Read Online Kiss of the She-Devil by M. William Phelps - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: M. William Phelps
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that brassy, deep, baritone-speaking type of cop you wanted on any case that demanded results. Murder—and death—was an aspect of life that A’Hearn had had a long history with as both a police officer and veteran of the Vietnam War. He had been drafted right out of high school into the military. Once in, A’Hearn gave it his all, choosing to stay an additional year to enter into the military police (MP) division. Once out of the army, A’Hearn was immediately hired by the Birmingham (Michigan) Police Department, where he spent the next five years. From there, A’Hearn walked into a job at the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office as an investigator. He was soon promoted to chief investigator. Then, in 1996, “after a political change,” as A’Hearn referred to it, within the Oakland County community, he was offered a job within the OCSD as a sergeant by the then-sheriff John Nichols.
A’Hearn’s interest in law enforcement is an interesting one. His father was a news editor for a major Detroit news station for many, many years. “And watching him interact with police over all those years” sparked a desire in him to want to be a cop, A’Hearn revealed.
When A’Hearn was asked to come up with a case, off the top of his head, that has bothered him for a lot of years, he didn’t hesitate.
“We had a series of child killings that date back to the late seventies,” A’Hearn recalled. “Unsolved. I was assigned to that task force. It’s probably the most important case that has ever happened here and remains unsolved . . . and . . . it’s kind of like a burr under my sweater. Depending on who you talk to, there are twelve kids involved, four of whom they attribute [connect] to one [killer].”
What a case. Some twenty thousand tips have been collected over the years; there are file cabinets full of documents and reports. It’s one of those cases cops cannot stop looking at—it has to be solved. Society can never allow child killers to get away with the most horrible of crimes. Monsters cannot win.
A’Hearn is the embodiment of a man’s man; he’s a guy who has the tough skin it takes sometimes to weather investigations that at first might seem a bit complicated, branching out into other states and involving additional perps. Perhaps more than anyone else who was working the Gail Fulton case, he knew that time was on law enforcement’s side in this case, unlike it generally is in many other murder cases. There was a conspiracy to commit murder in that adulterous marriage, A’Hearn reckoned. And George Fulton, a guy A’Hearn had little use for, had been involved in adultery for what the OCSD knew to be years. Donna Trapani was involved in this crime, and maybe even George, too; A’Hearn was certain.
Be patient. Hit the brick. Keep knocking on doors, tracking down the paper trail. A recipe for murder would surface sooner or later.
A’Hearn and Wundrach talked about Gail’s murder as it unfolded. A dead librarian found murdered in the parking lot of the library. It sounded so . . . well, Lifetime Television. . . so salacious. So intriguing. The media was on it right away, salivating, waiting for any little morsel or crumb to feed on.
Wundrach and A’Hearn kept coming back to one point that aggravated the two of them: Why had George not mentioned that affair when they first spoke to him? Why hadn’t he come clean with that? Why hide such an important fact and motivating factor in many murders?
“You don’t want to go right off the bat, ‘It’s you. It’s you. It’s you,’ pointing at George,” Wundrach explained. “You want to befriend him, keep him at ease, lock him into a story. But, you know, we found out about his mistress through his kids. That told us a lot.”
They had asked George about Donna and his reaction was, “Oh, yeah . . . her.”
“So we began to focus a little bit more on him,” Wundrach said.
The fact that George had been emotionless (A’Hearn and
A’Hearn’s interest in law enforcement is an interesting one. His father was a news editor for a major Detroit news station for many, many years. “And watching him interact with police over all those years” sparked a desire in him to want to be a cop, A’Hearn revealed.
When A’Hearn was asked to come up with a case, off the top of his head, that has bothered him for a lot of years, he didn’t hesitate.
“We had a series of child killings that date back to the late seventies,” A’Hearn recalled. “Unsolved. I was assigned to that task force. It’s probably the most important case that has ever happened here and remains unsolved . . . and . . . it’s kind of like a burr under my sweater. Depending on who you talk to, there are twelve kids involved, four of whom they attribute [connect] to one [killer].”
What a case. Some twenty thousand tips have been collected over the years; there are file cabinets full of documents and reports. It’s one of those cases cops cannot stop looking at—it has to be solved. Society can never allow child killers to get away with the most horrible of crimes. Monsters cannot win.
A’Hearn is the embodiment of a man’s man; he’s a guy who has the tough skin it takes sometimes to weather investigations that at first might seem a bit complicated, branching out into other states and involving additional perps. Perhaps more than anyone else who was working the Gail Fulton case, he knew that time was on law enforcement’s side in this case, unlike it generally is in many other murder cases. There was a conspiracy to commit murder in that adulterous marriage, A’Hearn reckoned. And George Fulton, a guy A’Hearn had little use for, had been involved in adultery for what the OCSD knew to be years. Donna Trapani was involved in this crime, and maybe even George, too; A’Hearn was certain.
Be patient. Hit the brick. Keep knocking on doors, tracking down the paper trail. A recipe for murder would surface sooner or later.
A’Hearn and Wundrach talked about Gail’s murder as it unfolded. A dead librarian found murdered in the parking lot of the library. It sounded so . . . well, Lifetime Television. . . so salacious. So intriguing. The media was on it right away, salivating, waiting for any little morsel or crumb to feed on.
Wundrach and A’Hearn kept coming back to one point that aggravated the two of them: Why had George not mentioned that affair when they first spoke to him? Why hadn’t he come clean with that? Why hide such an important fact and motivating factor in many murders?
“You don’t want to go right off the bat, ‘It’s you. It’s you. It’s you,’ pointing at George,” Wundrach explained. “You want to befriend him, keep him at ease, lock him into a story. But, you know, we found out about his mistress through his kids. That told us a lot.”
They had asked George about Donna and his reaction was, “Oh, yeah . . . her.”
“So we began to focus a little bit more on him,” Wundrach said.
The fact that George had been emotionless (A’Hearn and
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