Kill the Ones You Love

by Robert Scott

  The detectives asked her about the events there, and Looney wondered about Gabe getting money there. “Did the cash he gave you . . . Did that look like it came from a business or a bank?”

  Jessica said, “There were one-dollar bills and [a] fifty. That was the biggest bill. It was mostly ones.”

  “Did he rob somewhere?”

  “I believe so.”

  Then the questioning concerned the trip from Southern California to Arizona. Jessica spoke about being with some of her friends there, the robbery in Arizona and details about the route to Virginia.

  Looney told Jessica, “I’m going to start asking you for more details. And I know some of it’s going to be quite painful. But I need to know everything.”

  And Frasier added, “We know a lot of stuff because we talked to a lot of people, and we’re kinda testing whether you’re giving us the whole story, so you need to be completely honest with us.”

  Now the detectives got Jessica to speak about all of the events of the week before the murders, the actual shooting and then being at the Eschlers’. The questions and answers were much more detailed than the initial questioning. At one point, Looney asked about the events of February 8, “So, why didn’t you guys just go up the driveway and talk to Bob and Robin?”

  Jessica stated, “Well, Gabe said we shouldn’t do that. I didn’t feel like we should do it either. We didn’t know what Bob would do. By this time, Gabe knew what he had done to us. He wasn’t sure what he would do. He knew that Robin knew it too.” Jessica was referencing the supposed rat poisoning. “We felt like Bob was hurting us, and she knew, but she didn’t care because she was with a man. We just wanted to get our stuff.”

  “So, in your mind, you wanted to get your stuff.”

  “And talk to them. Gabe was going to see about us possibly staying there again. Maybe even living over at Robin’s house.”

  There were a lot more details about February 8, and then the questioning turned toward Gabe’s affair with a woman in Idaho. Looney said, “Was that the girlfriend he was living with for a while?”

  Jessica’s naivete must have stunned him. She said, “Um, I don’t think they actually lived together.”

  Looney asked, “Where did she work for him?”

  “As an American Family Insurance agent.”

  Riddle asked, “What did he steal?”

  Jessica answered, “I don’t remember what she claimed. We were talking to my dad, and he said that she was trying—well, he had been contacted with regard to it or something.”

  Apparently, this issue about Brenda and the stealing came up again when Gabe, Jessica and Kalea were on the road, heading up to Seattle, in early February. Jessica said there had been a call about it on their cell phone. She added, “Gabe told me to just throw the cell phone out the window of the car.”

  Getting back to the aftermath of the murders, Looney said, “Did you ask Gabe later what happened?”

  Jessica said, “I asked him on the way to Roseburg. I was in shock. I couldn’t believe it. He said that they had come in the house. He sat down to talk to them and Robin got up and started making as if she was going to leave. And that’s all he said.”

  “How [did] her trying to leave turn into a shooting?”

  “I asked him why, and he said it needed to happen.”

  “And why did it need to happen?”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “What did he explain?”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “Had he mentioned doing this, that he was going to do this, or that he thought about it?”

  “No.”

  “Did he mention that his mom needed to pay, or anything like that?”

  “No. He loved her very much. So do I.”

  CHAPTER 28

  The questioning got back to the details of the cross-country trip to Virginia. Looney asked, “Did you guys ever get into an argument about what had happened?”

  Jessica said they had not.

  Looney asked, “Did you ever confront him?”

  “No. After he said that it had to happen, I didn’t talk about it anymore.”

  “So, how do you think it all went down up there?”

  “I think, when they came in, Gabe was in the kitchen or something and they sat down to talk. And at some point, Gabe brought the gun out or something. I don’t know if Bob charged him or said something. And then Gabe’s mom got up to leave and Bob followed her, and—”

  Frasier interrupted and said, “I think she needs to know how it happened, because I’ve got some questions in my mind about what’s going on here. I think we need to perhaps have a more heart-to-heart discussion here. I think we’ve been skirting around the issues and we need to get down to brass tacks. And if you guys want me to take the lead, I’ll do it.”

  Both Riddle and Looney said for Frasier to go ahead.

  He began, “Jessica, the physical evidence shows that your husband was standing outside the door of your bedroom. He was standing on top of that balcony. The evidence shows that your mother-in-law and her boyfriend came in the door and they had barely gotten inside the door when he opened fire on them. He shot at them. There was that big plant there by the door, and we got bullet holes through the leaves of that plant. It looks like he went down the balcony and fired a series of shots. He then went out to the bottom of the stairway, and actually he admitted to the police in Virginia that he shot Mr. Kennelly while he was lying on the ground. Shot him in the chest, and then shot his mother. The mother was killed by a bullet wound to the head. You said you heard Robin say something. But the head shot would have killed her. So there’s discrepancies about what we’re hearing, in which you recall what happened, and what the physical evidence is telling us.”

  All Jessica had to say to these revelations was “Okay.”

  Frasier continued, “Another thing that kinda jumps out at me, and these guys can come back and talk about it later, it seemed like you were minimizing his marijuana use and drinking. We know about the medical marijuana card. And we know about the grow.”

  Frasier turned to Looney and asked, “Didn’t we find some marijuana plants in the Castle Room?”

  Looney replied, “Not in that room, but Gabe had been smoking marijuana like a madman.”

  Hamilton jumped in and asked, “In the Castle Room?”

  Frasier said that was correct.

  Jessica started to say, “I don’t think he smoked—”

  Frasier cut her off. “If he’s spending all day in there, he’s smoking dope around your kid.”

  Looney added, “There was dope all over that room.”

  Jessica said, “I didn’t know he smoked in front of Kalea.”

  Frasier continued, “Well, the paraphernalia certainly was in there. She’s in the room. She’s exposed to it. I guess what it boils down to is, did you know before it happened? Did you know that Gabe was going to kill these people?”

  Jessica emphatically stated, “No.”

  Looney declared, “Because I can tell you, he ambushed them. There was no discussion with them. There was not a word said.”

  Jessica still couldn’t believe it. She replied, “He said that he had sat down with them.”

  Looney responded, “Nope. Impossible. They still had their coats on.”

  Riddle added, “They barely had time to set their things down that they brought into the house with them.”

  Looney continued, “And they set it down and it was never touched again. I can prove almost everything, because of stuff we found. Those shots came from that balcony, except for a couple of them. And the last shot would have been in your mother-in-law’s head, outside.”

  Frasier interjected, “She woulda dropped like a rock right there. I’m going to play devil’s advocate here—I’m a defense attorney for Gabriel. I’m going to point a finger at you, trying to make you look like the bad guy, on at least part of this. So you came to the conclusion that Robert Kennelly was putting rat poison in your food and dishes. Did y
ou ever see him do that?”

  “No.”

  “And you prepared the food, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “How would he have had the opportunity to do that?”

  “I left for work when everyone was asleep. About the time they would go to sleep, I was gone.”

  Frasier asked, “When you were preparing food, did you see anything to cause you to believe it had been tampered with or anything?”

  Jessica replied, “A couple of times, I saw some residue in the pans, but I thought it was just that I hadn’t cleaned them very well.”

  “Okay. Did you ever go to a doctor yourself, or take Kalea to the doctor, or have any tests run to say that you were poisoned?”

  “We didn’t have insurance. We had to let it go. We didn’t have enough money for it.”

  “Did you go to the police about it?”

  “No.”

  “You see what I’m saying?”

  Riddle jumped in and added, “Did you get on the computer and check out the symptoms of rat poisoning?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Riddle added, “I mean, your husband’s spending hours and hours on the computer. It stands to reason that you could have punched in the symptoms of rat poisoning and have the World Wide Web help you out.”

  Jessica responded, “We didn’t get a chance to. The only time we were by a computer after that was back at Grandma’s house.”

  Frasier said, “Who brought up the idea that you’d been poisoned?”

  “Him.”

  “Okay, the other thing that’s confusing is, if you know or believe that Robert is poisoning you, why go back to talk to him?”

  Jessica said, “Because I felt like Gabe could talk to them, and because his mom was in danger and that she needed to be taken away from that situation because she needed to be helped.”

  “Did you believe Robin was in on the poisoning?”

  “I don’t know when I came to the conclusion, but she knew about it, but didn’t do anything about it. And that she knew he was poisoning her as well.”

  Frasier continued, “So you know this could get turned around and the one who gets a finger pointed at is you. You and Gabe figure that Robert is poisoning you, and you guys went back for retribution. I could see a defense attorney representing Gabe, pointing the finger right at you.”

  “I can see what you’re saying.”

  “All right. So there’s that, [which] you need to think about a little bit. The other thing is, did Gabe ever in your presence tell anybody that he’d killed his mother?”

  “Yes. He told Judy.”

  “What did he say when he was talking to Judy?”

  “He said that he had killed his mom and her boyfriend, and he looked at me and asked if I knew that. And I said, ‘Yes.’”

  “Okay. So you know that’s what we’ve been skirting around here. You know that Gabe killed those two folks and you were driving away and so forth.”

  Jessica agreed with that, so Frasier continued: “Another question that’s gonna pop up is it’s obvious from what you’ve said today, and what we already know, that there were multiple occasions where you could have walked away from Gabe. Driven away with Kalea, gone straight to the police and told ’em what the hell happened—pardon my French—but you didn’t do it. So the question is, why didn’t you run from this guy?”

  Jessica paused for a moment. Then she said, “I love him. I wanted Kalea to have her dad.”

  “Did you really think that Kalea could have her dad after he killed those two people?”

  “Gabe said it was possible.”

  Riddle jumped in and said, “Explain that.”

  So Jessica stated, “He said we could get different names or something and that we’d never use our names again.”

  Frasier asked, “What was Gabe’s relationship with Judy?”

  Jessica replied, “On the game, I don’t know. He talked highly of her, said that she had a lot of character. That she stuck up for him in situations where other people didn’t. And when we got there, Judy was very sick. She has like an eating disorder, stomach pains or something, that just makes her not want to eat. If she eats, she hurts, and if she doesn’t eat, she hurts. So she just chooses not to eat. And that’s why she’s so skinny. And Gabe wanted her to be better and he healed her. With Doug’s help.”

  Now Frasier really rocked Jessica’s world. He asked, “Did you know Gabe was sleeping with her?”

  Jessica replied, “No. He would invite her to come and sleep.... It was a king bed, and so I would sleep here and Kalea was in the middle. Judy would sleep on the other side, and he would sleep at the bottom of the bed. But that he actually slept with her, I did not know that.”

  “Okay. Well, we know he had sex with her, and Judy says you knew about that.”

  All Jessica said was “No.”

  Thinking about this more, however, Jessica added, “There were several times when he would be upstairs in the room with her, and I went up to get a toy for Kalea or the hairbrush or something. And just a couple of times, he would follow me back downstairs and say, ‘Why are you coming up here? Are you trying to spy on me or something?’ And I told him, no, that I was just getting a hairbrush or toy or whatever. Did Judy really say that?”

  “Yes, she did, when we interviewed her in Virginia. We’ve got her on video telling us that there was a sexual relationship between her and Gabriel.”

  “No, I didn’t know.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Frasier wanted to know why Gabe was so insistent that Judy and Doug go with them when they were going to leave Virginia.

  Jessica said, “Because he knew he could trust them and they had a different car and money. And so we wouldn’t have to worry about money. I wouldn’t have to beg anymore.”

  Frasier asked, “Well, what do you think would have happened to Doug and Judy, once Gabe had the car and money?”

  “Nothing. They were going to come with us.”

  “Do you really think they were going to come with you?”

  “I really did.”

  “You don’t think Gabe would have killed them for their identification?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, well, that’s another thing I’m throwing out there so you’re aware of it.”

  Looney added, “The problem is, there’s a good chance that’s exactly what he was going to do. What’s the difference? He’s already killed two people.”

  Jessica was still insistent. “They were coming to help us.”

  Frasier replied, “Yeah, but the reason they were coming to help you was because Gabe talked them into it. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, I guess I’m trying to get across to you, whether you believe me or not, Gabe sold a bill of goods to you since the beginning. That girlfriend or whatever, in Pocatello, it’s real clear it was a sexual relationship. We know about that. He convinced you otherwise. We know about the divorce proceedings that were started and, apparently, abandoned. That’s why we’re having this talk, because, you know, I’m not trying to be a jerk, but it seems like we have to ask lots of pointed questions to get the information we know you know. And it could be that it’s just your personality. Or it could be like you say, you love the guy and you’re holding out hope that you guys can be together again. And I think Carole’s talked to you about that.”

  Jessica agreed that she had.

  Frasier continued his outreach to Jessica: “I think your mom and dad have talked to you about that too. Probably ad nauseam. So I think what you need to do is think about how you want to conduct your life from here on out. Because, quite frankly, Gabriel Morris isn’t going to be part of it anymore—not if I have anything to say about it. And you need to be aware, as the case progresses, that he’s going to turn on you. And I think Carole can verify that would be a common tactic that is used to make you look like the worst person there is.”

  Hamilton did agree with that.

  Frasier added, “I ment
ioned the divorce, because I was made aware that there had been a divorce filed. So, is there something you wanted to tell us about that?”

  “I don’t want to tell you, but if you want me to, then—”

  Frasier said, “Well, yeah. Tell us who filed it and why.”

  Jessica stated, “Gabe, like I told Carole, went down to Las Vegas to help a fellow coworker that he had been training with. She was an American Family Insurance agent as well. So in November 2008, he asked both of his employees if they would go with him and one said no and one said yes. And the one who said yes was Brenda. And so they went down to Vegas and they were there a few days. She had an open house and he wanted to be there for it and help her with it. And he came back and he was always strange after that. I don’t know if that’s when their relationship began. But that’s when he started talking about getting a divorce. He said he would still be a provider, and give us money to live on, but he didn’t want to be married anymore.

  “I didn’t want to fill out the papers. So he went and got them and brought them back and left them with me so that I could fill them out. And I didn’t want to. I fought it. And so I didn’t fill them out for a long time. And then I finally did, like in February 2009 or something. And he had been gone, off and on, since November. He would just leave and not come back for a while.

  “I remember I took a picture at Christmas and he was just pouty in the picture, like he wasn’t excited to be there. I mean, Kalea was sitting right next to him, but he was sitting there, pouting. And he went and saw Brenda and her family after that. So he had me fill out the papers and I finally did, and we went over and turned them in. I cried the whole time. Kalea sat on the bench behind us, and the lady behind the counter—I can just remember her face. She saw me crying and got really mad at Gabe. You could see it in her face. And he started laughing and joking and stuff.

  “He told me later in April or May 2009 that I had forgotten to fill out something, like a really simple thing. And then he didn’t pursue it after that.”