Joyce Gregory, a former bartender at the Stardust, told the jury that Laughlin’s job behind the bar would leave him little time to talk to patrons of the club. Her description of Laughlin’s work cast doubt that he would have had the opportunity to “hit on” Gibbs at the popular Wichita Falls watering hole. Gregory also stated that she was with Laughlin from about eleven-thirty A.M. until later in the afternoon on the day Gibbs was reported missing.
“I was helping him move into his Fillmore Street apartment and riding around in his pickup truck,” Gregory said. “He took me home about five-thirty that afternoon. Then I saw him again later that night at work.”
The partial alibi that Gregory was providing for Laughlin infuriated Barry Macha. The tall, handsome district attorney was on his feet ready to attack the witness and her relationship to the defendant on cross-examination.
“You spent quite a bit of time together,” Macha said smartly. “In fact, you spent so much time together it caused you and your boyfriend to break up, didn’t it?”
“That’s true,” Gregory said, “but we were just close friends.”
“Didn’t you previously tell the grand jury that Laughlin took you home at three or four? Is your memory better today or better then?” Macha demanded angrily.
“It’s better today,” Gregory said matter-of-factly.
“It’s better with age? Like fine wine?” Macha asked sarcastically.
Macha’s tone of voice had Williams before the judge objecting to Macha’s badgering of the witness.
District Judge Frank Douthitt warned Macha; then Gregory was dismissed.
Lisa Jones, another former Stardust employee, reiterated Gregory’s testimony that Laughlin, as part of his job, did not have contact with bar patrons. She also testified Laughlin arrived at work at six-thirty P.M. on January 19.
Laughlin allowed himself a slight smile of satisfaction and his body took on a posture of increased comfort. Things were beginning to go his way.
Bill Blanton, a supervisor for CertainTeed Corporation, slowly walked to the witness chair. Blanton refuted Nikkie Standifer’s testimony. The key prosecution witness had testified that she saw Laughlin in the Archer County field where Miss Gibbs’s body was before it was discovered by authorities, and that the sighting had taken place on February 9 or 10. Standifer added that she was sure of the dates because she didn’t think she had worked either day of that weekend. Blanton disagreed, telling the jury that Standifer had been at work on both days.
Blanton’s testimony cast doubt on Standifer’s credibility as to when, or even if, she had seen Danny Laughlin in the Archer County field.
Williams, Estrada, and Laughlin were confident as court recessed. Williams hoped to wind up his case the following day. Laughlin left the courthouse in the same talkative mood he had entered with on the first day of the trial. He was scheduled to take the stand the following day. Laughlin looked forward to telling his side of the story. Telling the truth.
The next day, Danny Laughlin sauntered to the witness stand with self-assurance. His shoulders back and head erect, he was the picture of confidence. Laughlin’s dark eyes met his mother’s and they exchanged smiles.
Laughlin’s attorney asked him to explain to the jury what he was doing on the morning of January 19, 1985.
“Joyce Gregory and I did laundry; then we went back to my new apartment on Fillmore Street,” Laughlin said.
“What did Joyce do?” Williams asked.
“She was hanging pictures for me,” Laughlin answered.
The defendant then explained that he and Gregory later went to a flea market on Holliday Street, then up Midwestern Parkway.
“We drove through the Burger King and I got a root beer and Joyce got a Coke,” Laughlin said. “We cruised Kemp Boulevard and then I took Joyce home. I got home by five-thirty P.M. to get ready to go to work.”
“What were you doing on February tenth, Mr. Laughlin?” Williams asked.
Laughlin shifted uneasily in his chair. He would have to tell the jury about breaking into the telephone office and stealing the money box. But being convicted of theft was better than being found guilty of murder.
“I entered a Southwestern Bell office in Wichita Falls and stole a money-changer box. I got the code to open the door to the building from someone who worked there. I’d been working for a maintenance company in the office for a while.
“I loaded the heavy box in my pickup truck to take it out of town to break into it. I went out on a county road and broke into the box.
“After taking the money, I left it there and was chased part of the way back to Wichita Falls by someone who saw me,” Laughlin explained.
Williams walked to the witness stand and leaned closer to his client. Looking Laughlin in the eye, Williams asked, “Did you tell Harry Harrison that you killed Miss Gibbs?”
“No!” Laughlin said loudly. “In fact, Harrison was so nervous that day in the jail that I tried to calm him down by reading scriptures to him.”
“Danny, how did you know facts about Gibbs’s murder?” Williams asked.
“I knew police information about the crime by reading reports one day in a captain’s office. I was left there for about a half hour when he was out.
“I bragged to friends about knowing details of her death, to look like I knew something. When I talked about the killing and said I might have been in that field at one time with my dog, people acted interested. I just kept talking,” Laughlin explained.
“Did you ever say you killed Toni Gibbs?” Williams asked.
“Not one time,” Laughlin replied. “Not one time did I ever imply I was the killer. I never admitted nothing.”
Williams had one final question for his client. After a dramatic pause, Williams asked, “Danny, tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury—did you kill Toni Gibbs?”
“No, I did not. I had nothing to do with it,” Laughlin said emphatically.
After final arguments were presented from both prosecutors and the defense, the case was turned over to the jury for deliberations. It was a difficult case with very differing opinions. Argumentative shouts could be heard from the jury room. At times even muffled sobs rose from behind the closed door. As time continued to pass, prosecutors became increasingly uneasy and defense attorneys more certain that their client would be found not guilty.
The jury finally emerged from the confined quarters, some with tear-streaked faces, others with wearied looks. They had worked for fourteen hours over a two-day period to reach a decision. But they were hopelessly deadlocked eleven to one for acquittal. Judge Douthitt declared a mistrial and Laughlin left the courthouse with his attorneys.
Although he was not found innocent of the vicious murder of Toni Gibbs, Laughlin saw the hung jury as a victory.
“I thank the Man right here,” Laughlin said, smiling, pointing at the Bible he had carried into the courtroom each day of the trial. “If they let me, I imagine I would give people some hugs. Anyway, I’d like to thank the jury.”
Laughlin’s attorney blasted the State’s witnesses. “They never made a case until they scrounged up the jailhouse witnesses,” Williams told reporters outside the courtroom. “Would you make any important decision in your life based on what those gentlemen told you?”
District Attorney Barry Macha was not only disappointed, but furious with the outcome. Convinced that he had prosecuted the right man, he pledged to retry Laughlin for Gibbs’s murder. Local law enforcement agreed, virtually shutting down any further investigation of Gibbs’s killing. Their tunnel vision saw only one man responsible for the brutal killing—Danny Laughlin.
Chapter Eight
May 6, 1986
Tina Kimbrew chased after her black toy poodle as he slipped past her at the door and made a break for the street. Still dressed in her nightgown, the cute, slim, twenty-one-year-old had been sleeping late after her night shift as waitress and bartender at Baron’s Lounge at the Sheraton Hotel.
“Come here, Ni
cole!” Tina said sternly to the feisty pup. She grabbed the quick-footed dog and carried her back to her apartment.
Minutes later, neighbors saw a tall, thin man, wearing a blue-and-white baseball cap, knock on Tina’s front door.
The gangly man was coming down from a drug-induced high. He needed a fix. He knew Tina and thought she might be able to supply him with the narcotics he craved.
Tina had met the man at the Stardust country-and-western club where he had worked as a bouncer and Danny Laughlin had once worked as a bar-back. Originally from Vernon, Texas, Tina had recently moved to Wichita Falls from Odessa, Texas, where she had been attending private school. She and her visitor had dated a couple of times, but it was nothing more than a casual relationship. Tina cordially opened the door to him.
The young woman’s pleasant disposition changed as soon as the door closed behind the unkempt man. He grabbed her, forcing his lips to hers. Tina pulled away, pushing against his chest to release his viselike grip. Her dark brown hair swung swiftly to the side as her head rang with the impact of the man’s open hand against her cheek. Kimbrew stumbled backward, falling against a brown wicker table. The next blow was her attacker’s fist connecting with Tina’s right eye. It throbbed from the impact. Her knees buckled and she dropped to the floor.
In seconds, the man she thought to be her friend was on top of her, slapping her, punching her face with quick-tempered blows. The right side of both her top and bottom lips swelled, immediately discoloring from the blood that rose just below the surface. She fought to regain her footing, clawing her way to the sofa. Tina Kimbrew pulled at the cushions to help her stand, but they tumbled to the carpet as her aggressor knocked her down.
The incensed man pulled at Tina’s underpants, jerking them from her body. She continued to fight. Although he was more than one hundred pounds heavier and over a foot taller, Tina was determined to ward off the assault. The man’s greatest advantage was his intense anger. Rage that drove him to seek domination. To have complete control.
Kimbrew pressed her elbows into the carpeted surface of the living room as she attempted to rise. The man pushed her back and slipped his hands around her neck, squeezing firmly. The thin gold necklace that encircled her throat pressed into her flesh, scraping the surface raw. Tina’s elbows dug deeply into the rug’s abrasive fibers.
Kimbrew continued to struggle. The man slung his forearm over her nose and mouth, compressing tightly. Her small frame flailed beneath the strength of her attacker for no more than a few seconds. The blood vessels to her brain collapsed. Her eyes held but a flicker of light until the continued pressure on her throat extinguished it like a candle being snuffed out. She sank into total blackness.
The man who had once called Tina Kimbrew his friend gaped at her lifeless body in disbelief. Quickly he fled the Park Regency Apartments and the sight of the white-gowned body stretched across the brown carpet. He returned to his own apartment. No one was there. He felt all alone. A familiar feeling, one he had felt since he was a kid. No one to talk to. No one to listen to his problems.
He lay across his bed, staring at the ceiling. In the swirls of the textured dome he saw the face of Tina Kimbrew staring back at him. Closing his eyes was useless; he could still see her looking at him with questioning eyes. “Why?” she seemed to ask. He couldn’t tell her. He didn’t know why. All he knew was that he needed to get away. Out of Wichita Falls.
The ocean, he thought. I’d like to see the ocean.
Shelly Kelly and Tina Kimbrew were close—more like sisters than cousins. They had seen each other frequently since Kimbrew’s move to Wichita Falls from Odessa three months earlier. Kelly had expected to see Tina at the Wichita Falls hospital where Tina’s mother was recovering from back surgery, but Tina hadn’t shown up since the night before. It was three P.M. when Shelly phoned Tina’s apartment.
“There’s no answer,” Shelly told her grandmother who had accompanied her and her two-year-old daughter, Amy, to the hospital.
“We need to go by her apartment and check on her. She needs to come see her mom,” Mildred Kimbrew said.
Kelly drove to the Park Regency Apartments on Seymour Road where Tina Kimbrew lived alone. She noticed Tina’s car parked out front.
“There’s no answer,” Shelly told her grandmother. “She must have gotten a ride with someone. Her car’s here.”
Amy’s angelic face was a mess from the candy she had been given at the hospital. Kelly decided to clean the child’s dirty hands before heading home.
“Let’s go inside and clean Amy up,” she said.
As Shelly turned the spare key Tina had given her grandmother in the lock of the apartment, she was met at the door by Tina’s poodle, Nicole, jumping and barking loudly.
She glanced to the right, inside the apartment, noticing that a table and lamp had been knocked over.
“Look what that dog did to this apartment,” Shelly said irritably. One leg of the wicker table had been broken, a gold glass ashtray with cigarette butts was spilled on the carpet, and a can of Sergant’s flea powder had been dumped on the floor. Beside the sofa was a plastic tumbler and a Styrofoam cup from the Sonic Drive-In.
As Kelly moved farther into the seemingly empty room, she noticed her cousin lying motionless on the floor.
She must be unconscious. Maybe she fell, Shelly thought to herself as she moved closer to Tina.
Tina was lying on her back, next to a brown floral pillow that had been pulled from the sofa. Her dark brown hair was drawn above her head and spread across the lighter brown carpeting. She wore a white-lace nightgown that was pulled above her waist. Her underpants lay nearby.
Stunned, Shelly grabbed Amy and backed up slowly to rest against the wall. She could only stare at her cousin’s face in horror. Frozen with fear, Shelly couldn’t move. She could hardly breathe.
Mildred Kimbrew rushed to Tina, shaking her gently in an attempt to wake her up. Bruises marred the familiar pretty face.
“Shelly, she’s dead! I can’t look at her like this. Let’s get something to cover her up,” the older woman said, shaking.
Shelly rushed to the bedroom and returned with a pink, blue, and white floral sheet. She draped the fabric over Tina and called the police.
Detective Steve Pruitt was on his way home when he received the radio call.
“There’s a report of a deceased person at the Park Regency Apartments.” The dispatcher’s voice broke through Pruitt’s thoughts.
Pruitt, an investigator in the Crimes Against Persons Division of the Wichita Falls Police Department, turned his car around and headed toward the apartments. When he arrived on the scene, Officer Allen was inside, checking the victim on the floor for signs of life.
Allen looked up at Pruitt as he entered the room. He shook his head slightly, lowering his eyes to the pale woman on the floor in front of him.
Pruitt removed the sheet covering the corpse. He looked at Tina Kimbrew’s body carefully, making mental notes: light-colored nightgown, bruising on face, neck, and legs, exposed genitals, panties close to the body on the floor.
“Who put the sheet over the victim?” Pruitt asked.
“I did. But I didn’t touch anything. I didn’t know what to do,” Shelly Kelly said through her tears.
Pruitt feared that the presence of the victim’s relatives would hamper the investigation. They very well could have contaminated the crime scene. He moved to get Kelly, Amy, and Mrs. Kimbrew out of the apartment as quickly as possible.
Tina Kimbrew was the fourth woman killed in Wichita Falls in eighteen months. Everything had to be done to insure a thorough investigation. This was one murder Pruitt intended to see did not go unsolved.
Neighbors told investigators they had seen a man leaving the apartment about five hours before her body was discovered. The man was described as six-feet, two-inches tall, lanky, dark hair, and wearing a blue-and-white baseball cap. Police released the description to the press, adding, “We’d sure like to talk to hi
m.”
The chief of police knew that was an understatement. Four young women had been murdered in the Wichita Falls area. Four killers were on the loose. Maybe they would get lucky with this one.
Chapter Nine
A tall, shaggy-haired man stood on the seawall in Galveston, Texas. A cool breeze from the Gulf of Mexico blew across his weary face as he stared into the vastness of the open sea. The dark waters mirrored his mood. Riddled with guilt, he felt as though he had been plunged beneath the gulf’s surf and was drowning in a sea of despair.
Back in Wichita Falls, friends of Tina Kimbrew couldn’t believe Tina was dead.
“She was funny. Always a jokester,” Tim Nardi, general manager of the Sheraton Hotel, told reporters. “This is such a shock. You don’t think about these things until they happen in your own backyard.”
Tina was remembered by all her friends as being a really sweet, nice girl. Her killer remembered her the same way. That memory drove him deeper into despondency.
In Vernon, Texas, north of Wichita Falls, Elaine and Robert Kimbrew felt the same darkened hopelessness. Their only child was dead. The pain in Elaine’s heart was sharper than the surgeon’s instrument used to mend her back only days before.
Tina had been a gift from God. Elaine and Robert had been told early in their marriage that they would never have children. Then, in what they believed was a true miracle, Tina was conceived. It had been a touch-and-go pregnancy, but Elaine was determined to deliver their child.
In what could be described as a difficult delivery, Robert was faced with the decision of saving the life of his wife or saving his child. But by the grace of God, and the skill of a special doctor, both mother and daughter pulled through. The birth had created an extraordinary bond between them.
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