by Gary Kinder
Now, as he sat in the OSI headquarters briefing his supervisors on Airmen Pierre and Andrews, Stevens mentioned the Article 15 each of the men had received and the penalty hours they were now serving every afternoon in his orderly room.
“But last night,” said Stevens, “neither one of the gentlemen showed up.”
Though the Ogden Police now had enough evidence to arrest Pierre and Andrews for murder, because they were on a military base, there were legal complications that slowed the process. If the affidavits supporting the arrest and search warrants were sworn to under oath by the officers involved and they were signed by a civilian judge with proper authority, the intermediate step of review and authorization by the base commander was necessary before service of process could follow, and then only according to procedures and guidelines set down by the commander and his advisers.
The base commander, Colonel James M. Hall, Jr., met with his military legal advisers at the OSI offices around six o’clock in the evening. Charges of murder, especially this murder, against airmen under his command made Colonel Hall even more cautious than usual. Weber County Prosecutor Robert Newey notified Commander Hall that the necessary warrants and complaints were being processed and would be delivered to him personally by Sergeant Greenwood of the Ogden Tactical Squad. In the meantime, requested Newey, would the commander issue an order to his base security police to detain the two men should they make any attempt to leave the base? Commander Hall refused to issue such an order. His position was that, legally, he could do nothing to stop the men from leaving the base until the proper papers from civilian authorities were in his hands and he had had adequate time to determine their legality. Any attempt to detain them prior to a review of those civilian documents, therefore, was not possible. The commander agreed to provide the Ogden Police with additional manpower for surveillance of the barracks, but if the suspects attempted to leave the barracks or the base before the warrants arrived, by military law they would have to be permitted to go.
About six thirty that evening a member of the air police assigned to guard the barracks watched as Dale Pierre and William Andrews, together with a third airman, walked out of the barracks’ west exit, crossed the lawn to a parking lot adjacent to the next barracks, got into a light-yellow Ford Pinto, and drove off. By the time Detective White was notified of their departure, the three men had cleared the base gate to the east and driven off into the glow of early evening.
The Ogden evening was warm, and Jean Hamre, who lived in the foothills behind Weber State College, had taken the opportunity to wash windows long smeared by the winter snow and rain. From the deck where she stood spread a panorama of the city and the colors from a setting sun still reflecting from the sky and the Great Salt Lake. This area of Ogden along the east bench was high and people often drove slowly up and down the streets and gazed out at the setting sun, or at night down upon the twinkling lights of the city. Some parked to take in the view. So it was not unusual when a car Mrs. Hamre had never seen before cruised by on the road above her home and at the end of the street pulled off onto a lookout point and stopped. But the three men who got out of the car were unusual; none of them seemed interested in the view. Immediately, the three began arguing. They were far enough away that Mrs. Hamre could hear nothing of what they were saying, but she became intrigued with the drama being enacted at the end of her street; so much so that after five minutes of “glancing up that way occasionally” and seeing that the men “seemed to be arguing and pleading with each other,” she went inside the house, got a pair of binoculars, and watched the pantomime through the window.
One of the three, a tall, muscular man wearing a denim jacket, sat on a rock, while the other two stood on either side “arguing violently” with him. Of the two men standing, one was tall, very thin, and light-complected. With a stoop in his shoulders and a pair of gold-rimmed glasses resting on his thin nose, he looked studious and frail. Every few minutes he would walk off, stand alone briefly, then walk back and plead again with the man sitting on the rock.
“The one on the right as they were facing me I would say was about five nine or five ten,” Mrs. Hamre said in her statement to the police the next day. “Kind of a stocky frame, with a high forehead, almost a receding hairline. He had on olive green pants, and a Hill Air Force Base T-shirt. He’s the one I watched and noticed most. He just stood there with his hands in his pockets.”
After twenty-five minutes the scene ended. The three men climbed into the yellow Pinto again and drove back the way they had come. Not once did any of them gaze out at the sunset colors now almost melted into the horizon where the lake met the darkening sky.
“First thing that come to my mind was there was gonna be a shootout,” recalled Polo Afuvai, one of the seven Tac Squad officers. Afuvai was sitting in an unmarked squad car outside OSI headquarters, while Greenwood and Moore were inside being briefed by Commander Hall on the assault that was about to take place. “We went down there with the attitude that’s what was gonna happen. But the ol’ hands was sweaty, you know, and perspired as hell. I was wet that night, all right. I had sweat glands I’d never known about.”
Bill Thorsted, another member of the Tac Squad, was in the squad car next to Afuvai’s, waiting. “Your armpits were wet clear down to your belt,” he remembered. “Knowing they’re in there, but not knowing what they’re going to do. I was thinking, if they don’t know what’s happening outside and then they find out, probably the first thing that’s going to go down is a hostage situation.”
Over a mile away White and a dozen other detectives waited with shotguns in the perimeter of Air Force security surrounding the barracks. The base was dark now. Hours earlier, when the suspects had slipped away, it looked as though the net that so quickly had been thrown around them had just as quickly been cast aside. But the police had stayed hidden, and as darkness was settling about the base, White’s contact inside had notified him that Pierre and the other two men had just returned to their rooms in the barracks.
Nearly two more hours of waiting had then passed. The detectives standing in the perimeter had kept close watch over the lighted balconies and the fire escapes. If Pierre and Andrews tried to leave the base again, this time they would not go alone. Just after ten o’clock White had received the message he had been waiting for: Greenwood and the Tac Squad had finally arrived at OSI headquarters with the arrest and search warrants for the two suspects.
Inside OSI, Greenwood was now conferring with Colonel Hall. After reviewing the warrants the colonel had issued an order that the police surrounding the barracks had authority to arrest Pierre and Andrews if necessary to prevent them from escaping. The next step was to devise a plan to get them out of the barracks.
Colonel Hall, pointing to an area map and a blueprint of the barracks, briefed Greenwood, Moore, and a dozen colonels, majors, and OSI agents on his plan of attack. Sharpshooters were to be positioned so that the balconies outside the rooms would be cut off as escape routes. Air police and base security would establish a defense perimeter around the barracks to isolate and contain a possible gun battle. Greenwood and his men, if they wanted them, were to be provided with automatic weapons and body armor for their assignment inside: draw out Pierre and Andrews. Knock on their doors, kick the doors in if necessary, but locate them in the barracks, keep them away from the other airmen, and disarm them if possible. The colonel assigned one of his majors to lead the assault.
An hour earlier White and some of the other detectives had observed Andrews through the window in his second-floor room getting dressed. Then the lights had gone out and the shades had been pulled. Since that time neither Pierre nor Andrews had been seen by any of the police or Air Force personnel. Pierre’s room had been dark since nightfall. Though no one knew where in the barracks Pierre and Andrews were hiding, with armed guards surrounding the building they were certain the two men were still inside. But as Greenwood stood listening to the colonel’s briefing, and as White waited in the per
imeter for the assault on the barracks, the voice of a base security guard suddenly broke on all radios: a light-blue Chevy van had been spotted rolling fast across the base headed for the west gate.
Thorsted was still idling the engine of his Tac Squad car in front of OSI headquarters when an OSI agent jumped into the car.
“They got to the van and they’re trying to escape!” yelled the agent.
The young Tac officer threw the car into gear and jammed the accelerator, the OSI agent shouting directions to the gate. Afuvai and the rest of the Tac Squad waiting outside the OSI building took off after Thorsted. They could hear over the radio that Air Force security agents were already closing in on the van. Thorsted kept driving for the gate but was still a mile away when he heard that the security agents had stopped the van and ordered the occupants out at gunpoint.
The occupants were a staff sergeant and a friend on their way home. The van, identical to Andrews’s van, belonged to the sergeant. When Thorsted and the OSI agent heard the arrest over the radio, they stopped immediately, turned around, and rushed back to the OSI office. On the way Thorsted was trying to make radio contact with Greenwood to report the false alarm on the light-blue van. But just as quickly as the van had been sighted and then stopped, another report came in over the agent’s walkie-talkie: Pierre and Andrews were in custody.
When the news hit the OSI office that Pierre and Andrews had been captured, Colonel Hall was just entering the final phase of his briefing. He paused to listen to the report, and then to the amazement of everyone else in the room, continued with a pointer stick, coordinating his plan of attack. The major who had been assigned to lead the assault with the Tac Squad interrupted the colonel twice.
“Colonel, sir,” he said, “the suspects are in custody.”
“Yes,” acknowledged the colonel, and went right back to his briefing.
He was still talking and pointing with his pointer stick when Greenwood and Moore ran out of the office.
No one knew who had given the signal to move on the barracks or why it was given. But seconds after the light-blue van was reported leaving the base, the detectives surrounding the barracks had rushed the east entrance and proceeded up the stairs to Andrews’s room on the second floor.
Deloy White led this first group of eight or ten detectives, some with revolvers drawn, others carrying shotguns. As they approached the closed door to Andrews’s room, half of the men swung silently around to the opposite side of the door, while the other half backed up White. With everyone in position, White tapped on the door with the barrel of his shotgun. There was no answer from inside, but after a moment the doorknob turned, and the door opened slightly. White followed the motion with his gun until, through the crack in the door, he saw a man’s face. The man was standing only a few feet back from the door, looking straight up the barrel of White’s shotgun. His hands were in the air with the palms open and facing White. As soon as he saw the hands were empty and no one else was in the room, White lowered his gun. The man identified himself as William Andrews. One of the detectives behind White advised Andrews that he was under arrest for murder, and then read him his rights and asked him if he understood those rights.
“Yeah,” said Andrews.
The same detective then explained his rights in greater detail, and again Andrews said that yes, he understood. But he made no attempt to speak again or protest or resist arrest. After the tension that had been building all those hours waiting outside in the dark, some of the detectives felt that Andrews was almost disappointingly meek.
Glen Judkins, the detective who had arrested Pierre for car theft, was standing in the back of the line outside Andrews’s door. Although he could hear White and one of the other officers reading Andrews his rights, because of the line of detectives in front of him he couldn’t see the suspect. Just then the line had turned about and Judkins suddenly was first in line and running down the hall with Detective Lee Varley, going after Pierre.
Pierre’s window on the south side of the barracks had been under surveillance since five o’clock that afternoon. All officers involved knew that Pierre’s room was 223, on the other side of the hall from Andrews’s and at about the middle of the building. But as Judkins and Varley passed the poolroom on their left, an airman stepped into the hallway in front of them.
“Pierre’s not in his room,” the airman whispered, “he’s on the ground floor, southwest corner.”
Assuming the rest of the officers had got the same message and were immediately behind them, the two detectives ran past 223, down the hall, and took the west side fire escape to the first floor.
The room in the southwest corner of the first floor was 106, the first door on their right as Judkins and Varley came off the fire escape. The door was closed, and since Judkins had to assume that Pierre was armed, he waited outside for the rest of the detectives to catch up. With more men to back him up, the odds were greater he could arrest Pierre without a shot being fired. Too, he didn’t know if Pierre was even in the room. Everything had happened so fast, and the airman who had whispered the information had seemed so sure, that Judkins had just followed his instincts. He and Varley could have been waiting with their guns drawn outside an empty room. Then they heard voices coming from within. They waited a few minutes longer, and no one else had arrived to back them up, when suddenly the door to 106 opened. A black airman stepped into the hall.
Judkins knew it wasn’t Pierre. He motioned with his gun. “Take off down the hall,” he said in a terse whisper.
The airman flinched at the sight of Judkins’s gun and moved quickly away. But no sooner was he away from the door than a second airman peered out into the hall. This second airman was tall and thin, had a stoop to his shoulders, and wore gold-rimmed glasses.
“Hey, man,” he said to the first black, “who you talking to?”
Then he looked up and saw Judkins holding a .38 on him. Judkins jerked his head.
“Down the hall,” he whispered again.
As the airman eased into the hall and walked slowly away, he left the door ajar. The door was hinged on the right, in front of Judkins, and swung outward, toward him. Judkins and Varley had worked cases together before; each knew how the other would react. As they stood in the hall, Judkins motioned to Varley to look through the crack in the door. Varley leaned to his right and peered in with one eye. He could see a single individual still in the room, but the man was sitting on a couch hunched forward with his back to the door, like he was tying his shoe. Varley couldn’t see the man’s hands. He signaled to Judkins that there appeared to be only one man left in the room, but indicated there might be more that he couldn’t see. He motioned for Judkins to look in, but as Judkins did so, the man on the couch suddenly turned toward him. Judkins recognized Pierre. He kicked back the door and crouched low in the doorway, gripping his .38 in both hands.
“Put your hands on the wall!” he yelled.
Pierre moved quickly to his left. Judkins watched his hands until they were placed flat against the wall above a dresser. Knowing that Varley was covering him, Judkins slid his revolver back into its holster and popped out his handcuffs.
“Now put your hands behind your back, Pierre.”
Pierre brought his hands down from the wall in unison and held them behind his back.
“What’s this all about this time?” he asked Judkins.
“Hang on,” said Judkins, “the warrants will be here in a minute.”
With Pierre handcuffed, Varley holstered his gun, and the three men stood in the middle of the room, waiting for the other detectives to arrive. For the minute that ticked by, none of them spoke. Then the room suddenly filled with men wearing coats and ties, and carrying shotguns. One of the men told Pierre he was under arrest for first-degree murder, then held out the arrest warrant for Pierre to see. Pierre looked down at it for a moment, then raised his head and seemed to lock his eyes on a point somewhere just above the officer’s shoulder. The officer then handed Pierre a
card with the Miranda warning printed on it, and asked Pierre to read it. But Pierre only nodded like he understood and continued to stare.
As the officers brought the two men out of the barracks that night and placed them in separate squad cars, something none of them had ever heard in connection with their work now was beginning to break all around them. Applause. From the barracks to the east, hanging over the balconies clapping and whistling, were hundreds of airmen.
The airmen were still cheering when Greenwood pulled up in front of the barracks. Pierre was just being led into the parking lot, and Greenwood directed his men to put Pierre in the backseat of his car. Through it all Pierre’s expression had never changed. He had not spoken a word since he was arrested. When he was placed in the squad car, he continued to stare straight ahead. Airmen, some of them curious, some cutting up, strolled past the car and peered into the backseat at the man sitting there. Pierre ignored them.
Greenwood, mad that the detectives had moved on the barracks before the order had come down, but pleased that the arrests had been made so quickly and smoothly, climbed into the backseat of the squad car with Pierre. By now Pierre had been read his rights twice, but Greenwood read them to him again. Pierre gave no sign that he had heard Greenwood. When Greenwood next asked him if he wanted to say anything, Pierre remained silent, but this time he shook his head no.
In the other car Andrews was telling a uniformed officer that he and Pierre the night before had only driven into town with another airman named Keith Roberts, dropped Roberts off in town, driven around a bit, returned to the base to see the movie Blackbelt Jones, then gone out to a nearby 7-Eleven for a couple six-packs of beer and been back to the barracks and in bed by about midnight. Andrews didn’t elaborate, and the officer, although by now he had given Andrews his Miranda warning three times, didn’t press him for details.