by John L. Work
“I interviewed his father at some length on the phone. His mother died two years ago. The dad was cooperative. I’ve got a transcription of the tape, if you want a copy.”
“That’d be great. Keep going.”
“This guy was nothing but trouble for his parents, from the time he was in kindergarten all the way to tenth grade. He dropped out of school. He fought, stole, used drugs, drank, sold drugs, ditched classes, forged absence excuses, erased phone messages from the school before his parents had time to listen to them. His dad said he had a mean streak, liked to bully little kids and take their lunch money. He had a violent temper and did more than his share of assaults.”
“Sounds like a real loser.”
“He was. He spent more time in jails than he spent in school. He got himself all tattooed up. He got into crack cocaine. His parents put him into a drug rehab center but he was kicked out after only three days. Someone smuggled some weed in to him on a visiting day and he got caught with a hot urinalysis. When the staff called him on it, he punched the psychologist in the face. That put him back into the juvy jail for Third Degree Assault.”
“Christ. What a parent’s nightmare.”
“It gets worse. After he got out of juvy, he left home at seventeen. They didn’t hear anything from him for a year. Then he called them from out here. He was in the Denver County Jail on First Degree Criminal Trespass charges. He got caught breaking into some cars, snatching CD players. He took a deal from the D.A. and got felony probation. But, they revoked it when he gave his probation officer another hot U.A. He was in the Denver Receiving and Diagnostic Center, then at the Skyline prison down in Canon City. While he was in the Denver jail he got caught with a tattoo needle and some marijuana. Who knows how he got it in there? You worked in the jail. You know how it is.”
“Yep.”
“So, I know from his parole officer he was going to some Court-ordered A.A. meetings down on Larimer Street. It’s kind of tough to get the alkies to talk about him. The ones who remember him tell me they have no idea where he stayed or if he had a job. They said he talked a few times with some good-looking gal that used to go to meetings there. But, no one remembers her name or where she lived. They said she was a babe, though. She has dark hair and looks like she works out a lot. That’s all I got. What about you?”
Welch briefed Reilly on all the work he’d done on the case. He made sure to tell his new friend about the mysterious email that Sheila had neglected to erase from her personal computer, and that he’d run into nothing but dead ends in his attempts to find Iron Maiden. He also presented the idea that Iron Maiden might be a male.
Reilly was intrigued.
“I think there’s more than a strong possibility that Slaikovitch’s murder is tied to your case. I’d like to know who this Iron Maiden is, myself, and I’d like to talk to her – or him. I can’t for the life of me figure why in hell he’d go up in that area by himself, even if he’s a dope dealer. It’d be a lot easier to just do a sale down on the flats. No. It was something else. Someone took him up there, or guided him, or forced him. I don’t know which it is, but he was as good as dead when he got into the car with whoever was with him.”
“Did you find any tire tracks at your crime scene?”
“No. It rained during the week before those two hikers found what was left of his body. The soil is really hard and rocky. Whoever buried him must have worked up a sweat doing it. But, no, we didn’t find any tire tracks. Just bear tracks.”
“Christ. Did you tell his father about that?”
“Yes. He asked us to dispose of the remains out here, so I had the coroner call one of the local funeral homes to cremate what was left.”
“You said you found a slug.”
“Yep. In the dirt near where he was buried. It was a two-hundred thirty grain .45 caliber copper jacketed round, probably the one that went through his noggin. The muzzle velocity is so slow on those things that they usually don’t go all the way through on body shots. If any were left in his gut, the bear probably ate them. So, we don’t know how many times he was shot. The bear ate most of his clothes, so we didn’t get any nitrate residue. We found two shell casings on the ground. We can’t do anything with the firing pin markings until we find the murder weapon and test-fire it to do some comparisons.”
“Did you bring in an entomologist?”
“Yep. A C.B.I. agent helped us with that one. She took maggot samples from the carcass remains and the soil around it. We haven’t received her report on how many generations were working on the remains. So we don’t have an estimate of how long the body was there. We got soil samples, too.”
“Did the bear ever show up again?”
“Beats the hell outta me.”
Bill Evans walked over to the table, accompanied by a short, stocky man who was wearing a cook’s apparel.
“Hey, guys, I want you to meet my pastry chef, Phil Jacoby. He’s got some information for you from the Friday before that body was found. He didn’t work on the day all the cops were up here and no one ever came back to talk to him.”
28
Transcription of Interview with Phil Jacoby
JW: Detective J.D. Welch, Roberts County Sheriff’s Office
JR: Detective Steve Reilly, Park County Sheriff’s Office
PJ: Phillip Jacoby
JW: This is Detective Welch with the Roberts County Sheriff’s Office. The date is September 4th, 2001 and the time is 9:30 a.m. This will be an interview in the office of the Evans’ Coffee Shop in Roberts County with Mr. Phil Jacoby, in reference to the murders of Sheila McCowell and Jimmie Slaikovitch. Present is Detective Reilly with the Park County Sheriff’s Office. Phil, what’s your occupation?
PJ: I’m a cook. Mostly I do pastries and hot sandwiches.
JW: How long have you worked here at Evans’?
PJ: I been here about five years now.
JW: How old are you?
PJ: I’m thirty-seven.
JW: Tell us what happened during your shift on August 14?
PJ: Yeah. It was a Friday. Bill took off early that day. So, toward the end of shift I was putting some empty boxes in the dumpster, out on the back porch for the trash guys. They come on Monday mornings, pretty early. Anyway, I lit a cigarette and while I’m sittin’ there smoking I see this blue BMW roll into the back parking lot. There was two people in it, a skinny guy, maybe in his twenties, with short blond hair and a woman with dark hair. She was probably in her thirties. They looked like they were wiping stuff on the inside of the car, maybe with hand towels or somethin’. Then they get out of the car and walk over to a different car, get in it and drive off. When they first get out, the guy pulls a big sheet of plastic, like a drop cloth out of the front seat. He must a been sittin’ on it. And he grabs some paper stuff – a couple or three pieces. It was light blue. I think they left in one a those little SUV cars. I couldn’t tell what make it was. It was a black car.
JW: How far away from them were you?
PJ: I don’t know. A hundred feet. Maybe a hundred and fifty.
JW: Was the sun still up? How was the lighting?
PJ: It was still daylight. I could see just fine.
JW: Do you wear glasses or contact lenses?
PJ: No. Don’t need em yet.
JW: Did they see you?
PJ: I don’t think so. I sat down to smoke my cigarette. They were pretty busy wipin’ the inside a the car – looked like they were in a hurry.
JW: Could you hear anything they said?
PJ: No. I could hear their voices, but nothin’ they were saying. I couldn’t make out anythin’ clearly.
JW: What time did this happen?
PJ: I usually put the trash out on Fridays – about seven-thirty or so. So, about then, I guess. Seven thirty at night.
WR: Had you ever seen them before?
PJ: No. That was the first time.
WR: Have they been back since that night?
PJ: Not that I know of. But I
’m not here every day. My days off are Mondays and Tuesdays.
WR: How tall do you think the man was?
PJ: Maybe six feet or more. He was real skinny. Oh, I seen some tattoos on his arms. He had a bunch of em. He was wearin’ a short sleeved shirt and I could see he had a lot of blue tattoos.
WR: How about the lady? How tall was she? Her race?
PJ: She was white. I don’t know, maybe five-five. She was wearin’ a ball cap, jeans and some kind of windbreaker jacket or somethin’. I couldn’t see her face too good, but I’m sure she was white. She might a had gloves on her hands, but I’m not sure. Yeah, she did. It wasn’t cold that day and I thought that was pretty strange for a woman to wear gloves on a nice summer night. But at the time I didn’t think nothin’ of it.
WR: Who was driving when they pulled into the lot?
PJ: She was. And she drove the other car away from here, too.
WR: Did you see what they did with the pieces of paper or whatever it was?
PJ: They took it all with them in their car when they left.
JW: Why did you wait until now to talk to the police?
PJ: Well, when this all happened with the police up here, I was on a day off. I kind of thought the cops would come back up to talk to me, but no one ever showed. So, I thought they got everything they needed. When you guys came in, Bill came back to the kitchen and grabbed me to come and talk with you.
JW: Anything else you can think of that we should know?
PJ: Can’t think of anything.
JW: I’ll end the interview. The time is nine forty-five.
End of Conversation
29
“Do you recognize this man? Ever seen him before?”
Sitting in the huge kitchen in Colorado Springs, Welch pushed a Department of Corrections mug shot of Jimmie Slaikovitch across the table. He watched carefully for any glint of recognition in McCowell’s eyes.
“No. Who is he?”
“His name‘s Jimmie Slaikovitch. We matched his DNA with the tissue we found beneath Sheila’s fingernails. We’re pretty sure he’s the one who killed her.”
McCowell’s jaw tightened and his face whitened with rage, completely involuntary responses to that information. Every time Welch talked with this man, he became more convinced that this man was innocent and in no way involved in his ex-wife’s death.
“Is he under arrest? Did you get him?”
“No. He’s dead. He was shot to death and buried way up in the Park County mountains. A bear dug up the corpse and ate most of it. I wanted to talk with you and see if you know anything about him.”
“I never saw him before you showed me this picture. Where’s he from?”
“Originally from California. I’m still working on his background. I called you as soon as I got the information to let you know we found him because I knew it’d probably hit the television news right after our press officer released the report.”
“Thank you for that. Is he the only one?”
“I’m not sure yet.” Welch lied. He didn’t want to tip his entire hand to anyone yet. There was so much more to be done. Without further delay, he left McCowell to his thoughts and departed for an afternoon staff meeting at the sheriff’s office.
Back in Colorado Springs on the following afternoon, he showed the same photo to Kim and Adrienne McCowell. Neither sister recognized him. Marnie was out of town. Her viewing would have to wait until another time. Welch left it to McCowell to tell his daughters that the police had identified the man in the mug shot as their mother’s killer.
At the First Colonial American Bank he walked in unannounced and asked Kathy Winsland if Janet Rogers was available. She nodded. He went into the office and sat down across the desk from her.
“I’m going to show you a photograph. I want to know if you’ve ever seen this man before.”
She stared at the mug shot for a few seconds and shook her head.
“No. I’ve never seen him. Who is he?”
“We’re pretty sure this is the man who killed Sheila.”
“My God. Where did you find him?”
“Actually a couple of campers found him up in the mountains. He’s dead. He was murdered.”
Her face whitened. “Oh, my God. This is all so terrible. Do you know who killed him?”
“Not yet. I’m still working on that. That’s all I needed today. Thank you for your time. I didn’t see Sammie when I came in.”
“Oh, she took a couple of days off. She’s due back tomorrow. I’ll tell her you asked about her.”
“Tell her I said hello. Thanks, again.”
He left her sitting at the desk and found his way out to the receptionist, who smiled and said, “Goodbye, Detective. Nice to see you again.”
30
“Hello?”
“Hi.”
“How are you?”
“Not too good. Welch came back in with a photo of Jimmie. He said some hikers found him dead up in the mountains. They know. The police know. He said Jimme’s the one who killed her and then he was murdered. How could they figure all that out?”
“So, what are we gonna do now?”
“Well, we’re gonna have to be a lot more careful than we’ve been to this point. Jimmie fucked up at Sheila’s and now they’ve found him. Shit. ”
“I’m worried.”
“Stop it. They can’t have any idea who killed him. It’s impossible.”
“I know. I know. So, now what?”
“Did you get rid of that computer?”
“Yes. No one will ever find it.”
“Good. We go ahead with what we planned. But we’ve got to think about how we’re going to do it. We can’t leave anything to chance this time.”
“Okay. I love you. I hate it when we’re not together.”
“I love you, too. Now don’t worry. It’ll all work out for us. Call me back in a couple of days.”
“Goodbye, my love.”
“Bye.”
31
Now he was certain that there was more than one person involved in Sheila McCowell’s murder. Phil Jacoby’s statement confirmed that. The accessory who drove the BMW to the coffee shop parking lot where they changed vehicles was a female. Was she Iron Maiden? Or was Slaikovitch the Iron Maiden? A stupid question. Not likely. And was there yet a third conspirator – man or woman?
All Welch could be certain of was that a white female with dark hair, wearing a windbreaker, jeans and a ball cap, drove a man, probably Slaikovitch, to the Evans’ Coffee Shop parking lot. They were in Sheila McCowell’s BMW. They cleaned out and wiped down the inside of her car, removed some kind of drop cloth from the seat where he’d been sitting, and some light blue paper – maybe one of those disposable tissue surgical suits. He also knew that this woman drove both of them away from the coffee shop parking lot, probably on the evening of Sheila’s disappearance. By that time she was already left for dead on the floor of that outhouse, with her skull bashed in.
The crime scene photos of Sheila’s dead body still tormented his mind. He frequently saw them if he closed his eyes. He didn’t have to look at the real images to remember the horror. It was with him constantly. He awoke with it and he fell asleep with it. Sometimes he dreamed about it. He couldn’t imagine the pain she must have endured while her killer beat her with that rock, or how long she suffered after he abandoned her, alone, laying helpless and blind on that cruel concrete slab – waiting to die and hoping someone would come to save her. But no one came. That she was able to get to her knees, then to her feet and feel her way out of the men’s room, around the building to the inside of the women’s room – and lastly try to repair her injuries with toilet paper, added to his nightmares. Her unthinkably gruesome death enraged Welch. And Slaikovitch’s murder hadn’t assuaged his anger. This was one of the most brutal, cruel killings he’d ever seen. It was beyond barbaric. It was medieval in its savagery.