Evidence of Murder (16 page)

That evening just before eight, Detectives Weir and Linnert drove to Trappe, Maryland, to meet with Angel Huggins’s former husband and seven-year-old son at their residence.

The father, in a good mood now that his son was returned, indicated his willingness for the officers to talk with the boy.

“Austin, we would like to ask you a few questions,” Detective Weir began in a friendly approach.

Looking to his father for approval and support, the little boy had a puzzled expression on his face. “It’s all right,” his parent assured him.

“We’re going to talk to you about your visit with your mother in Florida,” Weir said.

A smile crossed the boy’s face with the mention of his mother, and he nodded slightly.

“You remember that your daddy drove you to Florida and left you with your mother for a visit?”

“Yes,” the boy answered. “I remember. We had a nice ride to Florida.”

“Do you remember seeing Mr. John Huggins, who is now your mother’s husband, when you got to Florida?”

Austin nodded. “Yes, I remember.”

Weir described the time that the boy saw John Huggins with the group of his step-and half brothers and sisters when they stayed at the Holiday Inn and then the Days Inn suites, which Austin recalled. But when he asked the boy if his mother argued with John Huggins while they stayed at the Days Inn, Austin said that he did not see or hear any arguments between his mother and Huggins.

In answer to a final question from Detective Linnert, the boy told the detective that he did not see John Huggins driving any car other than his mother’s.

The questioning of Angel’s son was concluded.

As they drove away from the residence, Weir sighed. “I guess that was a no-score.”

“You don’t catch a fish with every cast,” Linnert philosophized. “But that doesn’t mean that we have to stop fishing.”

On Saturday, July 12, Weir and Linnert discussed the progress of their investigation. They decided to talk to Nancy Parkinson again before they returned to Florida.

Linnert suggested, “She’s had time to do some thinking about our visit. Maybe she remembered something more. What do you think?”

“My mother used to say, ‘It couldn’t hurt.’ Let’s try.”

At Nancy Parkinson’s residence, the two Florida detectives held a second interview with her.

“It’s nice to see you again,” Nancy greeted skeptically.

Linnert smiled. “We’ll try to make this painless for you.”

“Oh, you don’t have to be so concerned. I know that you’re just doing your job.”

“I’m glad you understand,” Weir said.

“How can I help you this time?” Parkinson inquired.

“First of all, Ms. Parkinson,” Weir began, “we would appreciate your making this a sworn statement for the record. Is that all right with you?”

Nancy Parkinson agreed to have her statement sworn and tape-recorded. When they began, she told the detectives she had done a lot of thinking since they last talked to her about the time she spent with John Huggins, and she recalled more details.

She said she wanted to tell the detectives about being with John Huggins and her friend Melanie Cramden at the Cocoa Beach pier on June 26.

“Sure, tell us about that,” Weir agreed.

“We were having a good time and I was looking at some jewelry in a display case when John asked me why I wasn’t wearing earrings.” Nancy reached up and felt the lobe on her right ear, as if to check for an earring. “I thought that was an odd question for a man to ask. I didn’t think that men paid much attention to earrings. I never heard a man say, ‘Did you notice the pretty ruby earrings Jane was wearing?’ ”

Nancy watched the detectives for their reaction, then continued. “I told John that I left my earrings at home and that I really didn’t have much jewelry anyway.

“He looked at me like he felt sorry for me. And I was sorry that I said what I did, about not having much jewelry. He told me that he had a pair of diamond earrings. He just looked at me then, as if he was expecting me to say something, maybe ask him for them. But I didn’t say anything at all. Then out of the blue, he asked me if I would like to have them. I thought about that and, naturally, I told him, ‘Yes, I would like to have them.’ There was no more conversation about them and I never saw any diamond earrings from John Huggins. The issue was never discussed again.”

“That’s interesting,” Detective Linnert commented, thinking about Carla Larson’s missing diamond earrings.

“What else?” prompted Cameron Weir.

“John called me from jail. Collect,” she added with a tinge of asperity. “He asked me to come and see him. I knew from his serious voice that it had to be important. I agreed to go to the jail.”

Parkinson paused to light a cigarette. “When I met him at the jail, sitting on the opposite side of a separator, he was in a happy mood. He pushed as close to me as possible so he wouldn’t be overheard, and kind of stage-whispered, ‘I want you to do something.’ I stared at him; I had no idea of what was coming next. Evidently, the jail authorities gave him permission, because he passed me a check.

“I saw that it was made out to me, in the amount of thirty-five hundred dollars. I asked what it was for. He explained that three thousand was for his mother. I was to pass it on to her. He told me the other five hundred was for me. Not to buy my silence, he said, it was just to help me with my expenses. He emphasized that.”

“I guess even a bad apple has some good portions to it,” Detective Linnert remarked.

“What else can you tell us about your friend Huggins?” Weir prodded.

“I imagine you’ll want to hear about this. I spoke with John by phone the day before you two interviewed him. He was in a good mood, and I thought that he might be willing to talk freely with me, tell me things.

“There are times when he is as silent as that big Rock of Gibraltar, and there are times he flows out with everything like the Mississippi River. But you never know which channel he’s into. I just figured that I would ask him some of the things that were in the back of my mind. The worst he could do is answer no. So that night I asked John if he blew up that car in Cocoa Beach.” She stubbed out her cigarette.

Detective Linnert straightened in his chair as he and Weir waited expectantly.

“What did he say?” Linnert asked.

Parkinson said calmly, “He just laughed.”

She said that he explained, “Angel was just trying to get revenge.”

“Did you ever ask John if he murdered the woman at Walt Disney World, in Orlando?”

“I never asked him that,” she said flatly. She lit another cigarette to give herself a break.

The detectives sat silently, waiting for her to continue.

Parkinson picked up her conversation. “I didn’t want to ask John too many questions. I didn’t want him to get mad at me.”

“Did he know that we talked with you?” Linnert asked Parkinson.

“Oh, yes, I told him that. And he told me that I didn’t have to talk to you officers.” She laughed. “And then he said that I should not talk to you anymore.

“Before we finished our conversation, John said he wanted me to do something.” She said he explained that he was going to be transferred and he wanted her to come to the jail before that occurred. He wanted her to pick up his belongings and ship them home for him.

Parkinson said that Huggins asked her to look into his suitcase and carefully go through all of his personal belongings for what looked like a gun or weapon and get rid of it. Linnert thought,
Did Huggins forget that he left that plastic gun in the Maryland inn? Or did he have another one?

She said, “I was stunned with this request. I thought of the ramifications of finding some kind of weapon, which would then sure as hell implicate me. I didn’t know if he was joking, but I decided not to get John’s belongings as he requested.”

“How often did you see him in jail?” Linnert inquired.

“I saw him twice, that’s all.”

“What about telephoning?” Weir asked.

“I talked with him on the telephone numerous times.”

“Ms. Parkinson, Detective Linnert and I are grateful for your help in this investigation.”

“Thank you for that. I do want to be of assistance to you. I think that’s the right thing to do.”

“Along those lines, we hope that you might do something else with us.”

“What’s that, Detective?”

“We’d like you to talk with John Huggins on the telephone at the Wicomico County Detention Center, where he is incarcerated. And we would like to record the conversation. Maybe you can get him to say something incriminating about the murder. Would you be willing to do that?”

“Yes, of course.”

Detectives Weir and Linnert met with Sergeant Richard Ashley of the Maryland State Police Troop 5 and explained their plan to record a telephone call to an inmate, unknown to the inmate.

“The second party, who would initiate the call, is consenting to the recording of the conversation,” Weir explained to Sergeant Ashley.

“You’ve got no problem, Detective Weir,” Ashley told the Florida detective. “In Maryland it is legal to record a telephone conversation if one of the two parties to the call consents to the recording.”

With the program effected, the detectives placed a recording device on Nancy Parkinson’s telephone.

The institution personnel took John Huggins to the telephone to receive Nancy Parkinson’s call, which was recorded.

“Hello, John,” Parkinson greeted Huggins in an affable tone.

“I didn’t expect this,” he answered, surprised at hearing from her.

“I just had to talk to you. I told them it was a family emergency.”

“Okay, Nancy, what’s your problem?”

“Are you sure you want to know?”

“You called me, didn’t you? So tell me what’s going on, okay?”

“The detectives just left here, and they scared the hell out of me.”

“What do you mean? How? What did they tell you?”

“They said that I might get arrested for conspiracy. I’m scared. I don’t know what I did to give them something to arrest me for. I don’t want to be in trouble, John. What should I do?”

“Calm down. Don’t be scared. You don’t know anything. I spent the entire afternoon with them. Those pigs came after you to work you because they weren’t able to get anything out of me. Now they’re mad at me.”

“Tell me, John, with all this going on, are any of the things concerning the murdered woman true? Did you do it, John? Did you do it?”

Parkinson waited for Huggins’s answer, but he remained silent, and after a moment he told her, “No.” He then added, “I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

John Huggins explained to Nancy Parkinson that if the detectives had proof of his involvement, the “pigs” wouldn’t need to talk to her.

Huggins also told Parkinson that the detectives told him that she passed out the night before they all left Florida. Huggins said they claimed that when she passed out, he left the condominium.

Huggins told Parkinson on this call that he told the detectives that she didn’t pass out and he did not leave the room. He said that he told them that they stayed together.

Parkinson then asked Huggins about the jewelry.

He answered, “The pigs were asking about the jewelry because they didn’t have anything to pin on me.” Huggins paused and then said, “Angel got the whole thing started.”

Parkinson asked about the jewelry again. “You know, the police searched my mother’s home for hours. They didn’t find anything.”

Huggins was silent, and Parkinson asked, “Did you get everything out of the house?”

Huggins answered, “Honey, there’s . . . Nancy, listen, baby, listen. You’re getting confused now. Okay?”

Parkinson replied, “All right.”

Huggins continued, “You’ve never been told anything about that. You’ve never seen anything like that—”

Nancy Parkinson interrupted him, “I’ve got to go. My boyfriend is coming in the house.”

The conversation concluded. It was clear from the recording that the plan failed and the detectives learned nothing. Evidently, John Huggins trusted and confided in no one.

Cam Weir buckled his seat belt on the plane and turned to John Linnert, smiling. “Wasn’t there a great song ‘Going Home’that someone wrote?”

“I think there was, but I can’t tell you who wrote it. Whoever it was had the right idea. And I’ve got one, too.”

“What’s that?”

“How about taking the wives out to dinner tonight?”

“That’s the best idea you’ve had this week, John. I hope they’re still speaking to us.” Weir laughed heartily.

The two detectives arrived in Orlando, exhausted and glad to be back in the Sunshine State.

They followed the plan and took their wives out for a relaxed, leisurely dinner. The women glowed with the attention that they had missed since the two officers became entangled with this murder case.

Both men awoke the next morning refreshed and energized, ready to go on with the case.

 

 

“Look at this stack!” Weir exclaimed as he grasped a handful of envelopes, mail and reports on his desk. “What a way to greet us. And I was going to say it’s good to be back.” He chuckled.

“What have you got there?” Linnert asked.

“I’m not sure what most of it is, but there’s Huggins’s arrest report we requested from Orange County. And there’s an envelope from the Seminole County Sheriff’s Department.” He opened the large manila packet and studied the pages enclosed. “It’s the stuff on Huggins sent over by Lieutenant Thorpe.”

Grinning, John said, “That’s just what we need after our trip to Maryland. Huggins certainly has become an important part of our lives.” He shook his head.

“Boy, there’s a lot here. That John Thorpe is really on the ball.”

Leafing through the stack, Cam Weir said, “These seem to be reports made to the OCSD and the SCSD over a period of years. We’d better split the pile. Let’s find out what Huggins was up to in the past.”

The two took their copies to their desks and started reading.

The Orange County records showed only an arrest for marijuana possession.

After a short time Linnert said, “Cam, look at this.” He held up a stack of papers. “Pages and pages of allegations, complaints, charges and countercharges—all domestic violence, going back to 1986. Huggins beat up on his first wife, Marianne, so many times over the years. In this report she found and destroyed a bag of John’s marijuana, so he beat and choked her. Then he told her he knew someone who would take care of his problem by killing her. Another time he threw her into a pond adjacent to their residence. What a bastard.”

Weir agreed. “It sounds like he’s got a violent temper.”

“Makes you wonder why she continued to stay married to him,” Linnert remarked. “I never understood why women take these severe beatings and don’t leave.”

Weir looked up from a report he was reading. “Yeah, they even stay when their kids are in danger. In February 1989 Marianne Huggins said Huggins choked her and threatened to choke her daughter. She reported that she was beaten and hospitalized with broken ribs in the past. She said she feared for the lives of herself and her daughter.”

Weir continued reading. “Here’s a new angle. Marianne stated that about two years ago she caught her husband watching her daughter and a girlfriend showering. Marianne said that John went to the extreme of boring a hole in the wall adjoining the bathroom. She found him hiding in the bushes under the bathroom, where he was watching her daughter showering. Marianne told the investigator that when John was confronted, all he would say was that he would never touch her daughter and that it would never happen again.”

“Yeah—sure. ‘Trust me. I didn’t do it and I’ll never do it again,’ ” Linnert said sardonically.

Reading further, Weir said, “Well, she did try to get rid of him. It says that Marianne asked John to leave, but he refused. Two days later, he still refused to leave. She called his mother, at which time John got very violent. According to the report, he grabbed Marianne by the throat and told her that he was going to snap her neck. He said that if she told anyone what happened, he would kill her.”

Linnert read that Marianne told the investigators that in the past she was hospitalized three times due to John’s severe beatings.

“Man, he really is a nasty guy,” Linnert commented.

“Jeez, besides all the domestic violence complaints,” Weir stated, “there’s a constant record of burglaries and robbery charges.”

“I’m not surprised. I’m reading a different kind of report involving Huggins. This goes back to September in 1991.” Linnert read the papers. “A woman requested the authorities to investigate numerous credit card and loan accounts that may have been established through fraudulent use of her father’s identity.”

Linnert paused. “The father was John Walter Lee Huggins, the father of the complainant. Also the father of John Steven Huggins. John’s sister advised the authorities that her father, who disliked charge or credit cards, died on June 6, 1991, after which she discovered that many accounts were opened in his name, and the account addresses listed were those of John and Marianne Huggins.”

Linnert asked Weir, “How do you like that?”

Weir shook his head wordlessly. “He seems to have a finger in so many different pies, I’m beginning to feel like nothing about John Steven Huggins surprises me.”

There were more reports of violence between the Huggins couple, and the police noted in the complaints that John threatened Marianne’s son, “to have him taken care of.”

“More threats of killing,” Weir remarked.

Detective Linnert, reading from a report, got Weir’s attention. “You gotta hear this, Cam. Deputy Hare responded to a call and met with Angel. This was before she married Huggins. She told Hare that she was dating Huggins but said, ‘I broke up with him. His wife, Marianne, threatened to kill me.’ She said, ‘Both the Hugginses have been harassing me.’ ”

Angel claimed that Marianne had some mental problems.

“It sounds to me like maybe more than one of them had mental problems,” Weir replied dryly.

“Here’s the same old scenario,” Linnert stated. “In May of 1995 John Huggins, now married to Angel, was doing replays of what he did with Marianne, threatening to do her bodily harm, also threatening to take her child away from her, and doing a plethora of other unpleasant things to her.”

“No end with this guy,” Weir said. “Incredible.”

“You said it. Now here’s a twist. This is dated May 3, 1995. John Huggins called the Sanford Police Department to have his wife, Angel, arrested to prevent her from testifying against him during a child custody hearing involving his children from a previous marriage. Huggins also called the Seminole County Sheriff’s Department Communications Center and requested a deputy. He said that his wife, Angel, was in violation of a restraining order, and that she was violent.”

Linnert looked up from reading. “Huggins said
she
was violent?”

Then he continued the recap. “Deputy B. Brady responded to the location. Deputy Brady checked the presented paperwork and found them invalid, as were allegations that the state attorney’s office had pending prosecution cases against Angel Huggins. Upon checking, it was learned that there were two felony cases and arrests, but—get this—John Huggins was the defendant.”

“What an operator.” Weir shook his head. “He beats up on these women unmercifully over a period of years, and here he’s using the law to try and have his wife arrested? Talk about gall.”

“He sure has that.” Linnert stared at the roster of Huggins’s activities. “Did he ever work? These reports all list him as unemployed. How did he live? Where did his money come from?”

“Good question. Maybe from his robberies,” Weir replied facetiously, and focused on a report he was reading. “Listen to this. On June 22, 1993, there was a report made regarding a fire to the John Huggins residence in Oviedo. This fire was believed to have started in the kitchen and it completely destroyed that place. Well, now, this naturally raises a question in my mind about any fire that in any way might involve John Huggins. I’m thinking, of course, of the burned Ford Explorer.”

“A natural speculation,” Linnert remarked. “Here’s a change. In November 1995 he was stopped by Melbourne police and charged with driving without a license, and possession of a concealed 9mm pistol. So he had a real gun as well as the plastic toy one.”

“What has emerged from all this mountain of complaints and reports,” Weir concluded, “is a continuing history of violence. There are burglary and fraud charges, a fire at his home, and his wife, Marianne, who complained she was in fear for her life, died in a shadowy automobile accident. His criminal activities stretch from childhood with a juvenile record to allegations of bank robberies.”

“The only thing I can say, Cam, is that Sheriff Eslinger was right when he said Huggins was a bad guy. And that’s putting it mildly.”

When they finished reading about Huggins’s criminal activities, Weir said, “For my money, he’s our guy. But we don’t have enough for an arrest. We have eyewitnesses who give conflicting descriptions, some who saw him in the Ford Explorer, which was white, black or dark green. He was in the area where Carla Larson was snatched, but no one saw him there. And although his friend Kevin Smith’s home, where he allegedly parked the Explorer, is only two-tenths of a mile from where the vehicle was burned, no one saw him set the fire. And we haven’t been able to find the missing jewelry. So unless the DNA can tie him to the body, our hands are tied.”

“I know,” Linnert commiserated. “There just has to be some evidence somewhere that links him to the murder, that proves he’s the one. We’ll just have to keep plugging to find it, no matter how long it takes. I just hope we’re not applying for our pensions by then,” he added gloomily.

The two men reviewed their interview with Nancy Parkinson and her talks with John Huggins on the subject of jewelry.

“Descriptions of the jewelry were distributed to every jewelry store and pawnshop in the entire central Florida area, but nothing has surfaced,” Linnert said glumly.

“That stuff just has to be in Faye Elms’s house,” Weir insisted. “Huggins meant something when he boasted that Angel was sitting on the jewelry. But what? If we could solve that, we might have a shot at finding it. Should we search her house again? What do you think?”

“Well, I don’t know where else to look. But we searched her place so thoroughly the last time. I can’t imagine where it could be hidden.”

“I know, but it’s about our only lead.”

“Okay.” Linnert sighed. “Let’s do it.”

On Wednesday, July 16, the two detectives, along with Investigators Weyland and Spahn, and Postal Inspector Ed Moffit, went to Elms’s residence to proceed with another search.

Inspector Moffit and Detective Larry Spahn, using a portable X-ray machine, examined piece after piece of furniture. Careful not to overlook even the slightest possibility, Weir asked that Angel’s car seats be X-rayed, ever mindful of Huggins’s boast that “Angel was sitting on the jewelry.”

While the search was going on, Angel showed Cam Weir a letter that she received from John Huggins. Weir smiled in amazement as he read the return address, “ ‘Maryland Jail, Just for You.’ ”

Weir read on, “ ‘God Bless you, One day we will all stand in front of god and be judged for our sins. May he have mercy on Me and You. I will always love Sarah. Good Bye John.’ ” (The identity of Sarah remains one of the many mysteries of John Huggins. The mis-capitalizations are all Huggins’s.)

The detectives were disappointed but not surprised with the negative results of this latest search of Faye Elms’s house.

“We’ll just keep trying,” Weir promised. “My gut tells me it’s there.”

On the morning of Thursday, July 17, Detective Weir spoke with officials at the Wicomico County Detention Center and learned that prisoner John Huggins was picked up on July 14 by Transcor, a private prisoner transport company, and transported to the Seminole County, Florida, Jail.

“Good,” Detective Linnert remarked when told of that development. “Now we can proceed with that guy.”

Weir agreed. “At least he’s back in our territory.”

Late in the afternoon, Weir received a phone call and his face lit up in a huge grin. When he replaced the receiver, he boomed, “Bingo!” and shot his fist up in a victory sign.

“What?” Linnert asked eagerly.

“That call was from Faye Elms,” he burst out. “She found the missing jewelry! She found it! I told you it was going to turn up at her place.”

“Wow! You were right after all. Where was it? How did we all miss it?” John exulted.

“She didn’t go into any of the details, so let’s go to her place now.”

“Right.” Then Linnert suggested, “Let’s have Sergeant Head and Deputy Cawn make the trip with us. This is really up their alley.”

The two detectives arranged for the crime scene specialists to follow them in a separate vehicle to Melbourne. Carl Head and Sandy Cawn would document the items, photograph them and collect them as evidence.

As the official vehicles pulled into her driveway, Faye Elms, in eager anticipation, met them and flashed a warm smile of welcome.

The two detectives’ attention was caught by Faye Elms waving a wadded-up paper towel fiercely clutched in her hand.

Elms handed the wrapped package to Deputy Sandy Cawn and said, “I’m sure that you’ll want to examine this.” Cawn placed the package on the hood of her vehicle and began carefully unwrapping the paper towel, with the other officers and Elms watching.

“There it is,” Weir almost whispered.

Spread on the hood of the sheriff’s vehicle lay a pair of diamond stud earrings, a pear-shaped diamond solitaire ring and a gold chain. The chain was laced through the ring.

Deputy Cawn shot picture after picture of the jewelry, including the paper towel. She photographed the pieces separately and also grouped together.