Body Hunter

by Patricia Springer

  Danny Laughlin lived in peaceful surroundings. He had a porch swing beneath his two big, old shade trees and a bumper sticker on his pickup truck read BEAUTIFUL THINGS HAPPEN WHEN YOU PRAY. But Danny wasn’t content.

  “The only thing I want is to just be happy and have some peace now,” Laughlin said to his soon-to-be father-in-law after their day’s work in the oil field. “But I don’t think I’ll ever have peace of mind as long as someone out there thinks I killed Toni Gibbs.”

  Although the charges against Laughlin were eventually dropped, prosecutors continued to claim he was Gibbs’s killer.

  “I don’t understand why they don’t stand up and say they got the wrong guy,” Laughlin said. “The thing that worries me about it is the guy that did it is still out there.”

  No other women in the Wichita Falls area had fallen prey to the viciousness of the killers at large. Had they moved on to other places, or were not free to kill again?

  Laughlin put his muscular arms, a colorful horse tattoed on each bicep, around his twenty-three-year-old fiancée, Anita Rivas, seated in front of him in the drying summer grass.

  “It’s my own fault I got into this mess,” the parolee said.

  Much of the responsibility for his arrest had to be laid at the feet of Laughlin himself, who had bragged about knowing unpublicized facts about the case. Facts he had learned in the sheriff’s office while waiting to be booked into the Wichita County jail.

  Laughlin knew one thing for sure—he never wanted to return to prison.

  “I saw some really bad things. The people down there are pigs,” he told his fiancée bitterly.

  The scars of prison life were external, as well as internal. His body bore the injuries. His spirit carried the bitterness. He had spent two years in prison after admitting to the burglary he’d committed the day of Gibbs’s murder, the burglary that had served as his alibi, and he confessed to perjury. He had decided not to fight the charges after his attorney told him the public was convinced he was guilty of murder.

  The one thing Laughlin wanted most was for people to know he had not taken Toni’s life.

  “I thought about calling Toni’s family and telling them I didn’t do it, and I’m sorry the police stopped looking for who did,” Laughlin told his family.

  Danny’s mother had the same thought. Time after time she picked up the phone receiver and began to dial the number for Gibbs’s parents. I just want them to know Danny didn’t kill their daughter, Hooker thought as she dialed. But she never completed the call. She never spoke to the Gibbses.

  Laughlin eventually married Rivas, whom he had met in a Wichita Falls convenience store where he worked as a clerk. But the stigma of the Gibbs’s murder continued to haunt him.

  The demons that danced inside Laughlin plagued him and after another brush with the law, Laughlin decided a new start in a new state would be advantageous. He moved to Colorado in hopes of making a clean beginning.

  One day, as he spoke to his mother by phone, Danny, in a melancholy mood at the time, talked about his life since the Gibbs’s murder. “I’m tired of living like this, Mom. All they need is one little hair that’s mine to send me back on murder charges. Besides, I’m worth more dead than alive.”

  But Danny Laughlin had much to live for. He was elated to be an expectant father, but worried about what his son would think of him with murder suspicions still hanging over his head.

  “Mom, if anything ever happens to me, make sure I get my name cleared, because I didn’t do that,” he told her. If he died, the one thing Danny could leave his son would be a good name and the knowledge that his father had not been guilty of murder.

  One week later, and three months before his son, Cody, was born in 1993, Danny Laughlin was killed in a head-on car collision in Cripple Creek, Colorado. The impact was so severe that the mangled mass of twisted steel barely resembled automobiles. At the time of his death, he left behind a legacy shrouded in suspicious shadows, a legacy that would have to be endured by his family.

  The son that would never know his father was born in December 1993. Young Cody Laughlin entered the world with as much trauma as his father had left it. With the umbilical cord perilously wrapped around his tiny neck and his heart rate having dropped to a critical thirteen beats per minute from the newborn norm of one hundred to one hundred and fifty, Cody was taken by emergency C-section. But Cody was a survivor. He grew healthy and strong.

  Like the Sims and Gibbs families, along with the suffering Laughlins, the Blaus languished from the loss of their daughter. The Blau family still found Ellen’s death hard to accept. Murray Blau had to do something. By 1990, the case had been at a stalemate for five years. He decided to renew his offer of a reward.

  On September 20 of each year, marking the anniversary of the disappearance of Ellen and on her birthday, an ad ran in the Wichita Falls newspaper.

  ELLEN BLAU

  MURDERED SEPTEMBER 1985

  $10,000 REWARD

  for information leading to arrest

  and conviction of person

  or persons responsible.

  Call Wichita County Sheriff’s Office

  Tel. #

  A smiling photo of Ellen was set at the left of the typed advertisement.

  The public notices produced no new information concerning Ellen Blau’s death. Investigators still believed the killer was someone she knew, and they believed the man had never killed again.

  By 1994, it had been almost a decade since the Blaus lost their only daughter. Daily hard work had failed to purge the memory of his loss for Murray Blau. His initial anger had cooled, yet hardened. The pain was somewhat abated, replaced by a feeling of helplessness that became his constant companion.

  Blau told a reporter from the Wichita Falls newspaper, “We’ll never give up.”

  He hoped the message would be read by the killer who would realize that one day Murray Blau would have retribution for his daughter. It didn’t matter how long it would take. There was no statute of limitations on murder.

  Like Murray Blau, Ken Taylor longed for the killer of his wife, Debra, to be found. Taylor had another weighty reason other than retribution for Debra; he sought vindication for himself.

  Ken Taylor had lost everything dear to him. His wife of five years was dead, the two little girls he’d watched play on the living-room floor were living away from him, and he was estranged from his in-laws. There was nothing more for Taylor to lose.

  His ordeal began on the night he reported Debra missing to Fort Worth police. Taylor had immediately become the prime suspect. Authorities searched his house several times and he had taken three lie-detector tests. For months, detectives followed him like bloodhounds tracking their prey. They even followed him home from his wife’s funeral.

  After a while, even Debra’s supportive family began to waver in their belief of his innocence. They blamed Ken for her disappearance, and ultimately faulted him directly for her death. His father-in-law finally alienated him totally, refusing even to speak to Taylor. Believing in Ken’s guilt, his dead wife’s family took steps to protect his daughter and stepdaughter. They successfully gained custody. Debra’s killer had managed to sever Taylor’s only remaining connection with his wife.

  Of the five North Texas victims’ families, only Robert and Elaine Kimbrew knew who had killed their only child. Being aware that Faryion Wardrip had taken the life of Tina didn’t make it any easier, but it gave them a sense of purpose in the horrible ordeal that they had been living.

  The Kimbrews made a vow—they would do all they could to keep Wardrip behind bars as long as possible.

  In 1990, four years after Wardrip was classified as a state prisoner and given his TDCJ number, he prepared for his second parole hearing. Robert Kimbrew was furious.

  The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had failed to notify Kimbrew of the first hearing, held a year earlier. Kimbrew thought the whole process premature.

  “Four years is not enough,” Kimbrew sai
d. “I don’t know what it’s going to take to be enough for her mother and me. But four years is not enough.” His dark eyes flashed from the adrenaline that rushed through his veins.

  With good time and other credits added to Wardrip’s actual time, the parole board considered him to have served thirteen years, nine months, and twenty-nine days. Almost forty percent of his thirty-five-year imposed sentence.

  “I thought I’d be dead and gone when he got out of prison,” Kimbrew said. “I didn’t think of how I’d have to deal with the thought of him being out on the streets.”

  Kimbrew did all he could to ensure that the killer of his daughter remain behind bars. He gathered about two thousand protest letters written by friends and relatives. The mild-mannered, humble man resented having to fight to keep his daughter’s killer in prison. He even feared for his own life if Wardrip was released, because of his efforts to keep his daughter’s killer behind bars. But Robert Kimbrew had a worthy motive.

  “I would feel responsible if I didn’t fight the parole board and Wardrip injured another person after his early release,” Kimbrew said.

  The Kimbrews’ efforts were rewarded. Wardrip was denied parole for the second time.

  “I don’t know if he’s as disappointed at not getting out as I am not being able to see my daughter,” Kimbrew said.

  The one thing Kimbrew wanted to do was face his daughter’s killer. He wanted to ask, “What did Tina say? How long did it take for her to die?” He wanted to look Tina’s killer in the eye.

  The small, quiet, sorrowful father would have his chance. Through the Victim Services division of TDCJ, Robert and Elaine Kimbrew were going to have the opportunity to sit across from Faryion Wardrip and ask him all the questions that had plagued them for years.

  Robert hoped to finally have his most important question answered, “Why the hell did you do this?”

  Chapter Twelve

  For eleven years, Faryion Wardrip immersed himself in prison rehabilitation programs. He began by attending Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings sponsored by the Institutional Substance Abuse Program, where he shared his experiences with other addicts. From fellow users, he received both strength and hope.

  Wardrip wasn’t unique for his dependency on drugs and alcohol at TDCJ. Seventy-nine percent of all the male inmates were addicts and almost half of them had committed their crimes while under the influence of alcohol or illegal drugs. But unlike many, Wardrip was determined to kick the habit. Prison made it more difficult to obtain the forbidden substances, but they could be had for a price, either through corrupt, greedy guards, or smuggled in by enabling visitors. Wardrip knew he would have to establish a firm foundation with the tools needed to keep him clean on the streets, whenever his release happened.

  The twelve-step programs followed by AA and NA members are a time-tested method of recovery from various obsessive-compulsive behaviors that individuals believe have made their lives unmanageable. Wardrip knew his life had been out of control. He hadn’t the will to stop drinking or using drugs. He plunged into the twelve steps, utilizing his newfound Christianity as his mainstay.

  Step one had been easy. Wardrip freely admitted that he was powerless over his problem and that his life had become unmanageable.

  Steps two and three were also effortless. He believed in God as his Higher Power and willingly turned his life over to Him.

  Step four was not as difficult for Wardrip as it was painful. He had to take a moral inventory of himself. The catalogue of offenses made him cringe. There had been so many transgressions, beginning with shoplifting. But his moral inventory plummeted to its darkest depths when he was forced to admit Tina Kimbrew’s murder hadn’t been a drug deal gone bad as he had tried to make his brother Bryce believe.

  Step five was one Wardrip knew he couldn’t keep. Oh, he admitted to God and to himself the exact nature of his wrongs, but he couldn’t, he wouldn’t, admit them to another human being. Spending the rest of his life in prison was an unthinkable possibility.

  He prayed to have God remove all his defects of character and humbly asked God to forgive his shortcomings as required in steps six and seven.

  Just like step five, Wardrip knew that steps eight and nine would be impossible to achieve. The first part was a snap; he could make the list of all persons he had harmed and, although he was willing to make amends to them, he couldn’t. He didn’t intend to spend any more time in prison than he had to.

  In step ten, Wardrip continued to take personal inventory and when he was wrong, he would promptly admit it.

  Wardrip achieved step eleven through prayer and meditation to improve his conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for him and the power to carry that out.

  Lastly, in step twelve, Wardrip pledged to carry the message to other codependents, and to practice the principles in all his affairs.

  Wardrip knew above all that the twelve steps were not something just done once and he would be miraculously cured. They had to become his way of life. They demanded vigilance, faith, and honest effort every waking hour of every day. Wardrip was willing to work the steps in hopes that he would be able to live life on life’s terms with both fortitude and faith. He became obsessed in his preoccupation with the twelve-step system. Seemingly, Faryion Wardrip became the poster inmate for AA, but only Wardrip knew if his transformation was real or a manipulative trick in order to earn early release.

  In addition to AA and NA meetings, Wardrip attended anger management classes and worked toward getting his General Education Development (GED) certificate. He had replaced his need for abusive substances with a zealous desire for control of his life.

  From the time he was a small boy, Wardrip had been on the defensive whenever other kids called him names, criticized him for his poor school performance, or shamed him for wearing hand-me-downs. As an adult, Wardrip often felt pushed to the point that he had to “take control,” either verbally or physically. It was that need for control that had driven him to dominate. To kill.

  Wardrip had been a prime candidate for anger management therapy. The percentage of homicides in Texas had been steadily increasing in the 1980s. Wardrip had become one of the horrifying statistics, with fifty percent of all murders white-on-white crimes. Wardrip learned that an anger problem was any behavior that was hurtful to himself or others. He discovered he must recognize when he was becoming angry and how to intervene with prepared strategies when he fell into the depths of depression, adverse reactions, or conflicting incidents. The counselor taught him to focus on identifying his needs and wants and to use assertive, nonaggressive action to satisfy them; and to change learned behaviors of aggression, controlling, brooding, and depression. Most importantly, Wardrip had to learn to separate anger from rage or violence; divide shame and blame issues; to establish limits and boundaries; and to explore risk taking and safety issues. The concept was new for Wardrip, but he worked hard to become a useful, productive citizen. He excessively drove himself to be a perfect person.

  Education was part of Wardrip’s early release plan. Working through the Windham School, Wardrip was able to complete his high school equivalency certificate. He was lucky. The Windham School, established in 1969, was the first educational program within a statewide prison system. Like some thirty to fifty percent of inmates, Wardrip had a history of academic failure. The Windham School believed that if they helped break the cycle of low literacy skills, they could help stop criminal activity.

  Wardrip had resolved to make better choices, to make a better life when released. He diligently studied the five subjects—writing, social studies, science, literature and arts, and mathematics—required for passing the GED. Wardrip’s obsessive/compulsive tendencies became focused on his studies, but the underlying personality disorder remained.

  There was little time for all that Wardrip had chosen to accomplish. His day started at three-thirty each morning with a general wake-up call. Breakfast was at four-thirty; he
reported to work at six A.M. Wardrip, like all offenders in the prison system, with the exception of those on death row, was expected to work in one of the nonpaying jobs supervised by TDCJ personnel. He earned privileges as a result of his good work habits. Those who refused to work lost their rewards and were placed on “cell restriction.” That meant they remained in their cells twenty-four hours a day, with no trips to the day room, commissary, or recreation yard. All personal property was taken away while an inmate was on cell restriction.

  Wardrip didn’t think he could face losing his drawing materials, his schoolbooks, and most importantly, his Bible. He worked hard, studied hard, and stacked up good behavior credits.

  Ten years after the 1986 murder of Tina Kimbrew, David Doerfler sat in the visitors’ room at the prison unit where Faryion Wardrip was confined, waiting for the convicted killer. He watched scrupulously as the tall, thin inmate took the chair opposite him. Wardrip’s white prison-issue shirt was frayed at the collar from frequent washings, but clean and tucked neatly in his white elastic-waist trousers. Across the left breast pocket, Wardrip’s TDCJ number was written in indelible black ink.

  “Hi, Faryion, I’m David Doerfler. I’m with the Victim Services division of TDCJ. I want to talk to you about participating in the Victim Offender Mediation/Dialogue program,” Doerfler said.

  “I don’t know anything about it,” Wardrip replied. The inquisitive look on his face caused a deep vertical wrinkle between his two thick, dark eyebrows.

  Doerfler explained that the program, which matched victims with violent offenders for a one-time encounter, was a relatively new program in the Texas prison system and the first of its kind in the country.