Bloodsworth

by Tim Junkin

  Neighbors gave varying accounts of seeing strangers in the area with descriptions running from short to tall, stocky to thin, men on foot, men in cars, men wearing long pants, men in shorts. Some tips coming from different sources seemed to point to the same suspect; sometimes the reports seemed random, isolated, unhelpful.

  On the day of the murder Officer Lionel Weeks interviewed William Adams of Fontana Village, who reported that a man named Bob, six feet tall, with blond curly hair, wearing a black cowboy hat and western clothing, and possibly driving a cream-colored Chevy van, had two weeks before been offering money to the neighborhood children to buy ice cream. Donna Hill, of Gemini Court, had seen a heavyset man in a cowboy hat hanging around the complex. Once the composite was released, Shannon Wooden, of Capella Court, said that the sketch resembled the man she’d seen wearing a cowboy hat and giving out money to children. He was driving a green-and-white car. And Robert Krue told Detective Ramsey of a man named Bob, six feet two inches tall, with blond curly hair, who resembled the composite.

  The afternoon of the murder, Patricia Ruth claimed to have seen a man in light-colored shorts come running out of the woods at half past eleven that morning. He appeared exhausted and gave her an angry look.

  Patricia Logan, of 8860 Fontana Lane, told Detective Ramsey that she’d seen a white male on the path near Fontana Village early that morning. She described him as six feet tall and in his midtwenties. He had light curly blond hair, a thin mustache, and was wearing cream-colored shorts and a gold T-shirt. She particularly remembered his eyes, which she said protruded strangely, like he was on drugs.

  On July 30 Mary Ann Freeland told Detective Ramsey that on July 25 at about 2 P.M., she’d observed a white male, about five feet eight inches tall, of medium build, with curly hair and a blond mustache, and wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, walking alone along Ridge Road near the woods where Dawn had been killed. Mrs. Freeland stated that she’d be able to recognize the suspect if she saw him again.

  Mrs. Sarah Nelson, on Trimbleway, reported that around eleven o’clock or eleven thirty on the morning of July 25, she’d seen a white male, six feet tall, with dirty blond hair and a slender build, wearing a short-sleeve shirt and old jeans, standing by a car near the back of the woods off Bethke’s Pond. She later saw police cars all over that area.

  Thomas Jackson, of Serpens Court, told officers that he saw a six-foot-tall white male with a stocky build at 6:10 A.M., wearing purplish shorts, a purple striped shirt, and white tennis shoes. The man had a mustache. He seemed to be loitering.

  Debbie McNamara, of 26 Orion Court, said that between ten and eleven o’clock she had seen a white male, twenty-five to twenty-six years old, a little over six feet in height, weighing 180 pounds, with sandy blond hair and a mustache, sitting on the electric box out front of her place. The electric box was dusted for fingerprints but no prints were recovered. McNamara would later be asked to attend a police lineup.

  Nancy Hall, of 18 Orion Court, was first interviewed by Officer Charles Moore and later by Detective Robert Castagnetti. She told them that around nine thirty that morning she’d seen a white male sitting on a transformer box on Orion Court wearing black khaki pants and a maroon pullover shirt. He had dark brown hair that was curly in the back and had a thin build. She said that her friend, Donna Ferguson, had seen him too. Two days later, this same Nancy Hall approached an officer and told him that the composite looked like a man she knew named Mickey Manzari. She reported that Manzari had been hanging around the complex, had been recently released from prison, and had brown curly hair. On July 31 officers arrested Manzari at Nancy Hall’s apartment but later released him when his alibi checked out. Despite her error in fingering Manzari and despite the fact that the strange man she saw was wearing black pants as opposed to the tan shorts described by the two boys and Fay McCoullough, Hall would later become an important prosecution witness at trial.

  Donna Ferguson, interviewed by both Moore and Castagnetti, said that between ten fifteen and ten thirty that morning she also saw a white male wearing a maroon shirt sitting on the electric box on Orion Court but took little notice of him. About ten thirty she saw Dawn Hamilton go into the woods, yelling, “Lisa, Lisa,” and at about the same time heard a man’s voice say, “Lisa and I are playing hide-and-seek; let’s go into the woods and find her.” She reported, however, that she did not see the man who said this and didn’t know if he was the same person she’d seen earlier. Ferguson also would testify for the state at trial. There, before a jury, she’d claim that she did in fact see the man who went into the woods with Dawn Hamilton and would identify him as the defendant on trial.

  Mrs. Chris Wagner, of Breslin Court, told Robert Capel on the 27th that she’d seen a man in the Rossridge swimming pool who closely resembled the composite. Detective Capel interviewed the pool lifeguard and learned that the man was Thomas Darling. Darling’s employment time card showed that he’d been at work all day on the 25th.

  One neighbor claimed to have seen a nude man on the playground the week before.

  Harriet Forrest, the manager of the nearby 7-Eleven, viewed the composite and called in saying that a man who matched it had been at the store at 10:30 A.M. on the 25th. A store videotape of the subject was played, revealing a white male appearing to be twenty-five to thirty years old, six feet tall, of medium build, wearing a white T-shirt and tennis shoes, but without a mustache. Since he lacked a mustache, the lead was dropped.

  On August 1, Gloria Curtis told an investigator that the composite looked like the resident of 8864 Trimbleway, Garvin L. Porter. Porter turned out to be only five feet seven inches tall and weighed 170 pounds. He was dismissed as a suspect. Considerable weight was being placed on the descriptions given by the two little boys.

  Later, on August 1, Jim Greeley and Robert Fertig of Pennsbury Place reported that their neighbor, Mr. King, looked like the composite. It was determined that Mr. King was driving his tractor-trailer all day on July 25.

  The composite sketch, it seemed, favored a lot of people.

  That same day, a Mr. Constantine of Pennsbury Place, advised police that the picture of the suspect was similar to a man wanted in the Fells Point area of Baltimore for a series of child rapes. This particular lead was never pursued.

  A married couple from Orion Court told police that Clarence Conroy, who lived three doors down, had been previously arrested for child molesting, and except for his height—he was only five feet four inches tall—met the description. Conroy went by the nickname Popeye and always wore a Pittsburgh Pirates hat. Police pulled Conroy’s record. They later established that on the day of the crime he’d been mowing grass all morning and into the early afternoon at a distant location.

  Detective Milton Duckworth, on July 31, tracked down Arnold Sanders after learning that Sanders had been fired from delivering the Sun newspapers because he often delivered them in a bikini bathing suit. Sanders had been taking classes at Essex Community College during the entire morning of July 25. His alibi checked out.

  Detectives Capel and Ramsey had to sift through all these leads and see to it that each was adequately followed up. It was their responsibility to separate the wheat from the chaff. This was no easy chore. Interestingly, though, given what was eventually to happen, none of these reports suggested anything about a man with reddish or auburn hair or a man with mutton chop sideburns.

  When a telephone tip came in suggesting that a W. F. Johnson of Spangler Way should be investigated, that he met the general description of the assailant and had spent two and a half years at the Clifton Perkins State Mental Hospital after being charged with child molestation, it was Detective Duckworth who was again assigned to track him down. Duckworth interviewed Johnson on July 27. He had already learned that Johnson was known to distribute sweets to the children at the Calvary Baptist Church, where he’d earned the nickname the Candy Man. Johnson came across as a creepy guy. He claimed that on July 25 he’d spent the day looking for work, as he’d been do
ing since losing his job eight months earlier. He admitted that he’d seen Dawn’s picture on TV and knew her from church. He admitted giving candy to kids and said he did it because he loved children. Under no circumstances would he hurt one, he said. Detective Duckworth also interviewed the minister of the church who said Johnson was a constant source of concern as he liked to pick the little girls up and put them on his lap. Several mothers had complained about him touching their children. Detective Duckworth felt uneasy about Johnson. Johnson did not match the composite sketch. He was six feet six inches tall, weighed 215 pounds, and had brown hair. Still, Johnson had no verifiable alibi, and Duckworth believed that he should not be eliminated as a suspect.

  Then there was Richard Gray. After Detective Bacon had discovered Dawn’s body, and the forensic and homicide detectives had assumed control of the crime scene, Bacon had gone back to investigate the man who had coincidentally come upon Dawn’s clothes high in a tree. Bacon was assigned to the Child Abuse Division of Baltimore County and had extensive experience with child abuse cases. He found Gray near where his car was parked. Gray was five feet ten inches tall, of slim build, and had dark hair down to his shoulders. He was dressed in a dirty white T-shirt that gave off a strong odor, camouflage military pants, tennis shoes, and carried a nightstick. Bacon noticed a small red spot on Gray’s shirt but couldn’t be sure if it was blood. Bacon started asking Gray questions and quickly sensed that Gray was nervous. Gray kept insisting that Dawn’s clothes were placed in the tree rather than thrown in the tree. When Bacon looked into Gray’s car, which was locked, Gray became even more agitated. Then he vomited. There appeared to be a pair of child’s panties balled up on the front console. Also there were about thirty rolled-up newspapers on the passenger seat. Realizing that Detective Bacon had seen the underpants, Gray quickly explained that he had found them two days before in the woods. Gray then agreed to have his car searched. It was also photographed. Bacon asked Gray to accompany him back to the Youth Services station to give a statement and Gray nodded his assent.

  At the station, Bacon read Gray his Miranda warnings, then began his questioning. Gray told Bacon he’d been riding in his car delivering papers and listening to his scanner when he heard a child was missing and that police had set up a search. He went to the command center to offer his assistance, as he knew the area well. He decided to ride over to the apartments and look around a bit and while doing this just happened on the clothes hanging from a tree. He said that he then went back to his car when a woman pulled up, described Dawn to him, and asked if he’d seen her. He told the woman to go back to the staging area and send out a police officer. He said he waited twenty minutes and when no one came, he started walking through the woods toward the command center. That’s when he met Mr. Hamilton. During his statement, Gray constantly referred to children as “little people.” Bacon thought Gray was squirrelly, not telling the truth, and a real suspect. Bacon noticed that Gray’s hands were clean and wondered how that could be so if he had been rolling and delivering newspapers. Bacon was also suspicious because Gray somehow knew that Dawn had a purse with her. Gray claimed that the woman had told him this earlier. Gray kept motioning that the purse was on a strap across her chest. Bacon was curious how Gray knew to look exactly where the clothes and body were found when at that time the focus of the police search was far away in an entirely different area of the woods. He didn’t think Gray adequately answered his questions.

  Bacon ran a check to see if Gray had a record and found that he had a prior conviction for indecent exposure in a situation involving a minor. The car Gray was using was an AMC Eagle station wagon rented from Mark’s Rentals. Why a rental car, Bacon wondered. And there was that small red spot on Gray’s shirt that continued to bother Bacon. He’d been glancing at it since he first met Gray but couldn’t be sure. He wanted the shirt taken and tested. He asked Detective McQuinn of homicide to have this done, as homicide now had control of the investigation and the final say over everything. McQuinn checked with his supervisors concerning taking Gray’s shirt. McQuinn was informed that Richard Gray was well known to the officers at the Fullerton Police Station; he often dropped by to chat—a sort of police groupie—and that Gray had actually shown up at the station just as the original call came in that morning reporting the child missing, though this was inconsistent with what Gray had said. McQuinn was instructed not to take Gray’s shirt.

  Detective Bacon was astonished. He knew of the Chris Shipley and Jackie Poling descriptions, but with extensive experience in child abuse cases, questioned whether it made sense to place so much emphasis on descriptions given by seven- and ten-year-old boys. And no one knew for sure whether the man seen walking with Dawn into the woods was, in fact, her murderer. Bacon believed there was probable cause to arrest Richard Gray. The fact that Gray was at the Fullerton station when the call came in didn’t rule him out as suspect. The call, he knew, didn’t come in until nearly noon, and the girl may have been killed as early as eleven. Bacon wanted hair samples taken and fingernail scrapings secured from Richard Gray. Bacon wondered why his newspapers were undelivered. Why had there been a pair of child’s underpants in Gray’s car? Why were his hands clean? Why was there blood on his shirt? Why the agitation, the vomiting? He pressed McQuinn to detain Gray. Again, Detective McQuinn contacted his supervisors and discussed whether to arrest Richard Gray. Again, he was told not to do so. Richard Gray was released. Neither his person nor his automobile was ever subjected to a forensic search.

  Detective Bacon left the station that night upset. Afterward, he was ordered back to the Child Abuse Division and told to have nothing more to do with the Dawn Hamilton murder investigation. Within a few months he started staying home from work. He sought counseling, took psychiatric leave, and later retired on medical disability. The murder of Dawn Hamilton had affected him deeply.

  Two weeks or so after the crime, Richard Gray was given a lie detector test by Detective Darden of the county police department and failed it. By then, however, Detectives Ramsey and Capel had honed in on another suspect, one who fit the FBI psychological profile to a tee, and they believed they had their man. They were on to their prey, like hounds with the scent of the fox in their nostrils, building their case, closing the net. Richard Gray was forgotten. His file was marked cleared. W. F. Johnson was forgotten as well. The Fells Point rapist lead was dropped. Other leads were abandoned. This new suspect had many characteristics similar to the description given by the two boys and looked very much like the composite sketch. Chris Shipley had picked him out of a photo spread. And he had blood in his very name.

  NINE

  THE BOOK OUTLAW GUNNER, by Harry M. Walsh, tells the story of wildfowl hunters, guides, market shooters, and hunting outlaws from earlier days in and around the Chesapeake region. Kirk Bloodsworth keeps a copy in his home and is proud to display the page depicting a photograph of his great-grandfather, John Bloodsworth, standing on a sunken river blind with a large pump gun resting in the crook of his arm. Kirk has a romantic fancy for the old days. In addition to being some of the earliest settlers of Maryland’s Eastern Shore, his ancestors, he believes, had also been sailors, pirates, rum runners, as well as fisherman—for the most part seafaring people who’d stayed close to and lived off the water. As his father, Noble Curtis Bloodsworth, would say, “Kirk was born and bred with salt in his veins.”

  Family history has the Bloodsworths first emigrating from Scotland, Ireland, and England in the mid-1600s. They landed on a small island off the western edge of the Chesapeake Bay, low-lying, marshy, but teeming with life—ducks, geese, oysters, crabs, clams for the scooping. They built houses on stilts and laid claim to what became Bloodsworth Island in Dorchester County, Maryland. As Kirk remembers from visiting as a boy, “The tide goes up there and you go with it . . . Water comes right up across the road, sometimes four foot high. You could dip up soft crabs and buckrams right there in your own backyard, and have ‘em fried up for breakfast.”

 
Kirk’s great-aunt Agnes lived to be 110, and he grew up listening to her tell stories of the old days. The extended Bloodsworth family gradually moved off the island in the 1930s to get to electricity, she told him, to find higher ground and a dryer way of life. The U.S. Navy bought the island from the family for fifty cents an acre in 1955 and used it for target practice. After they stopped shelling it, it became an egret sanctuary. Not many people venture onto it because it’s supposed to be full of unexploded bombs.

  For two hundred years the male descendants of Kirk’s family have been watermen—an Eastern Shore term for people who make a living off the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. His grandfather, John Noble Bloodsworth, was an oysterman, fisherman, crab scraper, and trapper. Kirk’s father, Curtis, was as well. Folks say Curtis was one of the best hand-tongers ever. He had a knack for finding the fattest oyster beds, and he could rake the shells up from the bottom, filling bushel after bushel, as fast as anyone. When the oysters got scarce, though, Curtis regretfully went into the seafood business, buying a refrigerator truck and driving the local produce up to New Jersey to sell. This happened when Kirk was about ten. But by then Kirk was a waterman in his own right.

  Since age five, he’d been hunting with his father in the duck blinds that dot the creeks and cuts around the Choptank River. When he was just six, he started helping his father tong for oysters. Kirk would serve as his father’s culler, knocking the spat off the shells. One November, during low tide, after a northeast wind sucked the water right out of the river, his father sailed their boat right up on an oyster bar and Curtis and Kirk just picked up the oysters by hand. They filled a whole flatbed pickup with oyster bushels that day, and the family celebrated by inviting the relatives over for an oyster feast that night—oyster stew, oysters on the half shell, oysters Rockefeller, fried oysters, you name it.