by Robert Scott
Jessica was in for another surprise, as far as Gabe was concerned. Frasier said, “I don’t know the exact status of the paperwork. I know it’s still pending.”
“Oh, really!” she exclaimed. “I was told that if it doesn’t happen in six months, it just drops off or something.”
Frasier stated, “I don’t know what your plans are. I’m not putting any pressure on you. It’s still there. That’s an avenue available to you. I don’t know if you want to go through with it or not. Maybe your dad or somebody could go down and look at the paperwork and see what needs to be finished, if that’s what you want to do.”
A break was taken for the evening, and the next day the same people assembled for another round of the interview. Jessica started out by saying, “In jail last night, I just started thinking about things. And they’re not in any order—just completely random. The first place Gabe came back with money when we went to Southern California was by Balboa Park and a hospital. The second place was in Arizona. When he got back in the car, he said that he thought the people there thought he was a Hispanic guy. I think it was a hair place, but I don’t know for sure.
“And about his alcohol use, he bought the bottle of gin at Edgefield (in Oregon, when they went to the Silverton/Portland area). And he always had one in the car. And down in Southern California, he didn’t have an ID.”
Frasier wanted to know if Bob and Robin smoked marijuana. Jessica said that Robin didn’t like it, and she never saw Bob smoke any. The whole thing to grow marijuana was supposedly for selling to clinics. Jessica added, “But Gabe wanted to smoke it.”
As far as the Bingham County Sheriff’s Office went, Jessica was in for another surprise. She said, “He was going to be a policeman in Anchorage, Alaska. And he had been let go from the sheriff’s office because of his shoulder injury.” Frasier wanted to know whether the sheriff’s office told her that or if Gabe had. Jessica said that Gabe had.
Frasier explained, “Well, just to let you know, we’ve heard that he quit the sheriff’s office for a couple of different reasons. One was that he quit because he didn’t get a promotion to detective. Another was that he didn’t like how somebody was giving him directions, and he went to the sheriff and told him, ‘I don’t like how this is being done.’ And the sheriff basically told him to buck it up and follow what the person was telling him.”
CHAPTER 30
Jessica now continued her random thoughts. She said, “When we were in the car, he started talking about how Bob had talked to him about wanting to kill people. And Bob said he had done it over a million times in his mind, but didn’t have enough guts to do it.”
According to Gabe, this had happened in the room that John Lindegren had built on the property. Frasier said, “I live here in Coquille. I know Big John.”
Jessica retorted, “Okay. I guess everybody knows everybody here.” And then Jessica reiterated that she hadn’t heard the initial gunshots, but Kalea must have. Kalea had started screaming and woke up Jessica.
Jessica got into the situation about Gabe and the ROTC. And once again, she didn’t know about the other stories Gabe had told different people concerning that. Jessica said, “He told me he got a pilot’s license and—”
Frasier interrupted her and asked, “Did he show you any paperwork that he’d gotten a pilot’s license?”
“No, but I knew he did. You can contact the ROTC. They can tell you. He did get it. Colonel Ringer told me.” (Author’s note: Colonel Ringer was most likely a fictitious name Gabe had come up with.)
Frasier said, “We’re hearing a different story.”
Once again, in surprise, Jessica said, “Oh, really!”
“We’re hearing that he didn’t get a pilot’s slot and that’s why he didn’t go in the air force.”
“Really? Because I remember when he found out that he’d gotten it, we were at my sister’s wedding. And he’d just gotten his pilot’s slot.”
“Well, see, that’s another discrepancy we’re finding out.”
Jessica must have been reeling at this point. It was obvious that Gabe had told her one lie after another. She said, “So the ROTC said that he didn’t get it at all?”
Frasier replied, “The information we were given was that he didn’t get a pilot’s slot, and he got mad and that’s why he didn’t go into the air force.”
Looney added, “So he quit ROTC. They were going to give him a slot as something else, something else on the ground. It wasn’t a pilot.”
Frasier then said, “You mentioned that when he was working at American Family Insurance, in the second month, he got a life insurance policy on you and Kalea?”
Jessica said that he also bought a policy that covered himself in case of death. Frasier wanted to know if Gabe had taken out a life insurance policy on anyone else. She said that she didn’t know.
Frasier asked how Gabe had obtained a certain firearm when he was with the BCSO. Jessica said, “They [the sheriff’s office] gave him a rifle that was in the trunk of his car all the time. But he bought a gun at Sam’s in Pocatello. A handgun.”
Frasier said, “Mr. [ James] Anstey says he gave Gabe three hundred dollars to buy a gun he could have to work for the sheriff’s office. Do you know anything about that?”
Jessica said that she didn’t.
Looney queried, “We sorta talked about it yesterday. What was Gabe’s whole idea on coming back to the house on the eighth? I mean, I don’t understand it. He was sneaking around up there. That seems odd to me. Why didn’t you just drive up the driveway, if he was wanting to talk to them?”
Jessica answered, “It was just because Bob had done the whole poisoning thing. We weren’t sure how far he would carry it. Gabe just wanted to be in the house and be able to talk to them on his terms.”
“Did Gabe tell you something about Bob being a pedophile?”
“No.”
“Okay, so Gabe wanted to talk to them on his own terms. How did he say his own terms were going to be?”
“Just that he wanted to be in the house and ready for them to come in, so that Bob couldn’t grab a gun or something like that. So that he could be protected.”
“When Gabe was doing these things, was he including you in his decision making?”
“Sometimes.”
“I mean, did he talk to you about everything, or did he surprise you all the time?”
“He gets inspired a lot and he does it. He doesn’t talk to me about it. He just does it. Whatever he thinks to do or feels to do, he does it.”
Looney wanted to know if this meant she was surprised by a lot of Gabe’s decisions. She said, “Yeah, like when we arrived at McMenamins restaurant in Washington. I was completely shocked. I had no idea—”
Frasier interjected, “What I think Dan is getting at, if you look at what you’ve told us, Gabe is telling you that Bob’s putting rat poison in the food, or something along that line. You guys leave and then Gabe says, ‘We need to go back.’”
Jessica replied, “That was a joint decision.”
“Yeah, but you come back, and if you look at how you came back—you parked down the road. And then Gabe sneaks up, looking around. Then he calls you on a walkie-talkie. You get the car up there and you’re hiding behind the garage, and he’s in the woods scoping out the house. You see what I’m saying? He goes in there and arms himself with one of Bob’s guns. He brings you guys into the house, and he’s waiting for them to come in. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out Gabe planned it. He came back to kill his mom and Bob, and all of his actions that day show that this was a preplanned event. You see what I’m saying?”
“Yes.”
“Yesterday you told us you didn’t know he was going to do it. But you look at all the plans that he’s doing and it’s real clear that he planned on killing his mom and her boyfriend. So we just want to make it abundantly clear you did not know what was planned.”
Jessica said, “I did not know.”
“And you didn’t help
plan it out or anything like that?”
“No, I did not.”
Jessica’s attorney spoke up and said, “Can I interject something?”
Frasier said that she could.
Hamilton said, “I’ve asked Jessica something several times and I think it might be important she have an answer to this. I asked, even if Bob were giving them rat poison, did she think that justified shooting them?” The attorney turned to Jessica and said, “And your answer was?”
Jessica replied, “No.”
Moving on, Looney asked if Gabe had told her that he’d purposefully eaten rat poison and healed himself. Jessica said yes. Then Looney asked if that surprised her. She said that it didn’t. When asked why it didn’t surprise her, she replied, “Because he is blessed in the ability to be able to heal people. He’s a priesthood holder in the Church and he healed Judy through the power of God.”
Looney wanted to know if she believed all of this because she had seen it, or because Gabe had told her those things. Jessica answered, “Throughout our marriage, whenever I was sick or Kalea was, he’s given a blessing and we healed. We started feeling better immediately, especially Kalea. When a little one gets a cold and can’t tell you what’s wrong and just looks at you with her eyes, and you know that they’re talking to you, but they have nothing that they can say, because they don’t know how to talk yet, he was able to give her a blessing and heal her.”
Frasier, who was a Mormon, was not going to let this explanation stand. He said, “This brings up a side issue. It may be something you need to think about. Being a member of the Church myself, and knowing things that you know, and knowing that you’ve been on a mission, like I’ve been on a mission—you have to know that under the doctrine of the Church, that for a person to be able to do this, you have to be a worthy individual to do that. And you’re telling me that Gabe was not abiding by the Word of Wisdom in terms of his drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana, and then he goes and kills two people. And then he heals Judy? I mean, the problem I’m having here, which I’m trying to gauge, is how could you feel he could do that when the doctrine of the Church would indicate that that is not a possibility?”
Jessica answered, “With regard to Judy, priesthood holders give blessings in the name of Jesus Christ. And he did it in the name of the Holy Ghost.”
“But you have to know that is contrary to Church doctrine, don’t you?”
Jessica paused and then responded, “I would say, yeah.”
Moving on, Frasier asked if Jessica was scared of Gabe when she and Kalea left with him after the shootings. Jessica said, “I was scared. I don’t know if it was of him. I don’t know if it was the shock. I was just scared.”
So Frasier asked if Jessica was scared that Gabe was going to hurt her or Kalea. She said that she wasn’t.
“Okay, and I think you told me this yesterday, that you stayed with Gabe through this whole thing after the shooting, went all over the U.S., because you loved him and wanted to stay with him. Is that right?”
Jessica answered, “And I believe in him.” Then she corrected herself, she said, “Believed.” It was past tense now.
Frasier said that he wanted to make sure that she had not been forced to go along with Gabe across the United States. She said that never had been the case.
Changing tracks, Frasier got into the fact that Gabe had lost a lot of weight in 2010. Jessica said that it was because he was hardly eating anything. Frasier retorted that Gabe might have been doing methamphetamine. People who abused that drug often looked and acted the way Gabe did. Frasier said they had pressured speech, could not sit still and lost a lot of weight. Jessica said she did not think Gabe did meth, but she knew he drank a lot of alcohol and smoked a lot of marijuana.
Frasier wondered why Bob Kennelly’s wallet was never discovered. Jessica said that Gabe took the cash out of the wallet and stuffed it in his pants pocket. She thought he might have tossed the wallet out the window of the car when he had tossed out Kennelly’s gun accidentally. Gabe had been very drunk at the time.
Frasier also wanted to know why Gabe left the Popes’ pickup truck at Bob Kennelly’s house. Jessica said that it had been having problems and Bob’s truck was more reliable. And as far as the shooting went, Frasier asked, “How much time do you think passed from the time you heard the last shot till Gabe’s telling you, ‘We gotta get out of here’?”
Jessica replied, “I don’t know for sure. Under a minute, I would say.”
“And when you came downstairs, Gabe was already in the truck?”
“He was outside. Initially I couldn’t find our shoes upstairs. I was looking everywhere and I was scared.”
Looney asked, “Did Gabe tell you there were terrorists out there?”
“No.”
“Did he make any other excuse other than he shot his mom and Bob?”
“No.”
“So he never told you that the whole trip?”
“No, until at Judy’s when he said that to her. But he didn’t come out and say, ‘I just shot them.’ He didn’t say that [in the car].”
Frasier asked, “He just said, ‘It had to be done’?”
“Yes.”
Finally, after two grueling days, the interview was over. Jessica was led back to her jail cell. Unlike with Gabe, a process began in the DA’s office for her release. Gabe was not going anywhere.
CHAPTER 31
On March 22, 2010, Jessica and her lawyer were back in Judge Richard Barron’s courtroom. Jessica was shackled and dressed in the orange jumpsuit again. Her attorney, Carole Hamilton, sat beside her.
As the proceedings went on, Jessica answered questions in a soft voice and often sniffled. During the hearing, Frasier pointed out that Jessica had been the one who drove the car away from the Eschlers’ home, with Gabe and Kalea in the backseat. He added, “She even told investigators she wasn’t forced to help her husband, nor was she afraid for her life or that of the child.”
Nonetheless, Frasier was now allowing Jessica to be released from jail and she would only have to be on probation. She could not leave the state of Oregon while on probation, but she would be allowed to have custody of Kalea at some point in the future. All of this was dependent upon her actually testifying against Gabe at trial.
Frasier added that if new evidence was found that Jessica had more to do with the murders of Bob Kennelly and Robin Anstey than was known at the time by investigators, he had the right to charge her, according to that new evidence. Frasier said, “We are still free to prosecute her for the murders, if that is the case.”
After the court hearing, Frasier told one reporter, “She [Jessica] needs to get her head screwed on. She has some things she needs to work on.” In light of all that had happened, she had plenty to work on.
While Gabe was waiting to see how his extradition hearings would be going, he made a collect phone call from the Prince William County Jail to half brother Jesse McCoy. Jesse later said, “Instead of me blatantly asking him, ‘Did you kill our mother?’ I said, ‘Gabe, do you need my help?’ I was still hoping the little kid I once knew was hurting, was scared. I got nothing. He said, ‘I don’t know why the fuck I’m here!’
“I said, ‘You’re there because they think you murdered our mother. Do you know that Mom is dead?’ He just went right to something else. I don’t know this guy he is now. He has become a master liar.”
Around that same time, DA Frasier let it be known that he wouldn’t be charging Fred and Laura Eschler with any crimes, even though they had provided Gabe and his family with a gun, ammo, car and other items. The reason Frasier chose not to do so was “because they said they didn’t know what Morris had done.” The evidence seemed to back up this contention.
Some in the community, however, wondered about the fact that Frasier and the Eschlers had known each other for years, and how much of a factor that was in Frasier’s decision. To lay to rest any of these suspicions, Frasier asked officials at the Oregon Department of Justice (
DOJ) to look into the case.
On April 3, 2010, Frasier had his answer. Sean Riddell, the chief counsel for the DOJ, said, “Based upon the information provided, we concur with your assessment that there is insufficient evidence to support a prosecution of either Mr. or Mrs. Eschler for supplying listed items to Mr. Morris.”
This ruling also removed any roadblocks for DA Frasier to move ahead as the prosecutor on the case. And a few weeks later, the case was definitely moving forward. In early May, Gabriel Morris was back in Coos County, Oregon. He was immediately taken from Virginia to the Coos County Jail in Coquille, where he waited arraignment before Judge Martin Stone.
The actual arraignment for Gabe Morris was somewhat unusual. He appeared at the hearing via a video link from the Coos County Jail library. As Judge Stone asked Gabe a few questions, Gabe sat quietly and answered them all in a polite tone. In fact, Gabe ended each sentence with the words “Your Honor.”
Judge Stone appointed Peter Fahy, of Corvallis, to represent Gabe. Part of the reason was the fact that Fahy had represented other clients charged with murder. Fahy let the judge know that he would be seeking co-counsel in the case. He would be contacting Michael Barker, of Corvallis, Oregon. The reason was because Barker often dealt with death penalty cases. Bail was set at $5 million and then Gabe was escorted back to his jail cell.
Through it all, Gabe had sat as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Just why that was would soon be delved into by both psychologists and psychiatrists for the defense and for the prosecution.
CHAPTER 32
Early on in the proceedings, one of the things the defense wanted to determine was whether Gabriel Morris was competent to stand trial. If he could not understand what was taking place in a courtroom, what the functions of the various people were, such as a judge and jurors, and could not help his counsel, he would be found not competent and a trial could not commence.