Emilia explained that when Buie had mentioned the trailer earlier, it all began to click for her. This was not something she had come to easily. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing from Buie as he explained some of what Josh had said. She told herself, Oh, my God, he wasn’t playing. ’Cause he says things to try to scare [me] a little bit sometimes. Emilia claimed she didn’t tell Buie this from the start because she “didn’t put two and two together. I thought he was full of crap. Then when you said something about my mom’s back trailer is when it clicked in my head and that’s when I asked to talk to Detective Spivey.”
Though he didn’t express it just then, Buie had a tough time with the fact that her boyfriend told her he had killed Heather, and Heather had been missing for weeks, and Emilia didn’t want to believe it.
There was a sense here that Emilia might have been protecting Josh. Yet, Emilia came across sincere in her explanations regarding what she knew and when. She appeared to be the eight months pregnant girlfriend of a guy who was explosive and had exhibited on many occasions an unstable, unpredictable, even violent temper. There was also a bona fide threat on the table from Josh, Emilia explained further—and that had played in the back of her mind, keeping her from revealing all she knew right away.
“He said if I was ever to pull anything with our baby”—meaning taking off so he couldn’t see the child—“that he was going to do to me what he did to her.”
When Josh told Emilia that he had killed Heather, she asked him, “Where is she?”
“Well, you know the gators in Orange Lake and you know they digest bones,” Emilia recalled Josh telling her. This now gave Emilia the impression that Josh was telling stories to frighten her—because he had said already that Heather was “closer than you think,” meaning inside the trailer. Not in Orange Lake.
“Where is she, Josh?” Emilia asked, not sure what to believe. The guy was acting insane, as if something had come over him.
Josh looked her in the eyes, becoming very serious. He said for the third time since Heather went missing: “Closer than you think.”
It was then that Emilia thought how she “hoped [Heather] wasn’t in my mom’s backyard—because that is sick. . . .”
As she told Detective Buie this part of her story, Emilia added, “I’m scared. His mother is crazy. She will hurt me if I testify.”
There had been several run-ins that she’d had with Josh’s mother, Emilia explained. She was clearly afraid of the woman.
It was later during that night of February 16, Emilia said, that Josh called her.
“Heather left,” Josh explained. “I have the kids.”
Josh showed up at Emilia’s at eleven that night. He was wasted, Emilia recalled, drunk and talking out of his mind. Stumbling around, mumbling things like, “I’m gonna burn [his] house down.... Get all those motherfuckers back for making me look like a fool.” Emilia didn’t know what people he was referring to.
Because they had split up—by February 16—Emilia said Josh would stop by her mother’s house, where she was living after leaving Josh, to drop off some of her belongings. It was during those times, Emilia explained to Buie, when Josh would disappear into the backyard of the house for ten or fifteen minutes and then return. She had no idea what he was doing. She had no reason, she claimed, to question what he was doing. At the time, Heather had not been reported missing.
But as time went on, Emilia told Buie, it was beginning to sound as though Josh took Heather back into that trailer and did bad things to her. What, exactly, she did not have a clue, and she never asked.
Anytime they fought after that day Heather disappeared, Emilia continued, even up until March 12, threats would easily roll off Josh’s tongue, as if he could keep Emilia in check by mentioning Heather’s disappearance. The guy was paranoid that Emilia was going to leave, she claimed. And when he got really angry, he’d say something like, “Well, you know Heather ain’t coming home, Emilia.”
“What are you talking about, Josh? I thought she was in Mississippi,” Emilia would answer. Up until that week of March 12, she was still under the impression that Josh was making it all up, acting like a big shot, tough guy, as he sometimes did. Emilia claimed she had no notion that maybe Josh had done something to Heather, other than what he had said.
Josh would repeat himself: “She’s closer than you think.”
Buie and Emilia had a heated exchange over when Emilia knew what she knew and why she didn’t divulge any of it to the MCSO when she first sat down with Buie. Detective Buie was definitely annoyed that she had kept these things from him. And because of that, Buie believed Emilia was hiding even more.
Emilia said she was “intimidated” by Buie (Josh aside), a cop who had put some pressure on her, maybe a little too much. And according to Emilia, it wasn’t until she sat down with the MCSO that she began to believe that Josh might have really done something to Heather. Emilia was always under the impression that Heather, scared of Josh, had run off to Mississippi or somewhere else. And Josh had used her not being around as a means to intimidate and threaten Emilia. Josh had even shown Emilia a letter allegedly signed by Heather in which Heather, Emilia said, had supposedly given him complete custody of the kids. Josh had brought the letter to the kids’ school. So as far as Emilia saw things up until this day she had sat down with Buie, Heather had abandoned her children and had taken off.
Buie wanted to know one thing from Emilia: “If you saw her in that trailer?” Had Emilia ever ventured out into the trailer herself to check things out?
“I haven’t seen her,” Emilia said, a touch of how-dare-you in her voice. Emilia was getting tired of being bullied by this cop. All she did, she told Buie, was lie by omission. Big deal. She didn’t tell the MCSO everything she knew. Was it any reason to be badgered like this?
“I’m terrified,” Emilia told Buie.
“You’re scared?” Buie asked.
“I’m scared of that man. I thought he was full of crap.”
Buie took a breath. “He said you gave him the cards!” Buie shared with Emilia.
She was struck by this. Heather’s debit cards? That’s what Josh was now claiming?
It felt like Buie was fishing. He wanted Emilia to know that he was not going to let up. The suggestion to Emilia, again, was that she was trying to hide things to protect the father of the child in her belly. But by now, it seemed Emilia was done with Josh. He’d shown her who he was and what he was capable of; she wanted no part of it.
“He said you gave him the cards ... ,” Buie repeated.
“Why would she (Heather) come to my mom’s house?” Emilia asked, posing a hypothetical question. “Let me ask you that—these are the things that don’t add up. Why would she come there?”
“I didn’t say she came there alive,” Buie countered.
CHAPTER 21
AS EMILIA WAITED for Buie to return to the interrogation room, the busy detective sat down with Josh Fulgham in the hard room next door. It was 6:20 A.M.
“Josh, you hungry?” Buie asked.
The investigator had a different tone and approach with Josh. Not quite a buddy-buddy vibe, but there was a mildly friendly touch of “come clean and everything is going to be okay” in Buie’s voice. He wanted Josh to realize that he could trust the MCSO. They were there to help him as much as they could, regardless of his level of involvement. As Buie saw Josh, “He was a big talker—all over the page. He liked to hear himself talk. As much as he liked to talk, at that time he was trying to convince us that he had nothing to do with any of this, that he is totally innocent.”
As Buie listened, he studied Josh’s body language closely—which, to Buie, told a story in and of itself. The way Josh moved, the facial expressions he used, Buie felt Josh knew what had happened to Heather. Josh couldn’t hide it in the way he shifted in his chair, dropped his shoulders at times, the way he’d flare his nostrils while trying to stay calm. They were subtle movements telling Buie that Josh was hiding somethin
g.
The detective asked Josh to pick up where he had left off during an earlier interview. Buie asked Josh to finish what they had been talking about then. And it was clear here with Josh’s response to this question that Buie was definitely playing both sides against each other. A tactic any good cop would use in this same situation. Regarding this common method of law enforcement interviewing, Mike Mongeluzzo, another detective involved in the investigation, would later say, “That’s not an attempt to play one against the other—it’s an attempt to get the truth out of two people that are lying. . . .”
“Something about ... ,” Josh said to Buie, “she (Emilia) told you I took [Heather] in the trailer and I knocked on her door at four in the morning?”
“Five in the morning,” Buie corrected.
“But it never happened,” Josh said.
“That’s not true?” Buie asked, somewhat surprised.
“I never ... no. I’m going to tell you something.... There’s no way I could kill that girl. I love her too damn much.”
Buie dropped his head. They were going backward.
After a few additional questions, Buie got back into what he claimed Emilia had told him concerning Josh being responsible for Heather’s disappearance and ultimate demise. They talked about the trailer and Emilia’s mother’s yard—those piles of brush, newly excavated earth, junk lying around the property, debris, wood, tree limbs, sticks and dead trees. The way Buie played it with Josh was that Emilia had sold him out: Emilia had told the MCSO that Josh had killed Heather and her body was buried somewhere on Emilia’s mother’s property. Why was Josh denying this?
Josh said no way. It didn’t happen like that. He couldn’t have done it.
“So everything she’s telling me is a lie?” Buie asked, clearly becoming impatient. He was frustrated that either Josh or Emilia—or both—had been giving him the old-fashioned jerk-off.
“If she’s telling you that I took that girl in that trailer, that’s a lie.”
“What about putting her in the hole?” Buie suggested.
“No!” Josh snapped back.
“What about killing her?”
“No!”
Buie backed up. He started from the top. “What about knocking on [Emilia’s] window that morning?”
“No. Listen. I know that family well enough. I can go to the door and knock. . . .”
“So everything she is telling me is a lie?” Buie asked again.
“Yes, sir. I didn’t take that girl to that trailer and put her in a hole.”
“The only person that has any means to do that is who?” Buie asked.
“Heather is my wife,” Josh said. “I would not kill her.” Josh sold it well. He made it sound as though he cared about Heather.
Buie talked about how he was just “relaying stuff back and forth.” He explained that Emilia and other witnesses were giving him information he was trying to verify through Josh. A lot of that information, Buie seemed to say without coming out with it entirely, pointed directly back to Josh. The trail led to the husband. The MCSO was following that trail. How was Josh going to respond to all of these fingers pointed at him?
“Where is [Emilia] now?” Josh asked.
“She’s still here.”
“You going to let her go home?”
“She ain’t going home,” Buie said. That was not necessarily true. Buie implied that Emilia wasn’t going to be allowed to leave any time soon. The truth of the matter was that Emilia had not been placed under arrest. She could get up and leave whenever she wanted.
Buie then enlightened Josh by stating how the MCSO had caught him in “numerous, numerous lies,” and there was some explaining that had to be done in order for Josh—who had been complaining about being tired and wanted to be put in a jail cell so he could sleep—to get his way.
Josh continued to say he hadn’t done anything to Heather; he had no idea what the MCSO was talking about or where Heather was. He believed she took off. Josh was no rookie offender, some green street kid in the hard room for the first time. He understood the games cops played with suspects and witnesses. He knew how cops juggled information and played the “good cop/bad cop” scenario with multiple suspects at the same time. The fact that Emilia was in the next room and being questioned as though she’d had something to do with Heather’s disappearance told Josh he was dealing with a cop who had embarked on a fishing trip. So Josh decided he was going to play his cards close to the vest here. He would be careful with what he divulged, and would try to figure out what the MCSO knew.
“You taking us to the spot?” Buie asked. The question seemed random—out of nowhere. Implying that the MCSO had information leading them to a particular place where Heather might be. There was a certain feeling in how Buie spoke letting Josh know the MCSO might have found out that Heather was either buried on Emilia’s mother’s property or left dead inside that trailer. The MCSO was working on obtaining a search warrant as Buie and Josh spoke. However, Buie wanted Josh to commit to at least this one request before they could go any further.
Josh was rattled by the suggestion. “I don’t even know if that’s where she’s at, man. I don’t know that’s where she’s at. I hope she’s not in the ground.”
“All I got to say, Josh, if somebody did this with you, you need to expose that person also. Don’t take this power rap by yourself.”
Josh sighed. Then he rubbed his face, as if doing this would refresh him, maybe wake him up. Using his hands to articulate, he said, “I didn’t do it. I’m telling you, I didn’t do it. I mean, I know I lied to you, and you cannot trust me—”
Buie interrupted: “I’m not saying I can’t trust you. I just don’t totally trust you.”
“I ain’t got it in me, man. I really don’t. I know I’ve got a violent background, but I ain’t got it in me to kill my wife, man.”
Buie wasn’t getting anywhere. That much was clear. When he realized Josh wasn’t yet ready to be honest and talk about whatever he was hiding (if anything), Buie asked Josh if he was willing to give up a DNA sample. Let’s start there. Extract some DNA in good faith and see where the investigation went. Buie didn’t explain why. He left it hanging again, suggesting that the MCSO had forensic evidence.
“Okay,” Josh said.
Buie got up and walked out of the room, letting Josh know he was going to get a DNA kit and the paperwork. He’d be right back.
When he returned about twenty minutes later, Josh asked about Emilia and how she was doing. He came across as though he was generally concerned. Then: “How long before I get moved over to the jail?”
“It’s going to be a little bit. So if you need to relax, go ahead,” Buie encouraged.
Josh said he was freezing “his ass” off inside the room. “Is [Emilia] okay over there?”
Buie stuck his head inside the room where Emilia sat patiently.
She was fine.
Back with Josh, Buie said, “Uh-huh. Just went and checked on her. . . .”
Josh wanted to know if Emilia was giving a DNA sample, too.
Buie told him yes, she was—though they had yet to ask her.
After Buie got his DNA sample, he left, telling Josh to hang tight, and he’d be back in a few.
CHAPTER 22
DETECTIVE BUIE PUT on his Emilia Carr cap and walked back into the soft room, where Emilia was waiting. Emilia had been firm in her position, but also a bit standoffish and not so cooperative as far as everything she knew. The MCSO was well aware of this.
In Emilia’s defense, her lack of cooperation didn’t mean she was covering up for her old flame; it only meant, Emilia said later, that she was not in the business of giving cops everything they asked for, just because they asked for it. Emilia knew the rub: Buie was playing her as much as she was playing him. Far as Emilia considered, Josh could be anywhere. Josh could even be out, walking the streets. Emilia didn’t trust cops to tell the truth all the time. Bottom line for her was: Could Josh get to her? This was a genu
ine concern for her. Emilia understood Josh’s internal rage; she had seen it firsthand. Emilia recognized what Josh was capable of. And now, after talking with Buie and Spivey, Emilia claimed to have figured out that Josh actually had killed Heather, when for the entire time Heather had been missing Emilia claimed to believe Heather had taken off.
Last time they chatted, Buie and Emilia were trading barbs over a particular point of contention: Did Emilia know Josh had taken Heather into the trailer? Buie was firm in his position that he believed Emilia might have even been at her mother’s when Josh brought Heather over there. One of the last things Buie had shared with Emilia before he stepped in to speak with Josh was: “He could have brought her to your house. I don’t know if she was dead or alive when she came.”
“Oh, dear God,” Emilia responded to that comment.
When Buie returned, Emilia spoke up immediately: “I remember something.”
Of course you do.
“What’s that?” Buie asked.
“I don’t know how relevant it is, but you said you asked his daughter some questions.”
“Uh-huh,” Buie agreed. He was interested in this.
Emilia explained that she didn’t want Buie to run out and sit down with Josh’s daughter, because the girl was only eight years old, but if they did speak with her again at some point, Emilia wanted them to ask the child if “she remembers the day we were all out at [my] mom’s house and Josh told me that there was a stray dog in the back he was scaring away.” Emilia went on to explain how Josh demanded on that day that she keep the kids “up front” and away from that backyard area. “Just ask her if she remembers that. That was one of the days he was out in the backyard. . . .” As Emilia now saw that moment, she was thinking Josh was doing something that involved the child’s mother out back and didn’t want anyone to sneak up on him—especially the kids.
Buie didn’t seem too excited by this revelation. He moved on.
After some conversation about getting her something to eat, Emilia said, “I’m hurting.”
To Love and to Kill Page 8