Wages of Sin (17 page)

Martin, upset, walked out the door with her lover.

Ricks turned to her boyfriend. “You know, Will is weird.

There’s something off about him. If Stephanie doesn’t get away from him, I’m going to see her on the news for killing somebody or something crazy like that. He’s going to end up killing somebody and dragging her along with him, and I’m gonna see her on the news.”

That damn worry just wouldn’t leave her.

 

 

New Year’s Day, 1995, and Stephanie Martin was the cover girl of the Yellow Rose calendar, a cover girl who was busy trudging up and down the steps of a not-so-spiffy apartment in a not-so-spiffy neighborhood schlepping Will Busenburg’s possessions out of his place.

“Steph,” Will yelled from his bedroom. “Come here!”

She walked in.

He was breathless and crimson in the face. “Look at this,” he said. “Look at it.” He shook a small, empty lockbox. “My cashier’s check for six thousand dollars is missing. Chris took it. I know he did, that son of a bitch. He’s the only one who knew how to get into this box. There’s a key to this box.” He threw it down. “Let’s go. Let’s get out of here before I really go off.”

 

 

Several days later, Todd Brunner stopped by Stephanie Martin’s apartment to drop off his dog. Martin was going to dog-sit while Brunner went skiing. She petted the dog as they talked. “Will’s roommate has cashed a check that Will made out to someone else. It was for six thousand dollars. Now Will’s short on money,” she told him.

Around noon on Monday, January 9, 1995, Brunner rang the doorbell at Martin’s apartment, ready to pick up his dog. Martin opened the door. As they talked, Todd heard someone moving around inside.

“Is Will here?” he asked, and slightly glanced over Stephanie’s shoulder to see in.

“Yes.” She mentioned that she’d gotten a new bicycle.

Todd quickly left.

Tuesday, January 10, 1995, around 5 or 6
P.M
., Brunner sat in his south Austin home talking on the phone, when another call beeped in. He pressed the flash button. Stephanie Martin was on the other line.

“Can I borrow a tarp?” she asked.

He puffed with frustration. His new girlfriend was waiting on hold.

“I need to borrow your camping tarp to do some painting at Will’s apartment.”

Brunner didn’t have time for this, or Will Busenburg, in particular. “The tarp’s up in the attic with all of my other camping supplies and I’m in a hurry to go out for dinner. You can’t use it. And I don’t want you digging through my stuff, and I don’t have time to find it for you.”

They hung up.

Thursday, January 12, 1995, the
Austin American-Statesman
ran an inside story: “
MAN FOUND MUTILATED, DISPLAYED IN PACE BEND PARK
.”

The following morning, there was a second story, also on the inside pages: “
BODY’S MUTILATION MAKES IDENTIFICATION DIFFICULT, OFFICIALS SAY
.”

Around 4
P.M
., that same day, Friday, January 13, 1995, Todd Brunner returned home from a quick trip to San Antonio. An hour later, Stephanie Martin phoned again.

“I’m at the impound yard and I need to borrow ten dollars to get a truck out of impound. Will’s Impact card isn’t working.”

“Seems Will never has enough money,” Brunner retorted. “But, yeah, come on over.”

Five minutes later, Martin knocked on Brunner’s door. “Will’s roommate,” she said as they talked at the door, “is really depressed and upset. So Will got him a job with the French assassins. And so he had to move off to France and his truck was impounded.”

Todd just slowly nodded and shook his head, all at the same time.

“Will’s roommate might have left his billfold in the truck and some of the money that was owed Will might be in the wallet.”

Brunner gave her a $20 bill, and she gave him back $7. Stephanie walked away. Todd stood in the door and watched. He saw Will Busenburg’s black pickup truck drive away. He thought he saw two people sitting in the truck.

Saturday, January 14, 1995, between 11:30
P.M
. and midnight, the phone rattled the silence in the Round Rock home of Sandra and Robert Martin. Sandra rolled over in their bed and picked up the receiver.

“Mother, I need you to help me.”

Sandra Martin bolted upright.
She’s been raped,
she thought. “Stephanie, what’s the matter?”

“I’ve been arrested.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m in jail.”

Sandra girded herself for strength. “What happened, Stephanie?” She could tell someone was there with Stephanie listening to her daughter’s every word.

“Will’s roommate tried to rape me, and I shot him.”

Robert Martin grabbed the phone from his wife. “You haven’t signed anything, you haven’t said anything, have you?”

“Yeah, I signed a confession.”

“You what?”
Oh, Lord, how could she do . . .
“No, Stephanie, what have you done? Stephanie, do not say anything. Just shut up, Stephanie. We’ll be down there. Just don’t talk anymore to them.”

Robert Martin briefly conferred with Sergeant Timothy Gage.

“Oh, God, oh, God,” moaned Sandra Martin.

Robert and Sandra Martin didn’t know whom to call. They certainly didn’t know any criminal lawyers. They phoned a lawyer from their church for a recommendation.

“Ira Davis,” he said.

 

 

The sheriffs detectives sat chitchatting in their office with Will Busenburg. He indicated that he thought the human body would burn like paper. He’d just expected that he and Stephanie could easily feed Hatton into the fire. He looked up at the wall and saw an award for rodeo riding. He started talking about rodeoing.

Mancias glanced at Sawa and they stepped outside. “You know,” said Mancias, “this guy just doesn’t have any remorse.”

They mulled over the situation as they waited for search warrants. Martin’s and Busenburg’s statements were almost identical. To the detectives, that didn’t indicate truth-telling; that indicated made-up stories that had been rehearsed.

He’s just a cold-blooded killer
, thought Mancias.

With his chief, Mancias climbed into his vehicle and navigated the Saturday-night drunken streets of Austin to Judge Carrie Key’s home for her to sign her name on the search and arrest warrants.

She initialed Mancias’s signature, and Mancias and his chief returned to TCSO headquarters. It was 12:20
A.M
. Mancias still hadn’t gotten any sleep, so he didn’t notice until he was back at headquarters that Judge Key hadn’t signed the warrants; she’d only initialed his signature.

They drove back to the judge’s house. At 12:55
A.M
., Sunday, January 15, Judge Key signed the arrest warrants for William Michael Busenburg and Stephanie Lynn Martin, as well as the search warrants for Busenburg’s truck and Martin’s apartment.

Once the additional search warrants were in hand, Mancias asked Busenburg if he would ride with him and Sawa to Martin’s apartment, to point out the apartment, as well as Hatton’s truck. Busenburg agreed. Stephanie Martin also went, riding with Sergeant Gage.

Like Busenburg had said, the apartments were located behind Pappadeaux’s restaurant, about two blocks east, across the street from numerous office buildings. It was a strange haven of seeming safety in a neighborhood where one block placed one in the midst of white-collar workers, and another block placed one in the midst of dilapidated frame homes of those struggling to make ends meet.

They drove through the apartment’s electric gates. Most of the vehicles in the parking lot were a scale or two above those parked at the Hatton complex. Busenburg pointed to Hatton’s pickup

Mancias got out of his sheriffs vehicle to circle around the beat-up pickup, observing its every detail. In the cab of the truck was a wadded and wrinkled blue tarp. In the bed of the truck was a can of lighter fluid and a box of matches.

Mancias walked over to Sergeant Gage’s vehicle. He leaned in to talk to Stephanie Martin. “Will you tell me where in your apartment is the shotgun you supposedly used to shoot Chris?”

“It’s in my bedroom closet,” she replied. “It’s on the top shelf, to the left, as you walk into the closet.”

Crime Lab Technician Tracy Hill and Deputy Harlan had arrived by then and entered the apartment with Mancias. The living room was rather neat, but Mancias ignored that and strode directly to the bedroom.

The bedroom was a mess with clothes strewn on the floor. Mancias looked exactly where Martin had told him to and he spotted the two shotguns. The detective called for Hill, who photographed the guns before they were removed.

Mancias and Harlan checked the guns’ chambers for shells. The gun Harlan took was loaded with 12-gauge rounds. The gun Mancias held, which was a Winchester 12-gauge in a camouflage case, was empty. The gun dripped crystal clear oil, as if it had been freshly cleaned. There were also live rounds of shells in a pouch on the camouflage case. Mancias and Harlan laid the shotguns on Martin’s bed for Hill to inventory and collect.

Mancias opened a white chest of drawers. Lined with little girl–like, pink-and-white checked shelf paper, the drawers were filled mostly with clothes, socks, underwear, gym clothes. Inside the third drawer from the top, Mancias spotted Christopher Hatton’s California driver’s license. Underneath the driver’s license were credit cards and paperwork, also belonging to Chris Hatton, and a black wallet.

Mancias called Hill over. She photographed the inside of the drawer before any of the items were touched. He exited the apartment to talk to Sawa. As he did, he noticed a maroon mountain bike on Martin’s back patio. “Whose bike?” he asked Busenburg.

“It’s Chris’s,” he answered. “We took it earlier.”

Tracy Hill walked up to Sergeant Gage’s vehicle. She peered in at Stephanie Martin. “Where are the clothes that you were wearing when you shot Chris?”

Martin looked puzzled, as if she couldn’t remember.

“They must have been bloody,” said Gage to Martin.

“No, they weren’t,” she answered.

A bit later, Gage was advised that Martin’s father was trying to reach him. Sergeant Gage phoned Robert Martin, who asked to speak to his daughter. Gage overheard talk about an attorney.

Sawa turned to Busenburg. “Will you take me to where you and Stephanie took the mattress and box springs?” He was referring to the bloody mattress and box springs from Chris Hatton’s bed.

Busenburg agreed. The two drove back up Interstate-35 to Round Rock. At the Creeks Apartments on Palm Valley Boulevard, they circled through the complex and stopped at a Dumpster near the apartment rental office. That, said Busenburg, was where they dumped the bloody bedding. Sawa looked but he found nothing.

He and Busenburg returned to Austin and the apartment Busenburg shared with Martin. There Mancias took Busenburg into custody. Gage took Martin into custody. The two officers left with their suspects while Sawa stayed behind.

At 2:50
A.M
., on Sunday, January 15, 1995, Busenburg and Martin were booked for murder. Their clothes were collected and turned over to Mancias. Busenburg and Martin were handed jail jumpsuits.

To all the men within eyeshot, Martin looked stunning—even in baggy, ugly jail clothes.

 

 

On that night, Robert and Sandra Martin didn’t get to see how their daughter looked in jailhouse clothes. They weren’t allowed to see her.

 

 

Attorney Ira Davis walked into a closet-size interview room and sat down across from Stephanie Martin. She saw that he was nice-looking with a nice smile, curly hair, and a dark, bushy moustache. He looked like he had money and style.

She told him the same story she’d told the detectives.

“We can’t fight this case if you’re lying to me,” said Davis.

“Oh, no, no, no,” Martin replied.

The attorney leaned back in his chair and stared at the wall to think. They had a chance, he believed. He could maybe walk her if he could verify or justify the rape.
But burning the body and covering up the crime scene, that could be a problem. We’ll have to put that all on Will
.

Davis turned toward his client. Her dark hair was stringy and her eyes were red.

“Be quiet,” he said. “Don’t talk to anyone but your attorney. Don’t even talk to your parents. If you do, they could be used as witnesses against you. I’ll explain the same thing to your parents. Now don’t talk to anyone.”

Two hours after walking into the interview room, Davis stepped out to sit down with Mr. and Mrs. Martin. “If she talks to you,” he said, “you can be used as witnesses against her. So don’t discuss her case with her.

 

 

Mancias and Gage returned to Stephanie Martin’s apartment. Sawa told Mancias that Hill had found receipts in the kitchen trash for firewood purchased from an Albertsons grocery store on Highway 183 on Friday, January 6, days before the body was burned.

She’d also located an EZ Pawn ticket showing that Chris Hatton had pawned some jewelry on Friday, January 13, 1995, two days after his dead body had been found. Lying on the kitchen table was the title to Hatton’s truck.

Mancias handed Busenburg’s and Martin’s clothes to Hill for inventory. She promised to process them at seven that Sunday evening.

Mancias and Gage finally called it quits for the day. After more than fifty nonstop hours on duty, they headed home.

 

 

On Sunday morning, Robert Martin called a friend from his Sunday school and asked him to take over the class, which Martin normally taught. “We have a very serious family crisis,” he said. The Martin pastor was called.

Stephanie Martin was busy on the phone, too. Around 10 or 11
A.M
., she placed a collect call to Todd Brunner. “I’ve been arrested for murder,” she said. Martin explained to him how Busenburg wouldn’t ask Chris for the money, referring to the check she had previously told Todd that Chris had taken from Will.

“So I went over to his apartment and asked him to give some of Will’s money back. But when I got there, he was drunk. He was abusive. He was obsessed with me. He blamed me for Will and him not being friends anymore. He attacked me. He tried to rape me. There was a gun in the apartment, and I shot him.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?” asked Brunner, dumbfounded.

“After it happened, there was no phone in the apartment, and I couldn’t call. So I, uh, just sat in the corner of the apartment for a while. I was crying, and I was hysterical. I left there and called Will. Will told me that we needed to cover it up because I’m a dancer and that the police wouldn’t believe me. We took the body to Paleface Park.”

Freaked, Todd realized he knew about this case. A friend had told him about it. “I don’t want to talk about this,” he said. Brunner hung up the phone.

As soon as Round Rock Baptist Church said its closing prayer that morning, its pastor drove to the spick-and-span home of Sandra and Robert Martin.

“We’ve had some things—not just like this—but we’ve had things happen before in our church and people want to handle things in different ways. Do you want this kept quiet? Or do you want the church to know about it?”

“We want them to know,” said Robert, the Sunday-school teacher and church secretary.

“We’re going to be having prayer meeting, do you want me to bring this up?”

“Yes. If we ever needed prayer, we need it now.”

 

 

That same day, Detective Mark Sawa drove to Round Rock to knock on door after door at the Creeks Apartments, searching for someone who had seen the bloody mattress and box spring in the Dumpster. No one had.

He drove to the dump yard of Longhorn Disposal, the company that handled the Creekside garbage. But that, too, led nowhere.

Holly Frischkorn got on the phone that night and called her Round Rock PD chief and captain at their homes. “Please get me some help,” she pleaded.

They refused her request citing that they weren’t responsible, since her emotional trauma hadn’t happened in the line of Round Rock Police Department duties.

“Please,” she begged, “get me some kind of counseling. Help me. I’m having a really hard time with this.”

Again they refused her.

Holly Frischkorn killed the pain with constant shots of Demerol, which she was already taking for a work-related injury. Without realizing, she increased the number of shots. Anything to kill the pain. She sat in her chair, zoned out on Demerol.

 

 

On Monday, January 16, 1995, Sawa and Mancias returned to Round Rock and the Longhorn dump.

“Oh, I’d say by now that that mattress and box spring are covered by eighty tons of trash,” said the dump’s operations manager, Sam Montgomery. He pointed to the Austin Community Landfill.

They dismally stared out at the endless mountains of garbage, at least six stories high. They watched trucks dump their trash and earthmovers immediately drag the garbage away and compact it. Sawa and Mancias turned around and walked back to their vehicle.

At the Yellow Rose, club manager, Ken Myers, looked at his records. “Stephanie danced for an hour and a half on Wednesday, January fourth, and for five hours on Monday, January second,” he told the detectives. “The dancers have flexible hours that they set themselves.”

The officers left, but as they walked out of the dark, smoky, loud bar, they noticed a topless Stephanie Martin on the cover of the 1995 Yellow Rose calendar. A man couldn’t help but notice it; she looked beautiful.

Back at TCSO headquarters, Mancias prepared a photo lineup of Martin and Busenburg. Sawa got on the phone and called EZ Pawn. They drove up to the store at 5
P.M
., ducked under its sky-blue canopy, and walked in.