The case of Clara Schwartz - The Bizarre Murder of Robert Schwartz

Monday, December 17, 2012

Clara Schwartz and Mike Pfohl

Robert Schwartz, 57, was nationally renowned in the field of biometrics and DNA research. The Associated Press's Matthew Barakat reports that Schwartz had been working for the past 15 years on DNA sequencing analysis at the Center for Innovative Technology in Herndon, Virginia. Ironically, while the discovery of DNA identification in the 1980s revolutionized crime investigation, especially for extreme crimes such as rape and murder, Schwartz himself fell victim to one such incident.

On Monday, December 10, 2001, Schwartz did not show up for work. His coworkers phoned a neighbor to check on him. He had lived alone since his wife had died and was usually quite punctual, so they were worried. They had good reason to be. His corpse was found facedown in his log-and-slate farmhouse, situated near Hamilton, which was around 40 miles west of Washington, D.C. He had been stabbed repeatedly (one report said 30 times, another 45) with a sharp knife-like implement some time on December 8, two days earlier, and left where he had died. Investigators who arrived at the scene could clearly see an 'X' carved into the skin on the back of Schwartz's neck, according to the Bloodbank newsletter. This mark seemed to indicate that the murder was ritualistic, although the clue wasn't clear.

But Schwartz's neighbors were helpful. They had seen three teenagers, two boys and a girl, arrive at the farm during the time in which the murder was estimated to have occurred. The kids had gotten stuck in the mud and had called a tow truck. Giving their names and addresses made it easier for authorities to find them. Within days, the police had arrested three friends of Schwartz's college-age daughter, Clara: Kyle Hulbert, 18; Michael Paul Pfohl, 21; and Katherine Inglis, 19. After the three started talking, there was little doubt that Hulbert had killed the victim, but his bizarre confession and the reasons he gave initially pushed investigators in the wrong direction.

Court records released the day after Christmas and noted in the Washington Post indicated that the police had seized several knives, swords, and documents about human sacrifice from the home of Inglis and Pfohl. The "X" was thus surmised to be an occult symbol. In addition, they had seized a computer and two black cloaks from the Haymarket home, and also took a computer from Hulbert's home. It wasn't long before they had pieced together a strange and deadly game.

This murder was included in a special report about the apparent bad luck that had befallen scientists during a brief period of time, suggesting an odd association between violence and those employed in the pursuit of biological research.

Cursed?

In January, less than a month after Robert Schwartz was found murdered, Paul Sieveking, writing for the Sunday Telegraph in London (in the "strange but true" section), included the case in a feature about the harm that had recently befallen scientists.

On Halloween, Vietnamese immigrant Kathy Nguyen, a hospital technician, inhaled anthrax and died in Manhattan. She had no known connection with the spores, and no bacteria were found in any place where she had been during the previous week. On November 12, Dr. Benito Que, a biologist, was attacked by four men wielding a baseball bat at the Miami Medical School. Then Harvard microbiologist Don Wiley, who was investigating immune disorders, vanished. His car was found abandoned on a bridge over the Mississippi River. His family insisted that he would not have committed suicide, yet his body was found three hundred miles downriver. While investigators were still searching for him, Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, a microbiologist who worked with biological weapons in the former Soviet Union, died of a stroke, and on December 14, microbiologist Set Van Nguyen suffocated in an Australian storage area full of gas.

It seemed odd that so many scientists had died within a month of one another, and Schwartz was added to this list. As a murder victim, his case was among the most dramatic. Sieveking ended the article on a suggestive note: "It is possible that nothing connects this string of events; but as with the deaths between 1982 and 1988 of 25 scientists connected with the defense industry — many of which were bizarre or mysterious — it offers ample fodder for the conspiracy theorist or thriller writer."

Indeed, the Schwartz murder case would have some sordid twists, and the real story came out with the arrest of Clara Schwartz, the victim's daughter. The police had interviewed her for five hours on December 12, two days after the murder, and she had said then that she did not think that Hulbert, a recent acquaintance, would do such a thing. But she also admitted that in her "heart of hearts" she knew he would. They let her go but did not forget her. Soon they had reason to turn the investigative spotlight back on her. Apparently she had failed to tell them, when notified about her father's death, that Hulbert had told her on December 9 that he had committed the murder the day before. She had also failed to inform them about the "role-playing game."

Katherine Inglis helpfully connected the dots. Sondra London recounts her statement in True Vampires. She claimed to have had some idea of what was about to occur on December 8 when she and her boyfriend, Michael Pfohl, gave Hulbert a ride to the Schwartz home to "do a job." When they let him out and went to turn around to wait for him, they got stuck in the mud. Hulbert returned and they asked him to go use the Schwartz phone to call for assistance. He was hesitant. "He told us very seriously," Inglis wrote, "that nobody was in the home twice and I did the math." Then he placed a sword in the car that she saw was smeared with red liquid. "I couldn't be sure that Mr. Schwartz was dead," she added. "I hoped he wasn't. But in the back of my mind, I knew he was."

They discussed an alibi among them, deciding to say that they had gone to the area to get something for Clara, but no one had been home. On the morning the body was discovered, Clara called to tell them that the police had their names and addresses. She had been questioned but not arrested. She told them she was going to go stay with her grandparents.

Inglis ended her statement with the naïve hope that she and Mike could go on with their lives after turning Hulbert in. She agreed to testify against him if necessary, but she seemed to have no comprehension of what she had done. Had she genuinely been morally alarmed by what had occurred, she would not have participated in the construction of an alibi, but would have called the police herself. She did not. Neither did Clara.

Domestic Homicide

Clara Jane Schwartz, 21, was arrested on February 1, 2002, at her dorm on the James Madison University campus where she was a sophomore. A computer was also removed from her room, and she was charged as the fourth person in the conspiracy to murder Robert Schwartz. Documents found during a legal search indicated that she had helped to plan her father's murder with the other three suspects. Although her grandfather denied to reporters that she'd had any such contact with the suspects, she was taken before a magistrate in Loudoun County, Virginia and then to the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center. There she remained until her trial.

The dorm monitor, Mark Pinnow, who did not know her well, offered an observation to reporters about her relationship with her father when Robert Schwartz brought Clara to school to drop her off: "They seemed to have that kind of father-daughter relationship where they were both different and knew it." Pinnow thought Clara was friendly. In fact, she was a good student, and she was avidly interested in history and Civil War battlefields. Those who knew the computer-science major, who owned her own horse, thought of her as smart and on her way to being quite accomplished.

Yet some also knew her as brooding and rebellious. According to the Washington Post, she liked to dress in the gothic look, sported dark clothing and liked to listen to heavy metal music. She tended to hang out with people who preferred an alternative lifestyle — "alts," as they liked to refer to themselves, to mark their boundaries as outsiders. She had also moved into a single room in a dorm that was a converted Howard Johnson's motel situated behind a gas station — a place for students who desired seclusion. Her grandfather, speaking to reporters, acknowledged that she was drawn toward a "fringe" group of young people, and attributed that to having to deal with her mother's death from cancer four years earlier. Other relatives said that in recent years she had been distant from the family.

"She was very, very close to her mother," the grandfather told the Washington Post, "and I think it was a rather serious thing for her. And my son worked overtime trying to help her. She certainly had a lot of emotional problems that were fairly apparent."

Reporters sought out an attorney whom Clara had retained directly after the murder when the police first started asking questions, but he indicated that he was no longer in her employ. When questioned about the arrest, the police would not offer a motive. Relatives insisted that Schwartz had been a devoted father who talked often of his three college-age children.

Yet when the news of Clara's arrest was reported, the Associated Press included an interesting item: Inglis allegedly had admitted to investigators that Clara had told her and the other two that her father had been violent with her and had tried to poison her "at least 11 times." Such things do happen, and children involved in roleplaying and occult activities may overdramatize the possibility. But family members denied it, and the police had no record of having to go to the home to intervene in any situations. At any rate, Inglis further stated that Hulbert had gone into the farmhouse alone with a 27-inch sword hidden under his coat and had used it to slash and stab the scientist. She and her boyfriend, Paul Pfohl, had waited for him in the car. They'd had nothing to do with the murder, she said, adding that Hulbert had believed he was doing something good for Clara. Yet he hardly even knew her.

The Vampire

Hulbert had a history of mental disorders, including a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, hyperactivity disorder, and bipolar disorder. His family had found him too difficult to handle, so he had been in several psychiatric institutions. It also turned out that he was deeply involved in roleplaying games that involved vampire imagery. While such games do not cause someone to become violent, and the majority of participants in the Live Action Role Playing groups (LARP) are just in it for fun and creative outlets, LARPs can attract mentally unstable people, who find encouragement for their delusions within them. Hulbert apparently did. He also had a fascination with medieval wizardry and weaponry, and eventually offered a rather chilling seven-page confession.

Sondra London included this case and his confession in her discussion of dissociation in True Vampires. She indicates that when a killer claims to have become someone else (as Hulbert vaguely suggested), he may be acknowledging a "criminal alter" that can take over a host body and get him to commit crimes. She went on to talk about the Hulbert/Schwartz incident, adding multiple personality disorder (now called dissociative identity disorder) to his psychiatric portfolio, although no professional had diagnosed him with the disorder. (Inglis mentioned this in her confession, so it could be the source of London 's ideas.) London also said that Clara had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and the condition had gone untreated, although this is probably untrue. That, too, was taken from Inglis' statement, and her knowledge was based only on things that Clara had said. No record of such a diagnosis was produced for court.

At any rate, in the confession taken in December, Kyle Hulbert told a magistrate that he alone was responsible for the killing. It was not premeditated, and Inglis and Pfohl did not know about it before it occurred. After Schwartz was dead, he said, he had called Clara to tell her that he had "done the job." He believed that Schwartz had been trying to poison his daughter with various chemicals that he placed into her food. Hulbert said that Clara once had handed over some cooked pork to him and insisted that her father had poisoned it. Hulbert had taken a bite and spit it back out. "I could tell," he wrote, "it had been tampered with, both by taste and by smell." He indicated that Clara had said that her father had cooked it separately from the other food.

Hulbert had met the man three times on prior occasions and had felt Schwartz's animosity toward him. Then, when Clara told him about an impending family trip to the Virgin Island, Hulbert believed that her father would attempt to kill her there. According to Hulbert, he had to do something to stop the man, especially as his visions of what Mr. Schwartz would do to Clara grew overwhelming. He claimed to have once seen Schwartz yell at his daughter and make her cry, and he indicated that "I could not bear the sight of that."

One newspaper story stated that Hulbert claimed to be a vampire, but that he heard the voices of entities named Sabba, Nicodemus, and Ordog instructing him to kill only for a "just cause." Thus, saving Clara became his driving purpose. He had seen Schwartz actually serve a pork chop and lemons to her on a prior visit, so those had become symbols to him of the way the man was poisoning her. Hulbert also indicated that he planned to say that demons had told him to do the killing. That way, Clara would be spared, should the plan be discovered.

So on December 8, Hulbert knocked on the door to the Schwartz home. In his confession, he described exactly what had taken place. Robert Schwartz answered the door and Hulbert asked if Clara was there. When told she wasn't, he asked if he could get her number. Schwartz invited him in. Hulbert used the bathroom and then followed the 57-year-old to the dining room and confronted him. Hulbert accused him of abusing his daughter and he believed he saw guilt in the man's eyes that amounted to a confession. The man had smiled, he said, and then had "backhanded" him, which cut him over the left eye. That had triggered the attack. Hulbert said that he did not remember carving an "X" on Schwartz, and investigators concluded that it was probably an incidental slash mark rather than something ritualistic.

But Hulbert insisted that if he had not seen the clear evidence of the man's guilt on his face, he would have allowed Schwartz to live. Using the sword to slash and stab, he brought Schwartz to his knees, although the dying man continued to try to defend himself. "Somewhere in the back of my mind, someone laughed at a fool who would grab an attacker's blade," Hulbert said. Hulbert stabbed Schwartz and felt his grip loosen: "I told him to back off and let me pass." He claims that Schwartz just grinned at him. Schwartz came at him again and he got some of the man's blood in his mouth. "It drove me into a frenzy," he said. He just kept stabbing and stabbing the man in the back. Hulbert then described Schwartz's last moments, saying that Schwartz had looked up at Hulbert and asked, "What did I ever do to you?" With that, Hulbert had delivered the final blow, killing him.

"When I returned to the state of mindfulness and sanity," Hulbert wrote, "I was drawing the sword from his back." He rinsed the weapon off, turned off most of the lights in the home, and went to find his friends. One of his voices instructed him to leave quickly, he wrote, because the victim's soul had already departed. Hulbert closed his confession with the belief that he had saved Clara and "whatever happens to us, we will survive." Then he had signed it with "Demon" and offered an apology to the Schwartz family, asking their forgiveness.

When attorneys were assigned, they told the press that whatever Hulbert may have said was unreliable, due to his mental illness. Hulbert's father echoed that, insisting that Kyle had viewed the incident as part of the game. He apparently had stopped taking his medication due to money problems just a few days before the murder.

Indictments

Clara Jane was arraigned on February 5, 2002, as her older brother and sister watched in grief and horror. In a quiet voice, she requested a court-appointed lawyer to defend her against the charge of first-degree murder. Her arrest was the culmination of a two-month investigation that included an analysis of coded e-mails and instant messages among the four friends regarding Clara's alleged domestic situation. (Clara had kept them in a file labeled "UW People," for Underworld, in her dorm room.) The investigation had also involved interviews with all four of them, and written statements from three.

As the details came out, it seemed that Clara had told the others that her father had tried to poison her, and she thought her life would be better if he were eliminated. When Clara wanted to talk about murder in these messages, she used the word, "tay," and she referred to her father as OG — "Old Guy." In other words, her premeditation was fairly elaborate, although she told reporters that she thought Hulbert was "just joking" when he said he would do it. Yet she also admitted that she had believed that he actually would, and in one message, as reported in AP, she said that "all I ask is that it not trace back to me."

In March 2002, a grand jury reconvened to consider the case. They indicted Clara on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and solicitation to commit murder. One of these latter charges focused on time periods from June to November and November to December, which involved two different people whose identities were made clear during her trial. Clara's attorneys, who insisted that it was not possible to enter into a conspiracy with someone who would be considered insane, were frustrated that the prosecutors had no unified theory about the incident, and said so to reporters. The Loudoun Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney, Owen D. Basham, hinted otherwise, but would not give a specific comment.

The other three defendants had been indicted as well on charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Only Inglis was being considered for a deal, because she seemed the least involved and she was willing to testify against the others.

According to the Washington Post at the end of March, 2002, Clara had been searching for several months for someone to kill her father. She met Kyle Hulbert in October at a Renaissance festival in Crownsville, MD, and managed to convince him to do the "noble thing" for a "damsel in distress." They developed a close relationship (which he affirmed in his confession) that inspired him to feel protective of her, as a brother to a sister.

Clara sent Hulbert a check for $60 on the night before the murder, via overnight delivery. She apparently told detectives it was for Hulbert to be able to pay for gas to get to the farmhouse, gloves to prevent him from leaving fingerprints, a cap ("do-rag") to prevent him from shedding hair that might be found and link him to the scene, and rags to clean up any potential trace evidence. He was also to purchase a phone card so he could call her without the call being traced to his phone.

Clara's Trial

Katherine Inglis made her deal with prosecutors to testify in return for having the first-degree murder charge dropped. Yet she still faced other accessory charges. Her case would not be settled until the other three were concluded.

Clara's trial was first, followed by Hulbert's. Pretrial hearings indicated that Clara now claimed to have been sexually abused by her father. Her defense attorneys hoped to portray her as a kid dealing with troubling issues who found escape in fantasy and thus did not realize that the young man she had urged to kill her father might actually go through with it. In her fantasy play, she took on roles of people who needed protecting. "In the fall of 2001," defense attorney James Connell said, according to court records, "the silly dark world of Clara Schwartz collided with the dark and dangerous world of Kyle Hulbert."

However, prosecutors had a surprise: They had located another young man whom Clara had approached for the same purpose. That took some of the starch out of the defense's argument, though not all of it.

The trial began in October 2002, ten months after the murder. Clara wore a blue sweater and a long skirt for the first day of testimony. In an opening statement, prosecutor Jennifer Wexton said that Clara had initially asked a man named Patrick House, 21, to kill her father. He had participated in her roleplaying fantasy game in the role of an assassin, but he said when he had realized that Clara was serious about committing a violent act, he quickly distanced himself from the others. He said that she hated her father and wanted her considerable inheritance.

While parricide is a fairly rare crime that is overwhelmingly committed by boys, writes Charles Patrick Ewing in Fatal Families, there are occasional cases of girls either killing or engaging someone else to kill their father. Mostly such murders are triggered by abuse, but some are done out of greed. One case that Ewing cites occurred in Texas in 1994. Jennifer Nicole Yesconis, 20, was invited to dinner to celebrate her father's fifth anniversary to her stepmother. She did not show up, but her boyfriend and another boy did, and they shot and killed Mr. and Mrs. Yesconis. According to the killers, Nicole had masterminded the killings to collect on her father's insurance policy. She went to trial saying that she had been sexually abused, but another witness recalled her saying that she would pay $30,000 to someone to kill her father. She was convicted of capital murder.

The case of Clara Schwartz was similar but a bit more elaborate. Patrick House had briefly dated her prior to the killing of her father. He described the fantasy game called "Underworld" that Clara had invented. She had played a character called Lord Chaos, and he had been an assassin. Clara referred to the victim in the game as Old Guy, her "evil father." She ordered House to kill him as part of the game, but eventually he found a way to put her off until he could extricate himself from the role. That's when she turned to Kyle Hulbert, whom she met shortly thereafter. He was called on to testify, but invoked his right against self-incrimination and did not take the stand. Nevertheless, his written confession was allowed in as evidence. In addition, a document found in Clara's room, dated December 8, appeared to thank her cohorts in coded language for their part in the act.

The defense attorneys jumped into action. They tried to make House appear as out of touch with reality as Hulbert was, hoping to show that both young men had misunderstood what she had said. One attorney got House to admit to his belief that dragons were real and had lived during the times of King Arthur. He also indicated that he believed in casting spells. He had cast one to protect himself "against other people's magic," using salt, sanctified water, and a candle. The jury was now exposed to a boy one who had some pretty strange beliefs of his own.

Defense attorneys also used school psychologist Kathleen Aux to shore up their argument. She addressed the psychological problems that Hulbert had in a way that affirmed that he could have misinterpreted what Clara actually wanted.

Yet the prosecution had another witness as well: a friend of Clara's who said that Clara had mentioned on several occasions that she wanted her father dead. Katherine Inglis, too, added that she had witnessed a conversation in which Clara had angrily described her father's abuse.

On October 15, after a week of testimony and only four hours of deliberation, the jury convicted Clara of first-degree murder. The prosecutor asked for a stiff sentence, but the defense cited mitigating factors in light of Clara's testimony about abuse. The jurors recommended a 48-year prison sentence. The defense attorneys said they would appeal on the grounds that the jury had not given enough consideration to the evidence, especially with regard to the psychological issues suffered by Hulbert, the killer.

Judge Thomas Horne scheduled the formal sentencing for January 21. The defense tried to delay it, pending a psychological report on Hulbert, but this motion was denied. Nevertheless, sentencing was delayed into February so the judge could examine the defense's notion that the prosecution had not turned over evidence they possessed of actual abuse of Clara Schwartz. The defense also wanted to file a motion, based on an interview with one of Clara's high-school teachers, that her father had verbally abused her. The teacher thought that Schwartz had more or less abandoned the girl, and that the two had often engaged in serious arguments. Clara's sister acknowledged that the two had had a stormy relationship, especially when they lived together alone in the home during Clara's senior year. In a last-ditch effort, the defense attorneys argued that Clara's actions were the result of hyperthyroidism. They wanted the sentence to be reduced to 30 years.

On February 10, after the judge decided that the defense's motion issue about abuse would have had no effect on the verdict, he sentenced Clara Schwartz to 48 years in prison, meaning she would be released when she was 68 (with a possible reduction to age 61). Judge Horne told her in a fatherly manner that she was responsible for her actions. In an AP article, Heather Greenfield wrote that Clara showed no emotion as she left the courtroom. She also did not look at any of her relatives, some of whom had testified against her.

Next up was Kyle Hulbert.

Hulbert's Decision

On December 20, Michael Paul Pfohl pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, admitting that he had assisted two friends with the murder of Robert Schwartz a year earlier. He had agreed, he said, to drive Hulbert to the home where the murder took place, and he felt ashamed about his part in the crime. He faced a maximum of 21 years and four months in prison. In a written statement, Pfohl admitted that he and his girlfriend, Katherine Inglis, drove to the Springfield mall on the night of December 8. They met friends there, and Pfohl told someone that he was scared to take Hulbert where he wanted to go. He was aware that Hulbert was going to kill someone and he did not want to be an accessory to murder. Having called his involvement a "big oopsy" on the day he was arrested, he admitted that he vaguely realized what he was getting into. In a written apology, he asked Robert Schwartz to give him some "sign" that he was "well." He also excused Hulbert on the basis that Hulbert believed he was right to do what he did. Nevertheless, Pfohl seemed to think he had betrayed Hulbert, and seemed to be sorrier about that than about his role in the murder.

Hulbert had been charged with first-degree murder. People speculated that he would pursue an insanity defense, i.e., prove that he had a mental disorder that kept him from understanding that what he had done was wrong or had caused him to have an irresistible impulse to commit the crime. But on February 27, 2003, newspapers noted that he was not going to do that. His attorneys had a deadline to inform the court of their intent and did not do so. Because of the evidence of premeditation, as well as the admissions made afterward, an insanity defense would be difficult to pursue, despite Hulbert's clear history of mental instability. His trial was scheduled for March 17 in Loudoun County Circuit Court. In his defense, he stated, "I have always told Clara I would protect her. I could not kill him [Schwartz] without just cause. If I was not defending myself or someone I loved, I could not kill."

On March 10, 2003, at a 15-minute hearing a week before Hulbert's scheduled trial, he declared himself a murderer in court. He had decided that making a plea rather than going to trial was the right thing to do. Admitting regret for his actions and for ever having met Clara Schwartz, he said that she had manipulated him into doing what he had done. "I allowed myself to be poisoned," he was quoted as saying in the Washington Post, "Not a day goes by that I don't think about what I did."

Psychiatrist Howard Glick testified before sentencing that Hulbert had made up imaginary friends such as vampires and dragons to make him feel as if he had a sense of family. He had connected strongly with Clara, who also felt like an outsider and claimed that she'd been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and that had given him an even greater sense of family. She was now his sister, and he had to protect her. When she needed help, he got the chance to act on his fantasies of heroism and nobility. It was as simple as that, and as tragic.

Judge Horne acknowledged Hulbert's difficult life in and out of institutions and foster care, but said to him what he said to Clara: You are responsible for your actions. For the murder, Hulbert was sentenced to life in prison without the chance for parole, and another 10 years was added concurrently for conspiracy charges.

Last to be sentenced was Katherine Inglis. Schwartz and Pfohl, on the advice of their attorneys, offered nothing to implicate her, so her case came to an end. There were no other leads to investigate to prove her part in the murder, aside from helping to cover it up. On November 14, 2003, she received a sentence of 12 months. At that time, the Washington Post noted, she had six more days to serve.

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The Cathouse Murders

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Firefighters on roof of burning house

At approximately 5:30 a.m. on Monday, November 9, 2009, Oklahoma City's 911 emergency dispatch center received a call reporting a house fire on the 1500 block of Southwest 56th Street. The caller, a neighbor down the street from the blaze, was calm as she described the scene to the 911 operator from her home.

"It's a house on fire," she said. "It's coming out of the roof...fire...all over the front porch and out the roof."

"Does anyone live there?" asked the operator.

"Uh, yeah, they do."

Within minutes, firefighters from the Oklahoma City Fire Department (OCFD) were on site attempting to extinguish the blaze that illuminated the early morning sky in that part of the city. Upon their arrival, firefighters made efforts to determine whether anyone was inside the burning single level brick house, and located one body which they managed to remove. Information about the fire was slow in coming at first, and was eventually coordinated through the Oklahoma City Police Department (OCPD).

After extinguishing the fire, which gutted much of the inside of the house as well as the roof, investigators located three additional bodies inside the residence. The bodies were taken to the Oklahoma Medical Examiner's Office where definitive autopsies were conducted on each. Local television reported the finding that three women and one man died in the fire. The fire remained under investigation for some time, but it was soon revealed that the fire had been deliberately set.

Homicide

Although homicide investigators, including OCPD Detective Ryan Porter, were making every effort to maintain control of the case and were revealing details to media outlets in an orderly fashion to avoid compromising their case, it was clear from the outsetespecially with four people dead inside a house that had been deliberately set aflamethat some form of homicide was involved. Despite this obvious conclusion, police officials did not immediately confirm that they were working the case as a homicide investigation, stating instead that they wanted to wait and see the results of the autopsies. Although local reporters had stated that two of the four victims had been identified, the OCPD would not release any names until family members were first notifiedprotocol in such a case.

"We believe we know [the victims' identities], but we certainly want to make sure and err on the side of caution," OCPD Master Sergeant. Gary Knight said.

One of the victims, according to Sgt. Chris Miller, had apparent lacerations to her stomach, face and neck, while the other three victims were burned beyond recognition.

Police investigators also said that they had reason to believe that at least one other person had been inside the house but had left before firefighters arrived. Although they would not say how they had come to that belief, they did indicate that they wanted to speak with the person.

"[Investigators] have not spoken to this person, and obviously they want a chance to do that," said Sgt. Knight.

Police officials neither confirmed nor denied that the person was a suspect, but a television news station reported that the person of interest may have been the renter of the house.

Although police officials had not immediately released any of the victims' names, it was not long before someone placed a makeshift memorial, including a large teddy bear, on the front lawn of the burned-out home in honor of one Jennifer Ermey. The name led to a MySpace tribute page that included a message that stated: "Jennifer Ermey has gone onto heaven R.I.P. 11-09-09." The MySpace message appeared the same day as the fire.

Autopsies

Brooke Phillips

The autopsies showed that all four victims had been shot and that the gunshots had resulted in their deaths. Two of the female victims had also been pregnantbringing the death toll to six.

"If a woman is pregnant and she is the victim of a homicide, typically that is counted as two homicides," Knight said.

Because the gunshots had been the cause of the victims' deaths, it now appeared that the fire had been set to conceal the crime of murder.

The victims were eventually identified as Brooke Phillips, 22; her unborn baby; Milagros Barrera, 22, also known as Millie; her unborn baby; Jennifer Ermey, 25; and Casey Barrientos, 32.

According to partial autopsy reports, Phillips' cause of death was determined to be a "perforating gunshot wound" to her head, specifically to the right temple. The autopsy report also showed that Phillips' throat had been slit, and she had been stabbed in her abdomen. She also had suffered gunshots to her left arm, left index finger, and right leg, and had cuts to her hands and a wrist. The presence of a petroleum odor was also noted. Barrera's cause of death was said to be "perforating gunshot wounds" to her back and head. Barrera had also been shot in the thigh.

According to charge documents filed in Oklahoma County District Court, all of the victims had sustained stabbing and gunshot wounds.

Although Phillips' body was burned nearly beyond recognition, the postmortem examination revealed a profane tattoo on the inside of her lower lip. Her relatives later told the police she would pull her lip down and expose the tattoo to those with whom she became upset.

According to a friend, Phillips had been shot six times. A relative, said the friend, identified Phillips' badly-burned corpse by the tattoos on her body.

As he continued working the case with his colleagues, Detective Porter indicated in an affidavit and application for an arrest warrant that he had been able to locate and interview an eyewitness who had been present inside the house when the shootings occurred. According to the witness, a person referred to as "Hooligan" had been arguing with one of the victims when the shooting began. Although "Hooligan" told the witness that his problem was not with the witness, the witness nonetheless ran from the house and escaped.

Porter and his colleagues also learned from a neighbor that a car had been heard leaving the house approximately 20 minutes before anyone noticed that the house was on fire.

A short time later, Porter identified "Hooligan" as David Allen Tyner, 28. His whereabouts were unknown.

Search warrant

Following the execution of a search warrant at the crime scene, investigators confiscated eight spent casings from two separate firearms, a folding knife, two box knives, a white Bic lighter, a digital scale, sandwich-sized Ziploc bags, and large garbage bags. They also seized plastic bags containing marijuana, varying in weight from .60 grams to 5.77 grams. It appeared to some investigators that the house may have been the site of a possible drug-dealing operation. Small amounts of currency were also found, along with debit cards belonging to Phillips and other identification, several cell phones, and a pill bottle containing antibiotics that had been prescribed to Phillips. There were also a number of live rounds of ammunition found inside a sock.

In the aftermath of the horrific crime, investigators set up a tip line, and placed a sign with the tip line telephone number outside the crime scene. They also devoted a room on the third floor of the OCPD headquarters building for investigators to examine evidence retrieved from the burnt-out house, utilizing computers and dry-erase boards to document and develop the case.

"There's a tremendous amount of evidence, a tremendous amount of information that they're processing," Sgt. Knight told reporters. "This is something we are taking very seriously, especially when we're talking about a homicide with six victims in one event."

The evening news three days later announced that Phillips had worked as a prostitute at the Moonlite BunnyRanch brothel in Mound House, Nev., not far from Carson City and Reno. The Moonlite BunnyRanch is a legal, licensed brothelprostitution is legal in much of Nevada, with the notable exception of Clark County, where Las Vegas is located.

Brooke Phillips

As the additional information about the case surfaced, it was learned that Brooke Phillips, while working as a prostitute in Nevada, had been featured on the HBO reality TV series, Cathouse. The television program, a documentary of sorts, depicted the lives of those working at the brothel.

Phillips used the pseudonym Hayden Brooks. A native of Moore, Okla., part of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, she had gained a certain amount of celebrity or notoriety, depending upon one's point of view, from her work on the show. Moonlite BunnyRanch owner Dennis Hof, a frequent customer who had purchased the establishment in 1993 for $1 million, confirmed that Phillips had worked at his establishment for the past couple of years, and characterized her as a "good girl" who had recently returned to Oklahoma after becoming pregnant.

"Give us a little bit of closure and then go ahead and apprehend the criminal that killed this girl and the other people," Hof said shortly after learning of the crime.

According to Hof, Phillips contacted him about two years before her death expressing a desire to work at the Moonlite BunnyRanch. The month prior to her death, she had reportedly told Hof of her pregnancy, her desire to have the baby and her desire to return to work after having the child. Hof said that "the Bunnies were...planning to throw her a baby shower." He said that she had not known who the father was, and had not appeared to care. Three months pregnant at the time of her death, the baby had been due in late spring 2010.

Hof told RadarOnline.com that Phillips had been a pro when it came to stripper pole moves, which she had loved to use to accentuate her beautiful body. She had always been on the pole at the Moonlite BunnyRanch, Hof said, because "she loved it."

"We are replacing the pole...with a brand new one," Hof added. He said the new pole would be inscribed the "Hayden Brooks Memorial Pole." Hof said that they would also place a plaque on the ceiling with a photo of Phillips and the inscription "You'll always be on the pole." Hof described Phillips as having had a great personality, and said that she had been the Miss Congeniality of the brothel.

According to published reports, Phillips was the mother of a six-year-old daughter to whom she had given birth when she was 15. The child reportedly lived with a relative in Oklahoma. The girl's father, Phillips' ex-boyfriend, reportedly had been involved in a custody dispute with Phillips at the time of her death, and learned of Phillips' death through media reports.

The other victims

A possible motive for the multiple murders surfaced as police began to learn more about the other victims of the early morning carnage. Barrientos, the only male victim in the case, had apparently been in and out of prison for drug convictions beginning in 1997. He had also reportedly been involved in a drive-by shooting. Barrientos, who had been released from prison in July 2009, according to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, had devil's horns tattooed on his forehead and was fond of wearing jewelrylots of it. Theories that a possible drug-dealing dispute may have led to the murders began to emerge, but it remained to be seen whether the cops could build a case around that theory.

Victims from left to right: Jennifer Ermey, Milagros "Millie" Barrera and Casey Barrientos

Not much was known about Barrera. Born in Peru in 1987, she had graduated from Moore High School in 2007, and had worked in retail cellular telephone sales until her death. She was described by family and friends as a "beautiful, loving, and caring person" who had loved life and tried to enjoy it to the fullest.

"She was an amazing person," a friend said. "She was the happiest person."

Similarly, Jennifer Ermey was remembered as a beautiful woman, full of inspiration.

"She was an amazing, sweet person who will be greatly missed by all that knew her," a friend wrote on a MySpace page that had been set up as a memorial. "She had a smile that could light up a room. Her life was cut way too short, but she touched a lot of lives in her short time in this world."

Another friend, who had met Ermey in the eighth grade, characterized her as a good person.

"I don't know anyone who could have a problem with her," the friend said. "She was just an amazing person, a good spirit. I love her. I just feel maybe she was at the wrong place at the wrong time."

Investigators noted that the last entry on Ermey's MySpace page read: "Throwing on my dress and going to pick up Millie."

It was also revealed that investigators had stepped up their efforts to find David Allen Tyner who, according to sources in the prosecutor's office, had closer ties to Barrientos than originally known. It appeared that Tyner, a veteran of the war in Iraq, had worked as a bodyguard for Barrientos. Tyner, a former marine, was also a cage fighter, participating in mixed martial arts full-contact bouts inside a cage.

David Allen Tyner

David Allen Tyner

Aware that he was being hunted as a suspect for six murders, on Monday, Nov. 16, 2009, a week after the slayings, David Allen Tyner surrendered to authorities in Mayes County, northeast of Tulsa, near the Missouri and Arkansas borders. He was taken into custody without incident, and was brought back to the Oklahoma County Jail where he was held pending charges. Detectives indicated that they did not believe he had acted alone, and acknowledged that they had identified a second suspect but were not yet ready to release his name.

"We don't believe [Tyner] acted alone," Knight said. "We've identified the one suspect, but that doesn't yet tell us what his motive is for doing this....Often times these investigations are like a big puzzle to solve, and certainly that can present a challenge, but not a challenge that we can't overcome."

A major reason that detectives did not believe that Tyner had acted alone was the fact that bullet casings from two different guns had been found at the crime scene, typically indicating that at least two shooters had been involved.

There was also speculation that Tyner, for reasons not yet ascertained by police, may have been gunning for Barrientos and that the others had been taken out because they had been witnesses who could identify Tyner to the police if allowed to live.

Investigators learned that Tyner, a member of the Cherokee Nation, was a member of a gang known as the Indian Brotherhood. According to Oklahoma County Sheriff John Whetzel, a number of altercations at three prisons between American Indian and Hispanic inmates had followed Tyner's arrest, and Whetzel and others in Oklahoma law enforcement believed these had been deliberately coordinated and were related somehow to Tyner and to Barrientos, who had been Hispanic. A number of inmates from the correctional facilities affected were hospitalized with stab wounds before corrections officials tightened security and stopped the violent outbursts. No reasons were given as to why authorities believed the violence had been deliberately coordinated.

Tyner had been an All-American wrestler in high school, and it was reported that he had wrestled at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga prior to joining the Marines. He was characterized by his high school coach, Johnny Cook, as having been a "good kid" and that the charges against him did not fit his character.

"He obviously had a strong work ethic and a strong will to succeed, being a two-time All-American and a state runner-up," Cook said in an interview with the Cherokee Phoenix. "But he was very kind-hearted, too. If someone was being bullied or picked on in school, he would take up for that individual. That's the David I knew...he would give you the shirt off his back."

Tyner was subsequently charged with six counts of murder, but investigators still did not propose a definite motive for the killings, although they continued to theorize that the murders may have been motivated by a drug operation or drug deal gone bad. Tyner has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Bolstering the potential drug operation theory, in addition to the drugs, paraphernalia, and money found inside the house after the fire had been extinguished, was the fact that Casey Barrientos had felt the need for a bodyguard. Barrientos had also been known to wear a great deal of jewelry, had been present at a location where it appeared that drug deals had been conducted, and an estimated $10,000 in jewelry that Barrientos was believed to have been wearing was mostly missing when his body was found. According to published reports, police believed the shooters had stolen the jewelry: a white gold cross necklace with diamonds, matching white gold and diamond earrings, and a white gold bracelet adorned with diamonds.

A friend of Brooke Phillips maintained that Brooke was not involved with drugs directly and that she had likely been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

"Brooke never used drugs," her friend said. "She barely even drank. But she did date a drug dealer on and off."

Denny Edward Phillips

Denny Edward Phillips

On Monday, April 26, 2010, Denny Edward Phillips, 32, the previously unnamed person of interest in the case, was being sought for the burglary of a Tulsa police detective's home in which guns, a Tulsa police uniform, badges, and other items were stolen. When cornered by Tulsa police officers outside a motel, Phillips, reportedly no relation to Brooke Phillips, allegedly pointed a gun at them and was shot three times, once in the chest and twice in the abdomen. He was hospitalized in critical condition, but survived his injuries.

"He has a history of committing crimes, with a long criminal record behind him, and was a cage fighter like the other guy they already arrested," Gary Gardner, Barrera's stepfather, told RadarOnline.com. "My daughter and her unborn baby, along with the other victims, deserve justice."

According to Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater, Denny Phillips had been identified as a person of interest in the investigation into the six homicides of November 9, 2009, early in the case. Prater stated in an e-mail to his employees issued prior to the police shootout with Phillips that Phillips was "a very dangerous person who ordered the hits on six people in south Oklahoma City," and that Phillips had reason "to target some associates" in the Oklahoma City area. Prater said that he had issued the warning to his employees because of concerns that Phillips might use the stolen uniform and badges in order to pose as a Tulsa police officer, presumably because of the items stolen from the Tulsa police detective's home.

A subsequent search of the motel room where Phillips had been staying turned up two guns that had been reported stolen from the Tulsa police detective's home. Phillips was not initially charged in the burglary of the detective's home, but the investigation was continuing.

Phillips had spent much of his adult life incarceratedhe was 18 when he was first sent to prison. Phillips' criminal history included 1996 convictions for assault with a deadly weapon and other crimes, including a jail escape. In the assault conviction, he stabbed a male in the shoulder with a belt-buckle knife and pleaded guilty to the charge. He was released in May 2007 after spending nearly 11 years in prison.

Following his release from prison, Phillips took up cage fighting. In January 2010, he was arrested in Mayes County, Okla., during a traffic stop in which officers reportedly found a stolen .40-caliber handgun, along with ingredients that could be used to manufacture methamphetamine. After the traffic stop, an officer reported that Phillips had received text messages on his cell phone in which someone wrote, "need a half, will pay you Monday." Phillips admitted possessing a handgun at the time because, he claimed, he had been threatened by someone.

He was charged in January 2010 in Mayes County District Court as a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, a violation of his parole. Related to the shootout with police in April, Phillips was charged on Thursday, May 20, 2010, with possession of a firearm and of feloniously pointing a firearm at police officer in an indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Tulsa.

Bound for trial

At a preliminary hearing on Tuesday, July 13, 2010, the state court count of possessing a firearm as a felon was dismissed at the request of prosecutors due to Phillips' recent indictment in U.S. District Court. A Tulsa County judge ordered him bound over for trial on a charge of feloniously pointing a firearm at the Tulsa police officers who had tracked him to the motel where the shootout occurred.

Prosecutors also alleged that Phillips was the leader of the Indian Brotherhood gang, of which Tyner was also reputedly a member, and contended that Phillips was a flight risk, filing a motion to raise his bail to $750,000 in the Tulsa case.

Phillips has not yet entered a plea to the charges that have so far been laid. Phillips also has not been charged with the Oklahoma City slayings, but police are continuing their investigation to determine what part, if any, he may have had in that case

As they had from the case's outset, OCPD detectives remained cautious and continued to hold their cards close to the chest, releasing very little information. As of July 2010, the motive for the killings on November 9, 2009, remained unclear, and Tyner had proclaimed his innocence to a relative as well as pleading not guilty in court. Tyner apparently had a number of people rooting for him, including a close friend who had stated that he believed Tyner may have suffered post traumatic stress syndrome following his tour of duty in Iraq. It has been reported that Tyner does not appear to have a prior criminal history, but, so far, Tyner was the only person who had been charged in the Oklahoma City slayings. Police investigation continues, but the events of that fatal night remain to be fully explained.

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Deborah Flores-Narvaez: Death of a Showgirl

Friday, August 10, 2012

Deborah Flores-Narvaez, 31, who always went by "Debbie," left the small Las Vegas, Nev., condominium unit she had occupied for about six months on the evening of Sunday, December 12, 2010. It was 7 p.m. when she entered her maroon 1997 Chevrolet Prism bearing Maryland license plates, according to video surveillance in the parking garage of the condominium complex. Her residence is located only a couple of blocks off the Strip on Duke Ellington Way, just behind Hooters Casino Hotel on Tropicana Avenue and not far from Liberace's former home. According to police, she was wearing black knee-high boots, a dark shirt, and dark jeans. The parking garage's surveillance video also showed that she was carrying a black, medium-sized purse or bag with a shoulder strap, and a white, medium-sized gym bag.

A dancer who had performed in the Fantasy stage show at the Luxor Hotel and Casino for about a year, Flores-Narvaez had the early part of the night off and was going across town to the North Las Vegas home of her ex-boyfriend, Jason "Blu" Griffith, 32, to watch the season five finale of Showtime's hit drama, Dexter. At some point that evening, Flores-Narvaez disappeared without a trace.

Hours later, at midnight, Flores-Narvaez was scheduled for rehearsal with the Fantasy show at the Luxor, but she missed it. The rehearsal manager recorded her as a "no call no show." She also failed to show up for the show's Monday performance at 5 p.m. By then, people were becoming concerned about her well-being, and Shannon Hammitt, a friend who lived out of state, called the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) when she learned of Flores-Narvaez's failure to show up for rehearsal and a performance. Hammitt informed LVMPD dispatch about Flores-Narvaez's plans to visit with her ex-boyfriend, and patrol officers were sent to Griffith's residence, located on the 3600 block of Russian Olive Street, on December 13 to see if she had, in fact, shown up as planned.

Griffith, himself a dancer in another popular Las Vegas show, Cirque du Soleil's The Beatles LOVE — a stage show set around a compendium of Beatles songs — at The Mirage, told the officers that Flores-Narvaez had, in fact, shown up at his house and that he had last seen her on December 12 at 6 p.m. Griffith, also an aspiring rapper, told the officers that she had been fine and that she had left his residence in her Chevrolet Prism.

Later that same day, Las Vegas resident Theresa Howey called LVMPD at approximately 4:15 p.m. to report a vehicle parked in a back yard on the 4500 block of East Carey Avenue in Las Vegas, near Lamb Boulevard. The car's description closely matched that of Flores-Narvaez's car. However, given the volume of such calls received on any given day, the call wasn't linked to Flores-Narvaez's case for a couple of days. In the meantime, as far as everyone was concerned — especially Flores-Narvaez's worried family and her co-performers — Flores-Narvaez was simply missing under very suspicious circumstances.

Missing Person Investigation

Sonya Sonnenberg

On Tuesday, December 14, Flores-Narvaez's roommate, Sonya Sonnenberg, called the LVMPD to report that Flores-Narvaez and her car were missing. Sonnenberg told police about Flores-Narvaez's plans to watch Dexter at Griffith's home, and said that the plans had been made for 5 p.m. on December 12th. Sonnenberg's account of Flores-Narvaez's plans for that evening appeared to leave a discrepancy in the timeline, however, that was not immediately explained. Video surveillance in the parking garage of her condominium complex placed her there at 7 p.m. If the system's time-stamping feature was accurate, she couldn't have gone to Griffith's home in her own car at 5 p.m., left there at 6 p.m. and ended up leaving her own parking garage again at 7 p.m., unless she had gone back to her condo for some unknown reason. Something just wasn't adding up yet.

The next day at approximately noon, according to an LVMPD police report, Detective R. Garris went to Jason Griffith's home in an effort to obtain additional information. When Garris arrived, he found Griffith in the driveway changing the right rear tire of his 2005 black two-door Chevrolet Cobalt. The detective noted that Griffith seemed reluctant to make eye contact with him, complaining that he was in a hurry and needed to get to work, but was otherwise cooperative. Griffith told Garris that he last had contact with Flores-Narvaez during the late evening hours of December 12. She was in her car at the time, which she did not get out of or leave. He said that he had spoken to her through the driver's side window of her Prism, and that she had been alone inside the car. Griffith told the detective that they'd had a normal conversation, and that she then left because she needed to get to her rehearsal.

Hadn't Griffith earlier told officers that he had last seen Debbie at 6 p.m.?

Despite the apparent discrepancy between his statements, investigators told reporters that Griffith was being cooperative and did not name him as a suspect.

"Every missing persons case has potential to have foul play involved, but at this point we have found no indication of foul play," LVMPD Lt. Rob Lindquist said. Lindquist said later that investigators "do believe she did not have contact with anyone after [meeting with Griffith]."

Meanwhile, a flier describing Flores-Narvaez and her car was quickly put together and distributed throughout the community by the LVMPD Missing Persons Detail. Flores-Narvaez was described as originally from Puerto Rico, approximately five feet, five inches tall, 120 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. According to a relative, she liked to wear bright colors, and had a faded "joker" tattoo on one of her ankles. She was a ballroom, Latin and hip-hop dancer who had worked for the Washington Redskin Cheerleader Ambassadors in 2007 and 2008, according to her MySpace page. She also had attended school in Maryland before moving to Las Vegas. Her MySpace biography said that she had earned a bachelor's degree in international business, as well as a law degree.

"I am well-cultured, quick-witted, intelligent, considerate and humorous," her biography stated. "I'm blessed with a substantial amount of common sense."

The Mystery Deepens

On Wednesday, December 15, 2010, Theresa Howey called LVMPD again and this time spoke with an officer from Code Enforcement about the car in the backyard. After describing the vehicle in detail, Code Enforcement officers paid her a visit. When they saw the car, they believed it was the one described in the flier distributed by the Missing Persons Detail. One of the officers contacted dispatch and provided the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN). A short time later they received a hit from the FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC) indicating that the mystery car, the rear license plate of which had been removed, was indeed Deborah Flores-Narvaez's Chevrolet Prism.

Flores-Narvaez missing poster

After making the NCIC hit, crime scene analysts went to the location to begin processing the car's exterior before moving it to a more secure location, the idea being to collect and preserve any evidence that might be present on the outside of the car. The car's trunk was opened at that time so that police could verify that Flores-Narvaez was not inside. As it turned out, she was not. After a crime scene technician processed the exterior of the car and surrounding area for clues and photographed both thoroughly, the car was towed to a secure area where the interior would be examined carefully.

A vacant and apparently abandoned structure at the East Carey location was also searched for evidence and any sign of the young woman, to no avail. Detectives later noted that the East Carey location where the car was found was about six miles from Griffith's residence and approximately 18 miles from Flores-Narvaez's condo.

"Hopefully this will help them find her," Howey said. "Hopefully somebody left something behind to help find her."

She also noted that investigators had found Flores-Narvaez's purse.

A Violent Relationship

As the investigation of Flores-Narvaez's disappearance continued, Detective Garris performed a background records check on Jason Griffith. He discovered three prior reports indicating that the relationship between the couple appeared to have been a violent one. In one report, Griffith was listed as the victim and Flores-Narvaez as the suspect. In the other two reports, Flores-Narvaez was listed as the victim and Griffith as the suspect, and in one of those incidents Griffith had been arrested for domestic battery and coercion.

According to police records, Garris learned that Griffith called the North Las Vegas Police Department (NLVPD) on October 9, 2010, to report that Flores-Narvaez was at his home harassing him. When officers responded, Flores-Narvaez told them that two days earlier Griffith had head-butted her while she was sitting inside her car, causing her to break the windshield wiper-washer lever on the steering wheel column. Garris noted that officers documented the broken windshield wiper lever by photographing it.

At approximately 1:30 a.m. on Friday, October 22, 2010, Flores-Narvaez and Griffith purportedly got into an argument on a Las Vegas street over her iPhone, according to People.com. At one point he reportedly grabbed the phone and threw it about 100 feet. When Flores-Narvaez bent over to pick it up, she told police, he kicked her and pulled her hair. A clump of Flores-Narvaez's hair was found in the vicinity of the altercation, and it was photographed and collected as evidence. Police also noted bruises on both of her legs. Flores-Narvaez claimed that she was pregnant with Griffith's child at the time of the incident. However, the disposition of the purported pregnancy remained a mystery.

Griffith confirmed the argument over the iPhone, but denied hitting Flores-Narvaez or taking the phone, according to police reports.

Griffith and Flores-Narvaez had been dating for approximately one year, and, according to friends and relatives, it was a volatile relationship that seemed to be on again and off again. Their relationship resumed following the fight over the iPhone.

"It was a rocky relationship from what I understand, a lot of ups and downs," Celeste Flores-Narvaez, Flores-Narvaez's sister, told People.

Some people, including Griffith's former theater coach, Gerald Gordon, were obviously surprised when he heard about the domestic violence charges.

"He was one of the best people I had worked with... absolutely dependable, honest and talented," Gordon said. "I saw him a few weeks ago. He has a new girlfriend, and he seemed very happy. I would have recommended him for anything."

People also reported that Flores-Narvaezhad worked as a go-go dancer at the Rain nightclub inside the Palms Hotel and Casino, and had appeared in a hip-hop music video of Griffith's for a song called "Sex Gamez" in which she was shown licking Griffith's bare chest.

Flores-Narvaez's sister, who lived in Atlanta, flew to Las Vegas to help in the search for her sister after being contacted by Flores-Narvaez's roommate after Flores-Narvaez failed to show up for rehearsal.

"She knew something was wrong when my sister didn't show up for practice," Celeste said. "My sister is always at practice... She's very creative. She loves dancing. She loves people and being around her friends... [and] wears her heart around her sleeve."

In the meantime, as the investigation into Debbie's disappearance continued, a Las Vegas judge set an April 14, 2011, preliminary hearing date for the domestic violence charges. Those charges consisted of one misdemeanor and one felony.

Warning Signs

As investigators probing Flores-Narvaez's disappearance continued to work back the timeline in their inquiries, they learned that on Monday, November 8, 2010, a friend of Griffith's, Gerald Gordon, had contacted NLVPD expressing concern about Griffith's welfare. According to police reports, Hill had received a text message from Griffith that caused him to believe that Griffith was suicidal. When officers responded, Griffith was not at home. However, they found him on a nearby street sitting inside his car texting. At that time an officer completed a "Legal 2000," a legal procedure that gives law enforcement and medical professionals the right to hold a person believed to be suffering from mental problems for evaluation for up to 72 hours. Griffith was transported to Mountain View Hospital and held for a short time before being released.

Later, however, on December 17, 2010, Marcia Christensen, a former girlfriend of Griffith's, contacted Detective Garris and told him that she had received a text message from Griffith on December 7 or 8 in which he had purportedly asked her if she knew where he could obtain a gun. Apparently he was unable to purchase or possess a gun because of his prior arrest for alleged domestic violence. What he had planned to do with a gun, had he obtained one, was a mystery.

Police revealed that Flores-Narvaez had sent an ominous text message to her mother several days before she disappeared. Her mother, Elise Narvaez, who also lives in Georgia, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the message read: "In case there is ever an emergency with me, contact Blu Griffith in Vegas. My ex-boyfriend. Not my best friend." Her mother said that Flores-Narvaez had instructed her to keep the message for her records.

"I asked Debbie what it means," her mother said. "And she says, 'Never mind, mommy. Just keep it for your records.'"

"To me it doesn't make any sense," her sister, Celeste, told Fox 5 Vegas. "Just, like when you're texting really quick, to me it doesn't make sense... I think there is foul play somewhere. My sister isn't the type of person to leave and be gone this long."

A number of Debbie's friends set up a donation fund on Facebook, where Debbie reportedly had thousands of "friends," and $4,000 was quickly raised as a reward for information about what may have happened to the beautiful dancer.

"Somebody knows something, somebody saw something," her sister said in an emotional plea for information. "You don't have to say your name. Just call the police. It's the holidays. Please bring her home for the holidays."

As for Griffith, Celeste told People that he has been uncooperative with the family in providing them with detailed information about the case.

"He doesn't want to sit down and talk to me," Celeste said. "There are so many inconsistencies."

Foul Play?

By Tuesday, December 21, 2010, LVMPD investigators were treating Debbie's mysterious disappearance as foul play, even though detectives remained hopeful that the search for the missing woman would have a happy outcome, Lt. Rob Lindquist told the Las Vegas Sun. Lindquist said that detectives were examining text messages, e-mails, cell phone records, and postings on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, as well as talking to family members and others. Nonetheless, Lindquist acknowledged that the case could have a negative outcome.

"She may have left on her own," Lindquist said. "However, we are taking this and treating it very seriously. At this point, we're going to look at every aspect into this investigation as if there was foul play."

Griffith, Lindquist said, was considered a person of interest in the case, but detectives were not yet considering him a suspect.

"We know he has had a relationship with Deborah, so we are still speaking with him, and we are still looking into that matter," Lindquist said. "Even though we know he had a conversation with Deborah, we are also looking into all other aspects of this investigation."

The next day, without publicly discussing their leads or evidence in the case, detectives applied for and obtained a warrant to search Griffith's home. Although they did not publicly disclose the leads that supported the search warrant, an LVMPD report showed that missing persons and homicide detectives had found a receipt from the Flying J Truck Stop located on East Cheyenne Avenue for a container of bleach and two microfiber sponges. The receipt was dated December 15, 2010, three days after Debbie had disappeared.

The New Year brought with it a major break in the mysterious case. At approximately 10:45 p.m. on January 5, 2011, Detective Garris was contacted by a colleague, Detective L. Cho, according to a police report, who told Garris that a friend had passed information to her about a witness, later identified as Kalae Casorso, who recounted that she had been approached by Jason Griffith and another person, who asked that they be allowed to store something at Casorso's apartment. Cho said that Casorso had become very upset when she asked Griffith about the plastic tub filled with concrete that Griffith and the other man, Louis Colombo, described as Griffith's roommate in police reports, had allegedly brought to Casorso's apartment because Griffith had allegedly said, "Debbie is in there."

As a result of the new information, investigators obtained evidence in the form of rental agreements and surveillance footage indicating that Griffith and Colombo had rented a truck and two utility dollies on December 14, 2010, at 10:52 a.m. from a U-Haul rental outlet on West Craig Road. The equipment was returned to the U-Haul outlet at 4:25 a.m. on December 16, 2010, during non-business hours, and the keys were deposited in a drop-box. Video surveillance footage depicted two males matching Griffith's and Colombo's descriptions placing the keys in the drop-box and then leaving in a black Chevrolet Cobalt.

The rental truck was equipped with a global positioning system (GPS), which allowed detectives to recreate Griffith's and Colombo's movements on the days the truck was rented to them. In the meantime, investigators obtained a recorded statement from Casorso regarding her encounter with Griffith and Colombo.

Casorso's Statement

According to Casorso's statement to police, which was included in the LVMPD report and appeared in a number of media outlets, Casorso told that Griffith had asked her if he could store some things in her apartment until he was ready to move. She said that she told Griffith that she didn't have much space, but that he could come over and determine if the items in question would fit inside a closet or perhaps be stored outside on her patio, exposed to the elements. Griffith had shown up at her apartment at 11:00 p.m. on December 15, 2010, to discuss the matter, but she hadn't realized that he had brought the item, a plastic tub, with him until he left her apartment to get it.

Casorso told investigators that she heard a creaking noise outside her apartment, looked outside and saw that the sound was coming from a U-Haul truck's back doors that were swaying side-to-side. She went outside and observed Griffith and Colombo standing on either side of a large, light-blue plastic tub that was nearly full with dark, charcoal-grey concrete. It appeared rocky on the surface, and one of the tub's sides bulged outward. She asked Griffith what the tub contained.

She explained that Griffith appeared hesitant to respond at first, then asked her if she really wanted him to tell her what was inside the tub. When she responded that she needed to know its contents before allowing him to store the tub at her apartment, he told her that the tub contained Flores-Narvaez. She recounted that she freaked out, telling Griffith and Colombo to leave and to remove the tub. She said they then left, with Colombo driving the truck and Griffith driving his black Cobalt.

Casorso said that she hadn't called the police immediately because she didn't want to believe that what she had witnessed and had been told was true, and also because she was afraid. It was later, she said, that she decided to confide in a friend who knew someone at the police department because she needed help handling the situation.

Colombo's Statement

Jason Griffith

On January 7, 2011, at approximately 6:40 p.m., investigators brought Louis Colombo to the LVMPD homicide unit to give a statement. According to the police report, Colombo agreed to tell the detectives what had occurred if he would not be arrested or prosecuted with regard to the case because, he said, he did not have anything to do with Flores-Narvaez's death nor did he have any part in the planning of it. Authorities have not said whether they entered into an agreement with Colombo yet; it was said that he had asked for leniency for admitting that he helped Griffith dispose of Flores-Narvaez's remains and that his alleged involvement was still being investigated. In any case, it should be noted that an agreement not to prosecute would have to come from the district attorney.

Colombo declared that, on the night Flores-Narvaez disappeared, she and Griffith had become involved in a physical confrontation in which Colombo had had to pull Griffith off of Flores-Narvaez because he had been choking her with his hands. Colombo said that everything had been okay when he had left the house at 8:20 p.m. to take a relative to another relative's house. At approximately 10:30 p.m., he had received a text message from Griffith asking that Colombo not bring his girlfriend back to the house with him.

When Colombo arrived back at the Russian Olive Street house, he said he had been met by Griffith at the front door. Griffith allegedly told Colombo that this was a "change your diaper moment." At that point, Colombo told investigators, Griffith had walked him to their studio room and showed him where Flores-Narvaez lay dead on the floor. Colombo said that he had then become sick and had to use the bathroom. When he returned, he recounted, Flores-Narvaez lay in the exact position in which she had been when he left the room. He said he could see that she was not breathing, and she was cold to the touch when he assisted Griffith in placing her body into the plastic tub.

Colombo told police that Griffith cut off Flores-Narvaez's clothing before placing her into the plastic tub, and described how Griffith had taped her legs, knees to chest, in such a manner that her body would fit into the tub face up. Using bags of concrete purchased at a Home Depot near their home, which Colombo said they mixed in the garage, they filled the tub with concrete so that it covered Flores-Narvaez's naked corpse and left it in the garage to harden overnight.

The Body

After renting the U-Haul truck the next day, Colombo said, he and Griffith had used a dolly to move the tub up the loading ramp and into the truck. After attempting to store the tub at a location that Colombo did not identify, an effort they had given up after being unable to get the tub to the second floor of the building in question, they had parked the truck overnight at the Flying J Truck Stop near their house.

The next day, Colombo said, Griffith obtained keys to a house that belonged to friends who were on an extended trip out of the country. Colombo said that he had gone to the house, located on Bonanza Way near downtown Las Vegas, by himself and attempted to move the tub into the house. However, the tub began leaking and he called Griffith for assistance. They kept the tub in the living room of the house for a couple of days, but returned with new plastic tubs, a sledge hammer, a handsaw, and cleaning supplies purchased at a Walmart several miles away near the Fiesta Hotel Casino on North Rancho Drive.

Back at the house, they broke Flores-Narvaez's body out of the concrete using the sledge hammer. Colombo said that Griffith had sawed off both of Flores-Narvaez's legs with the handsaw, and they had placed her legs and body in plastic bags and then into two plastic tubs, which they filled with enough concrete to cover her remains. Afterward, he said, they had placed the tubs inside a closet and sealed the closet doors. Colombo said they closed the tools they used inside a closet in another room of the house, but left the first plastic tub and the broken pieces of concrete in the living room.

Following the interview with Colombo, detectives obtained a search warrant for the house on Bonanza Way where Colombo said that Flores-Narvaez's remains had been taken. Police arrived only minutes past midnight on January 8, 2011, and they immediately observed a broken blue plastic tub and broken chunks of concrete in the living room. The investigators observed a larger piece of concrete inside the tub, which still held the impression of a hand and a large amount of long, dark hair. The living room window was covered with a large sheet of black plastic, and the window in the southeast bedroom was covered with a blanket and sealed around the window frame with what appeared to be spray foam insulation, according to police reports. It could have been a scene right out of Dexter, but it wasn't: this was a macabre reality.

There were two bedrooms inside the house, the closets of which were also sealed off with what appeared to be spray foam insulation. The investigators found two green plastic tubs inside the closet of the southeast bedroom, stacked on top of each other, with the lids secured by locking handles. When they opened the tubs, they observed that they contained black plastic garbage bags that had been covered with concrete. It was later determined that the plastic tubs contained Flores-Narvaez's dismembered remains.

Investigators also found the tools that Colombo had described, sealed in the closet of the house's northeast bedroom.

Arrest and Cause of Death

Later that same day, at 11:50 p.m., Griffith left work following a performance of Cirque du Soleil's The Beatles LOVE show at The Mirage. Detectives were waiting for him. They approached him and asked if he would be willing to accompany them to their office to answer some additional questions they had about Flores-Narvaez's disappearance, and assured him that he was not under arrest at that time, according to police reports. Nonetheless, Griffith brought up the fact that his Miranda rights had not been read to him, prompting one of the detectives to say that he would be happy to read Griffith his Miranda rights prior to investigators asking him any questions. While en route to their offices, Griffith called and left a message for his attorney and explained what was going on.

Prior to questioning, one of the detectives read Griffith his Miranda rights, after which he signed and initialed a card indicating that he understood those rights. At first, Griffith denied having anything to do with Deborah Flores Narvaez's death. He admitted, however, that he had rented a U-Haul truck, but said he had done so in order to pick up a punching bag stand from a location in northwest Las Vegas. When they confronted him about having driven the truck to Henderson, he claimed that he had gone there to pick up additional work-out equipment from a friend's house. However, he refused to name the friend. He told the detectives that he was in possession of the truck's keys at all times except when Louis Colombo drove the truck to pick up the punching bag stand while Griffith provided driving directions.

When they asked him specific questions related to Flores-Narvaez's death and the disposal of her remains, Griffith told the investigators that he didn't want to respond without the presence of his attorney. The interrogation concluded, detectives arrested Griffith in connection with Flores-Narvaez's death. Griffith was subsequently taken to the Clark County Detention Center, where he was booked and jailed.

During the trip to jail, Griffith continued to talk with one of the detectives and allegedly made statements that what had happened "was not a premeditated thing and that it was a heat of the moment thing that happened," according to Fox 5 Vegas. He also reportedly told the detective that Flores-Narvaez had attacked him and that he had always believed she had a gun, according to a police report. When it was agreed that no one would believe that, Griffith allegedly said that Flores-Narvaez had "forced him to do what he did." He also reportedly told the detective that "after it happened, he did all the amateurish stuff afterwards," according to a police report.

At the jail, Griffith allegedly told the detective that Louis Colombo only became involved after Flores-Narvaez was already dead, and that Colombo "really didn't know what was going on," according to the police report. When the detective offered to take Griffith's official statement, he refused. Few other details emerged at that point.

"It's a very complicated case," Lt. Lew Roberts said after the arrest. "This was a very high-profile case. We made an arrest on a suspect, and in the interest of providing a good prosecution we can't go any deeper."

Three days later, the Clark County Coroner's Office reported that Flores-Narvaez had died of asphyxiation due to neck compression and ruled her death a homicide. In other words, she had been strangled.

Remembrance and Indictment

On Friday, January 14, 2011, at a memorial service held inside the Fantasy show's theater inside the Luxor Hotel and Casino, friends and colleagues recalled how Debby Flores-Narvaez's life had been filled with passion, and described her as a strong-willed perfectionist who was never afraid to speak her mind with her producers and choreographers. She was also described as a kind person who was generous to those in need. Fantasy producer Anita Mann said she had possessed a hard work ethic.

"She cared," Mann told the crowd of friends and performers. "There was nothing she would not do. She wasn't that fantastically trained, but she attacked [dancing] with a vengeance... that's the way she attacked life, full out with a vengeance and a passion."

Mann described how she had sent Debbie a text message after she disappeared and failed to show up for rehearsal, asking, "Are you OK?" She never received a reply, and the Fantasy cast and crew would not understand the true significance of her absence until a month later. Mann said that at first she "got mad" when Debbie missed rehearsal, but "half an hour later I wasn't mad; I was concerned."

On Wednesday, February 9, 2011, a grand jury indicted Jason Griffith on one count of murder in the death of Deborah Flores-Narvaez. He was formally accused of strangling her to death, dismembering her body, and concealing it in two concrete-filled tubs. The indictment allowed the case to proceed without the preliminary hearing that had been previously scheduled, permitting the case to be somewhat shielded from the public and national media attention before trial. District Judge Linda Bell ordered that Griffith be held without bail at the Clark County Detention Center.

Griffith pleaded not guilty at his arraignment before Judge Donald Mosley on Wednesday, February 16, 2011, and only spoke when asked a question by the judge. Mosley set Griffith's trial date for November 28, 2011.

"I think it's ridiculous," Flores-Narvaez's sister, Celeste, told Fox 5 Vegas by telephone after the arraignment. "He's being a coward. He should be man enough to say, 'I'm guilty,' and get it done and over with and save everybody the grief. He could have stopped this the first time when his roommate stopped him from choking her. He could have just left it alone, and he actually decided to do it again and take her life. He knew what he was doing."

Griffith's attorney, Jeff Bankschief, told the news station that mounting a defense for his client was going to be challenging.

"We're going to have our work cut out for us," Bankschief said.

In the meantime, Griffith has denied all requests to be interviewed about the case, and police officials have indicated that additional arrests are possible.

Bibliography

AOL News

CBS News

Daily Mail

Fox 5 Vegas

KLAS-TV

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Arrest Report

Las Vegas Review-Journal

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