Authors: M. William Phelps

Never See Them Again (38 page)

BOOK: Never See Them Again

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T
HESE 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 SÃ¡nchez. 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.âLaurie 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 booksâhas 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” seriesâyou 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

I
T 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 lifeâGail 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.

Gail walked out with the others. “Good night,” she said. “See you all soon.”

Her maroon van was parked in the lot just out the door, about twenty-five yards straight ahead. Gail walked over to the van and, immediately, noticed something different about it. The way the vehicle sat. She couldn't put her finger on what it was, but something didn't look right.

Huh?

Gail shook off what was an odd feeling before placing her pocketbook on the passenger seat and getting in on the driver's side.

Inside, she turned the key, backed out of her parking space, and drove away.

Gail Fulton got about ten yards before she realized one of the tires on her van was flat. So she turned, driving around a small parking lot island of mulch and shrubs, before pulling back into the same parking space she'd just left.

Gail got out and had a look.

She stood staring at her flat tire, looking back toward the library. All of her coworkers, save for Barb and Cathy (who were still inside finishing up that computer work), were gone by now, on their way home to another peaceful night in paradise.

As Gail started to walk toward the employee entrance (not yet out of the immediate area where she had parked), a car, with its lights bright and shining in her face, pulled up. There was a man and a woman in the front seat. A second man, dressed in a black leather jacket, black gloves and a do-rag, was sitting in the back.

Gail didn't like the look of this.

The man dressed in black got out.

No one said anything.

Gail looked concerned; she kept looking back toward the library, no doubt hoping someone would come out.

B
ARB BUTKIS FINISHED
the computer backup with Cathy Lichtman and got her things together. It was around 9:10
P.M.
, October 4, 1999, Barb later recalled, when she and Cathy prepared to leave the building. Outside, it was as dark as a graveyard this time of night. Cooler than normal, too. Leaves just starting to drop off the trees. A slick sheen of drizzle on the ground. All the doors in the library were locked. Nobody could walk in off the street. You'd have to know what Barb later described as “the key code” in order to open the door.

Gail knew this code.

Barb and Cathy stood near the employee exit at approximately nine-fifteen. Barb punched the alarm code number to set it, watched Cathy walk out in front of her, and then followed behind.

Outside the building, Barb made sure the exit door was secure; she pulled on it, hearing that click of the lock, feeling the metal resistance.

They could go home.

“Have a good night, Cathy,” Barb said.

“You too. See you tomorrow.”

Barb and Cathy walked toward the parking lot. As Barb later explained, “[We] usually kind of look back and forth because it is evening, to see if there is anything in the parking lot before we start approaching our cars. . . .”

After making that routine gaze into the night, looking for anything out of the ordinary, Barb looked straight aheadâand something caught her eye.

It was on the ground. Maybe about twenty feet ahead.

Fabric?

Yes. It looked like a piece of clothing. But neither Cathy nor Barb could tell what it was, because, as Barb later explained, who expects to see clothing on the ground as they leave work?

Barb and Cathy walked toward the fabric.

A pile of clothes?

Strange, a set of clothes spread out on the ground like that. Here. At night. In the parking lot of a library.

Kids? Maybe a pre-Halloween prank?

No. Couldn't be. Barb noticed what she called “breath or steam coming from the object.”

Walking up next to the fabric, Barb and Cathy noticed something else.

“It was a person,” Barb said.

“Gail . . . !” Barb yelled, recognizing her coworker lying on the tar.

Cathy was just as shocked to see Gail on the ground, barely moving.

Gail was on her back, nearly motionless, moaning softly.

“She was very still,” Barb said later. “I could not tell at that moment what had happened to her, if she had fainted orâI couldn't tell because she was lying on the ground.”

Barb knelt down beside Gail. “Honey? Gail? Talk to me!”

No response.

Cathy stood beside Barb. Then she knelt down near Gail's head.

Barb reached for Gail's wrist to check for a pulse.

“I'm going to call 911,” Cathy said, standing up, turning, taking off for the library.

“Gail?” Barb said with her fingers applied gingerly to the back side of Gail's wrist. (Later recalling the moment, Barb remarked: “Her eyes were just staring. . . .”)

Cathy had the phone in her hand, the door to the library open, yelling to Barb, who could not find a pulse. “Is Gail diabetic, Barb?”

Obviously, Cathy was speaking to a 911 operator on the other end of the line, who was instructing her on which questions to ask.

Barb knew this was no diabetic coma or fainting spell; she could see what she thought was blood coming from the top of Gail's head. As Cathy continued to yell questions, Barb then noticed a large pool of “liquid” surrounding the back of Gail's head, tacky to the touch, seemingly growing in size as she focused on it. The fluid was dark, thick, and spreading in a halo pattern around Gail's head.

“Oh my . . . ,” Barb said to herself.

“Is she breathing?” Cathy yelled.

Barb thought about it. That growing pool of fluid had to be bloodâlots of it, in fact, pouring out from the back of Gail's head.

“She's been hurt bad,” Barb yelled back at Cathy. “Someone hurt her
very
bad.”

Cathy hung up with 911 and grabbed a blanket. Barb met her at the door, took the blanket, ran back to Gail, and then placed it over Gail's body.

“Gail, honey . . . can you hear me?” Barb asked as she consoled her friend, trying to keep her warm and alert.

Cathy walked up. She had a towel, which she applied with hard pressure to the back of Gail's head, where the injury seemed to be located. The tears came when Barbara Butkis realized Gail Fulton had been shot in the head, maybe in a few other areas of her body, too. There could be no other explanation.

Gail was still alive, though: breathing laboriously, her pulse weakening by the second, but the woman had a heartbeat. She was fighting.

Sirens pierced the night as Barb and Kathy did their best to let Gail know she was not alone. They would not let her die out here by herself in the dark.

This murder of a local housewife and librarian would send the Oakland County Sheriff's Department to call on OakForce, a multiagency crime-fighting organization, a team of lawmen that had been formed, as luck would have it, that very same week. Comprised of local FBI, members of the Michigan State Police and Oakland County Sheriff's Department (who were there at the scene tending to Gail), on top of police officers from the nearby towns of Pontiac, Southfield, and Troy, the agency was put together to investigate major crimes. And it was clear immediately, from the way in which this woman, a harmless librarian's assistant, whose father, Noe Garza, and her uncle, Margarito Garza, were former federal judges, had been found, that she had been targeted. Gail's mother, Dora Garza, was a well-known community and church leader. Gail and her family were people, some might say, whom others had held grudges against.

Had Gail Fulton been the object of a paid hit?

A patrol officer, who happened to be nearby when the call came in, arrived. He walked around the scene, surveying what he had. Barb mentioned something she thought might be of some help.

“Cameras,” she told him. “We record what goes on out in the parking lot and around the building.”

“You do?”

“Yes,” Barb said. Then she pointed to a camera on the building facing Gail as she lay in a pool of her own blood, fighting for her life.

Gail Fulton's murder had no doubt been caught on tape.

BOOK: Never See Them Again

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