Fatal Beauty

by Burl Barer

  Glover’s son fortunately has a strong support system because of the active and loving involvement of his grandmother, aunt and other relatives. Other youngsters in his situation are not so lucky.

  Criminal behavior is not in someone’s blood just because a parent is convicted of a crime, although crime can perpetuate across generations. Quite often, the sins of the parents fall on the offspring. The behavior of Rhonda Glover is no reflection on her son, and there is no stain on his character based on blood relationship.

  “Rhonda said there were bloodstains on shoes that we would find in her Houston apartment,” Detective Walker said. “We had her permission to enter that apartment. We showed Natalie Santibanez, the apartment manager, the written consent from Ms. Glover, and she confirmed that no one had entered the apartment since Rhonda left. She told us that the week of July twenty-first, Rhonda had been loading personal items into a Dodge Durango. Rhonda, according to the manager, said that she was giving the items away to Goodwill, including golf clubs.”

  Allowed into Rhonda Glover’s apartment, Walker easily found the Identigene box located in the entryway. “There were several sealed items in the box,” recalled Walker, “but nothing that was obviously related to James Joste being involved in criminal activity. The items were photographed, but not collected. The box was left secured in Ms. Glover’s apartment.”

  In the master bedroom there were two walk-in closets with numerous shoe boxes. “As one of the items we were given consent for was a pair of men’s shoes, we opened those boxes after we initiated photos.”

  On the counter in the master bathroom was a pair of men’s athletic shoes, size-10 Skechers. “These could be the shoes that Glover was talking about. They were not obviously bloody, but there were a series of brown spots on them that could be dried blood.”

  Walking through the apartment, Walker found an envelope containing several torn-up photographs of Rhonda Glover with a male later identified by Glover as Eric Zimmerman, soccer coach. “I met him one night at a restaurant,” recalled Glover. “We got talking, and he wound up coaching my son at soccer for two years. Eric and I vacationed together in the Caymans, and he was an Eagle Award winner two years in a row. He is a great athlete and a super great guy. We had problems with Jimmy and his jealousy, so we broke up, but I would have probably married Eric.”

  According to Glover, Jimmy Joste was afflicted by extreme jealousy. “Jimmy was jealous of any man who befriended me.” If Joste had a jealous streak, it was news to those who had known him all his life. Rocky Navarro and Danny Davis both characterized their pal as a man with endless tolerance and patience with Rhonda’s freewheeling lifestyle.

  “Hollywood Henderson’s attention to me was another one that provoked Jimmy’s rage,” insisted Glover. “I didn’t know that Henderson had been a crack smoker, and wrote a book called Out of Control.“

  Henderson’s fame didn’t derive simply from smoking crack or writing a book. A former star with the Dallas Cowboys, Henderson had an ignominious departure from the NFL, and squandered what fortune he had on drugs and booze. He went from sports stardom to a prison cell in California, and then gallantly rebuilt his life, image and sense of purpose. An outspoken advocate of recovery from drug and alcohol addiction, Henderson garnered headlines again in 2000 when he won the $28 million Texas Lottery.

  “Anyway,” continued Rhonda, “we met and he got my number, but not from me. He called, and Jimmy threw a fit. He also threw his Daytimer and hit me in the nose with it. Jimmy had a real problem with jealousy.”

  Rhonda Glover could wax conversationally about Joste’s alleged jealousy, drop into terrified, hushed tones when uttering allegations of the generous Jimmy Joste murdering people and burying them on golf courses, or even attacking his mother with an ax. Detectives Walker and Fortune looked for evidence of illegal activity by Joste in Glover’s Houston residence. They didn’t find any.

  “The television in the living room was turned to the Sci-Fi Channel,” noted Walker. “There was a damaged prescription bottle for Rhonda on the kitchen counter, and it had white powder in it. It appeared to be ground-up prescription meds. The lab marking could be seen on the larger pieces. This was noted, but again it was not collected.”

  Strolling amidst the abandoned luxury of Glover’s impressive high-rise condo, Walker saw a membership packet for the Secret Place, the religious organization that Rhonda Glover had mentioned. “I walked into the utility room,” said Walker, “and I saw another item of interest. There was a book sitting on the edge where the washer and dryer were next to each other. The book was The Ethics of Cloning.”

  “Rhonda said that Jimmy was into cloning,” said Patti Swenson. Rhonda Glover also said that President Bush was a clone. How this was accomplished, of course, was never explained.

  Accompanying Detective Walker on his tour of Glover’s high-rise was Detective Fortune. “In a large box next to the entertainment center in the master bedroom,” he recalled, “I found some papers that referred to letters and numbers similar to the so-called codes Ms. Glover had invented. In a box large enough to contain shoes, I found some typed sheets referring to threats against George Bush and Dana Bateman.

  “Ms. Bateman,” explained Fortune, “was a woman who had a child, and had been stranded on the side of the road. Apparently, Mr. Joste made a comment that Ms. Glover took with having some sort of significance.”

  That witch, wrote Glover. She is in on it too. Dana Bateman. I think she was the woman I caught with that little boy the day my son and I were going to the movies. She had a man and a little blond boy on the side of the road with only a diaper on. When she saw me, she panicked and took the boy back into the truck. I think that may have been one of the clones of my child. Oh, my word! He was adorable. How and why can they feel okay about this? Dana Bateman, I know where you are. And what you look like. Watch out. Look around you. I am watching you. Be afraid. Be very afraid of ME and my GOD.

  Detectives contacted Dana Bateman and advised her of this threat against her, but also assured her that Rhonda Glover was in police custody. These rants, written by Glover, were found in abundance—as promised—in the Houston condo.

  We have once again been sacrificed by Satan for the good of mankind, wrote Glover. And this is the last time in history that we will have to be walked on by the Devil. You see, GOD has been working on this plan to catch Satan for years, and it took the real estate in Austin, and my income level, to get me into the house over that aquifer. You see, GOD has made other people aware of these crimes, and there has been no one strong enough, or fearless enough to come out against Bush. But I would like to see him face to face, fagot little scrawny bully! I would like to rope and tie him like I did when I was a cowgirl in the rodeo. I hope I have a chance. Bush, come after me. Try it, you queer, and I will use my power to annihilate you in seconds. You cannot stop GOD this time, Satan. Satan stands for Sexual Aquifers Taken All Nations. You are nothing but a punk, a freaking cannibal. Blood thirsty beast masquerading yourself as the most innocent and caring person in the world. I only wish I had been meaner to you.

  Detective Walker notified the United States Secret Service of Glover’s threats against President Bush, although her ability to harm him seemed insignificant. All threats of this nature must be investigated by the Secret Service. The United States Secret Service visited Rhonda Glover three times following her arrest, and each time they allegedly got an earful about the nefarious activities of George W. Bush and his henchman, Jimmy Joste, in Cave X.

  Her assertion that Jimmy stalked her, and tried to get into her Houston apartment, turned out to be true. The Houston cops were called on more than one occasion specifically to keep Joste away from Glover’s residence.

  Rhonda Glover repeatedly claimed that she called police at least once a month because of Joste’s physical abuse; yet there is no record whatsoever of any such calls, or any charges against Joste for abuse other than the one controversial Barton Creek Incident.

  �
�There is no evidence at all that Jimmy Joste was a violent and abusive man,” said Assistant District Attorney Bryan Case. “The only person who says Jimmy Joste was violent is Rhonda Glover. Ask anyone else about Jimmy Joste and they all tell you that the aggressive one in the relationship was Rhonda.”

  10

  “I drank with Jimmy Joste,” said Danny Davis. “I got intoxicated with Jimmy Joste. I never once saw him violent or aggressive when intoxicated. Never. When he drank, he was a very happy, easy, loveable drunk. He was never violent. Never. But I’ll tell you honestly that Rhonda used to be violent toward him. In fact, back in the mid-1990s,” recalled Davis, “maybe 1995, he showed up beaten up by Rhonda Glover. He had been worked over pretty good. He took a lickin’ and kept on tickin', up until the last licking when he got shot ten times.”

  “No one thought Rhonda would murder Jimmy, but …,” said longtime friend Joyce Imparato, pausing to reflect on the unpleasant side of the Joste/Glover relationship, “I’d seen Jimmy show up with bruises and lacerations before. We figured that that Rhonda was hitting him, but Jimmy would make excuses, and say that he walked into a door. Personally, I only saw that a couple of times, but I did see it.”

  Jimmy Joste wasn’t the type of man to repeatedly walk into doors. He was the type of man, however, who would let Rhonda Glover abuse him and cover for her. In the world of domestic violence and abuse, men such as Jimmy Joste seldom seek shelter from the storm of a violent and dangerous female.

  A review of published academic literature by Martin Fiebert, Ph.D., at the University of California, Long Beach, found seventy empirical studies, fifteen review and/or analysis and eighty-five scholarly investigations that demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners.

  According to numerous studies in America and abroad, ignoring violent women, and concentrating solely on inhibiting violent men, contributes to the cycle of violence for the next generation. Most domestic violence is mutual, and most wouldn’t happen if there was not a history of such violence in the family of origin.

  Boys who come from violent homes are one thousand times more likely to beat their wives; girls who come from violent homes are six hundred times more likely to beat their husbands.

  For the most part, there are few, if any, resources to which the abused man might turn. There are virtually no crisis lines, support groups, media recognition and, in most cities, no shelters.

  “Animal shelters get more of a budget than women’s shelters,” stated domestic violence expert Susan Murphy Milano. “Men’s shelters are almost nonexistent.”

  Jimmy Joste didn’t need a shelter. He could stay in a fancy hotel, or one of the homes he purchased for Rhonda Glover. But being rich, or formerly rich, doesn’t protect anyone from domestic violence.

  The Joste homicide was, in some ways, remarkably similar to that of the plot hatched in 1998 against Chicago millionaire Albert Goodman by ex-wife April Goodman.

  Portraying April Goodman as motivated by “evil obsession,” a judge sentenced the once-aspiring actress to thirty years in prison for hiring an undercover police officer to kill her wealthy ex-husband, Albert Goodman.

  “The defendant’s homicidal plot was premeditated, well-organized and planned,” said Cook County Circuit Court judge John Moran. During the trial the defense depicted April Goodman as a troubled woman who was twice hospitalized for psychiatric illnesses due to bipolar disorder. The judge noted that April Goodman was receiving medical treatment for her illness prior to her arrest and that a court-ordered psychiatric exam showed she was “symptom free” after her arrest. “Sadly, in our society today,” said the judge, “many people have grievances against other people—real or imagined….”

  Rhonda Glover’s imagined grievances against Jimmy Joste, centering on the human sacrifices in Cave X underneath the Austin home they once shared, were absurd, but she believed them with a deadly certainty in 2004. Five years later, she alternated between denying that she ever believed it, and asserting that it was all true.

  And as far as the Cave and all, she wrote the author in 2009, it is real and no joke. Me and Rick Kutner in Austin have done our homework, and been there. It is dangerrous for me to know about it and I want to move ahead in life not get caught up in that. If you decide to print this, it could also get you in some trouble too. Just leave that crap alone. It was not mentioned in my trial for a reason. Do you understand? Don’t talk about that anymore until we see each other face to face, and I tell you why it is dangerous ok? I never want to get involved with this I just want out to go home and be a mommy again. If you do print it, I’ll have to turn my evidence over to whomever. Just forget it.

  Cave X is not easily forgotten, and it is a real place. Yes, Cave X really exists, and so does the aquifer that Rhonda was always mentioning. An aquifer is simply an underground body of water. It is a less glamorous way of saying “artesian well.” It just refers to underground water that’s under enough pressure to be tapped with a well or bubble up by itself.

  Underneath Austin is the Edwards Aquifer, “one of the most prolific artesian aquifers in the world. “ The Save Our Springs Alliance was formed in Austin in 1990 to fight against development practices that were viewed as potentially harmful to the aquifer.

  Driving through Texas, you always see signs about aquifers and watersheds. This is a subtle way of reminding people of ecological concerns, and to avoid allowing pollutants to leak into the ground and pollute the water in aquifers. This polluted groundwater ultimately ends up in people’s kitchen sinks.

  Cave X is an underground limestone cavern where insects have mutated over countless years, adapting to the darkness. It got the name Cave X simply because there was an X on the map noting its location. The name stuck, and Cave X remains Cave X. Rhonda Glover insisted that homosexuals were sneaking into Cave X through an entrance at Regents School to perform pagan rituals.

  There are two entrances to Cave X on Regents School property. Considering the nature and purpose of Regents School of Austin, Glover’s allegations of immoral and illegal behavior became exceptionally incongruous.

  We are a school community seeking to serve mankind and honor God, reads the official statement of Regents core beliefs. By engaging in our classical and Christian program, students develop an appreciation of truth, goodness and beauty.

  Austin entered into an agreement with the Regents School in November 1999 regarding Cave X. Under the agreement the school constructed a one-lane paved road accessible only to emergency vehicles and water-quality pond maintenance crews over a portion of the cave’s footprint. Regents School was responsible for monthly inspections, including looking for evidence of tampering or vandalism. The school was also responsible for removing any accumulated trash or debris, vegetation management and biannual fire ant control. The agreement between Austin and the Regents School was implemented primarily for the protection of the federally listed Barton Springs salamander, which is dependent on the Edwards Aquifer. There are only two places on earth where the blind spider, Cicurina cueva, is known to exist, and one of them is Cave X. The spider is a protected species. The Regents School gated Cave X and fenced a small area around the cave entrance to protect it from unauthorized trespassing and vandalism.

  The idea that people could somehow sneak into Cave X via the Regents School property was pure fantasy. “You couldn’t break in with a crowbar using all your might,” confirmed a Regents School employee. Concrete grating and a locking system impervious to break-in secured Cave X against intruders. “There are no incidents of trespass because trespassing is impossible. It is seldom that anyone enters the cave, except people from the Texas state agency that oversees the caves and the endangered species situation. One time they came to get in and we had misplaced the key. Well, even with the key, getting in is an elaborate security procedure. It took hours and hours using high-powered equipment to get that heavy concrete gate open. Anyone who
thinks folks can sneak into Cave X is entirely mistaken. It simply can’t happen. No one from the general public gets in Cave X.”

  According to Rhonda Glover, she and Rick Kutner investigated Cave X, and she proved that she wasn’t crazy. “Rick moved to Texas to be with us, and saw Jimmy firsthand in his deranged state of mind. He would be able to correctly portray the danger I was in and felt that it would be me dead before too long. Rick came down from Colorado and helped Jimmy get somewhat together and presentable. Once I left him, Jimmy got worse and had not showered, shaved or eaten. The house was torn up and he said I did it.”

  Rhonda apparently forgot that she admitted taking a sledgehammer to the bathroom, and explained this to Austin police during one of her numerous emergency calls to 911. “Being as she said there were people hiding in her sink,” remarked one officer, “I’m not surprised she took a sledgehammer to it.”

  “There are other entrances to Cave X that they are not telling you about,” insisted Rhonda Glover in 2009. “Devil worshipers were entering it then, and I am sure that they are still doing all those evil things in there, to this day. I know what I know,” insisted Rhonda. “These are satanic Devil worshipers, and Jimmy was the one.”

  “If Jimmy Joste was worshiping the Devil,” commented a religiously devout woman affiliated with a Protestant denomination, “I could see why Rhonda would feel the need to protect herself and her child, especially with domestic violence running rampant.”

  Domestic violence is more prevalent than Devil worship, especially considering that the type of satanic cult activity described by Rhonda Glover was found primarily on movie screens and in fevered imaginations. Over twelve thousand accusations of Devil worship in America were investigated by Phillip Shaver, a psychologist at the University of California. There was no truth to any of them.