“What?” Vonlee asked.
“My car, Vonlee, where is my car?”
Billie Jean had issues with drinking herself, Vonlee claimed, the court record later backing this up through testimony. “She was addicted to gambling and she was an alcoholic, too,” Vonlee had once said. So it was hard to consider what she was saying after a night of losing at the casino—which she did on this night—and having a few too many pops.
They searched for the car. It was nowhere to be found.
Billie Jean filed a police report. She rented a car and asked Vonlee to drive her back to Michigan.
“Look, drive me back, if they ever find my car here, you can have it.”
Vonlee agreed.
They set out on the road back to Troy.
“That’s how I ended up back in the upper Midwest,” Vonlee said.
The car was eventually located and Billie Jean kept her promise. They had been back for a day or so and the North Carolina authorities called to say they had located it, but that it would take about two to three weeks to process.
“You stay here with us at the house,” Billie Jean said. “Don won’t mind. When they call for the car, you go back and take it.”
What the hell, Vonlee considered. A free car.
Vonlee soon found out that life inside the Rogers household, that suburban existence behind closed doors, was anything but hospitable and pleasant. Billie Jean and Don fought like two people that hated each other, Vonlee soon learned. And Don, Vonlee said, drank himself into oblivion almost daily. He’d fill large mason jars with vodka and down them in front of her and Billie Jean and then pass out.
“It was clear to me that this marriage was for convenience,” Vonlee explained later. “There was no love between them.”
One of the major issues Don had with Billie Jean was her incredible spending, not only on gambling, but her enormous shopping sprees, too. She spent a lot of time at the Detroit area casinos, and most of that money came from Don’s savings and investments, filtered through credit cards Don had given to his wife. This was the cause of much conflict between them, as Vonlee stood on the sidelines listening and watching so many of their fights.
As chaos reigned supreme inside the household during the latter part of July 2000, Billie Jean took a call one night that sent her into a terrible spell of dread and worry. Her son from a previous relationship had been involved in a car crash in California, where he lived, in which several others involved had been killed. He was fighting for his life, in critical condition.
“I have to go out there,” she told Vonlee and Don. “I have to get him and bring him here.” She left.
Don and Vonlee were alone in the house.
CHAPTER 5
LYNN GIORGI LEFT THE scene about 7:30 A.M. as Officer Pete Dungjen hung around, waiting for the investigative team to arrive. As he stood in the living room, Dungjen thought back to how Billie Jean had failed to show any “real emotion, to speak of” throughout the entire time he and Giorgi had been there. This seemed odd to the officer, who had been at so many of these scenes he’d lost count. Most people were distraught and crying, but with Billie Jean, everything seemed so matter-of-fact.
Don’s over there.... He probably fell.... Take him away.
Another factor Dungjen observed was that Don had been cold and lividity had set in. This meant he had been dead for a long time; it wasn’t as though he’d fallen, passed out and died within an hour or two.
When the paramedics arrived, Dungjen explained what he and Giorgi had come upon. One of the emergency medical technicians (EMTs) lifted Don’s shirt, put a heart monitor on his chest and determined, if only following procedure, that there was no heartbeat. Donald Rogers was dead.
“You notice those feet crossed like that?” Dungjen said to the paramedic as he removed the chest tabs from Don and put away his equipment.
“I do.”
“That’s odd, huh?”
The guy shrugged. What could he say? Every death felt a bit different. No one died in the same manner, under the same set of circumstances. Death was unpredictable.
Fast.
Slow.
Loud.
Quiet.
Don’s death appeared to be a heart attack brought on by years of excessive drinking.
As Dungjen went back and talked to Billie Jean, trying to get any details he could from her, she kept going back to Don’s alcoholism.
“One or two gallons of vodka a day,” she said.
That was a lot of booze. No two ways about it.
Dungjen had noticed a half-full glass of clear liquid on a den table, with a pair of shoes on the floor next to it. He asked her about this. It felt like someone had been sitting in the chair, drinking a glass of what had been confirmed to be water.
Both Vonlee and Billie Jean spoke at the same time. Billie Jean said the shoes were hers, as Vonlee yelled in the background about the cops and what in the name of God were they doing busting on Billie Jean at such a volatile, sad time in her life.
“How did those shoes get there?” Dungjen asked, ignoring Vonlee’s crude, drunken rant.
“We came home,” Billie Jean explained, “came in through the garage door and in through the laundry room and I got a glass of water, went into the family room, sat down, took off my shoes and started sipping on the water.”
This felt strange to Dungjen as he thought about it: How could Billie Jean sit in this chair and sip a glass of water and not notice her husband on the floor in the kitchen? If what she said was true, she would have come in, gotten a glass of water and walked around or over her husband’s body on the floor before sitting down. The officer put himself in her position. Sitting in the chair sipping the water, she would have had a clear view of her husband on the floor in the kitchen. But that was not what she had told him.
Dungjen had called Detective Don Tullock, a twenty-five-year veteran of the TPD, the last fourteen with the Detective Bureau (DB), and explained that they had an “unexpected death” at the residence. Tullock was the investigator on duty. Tullock, of course, could sense that Dungjen’s instinct told him something was off. Maybe he was overreacting to the situation, but the cop’s gut was speaking to him and it was always, Dungjen knew, better to err on the side of caution when a potential murder was at stake.
Dungjen met Tullock outside in the driveway. “Her demeanor,” he told the detective. “I’m concerned about her demeanor . . . her lack of concern.” He was speaking of Billie Jean.
Tullock was told about Don’s drinking.
“She’s been living with the situation for so long,” the detective said, “and as a result, she might have become desensitized toward him.”
Tullock thanked the officer and told him he’d take it from here.
As Tullock met with the paramedic on scene, it was clear that Don had been dead for some time before the call had been made. Lividity took twenty minutes to begin and Don had “severe lividity and rigor mortis” clearly already set in. The lividity, especially, was obvious. Lividity is the pooling of blood, which is heavier than tissue. As gravity works its magic, the blood in the body is drawn downward. Don had dark red “splotches” on the bottom of his face closest to the floor, and also on his back. Blood, after death, finds the lowest point on the body and settles. Don also had what is called “cyanosis,” the bluing of the lips. Blood drains from a dead person’s lips and they subsequently turn blue.
“Perfect,” the paramedic told Tullock. “He looks to be laid out perfect, like he himself laid down on the ground.”
“And . . .”
“It’s unusual.”
The paramedic explained that he had been to “hundreds” of death scenes throughout his years of being a medic and he had not ever run into someone in this position with their legs crossed, lying on the floor almost as if placed there.
On top of that was the lack of any trauma to Don’s body. Generally speaking, when an unexpected death occurred, the person fell and hurt himself as he
fell down. There should have been some bruising or abrasion, at least on the elbows or hands as instinct took over and Don’s body tried to break the fall. But not a scuffed knee or an obvious bruise was on him.
“Especially with a person this old—they’re more brittle.”
Apparently, a seventy-four-year-old, one-to-two-gallon-a-day vodka drinker had fallen on a hard surface inside his kitchen and had not suffered one bump or scrape.
An investigator for the office of the Oakland County Medical Examiner (OCME) arrived next. Robert Allegrina was responsible for making the decision whether to bring the body in for further examination, or to release it to the family for burial. The OCME’s protocol here was simple: “As a general rule,” Allegrina said later, “we observe the scene, photograph the body, document the evidence, talk to the family and witnesses and make a determination. . . .”
When Allegrina spoke to Billie Jean, she said her husband had not been to a doctor for as long as she could recall. He was one of those manly men who didn’t think he needed a doctor. He’d rather not know what was wrong with him.
“Look over there,” Billie Jean said. She pointed to the carpet. They were upstairs in Don’s bedroom. Vonlee was there by her aunt’s side, ready to lash out at the detective if he became too aggressive.
There were “spots on the carpeting that appeared to be fecal matter, could have been dried blood.”
Allegrina wrote it down, documenting everything he saw.
“Are you opposed to an autopsy,” Allegrina asked, “under any religious reasons?” The doctor later explained he often asked that question because there were a lot of Jewish families in the area and he wanted to be mindful of their beliefs.
Billie Jean said no.
Allegrina’s job was to report what he found at the scene to the medical examiner—and so that’s what he did. And as long as the family wasn’t opposed, an autopsy was probably warranted here. It was important for the state to understand how and why this man had died. There was plenty of evidence indicating he likely perished because of natural causes—rectal bleeding from ulcers in his stomach or colon cancer, severe alcoholism and maybe a host of other medical issues associated with those conditions or other medical issues that no one knew about. Yet both TPD officers and the detective on call had questions. With any luck, the medical examiner could clear them up and sign off on Don’s death as natural causes.
After law enforcement cleared out of the house and Don’s body was taken away, Billie Jean and Vonlee sat in the living room.
“What’s wrong?” Billie Jean asked Vonlee. Vonlee was crying, shaking and had a hard time getting a handle on herself. Vonlee wanted a drink.
“What’s wrong? I cannot believe he’s dead, Billie!”
“Get over it,” Billie Jean snapped.
“Get over it? What do you mean?”
Billie Jean walked over and sat down next to Vonlee. She put her arm around her shoulder. “Just pretend like it didn’t happen, Vonlee.”
CHAPTER 6
WITH BILLIE JEAN ROGERS traveling to California to fetch her son after he endured a life-threatening car accident, Vonlee Titlow and Don Rogers were alone inside Don’s expansive house. Vonlee did not work. Don went into the office, but came home at all hours of the day. So they were home together, alone, a lot. Vonlee now waited to hear from Billie Jean about how her son was making out.
“What do you say we go out and celebrate your birthday?” Don asked Vonlee.
It was July 12, 2000. Vonlee had been at the house now since that July Fourth weekend she spent with her aunt in North Carolina. Vonlee had just turned thirty-three. She was thinking about heading back to North Carolina. The Chrysler had been repaired after it had been stolen and impounded for investigative purposes. Vonlee was told she could pick it up anytime now.
“Sure,” she told Don. What a nice gesture, Vonlee considered. The guy had a big heart, she realized since moving into the house. He meant well. It was the bottle holding him down. Billie Jean had him all wrong.
Don made reservations for the two of them at Bloomfield Hills Country Club, an exclusive, eighteen-hole golf course with one hell of a four-star restaurant attached, about a fifteen-minute drive from the house. Vonlee liked to be treated like a lady. She’d dated some wealthy men in her life and knew what luxury living felt and tasted like. Her aunt did not want her to leave for North Carolina until—the earliest—she returned with her son. Keeping Don busy and reaping the benefits of that were favors Vonlee felt obligated to do while her aunt was away. Billie Jean made it clear to Vonlee before she left for California that she had plans for the two of them, her and Vonlee. The accident her son had been in might have derailed those plans somewhat, but it did not cancel them out.
“Stay,” Billie Jean had said over the phone.
“I will,” Vonlee responded.
Everyone at the club knew Don well. Here he was with this beautiful woman on his arm, walking in and sitting down to a nice, elegant birthday celebration. For Vonlee, going out to dinner with an older gentleman was not such a stretch; she’d run that escort service and doing this exact thing had been part of that world for her and her employees—along with all things sexual, of course.
It was clear from the moment they arrived that this night would not be anything but a routine night in Don’s life. He’d drank all day long. And by the time they got around to ordering dinner, “He was so blitzed! I had to get the manager of the club, who—thank God!—knew Don well, to help me carry him out into the car,” Vonlee later recalled.
They hadn’t even eaten dinner.
Vonlee had no clue how to get back to the Rogers house and got lost for an hour or more until she finally found her way. When they arrived, Vonlee managed to wake Don up enough to get him to stagger with one arm over her shoulder up the stairs and into bed.
Damn, she told herself walking down the stairs. Billie Jean wasn’t lying about the way Don drank. He never had a few pops and got a good buzz on; Don went all out, every day. Passing out was part of his routine.
At some point during the night, Vonlee awoke to Don, in bed next to her, grabbing at her, she later said. In fact, Don had woken her up by placing his hands on her large breasts. He was fondling her violently, perhaps in a drunken stupor or even a blackout.
“Come on, baby . . . come on . . . ,” Don mumbled.
“Don . . . Don . . . what are you doing?” Vonlee screamed, waking up.
Don continued, “Come on . . . Vonlee . . . come on.”
“No, no, no, Don,” Vonlee said. “Stop that!” She jumped out of bed.
Vonlee decided to go downstairs and sleep on the couch. She told Don to stay put and don’t follow her (not that he could manage, anyway). Nothing was going to happen between them. Not tonight, not ever. There was no way Vonlee was sleeping with her aunt’s husband, who, by lineage, was her uncle! Vonlee loved Billie Jean. She understood from what Billie Jean had told her that she and Don had more of a partnership than a marriage and had not touched each other in years, but still.
Vonlee woke the next morning and thought, What the hell. She couldn’t believe what had happened. As mad as she was at Don, however, she wasn’t going to say anything to Don or Billie Jean about it. Don was blasted. He probably wouldn’t even recall the incident, anyway. Why make a bad night worse?
“I’ve been drunk before,” Vonlee recalled, “and done some stupid things. It was no big deal.”
Vonlee walked upstairs into her bedroom. Don was awake. His arms, she could not help but to notice, were all bloody. There was blood everywhere, in fact: from the bathroom, down the white carpeting in the hallway, into Don’s room and her room.
“Don, what the heck?”
“I fell,” he said.
“Fell?”
There was way too much blood to believe it was from a fall.
“Look, Vonlee, you have to help me clean up all this blood. If Billie comes home and sees it, she’s going to go crazy.”
Von
lee went down the hall and into the bathroom and saw that Don had ripped the door off the hinges. He must have cut himself, she deduced, in the process of doing that. But also, when she looked in his bedroom, there was blood all over his bed. Don had been bleeding from his rectum again.
The other problem Vonlee now had was that if one followed the blood trail, it went from Don’s room into her room and into her bed. Although the bleeding had started after she went downstairs to sleep on the couch, her aunt still might think they shacked up together, if she followed the bloody trail.
So Vonlee got a bucket, some bleach, got on her knees and went to work.
“I didn’t want to tell her,” Vonlee explained. “Nothing happened. But I liked Don and I didn’t want to see them have a conflict. He was nice guy, at least to me. He treated me good.”
The one thing Vonlee mentioned as the morning went on was all of the bleeding. Vonlee cautioned Don that he had to do something about the rectal bleeding—it was a sign of a much larger medial issue that could potentially kill him. Did he have colon cancer? Rectal cancer? Ulcers? There had to be an answer.
“I won’t go to a doctor,” Don said. “Won’t do it.”
He was one of those If-I-don’t-know-it-can’t-hurt-me guys.
Don had to realize he was dying a slow death from the drinking and the bleeding. Perhaps he didn’t want to face a doctor telling him he had to give up the one thing he lived for.
Vonlee could not get the blood out of the carpet. There was way too much.
Billie Jean called.
Vonlee hesitated, but then explained what happened.
“But she was so distraught about her son and the accident that she didn’t really care about it all,” Vonlee later said.
At least not then. It would come up again, though.
Vonlee hung up with her aunt. Then she spoke to Don.
“I’ll let her get all new carpets and have the upstairs remodeled and she’ll be all right,” Don said. Then he began talking about his life with his wife, which kind of shocked Vonlee. If what Don said was true, Vonlee didn’t really know her aunt.
If You Only Knew Page 3