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Authors: M. William Phelps

BOOK: Never See Them Again
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CHAPTER 12
T
OM LADD SAT
down and looked at this case on some days and became frustrated for the lack of manpower helping him. Ladd would stomp his feet, say a few words to his captain, then hit the brick, find a witness who brightened his spirits a little, and remind himself that the case
was
solvable. With enough luck, on top of some shoe-leather police work, the case could be closed.
A friend of JU's came forward one afternoon with a theory that seemed credible. If for nothing else, this new information put Ladd and the HPD deeper into the ominous drug culture that Marcus was getting himself more deeply involved in as each day of the 2003 summer came to pass.
Talking to the kid, Ladd felt right away he was onto something. For one, the kid had no trouble saying that JU, who was still recuperating from that violent thrashing he took to the head with a bat/pipe, was into selling all sorts of drugs: cocaine, Ecstasy (X), marijuana, Xanax (he called them Z-Bars), you name it. But JU also sold codeine syrup and something called “wet” and “hydro,” embalming fluid–dipped marijuana joints, which gave the user an entirely different angel dust–like high. You could even dip a cigarette in the fluid and get off. Embalming fluid used in this manner is powerful stuff, toxic and highly dangerous to the nervous system. You start smoking wet joints/cigarettes and you might as well pack it in, because you're now on a treacherous path. There is no turning back. The side effects from this stuff alone range from convulsions to muscular rigidity to coma and, of course, death.
By the time the kid finished naming off all the drugs JU sold, Ladd wondered if there was a drug JU
hadn't
pushed. Add to that the idea that Marcus had reportedly owed JU $10,000, something the HPD was beginning to hear from several witnesses, and Ladd could not, with any seriousness, scratch JU off what was a short list of suspects. If anything, it was time to put JU on the top of the list.
Listening to the kid talk, essentially dropping a dime on someone he described as a “good friend,” Ladd could almost hear George Koloroutis in his ear on the day he explained the Marcus-JU connection:
“It's got to be Jason U. It's
got
to be.”
 
 
A DAY LATER
things became even more interesting. Tom Ladd's sergeant, G. J. Novak, handed the detective a fax he had received earlier that day. It was from Ladd's new best friend, George Koloroutis.
Ladd took the fax pages, walked back to his desk, sat down, then flipped the cover page over and read.
George had done some online sleuthing. He had discovered what he felt might be useful information. While surfing on a few Internet comment chat boards—those public forum spaces on news sites underneath an article, where anyone who has a PC or, nowadays, a cell phone can pop in and comment about anything—George noticed some chatter about the case.
In the fax cover letter, George spelled out the access codes and website addresses for Ladd, so the detective could go to the source himself. He also included several pages of posts within the body of the fax.
The ones that concerned George most had been posted by someone online calling him- or herself “Faith1581.”
Each post was signed as “Someone Who Knows.”
George was firm in his instructions to the Homicide Division:
Don't know if this person really “knows” or not—but this
has
to be looked at.
The first comment George pointed to was rather cryptic and unhelpful in and of itself. Back on July 21, at 10:42
P.M.
, Someone Who Knows said too many people who didn't know a damn thing were talking “smack” about the case and what actually happened inside the house. There was some mention of “the MEDIA,” which, by all rights, is almost always wrong where some of its early reporting comes into play on any high-profile murder case.
Someone Who Knows wrote to a previous commenter on the news article in question: All you know are what people are telling you. . . .
Then Someone Who Knows went on to say how the truth hurts: So does it hurt much?
Within ten minutes of the first comment, Someone Who Knows had posted two additional comments. The second was as mysterious as the first, but George was convinced the “poster,” as he called the commenter, “more than subtly” suggested that “he/she ‘knows' things.” It was the final sentence in the comment that George was most interested in. Someone Who Knows seemed to be angered by the fact that people were taking what the media had to say as gospel, concluding: You will never know the things I know.
Three minutes later, Someone Who Knows was talking about the four victims having been at the wrong place, at the wrong time, telling the comment board how “far” away “from knowing the truth” they all were.
Ladd thought about this. To say that two people who lived in a house “were at the wrong place” was ignorant and a shot in the dark, at best. George believed it would all have to be checked into further. Yet, in the scope of what had been written, it appeared Someone Who Knows knew about as much as anybody else.
Which was, at this point, just about nothing.
CHAPTER 13
T
HE CONVERSATION TOOK
place a few days after the Clear Lake murders. Tom Ladd and Phil Yochum were just learning about it, though, on August 4, 2003, when a tip to go interview a known Houston drug dealer spending some time in Montgomery County Jail for failure to appear on an aggravated robbery charge came in. It seemed to be the first concrete lead to a potential suspect—someone they had on radar already—HPD had gotten thus far.
There had been a vigil held by victims' friends and family on Millbridge Drive in front of the house a few days after the murders. People were beside themselves, not knowing what to do. You could only put so many Blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus candles, flowers, photos, roadside crosses, and other trinkets in front of the house as memorial remembrances. In light of how many people were struggling to cope, candles in hand, some words of inspiration and grace could go an awfully long way toward finding a road that would lead them toward the process of understanding and mending. One didn't heal from a loss of this nature; one simply accepted it and moved forward with life.
The Montgomery County Jail confidential informant (CI) told Ladd that a friend of his girlfriend's had seen someone she knew on television walking with the vigil group. So the CI called the kid to see what he knew about the murders. The CI gave Ladd and Yochum the kid's name, Billy (pseudonym).
“I specifically asked him if he had sent his brother to do the killings,” the CI explained to Ladd.
“Nope,” Billy responded during that phone call with the CI. “I sent my
homeboy. . . .
He did the job!”
“Who's that?”
Billy wouldn't say.
“But I know,” the CI told Ladd, “who he is. . . .” He gave the name to the detective, referring to the “homeboy” as “a Mexican dude.”
 
 
DETECTIVE SERGEANT TOM
Ladd had been thinking about retiring. On some days the thought was a peaceful one. Now would be the best time to squeak out a good twenty years of life without having to spend his days looking for thugs. On the other hand, detectives do not like to walk away from the job with cases left unsolved. But what could Ladd do? He had several unsolved murder cases and not enough manpower to work them. This Clear Lake case had turned into one witness after the next coming in to give up a new name. It took lots of man-hours to track down witnesses and potential suspects and interview each one.
As August passed and September settled in, Ladd realized that, as much information as they had been collecting, none of it was bringing him closer to an end result. Everyone was willing to come in and drop a name, but each time HPD checked it out, it led to a “maybe” or a “possibly.” Nothing definitive. JU's name kept coming up in conversation. On paper JU was a prime suspect. George Koloroutis believed JU was their man, as did other family members. And George and the others were not waning when it came to keeping the Clear Lake case in front of the media and their faces in front of HPD.
“George was the spark,” Ladd said later. “Basically, it was George who kept the interest up in the newspapers and in the department. Koloroutis is a good guy. He always wanted to know this and know that. I spent more time talking to George than I did my own lieutenant on this case!”
Still, there comes a time in a person's life, Ladd said, when “you just have to stop. You cannot keep going on, investigating murders until you're ninety years old.”
With that, Ladd knew that by the end of spring, the following year, 2004, he was going to be spending his days with his grandkids and his family. Watching television all day, or whatever the heck he wanted to do with his time. But no more murder. No more bureaucratic PC nonsense. No more BS.
There was a young detective in the squad room who had been with HPD for eight years. He poked his nose around the Clear Lake case every so often, adding two cents where he could, making his theories known to Ladd and Yochum, even helping out once in a while.
Ladd understood this case needed to be solved and, more important, it was a solvable case. Some aren't. Some murders you take a look at after they run cold and you know that without a suspect coming forward, or an admission somewhere, they'll never be resolved. But the Clear Lake case didn't have that feel.
As September met October, Ladd became involved in a major homicide case within the department, a cop-involved shooting. The lieutenant wanted Ladd to handle the case because he had some experience with these types of delicate investigations. It was going to cause some trouble for everyone involved and had to be handled with care. The right person was Tom Ladd—that is, if you ask brass. To Ladd, a cop-involved shooting was not the type of case he wanted to go out on. But he had no choice, essentially.
Detective Brian Harris was that young, fiery investigator, passionate about his work, a certified expert in interrogation, who could take over the Clear Lake case and look at it with a fresh set of eyes. Harris was the man Ladd looked to when it appeared Ladd could not devote the time and attention he wanted to it anymore.
“I got Harris involved because I needed help. He was young, full of piss and vinegar, and just a good,
good
kid.”
Lots of mutual respect there between these men.
The Clear Lake case and the days ahead were going to take a tough, tenacious cop—someone who could overlook all the nonsense and move forward in spite of the obvious obstacles.
Harris had the desire; Ladd knew this from speaking to him and watching him work on other cases.
“I knew Harris would
work
this case.”
Important word there:
work
. Harris would put in the effort—and more.
“Hey, Brian,” Ladd said one day. “You want this?”
Harris was already working it. He had been helping Ladd out when he could spare the time. Harris knew the case well already.
“He's kind of a cocky little [thing],” Ladd explained. “But a good guy. The perfect cop for this case. A lot of people think
I'm
a cocky big [thing], but, hey, it is what it is.”
Harris worked the day shift, the only reason why the Clear Lake case wasn't his to begin with. Harris had spent years on nights and paid his dues.
From the first moment, Harris saw the Clear Lake murders as a major investigation. It struck him as peculiar right away, actually, when he didn't see an entire task force formed to solve it.
“There were initially six to eight people working on it,” Harris recalled. “But after about a week, they had their own cases to work on and it came down to Tom and Phil.”
Every time Harris ran into Ladd and asked about it, Ladd brought up JU, mentioning how JU was likely their guy. They just didn't have enough for an arrest warrant.
Harris was with Ladd and the lieutenant one afternoon when he overheard them talking about Ladd and his retirement.
“Look, Tom, you cannot have a quadruple and retire,” the lieutenant said respectfully, perhaps hoping to get a few more years out of Ladd. “You're not going to be able to retire until you solve that case. We cannot have a case like that unsolved and the lead detective retiring.”
“Well, you know . . . ,” Ladd said. He talked about the controversial police shooting he was now responsible for investigating. He was swamped with work. Ladd knew the district attorney's office and HPD brass would be, in his words, “up his ass,” with the DA and the review boards wondering and waiting on word about the police shooting. Those cases have a tendency to take up a lot of time, be it PR or interviewing witnesses and piecing together what happened.
Standing there, explaining himself to his boss, Ladd had bags under his eyes that he'd had forever, it seemed. He smelled of cigarettes, the nicotine and tar radiating from his pores. His skin was yellowed. He looked fifteen years older than his years and felt it.
“How the hell am I going to be able to do it?” Ladd said, responding to the lieutenant.
“We'll help you out,” the lieutenant offered.
Ladd stopped in his tracks.
Help?
It seemed like a foreign word.
“Yeah?” Ladd said.
“We'll put a couple of guys on it.”
Brian Harris was standing there. Harris had already been helping.
“Great,” Ladd said. He didn't believe it.
“Whatever you need, Tom. I'll give you Brian. He can field some calls during the day. Help you out where he can.”
Harris lighted up. So did Ladd.
“Yes,” Ladd said. “We'll have a meeting today, two o'clock.” He walked away. If they were serious, they'd be at the meeting.
Ladd went and printed what he had. He gave the reports and copies of some of his notes to Harris.
As Harris read through it all, he knew he was stepping into a career case. He wanted to dive right in.
That same afternoon Ladd came to the table—that meeting—and said, “Look, we need to look at each victim. Basically do a psychological autopsy on each victim. Brian, your job is now looking at Adelbert Sánchez and tearing his life apart. Relationships. Family. Anything at all that could have led to his murder.”
Harris liked Ladd's style. Sounded like a decent plan.

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