The matter concerned a woman named Anjelica Hommell, who reported her rape some seven years previously by two men, whom she identified as Gore and Waterfield, near Vero Beach, Florida.
This sudden pretrial Waterfield revelation was investigated by Captain Joe Sardella, Detective Bill Brumley, and Detective Redstone. Both Sardella and Brumley, in their comprehensive 13-page supplemental report, ruled Waterfield out of the allegation entirely, and in fact, proved that Hommell’s accusation against Waterfield was pure fabrication.
The reason why Hommell had lied would remain a mystery for some time. Nevertheless, Detective Redstone and DA Stone proceeded against Waterfield as if the Sardella/Brumley findings had never existed. If there was ever a frame-up, no better example can be found than this blatant attempt to pervert the course of justice in a capital case.
The Lings
Gore then claimed that Fred had offered him $1,000 for every pretty girl he could find. Gore went on to say that this was an offer he couldn’t refuse, for in February 1981, while working a nightshift as an auxiliary sheriff, wearing a badge, and packing a sidearm, Gore was well-placed to abduct women from the streets when on patrol; during the days, he held down a menial job looking after his father’s fruit orchard. The problem was that Waterfield had never made such an offer, but more on this later.
In February 1981, Gore picked up 17-year-old Ying Hua Ling as she stepped down from a school bus. He tricked her into his car with a flash of his police badge. Driving her home, he “arrested” the girl’s mother and handcuffed his two victims together before allegedly phoning Waterfield, who was in Orlando.
Gore said that he then drove out to his father’s orchard, where he waited for Fred to turn up. Gore admitted that he raped both of his victims but added that Fred was more selective—rejecting Mrs. Ling as being “too old.” Gore claimed that he then tied Mrs. Ling up in such a fashion that she choked to death while struggling against her bonds, while Fred raped and murdered the pretty teenager. Gore said that his cousin had given him a check for $400 before leaving him to get rid of the bodies in another orchard a mile from the Lings’ residence.
Waterfield vehemently denied these murderous allegations, and it would soon be proven that he was right.
Judith Daley
Five months later, on July 15, 1981, Gore claimed that he had driven out to Round Island Park to look for a blonde to fulfill Fred’s latest order. Spotting a likely candidate in 35-year-old Judith Daley, Gore says that he disabled her car then played Good Samaritan by offering her a ride to the nearest telephone, where she could summon assistance.
This time, Gore claimed, “Fred was happier with this delivery” and wrote Gore a check for $1,500 after both men had finished with the terrified woman. Gore told DA Stone that he had fed Judith’s body to alligators in a swamp ten miles west of Interstate 95.
Fred Waterfield vehemently denies any involvement in this murder, and, once again, it is perfectly true to say that we only have Gore’s testimony against his cousin to say otherwise—testimony that Gore would later retract as a “buncha lies given ’cuz the cops promised to get me off the hook.”
However, what we do know to be fact is this: During the middle of July 1981, Gore had fallen under suspicion when a local man reported that a deputy had stopped his teenage daughter on a rural highway and attempted to hold her for “questioning.” The deputy, soon identified as David Alan Gore, was arrested on Tuesday, July 21, when officers found him crouched in the back of another woman’s car outside a Vero Beach clinic. He was armed with a pistol, police-issued handcuffs, and a police radio scanner. Convicted of “trespass property armed,” Gore was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment before being paroled in 1983.
In May 1983, I was in the process of buying the Vero Beach property and building a new central shop, and Gore was in the process of being released from prison. His mother, Velma, asked me to give him a job and he could not be released from prison until he found employment. I told
Gore’s parole officer, Don Coleman, Gore now could work for me and he was released. He worked for me for about two weeks before he stopped showing up.
—Frederick Waterfield in a letter to the author
Gore then told Detective Redstone and DA Stone that after his release from prison he and Waterfield took up again where they had left off—with raping and killing.
Angelica LaVallae and Barbara Byer
On Monday, May 20, 1983, Gore claimed that he and Waterfield had tried to abduct an Orlando prostitute at gunpoint, but she slipped away. The following day, he alleged that they picked up two 14-year-old hitchhikers, Angelica La Vallae and Barbara Byer, whom they raped before Gore shot them to death. Byer’s body, Gore said, was dismembered and buried in a shallow grave, while LaVallae’s corpse was dumped in a nearby canal. Of course, Gore had committed the murders, because the decomposing bodies were discovered exactly where he said he’d dumped them. But apart from Gore’s claims that Waterfield had been his accomplice in the double murders, there was no other evidence to support Fred’s involvement in the crimes.
Gore would later retract his testimony implicating his cousin, and there would surface another witness who testified in Waterfield’s favor—none other than David Gore’s father, Alva.
On March 16, 1984, David Gore was convicted of one count of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping, and three counts of sexual battery. In February 1985, he received five life sentences and was sentenced to death for the first-degree murder of Lynn Elliott.
Meanwhile, at one of Waterfield’s pretrial hearings on February 14 and 17, 1984, the defense’s continual requests for the release of Regan Martin’s initial police statements had born fruit.
To begin with, DA Robert Stone made the mistake of calling Detective Phil Redstone to testify about his evidence gathering, and the cop falsely testified that he was the only investigator involved with the alleged Hommell rape.
On cross-examination by defense attorney Michael Bloom, Redstone was asked if he could identify any other investigators, or had seen investigative reports from Captain Joe Sardella or Detective Bill Brumley in the Hommell case file. Robert Stone butted in, claiming that Redstone’s report was the only report in the file, which wasn’t true. 16
Michael Bloom now had the bit between his teeth. He called defense witness Debbie Jenkins—the former wife of DA Stone—to the stand. Under oath, Debbie said that she had taken Mrs. Hommell to Waterfield’s home on no less than two occasions and they had spoken to Mrs. Waterfield. Debbie Jenkins confirmed that DA Robert Stone had forced her to make a false complaint about Fred to the police.
Upon hearing this shocking testimony, Judge Vocelle ordered the state to turn over all of David Gore’s statements and other investigative documents to Waterfield’s defense.
Upon careful study of the newly released papers, Michael Bloom found that the state attorney had withheld even more evidence in the form of a witness statement that would have cleared Fred Waterfield of any involvement in the May 21, 1983 Byer-La Vallae homicides. Alva Gore, the father of David Gore, said prosecutors told him several times that, in effect, his testimony—which was in favor of Waterfield—was no longer required because Waterfield’s “properly scheduled depositions were canceled.”
Alva Gore had told police that he had spoken to Fred Waterfield on the phone on the morning of Saturday, May 21, 1983. This was a crucial date, as it was the day that David Gore alleged that he, with Fred Waterfield, raped and killed Angelica La Vallae and Barbara Byer.
Alva Gore had given a statement to investigators in which he said that on that Saturday morning, he had agreed to loan Waterfield a tractor to clear ground in preparation for lime rock. David Gore was to have delivered the tractor but inexplicably he didn’t show up as agreed. When David Gore failed to appear, Alva picked up Fred Waterfield and drove him to a barn on his fruit orchard, and Fred drove away on the tractor. “It was my son, David, who brought the tractor back to the barn some time Sunday, May
22,” Alva said.
Another witness had seen Waterfield using the tractor around the same time the two girls were abducted and murdered; clearly, he could not have been in two places at the same time. Yet despite these three rock-solid alibi witnesses in Waterfield’s favor, the state prosecutor had tried to hide Alva’s evidence, which would have cleared Fred of any involvement in the murders of Byer and La Vallae.
By now Judge Vocelle was losing his patience with the prosecutor, who, in trying to suppress evidence, had stalled Waterfield’s trial date for months. The judge opined that the state was still interfering with defense discovery and preparations for the trial, so he set another date for May 1984.
After jury selection on May 17, 1984, in Charlotte County, DA Robert Stone rose to his feet to address the jury. Omitting the fact that he had suppressed “actual innocence evidence” from disclosure to a grand jury and from Waterfield’s defense team, that he had paid witnesses for false testimony, fabricated inculpatory evidence, and made false disclosures sensationalizing the alleged criminal events to the media, Stone laid into Waterfield big-time.
“The evidence,” he said, while pointing to Waterfield, “will show Gore and Waterfield have a long history of crime dating back from 1976 to July 29, 1983.”
Of course there was no evidence other than the false accusations made by Gore (which he later retracted) and the evidence given by others, which DA Robert Stone had paid money for, to substantiate any of this. Yet, undeterred, Stone went on:
“You’ll hear evidence Waterfield participated in the July 26, 1983, crime by tying up Lynn Elliott so tight the rope cut all the way to the bone. The very same rope found by investigators in his vehicle,” he said, still glaring at the defendant. Almost at once, Stone contradicted himself by adding, “Gore tied Lynn Elliott’s hands behind her tightly, and then he had her kneel down and he tied her feet together.” In his closing speech to the jury, DA Robert Stone didn’t even acknowledge that Waterfield was, indeed, present, participated, or in any way aided Gore in this crime, and he reasserted that it had been Gore alone who had tied up Lynn Elliott.
But what of the rope that had ben found by investigators in Waterfield’s truck? Once again, the prosecutor shot himself in the foot when he called evidence technician Gerry Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald testified that he had found a mechanic’s rag, marijuana, and a length of rope in Waterfield’s vehicle and had photographed the items close to the locations where he found them.
Judge Vocelle stopped Fitzgerald in his tracks, asking him to clarify a matter regarding the rag, marijuana, and rope. “You actually found those items in the defendant’s truck?” the judge asked, sensing that something was wrong.
Hastily backtracking, Fitzgerald admitted that he did not actually find the items in Waterfield’s vehicle; he had received them from Detective Redstone and had taken them to the crime lab where Waterfield’s truck was impounded and placed them inside.
This was a clear case of planting evidence, and Detective Redstone’s name was all over it. In fact, Redstone had found the three items in Gore’s vehicle, not Waterfield’s. Fred vehemently denied ever seeing the rope, rag, or marijuana before.
Notwithstanding the fact that the police and state were obviously trying to set Fred Waterfield up for rapes and murders he had not committed, the prosecution recalled Detective Redstone, who testified that he had been the lead investigator in the Hommell case and that Waterfield was the perpetrator of that crime, too, despite the fact that Mrs. Hommell had told police that Waterfield had certainly not been involved.
Almost immediately under cross-examination, Redstone admitted that he had knowingly given perjured testimony to Judge Sharp to secure a search warrant for Waterfield’s vehicle. But in the Elliott case he said that he had had no contact and had received no items from the truck. “It must have been someone else,” he added limply. “I gave no evidence to Crime Technician Fitzgerald at all.”
However, this claim under oath by Redstone totally contradicted his August 2, 1983, notarized sworn affidavit, in which he specifically stated that he had personally seized the mechanic’s rag, rope, and marijuana and handed it to Fitzgerald.
Undeterred, the state then called Regan Martin, who suddenly changed her tune by stating that Waterfield was present “and aided by David Gore” in the commission of the crime by tying up Lynn Elliott and herself.
Michael Bloom seized on her sudden change of tack. “Have you not previously stated, under oath, and to police that Fred did not do any act that made you believe that he had planned the things that had happened . . . with reference to the house and the gun and everything . . . that Fred planned this with David Gore . . . that he was helping David Gore to carry it out, or that he was in any way involved in completing the events that happened?”
Robert Stone shot to his feet. “Objection! . . . Objection!” he shouted. The trial judge stopped the questioning, and the defense was refused an answer.
The state rested its case without calling David Gore as anticipated. When counsel questioned why Gore was not called, Robert Stone had the gall to tell the court that he could not vouch for the credibility of Gore at all. What Stone did not tell the jury was that Gore had since given sworn statements that completely exonerated Waterfield of all culpability, and that Fred was an innocent man.
On January 21, 1985, Fred Waterfield was convicted in the Byer–Le Vallae murders. He received two consecutive life terms for his part in the crimes. Shortly, thereafter, Governor Bob Graham requested Robert Stone’s resignation in an agreement to prevent the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) from prosecuting Stone for attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Christopher. I really do not care to know about Gore’s crimes. Nothing he says would surprise me. It will be extremely difficult to determine who won “The Liar’s Contest,” when comparing everything Gore and the prosecutors said and testified to with eyewitness suppressed documentary evidence and unrefutable [sic] victim testimony.
—Frederick Waterfield in a letter to the author
One of the first problems we encounter when we examine the so-called true statements given to police by David Gore is the claim that Waterfield paid Gore for his “women-abducting services” with two checks: one for $400, and the second for $1,400.
Prosecutors had frozen all of Waterfield’s bank accounts shortly after he was arrested, and the defense had requested numerous hearings seeking disclosure of why the bank accounts were frozen and requesting the court to order the accounts released. Finally, in December 1983, the state’s attorney claimed that Gore had given sworn testimony indicating that Waterfield had written him the two checks for the Ling and Daley murders sometime in 1980, or 1981, both from Waterfield’s 4x4 Inc. bank account.
However, in January 1984, Waterfield was able to prove that his 4x4 Inc. bank account was not opened until April 1983—two years after the checks had been written out—and, in any event, that the two payments were for Gore’s employment with him shortly after he was released from prison.
The state attorney would later reluctantly admit in court that, “. . . all of Mr. Gore’s three initial statements (which included the matter of the two checks) are not only inconsistent, but lies.” Nevertheless, the untruthful allegation that Fred Waterfield paid his cousin to abduct women for his sexual perversions is still peddled as the truth on the internet today.
But you can take it from me that—having read all of Mr. Waterfield’s appeal papers, which include four weighty volumes of motions, briefs, and quotes of testimony, all independently authenticated by sworn certificates and affidavits—the shocking fact is this: David Gore had admitted to prosecutors, prior to Waterfield’s trial in 1984, that Waterfield had not been involved with any of the murders, yet the defense was never informed. After Waterfield was found guilty and sentenced, and when he learned of this obvious miscarriage of justice, he sought discovery of the statements made by Gore that would have exonerated him. All of Waterfield’s motions f
or discovery were denied, the records were removed from the court files, and as a result no appellate hearing was held.
Was this the end of Waterfield’s troubles? No way!
The reader will recall the ten-month period during which Regan Martin insisted that Fred Waterfield had been threatened by Gore at gunpoint when they were picked up while hitchhiking, that Waterfield had not touched or threatened the girls at all, and that after a heated exchange he had left Gore’s residence within moments of arriving. We will also recall that Regan suddenly changed her mind and gave testimony against Waterfield at his 1984 trial.
It is now a matter of of the court record that in November 1992 she recanted her testimony given at Waterfield’s trial, reverting back to her original insistence that Waterfield had nothing to do with the abduction, subsequent rapes, and murder after all.
Prior to Waterfield’s trial, a defense investigator discovered that Gore had written an article that had been published in Chaplin Ray’s Prison Ministries periodical. In it, Gore claimed that he had become a police deputy so that he could learn how to “get away” with committing serial murder. When Waterfield’s defense attorney tried to bring this article into evidence, the prosecutor put up a smokescreen. While Chaplin Ray would testify that the article had been written by Gore—he had the original letter and envelope to prove it—both Gore and the prosecution maintained that the article had been written by someone else, so the judge ruled it inadmissible as evidence.
It is an established fact that in the U.S. hundreds of serial crimes are committed by police patrol officers who use their position of authority to kidnap, rape, torture, and murder. Literally thousands of police officers commit offenses every year, and the majority of these crimes are not reported or disclosed to the media for the obvious reasons. For instance:
The Voices of Serial Killers Page 14