Pathological

by Henry Cordes

  PATHOLOGICAL

  The Murderous Rage of Dr. Anthony Garcia

  HENRY J. CORDES

  TODD COOPER

  WildBluePress.com

  PATHOLOGICAL published by:

  WILDBLUE PRESS

  P.O. Box 102440

  Denver, Colorado 80250

  Publisher Disclaimer: Any opinions, statements of fact or fiction, descriptions, dialogue, and citations found in this book were provided by the author, and are solely those of the author. The publisher makes no claim as to their veracity or accuracy, and assumes no liability for the content.

  Copyright 2018 by Omaha World-Herald

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

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  ISBN 978-1-948239-01-1 Trade Paperback

  ISBN 978-1-948239-00-4 eBook

  Interior Formatting/Book Cover Design by Elijah Toten

  www.totencreative.com

  “And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”

  —William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1: ‘WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?’

  CHAPTER 2: TOM AND SHIRLEE

  CHAPTER 3: THE MAN IN THE CRV

  CHAPTER 4: IN HIS BLOOD

  CHAPTER 5: SPINNING WHEELS

  CHAPTER 6: COLD CASE

  CHAPTER 7: MOTHER’S DAY

  CHAPTER 8: CHANGE OF PLANS

  CHAPTER 9: ‘HE’S BACK’

  CHAPTER 10: SERIAL KILLER AT LARGE

  CHAPTER 11: THE TASK FORCE

  CHAPTER 12: MORE THAN A NAME

  CHAPTER 13: TEAM GARCIA

  CHAPTER 14: THE TRIGGER

  CHAPTER 15: THE BIG BREAK

  CHAPTER 16: ‘DO WE HAVE ENOUGH?’

  CHAPTER 17: ‘HE’S MOVING’

  CHAPTER 18: THE RECKONING

  CHAPTER 19: MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

  CHAPTER 20: STRANGE WAYS

  CHAPTER 21: THE NERD COP

  CHAPTER 22: ONE FINAL PIECE

  CHAPTER 23: COURTROOM COMBAT

  CHAPTER 24: RYDER

  CHAPTER 25: WITNESS ON TRIAL

  CHAPTER 26: BREAKING POINT

  CHAPTER 27: JUSTICE DONE

  CHAPTER 28: EPILOGUE

  PHOTOS

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  CHAPTER 1: ‘WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?’

  When police detective Derek Mois stepped over the threshold of the stately red brick home, he was immediately struck by the contrast between the everyday and the horrifying.

  First to catch his eye were the cleaning supplies. A blue plastic bucket. A mop. A bright yellow bottle of Lysol. All casually set down in the middle of the entryway. And then just to the left, on the floor of an adjoining room, a waif of a boy with a knife through his neck.

  It was the body of 11-year-old Tom Hunter, the gifted young son of the two doctors whose home Mois had just entered. Tom was splayed face-down on the blood-splattered dining room carpet. His spindly arms were straight as pins by his side, his bookish, wire-rimmed eyeglasses just above his head. Mois could see the knife’s stainless steel handle protruding from the right side of the boy’s neck, surrounded by an angry cluster of crimson stab wounds, both deep and superficial.

  Mois’ jaw tightened. A driven detective with short-cropped hair and sleeves of elaborate tattoos — still works in progress — going down both arms, the two-year veteran of Omaha’s homicide unit had, unfortunately, seen dead kids before. And his experience confronting the handiwork of society’s worst had long ago taught him to check his emotions as soon as he came through that front door.

  But as a father with two young sons of his own, this sight was a punch in the gut, a memory that would never leave him. Who could do this? How cold, how callous, how depraved did someone have to be to stab a little boy until his life, future and promise drain away? This was about as ugly and evil as another human being could get.

  Steeling himself, Mois walked through a set of French doors into a freshly cleaned kitchen. He right away spied on the immaculate counter a Farberware knife block, the knives’ stainless steel handles matching what he’d just seen sticking from the boy’s neck. Whoever killed the boy had drawn the murder weapon from right here in the kitchen.

  Mois carefully stepped through the dinette, spotting Tom’s shoes, backpack and hooded sweatshirt, all on the floor where he’d cast them off hours earlier. Mois heard an eerie sound coming from the basement stairwell, the theme music of the video game Tom had abandoned just before he died.

  Following that sound, Mois turned the corner into a hallway and was confronted by a large pool of blood and the second body he’d been told about. This was Shirlee Sherman, the Hunter family’s 57-year-old house cleaner. Mois could see Shirlee likewise had a steel kitchen knife protruding from her neck — clearly the killer’s calling card.

  The blue paisley scarf Sherman had donned for her cleaning that day still covered her head. As with Tom, she’d suffered numerous stab wounds, all concentrated along the right side of her neck.

  Mois could already see this grim scene was an extreme departure from the gang- or drug-related shootings that were the staple of homicide work in Omaha, both the victims and perpetrators usually no strangers to law enforcement. Almost everything about these murders was different.

  A grandmother and a young boy as victims.

  Killed with knives left impaled in their necks.

  In a gorgeous home filled with valuables — all completely undisturbed.

  And perhaps most troubling, no obvious suspect or motive.

  Later as Mois worked into the gray hours just before dawn documenting the crime scene, he held an aside with his sergeant, speaking just out of the earshot of the crime lab technicians working nearby.

  “Holy shit,” Mois told his supervisor. “What the hell is this?”

  It was a question Mois would spend more than five years trying to answer.

  CHAPTER 2: TOM AND SHIRLEE

  It was a brilliant March 13, the radiant sunshine and balmy air a reminder that while winter on the Great Plains wasn’t officially over yet, it was losing its icy grip.

  A school bus lurched to a halt in front of a home on North 54th Street in Dundee, one of the most desirable streets in one of Omaha’s most distinctive old neighborhoods. Tom Hunter popped up like a gopher from his seat in the very back, glided down the aisle and bounded down to the street. Dressed for the mild weather in a lightweight, striped blue hoodie, Tom walked past the last surviving patch of snow melting in the sloped front yard and entered his house around the back.

  Elsewhere around Dundee, an affluent neighborhood known throughout Omaha for its old-fashioned globe-style street lights, life on this Thursday in 2008 was moving to a familiar mid-afternoon rhythm.

  Dana Boyle watched Tom’s 3:18 p.m. return through her living room window across the street. Five months pregnant and feeling every bit of it, she was grabbing some much-needed rest on the couch. Not for long, though, she now knew. For the sight and sound of Tom’s bus served as a daily touchstone for the full-time mom, a reminder it was almost time to meet her own 7-year-old son after school.

  Just down the street, Katie Swanson also prepared for her kids’ imminent return from school. Deciding this would be a great day to shake off winter, she pulled out of storage her “Slow Children at Play” signs. She later placed the unofficial traffic signs down at “the Pie,” a wedge-shaped, grassy median where 54th Street kids had gathered to play for
generations.

  This was Omaha circa 2008, a thriving Midwest metropolis of some 850,000 people that was little like anything imagined by those who saw the state of Nebraska as rural flyover country. The former cow town actually boasted the headquarters of five Fortune 500 companies — for its size, more than New York, Los Angeles or Chicago. It was probably best known, though, as home to famed investment wizard Warren Buffett, one of the wealthiest men on the planet. The Oracle of Omaha, in fact, lived in a relatively modest Dundee home just blocks from where Tom Hunter hopped off his bus.

  Not far removed from his own pre-adolescent play dates at the Pie, this street and this spacious home were the only ones Tom had known in his life. Now just three months shy of his 12th birthday, Tom had grown into a bright and worldly kid who seemed destined for big things.

  Tom was the youngest of four children — all boys — of Drs. William and Claire Hunter. Both parents worked as practicing and teaching physicians at Omaha’s Creighton University School of Medicine. Befitting his parents’ professional status, Tom enjoyed a privileged, idyllic childhood on 54th Street. Eight years younger than his next closest brother, Tom had always been a delightfully precocious child. He interacted easily with those much older, possessed a mischievous grin and always had something to say.

  At nearby Dundee Elementary, Tom proved an academic prodigy, something that for his parents came to be both a blessing and curse. Tending to pick things up quickly, Tom found homework rote and boring. He put it off. He rebelled. Why should I have to do all this stuff when I already know it? The Hunters had to hound him daily, his father often sitting down with him in the living room to force him to fill out his math tables or diagram his sentences for English.

  Such battles waned when Tom left local Dundee Elementary School after fourth grade and transferred to King Science and Technology Center. In that inner-city magnet school, Tom found a true home for his intellectual gifts. At King, Tom was able to indulge his fascination for all things scientific and technical. The school even had its own planetarium. Tom seemed poised to shoot for the stars himself. His teachers could easily see the well-liked kid who smiled through silver braces following his parents into medicine or some branch of the sciences.

  Outside of school, Tom loved to read, getting his hands on the latest Harry Potter tome as soon as it hit the bookstore shelf and devouring it in hours. Tom even looked a bit like the young wizard Harry, with his roundish eyeglasses and mop of brown hair.

  Books aside, Tom really wanted to play football, a sport his slight build — not to mention his parents — wouldn’t allow him to play. Instead, he competed for years in the local YMCA basketball league. A regular ritual for father and son was a Saturday morning game at the Y followed by lunch at one of Tom’s favorite fast-food restaurants. The boy enjoyed close relationships with both of his parents.

  Tom also had lots of neighborhood friends, and they tended to travel in a pack. They’d play basketball in the school yard or go buy candy in Dundee’s quaint old business district. He and his friends would also often beat paths to each other’s homes to play video games. Favorites included various violent shoot-’em-ups and Madden football, where Tom competed as his beloved Green Bay Packers. As Tom roamed the quiet and safe streets of his neighborhood, his parents’ rule was simple: Be home by 6 for dinner.

  Treasured family snapshots from the time captured Tom just being Tom: intently at the controls of a video game; relishing a stimulating visit to the Smithsonian in Washington; suited up for basketball; at rest on the same couch where his dad once forced him do his math; patting the family cat outside on a brilliant day — a day much like this March day.

  Now near the end of sixth grade, Tom was a latch-key kid, his parents trusting him to take care of himself in the two to three hours before they got home from Creighton. He entered the house just like the careless pre-teen he was, kicking off his black Adidas shoes and dumping his hoodie and backpack right on the floor.

  This being Thursday, Tom also knew it was the one day each week he didn’t arrive to a completely empty house. Thursday was cleaning day in the Hunter home, the day Shirlee Sherman came to scrub, dust and vacuum.

  The 57-year-old Sherman was a resilient, no-nonsense woman who had endured some tough times — many of them traced to her unwavering willingness to put the happiness of others ahead of her own. As one of her brothers would later put it, “She got a raw deal in a lot of things in life.”

  The former Shirlee Waite grew up in a working-class neighborhood of Omaha with three siblings and four close cousins — all of them boys. So, during her early years, Shirlee turned her back on dolls in favor of baseball, basketball and box hockey, often besting the Waite boys in those pursuits. As the oldest, Shirlee stood up for her kin on the playground and helped care for them at home, a role that particularly grew after her parents divorced. She never argued or complained. She just did it. It was the beginning of a lifetime of Shirlee shouldering the burdens of family.

  Her brothers considered Shirlee the smart one. But by the time she got to Omaha’s Central High School, she didn’t have much use for books. She followed a fairly traditional track at the time for a girl from a blue-collar family. Within six months of getting her diploma in 1968, she was married, and in short order she gave birth to a daughter.

  Shirlee worked tending bar and at one point ran a tavern that her father owned. But that didn’t last long. After her parents’ divorce, the stubborn, opinionated Shirlee didn’t always see eye to eye with her dad. Sherman’s own marriage fell apart shortly after her second child, a son, was born in 1974. That’s when she largely turned to cleaning houses. It gave the single mom the flexibility to work around her kids’ schedules. And with her strong work ethic and barkeep’s friendly demeanor, Sherman had no trouble landing jobs.

  Many of her clients came to have ties to Creighton’s medical school, her name passed around among doctors there. Sherman had come highly recommended to the Hunters and had now cleaned their home for almost two years.

  By this point, Shirlee’s children had grown and long since left the house. She had bad knees, a smoker’s wheeze and lines in her face carved by the tough times. She’d reached a point in life when she should have been able to give more time to herself. But true to her nature, she remained the Waite family caretaker and glue, her days still revolving around the wellbeing of others.

  She talked to her elderly mother every day and visited a few times a week. Often she would bring fresh-cut flowers or vegetables from the big garden she tended every summer. In fact, anyone visiting the generous Shirlee would inevitably leave with a bag of whatever was in season.

  One of her greatest joys in life was spending time with her five grandchildren. Shirlee had a huge capacity for kids. Any extra money she saved would inevitably go to make sure they had what they needed.

  Daughter Kelly, herself now a single mom, lived in the house right next door to Shirlee. That certainly had its benefits. Shirlee cherished her time with 6-year-old granddaughter Madison. Shirlee would often see Madison in the morning and then care for her after school until her mom got home.

  But that living arrangement had also recently been a source of tension and conflict between Shirlee and her daughter. Shirlee had big problems with the latest man in Kelly’s life. For one, he was married. Most alarming to Shirlee, though, was his violent temper. Several times he’d lashed out in her daughter’s home, kicking in the front door or punching a hole in the wall. Shirlee had warned Kelly, “It’s going to be you next.”

  It was of course no surprise to Shirlee when in March 2007, the boyfriend broke Kelly’s jaw in three places. Police arrested him for felony assault. But like so many women caught up in abusive relationships, Kelly refused to swear off the creep. Even after he broke her jaw, she’d try to sneak around to see him behind Shirlee’s back. It drove Shirlee bat crazy. She knew men like this from her bartender days. He wouldn’t chan
ge. So she vowed to do everything possible to keep them apart.

  Since Shirlee held the deed to Kelly’s house, she tried to legally keep the boyfriend away. She called the cops on him for property damage. She had his car towed. Though of medium build, Shirlee proved fearless as a wildcat in confronting the boyfriend. “She would literally get right in his face,” Shirlee’s brother, Brad Waite, would recall years later. “ ‘Go ahead and hit me.’ ”

  Shirlee also told the Hunters of the abusive boyfriend, the subject coming up after she failed to show up to clean one day. “I’m going to get the SOB if it’s the last thing I do,” she said. The nurturing Shirlee was concerned for more than just Kelly’s safety. Shirlee didn’t want Madison exposed to the violence. “I need to protect my granddaughter,” she’d written in a court affidavit.

  As Shirlee cleaned that day in March 2008, those concerns for Madison had not diminished. In fact, it’s very likely Shirlee had thoughts of Madison as she room-by-room worked her way through the Hunter house. She was due to pick her grandchild up from daycare as soon as she was done.

  It’s unknown whether Sherman greeted the young Tom Hunter when he came home from school that day — they typically tried to stay out of each other’s way — but it seems possible she did. Because at some point, Tom went upstairs where Shirlee was cleaning to change into a favorite pair of long black basketball shorts. He left piles of clothes all over the floor as he dug the shorts from the bottom of the drawer.

  Tom’s parents would have preferred he at that point launch right into his homework. But as was often the case, Tom figured homework could wait. He popped open a can of Dr. Pepper, foraged a bag of SunChips from the pantry and headed to the basement to play his Xbox 360.

  That’s how he would spend the final carefree minutes of his life.