Practice to Deceive

by Ann Rule

  Given a few more minutes, Platt might have likened Peggy Sue to the Virgin Mary.

  He gave Jim Huden short shrift—calling him a “nut head” and a “complete loser.”

  Greg Banks had had enough. He reminded Judge Hancock that Russ Douglas’s friends and family had been suffering for nine years with too many unanswered questions. “We see through a glass darkly. James Huden learned about Russ from either Brenna Douglas or Peggy Sue Thomas.”

  Judge Hancock carried on the plea that Peggy Thomas tell what she knew. It was so clearly the decent thing to do.

  “It makes no sense that both Jim and Russ should be in the same place [at the time of the murder]. Why? There was no motive at all,” the judge said. “Peggy Thomas has it within her to alleviate this family’s suffering. If she is so kind, caring, and compassionate [as Craig Platt had characterized her], then she will tell.”

  But Peggy Sue said nothing.

  It was time for Judge Hancock to read her sentence.

  “You will serve forty-eight months in prison—that’s as much as I can give you.”

  The judge then listed what she would be required to pay:

  $217 in court costs

  $500 for the Washington State Victims Compensation Fund

  $100 for collection of fines

  The courtroom throbbed with silence for what seemed like a long time. And then Peggy Sue Thomas stood up and submitted to a body search by Deputy Bill Becker. She was taller and heavier than he was. Satisfied that she had no contraband, he locked her hands behind her back with handcuffs and led her out of the courtroom.

  Her daughters cried quietly.

  EPILOGUE

  * * *

  PEGGY SUE WILL SERVE her time in the Washington Correction Center for Women in Purdy—not far from the soaring Tacoma Narrows Bridge. As prisons go, it is neither a hellhole nor a country club, and is actually quite livable.

  Ironically there was a country club less than a mile down the road from the women’s prison—the Canterwood Golf and Country Club—but Peggy Sue Thomas wouldn’t be using those posh facilities. That lifestyle was gone for her—at least for four years.

  After being the center of a great deal of media attention for several years, Peggy Sue Thomas has actually dropped out of the headlines and television news flashes. She is yesterday’s news.

  How she will fare in prison is anybody’s guess. She has always been adept at befriending women who initially find her caring and considerate. She has had several “best friends forever” in the past, although none of those friendships have ended happily.

  Prison will be one place where having a close female friend, a kind of “second lieutenant,” is important. If Peggy wants to find a close buddy, she will be able to accomplish that easily.

  I can see Peggy being an inmate like Martha Stewart was. She is highly intelligent, inventive, and fun to be around. And she is a take-charge personality who enjoys being the center of attention. She is quite likely to be one of the most popular inmates at Purdy. Or the most hated.

  Will she miss male companionship? Possibly not. Men have been a means to an end—usually wealth—for Peggy Sue Thomas, and I suspect she doesn’t really like them. She is so attractive that she is likely to get mail from men on the outside who will be eager to send her money for extras and treats from the prison commissary. But she already has family who will try to make her as comfortable as possible. Kelvin Thomas, her second husband, will undoubtedly continue to stand behind her. If her mother, Doris, is in good health, she will see that Peggy Sue gets everything she wants—given the constrictions of incarceration.

  Mariah and Taylor will visit her as often as they can.

  And Peggy does have scores of former limousine clients who may get in touch with her when they learn that she is spending the next four years behind bars.

  Will she see a ghost in her cell when the lights are dimmed? Probably not. Peggy Sue appeared to forget Russel Douglas within a week or so of his murder. It is Jim Huden who has been haunted by the image of the man in his gun sight.

  I think the lack of freedom to come and go may be the worst punishment for Peggy Thomas. I have never been sent to prison, but I have visited any number of felons there. Although I am inside for only a few hours, I dread the sound of iron doors clanging shut behind me. Even when Peggy Sue was a murder suspect, she was allowed to travel with that heavy GSR chained to her ankle.

  And now she can’t do that.

  Jim Huden has filed an appeal, but he still hasn’t said anything linking his former lover to the death of Russ Douglas.

  I discussed Huden’s stubborn loyalty to Peggy Sue with Mark Plumberg.

  “How could Jim Huden have become so obsessed with Peggy that he committed a murder for her?” I asked. “And then he accepted an eighty-year sentence to protect her when she doesn’t seem to care about him at all?”

  “I’ve thought about that a lot,” Mark said. “I think that Jim really loved Peggy, and that his protecting her and not ‘ratting’ out either Peggy or Brenna is, perhaps, the only nobility he has left.”

  Mark Plumberg would like nothing better than to talk to Jim Huden. “But I can’t right now because Jim has filed an appeal. I hope that someday we may have a conversation.”

  The Island County detective would also like to talk in depth to Brenna Douglas. She had no choice but to testify in Huden’s trial, but whenever investigators attempt to talk to her, she refuses to say anything more about her husband’s murder. They visited her once more after Peggy Sue was sentenced, but she refused to answer their questions.

  As things stand now, there isn’t any physical evidence to link Brenna to the plot to kill Russ.

  And that is ironic, because in the end, Brenna has been the only one who benefited financially from the murder. The insurance money is long gone. Brenna has moved frequently since she left Whidbey Island. She has not remarried, although Russel’s mother thinks she is currently dating someone. Brenna has gained a lot of weight over the past decade.

  Not surprisingly, the Stackhouse family has not survived all the tragedies intact. “We’ve been torn apart,” Rhonda Vogl says. “Our mother is gone, Robby’s gone, Brenda’s gone—and no one really gets along with each other anymore. I was invited to Peggy’s wedding to Mark Allen, but I had no idea who he was or when she had met him. Nothing. I didn’t attend the ceremony.

  “Those members of our family who are left just aren’t close.”

  Jimmie Stackhouse has had to rebuild his magnificent Idaho log home twice because it was destroyed by fire on two separate occasions.

  * * *

  IN THE SOMETIMES EERIE way that my choices for book titles turn out to seem more than coincidental, it happened again. More than two decades after Rhonda lectured Peggy about lying, and long before I met or talked to any of its principal characters, I chose Practice to Deceive as the title for this book.

  When I first interviewed Rhonda Stackhouse Vogl, she asked what my book would be called. When I told her, an odd expression flickered across her face.

  Later, she sent me an email: “I was a little shocked,” she wrote. “That sounded so familiar, but I couldn’t place it. And then I remembered that night when Peggy Sue wanted me to lie and give her an alibi for her sneaky date. I wouldn’t do it, and I told her, ‘Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive.’

  “It didn’t make much of an impression on her. She snuck out anyway. She usually did what she wanted to do.”

  And, indeed, what a tangled web was woven when those without conscience practiced to deceive.

  Russ Douglas worked hard to be physically fit. Besides building his muscles at a gym, he scuba dived and hiked difficult trails in Washington State mountains and foothills. But being in good shape could not save him when someone with a gun stalked him. Gail O’Neal

  Russel Douglas photographed when he was in the army. He had so many dreams, so many goals, but very few of them worked out—even though he was h
ighly intelligent. Gail O’Neal

  Russel Douglas at his wedding to Brenna. They were a toxic combination, two people who never should have dated—much less married. Gail O’Neal

  Brenna Douglas prepares to share wedding vows with Russel. They already had a son. Gail O’Neal

  Russ Douglas with his son, Jack. Russ loved his two children—Jack and Hannah—but he and Brenna fought constantly. She tried to distance him from his family. Even so, they both seemed to want to keep their marriage together. After Russ moved out, he was on call to help around the house they rented and see his children. He came home for Christmas 2003, and it looked as though they might be able to reconcile after all. Gail O’Neal

  Russ’s yellow Tracker where it was found on December 26, 2003. It sat in the driveway of an isolated cabin on Whidbey Island for more than twenty-four hours before horrified neighbors called 911. The first deputies to arrive were shocked at what they found inside. Police file photo

  Russ Douglas was found slumped behind the wheel of his new yellow Tracker. It seemed clear that he had no warning as someone armed with a gun approached. Or was his instant death a suicide? What was he doing in this lonely place? Police file photo

  Russ Douglas was highly educated, but sometimes he made the wrong choices. Gail O’Neal

  This gun wasn’t found at the scene, ruling out suicide. Criminalists thought the death weapon was a Bersa handgun. Investigators found a single slug and a bullet casing—but they needed the gun they came from to make a case. Still, any killer with good sense would have thrown it into the deep water around Whidbey Island so it could never be traced back to him—or her. Police file photo

  Washington investigators looked for expended bullets in the backyard of this Nevada home where someone had test-fired a handgun. They found casings that they hoped would match those fired from the death gun. Police file photo

  Police file photo

  Police file photo

  Police file photo

  At one time, Brenna and Russ sold sex toys at home parties. These were found in Russ’s apartment. Later, they had a more successful business—a beauty salon called Just B’s. Police file photo

  This gated estate was right next door to the cottage where Russel Douglas was found murdered. A “person of interest” had once lived there, but the Island County investigators didn’t know that when their homicide probe began. Ann Rule

  Ann Rule

  Patrol officers in Freeland, Washington, guarded the crime scene where Russel Douglas perished on the dark, rainy night of December 26, 2003. Detectives would need daylight to thoroughly search the woods around Douglas’s yellow Tracker. Police file photo

  The driveway where Russel Douglas was shot. The morning after his body was discovered, Island County investigators found tire tracks that they hoped to link to a killer’s vehicle. Police file photo

  Prosecuting Attorney Greg Banks and his paralegal assistant, Michelle Graff, worked together on what seemed to be an unsolvable—or, perhaps, unprovable—homicide case on Whidbey Island, Washington. Leslie Rule

  Island County Sheriff’s Detective Mark Plumberg was assigned to lead the investigation into Russel Douglas’s murder in mid-2004 and worked for nearly a decade on a case that appeared to have no motive, and no physical evidence. He never gave up and found a sad kind of justice for the victim. Ann Rule

  Jim Huden, the man his longtime friends knew. He was voted Businessman of the Year in Punta Gorda, Florida. Huden was student body president of his high school on Whidbey Island. He was also an athlete there, and later a computer genius who sold the software he developed to Bill Gates’s Microsoft for a very high price.

  Jim Huden had dealt with a number of discouraging issues in his life. He’d gone from rags to riches and back again, but he kept trying. The one influence he couldn’t deal with was a beautiful woman with whom he was passionately in love.

  Peggy Sue Thomas was very young when she married for the second time, but she seemed content helping Kelvin with his personal trainer profession and taking care of her baby girls.

  Peggy Sue met Kelvin when they were both in the navy. They had two beautiful little girls together, and Kelvin always had Peggy’s back—even long after their divorce when they were both with other people.

  Peggy Sue always had a tendency to gain and lose weight. She was very heavy just before her second daughter was born when she, her half sister Brenda, and Kelvin attended a county fair. Brenda loved Peggy, but she was afraid of her, too.

  Peggy Sue Thomas was a chameleon. She could easily go from plain and plump to a woman the media called “Drop-Dead Gorgeous.” It was an eerie nickname, all things considered. Vickie Boyer

  Brenda Gard, Peggy Sue’s half sister, was emotionally fragile, and family tragedies seemed to hit her harder than her siblings—especially when there were so many secrets. Even so, she was prepared to testify against someone close to her. Rhonda Vogl

  Even in her midteens, Peggy Sue Stackhouse fancied herself a seductive glamour girl.

  At almost six feet tall, Peggy Sue was a natural at basketball. She was also well coordinated and was chosen to play on an all-male team. She continued to play, coach, and work out at her old high school with girls much younger than she was. Rhonda Vogl

  Wedding photo of “Sweet Sue” Mahoney and Neil Mahoney. After the Mahoneys suffered a terrible loss, Peggy Sue Thomas and Jim Huden met at a funeral wake and began a hot affair, one that would lead one day to more tragedy.

  She was tall and statuesque, and Peggy Sue Thomas shone as she competed in the Ms. Washington pageant. She won and went on to another pageant in Las Vegas.

  When she was in her thirties, Peggy Sue Thomas became a beauty pageant winner, a femme fatal, and embraced her “fiery red” period. She even had it on her license plate. Police file photo

  Peggy Sue was skilled in many areas—aircraft mechanic, beautician, basketball star, beauty queen, and entrepreneur.

  After divorcing Kelvin Thomas, Peggy Sue moved to Las Vegas and was a very successful limousine driver. She kept files on what shows her clients liked, what they drank, the restaurants they preferred. She was beautiful, and most of her client list asked for her as their chauffeur.

  Her sisters said that Peggy married Tony Harris, a preacher, just to make her father angry. Whether it was because Tony was black and Jimmie flew the Rebel flag, or for some other reason, no one knew. At any rate, the marriage didn’t last long.

  Jim Huden and Peggy Sue Thomas. Both had loved before, but their affair was so passionate that they seemed meant to be together . . . at first.

  When Brenda Gard realized that her younger half sister was trying to totally control her life, she moved out of Peggy’s Las Vegas home and headed back to Whidbey Island. Although it looks as if the sisters are drinking milk, they are really White Russians. Peggy drank a lot, but she could hold her liquor most of the time. Brenda Gard

  Mary Ellen Stackhouse, Jim’s first wife, bore him six children. They were a very happy navy couple living in California in 1963 when a silent stalker broke into their home. Jim was far across the country attending training sessions.

  Jimmie Stackhouse when he married his first wife, Mary Ellen. He built them a split-level house in San Jose, near Moffett Field, where he was stationed. Looking back, one has to wonder how many lives were impacted when Mary Ellen died.

  The Stackhouse children were all adorable, and their mother sewed their clothes and costumes for holidays. From left to right, back row: Tom, Rhonda, Mary Ellen, Jim, and Brenda. Kneeling in front: Lana and Michael. Robby hadn’t been born yet. Rhonda Vogl

  Mary Ellen took her children to see the Easter Bunny. Left to right: Tom, Mike, Brenda, and Lana in about 1960. The pictures of their early lives were hidden from the children and their questions about where their mother was went unanswered. Jimmie thought it was best. Rhonda Vogl

  After the heartbreak he suffered in San Jose, Jimmie Stackhouse asked for a change of duty to Whidbey Island, Washington.
He hired Doris Alton as a housekeeper and married her a year later. They had a single child together—Peggy Sue Stackhouse—who had red hair like her father. He doted on her. His first six children often felt left out. Rhonda Vogl

  Doris Stackhouse was the complete homemaker. She could sew like a professional, bake, and kept a perfect house—with the help of two of her daughters and three stepdaughters. Peggy Sue was much younger. All of her siblings loved her, but they resented the special treats she got.

  Rob was Mary Ellen and Jimmie’s youngest child. He grew to be six foot, five inches tall. He died when he tried to take a gun away from a drunken party goer, protecting the crowd that the gunman was aiming at. Rhonda Vogl