"7:10 - 'I'm having gas problems.'
pm
-I asked where boys were & said I'd pick them up.
-He says - 'I'll handle it & hangs up." The second notation on the paper read:
"8:00 SW Canyon Lane - IGA mkt
-at IGA - at Mobil (tho closed)"
Around 7:30 p.m., defendant called Hermens and told her that the victim was coming to the apartment to pick up the children. Between 7:30 and 7:35 p.m., one of defendant's acquaintances saw him in the Madison Towers parking garage. Defendant was walking toward the door of the parking garage with his four-year-old son, Travis. Defendant was wearing "nice, casual attire," and had his keys in his hand. Hermens tried to call defendant at his apartment at 8:00 p.m. and again at 8:30 p.m., but he did not answer the phone. According to Tyler, who was then six years old, after defendant and the children returned to the apartment that evening, they began to watch the movie, "The Sword and the Stone." Defendant left with Travis about half way through the movie, leaving Tyler and two-year-old Spencer alone. (3) According to Tyler, defendant returned to the apartment shortly after the movie ended and said that he had been jogging. Defendant went into the kitchen and washed dishes, and Tyler then began watching a part of the movie, "Rambo," on broadcast television. Given Tyler's description of the scene that was playing when he first began watching the later movie, the time was then between 8:53 and 8:58 p.m.
Hermens called defendant at 9:00 p.m., and defendant answered. His voice was high-pitched, his speech was rapid, and he was out of breath. He told Hermens that he had been downstairs waiting for the victim. At about 9:15 p.m., another resident of the apartment complex saw defendant enter the parking garage with a child about four or five years of age. Defendant wore shorts and a tee-shirt. He was barefoot, and his hair was wet. Meanwhile, the victim had been murdered. Shortly after 8:00 p.m., a resident on a street that intersected the Sunset Highway--three tenths of a mile from the IGA store and Mobil station mentioned in the victim's note and telephone call--saw the victim's van across from his house, facing the freeway. That witness saw what appeared to be two people in the front of the van and a child in the back. After he went into his house, he heard some sounds, including the sound of a dog barking. Another resident on the same street was leaving for work around 8:00 p.m. and saw a van idling in the street facing the highway. He thought there was a man in the driver's seat. A third resident reported that, shortly after 8:00 p.m., she heard muffled banging or thumping from the area toward the front of her house, like a rubber hammer hitting something. A dog started barking. She looked out her window but did not see anything. At about 8:30 p.m., the victim's body was found in her van. The van had traveled down the intersecting side street into the eastbound lanes of the Sunset Highway leading into Portland and crashed on the highway. A motorist on the highway stopped traffic and attempted to rescue the victim from the van. He found the victim head first on the passenger floorboard, with her feet on the driver's seat. The motorist also observed an infant car seat in the van and attempted to locate an infant, but failed to find one. He noted that the van was still running and that a purse had been stuffed onto the accelerator. Paramedics arrived several minutes later and reported the victim dead on the scene. Investigating officers noted a substantial amount of blood spatter in the van. They also observed that the victim had numerous injuries that were not consistent with being caused by a vehicle accident. (4) They concluded that the victim had been murdered and that the murderer had attempted to cause a vehicular accident on the Sunset Highway and make it appear that the victim had died in the accident. An autopsy later showed that the victim died of head injuries. Both her upper and lower jaws were fractured, and there was evidence of approximately 25 blows. Around 11:00 p.m. on the night of the murder, police officers went to defendant's apartment. When the officers told defendant that the victim was dead, he asked if she had been in a vehicle accident. Defendant told the officers that he had last seen the victim on Friday evening, two days before the murder, when he picked up their children for his weekend visitation with them. He stated that he had called the victim around 7:00 or 7:30 p.m. on the evening of the murder and told her he was running late and that the children were watching "The Sword and the Stone." He stated that he called the victim again about an hour later, and she said that she was going to come to his apartment to pick up the children. Defendant further stated that the only time he had left his apartment that evening was to put something in his car.Early the next morning, September 22, defendant called the acquaintance who had seen him and Travis in the garage the previous evening, asking her if she recalled seeing him at 8:00 the evening before, carrying boxes. She replied that it had been 7:30 p.m., and that he had not been carrying boxes.
After the murder, defendant told his former girlfriend, Stevenson, that he had called the victim on the evening of the murder to tell her about his car trouble. He stated that the victim did not care that the children would not be returned because she had someone with her. He told Stevenson that he had decided to keep the children for the night because the victim was not interested in having them back and had been drinking. He also said that the victim had called him that evening demanding that he return the children, but he had refused. He told Stevenson that he had been out of the apartment with Travis to get a blanket from the car because the children would be spending the night. Defendant later told Hermens--contrary to what he had told her on the evening of the murder (viz., that he had been downstairs waiting for the victim)--that he had been out of the apartment with Travis doing errands and putting shoes into his car.In the days following the murder, defendant instructed staff at his office not to disclose information about his whereabouts to the police. He also expressed concerns that the victim's mother posed some sort of threat to him and the children. Defendant arranged for the children to be moved out of state. He spoke derisively of the victim after the murder, suggesting that she had probably been killed by someone she had picked up in a bar. Defendant told Hermens that the victim had been nasty to the children and that they would not miss her. Several days after the murder, Hermens observed a large bruise on defendant's left arm. Defendant said that he got the bruise on the day of the murder when playing at a park with the children. (5) Defendant was tried on a charge of murder, in a trial lasting from October 27 to December 22, 1994.