by John Coston
Ms. Herman had kept her own superior, Ms. Brock, informed of the progress of events, and the two of them, they told the detectives, then went to the hospital later that afternoon to visit Ellen and Steven. They stayed a couple of hours and then returned to the Andersen offices.
Ms. Herman remembered the day Ellen’s younger son died, when Ellen called up to say, “I’ve lost David.” She said at first she thought Ellen meant that David was missing, but then Ellen made it clear that the boy had died.
She also told the detectives that Ellen had been talking recently about the investigation, and had mentioned that she had taken a polygraph test, even saying that the police thought that she had killed Steven. Among other topics she mentioned the police asking about, Ellen emphasized that she had bought a $50,000 policy from Jim Reed’s father, and, almost in passing, alluded to the purchase of a couple more policies, all of which, Ellen let it be known, totaled about $94,000. As if to justify the unexplained sudden death that ensued, Ellen had said to Ms. Herman: “These things happen all the time. You buy mortgage insurance on your house. Someone dies and it’s paid for.”
Ruth Brock, an administrative manager, remembered well the day of September 25, 1989. She had been at her desk when Ms. Herman came in, shaken by what Ellen had just told her: that Ellen had been getting dressed for work when her son, Steven, stopped breathing. Ms. Brock’s recollection tracked identically with Ms. Herman’s. In particular, both women were curious that Ellen was dressed much too casually to have been preparing to come to work, as she had said on the phone. Then Ms. Brock recalled her astonishment at learning from Ellen’s mother, who was at the hospital, that Ellen had driven to a cemetery that morning so that Steven could visit his little brother’s grave.
Ms. Brock went on to tell Jones and Cordia that she also had been disturbed recently by the fact that Ellen was openly discussing the investigation into the boys’ deaths, even as she maintained a business-as-usual attitude at work.
Renee Chastain, a secretary who worked with Ellen and was several years her junior, told the detectives that she noticed the excessive number of personal phone calls Ellen made. Ms. Chastain also said she observed that when Ellen was making a clearly personal call, she would lower her voice so no one else could hear the conversation. Once, when she filled in for another employee who was on vacation, she overheard Ellen on the phone, and she could tell that Ellen was talking about insurance policies for her children. Ms. Chastain’s view of Ellen was typical. To her, Ellen seemed like a nice person who did her work. There were times, she said, when Ellen did seem a little off, like the time she had commented about Paula Sims killing the children for the insurance.
Detectives Jones and Cordia wanted to verify when it was that Ellen had filled in for Lisa Schultz, which would pinpoint the time of Ellen’s discussion about insurance policies. It was the third week of August 1989, they were told. Bingo!
Ms. Schultz gave pretty much the same portrait of Ellen that everyone else had. They learned that Ellen’s lunch hour was typically between 11:30 and 12:30, and that Ellen usually ate alone. Ms. Schultz said she had met all of Ellen’s children during the last two and a half years during work-related activities, but that Ellen never discussed the death of David and Steven with her. One thing that impressed Ms. Schultz as “weird” was Ellen’s ability to return to the job after such profound tragedy had occurred in her life. Ms. Schultz had attended both funerals, and it appeared to her that Ellen was upset on those occasions, but when Ellen was back at her desk, it was as if nothing had ever happened.
She also told the detectives that in the last few months, Ellen was beginning to get pushy about the collection that had been taken up at the office for Steven. She had asked about it several times, and all Ms. Schultz could say was that her supervisor was holding the money, and that she thought it was going to go into a fund for Stacy’s education.
Oddly enough, on the same day that Detectives Wiber, Waggoner, Jones, and Cordia had convened Ellen’s coworkers in the gleaming skyscraper in downtown St. Louis, the news was dominated by the start of the Paula Sims trial in Peoria, Illinois, some 160 miles to the east. And that night, when the team was debriefed back in the offices of the Homicide section, Joe was electrified by the report from Jones and Cordia that Ellen had discussed the Sims case at work. Was this a copycat killing? Had Ellen actually gotten the idea from Paula Sims?
Keeping Up Appearances
Through the month of January, Deanne Bond just wanted the growing nightmare to go away. Sergeant Burgoon was beginning to tell her things about her friend Ellen that Deanne found disturbing. He was also telling Deanne to be careful, and that worried her. She wasn’t supposed to do anything or say anything that would raise Ellen’s suspicions. But he also wanted Deanne to warm up to Ellen more than she had in the past few months.
Since Steven had died, Deanne hadn’t even met with Ellen. She didn’t want to have anything to do with Ellen.
“You have to do this,” he would say.
“Oh, Joe, I don’t want to get near her.”
“You have to. Otherwise she’ll think something’s up. So you’re better off just going ahead and being yourself and keep talking to her.”
Besides keeping Deanne abreast of the investigation—though he was very careful about what he divulged, and there was a lot she would not learn until much later—he also had some questions for her.
“Did Ellen ever discuss the Paula Sims case?”
When she heard this, Deanne’s heart sank a little lower. The Sims case? The mother who was now on trial for killing her two baby daughters? Deanne thought. Where was this all going to lead?
“No,” the answer came back. “No.” Deanne couldn’t remember Ellen ever mentioning it.
“Okay.”
“Well, that’s an awful thought, Joe. What does this have to do with anything?”
He told her that he couldn’t discuss it, and he changed the subject back to a discussion about the fact that Ellen was calling Deanne, asking her to go out to dinner with her, but Deanne was putting it off.
“I don’t want to,” Deanne kept saying. “I haven’t seen her and I don’t want to.
“After I got over being mad that she never called about Steven’s funeral, it was okay to talk to her on the phone, but I don’t want to go out to dinner. Jeez, Joe.”
He could see how flustered Deanne was becoming as he pressed the issue, but he kept it up, even after Deanne described the time that she had actually seen Ellen in the flesh, but had avoided a meeting.
It was a chance sighting, downtown at Walgreens. Deanne saw Ellen in one of the aisles, and ducked out of sight, heading straight for the checkout.
“I got in line and got out of there,” she told Joe.
“Did Ellen see you?”
“No, I don’t think so. No, because she would have called me on it.”
“You can’t stop doing the things you were doing. Otherwise, you’re gonna make her suspicious, and she’s suspicious of everybody now,” he told Deanne. “Try to go out to dinner with her.”
Certainly Ellen had started to talk about the police investigation. She told Deanne that she had begun to take different routes home after work because she suspected that the police were following her. Deanne also learned that since the investigation had started, Ellen was tidying up certain details, like paying for David’s funeral. Ellen also paid for proper headstones for David and Steven. Now she was even having balloons delivered to decorate her boys’ graves.
Deanne suspected that Ellen was trying to make things look good now that the investigation was getting serious. Then Ellen, during one of their longer phone conversations, showed a whole new side. Ellen was opening up in a way she never had before.
“You may not even want to talk to me when I get through telling you this, but I lied to you.”
Deanne didn’t say anything.
“I lied about Jeff.”
“I know,” Deanne said.
There wa
s a pause. Then Ellen, sounding more at ease, asked, “Well, how did you know about Cleveland?”
“I called the hotel. You weren’t registered.”
Ellen was silent.
“So when you came back and told me that was definitely where you stayed, I knew it wasn’t true.”
“And I’ve lied about other things.”
“Whatever you want to tell me is okay. But you don’t have to.”
Ellen, though, was not about to be a born-again saint, Deanne would discover in the next conversation, when she learned that Ellen had hired an attorney.
Deanne immediately thought Ellen was being smart, hiring someone to represent her now that it was obvious that there was a real investigation. Deanne remembered that the two of them had once had a long discussion about this kind of predicament. Back then it had been a purely hypothetical conversation. How to act. What to say. They were in complete agreement about the first thing you do.
“You get an attorney, right?” Ellen said. “Isn’t that the first thing you do?”
“Ellen, if there’s anything to these movies, that’s the first thing you do is ask for your attorney.”
So now when Ellen told her that she had hired one, Deanne naturally assumed Ellen was preparing for the eventuality of an arrest. Instead, Ellen explained, she had hired someone to help her get the rest of the insurance money, the $44,000 she claimed was owed to her by United of Mutual and Shelter Insurance.
Deanne was speechless.
The attorney’s name was Mike Frank. In early January, Mr. Frank called Sergeant Burgoon to inform him that he had been retained by Ellen Boehm. When Mr. Frank asked for information about the death of Steven Boehm, Sergeant Burgoon didn’t mince words. He told the attorney that the death looked suspicious.
One of Ellen’s problems from the day Dr. Graham had performed the autopsy was that he had yet to rule on a cause of death. All during the fall and through the winter months, Ellen pestered him with calls, wanting to know when he would issue a finding.
By the end of January, Ellen had managed a crowning move that stumped everyone and Joe couldn’t believe the bravado of the woman. On January 30th, he received a call from Carl Carver at Shelter Insurance. Ellen had applied for reinstatement of Stacy’s life insurance policy in the amount of $30,000. He already knew that on January 6th Ellen had applied for a policy on herself for the same amount, listing her mother and daughter as beneficiaries.
Joe got right on the phone to State Farm. Yes, he was told, Ellen had also applied to that company for reinstatement of Stacy’s policy in the amount of $50,000.
Shelter’s Mr. Carver said the new application for Stacy was being held in abeyance. State Farm, however, had denied Ellen’s application.
Then, Ellen told her friend Deanne about what she had done. In the annals of their friendship, this was the topper. Deanne just couldn’t fathom it.
“Why in God’s name would you do something like that? With the police investigation going on?”
“Well, they’re trial policies,” was Ellen’s pat answer.
“Don’t start with trial policies.”
Deanne had heard this crap before. When she had confronted Ellen about all the insurance that was carried on Steven and Stacy, Ellen’s explanation was incredible.
“Why did you have four separate policies on Steven? You couldn’t afford a pound of hamburger. Where did you come up with the money to take out four separate policies on this child? And why so much? I don’t think my father has that much insurance on himself. And on a four-year-old child? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Well, one of them is a trial policy.”
“What do you mean trial policy?”
“It was only good for thirty days, and I was going to mail it back to them and tell them I wasn’t interested.”
“Ellen, wait a minute, you mean in other words, if he died within the thirty days you’d collect and say it was a good policy, and if he didn’t die within the thirty days you’d say, ‘Well, I didn’t want it, it wasn’t a good policy.’ I’ve never heard of anything like that.”
The words just popped out of her mouth. Deanne just wouldn’t take this from Ellen.
“Ellen, most insurance … you just let it lapse.”
“I had the policy in my purse and was going to mail it back to the insurance company.”
“Trust me. They don’t give a damn whether you mail that policy back to them or not. You just don’t pay the next premium.”
Widening the Net
During the third week of January, the team was winding up the investigation. They still had to interview the pediatricians who had seen Steven shortly before his death. They had to run down the record of prescription drug purchases for Steven and Stacy. They wanted to interview William Pratt at Andersen, as well as his wife, Elizabeth. Lisa Schneider was on their list, too, because Deanne had mentioned her as the manicurist that both women had used. They also wanted to talk to Todd Andrews again. The last time anyone had talked to him was on December 8th, when Sergeant Burgoon interviewed him at his apartment.
Detectives Cordia and Jones had honed their approach to Mr. Andrews this time, because he was a key witness at the scene, and they sorely needed any shred of hard evidence.
He did have some fresh details to add. When Ellen knocked on his door, sometime around noon on September 25, 1989, he had been studying for exams. When Ellen led him to the boy, he remembered that Steven was lying face up on the couch. He was pale. His lips and hands were blue. The skin was warm and moist to the touch, but he was not breathing and there was no pulse.
Mr. Andrews further recalled that the boy was wearing some kind of pants, but no shirt, and he believed he was lying on a blanket. As he commenced CPR, he discovered a large amount of fluid in the lungs, and noted that there was never any spontaneous movement from the boy during all the time he worked on him.
Ellen, he said, sat on the end of the couch and appeared to be emotionally flat. She placed her hand on her son’s ankle once or twice, but the moves seemed to be perfunctory. Mr. Andrews did not come away from the experience with the impression that Ellen was ever really engaged in the scene. Later, after the ambulance arrived and the EMS workers had transferred Steven to the stretcher, he made mental note of the fact that Ellen wasn’t going to accompany her son to the hospital. She said she was going to pick up her mother.
When he had returned to his apartment, he began to think that he’d better go to the hospital himself. So he raced out and headed to Cardinal Glennon, and when he arrived, he was met by the hospital staff. To his surprise, Ellen wasn’t there yet, so he began to provide some answers to the doctors in the emergency room. About ten minutes after he arrived, Ellen showed up, and hugged Steven and appeared sad.
On several occasions since, Mr. Andrews said he had talked with Ellen as they would come and go at the apartment building. Ellen would bring up the topic of the coroner’s findings, which were still pending, but to him it always seemed odd that she discussed her son’s death so matter-of-factly.
Lisa Schneider told Detectives Cordia and Jones that Ellen was a quiet customer, but that she did talk about wrestling a lot, and in fact supposedly dated some of the men on the circuit. She said Ellen once told her about a trip she had taken to Florida with a wrestler, but Ms. Schneider said she didn’t believe her.
Ellen had also talked about the deaths of her two sons, but she seemed extremely cavalier about the tragedies, and on one occasion made a strange remark indicating that all she had to do now was get rid of some toys.
When Detectives Waggoner and Wiber interviewed William Pratt, they learned that he had had very limited contact with Ellen from the time he had transferred to St. Louis from Europe, but when his wife called him at the office, Ellen often answered the phone.
Because Ellen had lost David, Mr. Pratt’s wife was sympathetic and the two women became friendly. The following May, Ellen was invited to his house for a birthday party in his honor. In Augus
t, Ellen had been invited to another party at his house, where others from work attended, including Jeffrey Stark.
When asked about any connection between Mr. Stark and Ellen, Mr. Pratt said there was none, that Jeff had been invited because they worked together, and not as a companion for Ellen.
When asked if Ellen had ever mentioned insurance, Mr. Pratt said that he recalled in August 1989, she had mentioned taking insurance out on David—shortly before he died—but was never paid a claim. Later, though he couldn’t remember exactly when, Ellen had mentioned that she had about $100,000 worth of insurance on Steven and that she would be getting that amount paid to her soon.
Mr. Pratt also said that he and his wife had discussed whether they believed Ellen was capable of hurting her own children, and they couldn’t believe she was—unless she was a psychopath.
Elizabeth Pratt was reluctant at first to talk to the detectives. Then, at her husband’s request, Detective Wiber opted to interview her on the phone.
Mrs. Pratt said that she believed Ellen was a good and kind person, and said she understood Ellen was a hard worker at the office. The Pratts had entrusted their own daughter to Ellen, she said, on several occasions when Ellen would babysit.
When Detective Wiber asked whether Ellen still baby-sat for her, Mrs. Pratt said that she no longer asked Ellen to do it. Mrs. Pratt told the detective that if Ellen had anything to do with her sons’ deaths, she would have to be a schizophrenic, because she had never seen any side of Ellen that would be capable of harming anyone.
Since the investigation had begun, Ellen had called Mrs. Pratt and admitted that she was in love with Jeffrey Stark, but also said that her love was unrequited. Mrs. Pratt was emphatic in stating that Jeff and Ellen had never dated.
So far what Mrs. Pratt had said amounted to corroboration of facts the team knew already. Not until a few days later, on January 22nd, when Mrs. Pratt called Homicide, would they uncover another facet of Ellen’s traumatic story.