Love You Madly
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“I thought this case was a vindication of the way that I think police work ought to be done. I lived with those people I worked for, I did the job the best way I could. When I saw what happened, I knew that we had to talk to Jason Arrant and Brian Radel right away. I knew who did it and I knew why they did it,” he said. “In three days, we had three people in jail. That’s as good as it gets. And it didn’t fucking matter a bit.”
Chief Jim See also retired, and Sergeant Mark Habib was promoted to his old job, though, in time, he, too, was eyeing a retirement, in Las Vegas.
The case did stay in the news, though not making the headlines it had before. After Judge Collins refused to reconsider her decision to throw out the charges against Rachelle, the state of Alaska asked the Alaska Court of Appeals in April 2006 to grant a new trial. It would take more than two years before the three-judge appellate panel heard oral arguments. Assistant Attorney General Diane Wendlandt minced no words, saying that if the state lost the appeal and the interrogation was ruled inadmissible, “you’ll be letting a murderer off the hook.” Rachelle didn’t attend the hearing, but her father did.
The panel finally ruled in December 2008. It was a mixed decision. The reviewing court agreed with prosecutors that Rachelle was a bright girl who knowingly and willingly went to the police station and spoke without her father present, and for a time everything about her interrogation was legal and admissible. The appeals court said that a jury may watch as Rachelle admitted to talking to Jason by phone from Anchorage and imploring him to call off any murder plot he might have been considering.
But the appeals court was troubled by the second part of the interrogation. When McPherron got heavy-handed, telling Rachelle that this was a serious offense, that she would be tried as an adult, that she was playing in the big leagues, the appeals court felt, “arguably, this speech constitutes a prohibited threat, a threat of harsher treatment if Waterman declined to cooperate.” By law, this can be construed as coercion, but the court said that Rachelle withstood the pressure and didn’t change her statement.
“It thus seems clear that Waterman’s will to resist was not overcome,” the appeals court found.
But when Sergeant McPherron left the room and Sergeant. Habib launched into his speech about being straight with the detective, the interrogation had entered improper territory, the appeals court ruled. The justices took particular issue with Habib telling Rachelle that if she was straight with McPherron, “I will stand up, he will stand up, and the DA will stand up and say she cooperated.”
“Sergeant Habib threatened Waterman with harsher consequences for not cooperating with the investigation,” the appeals court wrote. “In our view, Sergeant Habib’s statements constitute an impermissible threat … . Waterman’s statements following this threat no longer rebut the presumption of involuntariness.”
Everything she said that followed, including her admissions that she knew about the murder plot and did virtually nothing to stop it, would be barred at a new trial.
Despite the setback, Ketchikan district attorney Stephen West obtained a new grand jury indictment against Rachelle, charging her with first- and second-degree murder and a lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide. In March 2006, Rachelle posted $50,000 bond and remained out of sight for the next five years until her second trial began.
It was a twenty-two-year-old Rachelle who entered the courtroom on Monday, January 24, 2011, for the start of her trial. In the nearly seven years since her mother’s murder, she had changed little physically: she was still fair-skinned and rosy-cheeked despite having made her new home, it was confirmed, in Florida—as far away from Craig, Alaska, as she could get while still being in the continental United States. Her reddish-brown hair was long and dark and held in a ponytail.
The case was to have been tried in Ketchikan, but passions still burned even five years after the first trial ended in a hung jury. Half of the would-be jurors filling out questionnaires said they felt Rachelle was “probably guilty.” That left just eighty-four people who had not heard of the case or who had no opinion. The new judge on the case, William Carey, feared that the remaining pool was too small from which to pick an unbiased jury, and with a trial date now finally bearing down and set in stone after years of delays, he didn’t want to risk a false start. The judge contacted the presiding judge in Anchorage and a decision was made. The case moved north.
The Nesbett Courthouse, guarded by a pair of twelve-and-a-half-foot tall totem poles of a raven and an eagle carved out of cedar, was in the city’s downtown section near gift shops and restaurants. It was not far from the Marriott, from which Rachelle had spoken on the phone to Jason Arrant one night seven years earlier. The courthouse was big and modern, the staff accustomed to high-profile trials. In 2007, an Olympia, Washington, housewife and mother named Mechele Linehan was convicted in the 1996 shooting murder of her fiancé, fisherman Kent Leppink, in a sensational case that exposed Linehan’s secret past as a stripper in a club south of Anchorage. Her conviction was overturned on appeal and she is awaiting a new trial.
For Rachelle, the retrial came with more than a new judge and a new courtroom. A shift in attitudes about juvenile crime that had begun even before her first trial now gained momentum. In 2005, while Rachelle was awaiting the start of her first trial, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty for defendants under age eighteen, citing some of the reasons that her defense had raised at the first trial: younger people’s characters still being shaped, their maturity still developing, their decision making more influenced by peer pressure than adults’ decision making is. With youth crime declining in recent years, states began taking a more critical look at the wave of laws calling for the prosecutions of younger teens as adults.
Rachelle’s second trial unfolded in cold and icy January and February—winters are more severe in Anchorage than in Craig, the days even shorter—with no significant new evidence. Not only did the prosecution lack the interview statements ruled inadmissible by the appeals court, but one key witness also didn’t appear. Risking his plea deal with a possible contempt charge, Jason Arrant refused to testify. Instead, the prosecution played a recording of his testimony from the first trial. (Brian Radel did appear, giving the same unemotional account of kidnapping and killing Lauri Waterman.)
Rachelle again waived her right to testify in her own defense, and on Thursday, February 17, the jury announced its verdict. Rachelle was acquitted of the most serious charge against her—murder—but the jury did come to a guilty verdict on criminally negligent homicide. The panel found that the seventeen-year-old Rachelle was so outrageously negligent, had deviated so far from what a reasonable person would have done, that she had caused her mother’s murder.
It was not what prosecutors and many of the investigators had wanted originally, but they said they were satisified. Prosecutor Stephen West, who tried the second case with the help with another DA, Jean Seaton from the Sitka office, told reporters he was “glad” a jury finally found that Rachelle was “responsible in some way” for Lauri’s murder. The charge carried felony weight: the possible sentence ranged from two to ten years in prison.
Rachelle’s attorney, Steve Wells, who also returned for the retrial, expressed relief that she was at least not convicted of murder, but said he planned to appeal. Rachelle’s father, Carl, told the Associated Press, “One of my strongest emotions right now is anger.” He said his daughter never should have been charged with anything.
As for Rachelle, the woman whose teenage words formed the foundation of a murder case had nothing to say this time.
The morning after she disappeared, Lauri Waterman’s burned van was discovered by a hunter on an abandoned logging road. (Courtesy: State of Alaska)
An active community volunteer, Lauri Waterman was 48 years old when she was killed. (Courtesy: Brian Wallace/ZUMAPress)
Former Alaska Trooper Bob Claus returns to the gravel turnout where Lauri Waterman was brutally beaten to death. (Courtes
y: Michael Fleeman)
Craig, Alaska, is a close-knit community of 1,500 people on Prince of Wales Island. (Courtesy: Michael Fleeman)
Rachelle Waterman was 18 years old when she went on trial in 2006. (Courtesy: Brian Wallace/ZUMA Press)
Lauri Waterman was asleep alone in her home, her daughter and husband both out of town, when she was awakened by her assailant. (Courtesy: Michael Fleeman)
In a handwritten note found on Rachelle Waterman’s nightstand, her mother expresses her love—and concerns. (Courtesy: State of Alaska)
A standout student, Rachelle played volleyball and basketball and took part in the music program at Craig High School. (Courtesy: Michael Fleeman)
The Trooper Station, in Klawock, Alaska, where Bob Claus worked. (Courtesy: Michael Fleeman)
Brian Radel confessed to horrible actions—but how much did Rachelle Waterman know? (Courtesy: Brian Wallace/ZUMAPress)
Madly in love, Jason Arrant believed Rachelle Waterman’s stories of being abused by her mother. (Courtesy: Brian Wallace/ ZUMA Press)
This cheap red flashlight was used to kill Lauri Waterman. (Courtesy: State of Alaska)
Rachelle Waterman was accompanied by her father, Carl “Doc” Waterman, outside the Lemon Creek Correctional Center in Juneau, Alaska, after her release. (Courtesy: Brian Wallace/ ZUMA Press)
After her murder, the Craig High School ball field was named in honor of Lauri Waterman. (Courtesy: Michael Fleeman)
St. Martin’s True Crime Library Titles By Michael Fleeman
LACI
“IF I DIE …”
THE STRANGER IN MY BED
OVER THE EDGE
DEADLY MISTRESS
KILLER BODIES
SEDUCED BY EVIL
LOVE YOU MADLY
Dear Reader:
The book you are about to read is the latest bestseller from the St. Martin’s True Crime Library, the imprint The New York Times calls “the leader in true crime!” Each month, we offer you a fascinating account of the latest, most sensational crime that has captured the national attention. St. Martin’s is the publisher of John Glatt’s riveting and horrifying SECRETS IN THE CELLAR, which shines a light on the man who shocked the world when it was revealed that he had kept his daughter locked in his hidden basement for 24 years. In the Edgar-nominated WRITTEN IN BLOOD, Diane Fanning looks at Michael Petersen, a Marine-turned-novelist found guilty of beating his wife to death and pushing her down the stairs of their home—only to reveal another similar death from his past. In the book you now hold, LOVE YOU MADLY, Michael Fleeman explores a case of teenage passion, and a young woman’s murdered mother.
St. Martin’s True Crime Library gives you the stories behind the headlines. Our authors take you right to the scene of the crime and into the minds of the most notorious murderers to show you what really makes them tick. St. Martin’s True Crime Library paperbacks are better than the most terrifying thriller, because it’s all true! The next time you want a crackling good read, make sure it’s got the St. Martin’s True Crime Library logo on the spine—you’ll be up all night!
Charles E. Spicer, Jr.
Executive Editor, St. Martin’s True Crime Library
LOVE YOU MADLY
Copyright © 2011 by Michael Fleeman.
Cover photo of Rachelle Waterman © Brian Wallace / Juneau Empire. Cover photo of woman in frame © Dana Hursey / Masterfile. Background photo on cover © IndexStock / SuperStock.
All rights reserved.
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eISBN 9781429951203
First eBook Edition : September 2011
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / November 2011