginia. He made no sexual advance, though she sometimes caught him looking at her strangely.
They were getting close to Delray that evening when he suddenly veered off the road into a field. As matter-of-factly as he had previously discussed the weather, he announced, “I’m going to rape you.”
Jones, a single mother of two, tried to reach for the door handle when her head exploded with pain. “Bitches,” he swore and hit her again. “Whores. Sluts.”
As Bobby Jo tried to regain her senses, Luther got out of the car and went around to her side, where he yanked her out by her arm. She felt something pop and screamed in pain. He dragged her over to a tree where he tore her clothes off.
When he began to undress, Jones tried again to escape, but he chased her down. Spinning her around, he punched her repeatedly in the face. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Collapsing to the ground, Bobby Jo cried out, “Why are you doing this?
“ ’Cause you’re a fuckin’ bitch,” he snarled and punched her again.
Jones heard her jaw snap like a piece of wood. He climbed on top and began to choke her. “I’m going to kill you,” he raged. She felt herself begin to lose consciousness. God, she prayed, please don’t let him kill me.
Luther quit choking her. Turning her over, he attempted to rape her vaginally and anally though he could not maintain an erection. Frustrated, he flipped her over again and demanded that she perform oral sex.
When this too failed, Luther began to strangle her again but stopped just as suddenly. He stood up, panting from the exertion. He passed a hand across his eyes. Wordlessly, he picked up his clothes and began to get dressed.
“Can I put my clothes on?” Jones asked through her broken mouth. The arm Luther dragged her out of the car by hung uselessly at her side, throbbing with pain.
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Then get back in the car.”
Bobby Jo gathered her torn clothing and dressed as well as she could with her one good arm. She got in the car shivering with fear and wondering what was next.
“I’m sorry,” Luther said, getting in the driver’s side. “I’ll take you to the hospital to get help.” But when they reached the intersection where Luther should have turned to take her to the hospital, he continued driving straight ahead. “Where are we going?” Jones cried.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he said. The strange quiet that had come over him was almost more frightening than the snarling animal he had been just a few minutes earlier. “I’m taking you back to my cabin.”
Jones pictured the cabin in the forest. He’s going to kill me, she thought wildly. He’s going to bury me somewhere out there and nobody will ever know what happened.
Luther approached another intersection. There was a stop sign, but it was clear he wasn’t going to stop. However, he did slow down to check for oncoming traffic. Bobby Jo seized the moment to grab the door handle and tumbled out onto the highway.
She heard Luther slam on the brakes behind her, but even with her broken jaw and shoulder shouting with pain, she was already up and running into the woods near the road. Terrified as she crashed through the underbrush, she listened for footsteps following her. She hadn’t heard Luther’s car speeding off.
Bobby Jo Jones reached a clearing that led to a road across which she could see a rural grocery store. Her clothes in tatters, her face bloody and disfigured, she ran into the store screaming for help.
After Jones escaped, Luther drove in a panic to the campground where Debrah Snider lived in her van. She wasn’t around. He took a set of clean clothes from his backpack. Then he removed his blood- and dirt-stained clothes and changed. He threw the soiled garments into the river that flowed near the campground.
Continuing on to his sister’s house, Luther told his brother-in-la
w, Randy Foster, that he had beat up a woman because of a drug deal gone awry. Knowing Luther’s past, Foster asked if he had also raped the woman.
“No,” Luther said. “I swear I didn’t. But I think I hurt her real bad.” He paced around the room. “What is ailing me? I don’t know what causes this to happen,” he said, echoing the statement he made to Deputy Morales in Summit County more than twelve years earlier.
The next morning, Snider was asleep in her van when she was awakened by knocking on the van door. Her pleasure at seeing Tom, however, evaporated when she caught the wild, hunted look on his face. He pointed to his car, which she could see was loaded with what appeared to be all of his possessions.
“I’m heading out,” he said.
“Why?”
“Richardson showed up at work. I took off,” he said.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “Maybe he wasn’t there to arrest you.”
Luther started to say something, then stopped. His head hung. “I can’t tell you that lie,” he said, looking up. “I did it again. I beat someone up, a black guy and, uh, then there was a girl who jumped in and, well, I think I beat her up pretty bad.”
There was a party, he explained. He’d arranged to get some drugs but the black guy ripped him off.
“Did you rape her?” Debrah asked angrily dismissing the character of the “black guy.”
“I tried to get her to suck me,” he responded. “I said, ‘You like black dick so much, how about tryin’ white. But I couldn’t get it up.”
It was another Tom Luther story. Snider knew it. It wasn’t even a new one. Girl tries to rip him off in a drug deal, girl assaulted—it was essentially the same story he had tried to pass off for his attack on Mary Brown in 1982.
“Richardson will be coming,” Luther said and turned to leave.
“Don’t go,” Snider implored. She was sure he had raped this girl and part of her wanted him to stay and face the consequences. Another part of her was afraid that this time if he left, she would never see him again.
Now Debrah understood how Sue Potter must have felt that night when he came back to her in Frisco after assaulting Mary Brown. All those years, Debrah had thought that Potter was weak or crazy, knowing Tom for what he was but taking him, blood and all, into her bed. She must have loved him, too, Debrah thought.
“I won’t lie for you, Tom,” she said grabbing his hand and pulling him into her van and into her arms. “But maybe it isn’t as bad as you think.”
Bobby Jo Jones was admitted to the hospital with a dislocated shoulder, a broken jaw, and a broken nose. Her face was swollen and bruised where Luther had struck her; the marks left by his fingers around her neck stood out like rope burns. But two days after the assault, she was able to lead State Police Trooper Jeff Phillips to Luther’s cabin. Luther wasn’t in.
On August 27, Phillips, a young enthusiastic rookie, called the cabin. Debrah Snider answered. “He’s not here,” she said. He’d gone to Vermont, but she expected him back in a few days.
Actually, Luther had not gone that far. He hung around the area, checking newspapers to see if the crime had been reported. It didn’t make the newspapers, and he was starting to feel the danger had passed. He had returned briefly to his cabin when he got a telephone call from Jones on August 30. He was unaware that the conversation was being recorded by Phillips.
Jones played it cool, saying she had left her keys in his car and needed them. Then she mentioned that she had a lot of medical bills because of what he’d done.
“Well,” he replied. “I guess I got to own up to it, part of my responsibility in this.”
“I just don’t know why you did it,” Bobby Jo said.
Luther sighed. “Yeah, I ... you know, I’m a fucking idiot when it comes to that.”
“You beat the hell out of me,” Jones continued.
There was silence. Then Luther said, “So what do you want me to do? What do you need?”
“Tom, why did you rape me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you go around raping and beating up women?”
“No, I don’t. I’m sorry ... I can’t handle chemicals,” he said alluding to the cocaine. “But it’s no excuse.”
Jones asked if Luther had any diseases she should be worried about. He assured her that he was “clean as a whistle” and besides, he had not sexually climaxed inside of her. “This wasn’t a fun thing, you know,” he added.
So what was it, she wanted to know, “A mistake?”
“It was more than a mistake. You can’t believe how sorry I am,” Luther said. He offered to help her any way he could, if she just wouldn’t tell the police. “I know it isn’t enough—” he started to say.
Bobby Jo interrupted. “No, it isn’t. I’ve never been through so much pain and terror in my goddamn life.” Then she slammed the telephone down.
The next day, Trooper Phillips staked out Luther’s cabin. It was his day off, but he wanted to take this rapist down.
It so happened that about the same time, his supervisor was having breakfast with Sergeant Burkhart. “So whatcha got going?” Burkhart asked after a bit.
“We’re sittin’ on this guy’s place who raped a gal and beat the holy hell out of her,” the supervisor answered. “My guy’s on his day off, but you know rookies, all gung-ho for his first big-time collar. We’re lookin’ for a white guy ... drives a blue Geo Metro.”
Burkhart nearly choked on his coffee. “What’s the suspect’s name?”
“Tom Luther. Why ... what’s the—”
Burkhart quickly explained. Richardson warned him that Luther would attack again. Now they had a rookie cop trying to take down a suspected serial killer who was armed with a shotgun and hated cops.
Patrol cars were dispatched to back up Phillips. They ran into Luther first as he was driving down the road toward his cabin. He was with a woman named Pam, who they later found out had just gotten out of prison herself.
“He’s been with me the whole time,” she swore as Luther was handcuffed. “We’re friends.”
It took some time for Scott Richardson to learn of Luther’s arrest. He was taking a much-needed vacation with Sabrina, hunting in Alaska.
Although Richardson had Byron Eerebout in prison and there was a chance he would talk, it was only a chance. And without Byron giving up Cher’s body, he doubted he would ever make a case against Luther.
The case was taking an enormous toll on Richardson and his family. He had lost twenty pounds and missed out on the past eighteen months of the twins’ life. He was pushing his marriage to the edge. So by August, he knew he needed to get as far away from the case as possible and a hunting trip to Alaska seemed like the perfect thing.
Chapter Twenty
September 15, 1994—Lakewood, Colorado
“He was taking her out to the woods when she got away.”
It was his first day back from vacation, and Richardson was on the telephone talking to Sgt. Burkhart, who had called from West Virginia. Richardson wasn’t surprised that Luther had attacked again, he’d expected it; he was only sorry that he hadn’t been able to stop him before it happened.
“We got him on tape, confessing,” Burkhart said. “I don’t think he’ll be walking away from this one.”
“Good work,” Richardson said. At least he knew where Luther would be for awhile; off the streets, no other women would be in danger.
It wasn’t long before Debrah Snider called. She was worried that Luther would find out that she had told the West Virginia State Police about his guns.
“I’m feeling really bad,” she said. “Including the thing with Cher, this is the second time that I’ve reported him for something that was minor, and shortly after I report him, he does something major. I don’t know if he did anything with Cher, but he’s certainly involved in it and now he’s at least attempted rape and beaten a girl here.”
Richardson asked if she’d talked to the West Virginia state police about her concerns. �
��I’m afraid to talk to them concerning this case because I do know some information about this, and I don’t want to give it to them,” she replied. “I think they have plenty. They recorded him, you know, talking to this girl. They don’t need anything that I know.”
“Yeah? What is it you know that they don’t know?” Richardson asked.
“I know he told me he did it. And I don’t want to have to be a witness. They don’t need me—he told his brother-in-law that he did it. He went to his Randy’s house that night, you know, in a panic, because I guess he had smoked some crack and that’s what preceded this event, and whenever the crack wore off and he came to his senses, then he panicked and went and told his brother-in-law.”
Richardson wanted to know what her feelings regarding the Cher Elder case were now, in light of the recent attack? “My feelings on Cher is—you know two people that could have did it, Tom and Byron, and we know she’s dead. Now, the day I got back after Cher disappeared, Tom’s hands were sore, all of his body was sore. It seems awfully strange that he was in that shape the day that Cher disappeared if Byron killed her.”
Richardson didn’t think Byron had killed Cher and said so. Maybe he had moved her car after the fact, maybe he was involved in some other way, but as bad as he was, he wasn’t the sort to murder his girlfriend and bury her body.
“What’s the rumor since we put Byron down?” Richardson asked. “Have you talked to his mom about Cher?”
“They don’t talk about it,” Snider said. “Tom still doesn’t talk about it. He has some concern that you guys would pressure Byron into implicating him, once he was in prison. Or that he would tell on himself, which would implicate Tom.”
Richardson noted that if Eerebout served his full sentence, he’d be fifty years old before he got out. “Byron’s got some problems. I imagine Luther’s got some problems now, too?”
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