Body Hunter

by Patricia Springer

  “I do,” Wardrip said solemnly, but he had no intention of stopping the proceedings. His mind was made up. He would tell Little and Smith everything they wanted to know. The life Wardrip had dreamed of was gone. He knew he couldn’t get it back. It was time to confess.

  “Faryion, what I would like to do is just kind of go back to the beginning in your own words and start with the events surrounding December 21, 1984, if you would. This would be in reference to the death of Terry Sims,” Little prompted.

  “I don’t recall the dates to be exact. I do know, at that time I was under heavy drugs. Intravenous drugs caused a lot of dysfunctional activities in my life. All it did was create hate in my heart. I was out walking, actually walking home. I had been in a fight with my ex-wife. Drugs had just totally taken control of my life and as I was walking, she [Sims] was at her door. I went up to the door and forced my way in. Well, I just ransacked her, just slung her all over the house in a violent rage. Stripped her down and murdered her,” Wardrip said, his voice trailing off as he lowered his head.

  “Where were you living at this time, Mr. Wardrip?” Little asked.

  “About four blocks up from where the incident happened,” Wardrip answered.

  “Where were you working at that time?” Little asked.

  “I don’t think I was working,” Wardrip said.

  “Can you describe to me how you killed Ms. Sims?” Little asked.

  “I think she was stabbed,” Wardrip said with a puzzled look on his face. “It is hard to remember, but she was stabbed. It was such a violent rage I don’t recall all the details, but I know I’m responsible for it.”

  “Do you remember what you did immediately after you committed the crime?” Little asked.

  “Walked. Just walked until I finally ended up back at the house. I remember walking. It was raining. I just walked all hours and then somehow I ended up back at the apartment,” Wardrip said.

  “Who was living at the apartment with you?” Little asked.

  “My ex-wife. Johnna. That’s the only name I know. She has remarried and moved. I don’t know where,” Wardrip said.

  “Did you have any conversation with Ms. Sims beforehand?” Little asked.

  “No.”

  “Did you know her in any way beforehand?”

  “No.”

  “So you just were walking in the neighborhood and saw her standing there at her door going in,” Little stated.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you knock on the door?” Little asked.

  Wardrip contemplated the question for a moment, then spoke. “I don’t recall. I don’t recall.”

  “Did you have sex with her?”

  Wardrip looked surprised. “No, I don’t think I had sex. I’m almost pretty sure that I didn’t have sex with her. I do remember stripping her down out of anger, but I don’t recall having sex with her.”

  Had Wardrip forgotten the violent sexual assault on Terry Sims, or was he cunning enough to know rape coupled with murder made for a capital offense punishable by death?

  “Do you recall what the house looked like that she lived in?” Little asked.

  “No, it was dark. But I think it was white. If I’m going to guess, I’ll say white. But all I know is that I was just walking and it was raining and I was so mad at the world. I saw two or three people that evening and I just wanted to just lash out. As I came upon Sims, I just lashed out,” Wardrip said.

  “Do you recall what you did with the knife that was used?” Little asked.

  “No,” Wardrip said, looking at Little questioningly. “It could be laying anywhere. I’m surprised it wasn’t there.”

  “You didn’t bring the knife with you?” Little asked.

  “I—I can’t remember if I had a knife or not. I don’t think I did,” Wardrip said, somewhat confused.

  “Did you ever own a black-handled hunting knife?” Little asked.

  “No, I never was a hunter or nothing.”

  “Did you ever carry a boot knife?”

  “No, not that I recall. I never did carry a boot knife,” Wardrip said.

  Wardrip either failed to remember or deliberately chose not to tell Little and Smith about giving his brother Bryce a broken-handled, lock-blade knife as his brother and parents were leaving for a trip to the races in Altus, Oklahoma.

  “I want to give you this,” Wardrip had told Bryce. “A friend lost it out of his back pocket.”

  Bryce had taken the knife from his older brother, but lost it himself on the Oklahoma trip.

  “Okay, that’s fine,” Wardrip had told Bryce when he told him about the missing six-inch knife.

  “You spoke of a rage that was building up. What was causing the rage?” Little asked as he and Smith continued their questioning of Wardrip.

  “Just all the things that go on in life. I thought my family hated me. I hated them. My wife kept coming in and out of my life. She’d come to me when times were good and then when times got hard, she’d leave and I just kept turning towards drugs. I thought everybody was out to get me. The drugs made me paranoid. And I guess the way I grew up with drugs when I was a kid, the drinking, it made me have violent outbursts. It just kept with me and I kept turning to drugs and drinking to cover it up. Thinking it would go away and it never did. I would just reach a boiling point. But the crazy thing about it was, I was so mad at my wife, but I never done anything to her. But I was just so mad and so angered. Satan had a firm hold on me, boy, he had a firm hold,” Wardrip said, the emotion rising and falling in his voice.

  “Did you go into the bedroom with Ms. Sims?” Little asked.

  “Probably. I think we were in all different parts of the house, I think,” Wardrip said.

  “Do you remember anything about the bedroom you were in?” Little asked.

  “No, I barely remember the house,” Wardrip said.

  “Did you tie Ms. Sims’s hands behind her back?”

  “Yes.”

  “With what?”

  “Rope. I believe it was a rope,” Wardrip said.

  “Could it have been an electrical cord?” Little asked.

  “It could have been,” Wardrip said. “I don’t remember, but I remember tying her hands behind her back.”

  “Do you remember where you left her at when you left the house? What room?” Little asked.

  “Boy, I’ve blocked this out of my memory for so long,” Wardrip said, shaking his head slightly. “Maybe the bathroom, maybe the kitchen, maybe the bathroom.”

  Wardrip paused momentarily.

  “Maybe the bathroom,” he repeated.

  “Okay, I would like to move on now, at this point to approximately a month later, January 19, 1985. Mr. Smith would like to ask you some questions about a case he is investigating,” Little said.

  Paul Smith moved in a little closer to his suspect.

  “We are referring to a nurse that worked at the General Hospital, Toni Jean Gibbs. Do you recall that?” Smith asked.

  “Yeah,” Wardrip said, taking a deep breath. “Again, I was out walking. Been out walking all night. Somehow I was downtown. It was about six o’clock in the morning. Just walking. And I started walking home. It was starting to get daylight and, uh, I was walking up towards the hospital. Toni knew me and she asked me if I wanted a ride and I said, ‘Yeah,’ and so we got in the car and she gave me a ride. I started basically in on her. I started seeing images of anger and hate, and it just clicked off and I told her to drive out the road there. I don’t remember which direction we were going, I just told her to drive. We drove out the road and I just grabbed her and started trying to sling her around the car and she swerved off the side of the road and we ended up on the side of the road and she turned down a dirt road and I still had her by her jacket and I was just slinging her, trying to sling her and I was screaming as loud as I can at her. I told her to stop and she stopped. I did the same thing. I took off her clothes and I stabbed her.”

  “Can you describe the location where this h
appened?” Smith asked.

  “Just a dirt road in a field.” Faryion shrugged.

  “Was there some kind of a structure out there in the field?” Smith asked.

  “Maybe trees. Trees, that is the only thing I can think of, would be trees,” Wardrip said.

  “What did you do with the clothing?” Smith asked, trying to get their suspect to remember the burned-out bus where Gibbs’s clothing was found.

  “They should still be right there. I don’t remember doing anything with the clothing,” Wardrip said.

  “Do you remember the weather that day?” Smith asked.

  “It was cold,” Wardrip said.

  “Do you recall if there was some kind of an old bus body or trolley car body or something there?” Smith finally asked directly.

  “No, I just . . . some of it,” Wardrip said, apparently confused. “It took me a long time to remember a lot of different stuff because when I was in those rages, I just blacked out. I just don’t remember. I don’t remember that.”

  “Do you recall what you did with the knife in that case?” Smith asked.

  “Probably it stayed right there. I don’t remember doing anything with the knife, anything specific. It probably stayed right there,” Wardrip said.

  “How was Toni dressed?” Smith asked.

  “Uh—” Wardrip hesitated, his eyes shifting to the left as he thought. “She was in her nurse’s uniform.”

  “What color was this leather jacket? Do you remember?” Smith asked, pointing to a photo.

  Wardrip took a deep breath and closed his eyes momentarily. “Brown maybe. Black. Black. I tried my best to envision it.”

  “How did you strip her clothes off?” Smith asked.

  “I guess in the car, just pulling on her. Yeah, just wantin’ to sling her around,” Wardrip said.

  “Do you remember where you were at, at that point?”

  “We started at the car. I think she got away from me and got out the door, I’m not sure. Started to run, that’s how we got in the field. I’m not sure,” Wardrip said, shaking his head in puzzlement.

  “What kind of car was Toni driving?” Smith asked.

  “A white car. I think it was a Camaro.”

  “What happened to the car?”

  “I drove it down the freeway and just parked it. Got out and started walking,” Wardrip said.

  “Where did you park it?”

  “Oh, I can’t remember the name of the street. I just remember coming off the freeway and just pulling up and stopping somewhere off the side of the freeway,” Wardrip said.

  “Was it close to where you were living?”

  “Oh, it could have been,” Wardrip said. “I think it was close to that McDonald’s there at the end of the freeway. I think it was somewhere around there, around McDonald’s,” Wardrip said with more clarity.

  Paul Smith leaned closer to Wardrip, staring closely into his deep-set brown eyes.

  “Did you have sex with Toni Gibbs?” Smith asked.

  “I don’t really remember. I remember screaming at her, screaming at her that ‘I hate you.’ I don’t remember if I had sex. I just remember screaming how much ‘I hate you!’ How much I hated everybody,” Wardrip said.

  “You said that Toni knew you. How did you meet Toni?” Smith asked.

  “From the hospital. I met her there. She never had anything to do with me. I just knew her from there. It could have been anybody, she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have been anybody. I never set my sights on anybody. I would just get so mad and I would just get out and walk, be in such a rage. I would just scream at the sky, scream at the trees, scream at God. Then I would just lay down for a while and sleep and then I’d see it on the news and I realized that something must have happened real bad. I tricked myself. I tricked myself into thinking it wasn’t me. And I’d hear all these things. At first that she was shot and I knew it couldn’t have been me. I never shot. I had no gun. I hear she got abducted from her apartment and I thought that couldn’t be me. I haven’t been way out there at her apartment. So I just tricked myself into thinking it wasn’t me. The same with Terry. They say all kinds of reports that she was some kind of karate person and it must have been a gang or something. And all these reports kept coming in, and they just convinced me more and more that it wasn’t me. I just blocked it out of my mind, wouldn’t even want to think about it for a long, long, long time,” Wardrip said, his chin dropping toward his chest.

  “I’d like to talk to you about another case that I’m investigating at this point,” John Little said as he resumed his questioning. “About the disappearance and murder of Ellen Blau in September, I believe, September 20, 1985. Do you know anything about that?”

  “Yeah,” Wardrip said, his head still tilted downward.

  Little paused his questioning of Wardrip long enough to go into the hall outside the jail library /study room where loud noises were disturbing the interview.

  “Okay, Faryion, if you would, would you tell me about the murder of Ellen Blau?” Little said on his return.

  “Same thing,” Wardrip said matter-of-factly. “I’d just be out walking, just walking.”

  “Where were you walking?” Little asked.

  “Down the highway, coming up to the stoplight there by the base where the McDonald’s is. There’s a stoplight there. Just walking up to the stop sign. She pulled up and turned into the store, so I turned into the store, too. And she pulled up to the side of the building and I walked up to the side of the building and asked her what she was doing. She said she was looking for somebody, and I just grabbed her and pushed her back into her car. We drove out to a road and got about maybe a mile or so out the road, and I just started grabbing her and screaming at her, ‘I hate you.’ We went off the road and turned on a dirt road and went down a little further. I drug her out of the car, took her in a field and stripped her clothes off, but I don’t remember how she died though. I didn’t rape, I don’t believe I raped her. I don’t recall. I don’t really remember how she died. She probably broke her neck because I sure was slinging her. I was just so mad and angry. I was screaming at her,” Wardrip said.

  “Did you try to have sex with her?” Little asked.

  “No, I don’t . . . no, I was too mad. I was so angry at her. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. If she had never even came up to that stoplight I would have just kept right on walking,” Wardrip said, almost implying that it had been Blau’s fault, not his, that she died.

  “You forced her back into the car,” Little stated.

  “Yeah, I pushed her into the car. Wasn’t nobody around. I just grabbed her and slung her up on the side of the car and pushed her into the car and told her to take a ride. So we went for a ride. I got so mad at her, I just started grabbing her and shaking her. She went off the road and we just turned and went on some dirt road. We only went about a mile or so,” Wardrip said, expelling a deep sigh.

  “Can you describe the field or pasture that you took her in?” Little asked.

  “No, it was just a field,” Wardrip said, shrugging. “I never really paid attention. It could have been anywhere. I just stopped and drug her out of her car and started slinging her. It was so weird. I was so mad, but I never hit them. I just slung them, just grabbed them and slung them. I never struck her. Just like my ex-wife, I never hit her, but I was so mad at her. I know a couple of times I’d see her face and I’d just get even more mad, go shoot up some drugs.”

  Wardrip’s face was twisted by the painful memories, the bad choices, the addictions.

  “Whose face were you seeing?” Little asked.

  “My ex-wife’s. I hated her so much,” Wardrip said with a touch of the bitterness he had felt fourteen years earlier. “It was just like with Tina [Kimbrew]. I was screaming at her and I had my arm across her throat. I was screaming at her, bloody murder. I didn’t see Tina’s face, I saw Johnna’s. I was so consumed with hatred. I never hit them though, that�
�s what really threw me. I wonder why I didn’t, but I never struck. I just grabbed and slung and yelled at her.”

  Little gave Smith a lingering glance. According to the autopsy reports on the four women, they had been struck, beaten. Either Wardrip couldn’t remember the full details of his crimes or he was attempting to portray himself as a less-than-brutal killer. Little’s attention returned to Wardrip.

  “What kind of car was Ellen Blau in?” Little asked.

  “Small one. I remember it was a small car,” Wardrip said.

  “Did you ever take anything from these women?” Smith wanted to know.

  “No.”

  “No money, jewelry, anything like that?” Smith pursued.

  “No, I never took any jewelry or anything,” Wardrip said, shaking his head vigorously.

  “What did you do after you killed Ellen Blau?” Little returned to his questioning.

  “I started to walk down this dirt road and it was all dark and I didn’t know which way to go. So I started walking and then I couldn’t figure out where I was at, so I turned around and I went back and got in the car and drove it back to town. I just parked the car when I knew where I was and started walking,” Wardrip explained.

  “Do you remember where you parked the car?” Little asked.

  “No. I got into town and saw where I was and then parked the car. I don’t remember where I parked it at. I just parked it,” Wardrip said with some frustration.

  “When you abducted Ellen Blau, who drove? When you forced her back into the car?” Little asked.

  “She drove,” Wardrip said.

  “Did you threaten her?” Little asked.

  “No, she didn’t know what . . . she didn’t know nothing.”

  “Did you know Ellen Blau?” Little asked.

  “No, no, Toni was the only one I knew, and she offered me a ride,” Wardrip explained.

  “Were you working anywhere when Ellen Blau disappeared, in that time frame?” Little asked.

  “I wasn’t holding no job down, I was mostly doing drugs, going from drug dealer to drug dealer, wherever I could get some drugs. Then I’d stop doing drugs, but the hatred had consumed me so much that it just covered everything up and made it like it never did happen in my life. That couldn’t have been me, that’s what I told myself. I’d see it on TV and stuff, I mean, I felt sorry. But I had just convinced myself that that couldn’t possibly be me, so I would just do drugs to cover it back up. So long as I had drugs, I was all right, and I would just go some place else where there were drugs,” Wardrip said rapidly. He wanted Little and Smith to understand it was the drugs. The drugs had driven him down the road to ruination.