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

  “You know, Karen,” her mother said, “we can’t open without you.”

  “I know, Mother. I won’t be gone more than two days. I doubt that long. Ron Fields just said to prepare for two days.”

  When they reached the airport, parked, and walked to the terminal, they felt a cool breeze.

  “Wow, Mother, feel that breeze.”

  “Yes, maybe we’re going to finally get some relief.”

  As the slap of Karen’s sandals echoed across the parking lot pavement, her mom thought about that word: relief. The word echoed in Ruth’s mind. Would finding the killers bring them relief? Would it be immediate? Or would it never come?

  When they arrived at the gate, greetings were passed between the Staton women and the law enforcement officers. Ron Fields told the ladies that Sheriff Ball, Wayne Hicks, Dan Short, and a man from CIS had already left by car for Florida and would meet them there.

  Karen hugged her mother goodbye and boarded the Delta Airlines plane that would fly first to Atlanta, and then they’d transfer to another plane to go on to Jacksonville.

  Karen sat next to Doug Stephens.

  “I know this is frightening for you,” he said. “But we’ll be with you all the time. It’s very traumatic, of course, and we recognize that. Please don’t feel embarrassed about being scared.”

  “Who are these guys, and how did you find them?” Karen asked.

  “Well, there was a shootout between police and two men down in Jacksonville Beach. One, a man who has several aliases, was shot in the shoulder, and he’s in custody in the hospital there. The other one, a young guy named Rick Anderson, the man you identified, posted bond but skipped out, so he’s long gone.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “Because they didn’t have anything major to hold Anderson on. He didn’t fire on the police like the other man did. And he didn’t get shot in the arm.”

  Stephens rubbed his hands together, like a man preparing to eat a big steak. He continued, “That man that was shot was wearing two rings when he was arrested, and they found some cash and guns and jewelry in their motel room.”

  “Oh, I hope they’ve got the right ones,” Karen said.

  “They found evidence in a car also.”

  The stewardess came by with peanuts and a drink for everybody. Stephens nodded his head yes, but Karen couldn’t think about eating peanuts or drinking a Coke.

  “Goodness, no,” she said.

  By the time they arrived in Jacksonville, Karen was exhausted. She wasn’t comfortable in planes anyway, and all the time in the air she felt like she might throw up at any minute.

  When the Jacksonville Beach police met them, they ushered them to a waiting police car, and they drove forty minutes to Jacksonville Beach. From there they were driven directly to the hospital where they were ushered into a small room, more like an office than a meeting room.

  Karen listened to the hum of the air conditioning unit that must have been right outside their room. On the loud-speaker system, voices asked Doctors So-and-So to call various numbers. Shortly, a young woman arrived and laid two rings on a table.

  Karen gasped and felt nauseous. One ring belonged to her daddy. The other one had been in their display case.

  Fields watched Karen’s face turn white. He turned to Stephens, and Fields saw him lift his chin and nod his head yes.

  After a minute or two of complete silence, Fields asked her if she was okay. Karen assured him that she was, but she’d like some water because the room was suddenly spinning.

  “This ring is Daddy’s wedding band,” she said, pointing to one. She felt dizzy, and for a second, she thought she might faint.

  Fields asked how she could be sure. “Was there an engraving?”

  “No, but there would be a Vellmar trademark stamped inside. Will you look? I don’t think I can,” Karen said.

  Doug Stephens picked up the ring and turned it over a time or two.

  “It’s there.”

  Standing up to leave the room, Ron Fields said, “I’d better make sure we’ve got a couple of guards on that hospital room. I’ll be right back.”

  Doug Stephens pointed to the other ring. “And this one?”

  “That came from the store.” She saw dried blood encrusted on the ring, and she thought it must be her daddy’s. “Is that Daddy’s blood?”

  “Oh, no. The man who got shot by the police was wearing it. It’s his blood.”

  Karen looked at it closer. It was identical to the one they’d had in stock. In fact, it was one she had recently sketched called the “Star of Africa.” She took a long breath.

  “This is just like the one we carried.”

  Ron Fields quickly returned and said, “I know how difficult this is for you. You’ve been a tremendous help. There are a few more pieces of jewelry at the police department we need you to identify. They came out of these guys’ motel rooms.”

  They were then taken to police headquarters, which was just minutes away, and there Karen identified a Longines brand watch and a “Star of Africa” nugget-style diamond wedding band, both identical to what they sold at their store. There were also four gold coins that Ruth Staton had kept in the safe as mementos.

  Doug Stephens stayed with Karen while Ron Fields left to attend to some legal matters. When he returned, a Jacksonville Beach policeman drove them back to a motel where they had reservations waiting.

  Both men walked her to her room.

  “We’ll give you time to rest,” Ron said. “Maybe you can take a little nap or take a shower. When you’re ready, you can call us, and we’ll go eat. Don’t be scared at all. You’re perfectly safe.”

  Karen was so upset that she certainly could not take a nap. She did take a shower. She thought that might help her to relax. And it did, a little. She put on shorts and a shirt, which were more comfortable in the Florida sticky heat. She also pulled her hair up and fastened it with a gold clasp she’d brought from home.

  When they arrived at the restaurant, she recognized Sheriff Trellon Ball and Wayne Hicks, and she felt better seeing kind and familiar faces from home. They stood up when she entered.

  “You’re doing a real good job, Karen,” the sheriff said. He hugged her softly. “Your mama will be real proud of you.”

  There at the restaurant were two officers from Georgia. They were investigating the robbery and murder at a campground in Tyrone, Georgia, which was very similar to the one in Van Buren.

  “It was a woman and her twelve-year-old son. They even killed their dog.”

  The conversations at the table centered around the two crimes. Even though nearly everyone at the table order seafood, Karen ordered a salad, which she had trouble eating—not because it wasn’t good, but because she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to keep it down.

  Ron Fields was able to get warrants for both men for capital murder. They were identified as Richard Phillip Anderson, age twenty-three, and Damon Malantino, also known as Damon Peterson, who was not the same age as Anderson, but nearer thirty-six.

  Fields and Karen flew back to Fort Smith on Friday afternoon, and Doug Stephens stayed behind to assist in the investigation. On the return flight, Ron Fields kept telling Karen what a tremendous help she was. She should be really proud of herself, and that he understood how hard it was to look at her daddy’s ring.

  “Just know that you were a big part of solving this crime. That’s got to make you feel good about finding your daddy’s and sister’s killers.”

  He went on to say that he had called a press conference for when they got back to Fort Smith.

  “No one should be there when we arrive because nobody knows when we’re scheduled to land.”

  As they deplaned and walked through the terminal, Karen heard someone call her name. It scared her, and she was afraid she’d be facing the press, who’d ask a lot of questions.

  Instead, it was Warren MacLellan, who was a pilot for Frontier Airlines and was just arriving from a flight.

&n
bsp; “Everything okay?” he asked.

  Karen was relieved when she realized the voice belonged to Warren. She hugged his blue uniform jacket and said, “I’ve been down to Florida to identify some jewelry, Warren. I think they’ve caught the men who did it.”

  “Wonderful,” he said. “I’ll be sure to tell Wanda. Be sure to tell your mom to call us if she needs us for anything. Anything at all.”

  Karen smiled and waved goodbye. She had a store to open, and she needed to get home and see her family.

  Home. That was what was most important to her right that minute.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  On the Monday after Karen and Ron Fields returned from Florida, Don Taylor received a call from a self-storage owner in Fayetteville, a Mr. Gifford Heckathorn. He reported that he had signed a lease agreement on September 11th, 1980, with a man who signed his name Damon Peterson on the contract. Another man was with him, riding a motorcycle. They rented space 109 for a month.

  Mr. Heckathorn went on to say that the first reason for calling the police was that a Mr. William Anderson had called and said he was coming to remove the contents of the storage unit. His brother had skipped bond in Florida that their father had provided, so he was going to take the trailer and the motorcycle back to Topeka, Kansas, as a way of payment to their father.

  Taylor thanked the storage owner and proceeded to seek permission to search the contents of the storage unit. Municipal Judge Lawson Cloninger issued the search warrant, and Taylor and his men took off for Fayetteville.

  There they found the camper, the Harley-Davidson motorcycle, and two black motorcycle helmets. As they were looking through the camper, Mr. William B. Anderson arrived with a wrecker capable of hauling the camper and motorcycle back to Kansas. He told Taylor the same story: his brother Richard Phillip Anderson had been arrested in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, and had jumped bond. He also told the detective that Richard had told his father that Damon Peterson was dangerous and was linked to the Mafia and for them to be cautious.

  After taking careful notes of a lengthy conversation with the Anderson brother as to where everyone lived and worked, Taylor said, “Well, looks like you made this trip for nothing. And it also looks like your brother is in a heap of trouble. And for that, I’m sorry for you and your dad.”

  The trailer and motorcycle were taken back to police headquarters in Fort Smith and examined thoroughly. Attached to the bumper was a cardboard license that read “Lost Tag.”

  Inside the pop-up camper, among many other items, they found a gold coin, a buffalo nickel with a nick on its face, a jewelry price tag with Karen Staton’s handwriting, an Orange Blossom ring filler, a book of matches from the Terry Motel, a book of matches from the Horseshoe Bend Marina in Rogers, a black Harley-Davidson motorcycle jacket, a man’s suit, a woman’s coat, jeans, and heat hair curlers. There were also sleeping bags and dirty sheets. All of these items were bagged and labeled separately.

  Don Taylor took pictures of the motorcycle, believed to be the same color and make as the one that Damon Peterson and Richard Anderson were seen riding in the vicinity of the Cloverleaf Shopping Center and the Staton Jewelry Store. The men and their motorcycle were even identified by police who regularly kept watch over the Terry Motel, which was known to police as a haven for down-and-outers and criminals.

  Taylor and his men were elated.

  “Great detective work, men,” they were told by the entire law enforcement community.

  The date was September 27th, 1980.

  Now, to find Anderson and get Peterson out of the hospital and see where they stood with bringing the bastards to trial.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  On September 30th, 1980, the Fort Smith Southwest Times Record reported that capital murder warrants had been issued for Richard Phillip Anderson, age twenty-three, of Topeka, Kansas, and Damon Malantino, thirty-six, alias Damon Peterson, of Atlanta, Georgia. These warrants were for the murders of Kenneth Staton and Suzanne Staton Ware.

  Also, it was reported that these same men were wanted for the murders of a woman and her son at a campsite known as Camper’s Paradise in Tyrone, Georgia, on August 25th, 1980.

  The city editor reported in another column that Ron Fields revealed in a press conference that there had been a gun battle at a Jacksonville Beach, Florida, tavern that resulted in the arrest of two men. One suspect, Damon Malantino, alias Peterson, was injured in the shoulder by a police bullet and was currently under police watch at a Jacksonville hospital. The other suspect, Richard Anderson, made bond but failed to show up for his arraignment the following day. He was considered armed and dangerous.

  —||—

  At the age of twenty-three, Richard Anderson was in the most trouble of his life. An alcoholic, a twice-divorced husband, a father of a little girl being raised by his parents, a former owner of a dating service, a pimp, and a biker who rode Harleys and kept a knife strapped to his ankle, he was not the boy his parents had hoped he would be.

  His father was an engineer for IBM in New York, and that is where his family lived when Anderson was born. He had an older brother and two sisters. His mom was a stay-at-home mom, and they were devout Seventh Day Adventists. He was affectionately called Rick.

  Rick had attended ninth grade in Union Springs, New York, at Union Springs Academy, a Seventh Day Adventist School. On spring break in 1972, he came home to his family in Topeka, Kansas, where his father had been transferred. He’d purchased some pot, took it back to school, and was busted. Dismissed from the academy, his parents had enrolled him in public school in Topeka.

  In the tenth grade, Rick had started skipping school and hanging out with an older eighteen-year-old guy and a girl named Holly, who had gotten busted with some LSD. Rick and Holly hooked up. The older guy cashed in some savings bonds belonging to his father, and he and his girlfriend bought a van and planned to go to Texas, where it was warm. After leaving a note on the kitchen table for his parents, Rick bought two cases of beer, and he and Holly set off on a big adventure with their friends. The year was 1976, at the height of free love and drugs and yellow vans and Woodstock and thumbs-down on traditional life in the USA.

  At Texarkana, Texas, their van broke down, and they took a Greyhound to Corpus Christi, Texas, where they rented an apartment. They invited a married couple to live with them. The wife turned tricks to support their heroin habit.

  It was in Texas that Ricky turned sixteen and could be officially labeled an alcoholic—and already in deep shit.

  Now, in late September of 1980, he was twenty-three, on the run in Florida, knowing that it was just a matter of days before the pieces of the puzzle would be put together by the police and he’d be arrested for the robbery and murders in Van Buren, Arkansas.

  He’d taken a cab to the bus station in Jacksonville Beach and gone to Fort Lauderdale. He hid out at a friend’s house and told him about his trouble in Arkansas and Florida. His friend, Johnny, was a knowledgeable man in his sixties, who offered to let Ricky ride on the next plane trip he would make to South America to bring back drugs. He advised Rick to leave the country, but Rick knew that, if he went to South America, he couldn’t speak the language. So instead, Johnny told him how to escape to Canada. He told Rick to fly to Detroit and purchase a two-way bus ticket to Canada. A one-way ticket would have caused suspicion. Rick followed his advice.

  When the border officials had boarded the bus, they checked Rick’s two-way ticket and asked how long he was going to stay.

  “About a week,” Rick said.

  It turned out to be much longer than that.

  When Rick stepped off the bus in Toronto, he located a hostel, an inexpensive place to stay. He called his father in Lighthouse Point, Florida, to tell him where he was. His father told him he was in big trouble, and that he was wanted in Arkansas in connection with a robbery and murder.

  Rick told his father, “Well, I guess you won’t be seeing me for a long while.”

  Desperate now, and feeli
ng guilty over disappointing his father and causing him such anguish, Rick headed for an Army Surplus Store. Because he had grown up in upstate New York, he knew what winter weather was like, and he knew winter was setting in. He’d need the proper clothing for hiding out in Canada. He purchased heavy white snow boots, warm pants, a parka, and an equipped backpack with the Canadian red-and-green emblem stitched on the back. The owner offered him a job helping to clean out a warehouse, so he stayed there and worked for about a week.

  Knowing he should always keep moving, he took off with a guy he met at the hostel where he was staying. The man suggested they try picking mushrooms in Alberta, so off they went. Another adventure for a good-looking young man who was digging his grave of shit deeper and deeper.

  —||—

  While Rick Anderson was walking across Canada, hitching rides, always looking over his shoulder and taking odd jobs to survive, Damon Peterson was plotting his plan to escape a murder charge in both Arkansas and Georgia.

  His first defense was that his real name was Eugene Wallace Perry, and he had never been in Van Buren, Arkansas, in his life. His only connection with Damon Peterson and Rick Anderson was that he was the fence they used to sell the stolen jewelry. He was in Oxford, Alabama, at the time of the crimes in Arkansas, visiting with his family, and he had witnesses to prove it: his two teenage daughters, Dawn and Tonya; his ex-wife, Glenda Perry; his father and mother, Wallace and Eulene; and a few scattered friends.

  When he was arrested in Jacksonville Beach during the shootout at the tavern, the police seized his personal property, which included over $2,000 in cash, one diamond studded wedding band, one diamond studded ring, one man’s gray suit, one man’s sport coat, one man’s dress hat, six pairs of men’s trousers, six men’s dress shirts, five men’s T-shirts, two pairs of men’s cowboy boots, two pairs of men’s shoes, one suitcase, one hanging garment bag, and assorted underwear and shorts. Clearly, one could reasonably call Wallace Eugene Perry a clotheshorse. He also had a fondness for cigars, as evidenced in photographs of Perry eventually published in newspapers when he did finally go to trial.