I'll Be Watching You (29 page)

I

One would only have to assume that Detective Stavros Mellekas, who had been with the CSP since 1994, was feared and hated by the bad guys he went after on any given day. At six feet one inch, 280 pounds, the Rhode Island transplant could be considered massive by any measure, with hands like catcher’s mitts, a grip like a vise, and a knack for police work that very few had. Mellekas had been with the Major Crimes Unit since 1999. He had seen his share of death and murder and rape and all things evil. It was Mellekas who had been in the Snelgrove yard one day when a neighbor walked up and lobbed the George Recck lead to him. “Anything you want to know about Ned,” said the enthusiastic neighbor, “you talk to George.”

The next day, Mellekas and Detective Tom Murray took the drive up to northern Massachusetts, where Recck was now living with his wife. (“Squirrelly guy,” Mellekas recalled. “A statistics guy, you know. Nice person, though. Educated.”)

Mellekas’s intention was to extract from Recck a few details that could help the CSP locate more evidence. Maybe Recck could recall a place where he and Ned used to hang out as kids. The woods. A party spot. Maybe he’d remember places Ned liked to visit. (“We had nothing,” Mellekas recalled. “No weapon. Nothing. We were looking for a killing spot. Obviously, it wasn’t Hopkinton.”)

“So, George, you spoke to Ned on the phone while he was in prison?”

“Yup,” Recck said. In the years that Ned was in prison, his only outlet to the outside world was George Recck. “I would send him socks on his birthday.”

Mellekas was surprised. He wanted to hear more. If the guy was sending him socks, it was more than just a casual friendship.

“We kept in contact,” Recck continued, according to Mellekas’s reporting of the conversation. “Underwear too. I sent him shorts.”

“What about your conversations?”

It was 2002. The conversations Recck had had with Ned, mainly, took place in 1997 and 1998. He didn’t remember—who could blame him?—much of what had been said.

“I have all these letters,” Recck said.

What? Letters?
Mellekas’s interest piqued. “Sure, let’s see them.”

“You can have them, but I want them back.”

II

Inside the car. Heading toward Connecticut. Mellekas. Reading.

I cannot believe this.
“Some things were just jumping off the pages of those letters.”

There it all was in black and white—rather, blue pen ink—staring at Mellekas as Murray raced down the Massachusetts Turnpike toward Connecticut:
Bundy.

“He compared himself to Ted Bundy.”

Murray shook his head.

It was the first time anyone in law enforcement had been privy to the Bundy connection.

Could we be dealing with a serial?
Mellekas wondered. Was Ned like those killers with whom he was fascinated? Was the CSP going to start finding bodies all over New England? As much as the letters didn’t reveal, in Mellekas’s opinion, they made one important point: Ned Snelgrove harbored sick intentions. Wrote them down. And wasn’t afraid to admit his fantasies and impurities.
Can you believe this?

But then—there it was: that one line. Everyone talked about it later. That one line that sent chills. Made things so real. So evil.

Gooseflesh.

There was Ned writing to George that it would make a much more exciting book if, upon his release from New Jersey, he could
pick up right where I left off.
It was the first time the CSP had heard this.

Mellekas read it again:
pick up right where I left off.

I

Seemingly innocuous letters on a page, put together to make up words, can tell you a lot about a guy. A lot about what is going on inside his head. A lot about how the mind and the hand are connected as the person writes. There’s a relationship. Some sort of subconscious id, as Freud might call it, coming out through the process of thinking and writing at the same time. For Ned, the act of writing became his only link, his only connection, to the outside world. Most definitely, it was his only way of feeling a sense of normalcy around what he saw as deplorable, rancid conditions in the New Jersey jail, where he was housed before being sent away to Rahway back in 1988.

For some reason, Ned felt safe talking to George Recck. As the CSP went through what we’ll call “the Recck Letters,” investigators saw how Ned joked with Recck in one letter, wanting to know if he was “still” Recck’s
second-biggest hero besides G. [Gordon] Liddy?
It was June 20, 1988. Ned said he was sorry that it had taken him such a long time to write. He was being shuffled about the system like a file. Finally, though, he had made it into his cell block. It was hot, he explained. Hot and sticky and smelly. He hated it and despised the people around him. Thought he was better than all of them. And struggled to find the survival skills he knew he was going to need.
If it weren’t for this…fan,
Ned wrote, just outside
his door, [the heat] would be unbearable.

The electric fan blowing on him all day took Ned back down a nostalgic road as he sat in front of it and dreamed of being back at his apartment
on the front porch…enjoying the summer breeze….
He spoke of baseball, giving Recckhis predictions for the season. Ned liked the Orioles. Tigers too. He was honest with himself about his favorite team, the Red Sox. He knew they weren’t going to have a great season.

While Ned was out on bail the previous winter—1987—he had seen Recck, according to this letter. It was shortly before he cut the deal for the attempted murder of Mary Ellen Renard and manslaughter of Karen Osmun. He wanted to tell Recck his “secret” when he saw him. But it was something, he wrote,
I couldn’t tell you [or] my parents
on the outside. But now he wanted to confess and wrote the
incident
with Mary Ellen wasn’t the
first time
he lost
control of myself with a girl.

Investigators were amazed at how easily Ned sugarcoated the entire incident.

Then he warned his friend. Prepare yourself. It’s coming.
You’ll never believe [it]…. I had actually gotten away with murder….

As Ned continued writing to Recck, he explained how he hoped Recck knew that he had been
doing everybody a favor and postponing a lot of pain
by not admitting to any of his transgressions sooner. Ned had not come clean, he insinuated, for the sake of his friends and family and the turmoil that would ultimately come with his admission. He also said that once the cops had him on radar for the attack against Mary Ellen, he knew it was all over, and that he’d then have to admit to the
other thing.
He praised his lawyer, John Bruno, for getting
the damage down to twenty years.

“Damage”: the result of a murder and an attempted murder.

He explained to Recck he’d be eligible for parole in ten, encouraging him to call his parents and talk to them about the “bomb” he had dropped. He was sure everyone back home knew, and it was all very humiliating to him.

Not once did Ned apologize for the pain he had caused his victims and their families. It was all about Ned and his ultimate embarrassment of being caught. It was all about Ned and how the crimes he had committed would affect him and his friends and family. It was all about the waste of his life. He never once, in all the years of causing other people pain, said he was sorry for what he had done.

II

As he did with everyone else in his life, when Ned wrote to George Recck there was a thread—no, a certain inherent charm—of control in the tone of the letters. Ned often told Recck what to think, when to write, and how to live his life.

Recck must have asked Ned about Bundy, because in the letters, beginning in 1992, Ned began to talk about Bundy and the comparisons between his life and the infamous killer’s. Ned had served four years by this point. He was a seasoned con now.

“Whenever Ned went to jail,” a CSP investigator explained, “he grew a mustache. We called it his ‘bad boy’ mustache. Ned was a little guy. He felt small and weak in prison. He was smarter than just about every other inmate—that much we gave him. But he didn’t have the strength. He grew the mustache, hoping to look more masculine.”

In his 1992 letters, Ned praised Bundy for planning out his crimes with a methodical sense of awareness of the police. Ned insisted that the crimes he committed were “impromptu acts.” He said on the nights he committed
his
crimes, he simply—his word “simply”—
convinced myself that now was a good time.
Hurting females was never something he had awoken and decided to do on that specific day; although, he was quick to add,
I was always
thinking
—his underline—
about it….
Moreover, he wrote,
he never…went out
and, prowling around, looking, scoping out bars and eyeing females, tried to
find
a situation….
When he did decide to act out on his urges, he wrote it was a matter of c
onvincing [himself] that now was a good time.
He called getting away—
(temporarily)
—with the homicide of Karen Osmun nothing short of a
miracle.
But still, it was nearly impossible for him to resist Mary Ellen Renard, he explained. Meeting her that night, Ned wrote to Recck,
was
the perfect situation.

III

There is no doubt that Ned Snelgrove got a kick out of toying with law enforcement. Just about every investigator I spoke to said Ned loved the idea of thinking he was smarter than those who were tracking him. He loved the entire catch and release, “I make a move/You counter” aspect of committing crimes and seeing if cops could figure him out. “He and Recck,” one investigator told me, “played chess via letters. This is the type of guy Ned is. He had the patience for that.”

You make a move.

Now it’s my turn.

What tickled Ned’s funny bone during the Karen Osmun investigation in 1983 was the fact that he had, at least then, a
squeaky
clean reputation,
he wrote to Recck. Ned wrote the cops were
sure [he] did it.
He insisted law enforcement was sending him
anonymous notes, thinking I might “crack.”
But little did Ned know that it was actually a friend of Karen’s who was sending the notes.

Near the end of this particular letter, Ned talked about how Bundy liked to keep mementoes of his crimes, chiding the famous professional killer for doing so.
This leaves a documented trail for police…,
Ned wrote to Recck, adding that they would know
where you were & where you were headed on any given weekend.

That one line—the one about leaving a trail of evidence—sent Detective Stavros Mellekas down a path of suspicion. As Mellekas read it, he knew it had been written some ten years prior, but what did it say, actually, about the case Mellekas was investigating now?

Mellekas looked at what the CSP had. Scores of maps found in traveling salesman Ned’s basement bedroom. Not in his car, mind you, where one would think the maps might be kept. Additionally, it was the end of that sentence—
where you were headed on any given weekend
—that stuck out to Mellekas.

Carmen disappeared on a Friday night. (Ned chastised Bundy for purchasing gas with credit cards and saving the receipts.)

Hasn’t Ned done the same?

I

When Ned returned to court in March 2002 after his February date was postponed, the day’s proceedings didn’t yield much in the form of insight into the case, or even when Ned’s trial for attempting kidnapping would begin. And yet the day wasn’t devoid of drama.

Carmen’s daughter Jackie Garcia was sitting patiently with Luz, Sonia, and the rest of the Rodriguez family, waiting for Ned to be brought in. The family wanted answers. They weren’t about to let Ned show up in court without having a presence there to prove to him that Carmen mattered.

She was a person.

They loved her.

Never forget.

As Ned was walked into the room, Jackie stood up quickly and threw a crumpled piece of paper at him as everyone watched.

“What happened? What was that?” someone said out loud.

Then Jackie screamed as she went for Ned’s throat, lunging, like a leopard, off the bench into the air.
You bastard.
“You killed my mother!”

Ned turned. “What?”

The marshals covered him and quickly escorted him back to his cell.

The room cleared.

II

By June, the CSP returned to the Savage Hill neighborhood where Ned had lived. David Zagaja had Ned in jail. But the investigation into Carmen’s murder was far from over.

Detective Mellekas was at a neighbor’s house, again searching the backyard with his colleagues, when he spotted Mr. Snelgrove out in his yard. The old man was looking on. Curious, of course, as to what was going on next door. “Hey, Mr. Snelgrove, how are you today, sir?” Mellekas asked.

Snelgrove nodded.

“Listen,” Mellekas continued, “the court signed a search and seizure warrant for Ned’s car.” Mellekas had it in his hand. It was a second warrant for the car.

The old man shook his head.

“Could we make some room for a tow truck to come in and take it away?” Snelgrove’s car was blocking the driveway.

“OK.”

“The tow truck should be here shortly.”

They stood. Talked. Not like old college friends. But Mellekas was happy with the way in which the old man was beginning to open up. He wanted to say something, Mellekas was sure of it. And within a few moments, they got on the topic of the registration and Mellekas wondered why it had been changed from Ned’s name to his father’s. It seemed strange. Especially for a guy who had claimed his innocence all along.

“Well,” Mr. Snelgrove said (according to Mellekas), “Ned will probably be going away for a long time.”

Mellekas thought about it.
What a thing to say.

“I think Ned killed this girl in Hartford,” Mellekas said casually. Why not toss that bombshell out to the old man and see how he reacts.

Snelgrove looked at ease with the comment, Mellekas wrote in his report, as if it didn’t bother him. The senior Snelgrove said, “I would not be surprised if Ned killed her.”

“I think Ned has a problem,” Mellekas said sincerely, keeping it going. “I think he needs psychiatric help.”

Snelgrove shrugged.
Whatever.

“Ned supposedly,” Mr. Snelgrove said, “received treatment in New Jersey, but I guess it didn’t work.”

Mellekas walked over to the car and stood by it. The tow truck was coming up the road. They could hear its croaky diesel engine, knocking and smoking its way toward the house. Soon the beeping sounds would start as the tow truck backed up and the conversation would be disrupted by the commotion. It was bad timing.

“Why do you think the treatment didn’t work? What makes you say that, sir?”

Snelgrove thought about it. He looked toward the truck. “Well, this makes three—and who the hell knows how many more are out there?”

“What do you mean?” Mellekas asked.

“Who the hell knows…maybe he thinks he’s some sort of goddamn superhero?”

“How so?”

“You know, drubbing out the dregs of society.”

Now Carmen was a “dreg.” Had Ned told Mr. Snelgrove something about Carmen?

“Why’d you say that just now?” Mellekas asked.

“I don’t know. Just thinking out loud, I guess.”

III

Ned’s pretrial hearing on the charges of attempted kidnapping was continued to May 30, 2002. Then into June. The fall. Maybe September, someone from the court said. October, the latest.

So Ned sat in prison. Waiting.

No bail.

IV

As everyone waited for the kidnapping trial, Detective Mellekas stepped up his pressure on Ned. During the summer of 2002, Mellekas decided that the way to get Ned to maybe crack under pressure was to stay in his face as much as he could. Play Columbo with him. Ned liked to talk. The CSP’s only problem was that Ned liked to talk about everything
except
the investigation. The Red Sox. Stocks. Bonds. Food. Computers.

Ned was being held at the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution, in Suffield, Connecticut. Whenever a cop goes into a prison to speak with an inmate, he understands the Department of Corrections has total authority over the prisoner and is in charge of that inmate. The Department of Corrections calls the shots, in other words: paperwork, interview rooms, times, and dates. All prisons require law enforcement of any kind to present the suspect with a waiver that delegates responsibility back to law enforcement for the duration of the interview. By signing the document, the inmate is saying he or she agrees to allow the police to question him or her without a prison official present. If anything happens during the interview, the Department of Corrections is off the hook. Most inmates have no trouble signing the form.

Ned wouldn’t sign it, saying, “You know me, Mellekas, I’m willing to talk to you—but I’m not signing any paper.”

So Mellekas had a prison official with him anytime he went in. On this day, July 12, 2002, Mellekas decided to try and match Ned at his own game. He knew it bothered Ned that he had disappointed his mother and father. Their feelings mattered to Ned.

Mellekas closed the door. The room was comfortable. Anything other than cement walls and steel bars was a reprieve for a guy locked up.

Mellekas read Ned his rights. Then, “How’s it going, Ned?”

Ned was quiet. Yet, there was something, Mellekas noticed, different about him. Prison life was getting to Ned. Mellekas could see it on his face. The guy had done eleven years. Here he was again facing a long bid.

“I believe you killed Carmen Rodriguez,” Mellekas came out and said. “I think you did it, Ned.”

Ned wouldn’t speak on the topic. He shook his head.

“You don’t want to stay here the rest of your life,” Mellekas suggested. “Come on, Ned. You’re sick. You belong in a hospital.”

Ned wouldn’t budge.

Mellekas stared at him. Ned was tearing up. His eyes welled.

“You did it. You did it. You did it.” Mellekas wasn’t being pushy or loud or bossy. He was just talking.

But Ned wasn’t. He was still teary-eyed. (“Crying?” Mellekas said later. “I wouldn’t say crying…. He was like a little kid getting caught for something.”)

Mellekas needed to keep the pressure on: harder, more firm. Maybe bring in emotion. “Your parents, Ned,” he said next, “do want them to have to come
here?
To a jail. They deserve more than that. Wouldn’t you rather they visit you in a hospital?”

Nothing.

“They deserve more, Ned.”

Head shake. Eyes. Welling up. But no words.

“You’ve got some serious issues, Ned. Psychological problems. I know. I can help, though. I understand this is why you killed Carmen. You couldn’t help it. You belong in a hospital, Ned. I know that. You’re sick.”

Finally, “They said this before to me.”

“Your dad is a Yale grad, Ned.” Ned looked up. “Your mom is a PTA type of lady. Do you want them coming up here to the reception area of Walker, a prison, sitting with these common criminals?”

More tears.

Ned Snelgrove never once denied killing Carmen. He’d had every opportunity to slam his hands on the table and scream,
I did not kill that woman!
He had every chance to plead with Mellekas,
You’ve got the wrong guy. I didn’t kill her.

But he didn’t. Instead, he stopped crying and said, “I want to get out of here. This interview is over.”