The Stranger Beside Me (39 page)

Ted Bundy had arrived on the Florida State University Campus on Sunday morning, January 8, 1978, and settled into his room at the Oak. Unheralded, unrecognized, he moved about the campus, sometimes even sitting in on classes, eating in the cafeteria, playing racquet ball in the athletic complex south of the campus proper. He knew no one and no one knew him; to the rest of the inhabitants of the college society, he was only a shadowy figure-a nobody.

The Chi Omega sorority house, a sprawling L-shaped edifice of brick and frame, is located at 661 W. Jefferson only a few blocks away from the Oak, but it is a world apart-expensively constructed, clean, decorated with impeccable taste, one of the top sororities on campus, and home for thirty-nine coeds and a housemother.

I had pledged Chi Omega-another in the string of coincidences that have seemed to bind me to Ted-pledged it, indeed, way back in 1950 in its Nu Delta chapter on the Willamette University campus in Salem, Oregon. I remember the white carnations, the treasured pin with the owl and the skull, and, through the odd computer indexes of the brain, remember even the secret password. But that was in the days when sentiment reigned, when we gathered breathlessly on the house balcony to hear serenades from fraternity boys, much as the first Chi O's did when the sorority was founded in the deep South. The girls who lived in the Chi O House in Tallahassee were young enough to be my daughters. The Chi Omega House on West Jefferson was the college home for the most beautiful, the brightest, the most popular, and, as always, the

"legacies," pledged because their mothers and grandmothers had been Chi O's before them. Where we had been honor bound to be safely home by 8:00 P.M. on week nights and 1*00 A.M. on weekends, there were no curfews in 1978. Eacn resident had memorized the combination lock to the back dâor, a door which opened into the rec room on the first floor. They could come and go at will, and. on Saturday night, January 14, 1978, most of the girls who lived in the sorority were out very late-into the wee hours of the morning. There were several "keggers" on campus that night, functions that we had referred to as "beer busts," and many 264

of the Chi O's were slightly intoxicated when they arrived home. Perhaps that may explain in part how the horror could happen only thin walls away from the girls who were spared, without their hearing so much as a footfall.

The downstairs of the Chi Omega House contained the rec room, and, to the west of it, a formal living room, seldom used except to entertain visiting alumni and during rush week. Beyond that, there was the dining room and kitchen. There were two "back" staircases, one leading up to the sleeping rooms from the rec room-the route usually taken by girls returning home late-and one opening off the kitchen. The front staircase led up from the foyer just inside the double front doors. The foyer was papered in a bright metallic blue and was illuminated by a chandelier, illuminated quite brightly according to the witnesses who would testify later.

For parents, sending their cherished daughters off to college, there would seem no safer place than a sorority house, full of other girls, watched over by a housemother, doors always locked. The only male usually allowed upstairs was Ronnie Eng, the houseboy who'd been dubbed the

"sorority sweetheart." All the Chi O's were fond of Ronnie, a dark, slender, shy young man.

On that Saturday, most of the girls who lived in the Chi Omega House had plans for the evening. Margaret Bowman, twenty-one, daughter of a wealthy and socially prominent family in St. Petersburg, Florida, was going out on a blind date at 9:30, a date arranged for her by her friend and sorority sister, Melanie Nelson. Lisa Levy, twenty, also from St. Petersburg, had worked all day at her parttime job, and she decided she'd like to go out for a little while. Lisa and Melanie went to a popular campus disco-Sherrod's-which is located right next door to the Chi Omega House, at 10:00 P.M.

Karen Chandler and Kathy Kleiner, who were roommates in number 8 in the sorority, went in opposite directions that evening. Karen went home to cook dinner for her parents, and returned before midnight to work on a sewing project in her room. Kathy Kleiner attended a wedding with her fiancé, and then went out to dinner with friends. Both of them were in their beds and sound asleep before midnight. Nita Neary and Nancy Dowdy had dates too that night. They would not

THE STRANGER BESIDE ME 265

return until late. "Mom" Crenshaw, the housekeeper, retired around 11:00. She was on call if her girls needed her.

Lisa Levy was tired from her day's work and stayed only about half an hour at Sherrod's. Then she left, alone, and walked next door to the Chi O House and went to bed in number 4; her roommate had gone home for the weekend.

Sherrod's many levels were crowded that night, as they always were on weekends. Melanie sat with another sorority sister, Leslie Waddell, and Leslie's bovfriend, a Sigma Chi.

Mary Ann Piccano was at Sherrod's that night too, accompanied by her apartment mate, Connie Hastings. Mary Ann had a somewhat disturbing encounter with a man she had never seen before. The slender, brown-haired man had stared at her until she grew uncomfortable. There was something about the way his eyes bore into her that made her skin crawl. At length, he had come over to her table, bringing her a drink, and asked her to dance. He was handsome enough, and there was no rational reason for her to feel so wary, no reason to refuse really; Sherrod's was a place where one often danced with strangers. But, as she rose to join him on the dance floor, she whispered to Connie, "I think I'm about to dance with an ex-con . . ."

During the dance, he did or said nothing to substantiate her gut feeling about him, but she found herself trembling. She couldn't look at him and when the music finally ended, she had returned gratefully to her table. When she looked for him later, he was gone. Melanie, Leslie, and her friend left Sherrod's a little after 2:00 when it closed, and walked next door. When they reached the back door, Melanie commented to Leslie that the combination lock wasn't working. "This is strange," she murmured. "The door isn't locked." Leslie only shrugged. They had been having trouble with the door's closing and locking tightly for the past few days. The trio walked through the rec room, lighted now with only a few dim ta%le lamps. Margaret Bowman was already home and was waiting in the rec room, anxious to talk to Melanie about her»date. Leslie's boyfriend didn't have a ride home, and Margaret loaned Leslie the keys to her car.

Melanie and Margaret walked to Melanie's room, discussing the events of Margaret's date while Melanie got into her pajamas. Then they walked to Margaret's room, number 9, and continued talking as Margaret undressed.

266

Nancy Dowdy returned from her dinner date a few minutes after Melanie and Leslie did; she too found the door mechanism ineffective and tried to make sure the door was shut tight. She paused for a moment at the top of the front stairs to say "goodnight" to Melanie and Margaret, and then went to bed. She was asleep by 2:15.

It was 2:35 A.M. exactly on Margaret's clock when Melanie said

"goodnight" to her. Margaret wore only her bra and panties at that time. Melanie shut the door to Margaret's room tightly, heard it click, and then walked down the hall to the bathroom where she chatted with another sorority sister, Terry Murphree, who had just gotten off work at Sherrod's.

The time sequence would become extremely important. Melanie Nelson had a digital clock in her room, and she glanced at it as she turned out the light; it was 2:45 A.M. She was asleep almost at once.

It was 3:00 A.M. when Nita Neary arrived at the Chi Omega House, accompanied by her boyfriend. They had attended one of the beer parties on campus, but Nita had had only a few beers; she had a cold and wasn't feeling very well.

When Nita came to the back door, she found it standing open. This didn't particularly alarm her; she too was aware that it hadn't been working right. Nita stepped inside and moved through the rec room, turning off the lights. Suddenly, she heard a loud "thump!" Her first thought was that her date had tripped and fallen on his way to his car. She ran to the window, but saw that he was fine, just getting into his vehicle. A moment later, she heard running footsteps in the corridor above. Nita moved to the doorway leading into the foyer, hidden there from anyone coming down the front stairs. She could see the foyer well; the chandelier was still lit. The double white front doors were about sixteen feet away.

The footsteps sounded on the front stairway now, running. And then she saw him, a slender man, wearing a dark jacket. A navy blue knit cap (what she called a "Toboggan") something like a watch cap, was pulled down over the top half of his face. She saw him only in profile, but she could make out a sharp nose.

The man was crouched over, his left hand on the doorknob. And. in his right hand, incredibly, he held a club, a club that seemed to be a log. She could see it was rough, as

267

if covered with bark. At the base of the club, where he held it, there was some cloth wrapped around it.

One second. Two. Three . . . and the door was open and the man was gone. Thoughts flashed through Nita Neary's mind. She hadn't had time to be frightened. She thought, "We've been burglarized ... or maybe one of the girls had the nerve to sneak somebody upstairs." The only man who she was used to seeing around the sorority house was Ronnie Eng, and for a moment, she wondered, "What was Ronnie doing here?" She hadn't seen the man's eyes at all, only that glimpse, now frozen in her conscious mind, of the crouching figure with the club. She ran up the stairs and woke her roommate, Nancy Dowdy. "There's someone in the house, Nancy! I just saw a man leave."

Nancy grabbed the first thing at hand-her umbrella-and the two girls tiptoed downstairs. They checked the front door and found it locked; Nita had shut and locked the rear door when she came in. They debated what they should do. Call the police? Wake Mom Crenshaw? Nothing seemed to be missing. Nothing seemed to be wrong. Nita demonstrated to Nancy the way the man had crouched, described the club. "At first, I thought it was Ronnie, but this man was larger and taller than Ronnie." They walked back up the stairs, still discussing what they should do. As they reached the top, they saw Karen Chandler come out of number 8 and begin to run down the hall. She was staggering and she held her head in both hands. They assumed she was ill, and Nancy ran after her. Karen's head was covered with blood, blood that streamed down over her face, and she seemed to be delirious. Nancy led her into her own room and gave her a towel to help staunch the flow of blood. Nita ran to wake Mom Crenshaw, and then went into number 8, the roo|a Karen shared with Kathy Kleiner. Kathy sat in her bed, hokling her head in her hands. She was moaning unintelligibly afcd blood gushed from her head too.

Nancy Dowdy dialed 911, almost hysterical herself, and said that help was needed at once at the Chi Omega House at

661 West Jefferson. The first call was garbled. The dispatcher understood that "two females were fighting over a boyfriend." That was the way Tallahassee Police officer Oscar Brannon

268

received the call. "To my sadness," he would later remark, "I found out differently."

Brannon was a mile or two away from the Chi O House and arrived at 3:23

A.M. Within three minutes, he was joined hy a fellow Tallahassee officer, Henry Newkirk, Florida State University police officers Ray Crew and Bill Taylor, and paramedics from Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. Neither the officers nor the paramedics had any idea what lay ahead of them.

Brannon and Taylor remained downstairs and got a description of the man Nita had seen and broadcast it to all units working the area; Crew and Newkirk ran upstairs. Mrs. Crenshaw and eight or ten of the girls were milling around in the hall. They pointed to Karen and Kathy; both girls seemed to be terribly injured.

Paramedics Don Allen, Amelia Roberts, Lee Phinney, and Garry Matthews were directed to the second floor where the victims lay moaning. Allen and Roberts worked on Kathy Kleiner. Kathy was conscious, but she had lacerations and puncture wounds on her face, a broken jaw, broken teeth, possible skull fractures. Someone had given her a container to catch the blood that gushed from her mouth. She called for her boyfriend and for her pastor. She had no idea at all what had happened to her; she'd been sound asleep.

Allen's supervisor, Lee Phinney, moved to help Karen Chandler. She too had a broken jaw, broken teeth, possible fractures of the skull, and cuts. The paramedics fought to open an airway for both the injured girls to keep them from choking to death on their own blood. The injured girls' room-number 8-looked like an abattoir, with blood sprayed on the light walls. Bits of bark-oak bark-covered their pillows and bedclothing.

Karen did not remember anything either. She too had been sleeping when the man had hammered blows on her head.

Pandemonium reigned. While the other policemen moved down the corridor, checking room by room, Officer Newkirk gathered the girls into number 2. No one could answer his questions; no one had heard a thing. Officer Ray Crew came to number 4, Lisa Levy's room, with Mrs. Crenshaw trailing behind. Lisa had gone to bed around 11:00 and she apparently hadn't awakened, despite the chaos on the second floor. Crew opened Lisa's door. He

THE STRANGER BESIDE ME 269

saw her lying on her right side, the covers pulled up over her shoulders. The housemother told Crew her name.

"Lisa?"

There was no answer. "Lisa! Wake up!" Crew called. The figure on the bed didn't move at all. Crew reached out to shake her shoulder gently, started to roll her over on her back. It was then that he observed a small blood stain on the sheet beneath her. He turned to Mrs. Crenshaw and said tightly, "Get the medics."

Don Allen grabbed his gear and ran to Lisa. The paramedic checked for a pulse, and found none. He pulled her i oato the floor, and immediately began mouth-to-mouth resus: citation and cardio-pulmonary massage. Lisa's complexion was pallid, her lips blue, her skin already cooling, and yet the i paramedics could not see exactly what was wrong with her. She wore only a nightgown; her panties lay on the floor