by Robert Scott
The subject change concerned Gabe going overseas on a job. Wetzel recalled, “He said he had an opportunity to go to China and work on some virtual-reality program. I wondered why he wanted to do that. Then he started talking about his grandmother and her house. He thought it belonged to the family, but she was going to give it to someone else.
“Gabe was all over the place and very agitated. Right after he left, my wife and I turned to each other and wondered what it was all about. We wondered if he was on drugs or hallucinating. His manners were very unusual. He still had a way of expressing himself, but he’d lost a lot of weight, and his wife had lost a lot of weight also.”
After Silverton, Jessica recalled, “We started heading north on I-5 to see a friend of mine named Diane. So we drove up to Seattle to see Diane. We switched drivers several times, because I was getting so tired I would practically fall asleep at the wheel. Gabe pulled off at an exit, because Kalea would always get hungry before I did. He got off at a random exit and just started looking for a food place. And then, all of a sudden, we pulled over and he said, ‘Can you believe it!’ And I’m like, ‘No, what are you talking about?’ And the restaurant he stopped at was a McMenamins. And we’d just had dinner at a McMenamins restaurant the night before.”
Gabe seemed to attest showing up at this second McMenamins restaurant as his special relationship with God, and Jessica went along with this. And then Jessica really believed this when she saw a man there who had dark hair and was wearing a beret. She was sure she had seen the same man in the Portland area restaurant. It was like a sign for her.
Jessica said, “This man was in front of the restaurant smoking a cigar again. And Gabe went up and talked to him. And this man said a prayer for us and we left. We drove up to Seattle and got there during the daytime. It was near an Indian reservation or something. There was a big totem pole there.
“I knew that Diane worked, so I was going to wait until later to contact her. We walked around Pike Place and took Kalea on a boat. I think we went over to Whidbey Island. Just went on it, walked on and walked off. But Kalea was able to go on the ferry ride and thought it was really cool.
“I had served my mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Seattle area, so I was semifamiliar with the area. I contacted Diane around four-ish and she was out of town. She was in Florida. She had been there for a few days and was going to be there another week and a half.
“I asked her if we could possibly stay at her apartment that night. She said she’d have to check with her roommate. So we were around there, waiting for her roommate. And we tried calling her a couple of times, but her roommate never got back to us. It was getting late, and I told Gabe I thought there were a couple of places we might stay at, up in Lynnwood. We got up there and went to a church. Guys were playing basketball there and we asked them for a directory and ended up calling some people I knew. They said we could come over and crash on the floor. They didn’t have any extra beds, so we ended up staying there one night.
“We just slept in sleeping bags. They had a bunch of dogs, and Kalea ended up playing with the dogs. She was ecstatic about that. I tried calling Diane again, and asked her about wiring us some money. She said she was working and wouldn’t be able to do that. So we decided to leave the area.”
It wasn’t just leaving the area on a short trip. For whatever reason, Gabe now thought they should go to Southern California, where he had grown up. That was more than one thousand miles away.
Movement and traveling, for its own sake, seemed to be a part of the equation. He was seeking some kind of refuge, which did not exist. The refuge was from his personal demons, and there was no such place on earth where he could keep them quiet.
On the way to San Diego, Jessica recalled, “We stopped at a gas station and there was a mechanic shop with it. Gabe wanted to know if the guy wanted to buy the camper shell on the pickup. And the guy did and we got thirty bucks for it, and the pickup got a lot better gas mileage after that. The whole goal of the trip was to find a new place to live because of Bob. And we stayed at a place near the marina and it had two rooms. There were three beds and a fridge and a stove.”
They stayed in these motel rooms in Oceanside, near San Diego, until February 7. Apparently, Gabe was not able to raise any funds, as he’d hoped. And whatever relief Gabe got from being back in the place of his youth, it did not last very long.
While in San Diego, Gabe told Jessica that they needed to return to Bandon and have it out with Bob about trying to poison them. Later, Jessica would say it was a joint decision; but by now, she was going along with just about anything that Gabe said.
Jessica recalled later, “We woke up in the morning and Kalea was still asleep. We woke up early and Gabe said that we should go back and see Bob and Robin and talk to them. And I said, ‘Okay.’ It was going to be a long drive, so we got going, got everything packed, showered and got Kalea up. We had breakfast and then got on the road.”
The long drive began once again, back north to Bandon. On the way, the pickup truck that Jessica’s father had loaned them began having problems with the clutch. Up through California’s Central Valley, through Sacramento, Redding and over the mountains into Oregon, they just hoped the pickup truck would last long enough to get them back to Bandon.
Despite the mechanical problems, the pickup truck made it all the way back up to Bandon on the morning of February 8. Jessica recalled, “We had missed a turn at Drain on I-5 and ended up having to go to Coos Bay. And so it took extra time and we drove through Coos Bay down to Bandon and then on 42 South. There was a little pull-off past Bob’s driveway and that’s where we pulled off. We got some rest there. It was just before the sun was coming up.”
Gabe purposefully had Jessica and Kalea wait in the pickup while he made his way up the hill. Robin and Bob generally slept late in the morning, and Gabe did not want to have them hear the pickup approaching the residence. Jessica recalled, “Gabe said that it would be best if we did not let them know that we were there. Just because of what happened previously, we didn’t know how Bob would react to us.”
Gabe made his way stealthily into some brush, where he could watch the house, unobserved. Incredibly, Gabe took a portable radio set along with him; he had given Jessica another one. By this means, they communicated with one another about what was happening.
One of Gabe’s messages became garbled, and Jessica understood him to say that he wanted her to drive the pickup truck up the hill. She started up the driveway. Gabe came tearing out of hiding and told her he didn’t want her doing that. Rather than drive the pickup back to its original spot, however, he had her pull it off on the side of the driveway, partway up the hill.
This did not seem to satisfy him for long, so then he had her pull the pickup truck behind a barn and hill so that it couldn’t be seen from the house. Gabe returned to a place of hiding, this time behind a group of trees. And once again he watched the house and communicated by hand-held radio with Jessica. Perhaps in Gabe’s mind, this was like a secret operation he had talked about so much. To him, he was scouting out the “enemy”; and in his mind, Bob was that enemy. He even perceived Bob as being armed and dangerous, since he knew that Bob had a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
After watching the house for several hours, Gabe saw Robin and Bob leave the residence. Gabe walked over to the house and checked out all the rooms, making sure that they were empty. When Gabe determined that things were the way he wanted them in the house, he went and got Jessica and Kalea. Then all three of them went into the house. There they showered and got something to eat. Once this was accomplished, Gabe walked Jessica and Kalea back to the pickup truck and had them wait once more. And Jessica later admitted that Gabe smoked a couple of joints while he was up on the hill. He also apparently drank a beer, because she found an empty bottle of Heineken later. He even told her to take a swig, because she’d had nothing to drink for hours. She did as instructed, but she didn’t enjoy it.
Jessica recalled, “Gabe went back in the house alone, and Kalea and I sat there in the pickup and she played with her toys and she was watching a movie on Gabe’s laptop and she calmed down. I was on the passenger side and she was on the driver’s side, and she had brought some stuffed animals with her that had been inside the house. She put them on the dashboard and watched a movie. And I could tell she was tired, so I laid a sleeping bag out on the front seat. And we covered ourselves and took a nap.”
Jessica and Kalea stayed in the pickup truck for hour after hour as Gabe roamed around inside the house. Just what he planned to do when Robin and Bob returned, he did not convey to Jessica. Then once again, Gabe came and got them and escorted them to the residence.
Jessica remembered, “Kalea and I were both ecstatic because we could actually eat again. We had no idea where Bob and Robin had gone or when they’d be back. After we ate, Kalea and I got into our pajamas.”
Jessica remembered, “It was about seven P.M. when Kalea and I got in our pajamas and we went to bed. We went to sleep in our room upstairs. Gabe stayed awake so he could talk to Bob and Robin when they got back.”
Meanwhile, Gabe kept his vigil—waiting and watching for his mom and Bob to return. By now, he was primed and ready. He had discovered Bob’s .40-caliber handgun, and he had at least two full clips. That meant he could get off twenty shots in very short order.
Robin and Bob finished their activities in North Bend and around Bandon, where they had dinner. They finally arrived back in their driveway at some time after 8:00 P.M. At that time of year, it was very dark outside the home. Unbeknownst to them, Gabe was watchful and waiting on the upper balcony, which had a commanding view of the front room.
Robin and Bob entered their home and walked toward a couch in the living room. Robin even managed to put her purse and some items down on the couch. Who knows what thoughts were racing through Gabe’s mind at that point? All his failures, anger and frustration had boiled down to this one moment. And in his delusional mind, he may have thought that Bob was reaching for a gun in his coat pocket.
In one version that Gabe later gave, he said that he yelled at Bob to take him seriously. Most likely, however, without a word, he began firing. Bob was hit multiple times and made it as far as the door before collapsing. Robin was also hit multiple times. Wounded and in shock, she still managed to make it outside the front door, before Gabe followed her, took aim and shot her in the head. Mute evidence was left near her body. It was a spent shell casing from the pistol. Gabe had to have followed her outside and shot her to death at close range.
CHAPTER 17
After Gabe made sure that his mother and Bob Kennelly were dead, he riffled through Bob’s wallet and got a little bit of cash and Walmart gift cards. Then he ran upstairs, where Jessica and Kalea were now awake.
Jessica recalled, “I woke up to the sound of gunshots. Kalea had woken up first. She was crying and scared. I think I heard Robin’s voice, but it was really, really, really distant. It was extremely muffled and distant.”
Jessica was groggy and confused. She continued, “Gabe came up to the room and ran in and said, ‘Let’s go!’ Then he ran back out. I had been wearing my glasses, and they were on the counter. I stood up, and then I grabbed Kalea. I didn’t have shoes on, so I grabbed some shoes out of the closet. They were Gabe’s shoes. I couldn’t find any that matched. So I just wore Gabe’s mismatched shoes. I carried Kalea. I ran down the hall with her, went down the stairs, stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and that’s when I saw them. I told Kalea to close her eyes and not open them for any reason. And I ran out and stepped over Bob and Robin. She was outside. Bob was bloody. He had blood behind his head. I didn’t look at Robin.
“Gabe was in Bob’s truck and I ran up with Kalea. And we got in and he had the truck started. He took off and sped down the driveway. We hit the embankments and I thought we were going to tip over and go down onto 42 South, but we didn’t. It was very dark outside on the road.”
It was from there that Gabe made the drive to Fred Eschler’s neighborhood and concocted his story about terrorists. Of this whole incident, Jessica’s recollection was “He told me when we went up to the Eschlers’ door, ‘Follow along. Do what I say.’ And he went in and he told them that we were part of the air force and that he was like an air force special ops, or whatever it’s called. And there had been terrorists that had come and just murdered his mom and her boyfriend, and that Gabe shot one of them. And we needed help.
“Fred told Laura to go clean out the car. And I think Gabe asked Fred something about borrowing it or having to drive us. But Fred said he couldn’t do it because he had to work in the morning. Fred put together a bag of food for us. Some cottage cheese, apples, other things, and I was holding Kalea the whole time.
“Fred gave Gabe the gun and they put the bullets in the slidey thing. I don’t know what it’s called for a gun. And Fred gave him that gun. I asked for a car seat for Kalea, but Gabe said it wasn’t necessary. And I wasn’t sure how this was going to work. I wasn’t sure if he was going to drive. So Kalea was put down in the backseat and he wanted me to drive. I got behind the wheel and we drove off.”
As Gabe and Kalea hid in the backseat of the Eschlers’ Ford Taurus, Jessica drove down the darkened road away from Coquille. She already knew there were no terrorists, nor were they fleeing for their lives from some radical cell of killers. She had seen no one else in the house, no other dead bodies except those of Robin Anstey and Bob Kennelly. She surmised correctly that Gabe had killed them.
Jessica recalled, “I drove to Roseburg (on Interstate 5) and I asked him which way we should go. Then I said, ‘South?’ And he said, ‘I totally agree.’ And so I turned south.”
Working up her courage, she asked why he had killed them. Gabe didn’t even try to lie to her. His answer was “It had to be done.” He gave no further explanation than that.
Once again, on a darkened road, they were heading south. This time it was not to collect money or to look for new job opportunities. It was to try and get beyond the reach of the law. Behind them they had left two bodies lying in pools of blood at a hillside residence on Highway 42 South.
No one except for Gabe, Jessica and Kalea knew about Robin Anstey and Robert Kennelly lying dead at their residence. This state of affairs went on for two days, until the afternoon of Wednesday, February 10. A citizen of Coquille complained to the Coquille Police Department about a pickup truck parked in front of his home on Dean Street. The police checked on this pickup truck and ran the license plate number. It turned out to be a pickup owned by Robert Kennelly, of Highway 42 South.
Since the address was beyond the CPD’s jurisdiction, they asked the Coos County Sheriff’s Office to make contact with Kennelly about the pickup truck. Deputy Adam Slater pulled the assignment.
Deputy Slater arrived at Kennelly’s place at around 1:45 P.M. on February 10. He thought he was there just to check on a very minor infraction. He drove up the hill from the highway and parked his vehicle where everybody else parked their vehicles, behind the residence near a shed. Slater walked down some steps toward the house and was stunned to see a body lying on the deck in front of the house. It was the body of Robin Anstey. As Slater moved up toward the house, he saw a second body sprawled on the living-room floor, near an open door. This was the body of Bob Kennelly.
Deputy Slater confirmed that both victims were dead, pulled back from the scene and called for help. This was obviously something far beyond a deputy’s duties. A detective and other sheriff’s officers were going to have to be called in. As it turned out, CCSO detective sergeant Daniel Looney was about to get a case that surpassed anything he had ever seen before.
Looney had been in the sheriff’s office for twenty-six years by 2010 and had been a detective for twenty years. As he recalled later, “We received a call from the Coquille Police Department about a white Dodge pickup truck illegally parked on Dean Street in Coquille. They advised us that the regi
stered owner was Robert Kennelly and his residence was out on Highway 42 South. That was in the Coos County Sheriff’s Office jurisdiction.
“Deputy Slater’s job was to drive out to the residence and make contact with the registered owner and ask him to move the vehicle. About one forty-five, he arrived on scene, found the bodies of a deceased male and female there and called it in.”
Soon Detective Looney was on his way; and when he arrived, he noted that this location was known as the Flower Hill Ranch. A steep driveway wound up the hill from the highway, and it was wooded along its side. Pampas grass grew along two small spur roads, which were parallel to the main driveway. The main driveway eventually led to a garage area and shed. There was also a barn off to the side and a large two-story main residence.
When Sergeant Looney got to the deck area outside the back entrance of the house, he noted a middle-aged female lying faceup. He immediately looked for blood in that area and noticed blood smear marks and lots of blood, where she had bled out. There were also small, scattered droplets of blood on other areas of the deck.
And then something really caught his eye. It appeared to him that initially she might have been facedown in a planter box. To his eyes, it seemed as if someone had dragged her to the position where she now lay on the deck and positioned her faceup. Near her present position, there was a spent bullet casing and a pair of glasses.
The deceased male was lying in the living room, faceup. It appeared that he had been running for the door when gunned down. Since Sergeant Looney had concern about the increasing clouds and threat of rain, an awning was placed out on the deck area to cover the female’s body and other evidence, but not contaminate the scene. Then Looney closed the French doors to the house to keep any rain out.