The Cold Case of the Pierced Woman

Rochelle stuck her tongue out at me.

"No, but if you guys can pick a woman based on her boobs and butt, we girls can pick a man based on how tall he is."

Rochelle grinned then.

"...and on how big his feet and hands are."

"Well, by now you should know that's just a myth."

Rochelle pulled her top over her head then.

"I think I've forgotten. Wanna refresh my memory?"

I think Rochelle got her memory refreshed. Her sex drive didn't need refreshing at all. After she'd moaned, then gasped, and then held her breath while she pumped herself over my spurting cock, she collapsed on me and just lay there until her heart stopped hammering against my chest. A couple minutes later, she kissed me, whispered, "See you in the morning", and then rolled over on her back.

By noon the next day, I figured I had all the information I'd find about Mr. and Mrs. Luttrell so I asked the Captain to send a couple patrol officers to the house to pick them up and to tell them the charge was murder. Jerry and Herb were gone about two hours and when they came back to the station, they only had Mrs. Luttrell in handcuffs. I asked Jerry why and he shrugged.

"Her husband wasn't there and she doesn't seem to know where he is. She said he just left one day about twenty years ago and didn't come back. I asked her if she'd filed a police report and she said she hadn't because she was happy he'd left."

Well, there were a lot of things that made me question that. Twenty years would put Mr. Luttrell's leaving just after they were both arrested for felony assault. It sounded to me a lot like Mr. Luttrell decided to leave while the leaving was good.

That part made some sense. What didn't was that they'd been married for about twenty-two years when he left, and I found it hard to believe a couple could stay together that long without feeling something for each other. Most women married that long to a man would have called the police if he'd left and then didn't come back. That made me wonder if she really did know where he was and just wasn't saying.

After Mrs. Luttrell was booked on suspicion of murder, I sat her down in an interrogation room. The first thing I did was tell her she probably should ask for a lawyer because anything she told me could be used against her in court. She nodded and said she already had a lawyer and she'd call him except they'd taken her cell phone when they booked her. I offered her my cell phone but she shook her head.

"Unless he sees my caller ID on his phone, he won't answer."

I walked down to the evidence room and signed out her cell phone, then went back to the interrogation room. When I sat down, I said if she'd give me the number, I'd dial it for her.

The reason for that was the computer techs hadn't yet looked at her cell phone and I didn't want her erasing her call or browser history while she was supposedly calling the lawyer. Some people are really fast at using a cell phone, and it had happened to me before. We still found the information, but it took a lot more work.

"I don't remember his number. I'll have to look it up in my contact list."

"I'll do that for you. What's the lawyer's name?"

It took a few minutes, but I located the lawyer's name and number in her contact list. I pressed "Call" and when I heard the other party answer, I walked around the table and held the cell phone to Mrs. Luttrell's ear.

I only heard one side of the conversation, but it didn't tell me much anyway.

"Max, they have me in jail in Knoxville on suspicion of murder. I need you to come to the station now."

"No, that doesn't matter. What matters is that you get yourself here to help me and I mean you need to leave right now."

"OK, but it better not take you more than twenty minutes."

She pushed the phone away from her ear then and when I looked at the screen, it said the call had ended. I closed the phone and told Mrs. Luttrell I'd be back in a few minutes. Then I took her phone back down to evidence and then went to the viewing room to watch what she did.

It took nineteen minutes for her lawyer to show up, and I watched Mrs. Luttrell for the entire time hoping to see some indication that she was nervous. She didn't seem to be because I didn't see her wringing her hands or anything that looked like she was tense. She just looked relaxed.

I couldn't figure that out because she'd basically ordered her lawyer to get to the station as fast as he could. The only reason I could think of that she'd done that was that she was guilty. If that was the case, I'd expected her to show some kind of emotion or some nervous tic.

When the desk called me and said the lawyer was there, I walked down and then escorted him to the interrogation room. The guy didn't impress me as being much of a lawyer. He introduced himself as Max Winchester and offered his hand, but his voice didn't sound all that confident and his handshake was pretty weak. I took him to the interrogation room and then left him and Mrs. Luttrell alone and went to the viewing room again.

By law, I couldn't listen to their conversation, but I could watch what they did. What they did surprised me. The lawyer had to know someone was watching them, but to me, it looked more like a meeting between two close friends than a meeting between a woman accused of murder and her lawyer.

They'd only talked for about fifteen minutes when the lawyer looked up at the camera on the wall, and waved his hand. I walked down to the interrogation room, went inside, and sat down in a chair opposite them. The lawyer frowned at me.

"Exactly what are the charges against my client?"

"She's being charged with the murder of Theresa Cheryl Madison sometime between 1978 and 1981."

"What evidence do you have?"

"I have a confirmed DNA match to Mrs. Luttrell from hairs found at the burial site where Miss Madison was found. They weren't just on the surface of the ground. They were trapped inside some folds of the shower curtain that was used to wrap the body, so she had to be there when Theresa was wrapped in the shower curtain or when the body was buried. That's enough to charge her unless she can explain how those hairs got there.

"Now, maybe she didn't kill Miss Madison, but if she didn't, she knows who did and the only way those hairs could have gotten there is if she helped the killer bury the body. That's still murder, though the DA would probably settle for second degree murder and jail time instead of the death penalty."

The lawyer leaned over and whispered something to Mrs. Luttrell. She whispered something back and then the lawyer looked at me.

"Mrs. Luttrell didn't kill your victim but she does know who did. Her hair was at the burial site because she was forced to help with the burial."

This was going a lot faster than I'd anticipated. I've interrogated a lot of murder suspects and they always try to talk their way out of it. They'll give me at least one alibi to chase down and sometimes more than one. They'll claim to know about the murder but only what they've heard from other people or read in the newspaper. Then they'll tell me what they've heard and if I've told them anything about the case, that's what they'll tell me they heard. That made me suspect what the lawyer said wasn't all the truth.

"I need Mrs. Luttrell to tell me when Miss Madison was killed, how she was killed, and who killed her. She's also going to have to explain to me why she didn't report the death and how she was forced to help bury the body."

When the lawyer started to speak, I cut him off.

"I don't want to hear it from you. I want to hear it from Mrs. Luttrell. Let's start with who killed Miss Madison."

The lawyer whispered something to Mrs. Luttrell and she nodded, then looked at me.

"Nobody killed that girl. What my husband did to her was what she wanted him to do so it was consensual. The fact that she died wasn't my husband's fault. She didn't stop him when she should have, so basically, she killed herself."

"What was it that she wanted him to do to her?"

Mrs. Luttrell leaned over to whisper to the lawyer. He listened for several seconds and then said, "That's OK, Rachael. You can tell him that. It's not illegal anymore."

Mrs. Luttrell took a deep breath.

"This is hard to talk about. My husband was into BDSM but after a while he wasn't satisfied with tying me up or doing what most couples do. He always wanted to feel like the other person was at his mercy. He tried some of that stuff with me and I wouldn't do it, stuff like whipping me with a real whip or sticking safety pins in me. Because I wouldn't, he went looking for a woman who would.

"He asked around to the BDSM groups in Tennessee and found this prostitute in Johnson City who liked that kind of thing and said she'd do anything he wanted if he paid her. She said her name was Cheryl. She came to our house several times and let Andy do what he wanted to do with her. The girl was already pierced in her nipples and her lips down there, but when Andy said she needed more piercings, she told him to go ahead and do it. Andy did that with hypodermic needles at first and then with big safety pins when Cheryl said the needles didn't hurt much. She wanted him to whip her but he wouldn't do that because he was afraid of leaving scars on her.

"The last time she came, she said she'd been reading about how being suffocated while having sex made the orgasm better and she wanted to try that. Andy put a plastic trash bag over her head, put three soda straws under the tape he used to tape the bag to her neck and then started having sex with her. He said the soda straws would let her breathe a little but would still make her feel like she was suffocating.

"I was watching them and it looked like it was doing what Cheryl wanted. Then all of a sudden, her arms just flopped to her sides and she stopped moving. Andy pulled the trash bag off her head then and she was all blue looking. He felt for a pulse in her neck but couldn't find one. What he did find was that when he taped the bag on her, he'd done it tight enough it crushed the straws so she couldn't breathe much at all.

"I was scared to death because he'd killed a person, but he shook his head and said he hadn't and that it was her fault. See, she was supposed to slap him on the arm if she wanted him to stop but she never did.

"Andy said nobody would believe us if we told them what really happened so we had to bury her. He said she was just a prostitute anyway so nobody would look for her.

"Andy made me help him wrap her in a shower curtain and then go with him out in the woods to bury her. He dug the hole and then had me carry her by the shoulders while he carried her by her legs. That must be how my hair got on her. Once we had her in the hole, Andy covered her up and we left."

It was a lot too perfect for me to believe her. She'd explained everything in such a way that she was basically an innocent bystander forced to help with the burial by her husband. I'd never seen a person suffocate before but I had seen a person drowning as I was trying to get to them. They didn't just lay there in the water. They were fighting with everything they had. I couldn't believe that Mrs. Luttrell couldn't see that the woman was in trouble and stopped things long before she suffocated to death.

I'd also arrested a lot of prostitutes when I was a patrol officer, and while they'll do about anything for enough money, enduring much pain isn't one of those things. It's possible there was one out there into that much pain, but I doubted it.

I've also never arrested a prostitute who was in it for the sex. Sex is what they do in order to have an income, not because the like being fucked by some guy they've never seen and will probably never see again. They also rarely, if ever, have an orgasm when a john is fucking them. They just become really good at faking it.

I decided to keep my suspicions to myself and ask Mrs. Luttrell some more questions to see if I could make her change her story.

"I see. So your husband was really into the BDSM thing...well maybe I should say the SM part. Did you know that when you married him?"

"Yes. We met at one of the groups in Knoxville. I just didn't know he would keep getting more and more sadistic."

"And when that happened, why did you stay with him? It must have been tough knowing he wanted you to do those things when you didn't want to. How did you stop him from doing those things anyway?"

What I was looking for was some start of emotion from Mrs. Luttrell, like maybe a few tears or at least a change in her voice. I didn't get either.

"When he started that, I was pregnant with Rosemary and I told him doing things like that would hurt the baby. After that, I got pregnant with Sharon, and after that they were always around so we couldn't do much of anything."

I shuffled through the file I'd brought with me, and then pulled out a paper.

"So, they'd both left home in 2003 when you whipped that young man until he was cut to ribbons?"

Mrs. Luttrell nodded.

"Yes, but I didn't do any of the whipping. He found my husband through the other groups in Tennessee and told Andy what he wanted. I watched this time to make sure Andy didn't hurt him bad enough that he'd die. Once Andy got done with him, we took him to the hospital and dropped him off so he could get treated."

I pulled out another paper.

"According to the officers who arrested you, that's about the same time your husband left and didn't come back. Any ideas why he'd have done that."

Mrs. Luttrell nodded again.

"Andy was afraid if he stayed in Knoxville, he'd do something to another person and he'd be arrested but he wouldn't get off this time. He just said he'd be in touch when he got where he was going, but he never did."

"And you waited all this time without saying anything to anybody? Why?"

I saw her wring her hands for the first time then.

"Well, to tell the truth, I was happy he was gone. Getting arrested that time made me really afraid too, and I was sure if Andy stayed at home, he'd do it again. I didn't want to go to jail, but I knew the police would say I'd helped him and I wouldn't have any way to prove I didn't so I'd go to jail too. I kept doing what he wanted to do with me except for the really bad stuff, but I was glad when that stopped too."

"So he left you in Knoxville by yourself twenty years ago. How have you been living? I couldn't find that you have a job."

She shifted in her chair then. I was asking her questions she didn't expect to answer and it was showing.

"Andy had a good job, good enough he could retire when he was only fifty-eight. He had saved enough money in our joint savings and checking accounts and in his 401K that we could live the rest of our lives on that and Social Security. He left all that when he left and that's what I've been living on."

That was also too convenient to be true and the part about the 401K was absolutely a lie. She wouldn't be able to touch that money unless he had named her as his beneficiary and she could prove he was dead. She could have been cashing his Social Security checks if the bank knew her, but even that was doubful.

What I thought was going on was Mr. Luttrell was living somewhere and sending Mrs. Luttrell enough money to live on while he was gone. I'd need to check their bank statements to know for sure.

"Well, I here what you're saying but you understand that I have to verify all this so you'll be staying with us for the next twenty-four hours. I'll call Holding and have them come get you."

After the policewoman from Holding came and got Mrs. Luttrell, I gathered up my notes and went back to my desk. I didn't believe Mr. Luttrell had just up and left. He had too much to lose. If he'd been the domineering man that Mrs. Luttrell said he was, he'd have wanted to stay with her for that and also for another reason. She knew the truth about what happened with Theresa and if she wanted to, she could blackmail him into giving her anything she wanted once he couldn't get to her anymore.

No, I figured he was someplace close and the farm was as good a place as any to start looking. I knew this farm had a barn because that's where the guy they'd whipped said it took place. Most farms have at least a shed or two as well. Andrew could still be living on the farm and had just hidden when the officers came to pick him and Mrs. Luttrell up. If he was as domineering as she'd said he was, she was probably too afraid of him to give him up.

The officers who picked up Mrs. Luttrell had no instructions to search anything, so other than clearing the house, they didn't. I went to a judge with all the evidence I had and asked for a search warrant for the property including the house and all other structures on the property. At the same time, I requested a warrant for their bank accounts and Mr. Luttrell's 401K.

The next morning, I kissed Rochelle goodbye and told her I might be late getting home so she shouldn't wait up. She just grinned and said she wouldn't be able to sleep until she knew if we'd found anything and that she might need some help falling asleep anyway. When she kissed me again, I had a feeling I was going to have a really late night.

At nine that morning, I was at the Luttrell farm with two uniforms. We searched the house again, but didn't find anything. There were clothes in the closets but they were all clothes for a woman.

Next we went to the barn and things got interesting there.

On the outside, it looked like about any barn and it looked the same on the inside except there obviously hadn't been any animals in it for years. I was looking into one of the stalls when Mark said, "Rich, you need to come look at this".

What I was looking at was two posts set into the dirt floor of the barn with two steel rings attached to each. It didn't tell me anything until Mark said, "I used to work in a stable when I was in high school and the stable had one of these. It's where they take a horse for grooming and shoeing. You snap two lead ropes to the horse's halter, lead the horse between the two posts, and then tie each lead rope to the ring on that side. That keeps the horse from moving around as much."

He pointed to the lower ring on one of the posts.

"The only problem with these is the rings aren't in the right place. These on the bottom are only about three feet off the ground. The ones the stable had were more like five. The upper rings are at least nine feet and that's too high. Anybody would have to use a ladder to tie the horse that high."

I figured we'd just found where Mr. Luttrell had tied the guy while he whipped him. I put in a call to the Crime Lab for a tech to come to the barn. It was a long shot, but maybe there was DNA on the rings that could tell us something.

While we waited on the tech, we kept looking through the barn. We hadn't found anything odd until I saw Bill Paisley, the other officer, looking at a door into a room that had probably been another stall and scratching his head. I asked him what he was looking at. He said something wasn't right.

"I went in there and all that's there is some bins on one wall and some racks on the other."

Mark had joined us then.

"This was probably a tack room at one time. It's where they'd have kept the feed for the animals and things like saddles and halters and other stuff they needed for them. Most stables have them."

Bill shook his head.

"Not like this they don't. It's not big enough. It didn't look deep enough, so I stepped off the stall next to this and it's twelve steps from the rail to the side of the barn. This room is only nine. There's something behind the back wall, but I don't see any way to get to it."

It took half an hour of tapping on that back wall until Bill found a place that sounded hollow. It took us another half hour to figure out that the hinges and latch were hidden behind two narrow boards just like the others that were nailed over the cracks where two boards met. Those boards weren't all that unusual because I'd seen it in barns before. Usually those narrow boards were nailed on the outside of the barn to keep the wind from blowing in through the cracks, but I'd also seen them on the inside, and that was to keep mice and insects out of a place where a farmer stored feed or leather harness that mice and rats would chew on.