Third Time, Not A Charm

Chapter 1 Information About Death Comes Together-2

The Maricopa S.O. detectives, John Allred and Charlie Enas, who were well acquainted with Jim Cade, began their analysis of the situation in much the same fashion as the detectives in Glendale and Florence. First they went to Joe's wife, asked her about the marriage, if it was going well or in trouble, asked her where she was on or near the time of death, asked her if she owned a g*n, where it was, and looked at the piece she brought to them. It was a standard police issue thirty-eight caliber which had been manufactured many years prior to Joe's death. They asked her if she knew of any trouble that Joe had been having. They did this after she had given them an alibi for the time framing of his death. They asked her if he had any business partners or anyone coming around the business who had been troublesome.

She had no information to give them. She was a stay at home Mom who had little contact with Joe's business prior to his death. Her children were all still in school and she had been with one of them during the time of death Allred and Enas believed to be appropriate. So Enas and Allred began to look at Joe's criminal history. They found he had been associated with some heavy people in Cleveland in earlier years. They found he had been arrested in those times. But they didn't and couldn't connect anything to the current situation even after an extended conversation with the Cleveland P.D. Homicide and Organized Crime detectives.

Similarly to the Mesa P.D. investigation and the investigation done by Pinal County (Florence) Allred and Enas had reached the ends of their ropes by the time a month had passed from the murder of Jose Portales. Each of those departments had sent flyers out to Phoenix P.D., the F.B.I., every department in the State of Arizona in the hopes of developing any information at all. The flyers simply described the murder of each of the victims, asked the police all over the state for any help they could offer. Enas and Allred had been involved with Jim Cade and the Phoenix Homicide unit in the Bruce Fletcher investigation. But Allred especially and even Enas who was much more thoughtful than his partner did not consider that the current murders might be tied to each other. After all they had taken place … well where they had occurred was really not conclusive and certainly no judgment could be reached yet as to where they had taken place.

All of the detectives involved instantly understood the body each of them was dealing with had been dumped at the site at which it was found. There was little blood to be found and the blood located at the dump sites belonged to the victims in every case. There was simply nothing else at the dump sites but the body and its blood. It was evident the bodies had been found in widely spread areas of the Valley of the Sun. From Apache Junction to Mesa, twenty miles or so, to the west side of town to Glendale, an additional thirty miles or more was obviously a wide rage of distance and jurisdictions.

* * *

“The Group” met rarely. It was not necessary to have a lot of meetings. All the members felt as one that the work they were doing was justified, was good, and would be of use to ordinary society as a whole. They didn't need to pat each other on the back. They didn't need to relive the experiences they shared in that several of them had been “blooded.” There were only a couple of them left who had not yet done their first removal of garbage. The removal of garbage was their working notion. The people they were killing were just trash to be taken to the dump and disposed of as quickly and easily as possible. But an additional working notion was the beatings would be a warning to others retribution was at hand if they didn't change their ways.

“The Group” had other targets identified but they had decided after the third removal they should wait a time before the next one. They also had decided even though the beatings would continue the mode of removal would have to be changed some for the next couple of trash pieces at least. Knives would be used the next time and the venue of the dump would change again. It would be located further south, out of the valley or any community associated with the valley. Or it could be west, well out into the raw desert where the next one might not ever be found at all.

At their meeting after the Portales removal these decisions were discussed at length. Jason Miller, a police officer with Mesa P.D., a street officer, would be next to be blooded. He announced that “In order to provide a little more confusion amongst the detectives handling the case a knife has to be my weapon of choice for my removal.”

Another of these men, Porfirio Gonzalez, a police officer with the Youngtown P.D. agreed. He said, simply, “I am going to follow Jason's lead.” The others merely nodded. The meeting was at an end. There was no timetable. It was a matter of finding the right piece of trash and removing it from the street to each of them. Each would determine how and when he would accomplish the task. Each would also furnish what intelligence concerning the “trash” they could including criminal histories and suspicions of conduct contained in files which might even be closed. All five were in fact police officers. One was from Casa Grande. His name was Adam Kennedy. He had been the first to be blooded. One was from Marana. His name was Robert Michael Wilson. He was blooded after Adam. His victim had been Joseph Antonelli. One was from Phoenix. His name was Bryan Gant. He was a supervisor Sergeant at one of the many stations Phoenix has dotted around the city. He had killed Jose Portales. Then there were Jason and Porfirio.

* * *

The flyers all arrived at Phoenix Central Offices and then were distributed to whatever department or unit that was appropriate as a matter of policy. Central Office had people to evaluate which would go to Homicide, which to Narcotics, etc. In the first instance the flyers were sent to Narcotics since each of the victims had been identified as having been involved in narco-trafficking at some point in their lives. As silly as it sounded in later discussions about this part of the initial handling of the cases the same was true in each of the departments involved in the multiple murder investigations. Each of the Narcotics divisions spent several weeks asking around among its snitches about the three dead men. No one had a glimmer of information. None of the officers in Narcotics had encountered the victims in any circumstance. No progress was made. No information was turned up. Nothing positive came from the assignment of the evaluation of the flyers to Narcotics. And in the end it was only because one Narco-detective made the suggestion that Homicide might be able to help the flyers were sent to Jim Cade's office.

Despite the flyers being ordered by Mesa P.D., Pinal County S.O. and Maricopa County S.O. each of these departments kept up their own investigations. Each of them, under specific orders, continued the “traditional” approach to these deaths. Each of those departments also failed to spend any time in conversation or meetings with each other to evaluate the evidence and information they did have. The net result was each of those departments was just about totally ignorant of the totality of information until the flyers came in and eventually made their way to each homicide unit.

As Captain of the Homicide Unit of the Phoenix Police Department Jim's days as an investigator were not totally finished but they were curtailed to a very large degree. Nonetheless he tried to “keep his hand in” when he saw an opportunity or a necessity. He had been well trained by Captain Mike Riordan and George Adams, his prior Captains, to spend time evaluating information and keeping up with the cases being handled in the division. He had to do the budgeting, set the hours for each of the many detectives working under there, see to coverage when the detectives in the division were sick or took vacation, as well as doing the same for the non-certified people in his division. He had to schedule training, conduct training himself both at the Academy and in house, and he ultimately had the responsibility to decide whether to close a case. Of course he did have good people working with him who helped to spread those tasks and take some of them off his hands. Jaime Ontiveros had been Jim's partner when Jim was a Lieutenant, the same rank now held by Jaime.

The day the three flyers arrived from central Jim was available to discuss anything at all for a change. When Lt. Jaime Ontiveros had the flyers brought to his attention by Detective Josie Du Puy he said “Come with me.” The two of them went straight to Jim's office, knocking on the door and when Jim said “Come in,” they both entered. It was to be a seminal moment in all their lives.

Jim asked “What's up Jaime? You look a little perplexed.”

Jaime answered, “I don't know if you remember Detective Josie Du Puy or not?”

“Sure.” Jim stood and shook hands with Josie and with Jaime. “She had top honors at the academy and great recommendations from her bosses when she was on the streets. What's going on?”

“Well Jim I wonder if there is not a huge and growing problem here,” Jaime said. He handed the flyers to Jim. “I don't want to create anything where it doesn't exist but this stuff makes me wonder a great deal about who might be doing this, why, and where?”

“I guess it's why the department is paying you the big bucks now, huh, Jaime,” Jim said with a smile.

Du Puy added to the commentary saying, “I think you are right boss. Why this is going on is my big question. The only reason I can come up with is the elimination of people in the d**g trade.”

“Wait a minute now,” Jim said, “what are you saying? Do you think this is some kind of vigilante thing? Or maybe the right question is what else can it be? Or maybe the right question is why else would someone do this?” And then Jim, after a pause which said a whole lot without words, added, “Would these things be done by police officers or civilians?”

“Wait a minute Jim. Aren't we jumping to some big conclusions rather rapidly here? Don't you think there could be other explanations?” Jaime was concerned they should not make too large a leap forward with the police angle right away. He didn't want, any more than any other police officer would, to think cops would kill deliberately and cruelly as these murders had been committed.

“But Lieutenant,” Du Puy responded, “what about the autopsy reports, the similarity of the mode of death, one shot to the head like an assassin? What about the similarity of the condition of the bodies? What about the fact these locales were body dumps and the murders could have been committed anywhere? Doesn't all this point to one guy, one person who is a vigilante?”

Jim sat thoughtfully for a moment before answering all these observations and then said, “You know these are not our cases. To make these judgments now without being involved in any sense at all in the cases is not going to create anything positive. So here is what I would like to do with this information. Detective Du Puy I guess I know you well enough to call you Josie, do I not?”

“Sure, Captain, it is not a problem.”

“Okay Josie I want you to take the lead in this situation. I want you to contact the three agencies and offer our assistance. Don't make any suggestions based on what we have discussed here today. It's still their ball game. Don't try to get involved. Just offer our help and see what happens. The other departments may have reached the same conclusions we have. It is not likely to be true frankly. So they may not really want anything from us yet?”

“Do you want the Lieutenant involved as well?”

“No Josie. Not at the start of this one, if there is a start for us, is your bailiwick. Go for it. And keep Jaime advised of what is going on so we can help if need be, okay?”

If death has its day, if someone makes creating death his way, then soon

he or she too must pay.