Doc: The Rape of the Town of Lovell (58 page)

The National Organization for Women called for a grand jury investigation of public officials who'd refused to take action earlier. NOW asked, "Is it a crime to hinder, delay or otherwise
prevent
the discovery or prosecution of crime . . . ?"

With weary detachment, Terry Tharp responded, "The man was

LE DELUGE

tried, he was convicted. I'm not about to call a grand jury on the basis of what NOW is talking about."

Hardly anyone in Lovell was aware of an oddly related happening a thousand miles to the south. On the morning of May 30, six weeks after the trial and three weeks before John Story was scheduled to be sentenced, deputies cut a hanged man from a tree a few miles east of Mesa, Arizona. The body was swarthy, short, and slight. A single chain of footprints led to each of several trees, suggesting that the man had made a careful selection. A ring of rocks circled a dead fire, as though he might have performed some sort of ceremony. The soles of his boots lacked two and a half inches of touching the ground. A car was parked nearby.

It took several days to determine that the victim was Daniel Enoch Flores, the hard-drinking investigator who'd been hired to research the McArthur daughters' lawsuit. The last anyone in Lovell had heard, he'd gone to Arizona to interview a woman whose grown son was believed to be Story's. The young half-Indian had told a friend that the names of 121 victims were listed in files in the trunk of his car. But the trunk was empty, and no names were ever found.

85

PAUL SIRONEN

Psychopathic personality: a disorder of behavior toward other individuals or toward society in which reality is usually clearly perceived except for an individual's social and moral obligations and which often seeks immediate personal gratification in criminal acts, drug addiction, or sexual perversion.

—Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary

The presentence investigator was a calmly confident man known for his exhaustive studies of criminals, but ever since the rape doctor's conviction he'd felt uneasy. His report could be long or short, but it had to explain John Story—his personality, his background, and his motivations. The early word was that the task would be formidable; Story was an expert at keeping himself private.

At thirty-eight, Paul Sironen had spent fourteen years learning that no two Wyoming judges were alike. Some viewed the presen-tencing reports as formalities, to be flicked through and ignored. Some slavishly based their sentences on the PSI's findings. Two convicted felons had been released on the spot as a result of Sironen's work, and dozens of others put on probation.

The responsibility never weighed more than now. There were subterranean forces at work to set Story free; only a fool could have missed the signs. Sironen's bosses at the Wyoming Department of Probation and Parole in Cheyenne had been as skittish as fresh foals ever since the conviction. "Don't upset people about this case," one had lectured him. "Take every precaution. Don't step on anybody's toes." Another executive admitted that he'd discussed the case with the judge and "others." Sironen wondered what "others" meant. The governor? In the relaxed Cowboy State, whose 97,000 square miles housed a population the size of Kansas City, Missouri, a telephone call to the right person could undo the work of a court or a legislature.

The presentence investigator always attacked his work in the same deliberate way. He was a burly brown-haired man, two inches taller than six feet, a Vietnam vet, a psychology graduate of the University of Wyoming, married, with one daughter. On both sides, he was descended from Finnish immigrants who'd worked the coal mines around Red Lodge, Montana. His own career followed the family continuum; he mined facts. The work was done in much the same way—digging hard, searching out rich veins, avoiding pitfalls.

In May, a month after the conviction, Sironen began the most important investigation of his career by scanning the psychiatrist's report prepared at the diagnostic center in Evanston. Breck Lebegue, M.D., had found John Story "alert, oriented and cooperative . . . shows a mild tendency for his thinking to jump from one subject to another, over-inclusiveness in an attempt to be accurate, and a great deal of projected blaming of others. . . ."

In a ninety-minute interview with Lebegue at the Wyoming State Hospital, the convicted man had insisted that he was the victim of "a vendetta against him by one woman whose request for a disability statement was denied."

As the PSI read, he thought, Here we go again. Certain offenders flatly refused to take responsibility for their actions, always had glib explanations, and, when one story didn't impress, blithely switched to another. Prisons and jails groaned with their weight. Once they'd been known as psychopaths, later as sociopaths, and now they were lumped under the category of "antisocial personalities." Whatever the term, Sironen knew them as conscienceless robots, incapable of feeling guilt or taking blame. Rape seemed to be one of their specialties.

Dr. Lebegue's report quoted Story as claiming that the complainants had falsely accused him after "a love/hate relationship that turned to hate." He charged that he'd been railroaded by a group of women, assisted by the state of Wyoming. His I.Q. was 135, there was no indication of major psychopathology or cerebral dysfunction, he wasn't mentally ill, and he "wouldn't respond to treatment." Sironen had often read the same dreary conclusion in reports on antisocial personalities. Some neurotics could be helped; a small percentage of psychotics could be cured; but sociopaths stubbornly refused to admit they needed treatment and were impervious to it when it was forced on them. No therapist had ever learned how to create a conscience that had failed to form in earliest childhood, or to resocialize a person who hadn't been socialized at his parents' knees.

The PSI drove to Lovell from his home in Cody for a briefing by David Wilcock and Judi Cashel. Then he met for two hours with members of the Defense Committee at the Meeker Agency building on Nevada Avenue. It was a high-powered group. Wes Meeker had sold farm and ranch property for twenty years. Rex Nebel was a former undersheriff. Bob Richardson was Lovell city manager. A good-humored woman named Jan Hillman did most of the talking and came across as well educated and articulate. "We want Doc
out,"
she stressed. "Here's a list of two hundred of his patients. We picked 'em at random from his ledgers. Maybe they'll give you a different slant."

"He doesn't belong in prison," the bearded Nebel spoke up. "It's a railroad job all the way."

Sironen thought how often he'd met good people like these. They were bright, dedicated and energetic, but for various reasons they suffered from tunnel vision. "Thanks," he said as he slipped the list into his briefcase, "but I think I should explain. My job is to provide background for the judge, to give him some alternatives. That's all. Unless you have new evidence, it doesn't do much good for people to tell me all the good things Dr. Story's done."

Jan Hillman said, "There's plenty of evidence, but the judge seems more interested in sending him away."

The PSI said, "Prison doesn't do anybody any good. That's my opinion. Let me see what I can turn up."

On May 21 he found himself interviewing Story in the Park County Jail in Cody, where he'd been transferred after the mental testing at Evanston. The 12- x 16-foot room was divided by a heavy steel mesh; Sironen's practice was to sit in the inmate's half of the cell so that he could read his face and body language. The only exit was a locked steel door that opened from the outside.

At first, he was annoyed at himself for being so ill at ease. Story sat in his royal-blue jail jumpsuit, blinking through his big dark-rimmed glasses, silently drumming the pads of his fingers on the side of the black chair cushion. He seemed to send out pressure waves of annoyed superiority. Sironen thought, He knows there's a lot of heat on me and he'll try to use it to his own advantage. This could be sticky.

For the first ten or fifteen minutes, the questioning was routine. There were vital-statistic blanks to be filled at the top of the Presentence Investigation form. The PSI switched on his Panasonic tape recorder and began asking questions. When he came to "height?" Story muttered, "Oh, about six-six."

The PSI held his pencil over the form until Story corrected himself: "I mean five-six."

Sironen thought, I'd have guessed five-four. "I'm not sure," Story added. "I haven't been measured lately. They might have measured me at the jail. I didn't pay any attention. My mind was on other things."

Sironen thought, Why so much chatter about height? It must be a real concern to him. He took note of the first break in the doctor's hauteur.

The next classification was "Family Background." Story acted offended that anyone would presume to pry into such a personal area, then sketched in an idyllic childhood: a loving mother who hadn't spanked him after age ten, a father whom he viewed with a combination of love, fear, respect, and awe, and never dreamed of defying; an older brother who had "gone his own way"; a younger sister with whom he'd had a "much closer" relationship.

Sironen noticed that the word "love" popped out several times, but with a curious lack of feeling. Story seemed to be saying one thing and showing another. Once he mumbled, "I should adjust my speech to what I think you are."

He all but refused to discuss his victims. His attitude was that he'd been oppressed by a pack of Satanic Mormons. For a long time, he showed no animation except on the subject of getting out on bond. His theme word during most of the three-hour interview proved to be "normal." He spoke of his normal childhood with easygoing parents and siblings, his normal wartime service as a Navy Seabee, his normal friends and career, his normal marriage and normal outlook on life.

The PSI wondered, Is this for my benefit or his? The message was so obvious:
Everything about me is normal. How could I possibly be a criminal?
Sex offenders who were alienated from their feelings were a cliche, but this one also had a strong need to manipulate.

When Sironen admitted that he wasn't an active churchgoer, Story asked, "Then how do you expect to understand a Christian?" He suggested that the interviewer was also handicapped by his lack of medical training. "You can't possibly understand a physician unless you've studied medicine yourself." The PSI began to pick up on the doctor's subtext:
An ordinary guy like you couldn't possibly understand an accomplished person like me.

As the interview continued, Story presented still other reasons why Sironen would have problems dealing with his case. The PSI noted later:

Mr. Story reported that he feels that he was unusually favored during his childhood. He went on to explain that by "unusually favored" he meant that he had a good family that he loved and who loved him and that he had a great number of positive influences in his life that allowed him to grow up in a good situation. He reported that he grew up in a time when, if you lived in your home town, you lived at home and you went home for meals every day. Mr. Story implied that since this writer was from a different generation and usually dealt with people with different backgrounds, I could probably not understand his family background. He went on to indicate that if the report indicated anything different about his background than he had reported to other people for many years, he would be offended.

Sironen switched off his Panasonic and called for the deputy to open the door. Sometimes it was wise to wait a few weeks and start all over again.

Back in his small office, the PSI did some research by phone. A policeman in Crawford, Nebraska, confirmed that a young doctor named John Story had once assisted Dr. Ben Bishop, now deceased. A few more calls produced the names of several Bishop patients and his veteran nurse, Rhea Jaffe. Sironen phoned and found the woman extremely close-mouthed. He was sure she was hiding something.

On a searing afternoon a week later, he cruised into Crawford after an all-day drive and began calling on the sources the local police had provided. One resident thought that Story had been in "some kind of trouble" as a young physician. Another said that a woman had made a complaint, but not with the police, and anyway she'd moved away years ago.

Sironen didn't bother to take notes on this secondhand hearsay. At the end of the day he drove to Nurse Jaffe's small frame house a few blocks from downtown. She was a gray-haired woman in her sixties, a heavy smoker, a firm believer in the ancient code of medical silence. It took her an hour to reveal that Dr. Bishop had died of diabetes, that she'd been his nurse till the end, and that Dr. Story, just out of med school, had indeed served as Dr. Bishop's assistant.

It took the PSI another hour to get up the nerve to ask if he could use his tape recorder. "Certainly not!" Nurse Jaffe snapped. "I don't want my name used and I won't testify. I will
never
testify. Do I have your word on that?"

On his solemn promise to shield her identity, she began to open up. Sironen reported later:

The information from Crawford indicates that in three or four instances, while examining teenage girls, Mr. Story's practices were questionable. It seems that his procedure was to require girls to disrobe completely, and lay on the examining table while draped with a sheet prior to an examination. Upon entering the examination room Story would yank off the sheet covering the individual, stating he could not do a proper examination if they were not totally nude.