Possessed (17 page)

Late that night, James Wells drove up in his tow truck to pick up the women, and Stefan stood outside with them. Ana fumed, complaining that the security guard at The Parklane had refused to let her into Stefan's apartment the night before.

“I told him, when you see me, you better let me in!” Ana said. “The man said if someone said not to let me in, he couldn't!”

“He's just following orders,” Wells told her.

As the others talked, Stefan said nothing. Instead, he put his hands in his pockets, turned, and walked away.

That night, during the birthday celebration, Chanda told Stefan not to worry about Ana, that she and Wells would watch over her. But just weeks later, with Ana's odd behavior escalating, with the pacing, the chanting, and the strange rituals, Chanda knew she couldn't keep her promise. One of them had to leave. If Ana stayed, Chanda would have to move on.

“What is that?” Chanda asked Ana the night they sat in the apartment watching television, and Ana poured salt to draw a star inside a circle on the floor. What Chanda didn't know was that in some pagan rituals, salt was used to symbolize the sea, the womb of the goddess, and blood. As Chanda and Wells observed the strange ritual, Ana placed candles on the star's corners and lit them. She then sat rigid, legs crossed, next to the pentagram and chanted. When Wells asked what she was doing, Ana claimed that it was a ceremony to remove evil spirits from the house. Ana's roommates didn't know that in some occult practices such rituals were done at times for protection and at other times to conjure spirits.

The bizarre episodes continued, and Chanda Ellison felt anxious. It seemed to her that something was building with Ana Trujillo Fox. At night, Chanda heard the other woman prowling the apartment, rarely sleeping. “Her behavior took a toll on me,” said Chanda. “James always gave Ana the benefit of the doubt, but I didn't like what I was seeing.”

On May 25, 2013, a Saturday five months after Ana moved in, Chanda had an intense feeling that something bad was going to happen. In that circumstance, she did what she usually did: She attempted to walk off her worries. Leaving the apartment, Chanda strode on the sidewalk at a brisk pace. As she hiked, she noticed a three-foot-long branch, the thickness of a broomstick. She picked it up and used it as a walking stick as she continued on. In the apartment, she placed it to the side, propping it up against a wall.

That night was even edgier than usual, as Chanda lay in bed listening to Ana through the apartment walls. The smell of candles wafted in from the living room, and Chanda heard chanting. By the following morning, Chanda battled a crushing apprehension. To be alone, she stood in the closet, and she prayed. “Lord, if there's anything evil in her, please, remove her because I don't know what you want me to do. Show me what to do, Lord. Help me.”

T
hat same afternoon, May 26, Stefan sat at a table in the Hermann Golf Course Grill when Ana arrived. At about three, she called James Wells and he drove to pick her up. When he arrived, Stefan was gone, and Ana asked Wells to buy her a glass of chardonnay. He did, then waited for her to drink it. Once she finished the glass, Ana began muttering.

“Are you drunk?” he asked. Wells interpreted the look Ana shot him in reply as,
why are you asking me that?

On the drive home in the truck, Wells, who didn't see himself as romantically involved with any of the women, mentioned that an old girlfriend was stopping by. At that, Ana's mood shifted drastically, and she became angry, asking why the woman was coming. “She's just a friend,” Wells said. Jealous, Ana kicked the stand Wells anchored his computer to inside the truck.

“You're being silly,” he said.

In the apartment, Chanda lay on the bed watching television, and Wells joined her, sitting in a nearby recliner. He looked up and saw Ana glaring at him from the doorway “looking at me all evil but not saying anything.”

Instead, she walked toward him, puckering her lips, and Wells thought that they would kiss and make up. He leaned toward her. She bent down, her lips meeting the top of his bald head. At that instant, searing pain shot through him, and he realized that she'd bitten him. He pushed her back, opened his hand, and slapped her in the face.

After falling toward the door and hitting the back of her head on the doorjamb, Ana mocked, “Ho, ho, ho! You're a dead man!”

The hair on the back of his head prickled at the hard tone of her voice. “Ana, you're a devil,” he said, reining in his anger, and standing up. “You have to leave this house right now. I am mad enough to kill you. Before I do, you have to go.”

To remove himself from her, Wells walked from the room, but instead of backing off, Ana followed him into the kitchen and came up behind him, slapping him in the face.
As he'd warned he would, Wells slapped her back. To stop the fight, for the second time, he attempted to walk away, and again Ana followed. This time, Chanda wedged between them.

“Let me handle this,” she told Wells. “I don't want you in trouble.”

At that moment, a text came in for a tow job, and Wells nodded at Chanda, then turned and left.

Inside the apartment, the two women were alone, and Chanda watched Ana carefully, judging by the look on her face that she still seethed. In a fight between a man and a woman, Chanda suspected police would automatically believe the woman, making it a dangerous situation for Wells. To be sure Ana understood, she said, “I don't want James to go to jail. Got it?”

“Oh, you're talking to me?” Ana replied. With that, she charged Chanda, grabbing her. The women struggled and fell over the couch. When Chanda saw the stick from her walk the day before leaning against a wall, she grabbed it and attacked, hitting Ana hard across her body, swinging it at her head and face.

“Stop!” Ana finally yelled. “Stop!”

Chanda did.

“Ana, you need to go over there and sit down,” Chanda told her. “This is ridiculous. We don't need to fight like this.”

“Nobody is going to tell me what to do!” Ana shouted. The women argued, Ana charging, “You're just mad because James loves me.”

As before, Ana pounced on Chanda, who again struck back, pounding Ana with the stick. They fought until Wells walked back through the door and physically pulled them apart. Both women were bruised, but Ana had taken the hardest hits. Yet when he looked at her, Wells saw that she had a smug look on her face, like she'd won. “I thought she was psychotic or demented, or just plain evil,” he said.

Another call came in, and Wells, afraid to leave the two women alone in the apartment, took Ana with him. In the
tow truck, she cried throughout the run, complaining that Chanda had beaten her. “Ana, you are going to have to decide what you are going to do with your life, but you can't stay with me anymore,” Wells said. “The devil is in you, and I want you to leave.”

“I'm going to go home to Waco, to my family,” she responded between sobs.

“That sounds like a good idea,” Wells said.

At the apartment after the tow, Ana kissed Wells on the cheek, then took her backpack and some of her clothes in a suitcase and left. “I'll be back for the rest,” she said.

Wells nodded, as she walked out the door.

That afternoon, Ana called friends, all of whom turned her down when she said she needed a place to stay. Ultimately, the only one who opened a door for her, the only one to reach out to help Ana, was Stefan.

Years earlier, he had told a friend that he knew his time on earth was brief, and that whenever he could, he felt compelled to help someone in need. As often as he said he wanted Ana out of his life, yet again, he took pity on her. It would prove a tragic mistake.

B
ruises covered Ana, from a bright red contusion forming a ball on her chin to angry welts scattered across her face and body, and a knot on the back of her head suffered when she fell against the doorjamb. That afternoon as she walked into his apartment, Stefan must have been horrified by the damage. The following morning at seven thirty, he took pictures with his iPhone, documenting the injuries. In one, a photo of her naked back and shoulder, part of a frowning Stefan's image would be recorded in the reflection of the bathroom mirror.

That same day, Stefan accompanied Ana to Park Plaza Hospital, near the Houston Museum of Natural Science just across Hermann Park, to be treated. While there, the nurses took a statement and a doctor assessed her injuries, then police were notified of what Ana described as an assault, claiming she'd been attacked by Wells and Ellison. The weapon listed on the report was a stick. When she left the hospital, she took with her prescriptions for a narcotic pain reliever and a drug to help with muscle stiffness. On a scale of one to ten, Ana gauged her pain as a six. Despite the heavy bruising, her X-rays revealed no broken bones. When Ana described how the fight started, she claimed she'd accidently bumped her boyfriend's head with her teeth.

Later that day, Ana stopped at Wells's apartment to get more of her things. She used her key to unlock the door and walked inside. Glancing out the window, Wells saw Stefan in
the Mercedes waiting for her. Wells asked her to stay and talk, but Ana refused, saying, “I'm not here to talk to you.”

Two photos of Ana taken the day after the fight, with Stefan visible in the mirror in the left upper corner of the second photo

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because you beat me up.”

“Is that what you think happened?” Wells asked, and Ana said it was.

“That's not what happened, and you come in here with that attitude,” Wells said. “This isn't you, Ana. You're not well. You need help. Something is wrong.”

When she asked for her things, Wells agreed but not until she returned his key. For some reason, she wasn't willing to do as he asked at that time. “I'll be back later in the week,” she said, and quickly left.

Hours later, Chanda noticed a police officer in a squad car outside the apartment. By then, Wells was on a towing call, and Chanda talked to the officer, who said Ana had filed a complaint, describing the altercation from her view, that she'd been attacked and was merely defending herself. “Well, she said you hit her with a stick,” the man said.

“I sure did. That one,” Chanda answered, pointing at the walking stick.

When they were done talking, she got in touch with Wells in his tow truck, and he, too, recounted the events leading up to the fight to the officer. When their stories agreed, the officer said the investigation was over. “I believe you both,” he said. “I'm closing this case right now.”

In the days that followed, James Wells called Ana, asking her why she tried to press charges against him. She contacted police, who ordered him not to call her, explaining that Ana claimed he was harassing her. But she'd phoned him as well, and the log on his cell phone proved it. By then, Wells had consulted a Houston attorney, Allette Williams, a tall, attractive, elegant woman. Williams explained that what Chanda told Wells was right, that he had to keep a distance from Ana Trujillo.

The week wore on without more incidents until the following Thursday, when Ana called and asked Wells to have Chanda vacate the apartment the following afternoon so she could pick up her things. He agreed, but then talked to his attorney who advised him not to let Ana inside the apartment, instead to put her things outside. Friday came and went, and Ana never called and never arrived.

Finally, late that night, she called again and asked to make sure Chanda was gone when she came the next day.

“You know, Ana, I'm not doing this shit,” Wells answered. “I made plans for you today, and you didn't come or call. You want me to do this again? I'm not going to be inconvenienced for you. You don't need to come in the house anyway.”

By then, Chanda had again talked to Wells, reiterating what their lawyer had said, that Wells shouldn't let Ana inside or be alone with her, that he needed witnesses in case she tried to file more false charges.

I
n early June, attorneys from another law firm hired Stefan to review a case with an eye toward having him testify at an
upcoming trial. “This is a sign people do want me,” he told a friend. “And this is something I like to do.”

His life appeared to be falling into place, with one exception. Since the day of her fight with Chanda Ellison, Ana continued to stay at his apartment, but Stefan saw that as only temporary as she prepared to move home to Waco in early June.

On Saturday, June 8, Ana would later say that they rose early, as she and Stefan often did, to see the sunrise. Stefan helped her move the large black-leather couch out of the way, so she could dance to welcome the day. Then she did what she called her wish for the day, asking for justice for her family.

That afternoon, Ana and Stefan ate lunch at the Hermann Park Golf Course Grill. It was to be their last day together. Ana had gotten word out that she needed a ride to Waco, where she planned to spend at least that summer. One of the staff members at the grill, Carmen Pimentel, knew someone on Texas Southern University women's golf team, which was heading to Waco to play the Baylor University team. Pimentel arranged a ride for Ana with the team at seven that evening.

At the golf course, although Stefan paid for Ana's food and drinks, they kept a distance; much of the afternoon, Stefan sat alone outside, reading, while Ana played on her computer inside. At one point a golf pro stopped to talk to Stefan, and he mentioned that he was excited about a Sunday brunch date he had planned for the next day with Janette Jordan.

That afternoon, Jordan texted Stefan asking if they were still getting together the next day. “Looking forward to it. Where do you want to go?” he responded. A flurry of texts later, they'd decided on Backstreet Café, a popular restaurant built into an old house with a large backyard courtyard.

“I'll meet you there,” Jordan texted. “We'll eat outside.”

Stefan agreed. A short time later, Stefan's former father-in-law, Dick Swift, texted to tell Stefan that he was eating
lunch at one of their favorite restaurants, a chicken-fried-steak place in Oklahoma City. Years earlier, Dick and his wife had taken Stefan there. Despite the divorce, the two men had remained close friends.

“Are you there now?” Stefan asked.

“Yes, eat your heart out,” Swift texted back with a laugh.

Although it was her day off, waitress Erika Elizondo later dropped in at the grill with her children. When Ana saw the youngsters, she called them over, and she played a video of herself hosting a public-access program. Elizondo was concerned, asking what she'd shown them. “Is that woman famous?” one of the children asked.

“I don't know, baby,” Elizondo said. “But she may be one day.”

After they left the grill, Ana called James Wells to tell him that she was taking a cab to his apartment to collect her things. Wells agreed, and he brought Ana's possessions outside to the curb. He had suitcases, two boxes, a chair, some pictures, and a mirror in a silver frame that was shaped like the sun. The chair was an antique, heavily carved, with a black-leather seat.

The cab pulled up late that afternoon, and James and the driver loaded Ana's property into the trunk. When everything didn't fit, they made arrangements for a second trip. The entire time, Ana never looked at Wells, avoiding his gaze.

When she arrived in the cab the second time, they finished loading her baggage. Once the cab's trunk was closed, Ana turned to Wells. For a moment she acted like she thought she had more items inside his apartment, but he told her that was everything. Finally, she got into the cab's backseat, and he stood next to her at the open window. Reaching out, she took his hand, and folded three nickels inside his palm, squeezing his hand tightly around them.

Confused, Wells said, “You don't owe me anything. We're good. I just need you to get the help you need.”

“Something bad is going to happen,” she said, looking up at him.

“Ana, don't do anything stupid,” he told her.

“Put the nickels in the cupboard, or something bad is going to happen,” she said.

Wells frowned at her, and replied, “Ana, I'm not going to do that.”

Apparently angry that he would defy her, she reached for her seat belt, as if to unbuckle it and get out of the car saying, “You know, James, if you don't fucking do it, I'll do it myself.”

“All right,” he said, trying to calm her. “Okay, I'll do it.”

Moments later, she drove off. Inside his apartment, Wells never did as he'd agreed, leaving the nickels on a counter.

A
t 4:22 that afternoon, The Parklane's loading-dock-surveillance cameras recorded Ana and Stefan walking toward the freight elevator.

At 5:55, the cameras again picked them up, this time with the building's valet cart covered with Ana's boxes and suitcases, her mirror and chair. They pushed the load onto the elevator and took it to the storage area, where they put everything but Ana's three suitcases. They unloaded a second cartful six minutes later, then took the suitcases up to 18B. Ana's ride to Waco was supposed to arrive in an hour, leaving Stefan free to spend the evening and the summer as he pleased. After months of being shadowed, the many times he confided in friends of his fears about Ana, he must have finally thought that perhaps it was over, that she would be gone, and he would be able to resume his life.

But all didn't go as planned.

“I'm trying to find Ana a ride to Waco,” he told a friend on the phone, explaining that Ana was going to see her family. “She had a ride set up, but it fell through.”

Early that evening, Carmen Pimental called to deliver the bad news; Ana's scheduled ride to Waco had to be postponed
when the car filled up quickly, leaving no room for her and her luggage. Instead, Pimental had made arrangements for Ana to drive up the next morning with the coaches, at about seven. Stefan, apparently unhappy with the delay, tried to find another ride for her but ultimately failed. That meant he had one more night with Ana before she left Houston.

At seven fifteen that evening, the lobby cameras recorded Stefan and Ana walking off the elevator, dressed to go out for the evening. They both wore jeans, Stefan with a loose black shirt with a tequila logo embroidered on it and Ana a double black belt, a black-lace tank top, and a pair of cobalt-blue-suede stiletto heels.

On what was to be their final night together, Stefan took Ana to one of her favorite places, Bar 5015, where a month earlier they'd celebrated his fifty-ninth birthday. In the crush of the busy bar, they drank and hobnobbed with other patrons. Stefan quietly watched one of the televisions behind the bar, listened to the live music, and talked to a few of those seated around him, while Ana acted as if she were the guest of honor at a party, dancing on her barstool, flirting with the men around her, laughing loudly, smiling broadly, and fighting to be the center of attention.

At Bar 5015, the liquor bottles displayed on shelves behind the bartenders, a wooden deck with tables circling the building from which The Parklane was visible just blocks away, Stefan and Ana lingered for hours, sharing a twenty-five-dollar bottle of wine followed by six shots of Don Julio Silver tequila at $12 each. Stefan didn't like vodka, but Ana rounded out her evening with four eight-dollar shots of Absolut.

As the night wound to a close, at 1:37
A.M.
, Stefan called Yellow Cab, to arrange a ride to The Parklane. He then settled up the bar bill, which totaled $129. As was customary for him, he generously tipped $30, for a total of $159 on his credit card.

At that same time, Rosemary Gomez, a plainspoken woman with broad features, the mother of four grown
children, looked for her final fare of the night. Beside her in her cab sat her common-law husband, Reagan Cannon, who remodeled houses. Weekdays, Gomez covered the area around Houston's Intercontinental Airport, but the tips were better on weekends, shuffling revelers home from clubs and bars inside the city. As a woman, Gomez often didn't feel safe alone, and she sometimes brought Cannon with her, riding shotgun. On this night, dispatch tagged her at 1:37 for a pickup at Bar 5015, where a Mr. Andersson needed a ride.

Arriving at Bar 5015, Gomez pulled into the parking lot along the side of the building. With the club nearing closing time and clearing out, many of the spaces were already empty. A white-haired man waited, she lowered her window, and he came forward. “Are you Mr. Andersson?” she asked.

In his soft Swedish accent, Stefan answered, “Yes, can you give me a minute? I need to go get my friend.”