Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader (34 page)

HOLY SITE:
Hill Cumorah, near Palmyra, New York

THE JOURNEY:
Hill Cumorah is where Joseph Smith had visions in the 1820s, upon which the Mormon faith is based. There, Mormons believe, Smith was visited by the Angel Moroni, who gave him the Book of Mormon—the history of the New World on gold tablets. A huge statue of Moroni stands on the hill, and every July, nearly 100,000 Mormons come for “The Cumorah Pageant: America’s Witness for Christ,” during which dramatic reenactments of the Book of Mormon are performed.

HOLY SITE:
The Saut d’Eau waterfall near Ville Bonheur, Haiti

THE JOURNEY:
Many Haitians follow a combination of Voodooism and Christianity. In 1847, believers say, an image of the Virgin Mary was seen in a tree near the falls. In the Voodoo faith, the Virgin Mary is often associated with Erzuli, the Voodoo goddess of love. Every July, pilgrims journey to Ville Bonheur (the Village of Bliss) and the Saut d’Eau falls. There they stand in the falls and sing, chant, and pray to Mary and/or Erzuli and other Voodoo spirits. Anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of Haitians (depending on political conditions in the country) make the trip each year.

Pound for pound, the hummingbird has the most powerful muscles of any animal.

A mysterious death reveals a deep, dark secret. Lives are changed forever; the community is shocked. Mrs. Uncle John finds her husband in the arms of—no, wait! That’s not part of the story
.

L
AST NIGHT

On the evening of March 18, 2003, a 75-year-old Tampa, Florida, socialite named Jean Ann Cone drove to the home of friends to help plan the annual benefit gala for the Tampa Museum of Art. She had a few drinks while she was there, and when it came time to leave, another woman, Bobbie Williams, followed behind Cone’s Rolls Royce to make sure she got home safely. Cone’s husband, Douglas, was away on business, so she appreciated the offer.

When the two women arrived at the Cone residence, Williams watched as Cone pulled into her garage and closed the automatic door behind her; then Williams drove home.

It was the last time anyone saw Mrs. Cone alive.

NOBODY HOME

At 5:00 p.m. the following day, the part-time housekeeper, Norma Gotay, arrived and noticed that Cone’s bed was neatly made. That was unusual because it was Gotay’s job to make it, but she assumed that Cone must have slept at a friend’s house.

A little later, a friend of Cone’s came by to take her to a baseball game they had planned to see together. All Gotay could tell the friend was that Cone was not home and that she had no idea where she was. At 7:00 p.m., Gotay finished her work and went home without ever seeing her employer. It wasn’t until Cone missed a lunch appointment the next day that people began to worry.

Someone called Cone’s daughter Julianne McKeel to ask if
she
knew her mother’s whereabouts. McKeel promptly went over and searched the house but couldn’t find any sign of her mother—until she checked the garage and saw the Rolls Royce parked in a puddle of green antifreeze. The windows were rolled up, all four doors were locked, and there, slumped in the driver’s seat, was Jean Ann Cone. She was dead.

Earthquakes travel at speeds of up to 4.8 miles per second.

WEIGHING THE EVIDENCE

Considering the unusual circumstances surrounding Mrs. Cone’s death and her prominence in Tampa society, the investigation into her death was surprisingly short.

Facts of the case:

There was no indication that Cone was despondent or suicidal in the days leading up to her death.

The garage door was in the closed position when the body was discovered, and so was the door into the house.

Cone was on medication, and the autopsy revealed that her blood-alcohol level at the time of her death was 0.18 percent—twice the legal limit. She had had a history of episodes of light-headedness caused by her medications, something that alcohol might have made even worse.

Her car key was still in the ignition of the Rolls Royce, and it was turned to the on position, even though the engine was not running when she was found.

Julianne McKeel confirmed that her mother was in the habit of pulling into the garage and closing the garage door behind her before shutting off the engine, unlocking the door, and getting out of the car.

The police considered all the evidence and concluded that Cone’s death was accidental. They surmised that when she arrived home on the evening of the 18th, she pulled into her garage, closed the door behind her, and then passed out behind the wheel of her car before she could shut off the engine. The victim of too much alcohol and prescription drugs, she did not regain consciousness in time to turn off the ignition, and suffocated on the exhaust fumes that filled the closed garage. The car kept running until it overheated—which explained the puddle of antifreeze—and then stalled.

THE PLOT THICKENS

When Mr. Cone returned home, having heard of his wife’s death, he was crying and inconsolable. He behaved just as you’d expect a man to behave after losing the woman he’d loved for 52 years. “He was really depressed,” the housekeeper told reporters. “They cared about each other. They had been married for so many years.”

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Nothing Mr. Cone said or did aroused even a hint of suspicion...at first.

Then, just 13 days later, friends of the family happened to read a baffling wedding announcement in the local newspaper. Less than two weeks after his wife’s death, Douglas Cone had remarried—and he hadn’t bothered to tell his three grown children. Now
that
could be considered suspicious behavior.

Had Mrs. Cone been murdered? Was Douglas Cone her killer? What was going on? Their son Doug Jr. asked the police to take another look into his mother’s death.

MYSTERY MAN

The first thing they did was investigate the woman Cone had just married. Here’s what they found:

Her name was Hillary Carlson and she was already married.

Few of her acquaintances had ever met her husband, Donald Carlson, who worked for the U.S. State Department and was always traveling.

They had been married for more than 20 years, had two grown children, and lived on a 67-acre gated estate 20 miles north of Tampa.