Gone Forever

by Diane Fanning

  Ann, Kirsten and Brandon went inside the house where the elder McFarlands were now in residence. Open Bibles competed with dirty dishes and scattered toys for space. Kirsten noted that there were more Bibles than there were people.

  Pete tried to avoid seeing Rick by ducking into Charlene’s house for a while. But when he came out, Rick was in the yard. Pete suppressed the urge to put his hands around Rick’s neck and choke him until he confessed. Instead, he asked a few questions. Pete’s anger grew with Rick’s dazed answers and pretense that he did not know what was going on.

  Pete wanted to break through that barrier of bewildered indifference. He said that he was glad the Texas Rangers were on the job, because they were the best. “They’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

  Rick blanched. He looked as shocked and pained as if Pete had just dropped a big boulder on his foot.

  After Sue’s family members left to go to the police station, Charlene approached Rick and asked about the boys.

  “The boys are doing okay,” Rick said.

  Charlene then played the provocateur—for the purpose of observing Rick’s reaction. She expressed dismay at the thought that anything bad had happened to Sue. She was stunned by his emotionless and inappropriate response.

  “You know, Susan never liked the white van. She’s been wanting a new car,” he said. Then he added that he’d taken Sue to test-drive one at the Texaco on Austin Highway.

  Charlene repeated her concerns about Sue.

  Rick said, “You know, I took the carpet all out of my van and took it to be cleaned.”

  On December 6 at 7 A.M., Palmer, Wedding, Trevino and Texas Ranger Marrie Garcia took their places for the surveillance of the McFarland house. Forty minutes later, Rick and the three boys trailed out of the house and drove off. The investigators followed Rick to his first stop, Woodridge Elementary School. Rick parked the car and briefed the boys on what they should and should not talk about, and James and William got out and went into the school. Rick then drove over to the Howard Early Childhood Learning Center and dropped off Timmy.

  Driving up Lorenz Road, just west of Nacogdoches Road, Rick pulled off onto the shoulder. As Rick talked on his cell phone, Palmer approached the van. He informed Rick that he had a search warrant for a sample of blood and a full set of fingerprints. He cuffed Rick’s hands in front and eased him into the back of the state vehicle. Texas Ranger Garcia got behind the wheel of McFarland’s Windstar and followed Palmer to University Hospital.

  En route, Rick asked when he would get the property back that was seized in the search. Palmer said that the time frame was unknown just now. For a few blocks, Rick said nothing, then he pleaded for the return of the receipts in the plastic folder taken from the Suburban.

  A registered nurse took Rick’s blood sample. While he was occupied in the hospital, DPS officers attached a tracking device to his van.

  As soon as the nurse finished with the procedure, Rick placed a call to his attorney, Mark Stevens. He handed the cell phone to Palmer.

  “Do not ask Richard McFarland any questions. Richard McFarland has invoked his right to remain silent and not be questioned,” Stevens told the Texas Ranger.

  Palmer and Wedding escorted Rick to the security office at the hospital where they rolled two sets of fingerprints and a set of palm prints. Palmer used a digital camera to shoot the injuries on Rick’s hands.

  Having spent the morning with the search teams, Ann was unaware of Rick’s forced visit to the hospital. While he was still there, she called and asked him to meet her and Kirsten at Denny’s for lunch. She wanted to tell him that Sue’s plans for divorce would be revealed in the news so that he could prepare the three boys for that revelation.

  Rick said that he could not meet them because he was “out of pocket.” He added, “My lawyer told me not to talk to you.”

  “Then just come and listen, because I have to tell you something,” Ann said.

  Rick agreed and joined the two women at the restaurant. He did not mention his adventure that morning, but asked, “Can they convict a person with only one drop of blood?”

  “They can convict a person with no blood,” Ann replied. She then told Rick about Sue’s divorce plans, believing that he was unaware of them.

  To her surprise, Rick didn’t react as if it was news to him. He simply said, “Don’t you think it was mean and unfair for her to do this at Christmastime?”

  In the face of his wife’s disappearance, his focus on the timing of the divorce was bizarre. Neither woman had any more doubt about his responsibility for whatever had happened to Susan.

  Rick excused himself to go to the men’s room. Feeling sick and angry at the conclusions they had now reached about Rick, Ann and Kirsten discussed the need to continue to treat him as if they thought he was blameless.

  Kirsten wanted to lash out at him, but understood the need to suppress that desire. She did, however, insist that they would not pay for Rick’s lunch.

  Many miles from the Arcadia Place search site, on Foster Road in the eastern part of the county, a man spotted an odd bundle of fabric in a ditch. He stopped to examine it and discovered it was a bed sheet wrapped around a bloody mattress pad and four bloody pillows. The Bexar County Sheriff’s Department took custody of this possible evidence and contacted the Texas Rangers. Many hours were consumed pursuing this lead—but it went nowhere.

  That afternoon, Rick agreed to allow Ann and Kirsten to take the boys away from the home for a couple of days. He didn’t want them exposed to the press around the house. He also didn’t want the media to see the two women picking up the boys. He arranged a rendezvous at a nearby McDonald’s. “In typical Rick fashion, the McDonald’s he chose was a closed-down store,” Ann said.

  Knowing they were going to a McDonald’s, the boys were ready to eat. Ann and Kirsten loaded them into the car and headed out to find another fast food place.

  Ann was driving, so Kirsten had to deal with the situation when the kids started misbehaving. She went to the back seat and sent William up to the front.

  Ann said, “William, I am very disappointed in your behavior. You’re the oldest. I expect you to set an example for the other boys with all that is going on.”

  “You know, Aunt Ann, my dad told me that it’s up to me whether he stays with us or spends the rest of his life in prison.”

  That statement brought an abrupt end to Ann’s lecture.

  At Wendy’s on Broadway, Ann called the investigators and said, “William has been saying some strange things about what happened to his mom.”

  “We’ll figure out the best thing to do and call you back,” they told her.

  Two minutes later, her cell phone rang. “Can you get the other two boys out of there?”

  With Harley and Pete now in town, too, it was a simple request to accommodate. After James and Timmy were gone, Investigator Wedding arrived to talk to William.

  Wedding had just two questions for the boy. First he asked, “When was the last time you saw your mommy?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Is there something you want to tell me about your mom’s disappearance?”

  William said that he and a friend went into 356 Arcadia Place. They saw blood inside that house that smelled weird, and he saw one of his mom’s diamond earrings and one of her shoes. William rambled on for a few minutes, not saying anything that made much sense. Then he said, “My dad got down on his hands and knees and looked all over for evidence and blood.” After that, William said, “I don’t want to talk anymore. I want to leave.”

  As she left the restaurant, Ann turned to Wedding. “William said if he told me what he knows, he could send his dad to jail.”

  That statement shook Wedding. What did that poor young boy see? What secrets was he keeping for his father?

  That night, officers searched 356 Arcadia Place. They found no blood, no earring, no evidence of a crime.

  34

  Carol Finley, Timmy’s teacher
at Howard Early Childhood Learning Center called Rick and offered to help in any way she could. Since she had a master’s degree in counseling, she was willing to talk to Timmy—he could even spend the night with her if that would help.

  “How can I explain what’s going on with the boys?” Rick asked. “Would it be easier for a child to find out their parent was hit by a car? Or for them to think the parent was not here, but would come back?”

  “Be honest with the boys,” Carol urged, “and tell them the truth.”

  Rick then told Carol that he was a suspect in the disappearance of his wife.

  Jennifer Biry phoned the McFarland home and spoke to Mona. “Is there anything I can do to help you with the boys?”

  “Yes. You can help with the meals,” Mona said.

  Jennifer prepared and delivered dinner to the family twice a week after that call. She did not stop until Mona called and asked her to stop. “Rick doesn’t want anyone coming around the house anymore,” she said.

  Fifty-two friends and family members—many clutching walking sticks—gathered for a detailed search of John James Park with the help of dogs and a mule. Sue’s brother Pete told the gathered media, “We are grasping. At this point, it is necessary to grasp.”

  A great many of the volunteers were SBC employees. Also present were the brothers, cousins, and a sister-in-law of Carmen Alcaraz, who had been reported missing a month before Susan’s disappearance and still had not been found. Organizing a search for Carmen was far more difficult than planning one for Sue. Carmen was last seen leaving a bar with a stranger. Where do you begin to search when you don’t know where she went or who was with her?

  The Alcaraz family wanted to help the Smiths find Sue, but also hoped that while searching for her, they might find Carmen. They were present every day, but their search would continue for more than a year.

  On December 12, Judge Sharon McCrae of the 290th District Court authorized another search of 351 Arcadia Place. The next morning at 8, officers arrived to execute the warrant.

  Texas Ranger Sergeant Shawn Palmer went to the side door and told Dick McFarland that he needed to speak to his son. The elder McFarland left to find him. When Dick did not return after a few minutes, Palmer stepped inside the house. On the first floor, he saw both of Rick’s parents and his youngest son. Timmy was impressed with the regulation Stetson hat that the Texas Ranger wore—he later told his classmates that cowboys came to his house.

  Palmer followed the sound of Rick’s voice up to the second floor, where the door to the office was ajar. Palmer crossed the threshold and saw Rick talking on his cell phone.

  After Rick ended his call, Palmer informed him of the new search warrant. He held out his hand and asked for the cell phone—Palmer knew the device also served as Rick’s PDA and therefore contained possible evidence. Rick pulled the phone away to the other side of his body, forcing Palmer to grab his hand and take the device by force.

  Downstairs, Palmer explained to Rick and his parents that the day’s search included the use of chemicals. The house would have to air out for twenty-four hours after application. The family had to gather what they would need for that period of time and vacate the premises.

  As the McFarlands prepared to leave, Palmer noticed that Rick was carrying a briefcase. He searched it and confiscated three computer disks, a packet of receipts and other documents of possible evidentiary interest.

  When the family left, officers covered drawn shades in the master bedroom and Rick’s office with opaque black plastic. They applied a double thickness to the skylight in the master bathroom.

  When the techs arrived from Austin, they applied luminol in the master bath—on the shower surround, the commode, the vanity area, closet and doors. A bottle of cleansing gel in the shower caddy glowed bright. Several spots of luminescence winked on a small wicker wastebasket. A pattern of 90-degree droplets stood out on the bathroom scale. They applied luminol in the master bedroom and in the second-floor hall bathroom, too.

  While evidence professionals were busy with spraying and photographing, other officers focused search efforts on the Windstar and its contents and Rick’s home office and his computers. They confiscated seven desktop computers—five Hewlett-Packard Pavilions, one Compaq Presario, and one ePower—as well as laptops and a Qualcomm cellular phone.

  In Rick’s second-floor office, Palmer opened the bottom drawer of the file cabinet closest to the door and removed a box containing forty-nine rounds of Federal .380 ammunition along with three magazines for it. From a locked back room in the garage, Palmer recovered a Mossberg 12-gauge pump shotgun and a Johnson Arms .44-caliber rifle. Both weapons had dirt in their barrels and appeared unused. At 4:20, the search was complete. Palmer called Rick and left behind a printed information sheet regarding the safety hazards of the chemical spraying.

  From there, the investigators headed to the Public Storage facility on Broadway to search Rick’s rented unit. They recovered a Visa card in Susan’s name as well as documents relating to real estate owned by the couple in Bexar and Comal Counties.

  A reconnaissance team from the search center checked out the property at 119 Peck Avenue. The area consisted of several overgrown lots—none big enough to build a home. It was impossible to figure out which one was owned by Rick or why he would even want the property at all. They did not get out and search the area because of the large number of aggressive-looking dogs that were running loose.

  On December 16, the ongoing search for Susan McFarland stepped up a notch. At the request of Sue’s sister Ann, Texas EquuSearch, a Houston-based mounted search and recovery organization joined in the hunt.

  Before beginning for the day, Tim Miller, director of the group, stopped by 351 Arcadia and asked Rick to help them search. Rick requested and received a business card from Miller, but never called and did not participate.

  With dogs, horses, helicopters, all-terrain vehicles, a high-tech ground penetrating system and fifty local volunteers, Texas EquuSearch explored a number of areas including Olmos Basin Park in China Grove, open land near Salado Creek and an oil field near Loop 410—one of the two circular highways that wrapped around San Antonio.

  Before the searchers set out on their mission, Tim Miller said, “If there is any ground at all that looks like it’s been disturbed, call in on it.” The equipment the team brought to San Antonio had the capability of scanning up to eight feet deep. The shovel found in the back of the Suburban made the possibility of a burial likely.

  In Mahncke Park, they checked out the source of a foul odor with dogs from the Greater Bexar Search and Rescue Team. The remains found were not human, but a squad of firefighters searched the whole length of the tunnel for everyone’s peace of mind.

  At the end of the day, the only suspicious items uncovered were a bone and a sweater. Palmer turned these items over to Sergeant Wedding, but said they appeared to have been outside far too long to be connected with Sue’s disappearance.

  Carrie Miller was one of the many who helped out with the searches. She did the best she could, but was not confident that she would know what was important when she saw it.

  When she was told to watch out for snakes, she wanted to leave. But she stuck it out for Sue. No matter how hard she tried to banish the worry from her mind, snakes wriggled through her thoughts with every step she took.

  Harriet Wells expected to see masses of media vehicles on Arcadia when she visited her old house. But she was shaken when she pulled into the street of her new place and saw satellite uplink trucks, vans, cars with cardboard press signs pressed in the windows. She worried: Was another woman missing?

  Unbeknownst to Harriet, another chapter in the disappearance of Sue McFarland had just begun on her street. A few doors down from her home, the search headquarters set up in St. David’s Episcopal Church, and the media followed like puppies to a bag of biscuits.

  The next day, Texas EquuSearch went back to work. “We’re looking for old, lonely roads. Roads going into f
ields—anything like that, where it’s easy access and easy to dump something,” Miller told the gathered crowd of volunteers and media.

  About eighty volunteers were on hand on this day—searching through woods and fields for freshly dug earth, bones, clothing or strong odors. They searched Brackenridge Park near the H-E-B Science Treehouse—an area where Rick had been seen. Cadaver dogs were sent to examine a hill near the Witte Museum. They found a bounty of used tires and old cans, but uncovered nothing connected to Susan McFarland.

  Once again, Rick did not assist with the search, but he was paying attention to it. About noon that day, he drove to Alamo Stadium and parked in the lot for one hour. From that vantage point, he could spy on the volunteer searchers as they worked in Brackenridge Park.

  While Rick made his observations, David took a couple of the boys to Wendy’s. There, Julie Speer approached him to encourage counseling for the children.

  The next day, Julie received a call from Rick. She asked him how he was doing.

  “Bad. I’m having to practice creative thinking,” Rick said. He then asked Julie about the conversation she had with his brother David. Julie told Rick where he could get counseling for his boys.

  “I’ve been put in a box by legal counsel because of the peculiarities of this,” Rick said. “I cannot take a breath without going to them.”

  “I think the boys might need help dealing with this,” Julie urged.

  “I hadn’t thought about that, but my brother is in town and he’s good at slapping me around. But the boys are fine—what I need help with is after-school care.”

  On December 20, a Heidi Search Center reconnaissance team checked out a creek by East Houston Street near the interchange of Loop 410 and Interstate Highway 10. The Indian Guides had an outing in that area in the past, but the search scouts found nothing suspicious there.

  Next-door neighbor Charlene Schooling always had a clear view from her home of the primary color scheme of the airy, open McFarland kitchen. The week before Christmas, that changed. Rick covered all the windows with placemats.