I Would Find a Girl Walking (11 page)

Stano complied.

“Do you swear and affirm that the testimony and statement that you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?”

“Yes.”

Stano put his hand down.

Stano confirmed details such as the spelling of his name, present and former addresses, and a time in 1973 when he came to Florida on vacation. That was before the family moved there permanently, in November 1973. The attorney then had Stano spell his full name—Gerald Eugene Stano—and give both his present and former addresses. For six years, Stano had moved back and forth from Pennsylvania, staying with his grandparents in Ormond Beach, Florida, for a time while he attended Seabreeze Junior High School, then returned to his home state. Finally, in December of 1973, he came back to Florida and took a job as a stockman at a Jefferson Ward store, where he was fired after six weeks for suspected theft.

But Elwell determined Stano had been in Daytona Beach on September 6, 1973.

“How do you come to be down in this area and away from your residence in Pennsylvania?” asked the attorney.

Stano answered casually. “I took a week’s vacation by myself back in 1973 to come down and stay with a friend of mine, who at that time lived at Henderson’s Imperial Beach Motel on South Atlantic Avenue in Daytona Beach.”

“Who was your friend that either lived there or owned that establishment?”

“It was Sammy Henderson.”

Elwell inquired how old this Sammy Henderson was at that time, and Stano stated he was in his late teens. Henderson was about a year and a half younger than Stano, having been born in 1953. Stano proceeded to explain that he had originally met the teen when he had lived in the Daytona Beach area while he attended seventh and eighth grades at Seabreeze Junior High School and lived with his grandparents. “I would spend a weekend at his parents’ motel and then he would come over the following weekend and spend the weekend with my grandparents and I at 46 Country Club Drive.”

“On September 6, were you with him during the course of that day?” The attorney meant Henderson.

“Yes, I was.”

“Do you recall if you were [also] staying at Henderson’s Imperial Motel?”

Stano stated that he had, and that Sammy’s parents, June and Chuck Henderson,
¹⁷
were the owners of the motel.

When the attorney asked Stano about the sequence of events that took place on the day in question, the defendant relayed that he and Sammy were just “moping around” and doing some chores for the Hendersons during the first part of the day.

“Then we decided that we were going out that evening, just have a night out on the town.”

“Did you drive down, did you have a car available?” the attorney wanted to know.

“Yes I did, a 1973 Plymouth Duster with a 6 cylinder engine, with an AM-FM stereo player in it, with Craig or slider disk mags and Rickey Thompson’s gator hijack.”

“All right,” Elwell cut in. It was more information than he had solicited, as if the car were now the crux of the deposition.

Stano stated, however, that he and Henderson went out riding in Sammy’s car, which was a 1973 Pontiac convertible. They went to the Holly Hill Shopping Plaza to look for a pair of matching chrome mirrors for Stano’s car, and not finding anything he liked, they decided to return later and check out a couple of other places.

“Did you make any purchases while you were in the Holly Hill Shopping Center?” Elwell asked.

“Only at the Pantry Pride there and that was for a six-pack of beer.”

It was 4:30 in the afternoon, both the attorney and his subject concurred. And when Elwell asked Stano where the two went from the shopping center, he answered:

“We started to drive out and encountered a young lady who had car troubles.”

Stano added that he believed she was at the Hancock Fabric Shop in the Holly Hill Plaza. He also remembered that the girl’s car was a blue 1973 Plymouth Duster.

“How did you remember or know that?” Elwell inquired.

“Because it was similar to mine. Because I had a blue Duster with a white vinyl roof before I got my green one in Pennsylvania.”

“Do you know a lot about cars?” asked the attorney, who had been advised that Stano did know his vehicles. He often remembered those details better than any other kind.
¹⁸

“Yes.”

“Can you describe what [the girl] looked like?” Elwell asked.

“Oh, I say about 5’ 5” or 5’ 8” or somewhere between there. Shoulder length hair.”

“About that time you were about twenty-two,” Elwell pointed out. “Did she look older or younger than you?”

“Uh, I’m not too hot on girls’ ages, so give or take a couple of years. I would say younger than I was. I would say late teens or early twenties.”

“What appeared to be wrong with her car and what was she appearing to be doing about it?” asked Elwell, wanting to get the entire picture of when the girl first got in trouble.

“She had the hood of the car up and we pulled over. We had the top down, and we asked her, I leaned up and said, ‘What’s wrong?’ She said, ‘My car won’t start.’ I said, ‘Let me give it a try.’ She was happy because two guys were going to give her a hand to try to start her car. I immediately got in her car and turned the key and found out it was a dead battery. So Sammy pulled his car around front, broke out his cables out of his trunk and we charged or whatever fast-jumped his car to her car. And we got it started. And I told her, ‘Let’s charge your battery up a little bit and I drive it a little bit and you ride with me so you won’t think I want to steal your car,’” Stano said.

“Her motor had a slight knock coming from it, which didn’t sound right to me. So, I locked up my car, and we drove off in her car. It seemed to me she liked the way mine looked. But hers was a mess though.”
¹⁹

Had Barbara Bauer been more street-smart, she would have realized that the helpful stranger was overstepping the mere act of helping a stranded driver. He continued to reassure her, “We will drive it just a little ways. I will make sure your battery is going to hold for you.”

“What was on your mind at that time?” Elwell began to direct.

“Hoping to have a little sex with the young lady,” Stano said. During the course of the interview, he used the eerie juxtaposition of “sex” and “young lady,” as if he were escorting a girl to a picnic.

“Had you and Henderson had any conversations with one another before you came up to the car where this young girl was disabled?”

Stano nodded. “Yes, we were hoping to find a couple of young ladies that night for a good evening.” He then added that he had noticed the girl first and that Sammy hadn’t said anything about her until he, Stano, started jumping her car battery.

“He said that she looked pretty cute and he wouldn’t mind having a piece of that.”

“After her car was started, did she agree to let you drive her car?” The attorney wanted to know if the victim had been forced or coerced in any way.

Stano smiled. “No, as a matter of fact she was very happy because she didn’t know much about after you jump-start a car whether it was going to start again after you turn it off or not.”

“Is there anything you noticed particularly about her car other than the make and model? Anything about the contents of the car, anything special in the car?”

“There was some red fabric in the back. I’m nuts for red and that caught my eye.”

The school colors of New Smyrna Beach High School are red and black. Their mascot is a barracuda.

“Can you tell us more about that red fabric?” Elwell did not want to leave any loose ends.

“It was like a smooth on one side and like a crushed velvet on the other side, something like that.”

“How much fabric did there appear to be?”

“Enough to make a blouse or a skirt.”

“Where was it located in the car?”

“It was located in the backseat in her car in a bag.” Stano motioned as if to place it there.

“Can you tell us more about the bag?”

“It has a Hancock Fabric Shop label on it.” Barbara was obviously headed home to sew her cheerleading outfit when her car malfunctioned.

Elwell continued.

“So you got into the car and began driving. Did you say anything to Sammy about going?”

Stano nodded again. “I said, ‘Sammy, just follow us a ways while I charge up the battery,’ because I noticed that her alternator gauge is running all the way over the C which seems to me that her alternator is bad. And then after a while he came to the normal position after an hour’s worth of driving.”

“Where did you begin driving in the car with her?” The attorney now wanted to know the exact route.

“We went out Mason Avenue and approached U.S. 1 and went up U.S. 1 and went towards 95,” Stano recalled.

“How far from the shopping center and Holly Hill had you gotten?” Elwell now asked.

“Approximately twenty to twenty-five minutes or somewhere around there.”

Since most serial killers never wanted to know the names of their victims nor establish any contact with them, the attorney asked Stano: “Did this girl tell you who she was or what her name was?”

“No, she didn’t mention any names at all.”

It seemed to Elwell that Stano and Barbara had been driving for some time now.

“How long had you been driving before she said something about where you were going?”

“About half an hour. About half an hour later she started saying ‘Isn’t this . . . don’t you think it has been charged up enough? The alternator gauge is reading straight up and down,’ and I just said, ‘Shut up for a while and let me handle the situation because that could mean your alternator gauge could be off, you know, and we don’t want to take any chances.’”

“Where were you when this conversation took place?” Elwell asked.

“We were up around the . . . U.S. 1, up underneath 95. I believe at that time, I believe we went under 95, somewhere around that area at that time.”

And again, as the attorney would determine, at no point had there been any personal discussion between Stano and the young woman.

“Did she tell you anything about herself or where she lived?”

The answer was, of course, “No.”

“Where was Sammy while you were driving this car?” Elwell asked, since Stano had not mentioned the teenager for quite some time.

“He was following in his car.”

Barbara Bauer must have grown suspicious by this time, the attorney surmised.

“Was there any point in time when this young lady no longer wanted to travel in the car with you and wanted you to stop?”

“Yes, when we stopped for gas, because I told her I would put some gas in her car for her so that she wouldn’t be left without any gas. We stopped, I stopped at a gas station, and put some gas in it.”

“Do you remember where that was?” Elwell was now mapping the entire route.

“Offhand, somewhere up by U.S. 1.”

“Did you pay cash for it?”

“Yes,” Stano assented.

“What happened there at the gas station?”

“She started getting a little belligerent,” Stano remarked, setting the stage for the trigger, the confrontational attitude coming from a young woman that would cause him to snap. Later, he would elaborate. “We talked for a while, then she started to act a little strange. Like she was nervous, and then asked, ‘When were we going back for my car?’ I believe at that time I hit her with my right hand, and said something like, ‘If you do what I say, you won’t get hurt.’ By that time, I was in a place I wasn’t familiar with. She was also complaining a lot at that time, and was getting on my nerves.”
²⁰

Stano told Elwell, “She looked like she was going to take over driving and she looked like she knew where she was at, and I just reached over and hit her. And I said, ‘Just shut up and get in the passenger’s seat.’”

“How did you hit her?”

“I hit her with the back of my right hand,” he said as he motioned to illustrate the blow.

“Where did you hit her?”

“In the face.”

“What did she do?” Elwell asked offhandedly.

“She cringed and started crying a little bit and just went over to her side of the car, crouched by the door, sort of shaking and scared. She didn’t know what was going on.”

For Gerald Stano, describing Barbara Bauer’s last seconds of life meant reliving the moment when he took complete control over another one of his victims.

“Was the car moving at the time you hit her?” The attorney wanted to know how Stano had managed this.

“Yes. We were moving again, just pulling out of the gas station,” Stano recited in a monotone.

“Was she saying anything about wanting to get out of the car?”

“Not at that time.”

“Was she asking you where you were going?”

“No.”

“What was the next thing that happened?”

“Then Sammy said, ‘Follow me.’ ”

Elwell wondered about the accuracy of the statement.

“Sammy said that?”

“Yes.”

“How did he come about to tell you that?”

Stano did not hesitate in his explanation. “He thought that if we got up far enough he would probably get a little sex from her and send her on her way.”

Now the sequence of events was becoming problematic for the attorney.

“Did he tell you that?”

“No, I am just assuming that.”

Elwell now wanted to make certain. “How did he physically tell you this?”

“He told me, ‘Well, look, just follow me a ways. I think we can get to a spot where we can get the young lady to do what we want.’” Again, “young lady” was an expression favored by Stano. Wouldn’t it be unlikely that a teen would employ the same expression in referring to a girl? Elwell was a bit puzzled by this.