Too Young to Kill

by M. William Phelps

  “She was driving her red Geo Prizm.” Brian spotted Sarah at the intersection of Millersburg Road and Route 17. He was heading to his farm; Sarah was driving in the opposite direction, toward Aledo.

  “I just assumed she must have been coming from my house,” he said, “after visiting with her grandmother.” (The Engle house and farm are not on the same property.)

  It was Mary’s birthday. Why wouldn’t her granddaughter be out there saying hello?

  “Did you see her anywhere else on that night?” one of the agents asked.

  Brian hesitated, a report of the conversation noted, as if he didn’t want to answer the question.

  “What is it?” the agent asked.

  Brian looked down at the ground. Then: “I saw her parked on the back side of the farm, later on that night.”

  “Explain. . . .”

  Brian said it was strange because a person had to leave the road to get out to that section of the farm where he saw Sarah’s car. Off-road driving in a Geo Prizm was not recommended by the manufacturer—that’s for sure.

  “Would you know of any legitimate reason why Sarah would be driving her car off the road onto the back of the farm?” one of the agents asked.

  “I do not know what she was doing out there,” Brian answered.

  “Could we have your consent to search the farm?” Brodersen asked. The implication was implicit in the agent’s tone: they could do this easily, without any trouble, or go through a judge.

  But a search was going to be conducted, one way or another.

  “I have a nephew . . . who is a former police officer,” Brian said. “He checked out that area already.”

  “We’re talking about a detailed search, Mr. Engle, of the entire property.”

  “I have over one hundred sixty acres, sir. It would be impossible for you to conduct a detailed search alone.”

  “We could bring whatever resources were necessary, Mr. Engle. We need your permission first, however.”

  Brian thought about it. He wasn’t thrilled with the idea of allowing the Illinois State Police to go through his entire farm, acre by acre, but he said he’d sign the waiver.

  Special Agent Brodersen explained that they’d be heading out there at once. It would help if Engle followed.

  Brian Engle said he’d meet them. He had a few more things he wanted to share, now that he had thought about it, regarding what had happened that night.

  19

  Jo was at home on Monday afternoon. Alone. Waiting for any news that might come in. She had Adrianne’s favorite teddy bear braced against her chest, hugging it tightly, as the ISP searched Adrianne’s room behind her. It was clear they knew a hell of a lot more than they were sharing.

  Jo was cool with that. A tragedy coming in little by little was okay.

  Good news all at once; bad news in spurts.

  It helped numb the pain.

  Cushion the blow.

  Cops don’t drop painful bombshells on family members as a case is unfolding, even if they know the ultimate outcome. Police give them time to take things in, bits and pieces, gradually.

  After a time, the detectives searching Adrianne’s room came out with several items. Papers, mainly. Notes. Letters. Address book.

  One of the cops sat down next to Jo. He must have picked up on what she was going through, how she was feeling.

  Was there any other way to put this?

  “Listen,” he said as Jo stared at him, “sometimes . . . you know, sometimes they don’t come home alive.”

  Jo was floored by this comment. What was he trying to say? Spit it out, man. Tell me.

  “Yeah . . . I guess” was all Jo could manage. She wanted to run, she said. Scream. Curl up in a ball. Roll away.

  “We’re hoping to have this case wrapped up real soon.”

  Jo shook her head and looked at both detectives.

  One of them said, “Somebody’s likely going to be going to prison for a long time.”

  “Is someone hiding her out?” Jo still wasn’t sold on the idea that Adrianne was dead. “Could they go to prison for a long time for that?”

  “Sure, they could.” There wasn’t much left to say. “We’ll be in touch soon, okay, Mrs. Reynolds,” one of the detectives said as they left.

  Still believing Adrianne was alive and hiding out somewhere, Jo called Adrianne’s work and told her boss, “If someone comes down there to pick her check up, do not give it to them. Call the police.”

  “Will do.”

  Somewhat panicked, not knowing what to think, Jo called the EMPD and told the officer in charge, “If you find Adrianne’s body, please don’t call Tony. Allow him to come home first.” She didn’t want Tony to have to drive all the way home from his shift with the burden of death on his shoulders.

  This damn roller-coaster ride. Jo hated it. Wished it would stop.

  Tony made it home a few hours later. They sat together and waited—hoping like heck Adrianne was going to call and say she had run away. Or maybe she’d even walk through the door. It’s a funny thing how hope has a way of always hovering there in the background, even when one’s gut says it’s over. It was hope keeping Tony in check, stopping him from driving over to Sarah’s or Cory’s and grabbing those kids by the neck and shaking them until they coughed up where the hell his daughter was being hidden. Hope kept Tony from a breakdown. Hope stopped Tony from driving down to the EMPD and demanding to know what the hell was going on. It was there in that possibility—small as it was—that Adrianne could walk through the door and Tony could erupt into Where the hell have you been?

  Hope, indeed, is what keeps most people from acting irrationally at times when the situation calls for it.

  Hope keeps emotions teetering on the balance between sanity and insanity.

  Hope allows people to go forward in the face of tragedy.

  Jo called some friends and family and explained the latest developments.

  Tony said he was driving down to those apartments nearby to have a look around again.

  “Someone’s got her! I know it.”

  It was all he could do not to knock on every single door.

  20

  Special Agent Chad Brodersen was escorted around Brian and Mary Engle’s farm by Brian Engle and a family member who had shown up at the family’s antique shop while Brian was answering questions. It was late afternoon now, January 25, Tuesday, the sun tucking itself behind the countryside, an orange ball of fuzzy fire getting ready to disappear for another night.

  Agent Brodersen wanted to begin the search at the spot where Brian had seen Sarah. There would be a team of investigators and crime scene techs coming out to the farm, but for now, Brodersen, Brian, and Brian’s nephew were the only ones out there.

  The area of Brodersen’s focus was secluded, about a half mile off the main drag (135th Street), set atop a steep grade near a couple of abandoned vehicles. What farm worth its salt doesn’t harbor the rusted carcasses of a couple of old cars and trucks perched up on cinder blocks, weeds growing crazily around, the windows smashed out, varmints of every type living inside.

  Around where Brodersen and the Engles walked, there were several brush piles concealed within several acres of thick timbers, Brodersen’s report noted.

  This was the sticks, as they say back East. Acres upon acres of what some call “God’s country.”

  Woods surrounded by flatland.

  By now, Brian Engle had told Special Agent Brodersen that Sarah was with Cory Gregory on that night he saw her car on the farm.

  Interesting.

  As they walked, Brodersen asked Brian, “Do you think maybe Sarah and Cory were ‘parking’ out here?” He meant like on lovers’ lane, getting their groove on.

  Brian Engle quickly shook his head no. “Not a chance.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re both gay!”

  “Okay.”

  “They were probably smoking.”

  “This is quite a distance from th
e road and your farmhouse to sneak a smoke.”

  It was near 4:00 P.M. by the time Brodersen was told that the Mercer County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO), along with other agents from the ISP, were going to be part of the search. The troops were on their way.

  As Brodersen and Brian walked, Brodersen asked Brian to go through one more time how he saw Sarah and Cory, using the landscape they were standing on as a model to explain that night.

  Brian talked about how he was feeding his cattle near 7:00 P.M. when he noticed a car parked across the field.

  He pointed.

  Then, he explained, he got into his pickup, shut off the lights, and began driving toward the car.

  “When I got to it, I saw this small red car speed off with its lights out. I followed the car north on 135th Street and was able to copy the license plate number.”

  He went back to feeding the cattle, telling himself that he’d call the police if he found anything missing or any part of the farm vandalized.

  After feeding his cows, Brian returned home to find the same red car parked in his driveway. The license plate matched his notes.

  Sarah!

  Brian got out of his truck and tossed his hat on the seat. He walked inside the farmhouse.

  Cory and Sarah were sitting there.

  As soon as Brian opened the door, Sarah said, “Grandpa, you scared the hell out of me!”

  “Why did you run off?”

  “I was scared,” Sarah said.

  “I wrote your plate down and gave it to the cops.”

  Grandpa Engle was playing a game with his granddaughter. He had never done that.

  Cory looked at Sarah, and Sarah at Cory. “Her mouth dropped,” Brian said later.

  He then left the room.

  “This was the first time,” Brian told Brodersen, “that I ever recall Sarah coming out here to visit us without her mother.”

  As they waited for the other investigators, Brodersen and Brian continued talking about Sarah and the past weekend. Brian explained that his wife, Mary, had told him she thought Sarah was “the last person to be seen with the missing girl,” Adrianne something. In almost the same breath, Mary had said, “Brian, Sarah is in trouble.”

  Brian said he had become concerned, after adding up all of the circumstances, and then went to check on his safe, where he kept his guns. He noticed the dial had been turned, but that no one had gotten inside.

  “She’s made a lot of positive changes in the last three months,” Brian Engle said of his granddaughter. “Sarah had removed all of her body jewelry, colored her hair back to its natural color, and she even started bathing again. She’s always been weird.”

  As the interview concluded, the search team arrived.

  21

  Somehow, perhaps by God’s grace, or maybe pure emotional exhaustion, Jo and Tony managed to go downstairs, crawl into bed, and fall asleep on the night of January 25, 2005. They didn’t know it, of course, but that search out at the Engle farm had yielded some answers—and more questions—into the investigation surrounding Adrianne’s disappearance.

  At 2:00 A.M., now January 26, the Wednesday after Adrianne vanished, Jo rustled around in bed, trying to find a few winks. Tony was sound asleep next to her. Then Jo thought she heard the telephone upstairs in the kitchen ringing.

  So she got up to make sure.

  And as she did, there was that sinking, sick feeling: nobody calls in the middle of the night with good news.

  Yet, in this case, it just might be that Adrianne was ready to come home.

  Jo put on her bathrobe and hurried upstairs.

  Maybe they found her.

  “Hey . . . we’re at your front door.”

  It was the police. They were calling from a cell phone outside on the front stoop, a little over twenty yards from where Jo was standing, holding the phone, inside her kitchen.

  Jo hung up. She stood for a moment in the kitchen, taking in the silence of the night. Bracing herself, she headed for the front door.

  22

  There is no silver lining in the news that a child has been found murdered. There is no way to sugarcoat what are the most disturbing and painful words a parent will ever hear. There is no way to prepare for the unbelievable truth that a sixteen-year-old child, a precious little girl who never seemed to find a home, will not walk through the door again. Her family will never hear her voice. See her smile. Watch the rise and fall of her chest, listening to that cute nose whistle, as she sleeps.

  A cop can only hope to catch the monsters responsible and bring that news to the family, too, at some point, but not right now.

  After Jo opened the door, she stared at the two detectives standing before her. There was a gaze of despair and dread on their faces.

  Right then, Jo knew Adrianne was gone. Nobody had to tell her. It was in the stillness of the early-morning hour.

  She felt sick to her stomach.

  “Is everyone here?” one of the detectives asked. “Are your sons home?”

  There was a glimmer of hope there for a brief moment.

  What, are they now going to accuse my sons of doing something to Adrianne?

  “I wanted to run . . . ,” Jo recalled. “Just run as far away as I could get.”

  Hug herself. Crawl into a corner. Hide from the world.

  Tony was downstairs, still sleeping. He had no idea what was going on.

  “Come in,” Jo said. She started to shake. “Yes . . . yes . . . everyone is here. What’s going on?”

  Heading toward the back door of the Reynolds home, a breezeway led outside. Jo brought them into that area of the house.

  “Tony’s still downstairs sleeping,” Jo said as they entered the small foyer. Then she stepped out of the enclosure and yelled, “Tony! Tony! Tony!” Her voice cracking, a pain, buried deep, emerging. “The police are here, Tony. Oh, my goodness.”

  Tony came running up the stairs in his shorts. Sleep crust still in his eyes.

  “What—what is it?”

  Tony was told to sit down.

  “And as the detective was saying the words—that they had found Adrianne—I am telling myself that this really isn’t happening,” Jo recalled.

  “In a park . . . ,” the cop said, his best game face on.

  Tony broke down. Bawled. Dropped his head into his hands.

  Which kept Jo busy. She was determined to calm Tony down. Comfort him.

  I cannot believe this.... This cannot be true.

  “What happened? What happened?” Tony said out loud.

  “Look, we found her body in a park and we arrested a girl.”

  Sarah.

  “We don’t want you to try to take the law into your own hands. We’re going to see that justice is done.”

  Tony collected himself, best he could. A thousand questions, like inaudible whispers in his head, taking the place of any serenity he had left.

  Jo called her brother.

  A police chaplain arrived.

  The detectives left the house. They had work to do. There was a bit of information they had not shared with Jo and Tony at this time, for whatever reason. It was the manner in which Adrianne had been murdered, and, more gruesomely, what her killer (or killers, they didn’t say) had done to her after she had died.

  She had been found in a park, the cops had said.

  Not a farm. But a park.

  How in the hell did Adrianne end up in a park?

  At eleven o’clock that same morning, law enforcement held a press conference. Jo and Tony watched from their living room. It would be nice to get a few details about what had happened to Tony’s baby girl. Thus far, the cops had been tight-lipped.

  Friends, family, and even strangers stopped by the house to offer support. Jo and Tony had not slept all night. They were tired, upset, in a state of shock.

  Definitely not prepared to hear what was coming next.

  Carolyn Franco, Adrianne’s biological mother, had made the trip up from Texas and was at the house, too.r />
  It was the headline that startled them.

  When the announcer said it, it was as if it didn’t register.

  According to what the news conference reported, Adrianne’s murder was a buildup, beginning back during those three-plus months between the time Adrianne arrived in East Moline from Texas for the second time and the day she went missing. During this brief period, the complete story of how she had turned up dead, and—as that headline had so soberly broadcast—was dismembered into pieces and left in that park and another part of the state, unfolded in a way that is maybe all too common these days. A tragedy began for Adrianne Reynolds on the day she first walked into Black Hawk Outreach and met up with a group of kids with whom she never truly fit in.

  PART II

  “LIKE SLAUGHTERING SHEEP”

  23

  When Sarah Kolb was a freshman at Rock Island High School in 2002, she dated a junior, Danielle Mayor (pseudonym). The relationship was a bit rocky and tenuous because Danielle’s mother did not like Sarah and did not want her daughter hanging with her, much less dating.

  Sarah’s reaction to Danielle after being confronted with this news said a lot about where her life was headed: “I cannot hang out with someone who can’t stand up for themselves.”

  Before they broke up, while standing in the parking lot of the school one afternoon, Sarah talked about one of her favorite subjects.

  Death.

  “I wonder,” Sarah said, according to what Danielle later told police, “what it would be like to murder someone, cut them up, bury their body in a park—and get away with it!”

  Danielle didn’t know how to react to such a statement. She was “freaked out,” a report of the conversation explained, and probably glad to have Sarah out of her life not long after.

  Asked to describe Sarah, Danielle gave cops one word: “Angry.”

  Sarah could snap at the simplest suggestion or comment. In 2003, a friend e-mailed Sarah and asked if she was “having sex” with another girl at school. Sarah was openly bisexual by then; there was no question about her sexuality or who she dated.