Back in February, just days after the verdict, Rhonda went to visit Cher’s grave for the first time since the trial began. Winter still had a hold on the high country; the cottonwoods down by the river had not yet begun to blossom.
Rhonda had brought flowers with her, including purple roses from friends, Cher’s favorite color. “I took them to the grave and talked awhile,” she wrote that afternoon in her diary. “Told her I was sorry about the trial not giving us what we thought she would want. My daughter wasn’t given a choice. Why should her killer have one?
“We would have rather had a mistrial. We could have tried again to give this monster what he deserves. I see his face and I see Satan.”
Since then Rhonda and Earl had talked about starting a campaign through the Colorado legislature to change the laws. Several lawmakers had offered to help. But who knew if they would be successful? All she could do now was let Judge Munch know how badly she was hurt.
“There are no words to accurately describe the impact that Cher’s death has had on me and others,” she said. “It’s like someone tore my heart out and I’m left to figure out how to put it back.
“We’ll never see Cher get married and have children. She was my only child. I can’t hold her, talk to her, feel with her what comes with life. Her beautiful smile is gone, and now just a memory in my heart.
“In the past, I could call her or go see her. Now I go to a lonely cemetery to talk to a cold gravestone which says, ‘Until we meet again.’
“I’ll never be the same as time doesn’t heal the pain, it only masks it so you can appear normal to others. The sorrow leaves a scar that will never heal. Cher’s spirit is here today asking for the maximum sentence. I believe my daughter deserves to hear justice being done today.”
Rhonda Edwards paused to catch herself. She was not going to cry in front of Tom Luther. She continued on. “In this era of ‘I’ve got a right,’ ‘I’m entitled,’ ‘You owe me,’ ‘I’ve been discriminated against,’ it’s time for us to hear, ‘I’m responsible for what I did. I’m responsible for my actions.’
“Cher had many dreams, as did all his victims. It’s time to stop the cycle of repeat offenders. It’s time for you, as a representative of our justice system to say, ‘Stop!’ It’s time to quit coddling animals like Luther and make them pay for the crimes they commit.”
Rhonda Edwards turned and walked back to where her husband, Van, took her in his arms as she sobbed. Patting her on the shoulder, Earl walked past and up to the podium.
There was so much he wanted to say about what Cher’s murder had done to him and his family. Beth Elder had been cheated out of her childhood. At a time when, ideally, the worst thing she should have had to worry about was who was going to take her to the prom, she was wondering if her half sister would ever be found. Yet Beth was strong; there had been a lot of tears, but she’d shown her spirit would not be broken forever by speaking there that day. He was more worried about the long-term affect on Cher’s half brother, Jacob; to that day he had refused to discuss what had happened to Cher.
Earl Elder looked at Luther, sitting like a big, dumb animal, his mouth hanging open as he stared straight ahead. Well, Earl thought, you killed my daughter and tried to destroy this family, but we’re still here and will be all those years you’ll be staring at prison walls and fences.
“Your Honor,” Elder said, turning back to Judge Munch. “I would remind the court that Cher was shot three times in the back of the head. She was executed.
“And Cher was not the first woman that Thomas Luther brutalized, just the first that he has been convicted of murdering. My feeling is and always will be that Thomas Luther should reside on death row. But because of the verdict of guilty of second degree murder, Thomas Luther does not have to face the death penalty or even life in prison, but we, Cher’s family are faced with a lifetime of grieving, sorrow, and heartache. We have been give a life sentence because Thomas Luther decided to execute Cher.
“We suffered for nearly two years before Cher’s body was found and she could be laid to rest. Suffering the anguish and uncertainty of what had happened to Cher. Hoping beyond hope that she would make it back to us alive and well.
“Thomas Luther made certain that we would never see Cher alive again. He even tried to be sure that we would not be able to say goodbye to her in death, by burying her body in a hidden, shallow grave.
“When Thomas Luther heard the verdict of guilty of second degree murder, he smiled and told his lawyers he couldn’t wait to get on with his life in prison and start lifting weights to build up his body.
“For what?” Earl Elder shouted, now turning to address Luther. “So it will be easier to carry the next body up to a shallow grave?” He paused as if expecting an answer, but Luther just bowed his head and stared at his hands.
Elder shook his head and turned back to the judge. “Thomas Luther has proven that he will rape, brutalize, and murder young women with no regard for the fear and pain that he inflicts on them or their families.
“If the sentence for Cher’s execution is not served consecutively with any other sentence he is serving, it will be as if this murderer will not have been punished at all for her death.
“The sooner Thomas Luther is able to leave prison, the sooner some other young woman will pay the price of any leniency the court shows him today.”
After Elder sat down, Judge Munch asked if Luther had anything to say for himself. “Yes, sir,” he said, standing up as he tried to hold onto some notes with his wrists handcuffed.
“First I want to thank God and my attorneys for their hard work to give me a fightin’ chance,” he said, as Cleaver looked up and smiled. Then her jaw dropped as he announced he was going to tell the real truth about what had happened, “not even my attorneys have been told the whole truth.”
The courtroom was suddenly silent. Richardson sat up and looked hopefully at Luther. At last, he thought, maybe we get the details of where he killed her and what led up to her murder and then burial. But within a few minutes, he slumped back in his seat; Luther was doing what Luther did best, besides attacking women. He lied.
The thing was, they weren’t even very well thought-out lies. In a rambling twenty-five-minute speech, Luther talked about how after Central City, he and Cher had both cried about their relationships—she over Byron, and he over Debrah Snider. They’d hugged and that had led to sex.
They’d returned to Byron’s, he said. Cher left after finding Byron in bed with Gina. And he had gone to sleep in the apartment. A little later, Cher returned and got into fight with Byron. She fell in the bathroom and was knocked unconscious. Byron and J.D. then wrapped her in a rug and placed her in J.D.’s car.
Luther said he was the one who then followed J.D. into the mountains, communicating over walkie-talkies. J.D. took Cher to the woods, where he rolled her out of the rug and removed her clothes. “Then J.D. shot her twice in the back of the head, turned her over, and shot her once in the eye.”
Richardson scowled and looked away as Luther rambled on. The story didn’t make sense. It didn’t even fit the forensic evidence that Cher Elder was shot three times, all in the back of the head. Wasn’t Luther even listening when the forensic evidence was introduced? Then again, he’d always had trouble keeping his stories straight.
It was J.D. who moved the car, Luther claimed. All he did was help bury her.
Luther said he and the two Eerebout brothers then concocted the story that Cher had died as a result of a drug deal gone bad. But he was betrayed by the brothers after Byron got in trouble.
Denying that he ever told Southy he killed anyone, Luther said, “I told him I was mixed up in some crap. He just figured I did it. His loyalty and friendship should have been unquestioned.”
Of course, Luther didn’t explain why his own loyalty to Healey hadn’t prevented him from trying to pin the murder on Eerebout and Healey months before his own arrest. Or why he let his lawyers portray Healey as the killer.
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While his other two assaults were “plenty bad,” Luther said, they’re weren’t as bad as they were made out to be. “I never tried to kill them. I let them go. I get mad, blow up, and hurt girls, but when I stop, I feel bad.”
Luther tried to claim that he hadn’t raped Mary Brown or Bobby Jo Jones because he couldn’t get an erection when he attacked them. “I’m a no-good son-of-a-bitch,” he offered. “And for what I did in 1982, that woman has the right to say anything she wants about me. But she can’t imagine how truly sorry I am, and there’ll never be enough punishment for what I did.” He had apparently forgotten his complaints that the system had screwed him by making him serve eleven out of fifteen years.
“But being a son-of-a-bitch, don’t make me a killer.” He looked back at Cher Elder’s family. “I hope to see you all in heaven.”
“God doesn’t let people like you in heaven,” Beth Elder responded. “That’s why there’s a hell.”
Luther began to sit but before he had even settled into his chair, Munch sentenced him to forty-eight years in prison, the most he could, to be served after he finished his West Virginia sentence. “Realizing that in all practicality, this is a life sentence,” Munch added.
Munch said he took into account Luther’s past, calling the attacks on Mary Brown and Bobby Jo Jones, “violent, sadistic, brutal, and dehumanizing.”
“I see no realistic possibility of rehabilitation,” Munch said, excluding the possibility of Luther having time knocked off for good behavior under the habitual criminal sentencing provisions of Colorado law.
“This man will be an extreme danger to women his entire life,” Munch added and remanded Luther to Denver authorities to await his trial for the attempted murder of Heather Smith.
The blow to the back of Heather Smith’s neck woke her from a deep sleep. Her shoulder and right side seared with pain where her attacker stabbed her.
Oh God, he found me, she thought as she lay on her stomach in the darkness of her bedroom. She could feel her blood flowing out of the wounds but didn’t dare move.
She listened and waited for him to come back to finish her off. Where was Heidi? she wondered. Why hadn’t the dog barked to warn her? And where was he?
Smith stared at the darkest of the shadows in front of her eyes. Was he there in the blackness, playing with her? Was he creeping around the bottom of her bed, getting ready to jump up?
If her mother had been living in the house, Heather would have called out, hoping she would arrive on time to turn on the light and chase away the monster. But Smith was alone, lying in bed as her blood seeped into the sheets.
She stayed frozen in place for what seemed like hours and still he didn’t return. Cautiously she moved her hand to her side. No blood. She shifted her hand to the gaping wound in the back of her neck. Again no blood.
Heather began to cry. It had been a dream, or more like a flashback. She could still feel the first blow and realized just how hard Luther had hit her three years earlier to break her neck. Her side ached and she felt the path of the knife deep inside her chest. It was just a dream and still she was too frightened to move, until the dawn arrived gray, filled with the songs of birds, and the shadows fled.
It was April 12, exactly three years since the attack, a week after Luther’s sentencing for Cher Elder’s murder, and just three weeks to go before her trial.
Until the dream, she’d been feeling pretty good about finally getting to face Thomas Luther in court. Denver Deputy District Attorney Doug Jackson had coached her on what to expect. He took her into the courtroom and showed her the witness stand and where Luther would be sitting a few feet away. “Just keep your eyes on me,” Jackson said, “and I’ll get you through it.”
They knew from preliminary hearings that Luther’s attorney, Lauren Cleaver, planned to attack her credibility and portray her as a desperate woman willing to have anyone convicted for attacking her. Tom Luther was just handy.
Jackson and Heather Smith were stunned when Luther waived his right to a jury trial and placed the outcome in the hands of Denver District Court Judge Richard Spriggs. Cleaver advised the move because of extensive publicity on the Cher Elder case and the unpredictablility of jurors. She was still stunned by the jurors’ remarks at the sentencing.
A few days before the trial, Luther offered to plead guilty to attempted murder if the judge would let him serve the sentence concurrently with his other sentences. His pleading guilty would have essentially eliminated the chance of the case being overturned on appeal, and Smith wouldn’t have had to face Cleaver. But when Jackson left it up to her, Heather Smith said she wanted her day in court, no matter how ugly it might get.
Getting out of bed, rubbing the back of her neck where she could still feel the ghost of the blow three years earlier, Smith wondered if she’d made the right decision. Thomas Luther was in jail, but he also haunted the shadows of her memories.
The trial of Thomas Luther for the attempted murder and assault of Heather Smith lasted only three days.
Detective Paul Scott testified about the attack and the subsequent investigation, which had run into a dead end until Heather Smith’s call. Doctors testified about the gravity of her wounds, and their surprise that she had not died. And for the third time in as many trials, Debrah Snider drove a stake into Thomas Luther.
Snider had arrived back in West Virginia after her testimony in the Cher Elder trial to find her cabin ransacked. Lamps and photographs had been knocked from a table in the living room. In the kitchen, a radio and toaster had been thrown on the floor.
Retribution, she thought, for what I did in Colorado. But by whom? Luther’s family was in denial about his guilt, and his sister, Becky, and brother-in-law, Randy, still lived in the area. Or could it have been one of Luther’s friends? And if so, were they still around? Perhaps watching the cabin at that moment?
Then she heard a noise. Frightened, she looked behind her, then laughed. The vandal was a squirrel who had found a way in past the kitchen screen.
Debrah Snider arrived back in Colorado, subpoenaed by Deputy District Attorney Jackson, clutching a small brown package. She was glad Tom didn’t get the death penalty. “That would have been too hard,” she told a reporter. “Remember, Jesus took the murderer with him to heaven, not the thief, because the murderer asked for forgiveness. I hope Tom will someday ask for forgiveness. I’m still angry at him for what he did to those girls. But I’m sorry, I still love him.”
Called to the stand, Snider told Spriggs that Luther used to disappear for several days at a time, coming back with sore muscles and bruises “like he’d been in a fight,” and several days’ growth of a heavy beard. And yes, she replied to Jackson’s questions, he owned a green nylon windbreaker and a blue baseball cap with gold lettering.
Debrah Snider unsealed the brown packet at Jackson’s request and produced a pair of silver, square-rimmed glasses that she said she’d loaned to Luther in 1993. Jackson took the glasses and entered them into the evidence.
At the beginning of the second day of the trial, there was angry muttering in the spectator gallery, where Heather Smith’s family and a large contingent of friends sat, when Cleaver entered the courtroom. In the papers that morning there had been a photograph of Luther with his arm draped around a grinning Lauren Cleaver as they had walked down the hallway on the first day. He’d actually caught her by surprise. Even if Cleaver didn’t believe he was guilty of Cher Elder’s murder, she knew he’d committed the sexual assaults, but she acted like they were best friends.
Heather Smith was waiting to be called that morning in the witness room when an older gentleman walked in. “I’m Cher’s grandfather,” he said. “And I just wanted you to know that we’re here to support you.”
Smith smiled and said thanks. Between the old man and the family and friends she knew were lined up in rows behind Luther, she was no longer afraid of Cleaver.
Finally, she was called and entered the courtroom, keeping her eyes first on
Jackson and then the witness stand. Even then, as she walked past the defense table, she could feel Luther’s presence like an angry, black cloud.
Under Jackson’s guidance, Heather recounted in vivid detail the events of April 12, 1993, and the man who attacked her, including what he was wearing and his workingman’s hands. She said she had seen those hands again in a police photograph in which Luther was holding up a name plaque.
Jackson asked that Luther hold up his hands. Cleaver objected but was overruled by Judge Spriggs. Luther held up his hands with a smirk on his face.
“Are those the hands of the man who attacked you?” Jackson asked.
Smith had not yet looked at Luther and still didn’t make eye contact when she looked at his hands. “Yes,” she said.
“And is that the man who attacked you?” Jackson asked.
Heather Smith raised her gaze and looked into Luther’s cold, blue eyes. His smile seemed to be mocking her. “Yes,” she said, raising her hand and pointing. “I’m certain it’s him.”
As Jackson continued to ask her follow-up questions, Heather could hear Luther cursing her under his breath. “Bitch. Fuckin’ whore.” Two rows away, Heather’s mother could even hear him. But if Judge Spriggs noticed, he did not give any indication.
Then Cleaver went on the attack. Wasn’t it true she had misidentified other potential suspects? Wasn’t it true the man she said attacked her had blond hair and a full beard? Isn’t it true she was so desperate to find the man who attacked her, she picked Cleaver’s client out of a newspaper story?
But Smith stuck to her guns. The other men were just possibilities she had wanted Scott to check out. She’d said the man had light hair and it was mostly covered by a baseball cap. And she’d described him as having a well-groomed or new beard; the composite sketch gave the impression of a fuller beard. And no, since the day she had seen Luther’s photograph in the newspaper, she knew she’d found her attacker.
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