Sapp: No.
Moody: I want you to be sure about what all occurred and be straight with us. Not about having sex with the girls. Let’s get it all out—about everything that occurred that day.
(Sapp sat with his elbows resting on his knees and stared at the floor for a long time.)
Sapp: What’s there to . . . ? I mean . . . I said what I had to say.
Moody: What happens to these two young women? Where do they end up?
Sapp: I don’t know.
Moody: Yes. You do know.
Sapp (laughing): Okay, well, okay, maybe I do. But I’m telling you seriously—I don’t know.
Graeber: This piece of evidence is your signature, Bill. Okay?
Sapp: Okay . . . what is it now?
Graeber: How many signatures have you given us today?
Sapp: I don’t know. I don’t even know who the hell I am anymore.
Moody: We do.
Graeber: We do. We know who you are.
Moody: We’re sitting right here with you.
Graeber: We know who you are.
Moody: We know what you’re about. We found out everything there is to know about you. And we’ve shown you that. Hell, I’ve shown you things today that you don’t even remember happened to you! Right? I mean, you said it, Bill! We got our shit together. We know what it’s about. What happened to those two young women after you guys “parted company”?
Sapp: You all are making it look like I’m the killer! I’m not gonna go around killing little kids!
Moody: The only time anyone has mentioned “killer” today—in reference to these two young women—has been you.
Graeber: What did happen, buddy?
Sapp (whispering): It was just a party.
Moody: I know it was—so tell us about it.
Sapp (voice low): What’s to tell?
Moody: No. We need to know. What are you talking about?
Sapp: The party at the house. The brick house up on the hill.
19
I think it started over on Linden Avenue. . . . The girls
might have been picked up down by the bakery. . . .
That’s where they were taken to. . . . We believe now
that’s where the initial attack started.
—Captain Steve Moody
The house that Sapp referred to on the map was a house he had told them earlier that he had never been in. The house he said he saw Phree and Martha walking toward after they “went their separate ways.” It was the house on Linden Avenue
Moody: Let me ask you something here, all right? This story here (the “Cramer Mill story”) didn’t happen?
(Sapp barely shook his head no.)
Moody: So let’s go back. . . . How did you hook up with the girls?
(Sapp told them that he was out scrapping, and when he got to the corner of Linden and Harrison, he heard music and people “bullshittin’ around.” He looked toward the sounds and someone asked him if he wanted a beer.)
Moody: So you go in there—and who do you recognize?
Sapp: There was a black guy. Well, half, I guess—half mixed. I know John. I know Dave.
Moody: Where are Phree and Martha when you go in?
Sapp: One was tied up on a chair. And the other one was tied up on a coffee table. People were having fun—and I guess I just had fun too.
Moody: Which one was tied to the chair?
Sapp: I’m gonna say Martha.
Moody: What’s she saying?
Sapp: Wasn’t much she could say—she was gagged. But she wasn’t crying. All I know is they was fucking around and playing around, and we—we all done it. I didn’t wear one of the protective things. Never did like them. So . . . I guess I left myself inside of them. I mean, I thought, you know, they’d eventually go to the bathroom and use it and, you know, whatever they do.
Moody: They didn’t get a chance to go to the bathroom, though, did they?
Graeber: What time did you leave that party?
Sapp: As soon as I seen what the hell happened.
Moody: No, Bill. They didn’t have a chance to go to the bathroom, did they?
Sapp: No.
Moody: What happened?
(Sapp had tears in his voice as he said something about putting “a blanket over their heads.”)
Sapp: They had this big stick. And they had this fucking rock—huge rock.
Graeber: Where did all this take place?
(Sapp took his glasses off and ran his hand over his face and then put his glasses back on and stared straight ahead.)
Sapp (whispering): At the house.
Moody: Which one did you have sex with first?
Sapp: Martha.
Moody: How did you do that?
Sapp: From behind.
Moody: You told me she was tied in the chair. Help me figure this out. Tell me how it went.
Graeber: Bill, how does that work? How’s that work?
(Sapp leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, once again removed his glasses, and started crying.)
Sapp: It didn’t work.
Graeber: It didn’t work? What happened then?
Neither of these versions was true, even though they contained some truth. It was obvious that William Sapp was not mentally challenged. No doubt, on some level, he was enjoying the whole experience of finally telling “his” story, and he seemed to want to make it last as long as possible.
After the “Cramer Mill story,” in which he only “admitted” that he paid Phree and Martha for sex, and the “party at the house story,” in which he basically admitted raping the girls, but put the blame for the attack on everyone else, he continued to give the detectives bits and pieces of the truth, in more than one version of the “pond story”:
“I left my dad’s. I was drinking. I was gonna go hunt bottles there on Penn Street Hill. I used to hunt bottles there all the time when I was a kid. That’s where they was having their little party at.”
They offered him a beer and he accepted. “We all sat there getting drunk—getting fucked up. But the little girls wasn’t drinking, ’cause I know they didn’t have any pot or anything in their system. It was actually Martha that said that she was the virgin and Phree wasn’t. . . .
“No. They never got a chance to use the bathroom. The motherfucker picked up this rock . . . huge rock! Like it was a piece of pie! Tripped out—didn’t know what the hell to do!”
Moody: Who picked up the rock?
Sapp: David Marciszewski.
Moody: Well, let’s back up here a minute.
Sapp: It never happened in the house.
Moody: Where did you have sex with them?
Sapp: Right there.
Moody (referring to the map): Right here?
Sapp: Yeah.
Moody: What’s there?
Sapp: “Devil’s Pond.” That’s what it is now.
Graeber: How many people were there?
Sapp: About five or six—not including myself.
Graeber: Was all of them males?
Sapp: No, there was a couple of females.
Moody: Well, Bill, when you came up there—tell us how it went. They offer you a beer—how does it go from there? Take us through it!
Sapp (sounding tortured): Is there any more after this?
Moody: Sit back up in the chair and take us through it!
Sapp: We was all just sitting around, fucking around, drinking, bullshittin’ around. And then the conversation went to, you know, pussy. The women grabbed the girls—well, not actually grabbed them—took hold of them. They wasn’t yelling or fighting or—that’s not to say they probably wasn’t scared the fuck to death. One by one—everybody had a nice little time. Me—I never brought no rubber. They was holding the girls down—made them put their face in the dirt. I thought they was just bullshittin’—until they let the first rock fall. Then the game was over. Then they done the other one. And they kept doing it. There’s not a fucking thing you could do.
(H
e claimed that the girls weren’t yelling, but that one of them said, “Are you gonna kill us or just fuck us and let us go?”)
Sapp: I told them, “Ain’t nobody gonna kill you. Where’d you get that from?”
Moody: Well, who were the two women that were there?
Sapp: I don’t know who the hell they were. I’d know them if I seen them.
(Sapp told the detectives that he knew three other people had sex with the girls besides him and that he was the last one to have sex with them.)
Sapp: I know Dave . . . John. . . . I’m gonna tell you the God’s honest truth—I don’t know if Jamie was there. I don’t remember seeing the boy there. I mean, he might have been, but I didn’t see him.
Moody: So you had sex with Martha first?
Sapp: Yes. Phree was on her knees with her ass in the air and her head on the ground. The rock—they slammed it into her head. You don’t understand. Oh, God! To have somebody die like that! It’s something you can’t forget. It’s something that’ll haunt you for the rest of your life. Then they started covering everything the hell up with twigs, branches. They said they’s gonna bury them—right by the goldfish.
Moody: When people are having sex with them, are they struggling? While you’re having sex with them, are they struggling?
Sapp: No.
Moody: How did their clothes come off of them?
Sapp: They were tore off. I ain’t never in my life seen anybody tear people’s clothes off like that—especially jean material. They just grabbed them and it was like it was a piece of paper. They just come right the hell off.
Moody: Did they say anything? Were they conscious? What did you think their condition was then?
Sapp: I knew what it was. I knew what it was when the rock hit their heads.
The detectives left Sapp alone in the interrogation room while they went to get him something to eat. The picture of the pond area was still on the table. The skids, with Phree and Martha’s bodies underneath, were visible in the picture. Sapp (not knowing he was being videotaped) leaned forward and started talking out loud to the photograph: “I told you two, didn’t I? We’re all gonna go to hell together. They never should have done that to y’all. I’m sorry.”
He removed his glasses and laid them on the picture and wiped his eyes. He replaced his glasses and stared at the picture for a long time. Then he picked it up and said: “I won’t let you all get away.” He held it against his chest for a moment and then stared at it again before placing it back on the table. After a while he moved the picture and looked at the map. He whispered: “I knew they’d catch me sooner or later. I was hoping they would.”
Perhaps he had guessed that he was being videotaped.
Sapp, once again, studied the picture with his face only a few inches from it: “I’m sorry, Dad. I was hoping to see home again. It’s just as well. I never had a home in the first place. I wish there was something else I’d done. Maybe I could stay here—forever.”
Sapp (softly): What’s gonna happen to me?
Moody: We’ve got a lot to talk about, you know? But you said it earlier—the best thing right now for you is to be where you are.
Sapp: So how much more time do you think I’m gonna get?
Moody: I don’t know, man.
Sapp: Death row . . . I guess I need to get ahold of the old lady—and my kids—and tell them I ain’t never coming home. Oh, I knew the time was coming.
Moody: It’s about getting at the truth.
Sapp: I’ve been waiting for you to come back.
Graeber: I told you I was coming!
Sapp: I know. You said you was gonna come and talk to me about this. You two talked to John and them too, didn’t you? That’s all John ever talked about— was either Graeber or Moody. That’s my dude. I miss him.
Moody: Let me ask you something straight up. Did you know any of these guys before this shit jumped off? Did you know them at all? Had you known them before?
Sapp: No.
Moody: When you guys were upstairs, across from each other in the isolation cells, did John ever bring this up to you?
Sapp: Yeah.
Moody: What did he say? Did he know what you were in for at that time?
Sapp: Yeah.
Moody (referring to the map again): What did he say about you and this?
Sapp (smiling): “I’m gonna go over there and tell Graeber that William Sapp was with me!” I said, “Go ahead.” I like John.
Graeber: He never did! He never did.
Sapp: I wonder why ol’ Jim didn’t say anything.
Graeber: Who’s Jim?
Sapp: That’s what I call John—“Jimmy Boy.” He’s a good kid.
Graeber: Was John’s mother down there that night?
(Sapp nodded yes.)
Graeber: Who was the other woman?
Sapp: I don’t know.
Graeber: So do we know any more secrets about you?
Sapp: No. That’s it. That was the one you was looking for.
Graeber: I still got some secrets.
Sapp (shrugging and then laughing): I ain’t worried about them. I don’t know. I guess maybe I’m a sick person. I should be nervous, mad, and blaming the world. I can’t kill myself—not even with all this garbage coming down. I got a seven-year-old little boy that made me promise not to. I wonder how he’s gonna come out. . . . He’s got mental problems now. I turned out to be a hell of a father.
(Moody offered him another soda or a cup of coffee, and Sapp said he could use a cup of coffee.)
Sapp: I could smoke a pack of cigarettes!
Moody: When was the last time you had a cigarette?
Sapp: About an hour before you all come to pick me up.
Moody: Oh, yeah? You’re allowed to smoke over there?
Sapp: Oh, yeah.
Moody: I didn’t even know that, man. ’Cause you haven’t said anything about it! I didn’t even know you smoked.
Sapp (shrugging): I didn’t and then I started back up again.
Moody: Did you? Once you got in?
Sapp: Yeah.
(Graeber set a cup of black coffee in front of Sapp.)
Moody (casually): You understand what this is about, don’t you?
Sapp: Yeah.
Moody: This is about justice. This is about finding the truth. This is about being honest with not only yourself, but also us being honest with you.
Graeber: We’ve definitely been straight up with you.
Sapp: Oh, I know that.
Graeber (rolling up his shirtsleeves): It’s been enjoyable talking to you tonight, you know.
Sapp (speaking with audacity): I always thought I’d make somebody’s career. I just never thought it’d be like this.
Graeber (countering): Gee, let me tell you something: we made our careers a long time ago. What happened is—during our tenure of duty—we happened to run into you. Which is part of our job in this situation. And both of us are just the type that we’re going to follow it through all the way to the end. Steve and I didn’t know you five years ago, but we weren’t going to let you go.
Moody: We knew you were out there.
Graeber: But you’re not a number to us, you know? And like I told you a minute ago, you’re not a career to us. But you are part of our job.
20
Part of the job . . . to me . . . is getting people to tell on themselves.
—Captain Steve Moody
More truth . . . more lies. Each time the long-suffering detectives took Sapp through his story, more of the truth emerged.
Moody: Okay. Well, let me ask you this: who did you hear Phree say to them, “You’re ugly! Get away from me”?
(During the break Sergeant Graeber had brought some mug shots into the interrogation room for Sapp to look at.)
Sapp: That guy that was in the picture.
Graeber (laying the sheets of mug shots in front of Sapp): Which guy?
Sapp (pointing to one of the pictures): Right there.
Graeber: Jamie.
Hometown Killer Page 20