Experts blamed the school murders on video games, guns, and working parents, but cops know better. Sometimes evil is so cunning that no amount of prevention can keep it from occurring, but even though there are times evil cannot be stopped, it can be curtailed. That is where cops come in, and despite the bad press, the American police officer is the greatest, most balanced peace keeper in the history of mankind. Evil happens, but it the goal of law enforcement to prevent, control, and isolate it whenever possible.
In addition to record school violence that year, there were natural disasters. Caddo Parish hosted an F4 tornado on Easter, April 3, 1999. The tornado slammed into downtown Shreveport before crossing the river into Bossier Parish where it unleashed most of its wrath. The First Methodist Church in downtown Shreveport lost its steeple for the first, but not last time, and historical buildings on the river front were destroyed, but far worse than material damage, seven people were killed and 112 were injured.
By May, things were quieter but not for long. Late one Wednesday night, Detective Jay Long was the on call detective in Caddo Parish. Jay was called to Greenwood, Louisiana on a stabbing.
A stabbing call has many possibilities, and Jay ran through them in his mind as he drove to the scene. He thought about who to notify, securing the crime scene, and locating the knife. Was the victim a battered wife? Where was her husband or boyfriend? Mental preparation can make the difference in officer safety, the safety of others, and can have a significant bearing on the outcome of the investigation.
Greenwood is a small town west of Shreveport. In the late 20th century it was a growing suburb on Interstate 20 just five miles from the Texas line. Greenwood was best known for truck stops and video gaming.
On May 19, 1999, Greenwood Officer Donnie Aaron was on midnight shift when he was called to the stabbing at Woodlands Terrace Apartments on Highway 80 in downtown Greenwood. Since Greenwood only had a handful of officers, major crimes were handled by the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office.
Donnie met paramedics from Fire District 3 at a scene which was far worse than he expected. In his report, he said a female, “… was only slightly conscious and unable to give a detailed description of events. However, she did state he or they were ‘waiting for her inside’ the apartment.”
Deputy Stuart Talbot of the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office pulled up as Pamela McThorn (not her real name) was being loaded into the medical helicopter. Moments later, she was flown to Louisiana State University Medical Center in Shreveport.
Stuart hunted large game since he was a child and described the blood outside Pamela’s apartment as, “…the blood trail of a deer.” There was so much blood, he was surprised Pamela lived long enough to be transported to the hospital. Her hope of survival was slim. Stuart covered the area with yellow tape believing he was protecting the scene of a homicide.
Around 11 pm that night, two women heard moaning and cries for help outside their apartment and found a woman lying in a pool of blood under a tree near an apartment building. It was several minutes before they realized the woman was their friend Pamela.
Jim Hardy pulled into the parking lot after a long night at work and was met by the hysterical women. They pointed to the woman on the ground, and without hesitation, Jim ran over and found his friend Pam. When he saw her desperate condition, he ran to his apartment for the phone and called 911. He told the dispatcher Pam had multiple stab wounds. She told him help was on the way and to apply direct pressure to her wounds until they got there. Jim grabbed some clean towels, ran back to Pamela, and applied pressure to the gash on her throat and the worst wound in her abdomen. At the very least, his quick response prolonged Pamela’s life.
Jay Long arrived before midnight to a scene that looked like a slaughter house. Donnie from Greenwood PD told him what he knew along with some new information: Pamela’s 1995 Chevy Camaro Z-28 was missing. Jay put out a BOLO (Be On Look Out) for the car. He talked to the witnesses on the scene, including Jim Hardy. When Jim pulled into the apartment complex, two frantic women met him at his car door. They took him to Pamela who was lying in the grass and “bleeding all over.” Her throat had been cut. He ran to his apartment and dialed 911. The operator told Jim to apply direct pressure to her wounds. He grabbed some towels, returned to Pam, and followed the dispatchers orders. Groggy but conscious, Pamela told him a stranger was waiting for her when she came home. He stabbed her, then raped her.
The call came out as a stabbing, but it was far worse. It would likely be a homicide before sunrise.
Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office Crime Scene Investigator Jay Duke arrived. Duke did a 360 of the scene and found the back window of Pamela’s apartment shattered. The front door was locked, dead bolted. Duke met with the apartment manager about a key for the apartment while Jay continued interviewing witnesses.
The Camaro Z-28, was well known. Every resident had an assigned parking place, and the women who found Pam saw her car parked in her spot at 10:55 pm. Minutes later, they heard cries for help, and Pam’s car was gone, so they didn’t realize the screaming woman was Pam.
The apartment manager gave Jay the key to the apartment. He and the other deputies went inside, cleared it, and secured it until CSI was ready to search. There was no one inside, but it was obvious something happened there.
Jay called his Sergeant, Lynn Allen. Lynn was a 15 year veteran of the Sheriff’s Office. Both Jay and Lynn were on the SWAT team, and Lynn was the commander. A short time later, Lynn and Lt. Bill Duncan arrived on scene. Bill was the former SWAT team commander and had a lengthy narcotics background. The four deputies, Jay Long, Jay Duke, Lynn Allen, and Bill Duncan surveyed the scene. When they got to Pamela’s apartment they started their search at the back window. The shattered panes had been painstakingly removed and placed on the ground. Some of the glass had finger prints on it, and just inside the window seal, they found what looked like a drop of blood. Whoever broke into Pam’s apartment cut himself and touched the glass from the window with his bare hands. It was a Crime Scene Investigator’s dream, but it would not immediately identify a suspect.
Inside was Pam’s bedroom. The mattress from the bed was pulled half way off the box springs. Jay noted, “It was obvious a struggle had taken place in the room.” There was blood on the bed, the covers, and the pillows. A night stand was turned over. A cordless phone was on the box spring with the battery hanging out. There was blood on the phone and carpet nearby.
Jay found an empty Newport cigarette wrapper in the kitchen. There were ashes on the counter and floor. There were diet Cokes in the refrigerator, and in the bathroom he noticed an empty diet Coke can in the garbage with ashes and a cigarette butt inside. Pamela’s family told him she did not smoke, nor would she have allowed anyone to smoke in her apartment. Jay bagged the remains of the cigarette and the empty can.
The trail of blood went out of the apartment and ended under a pine tree where she was found. Beside a pool of blood was a cigarette lighter and bloody shirt. CSI took photographs and bagged the lighter and shirt.
Coincidentally, two women who worked for Pam noticed her car going west toward Texas on I-20 just after 11 pm. They wondered where she was going at such a late hour. They didn’t know she wasn’t in the car; she was fighting for her life under a tree.
The detectives spent the entire night searching Pam’s apartment. At 7:30 the next morning, Jay Long walked outside to the parking lot as a dark four-door, Buick Electra pulled in. A woman was driving and a teenager was in the passenger’s seat. The car passed within a few feet of Jay, but the teenager never looked at him. Jay wrote down the plate number of the Buick. A couple of minutes later, the woman left the apartments alone. Lynn Allen saw the teen who was with her by building D, looking under the hood of an old two door Dodge. Moments later, he drove away in the car.
Jay called the hospital. Pam had ten stab wounds to her abdomen, a puncture wound to her back, and a slash across her throat. Her liver, diaphragm, and pancreas were punctured, and she came dangerously close to bleeding to death. Fortunately, the artery in her neck was not severed. The doctor who performed her surgery told Jay it was a miracle she was alive. After patching up her wounds, he preformed a rape kit on her. The kit showed the presence of semen, but it would take months for the lab to come up with a profile.
Statistically, women are murdered most often by their husbands or boyfriends, but due to the burglary of her apartment and the fact her exes had alibis, Pam’s case did not fit the regular pattern. It appeared she had been raped by someone who stalked her, broke in her apartment, and waited for her.
Pamela was in Intensive Care at LSU Medical Center. Her neck was thickly bandaged, and her eyes were black. The only way Jay could tell she was alive was to watch her chest rise when she took a breath. He gently woke her and pressed record on his cassette recorder. He introduced himself, and recorded the date, time, and location. She was able to speak but was in and out of consciousness. She did not drink or smoke, but she liked to go to clubs and bars to dance. On May 19th, she went to the Cactus Canyon club in nearby Longview, Texas. She came home alone around 10:35 pm and locked the dead bolt behind her. As she walked down the hall, a black male with short hair came up behind her and pushed her into her bedroom. She screamed and fought, but it wasn’t enough. He told her, “Shut up or I’ll kill you.”
She believed him, but some things are worse than death. She grabbed the telephone to dial 911, but he took it from her and disabled it. “You crazy bitch, I’ll kill you if you don’t shut up!” He forced her to the floor. When he laid his knife on the bed, she grabbed it and slashed at him, but he overpowered her, took it away, and stabbed her repeatedly. Convinced he would kill her, she had no choice but to lay still and pretend to be dead while he raped her.
With his deed done, he ordered her to get dressed. He found her purse and took her car keys. He twisted a t-shirt, stuffed it in her mouth, and in the cover of darkness, grabbed her arm and led her out of the apartment to the car. Pam realized nothing good could come from leaving with him. She would die before becoming a disposable slave. She broke free and ran. At the corner of the building he caught her, pulled out his knife, and, “…started killing me.”
Refusing to give up, she broke free again, making it to the back of the apartment building before he caught her, stabbed her, and slit her throat. When he thought she was dead, he left. Pam, still conscious but weak from blood loss, crawled to the front of the building seeking help.
The interview was difficult. Jay wrote, “Pamela was traumatized giving her account. I noticed her heart monitor increasing as she gave her statement and lost consciousness, and I could not obtain any additional information.”
Jay and Bill Duncan spoke to her friends and family at the hospital. They told the detectives Pamela had a cell phone, but it was missing. Jay got a subpoena for the phone records.
In 1999, cell phones were becoming more common, but only a third of the US population had one. Pam’s missing phone was good news, but only if the suspect had the phone, and the records could be accessed immediately. Jay received the phone records later that day.
The last time Pam used her phone was the day before the attack. After the attack, eight calls had been made. Caddo DA’s Office investigators spoke to two women who received calls from the phone. Both of them talked to the same man: Frederick Lavell Taylor.
Fred Taylor was a resident of Woodlands Terrace Apartments. He lived in Building D, apartment 24. He told the women he was in trouble, had blood all over him, and was driving a Camaro headed to California. The women told investigators Fred owned a 1979 Dodge Magnum, and he smoked Newport cigarettes. The crime lab would compare the DNA from the cigarette butt Jay found at the apartment to Fred’s DNA profile.
Jay went to Fred’s apartment. The door was locked. There was a light on, but no movement inside. At the apartment door he found a pair of men’s basketball shoes, white with black trim. The right shoe had a sticky substance about the size of a quarter on it. It looked like blood. He seized the shoes and had a deputy watch the apartment while he wrote a search warrant.
Jay believed Fred Taylor’s 1979 Dodge was the same car he saw leaving the apartments that morning. The black male driving was dropped off at the apartments by a female in a Buick. Jay thought it was suspicious, so he wrote down the plate number. The owner of the car lived nearby. Jay and Bill Duncan found Fred’s car in front of the Buick owner’s home, and the young man who drove it from the apartments was sitting on the front porch. They read him his rights and asked about Fred Taylor’s car. The man worked midnight shift at a local truck stop. Fred called him in the middle of the night and asked him to get a box of clothes out of his apartment and destroy them, and if he did, he could have his car. Fred told him how to attach a wire to the battery under the hood to get it started. He looked in Fred’s apartment through the window and saw the box of clothes, but the door was locked. He wasn’t about to break in because there were half a dozen detectives around the corner. Though he didn’t get the clothes, he took the car anyway.
The detectives had the Dodge towed to the storage yard. Jay wrote an arrest warrant for Frederick Lavell Taylor for aggravated rape and attempted first degree murder. He also wrote search warrants for Fred’s apartment and car. Shortly after midnight on May 21, 1999, Caddo District Judge Scott Crichton signed the warrants, and Jay issued a BOLO for Frederick Lavell Taylor in the the national computer that supplies information to all law enforcement agencies in the US. He also sent an additional teletype for Fred and Pamela’s car to area law enforcement agencies and on a hunch, to El Paso, Texas. A fleeing felon from Louisiana could drive the interstate all the way to El Paso and escape across the border into Mexico.
The case was just over 24 hours old, and the suspect had been identified, a warrant was issued for his arrest, evidence had been gathered, and more evidence was forthcoming. After being awake for over 36 hours, the detectives got some rest. The next day, they searched Fred’s apartment.
There was a reason why Fred wanted his friend to destroy the clothes in his apartment. The cardboard box by the front door contained a white t-shirt, white pair of underwear, and a pair of black wind pants. In addition to blood, the underwear had suspected semen on it. In addition to the clothes, detectives found an empty pack of Newport cigarettes, a soda can used as an ashtray, and a towel with blood on it. On the bedroom door and a section of baseboard, there were traces of blood. The detectives collected the evidence along with Fred’s hairbrush to compare DNA. There was no evidence found in the 1979 Dodge Magnum.
Jay went back to the hospital to talk to Pamela. She had a difficult night but was out of ICU and in a room. Jay interviewed her again, and this time she was able to remain conscious and provide additional details. Her attacker was wearing a white t-shirt and dark wind pants, and during the initial attack, she bit his hand. Though he beat her violently and stabbed her, he called her “baby” several times. When she could no longer continue to fight, she knew he would rape her, but she made one last appeal, “Please don’t do this! You don’t even know me, I don’t know you. Don’t do this to me!”
To silence her, he gagged her with a t shirt.
When he finished raping her he demanded her purse. He took her credit card, some money, and keys. He forced her to the door and told her he was going to take her somewhere to clean her up. They walked out, and he dead bolted the door. He led her to her car, but she knew if she got inside he would rape her until he tired of her, torture her, and kill her. She fled, running as best she could in her condition, but he caught her and stabbed her. She broke away, but he caught her again and slit her throat. The fight was over. She begged him to leave her alone and let her die.
She lay still, but he would not leave. Though she did not have much blood left to pump through her veins, he checked her pulse. He left but only for a moment. She pretended to be dead. He checked her pulse again. Her pulse was slow enough to fool him, so he left. If she could only sleep there would be peace, but he returned for the third time and checked her pulse again. Convinced she was dead, he left for good. When she realized he was gone, she called for help. The only person she remembered seeing was Jim.
Tomorrow: Part 2
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