TRACE EVIDENCE: The Hunt for the I-5 Serial Killer (51 page)

“From a forensic pathology standpoint, I’d say it represented the assailant trying to subdue the victim when she was active. The assailant would be behind her, trying to hold her down or keep her still.”

The pathologist testified to finding a 5-inch contusion on the top of the victim’s head.

“What could have caused that wound?”

“Most likely a blow to the head, probably in an effort to subdue her.”

“Not enough to cause death in your opinion?”

“Oh, no.”

The pathologist testified he had been unable to determine if the victim had been sexually attacked due to decomposition and insect activity.

“Do you have an opinion as to the cause of death?”

“Ligature strangulation.”

On cross-examination, Dr. Sander was asked by Phil Kohn if the victim’s hair had been cut in any unusual manner.

“No, I didn’t notice anything like that.”

On the second day of trial, Drossel began with fingerprint testimony to document how Jane Doe had eventually been identified. After he’d asked only a few questions, Kohn announced that the defense was prepared to stipulate as to identification.

“All right,” said Judge Finney, dismissing the fingerprint expert on the stand.

In the eyes of the law and for the jury’s benefit, Jane Doe was now Darcie Frackenpohl.

The next witness,
Kim Quackenbush, a slight blonde with short hair, testified that in the summer of 1987 she’d known Darcie for about five months, and that they were working together as prostitutes in Sacramento in August of that year. At the time, Quackenbush was sixteen years old.

Quackenbush told of last seeing Darcie between 8:00 and 9:00
P.M.
on August 24, 1987, standing in an alley on West Capitol Avenue between Bank of America and Raley’s supermarket—where Darcie “always worked.”

“Did you ever see Darcie again?” Drossel asked.

“No, I never did.”

Quackenbush identified the pink dress and black chiffon jacket as what Darcie had been wearing that night.

Another prostitute friend of Darcie’s,
Carol Stockton, a big-boned redhead, took the stand. She, too, had seen Darcie in the alley around the same time, talking to someone in a parked vehicle.

“Can you describe the vehicle?” Drossel asked.

“A small, white
car. It looked foreign and new.”

She had recognized the car, Stockton went on, because she had exchanged words with the male driver, whom she considered a possible customer, a few minutes earlier.

“What happened with this potential customer?”

“I started to walk up to the window and he told me to get away from the car.”

“And where was his car located?”

“In the same alley.”

“What exactly did he say?”

“‘Get away from the car, bitch.’”

“And what was he doing?”

“Just sitting there, watching. He was looking up and down West Capitol.”

Drossel brought out that two years later, in August 1989, Stockton was shown a photo lineup by police.

“Did you pick out a person whom you thought was the person in the vehicle?”

“Yes.”

“Is that person in the courtroom?”

“Yes.”

“Would you point him out, please.”

She pointed to Roger Kibbe.

On cross-examination,
Kohn wanted to know if Stockton had seen a picture of Kibbe in a newspaper or somewhere else before she picked him out of the photo lineup.

“No, I hadn’t.”

“A year earlier, in June 1988, didn’t an investigator from the D.A.’s office interview you?”

“Yes.”

“Did he show you pictures?”

“Yeah. Of Darcie and her boyfriend.”

“That was it?”

“Yes.”

“Did he show you a picture of a small, white car?”

“No, I don’t remember.”

“Did he show you a picture of an older man?”

“He might have. I don’t remember.”

“Do you remember asking the investigator if the picture was of the man that raped and cut off that girl’s arms?”

“Yes, sir.”

Kohn had the investigator’s report in hand, and was using it to chip away at Stockton’s eyewitness credibility. If she had been shown a picture of Kibbe
before
the photo lineup and told this was the man responsible for Darcie’s murder, then Carol Stockton’s fingering him in the lineup and dramatically in court could just about be rolled up and drop-kicked down the courthouse steps.

“Then he did show you a picture of an older man?”

“He might have.”

“Do you remember him telling you that the man whose picture he showed you was in custody?”

“He said somebody had been arrested.”

“Going back to what you testified to—did you see Darcie get into the small, white vehicle?”

“No, I did not.”

“You went on to do something else?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I have no other questions.”

The next day’s testimony began with two employees of Public Storage. First up was Public Storage General Manager
Dennis Kissinger, who testified to hiring Roger and
Harriet Kibbe to manage the Tupelo facility.
He confirmed that they had a residence at the facility, and also had the use of storage units 427 and 428.

Doris Sampson, a relief manager for the Kibbes on their days off, testified to Roger’s having access to the white Hyundai, and also to Roger’s black eye in late August 1987.

“How do you happen to remember that particular time period?” Drossel asked.

“On Labor Day that year, I fell over a ramp and got a black eye. Roger and I had black eyes at the same time.”

“Did Mr. Kibbe tell you how he got his?”

“Said he’d been drinking in a tavern and was jumped by a couple of fellows.”

In his
testimony, Kissinger had said he’d noticed Kibbe’s black eye, too. Kibbe’s explanation to him, however, was different: he’d gotten into a fight at a truck stop.

Judy
Frackenpohl was called to the stand next.

As she was sworn in, Judy hoped that the tranquilizer she’d taken would see her through. From the moment
Jim Watson had called her in late April 1988 to say they were arresting a suspect in Darcie’s murder, Judy had dreaded this moment. In the intervening years, she’d learned more about her daughter’s death than she ever wanted to and was still trying to find a way to deal with her loss. And now, she had to face Darcie’s killer.

“Do you know Darcie Frackenpohl?” Drossel asked.

“She was my daughter.”

Judy looked for the first time at Roger Kibbe, who was sitting at the defense table with his head bowed. From what she could see, he seemed ordinary enough. A graying middle-aged guy working on a potbelly. If she’d passed him on the street she would have taken him for a tradesman of some kind who drank beer and watched weekend sports on TV.

“When was the last time you personally saw Darcie?”

“On the 30th of July, 1987.”

“And was there a special occasion?”

“It was her brother’s birthday. We all went out to dinner.”

Judy tried to stay focused on the prosecutor, but her eyes kept wandering to the defense table. The man they said had murdered Darcie hadn’t moved. She wanted him to look at her, dammit—to see a grieving mother.

“In August of 1987 did you receive a telephone call from Darcie?”

“Yes, I did. She called home collect on August 23rd from Sacramento.”

“And what was the topic of the conversation?”

“She just called to let me know she was okay because she did that frequently.”

“After August 23rd, did you hear from her again?”

“No.”

Judy knew she wasn’t going to lose it emotionally now because she had too much anger boiling inside her. She was pissed that the defendant was sitting there like a stone statue, not giving her or her
testimony any notice.

“Did you think it unusual not to hear from her?”

“Yes, I did.”

“I have no further questions.”

On cross,
Phil Kohn asked her a couple of questions about
James Brown, obviously hoping to point a finger of suspicion at him.

Then it was over.

She was excused, and stepped down. She walked slowly between the two tables—one manned by the prosecutor and the other by the defense lawyers and their client.

She slowed, hoping he would look up.

Roger Kibbe never did.

U
NTIL
Debra Guffie walked into the courtroom the morning of the third day of testimony to point her finger at Roger Kibbe in another criminal proceeding, prosecutor Bob Drossel did not know if she’d even show up, or if she did, what shape she would be in when she took the stand.

Guffie was in an outpatient drug treatment program, but there had been telltale signs not all was well in her life. For one thing, she’d constantly leaned on Drossel for money, which he refused to provide, knowing that would transform her overnight from victim to paid informant.

Drossel approached his own witness with some trepidation.

“I would like to draw your attention to the early part of September 1987.”

“Yes.”

“Is it correct to state that in 1987 you were a prostitute?”

“Yes.”

“How long had you been a prostitute?”

“For about ten years.”

“And in 1987 you were supporting a drug habit?”

“Yes.”

“What type of drug?”

“Heroin.”

“You were an addict?”

“Yes.”

“What is your present addiction status?”

“I’m in a crisis program. I’m with child and I want to have a drug-free baby.”

Guffie testified that around 3:00
A.M.
, “after the bars closed,” on September 14, 1987, she’d been picked up by a lone man driving a small white
car and taken to the golf course parking lot.

“Is the driver of that vehicle in the courtroom today?”

“Yes.”

“Would you point him out, please?”

“The gentleman with the blue-and-white-striped shirt.”

Roger Kibbe.

Drossel had noticed that Kibbe seldom looked at the witnesses. Whenever his attention wasn’t riveted on the top of the table where he sat, he was openly staring at the court reporter, an attractive woman in her late thirties. The prosecutor wondered how that made
Sylvia Falkenstein feel.

On the short drive, the man “hardly said anything” and “seemed angry.” She said she tried to cheer him up.

“What did you say?”

“‘How did you do today? You can’t be mad today.’”

She described the attack once they had parked: his grabbing her right hand and trying to handcuff her; grabbing her hair and smashing her face down, then telling her, “Don’t struggle and you won’t get hurt, cunt.”

When she finished, she was choking back tears.

“Would you like some water?” the judge asked.

“No, thank you.”

“What happened then?” Drossel asked.

“I was just—I was very frightened because of the tone of his voice when he told me not to struggle.”

“What was his tone?”

“It was very cold, like a monotone. It was very frightening.”

Drossel hoped the jurors would appreciate the source. If this hard-as-nails lady of the night who had seen it all over a ten-year period had been so unnerved by the tone of Kibbe’s voice, then it must truly have been ominous.

She told of managing to get the door open, and falling and being half pushed out the door, then the police car pulling up and taking off after the fleeing white car.

When it was time for cross-examination, defense attorney
Phil Kohn stepped forward, his yellow notepad in hand. He had long anticipated cross-examining this witness, believing her vulnerable, but when it came time to do so he would just as soon have publicly questioned the true intentions of Quasimodo.

Guffie had admitted at a
pretrial hearing that she had testified at the
assault trial under the influence of heroin. She had looked terrible at the preliminary hearing on the murder charge, even though the cops were trying to keep her clean. Kohn knew she hated
Kibbe and her anger was close to the surface, and he was fully prepared to rake her over the coals as a bitter and prejudicial witness. But then he’d run into her in the hallway that morning before she testified. She no longer had spiky hair; she was pregnant and showing and dressed in a maternity smock; she was wearing an “I Love Jesus” button. After engaging her in casual conversation, Kohn realized that Guffie had also mellowed considerably—no doubt part of her newfound religion. Kohn knew she would come off sympathetically, and that he’d have to handle her carefully in front of the jury.

When his cross began, Kohn asked Guffie if she had been an “angry person back in 1987.”

“Not really, sir. Confused. Afraid.”

“Mr. Kibbe originally asked you to pose for pictures and you indicated that had he given you any money for that purpose, you were going to rip him off.”

“Yes.”

“So, you were going to take the money he was going to give you and not pose for the pictures.”

“Yes.”

Kohn raced through pages of questions, asking one or two on each page. There wasn’t much he could do with her, other than bring out that she had been arrested the night of the assault on an outstanding warrant. He just wanted her gone.

When he went back to the defense table, Kohn took his seat beside Kibbe, who showed no emotion. Although Kohn had found Kibbe to be bright and friendly in their discussions, he was not participating very much in his own defense. For weeks leading up to trial, Kibbe had been on a
suicide watch, with jailers passing by his cell every thirty minutes, night and day. The head of El Dorado County’s jails, Lt.
Jerry Tackett, was a friend of Steve Kibbe’s, and Tackett watched out for his celebrity inmate. With the eating habits of a ten year old, Kibbe ate nothing but peanut butter sandwiches, bananas, chocolate bars, and Coke. Just before trial, jailers
brought him a pizza, which he loved. In his cell, he watched TV—talk shows and soap operas; he hated sports—and played Game Boy. The attitude of his jailers was to indulge him; whatever it took to keep him amused and not suicidal. As for his crimes, Roger had acknowledged to Kohn having impulses he couldn’t control, as close to an admission of guilt as he came. Kohn had decided, already, that he would not put Kibbe on the witness stand.