Never See Them Again (3 page)
Read Never See Them Again Online
Authors: M. William Phelps
George's stomach tightened. His heart raced.
Rachael!
George went into the house, grabbed his youngest daughter, just nine years old, told Lelah to get into the car. They were dropping the youngest off at a neighbor's and heading over to Tiffany's house.
After dropping off her little sister, Lelah explained what she'd heard as George drove toward Tiffany's, under Lelah's direction.
Lelah said many things, but all George could hear was:
Four teens found dead
.
Four teens found dead
.
Four.
Not two. Or three.
But four.
In a panic George pulled up. Saw all the vehicles. The police tape. That large group of people milling about in the street, in front of the house. Police officers roaming all over. He told Lelah to sit tight inside the car behind the yellow police tape. Wait until her mother arrived.
“I'll be right back.”
George crossed the police line and started for the door heading into Tiffany's house.
“A big old cop” stopped him before he could walk in. “My name is George Koloroutis,” he said. “You can't stop me, man, please. I think my little girl might be in there.”
Tears.
George was a big dude, with some serious bulk, and perhaps out of his mind by this point. All he could think about was Rachael inside that house needing his help. George had always been the protector in the family; the man who took care of everything. Suddenly he felt helpless and weak as gum.
“Mr. Koloroutis, please,” the cop said calmly. “Please don't make me have to stop you from going into that house. I don't want to have to do that.” There was something in the cop's voice telling George he wasn't kidding; he would do whatever he had to do to stop him. “If I have to do this, Mr. Koloroutis, other cops are going to run over here. We're going to have to hold you down. Cuff you. And it's going to be a miserable experience. Please just
don't
go in there.”
don't
go in there.”
There were several reasonsâall of them worthyâwhy police did not want George Koloroutis to go inside the house.
George looked at him. “I understand. I just need to know if that's my daughter.”
By now there were close to fifty people gathered. George fell back into the crowd, understanding that getting into trouble was not going to help the situation. His wife, Ann, arrived.
George, Lelah and Ann stood, waiting, their hearts thumping.
CHAPTER 3
T
O THE RIGHT
of the front door heading into the Rowell house (the same area where Brittney Vikko had entered) was a spacious two-car garage. A formal dining room, attached to a half bath and a large kitchen, just beyond that. Walking into the house from the front door, the sunken living room greeted you just beyond the foyer. Tiffany Rowell lived in the house with her boyfriend, Marcus Precella. Tiffany's mother had died years back from that dreaded middle-age serial killer, cancer. Sally and Chester Rowell had adopted Tiffany as a young child. Sally's death crushed Tiffany. Sally had never smoked a cigarette in her life, yet had developed lung cancer. (Go figure.) The diagnosis was the strangest thing. There was such a connection between mother and daughter that a few days before Sally died, Tiffany felt peculiar all morning in school. She had what she later described as “a feeling.” It was so profound that Tiffany went to the nurse's office and asked to go home. “I knew she was going to die,” Tiffany later said of that moment. “I could feel it.” Sally couldn't even move by that point; the cancer spreading like spilled liquid throughout her body, stripping all her senses and emotion. But on that day, to Tiffany's great comfort and surprise, Sally rolled over in bed and smiled at her daughter.
O THE RIGHT
of the front door heading into the Rowell house (the same area where Brittney Vikko had entered) was a spacious two-car garage. A formal dining room, attached to a half bath and a large kitchen, just beyond that. Walking into the house from the front door, the sunken living room greeted you just beyond the foyer. Tiffany Rowell lived in the house with her boyfriend, Marcus Precella. Tiffany's mother had died years back from that dreaded middle-age serial killer, cancer. Sally and Chester Rowell had adopted Tiffany as a young child. Sally's death crushed Tiffany. Sally had never smoked a cigarette in her life, yet had developed lung cancer. (Go figure.) The diagnosis was the strangest thing. There was such a connection between mother and daughter that a few days before Sally died, Tiffany felt peculiar all morning in school. She had what she later described as “a feeling.” It was so profound that Tiffany went to the nurse's office and asked to go home. “I knew she was going to die,” Tiffany later said of that moment. “I could feel it.” Sally couldn't even move by that point; the cancer spreading like spilled liquid throughout her body, stripping all her senses and emotion. But on that day, to Tiffany's great comfort and surprise, Sally rolled over in bed and smiled at her daughter.
She died two days later.
Chester Rowell owned the Clear Lake house. Chester was a musician. He had remarried and lived with his new wife on a farm in Manvel, a forty-minute ride from Clear Lake.
Eighteen-year-old Rachael Koloroutis was Tiffany's best friend. Rachael had been staying at the house with Tiffany and Marcus since Rachael had left home weeks earlier after she and her parents had a blowup over a cell phone bill. The problems at home had started for Rachael almost a year earlier, when Rachael had a major blowout with her mother over a few personal issues.
“She turned eighteen,” George Koloroutis later said, “and we got the feeling that she was saying, âScrew it, I am going to go and do what I want.' ”
Kids . . . when you're eighteen, nineteen, even into your early twenties, life is about the momentâyou think you have all the answers. What can a parent do but allow his or her child to go out into the world and learn for himself or herself.
Technically, you couldn't say Rachael had run away from her Noble Oak Trail home, slightly more than a two-mile, six-minute ride on the Clear Lake/Friendswood town line. Legally, Rachael was an adult. Still, to her family, Rachael had left abruptly and maybe even bitterly. She might have felt she couldn't cope and decided to run. Yet, on July 16, 2003, two days before she was found dead, Rachael had been in the mood to reconcile things. She had left her mother a voice message: “Mom, I really just want to talk to you. I want to talk to [my little sister]. I've got to go, but I'll call you again later. Love ya!”
Earlier that same day Rachael had sent George an e-mail, expressing how happy it made her that they were all going to sit down and talk, make amends:
I'm looking forward to getting together . . . and all that good stuff. . . . I will consider everything you said. I can see the truth in it. I will try to call you. . . . It is hard. I am afraid to see [Lelah] or even Mom. . . . I feel bad. . . . I do not know when I can face y'all. I don't know exactly what to do. There are many times I want to pick up the phone but just am not able to. I love you all and will try to get up the courage to call.
She signed the e-mail as she generally did:
Always your little girl, Rach.
After George received the e-mail, he was driving down Clear Lake City Boulevard, heading home on his Harley from a day's work. He happened to look to his left and spied Rachael, who was sitting in the passenger seat of Tiffany Rowell's pickup. Seeing George, Tiffany drove up next to him in the left lane. George looked over. He was wearing dark shades and, in his words, “trying to be cool by giving them a head nod and slight smile.” Inside, he later admitted, he was screaming:
“Honey, please come home!”
Rachael smiled and waved. Tiffany blew George an exaggerated kiss with her right hand. They sped away from each other.
“Honey, please come home!”
Rachael smiled and waved. Tiffany blew George an exaggerated kiss with her right hand. They sped away from each other.
“I watched my little girl drive off,” George said later. “I felt sad, but I knew she needed me and her Mom and sisters back in her life. I knew we would be reunited soon.”
George never saw his daughter alive again.
Ann and George had raised a smart child, loving and caring. Both Tiffany and Rachael had graduatedânot two months beforeâfrom Clear Lake High School.
They were kids.
Both had their entire lives ahead of them.
THE TWO OTHER
victims found inside the house were Adelbert Nicholas Sánchez and Marcus Ray Precella, Tiffany's boyfriend. “D,” as they called Adelbert, was Marcus's cousin. According to the medical examiner (ME), he had been killed by “multiple gunshot wounds,” one of which pierced the middle of his forehead. Another round entered Adelbert's neck. A third hit his left arm. Two rounds had been pumped into his torso, another into his left shoulder. Adelbert was sitting on the couch opposite his cousin's girlfriend, Tiffany. He wore blue shorts, a T-shirt, and white sweat socks. Lying there, his head leaning slightly on the soft contoured headrest of the couch to his right, D looked as though he was sleeping. With the exception of a large bloodstain halo in the back cushion of the couch outlining his upper body, and D's eyes closed, a person would expect the boy to wake any minute. He looked so peaceful. Yet, as the forensic evidence would soon prove, a hail of gunfire had killed this twenty-one-year-old, who had recently gotten his high-school diploma from W. T. Hall night school.
victims found inside the house were Adelbert Nicholas Sánchez and Marcus Ray Precella, Tiffany's boyfriend. “D,” as they called Adelbert, was Marcus's cousin. According to the medical examiner (ME), he had been killed by “multiple gunshot wounds,” one of which pierced the middle of his forehead. Another round entered Adelbert's neck. A third hit his left arm. Two rounds had been pumped into his torso, another into his left shoulder. Adelbert was sitting on the couch opposite his cousin's girlfriend, Tiffany. He wore blue shorts, a T-shirt, and white sweat socks. Lying there, his head leaning slightly on the soft contoured headrest of the couch to his right, D looked as though he was sleeping. With the exception of a large bloodstain halo in the back cushion of the couch outlining his upper body, and D's eyes closed, a person would expect the boy to wake any minute. He looked so peaceful. Yet, as the forensic evidence would soon prove, a hail of gunfire had killed this twenty-one-year-old, who had recently gotten his high-school diploma from W. T. Hall night school.
Nineteen-year-old Marcus Precella, dressed in plaid boxer shorts, a white cotton undershirt, white sweat socks, had been shot in the head, stomach, right forearm, and right shoulder. There was also a graze wound running across his chest. It appeared that Marcus had been beaten, too. He ended up with what the coroner referred to as “blunt-force head injuries.” There was a cluster of patterned abrasions on his right temple and five lacerations found on the back of Marcus's head. There was also a star-shaped pattern of blowback, the remnants of gunpowder from Marcus's killer walking up to him, holding the barrel of the weapon on his head, and firing, likely to make certain he was dead. Marcus was lying on the carpet on his side, almost directly in back of Adelbert, his chest and stomach up against the side of the couch.
This was significant to police as they went through and studied this incredible crime scene. It was an indication, maybe, that they were looking at four execution-style slayings.
Rachael had been beaten the worst, considering how many lacerations, abrasions, and blows her skull had endured; but she had also been shot in the lower abdomen, directly in the vagina (could this be a clue?), five rounds into her right thigh, three to her left shin, one to her right foot. There was even a gunshot wound in Rachael's left buttock, no doubt fired as she tried desperately to run away from her assailant. Rachael was found facedown on the floor at the foot of the television. She had bruises police believed had likely been sustained from a fall to the ground. Rachael wore a pink top, part of which had been pulled up her back, blue jeans, and white (with gray stripes) Adidas sneakers. Bruises on the back of her left hand were consistent with a person trying to protect herself from a beatingâwhich meant Rachael Koloroutis was possibly alive at the point of which she was beaten to death. Rachael also had a clump of what would turn out to be her own hair in her right hand, a second indication that she had put her hands over her head, trying to protect herself from a violent pistol-whipping.
“To me,” said a detective who would later step into the investigation and put some of the pieces together, “it seemed that Rachael had put up her hands to protect herself, perhaps saying, âWhy are you doing this to me?' This, mind you,
after
being shot multiple times.”
after
being shot multiple times.”
Considering all of these wounds, many of which would have been ultimately fatal if she didn't get immediate help, it appeared Rachael's murderer had a tremendous amount of anger directed specifically toward her.
Not
an indication of an execution-style murder.
an indication of an execution-style murder.
Tiffany was on the couch, one foot leisurely on the chair in front of her as though she had been using it as a leg rest. She wore a white sleeveless top and faded blue jeans. Her curly, dark brown hair had flowed naturally down her back and over her shoulders to the top of her breasts. There was a pink blanket to her right, a cup holder armrest in the middle, between her and Adelbert, who sat on the opposite side of the couch. A Sprite can sat in one of the armrest cup holders. Eerily, it appeared Tiffany and Adelbert were watching TV one minute, drinking Sprite, maybe laughing and joking; and the next, dead. No warning. This indicated that they were not afraid of their attacker and perhaps knew him or her, simply because they had not moved. Of course, playing devil's advocate, one could say that their killer held them there, on the couch, with his or her weapon. (“Don't move!”) Nonetheless, Tiffany's white top was now dark red from all the blood, which had run down her head and soaked through her blouse and jeans. She had a bullet wound straight through her forehead, nearly in the middle; she had also been hit in the chin, left cheek, left shoulder, lower left abdomen (an injury that probably produced most of the blood soaking her jeans and lower body), just to the left of her vagina, right leg, right knee, and right shin.
Make no mistake, this was a bloodbath. Or as the prosecutor who would eventually get the case observed, “It's unfair to the word âcrime scene'. . . because . . . it was outright carnage. . . .”
Whoever murdered these kids had walked into the house and unleashed a barrage of gunfire. At least that's what appeared to be the case from a first look. Any police officer could come to this theory straight away. The kids still had plenty of bling on. Some even had cash. There was lots of valuable merchandise spread throughout the house. From a quick look it seemed as though Adelbert and Tiffany were taken out immediately so as not to be a threat. More than that, with so many gunshotsâclose to fortyâfrom two different-caliber weapons (twenty shell casings left behind telling that story; bullet fragments lodged in the walls and even outside in the fence), it meant one killer had brought two weapons, which told cops that he or she knew there was going to be a large gathering at the house. Or there had been two shooters, which also alluded to the idea that the killer(s) knew what they were walking into.
Papers, magazines, soda cans, and other household items were scattered all about the living-room carpet in front of Tiffany and Adelbert. This indicated a struggle. Rachael, found in front of the television facedown on the floor, had one leg crossed over the other. There were large patches (smudges) of blood all over the carpeting, a trail of smeared blood leading up to the fireplace. In front of the fireplace, crime scene techs located blood droplets, which led to Marcus's body, found to the right of the fireplace in between the wall and the side/back of the couch, where Adelbert and Tiffany sat. The way Marcus's body was positionedâhis back facing the direction of the shootingâit looked as though he was walking (not running) away from the shooter, another indication he didn't feel the shooter was a threat.
There was a small foyer leading down the hallway, where the bedrooms are located in the house. There were nine shell casings on the tile and edge of the carpet in the foyer near a dozen or more pairs of shoes. In the corner, by an electrical socket, police found a small pink cell phone that looked as if it had been tossed there or flung out of someone's hand as he or she fell to the ground.
Between the dining-room and the living-room was a wall cutout with decorative spiral spindles separating the kitchen and a formal dining area. Above that cutout, heading toward the ceiling, was a small air-conditioning/heating vent. There were small blood dropletsâspatterâin an arced pattern heading skyward, giving rise to the belief that someone had repeatedly hammered the weapon into the back of Rachael's head and, while doing so, spattered blood on the wall as though shaking the excess paint off a brush.
North of Rachael's head was her cell phone, sitting on the ground underneath the leg rest of a lounge chair. Her hand was stretched out heading for the cell phone as though she had been reaching for it when she died.
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