Evil Season (21 page)

“No,” she replied firmly. “I didn't like it. He could do it, though. He could fend for himself.”

Asked about Murphy's military record, she got some key facts reversed. She said he was given a dishonorable discharge the first time he was in, because he'd gone AWOL, and he'd signed up a second time so that he could be discharged honorably, to right the wrong and remove the blemish on his record as an upstanding American. In reality it was his first stint that went well and his second was a mess.

“What kind of schooling did he have?”

“High school. No college. Went to hair school.”

“Any abuse in his upbringing?”

“His dad was an alcoholic. Abusive. Pointed a shotgun at the mother in front of the kids.”

“Did he have friends?”

“He was kind of a loner. He didn't have best friends.”

“Did you have friends as a couple?”

“Yes,” she said. Barbara and Mark Brindley from the apartment complex when they lived there in the 1990s—the same couple that Murphy wrote the obscene graffiti about on the pool patio years later. “Barbara told me about the graffiti, and about the note he'd pinned up in the laundry room.”

Paula was asked about the other women in his life, but her knowledge was limited. He'd been engaged to Mary before they got together. There'd been a woman named Jane.

“Do you know a Margaret Towne?” That was the name being used by Murphy's first wife.

“No.”

The detectives wanted to know if she'd heard from Murphy since that visit, and she said she received letters from him, the first dated March 29, 2004, stating that he was in jail.

In the letter he wrote how he understood how difficult it was for his family to understand him. He said that he was sorry about that, but it was probably going to be true for all of “our earthly years.” He stated, quite rationally, that a psychologist would have a “field day” doing a “case study” on his mind. He explained that he'd caught a year in jail, and was, as he wrote, in his fifth week. He told them he loved them, and would “until Eternity.” God had put him in jail to teach him things. That was what God did with his “copartners.” He was happy to report that God told him that Paula and the kids were going to have a prosperous year, so they had that to look forward to. They didn't have to believe in the magic for it to happen. It was going to happen no matter how skeptical they were, and it was all going to be great.

Although the March 29 letter was odd, it was clearly written and its emotional tone, regarding his love for them, and all of the good things he was going to make happen for them, had an emotional truth that led Paula to believe that the old Elton Brutus Murphy was still in there someplace. But, by the time of the second letter, the letter of July 13, that was over. He wrote that he “admired” Paula and the kids.

The letter began:
I have a GAME PLAN. The Plan is Real. I have it in my GRASP. It will not elude me. I have money waiting. I will have More. I will make it happen. I have a mission. I have Rank. I have Power. I have followers. They have rank.

Less weird was his equally clipped message to his kids. To Darcie, he wrote,
Feed your horse. Groom and respect it.
To Trevor, the message was:
Work, study, learn, help.

Paula said she did not answer either letter, and she hadn't tried to call him or get in touch with him in any way.

 

 

DeNiro's next line of investigation was the Great Clips Salon, where Murphy had worked briefly after the murder and was quickly fired for inappropriate behavior. The detective spoke to Murphy's only male coworker at Great Clips, Bill Overstreet. Overstreet said that he only worked one day with Murphy, but that Murphy seemed like an ordinary guy, maybe a little bit timid or shy. Although the salon's owner said that Murphy's arms were covered with “rashes and sores,” Overstreet told DeNiro he noticed nothing unusual about Murphy's arms or hands. Another Great Clips employee who was briefly Murphy's coworker was Jamie Hazelbaker. She remembered that Murphy said he rode his bicycle to work, but she never saw the bicycle.

An idea flashed in DeNiro's brain. Bike Man! The killer was Bike Man.

The manager of Great Clips in Bradenton was a woman named Monique Santiago, who told police she remembered Murphy well. Murphy had no car, just a bike, and he carried his own haircutting tools in an over-the-shoulder tote bag. Murphy came in on January 23, 2004, and started to fill out the job application right there in the shop. But he left before finishing and returned the following day with the application completed. He dressed neatly, and he cut hair well.

He did have what appeared to be a nasty rash on both arms. His coworkers described his skin as “nasty, scabby, scaly.” His first day of work was Sunday, January 25. That was the day the register came up $40 short. Murphy and the other employees all denied taking the money. The police were interested in whether or not Murphy carried a straight razor in his tote bag. If he did, no one in the shop saw it. Straight razors were illegal in Florida.

Murphy left the salon on January 31.

“I'm gonna leave,” Murphy said at that time. “There is a black cloud in this salon.”

 

 

On July 28, 2004, Detectives Mark Opitz and Sensei DelValle interviewed Alane Solomon, Dean Murphy's wife, at their home, near Solomon's Castle, in Ona, Florida. They lived in what had once been a mobile home, but it was considerably larger after remodeling and a series of additions. Construction was ongoing and the place was busy when the detectives arrived.

When the detectives found Alane Solomon, Murphy's sister-in-law, she had just picked up the phone:

“Solomon's Castle. Hey, Brent, how are you? You're looking for somebody? Okay, hang on just a minute. Bob, would you take my golf cart and go tell . . . who do you want? Ernesto? Would you tell Dean that Ernesto needs to come and call Brent. My golf cart is there by the truck.” Alane turned toward the detectives and asked if she needed a lawyer. “Be careful on the steps, Bob,” she added.

The detectives explained they were there only to ask about Dean's brother, and that she and her husband were in no trouble. Dean Murphy was in the room briefly and asked that the men not show their badges, because he feared his wife would be frightened by them. Then he said to Alane, “Go ahead and answer their questions.” So she did. Dean left, after being informed that the investigators wanted to question them separately, if that was okay with them.

Alane started: Brutus had severe mental problems. She believed him to be a paranoid schizophrenic. Dean and Brutus came from such a sparse family. They really only had each other.

“When did you last see him?”

Sometime in the middle of January. He'd returned his brother's car, the red Geo, and had only stayed for about six hours. He said he didn't need the car anymore because he was going to get a van. That car had since been sold to a Tory Fenimore, although it sat parked at their house for a couple of weeks in between. She appreciated it if the investigators did not speak to Fenimore, as she hadn't told her about the previous owner.

“How would you describe his behavior?”

“Clean, orderly. He liked to clean and organize things.” When he visited, he liked to help around the kitchen. If he made a mess, he would always clean it up. Sometimes he even wiped up behind her.

Alane believed that a lot of Murphy's problems stemmed from his failure to become a Navy SEAL. He'd told her that he got close to qualifying, but he had developed hypothermia and had to drop out.

“That sat hard with him,” she explained.

Many years later he claimed that he had pretended to be a Navy SEAL, and they hated that. He'd been picked up by a van and beaten by the men inside to punish him for falsely claiming to be one. Who knew what really happened? He was paranoid.

He had a rap where he was walking the earth cleaning up, picking up people's stuff. He would remove the towel from the top of the fence, or pick up the air filter some kid left on the lawn. But everyone saw through his game. By his own way of thinking, he could never be a thief or a burglar. He was just cleaning up.

He'd been on a “God kick.” Somebody taught him deviant religious lessons and now he preached the same nonsense. Alane and Dean had tried to pry details of his life out of him, but he was closelipped. Brutus told them that the less they knew, the better off they'd be.

She discussed his plate art. He painted plates. Just a mishmash, but he always wanted to know if she “saw pictures” in his plates. She did not. Sometimes it looked like he'd scribbled with three or four different-colored Magic Markers. Sometimes it was worse, scary bad.

“Just like smear smear” was how she put it.

It upset her on a couple of levels. He had been a talented artist at one time, and now it was gone, clouded over by his mental illness.

“My father knew Brutus when he was a little boy, like fourteen years old. And when he was in his twenties, he created many pieces of art that were exceptional,” Alane said.

It seemed like she could see the deterioration of her brother-in-law's mind or psyche or whatever when she looked at those plates.

He had wanted her to sell his plates in the castle's gift shop, and it was impossible for her to either sell them or tell him they were crap.

There were times when she had to resist the urge to grab him by the shoulders and give him a good shake, screaming into his face that the plates were “just awful!”

She gave in and did try to sell some of the plates. Not all of them. They went through the plates together and decided which ones she would sell and which he had to keep.

She remembered giving him long speeches about the clientele at the castle. They tended to be low-income people, taking an economical vacation—low-income families, seniors who are downsizing, et cetera. She explained that she wouldn't be able to charge very much for the plates, which irritated Murphy. He suggested that he might be better off selling the plates on eBay.

“Do you still have any of those plates?” Detective Opitz asked.

“Threw them out,” Alane replied. “They looked like something a kindergartner might do. They were scary. I don't believe in spirits or anything like that, but they gave me a creepy feeling.”

Brutus had plans to sell the plates for twenty dollars apiece on eBay.

He was more successful with sculpture, she thought. He'd made her an airplane made out of various items, and she had it hanging in her house. Her father had bought a couple of them; although, as she recalled it, Brutus had come back six or eight months later and bought the sculptures back.

“Did he ever mention anything about the end of the world, a day of reckoning or anything like that?”

“No.”

“Did he have collections?”

“He collected forks. He thought it was a message from God when he saw a fork on the ground. I said, ‘How many forks can you possibly see on the ground?' And he said, ‘You'd be surprised. I know the god put them there for me to see.'”

The god.
She didn't think that could possibly be the same as
her
notion of God.

There had been a time when she convinced Murphy that he needed professional help, and she was proud of that.

It was when the movie
A Beautiful Mind
came out. She was reading the reviews in the paper, and this was one of the times when Murphy was staying with them, sleeping on their couch. She told him he should read the review of the movie; he might find something worthwhile in it. “I know you've got some pretty heavy-duty problems going on here, and I know a place over in Sebring that could probably diagnose you and help you.”

Murphy's first reaction, of course, was: “Oh no, I'm not going to do that.”

Alane left for a couple of hours. When she came back, she found Murphy's attitude had changed.

Murphy said, “You know I read it and it all makes sense, perfect sense to me, and you are right. I need help. That's why I am going to move to Tallahassee, because my kids are up there. I can see my kids, and I can get help at the University of Florida, and whatever is up there. I'm sure I will need the support of my ex-wife and my kids. Having them around would be helpful.”

Alane was thrilled. “Sounds good to me!” she said.

Her happiness was short-lived, however, as Murphy “went downhill fast” after moving to Tallahassee. That was when he started camping out in the woods and stuff like that. “He'd throw a tarp over some bushes and that was his shelter,” she explained.

“Do you think he continued living outside after he went to Sarasota?”

“I don't know,” Solomon said. The next she heard, he was in jail in Houston.

Alane said, “Dean was always extremely patient with his brother. He had a river of patience.” But her husband had his limits. Dean would say, “Please stop talking about God!”

Brutus would reply, “They've chosen me to make a list of all the people who are protected.” Brutus would become excited and warn Dean that thinking he was crazy was a mistake, because this was real and some “very big things were going to happen.” Brutus was never agitated, just excited. As far as she knew, he was not a violent man.

Did he keep any of his things at their house?

No, when he stayed, he just brought a small bag, an overnighter—a backpack, she thought it was. “It was smaller than a suitcase, smaller than a carry-on piece of luggage.”

“This last time he visited, he returned the car, so how did he get back home?”