Hometown Killer

by Carol Rothgeb

  Sergeant Michael Haytas (head of the Crime Scene Unit) had been enjoying the last days of his vacation when he was called and asked to report back to work and process the scene behind Schuler’s. To save time, he had brought his own camera and camcorder from home and had stopped at a drugstore to buy film.

  At the pond, behind the yellow tape, the Crime Scene Unit prepared to preserve and record the crime scene. Sergeant Haytas and Debbie Schaffer (of the coroner’s office) approached from the north side of the pond. From that vantage point, they could see nothing amiss, except some skids out of place. The bodies were not visible from that side of the pond—only the skids. As the boys had done earlier, they waded through the shallow water to the other side, careful not to contaminate or destroy any lingering evidence. Sergeant Haytas videotaped the area as they went. One of the first things they noticed was something on the bottom of the pond—a pair of underpants.

  Upon reaching the other side, they were met with the same tragic sight that the boys had seen. They could see that the skids were covering only the lower half of the bodies. And through the brush they could see the hair of one of the victims, completely saturated with blood. She was wearing a pink T-shirt with striped sleeves.

  A very large rock, with small patches of moss clinging to its surface, was covering the head of the other girl. She was wearing a dark T-shirt.

  Sticks and twigs and small trees had been pushed and bent over in an attempt to conceal the bodies. One stick had been deliberately placed between two of the boards and was propped obscenely in the buttocks of one of the girls.

  As the scene before him assaulted his eyes and his heart, Sergeant Haytas forced thoughts of his own young daughter from his mind. He had been investigating crime scenes since 1979, but he had never seen anything like this.

  Debbie Schaffer made a cursory examination of the crime scene. Dr. Dirk Wood, Clark County coroner, approached the scene from the south. Sergeant Haytas photographed and videotaped the area, then carefully collected the panties from the water and handed them to Captain David Walters to be placed into evidence.

  As they fought to keep their emotions in check and went about doing what they were trained to do, they were secretly relieved that they did not yet know the identity of the victims.

  The body on the left (looking south) was labeled victim #1 and the body on the right was labeled victim #2.

  The two skids and the brush were removed from each victim, placed in clean sheets separately, and labeled. The bodies were side by side, facedown; victim #2’s left hand was almost touching victim #1’s back.

  It appeared that someone had “posed” them in almost exactly the same position; each one was slightly on her right side, with her left knee drawn up, a familiar “sleeping” position.

  Victim #1 was naked from the waist down, except for a shoe on her left foot. Her right shoe was lying next to her right foot. Victim #2 was also naked from the waist down, except for white socks. Both of her shoes were lying next to her left foot between the two girls.

  Victim #2 was rolled over onto a body bag, but because of the blood and dirt that adhered to her skin, especially on her head and face, she could not be immediately identified.

  When the large rock was removed from victim #1, they saw that her head was so embedded in the dirt that it was almost flush with the ground surrounding it. She also was rolled over onto a body bag.

  A preliminary examination by Dr. Wood revealed that the obvious cause of death was severe head wounds. There were bluebottle-fly eggs present on the bodies, but since they were not hatched, it was determined that the two young females, who appeared to be in the early stages of puberty, had been dead for less than twenty-four hours.

  Both bodies were transported to the morgue at Mercy Medical Center.

  Even though it was not official at that time, the detectives knew that these were the bodies of Phree Morrow and Martha Leach, the two girls who had been reported missing at 2:08 that morning. Phree was barely twelve years old and Martha was only a few days from her twelfth birthday.

  There can probably be no more difficult task, even for seasoned police officers, than investigating the murders of children. Many of them were family men with children of their own. And it was only a matter of time until they would have to notify the parents.

  Earlier, while anxiously waiting with the gathering crowd, Bennie Morrow, Phree’s father, collapsed and was transported to the same hospital where the girls’ bodies were taken.

  One of the transmissions over the police radio said it all: “This is a mess.” And this was only the beginning.

  As church bells rang in the distance and the birds sang in the nearby woods, Sergeant Haytas recorded the scene and the surrounding area on videotape. Dozens of still photographs were also taken.

  On a large tree a few feet from the bodies, there was another sign. This one read, NO TRESPASSING OR DUMPING.

  2

  This really affected me because I had a daughter the same age . . . but I had to put that aside. . . . When I got home finally . . . I gave her an extra little hug and said, “I love you.”

  —Sergeant Michael Haytas

  Although Phree Morrow and Martha Leach had only known each other a short time, they quickly became friends. The girls were almost exactly the same age and, like most adolescents, in too much of a rush to be grown up.

  Martha lived with her mother, Jettie Willoughby, on Lagonda Avenue in an upper duplex, and Phree lived with her father in the south end of town. Phree’s mother, Susan Palmer, lived around the corner from Martha, in a large double on East Main Street. Their backyards were adjacent to each other.

  Recently Phree had been staying at her mother’s house as much as possible. In fact, she was practically living there, and the main attraction seemed to be that her mother allowed her to do as she pleased.

  Phree’s father, Bennie Morrow, knew why she wanted to be there, and though he was concerned, he allowed her to go. Phree usually got her way with Bennie; she had him “wrapped around her little finger.” Understandably so, since Phree had had a very rough start in life: she was born with a hole in her stomach and spent the first seven months of her life in and out of the hospital. Susan and Bennie were divorced when Phree was less than a year old and her father had had custody of her ever since.

  Bennie went “through treatment” for alcohol abuse about the same time that Phree started her prolonged visits with her mother. Alcohol seemed to be an ongoing battle for Bennie and many times he lost. Susan had battled it for a while, but then it seemed that the fight was over, and the booze won.

  Phree was Susan’s only child by Bennie, but Susan had three older children: Phree’s half brothers, Charles and Clarence, and her half sister, Dawn. On Bennie’s side of the family, Phree was the middle child, with two half brothers, Kyle and Jason, and two half sisters, Candice and Casey. She was the only one who lived with her father.

  Phree seemed to be pulled between two different lifestyles that summer. According to her father, when she was at home with him, she was not allowed “to run the streets,” wear makeup, or have boyfriends. She went to church almost every Sunday. Outgoing and loving—and a “tomboy”—she had a black cocker spaniel named Shadow Baby.

  Martha’s parents were also divorced. She was the next to the oldest in a family of five children, which included an older sister, Tina, a younger half sister, Heather, and two younger half brothers. Raising her children as a single mom was a struggle for Jettie, but she was a strong woman, and she did the best that she could. Despite her large family, she kept her house as “neat as a pin.”

  The neighborhood where Jettie Willoughby and Susan Palmer lived is in a poor section of town that is known for the prostitutes who hang around on East Main Street after the sun goes down.

  After the bodies were removed, the Crime Scene Unit began a thorough search of the crime scene, took additional measurements and more photographs. Later in the evening, Box 27 of the Springfield Fire Division w
as called in to provide lighting so the officers could continue their work.

  The firemen who were first on the scene after the boys informed them of their grisly discovery were called back to the area. Sergeant Haytas needed to examine the bottoms of their boots, and to find out where they had walked, so they could eliminate their footprints from any others that might be found at the crime scene.

  Fire division personnel brought several large tarps to the area and the crime scene was covered to protect it from possible bad weather. The area was secured for the night at a little after 1:30 in the morning; Officer Brian Callahan took over at that time to make sure no one disturbed anything during the night.

  The crime scene personnel returned to the police station and submitted the evidence they had collected to the lab. The film was also submitted for processing. Finally, about 3:30 A.M., they all went home.

  Much of what they found would not be reported to the public: the fact that there were skids covering the bodies; the stick that was propped in the buttocks of victim #2; the fact that the girls were found facedown with their heads in somewhat of a “hole”; the huge rock that was found still on victim #1’s head; the multicolored underpants in the bottom of the pond.

  They also would not release the fact that the flowered shorts found at the Lion’s Cage had been cut in a very unusual manner, probably with a knife. These facts, they hoped, would prove invaluable when it came time to question a suspect or suspects.

  That sultry Sunday afternoon in August, Steve Moody was mowing his grass when his pager went off. When the handsome, young detective sergeant called police headquarters, he was told, mistakenly, that two little girls’ bodies had been found in a sewer drain. Thinking that it had been an accidental drowning, he immediately went to the scene at the Lion’s Cage, still dressed in his jeans and T-shirt.

  There he was informed that two little girls were missing and that it was their bicycle that had been found. Originally it was thought that the girls had somehow managed to obtain entry to the sewer system and that perhaps they were caught inside. Personnel from the City Water and Sewer Division had been called and they began a thorough search of the sewer system—a search that continued until word was received that two bodies had been found behind the bakery.

  Sergeant Moody and his partner, Detective Al Graeber, were about to go on a roller-coaster ride that would last for years. Many times they would slowly, hopefully, persistently, grind to the top, only to be dashed to the bottom again.

  They had been uniformed patrolmen together and had been partners ever since. Al Graeber, the older of the two, was a Vietnam veteran who, according to Steve, tried to maintain a gruff exterior, but “wore his heart on his sleeve.” He was a distinguished-looking man who wore a neatly trimmed mustache and had just the right amount of gray at his temples.

  Steve Moody had originally planned to be a dentist, but he now believed that his vocation had picked him. He had followed in the footsteps of two of his beloved and much respected uncles and joined the police force and was now in charge of the Crimes Against Persons Unit.

  Even though he was now Al Graeber’s superior on the police force, these two men were partners in the truest sense of the word: They were friends and they learned from each other. And they were both dedicated to the same cause.

  About 11:15 that evening, the heartbroken parents of both missing girls were asked to come to police headquarters. Sergeant Moody and Detective Robert Davidson gently interviewed Susan Palmer.

  Susan told the detectives she had last seen Phree on Saturday about 4:30 P.M. when she asked to stay overnight at Martha’s. She said that Phree was wearing a button-down black shirt with a pocket on the left side, light-colored blue jean shorts, and white canvas tennis shoes—no laces.

  Detective Graeber and Detective Nathaniel Smoot, patiently and compassionately, questioned Jettie Willoughby and Martha’s father, Noah Leach.

  Jettie told them that she had last seen both girls when they asked if they could go to the bakery, between 5:00 and 5:30 P.M. Martha was wearing a pink T-shirt, black flowered shorts, and black tennis shoes. She said that Martha was also wearing a “gold, flat, glass necklace.”

  She added that Phree was wearing a black T-shirt and blue jean shorts and that she had her hair pulled back.

  The detectives were not surprised that the description of the clothing that Phree and Martha had been wearing matched perfectly with the clothes found on the half-nude bodies and the shorts found at the Lion’s Cage.

  On Monday morning the headline in the local newspaper, the Springfield News-Sun, screamed: GIRLS FOUND SLAIN!

  The Crime Scene Unit went back to work early that morning. In the area where the victims had been found, they painstakingly took soil samples, cuts from bushes, water samples, water vegetation samples, and more photographs.

  They searched for evidence in the parking lot and in the pile of skids on the warehouse dock. They walked the wooded hill area on the south side of the pond.

  They also searched the area around the Lion’s Cage and photographed the graffiti on the walls that surrounded the metal cage.

  They checked the storm drain that empties into Buck Creek at the Water Street Bridge a few blocks away; then they walked along Buck Creek to the Ohio Edison Dam on the western edge of town.

  A police recruit class was dismissed so that the young men and women could walk the railroad tracks from the Lion’s Cage area to Warder Street, several blocks away, looking for anything that might be considered evidence.

  At a press conference, Police Chief Roger Evans promised to implement every available resource to find the person or persons responsible for this “tragic, gut-rending thing that shocks not only the community but also the police department.” He also expressed his hope that the killings were an “isolated incident and not a series of incidents.”

  Dr. Robert Stewart (forensic pathologist) and Dr. Dirk Wood performed the autopsies on Monday morning at Mercy Medical Center. Dr. Stewart noted that both Phree and Martha had suffered severe skull fractures and bruising and abrasions around the face and forehead area. The girls had also suffered abrasions, contusions, and lacerations to various parts of their bodies. Both of the girls had been sexually assaulted and he was able to recover semen from each of the victims.

  They found the cause of death for Phree Morrow and Martha Leach to be the skull fractures. The approximate time of death was placed between 7:00 and 9:00 P.M., Saturday, August 22, 1992.

  It was also determined that the two girls had eaten a full meal sometime between when they disappeared and their deaths. Neither family had served an evening meal on Saturday.

  Earlier on August 24, a fund had been set up at the Huntington National Bank for anyone wishing to make a donation to help with the funeral expenses for Phree and Martha.

  The stunned and grief-stricken families were living through all parents’ nightmare: making funeral arrangements for their child.

  The services would be held at Richards, Raff & Dunbar Memorial Home, an impressive funeral home originally constructed to be the personal home of Ohio governor Asa S. Bushnell. It was completed in 1888 on a 3½-acre site. The mansion became a funeral home in 1939 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

  It was located within walking distance from where the bodies and the bicycle were found.

  Sometime during August 24, a thirty-nine-year-old parolee named Willis Jordan2 was brought to the police station on a parole violation after he told his parole officer that a young girl was “messing with him” and he was about to “go off on her.” At 10:30 that night, Sergeant Moody questioned Jordan. Tom Sandy from the Adult Parole Authority was also present during the interview. During the questioning they noticed that Jordan had scratches on his hands and wrists, which he claimed were from playing with his niece’s cat. He consented to having his blood drawn for testing and was photographed.

  Also, that evening police officers found a transient by the name of Raym
ond Stone2 eating his dinner in the area of the Lion’s Cage. He was brought to headquarters and questioned. His fingerprints were taken and he also was photographed and voluntarily gave a specimen of his blood to be tested.

  These two men became the first of many to have their blood drawn and tested. The hope was to match DNA from a suspect’s blood with the DNA in the semen found inside the bodies of Phree and Martha.

  Detective Barry Eggers reported that he had talked to a neighbor of Martha Leach’s named Rhonda Sanchez2 about the homicides of the two girls. Rhonda had been walking the streets, soliciting, on Friday, August 21, 1992, the night before Phree and Martha disappeared. A man in a maroon car, possibly a Camaro or a Pontiac, had picked her up. When Rhonda refused to have sex with the man, he started “punching” her. She told him it was okay, that she would have intercourse with him, but he continued to beat her, ramming her head into the car door window so many times that she almost passed out. Somehow she managed to escape. Although she was too afraid to look back, she felt that the man was chasing her on foot. She ran under the Spring Street Overpass (a few blocks from the bakery) and hid.

  The petite brunette told Detective Eggers that the man was very quiet and that it was a little scary just being near him. She described him as a white male about thirty years old with shoulder-length, stringy auburn hair. He was approximately 5’10” tall and weighed about 185 pounds.

  She remembered the car as being an older model with a lot of used Styrofoam coffee cups on the floor on the passenger side.

  She felt that if she hadn’t managed to escape from this man, he would have continued to pound her head against the window until she blacked out or died. It was her opinion that this could be the man who killed Phree and Martha.