Evidence of Murder

by Samuel Roen

  “Oh, yes,” Sheriff Eslinger said. “She was that engineer working on a project at Walt Disney World, right?”

  “That’s right, Sheriff.”

  “I’ll get that information on the warrant for you. Glad to do it.”

  “There’s something else, Don.”

  “Just ask.”

  “I’d appreciate it if we could also have Huggins’s arrest record.”

  “Certainly. No problem. I’ll be glad to get that for you. That guy has been a guest in our little bed-and-breakfast here from time to time over the years.” He chuckled. “And I’ve heard him described as a ‘bad guy.’ I’ll take care of this for you.”

  “Thanks, Sheriff.”

  “Glad to be of help.”

  Later in the day, the detectives drove to the residence of John Huggins’s mother, Joanne Hackett, in Lake Panasoffkee, Florida (about fifty-five miles northwest of Orlando near Bushnell). She was the guardian of John Huggins’s two children, who lived with her.

  The tall, older woman met the officers at her door, her straight black hair tied in a ponytail.

  Although the woman was courteous, it was clear that she was not pleased with the appearance of two detectives at her home.

  After the officers introduced themselves and showed their official ID cards, she asked stiffly, “What can I do for you?”

  “Mrs. Hackett, we would like to talk with you about a car that your son, John, rented,” Weir explained.

  The woman glared suspiciously at them before answering. “Is it against the law to rent a car?” she asked in a sardonic tone.

  “No, ma’am,” Linnert answered in a calm soothing voice. He began the story the two detectives concocted as a ruse to be able to talk to Huggins’s son. “We’re not here to upset or offend you. We’re just trying to determine what happened to a rental car that was not returned. And we have some information that John’s son, Jonathon, was a passenger in this particular vehicle and might be able to tell us something about it. We would like very much to talk to the boy.”

  “What’s going on here?” Her husband came to the door, a scowl on his face.

  “They want to know about some automobile that John is supposed to have rented, which was not returned,” she told her husband.

  “Who are these men?” he demanded, staring at the officers, obviously annoyed with this intrusion.

  “They are detectives with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and they want to talk to Jonathon.”

  “I’ll be damned,” he blustered. “He’s a kid; he’s only ten years old.”

  “We’re not going to upset the boy,” Weir stated soothingly. “We only want to ask him a few questions.”

  “What if we refuse to let you see or talk to him?” the man asked belligerently, moving defiantly closer to the detectives.

  “I just hope you won’t do that,” Weir responded pleasantly but firmly. His statement was conveyed in an ominous tone.

  The husband glared at the two detectives. Weir stated in an official tone, “Sir, we can and will take the necessary steps to talk with Jonathon, if that’s what we have to do—”

  “No, no,” Mrs. Hackett interrupted, taking command of the situation that was going out of control. “That won’t be necessary. Come in. I’ll get Jonathon and you can talk with him,” she said.

  Moments after she seated the detectives in her living room, she brought her grandson into the room and introduced him to the officers. “Jonathon, these men are detectives and they want to talk with you about the car that you were in with your daddy.”

  The boy smiled and said, “That was a cool car that Dad had.”

  Weir and Linnert smiled warmly at the boy. Weir explained, “We just want to ask you some questions about that car.”

  As the detectives proceeded, the boy’s grandmother quietly motioned her husband to a couch, where they were seated and could oversee the interview.

  “Jonathon, what kind of a car was your father driving when you were over in the Melbourne area?” Linnert questioned the boy quietly.

  “It was a rental car,” he answered. He raised his head and looked directly at the detectives. “It was parked down the street from the house.” Apparently desirous to help, Jonathon continued, “We used the car to go to the store and get things.”

  After the friendly opening with the young boy, Linnert asked, “Who drove the vehicle?”

  “Dad would go get it and my mother, not really my mother, Angel, would go with him to get the car from its parking place.”

  “We understand that you really liked that car,” Weir remarked companionably, encouraging Jonathon to go on.

  “Oh, yeah. I was at Angel’s when Dad drove up with that cool car. I thought it was great and I wanted to get in it. And I did. It had a thing that told the temperature and it told the direction that you were going.” He stopped to look at his grandmother for reassurance. She smiled at him and he picked up. “We went to different places in that car. Boy, it was fun.”

  “Jonathon,” Weir directed the friendly discussion, “tell us about the vehicle. What did it look like? What color was it? What was it like on the inside? Just tell us everything about it that you can.”

  “It was a black car.” He stopped and then thought about that. “Maybe it was green, dark green. It had those shiny steel wheels.” He waited for encouragement and Weir nodded to him. “It had four doors and it was big and roomy. Inside the leather, you know, the seats and all were gray. It sure looked nice.” Jonathon was excited to recount his experience in the classy car.

  Again he paused to recall and then went on, “It had a shiny metal roof rack. The seats were really good. They had air cushions that changed and you could set them as soft as you like. They were so comfortable to sit on.” He remembered that there was a spare tire inside the van. “And there was this cool control thing that you could adjust the air-conditioning and the radio volume in both the front and the back.”

  The two detectives listened attentively as the boy described the controls as being in the rear of the center console that separated the front seats. “It also acted as an armrest,” he stated. He wound up with his observation that the key for the vehicle had a button that locked or unlocked the car. He looked at the officers with his big blue eyes glowing enthusiastically as he described all the details.

  Weir thanked Jonathon, and Linnert complimented him. “You did a fine job, Jonathon, and we’re proud of you.” The boy smiled happily.

  Cam Weir turned to the boy’s grandmother and expressed appreciation for her cooperation and departed.

  The following day, July 10, Inspector Dan Nazarchuk, a long-experienced officer with the OCSD, and Detective William Hinkey, who partnered with him for many years in the department, were called in. Their assignment was to look into the check-ins and stays of Angel Huggins, John Huggins and Nancy Parkinson at the various hotels and motels in the central Florida area in the immediate period of the vanishing and murder of Carla Larson.

  “Check on their stories,” Cam explained to the two veteran officers. “We have to know where they stayed and when—just anything that you fellows can find out about them.”

  “Gotcha,” Dan Nazarchuk answered.

  Nazarchuk and Hinkey lost no time in their pursuit. They found that Angel Huggins was a guest at the Bugetel Inns in Melbourne, Florida, on June 15, 16 and 17 in 1997. They obtained the hotel registration cards.

  Tracking Angel’s travels, they found she stayed at the Days Inn in Titusville, Florida, on June 17, and checked out on June 18, at 11:50 A.M. The hotel records indicated that rooms 116 and 118 were rented to her.

  The officers requested and were given the registration card and the record of telephone calls made from the two rooms.

  The two lawmen drove to the Econo Lodge Motel on North Cocoa Beach, Florida, where they found records indicating that Nancy Parkinson, Angel’s sister, rented one room on June 27. She checked out of the room on the same date at 10:46 P.M.

 
; The officers secured the registration card. No phone calls were made from the room during the rental period. “She rented the room just for the day. Wonder if she was alone,” Nazarchuk speculated.

  Hinkey laughed. “Good question.”

  The investigators then checked the Royal Mansions Condominiums at Cape Canaveral, where they learned that Nancy Parkinson registered on June 22 and remained there until June 27. The officers obtained copies of the registration and telephone tolls.

  Nazarchuk looked at records of the phone calls and told Bill Hinkey, “We’ll have to check these calls when we get back to headquarters.”

  Hinkey nodded. “Yeah, they might be important.”

  In the continuing investigation, Cam Weir and John Linnert learned that the Brevard County Sheriff’s Department had some information for them. It came by chance to the Florida Highway Patrol, then passed on to the BCSD.

  When Weir got the call from BCSD, he straightened up in his chair and told Linnert, “Listen to this.”

  Linnert looked up from his paperwork. “It better be good.”

  “It is. Or maybe could be,” Weir said. “A man named John August in Melbourne reportedly saw Carla Larson’s Explorer on June twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth.”

  “Well, let’s have that checked out. Sounds promising, but let’s get some more details.”

  Weir assigned Nazarchuk and Hinkey to meet with August and get his story.

  The two officers met with the man in Melbourne.

  After introductions Nazarchuk said, “We understand that you saw the Ford Explorer that is involved in a case that we’re investigating. Would you tell us about it, the date, the description and whatever you can remember?”

  August answered, “Yes, of course. It was June twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth. I saw it on the Eau Gallie Causeway, going east headed for A1A.”

  “Did you get a look at the driver?” Bill Hinkey asked. “And can you describe that person?”

  “I drove right alongside him and got a good look at him.” He seemed very positive. “He was a white man and, I guess, he was thirty-five to thirty-seven years old. His hair was dark, dark brown, I’d say, and it was collar length. I think it would be a safe bet to guess his weight at just about two hundred. From the way he was sitting behind the wheel, he had to be five-eleven or six feet tall.”

  Nazarchuk encouraged the witness. “What else can you remember about him? Anything that you can tell us could be important.”

  “It wasn’t so much when I saw him that it struck me.” August paused for a moment, organizing his thoughts. “It was when I watched the news on television.”

  “What did that tell you?” Dan Nazarchuk asked.

  “They said on the news that the white Explorer had been poorly spray-painted black. That’s what struck me. I thought about it and thought about it. I couldn’t get that vehicle out of my mind. And then when I saw the drawings, the composite of the supposed wanted man, I knew right then and there that those drawings did not resemble the man I saw driving that black Explorer.”

  The investigators showed John August a photographic lineup of six different possible suspects, including one of John Huggins. August studied the pictures and selected one. It was not John Huggins. August told the officers that he was confident that he could correctly identify the driver he saw at the wheel of the black Ford Explorer, if he could see him in person.

  Later, Nazarchuk lamented to his partner, “It sounds like just another dead end.”

  Hinkey agreed. “Well, you can’t win them all.”

  Cam Weir and John Linnert reviewed what they assembled in their investigation so far. Weir, who is generally not given to a great deal of optimism, pushed his desk phone aside and said, “You know, John, I think we’re moving ahead, going in the right direction. I just wish it could be a bit speedier—”

  The phone interrupted him.

  “Detective Weir,” a strong, clear voice greeted him. “This is John Thorpe from the Seminole County Sheriff’s Department. It’s been a while since we talked.”

  “Yes, it has, Lieutenant, but I’m glad to hear from you.”

  “Sheriff Eslinger asked me to give you a call. He said that you were interested in the warrant that was issued, arresting John Huggins in Maryland.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I have that information. The charge against Huggins is his failure to appear on stolen property charges,” Lieutenant Thorpe stated. “We’re drawing up extradition papers to return Huggins to Florida to our jurisdiction. I’ll be glad to send you a copy of that, along with John Huggins’s arrest record, if you would like.”

  “I’d be very grateful. Thanks, Lieutenant, this is the best call I’ve had today.”

  With a king-size smile, Weir turned to his partner and said simply, “We got it.”

  “Well, men, how’s the case going?” Sheriff Kevin Beary paused as he was passing the desks of Weir and Linnert.

  “Coming along, Sheriff,” Weir answered.

  The two detectives discussed their progress and then brought up their plans to fly north that afternoon to interview Melanie Cramden and Nancy Parkinson. They also had a faint hope of interviewing John Huggins in jail.

  “Fine, fine,” encouraged the sheriff. “Keep up the good work.”

  The flight to Washington, D.C., was uneventful, and before long the two detectives arrived in their rental car at the home of Melanie Cramden in Greenwood, Delaware.

  John Linnert rang the doorbell of the residence and waited. He looked at the setting sun. “It’s been a nice day,” he observed.

  Weir asked impatiently, “What’s the delay here?”

  “Maybe she’s not home,” Linnert replied.

  “Do you think that she is deliberately not answering, wondering who we are and why we’re at her door?”

  “Now, now, Cam, don’t be so suspicious.”

  As he spoke, the door opened, revealing a small, pleasant-faced woman, probably in her late thirties or early forties. After introductions Melanie Cramden invited the officers inside.

  Weir began sociably: “Did you have a nice trip to Florida?”

  She smiled. “I’d say it was a nice trip overall, but it had a lot of unexpected things that we never figured on.”

  “How’s that?” Linnert asked.

  “My whole idea or desire was to make this trip with my neighbor Nancy Parkinson, to visit Walt Disney World.” She reached over to an end table and picked up a brochure of the entertainment complex, which she brought back with her, and held it up for the detectives to see. “I’d heard so much about this place for years that I wanted more than anything to see it, especially Cinderella’s Castle. And when Nancy asked me to go along with her and the kids as company on her trip to Melbourne, I just thought that was a gift from heaven.”

  “That must have been an exciting experience for you.” Weir nodded.

  “It was great. You know, the realization of a dream. I could have spent days there. But we didn’t have the time. And I was disappointed that we were constantly going around with no real plan or organization.

  “We drove down in Nancy’s minivan. It’s a nice-size vehicle, but with Nancy, her three kids and me packed into it, we did not have a luxurious setup. It wasn’t bad, though.”

  Continuing, Cramden said, “The first week we were in Melbourne, all of us stayed with her mother and her sister, Angel Huggins, at their home. On June twenty-first Nancy and I, with Nancy’s kids, went to Disney World. I didn’t know it but I was in for a big surprise. We met John Huggins there. He had his two children with him.”

  Melanie Cramden squirmed in her chair, clearly uncomfortable at telling this. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but it became clear to me that the meeting of Nancy and John Huggins was not by chance. They, without a doubt, planned and arranged it.

  “Anyway, after spending the day at Disney World, we all went to the Sheraton World Resort Hotel in the Orlando area.”

  She looked at her Disney Worl
d brochure again. “Everything about this part of central Florida is wonderful, spectacular. First the weather is great, and then there are all those fabulous resorts beginning, of course, with Walt Disney World, all the marvelous hotels and motels and the great restaurants. It was a paradise on earth.”

  Linnert smiled at her enthusiasm. “Maybe our chamber of commerce should hire you to promote tourism.”

  “That sounds good to me, Detective Linnert. Then I could live in paradise all the time.”

  They laughed; then John Linnert asked, “What did you do after your visit to Disney World?”

  “We only stayed at the Sheraton one night. The next day, June twenty-second, we helped John Huggins drop off his wife Angel’s car at a motel.” A sly look crossed her face as she said, “None of us was staying there.” She giggled. “It was just a place to abandon the vehicle, as John was going to spend time with us, with Nancy, that is.”

  “What then?” Weir asked.

  “We all drove together to the Royal Mansions in Cape Canaveral. Rental condos. We had two rooms.”

  The detectives waited patiently as Melanie Cramden continued. “I was a little surprised but pleased to learn that John Huggins paid for the rooms. My curiosity got the best of me and I asked him how he made his money, but he didn’t answer me.” She had a puzzled expression on her face.

  “I guess that you were having quite a time of it,” Weir encouraged her.

  “Yes, indeed. For example, on—let me think—yes, it was June twenty-sixth, I was moving some things from the room into Nancy’s van, and while I was straightening it up, I found a gun under the driver’s seat.” She stopped and looked at the lawmen. “I wasn’t thrilled with that. I don’t like guns.”

  Detective Weir asked, “Can you describe the gun?”

  Cramden slowly recalled it. “I don’t know much about guns. This one was black, maybe it was silver—dark. It’s the kind that you push a clip of bullets into.”