Of Guilt and Innocence (14 page)

Tom swallowed hard. He could feel his heart racing. His breathing deepened. This is it, he thought to himself. It's real after this. My eyes can never unsee what's on the other side of this window. “Are you sure you want to see this?” he asked Lisa.  

“Of course,” she said back to him through her sniffles. Tom looked at Dan and nodded.

 

 

CHAPTER 10

 

 

Only two raspberry cream filled donuts remained in one of the four boxes on the counter. That had pretty much been the case every Monday for about a year. No one seemed to like the raspberry cream variety, except the person who ordered and picked up the donuts, and thus, their inclusion in the four dozen continued. Why he got so many, however, would forever be a mystery. The coffee line had dwindled to only two men dressed in black suits, with everyone else in the large conference room having taken a seat at one of the numerous long tables. With the final two members of the group having filled their coffee mugs, the meeting was set to begin. Three large white dry erase boards with various messages scribbled across them stood in the front of the room near a podium. A long table, similar to those currently occupied by the meeting's participants, was covered in boxes, files, and pictures.

A man entered the room and walked to the podium. He had short gray hair that was combed back on the sides and parted on the right side of the top of his head. Despite his age, fifty five, he looked to be in good shape. His face remained chiseled and tight, no sagging skin or double chin. His suit was black in color and looked like it had just been taken from the cleaner's rack. His shirt was blue; his tie was blue with red stripes and tucked neatly under the buttons of his jacket. He adjusted the microphone on the podium out of his way and looked out into the group of twenty men and seven women.

“All right, folks, let's get started here. I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. Thankfully we weren't called in for anything, so there is nothing really new to report. It's now been a little over six months since we've heard from our guy. That's a long time for him to go. He has never gone that long in between kills in the past, and, if he is still able, I wouldn't expect him to go much longer.” He spoke as if he were reading off a script, as a news anchor would, although he had none in front of him. He was an excellent public speaker, and had been an excellent police officer his entire thirty year career. Which was precisely the reason the sheriff had put him in charge of the South Florida Strangler taskforce.  

The taskforce had been formed a little over a year ago, after it was discovered there was a serial killer at work in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. A discovery that stemmed from the diligent work of a Pembroke Pines Detective named Jorge Salazar.

He was working the homicide of an elderly woman named Tanya Moore about eighteen months ago. She had been found in her home, strangled to death. As part of his investigation in to her death, Jorge was checking Tanya's phone records and bank statements when he discovered that she had been in contact with a personal injury attorney named Pete Rubino regularly for the two years before her death. She called him or he called her approximately once a week and they would speak for roughly ten minutes each time. Jorge discovered that over that time Tanya had written Rubino checks that totaled one hundred thousand dollars, the good portion of her retirement savings.

Checks appeared to have been issued every two weeks, on the same day as one of the phone calls. The last check that was issued by Tanya to Rubino was about one month prior to her death, however, it appeared as if one should have been issued two weeks before her death based on the schedule that had presented itself via the bank statements. Jorge went to speak with Rubino at his office and tried to find out exactly what he was assisting Tanya with that would take so long and cost her such an inordinate amount of money.  

“Tanya was involved in a car accident a few years ago.  She suffered a broken arm as a result and the person responsible for the accident fled the scene. The police at the time were able to identify him as Julio Sanchez-Giardo, an illegal immigrant who had never been entitled to a driver's license and, of course, had no insurance. Anyway, the police could never find him and Tanya saw my commercial on television and sought my assistance in tracking him down. I employ an excellent private investigator who specializes in things like that, tracking people, and I put him on the case.” Rubino leaned back in his chair, pausing for a moment. “We had some good leads, but we just could never put it all together.”

“I see. What I don't understand, Mr. Rubino, is why Ms. Moore would spend such a large amount of money to locate someone you both had to know would never be able to repay her?” Jorge waited for his answer calmly. His pudgy face seemed unassuming as he smiled; never tipping off the doubt he had in the legitimacy of Rubino's story.

“Ah, yes, I can see why that would seem strange. All I can say is: you never knew Tanya. She was a pistol, boy. I encouraged her quite often as my expenses started piling up to call it off, that it wasn't worth it. But she wanted justice. It ate her up to know that this guy could do this to her and never pay a cent of restitution.” He smiled smugly in return as he looked at Jorge. “Anyway, we worked out a payment plan of sorts. Every two weeks she would issue me a check for my expenses and if she ever desired to discontinue my service she would simply have to give two weeks' notice.”

“I see,” said Jorge nodding in agreement. “So, what prompted her to end her quest? After almost one hundred thousand dollars worth of investing into it she just suddenly gave it up?”  

“Apparently she had gone through nearly all of her savings trying to apprehend Giardo. She examined her finances and decided it was simply too costly for her to continue. I'll never forget the day she let me know she was calling it off. She was very upset about it, as was I. I really wished I could have helped her. But now, detective, I am a busy man as I am sure you are. I know about Tonya's passing and it deeply pains me. I cared for her very much. Even after she stopped utilizing my services I continued to call and check on her. But I'm afraid I can't shed much light on who may have killed her. I don't mean to sound crass, but I really must get back to work, I have a client I must meet with soon.”   

Jorge simply thanked him for his time and was able to obtain a list of all of his clients over the past two years and began interviewing each of them. Most seemed legitimate. However, Jorge discovered a pattern of cases Rubino had handled or was handling that deviated from his normal routine. The majority of cases in which he dealt with elderly people seemed to drag on and on for long periods of time and never reached any type of settlement or conclusion. However, each elderly client was charged almost double the rate the rest of Rubino's clients were being charged. Jorge counted eight cases in all over that span where Rubino had pocketed over one million dollars total from his elderly clients without getting them a dime. Six of these cases were still open and pending. The two that Rubino had indicated were closed were Tanya Moore's and the case of a woman named Elsa McMillian. Rubino did not give any indication as to why this case was closed nor would he speak about it, and so Jorge set out to interview her.

When Jorge learned from a neighbor that Elsa had also been murdered, he set his sights on Rubino for not one, but possibly two murders. He contacted the detectives investigating Elsa McMillian's murder and they shared notes. They soon discovered that the cases were identical down to every last detail. The detectives tried to piece a case together against their prime suspect at the time, Pete Rubino.

Like Tanya, Elsa's payments to Rubino had stopped just prior to her death, yet phone calls from him had continued. The theory they formed was simple.  Based on the fact that of the eight clients Jorge had uncovered that fit Rubino's pattern of fraud, the two that had stopped their payments to him were now dead. It certainly was prudent to believe they perhaps threatened to expose him in some way. When they wouldn't waver from that stance over the phone, he paid them a personal visit. It would explain the absence of forced entry. Once inside, when the women failed to back down on their threats of exposure, he did the only thing he could think of to silence them. With this theory in mind they arranged for an interview with Rubino to directly challenge him on the murders. But he never cracked, never wavered from his story, not on the fraud and definitely not on the murders. He gave an alibi of playing softball for his firm's team on both occasions.

Rubino was arrested and charged with several counts of fraud and other similar charges. He was quickly able to post bond and the team of now three detectives scrambled to find evidence linking him to the murders in fear he would abscond. However, what they found was something else. They were able to confirm that, even though the murders were separated by seven months, he was, in fact, playing softball at the times both occurred. The detectives wondered: Had he paid someone else to commit these crimes? His bank records did not indicate any large payments or withdrawals at those times, and that would also discredit their theory that he was allowed into the houses because he was familiar with the victims. It appeared that Pete Rubino, though he was guilty of many things, was not guilty of murder.   

They began to dig deeper, looking into recent unsolved homicides. In searching the national database, they discovered that two months before Tanya was murdered another murder had taken place in Miami Gardens. The victim was seventy-three-year-old Mary Sanderson. Everything seemed to match up with the other two. No sign of forced entry, she had been strangled, no sexual assault, no items missing, no visible evidence or witnesses. The group reached out to the detectives handling Mary's case and, after comparing notes, all were convinced there was a serial killer at work in South Florida.

After being made aware of the developments and convinced by people whose opinion he respected and valued, the sheriff of Miami-Dade County went about forming a taskforce and trying to absorb the Broward County case into the other two that had occurred in Miami-Dade. This was no easy task. The Pembroke Pines Police Department was reluctant to turn over Tanya's murder investigation and it became a negotiation, with the Chief of Pembroke Pines finally relenting upon the agreement that his department be well represented in the taskforce.

Sheriff Pete Brown began assembling his team, trying as best he could to keep it quiet at first. The original taskforce was made up of approximately forty people, mainly from the Miami-Dade Police Department, but there were also inclusions from the Broward County Sheriff's Office, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the FBI, and of course the Pembroke Pines Police Department. Sheriff Brown knew that if and when word of a serial killer got out the people of his county would look to him to combat this individual. Furthermore, when people learned that this serial killer was attacking the elderly, they would be both furious and terrified.

He needed to act swiftly, if not for the safety of his county, for his political future. And so he chose Lieutenant George Greer to head the unit and get things moving along quickly and efficiently. Though Sheriff Brown and George were not close, Sheriff Brown respected George's reputation and experience; specifically that he had the most investigation experience, both as a detective and supervisor of that rank.  

Despite the manpower and resources, the taskforce was very slow to pick up any useful information about the killer. Four more victims would surface after their formation and frustration began to mount. The press caught wind of the taskforce and its purpose shortly after a fourth victim was found and began sensationalizing stories, which created a feeling of hysteria in elderly communities and added to the group's chagrin.

They knew little about the killer for certain, and most things they had gathered about him were only theories based on his victims and the crime scenes. An FBI profiler deduced he was most likely a white male between the ages of thirty-five and forty with above average intelligence. They predicted he was not a sexual deviant, like many other serial killers, based on the lack of evidence of any sexual assault taking place prior to or after his victims were killed. They surmised his crimes were about control, and for some reason he felt the need to exhibit control over these particular women. It was unknown if he actually knew them or if they reminded him of someone he actually knew, possibly his mother. These theories, if true, made him unique. And they made him extremely dangerous. As if he killed for no other reason than to kill. As if that was all the pleasure he needed.  

They could find no one person with a link to all the victims and ran down thousands of leads over the past year, most of which they were able to discard, but a few were worked into their theories. They were able to determine that the same type of ligature was used in every murder, and that it was some type of soft fabric item, such as a pair of pantyhose or a similar clothing item.

They also had an elderly man who lived four houses away from one of the victims claim that he saw someone walking away from the house shortly after the murder would have taken place. He gave a description of a white man, approximately six feet and two inches tall, wearing long dark slacks, a leather jacket, and a baseball cap. He told detectives that he could not see much of the man's face except that it looked like he had a mustache. He said he saw the man walk from the area of the house to the end of the street and then make a right turn. The only problem with his story was that he waited a week to report it and he was in the early stages of dementia. The man told investigators he had waited so long because he wasn't sure if it really happened. Unfortunately, the taskforce didn't have much else to go by, so they kept the description as a loose reference.  

With the taskforce having only one new murder in over nine months and no new leads, slowly, the manpower diminished until it stood at its current level of twenty-seven. The FBI scaled back its involvement as well, although they remained available when needed. Thoughts that the killer was dead or in prison were prevalent, and it appeared that time was running out on the taskforce itself. The cases would soon take a backseat to the ever growing list of other homicides and violent crimes that needed investigating. But until then, George Greer and the rest of the group would carry on with their task at hand.