It was a convoluted story. It took substantial prodding to convince Ruby to say what she said to police. Gouker had a way of manipulating his mother. In part, she feared him, but she also truly loved her son. As the conversation wound to a close, Gouker gushed at the end of the call, “Mom, I love you.”
“I love you too,” she echoed. As they said their goodbyes, Gouker once again began to weep loudly.
Afterward, at about two o’clock, Gouker and the detectives attempted to contact Cassi and once again they were unable to connect.
Detective Russ looked toward Detective Stalvey. “Call and have [a patrol car] go by [Cassi’s house] and tell Cassi to answer the phone.” He wanted to speak with Cassi and he wanted to do so immediately. He further directed Detective Stalvey, “Just say we need to do it ASAP! They gotta get over there like the house is on fucking fire, yeah. Tell them to tell Cassi to answer the phone ’cause Josh is trying to call ’em. Yeah, they can tell ’em that.”
Detective Stalvey immediately contacted the Louisville dispatch center and instructed them to send a police cruiser to Cassi’s residence to wake her up so that she could speak with Gouker. As he set those actions into motion, Gouker suggested that they reach out to Angelic Burkhead, his one-time lover and companion as he had fled south just a week earlier. Due to the fact that she worked late hours at a nightclub, he was confident that she would be awake and answer the call.
After just a few rings, Angelic’s voice was on the line, “Hello?”5
“Angelic?”
“Yeah?” she slowly asked, unsure of the voice on the other end of the phone line.
“Hey, it’s me.”
“Who’s me? I’m at work, baby. I can’t even talk right now. I’m at work.”
“Hey. This is Josh. I need to talk to you. It’s very important. Can you just take a break?”
“How long?”
“Five minutes?”
Obviously nervous because her job could be affected by the call, Angelic acquiesced, “I mean, I’m probably gonna get yelled at real bad for this, but talk.”
Gouker wasted no time getting directly to point: “Hey, listen. Louisville Homicide detectives are here and they know everything that happened to Trey.”
Silence filled the line and Angelic did not say a word. Gouker continued, “You hear me?”
“Yeah, I hear you,” she responded, apparently waiting to see where he was going with the conversation.
Detective Russ quickly joined in. “Hey Angelic, this is Detective Russ with Louisville. I am down here in Alabama. I just need to know what Josh Junior, Josh Young told you about what happened.”
“No.”
“No, what?”
“No, he didn’t tell me what happened,” she answered.
Gouker couldn’t take it anymore and sighing heavily, he grabbed the reins back and took over the conversation. “Angelic!” he barked.
“Yeah?” Angelic was noncommittal. It appeared that she was unsure what Gouker wanted her to say, so she hesitated. She did not want to say the wrong thing and set him off. Even when he was imprisoned hundreds of miles away, she still feared him and that fear controlled her.
“They know. You’re not in any trouble,” Gouker coerced.
Detective Russ parroted the sentiment, “You’re not in trouble for knowing about what happened. All I need to know is what Josh Junior told you.”
“Nothing. I don’t know anything about it, except for what has been on the news.” As Angelic adamantly denied knowledge of the crime, Detective Russ turned to Gouker for help, “Tell her, tell her what you told me.”
Gouker implored Angelic, “Angelic, listen to me. Tell the truth. I need you to tell the truth right now for me. It’s okay.”
“I don’t know what the truth is,” Angelic quietly whimpered as she began to cry.
Detective Russ interjected, “Did Josh Junior ever tell you that he did it, that he killed Trey, or did you ever hear him say it in front of you?”
“No,” she responded, her voice becoming louder and more forceful.
The detective pushed further, “Angelic, you’re not in any trouble for knowing. You didn’t participate. You just heard him say it. If you heard him say it, I need you to tell me.”
Exasperated, her voice became louder: “No!”
“I can hear you,” Scott Russ continued. “I know you’re upset and you’re crying. You gotta trust Josh and you gotta trust me that you’re not in any trouble.”
Gouker quickly rejoined the conversation, crying loudly for his former lover’s benefit. “Angelic, baby, listen, just tell. Just tell him the truth; it’s okay. ’Cause they already know. I just don’t want nobody else in trouble. Just tell them, baby.”
“I don’t know,” she whimpered. The “five minute” conversation that Gouker requested with her was spiraling out of control. She was nervous anyway, because her job was at stake. She already suspected that her shift manager would lay into her when she returned from the impromptu break. It was just so hard to say no to Gouker. She loved him but she also feared him. She obviously wasn’t comfortable answering the detective’s questions, but Gouker was compelling her and she didn’t want to disappoint him. She was audibly upset but she couldn’t cut Gouker off and get off the phone. She seemed afraid of the ramifications of doing so.
“Did Josh Junior tell you that he did it?” Detective Russ chimed in as she cried softly.
“No!”
When his prompting did not produce the result that he wanted, Gouker appealed to Angelic’s love for him by indicating that if she did not say what he wanted her to say, that he would be in trouble. He brought up Jahaira.
“Angelic, how long have I known you?”
“Like ten years…” she trailed off as she remembered their history. She had known Gouker since she was just a teenager.
“How long have I known Jahaira?”
“Uh, not that long. It’s only been a couple of months.”
“Angelic, remember I didn’t want you hanging around her?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not saying how long I’ve been fucking her. I’m saying how long have I known her?”
“Uh, yeah, a long time, but when we used to date, you didn’t fucking like her because she’s a bitch,” she said, sniffling as she tried to determine where Gouker was going with the conversation. She sounded upset, seeming to still hold a grudge that Gouker momentarily tossed her aside to begin a sexual relationship with her friend whom he previously claimed to dislike.
“Well, that bitch has got this whole thing fucked up. Now just tell the truth for me right now. I need you to do this. Baby, can you hear me? I need you to tell the truth. You know I love him more than life. You know that, but I need you to tell the truth right now, okay?” He emphasized “him,” seemingly trying to direct Angelic that he wanted her to implicate his son in the murder.
Angelic did not yet take the bait: “Yeah, but I really don’t fucking know!”
Gouker turned to the detective, shrugging his shoulders. He explained that Angelic did not believe it was really him on the telephone and that he felt she was afraid to speak up. Russ encouraged him to do something to prove his identity to Angelic so that she would speak more freely. Gouker blurted out of the blue, “I stuck a bottle in your pussy years ago.”
Angelic sighed quietly, “Okay, it’s you.”
Gouker had no reservations in throwing his sexual perversions of days past out for the detectives to hear. In fact, he likely thought that it was amusing that he would speak of such intimate matters in the presence of police officers.
Detective Russ began speaking to the nearly hysterical woman. “This is the right thing to do for Trey. If it was your family member laying down there dead in a ditch, you would want somebody to step up and do the right thing. All I need to know is what Josh Junior told you, what you heard him say. That won’t take you ten seconds to tell me what you heard.”
Angelic started to cry again and the d
etective pushed further, “Did Josh Junior tell you that he did it, that he killed Trey?” She continued to cry and did not respond and the detective asked the question two more times. “Tell me what he told you.”
“Angelic,” Gouker interjected, his voice soothing now, “if you love us, me and Josh at all, just tell the truth, please.”
“What did he say to you?” the detective pressed, firmer now.
Once again, Angelic responded, “Tell me? No. Nothing.”
By this point Angelic had been asked the same question more than ten times and she continued to deny that Little Josh ever confessed anything to her. However, both Gouker and Detective Russ continued to press her and persuade her to state that Josh somehow confessed to her. Finally the detective pushed one more time and she gave in, “He told you he killed Trey?’
“Yeah.”
“Did he say he did it with a baseball bat?
“I don’t know.”
“Where did he tell you this? Where was you all at?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Tell me exactly what he told you and I will let you go.”
“Yeah, he said he did it, at the hotel room.”
“Is there anything else about the conversation that you remember?”
“No.”
They had gotten what they wanted. Angelic told the detectives exactly what Gouker wanted her to say, but it took a lot of prodding and coaching. Angelic would later maintain that as they were on the run together in Tennessee, Little Josh had confessed to her that he murdered Trey with “a slugger.” At that time, there was no way for her to know that forensics would later show that a wooden bat was not the murder weapon. But at this point in the investigation, the detectives took in every word of the story told by Angelic and Gouker. As the phone call concluded, Detective Russ allowed the two to say their goodbyes to each other, each ending the call with an “I love you,” as was characteristic of Gouker when he spoke with any of the women he controlled.
Gouker had successfully coerced two women in his life into implicating his son in Trey’s murder. It had taken extended questioning and both women answered in the negative numerous times prior to indicating his son was involved. However, both women finally asserted that Little Josh had confessed to them. The detectives felt that they needed to attempt to reach out to Cassi again. At a quarter after two in the morning, they tried her once more. By that time, the squad car that was sent to her home by the dispatch office had arrived and roused her so that she could take Gouker’s call.
“Hello,” she answered as she picked up the phone.6
“Cassi?” Gouker questioned.
“Yeah.”
“What’s up?”
“Oh, hi. What are you doing?” she asked nonchalantly.
“Listen, they know everything…” His voice trailing off, Gouker again willed himself to cry for his audience.
“How’s that?”
“Everybody was talking when we left.” Gouker did not disclose to her that the reason officers “knew everything” was because he had called the officers and given them the story. Instead, he acted as though officers were speaking with him because of some type of tip they received from Louisville. He explained to her that he was sitting with the Louisville detectives and that he needed to speak with her regarding Trey’s death. He needed her to tell them everything she knew about the situation.
“Listen to me, okay?” he began.
“I’m listening.”
“Your loyalty lies with me,” he stated with force.
Without skipping a beat, Cassi replied, “Yes.”
“Josh,” he said, referring to himself by raising his voice and emphasizing his name.
Sensing that Gouker was beginning an attempt at leading Cassi, Detective Russ stepped in. “Let her tell me,” he stated to Gouker.
“Alright. Cassi, who killed Trey?” asked Gouker.
“What?” she seemed taken aback that he would ask the question.
“The truth.” He paused. “Who killed Trey?”
Without hesitation, Cassi quickly quipped, “You did, right?”
Gouker was quick to respond, “No, tell the truth. Who did it? This is Big Josh, Cassi.” He enunciated specifically and deliberately as the word “big” rolled off his tongue.
“What?”
“Do you hear me? This is Big Josh.” There it was again. He once again emphasized that he was “Big Josh,” not so subtly differentiating between himself and his son.
“Tell the truth. Who killed Trey?”
“You did, right?” she asked once more.
Gouker looked over at Detective Russ, sheepishly. His cousin had implicated him twice when asked about the murder. “I told her that I would take it if it ever…” He abruptly stopped speaking to the detective and focused his attention back on his cousin. “Tell the truth. Cassi. You’re not in any trouble. They know everything and you’re not gonna be in any trouble for helping with that other shit.”
Cassi was silent and Detective Russ began to speak to her once again, “Hey, Cassi, this is Detective Russ from Louisville. I’ve talked to you a few months before. Tell me about the night that Trey was murdered. Who woke you up in your bedroom?
A light bulb went off and it appeared Cassi finally realized what Gouker was alluding to when he addressed himself as Big Josh. “Uh,” she paused, “uh, well…well, Little Josh?” she asked.
“Look,” Detective Russ spoke up, “like he told you, I already talked to the prosecutors. As long as you tell me the truth, on your super, slight, slim involvement, you are not in any trouble.”
Gouker obviously wanted to make sure that Cassi said the right thing and he interrupted the conversation and began leading her in the direction that he wanted: “Let me say it like this, Cassi. When Josh woke you up and he asked you…”
Detective Russ likely realized where Gouker’s involvement was leading. It didn’t take a genius to see that he was trying to put words in Cassi’s mouth. “Let her, I want her to tell me that,” he interjected. “Cassi, tell me what happened when he woke you up. Tell me the truth and you’re not gonna be in any trouble for telling me the truth.”
“He got up and uh, he tried to get me up,” she fumbled, parroting the words Gouker had said to her just seconds before. “And he said, ‘I need your help’ or I can’t really remember exactly what he said.”
Gouker could not let Russ lead the questioning and, after Cassi’s initial answers that implicated him, he must have wanted to control exactly what she said to the investigators. He said to the detectives, “Now, let me do it.”
“No!” Detective Russ replied, looking at the convict, likely realizing that Gouker was once again jockeying for control of the interview. Things weren’t supposed to work that way.
Shooting Gouker a dark look meant to shut him down, the detective continued to extract information from Cassi. In the end, she stated that she was sleeping when Little Josh came into her room and that he attempted to wake her up. She indicated that initially he told her that he had killed Trey and needed her help in discarding the murder weapon. According to her, she did not believe him and rolled over and fell back asleep.
She asserted that it was several minutes later that he came in a second time with the same request. At that point, she climbed out of bed and agreed to drive him to a dumpster. She and Little Josh got into her van and she took him to an apartment complex approximately ten minutes from her home. She claimed that the items they discarded were bloody clothes and an old, wooden baseball bat that belonged to her boyfriend.
She claimed that she saw blood on the baseball bat but that she thought it was likely animal blood and she did not ask any further questions of the boy.
Now, as she spoke with her cousin and the detectives in the early morning hours during that telephone call, she had implicated Joshua Young in the murder of Trey Zwicker and, on Josh Gouker’s word alone, the officers had secured immunity for her.
Detective Russ began t
o question Cassi regarding Gouker’s allegation that Little Josh confessed to a room full of people at the motel. Cassi denied having any memory of a confession at that location and she completely contradicted the account that Gouker related to officers during his interview with them prior to the telephone calls. It was likely that Gouker had made up that portion of the interview as he went along.
She admitted that when officers had previously visited her home shortly after the murder, she had lied to them. At that time, she maintained that she had no knowledge regarding Trey’s death. She then admitted that her live-in boyfriend also knew that she took the clothing to the dumpster and the detective asked her to wake him up so that they could speak with him on the phone as well. Within minutes, he was on the line. “Hello?”
“What’s up, bro?” asked Gouker.
“What’s up, man?” Cassi’s boyfriend responded, his voice sounding very sleepy.
“Hey, uh, I’m down here in Alabama. I got Louisville Homicide Detectives here. They went and seen Little Josh yesterday. They know everything.”
“And just so you know, this is Detective Russ. I’ve talked to you before. You and your [girlfriend] are not in any trouble for what you know, what you saw, what you heard. All you all are, are informational witnesses, okay. You are not in trouble for anything. I’ve talked to Josh, Big Josh; I’ve talked to Ruby; I’ve talked to Cassi; I’ve talked to Angelic. I’ve talked to all these people, okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So you’re not in any trouble. All I need you to tell me is what you know, what you heard and everything will be fine.”
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