The abandoned farm in rural Bexar County where Richard McFarland burned the body of his wife, Susan. Courtesy Texas Department of Public Safety
Martin Castillo, Forensic Autopsy Technician at the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office, takes his first look at the charred remains of Susan McFarland in the autopsy suite in San Antonio. Courtesy Terrell Hills Police Department
Ana, the cat belonging to the oldest of the three McFarland boys, rubs on a pot on the porch at 351 Arcadia Place. Photo by Diane Fanning
Christmas 2004—at Sue’s grave. Courtesy Ann Smith Carr
22
Sally the dog was in the McFarlands’ front yard. When Susan Schooling stepped outside, she spoke to her, but was not greeted by Sally’s usual exuberance. Back inside, Susan said, “Mom, Sally just looked at me and she looked so sad.”
A little while later, Charlene let her dogs out. Within minutes a cacophonous barking fest began. Charlene stepped out to quiet them. While she scolded her pets, the front door of the McFarlands’ house cracked open. Rick stuck his head outside.
“Hi, Rick. Sorry about the dogs.”
Rick popped his head back inside the door without saying a word.
At 10:30, the phone rang at the Matthews home. Rick told Bill that Sue went out with a bunch of stuff to drop off and asked if he had seen her. Then Rick called Blanca. He told her that he had loaded up Sue’s car and she had not gotten back yet. “Is she at your house?”
Around 1:30 to 2:00 that morning, Charlene and Susan Schooling were out walking their dogs. They noticed the rear and side doors of the white van were all wide open and Rick was rolling a Shop-Vac from the car to the house. After their walk, Charlene and Susan made a run to Wal-Mart. They returned home at 4 A.M. From the skylight in Sue’s bathroom, light streaked into the night sky. They thought it odd, at the time. Sue always went to bed early.
Susan obsessed about the light to the point of irritating her mother. “If you are so worried about it, go knock on the door and ask,” Charlene said.
In the days to come, they wished Susan had knocked on that door—it might have spared Sue’s family the agony of a prolonged search.
On Tuesday morning, at 7:27, Rick called Sue’s work phone. “Susan, Rick,” he began as usual. “Did you get up real early this morning? I went to bed at four-forty-five, and you still hadn’t come back, so I don’t know if you were partying with Margot for her birthday or what. Give me a call when you get in and on my cell. Thanks.”
At 7:45, Margot’s daughter Ellen looked outside and saw Sue’s Ford Explorer parked across from the house. She also saw Rick walking down the street away from it. She said nothing to her mother.
Margot took the kids to school, then she and her friend Tom hit the road on a special mission. Tom wanted to go to Crawford, Texas, to get his picture shot in front of the convenience store George W. Bush patronized when he was in his Texas White House. They were on a tight time schedule—mapquest.com told them the trip was three and a half hours each way—and they needed to get there and back before the kids got out of school.
Just south of Austin, Margot’s cell phone rang. It was Rick McFarland. “Did you get my messages?” he asked.
“What messages?”
“I left you messages last night at home and on your cell phone.”
“Oh, I went to bed early,” Margot said, then paused waiting for Rick to tell her about the messages. He didn’t say a word. “What were the messages, Rick?” she asked—impatience sharpening the edges of her words.
“I called you at ten-fifteen because I couldn’t find Susan.”
That’s odd, Margot thought. He’d never wondered about Sue’s whereabouts before.
“She went out and never came back,” Rick continued.
“Well, what was she doing, Rick?”
“She had me load up the car with stuff and she was running errands.”
“Where was she running errands at that time of night?” Margot asked.
“Well, she had a bottle of wine. I thought maybe she was sharing a birthday bottle with you.”
“Rick? How did the kids get to school this morning?”
“What do you mean?”
Margot blew out a hard breath of frustration. “Did the kids take the bus? Did you take the kids to school? Did Sue drop them off?”
“Oh. They took the bus.”
“Did you call Sue’s work?”
“Well, I called and left a message, but she didn’t return my call.”
“Why don’t you call her supervisor—who she reports to?”
“Well, okay. I’ll do that.”
After she hung up, Margot turned to Tom. “That is the weirdest phone call I ever had.” She then called the school to check up on the kids. None of the boys were at school. Sue must have taken them to Amarillo or Houston or St. Louis, she thought.
At 8 A.M., Blanca Hernandez called Sue’s work phone: “So where were you last night at ten-thirty? Call me.” Blanca was relieved—Sue had recorded a new message, so she must have changed the password.
The next message was from Margot Cromack. “Hey, Susan, it’s Margot. Could you give me a call back on the cell when you get back? Talk to ya soon. Bye.”
Rick took Timmy to school—but he was running late again. He stopped by the nurse’s office to get a tardy slip. Timmy was wearing only one shoe. The nurse sent him to get a pair in the clinic. Rick had blood on his ear and scratches on his face. He said he’d been running and taken a spill. He didn’t have his wallet to pay for the shoes.
An hour later, it was Molly Matthews’ turn to call Sue. “Susan, this is Molly. Where—I’m wondering where you are. Please give us a call. We’re worried about you. Rick had called us last night looking for you, so give me a call. I’m on my way to work and I can be reached on my cell. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”
At 10:40, Rick called Sue’s work number again. “Susan, Rick. I wish you’d call on the cell. I’m getting sandpaper for buffing the hardwood floors so we can get started on that. Please give a call as soon as possible. Thanks.”
At 11 A.M., one of Sue’s co-workers thought she had seen Sue by the elevator early in the morning. But when she went to Sue’s office later that day to get a signature on a document, Sue was not there.
Real estate agent Deborah Myers was at the Wellses’ house, across the street from the McFarlands’. At 11:45, Rick came over, wringing his hands and apologizing for parking his minivan in the driveway. “Is it going to be in your way?”
“No,” she told him. “I’m not going to be using the back door.”
“What is the new owner going to do with the house? Is it really going to be bulldozed?”
When she told him that was the plan, he asked her if the garage would be bulldozed, too. “Why don’t you talk to Harriet? She’ll be here any minute now,” Deborah said.
Rick’s nervousness at that suggestion was obvious. He scurried back across the street and into his own home.
A little later, Harriet Wells arrived at the house. Deborah told her about her encounter with Rick. “It is unusual that he would park in this driveway, but he is an unusual man.”
Rick called Betty Saenz, one of Sue’s co-workers, with the claim that he was looking for Susan. Betty said she had not seen Sue that day, but another employee had.
Rick giggled. “Oh, someone saw her?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll keep trying to reach her then.” At 4:15, he recorded another message on Sue’s voicemail at work, “Susan, Rick. Please give me a call.”
On the way back from Crawford, Margot called Rick. “Did you talk to Susan?” she asked, but got no response. “Did you talk to who she reports to?”
Rick stammered, not seeming to understand the questions at all.
“Remember, Rick? We talked earlier today,” she said, and then refreshed his memory about their conversation.
“Oh, yeah, right,” he said. “I’ll call them right away.”
On the o
ther side of the Schooling house was the home of Richard and Mimi Riley. Their two daughters were grown and out on their own, making the residence a lot quieter than the boy-filled dwelling two doors up. Marvin the cat appreciated this difference and often wandered up to the Riley house for some solitude. At times, when the boys carried him home, Marvin made a beeline back to the Rileys’ the moment he was out of their arms.
Mimi, a third grade teacher, was home from work late Tuesday afternoon when Rick McFarland dropped by.
“I wanted to talk to Richard about the cat.”
As Mimi explained that her husband was not home from work, Rick’s cell phone rang.
“Hi, Susan,” he said. “I’m down here talking to Mimi about Marvin.”
At the time, Mimi thought nothing of the call—she did not yet know that Sue was missing.
On Wednesday, November 27, around 4 A.M., Susan Schooling went out to her car. She saw Sue McFarland’s Ford Explorer backing out of the driveway and heading west. How strange, she thought, to see Sue’s car leaving at this hour. Sue always went to bed at 9:30 and got up at 5. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see Rick’s car on the road at this time, because he was such a night owl. But Sue?
Margot called Rick that morning and asked, “Have you heard from Susan?”
“No.”
“Do you think she went to Amarillo with the boys?”
“I don’t know.” Rick still allowed Margot to believe the boys were not with him.
“Have you called Amarillo?” she asked, but Rick did not respond. “Did you call Ann?”
“Yes, but you know how those girls like to shop. I just left a message.”
“Rick, are you telling me that you guys would travel that far with the kids and not call each other to let the other one know you got there safe?”
Rick did not respond.
“Your relationship is in worse shape than I thought,” Margot added.
Once again, Rick had nothing to say. Thinking he would be all alone on Thanksgiving Day, Margot took pity on him. “Why don’t you come over our house for Thanksgiving?”
“I’ve got plans with friends,” he said.
Dee Ann Dowlen called Sue that afternoon at 2:15. “Susan, this is Dee Ann and I was just calling to say Happy Thanksgiving, and we’re still wanting you to come up here. Talk to you later or after Thanksgiving. Bye-bye.”
Out in southeast rural Bexar County, Gil Medillin observed the frequent passage of two unknown vehicles that week—a two-toned Suburban and a black SUV. He tried to wave down the SUV one night, but the driver would not stop. On Wednesday, he saw smoke rising from near an abandoned farmhouse. He did not connect the incidents.
That afternoon, a nervous-sounding man called Little Caesars Pizza on Austin Highway and placed an order for three cheese pizzas for delivery to 351 Arcadia. Arthur Pena made the delivery just after 5:30. A small boy answered the door.
“Is your mom or dad here?” Pena asked.
“My dad is,” he said and called out for him several times.
At the top of the stairs across from the front door, Rick McFarland appeared in a pair of clear surgical gloves. As he walked down the steps, Pena told him he had a pizza for him.
“My wife must have ordered it. I didn’t,” he said. Then, Rick wandered back and forth on the first floor and then up to the second in a search for money. “I have a credit card,” he finally told Pena.
“I don’t have a machine, but we can call Little Caesars and give them the number.” Pena followed Rick through the dining room and into the kitchen to make the call. But the phone was not in the cradle. Rick pushed a button to set the phone off. When it chirped, one of the boys found it down in the sofa cushions and brought it to his dad.
Rick handed the phone to Pena, saying, “I can’t dial with these gloves on.”
Pena dialed the number and handed the phone back to Rick. After the call, Rick said, “I have to have the receipt. Bring it back to me and I’ll give you a big tip—four or five dollars.”
Pena insisted that was not necessary, but Rick persisted, saying, “I have to have that receipt.”
After making several other deliveries, Pena returned to 351 Arcadia a little after 8:30. Again, one of the boys answered the door and yelled for his dad. Rick appeared once more at the top of the stairs and closed the door behind him before descending. Still in surgical gloves, he signed the receipt and gave Pena a $3 tip.
That same night, at 1 A.M., southeast Bexar County resident Raul Ruiz returned home from the motorcycle races at River City Raceway near Seguin. Driving down South W.W. White Road, he noticed a Suburban parked out in front of an old farmhouse. From a distance, the person with the car looked like a skinhead—maybe one of those kids stealing motorcycles in the area, he thought.
Ruiz slowed his car and rolled down the window. When he stopped, he realized it was not a teenager. It was a middle-aged man with a crew cut and a receding hairline standing holding out a dark bag in the direction of the trees. He thought he’d ask the man if he needed help. But then the man turned his head in Ruiz’s direction. The expression on his face was strange and inexplicable. Startled, Ruiz drove away.
One of those sightings marked the night that Rick McFarland drove the stolen Suburban east on Arcadia Place to Burr Duval and headed north to Grandview. He followed that road to Rittiman and then headed south until he reached Interstate 35. In a short while, he veered left off the highway onto Loop 410 where he exited on W.W. White Road.
It was a journey of 15.2 miles to the dreary spot where he abandoned the body of his wife—the mother of his three children—in a rusty, makeshift trailer on the bleak side of town.
Another of these sightings coincided with the return trip he made to set her body on fire. Did he go alone on his funeral pyre excursion? Or did he, as he so often had, leave William and James home alone and take Timmy along for the ride? If Timmy was with him, surely Rick left him in the vehicle while he set the match to obscure Sue’s identity. What could Rick have said to him? “Wait here, Timmy, I need to burn some trash”? The possibility that this scenario did occur is real. The horror of it is overwhelming.
Moments before 3 A.M. early Thanksgiving morning, Corporal Joseph Piccolella of the Terrell Hills Police Department was on patrol when he spotted a 1997 Black Eddie Bauer edition Ford Explorer parked in an empty lot on Lazy Lane. He parked directly behind it—he assumed he’d stumbled across a couple of teenagers making out. He used his alley light and the high beams on his police car to brighten the interior of the Explorer, but no heads popped up—there was no movement inside at all. He approached slowly with his flashlight and noticed the vehicle was unlocked and no one was inside. He placed his hand on the hood—it was cold to the touch. He pointed his flashlight at the bushes to see if an amorous couple cuddled in the greenery. No one.
He called in the plates. The vehicle was registered to Richard and Susan McFarland at nearby 351 Arcadia Place. He opened the driver’s door and spotted a key in the ignition. He removed the keys and secured the SUV by clicking the lock control device on the key chain. He contacted Dispatch and asked them to find out if the owners were aware of the location of their car.
The dispatcher called 351 Arcadia and Rick answered. “I have an officer with Terrell Hills out with your vehicle on an empty lot at the end of Lazy Lane.”
Rick sounded surprised and asked where Lazy Lane was.
“It’s in Terrell Hills, right off Ivy Lane.”
“It’s in Terrell Hills?” Rick said.
“Yes.”
“Not—not—uh . . .”
“Alamo Heights?” the dispatcher offered.
“Amarillo, Texas?”
“Amarillo, Texas?”
“Yeah,” Rick said, “that’s where my wife is supposed to be. It’s supposed to be in Amarillo, Texas.”
“It is?”
“Yeah.”
After informing the officer of this exchange, the dispatcher called Rick again. “Sorr
y to call you back. The officer’s wondering if you’re gonna be able to go out there or . . .”
“Yeah, yeah. I mean, don’t let him stand out there. I’m trying to get hold of this other party. That’s why I didn’t call you back yet.” Rick then asked a series of questions attempting to pin down the exact location of the Explorer. Then he asked what the officer was planning to do.
The dispatcher put him on hold and checked with Officer Piccolella. When she returned to Rick, she said, “Okay, um, he can either wait on you . . .”
Rick interrupted, “I’ll tell you what—just have him bring the keys in, ’cause I’ve got to wait for this phone call.”
“Okay. So have him bring the . . .”
“Bring—Bring—Bring the keys into the station and I’ll drive out there and look at it, so he’s not, you know, standing there looking at the stars and I’m waiting for this phone call.”
“Okay,” the dispatcher said.
“Um. So, it’s off of Ivy, it’s on La—Lazy—Lane and it’s located . . .”
“It’s in an empty lot.”
“In a lot? In an empty lot?” Rick asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay. Just have him bring the keys in the station and I’ll look at the car and come to the station.”
“If not, he said he can take the keys to your residence,” the dispatcher suggested.
“No, don’t do that. I’m—I’m gonna—Uh—Uh—I’ll—I’ll go . . .”
“Just take them to the station?”
“Let’s just say I’ll pick them up at the station,” Rick said.
“Okay.”
“I’ll pick them up at the station. Thanks a lot.”
Piccolella left the keys on Corporal Homer Delgado’s desk at the Terrell Hills Police Department. Delgado waited—and waited—for Rick McFarland to pick them up.
23
Early Thanksgiving morning, Charlene Schooling awoke to an annoying sound. She got up and peered out her windows and listened. Not a lawnmower. Not a trimmer. It was a circular saw, she thought. And it’s coming from the McFarland house.
Gone Forever Page 11