Kill the Ones You Love (23 page)

CHAPTER 43

The Eschlers were, of course, important witnesses in the case. They had been visited by Gabriel Morris less than an hour after the murders had taken place. Fred Eschler recounted that Gabe had been his daughter's boyfriend. He had liked Gabe so much as a young man that he considered him to be a part of the family. Gabe went on camping trips with the whole family and dropped by, even when Esther Eschler was not home.

Fred recalled about the night of February 8, 2010: “There was a knock at the door at around nine. I was in the kitchen, sitting at the kitchen table. My wife and I were there talking. She went and answered the door, and I could tell by her greeting that it was someone she was excited to see.

“She invited Gabe, his wife and their daughter into the house, and they came into the kitchen. I started to be somewhat social and Gabe sort of stopped me and said he'd like to visit, but he didn't have the time.

“It wasn't really cold out, but it wasn't warm either. Their daughter didn't have any shoes on. In fact, they were all barefoot, which was strange. Gabe was dressed in a T-shirt and light pair of pants.

“Gabe said that he was in trouble and it basically had to do with him working with the police department undercover. Things had gone terribly wrong and people were after him and his family. These people had murdered his mom and her boyfriend.

“He said he needed to report to a large facility in San Diego so that he could be protected. He asked if either my wife or I could drive him down to San Diego, or if we had a vehicle we could loan him. I said that we couldn't drive him down there, but I had a vehicle that he could use.

“He also asked if I had some kind of weapon, and I asked him what he wanted. I had a nine-millimeter Beretta semiautomatic and I loaned that to him. I saw for one brief moment that he may have had a Glock handgun. It didn't appear to have a clip in it.

“I asked him if he needed any money, and he said he needed twenty dollars. I gave him forty or sixty. My wife fixed him a bag of food. We didn't have shoes small enough for his daughter, so we gave an extra pair of long socks that she could wear. And we gave him some clothes that were warmer than what he and Jessica had. He and his family were at the house maybe a half hour. He was very urgent, and he wasn't so much scared as agitated and concerned.”

Fahy said, “Some people in the community were faulting you for giving him what he asked for. Is that correct?”

Fred said that it was.

Fahy asked, “All things being equal, and not knowing the circumstances of what really happened, would you give Gabe those things all over again?”

Fred answered, “Yes, I would. When Gabe brought his little daughter with him, and she was distressed, and she stayed by her mom the whole time—with the story that Gabe told me, I had no reason not to believe what he told. Based on [the] Gabe Morris I knew, I had no reason not to believe him.”

 

 

Before DA Frasier asked one question on cross-examination, he heaved a big sigh. He knew Fred Eschler and his family very well. Frasier began by saying, “I have in a police report a quote from you—‘Gabe has always been a bullshitter. He's always been pretty slick with words.' Is that correct?”

Fred answered, “If I didn't say it, I believe it. He's always been good with words.”

“What do you mean by him being a bullshitter?”

Fred replied, “Kind of like me, a good storyteller. If you can tell a good story, that is interesting to listen to, people will listen. I'm not talking about lying. He just has a very amiable disposition. It wasn't exaggeration so much, but just a way of putting you at ease.”

Frasier wondered if Gabe had a way of talking people into things they might not normally do. Fred said that Gabe hadn't been that way with him. “He was just comfortable to talk to.”

Frasier then asked how Gabe was behaving when he came over on the night of February 8, 2010. Fred responded, “When he came into the kitchen, I thought he was in control of what he was doing. He seemed to be pretty in control of the situation. He knew what he wanted and asked for what he wanted.”

“Did everyone come into the kitchen?”

Fred answered, “He was a couple of steps in, and his wife and daughter were in the doorway. When we first talked, everyone was in the kitchen vicinity and could hear the conversation. Afterward, my wife and his wife went out to the car to clean some of the things out of there to get it ready.”

“On that night, he did tell you he was doing some antiterrorist work?”

Fred agreed that was so.

“And he told you he had killed somebody?”

“Yes, that he had killed one of the attackers.”

“Did you ask him any questions about what was going on?”

Fred answered that he hadn't.

Frasier looked at a report and then said, “Well, I see here the investigator wrote, ‘Fred said, “Every time I asked a question, Gabe said, the less I knew, the better.'”

Fred replied, “Yes, I guess I asked him a few questions, and then he kept saying it was better for me not to know.”

Frasier queried if the vehicle Fred gave to Gabe had a child seat, since Kalea was only four years old at the time. Fred said that if the car didn't have one, then there was one probably somewhere around the house. Asked if he offered one to Gabe, Fred responded that Gabe didn't want one. Gabe said he would be in the backseat with Kalea.

When the questions went to guns, Fred said that initially Gabe didn't ask for one. He was more interested in getting .40-caliber ammunition. Fred added, “I offered him a 410/45 and asked him if he wanted it. Or the nine-millimeter. He chose the nine-millimeter. I believe I gave him five clips for the gun. Gabe and I loaded those.”

Frasier asked, “In your presence, did the little girl start talking about her grandma?”

Fred responded, “She was pretty quiet the whole time. As we were standing at the door, and they were getting ready to leave, she made a reference to her grandmother. And Gabe told her, ‘Let's not talk about Grandma.'”

“Getting back to the defendant telling you that he had killed someone, did he indicate how much time had passed from the incident to him showing up at your house?”

Fred replied, “Actually, I never thought about how long in the past that had been.”

“Can you describe what you saw when they drove away?”

“His wife was sitting in the front of the car, and she was driving. Gabe got into the backseat with his daughter, and he told me they were going to lie on the backseat so that they would be out of view. I assumed the people that were looking for him were looking for three people. With just his wife at the wheel, it would be the only thing that people could see.”

Frasier looked at a report again and said, “You told an investigator that Gabe conned some people out of money when he was on his mission. Is that correct?”

Fred disagreed with that statement and said, “‘Conned' is your word. Usually, when you go on a mission, somebody pays a monthly amount. That goes to the church, and the church dispenses what they call an allowance. It's for the young man or woman on a mission to live within the allowance. Gabe was writing people saying that if each of them sent him ten dollars, he would be able to buy a new pair of shoes. That was inappropriate for him to do. He should have talked to his mission president and got things settled that way.”

Before Fred Eschler stepped down from the stand, he asked the judge if he could clarify one thing that he said. Judge Stone said that he could. So Fred explained, “The bullshitter statement—there are some people who can enter a room and not know people, and go up and feel comfortable with them. And they start talking immediately. Not necessarily seriously, but start talking about the weather, how are you doing, that kind of thing. And they seem to relate to people easily. That's what I meant about Gabe. I wanted to make sure that it wasn't interpreted as ‘He's trying to take something out of your back pocket.'”

John Lindegren was next and testified that Gabe had a very close relationship with his mother, and John liked Gabe when the defendant was a young man. John said that he knew Gabe smoked marijuana in high school, but it wasn't to a great degree. Then John said, “When Gabe started dating Esther, he took his faith seriously. To my knowledge, he didn't do any drugs after that.

“It was a real blow when I heard that Gabe had killed his mother and her boyfriend. I was working out at the gym when I heard about it. It knocked me down. I told the investigator, who talked to me, ‘Gabe wouldn't even be one in a million as to who was on my suspect list.'”

 

 

Perhaps to give his second some court experience, Frasier did not cross-examine Lindegren. Instead, Assistant District Attorney Chartray did. ADA Chartray asked if John knew that Gabe smoked marijuana in high school, and John replied that he did. John agreed that Gabe quit doing that when he began dating Esther Eschler. John also agreed that he hadn't had any contact with Gabe since Gabe was a nineteen-year-old, except for when John went out to Bob Kennelly's house for an estimate on drywall work.

John admitted that he had no idea of the decisions made in Gabe's life before the murders. Chartray then looked at a report and asked if John remembered telling an investigator that Gabe had stopped by his shop just a few days before the murder.

John responded, “No, sir, I don't remember that.”

Chartray continued, “You don't remember saying he seemed like the Gabe of old?”

John replied, “I don't even know what investigator wrote that. He might have misunderstood me.”

This led to another question about investigators and whether John recalled talking to one from the Department of Justice. It concerned the day that he had gone out to Kennelly's house and seen Gabe there. In this report, the investigator wrote down that John said,
“Gabe and Bob were not getting along.”

Once again, John said no, he didn't remember talking to anyone from the DOJ.

Chartray asked, “Well, did you observe that they were not getting along?”

John answered, “They weren't talking much to each other. It was a pretty odd deal. Just the body language. It was uncomfortable.”

“Do you remember telling the DOJ investigator that Mr. Morris was looking to buy a gun?”

“No.”

“Out at Mr. Kennelly's place, Gabriel Morris never mentioned hallucinating or anything like that?”

“Not a bit.”

 

 

On redirect by Fahy, John said that he never saw anything that would have made him fear for Bob Kennelly's safety.

Before John Lindegren stepped down, Judge Stone asked him, “Tell me, when you went out to Mr. Kennelly's place to make that bid?”

John said, “It was ten or so days before the shooting.”

“Was anyone else there besides Mr. Kennelly and Mr. Morris?”

“Robin was there.”

“Were you inside the house or outside the house?”

“I was in the barn, and she came out there.”

CHAPTER 44

David Bastian was next. He spoke of being in Australia on a mission in 1999 and meeting Gabe there. As the others had, Bastian said how honest Gabe had been and what a joy to be around.

Bastian spoke of Gabe and his family at church in January 2010, and then about them coming over to his house for dinner later that evening. It was during this visit that Bastian had real concerns about Gabe's mental health. It was such a concern that Bastian could barely sleep that night.

 

 

For his part, Frasier wanted to know if David had asked Gabe what he was doing for work when he and his family came over to Bastian's home in 2010. David was under the impression that Gabe told him that he was starting a new job with some insurance company. As far as the government work he had supposedly been doing, David said that Gabe was not specific. Gabe did say that it was secret and had to be kept that way.

Frasier wanted to know if Gabe had said, “If anyone molests my daughter, I will kill them.”

David replied that Gabe had brought up that subject and was passionate about it. Gabe had gone on to talk about opening up a coffee shop in Silverton with Jessica. And then, according to David, Gabe had launched a verbal attack on the leaders of the LDS Church. David said, “He felt that something bad was going to happen in Utah.”

Frasier looked at an investigator's report that quoted David as saying,
“Gabe Morris said that if the church leaders do not do what they were supposed to do, the people should not follow them.”
Frasier asked if he had said that to an investigator.

David replied, “Not in those exact words. I recall him saying something along those lines, however.”

And then according to David, Gabe started talking about another subject that irritated him very much. David said, “He was upset because his grandmother was a Jehovah's Witness and she planned to leave her house to that church. He was hoping he and his family could live there. He wanted to start fresh in Silverton. He wanted to open a coffee shop, where he could preach the gospel. And he even talked about him and Jessica opening up a bed-and-breakfast place.”

And then in a real turnaround about the facts, David testified that Gabe told him that he was helping his mom by paying bills for her in Bandon. Gabe, of course, had no job and was incapable of doing such a thing, since he was the one who owed so much money. Yet, according to David, Gabe spoke of trying to sell some vehicle to help her out, and his mom and Bob Kennelly had chased the potential buyer off their property.

Frasier asked, “Did he ever tell you why he would need a car that could outrun police cars?”

David replied that Gabe had not.

Frasier next wanted to know if Gabe had mentioned anything about people who had a lot of money.

David responded, “He felt that they should share what they had.”

Frasier wondered if David ever worried about his safety and the safety of his family where Gabriel Morris was concerned.

David answered, “I wasn't worried about my safety or my family's safety. Or his family. I was just concerned for him as a human being.”

“When he was telling you these stories, did he seem delusional?”

“I'm not really a doctor. I can tell you he was not himself.”

 

 

Ray Wetzel was next, and Fahy had him speak about Gabe's visit in late January 2010. And just like Bastian had witnessed around this time, Wetzel saw a marked change in Gabe.

Frasier only had a few questions posed to Wetzel. One was “Why did Gabe say he was up in Silverton in 2010?”

Wetzel replied, “He was up to visit his grandma. And then he said he would go back to Bandon to help his mom. He said he needed a place for his wife and daughter to stay while he went to China.”

Of course, Gabe had no offers from anyone in China. It was all in his mind.

 

 

Pamela Hansen followed Wetzel to the stand and spoke of knowing Gabe since they were teenagers and that she liked him from the start. She also spoke of what she considered to be Gabe's emotional breakdown in January 2010. He had rambled on and on about dragons, pre-mortal life, the End of Days and how he was against the LDS leadership in Bandon.

When Fahy asked her what she thought should happen to Gabe now, she cried and said, “I really love Gabe.” She couldn't stop crying in order to answer the question.

 

 

Frasier immediately got into the question of what problems Gabe had with the Bandon church. Pam said that he stopped going to that church in September to November 2009. She asked him why he quit going and Gabe replied that it was because of some bad things he had done. He told her of being a bodyguard or something for prostitutes in Las Vegas. He added that he stopped doing that. Pam added, “I think Jessica convinced him to go back to church.”

Pam explained that Gabe had a blowup with the leaders of the Bandon church for a particular reason. She said, “Jessica had been given a position in the church for the young ladies. And they would have meetings during the middle of the week.” According to Pam, Gabe was upset because he didn't think that women should be in there all alone without a man for protection. Pam said, “He brought Jessica in for a meeting, and there were no men there, so he stayed. There was another adult woman there, and she became uncomfortable about some of the things Gabe began talking about. She made a complaint to the leadership of the branch.”

Pam agreed that Gabe had been called in by the leader of the branch. Then she added, “The person who made the complaint spoke to me about it. It was the situation she took issue with.” Apparently, there weren't supposed to be any men present when the young women had their meetings.

Pam said, “When Gabe had his meeting about this, it was upsetting to him, because they wouldn't tell him who had made the complaint. Typically, if there is a problem like that in church, the two people are brought together and air things out. He was distressed because he felt he was being put on trial for something that was nothing. I tried to set up another meeting so that everything could be aired out. Gabe never showed.”

Frasier then read from a defense investigator's report that stated Gabe was not happy about his mother living with a man without being married to him.

Pam had a little different take on this. She said, “Gabe was upset because he was working at their place and helping liquidate the antiques that were in storage. He felt put-upon, when his mother knew he didn't have a job, and still wanted money for bills. My advice to him was to just find a way to pay those bills. He was disheartened, not mad.”

“Did he say that his mom was asking more than what the bills really were?”

“He just said, ‘My mom is a lost cause.'”

There was one moment of levity when Frasier said, “I'd like to put some context to the story about the dragons.”

Pam replied, “Good luck with that!”

Frasier continued, “In Mormon theology, there is a belief that people have an existence before coming here to live on Earth?”

Pam agreed that was so. Frasier then said, “In Mormon theology, in the pre-mortal existence, the Adversary, Satan, whatever you want to call him, is present also?”

She said yes. She agreed that in the Mormon theology, the followers of Christ helped kick Satan and his followers out of Heaven.

Then Frasier said, “There is some scriptural references to dragons being a symbol of the Devil?”

There was a long pause on Pam's part and then she answered, “I don't know.”

Frasier continued, “So, what Gabriel would be speaking about, other than the dragon part, would be consistent with theology about preexistence?”

Pam said that was correct.

Frasier followed up with a question about how Gabe reacted when Pam told him she intended to keep going to the Bandon church.

Pam replied, “That was the first time Gabe really got upset with me. He was real agitated with me as I implored him to realize these were good men.”

Frasier wanted to know if Gabe told her where he was heading, when he said he was going away for a long time. Pam responded that he had not told her where he was going.

 

 

Fahy had just a few more questions for her on redirect. “Was the ‘we' in the battle of Heaven, with him and God?”

Pam said, “No, when he was talking about ‘we,' he was talking about him and me.”

“Are you aware of times he spoke of himself as Jesus Christ or Christlike?”

“He said he was the forerunner of Christ in preparation for the Second Coming.”