Christmas approached with no news. She sent the card with the photograph of Cher to Richardson as a way of thanking him. But Christmas Day she locked herself in her room and wouldn’t come out.
The new year arrived and still there was nothing. Then February drew to a close and she faced the prospect of a second anniversary of Cher’s disappearance.
How could Byron do this? she cried to her husband. Did Cher mean so little to him that he would torture her family like this?
On February 21, Rhonda Edwards picked up her diary and wrote, “How long do I have to wait?” She didn’t know that on that date, Richardson had stood within a few feet of her daughter’s grave, knowing he was close.
She was at work on February 27 when the victim’s advocate walked into her office. She looked at the woman’s face and knew what was coming before she heard the words. “They found Cher,” the woman said gently. “They want you to go to the police department. Scott Richardson’s going to call.”
Edwards nodded and gathered her coat. Deep inside a voice began to cry, but she fought to keep it from getting out. At the police station, she called her husband Van.
“They found Cher,” she said.
“Is she alive?” he asked.
Surprised by his answer, she reacted with anger. “No, Van, of course not,” she snapped.
Immediately she felt ashamed. Van had known Cher since childhood and loved her like one of his own. They’d been great friends, though he was careful not to usurp Earl’s role as father.
Everyone in the family hoped that Cher was somehow still alive. Van just asked what the rest of them dared not voice out loud.
“I’m sorry, Van,” she said gently. “But no, Cher isn’t alive.” It wasn’t long after she hung up that the telephone at her side rang. It was Richardson. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Ronnie,” he said in that soft Texas drawl she had thought was so comforting. “But we found Cher.”
The day the body of Cher Elder was identified, her case was officially changed from a missing person to a homicide. The autopsy revealed that she had been shot three times in the back of the head behind her left ear with a .22 caliber at close range.
The bullet holes were so close together that the coroner at first believed she had been shot only once. It meant that Cher was either held down and unable to move, or already unconscious, when her killer pressed the gun to her head and pulled the trigger three times. She wasn’t trying to flee or struggle—she’d been executed.
Decomposition of the body was too advanced to tell for sure if she’d been raped. But her skull had been fractured by a heavy blow. Contrary to Luther’s claims that Cher used cocaine, there was no evidence of drugs in her body fluids or from the analysis of her hair, which retains evidence of drug use even after such use has been discontinued.
Cher was wearing the braided friendship bracelet that appeared in many of the photographs Richardson had of her. There was no ring with three diamonds. However, the forensic anthropologist who assisted the coroner found hairs on the body that he at first believed to be that of a dog but which turned out to be wolf hair.
Richardson gave a copy of the case files—now fourteen four-inch binders—to Dennis Hall to prepare for the grand jury. There would be more coming, he warned; he still needed to reinterview the Eerebout brothers and Healey. He needed to know now the whole truth about what happened to Cher and their involvement.
On March 2, Richardson went to the Jefferson County Jail to meet with Eerebout. This time, there was none of the bravado, only a docile, almost meek young man.
“When Gina and I came back to the house, Thomas Luther and Cher were gone,” Byron said. “At about, I would say five or so in the morning, I heard noises out in the front room of my apartment, and I got up. Tom was there, Southy was also there.
“I have no idea what they were doing. They just came in briefly and left, so I went back to sleep. When I woke up, Tom Luther was sleeping in the living room and Cher Elder’s car was not in the visitors parking lot anymore.”
Eerebout said he found the angry notes from Cher when he got up in the morning, but he wasn’t sure when they were written. “Cher’s family kept callin’, wondering where she was, but I didn’t know what happened until one day when I was at Debrah Snider’s place in Fort Collins.” That’s when, he said, he overheard Luther on the telephone talking to someone about having to move a body.
“I was nervous or whatever you’d say about doing it, but I asked Tom what he did, and Tom told me he killed her. The reason that he gave me was that she was going to tell on me and my brothers and some of my brothers’ friends for some stuff that we were doing.”
Of course, Richardson thought, Luther wasn’t about to say, ‘I got mad, so I raped, beat, and murdered your girlfriend.’ Even a convict’s kids knew where rapists were on the criminal totem pole. He had to have a reason and it was: I protected you, now you have to protect me. “Go on,” he said.
“They went up to Central City,” Tom said, and on the way back she started yelling and screaming, saying, ‘I’m going to go to the cops. Byron fucked me over and blah, blah, blah.’ ”
Richardson imagined Cher angry, believing that the man who looked so much like her father was to be trusted, a shoulder to cry on. She couldn’t have known that something much worse than an unfaithful boyfriend sat next to her as they drove down the dark winding road through the mountains.
Had her complaints been enough to set Luther off? According to Mary Brown and what he’d heard of the attack in West Virginia, Luther attacked without provocation—what criminologists like Dr. Macdonald referred to as a “blitz attack.”
“He stopped on the side of the road between Golden and Central City and shot her in the head,” Eerebout said. “That’s what he told me. He stopped the car, they got out, and it happened there. I have no idea how he transported the body, but it was supposedly taken care of that night.”
Richardson nodded. “Details,” he said. “I need details. What about the gun?”
“Let’s see,” Byron paused for a moment. “They got the gun, I think it was a .22 or something like that, from a 7-Eleven store. From a lady’s purse by one of my brother’s friends, and it was given to Tom.”
Eerebout said he had originally covered for his father’s friend because he didn’t know for sure that Luther had done anything to Cher and wanted to give him “the benefit of the doubt.” It was a little while after Richardson had shown him the video taken in Central City that he’d overheard Luther and asked him about Cher. “He threatened to kill my friends, my wife Tiffany, and my mother, if I said anything.”
At some point that April, he couldn’t remember exactly when, Luther had come by his apartment. He was nervous and said the grave was too shallow, that he needed to go back and bury it deeper and cover it with rat poison to keep the animals away.
“Myself and my brother followed Tom to that location.” After telling Eerebout about the murder and threatening his family, Luther gave him Cher’s sweater and skirt. “It was sort of a threat, I guess you’d say. Letting me know that what he said was true.”
“Did Luther ever say exactly where he shot her. Where on the body?” Richardson asked. He needed as many details as possible to prove that Eerebout was not making up his story. He’d told him nothing about the results of the autopsy.
“In the head,” Byron answered. “A .22.”
“How about where on the highway?”
“He pulled off the road before they got to Golden, on one of those little boo-bop things off the side of the road where the dirt is by the river. He said that she got out, he got out and ‘boom, boom, boom.’ ”
Richardson noted that Eerebout made three shooting sounds, not one, not two, but three. “Do you know where the gun is now?”
“He threw it in the river between here and Central City. He shot her, he got rid of it. He’s a smart person, I guess.”
Richardson wanted more details about the night Byron and hi
s brother followed Luther to the grave. Too many details and it might mean that Eerebout had a more “hands-on” involvement in the homicide than he was admitting; too few details and he might be getting all of his information from a third party. For instance, it was important that Byron wasn’t looking for a pile of rocks when he pointed to Cher’s grave; it indicated that he hadn’t actually seen them being put in place.
Eerebout said he was working on J.D.’s car when Luther drove down from Fort Collins. “I went with him to Mortho’s to pick up some crystal meth. He brought me back and left for awhile and then came back about eleven that night. He was sayin’, ‘I gotta go take care of the grave.’ ”
Luther reiterated his threats and left about twelve-thirty or one in the morning. As Luther walked off to his car, Byron said, he got the idea of following him and enlisted his brother J.D. They tracked Luther up Interstate 70 and as far as Empire when they stopped to get a soda. They then continued up the road, through the town, and a little beyond when they saw Luther’s car in the turn-off.
“We went up and turned around and parked on the other side of the road. I got out and went over to Tom’s car, looked inside, but nobody was there.”
However, when he looked up the hill, he could see the light from a flashlight playing off the branches of the trees beyond the gray rock shelf. Quietly, he crept up the hill, sticking close to the rock formation. When he reached a point above the clearing, he looked down and saw Luther on his hands and knees, digging at the ground with a shovel he had taken from Babe’s house that day. “It was one of those little, folding army trenching shovels.”
“Why did you go up to the mountains?” Richardson asked. The whole story sounded strange. Following someone in the dead of night into the mountains?
“Peace of mind, I guess,” Eerebout shrugged.
“Did he know you were following?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “He came back to the house the next morning. There were bigger shovels and bolt-cutters in the back of his car. He had a sleeping bag, as if he was packed to go on vacation or a camping trip, like he knew he had to leave.”
“What was the conversation between you and J.D. about Luther being up there digging a grave?”
“There really wasn’t nothing. It was hush, hush. ‘This is between us two. Mom’s not to know, Tristan’s not to know.’ And that was basically it.”
“Have you ever heard, prior to Cher’s murder, of Cher being a snitch?”
“No.”
“Of course, you already stated that after Luther confessed to killing her that she was threatening to snitch on him. Was there ever any talk that you overheard about killing Cher prior to the night this occurred?”
Again the answer was no.
“You’ve indicated that this was a grotesque murder. Can you explain?”
For the first time, Byron Eerebout seemed to get truly upset. “She had one of my rings. I don’t know if the ring was still on her person, but he told me that he cut off her finger ’cause he couldn’t get the ring off. He was going to keep the ring.”
“What did he use to cut the finger off?”
“He said bolt-cutters. I think they’re in the back of his car.” Luther didn’t say what he did with the finger he removed and Byron didn’t know if he put it back in the grave.
“Did he say anything about Cher’s lips being cut off?” Richardson asked. He already knew from the autopsy that no such thing occurred and neither was a finger missing. But that didn’t mean Luther hadn’t said such things to frighten Debrah Snider and the Eerebout boys.
Byron grimaced. No, he didn’t know about that.
Luther’s first story when asked about Cher’s disappearance, Eerebout said, was that she must have run away. “He said he brought her back to my place and never saw her again.”
“When I first called you, way back in April 1993, did you call Luther and warn him?” Richardson already knew the answer but he was again testing to see if Eerebout would tell the truth.
“Yes. He said, ‘I’ll take care of this, it’s no problem. I’ll talk to you later.’ ” Then later when the detective showed him the videotape, he’d called Luther again and got the same response.
“Did Luther say anything about how much he had been drinking that night?”
“Thomas Luther does not drink. He uses narcotics quite frequently, but I’m not sure if he did it before he left or while he was there, but I know he had some on him that evening.”
“Did he say how much Cher had been drinking that night?”
“He said Cher was drunk.”
Eerebout said he’d “heard through the grapevine” that Luther was seen by Debrah Snider after the murder with dirt underneath his fingernails and his fingers bloodied and torn up. “He told her he was buryin’ AK-47s.” He added that there once had been AK-47s, but they were Mongo’s and long gone before Luther killed Cher.
Richardson asked if Byron had seen Luther with a backpack. Serial rapists and serial killers were known to carry what police called “rape kits,” containing their tools of the trade, such as tape, rope, ski masks, and changes of clothing—particularly if they knew they might kill their victims.
Yes, Eerebout responded, Luther always kept a backpack in his car. He often asked one of the Eerebout brothers to take him somewhere with his backpack. “He would stop and jump out of the car, or say, ‘Drop me off here, I’m going hiking.’ He was the kind of person who would just take off sometimes and stay out all night long doing stuff.”
“Did he ever talk about what he would do if the police recovered Cher’s body?”
“If it came from me, he’d get me. That’s why he said he’d keep the ring. He’d blame it on me by putting it someplace where the police would find it. They’d get an anonymous tip that would lead them to me.”
Luther also said he might have Gina Jones “taken care of” so she couldn’t be a witness. “Do you know anything about her cat being killed or threats made to her?” Richardson asked.
“No.”
“What were his plans if he was followed by the police to the grave?”
“He’ll kill you. He said if anybody did anything, he’d kill them, but he really didn’t think kindly of you. I’ll tell you straight up, Thomas Luther hated your guts, and he wanted to kill you. It was one of those things that if you were the cop that came, he would kill you.”
Richardson nodded. There were times when if the opportunity presented itself, Luther reaching for a gun maybe, he would have looked forward to beating him to the punch.
There was something still troubling him, and that was Healey’s story. “Do you recall takin’ a trip to the mountains with Thomas Luther and Southy, the three of you?”
Eerebout seemed genuinely puzzled. “No,” he said. “Never. Southy came over to the house once before the murder and then that morning.” That was all the contact they’d ever had, until he saw him at the Jefferson County Jail.
What had Skip Eerebout said about the case? Richardson asked.
“I got two letters from him and my mom called him. He just said that, ‘If Byron messes with fire, he’s gonna get burned.’ ”
“Do you have any knowledge that anybody was with Thomas Luther at the time Cher was killed?” Richardson asked. “Not later, but at the time that she was killed.”
“I heard at first it was Southy and Tom, but then Tom said that it was just him.”
“So Luther calls Southy after Cher was killed?”
“Yeah ... because Southy was there in the morning.”
“Thomas Luther ever talk about having sex with Cher?”
“No.”
Richardson concluded the interview by asking if Luther ever discussed the best way to dispose of a body and hide the evidence.
“Yeah,” Byron responded. “Just go into the mountains, dig a hole, put it in there, and get rid of the stuff in the river. He said you can’t find anything in a river ’cause it always moves.”
The Jefferso
n County grand jury was scheduled to convene on March 6 to hear the case against Thomas Luther for the murder of Cher Elder. Meanwhile, Richardson continued his investigation.
Many of the smaller pieces of his “pie” were falling into place. Pam “Babe” Rivinius was now going out of her way to be helpful. When asked, she recalled a white sweater she’d found in her basement and assumed belonged to Byron’s first wife. However, she washed it and gave it to Goodwill.
The folding shovel was back in her basement, she said. Sometime after Cher Elder disappeared, a matter of weeks, Luther asked to borrow it and she told him to go ahead. The shovel was gone for several more weeks, then it mysteriously reappeared one morning in her flower bed.
Richardson went to her house and picked up the shovel. The blade still had dirt on it, but instead of the dark, rich soil of Babe’s garden, it was light tan, like that from Cher’s grave.
The day of the grand jury hearing arrived with Richardson troubled about several important aspects of the case. One was Eerebout’s story about “following” Luther to the gravesite in the middle of the night. He thought it much more likely that Luther persuaded the brothers to come with him and stand guard down at the car. Luther probably went to the grave by himself. He had been careful about having any witnesses, such as Southy, see him with the body. However, Eerebout had crept up the hill to spy on him.
When it happened was unclear. Perhaps the day after he first met Luther in April 1993, when, according to Debrah Snider, Luther went out to “find” the body and said he buried it out east off Interstate 70. Or maybe Luther and J.D. met up with Byron on the night of May 18, 1993, and then J.D. went alone to pick Luther up in Empire the next day, when he was spotted by the police.
It didn’t really matter at this point. So long as the brothers did not actively participate in the murder or burial of Cher Elder, he wasn’t as concerned with Byron’s story as he was with Southy’s. He went back to the Adams County Jail, where he found that Southy was suddenly having reservations about testifying against his old friend.
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