by Fred Rosen
Indeed, Mannain presents an impeccable appearance. He’s the kind of guy the marines love, a man who could pass a surprise inspection in his sleep. As he puttered around Francois’s room, Mannain smelled feces and noticed soiled underwear with human waste lining the fabric. It was absolutely disgusting, even to a cop who, until then, thought he had seen, and smelled, it all.
Mannain was only in the home a few moments, before Francois said, “Let’s go,” and led the way down the stairs. Back outside, Mannain took in the cold January air in big, satisfying gulps.
He drove out Route 44, passing Pleasant Valley, where Bill Siegrist lived, until he got to the intersection with the Taconic State Parkway. A long scenic road, it went from Westchester County, which was a little north of New York City, and stretched more than one hundred miles north to the state capital of Albany.
Underneath the highway on the left was Troop K. Mannain took a left and pulled in. They entered a low, not terribly modern-looking building with little or no character, which made sense considering it was just one of many barracks that housed the New York State Troopers. Mannain had called ahead and was led directly to a room where the polygraph had been set up.
The polygraph operator briefly explained to Kendall Francois how the machine worked. Mannain made sure to state once again that he wasn’t a suspect and could leave at any time. But, by law, he had to give the warning everyone who has ever watched a cop show on TV is familiar with. While the results of a polygraph cannot be used in court, if Francois made any admissions of guilt, those could indeed be introduced as evidence. Thus Mannain administered the Miranda warning:
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to the presence of an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights?”
Francois said that he did. Then the wires were attached to Francois and the questioning began. The first series of questions were innocuous, things like, “Is your name Kendall L. Francois?” The idea was for the operator, and the machine, to become familiar with Francois’s responses when he wasn’t lying so that when he did, they would notice the sharp difference.
“All right, Mr. Francois, did you kill Wendy Meyers?” the operator asked.
“No,” Francois replied.
“Are you responsible for Wendy Meyers’s disappearance?”
“No.”
“Did you kill Kathleen Hurley?”
“No.”
“Are you responsible for Kathleen Hurley’s disappearance?”
“No.”
“Did you kill Catherine Marsh?”
“No.”
“Are you responsible for her disappearance?”
“No.”
“Did you kill Michelle Eason?”
“No.”
“Are you responsible for her disappearance?”
“No.”
“Did you kill Gina Barone?”
“No.”
“Are you responsible for Gina’s disappearance?”
“No.”
“Did you kill Mary Healey Giaccone?”
“No.”
“Are you responsible for Mary Healey Giaccone’s disappearance?”
“No.”
After the test, Francois was led to a conference room. He sat quietly, obediently, waiting for the results. In an adjacent room, Mannain discussed the results of the test with the operator. It took a few minutes, but the verdict was unavoidable.
Kendall Francois had passed with flying colors. According to the lie detector, the man wasn’t lying at all about the disappearances of the women. He was not responsible. He was telling the truth when he replied to the question, “Are you responsible for [their] disappearances?” Again, according to the machine, he had been telling the truth. So why did Mannain still think he was lying?
Mannain thanked Francois for taking the time to come in and drove him home. Less than an hour after his lie detector test, Kendall Francois was back, safely ensconced at home, ready to kill again. Science be damned.
Seven
That night, Siegrist drove along Main Street on his way home. He saw Catina Newmaster working the street and pulled over to talk with her.
“Hi, Catina, how ya doing?”
“Okay, Bill.”
Siegrist had known Catina Newmaster since she was a little girl. She had grown up in and around Poughkeepsie. The cop knew her to come from a family that had problems. How those problems had affected the girl, he didn’t know. What he did know was that Catina had grown up to be “a likable person,” far from the abrasive portrait the newspapers liked to paint of seasoned prostitutes, which Catina was.
“Listen, Catina, there’s a guy out here and we don’t know who he is. You need to watch out for him.”
“I know,” Catina said, nodding.
“Be careful who you’re with,” Siegrist cautioned.
“I will,” said the girl.
Siegrist got back in his car and drove home, glad to be free, just for a while, away from the manhunt. And Catina? She went back to the street.
Siegrist was not one of those cops who believed in the lie detector’s infallibility. Maybe the guy had lied and found a way to beat the machine. Maybe Francois’s galvanic responses, his very nervous system, didn’t respond like normal people’s; that was why he could lie and get away with it. In the lieutenant’s mind, Francois was still under a cloud of suspicion.
After Mannain briefed him on his trip to Kendall land, Siegrist had to wonder what kind of individual lived in such squalor, such human filth. And what about the man’s family? How could they live like that, too? Siegrist was not willing to give up that easily. He wanted into the Francois home. They needed to get into that house.
Again.
Most serial killers keep some sort of memento of their victims. Even without the bodies, they could be used for conviction. And chances were, if he was the killer, those mementos were in the house. But how to get in?
Siegrist contacted the office of William Grady, the Dutchess County District Attorney. He was advised that the only way into the house was through a “fresh complainant”—someone who claimed anew that they had been assaulted by Francois. They would give them a reason to get a search warrant to get back into the house.
But who?
January 23, 1998
Her name was Lora Gallagher. Like Wendy Meyers, Gina Barone, Kathleen Hurley, Michelle Eason, Mary Healey Giaccone and Catherine Marsh, she was a prostitute who worked Poughkeepsie’s streets. And, like the dead women, she knew Kendall Francois. Completing the similarities, Gallagher didn’t like him either. The big man smelled and had rough hands.
Still, money was money, crack was crack and she just had to have it. Which was how she found herself getting into Francois’s car, tooling along Main Street like they were casual shoppers, until the big man made a right turn, went down a few blocks, took a left and pulled into a driveway on Fulton Avenue.
He hustled her out of the car and up the back entrance to his bedroom. They negotiated a price, then began to go at it. In the middle of the “lovemaking,” Francois really started getting rough. He began squeezing the woman’s throat, harder and harder. He did it so tightly, her airflow was restricted and she was afraid she would pass out, or worse. Summoning every ounce of her strength, Gallagher wriggled free and pushed the big man off her. She demanded that he return her to Main Street immediately.
His heart beating wildly in his chest, Francois saw that for now his game was up. His blood lust needed to be satiated, but that could come later. Anytime he wanted. For now, if he continued with this girl, no telling what attention her struggles might bring him before she was dead. Francois needed to be in control and with Gallagher, he wasn’t. Besides, she was in “that way,” and that really turned him off.
A few minutes later, he dropped her back on Main Street. Shortly afterward, Gallagher shared her experience with one of her stree
t friends, who in turn had a friend on the vice squad. The vice squad officer notified Siegrist of the incident. Mannain was sent out to question the woman. Gallagher told Mannain her story. Mannain convinced her to come in for further interviewing.
At the station, Mannain took a deposition from her about the incident. The deposition was a formal questioning under oath, taken down by a stenographer, admissible as evidence in court. With that done, all that was necessary was for Gallagher to sign it. The cops would then be able to arrest Francois and apply for a search warrant. They had their “in.”
Siegrist had been keeping track of Gallagher’s questioning. He had noticed how antsy she was. She just wanted to get out. He figured to keep her there just a little longer to get the deposition typed up and signed and then they’d be home free.
“I’ve got to go,” Gallagher suddenly said. “I’ve got my period.”
“She did not have on a pad and was bleeding through her pants. I could see it,” Siegrist recalled. “I tried to convince her to stay a little longer.”
But the woman would have none of it.
“I’m not a suspect. I know my rights,” said the prostitute.
Gallagher had had enough experience with the law to know she was right. She walked out before signing the deposition. Now, they were as far away from cracking the case as they had ever been.
February 26, 1998
It would take another three weeks. At the end of that time, Siegrist convinced Gallagher to sign the deposition.
Because the alleged assault had taken place in Francois’s home, which was just over the town line, he was brought into the Town of Poughkeepsie Police Headquarters and questioned there. He was brought in under a warrant for simple assault. Kendall L. Francois was duly advised of his constitutional rights. His fingerprints and mug shot were taken. Then, he did what some cops call “lawyering up.”
He got an attorney to represent him. The attorney, of course, advised him to keep his mouth shut. Francois complied. He had taken enough government studies courses at Dutchess County Community College to know that was the smart thing to do.
Siegrist was frustrated. They had the guy under lock and key, for crissakes! But now he wouldn’t talk to them anymore. Then things went from bad to worse.
The district attorney advised the lieutenant of detectives that the whole case was based upon the prostitute’s word against Francois’s. Francois had a cleaner record than she did. Not only that, the complainant Gallagher was not beating down the door to see the guy prosecuted. Clearly, she’d make a reluctant witness at trial. That was not how a conviction was won.
With the case against Francois shaky, Siegrist and company lost the opportunity for a search warrant. It was just a case of simple assault, the court reasoned. There was no reason to allow the cops to go rooting through the man’s house. If they did that every time someone was charged with such a minor crime, they’d have cops beating down the doors of every minor felon in Dutchess County, not to mention having the case dismissed by the appeals courts for unreasonable search and seizure.
No, better to avoid that. Stay away from Francois’s home, Siegrist was advised. And the cops couldn’t talk to Francois either. Once a suspect requests a lawyer, all questioning ceases, unless the lawyer permits it, and Francois’s wouldn’t. Plus, Francois was granted bail while awaiting trial.
“We were told that every time we spoke with Francois, we had to tread lightly,” Siegrist recalled.
Kendall Francois was a lot of things: killer, serial killer, liar, psychopath and psychotic. But one thing he wasn’t was stupid. With so much scrutiny by law enforcement, he ceased his murderous activities. Right up until the time of his sentencing, Siegrist heard nothing that would enable him to pursue the big guy for the big crime.
May 18, 1998
Kendall Francois took his place at the side of his public defender in the Town of Poughkeepsie Court. Francois had claimed indigence since he wasn’t gainfully employed and didn’t have money to get his own lawyer. The fact that his parents owned a house worth six figures was irrelevant since it was in their names.
Siegrist was powerless to do anything but watch as the state supplied counsel to a suspected serial killer on an assault charge that the district attorney told him had been plea bargained down to a misdemeanor. Could anything be more ironic?
In the Poughkeepsie town court, unless the defendant requests it and is willing to pay for it out of his own pocket, there is no stenographer. The court’s proceedings are “not for public view,” according to the clerk for one of the court’s judges. While every defendant is entitled to a public trial according to the Constitution, what isn’t guaranteed is that someone will take the entire proceedings down verbatim. For that reason, there was no transcript of the disposition of the charge against Kendall Francois. All that exists is a computer record of the result.
On May 18, 1998, Kendall Francois pleaded guilty to a charge of assault in the third degree, a misdemeanor, and was sentenced to fifteen days in the county jail. With time off for good behavior and credit for the time he was in actual custody, Francois served just seven days. He was back in action on May 25.
As he walked out of county jail, Kendall Francois realized what a good day it was. It was sunny and nice. The free air felt good. There were no more charges pending against him. He had served his time. The relentless police scrutiny of his activities that he had had to endure in the preceding months had been curbed. The odor in the attic was abating.
It was time to kill again.
Getting to Dover Plains was not easy. Situated in the eastern section of Dutchess County, the only way to get there from Poughkeepsie was to take Route 55 east out of town. There was no other road that would go that far east.
Ten miles outside of Poughkeepsie, the surroundings changed from suburban to rural. Farms dotted the landscape. Apple orchards crowded together, ripe for the fall harvest. Just before Tymore Park, Route 55 came to a crossroads. The fork on the left was East Noxon, a county road made out of old tar and cement dust.
Taking a left onto it, East Noxon ambled for a few miles until it became Burugzal Road. Changing its name as it wound east through isolated towns with populations that barely reached a thousand, the road, actually listed as County Road 20 on the map, finally met up with State Route 6, less than ten miles from the Connecticut border. The area was so rural that a few miles north, the Appalachian Trail cut through the countryside.
Going north on 22, the town of Dover came up in the distance. Before getting there, you passed the Valley Psychiatric Center. Then just a few more miles north, the road finally came into the town of Dover Plains. It was the kind of place people leave from, not go to.
There was really no hope in Dover Plains. When Sandra French grew up there in the 1950’s, there was no industry, just a few stores, a library, a city hall and that was about it. By the 1960’s, when she was in high school, things were still the same. That was the trouble with Dover Plains—things were always the same there. Time stood still. Things never changed. That included the kids.
Sandra Jean French’s 1965 senior high school yearbook photo shows a mature young woman who looks ready to take on the world. The black-and-white picture shows a dark-haired girl with striking dark eyes, a nice nose and full lips, wearing a chic, black-knit turtleneck.
“Sandi,” as her friends knew her, had been a popular girl in Dover Plains High School. In her yearbook, she gave her likes as “1957 Chevys, horses, parties” and dislikes as “snotty people, Monday morning, and hangovers.” Her future plans included attending air stewardess school and marriage. She’d enjoyed many of the school activities and was proud to have chorus; library council; intramurals; future nurses’ club; and pep club as accomplishments.
All in all, French sounded like any young girl of her time. Active in school activities, like many women who were brought up in the 1950’s, she had decided to follow the traditional role of wife and mother. But Sandi was different: before she
did any of that, she yearned to try out the glamorous life of an airline stewardess.
As a stewardess, she would get to travel all over the world. For free. She would meet all kinds of interesting people. Maybe, just maybe, one of those interesting people would be her Prince Charming. It was a grand fantasy, for that’s what it was, fantasy pure and simple. The most insightful entry in her yearbook listing was not her future ambitions, but rather the way she dealt with her present. Didn’t anyone at the time think to wonder why a young girl of nineteen’s “dislikes” included “hangovers”?
At the time, the legal drinking age in New York was twenty-one. Most kids, who lived in upstate New York, as Sandra French did, violated that because of curiosity about alcohol. And it was hard not to be curious. Alcohol, and its abuse, was a distinct part of the area’s culture. If you didn’t drink, you weren’t a regular type of person. For the women, trapped by babies and husbands in low-paying jobs, drinking was an easy escape.
Yet how many young girls like Sandra French had become so familiar with alcohol and its effects that by the age of nineteen, they abhorred hangovers? It did not augur well for French’s future that she was so familiar with the effects of liquor. The mention of alcohol and its effects in her yearbook listing was a clear tip-off to Sandra French’s future substance-abuse problems. Unfortunately, nobody saw that. Even if they had, what could they have done, except counsel her to drink in moderation?
Horse farms dotted the landscape of Dutchess County and after graduation, French, an avowed horse lover, became a horse attendant on some of them. Mucking out stables was not an alien thing to her. Neither was being stoned.
From alcohol, she turned to harder drugs, eventually becoming an addict, turning to the streets to support her habit. She would spend much of the next thirty years going in and out of jail for drug and prostitution arrests. In between, she found time to have three kids, one of whom was Heidi Cramer, who in 1998 was twenty-nine years old. Cramer recalled that her mom never tried to hide her drug addiction and prostitution.