The Death of Donna Whalen

by Michael Winter

  DONNA WHALEN AND SHELDON TROKE ON TAPE RECORDER

  I dont even understand anything that youre saying Sheldon—you were downstairs at the bottom, talking up through the window. I never, ever wanted you like that Sheldon. I dont like the arguing and the fighting and the violence and everything else. The way you get on with me. I’m frightened to death to say something to you, I dont know if the table is going to tip over or what.

  Sheldon: Sorry, I didnt mean to do it. I guess I know I’m a violent man.

  You know yourself the only time you grind your teeth is when youre on the coke.

  I know, yes. I’ll get you some cocaine now in a few weeks, all right?

  Sheldon give it up please. Youre going to leave soon if you dont stop it.

  Why?

  What are you trying to prove?

  I aint trying to prove nothing, here you go.

  Sheldon stop it.

  No Donna, you stop it.

  I’m not doing anything.

  I’m not either.

  Youre hitting my arm.

  Am I? Did you ask for some cocaine tonight, did you ask for it?

  No, I asked if you were on it.

  Yeah well what the fuck is it your business, I’m trying to help myself all right, where the fuck was Jacob Parrott two weeks ago. Donna, I come here all right because I made an agreement. I love you and I love your friends, I love everything about you all right and I do and I cannot turn around and lie about it because I’d be a two-faced liar right to my eyes, to everybody. I love you more than anything in the fucking world, anything. I would rather turn around and do twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five, forty, forty-five years in jail because I believe in something and I believe in supporting a cause and that’s you, I believe you are worth it, all right. I believe this is fucking lying this is, I dont care what you want to say or what you want to do, I dont care.

  ROBERT ASH

  Sheldon was the aggressor throughout this conversation. He was the one bringing up the boyfriends. The one suggesting she was cheating on him, indicating how jealous he is, suggesting that Jacob Parrott was coming down to visit. It was constantly Sheldon arguing with Donna about how upset and mad he was at her and he threatened to kill her right there on the tape.

  SHELDON TROKE

  Sheldon never said anything about boyfriends. He did mention guys’ names. Donna was allowed to have male friends. He never stopped Donna from having any friends. Now the thing is if Sheldon’s supposed to be home in an hour and he comes back in two hours, it’s an argument. Where were you at? Who were you with? If Donna went out with her friends—male friends at that—there was no arguing. He’s after babysitting for Donna when she went out with her male friends. That’s what that tape is about. It’s about their past. He never turned around on that tape and threatened to kill Donna. This is something that she’s getting for her mother. You dont hear anything about sticking a knife into the coffee table. Wouldnt that be a nice thing to give to your mother? It didnt happen.

  Archeologists could turn around and explain dinosaurs that was twenty million years ago. Sheldon thinks he should be able to explain his conduct in this tape. He does know one thing. He’s doing the arguing. Donna’s not arguing, but when him and Donna argue, Donna used to argue. Donna was making the tape to give to her mother, to show that she dont start all the arguments and Sheldon never did say Donna started all the arguments. The two of them started arguments, but that’s what that tape was for.

  From listening to that tape, it appears that tape is stopped. What was being said that Donna turned the tape off that she didnt want her mother to hear? When Sheldon was going out with Donna, why did he have apartments? When they argued, there was lots of times he left. When he was moving out, Donna asked him, she said, you can board here.

  JACOB PARROTT

  Jacob Parrott was up visiting his friend there one time, Cathy Furneaux. Himself and his friend they just dropped in and they were having a few beers and all of a sudden Donna Whalen showed up. She talked to Cathy and they were talking about old times and asking how things were getting on and Jacob was asking her when is she going to talk to Kim and check on the kids and they got into a conversation. Donna was talking about a knife that was stabbed into a table and she stiffened up like a bit frightened. Sheldon and her had an argument, he was sitting at a table and he was stabbing a knife into it saying I did it before and I’d do it again. Jacob figured maybe it could be the coffee or end table in the living room, because usually when people have conversations theyre sitting down in the living room. She mentioned one where they broke up because they had a fight and, in her words, he laid a beating on her. This conversation at Cathy’s was maybe about four weeks before Donna was murdered. It came up because of something about her breaking up and he’s moving back with his mother.

  GARY BEMISTER

  On Thursday night Pat Vivian was at Donna’s apartment helping her move furniture. He then went back downstairs, had a cigarette and took a sleeping pill and lay down on his bed.

  Pat Vivian is known as an individual who sleeps during the day and is up nearly every night, going to bed at six in the morning. That Friday night he says he went to sleep one to one-thirty a.m. One night where he changed his complete pattern and lifestyle, just happened to be the night that Donna Whalen was killed.

  His son, Tom Vivian, was involved in shoplifting and obtaining numerous prescription drugs together with Donna Whalen. The police have no concerns that Tom had been harbouring unrequited love towards Donna Whalen. The police knew they were close friends. They were involved in this activity together but there is no indication of any sort of admiration between them. Tom Vivian’s room was below Donna’s bedroom. He was constantly snooping around and trying to listen in on Donna Whalen.

  Gary Bemister was going back and forth to the crime scene a fair bit and he used to drop into the Vivians’. It was quite friendly. He’d ask Ruth how she was today, this sort of thing because she did have failing health.

  THE VIVIANS, CHES HEDDERSON AND GARY BEMISTER WIRETAP

  Pat Vivian: Just leave the door open.

  Ches Hedderson: Like you say it’s harassing you.

  If I wasnt worrying about that I’d be worrying about the wife. Every time you comes in you upsets us.

  You knows yourself it’s murder.

  Gary Bemister: Did he say anything to you about Sheldon being arrested?

  Who, my son? Tom told you he only heard a kick on the door. Dont know who done it. Said he’d take the lie detector.

  Is he home?

  No.

  He said he’d be there for the polygraph tomorrow morning. He can’t start folding on us.

  Ruth Vivian: I thought that was Tom who was out there. If I had known it was you, I wouldnt come out.

  Ches Hedderson: Now dont go speaking the truth. We just wanted to see if there’s anything new that you wanted to say at the bail hearing because we dont want any surprises, but you’d be subject to crossexamination if you were called.

  Pat: I thought she didnt have to go to court.

  You are certainly. I’ll check on Mrs Vivian’s status but you and Tom.

  She aint going to no supreme court.

  Ruth: I won’t be able to get down there.

  Pat: That’s why we done the video.

  Ruth: If I could get down I would have waited.

  Gary Bemister: The thing is that we may call yourself and Pat and Tom, so we dropped by to see if there’s anything since Sheldon’s arrest you wanted to tell us.

  Pat: What you going to be asking me for. I never heard nothing.

  You knows we’re looking for two.

  Yeah I knows that.

  That’s right. But youre not telling us.

  Not telling ye. Jesus.

  We’d like to know what youre going to say before youre called.

  Pat: I knows what I’m going to say.

  Ruth: To go down as a witness and have that tape there. I havent been out of the hous
e.

  We just want to make sure that anyone who testifies in court who’s under oath theyre saying exactly what they know because if we know different or we learn different we may be coming back to talk to you again. Like you says, we’re harassing.

  TOM VIVIAN

  He went down to the police station with his father Pat and took the polygraph test. He said Donna was a good friend and he often kept an eye on the children. Friday night she came over to say she was driving Sheldon home and asked Tom to be aware of the children. It was around nine-thirty. He was watching TV. He doesnt know when Donna Whalen came home. His father Pat was in the bedroom watching a baseball game. His mother was at bingo. Pat Vivian came out of his bedroom around one a.m. to get a glass of water, but he never spoke to Tom. Sometime between two-thirty and three a.m. he heard a knock at the front door of Donna’s apartment but it might have been a kick because when you knock on the door you can hear the glass rattle. He did not hear anyone go up. There was a creaking on the floor upstairs, like someone creeping around. He also heard a noise like a table tip over.

  Tom Vivian was taken to another room and for thirty minutes he was alone with Ches Hedderson. Tom repeated that he had told them everything he knew and then he became hyper. Shortly after three p.m. he was advised that he failed the polygraph test and was a suspect in the murder. His father Pat was driven home from the police station and Tom Vivian was charged. He was conveyed to the hospital where vials of blood and other body fluid were taken and then hair samples and pubic hair. He failed some tests that the police had wished him to do and he decided that he wanted to call a lawyer. He was advised to make no further statements.

  GARY BEMISTER

  Ches Hedderson and Gary Bemister returned to the Vivian residence to reinterview Ruth Vivian and videotape her. She’d had surgery three weeks before for a bowel problem. She spends a great deal of time at home and she goes to bed fairly early now. Friday night she got up around one to get a drink of water to take her medication. It could have been two or three times she gets up. When she came out in the kitchen, her son Tom was in the front room cleaning up the coffee table. She took her pill and then went to the bathroom and back to bed. Her husband Pat was in bed. A little while after Tom came in and opened her bedroom door and asked if she called out to him. She said no and he left the room and she took notice of the time because of the medication she’s on. It was about one-fifteen or one-thirty when she heard more than one person going up the stairs to Donna’s apartment. She never heard a sound after this and she asked her husband if he heard anything and he said no. The stairs go over the bedroom and she can hear them clearly when they walk up the stairs. Ruth knows it was more than one person that went up because you can hear them take their shoes off. Just as Donna kicked off her heels, Ruth Vivian heard her say Sheldon, dont do that no more. Donna never even had time to get into her bedroom. As soon as her shoes went on that floor, that is when the girl said that. They sounded like pumps. Now it dont take an expert to figure out that something must have went wrong before she got up over the stairs.

  TOM VIVIAN

  The next day, Saturday, his mother was very upset. The girl upstairs had died. Tom asked his mother if she had heard anything. She turned away. She didnt answer. She knew something but she wasnt saying. The next day she told him. She heard somebody going upstairs and Donna bawling out Sheldon, no more, dont do it no more.

  You should tell the police, Tom told her. He was hoping the police would come back that day.

  Usually Friday nights they have a game of darts and be down in the basement and if they be talking about something, his mother heard it. If they cursed she’d come out and tell them to knock off cursing.

  She was a very caring person, very particular over her appearance and now she doesnt care about none of that. She can’t bathe herself. She can’t do her hair. She doesnt even know how to pour a cup of tea for herself. They were trying to blame him for it.

  RUTH VIVIAN

  After bingo Friday night Ruth came home and complained about the heat. She said to Pat your blood is like water and Pat said why dont you go out and run around the block and lose a few pounds and she slammed the door and went out and she was mumbling to herself that son of a bitch, he always got to have his own way, and she walked down towards Mabel Edicott’s and she turned in between Mabel’s house and Madeline Ryall’s. She tried the back door and she couldnt get it open because she has trouble with this arm. A person came around the corner. Ruth froze in her tracks when she saw him. Sheldon Troke. This was around ten-thirty Friday night. They almost banged into one another they were that close. He put his head down and she turned and went around the corner and into Mabel’s. Ruth asked her to come over to play cards. She was nervous. Sheldon had a few drinks in to him. It is Donna Whalen’s door and then it is Mabel’s. Sheldon was wearing a dark leather jacket, jeans, boots. You could tell by the click on the pavement. He walked towards the car. She heard the door close and the car drove off. It drove off too quickly for him to have been driving it. She thinks he got into the back and there was someone else in the car. Ruth kept on walking around the building and did not look back. It was around eleven oclock. Every time she run into Sheldon it is like she used to get a cold feeling, like an afraid feeling, and this is what she got when he passed by. Even though the young fellow never did say nothing to her out of the way, but that is just the way she used to feel every time she used to talk to him or be handy to him.

  She went home then and played cards with Mabel Edicott.

  JIM LYTHGOE

  Now Sheldon is on Empire at ten-thirty Friday night. New information from Ruth Vivian. Ten-thirty gives Sheldon enough time to return to Donna’s and wait for her. Or does Ruth have the time and day wrong. The police know there was an argument on Thursday night with similar words being said that Ruth Vivian claims to have heard on Friday night. With regards to the stress that she would be under with her son being a suspect, could there have been confusion that the argument with Sheldon applied to Friday night, to prove that her son was not involved in this matter.

  GARY BEMISTER

  Tom Vivian declined a further interview. Look, he said, I’ve already told the police everything I know. And that was his general attitude right up until the last time Gary spoke with him.

  When they are on the tape from Thursday night, their voices are quite loud and at no point does Donna trail off. As for the specific comment of No Sheldon dont do it anymore—that comment is not on the audiotape, though Donna does say Sheldon stop it.

  PAT VIVIAN

  The master bedroom he give it to the young fellow. Ruth was asleep. Pat was fast asleep. Pat never heard a thing until the next morning. He was out in the kitchen doing a few dishes and he heard youngsters crying, but he didnt mind at first. But they kept on crying so he went out to the door and the two children were stood on the doorway crying and he asked them what was wrong and they said, Me mommy is dead, me mommy is dead. Pat got all excited. Come on in the house, he said. It was pouring rain out. They wouldnt come in. He went in and woke Ruth up and woke up his son Tom and when they got back to the door the what’s a names was there. He dont know if it was the police or 911 or what. There was a lot of confusion then with the police taking statements.

  The night before Pat Vivian called to his son when he was going to bed like he do every night. If he is in his room he says Tom, I am going to bed now. Pat usually goes to bed around nine oclock because he is awake six in the morning on account of his wife.

  There was only a dozen beer in the house. Pat had five or six beer over a period of six hours. He can drink beer and he is still alert. He can drink beer and do anything in the house because he dont drink it to get drunk because he is looking after a home.

  GARY BEMISTER

  After that there was silence. And yet the police know, not based on the evidence of individuals but what the scene itself tells them, that Donna went in, she had food with her because a Wendy’s bag was found afterward
s in the kitchen. She went into the bathroom, stepped out of her clothes, which were not bloody or anything, and got her nightie and put it on.

  JIM LYTHGOE

  Tom Vivian was a suspect. He spent hours at the station. Tom’s parents had forty minutes to discuss what was going on. Our son is a suspect. Let’s call a lawyer. Tom didnt make any further statements. He failed a test. Forty minutes later the police arrive and take a new statement from the Vivians. It is still felt by the police today that Tom Vivian is not telling the truth.

  His father Pat was drinking and semi-passed out. And Ruth says the stairs to the upstairs apartment go over her bedroom. Nothing could be further from the truth—her bedroom is as far away as you can get from the stairs. Ruth Vivian said, I could hear them clearly when they walked up the stairs. I knew it was more than one person because I heard them take their shoes off.

  Now are we going to suggest that Donna comes home and takes off her clothes and gets on her nightgown and took a pillow from the bedroom, eats her salad and hears a knock on the door and decides to put on her high heels specifically to go down over the steps?

  Ruth Vivian heard Donna screaming out, no one else hearing anything. Remarkable. She can hear it over a TV. There is no evidence of anyone else hearing anything that Friday night. But suddenly, after Tom Vivian is a suspect, everything changes within an hour.

  ROBERT ASH

  Ruth Vivian is describing a time later than what you are describing now. What you are describing would have occurred close to one oclock in the morning and what you are suggesting is that Donna Whalen gets home at one oclock, goes upstairs, takes off her clothes, puts on a nightgown. Mrs Vivian is talking about something later in the morning. Her description is around one-thirty or quarter to two, which gives more than sufficient time for Donna Whalen to have eaten the meal she had bought, time for her to have gotten a pillow if one wasnt on the sofa already. Time enough to do all those things which the physical evidence suggests. Ruth’s description of the voice going down, that is something you would expect when you consider that there was a pair of panties wrapped around her neck.