Strangler

by Corey Mitchell

  JS: Okay.

  TS: So, I drove up behind the Ninfa’s there and I pushed her out of the car. I just wanted to get away from the situation.

  JS: Mmm, hmm.

  TS: And I noticed one of her shoes had come off. I picked it up carefully. I think I used the index finger of my right hand to pick it up knowing full well I put a print on it but honestly, at that point, someone’s gonna go look for her . . . and I threw the shoe out. JS: By her?

  TS: Her shoe. Threw ’em off. In the car.

  JS: Oh, in the car.

  TS: In the car and I pushed her out and her shoes were, I took the shoe, lifted it by my index finger so you will find the print, probably, if you look for it.

  JS: Oh.

  TS: I threw it out of the car. I remember then I tried to go and accidentally ran over some part of her, I don’t know what. There was not, I mean people around the parking lot but there was cars coming and going. There was a car wash or some shit and there was people standing outside and I couldn’t believe this.

  I was almost in a dream world. I was fucking shot, freaked out, I couldn’t think straight.

  I remember I was having to go to class, I don’t know what kind of class it was. It was off Westpark.

  JS: You were talking about her bra was undone?

  TS: Yeah.

  JS: In the back or in the front?

  TS: From the back.

  JS: From the back? Okay. Did you take anything from her?

  TS: I still had just her school books and that kind of stuff. I didn’t take anything else from her.

  JS: When you left did you have her property in the car?

  TS: Yes, I did.

  JS: What was it?

  TS: I don’t remember. School books, lunch, something. Just some general stuff. Wadded up paper bag.

  JS: What happened to that stuff?

  TS: Stuck it in a Dumpster somewhere at an apartment complex somewhere.

  JS: See, I’m confused. She had a shoe missing, both her shoes were there? You just threw one out, is that right?

  TS: I threw one out.

  JS: So she had both her shoes there?

  TS: Both shoes. One was still on her foot and—

  JS: Oh, and one wasn’t. I got you now.

  TS: That never hit the papers so there’s no way I’d know that—

  JS: Oh, I know it’s true. I know it’s true. I was there.

  TS: I was sick. I was scared to death. I was paranoid for days. I just knew this was, this was, God, there’s no way I could change or have that. I was sick. I didn’t want to lose everything. My wife, my kids, my house, and everything and so I tried to put an end to it the best I could that I was in a state of shock for a long time. For months. I promised myself nothing like this would ever, ever, ever, ever happen. Promised, no fucking way.

  Then, I had crazy . . . crazy thoughts. I mean I had, I don’t know if you call ’em dreams, people talk about voices in their head. I felt like there were voices, almost like my own voice . . . and I’d have fantasy trips which has to do with the preoccupation, which I haven’t talked about in sex offender treatment class but I’m aware of it.

  And I had these fantasies and I had this one girl that I picked up and I was tying her and—

  JS: Okay. On that case, that’s about it?

  TS: That’s all I can remember.

  JS: It’s now about nineteen after midnight.

  Sergeant John Swaim was in a mild state of silent shock, though he did not let on to Tony Shore. Swaim had worked the Laurie Tremblay case on and off for over seventeen years. He had basically written off ever finding the young girl’s killer.

  CHAPTER 32

  September 1986,

  Houston Police Department—Homicide Division,

  1200 Travis Street,

  Houston, Texas.

  Seventeen years earlier, John Swaim, Boyd Smith, Jim Ramsey, and Bill Steins began the arduous task of trying to find Laurie Tremblay’s killer. Between the four detectives they had decades of police work under their collective belts. Unfortunately, their many years of service could never fully prepare them for the unenviable task of having to inform Laurie’s mother of her daughter’s death.

  Swaim then began the tedious search for Laurie’s killer. It was determined from speaking to Katherine Tremblay that Laurie left the house at approximately 6:30 A.M. She would usually walk the half-mile trek to South Dairy Ashford Road and West Ella Drive to catch Metro Bus #53, which would take her in the vicinity of the Hope Center. Metro #53 usually arrived at the bus stop and left with its passengers at 6:41 A.M. every weekday.

  Sergeant Swaim had his time frame within which to work. It only lasted for eleven minutes. Swaim’s men first appeared at the bus stop to scour the area for clues. They were looking for various items that were determined to be missing from Laurie’s person, including a writing tablet, a notebook, and her lunch. They found nothing.

  Sergeant Swaim’s men also searched Metro #53’s route, but again they found nothing. The officers stopped by several businesses that lined Dairy Ashford Road and asked if anyone had seen Laurie Tremblay on the day of her abduction and murder. No one recognized the young girl from a photo they proffered.

  Sergeant Swaim’s team also conducted a thorough search of the Whittfield Apartments, where Laurie lived, and interviewed several residents of the complex, but to no avail. Still no clues.

  In the following days Swaim had an officer return to the bus stop at exactly 6:30 A.M. to interview other bus riders who took the same route as Laurie. They also spoke with the bus driver of Metro #53. Nothing. No one remembered seeing Laurie that day.

  A determined Sergeant Swaim continued the investigation by tracking down the trashman responsible for the Dumpster behind Ninfa’s, sending officers to the Hope Center to examine the contents of her locker, and interviewing several of her classmates. All proved fruitless.

  It appeared as if absolutely no one saw what happened to Laurie Tremblay that day. There also wasn’t any evidence pointing to jilted boyfriends or people who may have had ill feelings toward Laurie.

  By October 1, 1986, Swaim directed his men to plaster flyers up around Ninfa’s, near the Metro bus stop, and up and down Dairy Ashford Road. The flyers had Laurie’s picture, the Houston Police Department Homicide Division hotline number, the telephone number for Crime Stoppers, and a plea to call in with information. It is considered a bad sign when the flyers go up because that usually means detectives don’t have a clue.

  The flyers did not help. The Homicide Division received numerous tips, which had to be worked on one by one, but none of them led to anything specific or even helpful.

  Swaim was flabbergasted. “Nothing is missing and it doesn’t appear that she was sexually assaulted,” he informed the Houston Chronicle. “We don’t have any leads or motive in this one. It’s scary.”

  * * *

  Katherine Tremblay was still in shock. She could not believe that she had to make plans to have her daughter’s body shipped in a coffin on a plane to Michigan to be buried. As she ventured forward, she also expressed her dismay and anger toward the investigation into her daughter’s death.

  “It’s like a blind alley,” she stated two days after Laurie’s murder. “I’m angry, but I have to leave. I have to take care of my daughter. I have to lay her to rest.”

  The police department was not the only organization with which Katherine Tremblay was frustrated. The Houston Independent School District and their bus service, or lack thereof, was also in her sights. She claimed that HISD refused to pick her daughter up and shuttle her to the Hope Center. As a result, Laurie was forced to use the City of Houston Metro Bus Service. She claimed that had it not been for this fact, Laurie would not have been walking toward the Metro bus stop, would not have been abducted, and would not have been murdered. She was prepared to file a lawsuit against HISD.

  “It’s just that I have to do something,” declared the distraught mother. “I’m considering suing the
school district—not for the money, but for the other children. I don’t want them to have to go through the same thing.”

  Katherine Tremblay was disgusted by what she felt was disingenuous treatment from school officials the year prior. “Last year, she had to walk two miles to catch her bus. When I complained, the head of transportation said a lot of kids have to walk a lot farther.”

  The HISD, however, defended its position. They claimed that Laurie was not qualified for bus service and they were not at fault. “At the time of her death she was not a member of HISD,” stated spokesman Claude Cunningham. He added that Laurie had indeed been a student in HISD at one time, until her mother requested that she be transferred to Hope Center, where she began school on September 2, 1986. “She had been one of our students and was in the process of reassignment,” Cunningham declared. He added that “once her reassignment procedures had been completed, which included testing and district committee approval, then she would have been eligible for HISD bus services. Unfortunately, she had not yet completed all of the procedures.” Laurie had successfully completed her testing; however, she was set to have a hearing for the district approval the same week she was murdered.

  Katherine Tremblay did not wind up pursuing the lawsuit against HISD.

  * * *

  Laurie Tremblay’s case started to turn cold. Sergeant Swaim and his team had no luck during the ensuing months. At one time they did have a suspect. Swaim’s partner, Boyd Smith, played in a band and believed that the garrote used on Laurie Tremblay’s neck might have been a guitar string. This conclusion led Swaim and Smith to suspect that the killer may have been younger, possibly even someone near Laurie’s age.

  Indeed, they actively pursued one of Laurie’s classmates, who also owned a guitar. The student had given Laurie rides before and had visited her apartment, without Katherine Tremblay’s knowledge. The young man also drove a car with red carpet similar to a piece of red fabric found in Laurie’s shirt pocket.

  Swaim and Smith brought the young man in for questioning and grilled him extensively. Swaim believed the kid was somewhat unusual, but, alas, nothing came of it.

  * * *

  By January 1987, Katherine Tremblay had just about given up hope that the Houston Police Department detectives were going to be able to solve her daughter’s murder. She decided it was time to actively participate.

  A divorced woman of modest means, Tremblay offered a $2,000 reward for any information that might lead to the whereabouts of her daughter’s killer. The money came from Laurie’s ninety-four-year-old grandfather. It was his life savings. He had originally given it all to Katherine so she could buy a tombstone for her daughter. Crime Stoppers also offered up some additional money. In addition, Tremblay used $3,000 of her own money to have flyers printed up with the reward information.

  “If I can at least know what happened to her,” Katherine pleaded, “who killed her and why, then maybe I can accept it someday. Then maybe I won’t feel so lost.”

  Tremblay had not done well during the nearly four months since her daughter’s murder. “All I have left are the nightmares,” she tearfully described. “I see her being strangled. I see her dying. I see myself losing the only thing that ever really mattered to me. And I know I’ll never have her back.”

  She hoped that the reward money would entice someone to come forward and help her regain a little bit of what she had lost.

  Over time the grassroots efforts proved unsuccessful—not reward money, not feet pounding the pavement, nothing. To Swaim and Smith’s dismay, they were forced to call it a day on the Laurie Tremblay murder.

  “We didn’t have any new clues,” the lead sergeant recalled. “We had worked the clues we did have. We had no information. We covered every base possible.”

  But a cold case never completely goes cold. Otherwise, they would throw them out. “At that point we never put cases away. They’re just still in an uncleared case. If some information comes in, we’ll work on it.”

  It would take more than seventeen years for that information to come in.

  CHAPTER 33

  Saturday, October 25, 2003, 12:21 A.M.,

  Houston Police Department,

  Interrogation Room #6,

  1200 Travis Street,

  Houston, Texas.

  The following text is the transcript from the actual interrogation of and confession on tape by Anthony Allen Shore in regard to the murder of Maria del Carmen Estrada:

  John Swaim (JS): Let’s talk.

  Tony Shore (TS): Do you wanna know about how it led up to that or do you wanna—

  JS: Yes, I wanna know the whole story.

  TS: After the first one I tried not to do anything. I was having psychopathology.

  JS: Okay.

  TS: I know, I’m familiar with that term, I tried to make myself, like never more promise myself that this shit would never happen. There were times when I’d pick up girls . . . it was always amazing how people just, “Yeah, you want a ride?” “Sure.” I had some fantasies in my head but nothing really ever came of it.

  One girl I picked up once was a prostitute. Nothing happened. I mean just, I didn’t pay for anything, she showed me some stuff.

  One morning, going to work again—

  JS: This when you were working for the phone company still?

  TS: Yeah, I was still working for the phone company.

  JS: Okay.

  TS: I’m not sure, I think at that time I was still in the business office but I can’t remember, but I was already moved outside . . . that I’m not positive on. Right in that timeframe I was changing my position in the company and I ran across this really, I thought, beautiful young lady and I offered her a ride and she turned me down. But she was on my way to work every morning and I was coming up—

  JS: What, you had seen her several times?

  TS: A few times. And I was coming up, uh, this street there, Long, no Wirth maybe. Wirth or some street. I came up to Westview. A couple of times I’d seen her and she wouldn’t take a ride, but it wasn’t uncommon for me to offer—

  JS: This was a Hispanic girl?

  TS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

  JS: Okay.

  TS: She told me her name was Carmen and she didn’t take rides from strangers and she didn’t speak English. And one morning it was right next to the right and like the first time after that the weather changed and I gave her a ride. This happened over the course of, probably a couple of months.

  Became friends with her. I had to bone up on my Spanish so I could flirt with her and stuff. I was fumbling, I said a bunch of shit trying to make a relationship happen.

  Once again, I felt . . . it was going places. She was talking about yeah, she wanted to go out. She was studying to be a legal secretary or something. . . . She was also going to school....

  . . . And one morning I just, again, things got outta hand. Pulled in behind a Dairy Queen and we . . .

  JS: Down on Westview?

  TS: Down on Westview and it was going okay. She was open, amenable to . . . a kiss. And when I pushed it further it got outta hand. She freaked out. And similar to the first case I got real paranoid because now this wasn’t a consensual thing, this was a fucked-up deal and I got real paranoid. I didn’t set out to kill her. That was not my intent.

  JS: Mmm, hmm.

  TS: But, it got outta hand.

  JS: Go ahead, Tony. Just tell me what happened.

  TS: She just said, “Hey man, not this way. I love you. Not this way. Not here.” And I opened her blouse and she was resisting. I had this sick consumption. Not like voices in my head but just driven. I was gonna have her regardless. I don’t know what the hell you call it. I tried to understand this.

  And my intention was to have sex with her, initially, and that wasn’t happening. She became real violent, but I didn’t want her to get out of the car. So, because I was, at that time I was in the Hyundai Excel, a little blue Hyundai.

  JS: Mmm, hmm.

  TS: And uh,
car that I bought from my wife. It’s her car. And when you lock the door the door handles don’t open. I locked the door so she couldn’t get out. Shit didn’t go well. And I didn’t have sex with her as it turned out, but I tried to, but it wasn’t gonna happen. I remember she had a pair of shoes and she had on black shorts. I took them off. And her pantyhose, but I didn’t take her panties off. I don’t know why.

  It got outta hand. And she freaked out and I knew that this was not, this was, this was gonna be real bad and my life was fucked forever. So I panicked and once again it just started to become daylight, so to avoid discovery, you know, I strangled her because I knew that—

  JS: What’d you strangle her with?

  TS: I wanna say a nylon ligature. Piece of cord. I don’t remember.

  JS: Do you remember what type? What color it was or anything?

  TS: No. It might have been white.

  JS: Okay.

  TS: I don’t know.

  JS: Did you use a, did you use your hands on this one or use something?

  TS: I wanna say because I had fucked my hands up from the first one I used a piece of wood, a pencil, it might have been a pencil. It was something. I don’t know, a paintbrush. Something. Some piece of wood or something that twisted it.

  Make me in a serious panic, freaking out.

  JS: Did you take anything from her?

  TS: Um, her purse and stuff was left in the car. Which I, once again I just, and I don’t remember if I left her shorts or if they were in the car or what. I gathered up what I had of her stuff—

  JS: Mmm, hmm.

  TS: . . . Found a Dumpster, some apartment complex.

  JS: Do you remember where it was?

  TS: No, I don’t. I want to say it was a purse. I didn’t even go through her stuff, I just got rid of it. Might have been a backpack, might have been a purse. I don’t remember. Something.