Kill the Ones You Love (11 page)

Since Jessica was going to be taken in for questioning as a material witness when the trio was found, Bill Pope let it be known that he and his wife would take custody of Kalea as soon as that occurred. In the meantime, all he and Rita could do was pray, hope and wait. He said, “It's out of our hands now.”

Rita Pope's information was not only being disseminated in the Idaho media, but in Oregon media as well. She said about Jessica, “She loves her husband. I know she does or she wouldn't be with him. But I don't think she knows what he did. And our baby granddaughter is in the middle of it, and I'm afraid we won't see her again.”

In a different interview, Fred Pope said, “I spoke with Jessica one week before the shooting. I asked her if she was all right and she said that she was, but I could tell in her voice that things weren't right.”

Rita added, “If Gabe did this to his mother, I'm sure that he didn't tell Jessica that he did it. I'm sure that he told her, ‘Somebody else did it to my mom, and they're coming after us, and we've got to get out of here.'” Rita was right on target with this remark.

And around this time, the people in the Bandon area had a new revelation through the media. It was the first time they heard about the Morrises' connection to the Eschlers.
The World
ran a story with the headline
COQUILLE MAN GAVE FUGITIVE GUN.
The article related that Gabe had once dated the Eschlers' daughter and had gone to their church. Gabe and family had shown up on the evening of February 8 with a story of terrorists, murders and working for the government. The article went on to relate about Gabe's request for .40-caliber ammunition, Fred giving him a 9mm Beretta handgun and loaning him his car. Also in the article were references to the Morrises' financial woes.

A reporter wanted to know if DA Frasier was going to file charges against Fred Eschler. Frasier responded, “I don't see how I can. He didn't know about the murders.” And as far as Jessica Morris went, Frasier explained his reason for a material witness warrant. “Just because you are at the scene of a crime doesn't mean you're guilty of a crime. I don't know what she knows. I can't charge her with anything until I know what she knows.”

 

 

By now, the Coos County Sheriff's Office had the story up on their website. They also let the Popes know that if Gabe, Jessica and Kalea weren't tracked down before Saturday, February 20, another segment would air on
America's Most Wanted.
Justin Pope, Jessica's brother, reacted to this by saying, “This is such great news for our family. If we can start to get some national attention, hopefully, we will be able to find my sister and Kalea.”

Unfortunately, much of the nation was still glued to their television screens watching the Winter Olympics. And despite law enforcement's concerns that Gabe might be heading to Idaho to harm members of Jessica's family, he was, in fact, more than a thousand miles away, heading in another direction.

CHAPTER 20

One of the constants in Gabe's life was that he was addicted to online video games. That was particularly true of the game Perfect World. And this addiction actually helped him in keeping one step ahead of the law. Most investigators believed he might be heading to some relative's home in either Louisiana or Florida. In fact, Gabe was using a network of people he played online video games with to make his cross-country journey.

The route from St. Louis took them on I-70, across the Mississippi River, through Illinois, and to Indianapolis, Indiana. They headed from there onto I-69 to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and into Michigan. Jessica recalled, “I tried to make it so when we arrived in Michigan, it would be morning, and we wouldn't need a place to stay.”

Jessica recalled, “We were looking for a library, where he could get on a computer, but I think it was a Sunday and we couldn't find one that was open. We were driving though Detroit and asking for directions. Gabe had me stop at a comic book store and he asked a guy there where he could get online. And the guy said that a library was open down the street. So Kalea and I dropped Gabe off there and we went to get some gas, and then we went back and picked him up. He said he had sent an e-mail to someone named Judy, who lived in Virginia. And she responded right back to him with her phone number. And he said that he would give her a call, and then he and I and Kalea went and ate dinner. Afterward, we went and found a telephone and he got the number for the lady in Michigan and she didn't want to help us.” In fact, this “lady” was only in her midteens, but Jessica probably didn't know that. In essence, they had driven all the way to Michigan for nothing.

Jessica continued, “So Gabe called Judy back and asked if we could come down there to Virginia and meet her and her husband. And she said yes. So we got on the road to Virginia. I started begging at places for gas money.”

The route took them across Ohio. Jessica recounted their experience there: “We were in a residential neighborhood. We pulled off on an exit, and I didn't know what he was going to do. He stopped and pulled out the gun, and there was an embankment and a house, and he shot at the embankment. He shot three times. Then we got back on the interstate and he was driving. And a police car went by really fast with its lights on. And Gabe said, ‘See, that policeman is now going to where we just were.' He said it was so the police wouldn't be where we were going.”

This was just one more example of Gabe's irrational behavior. All it did was alert police to the fact that someone had discharged a gun illegally in a residential neighborhood.

 

 

From Ohio, the route took them to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to 1-70, through Maryland and finally Washington, D.C. Judy's house was right across the Potomac River, in Dumfries, Virginia.

Judy recalled, “Gabe called to arrange a meeting and he was calling from a 703 area code. He said that he was in Arlington, Virginia, and we arranged to meet at an Uno's restaurant in Woodbridge, Virginia. We went there and waited there forever, and he called back a couple of hours after we got there. He asked where we were, and we said we were waiting for him at Uno's.”

Jessica said about all of this, “We called them in D.C. and they gave us directions, and we didn't know where it was. We took a wrong road. So we drove down into a neighborhood and there was a guy who was standing there waiting for a bus. And Gabe asked him if he needed a ride, and so we gave him a ride. And we dropped him off at a roundabout near a hotel or something.

“We pulled off at an exit too soon, and we were lost and ended up driving around for three hours while Judy waited with her husband at the place they told us about. And we finally found it. And we went to a wrong one and Gabe called Judy. So Kalea and I went and used a restroom, and when we came back, Gabe said they were at a place about forty-five minutes away. And we finally found it.”

Gabe had gone to Uno in Manassas, Virginia, by mistake. They had been waiting for Judy Ward and Doug Miller (pseudonym) to show up there. Finally realizing his mistake, he drove Jessica and Kalea to the restaurant in Woodbridge.

Jessica recalled of the first meeting, “Judy and Doug were sitting at the bar when we walked in. And so we sat down and Gabe started talking to them. And Kalea kept saying, ‘Mommy, I'm hungry.' And I went looking for and found some peanuts, so we started eating peanuts.”

When Gabe and his family first met Judy and Doug, Judy recalled, “They had nothing. They just barely had the clothes on their backs. And at the restaurant, we talked a lot about God and helping people. And he said there was another girl in the game that he had talked to, and she was just sixteen years old. And Gabe said he wanted to protect her because her parents were in the process of a divorce, and he got the impression that they didn't care about her. He drew out my compassion about this. And Gabe and his family needed a place to stay for a week.”

Despite barely knowing Gabe, except on the Internet, Judy and Doug agreed. The Morrises came over to Judy and Doug's nice suburban home in Dumfries. It was a house that Doug's mom was letting them live in.

Jessica recollected, “Doug offered to get a pizza to share, and we ate that while they talked. Since we only had the ten dollars, Gabe asked them if we could stay with them. And Judy said we could.”

As it turned out, Gabe, Jessica and Kalea did stay at the house that Judy and Doug shared. Gabe, Jessica and Kalea were given a bedroom, and Judy and Doug took another room, which was not their usual bedroom. Jessica recalled, “We got their bedroom, which had, like, a king-sized bed, and they slept in a different room. Gabe may have stayed up that night. I don't remember. I was really tired and went to sleep.

“The next day Doug took us over to a sandwich shop and bought us some lunch. He was very nice and very kind. I remember at one point I told Judy, ‘It's really hard to take charity,' and she just smiled.”

The next day, Judy discovered something that really concerned her. She looked in her closet and there was a small blue bag. In the bag was a semiautomatic pistol. But then she remembered that Gabe supposedly worked for the air force on secret missions. She assumed he needed this weapon for his job. What she didn't seem to consider was, why was a secret operative so short of money?

Judy recalled, “My husband drove a truck, and we didn't give Gabe or Jessica any money. My husband pays for our meals and putting gas in the car and things.” Gabe and his family just basically hung out at their house, eating their food and not having any money to contribute.

Judy did say that at least Jessica helped out a little bit around the house. “She did cook. She was very, very quiet and didn't say much. One night my brother and my husband's best friend just showed up at that house, and she didn't eat until everybody else ate.

“Every time she talked, she was very tentative. About Gabe, everything he did, she justified as being God's work or whatever. I asked her one time when he wasn't around, did she ever doubt his actions or what he says, and she said no. She did say sometimes something seems off, but that was just her insecurities and lack of faith in him.”

One of the more incredible lies Gabe told Judy and Doug was about the living arrangements that had occurred in Bandon, Oregon. Judy recalled, “He said that he had a house and he let his mom and her boyfriend stay there. They took care of it while he was out doing business. When he was not there, they would stay there. I got an impression of the place that it was remote, not within a city with a lot of lights, because he talked a lot about the sky. He didn't go into a lot of detail about the house.”

As far as Gabe's early life, he told Judy that his mom had been a prostitute when he was young. Something that was totally untrue, of course. Gabe said they had been living on the streets, which was also untrue. And as far as being in Michigan, Gabe told Judy that he had gone there because he had a grandfather buried there.

A big concern for Jessica was that she noticed plaques on the walls of the house noting that Doug's mom worked for the police department in some capacity. It seemed to concern Gabe as well. He told Jessica, “Get ready to leave. Not immediately, but get ready.”

 

 

By February 17, Judy recalled, “Gabe kept talking about Florida. My husband and I always go to Florida for a vacation, and Gabe was talking about going to Florida or getting an RV, or traveling all over the place visiting different people. Just hanging out and having a good time.”

Judy didn't drink, but Gabe and her husband did. She said later, “My husband came back from work and brought some absinthe, some Southern Comfort and Captain Morgan. Gabe got very, very drunk. And he got sick. Jessie tasted some absinthe, and I tasted it, but we didn't drink.”

The most amazing thing was, Judy saw Jessica, whom she called “Jessie,” smoke marijuana with Gabe. And more than that, Gabe wanted to try salvia, which was legal in the state. He tried it and tripped out.

Judy added that around this time, her “sister came over, and she was a little late getting back after dropping a friend off somewhere else. And Gabe said, ‘Let's drive around to the friend's house to see if she's there.' He had the gun with him. He had the ammo clips on his lap, and he got out of the car. He went over to a 7-Eleven and got an apple, and while he did that, he had me hold the clips of ammo.” Judy didn't know if he took the gun with him into the convenience store or just kept it under the seat.

 

 

The initially charming Gabe was now overtaken by Gabe and his all-too-frequent rants. Judy said later, “I didn't start to get really scared until the weekend. That's when there were, like, two different sides to him. Like he just completely flipped to a different demeanor. He got more aggressive, more demanding. He was getting very restless, and that's when I started to get scared. But I didn't know where the fear was coming from.

“He was talking about all kinds of things. He was talking about hanging out with Snoop Dogg and Jay-Z, and I was like, ‘Come on, I can't believe this.' And he brought up about how his mom tried to poison him. It was rat poison. And he said they stuck around for a month trying to reconcile. And there was an urgency in his voice. He led me to believe that he felt threatened, so he shot his mom and her boyfriend. I was led to believe he shot them just once.

“I was there, and Jessica and Kalea were there when he said this. And he looked over at her and said, ‘Didn't you see me shoot my mom and her boyfriend?' and she said that she heard, and then she saw the bodies later. But she never said she physically saw him shoot them.”

Judy added that Gabe told her that his mom had hired someone to kill him or something like that. It was all very unclear. And that was part of the reason he had to shoot her. “His mom was supposedly doing it for money. Like one hundred thousand dollars or something. She was heading for the door, and he knew somebody else was behind the door, and he felt threatened. And that's when he shot her and the man.” This was yet another of Gabe's continually evolving stories about the shootings.

 

 

Gabe was also becoming more and more persistent about having things his own way. Judy recalled, “He wanted me and Doug to go with him, and we were both being resistant. We couldn't just jump up and leave, and I wasn't leaving without Doug. But whenever they went anywhere, we were always with them. There was one time, I think it was Saturday, we went back to Uno's to eat and the place was crowded. We were sitting at the bar area and the bartender was backed up with dishes piled up, glasses piled up, and the waitress waiting for drinks. And Gabe got mad. He went and spoke with the manager and the manager got short with him. And Gabe left the table. He left the restaurant. He got in his car and he left. He wasn't gone for very long, maybe ten minutes, and he came back and he said he had to go take out his aggression. He said he went over to the gym and he picked a fight with somebody. He didn't go into details beyond that.”

It was all becoming very weird and scary for Judy by that point, but still she did not ask Gabe and his family to leave. And it may have been around this time that Gabe and Judy had sex. Judy thought that Jessica knew about this and she was either okay with it or was so browbeaten by Gabe that she didn't make any complaints. And apparently Doug did not know about this at all.

 

 

By Saturday, Gabe was very restless. Judy said later, “He always said that he was going to leave by Monday. And he always said I was going with him. He tried to convince me to go with him, with or without my husband. And I said ‘No, I can't go without my husband.' I told him outright, ‘I'm not going with you,' and he said, ‘Yeah, you are!'

“He started packing on Saturday night. He and his wife started packing up my clothes. They kept saying we were going to leave now. ‘We're going to leave now.' But they kept putting if off because I was resistant. He kept threatening me that he was leaving, and I had been sick. I had been sick for years. I recently had surgery last year and he knew about it. I wasn't doing very well physically. So he, and my husband, and his wife there for support, did a prayer, and I did feel better. He used that against me. And he said that if I didn't go with him, I would be sick again, that I would start hurting again, and I was scared.

“I was scared of the pain, and scared of him. Because at that point, he started threatening me. He never told me where we were [specifically] going. He always said we were going to Florida. The night before they had my clothes laid out, not in bags, but just laid out aside. Both of them did that. And he tried to get me to gather some items myself, and I never did. But I always had a to-go bag packed, that just had basic toiletries, toothbrush and stuff like that.”