Practice to Deceive

by Ann Rule

  In the end, Jean caved in. She admitted that she did know where her missing husband was.

  “He’s in Mexico,” she said quietly. “He’s earning a living down there teaching guitar.

  “They call him ‘Maestro Jim,’ ” she said.

  * * *

  JIM’S BLAZING AFFAIR WITH Peggy Sue hadn’t lasted much longer after Russ Douglas was murdered. Perhaps they were stalked by the terrible memory of what he—or they—had done near the empty cottage on Wahl Road on December 26, 2003. When they looked at each other, they must have seen Russ’s image caught forever in the pupils of their eyes.

  They very well may have stopped trusting one another. One of them, it turned out, had vowed to protect the other, no matter what. And the other would do whatever was necessary to stay free and avoid prison.

  Following their peripatetic trip to see friends around western Washington on the day Russ died, Peggy Sue and Jim had driven straight through to a motel near Peggy’s house in Nevada. Vickie had just moved in, and they undoubtedly wanted to gather themselves and get some rest before they joined her in Peggy’s home.

  Jim stayed with Peggy for only a little over a month. Probably she was a constant reminder of the dead man in the yellow Tracker. Perhaps Jim was frightened that the Island County investigators would rapidly focus on both of them. It would be wiser for them to separate, at least until the homicide investigation slowed down.

  Jim Huden was never known to be cruel or violent; the close friends with whom he had grown up insisted, “That’s just not Jim Huden. He’s a good guy.”

  When Mark Plumberg and Mike Beech had come to his house in Florida seven months later at the end of summer in 2004, it was obvious that Jim knew why they were there.

  And he had seemed to be resigned to whatever fate had in store for him. He may have been in shock after the unannounced visit, and that was why he disappeared for a few days in September. But he had come back to Jean.

  Jean Huden recalled that near Christmas 2004, she and Jim were in a beachfront hotel in Florida when he told her he was leaving. He had learned that the murder gun had been found, and was traced to him. He was so depressed that Jean was afraid he was going to commit suicide. She begged him not to go, but she later admitted to Mark Plumberg that he’d walked off and simply disappeared into the dark night.

  “I’m so worried that his body may be out there someplace,” she said then—but she was lying.

  At that time, Jean didn’t say that Jim had confessed to her the shooting of Russel Douglas, or that she had overheard a phone conversation he had with Peggy Thomas.

  Now, Jean said that Jim had never told her what Peggy knew about the murder, but she did say, “I heard him tell Peggy on the phone that he had killed a guy but not to worry because she would never see him again.”

  Was he deliberately raising his voice in that phone conversation so that Jean would believe Peggy had no part in the death of Douglas?

  Jean finally admitted that she and Peggy Sue Thomas had indeed been in touch with one another, and that some time in 2004 Peggy had actually come to Punta Gorda where the threesome talked. Later, afraid to talk on the phone about Russ Douglas’s murder, Jean Huden had traveled to the Las Vegas area once or twice to meet with Peggy. And Peggy had joined with Jean to provide money for Jim to live in Mexico.

  At one point, Jean said that she and Peggy could have been “best friends” if they had met under other circumstances.

  She admitted that Jim had managed to cross the border into Mexico as Hurricane Charley roared into Florida.

  By avoiding telephone calls to her home or from the house where she lived in Punta Gorda, Jean had evaded phone records that might link her to Jim or to any messenger between them. Jean Huden said she had succeeded in getting money to Jim using a Mexican friend as an in-between emissary.

  Even though he had openly carried on an affair with Peggy Sue Thomas, Jean still loved him, and she confessed that she had visited him in Mexico several times over the past seven years while he was a fugitive. She believed that at some point, she could join him there.

  She knew what he had done the day after Christmas 2003 because he had confessed to her. He had told her that he planned to kill Russ with the help of Peggy Sue.

  The motive?

  “Jim told me that Russ Douglas was an abusive husband and father.”

  That wasn’t true, although either Peggy Sue or Brenna Douglas might have convinced Jim Huden of that.

  Still, Mark Plumberg and Mike Beech didn’t believe that Jim Huden had suddenly decided to shoot a man he didn’t even know. Nor was Jim familiar with the death site on Wahl Road, but they discovered that Peggy Thomas was. The estate right next door to the driveway where Russ died was owned by a woman named Cindy Francisco. And Cindy Francisco was a good friend of Peggy Sue’s. It was Cindy who had gone with Peggy Sue to China City where they heckled the comedians. In fact, Peggy had lived in the Francisco mansion for about six months at one time. She knew the properties along Wahl Road very well indeed.

  It almost seemed as if Peggy Thomas had played Jim Huden like a marionette, pulling just the right strings to get him to do whatever she wanted.

  Even so, Huden had free will and he could have refused to be involved in a deadly scenario. A warrant for Jim Huden’s arrest was prepared, along with a request for his extradition from Mexico. According to Jean, Huden could be found in Vera Cruz and she gave directions that were passed on to federal marshals.

  Jim Huden was arrested in Vera Cruz on June 9, 2011, by Mexican authorities who had the power to detain violators who were in the country illegally. Then he was turned over to Deputy U.S. Marshal Raymond Fleck, a fifteen-year veteran who specialized in the capture of fugitives. Fleck had retrieved offenders from Canada, Ireland, Costa Rica, and Belize, as well as Mexico.

  Vera Cruz is a thriving port city on the Gulf of Mexico with more than a half million population. It had been a wise location for Huden to hide. There were many expatriates living quiet lives out of the mainstream there.

  Jim waived extradition and the marshal handcuffed him and escorted him across the border into the United States.

  Jim was extremely tan, he had grown a mustache, and his long hair was bleached blond by the sun. It was just as thick as it had been in high school so many years earlier. He was lean and well muscled and seemed to be in good health.

  He was transported to the Island County Jail. On July 9, 2011, Jim Huden pleaded not guilty to the charge of first-degree murder. His bail was set at ten million dollars. There was no way he could come up with 10 percent of that. He had no property and he surely hadn’t made a fortune as an Anglo guitar teacher in Vera Cruz.

  Although Peggy had always said that Jim was the one who left Dick Deposit’s house to buy “smokes” on December 26 almost eight years earlier, and she had kept the receipt, the investigators and Prosecuting Attorney Greg Banks felt that it was Peggy Sue who had bought the Swisher Sweets cigars and saved the receipt. He believed that Jim was on his way to shoot Russ at the time.

  She needed that small proof to establish where she and Jim Huden were while she was buying them. Banks felt that that might have the opposite effect on jurors.

  Who saves a receipt for a pack of smokes for a year?

  No one saw the couple at Dick Deposit’s house on December 26 and Deposit himself couldn’t be sure if the beds had been made when he visited his property. The couple hadn’t turned in the house key to him, and Dean and Cathy Hatt were sure Peggy hadn’t stopped by to give them the key.

  A warrant was issued for the arrest of Peggy Sue Stackhouse Harris Thomas Allen.

  * * *

  PEGGY SUE WAS UNAWARE of what was about to come down. After almost eight years, she probably felt her connection to Russ Douglas’s murder was a thing of the past. Now, on July 9, 2011—exactly a month after Jim Huden’s arrest—Peggy Sue was spending some time away from her limo driving, and relaxing on her houseboat, Off the Hook, that was anchored on
Navajo Lake in New Mexico.

  The San Juan County Sheriff’s Office in New Mexico had had her under surveillance since they traced her to the half-million-dollar houseboat. She didn’t know that the sheriff’s detectives were watching her from a neighbor’s boat.

  Fearing that she might resist arrest or run if she had forewarning, the San Juan County sheriff’s men asked the Pine River Visitor’s Center to notify Peggy Sue Thomas that there was a package waiting for her there.

  It was a trick, of course. There was no package. How ironic. Russel Douglas had gone to meet his killer, expecting to find a package—a gift for his wife, Brenna. And he had been shot between the eyes.

  And now Peggy Sue walked blithely into an ambush, too, expecting to find a present someone had sent her. Instead, when she showed up at the Pine River center, Peggy Sue was surprised to be surrounded by officers. Told she was under arrest for first-degree murder, she was obviously shocked—but she remained calm as she was handcuffed and taken to jail.

  Her glory days seemed to have come to a sudden, bone-jolting stop. Peggy had continued to drive limos in Las Vegas after her divorce from Mark Allen, and earned a healthy living, interspersing her work schedule with vacations on her plush houseboat. She may have felt that she’d gotten away free. She may have been planning the next move she would make to re-create herself.

  She knew Jim was in jail, charged with first-degree murder, but she had been confident he would never do anything to hurt her. Now she wasn’t so sure.

  After a few weeks in the San Juan County Jail in New Mexico, Peggy Thomas waived extradition and, dressed in baggy orange jail coveralls, she rode a prison bus for four days on her way back to Whidbey Island.

  Peggy’s bail was, like Jim Huden’s, set in the millions, although hers was half his: five million dollars at her arraignment in Island County. That was rapidly reduced to a tenth of that. Even though her original bail was slashed, very few prisoners have five hundred thousand dollars to put up.

  Peggy Sue’s attorney, Craig Platt, argued that she was not an escape risk, and convinced Superior Court Judge Alan Hancock to accept a property bond in lieu of keeping her in jail. Her mother, Doris Matz, put up her home in Langley, with a market value of $231,924, and Peggy put up one of her houses—her Las Vegas home—worth $331,320.

  She was released on bail in early September 2011 with the stipulation that she would live with her mother and wear a GPS device on her ankle that would allow law enforcement to track her movements so they would know where she was at all times.

  That living situation didn’t last long.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  * * *

  THE NEWS OF PEGGY SUE’S and Jim Huden’s arrests on first-degree murder charges galvanized the residents of Whidbey Island. The South Whidbey Record had headline stories every week on the shocking case, and the Everett Herald and the Seattle Weekly weren’t far behind. The eight-year-old murder investigation drew national attention, too, and docudrama shows such as Dateline and 48 Hours sent first scouts out to see what the case of the beauty queen, Buck Naked and the X-hibitionists, and the unlikely murder victim was all about.

  Russel Douglas’s name was hardly mentioned in headlines about his murder; Peggy Sue was still the star, as it was usually referred to as “the Drop-Dead Gorgeous” case.

  Two trials seemed imminent and they promised, quite literally, sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

  After each article in the Whidbey Island papers, there were dozens of comments and opinions.

  The first six children fathered by Jimmie Stackhouse had been through the rumors and fallout of violent murder before. Tom and Mike were living far away, Robby was long dead, Lana and Rhonda were living in Idaho, but Brenda was living in her daughter’s home in Marysville, Washington, just north of Everett, a short drive and ferry ride to Whidbey Island. She could not avoid the gossip and the media blitz and all of it disturbed her a great deal.

  Of all the trio of sisters, Brenda Stackhouse Gard could be the most fun and the most outrageous. She was smart and pretty, and loyal to a fault. It was sometimes hard to picture that Brenda as the woman who cried out in fear as she slept.

  Ever since June 1963, when Mary Ellen Stackhouse was murdered in San Jose, Brenda was the child, teenager, and then the woman who suffered the most post-traumatic stress. She had seemed to do a lot better after she and her two sisters went back to San Jose and confronted Gilbert Thompson, but even so, Brenda continued to suffer from nightmares.

  Brenda had stayed in touch with Rhonda, but she hadn’t spoken with her older sister, Lana, in years. When she saw a message on Twitter from Lana—who was writing a book about their mother and seeking information about Gilbert Thompson—Brenda wrote back within a few hours.

  “Lana, where are you?” she responded. “This is your sister Brenda. I haven’t heard from you in years. I was looking up Gilbert Thompson online and found this. E-mail me. Love, Brenda.”

  With Peggy Sue’s arrest and the media publicity, Brenda became angry and depressed. She responded to the numerous posts that appeared in the South Whidbey Record, asking readers not to lump her whole family into her half sister’s alleged crimes. In her posts, Brenda alternately sounded combative or crushed by the hoopla surrounding Peggy’s coming trial.

  Peggy Sue Thomas was originally scheduled to go to trial before Jim Huden, and the date set first was September 24, 2011.

  Jean Huden would be a strong witness for the prosecution, and so would Bill Hill. Jim had reportedly confessed to both these Florida witnesses that he had shot Russ Douglas after Peggy Sue had lured him to Wahl Road on the pretense of giving him a present for his wife, Brenna.

  What few knew was that Brenda, Peggy’s own half sister, was the rumored secret witness who would testify for the prosecution.

  Her testimony might be the most damning to Peggy.

  Sometime in 2003, when Brenda was considering a divorce from her second husband, Flint Gard, she had an odd and disquieting phone call from Peggy Sue and Jim Huden. Peggy Sue had offered to help Brenda get rid of Flint, and then she put Jim on the phone.

  Jim had offered to “take Flint out,” and, with dawning horror, Brenda had understood what they meant. They were suggesting that they would murder Gard so she wouldn’t have to go through all the hassles of divorce.

  “No!” Brenda responded. “No—he’s my son’s father. I wouldn’t think of doing something like that—”

  Brenda had revealed this conversation to Mark Plumberg in October 2006, and it was part of the thick case file on Russ Douglas’s murder, although few people were aware of the bizarre offer to kill Brenda’s estranged husband.

  Brenda would have other things to add when she testified at the upcoming trial.

  But September 2011 was a desperate time for Brenda Gard. She dreaded testifying. She and her sisters had done their best to keep the family together, although that became impossible when Doris, their stepmother, played favorites with her own biological children.

  There had been some good times with Peggy Sue, especially when she was little. Enough good times that Lana, Brenda, and Rhonda had tried to stay close to her. And she had let Brenda live with her in Las Vegas. Of course, Brenda was scared to death of Peggy and some of the scenarios she came up with. When she left Peggy’s house in Nevada, she packed her bags secretly and snuck out in the middle of the night.

  Once she was out of Peggy’s house and not so frightened of her plots and bossy ways, Brenda was able to look back and feel grateful that Peggy had given her a place to stay.

  In the early fall of 2011, Brenda was living alone in her daughter’s empty house in Marysville, Washington. And that was supposed to be only a temporary situation because her daughter, Heather, needed to put it on the market.

  Brenda had had a half dozen careers. She was a trained dental hygienist, a bartender, a cocktail waitress, and she had a real estate license.

  After her divorce from Flint Gard, she lived off and on with Bill Lindquis
t, and he knew all too well about the nightmares that caused her to cry out in terror. She had never been free of them since the morning their mother was murdered.

  In that bleak autumn of 2011, even Brenda’s best friend said it was very difficult to be close to her. “There’s just too much negativity,” she explained.

  And then Bill Lindquist left. As much as he cared for Brenda, he told her, “I can’t watch you kill yourself any longer.”

  Brenda needed to have her medications—antidepressants—evaluated. The ones she was taking were causing her to tremble, and at the same time, energized her to the point that her sleep was interrupted, and she was up all hours bleaching her kitchen counters and the toilet, dusting where there was no dust.

  Brenda’s tenuous hold on her life began to slip as the world seemed to crash in on her. Rhonda would have rushed over from Idaho to help her cope, and her daughter, who loved her devotedly, would have, too, but they didn’t realize that Brenda had finally hit bottom.

  Prospective suicides often hurt so much emotionally that they cannot think about what their loss will do to those who love them. Somewhere in her troubled mind, Brenda knew that it would be Heather who found her, but she couldn’t worry about that.

  She was in too much pain.

  On September 18, 2011, Brenda went to the garage and looped a rope over a beam, and then around her neck. Hanging doesn’t require a long drop.

  Brenda Stackhouse Gard simply stepped off the rear bumper of her Mustang that was parked in the silent garage.

  When Heather found her mother there, she called her Aunt Rhonda and Rhonda Vogl rushed to Marysville as soon as she could get there.

  It was one more tragedy for the family that had endured so many over the past five decades.

  Brenda had grown a thick outer shell during that time, but those who loved her knew that despite her sometimes raucous sense of humor and her feistiness, she had never lost her vulnerable and tender center. As the elements of her life that gave her a modicum of safety slipped away, Brenda found herself sadly alone. Her two marriages were over, her children were grown up enough not to need her any longer, and her financial picture was bleak. She was mortified that Peggy Sue had brought shame to her family, and feared they would all be painted with the same brush.