Body Dump (16 page)

“After I calmed down, well, I, uh, we continued having sex.”

“What happened when you were finished?”

“I drove her to a gas station on Main Street and dropped her off.”

The cops knew that once a suspect was given his Miranda warning, and continued to talk without a lawyer present, the more he talked to police, the better chance more details would come out to pin him to the crime being investigated. In most cases, it was through circumstantial evidence and physical evidence, like DNA found at the crime scene, that was then matched to the suspect that ultimately led to a conviction.

In rare instances, the suspect actually confessed. That could also be thrown out later on various constitutional grounds, which was why it was always useful to have the physical evidence.

Bearing that in mind, Franco had filed charges against Francois. She was then taken to a local hospital where a rape kit was used. A piece of her hair was carefully snipped and placed in an evidence bag. Likewise, swabs from inside her vagina. Those swabs held the semen from her assailant and in turn, the semen held the malefactor’s DNA code.

The police were hopeful that Francois might say something so incriminating that they could use it to get a court order demanding that Francois turn over samples of his saliva, hair and blood. Lab specialists would then crack his DNA code from those samples and attempt to match it up to the DNA code from the semen taken from Franco’s vagina.

A match would confirm Franco’s story. That, coupled with the bruises on her neck, which police were certain matched Francois’s hands, could lead to a rape conviction and, perhaps, a search warrant to search the house for further evidence. Of course, there would be no guarantee of conviction, even with hard evidence.

Most people looked at prostitutes as being a lower order of life, not subject to the same protection given to most. At trial, the jury might figure the woman really consented and things got out of control. In that case, they could convict on a lesser charge than rape, maybe even find Francois not guilty, in which case he would walk.

They continued to talk. There was a lot to talk about.

Back in his office, Bill Siegrist looked at his watch. Five o’clock. He had an appointment and didn’t want to be late.

Siegrist had been planning on putting a new roof on his twenty-six-year-old house for the past two years. Although it was only early September, he knew from years past that winter comes fast to the Hudson Valley. One day it could be fall, with the air sharp, cool and comfortable, and the next, literally overnight, winter could set in. There were years with frosts in late September.

So he needed to get the roof done once and for all and while he was at it, it was also time to get some changes made to the house’s structure. To do all that, he had hired local architect Doug Hughes.

Siegrist drove out of town, going east on the side streets. He wanted to avoid the inevitable Church Street traffic until he was farther out of the city, into the township. Then he turned back onto Church, technically Route 55, and continued heading east. He passed a few strip malls and then scattered sections of rolling farmland.

Siegrist made his home with his wife, Liz, and his children eight miles outside of town in Pleasant Valley. It was as bucolic as the name implied—a stark contrast to the urban chaos of the cop’s working environment.

When Siegrist got home, he found Liz waiting for him in the backyard. They chatted for a bit, gazing up at the roof and noting its poor condition. It really did need replacing. Just then the doorbell rang. The couple made their way through the house’s interior, out to the front door.

“Hi, Doug,” said Siegrist as he opened the door.

It was the architect Hughes, come to get final approval on his plans.

“Let’s go into the dining room,” said Siegrist, leading the way.

After exchanging small talk, Hughes laid his blueprints down on the dining room table. Carefully, he unrolled them. The Siegrists gazed at the blueprints. They were very satisfied with what they saw. They liked Hughes’s work. He understood exactly what needed to be done. Nodding, Siegrist reached up and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. Then he pulled at his tie, lowering it a little.

With pen in hand, he reached down to initial the plans. It would be the final go-ahead for construction. Then, just before his pen touched the paper, the phone rang. Siegrist was annoyed.

“I’ll get it,” Siegrist said to his wife. He strode back up to the kitchen, where he picked the receiver off the wall.

In some localities, it is standard practice to take down the first interview longhand, the second on tape. The town of Poughkeepsie was such a locality.

A little before 4:38
P.M.
, Francois was once again advised of his Miranda rights. Once again, he waived them. Mannain was tense.

When Francois began talking a second time, a tape recorder, which had been brought into the room, was turned on to record his every word. McCready and Mannain then asked him to repeat the details of his day, how he happened to meet Diane Franco and to tell them again what happened.

“This morning at about eight-thirty
A.M.
,” he began, “I was downtown.”

“Where?” McCready asked.

“In the vicinity of Pershing Avenue,” Francois answered and the cops knew that was part of the neighborhood where prostitutes hung out on the street waiting for johns to pick them up.

“I was driving alone in my car.”

“The Camry?”

“Yes. I stopped and spoke with Diane Franco. I knew her.”

It seemed that Franco and Francois had transacted business on a few prior occasions.

“She agreed to have sex with me for money.”

Franco got into the Camry and Francois drove over to his house. He didn’t have an automatic garage-door opener. He got out and, by hand, opened the door, painted with old gray paint that was chipped and faded.

“I drove the car into the garage, got out and closed it [the door].”

When he got back in, he gave Franco, in advance, money to have sexual intercourse with him. They did it on the front seat of the car. After a while of his pounding into her, of his massive weight bearing down on the slight prostitute’s body, she said, “I want to stop.”

Francois wouldn’t. He’d paid and he was going to get everything that was his entitlement. They had a disagreement. Franco wasn’t going to give it up. They argued. Francois blew his top.

“I got angry and grabbed her around the neck, started to choke her with my hands.”

Somehow he managed to calm down before he did any permanent physical damage. They went on to have sex again. The tape recorder was turned off.

The brief tape-recorded questioning had produced a little more in the way of detail. Most detectives would have continued questioning him, because they clearly did not have enough to charge him with anything other than rape. That was a minor charge compared to nine counts of murder.

Maybe the cops were psychic and figured there was no need to press. Maybe they were so intuitive they knew what would happen next. Or maybe it was just blind luck. What happened was that after the questioning Francois was left alone in Interview Room 112. After a while, he called out that he wanted to see the two officers who had been in the room with him. Mannain and McCready went in.

“I’d like to talk to a prosecutor,” said Kendall Francois. “I want to look at the photos of prostitutes missing since 1993.”

1993? The cops had only been concerned with the women missing since 1996. Were there
more?
And why did Francois want to discuss the missing women, unless he knew something?

In police work, it’s best not to jump to conclusions. Without further analysis, a call was placed to the on-call prosecutor, Dutchess County Assistant District Attorney Marjorie J. Smith. Her job, during her shift, in addition to her regular work, was to assist cops in putting together cases. She was summoned from her office on Main Street. So was task force member Arthur Boyko of the state police.

Francois was shown a series of Web-site photos of women whose pictures appeared on official Missing Person’s reports. Methodically, Francois flipped through the papers and carefully separated them out. He placed four photos in one pile. Mannain looked down at the pictures.

In one pile, Francois had placed pictures of Wendy Meyers, Gina Barone, Catherine Marsh and Sandra French.

“I killed them,” said Kendall Francois.

Mannain looked up sharply.

“What?”

“I killed them.”

Holy shit!

The last thing he expected was for the guy to cop to the murders. The big man placed photos of Michelle Eason and Kathleen Hurley aside.

“I don’t know about them.”

He looked at the Web-site photo of Mary Healey Giaccone.

“I’m not sure about her either.”

Kendall Francois then continued with his statement.

At the Siegrist house, the phone rang. Annoyed, Siegrist picked it up.

“Hello?” said the lieutenant of detectives.

“Bill, get over here!” It was Skip Mannain and he sounded excited. “Get your fucking ass over here!”

“Skip, what—”

“He’s going for it.”

“He’s
what
?”

“He’s going for it,” Mannain repeated. “He’s drawing maps!”

Siegrist gripped the phone harder. “Oh, my God.”

“Get your fucking ass over here!”

“I’ll be right there.”

Quickly, Siegrist slung the receiver back in the cradle and, in almost the same motion, pivoted and strode quickly out into the dining area. Liz and Doug looked at him expectantly.

“I gotta go,” he said to his wife, kissing her quickly on the cheek.

Liz was used to this behavior, but the architect wasn’t. He watched quizzically as the cop went out the front door. Before he left, Siegrist pushed his tie up and buttoned his shirt.

Outside, Siegrist was in his unmarked car in a flash. He reached down under his seat and brought up a domed light, which he attached to the roof of the Taurus. He gunned the motor to life, then spun around hard and out the driveway. Hitting Route 55 going west, he turned on his siren. Suddenly, traffic parted like the Red Sea. Siegrist didn’t really notice any of that. When one’s mind is extremely active, it can perform two tasks at the same time—for instance, driving and thinking about a murder case.

Siegrist could see how and where he was going, but his mind projected forward four miles, to the Town of Poughkeepsie Police Station. It was there, in an interview room, that Kendall Francois was talking. Finally.

Be careful what you wish for, you might get it, goes the old proverb. Siegrist and company had wanted to know what had happened to the missing women. Now, maybe, that was finally happening.

Holy shit
, thought Siegrist, hands swiftly negotiating the wheel. If he’s drawing maps, we may be up in the woods all night. The detective lieutenant expected that Francois was confessing that he’d killed the women and buried them somewhere in the woods outside town. To Siegrist, that made sense.

Nice remote location, maybe nobody finds them. Had to be something like that. Where else could he put that many people?

Siegrist was very excited and few things did that for him. His son’s graduation from college was one. But this case, the agony over it and to see it come to a satisfactory conclusion … As he drove, Siegrist continued to turn the case over in his mind.

Siegrist figured that Francois had finally decided to confess “because the jig was up.” With a warrant to get into the house, all would become clear very soon. It was actually a practical matter to confess. Perhaps he could hope for some sort of leniency with his cooperation.

The last thing Siegrist or anyone else close to the case figured Francois for was a conscience. If he had one, he wouldn’t have racked up a kill total greater than Jack the Ripper’s.

Serial murder is actually a very rare crime. You have as much of a chance of being a victim of a serial murderer as winning the lottery. It is a metaphor that would not comfort any of the women, but it is true nevertheless.

For those in law enforcement, the opportunity, therefore, to be involved in a serial murder investigation is rare. Some of the assembled cops and the prosecutor had been involved on the periphery of the White serial murder case many years before. None of the cops, though, had been the primary officers involved in such a case.

Once Francois had started talking, he kept going. With little prompting, the big guy began to tell the cops exactly where to look. It was late, of course, too late to help the women who had been his victims. Closure, though, was possible for their families. Discovering and identifying their bodies would do exactly that. Then there was one more job they had to do.

Death. Everyone hoped for one more death out of the case. New York State had the death penalty, recently reinstated by the state legislature and Governor Pataki. The idea now was to put as strong a case together as possible so the prosecutor could seek the death penalty against Kendall Francois. The more he talked, the more he plunged the executioner’s needle loaded with poison into his arm.

Everyone in the room knew that. It was doubtful any of them wanted the big man to stop.

Twelve

Route 44 winds its way out of Poughkeepsie, stretching all the way to the New York—Connecticut border thirty miles away. But you don’t have to travel that far to get to Troop K of the New York State Troopers.

Troop K’s headquarters is a low-lying, oblong building that sits on an unprepossessing lot in the suburban town of Millbrook. Millbrook and its surrounding towns are like what Long Island is to New York City—a stretch of suburban towns from which the workers that man Poughkeepsie’s offices commute every day. What makes Troop K unique, though, is that it serves four of the surrounding counties, as far south as Westchester. That’s a lot of area to cover.

For Tommy Martin, autumn, and the days leading up to it, was the perfect time for business. It was cool and generally dry, perfect weather for processing crime scenes. Tommy was the senior investigator in Troop K’s Forensic Identification Unit. Only thirty-one, he had been there for ten years.