About five hours after Bernice Elrod stood on her back porch pondering the dilemmas surrounding her youngest son, Eddie Fulford was leaning in the kitchen doorway watching Sara Mae take a large tray of biscuits out of the oven. That’s when Matt Langley came in the dining room from one of the bedrooms in the back.
“Mornin’,” said the high school wrestling coach.
“Welcome to the best place for breakfast in the Carolinas,” said Eddie, using his standard greeting as guests arrive for one of Sara Mae’s pre-dawn meals. That first whiff of the knee-high biscuits and homemade sausage and the young Mr. Langley wouldn’t disagree.
By 5:30, all had eaten, gathered their gear and headed for the vehicles. The riders were divided up the same as Thursday evening, and dropped off in the same order.
Darnel stopped the dually in front of the Bodner stand and waited for Matt to open the door and get out of the front passenger seat. Langley then stepped to the back and retrieved his pack, hanging it over his right shoulder. Next he slung the rifle over his left shoulder and clicked on his LED flashlight.
“Matt, we’ll watch while you get up those stairs and into the stand. Please be careful,” said Darnel.
The Arners, Maxeys and Darnel watched as Matt reached the metal grated platform at the back door, where he gave the others a wave.
No one knew someone else was watching, wrapped in the darkness not far from #12 – someone watching as the dually drove away; someone watching as young Matt Langley pulled the plywood door closed.
It was thirty minutes before sun up and Matt was filled with anticipation. He inserted three cartridges into his BAR .308, with another three sitting up on the shelf below the front window. He also put a pair of binoculars and two packs of cheese crackers on the shelf, along with two bottles of water.
Langley had gotten his bearings the previous evening. Stand #12 faced Deep River Road, sitting back ten to fifteen feet, with the river running parallel to the road behind the stand. Once he lowered the two side window panels, he was presented with an excellent view up and down the road to watch corn piles fifty yards out in each direction. Anything coming up off the river to eat would be clearly in view. The rear window opening offered a look back toward the river and the brushy area between the river and the road. He was no less impressed than others had been when first entering #12.
It was when Langley lowered the rear panel that the shadowy figure outside began to smile. He slightly lowered his bald head and drew down his noticeably bushy eyebrows. Other than the slowly widening grin that framed his overly-large, heavily stained teeth, he was perfectly still, wearing no shoes on the firm sandy soil. There was nothing but a stale t-shirt under his foul overalls.
Langley chose the broader, more promising view from the front window. In addition to the side openings’ lengthened view of the road, the front window provided a look at the field across River Bottom, running over to the tree line a hundred yards beyond. That’s where he would focus his attention – a decision which served perfectly what the monster below had in mind.
In the next few minutes binoculars helped Matt make out the shape of two does eating at the corn pile to his left. Soon they were joined by what he thought was a spike buck. He watched the three deer for several minutes, before the sudden, startled call of a crow split the predawn darkness. It sounded as though the bird had taken off from right behind the stand. Matt leaned forward to the see the shiny black bird flying toward the field. Something clearly had frightened it from an early-morning perch.
It was movement not sound that frightened the crow – the silent measured movement of someone ascending the stairs – someone now peering in the rear opening at the back of Langley’s neck. Not a sound had been made as the bare feet were carefully positioned coming up the ladder.
Were there enough light and Matt not so focused on the potential happenings out front, he could have turned and seen the right side of a splotchy puff-up face in the far end of the rear opening, the same spot from which Elvin Bodner had been taken.
This time it would be easier. Matt Langley had removed his hat and hung it on the rifle muzzle, which was leaning against the front edge of the shelf.
A small bump of Bodner’s hat made things more difficult six months earlier, causing the two-hundred-pound retired judge to turn and begin fighting, almost dooming the plan to failure. Only the killer’s strength and the strong element of surprise helped him overcome the Judge after pulling his elderly, struggling victim toward the rear wall, his hand digging into the windpipe at the front of the Judge’s neck. Although no one would know the details, Elvin Bodner had fought hard in his final moments. Burl Elrod had seized the moment that had been so coveted by Millard Raskin.
The most recent attempt with Millie Mateer in the stand had been foiled simply because she never unlatched and lowered the rear window panel. He’d seriously considered kicking in the door. But her threats with the rifle and her repeated cries sent him over the rear railing and back into the woods.
Easing away from the opening, turning slowly to his right and backing up against the cabin wall, Elrod adjusted his grip on the makeshift capture pole. It was only Matt Langley clearing his throat that gave the killer brief pause. But now, a few seconds later, he was ready.
Reclaiming his partial view into the stand at the back of Langley’s neck, he pushed the shovel handle with the wire noose into the cabin, level with and directly behind the coach’s neck. A slow elevating movement, a little more forward, then quickly down and back, and the noose was drawn tight in the killer’s left hand.
Langley kicked back from the front wall toward the rear of the cabin where the pole through the rear window was pointing toward the dark sky. He rolled out of the chair onto his hands and knees, desperately pulling at the wire. As strong as Elvin Bodner had been his fight fell short of the one being put up by the twenty-four-year-old athlete.
Langley managed to come to his feet and pull his assailant’s head into the cabin’s outside wall. Once, twice, three times Elrod’s face slammed into the window frame. With each impact the killer’s powerful left arm drew the wire tighter.
The wire was twisted four times to increase its diameter, reducing the chance of cutting into the neck, with the messy loss of blood. In addition, the wire was flattened, giving it incredible bite, as the victim scratched to get fingers between it and his neck.
Matt Langley went back to his knees, coughing, strangling and dying. His last thoughts were of his loved ones and his beloved bride-to-be.
Listening again to a hunter gasp for breath and issue a guttural plea for mercy – “Please no, please stop!” – the fiend wondered, as he did each time, whether it was the denial of blood to the head or oxygen to the lungs that brought the end. To him, it was more a morbidly stimulating thought than a pertinent question.
When Langley had stretched his legs and twitched for the last time, his eyes bulged and his bluing tongue protruded between his teeth, the killer rested the control stick in one corner of the window.
He took a large folding knife from his pocket. The blade was used to slip between the edge of the door and the frame to lift the latch out of the catch ring screwed deeply into the wall in the far corner. He then opened the door and entered.
After standing over the body for a moment, surveying every inch from top to bottom, he used the point of his knife to pry up, loosen and then remove the garrote from Langley’s neck.
This one’s smaller but stronger than the last one. He fought real good.
Langley was dragged onto the rear platform, pulled up by the arm, and folded over his killer’s right shoulder. Then, with the control stick in his left hand and his right arm around the back of Langley’s legs, he hurried down the steps, mindful that he must stay ahead of the sun. Being careful to step from one clump of growth on the ground to another, he soon reached the river and his boat, leaving little or no trace of his coming and going.
Pushing the boat back into the water with Matt L
angley’s body in the floor at the front, he engaged the electric motor and the flat-bottom boat began to move upstream on the two-mile trek to home and a safe distance from Elvin Bodner’s Stand. That’s when Burl Elrod began to laugh – a low, menacing cackle, giving expression to his most perverse pleasures.
The sun was beginning to come up when the boat was pulled out of the water and leaned against the small structure that housed and warmed the well pump. Langley was again hoisted up on his killer’s shoulder to be carried to the barn. The double wooden doors opened and closed, followed by the sound of a heavy wooden crossbar being dropped into place on the inside.
45 Premarital Murder
Friday, October 22, 2010 10:40 AM
The hunters were to be picked up at 10:30 for sausage biscuits and coffee scheduled for 11:00. With Eddie running an errand for Sara Mae, Darnel went to pick up Eddie’s riders. Scott said he would go to get the two Augusta couples and Matt Langley.
When the dually topped the rise before reaching the Bodner stand, Scott’s heart all but stopped. As he hit the brake, the flood of adrenalin slammed into his system, seeming to jolt his entire body.
The door to #12 was standing wide open, just like the morning Elvin Bodner disappeared. Scott’s thoughts were stampeding. It couldn’t be. Please no. Please no.
He had already picked up Taylor and Adrianna Arner, as well as Vince and Angela Maxey. Scott’s reaction to the open door, considered in connection with what they already knew, filled both couples with a sense of ominous alarm.
During the night, Scott had been unable to stop feeling concerned, thinking of the young man in #12. Subconsciously, he was priming himself for a paralyzing rush of panic should the unthinkable occur. When it came, it was far more devastating than he’d expected.
Scott reflexively hit the accelerator, anxious to get there and confirm his countering hope that Langley had simply opened the door to stretch his legs.
Not until he got out of the dually and called in several directions – “Matt! Matt Langley!” – did he head up the stairs and look inside. His most paralyzing fear seemed all too true. Another hunter had vanished from the Elvin Bodner Stand.
Scott’s first call on the two-way radio was to his father, who arrived in a matter of minutes. Not until Darnel had been reached on the radio and all the hunters returned to the Lodge did Scott call the Sheriff on the cell. While Scott called, Butch’s search of the immediate area turned up nothing.
As incredible as it seemed, just six months after Judge Bodner’s disappearance, Sheriff Conrad Scott, Detectives Welch and Terry and a platoon of deputies were returning to Brantley Hunting Lodge, where a second hunter had disappeared from the very same stand.
By late morning, crime scene specialists were processing the scene around the structure, while deputies and state officers walked through the surrounding woods. They wanted to cover as much ground as possible, while any evidence was fresh.
Scott was deeply concerned about his father, who was sitting on the dually tailgate. Butch had lost color in his face and clearly had moved beyond numbing disbelieve toward deepening shock.
It didn’t help Butch’s mental state when several questions from a detective strongly implied the Brantleys themselves were under growing suspicion. It was understandable – twice now, twice out of the same stand at Brantley Lodge?
“Scott, this can’t be happening again. Sweet Jesus, not again,” said Butch, who was beginning to tremble. Scott put his arm around his father’s shoulders and pulled him close.
There still was no Bodner body, nothing to go on really. With no body, there can be no confirmation of murder and certainly no closure for anyone.
Sheriff Scott walked over to the truck where the Brantleys were sitting. “Don’t worry Butch. Two men can’t just disappear from the same place, at the same time of day, without a trace. Bodies don’t just evaporate. We’ll find out what happened this time. Please be assured of that!”
46 Old Home Week
Friday, October 22, 2010 10:25 AM
Bernice Elrod liked having both boys at home. It didn’t happen often. But on Friday morning the 22nd of October, she not only had them under the same roof, she had fixed them breakfast and enjoyed listening to them talk. Burl always seemed to have his thoughts more organized when talking with his older brother. They had been working at the barn all morning.
That old wooden building was Burl’s domain and Bernice didn’t drop in unannounced. She’d overhead them talking about enlarging one section of the pen, and the hogs sounded as though they approved. Standing on the front porch after watching her boys eat the fried pies she’d promised, Bernice could hear the hogs snorting, squealing and grunting.
Her sons may have had different fathers, but one thing they had very much in common was a love for their mother’s fried apple pies. Big Burl could easily pack three or four away at one sitting – a total his older brother struggled to match.
Following the pies, the brothers were looking at their souvenir collection, which now included a chrome-plated .38 revolver and a black titanium yellow gold ring.
“You boys did feed the hogs didn’t ya?” yelled their mother from the sitting room.
The brothers smiled as they looked at one another and then out toward the road.
“They ate well this morning mama,” replied her oldest son, Preston Knowles. “We even had a bone or two for old Sam.”
Sturn County Deputy Henry Baker made a slight adjustment on his binoculars. He hadn’t heard the gruesome answer to their mother’s question, but he had seen more than enough.
His next visit, he wouldn’t be alone.
Elvin Bodner's Stand Page 14