Coroner's Journal (27 page)

Incidentally, the dog did not find the murderer. I'm not sure who, if anybody, they found at the end of the scent trail but I'll bet he was surprised.

A month later, first-degree murder warrants were issued for John Allen Muhammad, age forty-one, and Lee Boyd Malvo (alias John Lee Malvo), his seventeen-year-old companion, infamous now for their killing spree that spanned five states.

Mrs. Ballenger happened to be one of their first victims. On the lam, they faced multiple state and federal counts in Alabama and Louisiana, as well as charges in the sniper spree that left ten people dead and three others wounded in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

Muhammad and Malvo were finally arrested in connection with the Beltway sniper attacks early on the morning of October 24, 2002, at a Maryland rest stop where they were sleeping in their faded-blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice.

Hidden in the Caprice was the Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle, which would be positively linked to the Ballenger killing by ballistics comparisons. It was the same weapon used in eight of the ten D.C.-area sniper killings.

Receipts found in the suspects' Caprice also put them in Baton Rouge on September 23—the day Hong Im Ballenger was killed. Muhammad was a local boy; he grew up in Baton Rouge. Family members said that he had recently passed through town with Malvo. While they were here, they reportedly went to the YMCA to exercise—the same Y where my wife and I work out. Who knows, they could have been in there at the same time we were. Think about that for a moment. You never know how close you may be to such incarnations of evil. Oftentimes they simply blend in.

Justice was finally served. The ultimate plan of the two killers was to extort $10 million from the government in exchange for an end to the shootings. Muhammad's trial began in October 2003, and the following month he was found guilty. Four months later he was sentenced to Virginia's death row, where he sits now, awaiting execution. A jury convicted Malvo of capital murder on December 18, 2003; he received a sentence of life imprisonment. He received a second life term in October of 2004.

Hong's husband is more forgiving than I could ever be. He obviously has a strong anchor in his faith. Mr. Ballenger has been quoted as saying he wanted the killers to get life in prison—that way they will have a chance to repent and go to heaven.

Hong's sister is not so forgiving. As far as she is concerned, sparing the lives of such malicious men only gives them the chance to kill somebody else while in jail.
That somebody could be a guard.

I'm of the same ilk. I still see the look on that child's face in my dreams. I see me talking to his dad, and the young boy staring straight ahead, not wanting to know what I was saying and not wanting to look into the parking lot. I wonder how that child is doing tonight without his mom. I wonder about the afterlife. I wonder if Hong is looking over him right now. I wonder about what all this means, and I wish for the death of the perpetrators.

I have anger, pain, and outrage. Our only solace is in the fact that the two despicable perpetrators have been caught and will ultimately face justice. The district attorney here in East Baton Rouge Parish is waiting for our turn to try Malvo and Muhammad. If you murder someone here, you don't just walk or run away, as the case may be. That dog just don't hunt.

THIRTEEN

And so in the midst of the Baton Rouge Serial Killer ordeal, Malvo and Muhammad were captured and those two serial killers were off the streets. But the man who was credited with the murders of Gina, Murray, and Pam was still active. Evidently the Baton Rouge heat was getting to him, as he struck next near Lafayette, Louisiana, a town about fifty miles west of Baton Rouge, along Interstate 10. The drive time between the cities is an hour or less. This time he killed an attractive and successful twenty-three-year-old black female, Trineisha Dené Colomb (known to family and friends as Dené). She had been in the army for two years, loved her country, and had plans to become a Marine.

Dené became a missing person when she disappeared on November 21, 2002. A local resident noticed her car parked on Robbie Road that same day but did not think much of it at the time. When it was still there the next day he reported it to the police. Her black 1994 Mazda MX3 had the keys in the ignition. Her coin purse and license were also found inside the vehicle. A search of the area ensued but was not fruitful. She was still a missing person. Her family guessed that she must have been in the area to visit the grave of her mother, Verna, who had died of cancer seven months earlier. Dené visited her mother's gravesite frequently.

Two days later, she was no longer a missing person, she was a murder victim. A rabbit hunter discovered the nude remains of Ms. Colomb several hundred yards off the roadside in a wooded area in St. Landry Parish twenty miles from where her car had been discovered. An autopsy revealed that she had been bludgeoned to death and died from blunt trauma to the head. I've met some of her family members at memorial rallies, and it was most apparent that they were not going to let this just go away. But due to jurisdictional boundaries, I was not officially involved in her case.

Two weeks after Dené's body was discovered, a caller came forward with news that a white pickup truck had been seen parked behind her car on the day she disappeared. The occupant was a white male thirty to forty years old and had an “intense and intimidating stare.” A sketch of the man from the white truck was widely circulated by the task force. He was a “person of interest” and not a suspect per se. A new amended profile was developed and released to the public. This “person of interest” reinforced the “white male in a white truck” image of the killer.

One month after her death, DNA evidence would indicate that Dené was killed by the same man who killed Gina Wilson Green, Charlotte Murray Pace, and Pam Kinamore. On December 24, 2002, the
Baton Rouge Advocate
ran the headline: BR KILLER STRIKES IN LAFAYETTE. The mythical “racial barrier” that serial killers are not supposed to cross had been broken.

This abduction was also a deviation of the killer's mode of operation. To date, he was tagged as liking home abductions. What was he doing in a graveyard? Yet, there had been another attack in another cemetery some years earlier. In April of 1993, Michele Chapman was fifteen years old when she and a friend were attacked in a Zachary cemetery. Zachary is a small town of about 12,000 residents and is located in the northern part of East Baton Rouge Parish.

The attacker was a machete-wielding black man who dropped his blade and ran away when a police officer happened upon the “crime in progress.” In wasn't until 1999 that Derrick Todd Lee was identified as the attacker. His identity came to light after the case was aired on TV's
America's Most Wanted.
Michele was contacted and picked Lee out of a photo lineup. In the end, the district attorney elected not to pursue the case as there was not enough evidence. Michele ended up with some scars on her ankle as a permanent reminder of her close encounter with death. She was lucky that night because this animal was intent upon killing them. Of course everything is clearer when viewed in hindsight, but now we knew that the killer had a history of attacking women in cemeteries.

Like everyone else, I was trying to make some sense out of all this. The killer had certainly been on a learning curve. The first two DNA-linked killings occurred in the homes of the victims. This in itself raised a litany of questions.
How did he get in? Was it a case of opportunity? Stalking? Did he get into Gina's house when she let her dog out? Was he a smooth-talking con artist who could get someone to open the door by a ruse?
Plus, we didn't really know what motivated his choice of prey. The one thing about him I was sure of was that he was going to keep on killing.

Human response to such things as terrorists and serial killers has not really changed much over the centuries. The Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio classified the reactions of Florentines to the plague of 1348 into four general responses. We saw that same full gamut here: some women became reclusive and would not venture outside without an escort; some took appropriate precautions; some simply moved away; and some women chose to take no heed to the danger and kept going about their lives, taking chances. I believe these latter were in the minority. But it only takes one.

For instance, I was driving by LSU with my wife when we saw a pretty coed jogging along a rather secluded stretch. She was by herself! It was around five P.M. And as my grandpa would say, I was flabbergasted! I assumed she lived in one of the LSU apartments several blocks away. I pointed her out and grimly said to my wife, “There goes the next victim.” De concurred.

Yet here was this coed bopping down the road with a headset on.
Idiot!
She would never hear anything coming. Not that it would make much difference. She would be easily overpowered. I wanted to get out of the car and confront her. I wanted to ask her if she had been keeping track of current events. What the hell does it take to get your attention? I wanted to show her pictures of the bodies of the victims—pictures that have been seared into my brain. I don't want her picture there.

Security is inconvenient, and we don't like inconvenience. The attendance at self-defense seminars declined. More women were out alone—or maybe I just noticed it more now. You could buy Mace just about anywhere in Baton Rouge, and that was a good thing, but fewer women seemed to be carrying it. I found myself looking at women to see if they had it with them. I suspect the killer was looking, too.

The death of an innocent causes a great deal of outrage. You desperately want to stop this guy before he kills again. He's killing us—not someone who's put herself in harm's way. It becomes very personal. You are driven to catch him. At the same time, you must look at our value system. Why didn't we do the full-court press for the Black Prostitute Killer? For one thing, they didn't have the strong family advocates that the Baton Rouge serial killer's victims had. Still, my friend Stan would tell me that our society needs a values clarification process. He's right.

It seemed to me that this guy looked for easy prey. The old adage of “Why hunt for a lion when you can kill a lamb?” rang true for this killer. It is not that hard to become a “lioness,” but it is inconvenient.

Denial is another phenomenon that makes for easier victims. The disclaimers of false security began to creep into women's conversations. I've heard some of these myself:

“He's just after young attractive women.”

“I don't think I fit that profile. I'm not too worried.”

“I think he's moved away from Baton Rouge.”

“The police have scared him away from here.”

They were wrong. Dead wrong!

It was late afternoon on Christmas Eve Day 2002, when sixty-five-year-old Mari Ann Fowler, an attractive lady, and prominent in Louisiana, exited the interstate onto Louisiana Highway 415 in West Baton Rouge Parish. It was the same day that the newspapers reported the serial killer had been DNA-linked to the death of Dené Colomb.

Mari Ann had been traveling west along I-10, the same interstate that crosses over Whiskey Bay about thirty miles west of where she was at that moment. Her initial destination was Lake Charles, Louisiana, and from there she planned to travel on to Texas.

Once she turned onto LA 415, she traveled a half-mile or so to a Subway sandwich shop located in a little strip mall known as the Plaza 415 Shopping Center in Port Allen. At 5:30 P.M. she got out of her car, went inside, and purchased an order to go. She then exited the Subway but never made it back into her car.

It happened at 5:40 P.M., and it happened suddenly—a blitz attack in a populated area, in front of an open shop and in daylight.
How brazen can you get?
The “sandwich specialists” in the Subway didn't see the abduction but did notice that Mari Ann's car was sitting there long after she had made her purchase. Her keys, the sandwiches and her purse were on the pavement beside her car. Wrapped Christmas presents were in the backseat and were undisturbed. Robbery was definitely not the motive for the crime perpetrated here.

There was a surveillance camera in one of the stores in the strip mall, but initially it yielded little information. However, the film was sent off to the FBI for enhancement and analysis. It showed that a violent struggle ensued during the abduction and that the assailant drove a 1994 or 1995 Chevrolet pickup truck that was dark in color.

Mari Ann Fowler happened to be the wife of former Louisiana elections commissioner Jerry Fowler, who had held the statewide office for twenty years, before pleading guilty in 2000 to bribery in a kickback scheme involving voting-machine parts. She was on her way to a holiday visit with her husband, who was serving five years in a federal prison in Beaumont, Texas (he was released in June 2005).

She has still not been found.

Her son, John Pritchard, age forty-two, was very close to his mother and took her disappearance especially hard. Historically they had communicated on a daily basis. John is what we call a “big ole boy” down here. He is a big, gruff-looking man who is gentle as a lamb once you get to know him. His emotional pleas and demands resounded from the State Capitol steps during the rallies and he seemed somewhat lost and overwhelmed by it all. Who can blame him? Not I.

In May of 2004, State District Judge Janis Clark declared that Mari Ann Fowler was dead. I don't know that she was a victim of this same killer. No link with Derrick Lee has been established to date. But I do have a high suspicion, as do many other people, that it was him. Lee was driving a 1994 Chevy pickup at that time and it was maroon in color. Lee's cell phone records also indicate that he was within several miles of the abduction site on that day. Mari Ann fit his victim profile. You can take it from there. I have. But I can't prove it and he is innocent of her death until proven guilty.