A: I heard something, said that they was wondering where they could take them to.
Q:…What do you mean?
A: They was wanting to take them somewhere, to get them off the road by theirself or something.
According to Walton, Cutlip then came over to the van to look at the women, then returned to where his vehicle was parked to discuss potential secluded spots where they could take the women. After that, he said, Cook left with Adkison.
Q: What’s the next thing you can remember?
A:…Rich and Bill had—said something about they was going to see if the girls would put out for them or something. And they got in the van with them.
Q: When you say “put out,” Pee Wee, what do you mean?
A: Have sex with them.
This many men meant several vehicles, and the caravan then proceeded deeper into the state park and then through the park to a popular party spot. Two of the men then assaulted Vicki and Nancy, Walton claimed, pulling their hands behind their backs and feeling them up. McCoy asked Walton for his pistol so he could threaten the women into having sex. When asked what Vicki and Nancy were doing at this point, Walton described “the shorter one”—Nancy—as not putting up much of a struggle.
“The other one”—Vicki with “the teeth that stuck out”—“was fighting with Bill quite a bit.…She was hollering that she was gonna go to the law.”
“Then,” Walton paused, stumbled on his words, reddened, and touched his mustache with the index finger of his left hand.
A: I believe, Bill said something like, uh, “we kill people, we’ll kill y’all,” or something.…The girl that had the teeth that stuck out, she come over, got away from Bill some. Bill was with Ritchie towards the other girl. She came to me and she asked me. I was on the [van] bed at that time sitting back in the corner. And she asked me why was we doing this to them. And I told her, I ain’t doing nothing to you. And Bill came back over and got her.
The women continued to refuse sex, according to Walton, and the men eventually gave up on the idea of raping them, which they seemed to regard as no great failure, according to Walton. “Rich said they ain’t gonna put out for us…just party.”
Soon more men showed up, apparently just cruising around the woods, or perhaps called to the party, and the tension was diffused. According to Walton, Vicki and Nancy were then left unattended while the men talked, drank, and went to check out guns, a homebrew operation, and a camper. Fowler had brought the weed and rolled a joint, which everybody smoked; some people, including Walton, were also drinking liquor and beer. Vicki and Nancy were now standing outside the van.
Sitting among the other journalists in the Greenbrier courtroom, Susan Strong watched Walton lose his composure as he spoke of what happened next. Walton stayed in the van while Fowler got out of it.
“What’s the next thing you can remember?” Weiford asked, with great gentleness.
A: Everybody jumping up there in the van, I guess when the first shot was fired.
Q: Did you hear a shot?
A: At this time, I can’t, I can’t say if I did or not.
Q: Do you remember people jumping in the van?
A: Yes. Everybody stood up and was standing around…
Q: What’s the next thing you can remember, Pee Wee?
A: The girl running up into the doorway and backing out.
Q: What doorway?
A: The sliding door on the side.
Q: Can you remember which girl that was?
A: I think it was the one with the buck teeth.
Q: Do you remember it clearly or could you be mistaken?
A: No it seemed pretty clear.
Q: OK. What do you remember next?
A: A person coming up into the doorway with a rifle. Like this.
Q: Do you remember who that was?
A: I’m not really sure. It had to have been Jacob since he’s the only one who had the rifle.
Q: You said it would have to have been Jacob?
A: Well I guess it couldn’t have to have been, I’m not for sure if there was anyone behind the van or not.
Q: Did you ever see anybody else holding the gun?
A: Just Arnie, they was up in front of the van.
Q: Was it Arnie with the gun?
A: No.
Q: Was it Gerald?
A: No.
Q: Was it Bill?
A: I don’t know.
Q: Was it Rich?
A: He was in the van.
Q: Was it Jacob?
A: All I can remember is just seeing the person right there with the rifle in his hand.
Q: What kind of condition were you in at this point?
A: Pretty well just about ready to black out I think.
Q: Because of what?
A: The whole mixture of things I guess. Drinking and smoking that pot and beer and whiskey.
Q: Were you afraid?
A: Um, I think it was a little too much drinking to even be afraid. It I guess scared me, had to.
Q: Do you remember what you did?
A: Just sat there, I think.
Q: You remember what you were looking at, what you were seeing?
A: Just the girl and the guy and the gun.
During Walton’s cross-examination, which would take the rest of the morning until lunch and then the rest of the afternoon after it, Stephen Farmer paced between his notes on the music stand and the dark wooden chair that served as the witness stand. Farmer pressed hard, asking when Walton first asserted that he remembered being there when the Rainbow girls were killed, and digging deeply into Walton’s mental state.
Q: And you were convinced that over the years on occasion you had dreamed it?
A: I thought I did, yeah.
Q: And during those years you drank daily, did you not?
A: No not daily.
Q: Regularly.
A: Pretty often yeah.
Q: And when you drank you didn’t drink socially did you?
A: No.
Q: You drank to get drunk. Correct?
A: Sometimes, yeah.
Q: Week in and week out, from 1980 to 1992. Is it so?
A: Pretty well, yeah.
Q: You spent a significant portion of your life between 1980 and 1992 drinking whiskey. Right?
A: (Silence)
Q: Correct?
A: Pretty well, yeah.
Nearing the end of the morning session, Farmer pulled out a white piece of standard printer paper and held it in both hands with his finger tips. It was a list of names and facts that the West Virginia State Police officers had shown to Walton on April 15, 1992, Farmer said, the day Walton was interviewed and assaulted by Estep, and the day he made his statement against Beard. Walton stated that one of the officers—he believed it was Estep though he couldn’t be sure—had shown him that piece of paper, which contained the phrase “blue van,” and that it was the officers who had given Walton that detail and told him they knew he had been in a blue van that day.
Q: Now was this before Sergeant Estep beat you up or after?
A: I’m not sure.
Q: It was before you gave any statement wasn’t it?
A: Yes.
Q: And they told you that they knew you were with Ritchie Fowler. It was not you telling them you were with Ritchie Fowler, it was them telling you that you were with Ritchie Fowler, correct?
A: Yes…
Q: And they also said, Jake Beard, Buddy [Adkison], Gerald Brown, Pee Wee Walton, Arnie Cutlip and Bobby Morrison, right?
A: Yeah.
Q: Those are the names on that piece of paper that the state police showed you before they took your statement that day, isn’t it?
A: Yeah.
When Johnnie Lewis settled his beautiful body in the witness chair the following morning, the apprehension in the courtroom was palpable. Lewis was remarkably tall and thin; his cheekbones ran hard from his long, slender nose straight back to his ears, which were so distinctly separated from his
jawline that he looked as if he’d lost a part of it shaving. His voice was low; he blinked often and looked down at his hands. He wore a long-sleeved, thick, brown work shirt with a buttoned pocket on each breast. He seemed unable to read or write and could barely sign his name.
Judge Lobban asked Johnnie Lewis if he understood he was under oath. Lewis responded that he did. Lobban then told him, “Mr. Arbuckle is your attorney, and he is seated at the bench and will be available if you need to make any inquiry of him during your testimony.”
Lewis acknowledged that he’d heard this, so Weiford proceeded, even more gently than he had with Walton, speaking lower and slower. He asked Lewis his name, and Lewis answered shyly.
“Johnnie, I just want you to relax,” Weiford said. “You don’t need to be nervous, okay? All of these people just want to hear the truth, okay?”
“Okay.”
Lewis was living then with another friend, helping him out on his farm. Before that, he had lived with yet another friend, three or four miles down the road from where he currently lived. When Weiford asked where Lewis had lived during the summer of 1980, he said he could not remember for sure.
Weiford led Lewis toward the moment when Vicki and Nancy were allegedly standing up against the van.
Q: OK. Now, let me ask you Johnny [misspelling in transcript], were you paying a lot of attention to what was going on?
A: Yeah. Not much. Not much attention.
Q: Did you hear anything?
A: No.
Q: What’s the next thing you saw?
A: The girls fall. The gun cracked. The girls fall.
Q: You heard a gun crack?
A: Yeah.
Q: Where did the crack of the gun seem to be coming from?
A: Jacob.
Q: From Jacob?
A: His hand raised.
Q: Now which direction was he facing?
A: He was facing, his back to me.
Q: His back was to you?
A: Yeah.
Q: Was there anybody else standing around there?
A: Bill, Ritchie.
Q: Where were the girls at?
A: At the van.
Q: How close to the van was Jacob?
A: That table there…
Q: Now, did you hear the gun crack more than one time?
A: Three. Two times actually. Two times. Three times all together. I just hear it three times, all I can remember.
Q: What happened when you heard the gun crack the first time?
A: (Silence)
Q: What did you see?
A: The girls fall. A girl fell.
Q: A girl fell? Where did she fall at?
A: Behind the van.
Q: And when the gun cracked what did you see?
A: The girl fall.
Q: OK, anything else?
A: No. The other one started to run.
Q: The other one started to run? Did you see anybody move other than the girls?
A: No.
Q: Did Ritchie move?
A: No.
Q: Did Bill move?
A: Uh uh.
Q: Did Jacob move?
A: No, he stood.
Q: What’s the next thing you saw?
A: The other girl fall.
Q: Did you hear anything?
A: Two shots.
Q: Where were the shots coming from?
A: Jacob, I reckon. As far as I can tell.
Q: How could you tell that?
A: His arm raised.
Q: And after the gun cracked again what did you see?
A: The girl fall.
Weiford paused, perhaps sensing he was reaching the end, and asked if Lewis knew Walton. “Yeah, I seen him,” Lewis responded, but when asked if he had seen Walton that day, Lewis answered clearly that no, he had not, though he admitted it was possible that Walton had been in the van and Lewis had not seen him there.
Q: Did you drink a good bit at that time Johnny [sic]?
A: Quite a bit.
Q: Do you drink now?
A: No.
Q: Why did you quit drinking?
A: Just quit.
Q: Huh?
A: Just quit.
Mr. Allen cross-examined Lewis, establishing that Lewis had talked to the state police right after the murders, on July 3, 1980, and told them that he had been with Arnold Cutlip all day cutting locust posts. The defense wanted the jury to see how long the road had been for Lewis, from July 1980 to the spring of 1992 to this moment, over a year later, and how many times he had changed his story during this period of thirteen years.
Q: If you decided to tell the truth, Johnnie, on April 15 and 16, then why after that did you start saying you weren’t there, time and time and time again?
A: I just scared—reckon.
Q: You got scared?
A: Yeah.
Q: From who?
A: I thought I was—maybe I wasn’t there or something.
Q: You thought maybe you weren’t there?
A: Yeah.
Q: There was a doubt in your mind that you weren’t there?
A: Got to thinking I was there.
Q: So sometimes you think you are there, and sometimes you think you weren’t there. Is that correct?
A: Yeah.
Q: So you really are not sure, are you?
A: Yeah, I am sure now.
Q: Now, you are sure. Okay. What’s happened between last summer when you were saying you weren’t there, and right now, to make you sure, Johnnie?
A: Just studying over it. I know I was there.
On Friday, May 28, the eighth day of the trial, the prosecution rested its case. Farmer then rose and asked for a directed verdict of acquittal on all charges—it never happens, but you’ve got to try. But it did happen—partially. Judge Lobban dismissed the abduction-with-intent-to-defile charge, saying that no witness had placed Beard speaking to the victims or conspiring with the other defendants to “defile” Vicki and Nancy.
With one charge down, Farmer and Allen’s defense strategy was to cast doubt on the integrity of the prosecution’s whole enterprise: they argued that every step of law enforcement conduct, from investigation to evidence collection to prosecution, was tainted by impropriety and dubious conduct, and suggested other suspects with more motive and opportunity than Beard, chiefly Bobby Lee Morrison and, though dead, Gerald Brown.
The defense called Corporal Michael Jordan and Trooper First Class Dallas Wolfe with the West Virginia State Police, both officers who had come aboard the case starting in the spring of 1992 after the first round of arrests. Alkire needed help with all the interviews, particularly in taking the statements of Walton and Lewis.
Jordan told about how upset Walton had become when shown pictures of Vicki and Nancy alive, then Vicki and Nancy dead. He cried and cried. Jordan also took Walton on a drive to jog his memory. They drove along 219, south from Hillsboro, up to Droop Mountain, past the parking lot that had once been CJ’s store, and down into Renick’s Valley, where the road flattened and straightened and where Pam Wilson had allegedly seen the blue van pick up the Rainbow girls. Jordan asked Walton to point out the spot where he and the other men had picked up the two girls. There, Walton said, pointing to a spot in the road. It was Wilson’s house.
Both Jordan and Wolfe voiced concerns about the truthfulness of the testimony Walton and Lewis had given in court. Jordan testified that he felt Lewis had been intimidated by Sergeant Estep and that he doubted the theory that Lewis was present when the Rainbow girls were killed. He also testified about another possible theory of the crime: that a man locked up in a state penitentiary in Illinois named Joseph Paul Franklin had done it. Wolfe said that Lewis had “told investigators what he felt they wanted to hear.”
Marilyn Thompson, the lawyer appointed to defend Lewis in June 1992, testified next. A young lawyer, having only passed the bar in 1990, she showed an old-timer’s expertise in advocating for her client. She pointed out that on April 15, 1992, Lewis had
told police that he had not seen any Rainbow girls and had played no part in the murders, but the next day under duress from Sergeant Estep, and without a lawyer, his story changed drastically. From the point at which she became his lawyer going forward, she said, Lewis denied having seen any Rainbow girls, through five additional police interviews that summer. Only in October 1992, when she was not present, did Lewis again say he had seen Vicki and Nancy get killed.
That night, Strong drove home to Droop Mountain and put her daughters, then five and nine, to bed. The weekend was Memorial Day, so Monday was a holiday, and one she usually spent with her husband’s family. They were a big clan, the Strongs, an old name in Pocahontas County and specifically on Droop Mountain, and many of their neighbors were in fact their relatives. But on this particular holiday, no one much felt like celebrating.
The trial was playing out like a mini civil war: two family members testifying for the prosecution and three, not counting Beard, testifying for the defense. Gerald Brown’s ex-wife, Drema, was also Strong’s husband’s first cousin. Drema would testify the following week in defense of Jacob Beard and by proxy her late ex-husband. Roger Pritt, another first cousin by blood to Strong’s husband, would take the stand for the defense.
Gerald Brown’s own half brother had already testified for the prosecution—saying he saw Fowler’s van at Gerald Brown’s trailer on the night of the murders, and his wife, Brown’s sister-in-law, had been the one to say that she saw Beard parked at Droop Mountain Battlefield State Park and then again at the school board meeting, where he was drunk and aggressive. Technically these prosecution witnesses were also related to Beard as well.
Strong, given the responsibility of chronicling the facts for the larger community, was stuck in the middle.
The following Tuesday, everyone reassembled in the courtroom, refreshed from their vacation or not. But they had an urgent matter to deal with: some of the Rainbow people who had been sitting in the back of the courtroom, in particular “the gentleman with the pigtails,” had written and printed up many copies of a tract called “The Haunting of Pocahontas” and, on Friday before the end of the trial proceedings, placed them downstairs in the lobby of the courtroom as well as on many of the windshields of cars parked near the courthouse—including one that belonged to a juror.
[2020] The Third Rainbow Girl Page 17