Baby Be Mine (21 page)

“That is why I'm here,” her neighbor said. “I came to tell you your granddaughter Wendy is near death. She has a slight heartbeat, but it does not look good.” In fact, by that time, Jo Ann's granddaughter had already been declared dead.

Wendy's mother, Sandra Stinnett Gillenwater, was devastated. Her daughter's face was battered beyond recognition. She was able to identify her only by the rings she wore. Sandra felt guilty for not checking up on her daughter—for not forcing her way into Wendy's life before it was too late.

Wendy's funeral service was held on October 20 at the Price Funeral Home in Maryville. She was laid to rest at the Hillcrest Cemetery, where Bobbie Jo Stinnett (another resident of Elm Street) would be buried four years later.

In June 2001, Sandra presented a check for $1,700—money she and other volunteers raised for the Wendy Gillenwater Memorial Fund—to the Nodaway County Family Violence Council. The donation was earmarked for a shelter for the victims of domestic abuse.

On August 15, 2001—the day Dragoo was scheduled to face prosecuting attorney David Baird and a panel of his peers—he waived his right to a jury trial and pled guilty to murder in the second degree. Circuit Judge Roger Prokes accepted his plea and ordered the Missouri Department of Probation and Parole to perform a pre-sentence investigation.

After receiving their report, the judge handed down punishment for Gregory Dragoo on November 6,2001. Wendy's
family, Dragoo's attorney and Dragoo's family presented statements. Judge Prokes then sentenced Dragoo to the maximum possible sentence for second-degree murder—life imprisonment in the custody of the Missouri Department of Corrections. He also ordered that Dragoo would receive credit for time served, pay the per diem jail costs to the facility where he was incarcerated since his arrest and pay $68 to the crime victims' compensation fund. The judge also determined that there was no probable cause to believe the defendant received ineffective assistance of counsel.

In Skidmore, just a few steps from Newton's corner, a small tree stood surrounded by a circle of rounded bricks. Before it a plaque read:

I
N MEMORY OF
W
ENDY
G
ILLENWATER, 1975–2000
.

M
onths before the courts meted out justice for Wendy Gillenwater, another tragedy struck Skidmore and the Stinnett family. Jo Ann's grandson, 20-year-old Branson Perry, disappeared.

Branson was born on February 24,1981, to Bob and Becky Perry. When his parents divorced, Branson lived with his father. His younger brother, Phillip, lived with their mother.

Branson and his dad had a close relationship. They hunted for Indian artifacts, fished, camped and hiked together. They took classes in Hapkido, a Korean art of self-defense. Father and son learned the arm and leg joint locks, weapons use, throws, kicks, hits and nerve pressure techniques. Each earned a black belt in this martial art.

Branson was a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy with a passion for homemade peach pie. His baby face made him look younger than his years. He graduated from Nodaway-Holt
High School in 1999—one year before Bobbie Jo Stinnett. He attempted to enlist in the Army, but failed the physical because of a racing-heart condition.

On April 7, 2001, Branson visited his neighbor, Jason Bierman, who gave him an unidentified drug. In an intoxicated state, Branson danced naked, shaved his pubic area and participated in sexual activity with Jason.

The next day, Branson stammered out the story to his father, Bob. Branson feared the humiliation and embarrassment he would suffer if the encounter became public knowledge. Bob knew his son had homosexual tendencies and suspected that he'd had sex with other men, so he wasn't entirely surprised. Nonetheless, after hearing the pain in his son's voice, he became angry at Jason for drugging, then using his son. Bob entertained dark thoughts of killing his neighbor, but never acted upon them.

On Wednesday, April 11,2001, Branson's father Bob was in the hospital in Maryville. Branson's grandmother Jo Ann Stinnett and his friend Gena Crawford came over to the Perry place to clean up the all-male home on Oak Street in preparation for Bob's return.

Gena saw Branson out in the front yard talking with two guys who were replacing the alternator in Bob's car. She called out the upstairs window and asked, “Branson, what are you doing?”

Branson said, “I'm going to put away the jumper cables, then run out for a bit. I'll be back in a few minutes.” He tossed the cables into the shed and then walked off the property. Gena never saw him again.

Early Thursday morning, Jo Ann visited Bob Perry in the hospital. “Did Branson come to see you last night?” she asked. When Bob said he hadn't, Jo Ann was alarmed. Since Bob went into the hospital, Branson visited him every night. She shrugged off her worry, not wanting to create anxiety in Bob while he was ill.

As she drove back to Skidmore, Jo Ann's anxiety grew.
She stopped in at the Perry home and found the doors open. Nothing, however, appeared to be missing. Her fear cranked up another notch.

Where could she look for her grandson? She called his mother, Becky, but she hadn't seen him either. She couldn't check with an employer—roofer Royce Clements laid Branson off some time ago, and except for a short stint with a traveling petting zoo, Branson hadn't found another job. He didn't have a serious girlfriend. He didn't own a car.

Jo Ann went home and called the Perry house often over the next few days, but never got an answer. She called around town, but no one had seen Branson. She bounced from anger at Branson's irresponsibility to dread that something bad had befallen him. In addition to worries about foul play, Jo Ann was concerned that Branson's racing-heart condition caused a medical crisis. On April 16, Jo Ann and Becky and Bob Perry filed a missing persons report.

Nodaway County Sheriff Ben Espey sent out ground search parties that scoured a fifteen-mile perimeter of Skidmore. The Missouri Highway Patrol and the Drug Strike Task Force aided in the search. They combed every farm, field, vacant building and pond they encountered. They found no sign of Branson. Dogs were not used because a rain had fallen after Branson's disappearance—any possible traces of his scent had already washed away.

In the next month and a half, the sheriff's department interviewed hundreds of people. With reluctance, Gena admitted that Branson smoked weed and used amphetamines. A family member told investigators that Branson had a bottle of Valium in his possession the afternoon, he'd disappeared. Down in St. Joseph, Branson's acquaintances in the drug trade submitted to lie detector tests. Nothing. No one had seen Branson Perry.

Bob Perry offered the best lead. He suggested that Branson—embarrassed by his sexual encounter with the
neighbor—may have hitchhiked to Kansas City to visit his close friend Mike Lemon. Other members of Branson's family found that difficult to believe. They were not aware that he had ever hitched a ride anywhere. True or not, investigators questioned Mike. That led, too, led nowhere.

Quite a number of leads centered around the suspicion that Branson was involved in the local drug trade. Those tips claimed he was killed because he owed a lot of money to another dealer or because he was about to turn others in to law enforcement for illegal drug activities. Every trail followed ended with no resolution and no sign of Branson.

Branson was gone and his trail was as cold as a bitter December wind. Desperation drove the family to psychic Joyce Morgan in Kingston. Joyce visited Skidmore on June 1 and June 6. She talked to people who knew Branson and stopped by the places he frequented.

Joyce claimed that she saw Branson dead and his body was not in the Skidmore area. She said she had a vision of every moment of torture and abuse inflicted on Branson. She could not, however, share the details with the family because they were far too horrific.

She offered leads to Sheriff Espey, however. He dutifully followed up each one with care. Although later revelations would indicate there might be some truth buried in Joyce's vision, none of it had enough clarity to provide an obvious trail to the missing young man. Despite valiant efforts, each lead went nowhere.

In December 2001, Becky Perry established a $5,000 reward fund for any information resulting in the safe return of Branson or for the successful prosecution of any guilty parties. Shortly before the one-year anniversary of his disappearance, friends in Becky's hometown of Oregon, Missouri, pulled together a chili supper, raising $1,000. Becky added that money to the reward fund.

In that first year, Becky distributed 1,300 fliers about her son. They were plastered in store fronts, on telephone poles, in
restaurants—anywhere and everywhere—throughout Northwest Missouri and into Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska. She also made an online appeal.

I never thought before, but tonight i received an email of someone looking for their son. I thought that it wouldn't-hurt for me to try also.

My son, Branson Kayne Perry, is 20 years old and has been missing since April 11, 2001. He left his home in Skidmore, MO telling a friend that was there that he would be right back. No one has seen or heard from him since. This is not a typical behavior of Branson. He has never been out of touch with his family or friends for more than a day or two at the most.

I am asking, pleading, begging for your help please! Please forward to everyone you know and if anyone anywhere has seen him please contact me. As a parent, you can have no idea what I am feeling unless you have gone through the same thing. I can't begin to tell you the pain and agony I feel everyday and night. I just want to know that he is safe. The police have exhausted all leads they have and nothing. No one saw anything. No one knows anything. No one has heard from him.

Please help me, Please. And if you haven't seen him, please say a small prayer for. his safety. I thank you from my heart and God Bless you.

In late March, new leads came in to law enforcement. Patrols took cadaver dogs to four locations in Missouri: two in Burlington Junction and two in Quitman. And still the family waited—for Branson to walk through the door or for Sheriff Espey to deliver the dreaded news that his body had been found.

A break came from an unexpected source—the FBI's
Candyman investigation. Special Agent Mickey Roberts headed the probe into child pornography on the Internet. His work led him to Michael Adam Davidson, a third-year medical student at the University of South Alabama who was arrested and charged in March 2002. Among the many sexually explicit images involving children found when they analyzed Davidson's seized computer were two .mpg streaming video files—one depicting a sex act between an adult and a minor, the other a short movie of a man dying as his throat was cut. Davidson sent a thank-you email to a man identified as BuggerButt remarking that the throat-slitting file was “too short.”

They also found an ominous online chat dated a month earlier between MickPower2134—Davidson's screen name—and BuggerButt, an apparent sexual predator who had the disgusting and revealing habit of referring to his victims as “it.” They hoped it was just sick fantasy, but feared it was all too real.

He wrote, “I just had a second ‘oh shit' experience.”

“Tell me about it,” Davidson urged.

“One was on a Wal-Mart missing board.”

“Ha Ha, tell me more.”

“I saw something that I knew was not going to be returned and was definitely missing though the facts mentioned there were sanitized greatly over what it told me happened,” BuggerButt wrote, referring to the poster of Branson Perry he'd seen in the store. On it the simple facts of Branson's disappearance and his life were a resource of ridicule for BuggerButt, who wove a tale of familial abuse that led Branson onto the predator's path.

“I am curious,” Davidson pushed. “Why don't you tell me all about it, I would be fascinated.”

“Well, that is not all of it. Just had the second one. A friend was telling me about a site on the net that sifts facts and fiction—all the Internet hoaxes, chain letters, all that shit. So I went to it and looked at the item he referred me to. I cruised the site under missing persons and what to my wandering eyes did appear but another like the Wal-Mart
wall,” he wrote, referring to the site where he'd read the appeal made by Branson's mother.

“So you met him?”

“Oh, yes,” BuggerButt answered, “and it did not just disappear. There was more involved or so it told me.”

“You've got to tell me from start to finish, I am most intrigued.”

“Skidmore is a very small town. Was famous for their being silent when a bully guy was killed by someone that they all knew but refused to give up. Still haven't. But that's another story that has nothing to do with me. This kid was gay”

BuggerButt went on to defame the character of the Skidmore boy and his family. He claimed that he picked him up hitchhiking on an interstate.

“Were you looking at the time, or did you just have an opportunity you could not refuse?” Davidson asked.

“Opportunity,” BuggerButt replied. Then he played coy about providing any more details. “Just realized that this is the first time I have ever given any definable details to anyone. Not smart of me and a bit scary,” he wrote.

“Are you scared?” Davidson asked.

“Just a bit squeamish—means that someone actually has some details.”

“You would not have told me if you did not think you could trust me.”

“No offense,” BuggerButt wrote, “but that kind of thing can be a fatal mistake.”

“So why did you tell me?”

“I have to accept that my natural instincts are correct.”

“You have no reason to fear me,” Davidson reassured him. “I don't know what else I can say or do.”

“I know. It is just me. Was hit with one of the ‘oh shit' moments,” BuggerButt continued. “You have no idea how it felt that time in the fucking Wal-Mart. And then today when I saw that site.”