Unholy Sacrifice

by Robert Scott

  Dr. Gregory Reiber was a forensic pathologist with the UC Davis Medical Center. He’d been in forensic pathology since 1986 and had gone to Loyola University. By the year 2000, he’d done more than five thousand autopsies. In August 2000, he was about to do five more.

  Initially he was on the Marin County murders of Jennifer Villarin and James Gamble. He noted that the body of Jennifer Villarin weighed 180 pounds, with dark brown hair and brown eyes. He also noted that she had two gunshot wounds that entered and exited her head. Gunshot wound number one entered near the upper corner of her left eye, near the bridge of her nose, and then descended through the rear of her head. Gunshot wound number two entered her left cheek, traversed her head in an upward path and exited from the left side of her head.

  These were fairly round wounds, with abrasive rings around the edges. There was no soot deposit or gunshot residue (GSR) around the wounds, so he wrote, “These are distant-range wounds.” The gun had to be more than two feet away from her head to have caused the wounds without leaving GSR.

  Dr. Reiber also noted, “These would be fatal wounds. They went through the central areas of the brain.”

  One other thing that Reiber surmised was that the shooter at one point was at the foot of the bed. He believed that when bullet number one struck Jennifer, her head was propped up. As her head slumped down after being shot, he believed, bullet number two struck her at a different angle.

  He also surmised that Jennifer Villarin probably did not live more than five minutes after being shot. He said later, “It’s probable she never knew what happened.”

  James Gamble’s wounds were much more diverse and complex. He was six feet two inches and weighed two hundred pounds. Bullet number one struck the right side of his neck. It was a through and through, which meant it struck no obstructions on its path through his neck that caused any deflection. Blood from this wound was, however, sprayed onto his chest.

  Bullet number two went from the top of James’s chest into his midchest. Dr. Reiber noted, “It was an atypical wound.” This meant he didn’t believe that it had hit square on, but might have wobbled after striking something else. It lodged in his neck near his spinal cord. This shot was probably fired from near his feet. The spinal cord was struck near the base of the brain and would have caused paralyzation from the neck downward.

  Bullet number three hit James Gamble in his left shoulder, then his arm, and entered the left side of his chest, passed through muscle and then out his back. Bullet number four was a through and through on his right calf. Bullet number five was a graze wound on his right arm.

  Looking at all the wounds, Reiber decided that the one to the chest would have finally been fatal. He inferred from evidence that Gamble had rolled off the bed after being shot and two more shots had been pumped into him while he was on the floor. In fact, Reiber decided that the fatal wound had occurred when he was on the floor and that Gamble had bled out.

  Strangely enough, Dr. Reiber worked part-time for Sacramento County as well as Marin County, and he did autopsies for them. When the body bags from the Delta started showing up, he said, “It was a very complicated case.”

  The contents of the first bag came from a nylon Dunlop bag that contained cargo pockets. There was a stepping-stone in one pocket and three rocks in the other pockets. This first bag had been obtained near the Lighthouse Marina. Inside of the bag was the torso of an elderly woman with her organs removed.

  The second bag was a black nylon Athletech bag with multiple cut marks. It contained the upper extremity of an elderly male, two lower extremities from an elderly male and the head of a young woman. The lower face of the young female had been mutilated, and the upper and lower jaws, and teeth removed. A red-beaded headband still clung to her hair.

  The third bag contained several trash bags and their contents, which were the upper jaws and lower jaws of three individuals. Also within this bag were the lower extremities and the arm of an elderly woman. This bag was from the Willow Berm Marina area.

  The fourth bag contained an elderly woman’s head. There were overlapping cuts from several motions on the neck area. The soft tissue had probably been cut with a knife and the bony material with a saw blade.

  In one of his notes, Dr. Reiber related, “It would take a great amount of work for disarticulation and some awareness of anatomy.”

  As far as the elderly man went, Reiber noted eleven stab wounds on the chest, some of them antemortem. But he concluded that these stab wounds were superficial and did not cause death. In fact, he would later say, “The cause of death was hard to determine on the elderly male. It was not from stab wounds. They were too shallow. And not from suffocation, because there would have been petechial hemorrhaging to the eyes. He might have suffered a heart attack from trauma. Or death could have come from his throat being slashed.”

  By the time Detective Alex Taflia arrived, Dr. Reiber had already gone through three bags and was looking at the fourth one. Even then, law enforcement was sending out more dive teams to see if they could find any more bags in the Delta.

  Taflia noted in bag number four that there was a male left arm, skin from a hand and a male pelvis. In the same bag, wrapped in a plastic white bag, was most of a female head that was missing its upper and lower jaws. Gray hair on the head made it appear to be that of an elderly female.

  The fifth bag was discovered on the South Fork of the Mokelumne River and contained the pelvis of a younger female. It, too, had been altered by certain amounts of decomposition and the length of time it had been in the water.

  The sixth bag was discovered on the North Fork of the Mokelumne River. It contained a male torso and paper-wrapped fecal material.

  The seventh bag was found close to the sixth and included a female right arm, organs and sections of skin, liver, heart, lungs and intestines. It also contained the head of an elderly male.

  The eighth was once again up the South Fork of the Mokelumne River and contained a young woman’s torso and skin sliced away from the shoulder area. Eventually thirty-four separate stab wounds would be discovered in the torso. It was surmised that five of the stab wounds may have been inflicted while she was still alive.

  The last bag, found near the eighth, contained a right arm and left arm, and a right leg and left leg. This bag was recovered by a dog team and Marin County law enforcement dive team.

  Initially it was a job just to find out who these victims were. Pieces of bone from legs and rib bones were taken for DNA testing. And the discovery of the jaws with teeth were a big benefit. Even though they had been intermixed in a bag, all of the teeth were still there. These dental remains were turned over to Dr. Rawlins and Dr. Good.

  One of the big questions early on was whether there was a fourth victim’s body parts among the remains. With the help of dental records, and placing the body parts out on a table and reconstructing them to match a full body, there were only three victims.

  Dr. Reiber said later, “It was pretty straightforward. We worked from the heads to the lower parts. There were three physically distinctive individuals. It was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with some of the pieces missing.”

  After analysis, Dr. Reiber surmised that all of the victims had been cut initially with knives and not saw blades. He believed a saw blade was used second. He said, “There was mark action of blade upon bone.”

  It was noted that there were twenty-six stab wounds to the lower torso of Ivan Stineman. All were from a sharp, pointed instrument, probably a knife. A toxicology report showed caffeine in the brain tissue, but no other drugs. Ivan’s heart and lungs were in place and attached to the diaphragm.

  Annette Stineman’s head and lower facial area were mutilated and the jaws missing. There was a discolored wound around the right eye and a fractured right eye socket. There were many injuries on the upper torso. He couldn’t tell if some were antemortem or postmortem because of discoloration and the amount of time that she’d been in the water. Her abdominal organs were
almost completely gone, and her right arm had been severed from the trunk. There were saw marks on the thighbones.

  Dr. Reiber noted that her right lung had severe hemorrhages, so she was probably stabbed there before she died. A plastic bag with her organs was separate from the torso. Her chest organs and heart had to have been removed through the lower torso, not the chest wall, because of the incisions there. There were stab wounds on the head, but Dr. Reiber thought these were postmortem. There were trace amounts of meth in her brain. He determined the cause of death to be only as a hypothetical because of decomposition, and he determined that death was from multiple stab wounds.

  The autopsy for the young female noted blunt-force injuries to the head. The left side of her head above the ear gaped open and showed brain tissue. There were skull fragmentations clear down to the middle ear. Dr. Reiber said, “The right and left side of the head showed trauma from a hard, heavy object. There had been at least half-a-dozen blows.”

  On the upper torso, there were multiple stab wounds that were postmortem. Five stab wounds in the central chest area had occurred possibly before death. These included stab wounds to the heart and each lung. This could be ascertained from the amount of blood that collected there.

  A segment of skin had been cut away from the young woman’s back. It was a section about 4½“ by 3½” in diameter. This portion of skin was not found.

  The young woman’s arms were amputated far down from the shoulders. On the lower torso, there were twenty or more stab wounds, and stab wounds on the legs.

  It was noted that she had two broken fingers on the left hand. These may have been defensive wounds—indicating that she may have thrown up her hand after being hit the first time.

  Cause of death for the young woman was listed as multiple traumatic injuries. Blunt-force trauma to the head, or stab wounds to the lungs or heart, all of these could have been fatal.

  Dr. Reiber told the San Francisco Chronicle, “I would say this is the most complicated case I’ve had to deal with in my career.”

  Besides just the body parts, law enforcement was also interested in the stones placed in the duffel bags. Detective Nash noted, “Eight of the duffel bags had been weighed down with rocks and/or man-made concrete stepping-stones. Most of the stepping-stones were concrete gray in color. All are about twelve inches in diameter and about one and a half to two inches in thickness. Officers from the Concord Police Department, the Marin County Sheriff’s Office and criminalists from the Contra Costa sheriff’s crime lab, who processed the Helzers’ residence on Saddlewood, found similar concrete stepping-stones in the backyard of the property. Some stepping-stones had been placed in a pattern on the ground, while others had not. Obvious indentations where stepping-stones had previously been were noted within the pattern.

  “A second type of rock was also present in some bags. It appeared to Concord Police Officer Vedder to be a type of broken/crushed rock, distinguished by rough and irregular surfaces and edges. Officer Vedder thought she had seen this type of rock used on river levees.”

  The news of the body bags being found in the Delta hit all the family and friends of the Stinemans and Selina Bishop like sledgehammer blows. Judy Nemec recalled, “Detective Crain said that a bag containing a young female’s torso had been found in the Delta. Nancy immediately said, ‘Selina!’”

  Later, Crain called the daughters of the Stinemans again and said that a dismembered male torso had been found in a bag from the same area. Right after Nancy and Judy had gone to the police to give DNA samples, Crain told Judy, “You’d better prepare yourself.”

  Judy remembered, “We were in such a state of shock. I knew we wouldn’t find them alive.”

  Nancy recalled, “They found a young woman’s torso and arm. And then Daddy’s arm. At first they didn’t find any bags with Momma. I thought they might not find her. But they did.”

  Of Selina’s family members, cousin Jill said, “We first heard about her from the media. It was a shock. A microphone was shoved in my face and I was informed of the news. I was asked how I felt.”

  Jill was incensed by the callousness of the reporter. Any normal person would have known how she felt.

  Another thing irritated her greatly. She said that after Elvin Bishop was informed about Selina, all law enforcement news went to him because he was the closest surviving family member. She and the others were now out of the loop and they felt shut out.

  Lydia Young was also angry about the sudden clampdown on information. She said later, “We weren’t next of kin. Elvin was. So we’d hear new stuff on TV. I was angry at the police.”

  Elvin Bishop, when contacted by the San Francisco Chronicle about the body bags, said, “I really don’t want to talk about it right now.”

  Sacramento County sheriff’s sergeant Dennis Arnal told a reporter in reference to the search for body bags, “When you find two eggs in a henhouse, you keep searching until you find more eggs, or you finish searching the henhouse.” Then he added that the last two body bags were first identified as being similar by “weight, size and smell.”

  Two days after the first body bag was discovered, the Helzer brothers and Dawn Godman were arraigned at a court in Martinez. At the time, Taylor was only charged with burglary, use of a deadly weapon and making terrorist threats. This stemmed from his invasion of the Sharp and Mozzochi residences.

  Justin and Dawn were only charged with auto theft at the time, concerning the taking of the Stinemans’ van. The police let the media know, however, that further charges were pending. All three of the Children of Thunder were held in the Contra Costa County Jail without bail.

  At the arraignment, Carma Helzer made only a short statement to the press. She said, “We think that the truth is that our boys are innocent.”

  Deputy DA Harold Jewett, when asked about Selina Bishop, said, “It’s a little bit more of a mystery as to how Selina Bishop met her end the way she did.”

  The mystery was only deepened when a friend of Selina’s told police that Selina had suddenly started buying nice furniture for her apartment before she disappeared. She was also buying a lot of compact discs. Even though this money was probably coming from Taylor, no one knew how involved Selina had been in the plot against the Stinemans.

  One friend of Selina’s told the San Francisco Chronicle, “She was very naive.” While another friend said, “She was so longing for this point in life. She would have done anything for him (Taylor).”

  Family members who had known Selina all their lives were incensed by the implications that Selina might have been involved in the plot to kidnap and kill the Stinemans. A friend of Selina’s told reporters, “She would have rather earned her money by working her fingers to the bone than by taking it from two elderly people.”

  Selina’s cousin Tammy Young was sure that Selina and Jenny were marked for death because they knew too much about Taylor, or at least a person they knew as Jordan. Tammy said, “Selina told Jenny everything. Maybe he (Taylor) thought Selina had told her mother and was worried because he had been seen by her.” Without knowing it at the time, Tammy Young was right on the mark.

  Authorities were still looking at Selina as a possible suspect, however. They told reporters that they theorized Selina might have been in on the whole plot, but got cold feet at the last moment. They theorized that Selina had threatened to squeal on the others and had been killed by one or all of them.

  In fact, Marin County sheriff’s sergeant Doug Pittman told a reporter, “Right now, we’re unclear about what Selina’s involvement may have been.”

  Because Keri Furman’s name and phone number were found on a bulletin board in Saddlewood, Detective Marziano contacted her by phone. Detective Marziano didn’t know Keri’s relationship with Taylor Helzer at this time, but he thought it might be important. Eventually he was able to contact Keri through her lawyer, Carmine Carlucci. A teleconference call was set up for the next day. At 3:00 P.M. on August 11, Detectives Fred Marziano, Steve Chiabotti and
Dave Ishikawa were on a line in the Bay Area, while Keri and her lawyer were on a line in Las Vegas.

  The detectives said hello, and Keri answered them in a friendly voice.

  Detective Marziano introduced himself and related why he was calling. Keri was not surprised. She said, “I found out about it yesterday.”

  Keri was very frank about her and Taylor’s use of ecstasy and his selling of the drugs at raves.

  The detectives wanted to know about Impact America. She told them that Taylor claimed that God would show him the way about it. Then she said, “I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t want to be dragged into his thing. I didn’t support him in this idea.”

  She said Taylor finally didn’t trust her with things about Impact America. He started talking to Justin and Dawn Godman about it in private.

  Detective Marziano asked her, “Did Taylor think he was like Joseph Smith?”

  “Yes,” Keri responded. “He said he was now like a prophet of God.”

  One question zeroed in on why she had put money into Justin’s account. She said she had borrowed $4,000 for her car and was paying it back. Taylor had told her to send the money to Justin.

  On August 2, she had called Taylor and he was very upset to be receiving a phone call from her. He said he didn’t want her phoning back. He said, “Don’t call me unless you’re dying or seriously injured.” Of course, this was right in the middle of plans to kill Selina Bishop.

  Keri told the detectives that at six o’clock on Thursday morning, August 10, one of her girlfriends, Alisha, had phoned her and said, “Taylor killed five people!”

  Keri didn’t believe her at first. Then she looked it up on the Internet. She saw that it was true and she said she got chills on her arms.

  She told the detectives she remembered the knives and swords that Justin and Taylor used to keep in the garage at the Oak Grove residence. She was very cooperative with the detectives, but she did have one big worry. Her modeling career was just starting to take off. Her Playboy spread would be in September and she had a deal going with an alcoholic beverage company for a television commercial. She asked, “Is my name going to be released to the press?”