Death of the Ayn Rand Scholar

by Gray Cavender

  “At least something good came from all that construction mess.”

  Jillian nodded, then said, “And a light just went on. Then, I remembered an update that I’d read…a warning actually…to be watchful. Last night, an ASU student jumped down into a caved-in tunnel and broke her ankle. OK, so the cave-in is unrelated—I think there have been a couple of them—but still…it made me think about the tunnels. They’re open, and unmonitored.”

  After a few seconds, Wes asked, “So, your best guess…how’d this go down?”

  “He killed her in Business and transported her over to English. Along with her jacket and the murder weapon…through the tunnels…like you said, to throw us off. Remember when we were with him in her Business office?”

  “That’s right. He said he was uncomfortable being there and got us to relocate to his office for the rest of the interview. And he was surprised when I said forensics was coming to her Business office, too. Remember that?”

  “Yes, I’ll bet he was freaking out.”

  “I imagine so.” Wes thought to himself, then said, “OK, Jilly, two whys…. First, why’d Roberts do it? Why’d he kill her?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe jealousy.”

  He nodded. “Old as time. I guess that squares with your idea about Professor Siemens, Ayn Rand, and monogamy.”

  “That’s what I think, Wes.”

  “You’re probably right. Maybe he knew or suspected that she was trying to get something started with President Davidos, and it pissed him off.”

  “Whatever motivated him, it generated a lot of violence. Remember, she was struck several times…including when she was already down.”

  “Yeah.” He was quiet again. Then, he said, “When you’re dealing with a murder where the killer and the victim are connected, I think a lot of times…love is maybe a more powerful motivation than hate. In this case, maybe idealized love on Roberts’ part…love that didn’t exist, not really. At least not on her part.”

  He was quiet again. “And when that love turned to anger…” He shook his head.

  Jillian scrolled through a file and pulled-up one of Angel’s photos of Professor Siemens. The photo was shot from the far wall, so it showed her entire body.”

  They starred at the screen in silence. Finally, Wes broke the spell. He glanced from the IPAD back to Jillian. “OK, a second ‘why.’ Why did Professor Roberts run when he saw you?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe he just panicked.”

  “Most likely. I guess when he saw you he thought you were giving chase.”

  “Well, I was,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I wonder if he’ll tell us how he got her body from Business to English. The tunnels, yes, but how? Do you think he’ll tell us anything?”

  “Maybe. Probably not. Dollar to a donut, he’ll lawyer-up.”

  Professor Roberts did lawyer-up. He arrived from the ER at Tempe St. Lukes Hospital about two hours later. Doc and Georgia drove him. Doc had called when they left the hospital so by the time they reached Tempe PD, Wes and Jillian greeted them in the basement garage. That’s where prisoners are brought in to Tempe PD. There are holding cells there. That’s where Professor Roberts was locked-up.

  He did, indeed, have a dislocated shoulder (anterior variety) and his right arm was in a sling. He’d received a shot for pain. His lawyer, a partner in a large Phoenix firm, arrived soon thereafter.

  After Wes and Jillian had finished reviewing the slideshow on her IPAD, they had spent time with Diane Ashby, the Tempe prosecuting attorney who Wes had been working with. Diane had drafted the formal warrant, so when he arrived, Professor David Roberts was booked on an array of charges. Following advice of counsel, Roberts made no statement.

  There would be no hearing on bail until tomorrow morning, but Roberts’ lawyer made the case for releasing his client on his own recognizance, especially in light of his ‘medical condition,’ which, the lawyer noted, had occurred due to the assault by Sergeant Warne.

  Before Jillian could answer, Wes said, “The assault. Oh, you mean when Professor Roberts tried to stab Detective Sergeant Warne and she acted in self-defense. Otherwise, we’d be booking your client on two charges of murder, not just the one.”

  “Never happened,” Roberts said.

  The lawyer stilled his client with his left hand and added, “This alleged assault occurred with just the two of them present, so it’s Professor Roberts’ word against hers,” he said, pointing at Jillian. “A classic ‘he said/she said.’ And my client is the one who’s injured.”

  “Ah, but we have the weapon,” Wes said, calmly. “Bagged and being tested for prints AND DNA. As we speak.”

  When Professor Roberts and his lawyer were quiet, Wes looked at Professor Roberts and asked, “What’s the matter, Professor, Demerol got your tongue?”

  Even through the pain meds, through his obvious nervousness, Jillian saw Roberts’ intensity; the guy was wound tight.

  The courtroom was crowded at the bail hearing the next day. By that time, the press had all of the details, and the room was thick with reporters. Outside, TV trucks with satellite dishes on top lined 5th Street in front of the Tempe PD building. There was even a Sky 5 helicopter hovering…over near Sun Devil Stadium.

  When the hearing commenced, Roberts’ lawyer argued for a reduced bail. “Your Honor, my client is an established professor at Arizona State University. He has a stellar record in ASU’s College of Business. Moreover, he has strong ties to the community. Professor Roberts poses no risk of flight, Your Honor, and is his release on bail poses ABSOLUTELY no threat to the community.”

  Diane Ashby countered, “The state asks the Court to consider the severity of the charges against Roberts AND the brutality of Professor Nelda Siemens’ murder. Someone who would commit such a violent crime most certainly poses a danger to the community, Your Honor.”

  “The murder was, indeed, a brutal one, Your Honor, but my client did not commit that act. He is an innocent man.”

  The presiding judge sifted through the file, then asked, “And what about the charge of an aggravated assault against a police officer?”

  Diane was ready…she pounced. “May it please the court, I’d like to ask Detective Sergeant Jillian Warne to stand. She was the arresting officer, Your Honor. I know the court is familiar with her outstanding record, first with the Tempe Police Department and now with the ASU Campus Police Department. Further, I’d like to show the court a photograph of a weapon that is being tested for DNA as we speak.”

  Roberts’ lawyer retorted, “It’s a screwdriver, Your Honor.”

  “When Professor Roberts attempted to stab Detective Sergeant Warne with this screwdriver, it became a weapon, Your Honor.” Diane looked at the judge, not opposing counsel.

  Acting on Diane’s request, Angel had taken a photo of the screwdriver. To convey its actual size, she had positioned the screwdriver next to a 12-inch ruler…the handle of the screwdriver was aligned with the 0 mark on the ruler. The screwdriver extended four inches beyond the end of the ruler. Angel had enlarged the photo so that it was the size of a small poster.

  Her glasses low on her nose, the judge looked at the photo/poster for several seconds. She glanced up over her glasses at Professor Roberts and then to Jillian who had remained standing at the prosecutor’s table. The judge looked back at the photo/poster of the screwdriver and the ruler.

  Then, “Bail is set at two million dollars.”

  The lawyer tried to protest, walking the fine line between aggressiveness and deference. When he stopped, the judge inquired, “And the state’s position?”

  Diane looked first at Professor Roberts and then at back to the judge. “Your Honor, an initial analysis conducted by forensics unit of the Tempe Police Department has confirmed…” she paused…”the fingerprints on this weapon that was wielded in a murderous attempt on the life of Detective Sergeant
Jillian Warne, who was carrying out her official duties…” she paused again, “belong to Professor David Roberts.” She pointed at Roberts and drew an imaginary line with her finger from him to the photo/poster that the judge was still holding.

  “Bail is set at two million,’ the judge reiterated, and gaveled the proceedings to a close.

  Later that day, Professor Roberts made bail, and the slow process of justice began.

  Four months later, Wes called. Jillian was back at ASU PD working several cases, and, as planned, Wes had partnered with Georgia Robson, and they were busy, too. Wes called because as a part of a plea deal, Roberts had agreed to talk with them. ASU had terminated his employment so he was no longer a professor…just David Roberts.

  Jillian caught the Jupiter on Apache diagonally across from the ASU PD building and rode over to Tempe PD. As the bus drove through campus, she thought about the case and about the long weeks and now months since it all began. She thought about the arraignment, now almost three months ago.

  She and Wes had attended the arraignment where Roberts had entered a ‘not guilty’ plea through his lawyer. Jillian had assumed that his arm would have been better by then, but he still wore a sling and appeared to favor the injury during the hearing.

  Wes leaned over and whispered, “He’s body glossing.” When Jillian looked confused, he said, ”It’s like in football when the punter collapses in a heap if he’s even brushed by the defense…trying to draw a ‘roughing the kicker’ penalty. Roberts is shooting for sympathy. Wonder if he’ll still be wearing the sling when he comes up for trial?”

  Jillian dismounted the bus and met Wes at the employee entrance. He drove them to Phoenix. The trial court was in Phoenix as was the Maricopa County Jail, where Roberts was being held pending his remand to the Arizona State Penitentiary at Florence.

  As Wes drove, Jillian asked, “Why’s he finally talking?”

  “Diane pressured him to talk as a part of the plea deal…she knew that we wanted to know.”

  “I guess I’m still a little surprised that this didn’t go to trial.”

  “Yeah, well…I think it was the evidence. First, Angel worked that paperweight and built a slight fingerprint smudge. It wasn’t much—no DNA from it—but still, it was enough to narrow the range of possible matches, you know, percentage wise.”

  “I remember…that took her a while. It was great that she was able to do that.”

  “That’s Angel working her magic. Still, if that had been all that Diane had, I’ll bet Roberts would have rolled the dice and gone to trial.

  “Maybe he just didn’t like the odds,” Jillian said.

  “Yeah, plus, killing Professor Siemens…that was a violent murder…maybe not Murder 1, but still…. Then, moving the Professor’s body through the tunnels, that undercut any ’crime of passion’ argument that Roberts might have tried. And, once you discovered that the Professor’s BAC office was the real crime scene, Angel and forensics revisited it. Maybe they didn’t find a lot, but it was one more piece of the puzzle.”

  “I couldn’t believe how they totally disassembled her office…chairs, the desk, the carpet.…that place was empty.”

  “Yeah, but it paid off…a trace of blood on one roller of her chair, and a couple of specks on the inside of a desk leg…all invisible to the naked eye.”

  Jillian nodded, lost in thought.

  Wes continued, “Maybe that confirmed the thing about the BAC office, it just didn’t tie Roberts to the murder. At the end of the day, I think what made the difference, and this is what Diane thought, too, were his prints and his DNA on the screwdriver. That negated his ‘he said/she said’ defense’ in terms of his attack on you, and, that was another really serious charge, and a slam-dunk in terms of the evidence.”

  The screwdriver had been left in the tunnel by one of workers on the asbestos abatement project. Roberts happened to see it, picked it up, and had tried to stab Jillian with it…another convenient weapon, like the paperweight he’d grabbed from Professor Siemens’ file cabinet in her BAC office.

  Jillian didn’t respond. She was back in the tunnel. Walking slowly…stopping to listen…walking forward again…

  While Wes drove, it popped into her mind what ZZ had said…that they would capture the killer. And, they had. She’d also something about ‘beware of the darkness.’ The tunnel. Jillian didn’t remember exactly what ZZ had said that day…maybe she should ask her about this.

  “And, well, you know Diane,” Wes said…they were stopped, waiting for a light rail train to pass. “She had built a strong case, even if some of it was on the ‘circumstantial’ side. But then, she threw the kitchen sink at him: second-degree murder, attempted murder AND aggravated assault against a police officer…and also obstruction, leaving the scene of a crime…and all of lesser included offenses, too. I think by the time she finished, there were seven charges in all…”

  “That is a lot.”

  “Yeah, and I think the icing on the cake is that she told Roberts and his lawyer that the state was going to seek the maximum penalties on the more serious charges, AND that state intended to ask the court to ‘stack’ the sentences. In other words, Diane was pushing for consecutive rather than concurrent sentences. Roberts was looking at 40 years. Minimum.”

  “And the plea?”

  “Twenty. Of course, he’ll earn good time and be out sooner. Still, that’s a long stretch.”

  Jillian and Wes displayed their credentials, checked their weapons, and were escorted to an interrogation room where Roberts was waiting, accompanied by his lawyer. They were there for no more than 20 minutes. At first, Roberts’ comments came across as flat, rehearsed.

  He told them that he’d always seen them—himself and Nelda Siemens—as the ultimate academic power couple: highly respected scholars who challenged the liberal professor orthodoxy. When he referred to their “ideological synchronicity,” he said it as if it was something precious.

  As Roberts talked, his mood darkened. He’d been looking down at the table but now looked up, although still with no eye contact. Instead, he looked to the side of Wes and Jillian, a couple of ticks away from them…lost in his recollections.

  “That night in her office—we’d agreed to meet there late, to talk about us—she kept going on and on about Jacques Davidos. I recognized her infatuation with him. I’d heard all of this before, and I’d had enough.

  The interrogation room was quiet. No one moved or spoke, except Roberts. “We argued, and she laughed at me when I told her about how I saw us…you know, about being ‘an academic power couple.’ She was so condescending. She made me mad…I was insulted. So, I hit her with the first thing at hand: that damned paperweight…her little treasure. I didn’t really even think of what I was doing…it was on her file cabinet, and I was standing right by it.”

  Roberts shook his head, angry. “Even hurt, she laughed at me…more of a sneer, like I was weak…or whatever. She even tried to slap me, but only hit my shoulder…I must have just snapped.”

  At that point, when Roberts said he must have ‘snapped, his lawyer nodded “yes.”

  Wes later told Jillian that Diane had said that the business about ‘having snapped’ was an argument Roberts’ lawyer had emphasized during plea negotiations, something that might mitigate his sentence. “But,” Wes added, “his little trip through the tunnels didn’t help the cause.”

  “I hit her some more…didn’t realize how many times.”

  Still not looking directly at them, he continued. “When I came to my senses, I knew what I’d done.”

  Roberts was quiet for a time, then continued, and now he made eye contact. “I’d read about the tunnels in ASU’s online newsletter. It was an interesting story…had their history and even a link with photos down there.”

  Roberts was very matter-of-fact, almost as if telling an amusing tidbit at a dinner party. />
  “The story said that because of asbestos abatement, there were no sensors or other controls. They were wide open. There was an entrance near my building…I’d seen workers entering there. And, then I remembered…there was another entrance in the basement of our building. That’s the one I used…you know, away from prying eyes?”

  He again looked away, almost as if visualizing what had happened next. “I covered her body in a garment bag that was in my office, and circled it in a bungee cord that I had in my desk. Don’t know why I had that, but I did.”

  He seemed to be trying to remember about the bungee cord, then shrugged, and continued. “I got the department dolly that was kept in a closet off from the copier room. It was late so there was not a soul about.”

  He shrugged again. “I literally pushed her on the dolly to the elevator, then it was down to the basement. I unhooked the bungee cord and used it to lower first her body and then the dolly into the tunnel. The lights were on down there, the directions plainly marked, and it took no time at all to get over to Ross-Blakey.”

  He took a sip from a water bottle. “Now, getting her up out of that tunnel, that was the toughest part. But I managed it. I used the building key from her purse, took the elevator, and then used her office key.

  Roberts was a little livelier now, less flat. “I staged the scene. I switched the paperweights.” He smiled as if he was especially pleased with himself.

  “Then, I simply retraced my steps in the tunnel. I looked all along the way, trying to be sure that I hadn’t left any tell-tale signs, you know, blood stains or the like. I’d brought that other paperweight—the one from English—and put it on her file cabinet. I cleaned-up her office, which was fairly easy because, although she had bled quite a bit, it was mostly on the plastic runner under her office chair. I googled how to clean blood off plastic. Mostly, I just wiped it clean with paper towel. There was some ammonia in the storage closet and I used some of that, too. And then, just to be on the safe side, I turned her A/C cooler to blow out the smell.”