“Another cut piece of electrical wire,” Hensley said.
“Look at this,” McAuley announced to an on-scene YCSO investigator. The same cop had been involved in Randi’s case. He had seen the electrical wire used to bind Randi’s legs.
“That’s quite similar to the piece of wire used on Randi Saldana’s legs,” he related to McAuley.
When Hensley heard this, he felt that Danny Hembree—a guy who had seemed to enjoy the cat and mouse of cops searching Nick’s home and his car—had murdered Heather and Randi. Hensley needed no additional evidence than these two seemingly insignificant items and the fact that Danny was the last person to be with both women.
“My suspicions are like everyone else’s at that time,” Hensley remarked. “Hembree killed Randi, took her jewelry, and gave it to Nicole.” But it was the cut cord that became the most important piece of the puzzle at this stage. “I’ve searched a lot of houses and vehicles and we typically don’t find a lot of lamp cords that are cut,” Hensley explained. “I don’t know of many people that cut electrical cords off lamps or other appliances.”
Especially when you place the electrical cord into the context of a homicide victim bound by what appeared to be the same material.
And then the necklace that Nicole supposedly had.
There are no coincidences in murder—only evidence.
Why else would Nicole have Randi’s necklace? Hensley kept asking himself.
Still, none of this was enough to haul Danny Hembree in. Yet, it was certainly plenty to begin an arrest warrant narrative. With Nicole heading down to the GCPD for an interview, things were shaping up.
Hensley could hear Nicole now . . . “Danny gave that necklace to me.”
If true, they had enough to bring Danny Hembree in and interview him on suspicion of murder. At least in Randi’s case.
As they finished the search of the vehicle, Hensley noted how Danny Hembree was standing off to the side, talking to McAuley and Shelor. That was a good sign. The guy, it seemed, wanted to play.
“I recall them speaking to Hembree the night of the search warrant at the Catterton home,” Hensley commented, “as we searched his vehicle. But he was not formally interviewed, by no means—more like friendly conversation while we searched his car. He was our primary suspect, but our purpose for being there that night was Nicole and the jewelry. Hembree just happened to be there when this all went down.”
Sometimes, all a cop needs is a little luck.
CHAPTER 31
YCSO detectives asked Nicole to sit down inside an interview room at the GCPD. Nicole had pieces of this puzzle—no doubt about it. The most pressing—and important—question centered on the jewelry. And yet, one had to be careful with a witness like Nicole. She was close to Danny Hembree. Her sister had been murdered, or so the YCSO now believed. Nicole had a record herself. There was a fine line between getting Nicole to open up, getting her to believe that law enforcement was on her side, and alienating her.
Danny Hembree had already tried to influence Nicole. As they began the interview, investigators considered that if Danny was brazen enough to try and control Nicole in their presence, what would he do when he got her alone?
Hensley sat and watched from a separate room. York County continued leading the investigation.
Nicole was asked about the jewelry.
“I traded that with Randi,” she said.
This was not what everyone expected to hear.
Nicole explained that she had been with Randi at a friend’s house in Gastonia one night shortly before Randi went missing. They were partying.
“We were together part of the night and this was when we traded jewelry.”
Hensley was confused by this statement, but not in a way that threw him off. He went through scenarios in his head, comparing those theories with the information Nicole was sharing, along with the information they had developed.
“If you believe that Danny Hembree killed Randi,” Hensley explained, referring to what he was thinking as he watched Nicole’s interview, “and gave Nicole Randi’s jewelry, then you would have to believe that Nicole was either involved in the murder or knew exactly what Danny had done to Randi.”
Taking it one step further, you would also have to consider that Nicole was part of her own sister’s demise—certainly something no one was keen to believe.
Or maybe she was being intimidated by Danny Hembree? Threatened?
“You’ll be next, bitch.”
“When we looked at the case at this time,” Hensley said, “and began to focus on Hembree, we were actually surprised that Nicole was still alive.”
That ticking clock: the need to arrest Danny Hembree before he killed again.
Over the course of a few hours, Nicole talked her way through her life with Danny and the events of the past month.
“When did you last see your sister?” an investigator asked.
“It was a Saturday, I think,” Nicole said. “We were at the house. She was in the bathtub. I left the house to go across the street to the Mighty Dollar to meet someone and buy some [thing].”
“How long were you gone?”
“About thirty minutes.”
“Did you return home?”
“I did. When I walked in, I asked my mom where Heather was. She said Heather left with Danny, Sommer Heffner, and Sommer’s boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend’s name?”
“I don’t know, sorry.”
“Who is Sommer Heffner?”
“She and Heather have been friends for a long time.”
Investigators wondered: Why hadn’t Nicole run off to party with her boyfriend and the others?
“I didn’t know they was leaving,” Nicole said. “I figured that they had left to go cop some crack to smoke.”
Investigators wanted to know who had the money that night. Who financed the party?
“I think Danny had money, because he got paid from his job.”
Nicole talked about where she thought Danny worked. But then she said she believed he financed the crack party with “money” he got from “his mother.”
The subject of Nicole’s boyfriend leaving with Heather, and no one seeing her sister again, came up. Nicole was asked what she knew about it.
“I spoke to Danny later that night on the phone,” Nicole said. “I called him. I asked him where Heather was.”
“Did he tell you?”
“Yeah, yeah. It was about eight or nine (when they first spoke) and then later on, about eleven or twelve, and he said he dropped Heather off at the Mighty Dollar,” located just across the street from the Catterton house. “I didn’t speak to Danny until the next day.”
YCSO detective Mike Baker asked Nicole, “Did it make you mad that Danny left you there at the house and took off with Heather and Sommer and her boyfriend?”
“I was mad, yeah,” Nicole said. “But Danny knows I don’t smoke crack. And it wasn’t uncommon for Heather to ask Danny to buy crack for her. . . .”
“But it did make you mad, right?”
“I was jealous they left together, sure. Mad too.”
The theory of Danny Hembree having a thing for Heather came up next.
Nicole said, “I know he’s had sex with Heather before. My mother told me Heather and Danny had sex on Valentine’s Day this year.”
Heather would have been a minor then, just sixteen. What in the world was going on within this family? YCSO investigators wondered.
“I didn’t have a problem with Danny and Heather having sex then,” Nicole responded. “I wasn’t dating Danny back then.” She went on to say Heather was sleeping with him for drugs. That was the only reason. She added, “Look, my own mother even had sex with Danny—but it was all about drugs.”
“Tell us about Mr. Hembree.”
Nicole explained that she’d started “dating” him a few months ago. “I trust Danny to be alone with other women. I don’t think he’d have sex with Heather now, because we’re dating
.”
“How does he treat you?”
“Danny? Oh, he’s good to me. He treats me like a woman. Even when he smokes [crack], he doesn’t get aggressive or anything.” The way she described the guy, it seemed he had never gotten violent with her, and he was a stand-up guy who would never raise a hand.
“You and your sister get along?”
“Yes, of course. I had a good relationship with Heather. She was a good person.” This brought on a bit of sadness for Nicole to talk about Heather in the past tense. “She was street-smart, you know. Always careful.” Nicole said Heather was tough. She was a “fighter.”
Hensley looked on and had a few theories developing. Danny Hembree was two different people: one around these girls, another when not with them. He was also the Svengali type while with the girls, the provider of a good time. And it appeared that the girls turned to him when they wanted drugs, a ride somewhere, or even money.
“You recall what your sister was wearing that night she left with Hembree?”
“I don’t, sorry. But those clothes she had on and the clothes found near her body—they was hers, I know that. I bought Heather that Hollister sweatshirt myself. The pants and belt, I know was hers, too. The New Balance sneakers, she got those, I remember, when she got out of jail.”
Important information: Here was another source putting those clothes found down the road from Heather’s body on her. That fact alone of Heather not having all of her clothes on where she was found was a red flag, despite what the autopsy could not prove at this point.
Detective Baker asked Nicole what she thought might have happened to Heather.
“She was murdered,” Nicole said without hesitating.
“How do you think she might have been murdered, Nicole?”
“I think somebody choked her or put a bag over her head.”
Either scenario worked with what the autopsy proved.
All of the detectives in the room were struck by this—how could Nicole have known? The autopsy results (and theories being explored by law enforcement) had not been released. And there was no specific cause of death mentioned in the final autopsy report.
Nicole then added something else: “She could have been shot. I believe she was raped, too.”
“Why do you feel she was raped?”
“Because her clothes were off and her shirt was up around her head.”
Talking more about this, Nicole explained that one of the investigators told her certain facts about Heather’s body and the autopsy, which explained why Nicole was so well informed.
“Did you know Randi Saldana, Miss Catterton?” Baker asked.
“Um, not that well. But I’ll tell you this, whoever killed my sister also killed Randi.”
“Did they know each other?”
“Yeah, they did. I know that Randi and Heather hung out at Shorty’s house,” Nicole said. “And I think maybe someone was watching [his] house. . . .” She broke down. Then: “Whoever done this, they deserve to die, like Randi and Heather done died. They deserve the electric chair.”
“Shorty” (pseudonym) was the nickname for a local guy named Bobby Mercer (pseudonym). Shorty’s house in town was a known hangout and a place to purchase cocaine. Heather, “as a friend,” Shorty later explained, lived at his house “every now and again.” Heather would come by and sometimes “she didn’t have nowhere to go, so I let her stay there,” Shorty added. He was one of Heather’s dealers, but he was also someone who liked Heather. He claimed to care about her. There was a “rumor on the street” that Heather would trade sex for cocaine, Shorty said. If she did that, “I didn’t treat her that way.”
Between January and October 2009, Heather had been dodging various violations of probation charges and often hid at Shorty’s when she felt cops were after her. The YCSO had actually found Heather at Shorty’s that August and hauled her off to jail.
“I mean,” Shorty said, “she just stayed there [with me]—she was good people, man. Everybody had put her down.”
Detective Baker asked Nicole who she thought killed Heather. Could Danny Hembree, the same guy Nicole had been sleeping with and allowing inside her home, be capable of killing her sister?
“I have suspected Danny,” Nicole said. “I have. Since this happened, I thought about Danny being with both Randi and Heather before they went missing. . . .”
If that was the case, why would Nicole ever go near Danny Hembree again? Why in the hell was she still with the guy?
Every investigator in the room, along with Hensley, was greatly concerned for Nicole’s safety. Many believed Danny was going to kill her next. Thus, detectives encouraged Nicole not to go back to him that night. He could be dangerous—even more so, now that the pressure was on. There was no question he was going to interrogate Nicole when she returned. He would demand to know what she told police. Did Nicole truly want to subject herself to that kind of torment?
“Let us take you somewhere safe for the night,” Baker said to Nicole. There was a shelter for women in town.
“No!”
“You should consider this.”
“No, take me home. I’m not scared of Danny.”
Going back was Nicole’s prerogative. Investigators had gone from interrogating Nicole, as though she might have had a hand in Randi’s murder, to being concerned she was going to be Danny Hembree’s next victim.
“I want Danny to take a lie detector test tomorrow,” Nicole said.
“We’re not sure that—” one of the investigators began to say.
“If not, I’ll get a restraining order against him.”
They talked a bit more and one of the detectives drove Nicole home.
Hensley was worried, along with the rest of the team, that Danny Hembree—if he was indeed their guy—would kill Nicole that night or certainly within the next week. So it became a race to gather enough evidence to arrest Danny Hembree.
CHAPTER 32
On the morning of November 24, a meeting took place at the Moss Justice Center out on York Highway. The YCSO had been serving South Carolina in York County since 1786. Within the infrastructure of the YCSO existed a series of squads: Violent Crimes Unit, Crimes Against Property Unit, Drug Enforcement Unit, Forensic Services Unit, Polygraph Unit. The YCSO was equipped to investigate just about any crime committed within its boundary lines. The deaths of Randi and Heather, however, called for a broader level of investigation involving other jurisdictions. Thus, the YCSO wanted to form a task force in search of what most believed was an evolving (and quite possibly highly experienced) serial killer.
Earlier that morning, while conducting a thorough background check on Danny Hembree, it was learned that he had been questioned back in 2007 as the primary suspect in the 1992 murder of another local Gastonia girl. As each layer of his record peeled back, darker and more sinister secrets rose to the surface.
Hensley sat and listened as detectives from several local agencies shared what they knew about the cases. Sitting in on the meeting was a behavioral analyst—some might call him a “profiler”—from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED). He took in everything being said regarding how the bodies were found, where, when, by whom, on top of the condition of each victim and state of decomposition, along with the latest information the YCSO had compiled on their suspect.
Additional info was shared about Heather as the meeting focused on her victimology. There was no painting Heather in the light of a princess here—the team concentrated strictly on the facts. Anything less would have not served the victim well. The better an investigator is informed about a victim’s life, the better his chances of zeroing in on her killer. This might sound awfully simple, but there’s no other way to solve cases of this caliber.
According to Hensley’s final report of the case, York County investigators advised the group that Heather “had been a prostitute since the age of twelve.” When that information was presented, a certain pall came over the room. Of course, cops had heard far worse.
But twelve years old and selling her body? It was a nightmare life that ended, apparently, with the bogeyman chasing Heather in those dark dreams. Heather had been placed in group and foster homes most of her childhood. She had run away from just about every one of them.
The term “prostitute” was probably not the best way to describe Heather’s behavior. Heather had never been formally charged with the offense as an adult. It wasn’t as though Heather put on high heels, a miniskirt, too much makeup, and went out walking the streets. She might have traded—and several reported this—her body for drugs at times, but it was not some sort of pimp/prostitute life of working the streets at specific locations and times, or even advertising as an escort on Craigslist or Backpage, same as many girls do.
“Heather was a drug user,” said an investigator running the meeting, “crack . . . being her drug of choice. She is . . . a person who is pleasant to be around and easy to get along with.” Heather would date drug dealers, it was reported, and “align herself with drug suppliers.... [She] was known to date white and black males and had been in lesbian relationships.”
“She was,” said the same investigator, reading through Heather’s victimology report, “known to rip off customers. Before her death, Heather had recently been staying with [Shorty].”
An investigator laid out the case as it stood. From all the information the YCSO had collected thus far, it was clear Danny Hembree was the last person to see Heather alive on October 18. He had admitted (during that impromptu interview in the driveway of Nick’s house) that he dropped Heather off at the Mighty Dollar across the street from her home. Heather’s friends and family had last seen her on the night of October 17. Her body was found twelve days later, on October 29.
What happened between October 18 and October 29 was an obvious question that needed an answer. Where had Heather gone? Better yet, where was Danny Hembree during that time?
“Basically, the behavioral analyst,” Hensley later said, “confirmed what York County already knew—that Danny Hembree was looking like our main guy.”
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