The Prison Guard's Son

by Trace Conger

  For the next week I found everything I could on Vance’s and Turner's backgrounds and families. When I finished I had a thick white binder full of data, separated by colorful tabs that would make an anal-retentive accountant squeal like Ned Beatty.

  Information on Jacob Vance and Ray Turner was limited because they spent a big chunk of their young lives in juvenile detention before going into protection. They didn't have bank accounts, social security activity, employment records, assets or credit cards. There was little associated with their birth names, but they did have parents. And mommy and daddy had their own digital footprints, which were available if you knew where to look. And I knew where to look.

  The first half of my binder included everything I found on Thomas and Theresa Vance, Jacob Vance's parents. Both were still alive and living outside Parkersburg. By rummaging through a variety of databases and making a few calls to Cricket I'd compiled everything I could on the Vance ecosystem. I had social security information, tax records, employment histories, financial details, asset and property records, motor vehicle registrations, phone records, information on business associates, criminal records, insurance policies, and medical records.

  All this information gave me an idea of who Thomas and Theresa Vance were. Credit card transactions revealed the Vances ordered pizza from a local pizzeria every Friday night and that their favorite charity was the Humane Society. I knew that they’d paid for their current house in cash, Thomas spent a few hundred bucks a month at the Wheeling Island Casino, and Theresa suffered from proliferative retinopathy, a diabetic eye disease, and took corticosteroids as part of her treatment. I also knew Jacob Vance had a sister, Debra, who worked at a local car dealership and recently gave birth to a daughter, Emily, who weighed six-and-a-half pounds.

  Some of this information might seem mundane, but I had to be thorough. Property records might reveal a rental unit or vacation home where Jacob could frequent. Medical records might indicate a rare hereditary disease that could lead me to a medical support group or tip me off to a certain medication Jacob might be taking. Phone records could reveal frequent out-of-state telephone calls. The birth of a niece could bring Jacob out of hiding for a visit with his sister, or a maybe he sent a gift with his address on it. They were all small possibilities, but I had to investigate every angle.

  The second part of my big-ass binder focused on Ray Turner. That section was much thinner compared to Vance's workup because the Turners were dirt-poor and long dead, so there wasn't much in the way of useful information. No bank accounts, investments, assets or property. Bruce Turner clocked out twelve years ago from a brain aneurism and his wife, Denise, followed a few months later by way of a tailpipe, a garden hose and an idling pickup truck. Except for their burial plots in the same cemetery where Josh Baker was buried, there were few traces of their existence.

  A review of birth records turned up no Turner siblings, so while I wasn't back to square one, I was damn close. Unlike Vance's workup, Turner’s gave me little to work with and that made me nervous. Gathering any additional information on Bruce or Denise Turner would require a shovel and the cover of darkness, so I decided to focus my investigation on Jacob Vance first and hope that finding him might point me in Raymond Turner's direction. It was possible Vance and Turner were still in touch, and if I could find one he might lead me to the other.

  Background research is vital in a case like this, but so is the human element. Someone out there knew where Vance and Turner called home and I had to find them. My gut told me Vance's parents knew where he was. They wouldn't tell me, of course, but I could still use them as a compass to find magnetic north.

  I flipped to the last part of my binder and thumbed through the newspaper coverage from the boys' trial. Nell Richards, a reporter from the Parkersburg Sentinel, filed several articles during the trial, but a quick search revealed she hadn't written anything about the case since 1985.

  Journalists can be a gold mine of information. Their brains are wired to remember things most people forget. Nell Richards was my first stop on the Josh Baker Express. Next stop, Parkersburg, West Virginia.

  Eight

  NELL RICHARDS LIVED IN A modest home a few miles outside Parkersburg. It was a nice neighborhood, the kind of place where you expect to see kids riding their bikes, climbing trees and playing kickball in the street.

  I grabbed my notebook, picked up the newspaper waiting at the end of her driveway and walked to the front door. I knocked and a moment later she opened the door wide without checking to see who had done the knocking. Nell was a black woman in her early sixties. She had honest eyes and short dark hair with streaks of gray throughout. She was dressed like she had been to church.

  "Ms. Richards?" I said, handing her the newspaper.

  She looked me up and down. "I'm not used to having strange men on my porch."

  "My name is Roger Mathers. I'm an author and I was hoping you had a few minutes to talk about the Josh Baker case."

  She stepped back, and from the look on her face I thought she might slam the door in my bearded face.

  "Say that again," she said.

  "The Josh Baker case." I held up my notebook as if proof that I was legit. "I was hoping you had some time to answer a few questions about it."

  She didn't say anything, but I could tell she was trying to figure out why a man she'd never seen before was standing on her front porch asking questions about a thirty-two-year-old murder. After a moment, she stepped aside and motioned me in.

  "Mr. Mathers you said?"

  "That's right."

  She ushered me through her living room and into her kitchen, where she pulled out a chair for me at a small round kitchen table. "Have a seat."

  Framed pages from the Parkersburg Sentinel lined her kitchen walls. Black and white snapshots provided a timeline of local history from the Massey Energy Big Branch coal mine explosion, a crippling snow storm, a mine collapse that killed a dozen miners, and Senator Robert Byrd's death, among other events.

  I sat down and crossed my legs. "You covered the Baker case for the local paper?" I said.

  "I did." She took a seat across from me. "I'm a small-town girl, Mr. Mathers, which means I'll extend a seat at my table to pretty much anyone. How long you're welcome to sit there depends on you."

  "I understand, and thanks for speaking with me."

  "Can I offer you a drink? Coffee? Tea?"

  I wanted a cup of coffee, but the coffeemaker on her countertop was empty and I needed information more than caffeine.

  "No, thank you."

  "I'm curious, Mr. Mathers." She rubbed her chin. "Why are you digging up ghosts?"

  "I'm writing a book on the case. A look back after thirty-two years."

  "It's going to be a short book," she said. "You've got a dead boy and two murderers who disappeared into thin air."

  "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I'd like…" I paused, not sure I wanted to tip my hand yet.

  She saw through me. "You're trying to find them."

  I nodded.

  "Best of luck to you. You'd have an easier time finding an honest politician." She laughed at her joke. "Those two are as good as gone and I don't think they'll ever come back."

  "That's what I figured, and it's also why I'm here. I'm hoping you could give me a push in the right direction, considering these two could be anywhere."

  "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I don't think I can be much help. I covered the trial through the verdict, but that was it. Never really spoke of it again."

  "You never thought of a follow-up piece?"

  "Sure, I thought about it all right. Took the idea to my editor several times to get the green light. Everyone round here wanted to know what happened to those two, but it got shot down."

  "Why's that?"

  "Gag order. Everything about the case is sealed. Our paper is a small operation and we could barely make enough in advertising to cover printing most of the time. The boss wasn't about to risk a big f
ine and maybe even a lawsuit for breaking that order."

  "You were the crime reporter at the paper?"

  "Right. Covered some other beats too, but mostly crime."

  "You got a lot of crime around here to write about?"

  "Not really. I managed the police blotter section. Breaking and entering, drunks fighting with one another, but nothing like the Baker case. That hit this town like a tornado. Stirred up a bunch of shit in its wake too."

  "What do you mean?"

  "People started to look at each other differently, you know? Everyone was a lot more suspicious of their neighbors and the kids down the street. The loners who stuck out as a little weird."

  "Like Vance and Turner?"

  "Right. This is a small town and we weren't prepared for something like that. Horrible mess it was. And then to have them get out and get new identities and all. A lot of people were pissed off about that."

  "Did you write about that? About the new identities?"

  "Didn't need to. Like I said, it's a small town. People talk."

  "You ever hear of anything like that before?" I said. "The government assigning new identities like they did?"

  "Nothing like this. Those two had someone looking out for them. Had to. Otherwise they would have done their time and been released just like everyone else."

  "Any idea who might have helped them?"

  "I've got my suspicions."

  I leaned in close. "Care to share?"

  "Jacob Vance. His father, Thomas, was on the city council in eighty-three. I did some research over the years. Thought I might write a book about it someday. Like you. Turns out Thomas Vance worked his way from councilman all the way up to the Department of Justice. He wasn't a bigwig there by any means, but the connection alone made me suspicious. He could have known someone who knew someone who could have got those kids a deal. I don't know. There's nothing official, just the hunch of an old reporter."

  I scribbled her theory in my pad. "Sounds like a solid hunch."

  She shrugged.

  "But wouldn't a scandal like that—your kid killing someone—pretty much ruin a political career?"

  "It did," she said. "He served out his term on the council and then he was done. He still worked for the government, but never again as an elected official."

  "What did he do?"

  "Went to work for the DOJ in Washington."

  "That's pretty big time."

  "I guess. I think I remember him doing something with computers. Computer forensics maybe?"

  "What about the mother?"

  "Nothing remarkable that stood out to me. I know she visited her son quite a bit at the juvenile detention center, several times a week. She was also at the trial every day. The other parents too. They didn't grant me any interviews even though I asked. Several times. I can't imagine what they went through. Knowing your kid did something like that and having to live with it forever." She shook her head.

  "Anything stand out with Turner's parents?"

  "Not that I can remember. There wasn't a bright spotlight on them. Not like today where you blame the parents for everything. Back then they seemed like victims themselves. As if their own children had been taken away from them. And I guess they had. If Vance and Turner are in some sort of protection, who knows, maybe they aren't allowed to see their parents. That's got to be hard on their mothers and fathers. To go through that. I'm not saying they have it as bad as Willie Baker, of course not, but as a mother myself, your heart breaks for everyone involved."

  "Anything else you can think of that could help me figure out a path to Vance or Turner? Anything you came across in the reporting."

  "I had a contact inside the detention center where the boys were held." She thought for a moment. "Daniel Schuster. He was a security guard. I didn't get a lot of traction from it, but I met with him a few times to learn about their life on the inside. Until the paper squashed the story anyway. He's retired now and he might talk to you. He thought Vance and Turner got off way too easy."

  "Doesn't everyone?"

  "That trial had this whole town up in arms. There was a lot more to it than just the crime and the verdict. Some people were screaming for Vance’s and Turner's heads, but there was another side to it. Those two boys were tried as adults and a lot of people thought that shouldn't have happened even though they were disgusted by the murder. It was really strange to think of two nine year olds…" She stopped. "Actually, they both turned ten before the trial. Strange to see two ten year olds sitting in that courtroom. Between us, I think them being tried as adults helped get them the anonymity deal. Maybe someone in the DOJ thought they should have never been in that courtroom in the first place and this was their way of making it right."

  "Why were they tried as adults? Nine years old seems like a stretch."

  "I guess because some shrink thought the boys knew what they were doing was wrong. That was enough to get them a seat in big-boy court."

  "I'm sure the shit hit the fan with the verdict."

  "It did. It was a real big deal around here. People standing outside the courtroom cheering. I think the entire town was happy with the verdict, even though there was some contention on whether they should have been tried as adults. Lot of folk here have children of their own and all they had to do was think about their kids in little Josh's place and... Well, everyone was happy to see them found guilty. There was no question those two were responsible."

  "What about the sentence?"

  "That was a slap in the face. I was a crime reporter, not a legal scholar, but to me it seemed way too light. I think it was their age again. Had they been adults, they'd still be locked up."

  I tapped my pen on my notepad. "You were at the trial?"

  "Every day."

  "Was any evidence presented on who actually killed Josh? I read that Vance and Turner each blamed each other, but was it ever proven who actually killed Josh?"

  "I don't recall. Neither Vance nor Turner took the stand at trial so there was no he-said-he-said going on. There was a psychologist who testified to the boys' state of mind. I interviewed him and I remember him saying something about one of the boys being more of a leader and probably coercing the other along, but I don't recall the specifics. All that would be in my notes. Those are probably locked in the paper's archives, if they haven't already pitched them. If my notes would be helpful I can see about getting them. I've still got a lot of friends at the paper."

  "What about Vance's father? You ever follow up on that hunch?"

  "He's not going to talk to anyone about his son, and I really don't want to make enemies with anyone connected to the DOJ. Maybe if I was younger and more ambitious but not now. I don't need that kind of trouble."

  "You still do work for the paper?"

  "Hell no." She ran a hand through her hair. "See this gray? The paper did that. I've been retired for five years."

  "Why not write that book then?"

  "I considered it, but there's too much red tape. I'd never get the information I needed. Most of the people who were involved are long gone, and with no access to Vance or Turner all I could do is recap the articles I wrote thirty years ago." She smiled. "Plus I'd have to compete with your book, and you look like you know what you're doing." She stood up. "Let me give you Daniel's number. I've got it on my computer."

  Nell disappeared into a back bedroom and returned a minute later with a red folder.

  "Here are most of the articles I filed on the case. You're welcome to these if they'll help. Without the legal briefs and police reports you're not going to get much detail, and those are all sealed."

  "I have the case file."

  She crossed her arms. "How'd you get that? It's supposed to be sealed."

  "I know someone who knows someone."

  "Like I said, you look like you know what you're doing."

  I nodded.

  "Well, you've already gotten farther than I did," she said. "I was in the courtroom when we heard a lot of that inform
ation but I couldn't report all of it." She pointed to the folder. "Daniel's name and number are on the front there. Last I spoke with him was about four years ago when I was considering the book. No telling if the number is still active or if he's even still alive."

  I took the folder.

  "My number is on there too. I doubt I can help you much, but I'll help any way I can. The only two people who can give you any real information are hiding out behind new names and adult faces. I really hope you find those two though, and I hope they talk to you. I'm dying to know what happened to them. Maybe it will offer everyone some closure."

  "Thanks. I'll be sure to include you in the acknowledgements of my book."

  "Don't bother. This case stunk from day one and it continues to stink today. The crime itself was unsettling enough, but to know those two kids are all grown up out there enjoying their lives. A lot of people don't like it. They could be anywhere. I'll help you all I can, which probably won't be much since I don't know anything I haven't already written about. But I don't want my name out there. No telling what could happen."

  She walked me to the door.

  "Normally I'd tell you to try the parents, but the Turners are both dead and I don't think you're going to get much out of the Vances. They didn't talk back then and I doubt they'll talk now. The last thing they're gonna want is someone dredging all this up again. Bringing their boy back into the spotlight."

  "Thanks for all your help, Nell."

  She patted me on the shoulder. "Can't say I agree with what you're doing or not. Sometimes it's just best to let ghosts be. Nothing you or I could write is going to bring that little boy any justice. He lost that a long time ago."

  "I understand your point, but something is pushing me forward to write this book. Or at least research it. Who knows, it might all fall apart."