“And what was he doing?”
“Just sitting there, watching. He was looking up and down West Capitol.”
Drossel brought out that two years later, in August 1989, Stockton was shown a photo lineup by police.
“Did you pick out a person whom you thought was the person in the vehicle?”
“Yes.”
“Is that person in the courtroom?”
“Yes.”
“Would you point him out, please.”
She pointed to Roger Kibbe.
On cross-examination, Kohn wanted to know if Stockton had seen a picture of Kibbe in a newspaper or somewhere else before she picked him out of the photo lineup.
“No, I hadn’t.”
“A year earlier, in June 1988, didn’t an investigator from the D.A.’s office interview you?”
“Yes.”
“Did he show you pictures?”
“Yeah. Of Darcie and her boyfriend.”
“That was it?”
“Yes.”
“Did he show you a picture of a small, white car?”
“No, I don’t remember.”
“Did he show you a picture of an older man?”
“He might have. I don’t remember.”
“Do you remember asking the investigator if the picture was of the man that raped and cut off that girl’s arms?”
“Yes, sir.”
Kohn had the investigator’s report in hand, and was using it to chip away at Stockton’s eyewitness credibility. If she had been shown a picture of Kibbe before the photo lineup and told this was the man responsible for Darcie’s murder, then Carol Stockton’s fingering him in the lineup and dramatically in court could just about be rolled up and drop-kicked down the courthouse steps.
“Then he did show you a picture of an older man?”
“He might have.”
“Do you remember him telling you that the man whose picture he showed you was in custody?”
“He said somebody had been arrested.”
“Going back to what you testified to—did you see Darcie get into the small, white vehicle?”
“No, I did not.”
“You went on to do something else?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I have no other questions.”
The next day’s testimony began with two employees of Public Storage. First up was Public Storage General Manager Dennis Kissinger, who testified to hiring Roger and Harriet Kibbe to manage the Tupelo facility. He confirmed that they had a residence at the facility, and also had the use of storage units 427 and 428.
Doris Sampson, a relief manager for the Kibbes on their days off, testified to Roger’s having access to the white Hyundai, and also to Roger’s black eye in late August 1987.
“How do you happen to remember that particular time period?” Drossel asked.
“On Labor Day that year, I fell over a ramp and got a black eye. Roger and I had black eyes at the same time.”
“Did Mr. Kibbe tell you how he got his?”
“Said he’d been drinking in a tavern and was jumped by a couple of fellows.”
In his testimony, Kissinger had said he’d noticed Kibbe’s black eye, too. Kibbe’s explanation to him, however, was different: he’d gotten into a fight at a truck stop.
Judy Frackenpohl was called to the stand next.
As she was sworn in, Judy hoped that the tranquilizer she’d taken would see her through. From the moment Jim Watson had called her in late April 1988 to say they were arresting a suspect in Darcie’s murder, Judy had dreaded this moment. In the intervening years, she’d learned more about her daughter’s death than she ever wanted to and was still trying to find a way to deal with her loss. And now, she had to face Darcie’s killer.
“Do you know Darcie Frackenpohl?” Drossel asked.
“She was my daughter.”
Judy looked for the first time at Roger Kibbe, who was sitting at the defense table with his head bowed. From what she could see, he seemed ordinary enough. A graying middle-aged guy working on a potbelly. If she’d passed him on the street she would have taken him for a tradesman of some kind who drank beer and watched weekend sports on TV.
“When was the last time you personally saw Darcie?”
“On the 30th of July, 1987.”
“And was there a special occasion?”
“It was her brother’s birthday. We all went out to dinner.”
Judy tried to stay focused on the prosecutor, but her eyes kept wandering to the defense table. The man they said had murdered Darcie hadn’t moved. She wanted him to look at her, dammit—to see a grieving mother.
“In August of 1987 did you receive a telephone call from Darcie?”
“Yes, I did. She called home collect on August 23rd from Sacramento.”
“And what was the topic of the conversation?”
“She just called to let me know she was okay because she did that frequently.”
“After August 23rd, did you hear from her again?”
“No.”
Judy knew she wasn’t going to lose it emotionally now because she had too much anger boiling inside her. She was pissed that the defendant was sitting there like a stone statue, not giving her or her testimony any notice.
“Did you think it unusual not to hear from her?”
“Yes, I did.”
“I have no further questions.”
On cross, Phil Kohn asked her a couple of questions about James Brown, obviously hoping to point a finger of suspicion at him.
Then it was over.
She was excused, and stepped down. She walked slowly between the two tables—one manned by the prosecutor and the other by the defense lawyers and their client.
She slowed, hoping he would look up.
Roger Kibbe never did.
UNTIL Debra Guffie walked into the courtroom the morning of the third day of testimony to point her finger at Roger Kibbe in another criminal proceeding, prosecutor Bob Drossel did not know if she’d even show up, or if she did, what shape she would be in when she took the stand.
Guffie was in an outpatient drug treatment program, but there had been telltale signs not all was well in her life. For one thing, she’d constantly leaned on Drossel for money, which he refused to provide, knowing that would transform her overnight from victim to paid informant.
Drossel approached his own witness with some trepidation.
“I would like to draw your attention to the early part of September 1987.”
“Yes.”
“Is it correct to state that in 1987 you were a prostitute?”
“Yes.”
“How long had you been a prostitute?”
“For about ten years.”
“And in 1987 you were supporting a drug habit?”
“Yes.”
“What type of drug?”
“Heroin.”
“You were an addict?”
“Yes.”
“What is your present addiction status?”
“I’m in a crisis program. I’m with child and I want to have a drug-free baby.”
Guffie testified that around 3:00 A.M., “after the bars closed,” on September 14, 1987, she’d been picked up by a lone man driving a small white car and taken to the golf course parking lot.
“Is the driver of that vehicle in the courtroom today?”
“Yes.”
“Would you point him out, please?”
“The gentleman with the blue-and-white-striped shirt.”
Roger Kibbe.
Drossel had noticed that Kibbe seldom looked at the witnesses. Whenever his attention wasn’t riveted on the top of the table where he sat, he was openly staring at the court reporter, an attractive woman in her late thirties. The prosecutor wondered how that made Sylvia Falkenstein feel.
On the short drive, the man “hardly said anything” and “seemed angry.” She said she tried to cheer him up.
“What did you say?”
“‘How did y
ou do today? You can’t be mad today.’”
She described the attack once they had parked: his grabbing her right hand and trying to handcuff her; grabbing her hair and smashing her face down, then telling her, “Don’t struggle and you won’t get hurt, cunt.”
When she finished, she was choking back tears.
“Would you like some water?” the judge asked.
“No, thank you.”
“What happened then?” Drossel asked.
“I was just—I was very frightened because of the tone of his voice when he told me not to struggle.”
“What was his tone?”
“It was very cold, like a monotone. It was very frightening.”
Drossel hoped the jurors would appreciate the source. If this hard-as-nails lady of the night who had seen it all over a ten-year period had been so unnerved by the tone of Kibbe’s voice, then it must truly have been ominous.
She told of managing to get the door open, and falling and being half pushed out the door, then the police car pulling up and taking off after the fleeing white car.
When it was time for cross-examination, defense attorney Phil Kohn stepped forward, his yellow notepad in hand. He had long anticipated cross-examining this witness, believing her vulnerable, but when it came time to do so he would just as soon have publicly questioned the true intentions of Quasimodo.
Guffie had admitted at a pretrial hearing that she had testified at the assault trial under the influence of heroin. She had looked terrible at the preliminary hearing on the murder charge, even though the cops were trying to keep her clean. Kohn knew she hated Kibbe and her anger was close to the surface, and he was fully prepared to rake her over the coals as a bitter and prejudicial witness. But then he’d run into her in the hallway that morning before she testified. She no longer had spiky hair; she was pregnant and showing and dressed in a maternity smock; she was wearing an “I Love Jesus” button. After engaging her in casual conversation, Kohn realized that Guffie had also mellowed considerably—no doubt part of her newfound religion. Kohn knew she would come off sympathetically, and that he’d have to handle her carefully in front of the jury.
When his cross began, Kohn asked Guffie if she had been an “angry person back in 1987.”
“Not really, sir. Confused. Afraid.”
“Mr. Kibbe originally asked you to pose for pictures and you indicated that had he given you any money for that purpose, you were going to rip him off.”
“Yes.”
“So, you were going to take the money he was going to give you and not pose for the pictures.”
“Yes.”
Kohn raced through pages of questions, asking one or two on each page. There wasn’t much he could do with her, other than bring out that she had been arrested the night of the assault on an outstanding warrant. He just wanted her gone.
When he went back to the defense table, Kohn took his seat beside Kibbe, who showed no emotion. Although Kohn had found Kibbe to be bright and friendly in their discussions, he was not participating very much in his own defense. For weeks leading up to trial, Kibbe had been on a suicide watch, with jailers passing by his cell every thirty minutes, night and day. The head of El Dorado County’s jails, Lt. Jerry Tackett, was a friend of Steve Kibbe’s, and Tackett watched out for his celebrity inmate. With the eating habits of a ten year old, Kibbe ate nothing but peanut butter sandwiches, bananas, chocolate bars, and Coke. Just before trial, jailers brought him a pizza, which he loved. In his cell, he watched TV—talk shows and soap operas; he hated sports—and played Game Boy. The attitude of his jailers was to indulge him; whatever it took to keep him amused and not suicidal. As for his crimes, Roger had acknowledged to Kohn having impulses he couldn’t control, as close to an admission of guilt as he came. Kohn had decided, already, that he would not put Kibbe on the witness stand.
Next, the police officers who investigated the Guffie assault testified to arresting Kibbe and finding his crime kit. They itemized its contents, including the two pieces of white cordage. Then, the Sacramento police fingerprint expert who testified at the Guffie trial told of finding Kibbe’s right-ring-finger print on the handcuffs.
Drossel was pleased with the Guffie testimony. Guffie herself, obviously upset and at times crying, had been an effective witness. She had held up well.
With the physical evidence of murder still to come, he considered Guffie icing on the cake. But she was a human connection for the jury, allowing him to argue later that Debra Guffie had been an intended murder victim, one who had gotten away from Roger Kibbe.
Something none of the other women had been able to do.
CRIMINALIST Faye Springer took the stand on the afternoon of the third day.
After going over her education and experience, the prosecutor asked her to define trace evidence.
“Trace evidence refers to a category of physical evidence that’s usually small in size,” Springer explained, “and it normally would include fiber, hair, paint, and polymer evidence. Also, particle identifications such as pollens or wood or plant material. Usually it’s small items that require a microscope for characterization.”
Bob Drossel asked about fiber evidence.
“Fibers are the basic beginning component that goes into making up a fabric,” said Springer, clearly in her element. “Individual fibers are the single units that are used to make up a thread, then the threads are woven into some kind of fabric.”
“Why is fiber evidence significant?”
“It’s significant in that it’s easily transferred between two objects, particularly if those two objects are made of some kind of fabric.”
“Are fibers delicate?”
“Fibers are fairly tenacious, not like blood or semen evidence that will break down at a fairly predictable rate depending on how they’re stored. Manmade fibers can last years and years.”
Springer described the procedure she followed for removing fibers from tape lifts—“I will just sit there at the microscope for sometimes hours pulling off individual fibers”—and mounting them for microscopic examination.
Getting down to specifics of the Darcie Frackenpohl case, Drossel asked about two fibers used as exemplars.
They came from the carpet mat of Roger Kibbe’s white Hyundai, Springer explained. “I ended up sending them to McCrone Associates in Chicago.”
“Why did you send the fibers there?” asked Drossel.
“I had some additional work I wanted them to do.”
Springer had known just who to send the fibers to when she had been stymied by the tiny particles on the fibers. McCrone had the expertise and equipment, she knew, to handle such minute trace evidence.
The first in a series of large color photographs, blown up and mounted on posterboard so jurors could see the microscopic evidence with their own eyes, was placed into evidence.
With pointer in hand, Springer stood in front of the photographs, pinpointing the dark particles.
Then, two other exhibits were introduced: blowups of the two fibers Springer had removed from Frackenpohl’s dress. She pointed out where one of the fibers had the dark particles and a speck of what she thought was paint, and showed that the other one did not.
“I wanted McCrone to characterize the dark particles and the speck and tell me what they were,” she explained.
What Springer did not say was that she had been afraid to let the fibers out of her sight, so she had personally taken them to Chicago—in her beat-up briefcase that went everywhere with her—and stayed around to help out with the examinations.
Drossel asked what she’d done in her own lab.
Springer said she used equipment such as a Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometer and gas chromatograph mass spectrometer to analyze the fibers from the dress and the sample fibers from the Hyundai. They were the same color, shape, size, and made out of the same polymer. “I compared the dyes used in the fibers, too, and found them to be the same.”
“Your conclusions?”
>
“All four fibers are the same kind of fiber that was used for car mats in the make and model Hyundai that Mr. Kibbe drove,” Springer said.
Drossel paused to allow it to sink in for the jury.
They then moved on to the hair evidence.
Regarding the human hair found on Darcie’s dress, Springer said it was similar in all respects to several hairs that had been removed from Kibbe’s inner thigh area under the authority of a search warrant after his arrest for murder.
As for the animal hair found on Darcie’s dress, investigators, including Springer, had managed to get samples from the Kibbes’ two cats when they served the search warrant on the Placerville cabin. “One cat was very cooperative,” she added, “and one was not.”
“First, how do you tell the difference between dog and cat hair?” Drossel asked.
“Under a microscope, cat hairs look almost as if they don’t have a root. A dog hair has a spade-like root that’s very obvious. Other animal hairs have similar distinctions.”
“Did you compare the hairs from the cats with the animal hairs off the dress?” Drossel asked.
“Yes. One cat was brown and the other was white. There were hairs off the dress that looked similar to both. So, I compared a brown hair off the dress with hair from the brown cat, and the same for the white cat. Although you can’t classify cat hair as unique to an individual—any more than you can human hair—I can say that brown and white cat hairs were on the victim’s dress, and that they looked similar to the hairs off the two cats.”
Then it was time for the cordage.
Springer testified as to her analysis of the seven pieces of cordage from the three locations—the three pieces recovered at the Frackenpohl crime scene, the cord used to make the garrote and the extra 6-foot-long cord from the crime kit, and the two pieces found in storage space 427 at Tupelo.
“What was the purpose of your examination?”
“I could see that the cordage was similar, but I was looking for some uniqueness. That’s when I noticed certain particles that seemed to be reoccurring on the various pieces of cordage.”
Photos of the cordage shot with a 35mm camera through a microscope at 400 magnification were displayed. Springer pointed out the specks of red paint and also what she called “black, rubber-like particles.”
Trace Evidence: The Hunt for the I-5 Serial Killer Page 40