by Burl Barer
“Jimmy just couldn’t stay away from Rhonda,” said Rocky Navarro. “He was addicted to her, I guess you could say. It was as if Rhonda was a drug, and he was an addict.”
“It is difficult to understand,” offered Bryan Case, Travis County assistant district attorney, “how Jimmy Joste could have such an attraction and love for Rhonda Glover. But if you think about how people describe Jimmy Joste as the most generous person, how he would give anybody anything, then you have to realize how Jimmy really was. It wasn’t just for show.
“Perhaps an important aspect of love for Jimmy Joste was taking care of someone,” said Case. “Obviously, Rhonda Glover was an attractive woman, but attraction alone just doesn’t do it. There has to be something more, and there was just something good in his heart.”
“Rhonda would never stay away from Jimmy for long,” said Danny Davis. “Oh, she maybe had her own business, but I think maybe it was more that she had her own business cards. Her primary source of money was always Jimmy. Sure, they did argue most of the time, but Jimmy always felt he could calm her down, cool her off, and that everything would be okay. I’m sure he never imagined that she would purchase a Glock nine-millimeter [handgun] and do target practice at Red’s with him as a future target.”
Austin detectives interviewed employee Jeremy Lynn Bohac, of Red’s Indoor Range, the day following the discovery of Joste’s body. “I met Rhonda Glover twice. The first time I met Rhonda Glover was when she came in to purchase a pistol. She told me that she’d been training with another gun range in Houston, Top Gun, and that they recommended that she purchase a Kimber forty-five caliber.”
Detective Walker was taken aback when he received a telephone call from Kelly Joste, Jimmy’s brother, alerting him to Rhonda Glover’s activities at Houston’s Top Gun Range. “We knew about Rhonda Glover’s association with Top Gun in Houston,” recalled Walker, “because an employee at Red’s told us about it. I was surprised, however, that Mr. Joste called me with that same information. Amazingly, Top Gun is owned by Grace Ann Saragusa, an acquaintance of Jimmy Joste for almost a decade.”
Saragusa was also familiar with the Joste/Glover relationship. “I never knew Jimmy to be violent at all,” she said. “He was always a laid-back and happy person. Rhonda, however, was known to be volatile and violent. Rhonda was absolutely crazy, and would do things to Jimmy to get him mad and angry, like sleep with other men. I never observed Rhonda Glover at the store, but knew that she was target practicing at Top Gun of Texas. I would see invoices with her names on it in my office. On July 26, 2004, I received a phone call that Jimmy had been murdered in Austin, Texas. I was told to call Jimmy’s brother, Kelly Joste, and give him the information that Rhonda had been shooting at the range, and I believed that she had murdered Jimmy.”
William Johnston, employed at Top Gun Range in Houston, Texas, remembered when Rhonda Glover bought a Kimber Custom .45. “I met Rhonda when she came in to buy a gun. She wanted a Kimber Custom forty-five. We completed all the paperwork on it, but she changed her mind. Rico Mastroianni was in the shop too. That was in 2004, possibly at the beginning of the summer. She said she wanted the gun to protect herself and her son. She said something about people living in her house off and on. She called up here once a week or every two weeks. She wanted to talk directly to Rico or Mr. Saragusa. I don’t know what she was calling about. She was always trying to find out when Rico was here, but he didn’t want to deal with her. She seemed like she might have been crazy. She wanted to know different scenarios about how to use a gun. The only one I know about was one where she asked, if she were to enter her house, and someone was sitting right there, how to draw her weapon and go from there. I told her the first thing to do was to call the police. Twice, Rhonda had her son with her. He went back and shot a twenty-two. I know Rhonda only by her first name. That’s the name she gave me.”
Americo Mastroianni, the range instructor at Top Gun in Houston, had been there several years when he first met Rhonda Glover.
“I first met Rhonda Glover when she inquired about taking a basic handgun lesson for herself and her son. That was prior to May 1, 2004, when she signed a waiver and release for both her and her son. She signed for him because he was only about nine years old—and being [that he was] under twenty-one, she signed for him. She made it clear that she wanted him to participate in this training. ”
There were two basic handgun lessons. “They come to the counter,” he explained, “fill out the waivers, and then choose a weapon to use for that particular lesson. Ms. Glover chose a Glock nine millimeter, and her son chose a twenty-two semiautomatic handgun. Once the weapon is chosen, they proceed to the classroom.
“At that point we go over the safety, first and foremost, features of the particular guns that they will be using, proper stance, grip, sight alignment, sight picture, trigger pull, what to do after they pull the trigger, and understand the mistakes that they may be making, all at that time, and all that is rehearsed prior to going out on the range.”
Before going to the range, Glover and her son got eye and ear protection, and targets. “For adults,” Mastroianni explained, “we use a standard target called a B27, basically it is a black silhouette target of a human torso. Normally, for children we use a bull’s-eye target. When I pulled it out, Rhonda asked who it was for. I told her it was for her son, but she insisted that he shoot at a silhouette target. About halfway through the box of ammunition, the boy started screaming, ‘Die, you hurt my mom, die!’ I told him not to do that, and Rhonda came over and said it was okay. She said that he was upset with his father and was venting.”
Her youngster did more than vent; he also displayed a rebellious streak. “Rhonda had just put down a four-hundred-dollar deposit on a gun, and prior to leaving, there was an issue with her son. He wanted to purchase something—I don’t exactly remember if it were a gun or something else—and she told him that he couldn’t have it. Well, he didn’t respond well to that. She must have been having trouble with him, because she approached me at the counter and asked me if I could go back there and discipline her child for her.”
As behavioral-modification methods were not part of his job description, Mastroianni balked. “I told her that I felt completely out of place, and I just told [the] child that it was nice of his mom to bring him along, and that if his mom says no, she means no.
“Rhonda was going to buy a gun here but changed her mind,” he said, “and got a store credit. She used that to pay the fee for the defensive class, which is one hundred twenty-five dollars.”
There is a set lesson plan for the defensive class, but Rhonda Glover wanted specialized instruction. “She was very insistent that she not do that lesson plan. Rhonda said she had a house here and a house in Austin,” said Mastroianni. “She said that she wanted to know how to clear her house. She came in about a half-dozen times, and Rhonda went through the defensive class we teach here. She was more concerned about people being in her house, and she wanted to know about clearing the house from the front door. We set the walls, and she said she entered the front door, and there was a room to the right and left. She went to a garage, [and] then she goes into her kitchen. She indicated that walking from the garage to the kitchen, there was a door, a breakfast bar and then another doorway. She asked then how she would shoot someone sitting on her couch. I asked her why she would want to do that—that person’s not a threat. She said, well, if they had a gun, and pointed it at her. We did a scenario using multiple targets. One on the couch turning around, one to the side, holding a gun to the child’s head, and another to the other side.”
Although this detailed scenario was out of the ordinary, the session continued. “Before we did the multiple targets, we did just the couch. When she shot from the breakfast bar, she then wanted to go around to the front of the target and shoot it from the front. I asked her why she would want to do that. I told her that she should have run and got out. She said she wanted to make sure the target was dead. I became conce
rned about that.”
The next scenario was tragically precognitive. “Then she wanted to do the upstairs bedroom. She said the bedroom was at the top of the stairs, and when you opened the door, there was an attic door in the right corner of the bedroom, and there was a bed coming off the wall. She wanted to do a scenario of someone coming from the attic door, and one where someone was on the opposite side of the bed. She wanted to do a reload scenario upstairs.”
As a result of Rhonda Glover dictating the training scenarios at Top Gun, policies underwent significant changes following the death of Jimmy Joste. “When she was training, she volunteered that she spent a lot of time in the attic area every day when she was in the Austin home. That day I brought it up to the owner that I was [a] bit concerned, especially after the scenario where she wanted to know about shooting the threat again to make sure he was dead. Top Gun operates differently now, and now I have full control of the training program, and we have a complete set of guidelines, and what happened with Ms. Glover was part of the reason for that. ”
The day Rhonda visited Top Gun with her little boy, she had to leave in a hurry. “She said she had to go to the travel agent and get money back from a trip to Cancun. She wanted to leave the ticket open. She came back a little later. She told her son that she got the money back from the trip to Cancun, and told him they were going to do something else. She then bought a holster for a Glock 19, a double mag pouch, an extra ten-round Glock magazine. She asked about—but did not buy—defensive ammo.”
During her practices at Top Gun, Rhonda used a Glock 19 handgun that she brought in with her. “Shooting from close range, she was a good shot,” recalled her instructor. “Rhonda had mentioned the first time she was in, she was having problems with her ex. She said they were in a custody dispute. She was taught to double tap the target. She practiced a combat reload, where the magazine was dropped and a new one inserted. She seemed well-educated,” he noted, “but she mentioned her church a lot.”
While at Red’s in Austin, Glover said that the person she had been dealing with in Houston was named Rico, short for Americo, Mastroianni’s first name. “She liked the Glock pistol better than the Kimber,” recalled the Red’s employee. “I believe that Glover came in wearing a yellow flower-print dress, and then changed into a black leather outfit similar to something that a biker would wear. She rented a Glock pistol and shot it at the range. After test-firing the Glock, she purchased one, and ten-round magazines. She asked me about ammunition for home defense, and about hollow-point bullets.”
After Glover purchased her Glock, she spent the next hour on the firing range at Red’s. “She wasn’t a very good shot that day,” the employee recalled, “and had bullets placed all over her target. She told me, however, that the Houston range wanted her to be an instructor.
“I helped her with her form, and held her hands around the gun. I also placed my hand on the gun several times while assisting Glover [to]shoot. I provided Glover with speed loaders to assist her in loading her magazines because she had trouble loading them.”
Being a responsible and reliable employee, he asked Rhonda Glover why she was buying the weapon. “Home defense,” said Rhonda. “My husband has been stalking me. He’s broken into my home and cut the alarms.”
“Have you called the police about this?”
“No,” replied Glover, “my husband knows a lot of people.”
When Glover paid for the Glock, she opened her handbag. “She had a lot of cash in that bag,” Jeremy Bohac recalled, “a lot of money. She paid cash for the Glock, and then drove away in some sort of SUV.”
Glover returned to the Red’s Indoor Range on July 21, the same day she shot Jimmy Joste. She entered wearing a dress, and then changed into a tight-fitting black shirt that was so small that it revealed her rather attractive stomach. “I didn’t notice what kind of shoes she was wearing,” the employee admitted. “I do, however, remember what she was driving that day—a Ford Taurus, like something you would get as a rental vehicle.”
Bohac was working on the firing range when Rhonda Glover came in. “I talked to her briefly and asked her if she had been having any more trouble, and she stated that she had not had any more problems. Glover did ask for a speed loader and I provided her one. I am not sure if she returned the speed loader. I noticed that Glover was still shooting from the seven-yard range, and that she appeared to have improved a lot from the time I dealt with her before. From what I recall,” he said, “Rhonda Glover always shot from a close range. No farther than seven yards. She had improved dramatically over the weeks of shooting. On July 21, 2004, Glover showed me her target, and she was very proud of her shooting. I remember that all her shots were center mass. All of her shots on the target were in the torso area. She used the range from two oh-seven P.M. until two twenty-nine P.M. She purchased two boxes of S&B ammunition for target practice, which was one hundred rounds.”
The targets used by Glover were human-shaped silhouettes. She left Red’s in her rented Ford Taurus. Her destination was Joste’s residence on Mission Oaks. “It is a very short drive from Red’s to the Mission Oaks residence,” commented Detective Walker. “It takes only a few minutes to drive from Red’s to the house on Mission Oaks, where Janice Van Every showed up looking for Rhonda Glover, and where we found the body of Jimmy Joste.”
The identity of the victim was not actually determined and confirmed until the following morning. “Mr. Joste was in a state of decomposition,” explained Walker. “You couldn’t clearly determine just by looking at him that it was certainly James Joste. The medical examiner’s office believed it was Mr. Joste based on his photograph, and then I had fingerprints requested. I took the fingerprints to the ID section, and based on the fingerprints, we were able to determine for a fact that the deceased was Mr. James Joste.”
5
On July 26, 2004, Janice Van Every, Glover’s aunt, showed up at Austin police headquarters to give a full statement to Detective Fortune. “Just tell us everything,” advised Fortune, and Van Every complied.
“Rhonda has been estranged from her immediate family since Thanksgiving of 2003,” Van Every told the detective. “I would describe Rhonda as a person that acts dramatic, flighty, and is very beautiful. I am unsure if Rhonda is working right now, but I do know that last year she was running a personnel-staffing agency. Rhonda has been diagnosed as bipolar. According to her mother, my sister, Sherlyn Shotwell, Rhonda was acting very delusional, and could not care for her nine-year-old son. My sister took Rhonda to court to take custody of the boy in the beginning of 2004, and won custody of him in March 2004, because Rhonda did not show up for court.
“I last spoke with Rhonda in January or February 2004,” said Van Every, “and she appeared possibly mentally ill from the way that she was speaking to me. She was very obsessed with healing water from Austin that would cure ailments. Rhonda is originally from Houston and moved to Austin, I believe, sometime between 1995 and 1997. She has had an off-and-on relationship with Jimmy Joste for at least ten years, and Ronnie is their son.”
Van Every told detectives that Joste was well-known for giving Rhonda Glover lots of money. “My sister, Sherlyn Shotwell, told me that Jimmy bought Rhonda a brand-new Chevrolet Suburban in March 2004. He paid fifty-seven thousand dollars cash at Landmark Chevrolet in Houston, Texas. Sherlyn received paperwork in the mail from Landmark Chevrolet, and that is how she found out about it, and also that it had OnStar with it.
“The OnStar was activated when Rhonda’s mother placed a missing person report with the Houston Police Department,” said Van Every. “The OnStar located the 2004 Suburban, with Rhonda and her son, in Michigan by the Canadian border. Apparently, Rhonda was trying to go to Canada, but a technical hang-up occurred due to paper tags on the vehicle and she could not go to Canada. The police in Michigan detained her, but had to release her and the boy because the court order was not final, and she had three more days to return her son to Sherlyn. This was the last time anyone saw
Rhonda.”
According to Van Every, Rhonda previously confided to her that Joste had a problem with substance abuse. “I believe that Rhonda also has a problem with drugs and alcohol,” she said. “I have heard from Rhonda in the past that Jimmy was violent toward her. Rhonda told me that about eight to ten years ago Jimmy dragged her through their house causing rug burns on her. I know of no recent violence, but the police officers at the residence today told me that they have been at the house before for domestic disturbances.
“Sherlyn Shotwell, Rhonda’s mother, won custody of her grandson in March 2004,” said Van Every, “but Rhonda took off with the boy rather than obey the court. “ The ruling came down after state child welfare officers, at the urging of Rhonda Glover’s mother, checked on the young boy’s welfare in November of 2003.
According to records detailing that investigation, officers went to the house and reported back that the child appeared healthy and the couple’s house seemed clean. After the visit Glover and Joste called Rhonda’s mother and gave her hell for calling the authorities.
The phone call was monitored by police, and Jimmy Joste was heard saying that his son was “Lucifer and God,” and that “Lucifer becomes the Holy Spirit.” It wasn’t unusual for Rhonda Glover to talk like that when off her medication for bipolar disorder. Mental illness is not a character defect any more than any other medical condition, and Glover had been hospitalized due to this brain-based illness on more than one occasion. For Joste to give voice to such delusional ideas was out of character and most troublesome.
When Rhonda Glover’s mother heard Jimmy talk about her grandson pulling stars from the sky and putting them in the living room, she realized he wasn’t waxing New Age romantic by composing second-rate song lyrics—he was tragically serious. When Shotwell sought custody of her grandson, Rhonda asked her friend, Patti Swenson, of the Oak Hill Gymnastics Academy, to testify on her behalf.