Bad Girls
Page 35
Officer Sileo hurried up behind, hand on his sidearm. They made eye contact and agreed to enter the condo slowly, barrels of their weapons leading the way.
CHAPTER 3
IN SEPTEMBER 2000, NELSON SESSLER WAS hired by Stamford-based Purdue Pharma, a major player in the pharmaceutical world of developing medications. Purdue Pharma boasts of being the industry leader in pain management. For Sessler, who held a doctorate in pharmacy from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Purdue was the ideal company to work for. He could pursue his passion for researching and developing new medications, and ultimately carve out a career that he could excel in and, at the same rate, be proud of the work he was doing.
At thirty-five years old, Sessler had hit his prime. He was a good-looking man, tall and handsome. He took care of himself, working out and working hard. Purdue was one of those companies so big, with an employee list of so many diverse individuals, cliques kicked up within the group an employee worked for. Sessler had no trouble making friends. And in December 2000, merely months after he started with the company, he met and started dating a fellow employee, thirty-two-year-old Anna Lisa Raymundo. Anna Lisa was bright and from a family of well-educated high achievers working within the medical field. Filipino by descent, Anna Lisa had beautifully dark, shiny skin, eyes to match, a cheerful demeanor, and a smile so large it was hard not to like the woman and feel her magnetic charm the moment she was introduced. With a master’s in public health, Anna Lisa had been working at Purdue for several years. She liked Nelson Sessler the moment she met him. They hit it off.
Nelson shared an apartment in town with several men, about three miles away from Anna Lisa’s Harbor Drive unit. By November 2002, however, as their relationship had hit its stride, going from its highest and lowest points, Nelson had been spending most of his time over at Anna Lisa’s condo.
“Five to seven [days],” Sessler said later. “The majority of the week.”
In February 2002, Anna Lisa left Purdue Pharma and went to work for a New Jersey company, Farmacia. There was a time when Anna Lisa was actually commuting back and forth to New Jersey from her Stamford condo, spending four hours per day on the road. By November, though, Anna Lisa had worked it out with Farmacia that she would work from home and head into the office for meetings on an as-needed basis.
Nelson Sessler was the first to admit later on that by November 2002 his relationship with Anna Lisa had nearly run its course. They had hit a stride, sure, but it was more or less lined with complacency as he, anyway, was simply going through the motions. As long as Nelson had known Anna Lisa, he had not given up his room at the apartment across town he shared with three other men. And that alone said something about how he felt.
There was that feeling of going through the motions with Anna Lisa and, well, this secret Nelson had been keeping from Anna: He was sneaking around, sleeping with one of his coworkers at Purdue Pharma, a rather elegant, highly intelligent, dark-skinned woman, born in Iran, who had long, flowing, curly tar black hair. Nelson had met her at the local bar that the Purdue Pharma employees hung out at in town. Nelson had been having a fling with the thirty-two-year-old woman since the summer of 2001, almost a year by then. Their relationship was hot and cold. Nelson couldn’t really see his concubine too often because, he later explained, she “had a handicapped brother—a mentally challenged or retarded brother that she took care of, and elderly parents, and volleyball. And that those three items took up most of her weekends. . . .”
So, for Nelson and his lover, they could only see each other sporadically, at various times during the week, in the evenings. This worked out well when Anna Lisa was going down to New Jersey to work; but the affair had become more difficult to contain as soon as Anna started working from home. Nelson would have to make excuses.
He’d have to lie.
CHAPTER 4
JUST BEYOND THE DOOR inside that Harbor Drive condo that Stamford police officers had been summoned to on the afternoon of November 2, 2002, Officer Sileo and his colleague immediately entered through the unlocked front door and stumbled onto a ghastly sight.
“The apartment was in disarray,” Sileo said later. “There were signs of a violent struggle.”
Indeed. The body of a young female was stretched out on the floor, her legs spread open, one leg propped up on a box, the other on the floor. There was blood all over, smears and smudges on the white tile underneath her body, the walls, the carpeting, heading toward the bathroom, on her jeans, on her bare feet. She was fully clothed, but her white shirt (a sweater) had been pulled up to her breasts (not sexually, but amid some sort of struggle for life). By her foot on the wood floor was a barbell, a ten-pound chunk of steel, essentially. Next to that was a plant, its dirt out of the pot, spread all around during the deadly skirmish. They found her adjacent to the stairs heading up to a second level inside the home and the front door. A laundry basket was tipped over, as were other pieces of furniture. There were boxes and everyday items found in any home scattered around as though there had been a terribly violent, extended scuffle. The smudges of blood on the floor told a story these officers were immediately familiar with: There had been a terrific fight after blood was present.
Another officer was on his way to the scene when he heard a superior over the radio notify dispatch that BCI was needed at the Harbor Drive scene. The Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the officer knew, was called out only when there was serious trouble.
“We got a ten-one,” the superior announced over the radio.
And the officer knew: 10-1 equals homicide.
The troops were on their way. Scores of officers were then dispatched to the scene.
As the officer headed toward Harbor Drive himself, he was called off.
“We need you to head out to the Duchess Restaurant to secure a pay phone there,” dispatch intoned.
“Ten-four.”
Seemed like a strange request, but the officer shifted his destination and went on his way.
Back at the Harbor Drive condo, it was immediately clear that the dead woman on the floor had been viciously attacked. No doubt about it. But what was also made clear by quickly analyzing the scene around the woman was that it had taken a while for her to be murdered. It wasn’t fast. The scuffle had started in one place and finished in another. She put up one heck of a fight, too. That was obvious in the way in which things were tossed around and blood was spattered and smudged all over. It wasn’t as if she had been murdered in the spot where an obvious argument took place. The fight—and that’s what this was, for certain—started in a place and went throughout the home and ended where she had been found, lying on the floor.
Officer Sileo, gun in hand, eyes roaming the condo, his colleague covering him, reached down and checked the victim for vital signs.
There were none.
The wounds appear fresh, Sileo thought. The blood had not even had time to begin coagulation. Puddles of blood were shiny and wet.
Whatever had taken place inside this home had perhaps happened within the hour. A few hours, maybe.
The officers knew what to do next. They had been trained and had been in this circumstance before. The first thing an officer should do upon entering a residence with a dead body (DB) is clear the remainder of the home. Make sure there were no additional victims or a perp hiding out, waiting on them.
After a cursory search of the home, Sileo was confident they were alone with one victim.
Now, all Sileo and his colleague could do was seal off the front door, not allow anyone in, and greet the team of investigators on their way, and begin the process of finding out what in the name of God happened to this woman and, more important, who was responsible.
Robert “Bob” Dow’s mother, Lila Dow, was elderly and ailing when Bob started to spend time at her Mineral Wells, Texas, home in early 2004.
The rundown home that Bob Dow turned into a party house also served as a set for his amateur porn filming sessions. His videos
featured underage girls, booze, drugs, and sex parties.
(Courtesy of the author)
This photo of Bob Dow was taken shortly before he was murdered at age 49.
This diagram shows the areas of the body where Bob Dow was shot on the night of May 4, 2005.
(Courtesy of the Mineral Wells Police Department)
The Baker Hotel was an iconic tourist destination in Mineral Wells, Texas, in its heyday. Celebrities and visitors came from around the world to enjoy the “healing water” baths on the top floor. Today, the hotel is rundown and nothing more than a memory of what Mineral Wells once was. (Courtesy of Gerard Selby)
Before she became a party girl and realized she was a lesbian, Jennifer Jones was a child trying to find her place in the world.
(Courtesy of Melanie and Robert Brownigg)
As a teen, Jennifer enjoyed dressing up for Halloween (left) and going on a cruise with her aunt and uncle (right).
(Courtesy of Melanie and Robert Brownigg)
Bobbi Jo Smith says her life was shattered by the sexual abuse she experienced as a child.
Although she was engaged to a man and became pregnant at sixteen, Bobbi Jo said she hid an attraction to females.
As a youngster Bobbi Jo was a tomboy, growing up with all brothers.
Bobbi Jo’s son is the love of her life. The birthdays she celebrated with him are memories she holds closest today.
Today Bobbi Jo dreams of such normal, everyday pleasures as talking to friends on the phone and laughing.
Jennifer had never been involved with a female before meeting Bobbi Jo Smith and becoming obsessed with her.
When detectives searched Bob Dow’s computer, they found a variety of photos of underage girls in poses that ranged from suggestive to pornographic.
Bobbi Jo loved to take photos of the women she was involved with, like this one of Jennifer.
Bob Dow would get wasted on booze, pills, and weed, then put Bobbi Jo in charge of taking photos and directing his films.
Often mistaken—even by police—for a pillow case, this laundry bag was placed over Bob Dow’s head and upper body by his killer before she shot him.
(Courtesy of the Mineral Wells Police Department)
Detective Brian Boetz found Bob Dow’s pants and wallet on the floor of the room where he was killed.
(Courtesy of the Mineral Wells Police Department)
This green trunk would become a talking point in the prosecution’s case against Bobbi Jo Smith.
(Courtesy of the Mineral Wells Police Department)
Mineral Wells PD Detective Brian Boetz was one of the first investigators on the scene of Bob Dow’s murder. (Courtesy of Gerard Selby)
After the murder of Bob Dow, Jennifer Jones and Bobbi Jo Smith drove to the Spanish Trace apartment complex, where they picked up a friend, and Jennifer’s sister and mother. (Courtesy of the author)
It was said that Bobbi Jo tossed the gun that killed Bob Dow out of the window here on the Farm to Market Road (Route 1821 North) after she’d wiped it clean of prints.
(Courtesy of the author)
After being caught in Blythe, California, at the end of a four-day run across the Southwest with two other women, Bobbi Jo and Jennifer were booked by the Mineral Wells Police Department. (Courtesy of the Mineral Wells Police Department)
Kathy Jones (top) and Audrey Sawyer (bottom) were questioned on videotape after Bobbi Jo and Jennifer left them in Arizona and took off to California. (Courtesy of the Mineral Wells Police Department)
Special Prosecuting Attorney Mike Burns charged Bobbi Jo with murder after Jennifer pled guilty.
(Courtesy of Gerard Selby)
Bobbi Jo’s trial was held at the Palo Pinto County Courthouse in Palo Pinto, Texas.
(Courtesy of Gerard Selby)
Bobbi Jo Smith in 2012, standing inside Texas’s infamous Gatesville Prison, where she is serving a sentence of 50 years for a crime she claims to have taken no part in.
Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals connected to this story.
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