Michael Benson's True Crime Bundle

by Michael Benson

  Rachel’s friend Stephanie Pilver remembered the distress Rachel felt when she saw the Myspace New York City photos of Sarah and Joshua, accompanied by a taunting message. It was as if Joshua had “stepped on her heart.”

  Egle wondered what Rachel was doing that night. Maybe they could hang out at Starbucks or something. Rachel said no. She had Joshua—she hoped. He said he was babysitting for his sister that evening, but he would be available later on.

  Egle, one of the many women who hadn’t fallen for that ol’ Camacho magic, couldn’t understand what the big deal was with Joshua. The guy stood five-five tops and walked with a swagger, like he thought he was a tough guy or something. He sneered rather than smiled. One thing was for sure, he had a hold on Rachel. What was it about Joshua? That was the big mystery. He lacked prospects and any kind of a promising future. In high school, he’d worked as a cook at Chick-fil-A and Pollo Tropical, but after graduation it was as if he had retired to smoke pot. Joshua was content to be just a “playa” and a user. He didn’t have a steady job. He wasn’t going to school. He stayed with family members, unless he could talk one of his girls into letting him spend the night.

  At twilight, Rachel was out walking her dog. Sarah cruised by in her parents’ minivan.

  “Stay away from my man!” Sarah screamed.

  Rachel was frightened. She didn’t want to be caught alone by Sarah, who was huge, or any of the friends she might be with. Rachel put a kitchen knife in her purse. That would scare them off.

  Rachel also needed backup. She called her friend Javier and asked if she could come over.

  At 11:00 P.M., Joshua and Sarah were playing Wii at Janet Camacho’s house. Headlights pierced the window. Joshua went to look and saw Rachel’s car pass.

  Seconds later, Joshua received a text from Rachel: Now I know why you’re not talking to me—because you got her.

  Joshua texted back: That’s right. I don’t like you no more. Why are you down this street? Go home.

  Rachel responded: No, I’ll wait for her to go home.

  Sarah didn’t want to leave the house and drive home, knowing that Rachel was out there, waiting for her; so Sarah texted her dad and said she was going to be home a little late.

  Sarah’s curfew was 11:00 P.M.; so the truth was, she was already a little late.

  Charlie texted back, asking when she’d be home. Sarah answered that it would be soon.

  Rachel left.

  Just before midnight, Sarah kissed Joshua good-bye and left. Joshua’s sister Janet and her friend Jilica Smith, who’d been sitting in cars with boys out front, asked Sarah if she’d give them a ride to McDonald’s before heading home.

  Already late, Sarah said sure, what’s a few more minutes? So all three got into the minivan and headed to get fast food. At a stop sign, they encountered Sarah’s friend Ashley Lovelady, who told them she’d just seen Rachel.

  Rachel was only a short distance away, hanging out with two boys in front of Javier Laboy’s house. Enraged, Sarah hit the gas so hard she left a patch of rubber on the street. Janet knew Javier—and didn’t like him. Javier had had trouble with Joshua over Erin Slothower. Her father had to call the cops on that jackass once for throwing an egg at their house.

  Jilica sensed that they weren’t headed for McDonald’s anymore. As they sped along, Sarah’s cell phone rang.

  It was Rachel.

  “I’m going to kill you and your Mexican boyfriend!” Rachel screamed. Nobody was sure if the phone was on speakerphone, but Rachel was plenty loud and everyone in the minivan heard her. Sarah drove to Javier’s house as fast as she could.

  There Rachel was, leaning on her car, her white tank top and white tennis shoes lit bright by Sarah’s headlights. Skinny ass trying to look tough. Sarah screeched to a stop in the middle of the street.

  Chapter 5

  “WE NEED AN AMBULANCE. PLEASE HELP.”

  Twelve forty-five A.M., on April 15, 2009, the call came into the Pinellas Park Police emergency center.

  A male operator said: “Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”

  “We have someone on the floor who has been stabbed. We need an ambulance. Please help,” said Javier Laboy.

  In the background, the operator could hear a woman yelling, words a mile a minute, barely intelligible Spanglish, except for the punctuation of bilingual profanities.

  The caller, talking to the woman, not the operator, said, “Hey, Janet.” It sounded like an effort to pacify her, but his words failed to break her momentum.

  Multiple raised voices could now be heard. The operator asked for, and received, the address of the incident. Judging from the background noise, the dispatcher felt it was ongoing.

  The operator asked, “Where was the person stabbed?”

  “She’s on the floor.”

  “Where is the person who stabbed them?”

  “She’s right here, too.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Right here in the driveway.”

  “What is the phone number you are calling from? Help is on the way.”

  Javier still had the fast-talking woman in his ear. He didn’t hear the question, and it had to be repeated. This time it registered and he gave the operator his cell phone number.

  “And where is the knife at now?”

  “It’s in her hand. You’d better hurry up and get here quick.”

  “They’re already on their way.”

  Just then, the operator heard a fresh urgency to the voices on the other end of the line, which he interpreted as new violence.

  The caller said, “Whoa. Whoa. Janet, Janet, Janet, back up. Janet! Janet!”

  “Sir?”

  There was the sound of a dial tone for a few seconds; then a second operator, a woman, came on the line, “Police.”

  The male dispatcher said there was an assault in progress and gave the address, and that was the last the caller heard from him.

  “What’s going on?” the female operator asked.

  “There was a fight and someone was stabbed.”

  “Who stabbed her?”

  Again the caller was distracted by the chaos around him. “Get inside,” he could be heard saying.

  “Sir, can you hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sir, what happened?”

  “We were hanging out. There was a fight.”

  “Who was fighting?”

  “The girls. Oh, her eyes are rolling. God! Oh, you got to hurry.”

  “They’re on their way. Calm down, sir. Just tell me what happened.”

  “There was a fight and they tried to jump her. She pulled out her pocketknife trying to defend herself. By the time we got there, it was too late and she was already stabbed. She’s on the floor.”

  “Was it a male or a female who was stabbed? Female? It was a female who was stabbed?”

  “Yes.”

  “A female stabbed her? Is the female still there?”

  “Yes, everyone is still here.”

  “How many subjects are there?”

  “One, two, three, four, five, six. She’s stabbed in the chest.”

  “All right, just stay on the phone with me, okay?”

  “All right.”

  “Where is the knife now, sir?”

  “I—I—I—I have no idea.”

  “Okay, if you find it, don’t touch it. Help is on the way.”

  PPPD corporal Ty Ku was the first to arrive on the scene. Sarah was on the ground next to the van, part of her legs were underneath the vehicle. A witness, who the police officer later learned was Javier Laboy, had removed his orange T-shirt, which was used to apply pressure to Sarah’s upper left chest.

  Sarah had a very shallow pulse and was experiencing labored breathing. Her eyes were slightly open and her stare was straightforward. Kneeling beside the victim, Officer Ku called out a request for an “officer survival trauma kit” for a puncture wound.

  Officer John Coleman, who had answered several of the Rachel Wa
de runaway complaints, went to his patrol car, grabbed the kit, and returned to the victim.

  The kit contained a long sterile dressing. When it arrived, the orange shirt could be removed. He would later say he thought the girl’s wound was the biggest puncture wound he’d ever seen.

  At one point, she stopped breathing and a bubbly fluid came from her mouth. As Ku applied pressure with one hand, he used the other to reposition Sarah’s head to open up her airway.

  Officer Coleman tried taking Sarah’s pulse along her carotid artery. There was a pulse, but it was very weak.

  Next to arrive was Officer G. D. Weaver. Ku looked up from the victim for an instant and shouted that the “subject”—that is, the suspect—was inside the residence. Officer Weaver went back to his car to get his ballistic shield from his trunk, but after seeing the subject (Rachel Wade), he realized that he would not need it. Weaver noticed that a crowd was gathering; he went to assist with crowd control.

  Corporal Vernard “Rick” Wagner, 2003 PPPD Officer of the Year, was in charge of securing the crime scene with police tape. On the north end of the scene, he attached one end of the tape to a neighbor’s fence, the other end to another neighbor’s outside waterspout.

  The ambulance arrived, and was followed quickly by Officer William Peterson, who parked his car across the road to prevent anyone from fleeing the scene by car. With two EMTs and three paramedics now on the scene, Ku and Coleman left the victim. Ku retrieved his camera from his car. He took eighteen digital photographs of the crime scene, including several of Rachel Wade.

  Rachel had not gone in the house, as Javier had told her to do. She sat on a bench in front of Javier’s house and watched the surreal chaos she had caused. Javier recalled that she had a blank look on her face. Javier said it didn’t look like she “was there with us.”

  Rachel’s phone rang. It was Joshua. Sarah said she had gotten hurt. What was up?

  Rachel said she was at Javier’s house. She’d just had a fight with Sarah and she thought Sarah might be hurt. Joshua hung up, ran to Sarah’s house, two blocks away, and told Sarah’s parents that Sarah had been in a fight and was hurt.

  Together Charlie and Joshua went to Javier’s house and arrived in time for them to see Sarah still lying in the street, with the paramedics frantically working on her.

  Sergeant William Lowe, who was working crowd control, recalled one young man who ran down the street to the scene, screaming. He hurled threats, saying he was the victim’s brother and would see his revenge. (Of course, Sarah Ludemann was an only child.) Lowe told the unidentified man he had to stay outside the police tape, but the guy kept mouthing off, using words that could only inflame the situation: “Someone get stabbed, someone gonna get stabbed.” Other police at the scene identified the troublesome bystander as Joshua Camacho.

  Officer M. Turner and the search dog Dax reported to the crime scene, the same human/canine team that was once sent to the Wade household to search for a runaway Rachel. The team had just arrived as Joshua went berserk at the crime scene. Dax was positioned between Joshua and EMS activity. The dog remained in that position until Joshua retreated to the end of the street.

  Charlie Ludemann couldn’t move quickly, but he could move relentlessly. He pushed past police tape and toward his daughter, until Sergeant Tina Trehy intercepted him and talked him away from the van. But not before the father got a good look. Charlie said he was going back home to get his wife.

  Charlie’s memories came in the form of horrible snapshots and sound bites. Lights everywhere. Flashing. Areas taped off. Rachel sitting there as if nothing had happened, smoking a cigarette. Charlie yelling his daughter’s name. Sarah not responding. Sarah as a little girl singing. A police officer in his face, asking him who he was.

  “That’s my daughter lying on the ground,” he said. Sarah lying in a pool of blood.

  Charlie trying to get her to respond to him, but she couldn’t even lift her head. Charlie knowing she was dead, and there was nothing anyone could do.

  Rachel sitting on a bench, like nothing had happened. Rachel smoking a cigarette. Charlie screaming that Rachel was a “stupid bitch.” Why did she need a knife? Why couldn’t she fight with her hands?

  Detective Kenneth Blessing asked Janet Camacho what had happened. Janet said that she, the victim, and their friend Jilica Smith were on their way to McDonald’s when Rachel threatened to stab Sarah. They met in the street.

  Rachel had been the complete aggressor, Janet said. She murdered Sarah.

  “What happened to the knife?” Detective Blessing asked.

  “I think she snuck it to one of her boyfriends,” Janet said, meaning Javier and his friend Dustin Grimes.

  Detective Joe Doswell interviewed Jilica Smith, who also said that Rachel had threatened to stab Sarah, but she claimed that the victim had shown her a text to that effect. She’d seen a red car driving by when she was outside Janet’s house, with a couple of girls in it.

  Later, when they got to this scene, Sarah had barely made it out of the minivan before Rachel charged her and the fight started. Jilica said she got a good look at the knife. It looked like a kitchen knife to her, and she would never forget the way Rachel smiled as she held it.

  When Blessing finished with Janet, and Doswell concluded his interview with Jilica, both women began walking home. But they didn’t make it far. They were intercepted, put into a patrol car, and were parked in it so that they could see the front of Javier’s house.

  Did either of them see the person who stabbed their friend Sarah? Sure, they said. It was Rachel Wade, sitting right there on that bench.

  Officer William Peterson separated Javier Laboy and his friend Dustin Grimes; then he took their written statements. Peterson later characterized those statements as “evasive.”

  Javier and Dustin told identical stories. All three women got out of the van simultaneously. They charged at Rachel, yelling. Sarah, in particular, was yelling as she aggressively approached Rachel. At first, Sarah and Rachel went at it; then there was a moment when Sarah and Janet were beating Rachel at the same time, two on one. Officer Peterson thought both witnesses needed to be interviewed again and said so when he turned them over to Detective Blessing.

  Sergeant Tina Trehy was in charge of keeping an eye on Rachel Wade. Police would wait for a less hectic moment to interrogate her. They wanted to get this right.

  As Trehy observed, Rachel kept moving her tongue to her bottom lip and bottom teeth. She complained that she thought she had cut the inside of her mouth during the fight.

  Paramedics lifted Sarah Ludemann onto a gurney and put her in the ambulance.

  Officer John Coleman escorted the ambulance to the hospital, which arrived at 1:21 A.M. Doctors and nurses worked over her for one hour and eight minutes.

  PART TWO

  THE INVESTIGATION

  Chapter 6

  THE LEAD INVESTIGATOR

  PPPD detective Michael Lynch might have gotten a relatively late start in his career as a cop, attending the academy when he was twenty-six, but law enforcement as a career choice had always been in the back of his mind. Some of Lynch’s work history before the police academy served him well in readying him for life as a peace officer. He’d been a dive technician, working on dive equipment in a little shop. He was in the insurance industry for a while. He was a tour operator, working for his mom, taking groups of senior citizens to Europe and Alaska. Putting those experiences together, his job history prepped him well for police work. He didn’t think he would have been an effective police officer right out of school. A few years of maturity helped him immensely.

  And he was an effective officer—awarded the 2007 Officer of the Year Award to honor his work on a series of high-profile bank robberies in Central Florida, with the suspect being dubbed the “Band-Aid Bandit,” and for the successful conclusion of a murder case, which went to trial that year.

  He loved working in investigations. He enjoyed solving mysteries, assembling jigsaw puz
zles. He wouldn’t have been happy as a road officer his entire career.

  Lynch joined PPPD in December 1997, was a patrol officer for two years, and after that a detective. In 2000, he joined the agency’s SWAT crisis negotiating team.

  Lynch was a lifelong resident of Pinellas Park. As it happened, he had been a senior at Pinellas Park High School when Jason Harless and Jason McCoy came to school with guns and murdered Assistant Principal Richard Allen.

  That incident made the national news and gave the city a reputation for youth violence, but Pinellas Park didn’t deserve that tag. During his years as a cop, Lynch had come to believe that the kids of the city were no more violent than anywhere else in the country. Sure, there was youth crime, but it predominantly consisted of fistfights. He was used to reporting to scenes and finding the victim with, at worst, bloody knuckles and a broken nose.

  In the past couple of years, there had been a rash of bullying-type crimes: online bullying cases that had made the news; people bad-mouthing each other on Myspace or Facebook; a lot of words flying back and forth. Enemies, who might in the past have cooled off when they were apart, were now linked via cell phones and the social networks. They could insult one another at any time of day or night, and do it in virtual public. Everybody saw it, everybody heard it, and it spread like wildfire—so that embarrassment blended with anger, forming a potentially violent cocktail.

  There had also been a tick upward in youth crime due to a new drug problem in the area—prescription pills. Back in the late 1990s, the city went through a heroin phase and police got used to reporting to the scenes of overdoses.

  But that went by the wayside; and a few years back, there had been a rash of robberies of local pharmacies, with major thefts of pills with codeine in them. Those pills had been used to hook an unacceptable percentage of the area’s juveniles.