Monster (58 page)

Dennis Hall had run the Jefferson County grand jury since the early 1990s. Some prosecutors, concerned about their win/ loss records, will hand off risky or borderline cases to subordinates to take their chances. But Hall always kept the cases he filed personally, and he had filed the case against Thomas Luther. Three counts of first degree murder. A death penalty case.

District Attorney Dave Thomas had made the decision some time back that if Cher’s body was found and Hall could convince the grand jury to indict him for first degree murder, they would seek the death penalty. Luther was a monster whose trail of battered and dead women left no room for pity, just as he had never shown any to his victims, nor remorse.

Still, it would be a difficult case. There were no witnesses to the murder. The witnesses who knew of the murder were mostly liars, thieves, convicts, or drug users—all of which the defense attorneys would use to impeach their credibility.

The only reasonably untainted witness who Luther admitted anything to, and then only that he buried the body, was Debrah Snider. She would be the most important witness of all; along with her own damning information, she was the link between what the other witnesses would say and Luther’s actions.

But how would she come off to a jury? How could Hall explain her lapses in judgment, the length of time it took her to confess? Would the jury see her as blinded by love or an unstable, jealous woman getting even with an abusive boyfriend? And who really knew what she would do when it came time to choose between Luther and the truth?

At trial, Hall hoped to introduce Luther’s other crimes against women under a provision of the law known as “similar transactions.” Usually, in criminal trials, a defendant’s past cannot be referred to by the prosecution in front of a jury unless the defendant takes the stand. The concept is that a defendant should be tried only for the crime with which he or she is standing trial at that moment, not their “bad character.” However, on occassion prosecutors can convince a judge that former “bad acts,” or similar transactions, bear so close a resemblance to the current charge and may supply a motive for the defendant’s actions that they should be admissible in court. But that was for a future hearing. First, Hall needed to convince the grand jury to indict.

J.D. Eerebout was the first of the witnesses to testify. He told the jurors that Luther was a friend who he met a dozen years earlier when visiting his father in prison. The night Cher Elder and Luther left for Central City, he said, he stayed behind with his brother Tristan. The next time he saw Luther, it was dawn the next day.

He wasn’t sure, but he believed that it was the day after Cher was killed that he and his brother followed Luther into the mountains. Byron got out of the car and spied on Luther digging the grave, he said.

Luther didn’t tell him at the time that he killed Cher. “But we knew he had,” J.D. said. “Byron seemed to have a general idea of where Tom was going.”

However, J.D. denied ever going back to Empire to retrieve Luther in May 1993. The Eerebouts still had not been told that J.D. was followed by the police that day.

J.D.’s testimony took almost two hours. He was followed by Southy Healey, who essentially told the same story that he’d told to Richardson a few hours earlier. Then it was Byron Eerebout’s turn to tell his story.

When they were through, Richardson was called to the stand. For several hours, he went over the details of two years worth of investigations. Cher fought with her boyfriend. She appeared in Central City with the man in the videotape, Thomas Luther. They were seen leaving at one-thirty by Karen Knott, who saw a sober Cher Elder get in the passenger-side seat. They drove to Lookout Mountain where he believed Cher was attacked, beaten—fracturing her skull—sexually assaulted, and then executed by three bullets in nearly the identical spot. The gun was thrown in Clear Creek. Cher’s body was taken to Empire, where Luther returned the next night with Southy to bury it. Sometime later he confessed the murder to Byron, who with his brother followed Luther to the grave to bury it better and put rat poison on it to discourage scavengers. He talked about the torturous process of trying to wring confessions from witnesses like Byron and Southy and of Luther’s prison claim that the next girl would not survive.

Then there was nothing to do but wait for the grand jury to deliberate. It didn’t take long.

The Jefferson County grand jury indicted Thomas Edward Luther on three counts of first degree murder. Each count included aggravating circumstances that carried the potential of the death penalty. In count one, the aggravating circumstance was robbery—the theft of Cher’s ring. In count two, the aggravating circumstance was rape, or rather that Cher was murdered to cover up the rape. In count three, the aggravating circumstance was that the murder of Cher Elder was premeditated and deliberate.

If the prosecution team could prove any one of the three, Thomas Luther would face a second phase of the trial to determine if he deserved the death penalty. Then, if there was any justice in the world, Richardson thought as he left the courthouse that night, Luther would one day be strapped to a steel table at the Colorado State Penitentiary and given a lethal injection for what he had done to Cher Elder.

The next morning, Jefferson County District Attorney Dave Thomas held a press conference announcing that the body of Cher Elder had been found and that Thomas Luther had been indicted for her murder. “We have decided to seek the death penalty and have filed the necessary papers,” he added.

In closing, Thomas praised the “dogged determination” of Lakewood detective Scott Richardson. Lakewood Police Chief Charles Johnston added that “the discovery of the body was the result of the sheer determination on the part of the detective assigned to the case ... making it possible to bring this case to a conclusion.”

Richardson stood next to the podium, the praise barely registering. Everyone was talking like the conviction of Luther was a foregone conclusion.
This ain’t over,
he thought,
not by a long shot.
But he dutifully stepped to the podium when it was his turn and said, “The family is grateful to have recovered her body and very grateful to be able to give her the Christian burial she deserves.”

The detective paused a moment. He suddenly felt weary, not just from the thirty pounds he’d lost, but emotionally drained. Cher’s death had struck him like the death of one of his own. His voice cracked when he concluded, “In a case like this, you come to know your victim very well. Cher was more like a friend. She fell in with the wrong crowd. But the more you dig into her background, the cleaner she is. She’s a true victim. So there is a feeling of victory, but a sad ending.”

Richardson thanked his fellow officers and other task force members who, he said, refused to give up, and his superiors, who gave him the time and resources. But, he added, the pursuit of Thomas Luther wasn’t over. “In some ways, it’s just beginning.”

Television stations covering the press conference noted that Byron Eerebout had “been persuaded” to lead Lakewood detectives to a wooded area north of Empire where Cher’s body was discovered. Luther, they reported, met Byron’s father in prison while serving time for a 1982 sexual assault. “In prison,” according to the indictment read on the air, “Luther said the next girl would not live and the police would never find her body.”

When he got back to the office, Richardson called Debrah Snider in West Virginia. She still had not moved back to Colorado. She couldn’t break clean from Thomas Luther.

“You sittin’ down?” Richardson asked when she answered the telephone. “I got some news.”

At first she didn’t say anything. Then, weakly, she asked, “Bad?”

Richardson knew what she meant; it was bad news for her and Luther if for no one else. “We found Cher’s body.”

“Well, that’s good,” she said, sounding relieved; at least there would be time.

“Thomas Luther has been indicted by a grand jury.”

Again there was silence. Finally, Debrah said, “Okay. Where was Cher at?”

“He had her buried up by Empire, along I-70.” At last he could now tell her that her information had been a help. “We’ve been searchin’ up there for about a year and a half and we finally found the grave.” He asked if she was all right.

Snider said yes. In fact, she had been expecting something of the sort. Tom told her in a letter that Skip had called him and said he was going to be charged in Colorado. “He heard it from Byron’s lawyer.”

“He’s mostly just maintaining that we’re gonna, you know, send somebody to hell for somethin’ he didn’t do. I don’t know if he’s delusional or he ...” She let her thought trail off. “I hate to have to apologize, but I still have real strong feelings for him. I’m real sorry that this had to happen. I don’t know if he’s crazy, but I don’t think people needed to pay for it with their lives. That’s why I’ve been willin’ to work with you.”

Richardson said he understood. He didn’t, not really, but he felt sorry for her. Luther had ruined a lot of lives for which he would never be charged. Debrah’s was one of those lives. She had offered him a real chance to make it out of prison—a place in the country, a hard-working, faithful woman as his companion—and he had thrown it all away. To hear her so devoted still made him angry, but he wanted her to feel better.

“Well, I’m gonna tell ya somthin’ right now. I couldn’t have done it without ya, and you should feel good about that if nothing else. The information you gave throughout the case was critical. And without your assistance, I’ll tell you right now, I don’t think we would have been able to give Cher’s family her body back.”

Debrah was sobbing, but she managed to say, “I’m glad that justice was done for Cher. I mean, she deserved that. It’s too bad though, ’cause part of him is real good. It’s too bad that part has to be punished with the part of him that’s horrible.”

Richardson tried again to thank her. “Please,” she interrupted. “Don’t compliment me too much. I have real mixed feelings about this.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

March 7, 1995—Delray, West Virginia

As she told Richardson, Debrah Snider wasn’t surprised by his telephone call letting her know that Tom had been charged with murder. She was only surprised at the swiftness with which justice now seemed to be moving after two years at a snail’s pace.

In a way, it was a relief. Her relationship with Tom since his rape conviction was like riding on a manic rollercoaster that wouldn’t stop. One moment, she was the most important person in his world. The next, she was a black-hearted traitor. She suspected he was still getting visits from Pam, while keeping her on the hook, fearful of what she might say about the Cher Elder case and afraid of being left alone.

Some of his letters were written in pure anger, especially when he was getting ready to punish her for some remark. She often wondered who his words were really intended to reach.

He had stopped writing for a couple of weeks in February, and removed her from his visiting list. Then he wrote but only, he said, because he had received a letter from Debrah’s mother, who’d heard about him threatening her daughter with an “ass-kicking” when he got out of prison. He reminded her that he loved her.

The letter Snider received the day before Luther’s indictment was bitter. He was sure she had been talking to the cops. He was cutting her off, she’d betrayed him for the last time. It tore her heart out. She hardly heard Richardson when he called and asked if she was sitting down. There was a roaring in her ears and a veil before her eyes. She felt as if she were standing on the edge of an abyss and found herself wanting very much to fall into it.

She was happy he found Cher’s body. She wanted it for the family. And she wanted it for Richardson, who she realized was the knight in shining armor she had waited for all her life. But he hadn’t come to rescue her, he’d come to defeat a monster who happened to be the man she loved.

Once before, when Luther was still in the Colorado penitentiary what seemed ages ago, she had warned him that “your relationship with me will be different than with any other woman from your past.” That certainly turned out to be true.

She wondered sometimes why he hadn’t killed her when he had the chance. The public defender once warned him that she was the major threat to his freedom. He could have killed her at Horsetooth Reservoir, and she had sensed he wanted to. Then again, he told her once that before he hurt her, “I will shut down and go away first.”

Tom had done wrong, and she had stopped him, but she felt ashamed for betraying him to his enemy.

“Please,” she told Richardson. “Don’t compliment me too much. I have real mixed feelings about this.” She hung up the telephone, understanding vaguely that Richardson would be coming soon to West Virginia. Then the room began to spin as she fell into blackness.

The little girl forced herself to remain still in her bed. Otherwise, he, the thing that waited somewhere in the dark of her room, might pounce.

She took all the usual precautions before climbing under the covers that evening: she made doubly sure to close her closet doors and then removed any items from the backs of chairs, as well as the floor, that might later cast a shadow. Now she lay in the exact middle of her mattress, beyond the reach of any clawing hands that might come from under the bed, and curled up so that her toes would not hang over the edge.

Seven years old, Heather Smith was afraid of monsters that hid in the dark—no matter how many times her mother told her that there were no such things. Saying didn’t make it so. He was there that night. She knew it. She could almost hear him breathing. The only question was whether to scream for her mother or stay quiet. There was always the possibility that if she screamed he would get her before her mother could come to the rescue. She took a chance. “Mommy! Mommy!”

As always, her mother arrived in time to turn on the lights and keep the monster at bay. “Shhhh, Heather,” Mrs. Smith said softly, stroking her whimpering daughter’s auburn hair. “There’s no such thing as monsters.”