Bogeyman (10 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The past …

I
n the year following Christi Meeks’ disappearance, the two Mesquite detectives spent thousands of hours running down leads. They were both determined to find the killer, though their efforts often felt as if they were chasing their own tails. Then the nightmare was repeated … twice.

In February 1986, Christie Proctor was abducted in Dallas, followed by Roxann Reyes’ kidnapping from Garland in November 1987. Bruce said he and Holleman were soon meeting with detectives in the other jurisdictions to discuss similarities in the abductions, and then, when the other girls’ bodies were discovered, their murders. They were all convinced that a single killer had been stalking the Dallas area, but although they tracked down several potential suspects, none of them checked out.

In 1988, Bradshaw said, he received a call from Det. Sheasby in Columbus, who’d been contacted by the grandparents of Roxann Reyes, which had, in turn, led to a possible suspect in the three Texas cases. His name was David Penton, who Sheasby believed was responsible for the abduction and murder of a girl named Nydra Ross in Columbus. Sheasby filled him in on the Ohio case and what they’d learned about Penton, including the murder of his infant son. The Ohio detective said he thought Penton was good for the Dallas-area cases and was adamant that he believed Penton was a serial killer.

Holleman was undergoing medical treatment for a thyroid problem at the time, so it was left to Bradshaw to follow up on the information. He spoke to the detective in Garland who was looking into Roxann’s murder and subpoenaed Penton’s military and criminal history. He then drove to Fort Hood and talked to Penton’s second wife, Kyong, who was still working on the base, but she didn’t tell him anything that helped.

Bradshaw told Sweet that he also thought Penton was a good suspect but wasn’t able to connect him to the Dallas area or Oklahoma during the time of the Texas abductions. Without that connection, he and Holleman couldn’t justify the expense to travel to Ohio to talk to Penton.

In 1991, Penton was convicted of the murder of Nydra Ross and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, but the three Texas cases went unresolved. However, it didn’t mean that Bradshaw or Holleman ever forgot Christi Meeks. Suspects and leads would come and go; some looked promising, and many hours were spent investigating them, only to end in disappointment. Sometimes embittered ex-wives would call and point to their former husbands as good suspects, only for the detectives to find out their motives were revenge, not the truth.

Working child sexual assault cases, many times they came across suspects they thought might fit the profile of Christi’s kidnapper and dared to hope that at long last, they’d found their man. One in particular, Paul Harvey Andrews, made them wonder if he was the bogeyman who’d carried off Christi Meeks.

Andrews had been convicted of rape in the 1970s, sent to prison, and then was paroled back to Dallas County. In June 1985, he was identified as a suspect in another child sexual assault case that occurred not far from where Christi was abducted. The victim was twelve years old when she was attacked at a park in Mesquite.

They learned that Andrews was living in Garland, and detectives from Garland and Mesquite watched him for several days, thinking he would attempt to commit another crime. They seemed to be on to something, as he drove around elementary schools in Garland and stopped in shopping center parking lots, where he just sat in his car.

The young victim in the park case was able to identify Andrews from a photo lineup, and he owned a motorcycle similar to what she’d described her assailant driving that day. When Bradshaw and Holleman went to arrest him, Andrews met them at the door.
“I’ve been expecting you,”
he said.

Before they got him back to the police station, he confessed to the sexual assault in Mesquite. But even though they then questioned him for several hours, trying to link him to Christi’s death, he denied responsibility. They even took him to the apartment complex where Christi was abducted to gauge his reaction, but he just shrugged and said he didn’t recognize the place. The detectives finally had him polygraphed, and he passed.

Andrews’ arrest didn’t lead them to Christi Meeks’ murderer, but they did learn from it. When he confessed to the sexual assault, Andrews explained that while he was driving around the schools and stopping in the parking lots, he was watching children and masturbating. Listening to him talk about how he targeted children helped the detectives understand the thinking of the sort of person who would abduct a child and then rape and murder her.

The investigation took its psychological toll on the detectives and their families. Bruce Bradshaw often thought about what had happened and the terror Christi must have been put through by the monster who took her. He would watch his children playing and enjoying life in all their sweet innocence, and think about the joy they brought to him and Gail. And yet that would remind him that the killer stole the joy of watching Christi play and grow from her parents.

As a police officer, Bradshaw viewed his job as a battle between good and evil, and in no instance was that more clear than the search to find Christi Meeks’ killer. And yet, as the years passed and justice for Christi eluded him and his partner, it seemed that evil had triumphed. He became very distrusting of other people and avoided contact with the outside world, except his family, close friends, and fellow officers. He spent a lot of time trying to learn all he could about the sort of person who would commit such a crime and came to view the world cynically. Maybe he was just more conscious of it, but it seemed like a lot of kids disappeared during those years in Texas.

It affected his family, too, but not always in the way he and his wife could have foreseen. Jodi and Laci were very young when Christi disappeared. As they grew older, they became more aware of the time their dad spent trying to find the evil man who had taken her. They didn’t question why he spent so much time away, or why he missed one of their school functions; they knew. He could tell it affected his daughters; they were very wary of strangers and developed the skill of reading people much the same way as a criminal investigator. Many times after meeting someone, they’d say something to the affect of
“that guy’s a pervert.”

About a year after Christi’s murder, Gail said to her husband, “Christi Meeks came to live with our family on January 19, 1985, and she never left.” At times, it wore on her, avoiding the never-ending questions from family and friends. She’d never believed in sharing her worries and problems with others, except for her husband; sharing only made her issues theirs, too. She’d kept to herself the loneliness of losing so much of Bruce to his job, especially the Meeks investigation; even when he was physically at home, his thoughts and emotions would be focused elsewhere, as he tried to piece together the horrible puzzle. She became aware that there was a large part of Bruce’s life, the heart of the Meeks case, that she couldn’t be a part of, or share the burden of, until it was over.

She also bottled up her own fears that came from knowing some of what happened to Christi and dealing with the evil and darkness that had invaded her home when the child disappeared. She couldn’t tell her friends or her family; she couldn’t pass that evil on to someone else.

Yet, they found a way to get through it. Their Christian faith held the family together and protected them from the darkness. They learned to live with the ghost of a child in their home and move forward. She and Bruce even learned from Christi. They raised their girls to have faith, to enjoy living. Life, family, friends were all good things, but also be aware that evil existed in the world and guard against it.

A few years after Christi’s abduction, their girls learned firsthand about evil when darkness once again threatened their family. Bruce and Gail were away, attending the State Fair. The girls were in Dallas, visiting her mom, who took the girls to a local ice cream shop. While enjoying their time with their grandmother, two armed men entered the shop, forcing everyone at gunpoint to lie on the floor while they robbed the registers. Bad enough almost turned worse when the robbers threatened to shoot a man and his wife, who were lying next to Jodi and Laci.

The robbers left without shooting, but Bruce and Gail heard the story that night; when they went to pick up the girls, they were met at the front door by Gail’s mom and their daughters, talking all at once about their frightening experience. When they got home, the girls asked if they could sleep on the floor of their parents’ bedroom. So Bruce and Gail made up beds and then listened while Jodi and Laci repeated their story over and over again. Talking seemed to relieve the fear, and finally they were able to fall asleep, secure in the knowledge that their parents were nearby, which was more than their parents were able to do.

The robbery reminded the Bradshaws of the delicate the balance between life and death. Living with Christi and a trip to the ice cream store with a much-loved grandmother that could have ended horribly taught them to cherish family. The two tragic events actually brought them together and made them the strong, close-knit family they’d become. However, a darkness had entered all of their lives, and it would be many years before they could give it a name or chase it from their nightmares.

The lack of resolution in the case, however, was even tougher on Bob Holleman and his family. He was fixated on finding Christi’s killer, and up until the day he retired, he would call Bradshaw at home to talk about the case or ask him to go along to chase down a lead. As long as he had something to do that might solve the case, he was energized and sharp. He told Molly that as long as he stayed busy, he didn’t hurt.

However, when a lead came to nothing he’d sink down again, only lower. The officer who’d never missed a day now sometimes couldn’t get out of bed or stop crying. Molly believed it was because of the immense guilt he felt because not only had he not returned Christi safely home to her parents, he couldn’t even tell them who killed her. She knew these feelings were exacerbated when he’d come home and see his own children safe. He’d hug them and weep.

Then another tragedy compounded the torment Holleman was going through. About two years after Christi’s murder, he was called to a crisis situation as the department’s hostage negotiator. A distraught 16-year-old had locked herself into a bathroom at her parent’s home with a gun. Holleman stood on one side of the bathroom door and talked to her for several hours, trying to convince her that she had everything to live for. He later told Molly that he thought he had talked her out of killing herself when there was a moment of silence from the other side of the door, and then the sound of a gunshot. As he stood there in shock and horror, a pool of blood crept from beneath the door.

When he got home that night, he kept telling Molly,
“I lost another one.”
He didn’t have to explain what he meant.

It seemed like every time he turned around, Molly’s husband was absorbing another punch. When Christie Proctor and then Roxann Reyes disappeared, and it became apparent that a single killer was on the loose, he took it personally. He believed he should have caught the guy after Christi’s abduction and was ravaged by guilt that two more little girls were dead because he didn’t. Worse, he told Molly that they had a viable suspect, but couldn’t make a case against him.

Molly was losing her husband, and her children, including Michael, who was born in 1987, were losing their father. A month after Christi’s body was found, he showed up for Emily’s first birthday party, but was gone again as soon as it was over. Yet, he worried to the point of paranoia about their safety. At first he didn’t want them to go outside in the front yard without an adult; then he demanded that they be watched in the backyard, despite a tall, locked security fence. Finally, he bought a large dog to guard them.

Making matters worse, Bob became addicted to the painkiller hydrocodone, a habit that began when he needed dental work and continued afterward. He explained to Molly, “It keeps me from hurting. I don’t want to hurt anymore.”

After the teen’s suicide, Bob asked to be transferred out of the juvenile division and back to radio patrol. Some of that was for Molly’s sake. It wasn’t just the long, unpredictable hours, but also the physical and mental toll from his pursuit of Christi’s killer, along with his normal caseload and work as the hostage negotiator. She longed for some sense of normalcy in the family, and regular hours were a place to start.

Bob was looking forward to it for a different reason. He told her that he knew that he would stay busy for eight hours, every shift, and busy was what helped keep the darkness away. For a time, it seemed to work. But within a year, he was transferred into the narcotics unit, and with that the new normalcy went out the window. He worked day and night trying to catch drug dealers, confiscating their cars and seizing their money and drugs.

There were benefits to the new job. He stopped taking hydrocodone and seemed happier than he’d been since January 19, 1985. Friends and family noticed. He made sergeant while in the narcotics division and led a successful team “crushing crime” throughout the Dallas area.

Still, Christi Meeks continued to haunt him. As he’d explain it to Molly, what did he care if some dope dealer got away with his crimes, he or some other cop would get him eventually. “It doesn’t bother me that some guy sells a bag of marijuana,” he said. “What bothers me is a guy who kills kids.”

If he was having a good day, all it would take is the sight of a little girl who reminded him of the dead child, or sometimes nothing but a memory, and he’d sink like a stone back into depression. If he and Molly went to a restaurant, his eyes would constantly scan the faces of other customers and staff, looking for someone who matched the artist’s sketch of the killer. He even confessed that sometimes he would see a car similar to the description of the car the Meeks suspect was driving, and he’d follow it to see who got out and whether they were stalking children.