by Gregg Olsen
At least good old Ed believed that she was innocent.
“I know the Lord will get you out if you stay by the truth,” he said.
Barb may or may not have known that her sister Susan Miller had met with police at their invitation about a week after her arrest.
Susan sat in an unmarked patrol car with Lieutenant Kurt Garrison. She told him that she used to be close to her sister, but that had changed when Susan and her family moved to Wooster the year before. She knew Barb was close to Eli and suspected they had a sexual relationship.
Garrison asked if Barb and Ed had argued about her driving Eli everywhere. “Yes,” she said. “He did not like that she drove Eli. Ed wanted her to stay at home and take care of the house.”
Barb had phoned her just before noon the day of the murder, crying, and told her Eli’s wife was dead. In the days that followed, Barb threatened to end her life, and was upset about deputies coming to her home. Susan didn’t know her sister had been arrested until she read it in the newspaper.
In a phone conversation, Barb told Susan that the detectives who arrested her yelled at her in the car. When they got to jail, she asked what they wanted of her. They wrote down that she confessed.
On the phone with Susan, Barb said she didn’t know if there was any evidence other than the text messages. She told her sister she needed her support now more than ever.
“I got to have all the alibis and good alibis so I can get out of here,” Barb said.
Her sister was speechless, and could only acknowledge she was listening.
“Um-hum.”
Barb pinned all her hopes on her husband.
“At least Eddie can say I was home all night.”
“Um-hum.”
23
Eli in Jail
He can be very charming if he wants something.
—BARBARA WEAVER, ON HER HUSBAND’S ABILITY TO MANIPULATE
Eli made far fewer phone calls than Barb did. No one seemed to want to talk to him. He’d leave messages, but his calls weren’t returned. By luck he trapped a few people into talking to him.
His most peculiar call was to Ed Raber.
Ed must have been in shock when he heard the voice on the other end of the phone.
“Ed?”
“Yeah.”
“How are you?”
How did Eli think he was?
“Not too good.”
“Not too good, huh? Yeah, hey what is the deal? I seen your wife in here the other day. Are they—can you hear me?”
“Yeah.”
“It is kinda hard. I almost can’t hear you.”
Eli was acting as if this were a business call. As though he needed a new shed. Or wanted to know whether Ed was interested in a sale on fishing poles he had at the shop.
Ed brought Eli down to earth but still was bizarrely patient with him.
“They are blaming her for doing it.”
“Yeah. What is, what is the deal? I mean, they are blaming your wife.”
“Yeah. They are blaming my wife for killing her.”
Eli decided he should warn Ed that the calls were probably being recorded.
“Yeah, but come on, you realize this is all being recorded, you know that, right?”
“Yeah, I know.”
Another segue, this time back to the issue at hand.
“Okay, but I mean you were at home, right?” Eli asked Ed.
“Yeah, I was at home with her. I told them that.”
“Well then, what is the deal? I mean wow, wow.”
Eli was ignoring the elephant in the room, so Ed pointed to it.
“But you know they got text messages.”
“You said they got what?”
“They do have texts.”
Eli continued to pretend he was surprised.
“Texts. That is what they are going by?”
“Yep.”
“Yeah, but if your wife was home and you can prove she was at home, I mean what is the deal?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what their problem is.”
Eli said how surprised he had been to see Barb at their arraignment, although he had to have known she had been arrested, too. Eli had been smoothing the way with Ed because he wanted something.
“I did not know if you would talk to me or not if I called you or not. I mean, oh my goodness. Could you call someone for me?”
“Who?”
“My neighbor. I have to talk to my preachers. I think they can get us out of here. Then we can get this worked out. If you would do that for me, her name is—.”
Ed’s response to Eli wasn’t translated. Maybe he said yes. Maybe he said no. Maybe he finally told Eli what he thought of him.
If that wasn’t shocking enough, Eli called Ed a second time—to try to borrow money for his bail and to pay an attorney. Ed refused. He couldn’t even afford to hire an attorney for his wife.
It was lonely behind bars and Eli didn’t do lonely. The disgraced Amish man thrived only when the attention of others was heaped on him—online or in person. In the dour confines of the Wayne County jail, he was isolated. Friendless. No one would return his calls. His girlfriends didn’t want anything to do with him. The woman he could count on for sex whenever he wanted it was not available—she was in a cell on the other side of the building.
And yet his belief that he could control his situation was unbreakable. Despite all that he’d done, he had the nerve to write to his father-in-law, David Miller.
Please write back to me. I long to hear from you. I wrote two letters prior to this one and no answer.
It shouldn’t have been surprising that David Miller rebuffed those missives. Eli could not have found a more inappropriate person to pour out his heart to.
I long to sit and talk with some lady that feels the pain I do, to cry together and just let tears flow together, but I can’t so I cry alone.
And then he suddenly remembered his wife. She had felt his pain and cried with him.
How I long to sit down and talk again with her, to look into her eyes, to hear her laugh, see her smile, feel her touch. It’s more than I can bear at times. She loved me, and I loved her, but I don’t think I know [sic] how much she loved me.
He asked his father-in-law to “have mercy on a poor sinner.”
Keep me in your prayers that I can keep a strong mind and faith. And pray that I can come home (Lord willing) and be with my children who I love so much and are all I have left or would you all rather I stay locked up and away?
He always stopped short of telling the truth.
I want you to know that I didn’t know what was going to happen, and that’s the truth no matter what happens here in the courtroom or what somebody says. And I could never let my kids find their mom like they did. I know I’m a bad person, but that’s something I couldn’t do.
Eli mailed the letter along with one to his children to his father-in-law, who in turn gave them to Fannie Troyer, who took them to the police.
In the letter to his children—the children who were in the house when their mother was murdered, and who might have died had he followed through with one of his plans, to blow up the house—he sounded as if he were gone on business for a few days but would be home soon.
* * *
IT WOULD BE hard to imagine a more cruel father than one who would plot the murder of his children’s mother, then adorn his letters to them with smiley faces and hearts—which is exactly what Eli Weaver did from the confines of his cell.
Eli never seemed to grasp the utter evil of his actions. He never seemed to own up to the truth, which was that he’d set Barb Raber up to be a kind of suicide bomber on his old life.
In every sense, his children were collateral damage.
He invoked the name of Jesus in his salutation; he asked the children if they’d been to church, if they’d been eating corn on the cob yet, if fresh peas had been picked from the garden.
Was wishing I could be home and go to church with
you, but I can’t right now.
Children I miss you so much and how I wish I could see you and talk to you.
He begged them to write. He wanted them to visit. He told them how he missed them. He never once said he was sorry. That what happened to their mother had been a terrible mistake.
But it hadn’t. It had been exactly what he wanted.
I cry every day to see you and your mom. My heart hurts very bad for you all. Children pray for me so I can come home again. It would make me sooo happy.
Eli thought his heart hurt, but the hearts of his children were broken.
* * *
THE CHILDREN WEREN’T doing so great. They all knew their mother was gone. The older ones knew why. Smiley faces on letters weren’t helping.
Natasha Siebert, of Wayne County Children Services, who had first interviewed the Weaver children and their cousins the day of the murder, met with Harley Weaver and Susie Troyer again.
Siebert went to the Troyers’ and saw all eight children, as well as Fannie and her husband, Cristy. In front of the group, Fannie told her the children were doing well. Privately, she was more candid.
The Troyers had hoped to have the three youngest children live with an aunt and uncle of Fannie’s—but a judge denied the request. There was to be a hearing, though.
Fannie told Siebert that Harley was troubled. He got angry easily and said people wanted to know about “the blood and guts” of the murder. They encouraged him to grieve, and talked to him daily about the event. One night six-year-old Sarah was nearly hysterical when she woke and couldn’t find her aunt, who was downstairs rocking the baby, Lizzie. As for Susie, Fannie said her older daughter felt guilty about what had happened and about not having heard a disturbance during the night. Siebert made arrangements for Harley and Susie to have therapy.
Siebert talked to the younger children. Jacob and Sarah told her that they enjoyed playing outside and helping care for rabbits. Joseph hid from the social worker, but he smiled when she tried to draw him out. Lizzie, the youngest, seemed healthy and happy. Early on, when Fannie told Lizzie she was going to bathe her, she said, “No, Mama do it.” But now she was calling Fannie mama.
Siebert next spoke to Susie alone. The girl remembered speaking with her the day of the shooting. Susie told her she was sad that her Aunt Barbara was gone and that her cousins didn’t have a mother. She said Harley got upset, missed his mom, and wished that his dad were not in prison.
It was Susie who had told Siebert that Harley had heard a bang that night. Siebert wondered if it was thunder or a shot.
Then Siebert met with Harley privately.
“How are things here, Harley?” she asked.
“They’re good.”
“Do you know where your father is?” Siebert was curious as to how Harley would answer.
“He’s in jail. Aunt Fannie said he did not have Jesus in his heart.”
“Why do you think he’s in jail?”
The boy was stoic, and had difficulty looking the social worker in the eye.
“He helped get Barb Raber to shoot my mom.”
“What do you think should happen to your father?”
“He should be punished, but I miss my dad and my mom.”
Siebert thought the boy looked incredibly sad. She wanted him to know that whatever he was feeling or thinking, it was normal.
“It is okay to miss your parents, to cry for them, to cry for yourself, to be angry and upset.”
As if all he needed was reassurance that it was okay to be sad, Harley started to cry.
“Does it help to talk about it?”
Harley nodded.
Siebert talked about going to see a therapist with him. Harley said that would be okay. Then he blurted out a question that all the adults around him were having trouble answering.
“Why did my dad do it?”
Siebert didn’t have an answer, but she continued to reassure him that he and his brothers and sisters would be loved and cared for.
“Can I go see my dad?”
“Not right now. Your father needs some time to think about things, but maybe one day you can see him.”
She encouraged the boy to write a letter to his father, and to ask his aunt or uncle for help with the letter. Harley nodded.
Siebert asked if he had known Barb Raber. Harley nodded again, and said that Barb sometimes drove them places. She had taken him, Sarah, and Joseph to his grandparents’ once and he knew she drove Eli when he went fishing. Siebert asked if Harley had ever been to the Raber house. He said no.
“Tell me again about the night your mom passed away, Harley.”
“There was a storm, and we went downstairs to sleep. But I didn’t hear anything.”
“Susie says that you told her you heard a bang. Remember the sketch you drew for me, Harley? You were sleeping very close to your mother’s bedroom wall. I think you might have heard something.”
It was too much for Harley.
“Harley became nervous,” she wrote in her report, “not able to look at this worker and fidgety. Harley stated that he heard a loud thunder bang, but when he heard this his mother was still sitting in the living room.”
Siebert encouraged Fannie and Cristy to talk with Harley. He seemed fearful. Maybe he remembered more than he was saying.
24
Evidence
He makes remarks about himself, “I’m just a stupid, stupid man.” I’ve tried to assure him he’s not … though I imagine he feels so, if he’s not living “by the truth.”
—BARBARA WEAVER, ONCE MORE DOCUMENTING ELI’S CLEVER MANIPULATIONS
While Eli and Barb were phoning family, writing letters, and planning how they would spend their time once they were freed from jail, Edna Boyle and investigators were building the case against them. It wasn’t hard, though it was tedious.
A computer forensic specialist spent months analyzing three laptop computers, one desktop computer, and two cell phones. It wasn’t just text messages that proved that Eli and Barb had spent weeks plotting murder. There were computer searches. Lots of them. Barb and Eli had discussed carbon monoxide poisoning, insecticides, and sleeping pills.
There seems to be no record of one fateful conversation between Eli and Barb—the one where they decided a shotgun was preferable to poison.
Which was the biggest obstacle to making a case. Where was the murder weapon?
It wasn’t found during searches of the Weaver house, Eli’s business, or the Raber home.
Eli had two .410 shotguns in his store, and a shell was missing from a box of slugs, but the guns were brand-new and had not been fired. Of course, Eli knew how to clean a gun so it would appear not to have been fired.
Detectives knew that Barb was partial to the lighter, smaller .410 shotgun. She and Ed had other rifles in their home, but she had borrowed a .410 from David Weaver a few years before and no one seemed to remember if she had returned it or not. Now detectives found that she had also purchased a .410 from Miller’s Gun & Supply in Sugarcreek on November 15, 2008. She may have bought it at Eli’s request so it could only be traced to her.
Detectives and the coroner had concluded that Barbara Weaver died of a single shot to her right chest from a .410 gauge shotgun. Barb had access to two. And both were missing. Detectives contacted a national tracing center with the serial number of the gun purchased in 2008.
David Weaver’s name kept popping up in the investigation. He was a friend of Eli’s, had once had an affair with Barb, had worked for Barb’s father-in-law, and said Eli had asked him to poison Barbara. David had “jumped the fence”—left the Amish—and said he was no relation to Eli, not that he knew of anyway. He seemed beholden to both Barb and Eli.
Detectives Chuhi and Maxwell went to his house in Fresno, Ohio, to talk to the father of five and long-distance truck driver. He admitted that Barb had asked him to make the fake harassment phone call to the shanty the day after the murder. He said he hadn’t found the request unusual and did
n’t think the two were involved in the murder. He had heard Eli spout off about killing his wife.
And David told them a wild story about a hit man. Just before the murder, a woman had contacted David—she knew somebody who knew somebody who would commit murder for money. He passed on the information to Eli, who turned down the offer, saying there would be “too many people involved.”
David told them that a woman named Cora had suggested the hit man.
* * *
ON JULY 7, Cora Anderson, a bottle blonde with a ready smile and a tanned complexion, took a seat across from Detective John Chuhi and Lieutenant Kurt Garrison at a McDonald’s near her home in a rural area of Tuscarawas County.
Cora told the investigators that she used to be a driver for David Weaver when he was Amish. She’d met Barb Raber once or twice. And she was absolutely adamant that she hadn’t met Eli Weaver.
“Never,” she said.
The detectives let her talk, occasionally pressing for details on the reason that she’d been mentioned in the case.
As the story unfolded, it seemed like a cross between an Amish Peyton Place and an episode of Law & Order. Cora’s daughter-in-law had, in fact, been having an affair with David Weaver. (Who wasn’t sleeping with someone else’s wife or husband?) She talked about how David had told her that Eli wanted to kill his wife.
“David told me that Eli had made comments to him about getting rid of his wife. He said that Eli suggested that David take his wife to California on a long-haul trip and never bring her back.”
According to Cora, Eli called the whole thing off with a text message to David. And throughout that conversation and subsequent ones with law enforcement and the defense, Cora emphasized one thing over and over. “I never said I knew a hit man,” she said.
That seemed to be that. The detectives didn’t seem interested in following up on the hit man theory. Or on the theory that Eli had killed his wife but set up Barb to take the fall. Or on any possibility other than that Barb Raber acted alone.
There was pressure on the sheriff’s department to make a case as quickly and as quietly as possible. Murder wasn’t good for the economy or tourism. Amish businesses wanted to sell quilts, baked goods, jams, and cheese to visitors hopping off tour buses, not have them distracted by news of a lurid murder. That doesn’t mean the Amish didn’t talk about the crime—they did, but only with one another.