And the Sea Will Tell (22 page)

Kit was convinced the letter was largely a pack of lies—and she didn’t believe for a minute that Buck Walker had written it back in October 1974, from an Oahu boatyard. She could picture this glib, manipulative murderer hunched over a cot in his steamy Honolulu jail cell concocting these elaborate explanations in a desperate attempt to save his own skin.

Kit promptly called the FBI’s Calvin Shishido, told him about the letter, and vented her outrage by reading him a few of the more unbelievable excerpts.

“It’s just a bunch of nonsense written by a pathological liar,” he said. “Don’t let it get to you.”

“I won’t.” She took a deep breath. “I just hope Walker and the girl get what they’ve got coming.”

“Send me a copy of the letter. Maybe we can use it against them someday.”

U
NITED
S
TATES
v. Jennifer Jenkins
, criminal action 74–160, began on June 19, 1975, in Judge King’s courtroom in the Honolulu federal building on King Street. The street was not, as some Hawaii residents believed, named to honor the well-connected judge or his late father, who had been a territorial delegate to Congress from Hawaii between 1934 and 1942, but rather the Hawaiian royalty who formerly resided in the lolani Palace, located across the street.

The unseasonably chilly morning did not deter the curious from crowding into those gallery seats remaining after the contingent of newspaper and television reporters pitched camp in the front rows.

At 9:05
A.M.
, prosecutor Bill Eggers approached the podium and began his opening statement to the jury by setting forth the nature of the three charges against the defendant: theft of the
Sea Wind
; illegal transportation in the interstate commerce of stolen goods, to wit, the
Sea Wind
and its contents; and theft from the
Sea Wind
of four hundred dollars belonging to the Grahams.

Murder had not been included, though the authorities were convinced that Mac and Muff Graham had been murdered, and that the killers were Buck Walker and Jennifer Jenkins.

Although it is commonly believed that the word “corpus” in
corpus delicti
refers to the body of the victim in a homicide case, and that without a body there can be no prosecution,
corpus delicti
actually means “the body (that is, the elements) of the crime.” Those elements have to be present, together with evidence that it was the defendant who perpetrated the crime, before there can be a successful prosecution. One of the elements in a murder prosecution is, of course, a dead body. (Other elements of the most common type of first-degree murder are malice aforethought, premeditation, and deliberation.) But the prosecution only has the burden of proving that an unlawful killing took place, not the burden of actually producing the body.

Nonetheless, it is self-evidently true that without finding the body in a homicide case, the prosecution’s case is generally weakened. The automatic first defense for the accused is to claim that the supposed victim might still be alive. Also, if the defendant is prosecuted for the murder and found not guilty, he can never be prosecuted again for the murder—even if the body of the victim and other evidence, no matter how incriminating, is subsequently found—because of constitutional safeguards against double jeopardy. For this reason, prosecutors frequently wait a considerable period of time before filing murder charges, hoping that the body will turn up. There is no statute of limitation for the crime of murder.

Law enforcement officials connected with the Palmyra case agreed that sooner or later Buck Walker and Jennifer Jenkins would be prosecuted for murder, whether or not the bodies of the Grahams were ever found, and that the theft cases were only dry runs for the murder prosecutions—with the same witnesses and virtually the same circumstantial evidence.

The first Government witness was Kit Muncey, her face pale and wan from grief and worry. She was obviously ill at ease as she took the stand. But though she had never testified in court before and was as nervous as she looked, Kit
wanted
to be here. She wanted a hand in convicting Jennifer Jenkins. She only regretted that the charge was not murder.

Testifying that the
Sea Wind
and sailing were her brother’s “whole life,” she added that her brother and sister-in-law were experienced, competent blue-water sailors who had expertly prepared themselves for the trip to Palmyra.

Kit also attested to the characteristic stability of the Zodiac and Mac’s skill in operating it safely.

In succeeding days of testimony, four Government witnesses—Larry Briggs, Jack Wheeler, Tom Wolfe, and Bernard Leonard—testified about events on Palmyra in the summer of 1974. Two themes were emphasized by them all: the
Iola
was in wretched shape, and Jennifer and Roy Allen were getting desperate for food. Leonard also testified about the details of Jennifer’s flight from authorities on the morning of her arrest.

Lorraine Wollen, who lived with her husband on their sailboat at Pokai Bay, testified next that they had met Jennifer Jenkins and Roy Allen in October 1974, when they moored their boat in the adjacent berth.

“Did Miss Jenkins speak with you about how they obtained the boat they sailed into Pokai Bay on?” Eggers asked.

The morning the
Sea Wind
was to depart, Wollen answered, Jennifer invited her over for coffee. Afterward, as Wollen was about to leave, she noticed a photograph on the wall. “I asked Jennifer if it was a picture of the previous owners. She said it was, that the man had owned the boat for fourteen years and just got tired of all the maintenance that goes with a boat and decided to get rid of it. I got the impression Jennifer and Roy got a very good deal.”

Later that day, according to her testimony, Wollen returned to her own boat after doing some errands and found a note from Jennifer explaining that she hadn’t had time to pick up a roll of film at the Waianae Drugstore. She asked Lorraine to please pick up the prints and mail them to an address on Maui. Folded inside the note were a five-dollar bill and the stub off the film envelope.

Several days later, Wollen did pick up the prints, but before she got around to mailing them, she heard the news about Jennifer’s arrest at Ala Wai. Thinking the pictures might be important evidence, she took them down to the Waianae police station.

“The policeman on duty spread the pictures out on the counter, and told me he didn’t think they were evidence, and gave them back to me. The next day, I mailed the pictures to Jennifer Allen at the address she had left.”
^*

Eggers showed the witness five pictures, which she identified as the photos she had picked up for Jennifer.

The five photos entered into evidence by the Government showed the
Iola
under full sail next to the
Sea Wind
. Palmyra could be seen in the background.
^†

The pictures of the
Iola
, minus its front hatch cover, had been taken from the deck of the
Sea Wind
, the rigging of the
Sea Wind
being visible in the photo. Clearly, they contradicted Jennifer’s statement to Shishido that the Iola got hung up, and was left, on a reef in Palmyra’s channel. The little boat had obviously made it well clear of the channel and out to the open sea. The lack of a hatch cover suggested that Buck and Jennifer intended from the very start to scuttle her.

The Government attempted to discredit Jennifer’s story about finding the Zodiac capsized by calling to the stand Kenneth White, an expert on small boats. White testified that he had examined the engine from the
Sea Wind
’s Zodiac and concluded that there was no evidence it had been submerged in salt water, as would have occurred if the dinghy capsized in the Palmyra lagoon. Furthermore, White characterized the Zodiac as “about the most stable water craft you can buy.” He had personally tested the stability of Mac and Muff’s Zodiac. “We put
four
men in it and took it out into the water and tried to capsize it. We could get just a little bit of water into the boat by the four of us bouncing on one side. That’s all.”

When Eggers rested the Government’s case, there had been a total of sixteen witnesses for the prosecution.

Jennifer was the only witness to testify for the defense. On the stand, she stuck mulishly to the story she’d told the FBI agent, including leaving the
Iola
behind on the channel reef after it got stuck there when she and Buck tried to tow it out of the channel behind the
Sea Wind
, etc.

On cross examination, Eggers showed her the photos of the
Iola
and
Sea Wind
sailing together in the waters off Palmyra. “Would you explain, please, at what point in time when you and Mr. Walker were on the island of Palmyra were the
Sea Wind
and the
Iola
together under full sail out in the ocean?”

“Never.”

Shishido lowered his head so the jury could not see his smile. Unbelievably, Jennifer Jenkins had just denied something that had been conclusively proved before her very own eyes by the Government—that the
Iola
and
Sea Wind
were at sea together. Those five pictures shown to the jury did not lie.

In his closing argument, Eggers asked rhetorically: “What does this all mean? Well, all the evidence, I suggest, means Jennifer Jenkins was a desperate individual. She had a leaking boat, she was stranded on a remote island with no food, and a stone’s throw away was the answer to both of these problems: transportation and food. She gave inconsistent stories after her return to Hawaii, and if the
Sea Wind
was properly taken possession of by her as a result of some unexplainable act of God or mishap that was caused to the Grahams, then would there be any need to tell inconsistent stories? She is guilty of stealing the
Sea Wind
, and she’s guilty of stealing the four hundred dollars from the boat, and she’s guilty of transporting these stolen goods in interstate commerce. I ask you to find her guilty as charged.”

The jury swiftly returned a verdict. When it was read, Jennifer, waxen-faced, dropped back into her seat at the defense table. She had been found
guilty on all counts
.

On August 18, Judge King sentenced her to two years in federal prison for the theft of the
Sea Wind
and five years’ probation on the other two counts.

Buck Walker, paying close attention to press accounts of Jennifer’s trial from his jail cell, adjusted his story accordingly at his own trial in December. Testifying in his own defense, Walker did not make the same mistake of denying—in direct contradiction to photographic evidence—that the
Iola
and
Sea Wind
had sailed side by side off Palmyra. He told the jury that the
Iola
had indeed gone aground in the channel, but that he had been able to free her. Once on the ocean, Walker said, it was clear that the
Iola
had sustained significant damage and was leaking badly, so he and Jennifer abandoned their boat and sailed on in the
Sea Wind
.

Special Agent Henry Burns took the stand and testified that Walker’s original version had been that he had failed to get the
Iola
free from the reef.

Inevitably, Walker was also found guilty on all counts and sentenced to a term of ten years, not to commence, however, until he had finished serving his five-year sentence on the MDA drug charge.

Walker’s defense attorney suggested to the media that his client had been unfairly convicted of theft because of “public opinion, speculation and innuendo” that the Grahams had been murdered for their yacht and food.

In spite of the two convictions in the Palmyra boat theft case, the question of what had actually happened to Mac and Muff Graham was still unanswered.

The mystery of Palmyra Island was far from solved. There were those who believed it would never be.

P
ALMYRA
S
IX YEARS LATER

T
HE JUNGLE HAD RECLAIMED
its own. The clearing Mac had hacked out next to the
Sea Wind
’s anchorage was again a tangle of vines and trees. Also hidden by returning foliage was the site of Buck’s campfire, where Muff had confided in Jennifer one summer evening. The building Mac had used as a workshop still stood. Atop the workbench inside was a jar of rusted nuts and bolts, draped in the silken shroud of a spider’s weaving.

Sharon Jordan and her husband Robert arrived on Palmyra the first week of November 1980. They had heard tales from other yachties throughout the Pacific about the disappearance of a sailing couple in the area. But they did not connect the incident with this island until they found, in a building in the jungle, some yellowed newspaper clippings about the case, apparently left by visitors who had stopped at the island
because
of the notoriety. The Jordans devoured every riveting word and offered each other various theories of what might have happened.

“The Grahams had sailed around the world and they ended up disappearing here,” Sharon mused one evening as they sipped sherry aboard their boat.

“It certainly sounds like they were murdered.”

“How horrible.”

At that moment, Sharon was very glad that they were alone on the island. “You know, it could just as easily have happened to…us.”

They vowed not to let the incident detract from the enjoyment of their planned stay of several months before moving on. They were circumnavigating the globe on their sailboat, the
Moya
, which Robert had built himself.

The following weeks passed quickly for the young, handsome couple from Johannesburg. Sharon, a fitness buff with a slim, taut body to show for it, walked barefoot several miles each day along the lagoon’s shoreline, often going entirely without clothes in the moist heat. Her tanned nimble figure, coal-black hair, and dark-brown eyes gave her the look of a Polynesian princess exploring her private tropical domain. Robert fished most mornings, did chores on the boat every day, and in the afternoon usually took a nap in a hammock secured in the shade between two sturdy trees.

On January 4, 1981, the sun rose in a cloudless sky. After a light breakfast of granola soaked in fresh coconut milk, Sharon and Robert climbed into their dinghy to go fishing. Actually, Sharon wasn’t as interested in catching anything as she was in observing the schools of colorful reef fish—angels, butterflies, wrasses—that darted here and there in the lagoon.

As they passed by an old seaplane ramp on the south side of Cooper Island, Sharon watched a strikingly beautiful scarlet fish zigzag beneath them.

“Wait,” she said. “I see something.”

Robert stopped rowing and joined her in looking over the side.

“What is it?” she asked.

“A boat.”

Sharon wondered aloud if the wreck might have anything to do with the missing couple from California.

The next day, the Jordans began an ambitious salvage operation to raise the sunken boat. They collected a number of empty gasoline drums, filled them with lagoon water, and sank them next to the wreck. Wearing nothing but scuba masks, they dived the twenty feet to the bottom and began tying the drums to the boat, all the while keeping a wary eye out for sharks coming too close.

It took more than an hour to secure the drums. Without tanks, they had to surface often to take a breath. There were also a few interruptions when they had to get out of the water until curious sharks moved along. When the metal barrels were finally in place—each tied to the sunken boat by six to eight feet of heavy rope—Robert went down with a hand pump and Sharon took along a wrench. One by one, they uncapped each drum, ran a length of hose into its opening, and pumped in air, displacing the water. When the tenth or eleventh drum became buoyant, the old boat rose a foot or two off the sandy bottom, as the Jordans watched excitedly, then stopped.

Sharon arrowed to the surface to catch her breath. When Robert joined her, they agreed they needed more barrels to achieve the necessary buoyancy. They sank four more and pumped air into them. Thirty minutes later, the boat broke the surface of the lagoon with a loud
whumph
.

Its metal hull was covered with yellowish barnacles, but the inscription “U.S.A.F.” was clearly visible. The Jordans bailed the water out of the boat and pulled it to shore for closer inspection. Cigar-shaped with low sides, it obviously had not been designed for ocean travel. Robert thought it was probably a rescue boat. Near the stern, four rectangular storage compartments, about three feet deep, were built into the deck. Empty aluminum containers fit snugly inside two of the spaces.

The containers for the other two spaces were nowhere to be seen.

J
ANUARY
25, 1981

S
HARON
J
ORDAN
set out for her daily constitutional along the westward shore of the lagoon. When she left, her husband was lying in their hammock, reading a book.

It was a beautiful afternoon, but hot, as usual.

She headed up the western shore of Cooper Island, following the high-water mark along the sand and coral. She always preferred the beach to walking inland, since she was curious to see what might have washed ashore during the night. She was rarely disappointed on Palmyra.

Spotting an especially pretty and unbroken shell, she kneeled down and brushed the sand away from it. Yes, she thought, a nice addition to her collection.

Striding on, she passed the old seaplane ramp, which reminded her of raising the rescue boat. Such a lark. This place brimmed with adventure. Maybe it really was paradise, she decided. They were alone, and happy, the weather was consistently balmy, and the surroundings were exotically beautiful…she’d told Robert she was in no hurry to leave, thank you very much.

About half a mile farther on along the shore of Strawn Island she noticed something glistening in the sunlight about ten yards away.

Her interest piqued, she walked closer, then recoiled and screamed. A human skull lay on the sand in front of her, a gold-capped tooth in its jaw sparkling in the sun. Other skeletal remains were scattered nearby.

Sharon dropped her shells and went down to her knees in the sand.
It’s one of them. One of the missing couple
. But she knew the bones couldn’t have been lying on the beach all these years.

There was an aluminum container nearby. Lying next to it were a lid and some wire that presumably once had held the lid and box together. From the position of the bones, she recognized immediately that they must have fallen out of the container. Inside the lid was a small bone, and a wristwatch, which she picked up. Despite the corrosion, she could see it was a woman’s watch. The box could have been washed ashore by the latest storm, which had died down just the night before. Inside it, Sharon saw a small swatch of cloth. She also noticed charring on the box’s interior surfaces.

Her gaze went back to the ivory skull.
This must be the woman
. One side of the skull was charred, too. She didn’t want to touch the grinning
memento mori
, but knew she must. If left here, it might be washed away.

Gingerly, she picked it up and turned it over. In the left temple region there was a small round hole.

Her mind raced. The poor woman had obviously been shot, put in the box, and then—set on fire! “Dear
God
, oh dear God.”

There was something about the aluminum box. She looked at it more closely and recognized it as identical to the two containers stowed in compartments on the sunken rescue boat. But there had been two empty compartments.
Two
. Here was one box; the other was still missing.
The man
, she realized with a chill.
The missing box must contain his body!

Reluctantly, she looked down the shoreline ahead of her. Nothing. The second box, the one with…him inside…must still be underwater in the lagoon. She’d better get her husband right away so he could help her collect the rest of the bones before the next tide came and washed them away.

Fastidiously holding the skull out in front of her, Sharon Jordan ran back to the
Moya
, a raven-haired Godiva carrying a death’s-head in paradise.