Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [90]
Late one afternoon, Thomas and Trujillo had knocked on the front door of the Northridge house. The detectives introduced themselves, and the current owners let them into the house to look around. They had just wanted to get a feel for the place. In the backyard, Thomas and Trujillo stopped short. There, embedded in the cement of the patio, were JonBenét’s and Burke’s infant footprints—tiny but perfect.
The next night, the detectives went back to the house. It was raining, and they didn’t want to disturb the owner. They walked to the backyard and again looked down at the tiny imprints, which glistened in the chilly drizzle.
Thomas began to weep.
Trujillo remained silent, waiting for Thomas to regain his composure.
From there, the detectives went to visit JonBenét’s grave site.
Steve Thomas knew that no matter what lay ahead, he had to do the right thing. That was the credo his father had instilled in him, and now his father, who had devoted much of his life to raising money for the March of Dimes, was sick. His mother had died back in Arkansas when he was just seven. Thomas had gone to college at CU, studied sociology and criminology, and become a cop in 1986. Four years later, he was hired by the Boulder police as a patrol officer. Shortly afterward he was involved in two shootings, the second one as a member of the SWAT team. Both cases were deemed justified by a police review board. During that period, Thomas and Commander Eller became friends. By 1996, Thomas was working as a detective in a specialized narcotics unit. Just six months before JonBenét was murdered, he married Karena Jesaitis, a certified public accountant.
Steve Berkowitz, who had worked narcotics with Thomas at the Wheat Ridge Police Department in 1988, knew that if anything were ever to happen to one of his children, he’d call Steve Thomas. “Find her” would be all he’d have to say.
By now, Thomas was totally consumed by the investigation. He’d seen death before, but he had never seen the senseless murder of a six-year-old. He spent weekends working at police headquarters. He tossed and turned at night, and when he couldn’t sleep, he turned on his computer and worked on the case. As the weeks passed with no answers to all the open questions about JonBenét’s murder, he became more and more tormented. Sometimes Steve Thomas felt completely alone in his hunt for her killer.
PART TWO
The Hatfields and the McCoys
1
John Eller was now sixty-one. He was born in Vallejo, California, but grew up in Key West, Florida. In 1968, after attending college and spending three years in the air force, Eller joined the Coral Gables, Florida, police force as a patrol officer. Like all rookies, he sat in a patrol car learning radio procedures, watching what his partner did, and trying not to get hurt. Eller’s early progress reports rated him satisfactory in judgment and knowledge of procedures. In 1970, however, a police board reviewed two minor, preventable car accidents that Eller had been involved in while on duty in a seven-month period. The board recommended that Eller be terminated on August 3,1970. Five days before that date, Eller resigned, noting that he planned to continue his career as a police officer. Two years later, at the Metro Dade County Department of Public Safety, Eller became an investigator in vice and narcotics and a crisis-intervention specialist. Those who worked with him saw him as quiet and serious about his career.
Eller was soon promoted to sergeant and became a detective. He worked in Dade County’s safe streets program. John Stack, a colleague, said, “He was viewed as a guy climbing the ladder to the top. He wasn’t a ‘street cop’ learning from experience. Once he got it in his head that his way was right, that was it. He was never one to trust a DA.” After a decade of civil unrest in Florida,