Sapp: I don’t know how she got undressed.
Moody: Well, before you got rid of everything, there was some time there that was spent. And she’s in and out of it, and she remembers some things and she’s told us about it. You need to bring this back. And you’ve helped us out with a lot of things. You’ve taken us step-by-step through what happened. Now we’re to the point where she’s on the ground. What’s going on next?
Sapp: We had sex long before that.
Moody: You had sex long before that? Long before what?
Sapp: The beating.
Moody: Now let me ask you something here. Look at me. So what you’re trying to tell us here—and you need to think about this. You’re saying you had consensual sex with her before you beat her?
(Sapp stared at Lieutenant Moody for a minute, then turned to Sergeant Graeber.)
Sapp: What’s “consensual” mean?
Graeber: Consensual is when both of you agree to have sex.
Sapp (almost flippantly): She wasn’t saying no.
Moody: How did her clothes get off?
(Sapp, once again, stared off into that place known only to him. He didn’t answer.)
Graeber (after a while): Bill. How did her clothes come off for the sex?
Sapp: I guess I took them off.
Moody: Well, now wait a minute here. Look at me for a minute. You talked about picking up the rebar, using it on her. You’re definite on that. You’re definite about how you used the knife. Now, you and I both know, you know what happened.
Sapp: Just sitting there, playing around.
Moody: And you’re saying that this is before you assaulted her?
Sapp: Yeah. Messing around . . . I don’t know, being different. Being not married for the moment.
Graeber: When you had the sex, how much of her clothing came off?
Sapp: Just her pants, I think.
Graeber: Just her pants? How did they come off?
Sapp: I just pulled them off.
Graeber: Wasn’t there a special way you handled that?
(Sapp seemed startled again and looked up at the detective.)
Moody: Who took them off, Bill?
Sapp: I guess I tore them off.
Lieutenant Moody walked over to the cabinet behind Sapp again and took out a package. He opened it and laid the contents on the table in front of Sapp. It was the pants Helen Preston had been wearing the night she was attacked. The whole inseam, including the crotch, and the outer seams on both legs, up to the hips, had been cut.
Lieutenant Moody gestured at the pants.
Moody: Now let’s look at this here for a minute, okay? You’ve got the knife out. These pants aren’t ripped. What’s going on here?
(Sapp didn’t seem to realize what he was looking at, so both detectives told him that it was Helen’s pants. He leaned forward and stared at them.)
Moody (folding back some of the material): Bill, what’s going on here while you’re doing this? What are you thinking about?
(Sapp didn’t answer.)
Moody: Well, let’s go back to something you said, for a minute, okay? You’re telling us that the pants came off before she insulted you. Before she slaps you. Look at all the blood on them. When you took these pants off her, what was she doing?
Sapp: I don’t know. . . . I guess bleeding.
Moody: Bill. Bill?
(Sapp looked at the detective.)
Moody: You do know. You’re clear on what you used. You’re clear about the rebar. You’re clear about how she insulted you. You’re clear about how you used the knife. Now, is she talking to you? Is she awake when you’re doing this?
(Sapp stared at the pants, and was visibly shaken. Even with the long silences, he had been fairly forthcoming up until then. But with the appearance of Helen’s bloodstained pants, he became increasingly reluctant to respond.)
Moody (coaxing): What’s going on here, man? What’s going on with this?
Sapp: I don’t know.
Moody: Yeah, you do. Has this happened to you?
Graeber: Is there a reason why this is open like this? Is there a reason why?
(Moody reached into a notebook and pulled out a picture of Helen. The picture had been taken after she had been beaten and stabbed. He showed it to Sapp.)
Moody: Listen to me for a minute. This is your anger. Part of it . . . all right?
Moody (laying the picture down and manipulating the pants to show the cuts): But this is meticulous. Do you understand what I’m saying? This took some time. Here’s the fly. . . . This pant leg goes up here.... You come across and come down. What’s going on here with you—with this? I know you’re good with a knife. This wasn’t ripped. This was cut. Each seam’s cut. Is it part of a fantasy or what? What’s going on here? You can help us here with this. I mean, we’re going from you getting angry because she’s insulted you and slapped you . . . to this slow . . . taking your time-type thing. Why would you put yourself in that situation of getting caught? This took some time.
Graeber: How long did it take you to do that? Just take a guess.
Sapp: Seven . . . seven to twelve minutes . . . who knows?
(Lieutenant Moody tried to keep Sapp’s attention. Sapp’s chin was touching his chest and it became increasingly hard to hear what he was saying. Moody tapped Sapp on the leg, as if trying to wake him.)
Moody: Hey, Bill! Hey! Help us to understand this.
Sapp: There’s no understanding it.
Moody: I guess—help me understand this.
Sapp (voice low and raspy): Have you ever seen somebody set on fire? Have you ever seen them cut the shit away from them?
Moody: Their clothing?
Sapp: Skin . . . blood . . . it just peels away! All you have left is the shell.
Sapp (reaching over and holding one of the pant legs): Just a shell.
Moody: So whose clothes did you see cut off of them, Bill?
Sapp: Baby brother. I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. (Crying, he removed his glasses and wiped his face.) What kind of brother am I?
Lieutenant Moody had investigated William Sapp’s history for seven months prior to the interrogation and had learned “everything there was to know” about him, so he was aware of the incident that Sapp referred to. Sapp claimed that his mother had set his “baby brother,” Paul, on fire. In turn, his mother had always blamed Bill for this horrific act.
After giving Sapp a moment to regain his composure, Lieutenant Moody directed Sapp’s attention to the task at hand by touching Helen’s pants. “What happened after you did this, Bill?”
Sapp: Tried to run and jump in between the damn cars of the damn train. I tripped—like usual.
Moody: But that’s before you tried to shove her up under the dock to hide her, right?
(Sapp barely nodded yes.)
Moody: When you’re doing this—cutting these pants off of Helen . . . is she fighting? What’s she doing when you’re doing this?
Sapp: Nothing.
Moody: Nothing at all? What are you thinking while you’re doing this?
Graeber: What’s going on with you, man?
Sapp (whispering): It wasn’t Helen.
Moody: Who was it?
Sapp: It will always be there.
Graeber: Who was it?
Sapp: To do to her what she did to me all those years. . . . Hell, I’ll always be locked behind bars. I’ve always lived this tortured-ass life.
(He reached across the bloody pants and picked up the picture of Helen and studied it.)
Moody: You go from all that anger to this meticulousness. Who’s this about? You said that this wasn’t Helen. Who is it?
(For several minutes Sapp didn’t answer. The legs of Helen’s pants were hanging over the edge of the table, in front of him. Deep in thought, he caressed the stiff denim material. The detectives sat quietly and studied his face.)
Sapp (finally): Why is it that the people you look up to the most is the ones that hurt you the most?
Moody: Man, if I had that answer, I’d be rich. Who we talking about?
(Sapp reached over and touched the pants again, but did not answer for a very long time.)
Sapp (tearfully): Now that I’m in prison, I was her most favorite son. How do you tell? How do you lay it on that motherfucking man? . . . Made to see and do things . . . maybe the right place for me is the chair. Then I wouldn’t have to live this shit no more.
Moody: You’re not living it because you’re not doing this to anybody anymore—for one. You’re not doing it. Listen to me. You’re not having anybody. Your mom hurt you. And you’re not having anybody—there’s no woman that’s insulting you or slapping you again.
Sapp: No. But it’s kind of rough having her end up looking like that—all because of me.
Moody: Now listen to me. She’s alive. And the emotional scars that you have are going to heal. (Lieutenant Moody nodded toward the picture of Helen.) And so are these scars. So when you’re doing this, she’s unconscious, is that what you’re saying?
Sapp: I don’t know. I never paid attention.
Moody: Were you afraid of getting caught? Or were you even thinking about that?
Sapp: I didn’t care. Like I told you—I knew you’d be back.
Moody: Do you understand, by coming back and talking with us, how much help you’ve been to us? Do you understand that?
Sapp: Yeah.
Moody: After you got the pants off her, did you have sex with her?
Sapp (whispering): Yeah.
(He said that Helen was on her back. “. . . Can’t really say we were having sex.” Sapp said he didn’t come “because I didn’t want to.” He also said he didn’t think she was moving while they were “having sex.”)
Moody: When you had sex with her, were these pants still under her, or where were these?
Sapp: I can’t tell you. I don’t know. . . . I would imagine probably still under her.
Moody: We had our forensic people look at that (the pants). That’s why we knew these were cut. This isn’t a rip—this is a cut. So this is very important, to understand why you did this.
Sapp: I think it’s time for me to be in the penitentiary. I don’t need to be outside no more.
Moody: There you go, man. There you go. I think that’s the most important realization that’s been said. That’s the most important thing that’s been said in this room today. Why do you think that is, Bill? Why do you think you need to be in the penitentiary?
Sapp (voice laced with self-pity): Sick. I’m fucking society’s maggot. That’s my home. They say, once somebody don’t give a damn about you, you know it’s true. So we’re all tied—I already know that.
Moody: Do you understand that’s the best place for you? That’s where you can get some help? The proper medication? The proper therapy?
Sapp: Ain’t no help for me.
Moody: Well, there is. Because until you can learn how to deal with the anger and the proper response when someone insults you or slaps you in the face or talks to you like you’re dirt, you need to be locked up for a while.
Sapp: I know . . . I ain’t safe to be around. But it’s so weird—I never hurt my wife or any of my kids. Or then, again, maybe I did. God, I hope my kids don’t grow up to be like me!
(After another long silence Sapp reached across Helen’s pants, picked the picture up again, and studied it. He didn’t seem to notice that one of his arms was resting on the blood-soaked material.)
Sapp: You know what they need in this country? An eye for an eye.
(He laid the picture down and sat back in his chair.)
Sapp: There’s somebody out there walking around right now, with my heart signature on them. . . .
Moody: You left a signature. I’ll give you that.
17
That whole technique . . . Bill’s very “visual.” That’s why we used the maps . . . . That’s why we had the cabinet. . . . Every time I’d go to that cabinet . . . he liked that.... You had to show him that you knew what you were talking about.
—Captain Steve Moody
Sapp told them he ran most of the way home and then cut down an alley and threw his green fleece jacket in a Dumpster. Then he walked “down to the corner,” where he threw “my knife, which is the brass one with two or three holes in the handle, on top of the roof.”
Sapp: Go across the street. Go upstairs. That’s it. I’m sure y’all got the knife by now.
Moody: Why’d you get rid of the jacket?
Sapp: Had blood on it, I guess.
Moody: You know, one thing you said that really was interesting—I mean you talk about “signature of the heart.” You’re wounded that way, right?
(Sapp raised his eyebrows and shrugged.)
Moody: Have you ever done this before?
Sapp: Done what?
Moody: Well, just like we were talking about—how meticulous these pants are cut.
Sapp: Oh! No.
Sapp (barely shaking his head and then whispering): No. I wish to God I’d never done that. I wish it was something I could put in a bag and keep . . . myself.
Moody: Now, why would you want to do that?
Sapp: It would show . . . It’d be a reminder.
[Author’s note: And, no doubt, a very effective way to relive the whole experience.]
Graeber (pointing to the pants): What gave you this idea, then? How’d you get this idea?
After a long pause Sapp haltingly told them about a “real surgical steel scalpel” that he had in his knife collection. He had gotten it from his mother and claimed that it was the “same one she cut my pants off with.” He described how she had cut “each stitch” in front of the zipper on his pants and told the detectives that he had thought he “was gonna get stabbed or sliced.”
“Did she ever stab you or slice you?” Graeber inquired.
Sapp softly replied, “Yeah, I got my scars.”
He claimed that he had “some sear marks, where she took it one time on each side of my nuts” and that she had also poured candle wax on him.
Moody: Did you use that scalpel on these pants?
Sapp (shaking his head): No.
(There was a very long silence while Sapp just stared at the pants.)
Graeber: Did you ever do this to anyone else?
Sapp (voice husky): No, and I’m never going to again either.
(Lieutenant Moody picked up the pants and laid them on top of the cabinet behind Sapp. Sapp turned around and watched as Moody opened the cabinet door and pulled out another map.)
Sapp (amazed): What y’all got a big rock in there for? (Laughing) Man!
On September 26, 1991, shortly after Sapp came back from Florida, he set fire to a log cabin in a wooded area not far from his father’s house. The log cabin and the scene of the attack on Helen in 1993 were only a few blocks apart, alongside the same set of railroad tracks.
Sapp did not deny the arson, and Lieutenant Moody marked the cabin’s location on the second map.
“I’ve always been fascinated by fire. It just hit me. . . . Torch it! I don’t know why,” Sapp revealed.
“Did somebody make you angry that day about something? Did somebody screw with you?” Moody suggested.
Sapp finally answered that he might have gotten into a fight with “the ol’ lady,” then added: “Just a lot of arguments.”
“So things aren’t real good between you and Karen?” Moody asked.
Sapp answered, “No. She’s just the only woman in the world who ever loved me. I threw that away.”
The “maps” that the seasoned detectives used were actually aerial photographs of the neighborhoods in question. They pointed out some places on the map that they knew Sapp was familiar with and asked him about some others. They, of course, had a destination in mind. A place in time that they knew Sapp could take them, as much as it was possible through someone else’s words and eyes. It proved to be a much more difficult task than visiting the crime scene where Helen was attacked
or the site of the log cabin fire.
Hometown Killer Page 18