Instead of turning back down the interstate for Golden, Richardson veered west, toward Empire. He passed through the town and pulled into the turn-off.
Climbing off the Harley, he trudged through the snow, turned slushy by the warm spring day, to the clearing. He stared down at the hole where Cher had lain for two years without knowing why he had come. There was something about that hole in the ground. Something lonely, a void that ached to be filled.
He stooped and picked up a bowling ball-sized stone and dropped it into the grave. He found another and placed it there, too. And then another, and another.
Once, as a boy, he had carried large rocks from one pile to another out of fear of his father. Now he placed rocks in a hole until it was filled, out of love for a friend.
On April 23, 1995, Detective Scott Richardson and P.C. Anderson, an investigator for the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office, flew to West Virginia. They carried with them a Governor’s Blue Warrant for the extradition of Thomas Luther.
Blue warrants were the result of interstate agreements stating that when a governor of one state demanded extradition from another state, it would be immediately granted. The warrants were difficult to obtain and most often used when an incarcerated suspect was likely to fight extradition.
The pair drove to Delray where they were met by Trooper Phillips, who filled them in on the details of Luther’s sexual assault case, much of which they had not yet heard. Of particular interest were comments Luther was said to have made to his brother-in-law, Randy Foster, and Debrah Snider. To the first he had asked, “What is ailing me? What causes me to do this?” And to the latter he stated, “I did it again.”
Richardson also noted that Luther threw his bloody clothes into a river. Healey said he’d done the same after burying Elder. And Byron Eerebout said Luther advised him that the best way to get rid of evidence was to toss it in a river. Luther was following a familiar pattern.
That evening, Richardson called Debrah Snider and asked if she wanted to go out to dinner. She was surprised to hear they were in town but agreed to meet with him and Anderson.
Richardson had talked to Snider several times in the past couple of weeks. She called once to tell him that Luther was changing his story again; now he was saying that Byron and Southy had gone to the bingo hall where Cher’s car was found that Sunday after he returned with her from Central City. They abducted and killed her that night, according to Luther.
“It’s a lie,” Richardson said. “It was incorrectly reported in the newspapers that Cher was seen at that bingo hall. It was actually a different bingo hall where she was seen, and it was the day before she disappeared. The true story just never appeared in the media.”
The day before Richardson left for West Virginia, Snider called again to say that Luther was talking about pleading guilty to Elder’s murder. “Now he says he wants the death penalty,” she said.
She sounded so sad that he almost told her that he was coming the next day, but he wanted to surprise Luther. “Ya know Deb,” he said instead, “you ought to get your ass back out here.”
“I know,” she responded. “I wanna come home. But I can’t so long as Tom is here.”
At dinner that night, Snider said Luther had added to his story. “Now he says Cher was killed because she got in the middle of a drug deal. Southy picked her up at the bingo parlor where you found her car and killed her.”
Tom, she added, “lusts after women but hates ‘bitches.’ He likes sexually aggressive women, but he hates women who stand up for their rights.”
When they drove her back home, Debrah handed Richardson a box of several hundred letters Luther had written to her. “He never admits to killing her,” she said. “But I think there are some pretty revealing things about his character in there.”
“Thanks, Deb,” he said. “Well, I guess we got to be goin.’ We’re gonna try to talk to Randy Foster and Luther’s sister, Becky, tomorrow.”
“Randy might talk,” Snider said. “But you won’t get anything from Becky. She hates cops.”
There was an awkward pause. Richardson didn’t know what else to say. They’d told Debrah they were in West Virginia as part of the investigation, not to extradite Luther. He smiled and turned to go.
“Do me a favor,” Debrah asked suddenly.
Richardson paused, wondering what this could be. “What’s that?”
“By your own admission, you neglect your wife,” she said, her voice breaking. “I want you to send her some flowers. I think being neglected is about the worst thing in the world.”
The next day, Richardson and Anderson located Randy Foster at a construction site. “Don’t introduce me,” Richardson said. “Just say I’m your partner.” He figured Foster had probably heard plenty of bad things from Luther about the detective who pursued him. No sense antagonizing Foster.
However, Foster wouldn’t talk to Anderson, a big, tough former cop. “Fuck you,” Foster said and started to walk away.
Richardson stepped in front of him. “I’m Scott Richardson,” he said. “Just answer a couple of questions for us.”
Foster stopped and looked at the detective. “So you’re the guy?” he said. However, instead of being put off, he seemed intrigued. “Well, you got about a minute before Becky gets here, and I don’t want her to see me talkin’ to you. The last time I talked to the police about Luther, she left me for five months.”
“Did he ever say anything about this case in Colorado?” Richardson asked.
“Tom told me that he dropped that girl off at Byron’s place,” Foster said. “He said that Byron strangled her in his bed. He said all he done was move the girl’s body and buried it under a large pile of rocks. He said you’d never find it.”
Foster also conceded that after the West Virginia rape, “Tom said ‘What’s ailing me’ ” and said he ruined his life by beating that girl.
As they talked, Foster grew increasingly nervous. Becky was due any moment. “She hates cops and will do anything to protect Tom,” he said. “Their mother seems to realize the truth, though.”
“Did he ever tell you that Cher was killed because she was a police informant?” Richardson asked.
“No,” Foster answered. “I heard Byron did it because of some dope deal. But then, there’s a whole lot of lying going on about this. Tom says that he feels like writing it all out, and after he’s dead, everyone would know what happened.”
Foster grew more evasive. Several times he answered Richardson’s more specific questions, such as, “Did he ever tell you he killed her?”, with, “I can’t answer that because it’ll get Tom in trouble.”
“Would you mind if we went to your place and looked around,” Richardson asked. Specifically, he said, he was interested in a backpack Luther brought with him from Colorado, his “rape kit.”
Foster shook his head. “Can’t,” he said. “Becky would get mad as hell. You’d need to get a warrant.”
As if on cue, Becky, a skinny little woman, drove up. Anderson went up and introduced himself and asked if he could talk to her.
“Fuck off,” she replied. She began to drive away as Anderson ran alongside. “We just want to talk to ya,” he puffed.
But Becky just glared and started rolling up her window. “He never hurt no girl in Colorado,” she yelled through the glass. She ordered her husband to get in the car and then drove off with her tires spinning in the gravel.
Richardson shrugged. He hadn’t expected to get much from Becky, and it had been pretty humorous watching ol’ P.C. Anderson trotting alongside the car, trying to conduct an interview. There weren’t many men who’d stood up to Anderson that way. They got in their car with Richardson still laughing and drove to where Bobby Jo Jones lived.
“He was punching me like I was a man,” Bobby Jo said when Richardson asked her to recount her ordeal. “Then he began choking me. I thought he was going to kill me. Then I thought he was going to take me to his cabin and kill me. Nobody would know wh
ere I was or who done it.”
However, Jones said she didn’t want to testify against Luther in Colorado. “I don’t want to go through that again.”
Late that afternoon, Richardson and Anderson finally arrived at the West Virginia State Prison. It was an imposing edifice of old stone, built during the Civil War to hold prisoners of war. Cold, dark, and brooding, it was known as “The Dungeon.”
They planned to extradite Luther back to Colorado the next day, but first Richardson wanted to make one last stab at talking to him before he “lawyered up.” Luther, he was warned by a prison official, had been spending a lot of time in the law library looking up statutes on the interstate transportation of prisoners. “He asked if he could get a medical excuse so he wouldn’t have to fly,” the official said. “He wants to be transported in a vehicle. Sounds dangerous to me.”
Richardson nodded. He’d received information in Colorado from a confidential informant that Luther had been in contact with friends in Chicago. If he could arrange to be transported on the ground, they would ambush the vehicle.
Richardson asked the guards to get Luther, telling him only that he had a visitor. When Luther entered the visiting room and saw the detective, the smile disappeared off his face and hatred blazed in his eyes. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he snarled.
“Just wanted to talk to you, Luther,” Richardson said, sitting down in a chair and smiling.
“You kiss my ass,” Luther said and turned to the guard who brought him. “Just take me back to my unit.”
“Okay,” Richardson shrugged. “It you don’t want to talk to us ...”
“Fuck no, I don’t want to talk to you,” Luther yelled, facing the detective again. “You know I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t even know why you even fucking came here. I ain’t got nothin’ to say to you.”
“Well, I got something to say to you,” Richardson replied. “We’re been working this case for two years—and it’s over.”
“I know that,” Luther sneered. “So whadda you want me to do?”
“Everybody’s coming clean,” Richardson said, keeping his voice calm, “and you’ve been indicted for the murder of Cher Elder. Now when I first talked to you up in Fort Collins, you gave me a story that wasn’t true ...”
Luther took a step toward Richardson. Anderson moved to intercept him, but Richardson just leaned further back in his chair and smiled.
“I’ll have a lawyer present when I’m questioned and that’s the only way that I will be questioned,” Luther yelled. “You ain’t worked no case, the only thing you’ve done is everything in your fucking power to put all that bullshit on me. I’m sure you’ll be able to do whatever you want. You’ve had two fucking years, the State of Colorado, the FBI, and everybody else fucking backing your play. All I ask is you give me a fucking attorney when I get there to fight it with, not some fucking deadbeat public defender that doesn’t want to fucking do his job.”
The more Luther ranted, the wider Richardson smiled. It irritated Luther even more.
“Just like this fuckin’ bullshit case here,” Luther screamed.
“They come down on me hard because of your bullshit out in Colorado. I ain’t no fuckin’ serial killer. I’m an angry bastard, but I ain’t no fuckin’ killer. I’ve helped more fuckin’ people out than you have ever helped out in your whole life. Well, I ain’t got nothin’ to say, I ain’t a fuckin’ rat.”
Luther turned on his heel and left the room with the guard hurrying after him. Richardson, his hands behind his head, just laughed. “Be seein’ you Luther,” he called after the inmate’s retreating back. “Be seein’ you real soon.”
After leaving Richardson, Luther called Debrah Snider and demanded to know what she had told him. Ever since the indictment in Colorado, his letters had grown more accusatory. He didn’t know it for sure, but he suspected she was talking to the police.
“When I go to the gas chamber in Colorado because you think you and Babe are doing the right thing, who will you have to love you then?” he wrote. “You’re not evil, just stupid when it comes to certain things. I’m not Tom Jekyll. I’m Tom Luther and yes I do have both good and bad in me. But only God knows how much of each.”
He even wrote to Snider’s mother, telling her of her daughter’s betrayal at his trial. “The victim lied her ass off,” he wrote. “But the thing that hurt me most was Deb. She got mad at me and gave a statement against me to the state police, telling them that I admitted to her that I did it. Which was partly so, but she confused what I said.... The state had no case without Deb.
“Between her and this woman in Colorado [Babe], they’ll get me in the gas chamber before they are done. Deb claims that it’s a morals and principles issue with her. Lately, I’ve had the feeling that Deb has been working with the cops on the Colorado stuff, too.”
Luther told Debrah he wasn’t even offered a deal in the rape case because of Richardson, nor could he expect one in Colorado.
In the next letter he complained that the guards were telling each other and the other inmates that he was a serial killer. He believed they were getting their information from Richardson.
“I want to go home, Tom,” Debrah wrote him. “I want us to face whatever we have to face in Colorado and get on with what little we have left as a life. I want to complete my part in this Cher Elder case, face whatever I have to face with you and have it done.
“Why don’t you see if you can talk Colorado into letting me die for whatever crimes you may have committed. I’m not as good or pure as Christ, but he was able to sell the world on his theory of letting one person die for the sins of a bunch ... and my blood is as good as yours.”
The day before Richardson arrived in West Virginia, Snider went to visit Luther. “I thought you said you were the only one who knew where her body was?” she asked.
Luther cocked his head, looking right through her. “Well,” he said with a smirk, “I guess that wasn’t true, was it?”
Now Richardson was in town, and Luther wanted to know what Debrah told him. “Nothing, Tom,” she said, but he didn’t seem to be listening. He was already concocting another Tom Luther story.
“Cher,” he said, “had a Colombian boyfriend. He’s a drug dealer. Byron set up a deal between the Colombian and Southy, but something went wrong and Cher got killed. Remember, I told you all this before?”
Snider was puzzled. The Colombian drug dealer/boyfriend was a new story, but Tom kept acting like it was old news. Then she realized what he was doing. He thinks this is being recorded, she thought.
“You know, Deb, the only reason Richardson’s coming for me is because of you,” he said. Then he sighed. “I think I’m going to plead guilty and get it over with.”
Later that night, Snider called Richardson at his motel room, where he and Anderson were plowing through her letters, and told him about the Colombian boyfriend story. “That was definitely the first time I ever heard that one,” she said.
Then she was crying again. “Please, please tell me when you’re going to take him back to Colorado,” she said. “I want one more chance to see him and say goodbye.”
“It’s too late, Deb,” Richardson said gently. “I’m takin’ him tomorrow morning.”
The next morning, a Sunday, Richardson and Anderson were back at the prison. This time, they were standing in the hallway when Luther turned a corner with a dozen other inmates and saw them.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he yelled, looking around at his comrades, putting on a big show. “I told you I didn’t want to talk to you.”
Richardson smiled, stepping forward. “Well, Luther,” he said. “I ain’t here to talk to you, either. I’m here to take you back to Colorado for the murder of Cher Elder.”
The other inmates retreated and pressed their backs against the wall as they watched the confrontation. They didn’t want any part of what was going down. Luther looked around, nervous without his friends. “You can’t,” he yelled, thoug
h he didn’t sound convinced. “I’m gonna fight extradition.”
“Too late,” Richardson said, waving his paperwork under Luther’s nose. “This here’s a governor’s warrant. I’m takin’ you now.”
With that the waiting guards pounced on Luther, who was handcuffed and his wrists shackled to a belly band. They also shackled his ankles to each other and placed his knees in braces, making it impossible for him to bend his legs or run.
He struggled and screamed profanities at Richardson. “He looks like Hannibal the Cannibal,” Richardson said to Anderson, referring to the serial killer in the movie Silence of the Lambs, when they finished trussing his prisoner.
Luther was placed in a car between Richardson and Anderson, while a West Virginia state trooper drove toward Pennsylvania at eighty miles an hour. They were escorted by a half-dozen other state police cars with lights flashing.
At the state line, another half-dozen Pennsylvania state police cars were lined up across the road, their lights flashing, too. They took over the escort responsibilities to Pittsburgh. There the caravan was met by another six city police cruisers. At the airport, they were joined by several state police vehicles who were responsible for airport security. They sped across the airport tarmac at sixty-five miles an hour.
On the ride to the airport, Luther remained belligerent, cursing Richardson every chance he got and swearing when each new leg of the journey was met by more police escorts. Finally, Richardson got tired of it. “Luther, we’ve got a long day ahead of us. Why don’t we just try to get along?”
It seemed to take the steam out of Luther. He looked sideways at the detective and half-smiled. “Goddam, Richardson, you lost a lot of weight,” he said.
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