Never See Them Again, page 35
What was her dream?
Rachael wanted to help people. She was really interested in criminal justice. When she was a little girl (like 4 through 10) she used to say she was going to be a ballerina or a cop. Later, she wanted to do something with solving crime. She was really interested in James Patterson novels and the idea of profiling because she liked the idea of using psychology to catch criminals and to keep others safe. . . .
What had she told you about Marcus, Tiffany, and Adelbert? What were her thoughts about them?
I can’t really speak much to her thoughts on Marcus and Adelbert; she didn’t know Adelbert previously and only knew Marcus through Tiffany. Tiffany had also been a friend of mine. She and Rachael were very close because Rachael was one of the only people to really let Tiffany be sad about her mother’s loss. When I was a senior and they were juniors we all had lunch together and a sociology class. At lunch, the three of us would go outside the theater area to eat. Tiffany was very involved in theater. She used to say I was her big sister, too. They would write me notes during the day and draw funny pictures. Rachael had an inside joke with her boyfriend . . . about zebras and wallabies so Tiffany and I created a penguin joke. . . . I know that sounds silly but just to let you know that there was so much innocence and playfulness to all of us back then. Tiffany was also interested in psychology and she really wanted to go into therapy or acting.. . .
What had she said to you about Christine?
We hadn’t talked a lot about Christine after I had gone off to college. Rachael had introduced me to her while we were all still in high school. I had told Rachael that I felt she was a weird girl, that something was off (mostly because her physical appearance was clownish but I think without realizing it my instincts were kicking in, just not enough to say anything). Rachael told me that she felt sorry for her, that she had a disease and didn’t really have a father and that she had really bad self-esteem. Rachael’s goal was always to love people, to meet them where they were, and then to show them what to hope in. After we lost Rachael, we went to the school to visit the guidance counselor. The woman said that she’d met with Rachael a couple times when she’d been struggling with her classes but all Rachael could talk about was trying to get the counselor to hope and see that faith in God could help heal her heart (the counselor had lost her daughter to a disease and said she really had a hard time believing but that Rachael was clear that she believed that’s what helped the hurting).
For you, personally, what did you think happened (before, obviously, the case was solved)?
Those years were so difficult. My logical brain tried to track the information coming in and to help my parents/ investigators with names and faces and anyone I might’ve known or heard of before I went to college. All the while, I threw myself in my studies just for a break. At night, I had nightmares for years. Dreams about things I’d heard, like a woman on top of her beating her head in. Dreams that she wasn’t dead and that the body had been misidentified and she was somewhere waiting for us to find her. I never considered Christine. I hadn’t known them to be more than casual friends at school. Oddly, though, the night of the murder I can remember sitting on the curb across the street from the house and thinking about Christine. They told us they couldn’t identify the fourth body because she was face down. They said she was very skinny and had long red hair. “That girl, that girl with the wig, mom, maybe it’s her.” I remember begging one of Rachael’s friends to go find her so we could prove she wasn’t in there and telling camera people, “oh, it’s not us.” I didn’t have shoes on, only socks, because we’d left the house so fast. Eventually, once the ME arrived and the street had cleared, it was just my parents, the cops, and news cameras. I’ll never forget the cop calling us over to the yellow tape. . . . My mom screamed and wailed, falling to the ground, and my dad was shaking and asking over and over “what do I do now, what do I do now.” And I just stared at my socks feeling like I was floating above the whole scene. . . .
You knew your sister better than anyone: tell me about her.
Rachael was silly and she loved a practical joke. She hated to wear socks or shoes. She liked whip cream straight out of the can. She had this way of drawing people into her everywhere we went. She was caring but would rather help you smile than cry with you. She always reminded me that we were a team; that we were always on each other’s side. She was completely loyal to her family and to her beliefs. She believed that mistakes were used to help teach other people—she told me that so many times. She always had chipped paint on her nails and she could never get to bed on time. She hated to run but loved to dance. And she was so proud of her sisters and she always told us. She made sure to let us know that we were important. She’d spend every day lying by a pool, eating chips and salsa, if she could.
CHRISTINE PAOLILLA WENT the appeal route. In the Fourteenth Court of Appeals, on November 29, 2008, she filed an appeal based on the argument that the “trial court abused its discretion in setting the amount of bail at $500,000. . . .”
It did not take long for a decision: In light of [the filing] we [the court of appeals] do not find the trial court abused its discretion in setting the amount of bail at $500,000. Accordingly, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
I have been told that she has filed additional appeals, as any defendant has the right to do. On May 26, 2011, the panel of justices affirmed the court’s previous judgment.
I wrote to Christine (twice) and her mother, Lori Paolilla, but never heard back from either one of them. There were others, too, I requested interviews with—lawyers, family members of victims, friends of Christine and Chris Snider—but who never responded to my inquiries. Fortunately, there were scores of other sources that did talk to me.
I searched for Justin Rott for months: calls, letters, Facebook and Myspace messages. I finally heard from him long after I had turned in my manuscript. “I was in rehab,” he said. Justin and I had a few long talks and he backed up most of what I had written about him and Christine from the record and additional interviews with other sources. I found him to be sincere and truthful. Definitely honest about his life and the mistakes he’s made. His main worry was that I would paint him as some sort of dope addict who lured women into his embraces so he could turn them into drug-buddy addicts. This is simply not true. Justin Rott told me how much he loved Christine—and still does—and how hard it was for him to speak the truth about what she had told him. I give him a lot of credit for what he did.
George Koloroutis and his daughter Lelah are involved in a Missouri chapter of Parents of Murdered Children. “My hope and prayer is that it can help parents or loved ones that find themselves in a similar situation,” George said of his involvement. “My daughter and I now sit on the board of [it] . . . [and] we have found this to be quite therapeutic for us (just being around people that ‘get it’), while offering help to those parents and siblings that are new to losing a loved one due to violence and that are going through what we did. Trying to help these people feels like something Rachael would do. It feels like if some good comes out of all this, it is a way of honoring my little girl.”
If you, or someone you know, wants to reach out to this group for help, or donate some much-needed money, please visit the website: www.kcpomc.org
In closing this book, I could think of no better way than to allow Lelah to share a poem she wrote after her sister’s murder:
In the Living Room
by T. Lelah Koloroutis
Is there memory in the ghostly realm that you inhabit?
What I mean is: Do you remember the late evening in Grandma Fern’s living room where I haphazardly held the bowl of three-scoop ice cream that you had just handed me out to the side in a tilt?
Remember how we never could tell the story of the ice cream hitting the ground without laughing?
Or do you remember Mama bouncing around the kitchen with her 80’s curls, bobbing as she shook the milk carton up and down and sang The Cars [song] “Shake it up” to our little girl giggly faces?
Or do you remember the way Dad’s face beamed when he bought us too many presents again? Remember the one year that he led us to the garage to “get something for Mom” and the excitement on his cheeks and lips when we sped our matching bicycles around the block?
Or do you remember picking our little sister’s name out of the name book while Mama’s stomach was fat and round? We decided she had to be “S” so she fit between “R” and my “T.” Remember the day [she] was born and all the little milk duds on her nose and her wrinkly little fingers that latched around one of yours?
Does memory exist in the same sense of urgency on that side of the universe, or is it lost between the shift of fleshiness and your present state?
And can you see us now?
Can you see how my heart beats dangerously fast every time I pass a Denny’s because the last time I saw you, you were rolling silverware in your red shirt before our shift ended?
Or can you see Mama in the kitchen looking for a cigarette to drag on?
Or can you see Daddy driving away from work with tears welling in the upside down moons of his eyes?
Or can you see [our baby sister] hiding in the dark of her bedroom, whispering, “I don’t want to cry anymore”? Or the way she associates the color red with your death?
And can you see us when we all sit alive in the living room telling stories about memories?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THESE BOOKS I write are not possible without the help of my sources and the people around me who help in ways they do not even realize. It feels redundant to keep thanking the same people, over and over, but they are, truly, the backbone of what I do.
First and foremost, I am entirely grateful and honored to have so many readers. It is because of so many of you fine people, who keep coming back, book after book, that I am allowed to live my dream every day. I never take any of this for granted; I need you all to know that I am grateful every minute of every day for the opportunity to write books.
Thank you from the bottom of my soul.
Of course, I would not have written this book without the support and help of George Koloroutis and Nichole Sánchez. I appreciate the trust these two wonderful people put in me, and my hope is that nothing I wrote upset either one of them. If so, it was unintentional.
I also need to thank Tom Ladd, Brian Harris, and everyone at HPD who helped.
My family: Matty, Jordon, April, and Regina. My friends, too; everyone at St. Luke’s Church; those great people at Hall Memorial Library in Ellington, who continue to support my career; and those of you who surround my life. I appreciate all of you for allowing me to talk so much about what I do.
I also want to thank Elena Siviero, who runs the M. William Phelps Fan Club on Facebook. I know it takes time to do those things and I greatly appreciate Elena volunteering. Please sign up on the fan club page: http://www.facebook. com/#!/group.php?gid=52752001614. And also Sandy Sibert who maintains my website, www.mwilliamphelps.com.
Kensington Publishing Corp.—Laurie Parkin, the Zacharius family, in particular, and my editors, Michaela Hamilton and Richard Ember, along with Doug Mendini and copy editor Stephanie Finnegan, and every other employee who works on my books—has been there with me for over ten years and sixteen books now, supporting me, and always trying to figure out ways to reach more readers. I am both indebted and grateful for having such a great publishing team behind me.
Peter Miller, my former business manager and literary agent was a very important part of my career for many years and I appreciate and am grateful for everything Peter has ever done for me. PMA Literary and Film Management, Inc., anchors Adrienne Rosado and Natalie Horbachevsky have been equally important and helpful to me.
I want to extend immense thanks to Andrew “Fazz” Farrell, Anita Bezjak, Therese Hegarty, Geoff Fitzpatrick, Michael Dawes, James Knox, and everyone else at Beyond Productions who have believed in me all these years, along with my “Dark Minds” road crew: Colette “Coco” Sandstedt, Geoff Thomas, Jared Transfield, Julie Haire, Elizabeth Daley, Jeremy Adair, and Peter Heap; along with my producers at Investigation Discovery: Jeanie Vink, Sara Kozak and Sucheta Sachdev. A special shout out to Henry Schleiff, President and General Manager of ID, who has been behind my series since day one.
I greatly appreciate all of your help. I am grateful for everyone working on the “Dark Minds” series—you are all wonderful people, some of the most gracious and astute professionals I have ever worked with, on top of new friends. I look forward to the road ahead and where we’re going to take this series!
In addition to being a great friend and the best serial killer profiler on the planet, John Kelly has become a mentor to me in both life and work. I love the guy. Thanks for doing the series, Kelly. You’re the best.
I would be negligent not to mention all the wonderful booksellers throughout the country.
Lastly, HPD police officer Philip T. Yochum Jr., who was part of the HPD’s investigation, working with Tom Ladd early on, passed away on Sunday, October 17, 2010, after a brief battle with cancer. Officer Yochum joined HPD on July 25, 1994. He was survived by his wife, Melanie Yochum.
Enjoy this exclusive preview of M. William Phelps’s next exciting true-crime release!
KISS OF THE SHE-DEVIL
A Deranged Lover . . .
A Band of Bloodthirsty Killers . . .
A Murder Caught on Tape.
M. William Phelps
Coming in 2013 from Pinnacle Books
1
IT WAS JUST about 9:00 P.M. Time for the library to close. Barbara Butkis, a fifteen-year librarian supervisor, planned on staying late tonight. She needed to get a few things done with the library’s computer system. This type of work needed to be done after hours. Barb had explained to Martha “Gail” Fulton, a library aide, that she didn’t need to stick around and help. Gail was always asking how she could do more. Barb explained that she and another employee could take care of the extra work. It was nothing. Gail was having some problems lately within a troubled marriage. It was no secret to most at the library that home was probably the best place for the forty-seven-year-old married mother of three grown children. Gail had recently taken her husband back after he’d had an extended and tumultuous affair with a Florida woman. But that was Gail: the forgiving, devoted Catholic, always willing to pardon and forget for the sake of saving souls.
All the employees generally met near the staff door heading out into the parking lot at the end of the night. Barb and another coworker, librarian Cathy Lichtman, stayed behind.
“Computer backup,” Barb said to the others as they gathered, ready to leave.
It sounded boring and tedious. The only plus for Barb was that it would take maybe ten or fifteen minutes, tops.
The Orion Township Library, located on Joslyn Road, just north of Clarkston, was a central point in the quaint Michigan town of Lake Orion, “where living is a vacation,” the town’s website claims. Lake Orion is forty-five minutes due north of the more well-known and popular home of the Tigers and Pistons, the Motor City, Detroit. By small-town standards, the landmass of Lake Orion is infinitesimal: 1.2 square miles, 440 acres of which is taken up by the lake. On that cool October night, when Barbara Butkis and Gail Fulton’s lives changed forever, there were fewer than two thousand residents registered in Lake Orion. So, without having to say it too bluntly, this was a town, literally, where not only did everybody know everyone else’s business, but nothing much beyond bake sales, PTA meetings, and bingo games occurred. Lake Orion, you could say, is as charming and dainty as any fabricated plastic town in the middle of a child’s train set: perfect and pleasant and quiet. Maybe even boring, too.
Just the way everyone in town liked it.
Her work imitated her life—Gail Fulton was flexible: she worked every Monday night (tonight) from five to nine; but would also come in on several additional, alternate days and nights at different hours. Those Monday nights were Gail’s, however, and had been since she’d taken the job eighteen months earlier. The job Gail did, and did very well, was what you’d expect a librarian’s assistant to do. We’ve all come in contact with these unremarkable, normal-looking women and men throughout our days inside libraries. They push carts of books from one aisle to the next, quietly, in solitude, depositing them into their respective, numerically chosen slots, once in a while answering questions from patrons. It is relaxing work, if you love it.
