I Would Find a Girl Walking (10 page)

Mrs. Bauer waited the required forty-eight hours, then filed a missing person report at the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office on Flagler Street at New Smyrna Beach on September 9. The teenager’s name was officially entered into a police report as missing, whereabouts still unknown three days after she had left on a simple shopping trip. Audrey Bauer described the clothing that Barbara had been wearing when she left home and reported that her daughter was last seen on September 6 at 3:30 p.m. at the Hancock’s Fabric Shop in the Holly Hill Plaza, a busy shopping center at a major intersection on Daytona Beach’s mainland. She was driving a 1973 powder blue Plymouth Duster, and the front tag had the name “BURT” in black with silver letters.

Mrs. Bauer further stated, “My daughter is not a runaway. She went to Hancock’s to purchase fabric for her cheerleader’s uniform, which she definitely did, and she hasn’t been seen since.”

For his part, Albert Bauer, a prominent local veterinarian known to everyone as simply “Doc,” asked that investigators talk to a few persons he considered to be of interest.

Despite widespread news coverage in Barbara’s hometown, a full seven months passed before the first break in the case came from Starke, a town about a two-hour drive from Daytona Beach, northwest of Gainesville. At 12:28 p.m. on April 10, 1974, Jimmy Green, jailer and dispatcher on duty at the Bradford County Jail, received a telephone call from Lillie Browning, fifty-nine, who lived just east of South Road 100. Mrs. Browning stated that her husband, Clifford Browning, had found what appeared to be a human skull near their home, in a wooded area. Green then notified Chief Deputy Robert Green, who in turn notified Sheriff Dolph Reddish. At 2:21 p.m., Mrs. Browning left her home with the officers to show them the skull.

The first thing officers did was examine the scene for further clues. During the preliminary search, they discovered that the area surrounding the skull contained the remains of a human skeleton. The investigators took photographs and then removed the remains: two leg bones, a skull, and then the rest of the skeleton. They placed the parts in bags, and then inside a cardboard box.

The skeleton had been located under a dead branch, broken from a crape myrtle bush about twenty feet away. The bones were partially covered with only pine needles from last winter’s shedding. A small nylon string appeared to be tied around the rib area. The team also found the lower part of the jaw, teeth, finger bones, hip joint, vertebrae, and ribs. In addition, officers recovered one sandal, three rings, one locket and chain, one gold earring for a pierced ear, one pair of shorts, and a shirt.

After completing their investigation at 5:55 p.m., the officers returned to the Browning residence. The officers asked the Brownings if they could recall anything suspicious or unusual that had happened over the past few months.

Mrs. Browning was the one who spoke. “Well, before they closed the dump road, me and my husband would [often] hear yelling, screaming and carrying on in the vicinity of where he found the skeleton,” she began. “You see, some hippie type young people go to the area at night to party.”

Mrs. Browning also recalled that during the season of winter collard green planting, she and her husband had heard what sounded like screaming between 6:00 and 8:00 p.m. “I heard the person scream, ‘Don’t hit me no more!’” she said. Her husband came to the house from the field and also heard the person scream, “Don’t do it anymore!” Mr. Browning was going to get his rifle to see what was going on, but Mrs. Browning dissuaded him.

On April 11, 1974, about 2:45 p.m., a Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent noticed the picture of a missing person on the bulletin board of the Bradford County Sheriff’s Office, in Starke, Florida. Studying the picture, he realized the white female, age seventeen, from New Smyrna Beach, was a girl he had read about, Barbara Bauer. The flyer indicated that she had pierced ears and had been wearing a shirt with “OHIO STATE” printed on it, and cutoff blue jean shorts.

The agent placed a call to the New Smyrna Beach Police Department.

Barbara Bauer wore a locket engraved with the letter
B
around her neck, along with leather sandals with the big toe in a loop, a class ring in yellow gold with an
S
on the top and sides, and a turquoise ring. She had perfect teeth and a deformed toe on her left foot that was turned inward.

Lieutenant Chuck Nelson tried to contact Audrey Bauer but was unable to reach her. Later, he placed another call to the Bauer residence, and Mrs. Bauer’s niece said that her aunt was not at home at the moment but that she would have her contact Deputy Don Denton in Bradford County.

Mrs. Bauer called back a short time later, and Deputy Denton requested she come to Starke to identify other personal effects he believed belonged to her daughter.

At this point, Mrs. Bauer seemed to remain unfazed by the exchange, apparently still stunned in disbelief. After all, her daughter Barbara had only driven across town to a shopping mall in the middle of the afternoon. How did she get so far away, and what happened to her?

Audrey Bauer, however, agreed to be at Starke early the following morning, on April 13, 1974.

When Mrs. Bauer arrived at the Bradford County Sheriff’s Office, she was shown several items recovered from the crime scene for purposes of identification. But from the outset, investigators realized she was not going to believe for one minute the items could have belonged to her daughter.

When Deputy Denton showed her the first item, an earring, she simply blinked, and then replied, stoically, “It could be, but I don’t think it is Barbara’s. She had several pairs.”

Then, upon glancing quickly at a chain-link ring: “She had about a thousand rings and I can’t remember all of them but I have never seen that one.” That simply meant, to the detectives, that the mother’s denial ran as deep as to imply that she had mentally cataloged all the many rings in her daughter’s jewelry box.

Audrey Bauer responded in much the same manner about the rest of the rings, and then Denton showed her a locket with the
B
. “That definitely is not Barbara’s.” She shook her head emphatically. “She had on a gold-colored necklace with the zodiac sign of Leo on it. The only locket she ever wore is a heart-shaped one of mine that I gave her.”

The mother was even more vehement about the one shoe found at the scene. “No, that is not hers. She had a pair of sandals similar to these but they had been at the house and became mildewed and I threw them out a couple of weeks ago.”

Mrs. Bauer did admit that the cutoff shorts could have belonged to her daughter, but not the pocketbook. “No, she wouldn’t carry anything like that,” she stated. “She was carrying a brown leather shoulder bag.”

Looking at the recovered T-shirt forced the first few cracks in Audrey Bauer’s stoic demeanor.

At first she tried to fend off the inevitable. “It is like the one she had on, but since you can only determine that it says ‘STATE,’ it could have been any state name.” Real doubt had begun to set in. Deputy Denton then opened up a section of the shirt that revealed the word “OHIO.” Audrey Bauer left the room in tears.

Five months later, on September 30, 1974, Patrolman Harmon Weldon of the Valdosta Police Department in Georgia called the Daytona Beach Police Department to report finding Barbara Anne Bauer’s vehicle abandoned behind the Azalea Motel at Interstate 75 and U.S. 84.

Six years later, in Daytona Beach, Sergeant Paul Crow remembered that when he had first questioned Gerald Stano about the assault on Donna Marie Hensley, and the murder of Mary Carol Maher, he had also mentioned helping a girl with a vehicle like the one he drove, a Plymouth Duster, when it broke down at Nova and Mason Avenue in Holly Hill.

Within two weeks, Deputy Don Denton, from the Bradford County Sheriff’s Office, came to Daytona Beach to interview Stano on August 23, 1982, about the Bauer case. Denton turned on his tape recorder after identifying himself.

“I’m at the Daytona Beach Police Department in Daytona Beach. Present in the room with me is Gerald Eugene Stano. Is that how you pronounce it?”

“Yes.”

“And the occasion is to take a statement from Mr. Stano in reference to the disappearance and the death of a white female by the name of Barbara Anne Bauer, who is age 17 at the time of her disappearance. She lived at 214 Flagler Avenue in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Barbara Bauer was missing from the Daytona Beach area on September 6, 1973. Mr. Stano, do you realize there is a tape recorder player recording our conversation?”

“Yes.”

Denton then proceeded to read Stano all of his Miranda rights, with full explanations as to evidence given during an interview and its admissibility in a court of law; his right to an attorney; and, in the case of insufficient funds, the availability of a court-appointed attorney at no cost to the defendant. Stano replied that he understood.

Denton then wanted to make certain that Stano had not been threatened or coerced or promised anything in exchange for a confession. To all of it, Stano, again, said no.

“Do you still wish to talk to me at this time?”

“Yes,” Stano replied, flatly. It was a routine he knew too well by then.

“Gerald, I want to ask you first of all to just go back to the best that you can recall of September of 1973 and tell me in your words what you can remember about an incident that took place where Barbara Bauer disappeared in the Daytona Beach area.”

Stano went on with great attention to detail, as usual, to recount his vacation at the Imperial Beach Motel, which was owned by the parents of a teenage friend, Sammy Henderson.
¹⁶
Sammy was your typical Florida teenager who loved to hang out at the beach. He was totally unaware of Stano’s darker side.

This would be the first—and only—time in which agents heard Stano claim to have had an accomplice. They also would learn that Barbara Bauer knew she was going to die much sooner than she should have.

He and Henderson, Stano continued, were driving through Holly Hill, on the mainland side of Daytona Beach, looking for some parts for Stano’s car. They ended up at the Holly Hill Plaza, where, Stano stated, they “noticed a young lady standing there with the hood of her car open.”

“And Sammy and I, the young man I was staying with, proceeded to ask her what the problem was and she said that her car wouldn’t start. So I climbed in to see if it would turn over and it wouldn’t turn over. It was a dead battery. So I brought the cables out of Sammy’s car and we jumped the car off and then it started. So I told the young lady, I said, ‘Let me drive the car for a while with you in the car and charge up your battery and I will reimburse you for the gas that we use during the process.’ So, so as it stands, Sammy followed in his car, proceeding out of the parking lot and over Nova Road making a left on Mason Avenue going eastbound towards U.S. 1. Reaching the intersection of Mason and U.S. 1, we made a left hand turn and following behind each other, proceeded north on U.S. 1. Getting to the intersection of somewhere around 95, Sammy took over, but I motioned that we needed gas, so I stopped for some gas. We also picked up some beer on the way along with something to kill the hunger pains that was being driven at that time also. So he said, ‘Follow me, follow me for a while.’ So . . .”

Barbara Bauer must have felt comforted by the view, in the rearview mirror of her car, of the vehicle right behind them driven by a clean-cut teenager.

Stano related the entire ordeal to which he had subjected Barbara with his usual detachment, a narration that would later be gone over in depth by Assistant State Attorney for Bradford County Tom Elwell, at the Bradford County Court House in Starke, Florida, later that day.

It was 4 in the afternoon when Assistant State Attorney Elwell began to question the defendant. Present were also Deputy Don Denton and Mack S. Futch, another assistant state attorney.

Once again, Elwell advised Stano of all of his rights, explaining every single one. He also asked Stano if he was now under the influence of alcohol or any drugs. Stano said no. He verified Stano’s age, thirty, and confirmed his education, which Stano said was comprised of high school, some computer training, and several other courses he never completed.

Elwell then wanted to be sure that Stano could read, write, and speak the English language clearly and that he had not been intimidated or harassed in any way, or promised anything in exchange for his testimony. Stano said no.

And then the attorney made a dramatic statement.

“I believe that you are aware that when Deputy Denton spoke to you the only understanding that you two had was that you could get additional time consecutive to what you are now already serving.”

A tired nod from Stano. “Yes.”

“But you are now serving three twenty-five year mandatory consecutive sentences.” The investigator was referring to the three life sentences Stano received when he pleaded guilty to three of the murders. Serving at least twenty-five years in prison was mandatory with that sentence.

Stano, with his penchant for remembering dates and times and numbers, knew this only too well.

“Which would make your tentative release date somewhere around the age of 105?”

“Yes.”

“So the extent of your understanding with Deputy Denton you had was that they would not seek the death penalty but that you could do consecutive time in addition to the time you are serving?” Consecutive sentences, rather than concurrent ones, meant Stano would die in jail, as the stacked jail time would outlive him.

“Yes.”

Before proceeding any further, Elwell explained the provision in the agreement of Stano with the state.

“The part that you are required of the agreement and are still required of the agreement is that you truthfully and accurately tell all that you know regarding the death of Barbara Anne Bauer, seventeen years old, white female. Gerald, I am going to ask you to raise your right hand, please.”