Never See Them Again (15 page)
Read Never See Them Again Online
Authors: M. William Phelps
In fact, as November gave way to December, the police were showing up regularly at Christine's house.
“October through December was very turbulent in the house of Christine,” a law enforcement source said. “She was mad that her family wanted her to stay away from Snider.”
Christine's mother believed Chris Snider was no good for her daughter. The guy had no direction, spoke of the darkest things imaginableâdevils and death and blood and gutsâand wanted to do nothing but drugs. Christine had fallen for him, and was seemingly using drugs to numb a pain she didn't want to talk about with anyone. It was as if her boyfriend had become another addiction.
But now
he
was gone.
he
was gone.
As part of a deal she struck with the court, Christine was sent to drug rehab in San Antonioâwhere her real problems would begin.
CHAPTER 22
T
HE NEW YEAR
dawned with a certain amount of trepidation for the families of the four. They felt no closer six months later than they had on day one. It was altogether frustrating and intense. Every day they woke up and hoped that the phone was going to ring with HPD on the other end talking about how they had made an arrest. It was one of the motivators keeping many family members from staying in bed all day, with the shades drawn, wallowing in the darkness of having lost a loved one so youngâsomeone with so much life ahead.
HE NEW YEAR
dawned with a certain amount of trepidation for the families of the four. They felt no closer six months later than they had on day one. It was altogether frustrating and intense. Every day they woke up and hoped that the phone was going to ring with HPD on the other end talking about how they had made an arrest. It was one of the motivators keeping many family members from staying in bed all day, with the shades drawn, wallowing in the darkness of having lost a loved one so youngâsomeone with so much life ahead.
Brian Harris knew Tom Ladd was leaving in March, retiring. Harris had that hanging over his head; it would mean one less man on the Clear Lake case. Tom Ladd was focused on the JU angle of the case and was (80 percent) convinced that JU had had something to do with the murders. If not directly, then indirectly. As luck would have it, Ladd and Harris heard JU had been busted recently on a serious drug charge and had pleaded his case to nine years behind bars. JU was serving his sentence in a local prison. Now was probably as good a time as any to head over, get in JU's face, and find out
exactly
what he knew.
exactly
what he knew.
“We figure now maybe he'll talk,” Harris said later. “We're in a good position with him. Any number of things could happen.”
Harris had a unique philosophy regarding interrogation, much of which was rooted in the moral and religious beliefs he took into “the box” (interview suite) with him whenever he went to interview a suspect. Some didn't like the way Harris handled himself in the box. Others called him “egocentric” and “arrogant.” Whatever the case, the guy knew how to get the job doneâand one cannot argue with results.
Harris relied on trigger words a suspect used during an interrogation: “sincerely,” “honestly,” “truthfully.” Those adverbs with the
ly
ending were “like a big red flag going up,” Harris explained. When he heard those words during an interview, “I'm like, âHere it comes.' ” Those types of words were what Harris referred to as “qualifying statements,” generally preceding an admission of something. It was the suspect making himself feel better before laying the blame on someone else.
ly
ending were “like a big red flag going up,” Harris explained. When he heard those words during an interview, “I'm like, âHere it comes.' ” Those types of words were what Harris referred to as “qualifying statements,” generally preceding an admission of something. It was the suspect making himself feel better before laying the blame on someone else.
There was also what Harris referred to as “nonverbal cues.” One of any nervous gestures, such as “hair twirling, face rubbing, and, above all, defensive body posture, when a suspect closes himself off or backs away from his interrogator.” These physical tics told Harris that the suspect was blowing smoke.
“One nervous indicator,” Harris was quick to clear up, “does not imply guilt. It's the totality of the package. You might lean back and be like . . . âGet out of my face, man. That's not what happened.' ” When a suspect did that, Harris pointed out, he or she was creating distance between himself and the interrogator.
That's what Harris looked for: separation. The idea that the suspect was looking to put physical space between him and the cop told the officer that the suspect had something to hide.
If he could, Harris made sure that the box was set up in a way that gave him a psychological edge with his suspect. There should be nothing on the walls to distract the suspect. Make sure the suspect's chair had straight legs, immovable, while the chair the interrogator used had rollers, so he could move throughout the room at his own pace, by his own accord, and come across to the suspect as, well, free.
“I may start off being three to four feet away,” Harris said, “but when I feel they're about to confess . . . I may move to within inches.”
Going into the interview with JU, Harris had to consider what he had. The room was bare, for the most part, and JU was situated in his own chair. Harris was going to try to get what he could, once and for all. It was time to charge JU, or scratch him off the list. To continue running around in circles with the likes of JU wasn't helping the case. Homicide needed either to dig deeper into JU's life, and see where they could fit him into the murders, or write him off completely. Either way, Harris decided, they needed to move forward.
“JU was always up front with me about his dope dealing,” Harris recalled. “He wanted to be this major big-time dope player.”
JU was not a tough guy in any respect; he was a businessman. Harris had seen plenty of guys like him. They lived and died by the street, dealing their drugs, ruining lives, creating chaos in the community, without realizing it. The sad thing was that Marcus or Adelbert were not like JU at all. They were young kids in a man's world. They had no idea what they were getting themselves into.
Harris explained to JU that someone JU knew had admitted to being a mule, a drug runner. Harris gave JU the name. Told him a little bit about the guy and how he wasn't necessarily the person JU had thought he was.
JU was shocked by this revelation; he had believed that the guy whom Harris had mentioned was a major player in the drug world.
“He was just transporting the stuff, Jasonâand skimming off the top.”
“No [way],” JU said, surprised. He couldn't believe it.
“We've been down this road before, Jason,” Harris said after they exchanged a bit more small talk. “Tell me about Marcus and the ten grand he owed you.”
“I liked Marcus. He was a good friend. It was only ten K. That is
not
a lot of money. It works the same way in this world as it does out in the business world. You have to build credit and work off of that credit.”
not
a lot of money. It works the same way in this world as it does out in the business world. You have to build credit and work off of that credit.”
“Let's go through all of it again.”
Jason Uolla conveyed a certain melancholy about him that Harris had not seen or heard before this day. He seemed down. They talked about how JU had been flippant with Tom Ladd and Phil Yochum in the past. He had not been all that forthcoming.
Why? Harris needed to know. What was he hiding?
“I had my head bashed in,” JU said, defending himself.
“Yup, I know.”
“Man,” JU said at one point, “maybe I let him into the game too soon. . . .”
“What are we talking about now?” Harris said, confused by the comment.
“Marcus. Maybe he wasn't ready.”
Harris knew they were getting somewhere. “Tell me about that, Jason.”
JU rubbed his face. Took a deep breath. “I brought Marcus into this game . . . perhaps too soon,” he said, “and, honestly, maybe I'm responsible for his deathâbut I tell you this”âand here he looked at Harris seriously and paused before concludingâ“
anyone
who admits to having
any
part of that Clear Lake thing is a dead man.”
anyone
who admits to having
any
part of that Clear Lake thing is a dead man.”
“No kidding. . . .”
“Hell yeah! In
this
state?” He was talking about the death penalty. “They'd be crazy to talk to you.”
this
state?” He was talking about the death penalty. “They'd be crazy to talk to you.”
JU had taken a polygraph and had failed.
“Why do you think you failed the polygraph?” Harris asked.
He thought about it. “Because, Detective, perhaps I
am
responsible.”
am
responsible.”
Was this a wink-wink moment, or was JU being sincere in his feelings, marking himself accountable for Marcus's death? Perhaps Marcus's behavior and the drug dealing had gotten them all killed? Was Harris sitting and talking with a drug dealer with a conscience?
In any case, though, JU was finished talking.
Harris left the interview as baffled as he had been before he walked in. JU's body language, he noticed, told him that he was being straight, totally honest.
Why would he say thatâ“perhaps I am responsible”
?
?
Still, HPD didn't have enough to charge JU, so they were, in the grand sense of this mysterious case, back to square one as far as JU was concerned. Harris was now going to have to explain to George Koloroutis, who was all but certain that JU was their man, that he still wasn't sure about the guy and could not arrest JU under simple suspicion of murder.
CHAPTER
23
23
M
AY 2004 BROUGHT
some of that marvelous Texas spring weather the state is known for. As he sat at his desk one morning, George Koloroutis realizedâhow could the guy
ever
forget?âthat he had not heard much of anything from HPD in quite some time. George knew Tom Ladd had retired. The last thing he wanted was for HPD to forget about the case. It was important to keep pressure on the department. That old adage of the squeaky wheel actually worked in some instances, and this was surely one of them.
AY 2004 BROUGHT
some of that marvelous Texas spring weather the state is known for. As he sat at his desk one morning, George Koloroutis realizedâhow could the guy
ever
forget?âthat he had not heard much of anything from HPD in quite some time. George knew Tom Ladd had retired. The last thing he wanted was for HPD to forget about the case. It was important to keep pressure on the department. That old adage of the squeaky wheel actually worked in some instances, and this was surely one of them.
George called Brian Harris to find out if anything new was in the works, or if any progress had been made since Ladd's retirement and the ambiguous nature of JU's involvement.
“What's the deal, man,
who
is in charge of this now?” George wanted to know.
who
is in charge of this now?” George wanted to know.
“I guess I am, George.”
Screw it, Harris figured. He should probably take the bull by the horns here and run with his gut. He somewhat knew the ins and outs of the case history. Why not delve completely in and see if anything came up. With Ladd gone, the case needed to have a leader, or Harris knew by experience that it was going to collect dust in cold-case storage.
“I had been assigned to the case,” Harris commented later, “so it was my chance to take the ball.”
Harris was now running the investigation; he could do things
his
way. Not that Ladd had done things the wrong way, but Harris had his own “never stop” attitude, which would bode well with George (and this particular case). George was becoming increasingly frustrated that the year anniversary was coming up, and they were no closer to solving the case than they were during those all-important forty-eight hours after the murders.
his
way. Not that Ladd had done things the wrong way, but Harris had his own “never stop” attitude, which would bode well with George (and this particular case). George was becoming increasingly frustrated that the year anniversary was coming up, and they were no closer to solving the case than they were during those all-important forty-eight hours after the murders.
Phil Yochum, still part of the Homicide Division, was interested in other fields of police work. Harris went over to Yochum, who, under normal circumstances, would have been the ideal choice for the lead in the Clear Lake case. He asked Yochum if he could take the files over to his cubicle and dig in. Brian Harris didn't want to step on anybody's toes.
“You mind if I do that?” Harris asked. It was out of respect; after all, the case was still Phil Yochum's.
“No, no, no,” Yochum said, “go right ahead. Take it all. Whatever you need.”
Solving murders involved passion. Yochum and Ladd had run out of gas long ago. It needed a hungry detective with a fiery spirit.
Going through the reports, Harris came to the same conclusion that Ladd had, and he understood more clearly why Ladd had always come back to JU. The dope dealer's name kept popping up in all the right places. There was no way to deny it, or overlook the obvious, unless you had a solid reason to write off JU. And at this point Harris had more evidence pointing to JU than he did leading away from JU.
“You have to follow the evidence,” Harris remarked. “That clichéd statement is true.”
HARRIS GOT WORD
of a suspect arrested for burglary who wanted to speak with someone in the Homicide Division about the Clear Lake murders.
of a suspect arrested for burglary who wanted to speak with someone in the Homicide Division about the Clear Lake murders.
Here we go again. . . .
The guy was in county lockup. Harris went over to see him. It was May 10, 2004, near ten-thirty in the morning.
Harris waited inside a room at the 174
th
District Court in Houston. The guy's attorney sat down. This particular witness, Harris learned, was thirty-nine years old; he was a big dude, tough as nails, and hailed from the local Houston area. He was being held on a no-bond charge, serious stuff. He first talked about the number of the cell he had been in, something that would become important. He said he worked in the kitchen inside the jail. He talked about a big guy he had met on the inside. The guy wore glasses and a beard. He was being held in the cell next to him.
th
District Court in Houston. The guy's attorney sat down. This particular witness, Harris learned, was thirty-nine years old; he was a big dude, tough as nails, and hailed from the local Houston area. He was being held on a no-bond charge, serious stuff. He first talked about the number of the cell he had been in, something that would become important. He said he worked in the kitchen inside the jail. He talked about a big guy he had met on the inside. The guy wore glasses and a beard. He was being held in the cell next to him.
“How did you get to know him?” Harris asked.
“Well, you know, white boys in a predominantly black atmosphere.”
Simple answer.
“You know, you kind of ride together. We played volleyball on, you know, a self-formed team.”
Small talk. Harris understood it was part of building rapport.
The guy explained how he and this guy had gotten “pretty close,” as they basically slept in the same pod, ate together, and hung out most days, talking most nights.
“Tell me what happens,” Harris said as the guy's lawyer looked on, “how you're watching TV one time, so I hear, and what's on TV?”
“Well, it's either the news or a recording of the news. I wasn't really paying much attention . . . because it's, like, at six o'clock every day they put the Crime Toppers [
sic
] thing on TV, and it lasts thirty minutes.”
sic
] thing on TV, and it lasts thirty minutes.”
“Okay.”
“And, you know, we're playing a game of dominoes or checkers at the table and then you glance back and forth, catch the headlines, or, you know, and that's how I saw the”âhe hesitated, looked at his lawyerâ“I saw the . . . what we've been talking about.”
So far Harris was half impressed. He kept responding “uh-huh” and “okay,” so as not to plant anything in the guy's head. He wanted this informant to tell him what was going on. Lots of guys liked to waste the time of law enforcement and tell storiesâboy, had Harris learned that the hard way during this case. Every inmate who came forward, Harris knew, wanted something, some sort of a deal for himself. This guy was no different. He sounded sincere and vague enough in the way he told his stories that he might be believable, yet that unavoidable “but” was coming somewhere down the line.
“When that came on,” he continued, referring to the Crime Stoppers nightly report on television, “he said, âI know. . . .' ”
“What came on the news, though? We're on tape here: what comes on the news?”
“They show the reward. They show all the different rewards for all these unsolved crimes, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And so they show one for four people that was killed in, like, toward Galveston, Pearland, or, I mean, not Pearland, Friendswood.”
Close enough.
“Okay.”
“He says, âI
know
these people.' ”
know
these people.' ”
Nothing else was said at that time. It was two weeks later, the informant explained, when his cellmate began to talk about Clear Lake and what he actually knew.
“We're lying in bed, you know, talking. . . . And he said the stuff they showed on TV about the four people . . . he said, âWe went in there and Rachael was sitting in the chair watching TV and we pistol-whipped her.' And the reason that brought it to my attention was because he had said âwe.' ”
Harris was interested. Details. Somewhat off. But details of the crime scene, nonetheless.
“And then there are two other people sitting on the couch,” the informant added.
“Uh-huh.”
“He said they didn't beat them all, but he specifically said, âWe beat Rachael with the pistol,' and he carries the pistol under his arm, you know, and he told me that on three or four occasions.”
“What kind of pistol?” Harris asked.
“I don't know. . . . Like, he says, he goes [over there] to deliver weed or something, to somebody's house, this girl that he knows in Pasadena, and he'll leave his pistol in the car. . . .”
They discussed the notion that he sold weed and was, in fact, a dealer.
“What else did he say about this
thing
?” Harris asked.
thing
?” Harris asked.
“Well, he said that this girl, Rachael, was staying there. It's like her house or her mom's house, and she left town and left the house on the market, and this girl apparently wasn't even out of school or something, 'cause he said she was supposed to be finishing school.”
He had a few things wrong, Harris noted, but the detective was impressed with the fact that the information wasn't exact and the guy was in the neighborhood of what the living conditions actually were. He was obviously mixing Rachael up with Tiffany.
They talked about the girl, Rachael, having a boyfriend in the houseâhe meant Tiffany Rowell, of course.
“[He] was selling dope for a cousin.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I assume it's speed they're talking about, because they do speed.”
“Okay.”
“And he said they owed somebody money. Apparently, they turned the house into a dope house.” But he didn't know how much, exactly, they owed.
“Did he say they went over there to collect the money?” Harris asked.
“I assume that's what they went to do.”
“Okay, but he never told you that?”
“He never told me that.”
“Okay, what else did he tell you?”
“Uh, I mean, that's really, that's about it.”
Harris wasn't biting. “Well, see, I might have been sitting in the bed going, âWhy did you kill them all?' ”
“Well, I was.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I really wanted to keep talking, so I acted a little disinterested.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And then when I asked him questions, he didn't say any more.”
They went back and forth, but the informant could not offer anything more in the form of details pertaining to the murders. This alone gave his statement a bit more credibilityâthe fact that he wasn't laying out the entire scenario.
Turned out the guy who had admitted all of this was someone by the name of “Bear,” or “Big Bear.”
Brian Harris and Phil Yochum busted Bear out of the county lockup. They sat him down and asked him to take a polygraph.
Bear, they soon learned, had a familiar friend and business partner.
JU.
Bear passed the polygraph.
“That just opened up that whole JU thing even bigger,” Harris said.
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