Rueon talked further about an upstairs neighbor of Cherry’s, “who kind of kept an eye on her and might have talked to her.”
“How did Cherry get around town?” Riggle wondered.
“Usually, Paula and Gethry took her everywhere she needed to go. She walked, too.” Rueon then seemed to remember something she needed to share.
“That . . . boy, his name, I remember now . . . Joe Mayo. It wasn’t Ron or Rob. It was Joe!”
Riggle wrote it down.
“Did Cherry have any favorite places she liked to go?”
“Church’s Chicken, Papa John’s and Whataburger,” Rueon said. The thought brought a slight smile to her face. It was her enjoyment of the simpler things in life that helped to make Cherry the special person she was to those who knew her.
Riggle thanked the Walkers and told them the SCSO would do their best to find Cherry. If the body found on the CR 2191 was not Cherry, they would certainly begin searching for her.
Leaving, however, Riggle knew the outcome was not going to be a happy reunion for the Walker family.
Of course, they would wait for the autopsy results and dental records to make it official, but all signs pointed to the CR 2191 DB being thirty-eight-year-old Cherry Walker.
The good news about meeting with the Walkers was that Detective Riggle had two names, Paula Wheeler and Joe Mayo, which meant he had people he could talk to about Cherry.
7
MARCIE FULTON LIVED IN THE Citadel Apartments in a unit above Cherry Walker’s. She knew Cherry well beyond a “hello” in the hallway or bumping into her on the front stoop. Once in a while the two even hung out. Marcie would take Cherry to the store to buy groceries, rent or buy DVDs. “She liked scary movies,” Marcie said of her neighbor. Later, in court, Marcie described Cherry as someone who “liked to eat.” Cherry was a fan of Burger King and other fast-food restaurants.
Marcie also seemed to suggest that Cherry had a bit of an OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) issue with regard to keeping everything in her apartment “neat and clean.” It was to the point that if something—anything—wasn’t clean, it bothered Cherry. For example, she’d step in Marcie’s truck to head off on a shopping or food trip and complain to Marcie that she wasn’t keeping her truck clean enough. Even when she visited with Marcie, Cherry held nothing back in letting her neighbor know when she thought Marcie’s apartment needed a good cleaning.
That’s what friends were for, right? To look out for each other.
Marcie had watched a little boy for a woman she knew. He was four years old. The mother would drop him off “two or three times per week.” Sometimes she would leave him and not return for two, three or even more days. But the boy had gotten to be too much to handle for Marcie, not to mention how rude and inconsiderate his mother was, and so Marcie decided to ask Cherry if she wanted to watch the child.
“You interested?” Marcie asked one day. It was a babysitting gig. She explained to Cherry that the woman would pay her.
“Yes,” Cherry replied.
Ever since, Cherry had watched the boy when the mother asked. The mother knew Cherry was a special-needs person, but she didn’t seem to mind. She’d dump the boy off, at times leaving him with Cherry for days, usually without ever checking in.
* * *
Before speaking with Marcie, Detective Riggle and another investigator walked through Cherry’s apartment without touching or moving anything, to see if they could come up with any answers. By now they had matched a photo of Cherry up against the DB and were 99.9 percent certain Cherry Walker was their victim. The SCSO had initiated an autopsy, but the results for manner and cause of death, as well as toxicology, were not yet available. The coroner had even identified the DB as Cherry Walker, 39, Black Female. Yet, “positive ID” was “still pending.” Before telling the Walkers their daughter was dead, they had to be scientifically certain. However, the SCSO was investigating the case as a homicide.
Inside Cherry’s apartment, Riggle later noted, they found it “intact and in place.” An officer had already gone in and photographed the entire apartment, in order to preserve the integrity of the scene. There didn’t seem to be any sign that an altercation had taken place. This was an early thought: Someone might have murdered Cherry inside her apartment, then dumped and burned her body on the CR 2191. That didn’t seem to be the case, at least not from any early, outward appearances. Forensics would have to come in and make that determination, spraying luminol (to check for the presence of blood) and sprinkling fingerprint powder. But it didn’t seem to be a second crime scene.
On one of her counters Riggle noticed a photo of Cherry with a white male. They looked happy, like a couple.
Joe Mayo?
The detective took the photo.
Riggle saw that Cherry’s answering machine was blinking; there were “several messages,” he later reported, still waiting to be heard. One was from Cherry’s caseworker, Paula Wheeler. She was looking for Cherry and “checking up on her.” Another message was from a woman who called herself “Kim” (she left no last name), who said she was “on break” and needed Cherry to call her back. The date and time of the messages, unfortunately, had been turned off. They had no idea when these messages would fit into the timeline between the moment Gethry said he dropped Cherry off at home and when Bobby Lewis found her. They could ask Paula Wheeler when she remembered leaving her message. The “Kim” woman would need to be tracked down as well.
* * *
Marcie was home when the SCSO knocked on her door. The SCSO had to be careful, because anybody at this early stage of the investigation could be a suspect.
“Sure,” Marcie said. “Excuse the place. Come in.” Marcie confirmed that she and Cherry were friends and spoke all the time, saw each other almost daily.
Riggle asked Marcie when she had last seen Cherry.
“Oh, geez,” Marcie answered, “it’s been a couple of days.” She explained that she had not seen or heard from Cherry, and that nobody she knew of had been over to Cherry’s apartment over the past few days, save for Mr. and Mrs. Walker.
Riggle showed Marcie the photograph he’d taken from Cherry’s place. He asked her if she recognized the man in the photo.
“Yeah, that’s Joe Mayo,” Marcie confirmed. He was Cherry’s so-called “boyfriend.”
* * *
Riggle got with his investigators and it was decided they needed to locate Mr. Mayo. Had Joe and Cherry gotten into a fight? Had he seen Cherry this past weekend or on Friday night? Had he been over to her apartment recently? Could he account for his whereabouts on Friday?
Joe Mayo had a bit of explaining to do, if only because he was the one viable suspect thus far with even a smidgen of a motive. In addition, the stats were not on Joe Mayo’s side. One of every three female murder victims in the United States is murdered by her spouse, boyfriend, ex-boyfriend or ex-spouse. What is even more shocking is that three women a day are murdered by the same group.
It didn’t take long to track down Joe’s house by running his name through the system. His vehicle license plate number popped up.
Joe was tall and lanky. He was about six inches taller than Cherry. In the photo Riggle had shown Marcie, Joe wore a ball cap (backward), a football jersey (several sizes too big) and a gold chain around his neck, with a medallion hanging from it. He hugged Cherry, who was, in the same photo, smiling, wearing a white sweater. Cherry was pretty; she had long, dark hair, past her shoulders, and round cheeks that accentuated her girl-next-door charm. Joe made a duck face in the photo and the two seemed like they were hamming it up for the photographer.
Joe Mayo fancied himself an entertainer, a singer, and had been, he later testified, “since I was three years old.” He’d auditioned for American Idol and The X Factor. Near the time when he dated Cherry, he’d performed at places like Carreta’s and the Highway 155, small restaurant/clubs in and around Tyler that offered open mic and karaoke. Generally, he’d go in on those nights, though Joe
thought putting it that way was an insult to his talent. He hated when someone mentioned that he “sang karaoke” or did “open mic.” Besides singing, Joe did impressions of celebrities.
The SCSO didn’t know it then, but Joe and Cherry had known each other since 1997, when they met at a local Goodwill center, where they both had worked. It was part of what Joe later referred to as an “O.I.T. program” (Opportunities in Tyler) for people with disabilities. Joe said he loved Cherry.
“She was a very special person to me, very special,” he stressed.
He’d take her to the movies, out to eat, regular date nights. One of Cherry’s favorite cuisines, he said, a “weakness” Joe Mayo also admitted, was Mexican. With those types of restaurants being in abundance in Texas, he liked to treat Cherry to it whenever he could afford to do so.
Joe had even sung at Cherry’s church and attended services there regularly for a while, he later claimed. He adored singing for Cherry and the rest of the congregation, saying, “Oh, it was amazing.” He’d play the guitar up on the altar with other musicians backing him up. He’d sing an “original song . . . and people got saved,” Joe testified. “I mean, that’s the power of the Lord. He’s amazing!”
If there was one source of entertainment Joe and Cherry liked more than any other (especially Cherry), it was movies. Paranormal Activity had scared Joe so much, he said, “I actually thought it was real . . . especially when the Ouija board caught on fire.... I had never seen anything like that before.”
According to Joe, Cherry’s favorite movie was Saw. The clown in the film had scared Joe “half to death,” he said, so he told Cherry he was not watching the sequels with her. But Cherry seemed unaffected by these types of movies, regardless of how scary or gory they were—and in that regard, it seemed, more was always better as Cherry saw it.
* * *
SCSO detective James Riggle put a cop on Joe’s house. He first needed to secure a search warrant for where Joe lived, before they went in. Joe might come across as charming and kind and scared of horror movies, but that did not mean he and Cherry got along. In fact, one report claimed Cherry was upset with Joe for some reason and that they had not seen each other for well over a month.
Riggle and his colleagues knew that sometimes a case just came together: A lead developed; you secured a warrant; you shined a light in the person of interest’s face; he gave it up. As a cop you go to bed that night knowing one less scumbag is off the street, one more murder victim’s family now has at least part of the answer.
The next twenty-four hours would tell that side of the tale for the SCSO—and if Joe Mayo had anything to do with Cherry Walker’s disappearance.
8
DETECTIVE JAMES RIGGLE CALLED PAULA Wheeler on Sunday evening. As Rueon Walker had explained, Wheeler was Cherry’s eyes, ears, wheels, teacher, friend, mentor and caseworker, the one person Cherry depended on daily. The one aspect of living on her own that Wheeler recently had been working with Cherry on was her spending. Cherry did not, as Rueon had told the SCSO, have a good concept of counting money, or what things cost in relation to her budget. She would go to the store and buy “eight, ten, twelve” bottles of Pine-Sol, for example—with a closet full of the stuff already.
“She didn’t understand that she didn’t have to have eight [bottles] of Pine-Sol,” said a source. “Every time she went to the store, she wanted Pine-Sol.”
One time, Wheeler brought Cherry to Walmart. Her bill rang up to nearly $300—all cleaning supplies. Standing inside Wheeler’s house one afternoon, the first time the caseworker had invited Cherry over, Cherry took a look at the walls and said, “Girl, you need to clean this house.” It was Cherry’s way: She said what she felt. There was no barrier between what she thought and said.
“I want to stop at Whataburger,” Cherry told Wheeler not long before she went missing.
“Why?” Wheeler asked. It seemed random and a last-minute decision. They were almost at Cherry’s apartment.
“It’s my favorite thing,” Cherry answered.
“You’re going to have to save your money,” Wheeler explained.
Cherry lived on a fixed government income and welfare benefits. It was something Wheeler was working on getting Cherry to understand.
“She didn’t have much,” said a source, “but I’ll tell you what . . . she loved to get her hair done.”
Something else Cherry was fond of had been a cute monkey toy that crashed cymbals in front of itself and played music.
Cherry never had enough money to buy the monkey, so Paula Wheeler would take her to the store and Cherry would play with the toy there.
Cherry had often purchased food and clothes for other people, Wheeler recalled. Cherry cared deeply and passionately about human beings. She especially cared about Timmy (pseudonym), the boy Marcie Fulton had watched until he became too much for her to handle. Cherry would babysit the four-year-old several times during the week and sometimes on weekends. It seemed odd that a woman with Cherry’s disabilities, who herself needed a caretaker, would be hired to babysit a young child. However, the woman she worked for, Kim, apparently believed Cherry was capable.
One day when Kim was slated to pick Timmy up, Wheeler happened to be there with Cherry. The boy was, in fact, sitting in Wheeler’s car. Kim was late. They waited and waited. Finally she showed up, giving both a story and an apology.
After that, Wheeler regularly asked Cherry about Timmy. There were times, Cherry told her caseworker, when the boy would have to stay overnight at her apartment because the mother failed to show up at all (or call). Kim was hardly ever on time for the scheduled pickups. She never sent the boy over with food, and Cherry was concerned about his clothing being worn and dirty. She fed the boy and bought him things. Cherry believed Timmy was not being taken care of properly by his mother—a reason why Cherry wanted to watch the boy as often as she could.
“She would feed him,” Wheeler said. “She would give him baths.... They played puzzles together. They played with little toys. She would sit on the floor [with Timmy] and they would play.”
Like two little kids.
Wheeler noticed that whenever Cherry “got really nervous,” she would shake. The anxiety she experienced turned visible and obvious, manifesting into her becoming, as the old-school term went, a “nervous wreck.” It happened around people who raised their voice or scolded Cherry in any way. Her head and body would shake. She would sit and stare straight ahead until the anxiety passed.
Cherry loved to iron clothes. At the Laundromat she’d take all of her clean laundry out of the dryer and stuff it into a bag.
“You know, if you hang your clothes up, you won’t have to iron them,” Wheeler would tell her.
“Don’t worry about it,” Cherry would say. “I’m going to iron them, anyway.”
Cherry would clean her bathroom before a visitor to her apartment said they needed to use it—and then right after they were done.
* * *
As Paula Wheeler and Detective Riggle spoke about Cherry, the detective learned how compassionate and thoughtful Cherry Walker was, despite some social issues Wheeler was working on with her. Then an interesting piece of information emerged. Wheeler said something about a subpoena.
“What subpoena?” Riggle asked.
Wheeler explained that it happened on that Friday morning. Just a few days ago—the last day anyone had seen Cherry. She and Cherry were out shopping. A man showed up in the parking lot after they walked out from a store. He approached them.
“Are you Cherry Walker, ma’am?” the officer asked Wheeler.
“No, I’m her caregiver,” she said.
After sorting out who was who, the man handed Cherry the subpoena. Cherry had no idea what it was.
Wheeler took it and read it. Then she explained to Cherry what a subpoena was, before reading aloud. “Cherry, it says, ‘This subpoena is issued at the instance of the Department of Family and Protective Services. . . . ’” Cherry was being served wi
th a subpoena to testify in a family court matter on the following Wednesday.
Apparently, Cherry wasn’t the only one who thought Timmy was being mistreated by his mother. The father of the boy must have figured out that Cherry had been watching him, among a host of other factors that played into his taking Timmy’s mother to court. The Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) was investigating Timmy’s mom, Kim, and was asking Cherry to make herself available to testify in a family court about the question of Kim being competent enough to take care of the boy and if, in fact, Kim had abused the boy in any way.
Cherry still didn’t understand what was being asked of her. Something about it made her feel icky. She didn’t want to face it.
“If you don’t testify,” Wheeler explained to Cherry, “you’re going to get a fine or get locked up.”
“I have to call Kim,” Cherry said.
* * *
Kim Cargill was a forty-three-year-old, three-time divorcée, mother of four kids (all boys, and all from different fathers). Born in Mississippi, Kim had moved to Texas after college. In her CV, Kim described herself as “self-motivated, reliable and organized.” She lived in Whitehouse, on Waterton Circle, not far from Cherry’s apartment. A licensed vocational nurse (LVN), Kim said she was “dedicated to the nursing profession.” She had worked at several Texas hospitals, for the city of Dallas and at a few nursing homes, along with several other patient care facilities.
During that time when Cherry was watching Timmy for her, Kim had somehow held on to a youthful beauty: long and flowing dark-blond hair, deep blue eyes, clear skin and thin red lips. Kim spoke with intelligence when she needed and kept her family business to herself. She did not involve Cherry in most of what was going on, either by design or for privacy.
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