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

  Karen realized that she could remember just about all of the rings that were stolen. During times when she took a break from working on the inventory, she sketched out with pencil the pictures of the rings stolen. At night, when she couldn’t sleep, she grabbed her pencil and the index-sized poster board she’d found at the store. She knew, if any of the jewelry was ever recovered, her sketches would be invaluable.

  Janet and Elaine were occupied with their two small children and couldn’t stay at the store for long. Once, when both were at the Azure house with their children, Garrick Feldman, the editor of The Press Argus, called and asked if he could come over and interview them. Both women were reluctant, but they finally agreed since they knew the editor’s reputation as a good man and a fine reporter.

  They sat in their mother’s living room, watching Ben and Sara play on the floor. It was too hot to let them play outside. They asked Feldman in and offered him some iced tea, which he accepted. He began the interview by saying that the whole community grieved for the Staton family. He said Kenneth Staton probably was the most well-liked and respected man in town. And their little sister, Suzanne, was everything a father would want in a daughter.

  Elaine said, “My sister was probably my best friend. She was intelligent. A straight-A student. I still think of what Suzy and I might be doing right now.”

  “My daddy was such a gentle person,” Janet added. She also told Feldman that her husband and son were coming the next weekend to get her and daughter, Sara. “We have to go home and try to get some normalcy in our life.”

  “People have been really great,” Elaine said.

  Feldman sensed that the interview was hard for the sisters, and they weren’t used to being in the spotlight, especially one so tragic. Ever the journalist, he thought of his headline for the column he’d write following the interview: “Distraught Staton Family Continues to Mourn.”

  When he left, the sisters breathed easier.

  “I’m glad that’s over,” Elaine said. “I really, really do miss Suzy.”

  Talking about Suzy had made Janet think of the funny story her mother had told the night before after Sara had been put to bed. They had been standing in the kitchen, cleaning up after supper.

  “I just remembered something funny about Suzanne when she was a little girl,” Ruth had said. She was smiling, and once again, Janet remembered how pretty her mom was when she smiled. “One of my cousins was visiting and said she was going to Seattle. Suzy looked up at me and said, ‘Who’s Attle?’”

  Ruth knew that, from then on, those memories of the simplest of conversations with Suzanne would be the ones she would treasure the most.

  Elaine could just imagine that scene, with Suzy looking up so sweetly and innocently into her mother’s brown eyes. Suzy was such an easygoing child, and she never needed scolding because she never misbehaved. As a child, she often rode on her daddy’s lap as he rolled his wheelchair into Sunday school and church. She adored her daddy, and the terror both of them faced together before they were killed was what saddened Elaine the most.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  There’s an old saying that a lawman hot on the trail of a suspect is like a “bird dog on point.” And Don Taylor was certainly that bird dog. After talking to the man behind the counter at the Terry Motel, he had the scent, and he was going after it.

  Don Taylor now had a name: Damon Peterson. He had his companion’s name: Rick. He had the license number of Rick’s motorcycle. And Pat Etier had told them that the two were camped out at Horseshoe Bend up on Beaver Lake.

  Taylor and Detective Dan Short drove to Rogers and took the bridge at Highway 12 to the lake. After finding the Horseshoe Bend campground and talking to Larry Gray in the camp permit office, Taylor was told that a campsite had been registered to a Pete Hubbard for the 4th, 5th, and 6th of September, but that Hubbard had left suddenly, leaving behind two of his party in 1-9. Those two moved over to a campsite newly registered to Damon Peterson, 1-10, who arrived later on the evening of September 6th.

  The campsite was deserted, but they searched the leavings of a recent burn in the fire pit at 1-9. Amongst burned garbage and beer cans, they recovered price tags, a jewelry box, some empty ring boxes, a watch band display holder, and remnants of rope that were similar to that used to tie up Kenneth and Suzanne. And fused to a beer tab was a watch price tag that read $225.00.

  And perhaps the biggest find was an Orange Blossom ring display filler used in ring trays if a ring had been sold.

  “Hot dog,” Taylor said. “Now where did they go?”

  Taylor surmised that they’d had to get another car. Other campers said they’d seen an old blue and white Cadillac parked at the campsite, but they’d also seen a mechanic working on it. With that information, Taylor and his men began a canvas of local used car lots, and once again, “Hot Dog!” They talked to a Mr. Jeffcoat at Economy Auto Sales in Rogers, and he did, indeed, trade a Plymouth for a ’71 Cadillac.

  The Cadillac wasn’t worth much, so it was sold to a salvage yard. Taylor went there, found the car, and had it towed to the State Police Headquarters in Fort Smith on Kelly Highway. Inside the car was an assortment of evidence: a map of local campgrounds, a torn page out of a telephone book that had Kenneth Staton’s address and phone number on it, and a copy of the September 11th Northwest Arkansas Morning Times with headlines of the Staton Jewelry Store robbery.

  Taylor put out a description of Damon Peterson and Rick Anderson, noting that they were wanted in conjunction with an armed robbery and murder in Van Buren, Arkansas. He was hopeful that older-model, green Plymouth would give out on them, and they’d be stranded somewhere. He just wished he knew what direction they were headed. He presumed south because of the license tag information and the motel reservation, which told him that Florida and Georgia were home territory. But would they be smart and head north? Robbers and murderers weren’t usually smart.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The relentless heat continued, and each day the Staton women went to Cloverleaf Shopping Center to the Staton Jewelry Store. Despite the closed sign on the door, folks would peer in the windows, curiosity seekers mostly. Some even knocked, but the door was never unlocked.

  Janet and her little girl, Sara, returned to Paris, Texas. Elaine’s little boy missed his almost constant playmate. And the sun rose each morning, as if nothing bad had happened.

  Brian Gaines, a jeweler from Fort Smith, contacted Karen and asked if he could be of help. Brian had gone to high school with Suzanne. He arranged to meet with Karen and her mom, and they discussed the best way for the store to open. Brian brought along his assistant, Danny Dyer. They both had excellent references and did work for several stores. They told the ladies that they would pick up and deliver any repairs. Dennis Tolzman was also added to the list of those who would help, primarily because Kenneth Staton was greatly admired by all the jewelers in the area. Dennis Tolzman was an excellent watch repairman, and he was hired to pick up and deliver.

  “Mr. Staton was the only jeweler we wished good business to,” Brian Gaines said.

  Getting the store ready to open was a big challenge. Wounds were so fresh in everyone’s hearts that going to the store was like climbing into a deep hole. And sometimes it was hard to climb back out of that hole.

  The Staton women were frightened that the murderers might come back and kill them. Men on motorcycles scared them, and once, while Karen was at Safeway, she saw a white van parked at the side of the store. She thought the men could have been in the van, and she ran for her car. She had heard that someone had reported to the police about seeing a mysterious white van at the Sleepy Hollow apartments on September 10th, near the same place where Suzanne’s jeep was found.

  Elaine’s husband worked at night, and she kept a light on in her bedroom until he got home. She could not stop thinking about what she saw that day on the floor in the back room of the jewelry store, and her way of dealing with it was not to talk about it unless she absolutely had
to.

  Ruth kept thinking that she could have been killed, and she worried constantly about how frightened her husband and daughter must have been. She prayed that they were happy in heaven and didn’t remember what had happened to them.

  —||—

  The Fort Smith and Van Buren newspapers kept the murders alive by having headlines and stories in every issue. “No Leads Found in Staton Inquiry” was one headline. Another was “Distraught Staton Family Wants the Killer Caught.”

  Virgil Goff, the chief of police, was quoted as saying, “I want the public to know that we need their cooperation in every way. If they have jewelry at the shop, we need to know about it. If they’ve seen anything unusual, they need to come forward, and we’ll keep the information confidential. You know, many times people don’t want to help in an investigation because they’re scared the criminals will find out about it. I assure the public that whatever they tell us will remain confidential.”

  And then Virgil Goff summed up the case: “It was a brutal thing. They were bound and gagged on the floor. They couldn’t have been a threat to anybody, and yet the murderers killed them anyway. They were vicious, merciless men, who don’t care for the value of a human life.”

  Mayor Gene Bell also added his two cents’ worth: “We seem to be having communication problems with the CID (Criminal Investigation Division with the state police), but that may be because they are on the verge of a breakthrough.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Rick Anderson was still living in an adjoining motel room on the beach with Damon and Loralei, whose name was really Cindy Sue Brown. She knew her boyfriend/husband, whose real name was Eugene Wallace Perry, was growing tired of her, and she feared he might get rid of her because she knew too much. He’d talked enough, and often, about killing Chantina for that very reason.

  Cindy Sue/Loralei had lived in fear of being caught for something illegal most of her life, so she was no stranger to looking out for herself. She was just waiting for the chance to leave Florida.

  Rick was drunk most of the time, and he was now wearing a small pistol in a leather ankle holster. He also owned a Colt revolver that he’d bought, along with a shoulder holster. He was an armed dude now, scared at any minute he was going to be arrested for murder in Arkansas. He wanted to get out of the clutches of Peterson, or whatever the hell his name was. Rick bought a white van after Chantina left, and he planned on leaving Florida and heading back to Fayetteville, Arkansas, so he could retrieve his Harley.

  The local radio station was airing ads about a new jewelry store opening in Jacksonville Beach, and Damon was already making plans to rob it. Since he’d been so successful with one jewelry store robbery, he was cocky enough to think he could rob another. Damon bought the book The Anarchist’s Cook Book, which explained how to make a silencer that would fit a .22 automatic. Armed with that knowledge and the tools he needed, Damon insisted that Rick help him.

  There was a tavern on the beach next to the motel in the 300 block of Oceanfront South—a rough place that was not visited by families on vacation. Badass dudes and gals frequented the bar, and it was the perfect spot for Rick and Damon and Loralei to hang out and get drunk. Stay drunk, really, was what they all did.

  Around 2:30 a.m. on September 23rd, Damon and Loralei left the bar, but Rick Anderson wasn’t ready to leave yet. He sat at the bar, drinking and talking to another man and a woman. When he got ready to leave, he could barely climb off the stool, but he headed toward the door. He was jumped by someone trying to rob him, so he reached for his pistol hidden at his ankle. A fight ensued, and the man wrestled the pistol away from him. Rick then ran next door to the motel and banged on Damon’s door, which was nearest the tavern. Damon opened the front door for his drunk friend, and Rick grabbed a gun from a bedside table, stood at the open doorway, and fired toward the tavern, at nobody in particular. Damon didn’t know what the hell was going on, so he grabbed a gun under his pillow and ran outside. Rick retreated to his adjoining room for a minute and then ran as fast as he could toward the beach in the opposite direction, sobering up a little with each step in the shifting sand.

  By that time, the tavern owner had called the police, and they arrived with guns drawn. Armed with a Rossi .38 revolver and a Beretta .25 pistol, Damon headed down the beach the opposite direction from where Rick had run. A shootout with police ensued. Damon was hit in the shoulder and taken to the hospital under arrest for attempted murder because he shot at the police. The hospital was conveniently located not far from the police headquarters.

  While the gun battle was going on, Rick Anderson hid behind some oleander bushes. The police shined their spotlights all around, but they didn’t see him. He waited a long time until he thought they had left, and then he snuck back to his room to get the keys to his van and escape. Instead, he was met by the police, who were staking out his room.

  Rick Anderson, too, was arrested and taken to the police headquarters. He asked for his one phone call and contacted a friend who was in the bail bonding business.

  “Call my dad in Lighthouse Point, Florida, and get him to bail me out.”

  Bail was set at $3,500, so his dad wired $350. Anderson was released before dawn and told to come back for arraignment that afternoon. Instead, he hopped a Greyhound, leaving his dad and his dad’s money in the lurch.

  In the two motel rooms, police confiscated $2,000 in one-hundred-dollar bills and various items of jewelry. Police also found five handguns and two sawed-off rifles with homemade silencers. They also impounded a 1975 Dodge van recently purchased by Anderson and a 1976 Oldsmobile Cutlass bought in Atlanta by Peterson.

  Authorities released names and descriptions on a regional teletype wire after their arrests. The ages of the men were both listed as twenty-five, with Anderson from Topeka, Kansas, and Peterson—now also known as Damon Malantino—from Atlanta, Georgia.

  The information reached Arkansas authorities quickly.

  The same information reached Georgia authorities.

  A woman and her twelve-year-old son, who ran a camping area in Tyrone, Georgia, had been found gagged, bound with rope, and shot execution style only two weeks before the Staton murders.

  The crimes were eerily similar.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  On Wednesday, September 24th, Ruth Staton received a telephone call from the chief of police, Virgil Goff.

  “Mrs. Staton, we need to come over right now, if that’s all right with you.”

  Ruth replied, “Of course.” Then she hung up and told Karen to hurry up and get dressed because something was fixing to happen. “I don’t know what, but it sounded urgent. Maybe they’ve caught them.”

  Karen quickly pulled on a shirt and shorts. They had already decided that they weren’t going down to the store that morning, and Karen had stayed up late sketching the rings that were stolen.

  The doorbell rang shortly, and Chief Goff and Assistant Chief Wayne Hicks stood outside. Both men seemed excited. Happy, even.

  Everyone sat down at the dining room table, and Goff asked them to look at a line-up of photographs. The first one was identified by Karen.

  “That’s the one I waited on the Monday before that Wednesday. I recognize his long hair and his teeth. He had white teeth, and he was tanned like this man.”

  Goff said, “And you saw him on Monday the eighth?”

  “Correct.”

  Ruth identified a picture of a man with blond, curly hair. He was wearing a white shirt of some kind.

  “That’s him. He came in with a woman and looked at wedding rings. He stayed a long time, and that made me kind of nervous. Suzanne came from around back and stood by me.”

  Shortly after the women gave a positive identifications, Ron Fields and Doug Stephens with the Arkansas State Police arrived.

  Ron Fields looked at Karen and said, “Will you fly down to Florida with us to Jacksonville Beach? We want to see if you can identify some jewelry we’ve found. You’d know it better than anyone.”


  Karen’s heart pounded with fright.

  “Oh, I don’t know if I can or not.”

  “You will be perfectly safe. We’ll be with you all the time.”

  Karen looked at her mother, and her mother’s eyes teared up.

  “You can do it, Karen. I know you can. You have to. Nobody left knows the jewelry inventory like you do,” she said, immediately regretting the way she had phrased it.

  Karen was still hesitant. She’d suffered so much already. Finally, she said she’d go. She did know the stock. Better than anyone alive.

  “Good!” Fields said. “We’ve already booked a flight for early tomorrow morning. It should be a quick trip, but be prepared to stay two days, just in case.”

  That night, Karen packed her bag with a blue-and-white dress, white shorts, navy shirt, jeans, sweatshirt, and blue tennis shoes. She would wear a black-and-white print dress and white sandals on the plane. In her small black purse she carried for dress occasions, she tucked in her billfold, a small hairbrush, and two small packs of Kleenex. She figured she’d need them.

  Even though the police offered to drive her to the airport, her mother said she would. Karen was booked on a 7:00 a.m. flight, so they left Van Buren around 5:30. They didn’t want to be late.

  On the drive over, Karen said, “Mother, I’m so nervous.”

  Ruth was nervous also, but she wanted to concentrate on her driving. She didn’t drive to the airport in Fort Smith often enough to really know the way. She decided to just go the way she’d go if she was visiting her mother’s house and take the Greenwood exit.

  “Mom, is this the quickest way?”

  “This is the way I’m most comfortable.”

  “Well, we sure don’t want to get lost.”

  Ruth smiled and with her right hand patted Karen’s.

  “This way I know we won’t for sure.”

  They discussed the reopening of the store and the ring holders that hadn’t arrived yet.