Extraordinary coincidences, if they are coincidences. But only the passage of time will determine if the fates of more young women can be tied to the brutal nature of Thomas Luther.
And what is the nature of Luther? Was he just the scorpion riding on the frog’s back? And can it be linked to his own recollections of having been molested by a male relative as a boy? The victim becoming the perpetrator, as Luther once wrote to Debrah Snider.
At various times in his “career,” Luther has been diagnosed as having personality disorders. The general public tends to think of personality disorders as some lesser, not so dangerous, and distant cousin of the diagnosis “insane.” An eccentric as opposed to a blood-crazed loony.
However, the person with the personality disorder may be more dangerous. For one thing, insanity is an illness that often can be mitigated or even cured through drugs or psychotherapy. Someone may even have a psychotic episode over a given period of time and then recover, never to experience it again.
It’s another story entirely with personality disorders, according to forensic psychiatrist John Macdonald. “Everyone has personality traits. It’s what makes people individuals. For instance, some people are outgoing, others are introverts. There is nothing wrong or dangerous about either, unless taken to extremes. Personality traits become disorders when they interfere with a person’s ability to function normally and legally within society.
“A man who obsessively cleans his desk for a few minutes before leaving from work each day may draw no attention from his colleagues, except perhaps being teased for being a ‘neatnik.’
“However, the man who spends hours after work going through various rituals so that his desk is spotless, and then explodes in rage if a single paperclip is found out of order, has a disabling personality disorder that is easily recognizable and may cost him his job.”
Unfortunately, personality disorders are as much a part of someone’s interior makeup as blue eyes and blond hair are part of their physical exterior. They can be covered up for a time, the way contact lenses or hair dye create temporary outward changes, but a personality disorder does not go away, says Macdonald.
“People who are insane most often suffer from delusions and hallucinations. They may tell acquaintances for months that some mysterious ‘they’ are invading his brain with radio waves. Then this person may kill to stop his ‘persecutors,’ who in reality may just be his unfortunate neighbor.
“Sometimes people do things that normal people think of as ‘crazy,’ such as killing someone for no apparent reason. However, the legal test for insanity in most states is whether the person knew at the time of the murder the difference between right and wrong, and whether the accused can assist their lawyer in their defense.
“People with personality disorders know the difference between right and wrong. They just don’t care, or they believe they’re right and society is wrong. They can assist with their defense. In fact, they tend to be above average in intelligence, which is why they can appear ‘normal’ when they want to, why these guys always seem to have wives and girlfriends who don’t have a clue who they’re living with. Ted Bundy was like that.
“These disorders generally become apparent by adolescence and remain for life, though the most extremes of the behavior tend to tone down with age.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines a serial killer as someone who has killed three times in different incidents separated by time and distance. A mass murderer simply goes on a spree. Macdonald says it’s not the number that matters but the fact that once started, the serial killer will murder over and over until he is stopped.
Luther has been labeled at various times with different varieties of personality disorders. And several of them seem to fit him like a surgeon’s glove, such as narcissistic personality disorder, described by the handbook of forensic psychiatrists, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV, as “having a grandiose sense of self-importance or uniqueness; preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success; exhibitionistic need for constant attention and admiration; and characteristic disturbances in interpersonal relationships, such as feelings of entitlement, interpersonal exploitiveness, relationships that alternate between extremes of over-idealization and devaluation, and lack of empathy.
“Fantasies involve achieving unlimited ability, power, wealth, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love. In response to criticism, defeat, or disappointment, there is either a cool indifference or marked feelings of rage, inferiority, shame, humiliation, or emptiness.”
But the term usually applied to Luther has been sociopath, the most dangerous of the lot, because while the sociopath knows killing is wrong, and doesn’t care, it also is what makes him feel good or powerful. “And getting away with it only increases its pull,” says Macdonald. “Most serial killers are sexually motivated and sadistic. They get sexual pleasure out of causing pain, humiliation, and death.”
Three percent of American males and one percent of American females are believed to be sociopaths. According to the DSM IV, those with an antisocial personality disorder have a “history of continuous and chronic antisocial behavior in which the rights of others are violated.” They have an “inability to maintain enduring attachment to a sexual partner ... irritability and aggressiveness as indicated by repeated fights or assault ... impulsivity ... and a disregard for the truth.”
Sociopaths mimic real people, says Macdonald, and conform their behavior to get what they want. Serial killers—along with the childhood behavioral triad of firesetting, cruelty to animals, and bedwetting—were usually sexually abused as children and witnessed violence in the home.
“As abused children, they learned to disassociate themselves from their bodies. As adults, they disassociate themselves from their actions.”
J.D. Eerebout returned to Colorado after the trial and was arrested and sentenced to prison. He whined to Dennis Hall that his father wouldn’t let him return to Colorado for the trial. Byron Eerebout is serving the remainder of his sentence out of state in a community corrections program.
Dennis “Southy” Healey called Richardson a year after the trial. “I don’t want anything,” he said. “I just wanted you to know that I’m clean and I got a job.” Chuck “Mongo” Kreiner has also stayed out of trouble and is gainfully employed in a management position.
Richard “Mortho” Brazell died in 1997. Informed of the death, Richardson told the coroner to look for signs of a cocaine overdose. Mortho died, however, of natural causes.
Thomas Luther continues to haunt many more people than he ever physically hurt. The jurors in the Cher Elder trial still have not fully recovered and keep in touch, even if that has grown more sporadic over the intervening two years. Some no longer will talk about the case, but will chat again about family, work, and hobbies. Other still have nightmares and talk about the case obsessively.
“He preys on my mind, it’s an unclosed wound,” says Kate Stone, “and it will be until he dies in prison. Life will never again be so innocent. Colorado will never feel as safe as I once thought when I read stories about Los Angeles or New York.”
Heather Smith no longer dreams about Luther. But he continues to infect her life, and he wasn’t alone. Until late 1997, she struggled with the continued victimization this society imparts to people like her. Lawyers, insurance companies, doctors, and the hospital all fought over who was responsible for her medical bills, including the surgery for the undiagnosed broken neck. Her credit was ruined and her life put on hold while it all finally got sorted out in the fall of 1997.
“Sometimes it seems like I’ve been in a coma for four years,” she says. “I lost that part of my life, even after the trial, and I can never get it back again.” But the cracks in the vase are harder to see these days. She isn’t so self-conscious about the scar on her chest, and when she talks about Luther, it’s with disdain, not fear. He’s in prison and she helped put him there.
“I still get afraid, especially at night,” she says.
“And I still don’t trust people, especially men, like I used to. But I can feel myself getting stronger all the time.”
Strong enough that she’s dating again and hoping to meet Prince Charming. However, she no longer feels she has to be the Princess of the Ball. That girl was short-sighted, self-absorbed. The woman is wiser, more interested in those things that last through all travails—love, friendship, family. She’s getting closer to being Heather again. “Only now, I’m the queen of the ball,” she laughs. Rebecca Hascall, married her boyfriend and has a child.
It was nearly a year before Deputy District Attorney Dennis Hall could bring himself to take on another murder case. Until then, he just didn’t think he could deal with another victim’s family.
Some things about the Tom Luther case he has blocked out. Such as what he was going to say to the jury to convince them to put Luther to death.
For a recent serial arsonist case, he needed the legal terminology for asking a judge to allow similar transactions. He pulled the paperwork he filed in the Luther case for the first time in two years. He read it and when he finished he was still convinced that the statutes were written for a case like Luther’s. Behind the paperwork were the photographs of Mary Brown, Bobby Jo Jones, Betty Luther, and Cher Elder; it looked like a family reunion. How could the judge not have seen?
Cher’s family and friends continue to mourn her death. “Christmas and birthdays are still the hardest,” Rhonda Edwards says. “That’s when I cry. Or when I go through her things and think about all the plans she had for the future and realize there is no future.”
A mile or so along the highway beyond Empire, up a hill from a turn-off, a path turns to the left and a few yards farther breaks through the trees and into a chapel-like clearing. An oblong hole there has been filled with large, gray granite stones. A short distance away, a memorial plaque has been attached to a steel post and anchored a foot above the ground by Van Edwards. It reads simply, “Cher Elder, 1973-1993.” It is surrounded by a small altar of stones on which flowers, real and plastic, are frequently laid, along with items such as a teddy bear and Christmas ornaments. Her family and friends visit frequently. And a week or two before Christmas, Earl Elder takes a tree to the chapel and decorates it for his first daughter.
After the sentencing, Earl joined a support group for parents of murdered children. He doesn’t go as much anymore. The others there still have festering wounds and he’d rather remember his daughter in peace. “We were lucky,” he says. “We had Scott Richardson. I was struck by how many people in the group had bad experiences with, and even blame, the cops and the system.”
The movement to change the unanimous verdict law lost momentum when it made no headway in the 1997 legislative session. But Earl Elder says he’ll keep trying.
“Other than that,” he says, “I’m determined that I will live at least long enough to make sure that Thomas Luther never leaves prison again, except in a box.”
Det. Scott Richardson is one of those who stops frequently at the place where Luther buried Cher. He brings flowers. He’s grateful that he could find her and the peace that gave him and her family. It could have been otherwise.
Det. Dave Dauenhauer of the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Department has since moved on to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, but he has not forgotten Beth Ann Miller. He hopes that the latest “break” in the case will pan out to be a real one.
In December 1997, a former resident of Idaho Springs was arrested in Ohio on child pornography charges; in his possession were newspaper clippings of Beth Ann’s disappearance and a topographical map of the area on which he had drawn three Xs. So far, he has refused to talk to Clear Creek detectives.
“Betcha after the snow melts that I’ll be up there with NecroSearch,” says Richardson, who was inducted into the elite group and given a hat on which the nickname “Bulldog” had been embroidered.
The photographs of other victims have come and gone from the walls of Richardson’s office. But Cher Elder’s photographs, including her as a 3-year-old, remain next to those of his family. He bought Sabrina a Harley of her own for their wedding anniversary.
A photograph of Luther causes his eyes to grow dark with anger. He points a finger and makes a shooting motion. However, when Luther’s appeals are through and the killer has nothing more to lose, Richardson plans to visit his old arch-enemy in the West Virginia prison. He hopes that then Luther will finally tell the whole truth.
A year ago, on the anniversary of Luther’s conviction for murdering Cher Elder, Debrah Snider wrote Richardson a letter. “I used to think that Tom was my dragon-slayer,” she said. “Now I realize that he was the monster and that you were the dragon-slayer.”
“I would go to trial against the devil with Dennis Hall,” Richardson says. He pauses, then laughs. “I guess I already did.”
Debrah Snider lives in West Virginia with her wolves. She knows she did the right thing—three times, as a matter of fact— but it cost her the love of her life. She tried to write to Tom, but was told by his lawyer to quit.
“There is not much I am afraid of at night, because I know how to take care of myself and avoid most areas where monsters hide,” she wrote instead to this author.
“The monsters who scare me most wear the diguise of ordinary people, so having to deal with ‘good honest people’ during the daylight hours frightens me a lot. At night, for some reason, people seem to be more of their real selves, so it’s easier for me to assess them correctly.
“I know Tom Luther better than he knows himself. I knew when he was lying. I learned to tell when he had the urge to prowl. I’m still torn between wishing Tom could hold me and protect me from my monsters and hating him for the pain he has caused other people.”
There is one dream Debrah still looks forward to in her weaker moments, when the wind is howling outside and she is cold and lonely. Tom, old, mellow, is let out of prison. She stands at the prison gate, waiting for him. The hair on both of their heads has turned white.
“I missed you,” he says. And they leave for a little place in the country with no people around, only animals.
She’d take that as the sign from God that she has waited for all her life. That the little girl who ran away from home, hoping someone would notice she was gone, at last had someone to go home with.
“As good of a world as we are supposed to be living in,” she concluded her letter, “it’s a hard world for Tom Luther and me.
“I don’t understand God’s purpose for either of us.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to thank Detective Scott Richardson, a true dragon-slayer, and the Lakewood Police Department, Dennis Hall and the Jefferson County District Attorney’s office, Sheriff Joe Morales and Detective Richard Eaton of Summit County, Heather Smith, Deborah Snider, and of course, Rhonda Edwards and Earl Elder, who survived what no parent should have to with dignity and courage. I would also like to thank the editors who’ve helped me along the way—Bill Florence, Jon Franklin, Patty Calhoun—and my agent Mike Hamilburg and his consigliore, Joanie Socola, for taking a chance, and Paul Dinas and Karen Haas at Kensington for the opportunity. And, as always, I want to thank my wife, Carla, for her love, faith, and support.
UPDATE 2013
In August 2012, Thomas E. Luther completed his sentence for sexual assault in West Virginia and was then transported to the Sterling Correctional Facility (SCF). Located about 120 miles northeast of Denver, SCF is the largest penitentiary in Colorado, with nearly three thousand inmates. There, the fifty-five-year-old killer and rapist began serving his sentences for the murder of Cher Elder and attempted murder of Heather Smith. He isn’t eligible for parole until 2085, long after he completes what will be, in effect, a life sentence.
In his latest prison mug shot, Luther’s formerly curly brown hair is now shaved short and nearly white. His face is fuller, but the hard blue eyes and thin-lipped mouth remain grimly the same. Several years ago, while still incarc
erated in West Virginia, he was questioned by a female Denver police detective about an unsolved murder committed in the city during the time he lived in the area. He refused to answer her questions and instead voiced his hatred for women—as well as for the author of this book—before demanding to be returned to his cell.
Luther remains a “person of interest” in several unsolved murders and disappearances. Among those are the still-unsolved 1982 murders of Bobbie Jo Oberholtzer and Annette Schnee, near Breckenridge, Colorado. As previously noted in the epilogue of the first edition of Monster, the blood found on Oberholtzer’s glove and a tissue were not a DNA match with Luther’s, but rather came from some unknown male. However, given the timing and proximity of the murders to the sexual assault and attempted murder of Mary Brown, in nearby Silverthorne, some folks believe that Luther could have been working with an accomplice, so he therefore remains a suspect. In addition, crime watchers point to the similarity that all three women were hitchhiking when abducted by their assailant, or assailants. They also note that it would have been difficult for one assailant to have controlled and then murdered Oberholtzer, who got away briefly, and Schnee, too. Additionally, Luther’s comments regarding the murders, which he made while in jail for the Brown assault, have also been taken into consideration.
In any event the murders of Oberholtzer and Schnee have not been forgotten. Some of the original detectives from 1982 are still working the case as members of the 11th Judicial District Homicide Task Force. The task force, with the support of the 11th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, developed a website devoted to the case. They also committed significant resources to the presentation of the case in late 2011 to the Cold Case Review Board, a group of thirty-eight investigators from around the state organized by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
One of the presenters was Charlie McCormick, who first as a sheriff’s investigator and now as a private investigator, has worked on the case for more than twenty-three years. In January 2012, the thirtieth anniversary of the case, he wrote about his “mixed feelings” for the Park County Bulletin, saying how he was concerned that the case would fade and be forgotten, as happens to many other unsolved murders. He was always hopeful that new information would be brought to the attention of the investigators, who, he believed, have the DNA evidence to prosecute the killer, or killers, successfully.
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