House of Secrets (47 page)

asked. “What about that?”

“I don’t remember that,” Pixie said. Otis Sexton believes the child is still somewhere in Little Manatee, perhaps behind Ray Hesser’s old Campsite Number 28. And he, and others, believe there are fetuses and miscarriages buried around the property on the house at Caroline Street. One supposedly was buried under the statue of the handless Jesus. Other things were ditched in the pond, siblings were saying.

Stolen goods. Evidence. Bob and Edie Johnson complained about a thick infestation of surface algae they couldn’t seem to stop.

“Hey, maybe bodies,” Ready joked. Then he stopped laughing. With the Sextons, anything was possible. The investigation had no end. One day, Steve Ready talked to Herb Schreiner of the Jackson Township Fire Department. “Steve,” Schreiner said. “You want to, I’ll come over with a crew and we’ll pump every drop of water out of that pond.”

Ready thought about it. No longer on the case. No manpower. No compelling interest from the Stark County prosecutor. He was burned out. “They pump out that thing and what do I got?” he said. “I got a great big hole in the ground. And what am I going to do with it? Walk into it and start slugging through some bottomless pit?” In a way, all of us already had. In July of 1997, the worst fears of Steve Ready, Jay Pruner, and many others materialized. A Florida appellate court overturned Eddie Lee Sexton’s capital murder conviction for the death of Joel Good, ruling some abuse testimony had prejudiced the Tampa jury. Sexton remains imprisoned in Florida on the conspiracy conviction. A new murder trial is being planned. Stark County Prosecutor Robert Horowitz still refuses to bring Sexton back to Ohio on sex abuse charges. And in both states, police and prosecutors wonder if the Sexton children are even capable of testifying again.

The end.