She was living in Detroit with her husband Todd and her young daughter. She was a frequent weekend visitor to the casino where Eid was a dealer. She sat at the Egyptian’s table to play her poker and the two quickly struck up a friendship. Eid gave her the full benefit of his charm and Engle was very conscious that he ‘really wanted me’. They would talk for hours, sharing experiences and laughing at each others’ jokes. The flirting developed into an affair. Eid spun her the old line that his marriage was over and he was heading for divorce. Engle was bored with her married life and wanted a change. So a passionate relationship developed that would lead them both into taking ever more ludicrous risks until they both ended up in jail. It was a union of two people who appealed to the other’s worst character traits. Ashraf Ghardbeiah, an old friend of Eid’s thought Engle was a bad influence. The Saudi Arabian had worked with Eid ten years previously in the Cosmopolitan Travel Store. He was pleased to meet someone from a similar background and when they discovered they both had daughters of a similar age their friendship flourished. Ghardbeiah knew that Eid was something of a womaniser. He didn’t approve; his own marriage had hit the rocks after his wife cheated on him, but Eid told him to mind his own business, and he did so out of respect for his friend. But when Eid met Engle he began to worry about his friend. He suddenly bought himself a bright yellow Corvette and stopped going fishing or hanging out with his friends. Ghardbeiah was convinced that Engle was the driving force behind this new found recklessness. He had first met her when Eid had rang him looking for a loan sometime in 2003. He agreed to lend the money and Eid had turned up at his office with the tall, brown haired woman he soon knew as Teresa. At first he wasn’t too concerned. He assumed she was just another of his friend’s many girlfriends. But slowly Eid began to change. Then something happened that really worried him. Sometime around late 2005 when Ghardbeiah was working as a reserve police office, he received a call from Eid who told him that he had needed a friend with a gun. Eid was matter of fact about the favour he needed. He wanted someone to dispose of Engle’s husband.
Ghardbeiah was shocked, he was sure that his friend was not a violent or threatening kind of person at all. He immediately called a police friend of his who advised him to play along until he had enough evidence to press charges. Ghardbeiah was worried that if he didn’t agree to the idea his friend might be crazy enough about this woman to find someone else to do the job. But when he rang Eid back a couple of days later, Eid was offhand. Engle had changed her mind he said.
‘Sorry for putting you to all the trouble. It’s fine now.’ Ghardbeiah thought that was the end of the matter, but it would be a few more months before he would find himself in Ireland meeting with Engle and talking about killing two men neither of them had ever met.
So who was this woman who had gotten Eid to take leave of his senses? It very much depends who you talk to. The woman who appeared in court in Dublin and was later sentenced to eight months in an American prison for her part in one of the scams arising out of hitmanforhire.net was tall and rather gangly with tightly curled, brown frizzy hair. Her voice was either a mousy whisper that hardly managed to limp out of the witness box into the court room or a rasping smoker’s voice that hinted at a coarse personality and a foul tongue. She was either a victim going along with the brutal orders of her oppressor out of a passivity born of Stockholm Syndrome or the main architect of a murderous plot.
Engle was born in Kentucky to Janice and Jimmy Brock. She was the couple’s first child and her mother almost died having her—she would later claim that her parents had it in for her from the start. According to Engle, her father never forgave her for almost killing her mother while he was away in another State working to support his new family. Her mother exacted an almost daily revenge with regular beatings with a fresh switch cut from the tree outside the family home. Engle claimed that out of four children, she had the worst childhood. Her brother Mike was born a year after her, a sister, Dawn three years later and lastly, the baby of the family, Brandy. When Engle was three or four the family moved to Ohio, where they remained. Engle described herself as ‘a bad child, a mean girl.’ Her Aunt Joyce who had looked after her as a baby while her mother recovered from the difficult birth claimed that Engle’s father told the family he ‘never loved a child until Dawn was born. She was the golden girl, Brandy was the baby, Mike was the reject and Teresa was the black sheep.’ Mike had contracted polio at the age of four or five and was confined to a wheelchair. His disability and the fact he suffered from severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder meant that he would never be able to move out of the family home or have a normal life. Engle would tell a psychologist that apart from her Aunt Joyce, the only family member who had ever shown her any kind of love was her maternal grandmother. She had shared a bed with her grandmother until she was five years old and was close to her until she died.
Engle found herself pregnant before she was out of her teens but she didn’t keep the baby or marry the father. She met Todd Engle soon after this, when she was 19. Todd was twelve years older and offered the possibility of the stability and affection she was looking for. They had a whirlwind romance and married after only a month. Engle was desperate for a normal family and wanted to have a child. Unfortunately Todd had neglected to tell her before they got married that he had had a vasectomy and their attempts to reverse the procedure were unsuccessful. So in 1989 Engle divorced Todd for the first time. Her biological clock was ticking by this stage so she found herself a younger man, James Connors, who she knew as Jim. Connors was ‘nice’ but was unfortunately a drug addict. Even so, in 1991, they got married and in 1993 Engle gave birth to their daughter Cheyenne. Despite Engle’s best efforts Connors’s addiction made happy families impossible despite his repeated spells in Rehab. He was spending frequent spells in jail and by 2000 Engle had finally had enough. She took Cheyenne and moved out. The house was lost when Connors was unable to meet the mortgage payments. The debts mounted uncontrollably and they ended up having to file for bankruptcy. Engle moved back home with Cheyenne and filed for divorce. Around this time her beloved grandmother died. The news sent Engle into a downward spiral and she was hospitalised for a major depressive episode, the second in her adult life. When she got out of hospital Todd was waiting for her. They started dating again and Engle moved in with her sister Dawn who was also raising a young daughter. But more change soon followed when Dawn announced she was moving to another town. Engle jumped to the safest ship. Todd had moved to Michigan and wanted another shot at marriage. Everything was looking rosy and it finally looked as if she would get the ‘normal family’ she had always longed for.
But it turned out Engle didn’t suit normality as much as she might have hoped. By 2003 she was going to play poker every Friday night at a local casino. She always sat at the table with the warmest welcome, the table run by Essam Eid. But even this didn’t run smoothly. Engle might have jumped between men but she liked them to give her their undivided attention and she had soon discovered that Eid was already married. After about five months of being the other woman Engle upped sticks again and moved back to Ohio with Cheyenne, walking out on both her husband and her lover. She was no match for Eid’s silver tongue and views on polygamy and his persistence eventually paid off. Engle was now spending her time travelling between Ohio and Michigan. When Eid decided to try to break into the Las Vegas scene in November 2004 she followed him but, soon got cold feet when she discovered he hadn’t divorced Lisa and moved straight back to Ohio. After more perseverance from Eid, she was back in Vegas, having left her daughter with her sister. She and Eid set up their love nest at 4467 El Quinta, Las Vegas, the address that hitmanforhire.net would be registered from in April 2005, and for several months things seemed to be going well. Engle had a job in the accounts department of the Hotel Riviera and Eid had started working in the Bellagio. They even got married, despite the fact neither of them had divorced the people they were already married to.
But the idyll wouldn’
t last; Lisa was never far away. She too had followed Eid to Vegas. She and Aya moved there in July 2005 and Eid bought a house for them at 6108 Camden Cove Street, a residential area in North Las Vegas. This was desert suburbia where identical white bungalows sheltered from the sun under red tiled roofs. In the front, where in a more temperate climate would grow shrubs and picket fences, were patches of parched grass. When Engle found out Lisa was still on the scene she once again returned to Ohio, but she was back in Vegas by October or November 2005. Lisa recalled meeting her at one of the local casinos.
Eid told Lisa that Engle was an old friend from Michigan and she thought no more about it. From then on Engle was a regular visitor to 6108 Camden Cove Street. She was there for the Thanksgiving dinners at the house and she and Lisa would often bump into each other at social gatherings involving the old gang from Michigan.
Lisa was having difficulty finding work in Vegas. She had worked in telecoms in Michigan and the set up was different in Nevada so her skills were redundant. After trying unsuccessfully to find a job doing something she was vaguely qualified to do, Lisa decided that the only option was to retrain. She started a course in massage therapy and got immersed in her studies. When, sometime around June 2006 Eid told her that his friend Engle had lost her job and was having difficulty meeting the rent she reluctantly agreed for Engle to move in until she was back on her feet. She thought the arrangement was only for a couple of days but Eid and Engle had other plans.
In some ways it turned out to be quite useful having Engle around. Aya was a headstrong teenager and clashed frequently with her father over her choice of boyfriends. Engle was able to act as a go between, and she and Aya became quite close. Aya knew that Engle had feelings for her father and had a sneaking suspicion that her father felt the same. Ashraf Gharbeiah visited his friend around this time and noted what an awkward situation the whole thing was. It seems that only Eid was happy with the situation. He had even managed to persuade Lisa and Engle to take part in threesomes with him. Engle was far more experimental in bed than Lisa was; she even enjoyed the rough sex he was so fond of.
Lisa was reaching a crucial point in her studies and needed peace and quiet at home. Eid and Engle were more than happy to go out to the Cannery in the evenings to give her time to study. She didn’t have time to raise the subject of Engle’s continued residence in the house until after she had finished her exams.
Engle tells a completely different story of her time in 6108 Camden Cove Street. She was later arrested in California for attempting to extort money and told a psychologist, as part of her defence, that she had soon become afraid of and intimidated by Eid. She painted a picture of sexual slavery and virtual imprisonment. Eid made her sell her car, she said, and would make her come to work with him in the casino so he could keep an eye on her.
It’s a startlingly different picture to the one described by both Aya and Lisa who said that Engle quickly got a job after she moved in, doing accountancy for a construction business. She had her own car and came and went as she pleased. Lisa said the only time she had ever heard Eid shout at Engle was when she hadn’t said something to Aya he had wanted her to.
Engle, however, paints a picture of horrendous abuse. She claims that the rough sex was nightly and not content with wrestling between the sheets, Eid would also slap her around in front of Lisa. He would slap her if she made a mistake, again if she cried. He made her cut off all contact with her family.
‘I was a complete nervous wreck. I could not eat or sleep. I was terrified all the time.’
She claimed that Eid showed distinctly psychopathic tendencies.
‘He made me massage him all the time. I wasn’t allowed to stop.’
She went on, ‘He made me eat his shit, all of his bodily fluids. I had to drink his urine and mucous. Even blood. Scabs. Every night I would say to myself, “Please God don’t let me live through this night”.’
She told the psychologist she had gone through her ordeal as if it was an out of body experience.
‘I knew it wasn’t me, doing these things. I watched myself do all this shit he made me do. I was not me. I was like that TV show Bewitched; I was dissociated. Out of my body watching myself.’
She said she was relieved ‘to the point of collapse’ when she was arrested in Ireland because she could finally get away from Eid.
Her description of this alleged abuse was vivid enough to convince gardaí although not quite so readily accepted by the FBI and the prosecution in the Royston[1] trial. The Bureau pointed out that she had been to Ireland on an earlier occasion and could have easily called the gardaí at this stage. They viewed her stories as self serving and pointed out that they were completely unsubstantiated. Neither Lisa nor Aya saw any of the abuse she mentioned and both said that Engle had plenty of privacy at 6108 Camden Cove. Certainly emails sent from Engle’s account to Eid’s yahoo account after their arrests in Ireland, did not suggest a battered spouse.
‘I dreamt about you last night. I can’t seem to get you off my mind.’
Aya maintained that, rather than being coerced into acting illegally, Engle was besotted with her father and took her actions out of love rather than any other reason. Eid would later insist that he had been set up by the women in his life. He said that his hours in the casino would have made it impossible to conduct a flirtatious relationship with Sharon Collins, besides, he already had two wives! Whatever the dynamics of their relationship, Eid and Engle were quite a pair. Their scheme to fund the gambling that they both so enjoyed would land them both in jail. What may have seemed like the perfect way to get rich quick ended up losing them the pot.
[1] Engle and Eid attempted to extort money from a girl call Lauryn Royston and her boyfriend after his former girlfriend contacted hitmanforhire.net. Royston contacted the police and Engle was arrested.
CHAPTER 4:
QUEEN OF HEARTS
Despite what would be insinuated during her trial, Collins was very much a one man woman and the man she was determined to get was P.J. Howard. She had been a loyal partner and by 2005 she felt she had paid her dues. She had been his rock, and nursed him through his bypass operation. She had treated his two sons as her own and she wanted some recognition of her position within the family. She wanted to get married. She had never made a secret of the fact that one day she would like to marry again and as far as she was concerned, that day had come.
She started dropping hints in the way a charming woman can. Their relationship may have had its bumpy patches but it was still as strong as ever. She started planning a big society wedding in Dromoland Castle Hotel. She’d fallen in love with the place after they’d had a party for her 40th birthday there. She had even got as far as inviting friends … until Howard came back with the bombshell. He wanted a prenuptial.
But even after she learnt that Howard would never marry her without a prenuptial agreement she kept pushing him. When her charm didn’t work she started issuing an ultimatum and insisted that a solution be found. Howard did his best. Whatever faults she found with him he was undeniably smitten with her and would do whatever it took to make her happy, as long as that didn’t mean his sons would be left without.
Collins was insistent. Why couldn’t they carry out their plan to get married in Rome? If Howard didn’t find a solution she would walk out, even if it did mean starting again. Howard didn’t want to lose her so a compromise was suggested. Why didn’t they take the trip to Italy anyway? They might not be able to get married but he didn’t want any other woman. The two appeared to be genuinely in love. There was nothing stopping them pledging themselves to each other in some other way. Collins wasn’t keen but as she realised there was no other way, she slowly agreed. During the trip they would go to a little church somewhere and take their own vows. It wouldn’t matter if there was no priest involved; all that mattered was that God was watching and knew how much they were in love. Collins allowed herself to be talked around. It wasn’t perfect but it was the best she was goi
ng to get.
It wouldn’t work if no one knew what they’d done though. They couldn’t invite friends to a private church pledge without a priest. No one would understand so Howard suggested yet another compromise. The trip to Italy was to take place in November. Why not kill two birds with one stone and turn the Downes & Howard Christmas party into a wedding reception. They could send out invitations and it would be just like the real thing. Collins agreed and had invitations printed on cream card with embossed writing and gold rings on the front. If they were going to share the Downes & Howard Christmas party she was going to leave no one in any doubt that this was her night. If Collins had her way, the mere lack of a priest wouldn’t stop her from becoming Mrs P.J. Howard. She threw herself into the plans with gusto. Collins was determined to keep up the façade all the way through. There would be a photographer and a new dress. She planned things as thoroughly as she would have planned her real wedding. Perhaps P.J. Howard was struck by the degree of her planning, or maybe the invitations seemed just a little bit over the top. He wanted to make absolutely sure he didn’t accidentally end up married for real. Collins was keen to put his mind at rest. It wouldn’t do to have him back out of her matrimonial extravaganza at this point. She typed up a short document to pacify him. They both signed their names to the fact that they had no intention of getting married on their trip to Italy and were not now, or ever would be, married to one another. The document was dated and they both kept a copy to give to their solicitors just so there could be no confusion in the future.
The Devil in the Red Dress Page 3
