Closing Time: A True Story of Robbery and Double Murder Read online

  The woman looked as if she was confused and didn’t know how to answer the question.

  “One broke down, and we had to call another.”

  Men with cameras were taking pictures behind yellow tape that had already been strung up around the store. Ruth saw a white car with the Channel 5 logo on the doors. In minutes, other television stations would be sending their cars as well.

  Ruth continued walking to the jewelry store, but when she got to the front sidewalk, a man stopped her.

  “You can’t go in there.”

  “But my family is there,” Ruth said.

  “Ma’am, ma’am.” And then, very firmly, he said, “You do not want to go in there.”

  Ruth turned her head and saw a policeman ushering Elaine and Karen into a police car. She walked toward them, and when the policeman saw her, he said, “Get in. We’re taking you all to the hospital.”

  At that time, Ruth felt some hope. Maybe Kenneth and Suzanne were at the hospital. Maybe everything would be all right.

  But when they reached Crawford County Hospital, which was only ten minutes away, the police car pulled into the emergency entrance.

  A plump nurse with a kind face came out to the car. She stuck her head through an opened window.

  “Why don’t you come inside?”

  Ruth asked, “Why? Is my husband here? Is my daughter?”

  The nurse smiled. “No, I’m so sorry. We thought you might want to come inside, in case you needed some treatment to help you cope.”

  Ruth was afraid they would give her a shot that would knock her out, and she wanted to be alert if her husband or daughter needed her. With as much determination as she could muster, she said, “I don’t want anything like a shot or anything else.”

  Following their mother’s lead, her daughters said they didn’t want anything either.

  The police officer drove them back to the shopping center parking lot. In the middle of the crowd, Ruth saw a car she recognized with her friend Tressie Marchbanks inside. She was a dear woman, who had taught all four Staton girls in elementary school. She had even home tutored Elaine for four years when Elaine wasn’t able to attend school because she, too, had developed rheumatoid arthritis.

  When the policeman stopped the car, Tressie Marchbanks walked over to them. She put her arms around Ruth and her two daughters and little Ben.

  “Get in our car. We’ll take you home.”

  Ruth climbed into the front seat behind Tressie, whose husband sat behind the wheel. Tears flowed down his red cheeks, and he tapped the steering wheel with his fist in short, quick pats.

  Inside the safety of the car, Ruth finally admitted, “I guess they are both dead.”

  Tressie put her arm around Ruth and whispered, “Yes, dear.”

  Ruth then turned to look at her daughters and grandson in the backseat. The daughters nodded their heads yes and then looked out the window. Ben had already fallen asleep in his mother’s lap.

  No words were spoken on the drive home. Tressie suspected they were all in shock and were incapable of voicing their pain. She also knew that the Statons were a stoic family, used to hardships and debilitating illness, and were not prone to let others know their true feelings.

  Tressie’s husband, Odie, trying hard to hide his anger at what had happened to the finest family he’d ever known, drove slowly and carefully to the Staton’s home on Azure Hills Drive.

  When Ruth and her two daughters walked into their home, it was there that their nightmare really began and would never, ever leave. Years would pass, and Ruth and her daughters would have to find their own way to live with the trauma of the cruel and heartless reality of the deaths of Kenneth Staton and Suzanne Ware.

  If Ruth hadn’t left early, she would have died along with Kenneth and Suzanne. If the crime hadn’t happened on Karen’s day off, she would have been there instead of Suzanne. It was a series of what-ifs that would haunt them for a very long time.

  Ruth Staton tried to reach Elaine’s husband at his workplace at a plant in Sallisaw, Oklahoma, where he was head of the maintenance department. She was stalled several times by men who answered the phone but didn’t know how to locate Bill. Finally, she got him on the phone and told him the dreadful truth of what had happened. Bill was upset to hear the news about his father-in-law and Suzy, but he was more concerned for his wife, Elaine, and their little boy. He rushed to the Staton home on Azure Hills where the family was gathering.

  Tom Ware, Suzanne’s husband, was playing in a band at the Camelot Hotel in Tulsa. His parents rushed to Tulsa from Rogers (where they lived) to tell him what had happened.

  In Paris, Texas, the bewildered Riggs couple and their two children began the three-hour trip to Van Buren. Janet tried not to cry in front of Jon and Sara, but it was impossible. Her heart was broken, and she was angry that a good man, who had worked hard all his life under the worst of handicaps, and her sweet little sister had been brutally murdered by evil men or women or both. She wanted to know the details, but when she would ask Tommy if he knew how they died, she would cover her ears and say, “No, no, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  With the keys from Suzanne’s purse, Damon and Rick had jumped into the green Suzuki jeep and sped across Highway 64-71 to the Safeway parking lot. Damon jerked off his brown wig and threw it into one of the orange bags of jewelry.

  Rick was swallowing back bile. If he’d been alone, he would have vomited on the floor of the car.

  “What the hell was that all about, Damon? Shit! I don’t know what’s going to happen next! I didn’t sign up for this crap. Those people are dead, Damon!”

  “Shut the fuck up, you pussy!” Damon yelled back at Rick. “I told you, ‘no witnesses.’”

  They didn’t see Billy Ray Miller headed home from his job at Planter’s Peanuts, but Miller noticed that they were driving a little fast into a grocery store parking lot, so he watched as the jeep stopped and a man climbed out and walked toward a parked motorcycle. Miller watched as the jeep left, with the motorcycle following close behind. Miller thought nothing more about the incident until he finished his grocery shopping and looked across the street to see police cars parked in front of Staton’s Jewelry Store.

  Linda Godwin, an employee of Oklahoma Gas and Electric Company, worked in a small kiosk at the shopping center. She had noticed two men walking briskly across the shopping center around 5:45. One had long hair and the other had scraggly hair. She had wondered to herself where they were going in such a hurry. When she later heard about the robbery, she figured out where they were headed.

  —||—

  Rick had slammed the door and jumped out at Safeway. He thought briefly of just getting on his Harley and heading back to Kansas. But Chantina was back at the camp, along with what little clothes he owned, and he still only had five bucks in his pocket.

  He followed the jeep to the Sleepy Hollow apartment complex three or four blocks away. Damon parked the jeep and threw the keys into a drainage curb beside the parking lot. They then drove across the bridge to the Terry Motel and gathered their belongings.

  “Why’d the hell you have to kill ’em?” Rick asked again.

  He felt sick to his stomach and realized he wasn’t cut out for that kind of life. He felt scared, more scared than he’d ever been in his twenty-three, almost twenty-four years on earth. His years of being drug to the Seventh Day Adventist church by his parents came flooding back to him. What would his mother say? His dad?

  Damon jerked Rick’s arm and turned to face him.

  “No witnesses, you goddam fool! I keep telling you!” he shouted. And then, as if fearful someone had heard him through the motel’s thin walls, he lowered his voice to a whisper. “No witnesses.”

  Rick was more frightened by Damon’s whispered voice than his screaming voice.

  “Okay,” he said. “I thought it was going to be a simple robbery, that’s all.”

  Damon laughed. “A simple robbery? H
ell, man, there’s no such thing as a simple robbery.”

  “Yeah, well, you didn’t say anyone was going to get shot?”

  “I gave you a gun, and you carried it. What did you expect, you pussy?”

  “I thought that was just for show,” Rick said, his voice breaking. “You said if you carry a gun then nobody gives you a hard time.” His eyes were filling with tears, but he didn’t want to cry in front of Damon. “Just to show we meant business. Or something.”

  Damon placed his hands on either side of Rick’s face and pressed hard.

  “Listen, you are in deep shit. As deep as I am. So you keep your mouth shut. Don’t tell Chantina. Don’t tell nobody, you hear? We’re going to leave this shithole and get up to Beaver Lake. We’re going to act calm, drive the speed limit, and get up there by dark.”

  Rick pulled Damon’s hands off his face. He was angry, and there was no chance in hell he was going to cry. He spat out the words: “I get it.”

  In a matter of minutes, they were out the door of room 18. As Rick started the motorcycle, he waited for Damon to go inside the office to pay the bill to the Iranian man who stood behind the desk. Rick watched Damon peel off some bills from his billfold, knowing they came from the crippled guy’s billfold. He heard Damon say in a loud Southern drawl, “You have a nice day, you hear?”

  A thought raced through Rick’s head, over and over. It was an old saying of his father’s and probably his father’s father as well: In for a dime, in for a dollar.

  —||—

  When Ricky and Damon roared into their campsite around 9:00 at night, Chantina and Loralei were sitting around talking to two men who had walked over and struck up a conversation with the girls.

  Damon threw his leg over the side, stepped off the Harley, and rubbed his hips. He took off his black helmet, reached into his shirt pocket for a cigar, and lit it with great aplomb.

  They all chit-chatted about fishing and how hot and humid it was for a minute or two before the men realized they should quickly make their exit.

  Damon pulled Loralei tight against him and patted her rear.

  “We made a killing, baby.”

  Chantina hugged Rick and whispered, “Thank God you’re back. I was going crazy with that woman.”

  “Shh,” Ricky said, whispering in her ear. “Keep your damn mouth shut.”

  Chantina lowered her gaze and kicked at the dirt with her bare foot. Rick had never talked to her like that.

  “What’d I do wrong?” she whispered. “I missed you a lot. I didn’t mean nothing by what I said.”

  “Just cool it,” Rick said. “Quit asking questions.”

  Damon yelled, “Hot damn, girls! Get in the trailer.”

  The trailer bed was cramped with all four in there at the same time. Everyone except Damon sat down while he dumped two orange nylon bags on the floor. Diamond rings, watches, necklaces, bracelets, gold chains, and cash lay in a jumbled pile. The price tags were still on most of the pieces, and some items were still in their boxes.

  Loralei feverously racked her fingers through the men’s signet rings and other obvious rings for men and pushed them aside. Then she pored through the ladies’ jewelry.

  “Where’s the earrings I wanted and the ring?”

  “The older lady wasn’t working, so I couldn’t get them. Quit your bitching.”

  Damon and Rick then sorted the jewelry and watches according to what they were worth. Some of the men’s rings were priced at close to $2,000. The cheapest one was $200. Everyone tried on various rings and bracelets and held their hands up to the light to see the sparkling diamonds. Damon knew the ones he wanted, but he kept his mouth shut about that for now.

  The girls were allowed to choose some less expensive pieces, like bracelets or necklaces. Chantina surmised quickly that Rick and Damon had robbed a jewelry store, but she didn’t know where, and she didn’t know how, and she didn’t want to know. Some small part of her conscience knew stealing was wrong, but damn, those gold chains were beautiful, and she’d never owned anything pretty before in her life.

  Loralei put her hand on Rick’s shoulder and said with a smirk, “So how you like working with Damon?”

  Rick didn’t answer, but shrugged his shoulders.

  Maybe he smiled, maybe not. All he could think about was a crippled man and a young girl lying face down, with their wrists and ankles tied together with ropes, the ropes he had tied around them, and their mouths gagged with strips of washrags that came from the Terry Motel.

  And blood. Lots and lots of blood. Blood from two bullets fired at close range into the head of the man and two bullets into the head of the pretty girl with long, light-brown hair.

  His thoughts were jolted from that bloody past to the terrifying present by Daman laughing loudly and talking to nobody in particular.

  “Down on your knees, dog,” he said, as if he were reciting a line from a play or a bloody event that had recently occurred.

  Everyone laughed, even Chantina, but she had no idea what was so funny.

  Rick and Chantina spent the night in their sleeping bags, away from the camper where Damon and Loralei slept. Chantina tried to lure Ricky out of his bad mood with her usual way of getting a man to be nice to her, but it didn’t work. Rick tried to perform but couldn’t, and that made him act even more hateful. They slept on the nylon bags with their backs resting against each other, while those in the camper were having a good time.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The next morning, Rick and Chantina rode on the motorcycle into Rogers to a pancake house while Loralei and Damon followed in the old Caddy, leaving the camper at the campsite in Horseshoe Bend. They were hungry since none of them had eaten anything the night before. Damon had bought a newspaper out of a rack by the front door before he went inside, so he read while he ate and didn’t chit-chat with anyone at the table. Loralei ran her mouth, as usual, while Rick and Chantina didn’t say much of anything.

  After breakfast, the men dropped the girls at a discount store while they went to a used car lot.

  “We got to get rid of the Caddy,” Damon said.

  “You worried about the timing chain?” Rick asked. “I thought it was fixed.”

  “Hell, no. We don’t need a car that someone may have seen at that shopping center.”

  The Economy Car Lot in Rogers, Arkansas, was the kind of lot that would trade for a car with no questions asked, so they made a deal for a dark-green, four-door Plymouth from salesman Michael Jeffcoat, who didn’t have to try too hard to convince them that it was the car for them. When they picked up the girls later, Loralei told Damon it was the ugliest car she’d ever seen.

  Damon laughed. “I didn’t buy this car for its looks, baby. I bought it so nobody will give us a second glance.”

  They then drove back to Horseshoe Bend and broke camp. They built a small fire in the pit to burn the boxes and price tags that came with the jewelry, as well as the beer cans and garbage that had accumulated in the trash barrel. Damon didn’t want any trace of them left behind.

  “Just for safety's sake,” he said.

  Damon hooked the pop-up camper to the Plymouth, and Rick followed on his Harley to Fayetteville, a short distance away. At 1790 Birch Avenue, where Fayetteville Self Storage was located, they parked. Damon went inside and waited on the proprietor, who came from a back room. He spoke pleasantly and gave Damon a ballpoint pen that advertised the address and phone number. Damon didn’t converse with the nice man but let him know that he was in a hurry by tapping his fingers on the counter. He signed a receipt, rented a ten-by-twenty-foot storage compartment, and told Rick to back the trailer into the small space. He then parked his Harley beside it and hung their two black helmets over the handlebars. With a heavy heart of having to leave his pride and joy, his dark-blue 1978 Sportster, Ricky pulled the door shut and locked it. The stolen merchandise was safely hidden in the briefcase in the trunk of the Plymouth.

  With that accomplished, they filled up the tank at an
Esso Station, and by 5:00 the afternoon of the 11th, they left town to drive straight through to Atlanta.

  Left behind were the good folks of Van Buren. It didn’t seem to matter if they personally knew the Statons or not. They knew what the newspaper said and what they saw on television, and it was all incredibly sad. There was no other way to put it.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  By the time Ruth and her daughters reached the Staton home at 205 Azure Hills, friends and some family members were already arriving. A Channel 5 newsman, who had happened by and seen the crowd of people and police cars gathering in Cloverleaf Plaza, reported to the newsroom of the robbery and murders, and it was broadcast immediately. The names of the victims were even announced, regardless of the policy of waiting until all family members had been informed.

  Grady Staton, one of Kenneth’s older brothers, was sitting in his living room recliner in front of the television when he heard the news. He later told his sister-in-law that he was so shocked that he thought he might die from the heart condition that had forced him to retire early. He began formulating the story in his mind that would later be printed in The Press Argus called “Side by Side.”

  Fay Watts arrived at the Staton home with her twin daughters, Linelle and Michelle, who, at the ages of fifteen, were offered as babysitters for little Ben. They put him in a highchair and fed him supper, which was long overdue. Later, after his daddy had done his best to console Elaine, Bill took Ben home with him and left his wife with her mother and sisters.

  The L-shaped living room, dining room, and kitchen were filling up with people, including the wife of C.C. “Pistol” Gunn, who said her husband was so upset he’d become physically ill and couldn’t come in person.

  A guest bedroom was designated the smoking room, and the smokers stayed in there. Elaine, after not smoking for three years, joined her sisters and lit a cigarette—and would continue to smoke until she became pregnant with her second son, Alexander.