The Dead Priest of Sedona

by Charles Williamson

  There was evidence that a number of people had recently used the clearing. The pine needles, volcanic gravel, and dry grass retained no footprints, but it was plain that they had been disturbed by the tramp of many different feet. If the crime occurred after the recent snowfall, we should be able to find some tracks in the snow under the smaller trees that surrounded the clearing. I photographed the murder victim and the area around the fire.

  A circle of rocks had been formed into a primitive fireplace to contain the blaze. The fire must have been small enough not to reach the juniper branch from which the cage was suspended. My horror was enhanced by the realization that a small fire would have been slower to kill than a roaring blaze.

  When I took a close-up photo of the blackened face, I had the horrifying feeling that I might know who had been tortured in this barbaric way. I was not sure, and I forced that thought from my conscious mind. There was no sign of burned clothing or shoes on the body. He had been forced nude into the steel cage. There was also no sign of a watch or ring. It would probably take dental records or DNA to determine the victim’s identity. I said a silent prayer. The victim’s suffering in this world was over.

  I took close-up photos of the cage. Someone had welded the one-inch steel strips into this bell shape. The strips might have been cut from steel drums or a water tank. They seemed to have been woven into the cage shape before welding. There was a three-foot diameter steel ring forming the bottom of the cage. Metal straps with two-inch gaps formed a floor. One quarter of the circular cage was hinged, forming a door. It was secured with an ordinary Masterlock brand padlock, blackened by smoke. This common padlock would be difficult to trace. Every ranch or car body shop in Arizona would have the equipment to make this hideous cage.

  I used the satellite phone to call the Sheriff’s Department headquarters in Flagstaff and reported that this location was undoubtedly a murder scene. They connected me to Sheriff Greg Taylor, my boss. When I described the scene, the sheriff said he would join the technician on the helicopter. I gave him our GPS coordinates, and I explained where they should land the chopper to avoid any contamination of the area.

  Chad recovered quickly and wanted to help with the investigation. I asked him to walk around the clearing looking for any footprints that indicated where the murderers had entered the circle of trees. We were hoping to find traces in the thin layer of snow.

  I had taken four rolls of film and fifty digital photos when I stood considering the difficulties of this case. How had the victim been brought to this remote spot and forced into the cage? For that matter, how had this heavy cage and logging chain been brought here? There was no way a group of people could have carried it to this remote spot up the trail we’d used. Was there a jeep road somewhere nearby? I decided to ask the helicopter pilot to search for the nearest road access when the reinforcements from Flagstaff arrived.

  Because of the combination of the fire and the cold night, it might be difficult to determine the time of death. There was little sign of decay of the victim’s body after the fire; however, birds had disturbed the burned corpse. Both eyes were gone, and small pieces of the burned flesh were missing.

  I put ashes from the fire in a bag for analysis. While I was inspecting the fire remains, I saw a bit of deep blue color on the tree near where the logging chain was secured. I collected it for processing at the lab. It had a greasy texture and a faint animal smell. Near the fire was an eight-inch diameter tan sandstone rock on which I found traces that looked like red candle wax. I put the wax drippings and the rock in evidence bags and continued my search of the crime scene.

  In the clearing a short distance from the victim was a two-foot-long pine branch. It had probably been cut from one of the small ponderosa that formed the dense circle around the clearing. This small branch was wet, while the pine needles on the ground around it were dry, and the branch was cut straight, not broken by wind. I put it in an evidence bag, carefully sealing it so that the water would not evaporate. Chad went to look for the tree from which the branch had been cut.

  I’d investigated the area for about an hour before hearing the chopper with its reinforcements. Chad had found only the tracks made by Kevin when he entered the clearing that morning. That snow might help determine the time of the murder if we could learn exactly when it had snowed up here last night. I could check with the weather staff at Channel 2, but first I would ask Kevin if he knew. Usually, the medical examiner could determine the time of death knowing the temperature of the area, but I suspected that the fire would confuse her estimate. The helicopter approached, and Chad and I went to meet the sheriff.

  CHAPTER 3

  Sheriff Greg Taylor exited from the chopper along with the crime scene technician and another Flagstaff detective. With his handlebar mustache and cowboy hat, Greg Taylor looks more like a movie cowboy from the 1950’s than modern cop, but he is very competent. I showed the sheriff around the area indicating what I’d learned. We spoke quietly in the presence of so brutal a killing.

  Sheriff Taylor said, “Mike, you’re the lead man on this case. You can commandeer anyone you need onto the task force. We’re in the national forest, so we could ask for FBI help.”

  I considered the possibility of using the FBI. Their lab was more sophisticated than the State Crime Lab in Phoenix. Their agents were involved in drug interdiction and some fiscal problems and serious crimes on the Navajo Reservation, so we should not expect direct involvement in a local murder, even a gruesome one. At this point, the FBI had been told of a murder in the national forest north of Sedona; they did not know the bizarre method.

  I decided to seek the help of their crime lab, but not the assistance of their agents. If we found the guilty people, we should expect the FBI to show up and claim credit, but otherwise, they would probably keep out of the investigation unless we pleaded for their help. The case was too bizarre not to attract press attention, but Sheriff Taylor wanted an absolute press blackout. He insisted that no one else make any public comments.

  We spent two more hours at the crime scene. The chopper took the corpse and the barbaric cage to the sheriff’s storage yard a few miles south of Flagstaff. The cage went into a locked storage shed, and the body went to the medical examiner’s office.

  About four o’clock, the helicopter returned to take Chad, Kevin, and me back to Sedona. I was relieved to discover that we would fly back to town. The pilot planned to return for the sheriff and his group on her way back to Flagstaff. Before we left, Chad showed me a tree where the branch had been cut. There was a five-foot wide opening in the circle of trees at the north end of the grove. It was wide enough for a small vehicle, but there was no trace of tracks. One of the pines forming the sides of this opening was the source of our branch as if someone had cut it with a knife on the way to the murder.

  I had Kevin point out where he had camped the previous night. It was a clearing, probably regularly used by backpackers, about half a mile from the grove we’d investigated. Kevin explained that it had snowed on his campsite sometime last night, well after midnight. The quarter inch of snow disappeared quickly in the morning sun. The trace we had found in the grove had been protected by the shade of the small pines, but it was gone by the time we left the crime scene.

  As we boarded the helicopter, Kevin mentioned that he’d heard something during the night. “It was an animal scream. Detective Damson, it couldn’t have been a human sound. Maybe it was an elk calf taken by a cougar. God, there was no possible way it was a human.” Kevin’s tone betrayed his doubt. He’d checked his Timex. The shriek had started at midnight and lasted several minutes.

  As we flew down to Sedona, I could see a trace of a rough forest service road, abandoned for decades, which ended about half a mile from the grisly scene. The road was up on the rim and would connect to either Flagstaff on Old Highway 66 or to highway 89A somewhere after it climbed out of Oak Creek Canyon. I’d need a detailed forest service map to pinpoint where this old jeep trail connected
to a highway. The hike to the forest grove from the end of the primitive road would be flat and not difficult for the average person. However, it would have been a challenge to get the cage and chain to that grove even from the end of the abandoned road. I assumed that some sort of hand-pulled cart or small powered vehicle was used.

  After checking with Margaret, I invited Kevin Riker to spend a few nights in one of our guest bedrooms. Motels are expensive in Sedona, but I wanted Kevin around for a few more days to hear his story in detail. We were running a “wants and warrants check” on him, just a normal procedure in this type of case. I believed his story, but I didn’t want him leaving town yet. A backpacker with no fixed address would be too difficult to track down.

  On the ride back up the canyon to retrieve my Explorer, Chad tried to apologize for his weak stomach. He explained that he still couldn’t get the sight of the corpse out of his mind. His reaction was normal. I told the story of my encounter with a murder victim that I found in a crack house in LA. The guy had been dead two weeks during an August heat wave.

  In time, Chad would be able to put these things in the detective part of his mind. The ghastly sights could be retrieved when needed, but they would not pop into his head uninvited. I didn’t mention that these visions sometimes broke through into my restless dreams even years later. This had been a particularly gruesome crime; all three of us would never forget it. Kevin would move on and complete his year of hiking before getting a job, but Chad and I would be working on this case until it was solved. We couldn’t escape the horror until our job was done.

  Kevin and I drove back down the canyon toward my house. It was getting cool, and the canyon was in deep shadow. “Kevin, I need you to stay in town for three or four days. By Saturday, we should have the lab reports and probably identified the body. You’ll need to check in occasionally for the next few months, but I don’t expect to delay your hiking trip after next week. There’s a lot to explore here in Sedona and the rest of the Verde Valley. You shouldn’t get bored. I can point out fifty hiking trails you might enjoy.”

  “Lieutenant Damson, I want to help you find the maniac who did this. I’ll help any way I can.”

  “Kevin, you’re a house guest not a suspect. Please call me Mike and my wife is Margaret. She’s a talented cook, but we’ll take you out to eat too. You’ve been eating trail food too long. Margaret will certainly try to fatten you up.”

  He smiled at the prospect of some home cooking. It was the first smile I’d seen from the young man. I had been grim-faced myself since I looked at the body. It was among the worst crime scenes of my career.

  I slowed as we followed an RV doing five miles an hour on the winding road. “I’ve got a mountain bike you can use to get around town while you’re here. I can’t let you drive the Explorer because it belongs to the Sheriff’s Department.”

  “Thanks Mike, I’ll be glad for a chance to explore the Sedona area, sleep in a real bed, and eat food that hasn’t been dehydrated.”

  As we drove through uptown Sedona with its t-shirt, knickknack, fine art, and fudge shops, Kevin told me more about his Texas home. I had always assumed that Texas was mostly barren desert and high treeless plains, but Kevin explained that the little town of Honey Grove, near Paris, Texas, was only a short drive from a dense forest of southern pines, oak, and hickory called the Cross Timbers. Kevin had grown up loving the outdoors, fishing, hiking, and camping.

  As the late afternoon sun highlighted Steamboat Rock above uptown, Kevin described his passion for the outdoors. At college in Austin, he and some buddies had gone camping down at Big Bend and at other parks in Texas or New Mexico. In the summers, Kevin had always found a job where he could hike whenever he was not working. Kevin Riker was a pleasant and engaging young man who I thought would make an excellent petroleum engineer.

  CHAPTER 4

  Margaret had selected a Sedona house that is very southwestern looking, but with a lot of glass. They call the style southwestern contemporary here. From the street, our buff colored fake-adobe house would look at home on a side street near the square in Santa Fe; however, on the backside, almost all the walls were glass to capture every red-rock view. As we pulled into the driveway, I could see Margaret’s car already parked. Since we had a guest, she would be in the kitchen trying something new from her cooking class. Margaret had never paid much attention to cooking until our Arizona move, but she’s now made a hobby of preparing spicy southwestern-style food. She’s gotten very good at it.

  My wife is an attractive woman who looks ten year younger than her fifty-two. I could see Kevin’s surprise that a middle-aged detective with graying hair, a bad leg, and a nose that had been broken too many times had such an attractive shapely wife.

  Margaret welcomed him by saying; “This is your home while you’re in Sedona, Kevin. Our house is your house. Mike and I love to show people around our little town and our magnificent hiking trails.”

  Margaret handed Kevin a book of local hikes and mountain bike trails. “I’ll enjoy hearing all about your Arizona Trail hike later. There are clean towels in your guest bathroom to freshen up before dinner. Bring me your dirty clothes, and I’ll put them straight in the washer while we eat. There’s a robe in the closet you can wear to dinner if you have nothing clean.” There was a warm smile on my sweetheart’s lips, but that was Margaret’s polite way of telling both of us that there would be no food until we took showers and changed clothes. I had not even touched the corpse, but by some mysterious method, the smell of death clung to me. Kevin certainly had not had a shower in the past week.

  Margaret had arranged dinner on the deck, where the gas patio heaters made the area around the table warm enough to enjoy the outdoors without a coat. We watched the last of the sunset turn to starry night as we enjoyed Margaret’s excellent avocado and shrimp tacos and her blue-corn posole.

  Kevin told us detailed stories about his six months of hiking. He was quite charming and articulate, and the dinner conversation distracted me from the horrors that I’d seen earlier that day. Margaret hadn’t brought it up over dinner, but I knew that she was very anxious to hear about Sedona’s first murder since I joined the Sheriff’s Department. After enjoying the night sky and the good dinner, Kevin turned in for his first night in a comfortable bed in several weeks.

  We sat in the living room, and I told Margaret about the murder investigation. Unlike most of my friends in law enforcement, I discuss all my cases with my wife. Margaret had pushed for me to share my work experiences ever since I was a rookie police officer and a newlywed. Once I became a LAPD detective, I learned that she had a real knack for putting all the pieces of an investigation together. She often sees the solution before I do. She’s consistently advanced my career with her suggestions about my most difficult cases. However, for this gruesome crime, it was difficult to describe to someone I love the hideous details of the murder.

  Margaret listened quietly as I described the pitiful body and the gruesome cage. She began to cry during the rest of my explanation of the crime but said nothing.

  When I had finished Margaret said, “Father Sean?”

  I was stunned. The image of the burned corpse rushed though my mind. It was possible, but why would Margaret come up with the name of our parish priest at St. Paul of Tarsus Catholic Church?

  Seeing my disconcerted look, Margaret continued, “Mike today is All Saints Day, a holy day of obligation. I didn’t drag you to mass because it’s optional when the holiday falls on a Monday, but many people go to mass today anyway. Father Sean missed both the eight o’clock mass and the 10:30 mass. I heard about it from four different customers today. Father Antonio held the Spanish mass at 9:00. He wasn’t able to find Father Sean anywhere, so he also conducted the 10:30 mass in English.”

  Father Sean Murphy was very responsible and hard working. He wasn’t the kind of man who would not keep to a schedule.

  “Mike, if Father Sean missed both masses, something serious happened to him. Jim Hart
stopped by to cash a check this afternoon, and said they’d started to look around for Father Sean.”

  Margaret had become Information Central for Sedona. Her job at the bank brought her into contact with so many local people every day. Jim Hart was a Sedona police officer. The police would not normally investigate someone as missing who’d only been gone six hours. If they were already checking, they must be taking the report seriously. There was almost no chance that the local police would have put information about the missing priest on the wire yet. Missing people are never reported to other law enforcement departments the same day they disappear unless there’s clear evidence of foul play.

  I put my arm around Margaret and said, “Sweetie, we don’t know for sure. It was a terrible crime, but it was probably not someone we know.” I hoped that was true.

  I called the Sheriff’s Office in Flagstaff and told the night duty officer, “Father Sean Murphy, of St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Sedona, is missing. He fits the description of our murder victim. Tomorrow, I’ll find his dental records. Unless the priest turns up by morning, I’ll bring the dental records and a DNA sample from Father Sean’s room to Flagstaff by 10:00.”

  Margaret is very perceptive and smarter than I am. Her advice is usually right on the mark. I was a little sorry about sharing this particular case with her, but we had kept our marriage strong by sharing everything. I knew that the knowledge of what appalling evil some people are capable of would hurt her, and I was glad that she didn’t see the body in its piteous state. I had left out the more gruesome detail in my description. After my call to Flagstaff, we went to bed, but both of us slept restlessly. By tomorrow we would know if our parish priest had been murdered.