Head Shot

by Burl Barer

  “Paul and Andrew then put the body into the back of the station wagon that I was driving,” continued St. Pierre, “and I drove to where we were going to place the body. Paul and Andrew came up the trail. I was waiting for them. Paul dragged the body to near where we were going to bury him. Andrew and I left Paul there to dig the grave with the tools we obtained from my father’s shed. Andrew and I got into my station wagon to drive back down to the gas station to locate a tow truck to pull Andrew’s car out of the ditch.”

  They found a wrecker at the nearest Chevron station, and had the truck’s driver follow them to the vehicle. “The tower pulled Andrew’s car out of the ditch,” he recalled, “and he told us that the charge was twenty-five dollars. We didn’t have any change, so between the two of us we paid him thirty dollars and told him to keep the change. I left Andrew and Paul, went home, took a shower, and tried to get some sleep.”

  The tow-truck driver wasn’t the only one to see Andrew Webb’s ditch-bound Dodge. Mark Schneider, a former resident of their old neighborhood, saw Webb, the St. Pierres, and the Dodge Challenger twice in less than twelve hours—once in Tacoma, and again near Elbe.

  “On May eighteenth, I got off work at about eleven P.M.,” recalled Schneider. “I went to Lively Market on Forty-fifth and Pacific to buy groceries for a baseball tournament the next day. There were people in the store who said they had just been to the Rush concert. While at the store, I saw Paul St. Pierre and Andrew Webb buying beer. When they left, they got into a 1971 light gold Dodge Challenger, and I noticed someone else in the car—a guy in the backseat. Then I went to spend the night at Silver Lake with some friends. I got up about seven A.M. to go to the baseball tournament. I was driving up with Paul Barabe and his girlfriend, Cheryl. We drove up to Elbe and took a right at the bridge, and on the right side of the road, I saw the same car that I had seen the night before—it was the gold Challenger—in the ditch. There was also another car parked on the side of the road, and there were several people standing outside of it. Two of the people appeared to be Paul St. Pierre and Andrew Webb; we didn’t stop, we just kept going.” Another person in a separate car, Jack McQuade, also noticed Andrew Webb’s Challenger. “Alongside the Challenger,” confirmed McQuade, “was an old white station wagon.”

  “We continued questioning Chris St. Pierre,” Yerbury later explained, “and I asked him what happened in the days following the burial of John Achord. Well, once again Chris St. Pierre told us everything, and—” He stopped, drummed his fingers on the desk, and shook his head as if trying to clear away a lingering, unwanted, image. “OK,” he said, “this is the part where they go out there in the middle of the night, dig up the body, chop off the head, and bring it home in a bucket.”

  “They had that head in a bucket, set in concrete, sitting right over there,” Mark Ericson later recalled, pointing toward the back wall. “There was a five-gallon orange bucket, filled with cement. I didn’t really notice it much, but I finally asked Chris, ‘What’s with this bucket of cement right here?’ He says, ‘Oh, my dad was doing some work on this porch, some cement, and he had some extra left over, so I just grabbed that bucket and filled it up.’ Well, then the next day or so, the bucket was gone. I never thought of it at all, until. . .” Mark Ericson stopped speaking as an involuntary shudder made its way through his body. “Stuff like that just makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, you know what I mean?”

  “They actually had a reason—or excuse—for removing his head,” stated Yerbury. “Paul St. Pierre was concerned that somehow we—the police—would make a connection between the bullet recovered from the black fellow he shot at the grocery store and the bullet recovered from the head of John Achord, if he was ever found. I guess the same concern might have prompted Paul St. Pierre to throw away the gun, but he kept the gun and attempted throwing away Mr. Achord’s head. The way Chris St. Pierre described things, it sounded rather ghoulish.”

  “Paul and I decided to put the head in a five-gallon bucket and fill it with cement,” confirmed Chris St. Pierre. “Paul and I went back up to where we had buried the second guy that Paul had shot, and then dug up the body. I made Paul do the digging up of the body with the shovels we got earlier from my father, the same tools that we used to bury him a couple days earlier.”

  While digging, Paul St. Pierre accidentally broke one of the shovels. His younger brother used the broken handle to mix and stir the concrete while Paul went to the car, got the ax, and chopped off John Achord’s head.

  “After placing the head in the bucket,” said Chris St. Pierre, “we put the lid on it, put it in my car along with the tools, and then reburied the body. Before leaving, we dumped the leftover bag of concrete and the carpet the body was wrapped in about twenty yards away. When we got home and opened up the bucket, [we] saw that the concrete had set up. We placed the five-gallon bucket containing the head in the garage. The next night, Tony [Youso] and I drove in my station wagon to a bridge over the Puyallup River; Tony got out of the passenger side with the bucket and threw it over the side of the bridge. Tony knew what was in the bucket because Paul and I told him.”

  The ax used to decapitate John Achord was, Chris told Yerbury, hidden under a woodpile at the home of Youso’s brother. “The brother knew nothing about any of this,” recalled the detective. “The knife used in the assault on Damon Wells was discarded near the freeway entrance between McKinley and Pacific Avenue at the Thirty-eighth Street on-ramp.”

  Detectives Price and Yerbury were continually impressed by Christopher St. Pierre’s eagerness to assist them. “He told us that he wanted to cooperate in this investigation so he could attempt to prove that he was not the person responsible for the two deaths, and that he wanted to get the whole situation off his conscience. In fact, Christopher St. Pierre also stated that he wanted to take us to the burial site so the bodies could be recovered.”

  Price and Yerbury transported Chris St. Pierre to a meeting at the Pierce County Coroner’s Office with Sergeant Parkhurst, other assisting officers, and Dr. Emanual Lacsina, medical examiner. “I explained the situation,” recalled Yerbury, “and preparations were made to go to the burial site. Due to conflicting jurisdictional problems, Sergeant Parkhurst made arrangements with the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office for support of that agency.”

  “When Yerbury told us that Chris St. Pierre volunteered to take officers to the scene where the bodies were buried, I contacted Detective Glade Austin of the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office,” said Sergeant Parkhurst. “Detective Austin said that if we were positive the homicide occurred in Tacoma, and that the burial of the victims was the only incident that occurred in Lewis County, they would be willing to release jurisdiction of the bodies to our medical examiner in Pierce County.”

  Parkhurst contacted Dr. Lacsina, Pierce County’s medical examiner, and he agreed to perform the pathological and forensic examinations on the singular condition that Lewis County provided an official written release. A few telephone calls, capped by verbal assurances of complete cooperation, resolved Lacsina’s professional concerns. The required permission obtained, all significant participants convened in the little town of Elbe, Washington.

  “Going to the crime scene from Tacoma were Lieutenant Moorhead, Detectives Price and Yerbury, Officer Brame, Identification Technician John Penton, Dr. Lacsina, Deputy Coroner Dean Patterson, and myself,” recalled Sergeant Parkhurst. Once in Elbe, the investigating officers met with Detective Austin, Sergeant Joe Frace, and Lewis County evidence officer Rick Harrington. “It may also be noted,” wrote Parkhurst in his official report, “that arrested suspect Chris St. Pierre accompanied arresting officers Price and Yerbury on a voluntary basis to point out where the victims were buried.”

  The caravan passed over the Nisqually Bridge into Lewis County, took a right turn at Lubkin Road, and continued about a mile before turning off onto an old logging road. “Officers traveled one thousand fifty-six measured feet down this road,” reported Parkhurst, �
�and again Chris St. Pierre instructed Price and Yerbury to stop their vehicle, and the bodies would be found off to the right of the road.”

  “Walking toward the grave sites,” Yerbury recalled, “Chris St. Pierre pointed out various important pieces of evidence. He showed us portions of carpet remnants, the ripped and discarded bag of cement, and a pile of dried and hardened concrete, which had been left in the bag and discarded by the side of the road. Once he pointed out the grave sites, he was placed in a police vehicle and kept there.”

  Parkhurst, Price, Yerbury, and Penton approached the first grave site from a common pathway. “This is an area of sandy soil covered with dry ferns,” commented Parkhurst. “Just in front of the grave site was an area where a circle of cement was found. This circle represented a five-gallon bucket that was utilized after decapitating Achord’s head. Once the dried ferns were removed, officers could observe a pronounced area of raised dirt, probably an inch or two in height.”

  “Once the burial sites were confirmed, and before they actually removed the bodies, Detective Price and I drove Christopher St. Pierre back to Central Station,” recalled Yerbury. The ride back was neither uneventful nor nonproductive. First they made an unscheduled stop to chat with Mr. Gayle W. Adams of Elbe, Washington.

  “We were driving back to Tacoma,” Yerbury explained, “when I saw a tow truck leaving a gas station. We stopped him and introduced ourselves. We asked him if he was the person that towed Andrew Webb’s Dodge out of the ditch. He clearly remembered the incident, and although he didn’t have the license plate number, he did recall that it was a brown or gold Dodge. He also remembered that the fellows didn’t have exact change, and he didn’t have any either, so he was paid thirty dollars instead of twenty-five.”

  The two detectives and Chris St. Pierre were heading toward Central Station when St. Pierre offered another helpful bit of evidentiary advice. “He pointed out the area where the Gerber knife used to murder Damon Wells had been thrown out of the car, and he also pointed out the area where the head had been discarded—approximately midspan of the Lincoln Avenue Bridge.”

  During the initial interview, Christopher St. Pierre told Yerbury and Price the reasons why he fully cooperated. “I told you ’cause there was so much evidence, and I didn’t want to get caught up in anything else,” said Chris St. Pierre. “It’s been on my conscience. I wanted to point out the facts and evidence, and clean everything up because if I told you the truth, I wouldn’t be charged with a homicide. I didn’t kill anyone. I was just an accessory. I just wanted to be charged with what I did and nothing else.

  “I may be cutting my own throat for a big term, but I don’t want to be charged with a murder. Now I’ll probably talk to an attorney and he’ll say that I shouldn’t have talked and they are charging me with murder. I’m trying to help you guys just to get this shit over and done with. I decided while I was in the bedroom to tell you everything I know.”

  Upon arrival at Central Station, Christopher St. Pierre confirmed again that he was willing to provide a sworn, notarized, formal statement of everything he knew, and everything he did. “We took his statement, and after he had the opportunity to read and review it, he signed it in the presence of Detective Price and myself,” said Yerbury. “At that point, he was booked into the Pierce County Jail on charges of rendering criminal assistance.”

  Officers Peterson and Washburn were dispatched to St. Joseph’s Hospital to place Andrew Webb under arrest for first-degree murder. A steady stream of visitors had kept Webb’s spirits up, including his estranged wife, Anne, who had raced to his bedside the day Paul St. Pierre shot him in the stomach.

  “I ran right to him, comforted him, cried over him, and worst of all—once he was charged with murder—I believed him. At first I felt sorry for him; I guess I still loved him. Or at least I was neurotically attached to him. The whole incident made me crazy,” she said.

  When the police arrived at Webb’s hospital room, they found him chatting with his brother Wesley about how eager he was to get out of the hospital. Wesley was asked to leave, and when he requested an explanation, he was informed that Andrew Webb was now under arrest for murder and was not allowed visitors or phone calls until thoroughly interviewed by detectives.

  “He was released from the hospital the next morning and arrived at Central Station about nine-fifteen A.M. He was advised of his rights, but refused to sign anything and didn’t want to talk to me,” said Yerbury. “He was then taken to the Pierce County Jail. I was hoping, of course, that Webb would be as forthcoming and cooperative as Chris St. Pierre, who was actually eager to provide a full sworn statement.”

  While St. Pierre was giving that sworn statement, officers assisting Sergeant Parkhurst and Lieutenant Moorhead were carefully removing the headless corpse of John Achord from its shallow grave. “The body was on its right side and fully clothed,” said Parkhurst. “A body bag was placed on the foot of the grave, and the body was then slid out directly into the body bag. It was then secured and left at the grave site pending removal after the recovery of the second victim.”

  The grave from which the remains of Damon Wells were removed was much deeper than the first. “The body was enclosed in a sleeping bag of the mummy type,” Parkhurst later reported. “The body contained in the sleeping bag was not removed, nor examined prior to being encased in the body bag. Both bodies were removed from the wooded area and released to Medical Examiner Lacsina and Deputy Coroner Dean Patterson.”

  A thorough examination of the surroundings revealed a large area of cement, more carpet, and a broken shovel handle. “The shovel was adjacent to the second grave site behind some trees,” Parkhurst noted, “but in retrospect, if one went back to where the pile of cement was, this shovel handle could have been thrown from this area and landed where it was found. This is only speculation.”

  As the approaching darkness would affect the investigation’s accuracy, the area was quickly and completely photographed. Detective Austin and Evidence Officer Harrington, assisted by Officer Brame, diagramed the entire crime scene in intricate detail.

  Homicidal depravity, clandestine burials, and recovering decomposed bodies from remote crime scenes are not for the faint of heart. Even experienced homicide detectives are often shocked by what they encounter. “There’s certainly been incidences or crime scenes that were appalling to me,” confirmed Yerbury. “I can’t believe that people would do these things. But you kind of get this emotional detachment. You got a job to do; you do your job.”

  Yerbury’s pride in, and dedication to, the Tacoma Police Department is accompanied by one seldom-considered drawback of his chosen profession. “Whatever you do for a living, people will come to you because you have something they want. You may not have to lock your door to keep them out, but people will come to you. But in my business, nobody wants to talk to us—it’s not uncommon that families or victims don’t want to talk to us, and certainly witnesses don’t want to talk to us. So it’s one constant struggle, just to keep the case on track. People do care, but they are afraid.”

  Tony Youso was more afraid of Paul St. Pierre than he was of the Tacoma Police. Fear for his life, and the lives of family members, compelled him to clean up Achord’s blood, help Paul St. Pierre get the cement, and throw the bucket containing John Achord’s head into the Puyallup River.

  When news of the grisly discoveries near Elbe, Washington, hit the news media on June 20, Youso knew he’d better go to the police before the police came for him. That morning, Dean Phillips, director of Police Services, issued a formal press release detailing the recovery of two bodies from Lewis County. “They appear to have been shot and stabbed; one was decapitated. Names of the victims will not be released until positive identification has been made by the Pierce County medical examiner, and their next of kin is notified,” said Phillips. “Tacoma Police have arrested three Tacoma men in connection with the homicides. Two men have been arrested for murder, and the third for rendering criminal assista
nce. The investigation has revealed that both victims were killed in Tacoma; one in the suspects’ south-end home, and one in an isolated area of Tacoma. The bodies were then transported to Lewis County, where they were buried in a shallow grave.”

  “Immediately following that news announcement,” recalled Detective Yerbury, “I was contacted at Central Station by Anthony Youso, who stated that he wished to discuss the investigation and all knowledge he had of it. According to what we heard from Christopher St. Pierre, Anthony Youso played a significant role in the assistance of the destruction of evidence that would be of importance to this investigation.”

  Born in Fort Leonardwood, Missouri, on February 14, 1961, Anthony Youso was twenty-three, single, and had recently completed four years in the United States Marine Corps Reserve. He was working as a laborer for Sherwood Products when he moved into the house on Pacific Avenue in March 1984, immediately following the disappearance of Damon Wells. “There was a rumor,” acknowledged Youso, “that a young man had disappeared from the house before I moved in. All I know is that this is a rumor.”

  Once ensconced amid the inebriated revelry of the St. Pierres’ self-named “Animal House,” Youso adopted his fellow roommates’ all-consuming interest in brewed and fermented beverages.

  On May 19, 1984, at 2:00 A.M., while driving under the influence, Tony Youso was involved in an auto accident. Bloody, intoxicated, and panicked, Youso ran away from the accident scene. According to Andrew Webb, Youso kept running until he ran through the front door of their Pacific Avenue home.