TRACE EVIDENCE: The Hunt for the I-5 Serial Killer (55 page)

“Of course he knew we needed help,” she said derisively, looking right at Roger Kibbe, who sat with his chin cradled in one hand.

After she and her daughter decided they should make a phone call,
Anselmi said she had been the one to get into the man’s car because “I didn’t want to take a chance with Charmaine, you know, so I went.”

“Where did he take you?”

“To a place nearby that had a phone.”

“What did you do?”

“I called the club we had just left, but everyone had gone home. I had him take me back to my daughter.”

“Then what happened?”

Anselmi was beginning to show the strain.

“I told my daughter—I said he was okay. She was worried about the baby because she was breast-feeding—I suggested she should go. He had offered to give her a ride home but couldn’t take us both in his car.”

“Did you see your daughter get in the car?”

“Yes, I did. And I never saw her again.”

At that moment, Anselmi came unglued, breaking down and sobbing as if she had just gotten the news of her daughter’s death.

“Would you like a recess?” the judge asked.

She shook her head. “No, no. I want to get it over with.”

“All right,” the judge said understandingly. “Would you care for a glass of water?”

“Maybe.”

The bailiff came forward and poured her a glass.

When she had recovered a bit, Drossel took her through her efforts with a police artist to come up with the composite picture of the suspect. He then brought out that she had also attended the September 1, 1988, physical lineup, although she did so separately of
James Driggers.

“Were you able to identify anyone?”

“No, I just wasn’t sure.” Waving her hand at Kibbe, she said, “He’d gained weight. He had a full beard. He had on a baggy sweatshirt. How could I recognize him that way?”

“You are pointing to the defendant?”

“Yes, that’s him.”

On cross,
Phil Kohn brought out that prior to the physical lineup Anselmi had been shown by Detective Vito Bertocchini on December 19, 1986—four days after Bertocchini’s first interview with Roger Kibbe—a photo lineup with six photos, one of which was Kibbe.

“You did not identify anybody, did you?”

“No.”

“I have no other questions,” said Kohn, who wanted nothing more to
do with the heartsick mother and grandmother who had somehow managed to squeeze into her direct
testimony that she had adopted Charmaine’s son and was raising him.

The defense attorney knew that Carmen Anselmi’s most dramatic moment came not from the witness stand but from the doorway of the courtroom. It was not part of the record, but could it ever be erased from the minds of the jurors?

C
RIMINALIST
Faye Springer was recalled to the stand to testify to fiber evidence in the uncharged murders.

After previously examining all the tape lifts from Charmaine
Sabrah’s
clothing that had been taken much earlier by Jim Streeter and finding nothing, Springer, a week after Roger
Kibbe’s arrest for murder, had asked to see the garments herself. When she had gotten to the
pantyhose, she’d made an interesting discovery: they were still inside out.

“What was the significance of this?” asked Drossel.

“Well, I’m not sure men would appreciate this,” Springer said, showing a thin smile, “but when you remove pantyhose, they always end up inside out. In fact, I’m not sure you can take off pantyhose and not have that happen. The surface I was interested in as far as fiber transfers was the outside surface, of course, not the inside.”

“What did you do then?”

“I turned the pantyhose inside out and did a dozen or so tape lifts on the surface that had been on the outside when she was wearing them.”

Drossel had Springer move to a row of photographic blowups. “And what did you find?” he asked.

“
Carpet fibers,” she said, pointing to one picture.

“How many fibers did you find?”

“Looks like I characterized four.”

“What color were those four?”

“Blue, all of them were blue.”

Springer explained she compared the fibers with sample blue fibers—she had pictures of them, too—from the seats of Kibbe’s Datsun 280Z.

“As you can see, they look very similar,” she said. “The dye is the same, and they’re a nylon, trilobular material from a velour fabric.”

Drossel moved Springer along to
Lora
Heedick.

“I had exemplar fibers from the Maverick seats,” she explained, pointing to other oversize pictures that looked nothing like the Datsun fibers. “They’re a multicomponent material, composed of rayon fibers which were breaking apart or decomposing, probably due to age.”

Drossel was letting Springer tell her story.

“I compared these to fibers I found on Heedick’s socks.” The pointer flew to another color picture.

Springer had called up the clothing from that case, too, and gone all over it again.

“These are also decomposing rayon fibers. As you can see, the rayon is actually separating from the adhesive, as in the exemplars.”

Not as strong a scientific indictment as the more unique fiber and cordage evidence in the Darcie Frackenpohl case, but nonetheless, Faye Springer had found convincing trace evidence in two other
cases that tied Charmaine Sabrah and Lora Heedick to cars driven by Roger Kibbe.

T
HE PROSECUTION
’
S
last witness was called for the purpose of tying all the evidence together, and along the way, to tell the story of a diabolic
serial killer.

Lt. Ray Biondi outlined his twenty-nine years of police work, including the last fifteen years as head of the
Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Bureau. He estimated he had investigated between 400 and 500 homicides in that time; nine were serial murder cases.

After a voir dire examination, the court found, over Phil Kohn’s halfhearted objection, Biondi qualified to be an expert in serial murder investigations, thereby opening the door for him to state his opinions regarding the I-5 cases and serial killings in general.

“What are some of the common denominators a homicide detective looks for in a suspected serial killing case?” Drossel asked.

“It is usually a matter of asking yourself several questions: Who are the victims? Is there some common thread between the victims? How were they obtained by the suspect? Are there common threads in the manner of killing and in the activity that occurred with the victims?”

“In the I-5 investigation, did you come to the conclusion that one person was responsible for each crime?”

“Yes.”

Drossel introduced a large chart that listed the four murder victims and
Debra Guffie, along with several columns of information on each case. The first column was
Activity Last Seen
, and the prosecutor asked Biondi to explain the significance of this category for each victim.

“Starting with the first known victim, Lora Heedick,” Biondi said, “she was known as at least a part-time prostitute. She was engaged in prostitution activity, which put her in the category of a very easy target and vulnerable to being picked up by a stranger.

“Stephanie Brown was lost on Interstate 5 going the wrong direction from where she was headed that particular night. Because of those circumstances, she was a person who was vulnerable to an abduction. She was a high-risk victim.

“Charmaine Sabrah was stranded on Interstate 5 with her mother in a broken-down car. She was vulnerable and in a high-risk situation, too.

“
Darcie
Frackenpohl was working as a prostitute. This fact and her willingness to get in a car with a stranger made her a high-risk victim.

“Debra Guffie was also working as a prostitute. Again, she was an easy target.”

The next category was
Body Crime Scene.

“There are several common threads that occurred in these cases when you look at where the body was found and the crime scene. In each case there was some nudity. My interpretation is that there was probably some sexual assault suffered by these victims, all young women found either partially or totally nude. There was some kind of control involved in the form of restraints. In Heedick, her wrists were bound behind her. In Brown, there was evidence that she had been bound, although no bindings were found at the scene. In Sabrah, she was bound with pieces of her own clothing cut to make bindings. In Frackenpohl, there was evidence of cordage at the scene that could have been used for bindings. Although it was never determined if Darcie was bound, she was gagged, which is a form of control. In Guffie, my interpretation of the crime kit is that it contained the implements that would have facilitated all the things that were done in the murders.”

“Miles Transported,”
read Drossel.

“This category has to do with the considerable mileage from where the victims were last seen or abducted to where the body was found,” Biondi explained. “Heedick was last seen in Modesto and her body was found in the lower part of Sacramento County deposited in heavy underbrush off a steep riverbank. The distance was approximately 50 miles. Brown was presumably abducted where her car was found, and her body was discovered in an irrigation ditch 20 miles away. Sabrah was found in a lightly wooded area 44 miles from her disabled car. Frackenpohl was last seen working the stroll area in West Sacramento. She was found 100 miles away.”

“Now, why is the miles transported, anywhere from 20 to 100 miles, significant to you?” Drossel asked.

“It’s significant in that I think it’s a reasonable interpretation that this is a ritual that this one killer is doing,” Biondi said. “I came to this conclusion because in all the cases it’s unnecessary to drive so far. If it was simply
to hide the body, there were desolate areas much closer to each of the places where the victims were last seen. I think the transportation of the victim is something that allows the person committing the murder more time to be with the victim to carry out whatever activity he is doing.”

“Does the transportation aspect have any significance to you in respect to hindering the police investigators’ trying to solve a murder?”

“Yes, that’s another factor,” said Biondi. “Any time you involve more than one
jurisdiction, the case becomes extremely complex. In all these cases, the victim is last seen in one jurisdiction, and the body found in another. In some of the cases they’re the subject of a missing persons report in one jurisdiction, but the murder case is being investigated by another. One interpretation would be it’s a deliberate attempt by the same person to diminish the chances that he’ll be caught. It also delays the identification of the victims—none of them had personal identification on them—which hinders and delays the murder investigation.”

Biondi went down the list:

• Heedick was last seen in Stanislaus County and her body was found in Sacramento County;

• Brown’s car was found in Sacramento County and her body was found in San Joaquin County;

• Sabrah was abducted in San Joaquin County and her body was found in Amador County;

• Frackenpohl was last seen in Yolo County and her body was found in El Dorado County.

“There seems to me to be a deliberate attempt to cross jurisdictional lines,” Biondi said, “and complicate the investigation.”

Drossel moved his expert witness on to the next column on the chart:
Nonfunctional Cutting.

“This is not done for the purpose of removing a garment or cutting it up to facilitate some type of binding,” Biondi explained. “It’s an activity that only has meaning to the killer. Perhaps some psychological meaning.”

“In your experience investigating four hundred to five hundred homicides,” Drossel said, “have you seen nonfunctional cutting before?”

“This is the first time I have seen this.”

“Do you consider that a unique factor?”

“I consider it very unique.”

Cause of Death.

“Ligature strangulation was the cause of death in all these cases,”
Biondi said. “When it came to
Frackenpohl, there was an improvement in the method. In at least two of these cases the ligature was made from the victim’s own clothing. With Darcie, there was an extra control device, a garrote, which is a more efficient way to use a ligature.”

In
Guffie, Biondi said, there was an improved, custom-made garrote found in the crime kit—“still another progression.”

Sex Motive.

“Because the victims were all young females and there was either partial nudity or total nudity, a sexual motive was probably present. In a lot of
serial
murder cases, it’s been my experience that usually the killer’s true motivation is power and control over another person. It’s a sexual assault, certainly, but it’s also a way to dominate a person. And I can see that in these cases, particularly in Frackenpohl, where there were more control devices, a need the killer had to express dominance over his victim.”

Drossel took Biondi over the contents of the crime kit. “The handcuffs are a control device,” said the detective. “In Frackenpohl, a murder committed about three weeks before the
Guffie assault, no determination could be made as to whether she had been bound. But the presence of the handcuffs in the Guffie crime kit is a possible explanation; handcuffs could have been used to control Frackenpohl and were removed and taken from the scene.”

As to the cordage fashioned into a garrote, Biondi described it as a “dramatic improvement” over the tourniquet device used on Frackenpohl. “It has to do with inside experience. The killer knew what had worked well, and what didn’t work well. He wanted to improve his efficiency. The longer he killed, the better he got at it. He was coming to the crimes prepared, and had some things preplanned.”

The piece of 6-foot cord from the crime kit could have been used as a “control device in the car during transportation or perhaps as a leash to lead the victim to the crime scene, such as when he took Frackenpohl down the roadway to the place where she was killed.”

The vibrator, Biondi said, was “associated with some type of sexual activity.”

Drossel asked what the significance might be of the
scissors found in the crime kit.