The Last Time We Saw Her

by Robert Scott

  Joel eventually seemed to settle down a bit. He married a young woman named Rosy, and they had three children. Even then, he had a restless streak, and was often on the move to various jobs, especially to Florida. It’s not apparent now if Joel always took his family with him. What is known is that Joel and his family eventually moved to a nice neighborhood of Rio Rancho in New Mexico. It was an area of well-kept middle-class homes northwest of Albuquerque, across the Rio Grande River. The Sandia Mountains rose majestically to the east, and the high desert to the west was a series of mesas and valleys, all the way to the fabled “lost city” of Chaco Canyon.

  The Courtneys’ neighbors liked Rosy, and noted how she kept the house and yard looking neat. Patsy Atkin later told a reporter for the Oregonian, “Rosy is a good person. She works hard and the kids are really nice. Very mannerly. My granddaughter plays with the little girl.” No one had anything good to say about Joel, however. In fact, they had almost nothing to say about him at all. He never seemed to be out in the yard helping Rosy in the yard work. He didn’t interact with other neighbors. He was like a ghost in his own neighborhood.

  It’s not quite clear why Joel, Rosy, and the kids moved in with Rosy’s sister Susanna and brother-in-law Jesus Ordaz’s residence back in the Portland area in the spring of 2004. Perhaps it was because Joel was out of work and needed a job. Jesus Ordaz was a hard worker and was well liked at CBM. It was on Ordaz’s recommendation that Joel was hired for CBM. And it was the hiring of Joel—and his use of a green Dodge minivan—that set in motion all of the troubles of May 2004.

  Once Joel was arrested for a DUI in Lincoln County, Oregon, it would set him on the path for a journey directly through Corvallis on the morning of May 24, 2004, and a fateful meeting with Brooke Wilberger.

  CHAPTER 15

  MAY MADNESS

  In April 2004, Joel, Rosy, and the kids were living with Susanna and Jesus Ordaz. Joel went on a job to Montana and Idaho, and that seemed to work out okay. But in early May, Joel was speeding in La Grande, Oregon, and got a ticket. Sometime after that, he angered his supervisor by not phoning in as required and missed several appointments where he was supposed to work. Some of those businesses complained to Joel’s supervisor.

  On Sunday, May 23, 2004, a friend of Jesus Ordaz invited him and his family to a First Communion party after church. Jesus, his wife and kids, Rosy and her children, went to the party, but Joel was on a job when the party first started. Joel eventually showed up there at around 6:00 P.M. As Jesus recalled later, “We stayed there at the party pretty late. There was food and drinks. Me and Joel drank beer and tequila. And if you know a Mexican party, well, there is quite a bit of drinking going on. People started going back and forth to a certain room. I think maybe drugs were being used in there. Like cocaine. I saw Joel go in there more than once.

  “I don’t know how many drinks I had or Joel did. Around eleven, my wife and Joel’s wife wanted to leave. My wife asked if I wanted to stay, and I said yes. And Joel wanted to stay, too. So we stayed on after my family and Joel’s wife left. The drinking continued after they left.

  “Joel and I didn’t leave the party until six o’clock the next morning. We got home and Joel was pretty drunk at the time. When we got to the house, my wife was kind of mad, because we had stayed so long. When we got home, Joel told me he had to be in Lincoln County at court that morning, so he asked if he could use the phone to say he was going to be late. And he did use the phone.”

  Joel called Lincoln County court several times that morning of May 24, using Jesus Ordaz’s phone. Joel called at seven-nineteen and again at seven twenty-one. Then he called at seven twenty-two and at seven twenty-seven. It’s not apparent why all the phone calls, unless other people were calling into the court as well, and Joel was only able to leave his message on the machine at 7:27 A.M. But later phone records would prove he had called Lincoln County court four times.

  Jesus Ordaz recalled, “Joel left the house right after the phone calls. He was driving the green van and it was clean on the outside at the time. He was wearing the same clothes he had worn at the party and a baseball cap. And he usually wore dark sunglasses when he drove, if it was sunny.

  “Joel didn’t come back to the house all of May twenty-fourth. He didn’t come back when I was home on May twenty-fifth. I worked from five-thirty P.M. until two A.M. then. But I remember my wife called me about eight P.M. at work, and told me that Joel had just come home.

  “When I got home at two A.M. on May twenty-sixth, the van Joel had driven was outside. It was very dirty all over. Like when you drive a van up into the mountains. It was muddy. I saw the van and I knew the supervisors didn’t like seeing it like that. So I took it to work the next day, where there was good water pressure, and washed it there.

  “Joel just stayed in his room when he got back. He didn’t come out for some time. I didn’t see Joel at all on May twenty-sixth. Sometime later, maybe May twenty-seventh, my wife called and said Joel had to go and see a doctor.”

  This whole doctor scenario was very interesting, in light of what was later learned about Joel Courtney and Brooke Wilberger. Dina McBride recalled in more detail about her brother’s visit to the doctor. Dina said, “I was living at my grandmother’s house with my husband and children. I remember the date because I was coordinating a large children’s event at church. On that date Joel came over [to] my grandmother’s house a little before noon. I was so concerned about the way that Joel was acting that I actually e-mailed my husband (who was at work). I asked my husband to pray for Joel.

  “The house was pretty quiet that day, and I had just finished getting Grandma lunch. She hadn’t been feeling very well, and she lay down. When Joel came in at about eleven forty-five A.M., he wasn’t exactly agitated, but he was on edge. He walked through the door and said, ‘You won’t believe where I’ve been for the last three days.’ His conversation was very animated.

  “I said, ‘Oh, what went on?’ And he said, ‘I was kidnapped for three days and there were some guys with guns and knives. There was a kind of party at first, and people were there, and then they weren’t. I was hiding in the bushes, and it rained for part of the time, and I was naked part of the time. I was freezing and hungry, and I haven’t had anything to eat.’

  “It was a lot of information coming in a fairly disjointed manner. He mentioned there was a girl there with him, but there wasn’t a lot of description about her. She was just in the proximity of where he said he was located. He didn’t give any specifics about if she was short or tall, fat or thin. There was a mention that she was blond. Then Joel mentioned about guns and knives being there. Someone had an automatic firearm, and it was frightening. And he said, ‘There was blood on the girl, and she died.’”

  Dina didn’t know what to make of this wild story. She knew that Joel often exaggerated about things, and she had no idea how much of this story was true.

  According to Carol Courtney, Joel’s mother, he was stressed out about something that had just occurred. He had to seek medical attention for this on May 26, 2004, and went to the emergency room of the Oregon Health and Science University hospital in Portland, complaining of chest pains. He had extremely high blood pressure. An EKG was taken and a chest X-ray as well. It was determined that Joel had stroke-level blood pressure. Joel was given some medication for his problems and told to get some rest.

  In light of the fact that Joel was only thirty-nine years old then, Detective Houck later asked Dr. John Cochran, a forensic psychologist with the FBI Behavioral Science Unit (BSU), about this. Dr. Cochran told him that it was a highly relevant event. Houck noted, “Dr. Cochran specifically said that even stone-cold rapists experience some guilt about what they’ve done. When Courtney had an acute bout of high blood pressure after being gone for two days, his need for medical assistance is consistent with his need to deal with the guilt he was feeling as a result of his involvement with Brooke Wilberger’s disappearance.”

  In early June 2004, days a
fter Brooke Wilberger went missing, Jesus Ordaz went on vacation to California and had Joel take him to the airport. Ordaz had no idea that there was any connection between Joel and a missing teenager in Corvallis. Ordaz related, “When I came back on June fifth, I found out that Rosy and the kids had gone back to New Mexico, and now Joel was gone. He was supposed to have been at work when I was in California. They kept calling him and calling him, and he didn’t answer. He just disappeared. And then one day he called me from New Mexico. He had taken the green van there. So it was me who went out to New Mexico to get it and bring it back to the company. I flew out to New Mexico and went to Rosy’s house. The green van was there, but I didn’t even see Joel. I got the van and drove it back to Portland.” Ordaz had no idea that the 1997 Dodge minivan had been part of an abduction and crime scene, and neither did CBM. Ordaz kept on using that van for months to come.

  Once he was back in New Mexico, Joel may have wanted to lay low, and the home in the small town of Rio Rancho seemed like a good place to do so. Once again he was drinking too much and may have been using crack cocaine. Instead of laying low, Joel was soon in trouble with the law in New Mexico. On June 18, 2004, Joel got into a heated altercation with Rosy.

  Rosy wasn’t taking it this time. She filed a “Petition for Order of Protection from Domestic Abuse” for herself and her three children, aged twelve, six, and four. In the portion of the form entitled “Physical Abuse,” Rosy wrote, He pushed me and spoke to my face very close like he was going to harm me. He was very aggressive. At another time he intended to kill me by choking me very hard and my eldest son was present.

  On a portion entitled, “Threats which caused fear that you or any household member would be injured,” Rosy wrote, Today he said he is going to kill me and that he will go to my sisters’ houses to kill them too.

  As far as other abuse went, Rosy related, He used my credit cards and got me into debt for over eighty thousand dollars.

  On the portion “Were weapons used during the abuse?” she wrote no. But for the section “Has there been prior domestic abuse?” she wrote yes. Rosy asked that the request order state that the respondent (Joel) not contact me, not abuse me and that the respondent stay away from my residence. She also checked the box “That I be given temporary custody of the children listed in this petition, but that the respondent shall have contact with the children with supervision.” Rosy also checked the portion “Relief is necessary to resolve this domestic abuse problem with child care.”

  Rosy noted that Joel was in jail at the time she wrote out the document and she checked the portion “I have not told respondent that I am filing a petition to ask the court for an order of protection because I believe irreparable harm would result if I told respondent before coming to court.”

  Because of the restraining order, Joel could not write, phone, or talk to Rosy. He could not go within one hundred yards of Rosy’s home or workplace; and if at a public place, such as a store, he could not go within one hundred yards of Rosy there, either. He was not to cause any physical damage to her property; and for the time being, he could not be around his children as well. A document noted: If the respondent violates any part of this order, the respondent may be charged with a crime, arrested and held in contempt of court. A law enforcement officer shall use any lawful means to enforce this order.

  On June 25, 2004, both Joel and Rosy had to show up at the Thirteenth Judicial District Court. Interestingly, Joel wrote down an address in Beaverton, Oregon, as his home mailing address, even though he was now living in New Mexico. The judge ordered Joel to attend counseling in the area about his anger issues. There was also a stipulation that he had to “address his problems with drugs and alcohol.” Rosy must have mentioned these things in court. All of the elements of the restraining order were to be in effect until Christmas Day, 2004. Joel could not even go to his home in Rio Rancho to get his personal items. A deputy sheriff would do that for him. Joel could only have contact with his children at a supervised monthly meeting at a Family Services center.

  It was also noted that when Joel obtained a valid New Mexico driver’s license, he would be able to use the family’s 1997 Honda Civic. A Honda Civic that just happened to be red in color with a gray interior and a stuffed-animal monkey adhered to one window. A red Honda Civic that would play such a vital role only five months later with Natalie Kirov.

  Ten days after the restraining order, Rosy Courtney apparently had a change of heart. She filled out an “Application to Modify or Terminate” the “Domestic Abuse Protection Order.” Like many women who have been abused, Rosy was swayed by the words of the abuser that he would change his behavior. On this document dated June 28, 2004, Rosy checked the box to terminate the protection order because “My husband promised that he is going to try to control his anger.” Apparently on the same day, both Joel and Rosy signed a document that was an “Order of Dismissal.” It was noted that the petitioner Rosy appeared at a hearing in the Thirteenth Judicial District Court in Sandoval County, New Mexico, and asked that the original protection order be dismissed. It was done so, and the cause of the action was dismissed without prejudice.

  So Joel Courtney had been able to talk his way out of another damaging situation. Just how long he stayed with Rosy and the children at the home in Rio Rancho didn’t come out in later documents. What is certain is that sometime between June 28, 2004, and November 29, 2004, Joel was living outside the home once again. His residence seemed to have been not far from where Natalie Kirov was abducted off the corner of Harvard and Garfield in Albuquerque, south of the University of New Mexico. And, of course, by that time, Joel was heavily into smoking crack cocaine.

  Everything was like a snowball heading down a very steep hill from June 2004 onward. Joel, who could not control his behavior, was on a crash course with Natalie Kirov, who would be the one person who would set a chain of events in motion that would lead directly back to the abduction and murder of Brooke Wilberger in Oregon. Joel didn’t know it yet, but he was on a one-way track to the worst problem in his life. In fact, his actions were about to put his very life at risk of a death penalty as all the facts came out into the open.

  CHAPTER 16

  SERIOUS CHARGES

  When Officer Taylor detained a man named “Joel” in front of a red Honda Civic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on the evening of November 29, 2004, he had no idea how far all of this was going to lead. Because this detained individual’s weight and height matched the description given by Natalie Kirov, and the Honda certainly matched the description she had given, Joel was taken down to the police substation by Officer Taylor.

  Natalie Kirov had been transported to a hospital and attended to, after she came into contact with police. After that was finished, Natalie was driven to the substation, where Joel was being detained. While Joel sat in a room, being interviewed, Natalie looked in through a one-way glass window. As soon as she did, she told the officer standing next to her, “That’s the man who attacked me!”

  Joel Courtney was arrested at the substation and was soon on his way to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Albuquerque. He had his mug shot taken and was listed as living on Apple Court in Rio Rancho. He was noted as being thirty-nine years old, hair shaved almost bald by that point, a goatee, blue eyes, and weighing 185 pounds. Joel’s place of birth was listed as Panorama City, California. Interestingly, in case of emergency, Joel gave Rosy’s phone number.

  His long road through various jails was just now beginning. And so was the paperwork on Joel Patrick Courtney. Instead of going the usual route of a preliminary hearing on the case, the Bernalillo County district attorney sought a grand jury indictment against Joel. This, in essence, meant that all of the proceedings would be behind closed doors, with no press being allowed in the courtroom. It also meant that Joel’s defense attorney could not question witnesses.

  Of course, the main witness before the grand jurors was Natalie Kirov herself. In a shaky voice, and often in tears, she recounted he
r November 29, 2004, evening of terror. DDA David Waymire asked her very pointed questions; and in exacting detail Natalie recounted her harrowing experience after being kidnapped at knifepoint. Waymire agreed with Natalie that she was lucky to be alive.

  Also testifying was Detective John Romero. He recounted APD’s involvement with the incident, and the arrest of Joel Courtney, a man whose description and vehicle matched that of what Natalie Kirov had seen. Natalie’s detailed description of the vehicle was particularly potent—she spoke of its interior and exterior color and the stuffed animal inside the vehicle.

  After listening to these witnesses, the grand jurors agreed with the district attorney that Joel Courtney should stand trial. He was specifically charged with “Count One—Criminal Sexual Penetration—Personal Injury.” That on or about the 29th day of November 2004, in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, the above-named defendant caused Natalie Kirov to engage in fellatio, by the use of force or coercion, resulting in personal injury to Natalie Kirov. There was also an alternative to Count One, which was much the same, except it added the word “kidnapping” in the text. Another alternative to Count One added the word “knife” in its text.

  Count Two dealt with the insertion of Joel Courtney’s finger into Natalie Kirov’s vagina. There were two alternatives to this text, and Count Three dealt with Joel Courtney inserting his finger into the anus of Natalie Kirov.

  Count Four stated: That on or about the 29th day of November, 2004, in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, the above-named defendant took and/or restrained and/or confined and/or transported Natalie Kirov by force, intimidation or deception, intending to inflict death, physical injury or commit a sexual offense against Natalie Kirov.