Weaver studied the bones and was struck by how delicate they seemed.
“Almost like a child’s bones,” he said later. Yet adult, he was sure.
While the other officers continued digging, Weaver walked along the creek bed almost to Nibbs Creek, some 50 yards away. He knew that animals had strewn the bones that they had been retrieving, and he was looking for clumps of hair, long red hair. But he found none.
Returning to help again with the digging, he stopped to pick up a sliver of cloth. It had the consistency, he thought, of a sheet with a small, delicate blue print pattern still visible. One edge of the cloth seemed to have been burned.
“Gentlemen,” he announced, holding the fragment so that the others could see it, “This one was killed somewhere else and dumped here. And they tried to burn the evidence.”
The burned sheet, Weaver felt, also explained why he had found none of the red hair he had expected to find. He reasoned that almost all of it had been destroyed in the blaze. Perhaps all but one strand.
This realization irritated Weaver, who already had begun to view his pleasant, rural county as a favorite dumping ground for murder victims. In the year since he had been elected to office, he had worked four murder cases. In only one had the victim been a local resident.
Weaver had a metal detector brought in and expanded the area of their search, leading to the discovery of an arm bone bearing a bracelet. On the bracelet was a charm of a bear with three tiny white stones, one for each eye and another where a belly button should be.
By mid-afternoon, Weaver and his men were joined by a state investigator and someone from the medical examiner’s office, both of whom helped to catalog the evidence that had been discovered. Already Weaver was wondering who might wind up with this case. In the other cases in which bodies had been dumped in his county, he and his men had gathered evidence that other agencies had used to hunt down the killers. He thought that would be the situation with this case as well.
State investigators notified law enforcement agencies throughout Virginia of the grisly discovery in Amelia County late on New Year’s Day. The remains were described as being those of a white female, five-feet-two to five-feet-four, slender, probably with reddish brown hair.
On the following morning, the Chesapeake Police Department became the first agency to respond, reporting that Regina Marie Prickett Butkowski, five-feet-two, slender, age 29, with reddish-brown hair, had been missing for eight months.
A television station in Richmond reported the discovery of the body on its evening news that day, and one of the people who saw it was Ernie Hazard of the Chesterfield County Police. He immediately called Jeannie’s brother Sam.
“You been watching television?” he asked.
“Not today,” Sam answered.
“Well, I just thought you ought to know that they just said on the local news that they’ve found some remains down in Amelia County and they think it’s a white female.”
“Do they know anything else?” Sam asked.
“That’s all they said. If I hear anything else, I’ll let you know.”
Sam took a deep breath as he hung up. There had been so many false sightings of Jeannie’s car, so much anguish for his parents for so long. This, too, could be a false alarm. He decided to wait until he knew more before calling his parents. He learned nothing else by staying up to watch the late news, however, and the next morning he decided to go ahead and call his mother.
“They’ve found something in Amelia County,” he told her. “Do you have Jeannie’s dental records just in case they’re needed?”
“I have them,” she answered. “I’ll get them to you overnight.”
Then she paused. “Sam, do you think we’ll be bringing Jeannie home soon?”
“I don’t know, Mama,” he said, fighting back his emotions.
Later in the day, Hazard called Sam again, this time at work. “I’ve got a little more information,” he said.
“They’ve been able to recover a lot of stuff where the body was found, mostly jewelry.”
He read through a short list of items that had been collected as evidence.
“Does any of that sound familiar?” he asked.
“My sister wore a lot of jewelry,” Sam answered. “I’ll see if I can find out what she was wearing that day and call you back.”
As Sam dialed his mother’s number this time, his fingers were trembling. He told her that some jewelry had been found.
“Do you know what Jeannie was wearing that day?”
Carrie knew the jewelry she usually wore. Six rings, including two pinkie rings and the engagement ring Tony had had made for her. A watch with a cloth band. Two necklaces. Carrie paused.
“Anything else?” Sam asked.
“A bracelet with a small bear charm…”
Sam started to speak. Instead, he burst into tears.
“Mama,” he finally said, regaining control, “they found a bracelet with a small bear charm on it.”
After trying to comfort her son, Carrie hung up and called Ben at work to give him the news. Only then did she cry.
After eight months of holding out hope that by some miracle Jeannie might be found alive, Ben finally had to accept reality. “That was the toughest time,” he said later.
A day later, using Jeannie’s dental charts, medical examiners in Richmond confirmed what the Pricketts already knew. Jeannie had been found.
23.
The Rest Of The Story
FOR THREE DAYS, Jimmy Weaver and Wes Terry worked long hours writing reports and building a case file on the body that had been discovered in their county. When confirmation came from the medical examiner’s office that the remains were those of Jeannie Butkowski, they finished their file and shipped it to the Chesapeake Police Department. The case, they thought, was out of their hands.
While it was clear that Jeannie had been murdered, nobody yet knew where she had been killed. The only indication was Joey St. Augustine’s report that Pernell had shot her somewhere near Richmond, and Michael Slezak, the detective handling the case in Chesapeake, was dubious about that. Jeannie’s car might yield some clues about her death, but authorities still hadn’t been able to find it.
Under Virginia law, if the scene of murder cannot be established, the investigation and prosecution of the crime fall to the jurisdiction in which the body is found. Since the only thing certain about Jeannie’s murder was that her body had been found in Amelia County, the file that Weaver and Terry had built was returned to them only a few days after they sent it away. For now, it was their case, but both knew that could change.
Weaver took charge with enthusiasm, nonetheless. Murder investigations stirred his juices, and this one not only intriqued him, it angered him.
“Somebody thought they could kill somebody and bring the body down here to Amelia and dump it and some hick sheriff would wind up with the case and it’d never be solved,” he said later. “I’m no hick sheriff.”
The eight-month interval between the murder and the discovery of the body left him with a cold trail to follow, Weaver knew, but he and Terry began with the paperwork that the case had created. They went first to Chesapeake to talk with officers there and try to get a feel for the scope of the investigation that lay ahead.
“From the very beginning, there was nothing but cooperation between the various law enforcement agencies involved,” Weaver said later. “It was never a competition type thing.”
Slezak opened his files on Jeannie, and Weaver and Terry heard Pernell’s voice for the first time, when Slezak played for them an enhanced copy of the tape recording that Denise had found in her answering machine after Jeannie’s first abduction. Pernell instantly became their chief suspect.
When Slezak said Pernell was thought to be in Florida, Weaver knew that he now had a finishing point as well as a starting point. He just wondered how long it would take him to close the distance between the two, and he was eager to get started. “That’s just
the way I am,” he said later. “When I start investigating a case, I have no use for a clock. I work day and night until I’ve finished, sometimes twenty hours a day, sometimes longer.”
Two weeks into his investigation, Weaver called the Pricketts, and afterward, for the first time, Ben and Carrie thought that the investigation of their daughter’s disappearance and death was in the hands of somebody who would do something about it.
“He told us he would not let up until he solved the case,” Ben said. “He said that his style was to go where he needed to go when he needed to be there. If he had to talk to a drug dealer and the only time he could get to him was midnight, he’d be there. We believed him. He just put us at ease.”
Weaver got the break he needed, the one Slezak long had been hoping for, on January 16, when the Pricketts forwarded to him a letter that had been mailed to Jeannie. It was dated January 12, 1990, and was from the manager of the Newport Manor Apartments on Carnation Drive in Richmond, who reported that a gray Nissan 300 ZX bearing a vehicle identification number registered to Jeannie had been left abandoned at the apartment complex for six months. It gave Jeannie 30 days to claim the vehicle.
Weaver and Terry moved quickly. Within hours they met state law enforcement officers, including forensic experts, at the Newport Manor Apartments and found the 300 ZX. Weaver stood on a grassy knoll nearby as the forensics team worked over the car. Curious residents were coming and going, and several gathered at railings along second-and third-floor balconies to watch the police. From a nearby Richmond Police cruiser, Weaver heard one of the investigators asking for a check on the license plate the Nissan now bore, PNJ-720.
The report came back that the tag was registered to a Swansboro Baptist Church bus and had been reported stolen. The Richmond city inspection sticker on the car was discovered to have been stolen as well. As he listened, Weaver’s eyes scanned the nearby apartments, although he later would say that he wasn’t certain what he was looking for. “I figured I’d know it when I saw it,” he said years later.
Finally, he noticed that at one of the second-floor apartments, the corner of a drape occasionally moved. Weaver turned away, but his eyes kept returning to the window. After seeing the drapes move, Weaver knew that someone who didn’t want to be seen was peeking out at what was going on. He went to the apartment and knocked on the door, getting no answer. He knocked again, this time more loudly, and the door opened tentatively.
“You know anything about that car?” Weaver asked the man who stood in the shadows of the darkened room.
“Not much,” he said.
“Tell me what you know.”
“I just know that Sam and his cousin used to drive that car.”
“Sam who?”
“Sam Washington.”
“His cousin have a name?” Weaver asked.
“Probably, but I don’t know what it is.”
“And where do you think Sam Washington is now?” Weaver asked.
“Well, he used to live in one of these apartments, but he ain’t been around in a while.”
“You’ve got no idea where he is?” Weaver pressed.
“He might be in jail.”
“But you don’t know for sure?”
“No, sir.”
A day later, on January 17, Weaver found Washington in the Richmond City Jail.
Washington said he had driven the car occasionally but it belonged to a man known on the street merely as JT. He had no idea where Weaver could find JT. But Richmond Detective Ray Williams knew.
“The thing is,” Williams warned Weaver, “he lives in a tough part of town. Some of the people who live there would just as soon kill you as not.”
“Just tell me how to get there,” Weaver said.
Within half an hour, Weaver pulled his cruiser to a stop at the address in southeast Richmond. He could feel dozens of unseen eyes watching as he got out and walked to the door. An elderly woman answered his knock.
“How do you do, ma’am,” Weaver said pleasantly. “I’m wondering if I can speak to JT.”
“Won’t you come in?” she asked, just as pleasantly.
She led Weaver toward the kitchen. Peeking from beside the refrigerator was a wiry man with a shiny gold tooth. Weaver guessed him to be in his early thirties.
“Why don’t you come on out, JT?” Weaver told the man. “I’m Sheriff Jimmy Weaver from Amelia County and I’ve got a few things I want to ask you.”
The man emerged from the corner but said not a word.
“You want to talk here?” Weaver asked.
“Might as well.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Weaver said. “What I need to know from you can just stay between us. Why don’t we just go sit in my squad car and talk?”
In the car, Weaver turned to him and said, “I hear you used to drive around in a little gray sports car, a 1985 Nissan 300 ZX.”
“So?”
“So, I need to know where you got it.”
The man hesitated. “Can’t tell you,” he said.
Clearly, this was a veteran of the streets, and after five minutes of questioning him, Weaver still was making no progress at all.
“Maybe I need to take you in so you’ll feel a little more like talking,” he finally said.
“You don’t have a warrant,” the man said flatly.
“I don’t have to have a warrant to take you in for questioning,” Weaver responded, “but I can take care of the warrant problem right now.”
He reached for his radio. “Amelia, this is Sheriff Weaver,” he said into the microphone.
“Go ahead, Sheriff,” came the response despite the static on the line.
“I’m on my way in with a suspect,” Weaver said. “I’m going to need a warrant real quick when I get there. Call the magistrate and ask him to stand by. Get back to me right away to let me know he’ll be there.”
The two men waited in silence.
“It’s a shame,” Weaver finally said, “a damned shame.”
“What’s a shame?”
“Well, you’re smart. To tell you the truth, I kind of like you. You’re strong. You’re tough. Nobody pushes you around. But what we’re dealing with here is murder. Just between us, I don’t think you had anything to do with it, but I gotta take you in, and when we start asking you questions back in Amelia, no telling what’ll come up. You know and I know that accessory to murder’s pretty heavy stuff.”
Weaver said nothing else, allowing silence to settle again in the car. Neither spoke until the radio crackled back to life.
“Sheriff, the magistrate says he’ll be right here waiting.”
“I’m on my way,” Weaver answered. He reached for the ignition.
“Wait a minute,” the man said quickly. “I got the car from Alphonso Brown. He said he needed some money and he wanted to sell it to me.”
“What did it cost you?” Weaver asked, curious.
“I paid Brown a hundred and eighty-five dollars for it.”
“Pretty good buy.”
“Yeah, until I put it in the water and it got flooded,” the man said with a little laugh.
“This Alphonso Brown. Where do you think I could find him?”
“I know exactly where he is,” the man answered, surprising Weaver.
“You do?”
“They picked him up for shoplifting and drug possession. He’s in Henrico County Jail right now.”
“Thanks,” Weaver said. “You’re a good man.”
As Weaver drove alone to the Henrico County Jail, he wondered how close he was getting. He knew he was working backward, but if the trail held together it would lead him to Jeannie’s killer nonetheless.
At the jail, Weaver was shown into a small interview room. Within moments, Alphonso Brown sat across the table from him.
“Mister Brown,” Weaver began, “you can help me with something.”
“What’s that?” Brown asked cautiously.
“I need to know everything you can tell me ab
out that gray Nissan you used to drive.”
Brown was silent, sizing up Weaver, wondering if he were about to become further entangled in the legal system. “Of course, you don’t have to tell me,” Weaver said, “but I wish you would. I’m investigating this case where a woman was killed, the woman who used to own that car. I’ll bet you didn’t have anything to do with that, but I’m not sure.”
“Got it from Wayne Scott,” Brown said quickly. “Met him on Thirty-sixth Street back sometime in May. It was Scott and this black man I didn’t know.”
“What’d this black male look like?”
“Well-built,” Brown said. “Medium height, I’d say. Moustache. He was the guy driving the Nissan. And he was the guy trying to sell it. Didn’t have no county or state tags.”
“Did you ask this black male where he got the car?”
“He said the Nissan belonged to his girlfriend and he had to get out of town fast. He said he was mad at his girlfriend, so he just took her car. Wayne Scott said the Nissan came from down in Chesapeake. He said he and this other guy broke into a house and stole the keys.”
Brown described the car as very clean, well-cared for, with a shiny coat of wax and an alarm system that Scott tried to demonstrate for him.
“What’d you pay for a car like that?” Weaver asked.
“Twenty dollars and a quarter of cocaine,” Brown said. Brown said he then walked to Swansboro Baptist Church less than two blocks away, stole the license plate off a church bus and purchased a city sticker from a young man he did not know for five dollars.
“Shoulda known the car was stolen,” Brown said.
“Why’s that?” Weaver asked.
“’Cause that’s what Scott does. Steals cars. He’s been driving this red GT he stole. He likes that car. Scott does his business at night in that car. Then he takes it and parks it in this fancy white neighborhood and leaves it all day so nobody from the old neighborhood will bother it. If the police come around in the day to look for the car, they don’t find it anywhere around where Scott’s at. Scott’s pretty smart.”
Deadly Goals Page 20
