Becoming the Boogeyman, page 36
From somewhere offscreen, a male voice: “Take a look in the garage. You’re not gonna believe it.”
The angle immediately shifts as the deputy swings around to face an open doorway. The doorknob has been removed.
The sound of footsteps as the deputy approaches the doorway, and then we are inside a single-car garage, pivoting in a slow circle.
“For fuck’s sake.”
The garage has been soundproofed. Lime-green egg-crate insulation panels cover every inch of the walls and ceiling. There are two digital video cameras affixed to the ceiling in opposite corners. In the middle of the room is a large stainless steel embalming table. A narrow trough for collecting fluids is centered beneath it.
As Deputy Foster moves closer, we see that thick metal shackles have been affixed to the table. A pair meant for a person’s wrists and another pair meant for their ankles. There is also a metal bracket equipped with a thick leather strap designed to hold a person’s head in place.
Lined up against the back wall of the garage are four life-sized mannequins. Adult males, Caucasian, and unclothed. They’ve been placed shoulder to shoulder in the standing position. Each of the mannequins is wearing a burlap mask with the eyeholes cut out.
17
The following interrogation between Detective Anthony Gonzalez and Daniel Kelly, age 37, took place at the Maryland State Police Department’s Bel Air Barracks on Monday, June 20, 2022:
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: Please confirm that your full name is Daniel Ray Kelly and you have already been Mirandized.
DANIEL KELLY: [nods]
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: We need a verbal confirmation for the audio.
DANIEL KELLY: Yes.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: How long have you resided at 920 Hanson Road?
DANIEL KELLY: For about seven months.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: And how long has Alicia Fetterman lived there?
DANIEL KELLY: Three or four years… I don’t really know.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: And who does Alicia Fetterman rent the house from?
DANIEL KELLY: An old family friend, I think. His name is Todd. I’ve only met him once.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: And your relationship with Ms. Fetterman is romantic in nature?
DANIEL KELLY: [unintelligible] I wouldn’t say romantic.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: You’re more than just friends?
DANIEL KELLY: Yeah. [clears throat] Yes.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: Was the interior of the garage at 920 Hanson Road soundproofed when you moved in?
DANIEL KELLY: No.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: Do you know who soundproofed the garage?
DANIEL KELLY: I did.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: When was this work completed?
DANIEL KELLY: A couple months after I moved in. Late February, I think, or maybe March.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: Did you make any other alterations to the home?
DANIEL KELLY: I installed cameras in the garage. By the ceiling.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: For what purpose?
DANIEL KELLY: So she could record whatever it is she does in there.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: She, meaning Alicia Fetterman?
DANIEL KELLY: Yes.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: What does she do in the garage?
DANIEL KELLY: I don’t know.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: You understand that you’re under oath, Mr. Kelly?
DANIEL KELLY: [nods] I don’t know what she does. I’m not allowed to go in there anymore.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: We found something very troubling in the freezer in the kitchen. Do you know what that is?
DANIEL KELLY: [nods]
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: Can you tell me?
DANIEL KELLY: [pause] Ears.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: We found something else in the basement bathroom sink. Can you tell me what that is?
DANIEL KELLY: Teeth. Fake teeth.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: And do the fake teeth belong to you or Ms. Fetterman?
DANIEL KELLY: Both of us, I guess.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: Do you know where the fake teeth came from?
DANIEL KELLY: [shakes head] She got them from somewhere. I think she had them made.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: She, again, meaning Ms. Fetterman?
DANIEL KELLY: Yes.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: Just a couple more questions and we can take a break.
DANIEL KELLY: I’m very tired.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: I know you are. Just another minute. Upstairs, in the corner bedroom, all over the walls, we found photographs and newspaper articles and even some drawings related to Joshua Gallagher. Did you do this or was it Ms. Fetterman?
DANIEL KELLY: Both of us… but mostly her. She started before I moved in.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: Do you know a man named Sean Phillips?
DANIEL KELLY: [pause] Yes.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: What is your relationship with Mr. Phillips?
DANIEL KELLY: Relationship? Uhh, he’s… a friend, I guess. I met him through Alice. They’ve known each other since they were kids.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: Is he a frequent visitor at 920 Hanson Road?
DANIEL KELLY: Yes.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: What’s a rough estimate on how many times Mr. Phillips has been to 920 Hanson Road?
DANIEL KELLY: A lot… at least twenty or thirty times.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: Can you recall the last time he was there?
DANIEL KELLY: [pause] Two nights ago maybe.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: And when did these visits begin?
DANIEL KELLY: A while ago… before I moved in.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: Have Anne Riggs, Peyton Bair, or Mallory Tucker ever been inside 920 Hanson Road?
DANIEL KELLY: [starting to get upset; unintelligible]
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: Were Anne Riggs, Peyton Bair, and Mallory Tucker alive when they were inside 920 Hanson Road?
DANIEL KELLY: Not… I don’t want to talk anymore right now.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: You need to answer that last question, please, and then we can be finished.
DANIEL KELLY: [long pause] Okay.
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: Were they alive, Mr. Kelly?
DANIEL KELLY: Not all of them.
18
The following interrogation between Detective Anthony Gonzalez and Alicia Fetterman, age 49, took place at the Maryland State Police Department’s Bel Air Barracks on Monday, June 20, 2022:
DETECTIVE GONZALEZ: Please confirm that your full name is Alicia Marie Fetterman and you have already been Mirandized.
ALICIA FETTERMAN: Fuck you, cunt. I want a lawyer.
19
I was sitting in my office above the garage, trying to summon the courage to go back inside and finish my conversation with Kara, when Lieutenant McClernan called to fill me in on how the interrogations went.
Hearing firsthand the atrocities that Alicia Fetterman and Daniel Kelly had committed inside my childhood home was almost more than I could bear. As soon as we hung up, I crossed my hands atop my desk, lowered my head, and said a silent prayer for the victims and their families. And once again, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief that my parents weren’t here to learn of any of the details. They would have been devastated.
Alicia Fetterman’s and Daniel Kelly’s identities had finally been released to the public, and as expected, the media was in a state of hysteria. Family members, old friends, and acquaintances were dragged in front of cameras and interviewed. Jacob Fetterman, Alicia’s older brother, had been located in Sarasota, Florida, where he was living with his second wife and working as a carpenter. Ambushed by reporters at a job site, he looked like a deer caught in the headlights while explaining that he hadn’t seen his sister in almost twenty years, not since their father’s funeral. Shirley Dierdorf, Daniel Kelly’s elderly aunt, who lived in a double-wide trailer on the outskirts of Joppatowne, invited a camera crew from Fox News into her living room, where she showed them several photo albums dating back to the mid-1970s. In one of the photos, a faded black-and-white, Mrs. Dierdorf’s young son Andy is standing on a porch dressed in a Zorro costume and holding a plastic pumpkin. Right next to him, an eight-year-old Daniel Kelly is wearing a long black cape and a pillowcase mask with the eyeholes cut out. Margaret and Jacob Inderleid, the suspects’ next-door neighbors on Tupelo Drive, swore that it was all a big mistake; both Alicia and Daniel were kind and giving people; they’d even dog-sat for the Inderleids on several occasions. Marty Higgins, one of the weekend bartenders at Winters Run Inn, claimed that Alicia Fetterman had slashed two of the tires on his truck not long ago. And all because he’d cut her off a month earlier for getting too rowdy on the dance floor. Higgins claimed he would’ve pressed charges, but he didn’t have any real proof. A veteran reporter from CNN surprised one of the members of Daniel Kelly’s bowling team in the parking lot outside his Abingdon real estate office. Tom McConvey offered several curt “No comment!”s before almost running over the cameraman with his car as he sped away.
And of course there were already a number of distasteful memes making the rounds. The most popular—with almost a half million views—was a cartoon mailman featuring Daniel Kelly’s photoshopped face. He was skipping down the sidewalk, carrying a blue mailbag over his shoulder. Someone had added rivulets of blood dripping from the bag into a large puddle on the ground. The caption read: RAIN OR SHINE… THE MAILMAN ALWAYS DELIVERS… DEAD BODIES!
Disgusted, I swiped out of Twitter and put my phone down.
I knew that Kara was waiting for me inside the house.
I knew what needed to be done.
It was now or never.
Before I walked downstairs, I did something I’d never done before:
I turned off my phone and left it in the desk drawer.
20
“So let me get this straight,” Kara said, following me into the bathroom. “You worked with Harold Metheny at APG back in high school—”
“Henry Metheny and it was right after high school,” I said. “The summer of ’83.”
“So… he remembers you after all these years and contacts Gallagher and they set this whole thing up with some of Gallagher’s… I don’t even know what to call them… groupies? And they kill those girls and torment us why?”
I could tell she was getting angry again. “Because they’re sick and they idolize Joshua Gallagher and want to be just like him—and because if enough people hear about their story, they’ll achieve a kind of immortality.”
She stared at me in disbelief. “It’s all so… twisted and sad.”
“McClernan thinks that Daniel Kelly most likely killed the girls, but it was Alicia Fetterman who was pulling the strings. If there was no Alicia, then Daniel Kelly would still be walking around just fantasizing about hurting people.”
“And Annie Riggs, Peyton Bair, and Mallory Tucker would still be alive.”
I nodded. “And everyone in that furniture store and the two police officers who died in the explosion afterward.”
Letting that sink in, she began brushing her teeth in front of the mirror. She looked exhausted. We both did. It had been a long and eventful couple of days, and for the past hour and a half, we’d sat in the dark on the front stoop—exactly where Lieutenant McClernan and I had sat and talked yesterday morning—and I’d held her hand and told her about Henry Metheny and Sharon Ridgely and why I’d done the things I’d done.
She’d cried.
I’d cried.
She’d gotten angry.
I’d apologized.
And then we’d both cried some more.
In the end, she’d hugged me tight and told me that she loved me and Billy and Noah more than anything else in the world and made me promise to never keep secrets from her again.
I’d crossed my heart and promised—and purposely left out the “hope to die” part.
Kara started the water and stepped into the shower.
I stood there for a while, watching the mirrors fog over, thinking about life and death and the ghosts that haunted us all. For a moment, I considered joining my wife but decided to give her space to process everything we’d just talked about.
Instead, I locked the dogs in the bedroom and headed downstairs for a bottle of water.
The family room and kitchen were dark. Carly had gone to bed early. During dinner, she’d told us that she planned to head back to D.C. first thing in the morning. She was thinking about stopping by the Post to talk to her boss. Maybe start with a couple of feature articles to get her feet wet. I was thrilled for her, but I had to admit I was going to miss having her around. Go figure.
After grabbing a water from the fridge, I checked the breezeway door to make sure it was locked and punched in the code to engage the alarm system. I was halfway to the stairs when I saw the mannequin sitting in my recliner.
The water bottle dropped from my hand and rolled away into the foyer. Suddenly, I could hear my heart beating inside my chest. I thought of Kara in the shower and sprinted for the staircase.
I never made it.
Out of the darkness, hands of amazing strength gripped my shoulders. They yanked me backward and slammed my head against the wall. A fireball of pain engulfed me as my stitches ripped open. My legs wobbled, then stopped working and I felt myself slumping to the floor.
Before I could reach up and wipe away the blood from my face, I was jerked to my feet and pinned against the wall. Sean Phillips’s dead eyes swam into view, piercing my soul, his mottled skin and long white hair greasy with sweat, his hands closing around my neck, dirty fingers squeezing, crushing my windpipe, squeezing harder, choking the life out of me.
“The Boogeyman is real,” he whispered, and I could taste his fetid breath.
Darkness swirled and closed in around me.
My body went cold and my head no longer ached.
My eyes began to close—
I’m sorry, Kara. I’m so damn sorry. For everything.
—and then the hands around my throat were suddenly gone and I could breathe again and I realized I was sitting up on the floor with my back against the wall.
I slowly raised my head and opened my eyes.
Kara was standing in front of me, looking ten feet tall. Her hair was wet and she was wearing a bathrobe—the fluffy pink one I’d given her for Christmas last year.
Sean Phillips, the wannabe Boogeyman, was sprawled on the floor at her feet in a widening puddle of blood. The fireplace poker protruded from the back of his misshapen head, his lifeless eyes staring back at me.
21
“You must have a guardian angel watching over you.”
I was sitting in the back of an ambulance with Lieutenant McClernan at my side. A physician’s assistant was leaning over me, repairing the stitches in my head. Thanks to the lieutenant’s intervention, there would be no hospital visit for me tonight. We’d both agreed that my injury—which was relatively mild—wasn’t reason enough to turn Upper Chesapeake into a media zoo. Sew me up, slap on a clean bandage, and I’d be as good as new. Almost.
“If you say so,” I said, wincing as she snipped another suture.
I didn’t know much of anything about guardian angels. All I knew was that for the second time in less than a week, someone I loved—someone I’d sworn to protect—had swooped in at the last minute and saved my life. I didn’t know whether to feel grateful or embarrassed. Truthfully, I felt a whole lot of both.
“There you go, Mr. Chizmar,” the PA said, giving my shoulder a pat. “You’re all finished.”
“Thanks, Doc.” I started to get up, but she stopped me.
“Not so fast. You need to sit here for another ten or fifteen minutes so we can keep an eye on you.” She pushed open the back door of the ambulance. A sea of camera flashes blinded me. The mass of reporters across the street all began shouting at once.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” she said as the lieutenant scrambled to close the door. “I thought the fresh air would be good for you. I didn’t think—”
“It’s okay,” I said. “You can leave it open.”
Lieutenant McClernan gave me a surprised look. “You sure?”
“I just want to get this over with and get back to my wife.”
The lieutenant stood at the rear of the ambulance, blocking the photographers’ view. “Kara’s inside with Detective Gonzalez and one of our counselors. Billy and Mrs. Albright are there too. They’re all taking good care of her.”
“Thank you.” My shoulders sagged with relief. “I can’t even imagine what she’s feeling right now.”
“You need to make sure she gets all the help she needs.” The lieutenant rubbed her eyes and looked around. “It’s going to take a very long time to clean this up.”
I knew she wasn’t just talking about the crime scene. “What happens next?”
“I’ll do my best to keep you out of it… but no promises. We have a lot of eyes on us now.”
“That’s not what I meant. I was asking about the investigation.”
“Daniel Kelly’s a talker. He’s our best hope. Alicia Fetterman lawyered up from the get-go. And Gallagher’s not saying a word, of course.”
“Fuck him.” I tried to sit up, but my head suddenly felt like it was made of concrete. “I’m done with Joshua Gallagher.”
“Mr. Chizmar, I need you to calm down.” The PA was staring at the monitor I was hooked up to. From the look on her face, I could tell she didn’t like what she was seeing. “Please just try to relax.”
I sat back and closed my eyes, slowly steadying my breathing. When I opened them again, Lieutenant McClernan was kneeling beside me.
“Rich, listen to me… you’ve done enough.” She reached out and put her hand on my knee. “Take care of your family now—and yourself. We’ll handle the rest.”
“I’m sorry… I can’t do it anymore.”
She shook her head. “You don’t have to.”
22
Later, after Lieutenant McClernan and Detective Gonzalez and the coroner and the ambulance all left, and Carly and Billy returned to their bedrooms, Kara and I sat in the dark on the back porch. Neither of us said anything for a long time—until finally, she broke the silence.
