Jane Doe No More (45 page)

As police searched Regan’s van, they uncovered a horrifying collection of tools. He had a brand-new tarp. A length of rope that had been tied with slipknots into a noose. Photography equipment. A pitchfork. A rake. And topping it all off, an empty syringe, accompanied by what was a large dose of antihistamine in a separate container. It appeared, from the evidence in Regan’s van, that he had schemed to abduct Lindsey, do whatever it was he had planned to her, and this time make sure there was no DNA or a witness left behind to testify against him. Even more disturbing, once the police went to that empty house Regan said he was working on, they found all the windows with the shades down and the curtains drawn.

Prosecutor Murphy later said, “My conclusion was that he was going to tie her up in that van in an instant because he had those pre-tied slipknots. Then he was going to inject her with that antihistamine to knock her out. And then take her to this house that he was working on that he had the shades pulled and the curtains drawn.”

From there, many of those connected with the case later agreed, Regan was going to kill Lindsey Ferguson.

The SSPD popped Regan’s name into the computer system to see what came up, and there it was, staring back at the officer: Regan was out on bond awaiting trial on charges of kidnapping and unlawful restraint in Connecticut.

And yet, there was still one more discovery to be unearthed inside Regan’s van and back at his home in Waterbury—a find that would spark police all over the Northeast to take another look at cold rape (and murder) cases.

CHAPTER
THIRTY
-
FOUR

Suicide Is Painless

Not unusual for Chief Neil O’Leary, on October 31, 2005, he was working late into the night after most of his officers had gone home when news from New York State arrived. Reflecting later, the news did not necessarily shock the seasoned investigator, but then again, this night it made Neil sit up, shake his head, and feel a bit sick, as well as greatly relieved.

After a knock on his office door, one of Neil’s detectives poked his head in.

“Come in . . .” Neil said. “What is it?”

“Chief, you’re not going to believe this, but we just took a call. John Regan was taken into custody in Saratoga Springs, New York.”

What the hell was Regan doing way up there?

Waterbury to Saratoga was a 140-mile trip, almost three hours north, Neil thought, as his officer explained what Regan had been picked up for.

“Saratoga?” Neil asked his detective. “What?”

The detective gave Neil all the details.

He was going to murder and bury Lindsey Ferguson,
Neil told himself, shaking his head, while back in Waterbury, half the town was behind Regan, painting him as the all-American boy being railroaded by two women who had affairs with him and didn’t want to admit it.

Incredible
.

“I really believe that in Regan’s mind there wasn’t going to be any chance of DNA to be uncovered up in New York,” Neil commented later. “We had several women come forward later and accuse Regan of attacking them going back to as far as the late 1970s and early ’80s, but the statute of limitations had run. This proved he has been a sexual predator for a very long time.”

Ultimately, Saratoga Springs’ chief of police Ed Moore’s team of investigators uncovered hundreds of photographs inside Regan’s van. They were a stalker’s stash, a collection of images you’d see some deranged character in a Hollywood thriller film snapping: women on bike paths, jogging, walking, in shopping malls, and just being themselves out in public, unaware that a madman was secretly following them and taking pictures. Some of the photos, investigators learned through time codes on the camera, had been snapped only hours before he attacked Lindsey. This man, who had committed several sexual assaults (attempted or otherwise) and had been apprehended while out on bond in a case with a DNA match, was picked up trying to kidnap and possibly assault a seventeen-year-old girl. This latest case—along with the discovery of the photographs and other “items” found in Regan’s van—demonstrated Regan’s hubris and the escalation of a serial sex offender who was perhaps planning on graduating to something more sinister. Regan showed the classic signs of a sociopath who believed, even when the heat was on, that he was capable of beating the police and the system. Only this time—thank goodness—Regan was caught in the act.

“I am convinced,” Neil concluded, “there is DNA sitting in an evidence collection room, up on a shelf somewhere, in some police department within the Northeast that has John Regan’s DNA as a match, but has just not been submitted.”

Neil called Donna that night.

She was devastated. Immediately, Donna wanted to reach out to Lindsey and console her, tell her it would be okay. Tell her she was a survivor, not a victim. Tell her she would get through this.

On Tuesday, November 1, 2005, John Regan was arraigned and charged with attempted first- and second-degree kidnapping, along with attempted unlawful restraint. This time, there would be no bond for Rocky Regan.

When Saratoga Springs police chief Ed Moore spoke to the press, he called Regan an “organized offender, who was planning on taking [Lindsey] to another location.”

Any armchair criminal profiler will agree that, for women, it is that
second
location where they end up dead. Women are told to never, ever relent and go to a second location with someone who is trying to abduct you—because that second location is where death generally occurs. Fight for your life, even if it means dying at that first location.

Saratoga County district attorney Jim Murphy told news reporters that Regan had “planned the crime,” but the “‘to whom’ was random . . . There was no indication, at this point, he knew who [Lindsey] was. There is no indication that [Lindsey] was stalked.”

The community of Saratoga was shocked about the news that a man, in near broad daylight, had tried to abduct a teenage girl from what was considered a safe zone, a school parking lot. It did not take long for news of Rocky’s arrest and the serial nature of his crimes to be reported back home to the Waterbury citizenry. His supporters could no longer deny that Rocky was likely a serial predator hiding in plain sight.

During the brief court proceeding, Regan hobbled around the courtroom, shackles on both ankles. He stood before the judge with his head bowed, chin nudged up against his chest—a familiar pose this serial offender would take whenever in court. At times, one news report noted, Regan picked at his cuticles as if the court was wasting his time. He never once made eye contact with anyone in the courtroom besides his attorneys.

During the investigation, four search warrants were issued for Regan’s van, home, his parents’ home, and his place of business.

Newspapers on November 2, 2005, reported that Regan was a suspect in two additional sexual assault/kidnapping cases in Connecticut, commenting that not only was Regan reared in a “prominent Waterbury family,” the son of a dentist, the husband of a second-grade schoolteacher, but also that a school had been named after Regan’s grandfather. This Waterbury golden boy, however, was looking down the barrel of forty or more years in prison, depending on how many additional women came forward and how many additional charges could be tacked on. A teletype had gone out to police departments throughout New York and New England. More film of Rocky’s had been uncovered in Connecticut under a search warrant—and there, police found more disturbing photographs of women’s legs, women biking, sitting, shopping, and going about their lives. But the photos that interested Neil O’Leary most, when he was called in to have a look, were of the former coworker Regan had tried to sexually assault—the woman whose case had led Neil down the road of making Regan a major suspect in Donna’s attack. Regan had been stalking his coworker—and other women—for some time, obviously obsessing about her. Neil began to consider another question as he went through the new evidence: Was Donna among the women Regan had photographed?

With the new charges Regan faced, having been literally caught in the act, he must have realized the jig was up. He couldn’t talk his way out of this one, relying on the fact that his family was respected and had money and he had never been in trouble. And when cowards like Rocky Regan, who prey on women, finally realize there are far too many witnesses saying the same things about them, and far too much evidence to contradict their lies, they tend to opt for the easy way out. No, not a plea bargain deal. Something more permanent. Something gutless.

After his court appearance on November 1, 2005, Regan went back to his cell and went to sleep. The next morning, November 3, which just happened to be Rocky’s forty-ninth birthday, he got up, took his bedsheet, tied one end around his neck in a noose and the other to the top of his bedpost, then sank the weight of his two-hundred-pound, five-foot ten-inch frame down on itself, apparently hoping to reach that white light and put an end to his misery.

Neil O’Leary called and told me that Rocky had been taken by ambulance to the hospital and that he had tried to kill himself. I felt sick. Part of me wished he would die, but then we would never know what else he had done and who his other victims might be. There were so many unanswered questions. As I thought about it more, waiting to hear if he would make it, I wanted him to live.

Regan’s suicide attempt didn’t work.

After guards discovered Regan had passed out (he had been unconscious for ten minutes, according to one report), he was transported to Saratoga Hospital’s intensive care unit, where he was treated for a few days and released back to the jail’s medical unit under close supervision and guard. Regan would be okay—no irreversible damage had been done. He had escaped final judgment—at least for now.

Meanwhile Regan’s lawyer came out swinging, claiming his client was being painted with “a broad brush [to] characterize things in ways they are not.” The impetus behind those photos Rocky had taken, for example, was not the sinister plot of a serial sexual offender, counsel suggested, but “There is a completely innocent explanation.”

Of course, everyone was eager to hear why a man accused in two sexual assaults and an attempted kidnapping was taking hundreds of photographs of women’s legs and body parts without their knowledge, not to mention traveling with what appeared to be a serial killer’s tool kit.

But those answers never came.

A fifty-year-old Waterbury woman, after reading about John Regan’s latest crimes, stepped forward to say Regan had kidnapped and attempted to sexually assault her twenty-four years earlier. Waterbury Police told the press they were investigating whether Regan may have committed other crimes, including the murders of two Waterbury prostitutes during the 1980s. Both girls had last been seen not far from Rocky’s home.