Deadly Devotion

by Alysia Sofios

  Max got halfway out of his chair and yelled at me through his open door. “Get on the phone with CNN and get some video of famous cult deaths, Alysia. And find out where they got those damn coffins!”

  I immediately called CNN. Although we are a Fox station, we subscribe to a service that gives us quick access to CNN’s old news footage.

  “Yeah, give me all the file video you have of David Koresh,” I said, running through a mental checklist as I watched my boss heading down the staircase with his eye fixed on me. He definitely had more orders but held off when he saw I was on the phone. “Ummmm, do you have any Jonestown video?”

  “Hale-Bopp! Don’t forget those Hale-Bopp folks!” he barked at me as he stormed past. “The ones with the tennis shoes!”

  The woman working the CNN archive desk must have heard my boss screaming. “I think we have that Heaven’s Gate shot with the shoes and the bunk beds,” she told me. “I’ll get it on a feed as soon as possible.”

  I felt we should be putting our attention on a more local angle—trying to track down the surviving members of this massacred family, not chasing cult stories that had happened in other cities—but I didn’t have the time or the opportunity to protest. I’d been a TV reporter for seven years, most of the time in Michigan and the past five months in Fresno, and was still learning the ropes of being in a bigger market.

  I leaned back into my squishy chair and tried to think of other ways to chase the story. Then, worried my boss would mistake my concentration for laziness, I sprang up and did hurried laps around the newsroom maze, trying to look busy while I racked my brain to come up with something different, something local.

  Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something on one of the TV monitors that made me stop abruptly.

  It’s him.

  The menacing figure was none other than Marcus Wesson, the man who had come out of his house covered in the fresh blood of his children. I stood there, paralyzed, my mouth wide open, as I watched another station run video of him being handcuffed that afternoon.

  He was a heavy man, with an enormous belly that protruded over the top of his pants. He was wearing a black T-shirt, his frizzy, graying dreadlocks pulled back from his dark face into a low ponytail that hung in a matted mess to his waist.

  I felt so disgusted by the basic details of the crime that had been revealed so far that I couldn’t move.

  “Oh my God!” a female coworker screamed. “Look at him.”

  “He’s so scary,” a writer to my left said, shaking her head.

  My assignment editor called out to me, bringing me back to reality. “Yoo-hoo, Alysia,” she said, pointing to the phones, which were ringing like crazy.

  I pitched in and took some calls.

  AFTER I’D SPENT a few hours talking to reporters in the field and relaying the updates to my producer, my assignment editor yelled out my name again.

  “Alysia, you’re going to want this phone call,” she said. “I’ll transfer it to your desk.”

  “KMPH Fox 26 newsroom,” I said, picking up. “This is Alysia Sofios. May I help you?”

  It was strict company policy to answer the phone with the station’s call letters and our name, followed by a pleasant greeting. That night, it seemed like a waste of time.

  “Hi. I’d like to remain anonymous,” the female caller said.

  Sometimes good tips came in like that, so she had my attention.

  “Sure, what’s going on?”

  The woman talked fast.

  “You know that man on TV who killed those kids? Well, I know him,” she said.

  “Okay. What do you know?”

  “Well, my sister works at the thrift store. And those women came in and they had to walk behind that big man on TV with the dreadlocks. They wore all black and had long black hair. And he wouldn’t let them talk. And they had their heads down and he ordered them around.”

  I looked down at the clock on my computer screen. My ultimate 10:00 P.M. deadline was still a couple of hours away.

  “You know what? I’d love to talk to you about this in person. Can I come to where you are and you can tell me about it?”

  “Oh no,” she said, her nervousness escalating to panic. “I’m afraid of that man. I don’t want him to come kill us if he sees us on TV.”

  “I’m pretty sure he will be in jail for quite a while, ma’am.”

  “No, he has sons. And they’ll do whatever he tells them.”

  I felt like I was losing her.

  Don’t hang up.

  “Okay,” I said, trying to calm her down. “Forget the interview. Just tell me what else you know.”

  “Well, you know those coffins they found in that house? They got them at Dugovic’s over there downtown.”

  Who was this lady?

  I thumbed through the yellow pages as I listened to her story, picked up a phone on the next desk over with my other hand, and called Dugovic’s, an antique furniture store.

  No one answered. I figured; it was after business hours. I returned my full attention to the woman, who was rambling in midsentence. “… and he was really scary and my sister said he was like the Devil. But I just can’t go on TV because it would be too dangerous and I shouldn’t have even called you, but we watch your station, and I couldn’t believe it when I saw what happened.”

  “Thank you so much for calling,” I said, seeing that the cult video I had ordered from CNN was rolling in the edit bay.

  I scrolled through the surreal images of the Branch Davidians, Jonestown, and the obligatory Heaven’s Gate, wondering how people could be brainwashed like that.

  It was approaching 9:30 when I started tapping out my script on the keyboard: “Tonight’s mass murder is the largest in Fresno’s history. Neighbors speculate the arrested Marcus Wesson was much like infamous cult leaders of the past.”

  I stared at the text on the screen but couldn’t seem to draw any significant parallels between Wesson and the others. I felt uneasy about making the comparison without knowing more about the family dynamics. These weren’t strangers. Wesson had brainwashed his children.

  “I want to leave the cult video out of it,” I said, testing my boss. “It doesn’t seem to fit the mold.”

  “What else do you have?”

  “I have enough,” I said. “Oh, and I know where they got the coffins.”

  He smirked appreciatively, which for him was an unusual expression of praise.

  “Well, go with it,” he said.

  I felt relieved. Heaven’s Gate was officially on the cutting room floor.

  TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, the newsroom was nearly empty. The on-air talent were in the greenroom getting ready. I suddenly realized I should be in there, too, putting on makeup, brushing my hair, and changing into my suit jacket. I had been so consumed by the story I hadn’t left any time to do my usual preshow grooming routine.

  Oh, God, it’s been a fifteen-hour day already. I got ready for radio this morning, not TV. But I’m sure the audience isn’t worried about my appearance.

  The director’s voice echoed over the station’s intercom at 9:58, eight minutes later than everyone was supposed to be in their spots. “Places, everyone! Places!”

  I heard voices and footsteps scurrying toward the set. I’d only had time to type up a partial script that I would read off the teleprompter; the rest was in talking points. I shoved the script at my boss, and he glanced at it as he made one last sweep around the set, ensuring that everyone was ready.

  “Okay, uh-huh, looks good,” he said distractedly.

  “I’m going to ad-lib here,” I said, pointing at the script, “and I figure the anchors can ask me questions here.”

  He looked up at me. “Forget that,” he said matter-of-factly as he put a hand on my shoulder. “You need some lipstick.”

  I pulled out a mirror and saw he was right. I knew I wasn’t ready, but I hadn’t realized I looked so frazzled. People at home would wonder why I was so pale.

  I wis
h I worked for the newspaper.

  I grabbed my makeup bag and dashed into position as I heard the beginning of the newscast through my earpiece. While another reporter was doing a live shot at the crime scene, I had barely enough time to brush on some blush and apply a layer of lipstick.

  THE MINUTE OUR show was over, at 11:00 P.M., we huddled around the monitors to watch how the competition handled the story. One veteran reporter broke down in tears on the air, and after the frantic night I’d had, I wasn’t surprised.

  A coworker had scheduled a party at a friend’s house and invited the other local TV crews to stop by. My colleagues and I considered not going, but it was midnight and we were all still hyped up.

  “I need a drink,” one of the reporters said. “Let’s make a deal. We aren’t allowed to talk about what happened the rest of the night. Anytime someone says ‘Marcus Wesson,’ ‘dreadlocks,’ ‘incest,’ ‘coffins,’ or ‘worst mass murder in Fresno’s history,’ they have to do a shot.”

  Dozens of people showed up, and as much as we tried not to talk about the story, it was no use. Many of us had to take cabs home that night.

  News of what had happened inside that house on Hammond Avenue spread around the globe in a matter of hours.

  It was a story that would change my life forever.

  Three

  Elizabeth, Kiani, and Rosie had never been inside a police car before. It was 8:00 P.M., and an officer was taking them downtown for questioning.

  Elizabeth sat in front, and Kiani, Rosie, and Elizabeth’s sister Rosemary sat in back, all of them sobbing during the three-mile trip to police headquarters. The air-conditioning vents dried some of Elizabeth’s tears before they had a chance to drip onto her dark, sleeveless turtleneck and her dark, striped, ankle-length skirt.

  Another police car brought Elizabeth’s sons Marcus Jr. and Serafino to the station. She knew Sofia and Ruby were there somewhere, too, but she didn’t see them. Rosie and Kiani had been arguing with them, blaming them for what happened, so Elizabeth figured the police had decided to separate the dueling factions of the family.

  Elizabeth blamed Sofia and Ruby, too. They knew how dangerous Marcus was, yet they’d tested him anyway. If they hadn’t come to the house to try to take back their kids, those nine innocent children would still be alive.

  An officer led Elizabeth’s group into the middle of the bustling station and sat them around a gray laminate table, where they cried and whispered as they waited to be called into the interrogation room. Elizabeth tried to push away the angry thoughts about Sofia and Ruby, focusing instead on consoling Kiani and Rosie. The police, however, seemed to care more about protocol.

  “Do not talk to each other,” an officer instructed them as he passed by.

  Officers stared curiously at them from their cubicles, but Elizabeth was too thirsty and upset to notice.

  “Can I have some water, please?” she asked.

  An officer handed her a plastic bottle. She immediately drank its contents, but it did nothing to quench her intense thirst. She asked for another one, then another. She could not seem to get enough.

  Fresno Police Detectives Doug Reese and Michelle Ochoa were assigned to question the family. Reese, the lead investigator on the case, came out and took one family member at a time back to the room. It was going to be a long night.

  By midnight, the police had talked to Sofia, Ruby, and Rosemary. It was Rosie’s turn next.

  “Rosa Solorio? We’re ready for you,” Reese said, beckoning for her to follow him.

  When Rosie came out an hour later, her face was pale and her eyes were red from crying. Elizabeth felt her anxiety escalate, knowing that it was just a matter of time for her. She dropped her head and watched her tears form a miniature reflecting pool on the table below, wondering how she was going to make it through this.

  For the past four decades, she had relied on Marcus to make her decisions. He had always dealt with the authorities, not her. He never let her question anything about their lives, but, for the moment, that was all she could do. Only he couldn’t answer her now that he was in the jailhouse across the street. Though physically Marcus was nearby, to Elizabeth he was still a world away.

  What had gone wrong? Marcus had always promised her that he would never hurt her or their children—and she had believed him. Sure, the “spankings” were bad, but she’d accepted his rationale for them. He’d pointed out that no one had disciplined Elizabeth’s brothers and sisters until he came along, and look how they’d turned out.

  He was right—some of them had become drug addicts or alcoholics and had gone to jail; she didn’t want her children to turn out the same way. So she went along with his tactics, partly because the girls seemed so happy and partly because she suspected they would turn on her if she tried to intervene or break up the family. Besides, none of her children, except for Gypsy, had ever complained to her about Marcus or his beatings. At the time, she knew nothing of the suicide pact Marcus had made with the children when they were growing up.

  What could have happened inside that back bedroom? She was sure he would have a reasonable explanation if she could only ask him. He always did.

  Elizabeth crossed her arms on the wet table, laid her head on her hands, and replayed the day’s events. Rosie and Rosemary followed her lead. They sat like that for hours, quietly weeping together.

  Even though they hadn’t eaten anything since lunch the day before, they weren’t hungry. No one asked them if they wanted any food anyway.

  * * *

  IN THE INTERVIEW room, the detectives were discovering that Marcus had fathered children with his daughters and nieces, something Elizabeth didn’t want to think about and would never admit to knowing.

  After Kiani told Reese she’d heard a gunshot in the back bedroom and assumed Marcus was the one shooting the children, the detective asked if she’d had any problems with her father growing up. Kiani didn’t seem to understand where he was going with his questions.

  “Like what kind of problems?” she asked.

  “Well, um, did your dad do anything with you that made you uncomfortable at all?”

  “No, no.”

  “Did he ever do anything that he shouldn’t have done with you?”

  “No.”

  “Did he ever, um, have any sexual contact with you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, but you didn’t think that was unusual?”

  “No.”

  “Was that okay with you?”

  “Yeah, because I, I agreed with it. That’s okay with me.”

  “What kind of sexual contact would he have?”

  “Well, um, the children. That’s how I got my babies.”

  “So he’d have sexual intercourse with you?”

  “Yeah.”

  REESE CAME OUT to get Elizabeth just after 4:00 A.M.

  “Elizabeth?” he said in a commanding tone, waiting for her to look up. “We need you now.”

  She picked herself up and followed the detective apprehensively down the hall, growing more scared with each step. Scared of what they were going to ask her. Scared of what they might think about her family. And scared that they might arrest her or her children.

  REESE WAS A tall, athletic-looking man who looked to be in his mid-forties. In his hard-nosed, matter-of-fact style, he started asking Elizabeth questions about her childhood—when Marcus came into her life, and when their relationship became romantic. Then he shifted gears to more sensitive subjects as Elizabeth squirmed in her chair, watching him mouth the words under his thick brown mustache.

  “What happened to the kids inside the house?” he asked.

  “I didn’t see the kids,” she said.

  “Is Marcus the father of them?”

  “I said no.”

  “You didn’t ask the girls. How do you know he’s not?”

  “Why would I want to ask them a question like that for?”

  “Well, you don’t know who the father is, so how do you
know that Marcus isn’t the father? Do you understand my question? You know that Marcus was having sex with your daughters and that he gave birth to these children. Is that not true?”

  Reese ordered Elizabeth to hold her head up so he could see her eyes. As he hammered at her, she grew so upset she couldn’t answer him anymore. She was so tired she could barely stay awake. All she wanted was for him to stop asking questions so she could sleep, escape from this nightmare. But he just kept on with the questions.

  “Elizabeth, why don’t you tell me what happened tonight?” Reese said. “Just spit it out; you can tell me. I know it’s a traumatic night for you, okay, but you need to be honest with me. So tell me what happened tonight. Elizabeth, I need you to keep your eyes open so I know you’re awake. Can you tell me what happened?”

  “I can’t tell you,” she said. “I don’t know what happened.”

  “Well, you were there and you do know. Just like you know about Marcus and your daughters. Were you involved in the killings? How do you know if you don’t remember anything?”

  Elizabeth couldn’t believe Reese could even think such a thing.

  “How can you say something like that?” she asked. “I’m trying to get you to talk to me.”

  Reese asked if she knew that Marcus had been molesting her nieces and daughters, having children with them.

  “No,” she answered. “No.”

  Elizabeth hadn’t wanted to believe all the children were Marcus’s, so she’d never asked. And because Marcus had allowed the girls to have only casual conversation with her in recent years, they’d never told her. At first, she’d thought the girls had boyfriends at work who had gotten them pregnant. One time, Marcus told Elizabeth he was taking the girls to the sperm bank to be artificially inseminated. She didn’t think they could afford that, but she didn’t question it. Frankly, she wasn’t sure what to think about the new babies’ paternity.

  Elizabeth shut down emotionally, but that only seemed to make Reese more aggressive.

  “You helped your husband do this to your children, didn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “You knew he was planning to do this, didn’t you?”