No, Daddy, Don't! (18 page)

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Authors: Irene Pence

BOOK: No, Daddy, Don't!
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“They’re dead,” Mary Jean said, her voice eerily different, sounding in shock.
“No!”
“He’s not in there with them, though. He just killed them.”
“No!” the detective yelled, unable to hide her horror.
“I hope he hasn’t gone to kill my mother.”
“Your mother’s not there?” Detective Justice asked.
“She’s on her way.”
Then the detective listened to chaotic background conversation until she could finally discern Mary Jean’s voice.
“I don’t want to see them,” Mary Jean said to someone. All the while Katherine was trying to get her attention.
“Mary Jean. Mary Jean. Do you want me to come down?”
“I can’t hear a thing you’re saying with all that’s going on down here,” Mary Jean replied. “What?”
“I said do you want me to come down there?”
“Yes, I need you bad, babe. I need you bad.”
“Okay,” Katherine told her. “I’m on my way.”
T
HIRTY-ONE
A second ambulance pulled up to the front of the Adam Hats Lofts; the frenzied sirens and flashing red lights heightened the tension of the scene. The ambulance doors opened and two paramedics jumped out and rushed toward the building.
When the paramedics entered Loft 418, they pulled on latex gloves and headed first to Liberty. One man crouched down and carefully reached for her wrist, praying he’d feel the faint beating of a pulse. Nothing. The man was in his forties and had children at home only a few years older than the one that lay before him. He momentarily turned away from the body, fought for composure, then asked where the second girl was.
 
 
As police heard about the shootings over their radios, one by one, squad cars began to line the street.
Cars carrying investigators from the Physical Evidence Section (PES) and Crimes Against Persons (CAPERS) were on their way.
When the crime scene was secured at 8:32
P.M.
, Officer Zane Murray picked up his cell phone and called the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office. The busy ME office is open 365 days a year, and will even perform autopsies on Christmas Day if necessary.
Glynda Ray, known as Gigi to her family, friends and coworkers, was one of two investigators manning the 3:00-to-11:30-
P.M.
shift. She took Murray’s call.
The attractive brunette was in her forties, and her upbeat, energetic demeanor gave no hint that she dealt with death on a daily basis. Highly qualified, Ray held a master’s degree in criminal justice in addition to being a board certified medico-legal death investigator.
“We have a Signal 27 [dead body] at 2700 Canton,” Murray began. The call was handled as official police business, and Murray was trained to stay neutral regardless of his personal feelings.
“What kind of Signal 27?” Ray asked.
“We have two little girls shot by their dad.”
The death investigator sighed as she recorded the address and other information Murray relayed. A few minutes earlier, Gigi had received a call from a Channel 11 reporter who informed her of a shooting at the lofts. She listened carefully to Murray because the media received their information from scanning police radios and frequently had inaccurate data. The reporter assumed that “a shooting” meant only one victim.
She phoned Professional Mortuary Service, a company that the county contracted for transporting victims back to the medical examiner’s for autopsies. The company would provide her with a van and two people, “her crew,” as she called them. They would meet her at the scene.
Even though the police had requested ambulances, they were only present in the unlikely case that the victims were still alive.
Ray’s kit always stood at the ready; it contained her Polaroid, a 35-millimeter camera, and a flash unit. She quickly went through the aluminum case, making sure her gloves, sacks for bagging victim’s hands, and all the other equipment she would need were there. Always dressed for action, she wore a pair of comfortable slacks, a cotton shirt, and rubber-soled shoes.
She climbed into her white Chevy Lumina with the black, round Dallas County Medical Examiner logo on the door.
By 8:55
P.M.
, Gigi Ray was within a half block of the lofts. She could see the string of emergency vehicles and throngs of news media roaming the area. Photographers hoisted cameras on their shoulders, and reporters brandished microphones at anyone who would talk. The large white news vans had huge, extendible masts sitting atop their roofs, stretching almost to the fourth floor, which were used to transmit microwave signals back to the newsrooms.
At the loft entrance, Gigi identified herself to the young policeman manning the door. Entering the lobby, she asked a nearby officer if the next-of-kin were present. He nodded toward Mary Jean Pearle who was now sitting on the floor, calmly making calls on her cell phone. Gigi wasn’t surprised that Mary Jean was so composed. She had seen that in other cases. Mary Jean might have been in a state of shock, or just exhausted.
Hurrying over the hexagon-tiled entry, the investigator found the elevator and was soon on her way to the fourth floor.
She stepped off into a swarm of activity. Uniformed police officers stood at each end of the hall, shotguns at the ready. They had the dual task of protecting people if John Battaglia decided to return, and of quizzing residents as they re-entered their lofts. Many residents stopped and asked questions. They listened to the officers, shook their heads in disbelief, then walked on more thoughtfully, more somberly, back to their lofts.
Ray’s job was to be the eyes and ears for the medical examiners. She would write a detailed report of the scene for the doctors who would perform the autopsies the next morning. As she approached the entrance to Battaglia’s loft, she joined a group of blue-uniformed officers standing in the hallway discussing the scene.
“How’s it going?” she asked the first officer she encountered.
He shook his head. “It’s a real cluster-fuck. They’re still trying to figure out whether or not to get a search warrant.”
She glanced inside and saw the body of one of the little girls lying in blood. She decided to wait for the arrival of PES before entering the loft.
Taking out a tablet and pen, she asked the policeman who had information for the medical examiner.
He nodded toward Zane Murray, the officer who had called her earlier. Murray was young and hyper and wanted to be out chasing Battaglia. But as one of the first officers on the crime scene, he was posted there until he received further orders. He filled Gigi in on what they knew about the murders. Murray was particularly worried about the way the 911 call had been handled. Since it had first been aired as a domestic disturbance call, officers had continued to take care of other calls until they learned that children had been shot.
As Gigi began writing her report, she could sense that everyone was concerned about Battaglia’s whereabouts. All through the hall, officers had turned on their two-way radios, which periodically squawked with voices reporting the search efforts.
The absence of a warrant did not shackle the medical examiner. The bodies were under Ray’s jurisdictional authority, and she could remove them without a police warrant as soon as she arrived on the scene. However, she opted not to do that because she worked hand in hand with CAPERS and PES, who had yet to take their pictures and gather all the details. Their jobs were based on teamwork and they had a deep mutual respect.
Once the people from the Physical Evidence Section arrived, they and Gigi slipped cotton booties over their shoes, pulled on latex gloves, and went inside.
First, the investigators did a walk-through of the scene. They would normally search to see if there had been a struggle and if blood was located anywhere else in the loft. Then, PES painstakingly went through and identified each piece of evidence with a yellow numbered placard before taking photographs.
T
HIRTY-TWO
Officer Dane Thornton remembered Mary Jean telling him that Battaglia had moved from Loft 316 only a couple of days before. If Battaglia had kept a key, that would be an ideal place to hide from the investigators and still stay close to the scene.
Thornton asked another officer, Sgt. Phil Carrillo, to accompany him. Both officers hurried down one flight to the third floor.
They knocked on the door of Loft 316, stepped back, and waited. There was no response. Thornton had a track record of ten motorcycle crashes while in pursuit of escaping motorists and bank robbers, which made him a legend but had also taken a toll on his body. Carrillo immediately volunteered to break down the door.
Carrillo raised his foot and swiftly cracked the jamb on his first attempt. Yelling “Police!” they dashed inside, guns at the ready and eyes darting into the yawning space. The layout was essentially the same as Battaglia’s new apartment, only smaller.
The loft appeared empty, but the officers followed the same procedure they had upstairs to search the large walk-in closet and other smaller areas that could conceal a person. Without bodies, packing boxes, or furniture to hinder their search, they were able to secure the loft quickly and check it off their list of concerns.
Just to be on the safe side, they left an officer at the door in case Battaglia decided to return.
 
 
Mary Jean Pearle had been at the lofts for more than an hour. Now sitting on the lobby’s floor, looking drained, she held tightly to her cell phone, which connected her to a support team of family and friends. Then she thought of Laurie Battaglia and immediately became frightened for the girl’s safety. She quickly punched in Michelle Ghetti’s phone number.
When Mary Jean heard Laurie’s voice answer, she had trouble speaking. She swallowed hard, then said, “Honey, can I talk to your mother?”
“Hi, Mary Jean,” Laurie replied. “How are the girls?” Laurie’s question stabbed her heart and she fought for composure. “Laurie, I need to speak to your mom.”
In the background, Mary Jean heard Laurie calling Michelle. Soon Michelle picked up the receiver and said with a wry laugh, “Well, what’s going on now?”
“Is Laurie off the phone?” Mary Jean asked.
They waited a few moments until they heard Laurie hang up her extension.
Then Mary Jean blurted, “John just shot the girls.”
“That’s not funny,” Michelle said. “Don’t make a joke out of something like that.”
“It’s no joke, Michelle! Just tonight! A little while ago John shot the girls in his loft while I was on the phone with Faith.”
Michelle stifled a scream and ran outside so Laurie couldn’t hear. “Oh, my God!” she cried. “This can’t be happening!” She broke into loud, uncontrollable sobs. She fell into a wooden chair on her patio, unconsciously beating on its arm. “I can’t believe it. That’s so horrible!”
“He’s still on the loose,” Mary Jean warned. “The police haven’t found him so that’s why I’m calling. I’m worried that he might be heading to Baton Rouge to do something to y’all.”
“Oh, dear Lord,” Michelle murmured. She stifled a sob and thought how considerate Mary Jean was. Here, in the middle of her tragedy, she was thinking about them.
“Oh, Mary Jean. I am so,
so
sorry,” Michelle managed. “That’s just dreadful!” She wiped away the tears streaming down her face, then said, “I’ve got to decide what to do here. I’ll call you back in a little bit.”
Michelle immediately phoned her sister, Lisa Holmes who jumped in her car and hurried to Michelle’s.
While she waited for her sister to arrive, Michelle sat in her den and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. She recalled her concern about what John might do to Laurie—and now he had inflicted that wrath on those two sweet little kids. She had no idea how to tell her daughter, but she knew she had to get herself under control first.
Michelle somberly went into Laurie’s room and revealed the devastating news. Laurie screamed and screamed, then broke into heart-wrenching sobs. She fell into her mother’s arms. Michelle held her shaking daughter, but it was impossible to comfort her. Laurie had lost part of herself. She had lost her sisters.
Michelle was so relieved to hear her sister’s car pull into her driveway. Lisa Holmes rushed inside and threw her arms around her sister and niece. They all held each other and cried.
Michelle had returned home only twenty minutes before Mary Jean phoned. She had driven Laurie home from her church youth group and had picked up fried chicken on the way. They had just finished eating when Mary Jean’s call came in.
Sometime after her sister arrived, Michelle noticed that she had received three messages from John Battaglia. Now, after Mary Jean’s call, she was more than anxious to hear them.
She played back the first message and listened to John’s plea for her to ask Mary Jean to drop the charges so he wouldn’t have to go back to jail. “Back to jail?” Before tonight, Michelle hadn’t spoken with Mary Jean since Easter, so she didn’t understand what John was talking about. But knowing what she knew now, his words, “Maybe that’s what Mary Jean needs. To lose the girls,” haunted her. She checked her recorder; he had left that message at noon.
A call came in later at 7:20
P.M.
, and another at 7:50. She saw that Battaglia had placed his last call to Laurie from his office, so she fast-forwarded to that one. Knowing what her ex-husband had done right before he left his message, she felt sick at the sound of his voice. But she couldn’t help being shocked at how calm he sounded.
“Hey, Orie,” Battaglia said. “This is Ba-ba . . .” Michelle listened to him describe how he was sending basically all of his money to Laurie. “This is your college money. Put it in an account and invest it. Save it for college, okay? Love you sweetheart . . .”
Michelle stared at her recorder. She had the chilling thought that he was about to commit suicide.
 
 
The most logical places police thought to look for Battaglia were his two separate business locations. First, they checked out his office on nearby Fairmount Street. Six months after his divorce, he had been evicted from the office above Dorrace Pearle’s antique store. Always staying close to maintain vigilance on his ex-wife, he had moved his private CPA practice to a small, two-story building only a few blocks away.
The property manager unlocked the door to Battaglia’s second-story office for the police. Shouting “Police!” they entered the small room. Numerous crayon drawings decorated the walls, but there was no indication that John Battaglia had been there. Police stationed an officer at his business just in case.
 
 
John Battaglia also worked for the Arcturus Corporation, which was located on Ross Avenue in a distinctive downtown high-rise. Because of an open space near the top floors, it was sometimes called the “key building.”
In addition to two patrol officers, a tactical officer accompanied Dane Thornton to the Arcturus Corporation. The building’s security officer met them in the lobby, where the police explained their mission. The uniformed security man reached for his roster and saw that John Battaglia had signed in an hour earlier at 7:40
P.M.
The police wondered out loud if Battaglia could still be up in his fifty-third-floor office.
The security officer accompanied them to the elevator that whisked them up to the Arcturus Corporation’s floor. He unlocked the door to the reception area. The police drew their guns and went inside. Starting at one end of the floor, they began securing each room in every office, looking behind doors, opening closets, and checking the large, built-in cabinets. They reached the office that belonged to John Battaglia. In the corner on top of a file cabinet sat a photo in which he knelt, smiling, with both arms around his daughters. The terrible irony of the picture struck everyone. Thornton picked up the photo to use for identification of the suspect.
The computer’s screensaver cast a glow over the room, but one touch of the mouse revealed that he had been on the Internet. The screen message read, “John has not sent or received data for twenty minutes.” The police had no idea how long he had stayed in his office. Before entering, they had spent almost seven minutes securing the area; it was possible that he could have passed them on another elevator as they were climbing toward his office.
The four policemen and the security officer dashed out of the office and ran to the elevator. Battaglia had eluded them, but they were getting closer.

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