Hardesty asks for the basics: phone number, full name, place of employment….
He and Lara are trim, fit. Hardesty’s blond, with close-cropped hair, pale blue eyes, a square jaw and direct gaze and rock-hard, no-nonsense handsomeness. A former Marine paratrooper, he wears light-colored clothes, with the shirt tucked in and a pager attached to his belt. Lara’s in a dark shirt, dark tie, dark pants. Both sit straight and tall, rarely relaxing into their chairs. On the walls are floor-to-ceiling panels of a ruglike material that absorbs sound and reduces echoes and reverberations for better acoustics.
Hardesty glances up. “Is that the Subway shop on Burnet Road?”
Kelly nods and gives him the address.
In a monitor room just down the hall, police officers and Texas Rangers and ATF agents and representatives from the DA’s office can watch the proceedings on a video screen and even page one of the interrogating detectives. But because Kelly Hanna is a nobody—at best a conduit to information that might or might not lead anywhere—that room is empty today.
Hardesty’s a slow, assertive typist. The laptop keys clack like an old-fashioned typewriter’s when he punches them, keeping his head down. When answering, Kelly sometimes leans forward, occasionally resting her chin in cupped palms or laying a forearm across her belly or rubbing it with curious fingers. Otherwise, she remains still, waiting, unafraid.
Homicide doesn’t think Kelly Hanna killed anybody or even went joyriding in the Pathfinder. Compared to everybody else in Maurice Pierce’s world, she’s a straight arrow who works a steady job, has children and makes eye contact when she answers questions—which, according to the BAI Scale of Innocence, scores her as “probably truthful.” It’s possible she might come up with something unexpected, but what they’re really after is the answer to one crucial question.
Kelly Hanna, of course, doesn’t have a clue about any of this.
—
I know a man who ran a little wild in Austin in the late eighties and early nineties, and he told me that the APD knew everything about him and his friends. Cops would regularly show up at their doors. “We know what you have,” they’d say. “Hand it over.” And whoever answered the knock would come up with the bag of tabs or weed they’d hidden in the closet or under the bed, thinking that was that. A little later, the cops would be back: “We know that’s not all; now give us the rest.” And they’d hand over the pillowcase with guns in it, then close the door and wonder, How the fuck did they know?
During those years, the police came in for a lot of criticism, but this man held them in high respect. He’s in his forties now, married, with kids, a manager at a big computer company. He wasn’t in Austin when the ICBY murders occurred. Having watched his friends getting into deeper and deeper trouble, fearing he was about to find himself in the same trap, he called a Marine recruiter. “How fast,” he asked, “can you get me out of here?” He was gone in a week.
But back before he enlisted, he and his friends had agreed that if anybody got hauled in for questioning, the key was to say nothing. Don’t ask for a lawyer; don’t acknowledge a single thing they say. Especially don’t believe it when cops get friendly and say they only want to ask a few questions and then everybody can go home. Or, worse, that they know you’re innocent but your friends are scapegoating you. The cops were always after something different from what they were saying.
—
Once Hardesty has entered Hanna’s basic information, he says, “Go ahead, Ron,” and Lara takes over. They’d like to work chronologically, he tells Kelly; is that okay with her? Yes. Was Rob Springsteen her boyfriend in December 1991? Yes, she and Rob went out for three or four weeks, starting in November of that year, maybe a month. Yes, she knew Maurice and Mike a little and had met Forrest in junior high. And yes, on the afternoon of December 6, Rob had told her he “might swing by” that night. No, he didn’t say who might be with him, but she thought possibly Mike and almost certainly Maurice, since he had a car, but she really “never knew exactly who was going to be in the group” or even if they’d turn up, because they all smoked weed and drank a lot of beer and everything was loose. Nobody had “dates” or “plans.” But she’d thought that if Rob did show, it would be around eight. She and two of her girlfriends—Amber and Janet—sat outside on the tailgate of her father’s pickup and waited until about ten, when they gave up and went inside. The next day, Rob came by, and she asked him where they’d been. “Driving around,” he told her.
Did Kelly suspect anything when he said that?
Well, by then she’d heard about what happened at the yogurt shop, and when she asked if they’d seen fire trucks or anything and he said no, she did think that was odd.
Odd? Both men jump on it, but she doesn’t notice. The thing was, she says, they always drove around in the same part of town and it seemed like they would’ve seen something, that was all. It was just…odd they hadn’t.
The detectives push harder. Hardesty—the more forthright of the two—asks if by “seeing” something, doesn’t she really mean “involved in”?
Kelly frowns and doesn’t answer. Noting her uncertainty, they keep hacking away about this point. During Michael Scott’s trial, she will tell a defense lawyer that she felt pressured and somewhat intimidated by the two officers, that every time she quoted Rob as having said they “might swing by,” either Hardesty or Lara would suggest that “they were supposed to be there” or that she and Rob had made “plans” for the night. And whenever she offered a correction, they’d slide right by it “over and over again.”
The detectives dial the pressure up a notch. Kelly’s friend Amber was interested in Maurice, right? Right. Did Kelly know if they were having sexual relations? Clearly embarrassed, Kelly says she’s pretty sure they weren’t, or Amber would have told her. Was Amber dating Mike? No. The officers don’t mention that Mike had claimed to have met up with an “Amber” at the bowling alley.
When they move on to the stolen Pathfinder, Kelly—still talking openly, lightly, sweetly—says yes, the boys had asked her to go with them, but she thought maybe it was the next weekend, not the weekend of the murders. Or maybe even the weekend before? Whenever it was, she didn’t go.
But, Hardesty says, she’d told them the day before that the Pathfinder adventure happened on the same weekend as the murders, hadn’t she? Not that he’s accusing her of lying; he’s just wondering why she’s changed her story.
One of his favorite instructions is to “think real hard,” as if the hidden thought he’s looking for will, if she really concentrates, fly up into her consciousness. But it’s lying that gets to her. She’s trying to remember things that happened seven years ago, to be precise and careful. Why would they bring up lying?
Interrogators like to use abrupt shifts in tone and subject matter. A sucker-punch question can sometimes throw a person off. At about forty-six minutes in, this is what happens when Lara asks if Kelly considered Rob Springsteen a liar. A bit tentatively, she says no. Would he, Lara wonders, his voice turning slightly edgier, have any reason to be a liar? She doesn’t think so…but maybe about some things.
Some things? He pauses. Would he lie about her?
The implication stings, and Kelly squirms. All she can come up with is that she “would hope not,” but she doesn’t know. And was Rob suggesting things about her, that she knew something? Or more than that? Her voice breaks. Lara moves closer.
Other people, he says, have told them that she went along to San Antonio. When Kelly again insists she didn’t, he ignores her. “Kelly,” he says, “there are other people putting you in that Nissan. I’m not accusing you of anything. But why would people be saying that, Kelly?” Was there somebody who didn’t like her?
She turns her hands palms-up and says she doesn’t know why anybody would say that. All she knows is that she was the weenie of the group, didn’t like guns, didn’t drink or smoke pot, and everybody knew it. And once she asked and the guys finally admitted they’d swiped the
car off a lot, she knew she didn’t want to go with them. In fact, her mom was standing there in the doorway, watching, when this happened.
Lara doesn’t let up. “Several people” were willing to make sworn statements in court “in reference to” putting her in the Pathfinder. This isn’t true, of course, but Lara’s tactics are perfectly legal within the U.S. Supreme Court’s definition of reasonable deception.
Hardesty: “We couldn’t care less if you were in that Nissan, Kelly. It’s not a crime.”
When Kelly starts to cry, she’s the one who apologizes and says that pregnancy’s hormones are making her emotional. At that, Lara leans forward, elbows on his knees, his face only inches from hers; in court, when asked why he did this, Lara will say it was to comfort her.
“Nobody,” he assures her, “is here to try to upset you, but there are some inconsistencies with you and what people are telling me.” He wants the truth and hopes she realizes that consequences are always worse when people lie. Without explaining the implications of that, he reminds her that it’s clear the joyride to San Antonio happened on the weekend of the murders. And if she doesn’t come clean about that, they’ll find out. She’s still crying, and he lowers his voice. “I feel you’re holding back on some of your answers.”
She says she’s trying to remember. Maybe she gets some things wrong, but she’s not lying, and it’s upsetting to be accused of something she didn’t do.
Hardesty: “Nobody’s accusing you, Kelly.”
“Yes,” she says, “but even if somebody else is…”
Kelly Hanna does pretty well and evades most of their traps. Toward the end of the session, when Lara again suggests that she’s been lying, she pulls herself together: “I’m not stupid,” she tells him. “I have kids. I make good decisions. I’m trying to give you honest answers.”
—
After two and a half hours, the detectives at last ask the crucial question, posed as a hypothetical they’re only slightly curious about. If she had to choose between Mike Scott, Forrest Welborn and Rob Springsteen, who did she think would be most likely to talk to them about Maurice Pierce without too much of a problem?
Kelly chooses Mike Scott.
Once again, it’s hard not to wonder what would’ve happened if she’d said she had no opinion about that. If she’d belonged to the group who knew to say nothing. If she’d said she didn’t know Mike Scott very well or simply didn’t want to answer. What if she’d chosen Rob Springsteen instead?
Wondering doesn’t help. She said what she said. Like others, she thought she was doing the right thing. Plus, she was scared and her feelings were hurt at the thought of people lying about her, especially Rob.
It’s close to six when she leaves, accompanied by Ron Lara. Hardesty remains at the computer, punching away. Alone, fearing he might’ve accidentally deleted the interview, he curses the screen, until Lara returns to help him retrieve the file.
Then, standing in the doorway, Lara asks his partner what he thinks about “this girl.”
Hardesty: I still think she’s holding back on something, but I don’t know what.
Lara, inaudibly, and then: …hate to be too rough on her.
Hardesty: If she fucking starts bleeding in here, that’s our ass.
Lara: Let me turn this thing off.
He walks out into the hall, and the screen goes blank.
When asked if he thought they were too rough on Hanna, Lara will say no. As to why she cried, he’ll claim it was because she was putting things together and realizing that her former boyfriend had been involved in a terrible crime. His written report will state that on the basis of their conversation, he and Hardesty had reassessed Scott’s importance, that possibly he was the “weak link” who might help them land Maurice Pierce.
But before talking to Scott, they decided to bring Forrest Welborn to Austin and give him one more chance to finger his friends. According to Hardesty, this wasn’t something they decided the day before, that “he was a focal point in the investigation.” To this day, Hardesty believes Forrest knows more than most people think, but in 1999, he offered nothing new. When they asked him about buying the newspaper at the convenience store, he knew he hadn’t done that because he couldn’t even read very well then. “I was dumb,” he told the detectives.
THE PURSUIT OF MAURICE PIERCE, ROUND TWO
Having located Mike Scott at a rural address just west of Buda, Lara and Hardesty drove down there. There were no street addresses, just roadside mailboxes, isolated double-wides, gravel roads, scrub oaks and flat fields—and the Scott name didn’t appear on any mailbox, so they asked a neighbor if they were at the right place. When told they were but that nobody was home, they hung around for a while and finally drove to South Austin, where Mike’s wife worked. At the UniSys reception desk, they asked to speak to her. When she appeared, Lara introduced himself and asked if she’d mind stepping outside so they could speak privately.
Jeannine Scott is a tall, forceful woman who walks with a wide stride and speaks with deliberation and intent. Her eyes are set far apart, her mouth is firm and her straight light brown hair reaches past her waist. Inflexible in her opinions—against the death penalty and in support of Mike—and resolute in her actions, she’s the polar opposite of her husband. Having been raised in the Midwest, she’s forthright and plainspoken, and it’s hard to imagine her backing down under pressure or answering any question she didn’t want asked of her.
In the parking lot, Lara went straight to the point. They were investigating some inconsistencies in a case and would like to talk to her husband. Could she arrange for Mike to be at her office the next morning, say at eight-thirty? Although Jeannine describes herself as a cynic, she agreed to his request and even tried to call Mike then and there. But the line was busy—probably, she said, because he was playing an Internet game. And that was that. After giving Lara their home phone number, she went back to work.
Lara tried Mike forty-five minutes later, and this time he picked up. Lara explained who he was and asked if he’d be willing to talk to him about a case he was struggling with.
At that, Lara says, Mike “got real quiet” and wanted to know what was wrong. What was going on? Nothing, the detective assured him, he was just working on a case and had already talked to Jeannine, who’d agreed to set up a meeting the next morning. Mike said okay.
This happened on Wednesday, September 8, 1999. Lara and Hardesty had no idea what the following week would bring, and neither, of course, did Michael Scott.
—
Lara drove alone to UniSys the next morning. The Scotts arrived soon after. Once Jeannine had gone inside, he introduced himself and asked if Mike was ready to go, and did he want to follow him in his car? Mike said no and got in the unmarked APD sedan.
He hadn’t been frisked, arrested or handcuffed and could have refused to go anywhere. All according to plan: If a suspect isn’t in custody, interrogating officers don’t have to issue a Miranda warning; they can all just sit around and talk…for hours, if the suspect’s willing.
A couple of minutes into the drive, Mike spoke first. “Let me guess,” he said, “about eight years ago?”
This according to Ron Lara’s written report and his testimony in court, an important according to, because no one else was in the car and the conversation wasn’t recorded, neither of these facts particularly surprising, since nobody expected Scott to blurt anything out right off the bat.
Out of the blue is how Lara described the moment, as if to say—addressing police chief, judge, jury, history itself—Why would Mike Scott have known what we wanted to talk about if he wasn’t involved or hadn’t seen something?
In 1999, driving to the station took, in morning traffic, maybe twelve or fifteen minutes, and Lara says that before they got there, Mike asked, “So, you guys looking for Rob?”
Lara looked over at him. Was this it? Already? “Should we be?”
When Scott didn’t answer, he changed the subject. But
Mike’s a naturally chatty guy, desperate to be liked, and right before they arrived, he again set himself up for a longer discussion with Homicide than he—or they—had expected. “So,” he began, as if in mid-conversation, “you guys don’t really have anything new on this investigation, do you?” When Lara refused to respond, Scott gave his own wrist a playful slap. “Oh well,” he reportedly said, “that was a dumb question for me to ask, wasn’t it?”
They parked on the second floor of the APD garage and passed through a controlled access door into Homicide, where Mike was offered a seat while Lara and Hardesty set up an interview room. When asked why, if he’d played no part in the crime, Scott had immediately guessed what they wanted to talk to him about, Carlos Garcia has a quick answer. “Sure he knew. Why wouldn’t he? They’d picked him up a week after the murders. There were all those phone calls from Paul Johnson. Of course it was Yogurt Shop. There was nothing else it could be.”
—
The “Mike Scott-1” DVD opens pretty much the same as Kelly’s, but this time the computer screen faces the door and the video camera’s more centrally positioned, its lens aimed at the back wall.
Lara enters alone—hair perfectly groomed, dressed again in a dark shirt and tie—and leaves the door open while he leans down and types on the laptop. After a few seconds he goes out and closes the door behind him.
Within minutes he escorts Mike inside and asks him to sit in a chair behind the table against the back wall, then leaves again. Mike’s long hair is pulled back in a ponytail that falls halfway down his back. He’s wearing dark jeans and a loose, collared shirt and is holding a pack of cigarettes. He hangs his sunglasses from the neck of his shirt in an attempt at hipsterism that doesn’t work. Alone, he slouches and looks around. After a short wait, he stands up and moves around the table to peer at the computer screen, reads what’s there and then sits back down in his chair, glancing upward once toward the camera lens. But there’s no indication he suspects he’s being recorded. He’s loose, easy and altogether aimless…and this will cost him. A life lived day by day proceeds without punctuation, making it difficult to remember what happened when and who he was with and what they got up to, exactly. When grilled about December 6 on a later occasion, Mike will say, “I don’t remember anything special about that night other than another night of going out, getting fucked up, going to the mall, going home and going to sleep.”
Who Killed These Girls? Page 17