Driggers didn’t have a car, which worked in his favor since Heedick’s body was found 50 miles from Modesto. He occasionally borrowed vehicles, including his mother’s. However, after more legwork, Reed was not able to place Driggers at the wheel of a car (borrowed or stolen) that night, leaving the unanswered question: If Driggers had killed Lora, how had he transported her so far?
Heedick’s mother reported that her daughter and Driggers had not been getting along recently. Driggers’s own relatives reported that he beat Lora. Members of both families told police they feared he might be responsible for Lora’s death. An ex-wife of Driggers’s came forward to claim she had been physically abused in their marriage, and that Driggers had forced her on more than one occasion to take part in three-way sex with other men.
The FBI’s four-page rap sheet on Lora Heedick’s boyfriend began in Florida at age eighteen with driving under the influence, reckless driving, possession of marijuana, and attempting to elude police. Arrests for crimes such as prowling, carrying a concealed weapon, burglary, as well as a conviction for petty theft, followed over the next several years. After a 1984 conviction for burglary, he escaped from jail. Recaptured that same year, he was subsequently sent to state prison. In the months since Heedick’s disappearance, he had been arrested in Stanislaus County in the theft of a bicycle and shotgun, but avoided prosecution by providing information about a stolen property ring.
While his checkered past did not make him a murderer, Driggers’s lifestyle didn’t win him any citizenship points with Reed. The detective saw in Driggers a habitual criminal who was more than willing to have his young girlfriend hook for drugs, a good indicator that he considered her not much more than a commodity to be used. Was she also one to be discarded at will?
Reed shared his dilemma with Lt. Ray Biondi. “I really don’t think this is a boyfriend-girlfriend murder but I can’t get Driggers out of the case.”
Even though the DOJ lab had not found any clothes cutting in the Heedick case, it had been included on the list of suspected serial killings due to evidence of bindings, strangulation, and transportation of the victim. Those same factors all continued to suggest that Heedick had been the victim not of a lovers’ quarrel but of the same methodical serial killer who had murdered Brown and Sabrah.
“The scene was all wrong,” Reed grumbled. “Heedick was tied up. Driggers wouldn’t have had to control her like that. And the garrote—that’s not heat of passion.”
Biondi had been to enough domestic murder scenes to know there are usually signs of tremendous anger directed at the victim, such as beatings delivered with fists or feet or clubs, multiple stab or bullet wounds, etc. Strangulation was too neat, too controlled. The garrote suggested a killer efficiently disposing of someone to whom he had no emotional ties—stranger on stranger, without the disorder typically present at the scene of passion murders.
“And why would Driggers have brought her all the way up to Brannan Island?” Biondi wondered aloud.
“Even if he could get his hands on a car,” Reed added.
“It had to be calculated,” Biondi said flatly. “The guy who took Heedick all that way had some kind of master plan.”
Biondi didn’t need to tell his most senior detective what had to be done. Reed knew the drill. He had to find evidence that either implicated James Driggers in the murder of Lora Heedick, or that cleared him.
If Driggers had not done in his girlfriend, then valuable time was being diverted from catching the real killer.
AS LT. RAY Biondi had hoped, the public plea for clues in the I-5 series had resulted in an overwhelming response in the weeks following the joint press conference.
The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department alone received more than 300 leads concerning the murders; most involved possible suspects. The other departments, like San Joaquin, had gotten a flood of responses, too.
Biondi had been talking to his detectives for some time about the importance of prioritizing leads. The way it was now, individual detectives at various law enforcement agencies who happened to answer the phone when a new lead came in would make an on-the-spot decision as to whether or not it was important. If deemed unimportant, the tip likely wouldn’t be passed on—Sacramento wouldn’t give it to San Joaquin, Vito Bertocchini wouldn’t give it to Stan Reed, and so on. Thus, a lead that could have proven vital in identifying the killer when connected to other information might be lost forever.
Now, with an avalanche of new leads, it was more important than ever to find order in the chaos. Biondi had an idea that his detectives, up to their eyeballs in cases, were shining him on with platitudes: “Yeah, Ray, I’ll think about it,” and “Sure, boss, we’ll come up with something.”
When Reed and Bob Bell came around one afternoon to see if Biondi wanted to take a late lunch with them, Biondi sprung to the attack.
“Sit down, guys,” he said after shutting the door behind his top detective team. “Let’s come up with a way to prioritize. Come on, Bob, make us look smart.”
Bell, who had a degree in geology, liked a good mental challenge. As he went on about criteria and rationales, Reed threw out pertinent one-liners in his patented growl. With a legal pad on his lap, Biondi caught it all.
Soon, a plan had taken shape; they would prioritize suspect leads based on a point system:
• 20 points if a suspicious person’s identity was known or if they had an ability to trace him;
• 10 points if he had access to a dark, two-seater vehicle;
• 10 points if he was known to have a hair or cutting fetish or had once owned Italian scissors;
• 8 points if he was between forty and sixty years of age and had gray straight hair and a large nose;
• 8 points if he could be placed in the I-5 area;
• 8 points if he made a sudden, unexplained departure from the area after Sabrah’s abduction or the press conference;
• 6 points if he had a violent background and/or had committed similar crimes;
• 6 points if he was familiar with the areas where the crime scenes were located;
• 6 points if he had ever attempted to pick up females on freeways or other roadways;
• 6 points if he had recent behavioral changes that coincided with the murders, dates of press releases, or at any time during the summer of 1986.
PRIORITY ONE would be considered “most viable leads,” which had earned more than 40 points. They would be the first leads worked by detectives. Priority Two leads, which earned 35 to 40 points, would only be worked in absence of any Priority One leads. Priority Three leads, with between 20 and 35 points, were “informational leads” that “lacked significant detail to follow up.” And Priority Four leads of less than 20 points were for “information only.”
An hour later, Biondi released the two hungry detectives for lunch. Then he picked up the phone and went to work on the computer-literate types at DOJ’s Homicide Analysis Unit to set up a program using the criteria. He explained that every lead sheet sent into DOJ would have a point value attached to it. DOJ agreed to tabulate the numbers and print out the names of possible suspects according to their cumulated point total. DOJ would update the list—based on new information—as often as required.
Biondi circulated the proposed criteria to other departments. Within a couple of days, he had the promise of all departments involved in the investigation that they would use the criteria table for assigning a numerical value to each suspect lead before sending the lead sheets to DOJ. Copies of the resultant computer printout would be sent to all departments.
Nobody seriously thought that the list would tell them who the killer was; its main purpose, rather, was to bring some order to the many hundreds of leads that had already been accumulated. The list would be a system, then, that would be used for assignments when and if there were ever enough detectives to work all the I-5 leads.
Biondi’s sense of accomplishment didn’t last long, for his fears concerning insufficient man
power to follow up on all the new leads generated by the media exposure had already materialized. Having a computerized list of prioritized leads would be fine and dandy, but what if there were no detectives free to work the phones and knock on doors?
Already stretched to the limit, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau could not spare a single detective to work the I-5 series full-time. Stan Reed had only been able to spend a day here and there on Heedick, and that had been it. Other jurisdictions, Biondi knew, were in the same predicament.
Sacramento County had finished the year (1986) with a record forty-five homicides. In addition to having worked those cases—nine were still unsolved, including Heedick—the Bureau’s four detectives were also responsible for the investigation of all the county’s suspicious deaths, kidnappings, adult missing persons, and officer-involved shootings that resulted in injury or death.
To support his request for four new detectives beginning in 1987 (he intended to place two on the I-5 series), Biondi discovered that his bureau had an unusually high annual ratio of 11 homicides per investigator. Orange County Sheriff’s Department had 7.5 homicides per investigator, while the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department had 5 homicides per investigator. Closer to home, the Sacramento Police Department had 7 homicides per investigator.
“Due to a dramatic increase in workload, the Homicide Bureau needs immediate assistance,” Biondi wrote in his year-end budget request. He warned that homicides were occurring in the county at such a rate that the Bureau was “struggling just to complete the preliminary investigation. Unsolved murders are not getting the continuous investigation required to resolve the cases.”
In addition to the four new detectives—he acknowledged they would have to go through a period of training in order to be brought up to full speed—he requested the immediate temporary assistance of experienced investigators to help “stabilize the current workload.” He wanted, in other words, both a tourniquet and Band-Aids.
Biondi was the first to admit that homicide investigations were costly programs for a law enforcement agency to operate. As manager of a homicide unit that never had enough people, office space, desks, cars, radios, tape recorders, and other support equipment, he constantly found himself facing moral-versus-practical questions: What price is human life worth? How far do we stretch our resources to solve a murder case?
While homicide investigations were never cost-effective in any measurable way, murder was a highly visible event that directly impacted the public’s perception of a law enforcement agency. He reminded his superiors that the reputation of a law enforcement agency was often based on its handling of murder cases alone. Although the logic was faulty considering the many other accomplishments a well-run department could achieve, the nearly 100 percent blanket coverage afforded murder by the local media made this perception an indisputable fact.
To his bosses, Biondi beseeched: “Do we ignore viable leads in this serial killer case or do we seize the chance to demonstrate the excellence of this department?”
In going public with the I-5 series at the press conference in November, Biondi had an ulterior motive: with the murder series in the public eye, he hoped that administrators would be less likely to drag their feet when it came to providing manpower and equipment to put together a coordinated investigation.
But it wasn’t to be. Biondi’s impressive statistics and strongly worded memos could have been filed under the heading: NICE TRY. His call for help was turned down by budget-minded administrators with little serious discussion.
In the days of shrinking municipal budgets that affected virtually every public service from law enforcement to education to filling potholes in our roadways, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Bureau would enter the new year with its existing complement of four detectives—unchanged from a decade earlier when the county’s murder rate had been about half what it was now.
Biondi was alarmed about what this would mean to the I-5 series investigation, given that his four detectives had been bogged down before the series began to unfold in their backyard. Even though his bureau was officially working only one of the suspected serial killer cases (Heedick), the other two dead women had been, after all, Sacramento County residents. Sabrah, as far as Biondi could tell, had already become an inactive case for tiny Amador County. At least the Brown case had been actively worked by San Joaquin, although Biondi knew that the irrepressible Vito Bertocchini was dealing with his own heavy caseload of new murders.
At such times, Biondi tried hard to remember why he had ever wanted to head the Homicide Bureau. He could have finished out his years to retirement as a supervisor in Patrol or Jails with a lot fewer headaches. He was in the midst of such a melancholy moment a couple of weeks before Christmas (1986) when there was a soft rap on his door.
“It’s open,” he said, not turning around.
“Ray, it’s Kay Maulsby.”
Glad for the intrusion, he spun around and with the sweep of a long arm invited Maulsby in, even though he knew why she was there and that he didn’t have good news for her.
“Hi. Sorry to keep bugging you,” she said.
“No problem.”
Maulsby sat down across from Biondi. She was, as usual, sharply attired; today, in a blue business suit with white blouse. At forty-two, her only concession to age was the gray she allowed to streak her light brown hair. Her 5-foot-4 frame carried the same weight (123 pounds) as when she had graduated from Sacramento State two decades earlier with a degree in sociology and double minors in psychology and anthropology. Considering stamina important in her line of work, she kept her build trim and sinewy by watching what she ate, without being obsessive, and hour-long aerobics and weight-training workouts three times a week.
She was all business as she sat across from Biondi, not invincible, but definitely a compact force to be reckoned with. She could have been a high-level banker or a successful real estate broker, but she was neither. Maulsby was a cop.
“They turned me down,” said Biondi, not given to sugarcoating. “Not even any temps.”
Maulsby tried not to look disappointed, but her eyes gave her away.
“I’m sorry, Kay. I’d have you here in a NewYork minute if I could.”
“I appreciate that.”
Maulsby had wanted to work Homicide for a long time. She had been interested in law enforcement in college, but had been steered away from it by a school counselor because then—in the late 1960s—police work was still a male bastion. Instead, she became a social worker, although she considered those five years to be mostly biding her time until law enforcement opened up for women, as she knew it must. When the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department advertised to fill “deputy-female” positions needed for a new women’s detention facility, Maulsby took the test, scored high, and was hired. Three years later, when the department opened up Patrol to women for the first time, Maulsby was among the first wave of what some old-timers in law enforcement considered a noble experiment doomed to fail. Some of the new women patrol deputies were average, some not so good, and some, like Maulsby, outstanding—pretty much in equal proportion to the performances of their male counterparts. She stayed in Patrol for five years, during which time she earned a reputation as being compassionate when appropriate and fearless when required. She had been known to stop a carload of bad guys alone and wrestle resisting suspects to the ground. She became a detective in 1981, working burglary A year later she made sergeant. Typically, a promotion put the recipient back at square one to build seniority in rank again, and Maulsby was no different. She went back to Jails with her new stripes and waited two years before a sergeant detective position opened in Special Investigations, where she worked Vice.
From the day she had taken the test to join the department, Maulsby had wanted to be a homicide detective, generally considered to be the most important position in police work and one reserved for the best of the best. At the time, it had been a seemingly unreachable
dream for a young woman. But she had closed in on her goal: with eleven years on the force and having achieved the rank of sergeant detective, Maulsby felt qualified to work Homicide. By then, she had learned that 90 percent of police work was talking to people, and she was good at getting people—suspects as well as witnesses—to open up under the most difficult circumstances. Her tack was never to be disrespectful to even the slimiest of individuals, nor to badger anyone. Instead of spouting angrily, “You’re a lying scumbag,” she’d be more inclined to say calmly, “I’d rather have it a lot clearer than that and I know you can do it.”
Maulsby had long let it be known throughout the department that she coveted Homicide. Ironically, she came to find her success in the ranks to be holding her back. Within the Homicide Bureau, there was one lieutenant position, one sergeant detective spot, and three detective billets to fill. Waiting for that one sergeant position to open up could—and often did—take years. The careers of many qualified detectives ended without their ever working Homicide.
In 1985, reasoning that her chances of getting to Homicide would be three times greater if she wasn’t a sergeant, Maulsby had given up her stripes and taken a voluntary demotion—a $300 monthly pay cut, not to mention lost retirement benefits based on an employee’s last pay rate. Her husband, Norman, had supported her decision. She had already been a cop when they’d met, and Norman was in law enforcement himself—he worked for DOJ and was a lieutenant in the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department reserve officer program. They did not have children, and he told her that money should not be an issue; she should feel free to take her career wherever she wanted to. Not many of her colleagues in the department thought she had done the right thing, however, as no one was able to promise Maulsby even then that she would ever make Homicide.
Biondi needed no convincing that Kay Maulsby would be an excellent homicide detective. He had enlisted her and several other detectives to do some legwork in a murder series six years earlier when a landscape gardener was breaking into homes and killing elderly women. Maulsby had proven herself a very capable investigator, excelling, in particular, Biondi thought, in interviewing and interrogation techniques, which he considered vital for Homicide. He found her very straightforward, willing to talk as openly about her abilities as about any shortcomings she might have. He was also struck by her eagerness. The fact that she had taken a demotion a year earlier to increase her chances at getting into Homicide still amazed him. It wasn’t something he would have done.
Trace Evidence: The Hunt for the I-5 Serial Killer Page 13