If You Only Knew (8 page)

CHAPTER 17

DONALD ROGERS'S BODY HAD
left the examiner's office back on that Monday morning, August 14, 2000, two days after his death, and was whisked over to A.J. Desmond & Sons for the wake. But then after the wake, Billie Jean ordered her husband's remains to be cremated. After all, on that Saturday, August 12, the day after Don's death, the OCME ruled Don's death accidental. A death certificate had been issued. Billie Jean had every right to do what she wanted with her husband's body. And now Don Rogers's ashes were in a box. There would be no chance to cut him open and have a second look.

As they grew more suspicious of Billie Jean, the detectives realized the problems they had, however, didn't stop there—because that death certificate would now have to be officially amended. Dr. Ortiz-Reyes would have to write up a report or “inspection” addendum and file it with the certificate. This, of course, was not unheard of in the field; yet, it wasn't something medical examiners did every day.

On that inspection sheet that Dr. Ortiz-Reyes and his boss, Dr. Dragovic, had signed and dated August 12, Ortiz-Reyes now included the “manner of death” as homicide. He also added another very interesting—albeit new—factor in Don's death. As for the “cause of death,” Ortiz-Reyes was now claiming it to be “asphyxia by smothering.”

If that was true, Don Rogers had, indeed, been the victim of a murder.

On the surface, this new accusation might have seemed to come out of nowhere. All of a sudden, a guy who had seemingly died of a heart attack, based on an overdose of alcohol, was now the victim of smothering? Moreover, in his report, Ortiz-Reyes indicated that Don's conjunctivae (mucous membrane lines inside the eyelids) were “unremarkable.” His sclera (the white part of his eyes) “anicteric” (not yellowed). Nowhere did the doctor report any rupture or breaking of the blood vessels in Don's eyes, which is a fairly common factor when someone is smothered and choked, struggling for air.

This could mean two things: Don was not smothered; or he was smothered, but he was already in a coma or dead at the time from all that alcohol.

Furthermore, Ortiz-Reyes wrote in his addendum:
The body shows no signs of bruises, fractures, lacerations or deformities.. . .

And then this:
The back is without note.
Meaning, there were no injuries and nothing suspicious found on Don's entire back.

That information was part of the initial report Ortiz-Reyes had written from his notes on his cursory examination on the Saturday morning Don's body had come in. On the addendum, after learning of the alcohol intoxication, the doctor now had several issues. There was no date or time on this sheet of the report, thus one was left to suppose it was written on that Saturday (but it had not been). Right at the top, in the first paragraph, both doctors—Ortiz-Reyes and his boss, Dr. Dragovic, the chief medical examiner—found a “brown spot” on the “base of the anterior surface of the neck,” along with “small old bruises” on Don's right shoulder, left lower abdomen and right arm. They also now uncovered “multiple brown spots on the back.”

Those injuries fell in line with someone placing a pillow over Don's face and putting pressure on it.

In the “evidence of injury” portion of the addendum (that third, added page, that is):
There is a healing bruise of the left eye socket....

His diagnosis, Ortiz-Reyes wrote, now consisted of: “Asphyxia by smothering” and “Acute alcohol intoxication.”

In his now renewed opinion, Dr. Ortiz-Reyes was certain Don Rogers had been smothered after being plied with alcohol. The image one conjured while reading this report included someone knocking Don down, or waiting for him to pass out (as he normally would, according to both Billie Jean and Vonlee), pouring copious amounts of alcohol down his throat forcibly (maybe when he was so intoxicated that he couldn't mount a defense) and then placing that alleged pillow over his face to finish the job.

The decedent's body was found face up on the kitchen tile floor,
the doctor wrote,
without any injury to the back of the head....

Now, if the doctors would have stopped there, one might ask how those injuries occurred. But the doctors then entered into speculative diagnosis—or maybe speculative
opinion
—when they followed in the addendum to the death certificate with the idea that Don falling on the kitchen floor should have been accompanied by at least some injuries to the head because they “would have been inevitable” when an individual fell fatally “from heavy intoxication.”

But what if Don was so wasted he simply decided to lie down and passed out on the floor? Maybe he put a hand on the chair, used it to guide his drunken body down to the floor, then flipped the chair over?

No one knew.

Certainly not these doctors.

What's more, the doctors added:
This finding is indicative of the repositioning of the body after death and the alteration of the scene with the purpose to disguise this violent death as a non-violent one.

“Alteration of the scene”?

In other words, somebody staged the crime scene.

What a remarkable document, considering that the certificate of death, under cause, had once reported “acute alcohol intoxication” and “arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.” A document that was then subsequently certified by the city clerk in the town of Troy. Additionally, under item 29 on the original death certificate, where it asked if the medical examiner was notified, Ortiz-Reyes answered affirmatively. So Dr. Dragovic was told about Don's death and agreed with Ortiz-Reyes's initial findings on that Saturday morning. It was signed and dated August 12, 2000. If one took this certificate of death into account, it would appear that Don died of a heart attack brought on by an “accidental overdose” of alcohol.

So what happened to exacerbate this sudden change in the OCME's opinion? This new judgment surrounding Don's death was the polar opposite to what it had once been. There had to be more than a blood and urine test leading these two distinguished men with nearly fifty years' experience between them—not to mention thousands of autopsies—to draw this new conclusion that would help to initiate an investigation into a murder?

And, of course, there was.

CHAPTER 18

IT STARTED WITH A
phone call to the chief medical examiner by Detective Don Tullock on August 31, 2000. The TPD was having problems with Don Rogers's death, with or without the medical examiner's findings—there was something about the crime scene and information they were collecting that, for several experienced detectives, had a rotten odor to it. Even the officers present on the night the 911 call came in had issues with the way Don's legs were crossed, with a cup of water in the living room, as well as Billie Jean Rogers's overall demeanor. Usurping all of that, however, on the previous day, August 30, 2000, an explosive piece of information had come into the TPD, sparking the call to the medical examiner in the first place.

Bottom line: If cops did not sometimes rely on instinct, then very few murders would ever be solved. Here, now, the TPD not only had a “feeling” that Don's death was no accident, the information Zimmerman had collected on August 30 was enough to warrant an entire new look—by everyone—into the death of Don Rogers.

“We're investigating this case from a different perspective,” Don Tullock, the lead detective, told Dr. Dragovic during a phone call to the medical examiner at some point after Don's death. “We'd like you to take another look at it.”

“I can assure you that the lab does not dispose of the blood or vitreous fluid samples it collects. . . .”

“That's great. We are actively investigating this matter currently,” Tullock concluded.

That phone call was followed up by a fax.

The fax was followed by a phone call from Tullock to the chief investigator for the medical examiner's office, Michael Dowd.

“Mike, listen, we have information . . . that foul play was involved.”

“This is how it started,” Dr. Dragovic later explained, “this whole process of reevaluation.”

The TPD had been informed the OCME had signed off on accidental death due to alcohol intoxication. With the fax and the phone call, they were asking the medical examiner to go back and look again and take into account all that they had discovered (on top of that explosive information on August 30) and give a second opinion. Although it's not routine, there are plenty of instances when medical examiners change their opinions based on what investigators find out in the field. When a pathologist puts a death into the context of a law enforcement investigation and what cops have uncovered, some things that might not have made sense when initially conducting an autopsy now become quite clear.

After talking to the TPD, Dragovic found Ortiz-Reyes and sat down to have a chat.

“Listen, we have a very big surprise here and we are going to have more information regarding the Rogers case [coming in].” This conversation took place before Ortiz-Reyes had changed his opinion. “So hold on here with this for now.”

Ortiz-Reyes said later the medical examiner, as often happens when there are “surprises” in cases, then “took over.”

Dr. Dragovic said he wanted Ortiz-Reyes to have a look at some of the police reports issued in Don Rogers's death. The TPD had developed some important information that was now imperative to the cause of death.

“They're telling me,” Dragovic explained to Ortiz-Reyes, “that they have some information indicating that Mr. Rogers's death was not accidental or by natural causes. It was foul play. They even have a few suspects and they're investigating along those lines.”

Ortiz-Reyes was obviously interested in this.

“I told them to continue and keep us informed.”

Ortiz-Reyes said he understood.

The other possibility that Dragovic and Ortiz-Reyes talked about was that regardless what the studies showed and the “experts” reported regarding alcohol intake for severe, chronic alcoholics, Ortiz-Reyes later explained, “There are cases reported in which people were driving with higher than .5 of alcohol. So a .44 . . . it's like having a snack for them, for somebody that's used to drinking. . . .”

Ortiz-Reyes went on to agree that it was even possible for some with a .44 alcohol blood level to walk around on his or her own accord. Thus, if Don Rogers was drinking, as Billie Jean had told police, between one and two gallons of vodka per day, he was within this spectrum of those users. Don most likely woke up in the morning with a higher blood alcohol level than was legal to drive a car.

Dr. Dragovic told Ortiz-Reyes that someone would be by the office soon with photographs. The TPD wanted Ortiz-Reyes to have a look at photographs taken at the scene of Rogers's body. They wanted his opinion on a few things.

What was this new information the TPD had uncovered the previous day, August 30, 2000? It certainly surprised detectives, not to mention everyone else involved. In fact, this “surprise” would not be the last one for law enforcement involved in the investigation, which was now substantially heating up around Don Rogers's so-called “accidental death.”

As additional detectives were brought in and the TPD continued to investigate, learning all they could about Billie Jean and Vonlee, what was to become a major shock to all was about to emerge—and, boy, it would change
everything.

PART 2

Hubert H. Humphrey

CHAPTER 19

VONLEE'S “FIANCÉ” WAS A
rugged-looking, somewhat overweight, dark-haired foreigner, who gladly bragged that he was the sole proprietor of a jewelry store. His shop, the one where Billie Jean made those large purchases in the days just after Don's death, was located in Oak Park, a twenty-minute drive south of Troy. Forty-year-old Danny Chahine was a transplant from Lebanon and had been in the United States since 1979. Danny had met Billie Jean and Vonlee at the Motor City Casino in late July when the two women started going out together, spending hours of their lives per week at the casinos in downtown Detroit.

Vonlee wasn't much of a gambler. So, as Billie Jean sat and gambled the nights and early mornings away, Vonlee wandered around, looking for something to do. That's how she met Danny. For Vonlee, there wasn't always a lot to do at the casino, besides drinking excessively. There were also many nights when Vonlee would have to pull Billie Jean off a slot machine or table or roulette wheel and literally drag her out of the place.

“Come on . . . let's go home,” Vonlee would plead with her aunt.

“Just one more pull,” Billie Jean would say.

“Please, Aunt Billie. Let's just go home.”

Vonlee found herself “begging” her aunt on more occasions than not. Her aunt just didn't want to leave. It was always one more hand, just another dollar dropped down the throat of a one-armed bandit, one more go of the roulette wheel. One pull of the slot was too many, while a thousand pulls not enough.

“I didn't know anyone at the casino,” Vonlee said later, speaking of those days before she met Danny Chahine. “I had only gone with my aunt because she wanted to go, and [Danny] was someone to talk to.... A lot of times, I would just sit and talk to him while he gambled. Sometimes I would gamble. . . .”

Since meeting in July, Danny and Vonlee dated regularly. Later, Danny would say he had seen Billie Jean and Vonlee at that particular casino about thirty times between June and August 2000, but it was clear he only saw Vonlee by Billie Jean's side during the latter portion of that time, because Vonlee was back home in Tennessee in June.

Danny liked Vonlee. She was attractive and fit the role of girl-on-your-arm, which he fashioned for her as they walked into the casinos together. Danny had the swagger of a regular, maybe even the clichéd, casino type: the cigar-smoking, potbellied, wannabe-rich man. Having a woman like Vonlee, whom he later referred to as beautiful as a supermodel, was one more prop for Danny's stage show.

For the most part, they'd go out to dinner and hang around Danny's place. For her, he was another guy in a long line that she viewed as caretakers—men to provide for the life she so much desired. Running the escort services in Chicago and Denver, Vonlee had gotten used to a certain lifestyle. She'd given it all up to move back home after the drinking and drugging got to be too much. Billie Jean, however, had indoctrinated Vonlee back into the nightlife game, and Vonlee now yearned on most nights to have her old life back, without making any attempt to drop everything and drive home. As it were, since living with Don and Billie Jean, Vonlee didn't have to work. Everything she did, the food she ate, the new clothes and jewelry she wore, even the car she now drove, was paid for by somebody else.

There was one night after Don's death when Vonlee took Danny out to a “very expensive restaurant at the casino,” Danny later explained. It was a time when Vonlee (at least from where Danny saw it later) seemed to have more money than she knew what to do with it.

Vonlee looked at the wine list and ordered a costly bottle of the restaurant's finest.

They clinked glasses and smiled. It was romantic. Cozy. Nice. They were a couple enjoying a night out—at least in those initial moments after they sat down, that was what it seemed like. Vonlee liked Danny a lot, maybe even loved him.

“Good time, huh?” Vonlee said.

“It is.”

“I have something to tell you,” Vonlee announced, setting her glass down slowly, staring at her reflection. “It's about me.” She took a sip from her wine, looked into Danny's eyes. Vonlee had been in this position before. She had a secret. It was time she shared it with Danny. He deserved to know.

“Vonlee, what is it?”

Vonlee took a pause and another sip of wine.

It was never easy.