Evidence of Murder (11 page)

Whitney stated that after they arrived home, Huggins showed up driving a white “Jeep.” Jonathon told her that it was really neat and that his dad had rented it.

When the interviews and the search were concluded, Weir and Linnert walked slowly to their automobile. They were worn out, but elated with the information they learned.

“I never thought this buggy would look so good to me.” Linnert laughed.

As he unlocked the doors, Weir said, “What a staggering report. It boggles the mind. I can’t say that I’m not grateful, but I didn’t think Mrs. Huggins’s saga would ever end. It had so many twists and turns, it was hard to follow. Lucky we took notes.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Linnert agreed. “My mind is reeling. But if the information she gave us checks out and is true, this could be our major break. Thanks to
America’s Most Wanted.
Her account fits the time frame, and it explains why the car was in Brevard County.”

The detectives clearly felt they were finally making progress in the investigation.

On the drive back to Orlando, Weir commented, “Mrs. Huggins sure gave us a starting point.” He nodded his head, obviously pleased with the information from Angel. “But there are a number of things that she told us that we should discuss and try to sort out.”

“Sure. Where do you want to start?”

“Mrs. Huggins put it all together in a nice package, checking the dates when they stayed at the motel and also sorting out its location across from the Publix.”

“She sure did,” agreed Linnert. “Hope it holds up when we check it out.”

“I’m interested in that curious phone conversation she had with Huggins,” Weir said.

“Me too. She got my attention with his statement about ‘finding something in your house.’ When she said he admitted he meant jewelry, I had a tough time keeping a poker face.”

“Yeah, my ears perked up with that word, too. But her search and now ours didn’t turn up anything. There must be some significance to Huggins’s remark about jewelry. We’ll have to check that out further, but I’ll bet that jewelry is somewhere in that house.”

The detectives kicked that discussion around, knowing that the jewelry was a key issue.

“With all the other information she gave us that we have to follow up, we’ve got our work cut out for us,” Weir stated.

“I can’t wait to see Huggins’s rap sheet. I’ll bet it’s a doozy,” Linnert remarked. He stared off into space, projecting what he might find out about John Huggins.

Back at their desks, Weir leaned back in his chair. “Been a busy day.” He checked his watch; it was 8:42
P.M
. He wondered aloud, “Is it too late to call him?”

“What are you mumbling about?” Linnert asked.

“I’m thinking about calling Jim Larson.”

“What about?”

“I want to ask him about the Ford Explorer’s interior, the way it was set up. Remember Angel said Huggins’s son made such a point about the air-conditioning going all the way into the back with separate controls? And how the controls for it and the radio were mounted in the end of the front center console between the seats. Larson could tell us about that.”

“Sure, call him. It’s not that late.”

In response to the call, Larson gave Weir a full explanation about the A/C controls, which matched their description. Larson also told him that a radar detector was mounted below the overhead console and wired into the electrical system of the Explorer.

When the call concluded, Weir turned to Linnert. “Larson confirmed all the information we got. Everything was just like the Huggins kid said it was.”

“That’s terrific.” Linnert smiled.

“The unfortunate thing about it,” Weir said, “is that all of it was destroyed in the fire.” He shook his head sadly. He thought over the details of the information Angel gave them. For the first time in this case, he felt they had a direction, which made him more optimistic.

“I’m bushed. How about you, John?”

“Yeah, me too. Let’s call it a day. Let’s go home and see if our wives still recognize us.”

Early the next morning, back at their desks, the detectives were eager to start following the new promising leads. John Linnert suggested, “Cam, let’s discuss that Gracia Hill.”

“What about her?”

“According to Angel, she is Huggins’s girlfriend and he said that the white vehicle he was driving belonged to her, that he just borrowed it. I think that we should go talk to Ms. Hill and get a look at whatever she is driving.”

“Right. We don’t want to leave any stone unturned,” Weir concurred.

Angel Huggins had provided the detectives with Gracia Hill’s address. They drove to her home in Rockledge, several miles north of Melbourne on Florida’s east coast.

The woman who answered the door was surprised to see detectives on her doorstep, but she invited them into her home, which was small but obviously well cared for. The detectives observed an attractive woman in her early thirties, about medium height, with blond hair and a nice figure. She led them into a cozy living room, and after they were seated, she looked at them expectantly. “How can I help you, Detectives?”

Weir said, “Ms. Hill, we understand that you are a friend of John Huggins’s. Is that correct?”

“Well . . .” She hesitated. “I’m not sure how to describe ‘friend’ in this case. What is this about?”

“We’re checking into a situation that involves Mr. Huggins,” Detective Weir explained. “Would you mind telling us how you met him and something about him?” He looked at her encouragingly and smiled.

She said, “I met him when he was a patient at the Wuesthoff Hospital in Cocoa Beach.” She looked at the officers somewhat defensively and went on, “He asked for my telephone number. One evening, after he was discharged from the hospital, he called me.”

“Have you talked to him lately?” Linnert asked.

Gracia Hill thought for a few moments and recalled, “I think about a month, or month and a half ago.”

“What else can you tell us?” Linnert pressed.

“I went with him once when he drove over to return a car to his mother’s residence near Bushnell.” She stopped, frowning in concentration, then offered, “This was around June first or second.” Again she paused to recall and continued. “He was staying at the Econo Lodge in Cocoa with his children. I remember meeting him there one night and swimming in the pool with him and the kids.”

“Do you know what kind of a car he was driving at the time?” Weir prodded.

“It was a blue Taurus, which was what he left at his mother’s home.”

“What kind of car do you have, Ms. Hill?” Weir inquired.

“A green Ford Ranger pickup truck.”

The men thanked Gracia Hill and left.

As they drove off, Linnert grumbled, “Just another bit of nothing.”

“On the contrary, John. We know that the story Huggins told his wife about borrowing the white Explorer from Ms. Hill was a lie,” Weir stated positively.

Slowly John Huggins was emerging as a viable suspect.

Weir checked his notes. “The next one on our list is Kimberly Allred. She’s the friend of Angel’s who saw the
America’s Most Wanted
program and recognized the Ford. She lives in Cocoa Beach with her boyfriend, so it’s right up the road.”

They arrived at the location and scanned the surrounds. The home was an average-size duplex, on a peculiarly shaped lot, narrowing at the back toward the river.

Kim Allred met the detectives at the door, not entirely surprised to see them. “Come in,” she invited, showing them into the living room.

“What can I do for you?” the slender woman asked.

“We’re investigating the murder of Carla Larson, the woman killed at Walt Disney World last month,” Weir began. “I understand you saw the
America’s Most Wanted
TV show and we’d like to ask you about some details.”

“Sure.” She smiled. “What do you want to know?”

“It’s our understanding you recognized the white Ford Explorer shown on that show. Is that correct?” Linnert asked.

“Certainly is,” she stated positively. “When I saw that TV show, it struck me like a flash of lightning that the white Ford Explorer they showed looked exactly like the vehicle that John Huggins parked in back of our house.” She described it in precise detail as white with a tan strip around the bottom.

“Do you remember the date it was parked at your home?” Weir inquired.

She stared at the ceiling. “I think it was June twelfth.”

Weir filed that date in his mind for future reference.

“It stayed on our property for two to three days,” Allred volunteered.

“What can you tell us about Mr. Huggins? How do you know him?” Linnert asked.

“I guess you know I live here with Kevin Smith,” she said.

Weir nodded.

“That doesn’t explain much, but this should help. Kevin and John Huggins are friends. They met when they were in the Sharpes jail together. And after they were released, they stayed in contact with each other.” Her expression clearly showed her disapproval of that friendship. Rather defensively she explained, “Recently Huggins contacted Kevin and asked him to help him buy some marijuana.” She gritted her teeth and added, “When Kevin had the pot, he called Huggins on the phone and arranged for him to come over and pick it up.

“When he came, he was driving this beautiful white SUV. After they finished their business, he asked Kevin if he could leave the car here for a while. Kevin thought he meant for a few hours, but it turned out to be two and a half days.

“I probably wouldn’t have cared, but John parked it in my way,” Allred explained. “See, the way the lot narrows in back, I couldn’t get into our back door easily. When I came home from the market, for example, with two bags of groceries, it was so inconvenient to get into the house. I’m glad that you weren’t around to hear what I said under my breath when I tried to get in with the stuff.” She laughed. “It’s funny now. It wasn’t then.”

Detective Weir nodded sympathetically as she continued. “And then I ran into the darn thing late one night. Kevin and I were out and we were pretty much at each other’s throats arguing about everything. By the time I pulled onto our property where the grass was wet and the ground slippery, I skidded right into the back end of the Explorer. I hit the back panel on the left side behind the rear tire. When I got out and looked, I could see that the Ford was dented from the impact, and I scraped some red paint off it from my car.”

Shaking her head ruefully, she recalled that Smith was even more upset than he had been all evening. “He said, ‘Now you did it.’ I didn’t answer. We didn’t report the accident to our insurance company or to any law enforcement agency,” Allred explained. “The right front turn signal on my truck was already damaged from an earlier accident, which was also not reported.

“Kevin couldn’t wait to tell John Huggins that I crashed into his car. Surprisingly, it was a big joke to John. I don’t know how he was figuring, but he told Kevin that he had a five-hundred-dollar deductible insurance policy, so it made no sense to me that he thought it was funny.”

Kim Allred said that Huggins told Kevin Smith that the white Ford was a rental. “But I couldn’t keep up with all of the stories that came out of John Huggins.”

“So you were extremely annoyed with Huggins about this car?” Linnert asked.

“That’s putting it mildly. I wondered when the hell he was going to take this damn car away. Anyway, we were having a barbecue on Sunday, the fifteenth for Father’s Day, and when I came home, the white Ford was gone.”

Allred said that Angel stopped by during the barbecue, and she told Angel that she ran into John’s vehicle. Later, when she told Kevin about it, Smith said that Angel was not supposed to know about it.

“When I saw that Ford Explorer on
America’s Most Wanted,
I was stunned. I couldn’t wait to call Angel.”

Kim Allred recounted her phone conversation with Angel Huggins. “When I told her that the vehicle they showed looked just like the one John Huggins left here a few weeks ago, Angel asked, ‘Do you really think so?’

“I told Angel that I’d bet my life that it was the same car.”

Linnert asked, “What did Mrs. Huggins say about that? What was her reaction?”

“At first I thought that she didn’t believe what I was telling her, but as we talked, it became obvious that she believed anything about her estranged husband. She wanted to know everything I could tell her about it.”

When asked, Allred said that on Thursday, June 26, the night of the burning of the vehicle, she was home alone with Smith. She could not remember anybody showing up at their home. She recalled all the commotion surrounding the burned vehicle, which happened less than a mile from their place, and she remembered the helicopter circling the area.

At the conclusion of the interview, Detective Weir asked permission to inspect her truck, to photograph it and collect possible evidence as necessary.

“I have no objections,” Allred stated.

At Detective Weir’s request to the Brevard County Sheriff’s Department, Deputy Criminalist Virginia Casey arrived at the Cocoa Beach residence to examine Kim Allred’s vehicle. She was joined by Florida Highway Patrol officer Corporal Steve Ashburn, as well as Sharon Ballou, crime laboratory analyst of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

The three photographed the right front quarter panel of Allred’s red 1988 Nissan pickup truck. Ballou made sketches and examined the panel of the truck for microanalysis evidence. They also took paint scrapings from the damaged area to try to match up with the Ford Explorer.

The detectives were unable to meet with Kevin Smith at this time. Kim Allred explained, “We argued earlier and he left in a huff.”

Later, Detectives Weir and Linnert received a phone call from Kevin Smith. They arranged a meeting at Smith’s home for 4:30 that afternoon.

After the arrival of the detectives, Weir explained to Smith the reason for the interview, and he agreed to help in any way he could.