Stay of Execution Read online

  Michael Hudgins, dean of student affairs, announced the immediate cancellation of all classes and exams. “In light of recent events and the ongoing investigation, we are suspending exams until after winter break. Campus will officially close at five p.m. tomorrow, and all students are expected to vacate college housing.”

  Julia tapped the notebook with her pen. Only two days between the second and third murders and the first body to be found on campus. The first two girls were found miles from Blue Hill. The third was clearly a departure. Was the killer growing bolder or more reckless?

  Julia rifled through the next set of articles. Although there were no murders over the Christmas break, there was also no apparent progress in solving the first three cases. The lack of an arrest was bad for the town and worse for the college. Some students—­mostly girls—­had applied for deferrals, opting not to return for the spring semester. The town had invoked a curfew of ten p.m. and had brought in additional police from neighboring towns. Still, the killer remained at large.

  Julia dropped the pages in her lap, thinking about the dead girls from Blue Hill. No doubt their parents thought they were sending their teenage daughters away to a safe place, a college with strong Chris­tian principles and no city crime, a place where they could grow up and get an education. But Cheryl Fornak, Theresa Daniels, and Marilyn Trammel didn’t get to grow up. Head bowed, Julia continued to read. Within days of the students’ return, another girl was found, and then another. Five college girls. All raped. All dead. Shivering in the air-­conditioning, Julia rubbed her arms.

  In an unprecedented move, the college had announced the immediate suspension of the semester. She read the statement from old papers.

  The safety of our young women and all of our students is at the forefront of this decision. We cannot, in good conscience, ask the students to remain on campus until this situation has been resolved.

  The FBI had been brought in after the fourth murder, spearheading the interviews with every male student enrolled at the college. With a serial rapist and murderer on the loose, the Little Springs town council was forced to invoke “sunset” curfews. The media dubbed the murderer the Coed Killer, a name that stuck. Rumors of vendettas against the college and the town spread like wildfire. Fights broke out among locals as suspicions ran high. Businesses suffered and still, no suspects.

  Julia circled the dates of all the murders. The timeline was curious. Had the killer had second thoughts after the first? Why the long gap and then increasingly smaller ones? Over the break, they’d stopped. Did that suggest the killer was also a student? After Christmas, he hadn’t waited long to strike again and then again. After the semester was suspended, the murders appeared to stop. Then the police arrested Leo Spradlin.

  Julia sifted through the stack of research for pictures of the victims. She placed the photos in a row. Five girls smiling at the camera, all young, all pretty. There was nothing obvious linking them, no common physical traits that she could see. According to the articles, they had different majors and different friends. Yet they’d all known Spradlin—­a one-­time student at the school—­a fact he’d never denied. She set the pictures aside and picked up Spradlin’s mug shot. He was young, barely older than college-­age himself. Attractive, with dark hair, he had a strong chin and a straight nose. It wasn’t hard to see how a young woman might have wanted to be alone with him. She squinted at the black and white photo that was more school portrait than mug shot. His hair was combed and he was neatly dressed. He looked directly into the camera. She held the picture closer, trying to read his expression, but saw nothing. No fear. No anger. No remorse.

  Now he would be a free man. His impending release had already made a big splash across Virginia. It was a story that promised to get even bigger, fueling the death penalty debate and causing increased speculation about the governor’s political agenda. The release was one thing, the aftermath another. If Spradlin wasn’t the Coed Killer, who was? No newspaper could resist this story. The Washington Herald was no exception.

  Julia turned the page in the notebook and wrote a list of questions. Rereading the short list, Julia hoped she knew what she was doing. She was not the first choice among the staff, and she knew it. Conroy was the star reporter at the paper, and he wouldn’t miss this story for the world. But Jack owed her. If he wasn’t going to be a great husband, the least he could do was help her rebuild the career she’d let slip from her grasp.

  Now that she had the story, she had to do something with it. She picked up the picture of Spradlin again. He’d spent two decades in prison for crimes he didn’t commit. Was he bitter? Angry? What would that do to a man? She shook her head, stacking the pages and sliding them back into the large envelope. Spradlin was going back to Little Springs after his release. His lawyers had announced he would hold a press conference the day of his homecoming. The town would be flooded with press, publicity-­seekers, and gawkers.

  Julia knew a story like this attracted all kinds. She also knew most stories die after a few days. And that was precisely her strategy. She would attend the press conference like the others and position herself for an interview. But when the others were gone, scurrying after the next headline, she would stay. She was in it for the long haul. She was in it for the story of her life.

  Chapter Four

  THE NIGHT WRAPPED around him like a soft blanket, comforting and soothing. He lay on top of the covers, his body still, letting the darkness seep into his thoughts, his dreams. During the day, he pushed it away, but at night, he embraced it. Eyes wide, he stared at the bare ceiling. After a while, he could see the girls again. He breathed in, nostrils flaring. The memories were all he had.

  They’d fought like hell. In vain, of course, but back then, even he hadn’t understood his strength or the depth of his needs. The first one, Cheryl, had been especially difficult. He thought most often of her. Swinging her arms and kicking her legs, she’d tried desperately to fight him off, but was the first to learn he was not to be underestimated. What she couldn’t have known was that the fear in her eyes only fueled his desire. With each girl, his hunger grew. Their screams and their tears gave him a rush that made him forget everything but the ecstasy of the moment. When they closed their eyes to shut him out, he would jerk their heads, forcing them to watch, to see him as he really was. Since that first night, he’d fallen asleep replaying those beautiful images.

  He smiled, his loins hot. It had been such a long fucking time, but now it would be different. The release was big news, and the homecoming was fast approaching. He’d been told there would be press, regional and national. A story of this magnitude was bound to stir controversy. He didn’t give a shit. The words “guilt” and “innocence” were thrown around, but few understood how they worked, how closely they were intertwined. One could not exist without the other.

  He closed his eyes, holding on to the image of Cheryl. He’d left her in the woods, buried under leaves and sticks, her white skin smeared with mud from the river, her blond hair spread out like a fan around her twisted head. Even dead, her eyes had looked back at him, round and gaping. Nothing could ever erase that beautiful picture. Nothing. And now he’d been given a gift. The Coed Killer would be back.

  Chapter Five

  “YOU DON’T SEEM surprised to see me,” Cancini said, reaching across the desk to shake Derek Talbot’s hand.

  “I’m not.” Talbot stood erect, his dark suit smooth and well fitted. Mid-­career, he was still an imposing figure, tall with wide shoulders and a lineman’s build. But with his shock of red hair and pale blue eyes, he’d never been a candidate for FBI undercover work. Instead, he’d joined the Criminal Investigation Division early on, where his bloodhound instincts had landed him in violent crimes.

  Both men sat. Plaques and framed certificates hung on the wall behind Talbot. It was a sizable office, filled with gleaming cherry and brass furnishings, a leather sofa, and a library of books. A
large floral arrangement sat on a credenza. The window along one wall filled the room with enough light that Talbot didn’t use the overhead fluorescent or the ornate desk lamp. It was a far cry from the scarred desks and worn-­out equipment at the precinct.

  “You’ve moved up in the world.”

  Talbot waved a hand, frowning. “What do you want, Mike?”

  The detective slumped in the chair. Dark circles hung under his eyes, and his pale skin was gray in the bright light. He’d spent most of the night reading his old notes. He rubbed his hand over the faded brown folder in his lap. It was crammed full of papers held in place by thick rubber bands. “You know why I’m here. The Spradlin case.” He spoke slowly. “I don’t understand. Derek, you were there. We got the right man.”

  Talbot looked down at his hands and took a breath. When he met Cancini’s eyes, he shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “But the evidence?”

  “I know. The evidence pointed at Spradlin, but the evidence says something else now.” The FBI man reached for a slim file on the corner of his desk. “I asked for a copy of the new DNA report. I was as baffled as you. We were sure he was guilty. All of us. No one doubted it.”

  “And now?”

  “And now,” he said, then hesitated. He held the file up. “Now I think maybe we all wanted it to be over.”

  Cancini stiffened, his jaw set. “I see.”

  “No, Mike, you don’t.” Talbot opened the folder, his face unsmiling. “This is off the record. Do you understand?”

  Cancini wanted to understand, to have someone—­anyone—­tell him how this could have happened. Spradlin’s impending release had haunted him for three nights, the past and present colliding in his mind. It hadn’t started out as his case, but it had ended up that way. He’d been so sure, too. He’d never doubted the man’s guilt. Not once. Cancini rubbed his fingers across the file again. He’d reread the notes countless times in the past few days and hadn’t been able to find a single mistake. He needed to know. He nodded once.

  “Good.” Talbot cleared his throat. “I don’t want to bore you too much, but we both know this case has been in and out of court for years. Spradlin managed to prolong his appeals way longer than most—­always with some technicality or legal mumbo-­jumbo. Until last year.”

  “Right. That was the final appeal, and he lost.”

  “Yes.”

  “He was scheduled for execution.”

  “Yes. Around that time, the Freedom and Justice Group came on the scene.” Talbot angled his head. “You know what they do?”

  Cancini had heard of the group. Similar to the Innocence Project, the organization was dedicated to finding men and women who’d been wrongly convicted. Much of their work focused on older cases, particularly those where the forensic evidence was not as advanced. Cancini couldn’t deny that the science used in criminal investigations was vital and continued to improve at a rapid rate. Recently, Virginia had become a leader in using new DNA analysis techniques to clear cold cases as well as overturn dozens more. For Cancini, however, this case seemed different. The DNA evidence in the Spradlin case had been solid at the time.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard, but I still don’t get how that matters here. The DNA evidence at trial was the slam-­dunk. How could that change?”

  The FBI man held his gaze, raising one hand. “Be patient. I’m getting there. It’s not clear how Spradlin got on their list of cases, but once they got their teeth into it, they lobbied hard, all the way up to the governor. I’m told they argued that today’s testing would be more sophisticated and threw in the stat that fifteen percent of the men convicted in the seventies and eighties turned out to be innocent.” Talbot leaned back and kept his voice even. “Spradlin may not go back that far, but the governor isn’t a fan of the death penalty. He was probably looking for this kind of case.”

  Cancini said nothing. Politics only interested him when he was directly affected. He didn’t trust either side, so he didn’t take one. Still, he didn’t like the sound of where this was going.

  “They ran the new series of tests on the DNA evidence from the Fornak case. Spradlin wasn’t a match.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. What about the forensic testimony at trial?”

  “There was a mistake.”

  Cancini flinched. “What kind of mistake?”

  Deep lines creased Talbot’s forehead. “It’s somewhat technical. Do you want the particulars?”

  Cancini’s jaw tightened. His experience with the intricacies of DNA wasn’t much, mostly limited to finding out whether the evidence gathered was or wasn’t a match and praying it was handled properly. “Yeah. Let me hear ’em.”

  “So, there are several different kinds of DNA testing. Most of the time, we use STR. It identifies short tandem repeats and works best when the evidence is small or degraded. Basically, everyone inherits one copy of an STR from each parent, which may or may not have similar repeat sizes. Since STR testing draws on the genetic code from each parent, it’s highly accurate at pinpointing individuals. No two ­people have the same DNA and all that.” He paused, looking down at the file opened on his desk. “Make sense so far?”

  “Sure.”

  “In the original Spradlin case, there was only that one usable bit of DNA evidence, the semen found in Cheryl Fornak. It wasn’t much. After that case, there was no semen detected in any of the other victims despite evidence of rape.”

  “We assumed Spradlin used condoms after the first girl.”

  “And while there was that partial print lifted from the second victim, it wasn’t usable. All the other blood and hair samples collected turned out to be from the victims themselves. But, as I said, we did have that one bit of semen.” Talbot coughed, reaching for a glass of water. “In rape cases, DNA evidence is more difficult to define by its very nature. The cells collected tend to be a mix from both the victim, Miss Fornak in this case, and her rapist.”

  Cancini shivered. The image of the dead girl, lying naked and bruised near the cold waters of the river, felt as close as if it had happened yesterday. He shook away the memory, concentrating on Talbot’s words.

  “Today, we use a chemical to isolate the sperm for DNA testing, but . . .” He hesitated. “Back then, the labs weren’t as sophisticated when working with a sample that small. Because of the seriousness of the case, the lab did something different.”

  Cancini’s eyes narrowed. “Different? What the hell does that mean?”

  “They decided to do a Y-­chromosome-­based test. Since women don’t have a Y-­chromosome, the idea was that the test would only reflect the male DNA in the sample. It showed what appeared to be a match to Spradlin. It was convincing.”

  “Appeared to be a match.” The words came out slowly. “What does that mean?”

  “It’s difficult to distinguish between male relatives using Y testing because it doesn’t reflect the mother’s addition to an individual’s genetic code. In theory, using this method, you could say a father and son share the same DNA. Not exactly, of course, but close.”

  Cancini frowned. “Spradlin’s an only child. His dad died when he was a kid. I don’t get it.”

  Talbot sighed. “That’s because you’re still thinking it was a match. It was similar, good enough to use at the time, but it would never make it into court today. Last month, the lab ran the STR test they weren’t able to do back then. The new test isolated the male DNA and unlocked the full DNA code.” He paused. “I’m sorry, Mike, but it wasn’t a match. Like I said, some of the markers were similar, but the DNA was not Spradlin’s. He’s not guilty.”

  Tapping the file with his long fingers, Cancini asked, “Is that common? To share similar markers like that?”

  “I guess it happens. In the end, it doesn’t matter how similar the markers were. It didn’t match.”

  Cancini leaned forward. “You�
��re sure? What about the evidence being degraded or something like that?”

  “Sorry.” The FBI man shook his head again. “The governor was taking no chances. It’s been checked and rechecked.”

  He ran his hand over his spiky hair. “I was so sure it was him.”

  “We all were, Mike. The evidence looked pretty good, and the way he was . . .” His lip curled up in distaste. “Hell, we all thought it was him.”

  Cancini stared blankly over Talbot’s head. The Spradlin case had been his first homicide, and it was still the biggest case of his career. His eyes met Talbot’s, disbelief fixed on his face. “But after we arrested Spradlin, there were no more rapes and murders.”

  “True,” Talbot said, shrugging. “The real perpetrator could have taken Spradlin’s arrest as his opportunity to get away. Maybe he left town. The FBI is searching for a match in all the state’s databases. We might find out he’s in prison for rape somewhere else.”

  Cancini stood up. The rapes had stopped. The day Spradlin was read his sentence, dozens of ­people in attendance had burst into tears, hugging, gasping with relief. Cancini had left the courtroom bone-­tired and mentally exhausted, but the rapes had stopped. He’d walked away from the town then, never turning back.

  “It was a good case, Mike,” Talbot said, his voice low, serious. “If he hasn’t been caught already, isn’t already in the system, he will be. I promise.”