Don't Tell a Soul

by M. William Phelps

  Dan Garrigan and another cop were told to remain down the road from Kim’s house and keep an eye on her movements. If she so much as walked out of the house to put a bag of garbage into the bin, the team located back at the station house needed to know. The SCSO did not want Kim out of their sights. It would take a day or maybe longer to obtain the warrant. They wanted to know exactly where Kim was at all times until they could walk into her house with the proper paperwork.

  The SCSO took a call from Kim’s lawyer not long after arriving back at base camp.

  “You’re not allowed to speak with Kim Cargill,” the lawyer warned.

  Roadblock number two.

  There would be no discussion about the matter. Stay away from her, the lawyer articulated.

  Besides Garrigan and another detective, Riggle placed a patrol deputy sheriff, Teresa Smith, in a squad car and full uniform presence in the area just beyond Kim’s neighborhood. This was to provide the means by which to pull Kim over, if and when she left the house, and—ahem—made a traffic violation, however small an infraction it might be.

  Garrigan and his crew sat watch down the street at first, around the corner. They were in an area where Kim would have to pass if she left her house and drove somewhere. From his post inside the vehicle Garrigan could see Kim’s house. All Kim had to do was stay put inside. Wait it out. Sooner or later the SCSO would either barge in with a warrant or back off.

  Riggle and Rathbun were at the SCSO, along with Assistant District Attorney (ADA) April Sikes and District Attorney (DA) Matt Bingham. They were working on that warrant in the DAO to make sure everything was in order. A lot of what the SCSO had was circumstantial, but as they put it all down on paper, there seemed to be mounting evidence that Kim Cargill was the only person who could have seen Cherry last and been able to pull off the murder—at least out of those whom the SCSO had on radar currently. Anyone else that could have been involved (that they knew of) had been eliminated.

  Somewhere near 8:00 P.M., Dan Garrigan moved from where he was parked down the block to almost directly across the street from Kim’s house. Not long after that, Kim came out of the house, got into her vehicle and pulled out of her driveway.

  Garrigan radioed in that Kim was on the move.

  After she backed out of her driveway, Kim stopped, put her car in drive and then pulled up to Garrigan as he sat in his vehicle.

  “Is there anything you need?” Kim asked the detective. It was a sarcastic gesture on Kim’s part. This was part of her signature style.

  “Ma’am?” Garrigan replied, not quite sure what she meant. She must have known who he was—a plainclothes detective in a nondescript car.

  “Should I call my lawyer?” Kim said after Garrigan explained that he was a police officer assigned to watch her home.

  “I cannot give you that advice, ma’am. It is up to you if you want to do that.”

  Kim took off.

  Patrol officer Teresa Smith was parked down the road.

  “Subject has left residence,” Garrigan radioed, watching Kim drive toward where Smith was stationed. Garrigan explained what vehicle she was driving, giving Smith the license plate number.

  Kim drove around the bend along Waterton Circle, toward Lakeway Drive, which emptied out onto the 346, or East Main Street. Soon she was out of her neighborhood, motoring along in her 1999 white Mitsubishi Montero, a smaller-size sport-utility vehicle (SUV). Kim lived about six miles from the spot at which Cherry’s body had been dumped, a quick ride. Cherry had lived eight miles from the same location.

  Deputy Smith took the call and waited for Kim to drive by—so she could pull Kim over and see what she was up to. All Smith needed was a good reason and they could at least stall Kim until the warrant—close to being completed—was signed by a judge.

  Kim came up to a stop sign near where Smith was parked. “She failed to come to a complete stop . . . [and] rolled through it,” Smith said later.

  Smith hit her lights, which would normally turn the dashboard video camera on, but for some reason the camera wasn’t working on this night. As Kim drove past Smith, the deputy pulled out and got behind her. Kim pulled over without incident. She rolled her eyes as she pulled to the side of the road.

  After getting out and approaching Kim’s driver’s-side window, Deputy Smith went through the familiar rundown of who she was and what she needed from Kim, telling her to hand over her license and registration, explaining the reason why she had been stopped. Oddly enough, Kim was wearing a long T-shirt and panties, no bra, as though she had been ready for bed but decided to go out, instead.

  Was she trying to mess with the SCSO? Taunt the cops?

  Kim provided the materials and Smith went back to her patrol car and sat down. Smith needed to give the detectives time to show up at the scene.

  Ten minutes later, as detectives arrived, Smith walked over and gave Kim a warning summons for rolling through the sign and not coming to a complete stop. Then Smith told her that the SCSO was taking control of the situation now.

  “Please step out of your vehicle, ma’am,” Smith told Kim.

  Kim grabbed her phone and pocketbook; she did as she was told.

  Smith had Kim sit in the backseat of the patrol car. Smith spoke to the detectives, who had arrived and were standing in front of Kim’s vehicle.

  As they talked, one of the detectives looked over and saw that Kim had pulled out her cell phone and had it up to her ear.

  The detective told Smith, “Grab that phone from her.”

  Smith hurried over. “I need your phone,” she said, and then the deputy grabbed it out of Kim’s hands.

  As the cell phone was being snatched from her grasp, Kim said, “I’m talking to my lawyer!”

  None of that mattered now. Patrol officer Teresa Smith told Kim she was bringing her home and the SCSO was impounding her vehicle.

  Settle in, because it was going to be a long night.

  17

  BACK AT THE SCSO, RIGGLE and Rathbun were busy typing up the search warrant for Kim’s house. Interestingly enough, some of the information in the warrant added even more validity to the argument that Kim Cargill had a lot more to worry about with regard to Cherry Walker, her testimony against Kim and her care of Timmy.

  According to the warrant, before turning to Cherry, Kim had used another babysitter, whom Cherry knew and was prepared to also testify about. This babysitter had taken care of Timmy, even though the woman, the warrant stated, rarely takes a bath, her house stinks, and there are bees, flies and cockroaches everywhere inside her house—[and] this would be one of the subjects which [Cherry] Walker would be testifying [about].

  In addition, the SCSO had learned that Cherry Walker had been named in a lawsuit “to terminate [Kim’s] rights to her son.” It wasn’t just about losing custody of Timmy for Kim Cargill. Cherry held the keys to a much larger door into Kim’s future. If Kim lost in court, she would have to give up all rights to Timmy, possibly never seeing him again. In all likelihood charges would also be brought against Kim for child neglect and other crimes if the judgment didn’t go her way—and the one witness that could bury Kim in that courtroom was Cherry Walker.

  The SCSO had a witness claiming to have seen: On Thursday or Friday, June 17 or 18, 2010, two vehicles exit the area on CR 2191 (near the crime scene) that she (the witness) described as a dark-colored truck and a white vehicle.

  Kim Cargill owned a white Montero—the same SUV in which she had been pulled over by Deputy Teresa Smith.

  The SCSO’s crime scene unit (CSU) had tire imprints from the dump site that they wanted to match up against Kim’s vehicle. Since the SCSO had a cast of an imprint, forensic investigators could place the cast on the matching tire and, if it matched, it would fit like a mold. The SCSO needed Kim’s vehicle in order to conduct this test. Proving a match would place Kim’s vehicle at what investigators believed was the secondary crime scene—that wooded area off CR 2191.

  [We] believe a vehicle was used to tr
ansport Walker to the location where her body was located based upon crime scene investigation, the warrant claimed. This meant the SCSO had no doubt Cherry had been murdered elsewhere, giving them another crime scene to uncover and investigate. They just needed to find it. A warrant would be a step in that direction.

  Within the CR 2191 crime scene, which became a vital piece of evidence for Riggle, Rathbun and the SCSO team: [There were no] drag marks in the soil, nor foot impressions in areas where such would be expected if an individual had walked with Walker to that location.

  It was clear, at least within the evidence the SCSO had collected thus far, that nobody had lured Cherry Walker down into that field. She had been driven there, dumped and set on fire.

  The warrant went on to speculate what could have happened and how Kim might have been involved, claiming all indications pointed to Kim calling Cherry and telling her she wanted to take her out to dinner on Friday night. Moreover, the SCSO, with help from Rueon and Gethry Walker and other family members, had done a thorough search for two personal possessions of Cherry’s that were near and dear to her heart, which she would have never been without: her coin purse and Samsung cell phone. Neither had been located. The SCSO believed that Cherry’s killer—Kim Cargill—might have those items in her possession.

  Cargill had the opportunity to secrete these items in her home, the warrant noted.

  The document next explained why the medical examiner believed Cherry had been murdered by “homicidal violence” and could have died no other way.

  The warrant concluded, [The SCSO] believes that on June 18, 2010, in Smith County, Texas, Kim Cargill did intentionally take the life of Cherry Walker while in the course of committing or attempting to commit robbery of Cherry Walker. The robbery was believed to be the taking of Cherry’s cell phone and purse. The motive the SCSO included in the warrant: Retaliation . . . on account of [Cherry Walker’s] service as a witness or perspective [Sic: ‘prospective’ would be accurate] witness against Kim Cargill.

  The judge sat down, read the document and signed it.

  18

  AS A GENERAL RULE, WHEN cops enter a home under a search warrant and look for evidence that might help in a homicide investigation, evaluating the premises is first and foremost. As a member of the search team, you’re told to look for hiding places: underneath floorboards, carpeting that appears to have been torn up and put back down or recently replaced, inside couches and cushions and pillows, in the back of old-school television sets, false walls, fake drawer bottoms and so on. Cops look for crawl spaces and evidence that interior walls have been compromised in some way—replastered or replaced. Inside fluorescent-light fixtures is another familiar spot where searchers look, additionally behind a pullout medicine cabinet or inside pipes and even J-channel sink drains. There are all sorts of places inside a home where a killer can hide evidence of a murder. It is without a doubt a psychological chess match criminals like to play.

  Catch me if you can.

  As most cops would agree, however, the pieces of evidence that ultimately take down the perpetrator are often the ones he or she has no clue have been left behind. Criminals—murderers, especially—like to think that they’re smarter than cops, but that is hardly ever the case.

  The question that arose as the SCSO team assembled and prepared to enter Kim Cargill’s house wouldn’t be what they would find. Once this team of officers and detectives and CSIs entered Kim’s house and began poking around, it would become how much incriminating evidence they would find.

  From the outside Kim’s house came across as a “normal residential” dwelling, one investigator later explained, placed inside a suburban bubble of middle-class bliss. “Light tan in color, trimmed in white with a dark composition roof.” Three bedrooms, two baths (one full, one half), a laundry room, sunroom, kitchen, living room: Your typical and quite affordable home for a family of four or five in this part of Texas.

  Ten cops showed up to serve the warrant, a major showing. The SCSO was not taking its investigation lightly. The extra eyes and hands were there to make sure they turned over every stone.

  Detective Noel Martin, as the SCSO’s CSU senior criminalist supervisor and sergeant, with some twenty-five years behind the badge, was in charge of supervising the team, directing officers to accomplish certain tasks, making sure the integrity of the scene and chain of evidence remained unbroken. If anyone had a question about an item, Martin was the man to ask. Martin had a long history of crime scene and search warrant experience and held a master’s-level license as a Texas peace officer. He had done just about every job in law enforcement at one time or another. Martin cut a smooth, retro, 1970s-cop-show, law enforcement look: tortoiseshell glasses, dark-colored, thick mustache, bushy black hair, receding just a bit along the forehead line. He’d won awards and certifications for his excellent work throughout the years and had been one of the SCSO’s foremost trainers when it came to crime scene and other law enforcement specialty work. Martin had an eye for seeing things others might glance over. He seemed to be able to hone in on a scene and, if evidence existed, find it. A crime scene whisperer, perhaps—a man respected by his colleagues, dedicated to his job and the task at hand.

  “We will notify your attorney when we’re finished,” one of the detectives explained to Kim Cargill, who did not seem at all pleased that nearly a dozen detectives and law enforcement personnel were there to tear her house apart and look through all of her possessions.

  Noel Martin addressed his team outside in the driveway before going in, assigning tasks to each individual.

  “Discover,” Martin explained, “bring to my attention, do not move or pick up or, otherwise, mess with any evidence.”

  Everyone understood.

  Kim asked if someone would drive her to a friend’s house.

  A patrol officer was summoned. She was driven away.

  A second vehicle, a two-door white sedan Kim had also been driving, was confiscated and towed to the SCSO’s impound yard “to be stored and processed.” Noel Martin would oversee that inspection and evidence collection, as well, when he finished inside the residence.

  The clean and affluent exterior image of Kim’s house was not a good representation of what the team found after walking inside. Kim’s house was dirty and unkempt—to say the least. An absolute pigsty would be more accurate. The woman was an unequivocal slob. A good case for incompetent parenting could be made just for allowing children to live in such squalor. Still, it was the smaller concern of the day. These cops were here for a much bigger purpose.

  Toys were everywhere; notebooks and files and other common household papers (billing statements and letters and receipts and unused coupons) spread throughout the living room and kitchen, on the floor, on furniture and all over the place. Above the fireplace in the living area, on the mantel, were a cross, a vase, a smaller crucifix, two porcelain or ceramic figurines (a boy and his dog), as well as other household odds and ends piled up next to a kid’s used plastic cup. This area, on a small scale, was a reflection of the entire house: stuff on top of more stuff, piled atop other stuff, which was then tossed on the floor and anywhere else it could land, all surrounded by garbage and bags of rubbish that seemed to be the start of a cleanup that never materialized.

  Kim never picked up after herself or her kids—that was clear. Used bags of food, plastic lids, old tins, paper cups, wrappers, empty boxes of food, particles and crumbs of fast food, among many, many other items, were strewn about the house, much of it tossed with no rhyme or reason. It was as if the kids or Kim had eaten whatever was in the package and then had thrown it out or left it where they were at the time.

  The sinks in the bathrooms were littered with hair care products, food wrappers and containers, used plates, dishes and cups. Dirty clothes were everywhere. In one of the recreation rooms, where Kim had made use of outdoor furniture, blankets and sheets were strung over the windows for curtains. One of the kids’ bedrooms had been painted; the job was lef
t incomplete, paintbrush strokes and missing patches of paint all over the walls. In the half bath off the living room, on the floor around the toilet, one shoe sat on top of what appeared to be used toilet paper; there was what looked to be a squished, small container of cocktail sauce, its contents smeared all over the floor, dried and obviously left in the place it fell. Next to that was a large black plastic bag of garbage—mostly old fast-food bags and bins and wrappers and straws and cups. The toilet was not something anyone would want to use. It had rust around the rim of the water, what appeared to be blood droplets and blood spatter all over the seat and on top of the bowl.

  The kids’ homework and school projects (some graded and handed back) were spread through the house—on tables, on the floor, on vanities, inside the bathtub in Kim’s bedroom, on the couch, atop kitchen counters.

  In a chest in the kids’ playroom, which was filled with papers and old, used bags, an investigator uncovered a DVD: A Streetgirl Named Desire, a soft-porn video by Fat Dog Productions. On its cover a hot brunette held one of her naked breasts as a half-dressed Lorenzo Lamas wannabe groped her body. It fell into the same genre of movie that the SCSO had uncovered inside Cherry Walker’s apartment. Cherry had an entire collection of similar videos, along with scores of horror flicks, all from the same production company. A good argument could be made that this DVD belonged to Cherry Walker. Why was it inside the kids’ toy chest, of all places?

  A detective placed it on the rim of the chest and snapped a photo.

  Right away detectives noted the amount of cleaning products Kim had out—spray bottles and bleach containers and paper towels and glass cleaners. It was obvious she wasn’t cleaning the house. Or had she perhaps cleaned up only certain areas?

  The dining room was no cleaner or messier than any other section of the home. On the floor next to the dining table were a powdery white substance (as if a bottle of talcum powder had exploded), a large box, another box on a dining chair left opened, coloring books and toys on the floor next to a black plastic garbage bag full of household items. The dining table itself became interesting for investigators.