Jane Doe No More

by M. William Phelps

  “I have dreams of killing Rocky,” John confided in Donna one day.

  “Your faith, John,” Donna kept reminding him. “If you do anything, all you would be doing is making things worse for all of us.” All those years they had waited for justice would be for naught. Wasted.

  What John didn’t tell Donna was that he had made a choice to kill Rocky. He had thought about it seriously, long, and hard. It was time. John had even disclosed this to his best friend.

  “You know, I have to kill him,” John said one night while out walking.

  “Johnny, you cannot do that.”

  “I don’t have a choice,” John said.

  John’s friend looked at him. “Well, look, if that’s your decision, I’m gonna tell the police that I was in on it too.”

  “No, no . . .” John said. “You cannot do that.”

  John walked away from that conversation beginning to think that killing Rocky would only “hurt those I really care about.”

  Was it the right thing to do?

  As John weighed the ramifications on his life and soul that a decision to kill a man would cause, Rocky was making matters easier for John to finally let go.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Caught in the Act

  Several people heading out to their cars in the parking lot of Saratoga Springs High School—students, teachers, and coaches—heard seventeen-year-old Lindsey Ferguson screaming for her life.

  And then the most bizarre thing happened. He let her go. And Lindsey was now sitting in her car, scared, shaking, crying, not knowing what had just taken place.

  “My adrenaline was absolutely pumping and pumping . . .” Lindsey recalled later.

  Lindsey’s attacker started to shut her car door on her leg, which she didn’t even realize was still sticking out of the car. Staring at her, not having much luck closing the door, he spoke what were, although Lindsey did not know then, familiar words to the women he had attacked previously: “Don’t tell anyone about this!”

  By this time Ray Harrington was running toward Lindsey’s car, yelling at John Regan to stop what he was doing.

  “You . . . hey . . . what are you doing?”

  This startled Regan. He looked at Harrington.

  “Who are you?” Harrington yelled as he made it to the van and Lindsey’s car.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Regan shouted angrily.

  “The hell it doesn’t,” Harrington said.

  Harrington flipped out his cell and called 911 just as Regan ran around to the front of his vehicle, hopped in, and took off.

  As he did, Harrington read the license plate number to the 911 dispatcher on the other end of the line.

  Lindsey was now in total shock, surrounded by several friends who had jumped inside the car to console and protect her.

  “Lindsey, are you okay?” asked a friend.

  Lindsey realized for the first time that she had escaped the clutches of a madman who had tried to take her away from family and friends.

  “I had a hard time believing that this had just happened to me.”

  Now Harrington was running after Regan’s van—at one time right alongside it—as Regan slowly drove out of the parking lot, hoping, obviously, that he would blend in with any traffic and not bring further attention to himself. Although Regan was a twice-accused sexual deviant, he acted as if he had done nothing wrong.

  “As if he might be able to drive out of the parking lot slowly so nobody would notice him,” Harrington later said.

  Coach Art Kranick was in his car as Regan drove out of the parking lot and onto the street. Kranick followed close behind Regan, talking on his cell phone to the local Saratoga Springs Police Department (SSPD).

  Those around Lindsey asked what had happened.

  “I don’t know . . .” was all Lindsey could say.

  As teachers and students tended to Lindsey, Kranick chased Regan and eventually caught up to him, at one time even exchanging words with Regan as they drove.

  This time, John “Rocky” Regan was caught in the act of trying to abduct a woman for his twisted sexual pleasure. But the sexually driven abduction attempt, as the rest of the evening would reveal, was only half of it. What Regan had in mind for Lindsey was far different from what he had done to Donna or his coworker. Apparently, rape and kidnapping were not the only crimes Regan was thinking about committing on this night.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  No Escape

  The chase came to an end. Coach Art Kranick had caused so much commotion and disruption in Regan’s getaway plan that Regan actually pulled over to the side of the road not far from the school and got out of his van.

  “What the hell do you want?” Regan screamed at Kranick.

  “What do you mean, what do I want? You just attacked a girl in the high school parking lot!”

  “You’re crazy,” Regan shouted, tossing his hands in the air as if to shoo Kranick away.

  Without saying anything more, Regan hopped back into his van and sped off.

  Kranick followed close behind, not allowing Regan out of his sight.

  About a mile down the road, Regan pulled over again and got out of his vehicle. This time, however, Saratoga Springs police also arrived on the scene, following Kranick’s lead from his continued connection via cell phone.

  Police immediately approached Regan, who became “hostile, combative and very angry,” said the prosecutor who would soon be involved in the case.

  “How dare any of you question me about what I was doing?” Regan snapped.

  “What were you doing in the parking lot?” a cop asked.

  “I was making cell phone calls. I startled the girl. Nothing more.”

  At the same time, police had arrived at the school parking lot and began questioning Lindsey Ferguson. After hearing her story, it was decided that she would be taken to where Regan was being detained to see if she could identify him. From there, she could go down to the police station and file a formal report. This way Regan could be held in custody.

  Lindsey was driven by the area where Regan was being questioned by police officers. She sat in the backseat of a nondescript car with tinted windows. There was no way he could have seen her as they drove by.

  Looking at him, “I felt nauseous and sick to my stomach. Immediately, I felt so disgusted looking at him. I knew for certain—right away—it was him.”

  Regan told police he was in the area—so far away from home—working on a house, and that he worked for a roofing/construction company back in Connecticut and had traveled to the region for a job and additional sales-related projects.

  Meanwhile, the impact of the situation had hit Lindsey. She was sitting inside the SSPD station, trying to collect herself as best she could, thinking . . . This is not a joke. This guy was seriously trying to abduct me. This is something that you hear about on television.

  Everyone was at the police station: Lindsey, her friends, her parents, coaches, teachers. Everyone who had been there in the parking lot identified Regan as the guy who had tried to abduct Lindsey.

  Lindsey noticed that her eye bothered her. She thought it might have been her contacts, but didn’t say anything about it.

  “Lindsey,” someone from school, a teacher, said, pointing to Lindsey’s thigh.

  She looked down.

  In the struggle, Regan had—as he had with Donna—gone after Lindsey’s eyes and scratched one of her contacts out. It was now stuck to her leg.

  “I don’t even remember him touching my eyes.”

  As District Attorney Jim Murphy became involved, a new part of John Regan’s criminal life became apparent, proving just how lucky Lindsey was to have fought for her life and escaped.

  As police searched Regan’s van, they
uncovered a horrifying collection of tools. He had a brand-new tarp. A length of rope that had been tied with slipknots into a noose. Photography equipment. A pitchfork. A rake. And topping it all off, an empty syringe, accompanied by what was a large dose of antihistamine in a separate container. It appeared, from the evidence in Regan’s van, that he had schemed to abduct Lindsey, do whatever it was he had planned to her, and this time make sure there was no DNA or a witness left behind to testify against him. Even more disturbing, once the police went to that empty house Regan said he was working on, they found all the windows with the shades down and the curtains drawn.

  Prosecutor Murphy later said, “My conclusion was that he was going to tie her up in that van in an instant because he had those pre-tied slipknots. Then he was going to inject her with that antihistamine to knock her out. And then take her to this house that he was working on that he had the shades pulled and the curtains drawn.”

  From there, many of those connected with the case later agreed, Regan was going to kill Lindsey Ferguson.

  The SSPD popped Regan’s name into the computer system to see what came up, and there it was, staring back at the officer: Regan was out on bond awaiting trial on charges of kidnapping and unlawful restraint in Connecticut.

  And yet, there was still one more discovery to be unearthed inside Regan’s van and back at his home in Waterbury—a find that would spark police all over the Northeast to take another look at cold rape (and murder) cases.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Suicide Is Painless

  Not unusual for Chief Neil O’Leary, on October 31, 2005, he was working late into the night after most of his officers had gone home when news from New York State arrived. Reflecting later, the news did not necessarily shock the seasoned investigator, but then again, this night it made Neil sit up, shake his head, and feel a bit sick, as well as greatly relieved.

  After a knock on his office door, one of Neil’s detectives poked his head in.

  “Come in . . .” Neil said. “What is it?”

  “Chief, you’re not going to believe this, but we just took a call. John Regan was taken into custody in Saratoga Springs, New York.”

  What the hell was Regan doing way up there?

  Waterbury to Saratoga was a 140-mile trip, almost three hours north, Neil thought, as his officer explained what Regan had been picked up for.

  “Saratoga?” Neil asked his detective. “What?”

  The detective gave Neil all the details.

  He was going to murder and bury Lindsey Ferguson, Neil told himself, shaking his head, while back in Waterbury, half the town was behind Regan, painting him as the all-American boy being railroaded by two women who had affairs with him and didn’t want to admit it.

  Incredible.

  “I really believe that in Regan’s mind there wasn’t going to be any chance of DNA to be uncovered up in New York,” Neil commented later. “We had several women come forward later and accuse Regan of attacking them going back to as far as the late 1970s and early ’80s, but the statute of limitations had run. This proved he has been a sexual predator for a very long time.”

  Ultimately, Saratoga Springs’ chief of police Ed Moore’s team of investigators uncovered hundreds of photographs inside Regan’s van. They were a stalker’s stash, a collection of images you’d see some deranged character in a Hollywood thriller film snapping: women on bike paths, jogging, walking, in shopping malls, and just being themselves out in public, unaware that a madman was secretly following them and taking pictures. Some of the photos, investigators learned through time codes on the camera, had been snapped only hours before he attacked Lindsey. This man, who had committed several sexual assaults (attempted or otherwise) and had been apprehended while out on bond in a case with a DNA match, was picked up trying to kidnap and possibly assault a seventeen-year-old girl. This latest case—along with the discovery of the photographs and other “items” found in Regan’s van—demonstrated Regan’s hubris and the escalation of a serial sex offender who was perhaps planning on graduating to something more sinister. Regan showed the classic signs of a sociopath who believed, even when the heat was on, that he was capable of beating the police and the system. Only this time—thank goodness—Regan was caught in the act.

  “I am convinced,” Neil concluded, “there is DNA sitting in an evidence collection room, up on a shelf somewhere, in some police department within the Northeast that has John Regan’s DNA as a match, but has just not been submitted.”

  Neil called Donna that night.

  She was devastated. Immediately, Donna wanted to reach out to Lindsey and console her, tell her it would be okay. Tell her she was a survivor, not a victim. Tell her she would get through this.

  On Tuesday, November 1, 2005, John Regan was arraigned and charged with attempted first- and second-degree kidnapping, along with attempted unlawful restraint. This time, there would be no bond for Rocky Regan.

  When Saratoga Springs police chief Ed Moore spoke to the press, he called Regan an “organized offender, who was planning on taking [Lindsey] to another location.”

  Any armchair criminal profiler will agree that, for women, it is that second location where they end up dead. Women are told to never, ever relent and go to a second location with someone who is trying to abduct you—because that second location is where death generally occurs. Fight for your life, even if it means dying at that first location.

  Saratoga County district attorney Jim Murphy told news reporters that Regan had “planned the crime,” but the “‘to whom’ was random . . . There was no indication, at this point, he knew who [Lindsey] was. There is no indication that [Lindsey] was stalked.”

  The community of Saratoga was shocked about the news that a man, in near broad daylight, had tried to abduct a teenage girl from what was considered a safe zone, a school parking lot. It did not take long for news of Rocky’s arrest and the serial nature of his crimes to be reported back home to the Waterbury citizenry. His supporters could no longer deny that Rocky was likely a serial predator hiding in plain sight.

  During the brief court proceeding, Regan hobbled around the courtroom, shackles on both ankles. He stood before the judge with his head bowed, chin nudged up against his chest—a familiar pose this serial offender would take whenever in court. At times, one news report noted, Regan picked at his cuticles as if the court was wasting his time. He never once made eye contact with anyone in the courtroom besides his attorneys.

  During the investigation, four search warrants were issued for Regan’s van, home, his parents’ home, and his place of business.

  Newspapers on November 2, 2005, reported that Regan was a suspect in two additional sexual assault/kidnapping cases in Connecticut, commenting that not only was Regan reared in a “prominent Waterbury family,” the son of a dentist, the husband of a second-grade schoolteacher, but also that a school had been named after Regan’s grandfather. This Waterbury golden boy, however, was looking down the barrel of forty or more years in prison, depending on how many additional women came forward and how many additional charges could be tacked on. A teletype had gone out to police departments throughout New York and New England. More film of Rocky’s had been uncovered in Connecticut under a search warrant—and there, police found more disturbing photographs of women’s legs, women biking, sitting, shopping, and going about their lives. But the photos that interested Neil O’Leary most, when he was called in to have a look, were of the former coworker Regan had tried to sexually assault—the woman whose case had led Neil down the road of making Regan a major suspect in Donna’s attack. Regan had been stalking his coworker—and other women—for some time, obviously obsessing about her. Neil began to consider another question as he went through the new evidence: Was Donna among the women Regan had photographed?

  With the new charges Regan faced, having been literally caught in the
act, he must have realized the jig was up. He couldn’t talk his way out of this one, relying on the fact that his family was respected and had money and he had never been in trouble. And when cowards like Rocky Regan, who prey on women, finally realize there are far too many witnesses saying the same things about them, and far too much evidence to contradict their lies, they tend to opt for the easy way out. No, not a plea bargain deal. Something more permanent. Something gutless.

  After his court appearance on November 1, 2005, Regan went back to his cell and went to sleep. The next morning, November 3, which just happened to be Rocky’s forty-ninth birthday, he got up, took his bedsheet, tied one end around his neck in a noose and the other to the top of his bedpost, then sank the weight of his two-hundred-pound, five-foot ten-inch frame down on itself, apparently hoping to reach that white light and put an end to his misery.

  Neil O’Leary called and told me that Rocky had been taken by ambulance to the hospital and that he had tried to kill himself. I felt sick. Part of me wished he would die, but then we would never know what else he had done and who his other victims might be. There were so many unanswered questions. As I thought about it more, waiting to hear if he would make it, I wanted him to live.

  Regan’s suicide attempt didn’t work.

  After guards discovered Regan had passed out (he had been unconscious for ten minutes, according to one report), he was transported to Saratoga Hospital’s intensive care unit, where he was treated for a few days and released back to the jail’s medical unit under close supervision and guard. Regan would be okay—no irreversible damage had been done. He had escaped final judgment—at least for now.

  Meanwhile Regan’s lawyer came out swinging, claiming his client was being painted with “a broad brush [to] characterize things in ways they are not.” The impetus behind those photos Rocky had taken, for example, was not the sinister plot of a serial sexual offender, counsel suggested, but “There is a completely innocent explanation.”