TRACE EVIDENCE: The Hunt for the I-5 Serial Killer (28 page)

Armstrong worked
Vice, which is where Maulsby met him when she worked the same detail. He spent lots of time dealing with prostitutes on the stroll in the shadows of the state capitol building. Even though Armstrong regularly busted them and their pimps and Johns, Maulsby knew that he had earned the trust of many working girls because he cared.

Picking at her salad while Armstrong dug into a thick pastrami and rye with gusto, Maulsby talked about having gotten her feet wet on the I-5 investigation.

“We’re looking for a guy who picks his victims based on opportunity,” she explained. “He comes across a stranded motorist, someone who is lost on the highway, whoever he can find that he likes. I can only guess how much time he spends driving around window shopping.”

Armstrong, intent on his sandwich, nodded.

“So I’m thinking, Bobby, who are the greatest victims of opportunity?”

“Working girls.” He was paying attention.

“Right.

“We’ve had only one possible prostitute victim so far, but it makes sense we might have more. If he sees one he likes, you know, they’d be easy enough to get in his car. I’m wondering if you’ve heard anything on the stroll?”

“Just the usual. You know, a John who doesn’t pay, an out-of-control pimp, that kind of thing.”

“Do me a favor, Bobby. Let me know if you hear anything from the girls on the street or if anything comes across your desk that seems out of the ordinary. You know, some weird guy they’re having troubles with.”

“Happy to, Kay.” The sandwich had mysteriously disappeared. He asked how she liked Homicide.

Maulsby tried to stifle a schoolgirl grin but was unsuccessful. “As much as I always knew I would. I feel like there’s nothing I can be doing that’s more important.”

Armstrong found the grin highly contagious.

I
N THE
wee hours of September 14, 1987, Debra Ann Guffie, a willowy blonde who had turned twenty-nine two days earlier, stood on the curb at the corner of Auburn Boulevard and Howe Avenue in Sacramento. Wearing tight blue jeans and a red T-shirt, she had no trouble attracting attention as she boldly made eye contact with male drivers passing by.

Business had not been good the past couple of nights. She had a “trick pad” at the Ritz Motel down the street, but was not making ends meet. She’d gone seven or eight hours without banging her arm; her nose was starting to run, her legs ached, and she was having the cold sweats. After a decade of working the streets to support her heroin habit, she knew the signs. She needed to get some money fast.

Shortly after midnight, a light-colored compact car pulled over. The middle-aged male driver reached over and opened the passenger door for her.

She peered in.

“You dating?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “I have a room nearby.”

He shook his head. “No room. I’ve had bad experiences. I know a place up the road where we can park.”

“Okay with me.”

She climbed in, figuring she’d give the old guy some head—that’s all
you could really do in a small car—and make enough to buy a $25 bag of heroin from a regular supplier, and use his rig to shoot up. If she was lucky, she could be back on the corner ready for business in an hour, feeling a whole lot better than she did right now.

They drove down Auburn Boulevard a short distance, then crossed over the freeway.

Debra always made a point of being sociable with her Johns. She could hear herself babbling now—she talked fast normally, but when she was in early withdrawal her words sped up even more. The conversation was one-sided, however, as the man said nothing until they entered a darkened golf course parking lot and he’d parked and turned off the lights.

He took a long look at her.

“I’m into photography,” he said softly. “Will you pose nude for me tonight?”

“All depends. How much?”

“Fifteen hundred.”

As ill as she felt, Debra wanted to crack up.
Fifteen hundred dollars
to photograph what she gave away for fifty bucks every night? Right, and his name is Hugh Hefner and he’s going to make her Playmate of the Year. She thought she’d heard it all, but this guy really took the cake.

She called his bluff. “I need fifty bucks up front,” she said, fully intending to take whatever money he handed over and stiff the old guy. She knew he would have done the same to her after taking his dirty pictures.

“I’ve only got twenty-five.”

“That’s not enough.”

“Is twenty-five enough for a blow job?”

Now he was getting down to business.

“I usually get thirty. But yeah, why not?” As much as she needed the money—she had less than three dollars to her name—she wasn’t going to quibble and lose the John.

She was sitting so close to the dash that she leaned forward to find the release and move her seat back. She had her hand on the handle, but couldn’t get it to budge.

She swore, as she was going to have to operate in tight quarters. “Guess that’s as far as it goes.”

“No, it goes back more.”

He leaned toward her as if to help. But instead, his left hand in one swift motion grabbed her right wrist and twisted her arm painfully.

At the same instant, she heard a metallic click that scared her as much as the sudden violence.

She said, “No!” in the assertive yell of a dog trainer, and in a sharp reflex found the strength to break his grasp and pull her arm back. As she did, she turned toward him and saw he had handcuffs in his other hand.

Her right hand flew for the door handle. It was locked. She knew she hadn’t locked it when she climbed in—she never did that in case she wanted to bail.

In the next instant, he grabbed a handful of her long hair and slammed her face hard into his lap.

She felt the coarseness of his jeans against her cheek, and could smell urine and stale sweat.

“Please—don’t hurt me.” She was begging now. “You don’t need to do this. I’ll do anything you want. Just don’t
hurt me
.”

He had been so timid before he turned, with no sign of weird or hostile behavior, that she hoped he could be reasoned with.

“Don’t struggle and you won’t get hurt, cunt.”

A chill cut through her. His voice had taken on a completely different sound. It was the voice of someone who meant business; a mean voice she could never trust no matter what it told her. If she stayed here, she knew she
would
get hurt. Real bad.

Fuck begging. She exploded with all the manic energy that had been coursing through her for hours, screaming hysterically, flailing legs and arms—her right hand had not stopped clawing for the door lock—squirming and jerking her head, shoulders, and body like a human bronco.

At that moment her fingers found the lock. She pulled the lever and the door handle below it. Feeling the door give way, she pushed it open with all her might.

His hold on her hair was so strong that she thought he would pull out a hunk, but she didn’t care. Ignoring the searing pain, she pulled against him in a tug-of-war for her life. At the same time, she thrust her feet and legs out the open door and willed the rest of her body to follow.

The man kept his death grip on her hair as Debra Guffie’s screams pierced the night air.

Thirteen

S
ergeant
Charles Coffelt of the
Sacramento Police Department was cruising slowly through the darkened maintenance yard in the rear of
Haggins Oaks Golf Course.

Coffelt wheeled into a narrow alleyway between two metal buildings, heading quickly for the front lot. He radioed his location and reported that he was investigating loud screaming.

A field supervisor on the graveyard shift, Coffelt had a patrol team working under him. Still, whenever possible he led by example. As a detective earlier in the year, he knew about nighttime thefts from the golf course’s maintenance buildings, so he made a point of cruising through the area several times a week to check on security.

As Coffelt swung his cruiser into the front lot, he saw a light-colored, four-door compact vehicle parked in the dimly lit lot about 150 feet away with its passenger door flung open. A figure was half in and half out of the car.

He headed his patrol car straight for the compact. It appeared to Coffelt as if a woman was struggling to pull herself out of the car as a man behind the wheel was trying to keep her inside. As they fought, she continued to scream.

When he had closed to within 75 feet, the beams of his headlights lit up the car. Coffelt could see that the man was holding the woman by her long blond hair.

Suddenly, she came flying out of the vehicle, with her momentum carrying her several feet away from the car. She fell hard on the pavement on her hands and knees.

The white car shot ahead, its passenger door ajar.

The decision to go after the car or first check on the woman’s condition was made easy for Coffelt by the fact that the car was heading toward the rear of the parking lot, where the patrol sergeant knew there was no exit.

Coffelt rolled up next to the woman.

“You all right, ma’am?”

“He—he”—she was hysterical and crying—“tried to
handcuff
me! He’s—crazy!”

She picked herself up off the ground.

“Get that
sicko!
He would’ve killed me!”

The driver of the white car had realized his dilemma and whipped a U-turn near where Coffelt’s patrol unit had charged through the two maintenance buildings like the 7th Cavalry.

The white car zipped past them, accelerating as it headed for the only way out of the parking lot.

“Stay here,” the patrol sergeant barked.

Coffelt went after the car, which after clearing the lot turned onto the surface street and headed for the freeway overpass. Activating his red lights, he tucked in behind the fleeing car at the overpass.

The car turned right at the first intersection they came to, pulled over to the shoulder, and stopped, with Coffelt right behind.

Coffelt illuminated the suspect car—a new Hyundai bearing California plates—with his spotlight. He put out on the air the license number, their location, and a request for backup. He could see that the driver had remained upright behind the wheel.

Given the circumstances of the chase, Coffelt decided to conduct a high-risk vehicle stop. He opened his driver’s door, crouched behind it, and drew his service revolver. Aiming his gun at the Hyundai, he would stay where he was until other units arrived.

It didn’t take long.

This was a busy location, with the freeway a dividing line between Sacramento city and unincorporated county—everything on one side belonged to the city and everything on the other to the county. Two sheriff’s patrol cars, monitoring Coffelt’s transmissions, happened to be closest and arrived first.

One unit pulled up to the left of Coffelt’s patrol car, throwing more light on the Hyundai. The other unit came up behind him and turned his lights out so that Coffelt would not be silhouetted.

The deputy on the left crouched behind his door, with his weapon pointed at the Hyundai. The deputy in the back was watching the opposite
side of the Hyundai with his gun drawn, too. In this way, each deputy had a line of fire that did not go through Coffelt.

In this situation, it was standard procedure that the officer initiating the stop, regardless of rank, was in command and directed the activities of the other officers. It kept things safer that way, rather than having someone new to the situation arrive and start making wrong decisions.

Even though none of his own troops had arrived yet, Coffelt was ready. Over his loudspeaker he ordered the driver of the Hyundai to turn off the engine and throw the keys out, then keep his hands in sight outside the window.

The driver obeyed.

“While still keeping your hands out the window,” Coffelt’s voice boomed through the rooftop speaker, “open up the door using the outside handle.”

In this way, Coffelt would not lose sight of the suspect’s hands. He didn’t want the guy reaching down into the darkened car and coming up with any nasty surprises.

When the door was open, he told the driver to exit the car and walk up the street for about four or five feet.

The driver did as he was told.

“Now get down on your knees and lie on your stomach with your hands extended out to the sides of your body.”

Coffelt started his approach, not taking a direct route to the suspect but walking alongside his own unit, then going to the rear of the suspect’s car, where he could see inside the vehicle for anyone else.

In a crouch, he came around the driver’s side. As he did, he dragged the palm of his hand across the trunk lid to feel for movement inside.

When he reached the suspect, Coffelt ordered him not to move. He took one of the man’s hands and held it behind his back, which would aid him in controlling the suspect should he try to get up off the ground. He then directed the man to put his other hand behind his head.

Coffelt slapped the cuffs on the suspect.

By then, several of Coffelt’s patrol officers had arrived. Coffelt helped the suspect up off the ground, and patted him down for weapons.

“What’s your name?” Coffelt asked.

The suspect, a middle-aged man with graying hair, kept his head bowed and said nothing.

Coffelt handed him off to another officer to place in the secured rear seat of a patrol car.

The sergeant leaned inside the Hyundai, sweeping the powerful beam
of his flashlight across the seats and floorboards. When he turned around, he was surprised to see the young woman from the parking lot.

“I was afraid to be alone back there,” said Debra Guffie, nervously eyeing the man in the backseat of the patrol car.

She explained that she had run from the lot and followed the flashing lights. As she spoke, she was trying to light a cigarette but her hands trembled so much that she was having great difficulty. Finally, she got it lit and took a couple of puffs, which seemed to steady her a bit.

“He pushed me out of the car when he saw you,” she explained. “Threw my purse and jacket out, too.”