“At first it seems a no-brainer to connect them,” Merrick says. “And it makes you immediately think we’re dealing with a serial killer. And it’s possible, but . . .”
“But,” Nancy says, “there are a lot of differences in the two cases too.”
“For one,” Daniel says, “though both young women were around the same age . . . Annie was a senior in high school. She lived in Carabelle, so, unlike Randa, she was close to home when it happened.”
“In fact,” Merrick says, “she was driving home from her after-school job, so also unlike Randa, she was basically in her own small town.”
“Right,” Daniel says. “But her car was found abandoned on the side of the road near the old light house. And like Randa her keys and wallet were gone and the car was locked, like she’d left on her own and intended to come back. But she never did.”
“No, neither of them ever did,” Merrick says. “But there’s another big difference between Randa and Annie—one that Nancy really wants to talk about—and that is . . . unlike Randa, Annie was black.”
“Yes, she was,” Nancy says, “which is why her case hasn’t gotten nearly the attention that Randa’s has.”
“I think there are other reasons too,” Merrick says, “and we’ll get into those, but let’s talk about that for a minute.”
“There’s a phenomenon that’s been described as Missing White Woman Syndrome—a phrase said to have been coined by Gwen Ifill of PBS—where certain victims get a disproportionate amount of media attention and coverage. It’s true of white women like Randa Raffield. Even truer of white girls, especially white girls with blond hair and blue eyes like JonBenét Ramsey. Think about the media frenzy when it comes to white female victims.”
“It’s undeniable,” Daniel says.
“It’s related to a concept a criminologist in the 1980s came up with called ‘the ideal victim.’ Nils Christie said that the ideal victim is the person who when hit by a crime is most readily given the complete and legitimate status of being a victim.”
I think about how true this is and how I first encountered this in the Atlanta Child Murders where the victims were mostly poor black boys.
“We see this all the time in rape cases,” Nancy says. “A sex worker is not afforded the victim status a young virgin is. It’s the same with murder and the coverage of murder. Our culture and the coverage of our culture is racist and bigoted. A white girl like JonBenét or a white young woman like Randa Raffield will always get more coverage, more sympathy, more attention, better ratings than a victim like Annie Kathryn Harrison or any number of other victims—who by any objective measurement are no less victims.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Daniel says.
“I agree too,” Merrick says, “but . . . in the two particular cases we’re talking about today there are also other factors.”
“Such as?” Nancy says.
“Well, part of what is so fascinating about the Randa Raffield case is not just that it is an unsolved murder, but it’s an inexplicable mystery. There are so many unknowns, so many unanswered questions, so many possibilities leading to so many theories—any number of which could be right. Or none of them. Real mystery is a part of Randa’s case in a way that it’s not in Annie’s. There are real, legitimate suspects in Annie’s case. There just aren’t so far in Randa’s. There’s a huge difference between not being able to make a case against someone you’re pretty sure is the killer or killers versus not really having a single viable suspect. Annie Kathryn Harrison’s brother was a drug dealer. Annie wasn’t the only member of her family to be killed. Her brother was too. The tragedy of Annie’s death is though she had helped her brother deal before, she had stopped and was really working hard to get her life on track. She was even working a shitty after-school job that paid very little—and it was coming home from that job that she got taken. And she got taken because her brother owed the wrong people too much money. He was warned. He ignored the warning. His sister was taken and executed. Not too long afterward, because I guess he still didn’t heed the warning, he was gunned down in his front yard.”
“Even if everything you’re saying is true,” Nancy says, “why doesn’t Annie get as much attention as Randa and others? Especially when, as you say, she was doing so well and really working hard to have a better life. She was a child. An innocent. A victim. Every bit the complete and legitimate victim Randa is.”
“I completely agree,” Daniel says.
“I do too,” Merrick says.
“And just because it’s likely that Annie was taken by big-time drug suppliers or something to do with her brother’s drug business, doesn’t mean that she was. It’s possible that she was taken by the same man who took Randa. I think it’d be foolish to rule it out.”
“Then we won’t,” Daniel says.
When we get home later that night, there’s another email waiting for me.
Clearly you do not listen, Mister John Jordan. Do you? I am not writing this for me. I am writing it for you. I sincerely do not want to hurt anyone you love. But I have warned you. I have given you a chance to let dead girls lie and you just won’t do it, will you? Why? Is it because you have always won before? Have you ever lost? Have you ever not solved a case? You will not solve this one. You will not find Randa’s remains. You will not catch me. I promise you that. All you will do is lose. And lose someone close to you. It is out of my hands now. I am not going to feel bad about having to do it. You are making me. You had your chance. What happens next is on you.
I forward it to Chris and to Reggie, but don’t do anything else with it—except study it and reflect on it and try to understand its writer who doesn’t use contractions, seems sincere about wanting me to heed his warning, and is absolutely convinced he will not get caught.
138
“To me it comes down to Occam’s razor,” Cal Beckner is saying. “The most likely explanation is usually the right one. The simplest solution is most often the right one. Think about how many theories there are—how outlandish many of them are.”
Cal Beckner has been on the show before. He’s the private detective hired by the family to work on the case.
“And there are some truly outlandish ones out there,” Nancy says.
“We should remind everyone that we don’t give any airtime to those,” Daniel says. “We’re aware of them—the crazy theories flying around out there—but we don’t get into them on our show.”
“So what is Occam’s razor?” Merrick asks. “And how does it apply to Randa’s case?”
“It says something like out of competing theories, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.”
“And in this case,” Daniel says, “which theory is the one with the fewest assumptions?”
“I’ve gone back and forth on this one,” Cal says. “Because I think there are two that are about tied. Either she committed suicide or someone killed her.”
“And to some of our listeners who have only heard these two theories, I’m sure they’re saying ‘of course it’s one of those two things, what else could it be?’ So before Cal goes on, let me just mention a few of those other theories. Some say, though there is no evidence for this at all, that Randa was traveling with someone in a second vehicle, that she staged her disappearance, got in the car with them, and they went to Mexico together and are living the good life down there, that this whole thing was an ingenious plan to leave her life and start over.”
“Which would mean she had an accomplice,” Merrick says, “someone very close to her that was willing to do this—but no one close to her disappeared. And no one has ever said anything and you just don’t keep a secret like that for twelve years.”
“I also don’t see her doing this to her parents,” Daniel says, “leaving them to suffer like this if she was alive and could contact them to let them know she’s okay.”
“It’s out there as a theory, but it’s not even close to the most outrageous or outlandish,” Merrick says
. “There are groups of people who truly believe that Randa spontaneously combusted as she stood there on the side of the road that night, even point to some scorch marks on the ground. Say it’s the only thing that would explain why her body was never found.”
“And we’re not going to get into the other theories of UFO abduction, Bigfoot, or that she discovered Atlantis while swimming in the bay,” Nancy says. “The point is people are crazy and crazy theories are a distraction and we’re serious about solving this case, about finding Randa and giving her family some sort of peace and justice.”
“Right,” Daniel says.
“Which is why Occam’s razor should be employed,” Cal says. “Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be chosen.”
“Another way to say it,” Daniel says, “is other things being equal, simpler explanations are generally better than more complex ones.”
“But which one is it?” Nancy asks.
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Cal says.
“It is,” Merrick says, “and we were hoping you had the answer.”
“That’s the thing about this case,” Cal says. “The moment you think you have an answer, what you really have is another question. Let’s take the two most likely possibilities and the main question or assumption that accompanies them.”
“Okay,” Nancy says, “the first would be that Randa killed herself, that she was there to do harm to herself, that she had the hose and duct tape and books dealing with suicide in her car. So what’s the question?”
“Where’s the body?” Cal says. “If she killed herself somewhere around there—in the bay or the swamp—we should have found a body.”
“True,” Merrick says. “Now, the other most likely theory . . . A killer came along and killed her somewhere around there or abducted her and killed her somewhere else.”
“With that one you also have the question of where is the body,” Cal says. “No matter where he did it, you’d think her remains would have been discovered by now. Or that the killer would’ve been caught for another murder or crime—or that he wouldn’t be able to keep it quiet for so long. He’d have to tell someone. Most of them do. But beyond all that . . . here is the real assumption that goes with this one. Is it really possible that a killer just happened upon the scene in the middle of nowhere at just the right moment? What are the chances?”
“It could happen,” Nancy says.
“Absolutely it could,” Cal says, “but is it more or less likely than her killing herself and us not finding the body?”
“Good question,” Merrick says.
“I go back and forth between these two all the time,” Daniel says. “And I can’t figure out which one Occam’s razor would make the most likely hypothesis. They each seem just as likely and unlikely.”
“Yes they do,” Cal says. “But today . . . I’m going with suicide. I know it’s not as interesting or sexy as a serial killer, but . . . I believe the preponderance of evidence shows that Randa was suicidal, that that’s what she was on her way to do—where we don’t know—but that when she wrecked she went ahead and did it.”
“But,” Nancy says, “that leads to another glaring question. Her car was fine. If she was really headed to kill herself somewhere, why not just get back in her car and go do it? Why even get out of her car in the first place?”
139
“Randa did not kill herself,” Brenda Young is saying. “I don’t know what the hell happened to her, but I know that. She wasn’t the type. No question.”
Brenda Young is a thick, nicely proportioned early thirties young woman with white-blond hair, pale skin, brown eyes beneath dark purple eyeshadow, and lots of colorful tattoos. She’s wearing a loose black cotton dress, the fabric of which seems to be straining across her enormous breasts, and black boots that look to have been worn by the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz.
We are walking through the garden behind her juice bar, gift shop, and garden center in Tallahassee, where she has created a center for organic foods and locally produced artisan products for, according to her, hipsters and hippies.
Some eleven years ago, Brenda lived on the same floor as Randa in the UWF dorm and dated Chelsea Sylvester, the young woman who died shortly before Randa disappeared.
“Is her death or disappearance related to what happened to Chelsea?” I ask.
She frowns and her eyes glisten and in a moment, she nods. “I’m . . . I don’t know how . . . directly, but . . . it has to be related.”
“Can you tell me how?”
She nods. “Let’s sit down over here.”
She leads me to a cement bench at the back of the garden that looks like something from a cemetery.
We are facing the garden and the back of the old wooden building beyond it. The garden is verdant, the store vibrant, its front and back double doors open, allowing the bearded young boys in skinny jeans and dress shoes and the fat bearded old men in tie-dye shirts and overalls to flow freely in and out and through the property.
“It’s been so long ]now, you wouldn’t think it would still upset me, but . . .”
“I understand,” I say. “Take your time.”
“There was something about Randa,” she says. “A certain attraction. An attraction certain types of people were powerless over. Honestly, I’m not sure how aware of it she was. Some, I’d say. She definitely used it sometimes, but I think a lot of the time she didn’t even realize it was happening—it was on, this tractor beam that issued forth from her goddessness.”
“Were you drawn to her?”
She nods. “Some, sure, but . . . not in the way I’m talking about. Not like Chelsea was.”
The trees around us are filled with wind chimes, which, when the breeze blows, joins with the waving of the limbs and branches to create a soft, hypnotic sound. Natural. Rhythmic. Transcendent.
“You and Chelsea were together, right?”
She nods. “Until Randa.”
“They . . .”
“Chelsea was one of those drawn to her like a star caught in her gravitational pull. Completely powerless to do anything about it.”
“Were they lovers? A couple? Did you and Chelsea break up?”
“They were . . . whatever people were with Randa. I don’t know what you’d call it. Just . . . drawn in. Chelsea was obsessed with her. She didn’t break up with me. Didn’t have to. I just sort of ceased to exist. Or . . . orbited out of her . . . I don’t know. Our relationship ended. But I still was in her life because . . . I knew it wouldn’t be long until Randa was on to the next object she sucked in, and Chelsea would be devastated.”
“And that happened?”
“Sooner than I predicted,” she says.
“Were you angry at Randa?”
“Sure, but more just concerned for Chelsea. And I was right to be. I predicted she’d be devastated, but I had no idea just how decimated she would be. She started drinking and taking drugs like someone serious about doing real harm to themselves. I tried to help her, to save her. She only wanted Randa. Randa, who did have a huge heart, came to see her, tried to talk to her, but . . . Chelsea told her if she couldn’t be with her she didn’t want to live. Now I don’t know if Chelsea really meant to kill herself or just accidentally overdosed, but either way . . . Randa felt responsible, which is why she . . . acted the way she did, took off like she did. It’s what put her in the situation she was in when whatever happened to her did.”
“So you don’t think she was suicidal?”
“I know she wasn’t. We talked about it. She had no intention of harming herself, but . . . she was really upset, like . . . she went a little nuts. So she put herself in whatever peril she found herself in.”
“What about the items found in her car that indicate she was suicidal or thinking about committing suicide?”
She turns and looks at me with genuine surprise and not a little disgust.
“You’re the detective heading up the inv
estigation?” she asks.
I nod.
“How can you be so . . . uninformed?”
“Good question,” I say. “One I ask all the time.”
“I’m serious.”
“I am too, actually.”
“Randa worked at the suicide hotline on campus. She helped a shit ton of people. Some of the people she helped, especially the young women, would often give her things—the things that were feeding their suicidal thoughts or the very things they had intended to use to harm themselves. You can’t imagine the pills and blades and shit she was given. Whatever was in her car was there because someone grateful for her help gave it to her. How can you solve her case if you don’t know that?”
“I can’t,” I say, “which is why now I do. Thank you.”
“Sorry. I just . . . that was uncalled for. I shouldn’t take shit out on you. My bad. I didn’t get to meditate this morning and I can tell. I’m a mess. Please forgive me.”
“Did you ever confront Randa?” I ask. “Did you let her know you blamed her for Chelsea’s death?”
“We talked. I could tell she felt bad. I . . . I only blamed her for getting involved with Chelsea to begin with. If she had just shown some self-restraint . . . none of this would have happened. But she had none.”
“Are you saying if she hadn’t gotten involved with Chelsea, not only would Chelsea still be alive, but Randa would too?”
She nods, and I wonder if it’s because she killed her.
“When was the last time you saw Randa?”
“The day she died,” she says.
Interesting she said died instead of disappeared. So definitive. Does she know what happened to Randa? Is she subconsciously saying she does?
“Where?”
“Hallway in the dorm.”
True Crime Fiction Page 55