Nicole Lua and a woman friend left Lua’s Wahl Road home at about three in the afternoon on the day after Christmas 2003, and headed toward the beach, where winter sunsets are often spectacular.
Nicole noticed a yellow SUV parked in the driveway of her neighbors, the Black family, and was curious since she knew they were away over the holiday.
The two women did not, however, approach the vehicle. When they headed back, it was four thirty and full dark during this week of the shortest days of the year. The yellow SUV was still there, and the dome light was on. The two women didn’t want to approach a strange vehicle on their own, and they decided to check on it the next day. Then they would call the sheriff.
A day later, Joseph Doucette, a schoolteacher who lived in Bellingham, Washington, left a cabin on the Blacks’ property. The Blacks’ son was one of Doucette’s students and Doucette, his wife, her sister, and their two sons happily accepted an invitation to spend Christmas in the cabin.
Doucette headed out for a walk with his dog in the late afternoon. His sons were also walking on the Blacks’ property. The Bellingham teacher saw the bright yellow SUV, its dome light still on, and he could see that the passenger door was open.
“I thought I should go up and shut the door,” Doucette recalled. “To keep the battery from draining and sleet from getting in.”
As he did that, he glanced inside the vehicle and froze in shock. There was a body in the SUV. He quickly led his boys back to their cabin and told them to stay inside while he checked on something.
Half hoping he might have imagined a corpse, he went back to the SUV. The silent figure was still there, still buckled in with a seat belt. He saw that the body was slumped over with its head down and fists clenched. There were broken sunglasses on the front seat.
Doucette noticed “goo” coming out of the body’s forehead. He didn’t touch anything, but jogged back to his cabin to call 911.
He had no idea who the deceased was or what had happened. He stayed beside the yellow SUV, waiting for the 911 operator to dispatch someone who might know how to determine that.
Island County Sheriff’s Office sergeant Rick Norrie was the first to arrive. It was four thirty.
When Nicole Lua saw blue lights whirling atop several sheriff’s cars a few doors down, she walked over to see what was going on.
Whoever the dead person was, Nicole explained that she thought the body probably had been there the day before, too. She and her friend had noticed the SUV there almost exactly twenty-four hours earlier.
This was the beginning of one of the most difficult homicide investigations the Island County Sheriff’s Office and the Island County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office had ever faced. Their probe would take them to Oregon, Idaho, New Mexico, Florida, Mexico, Texas, and Alaska.
They knew the method of murder: a single gunshot wound. As the months and years passed, they had more possible motives than any case they had yet encountered: revenge, sex, drugs, profit, insurance payoffs, and even, just possibly, a favor for a friend.
The investigators had a great deal of forensic testing to do. But they also faced the immense puzzle of how the persons of interest who surfaced were somehow interconnected.
© Leslie Rule
Ann Rule is the author of thirty-two New York Times bestsellers, all of them still in print. A former Seattle police officer, she knows the crime scene firsthand. She is a certified instructor for police training seminars and lectures to law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and forensic organizations, including the FBI and the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. For more than three decades, she has been a powerful advocate for victims of violent crime. She has testified before U.S. Senate Judiciary subcommittees on serial murder and victims’ rights, and was a civilian adviser to ViCAP (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program). A graduate of the University of Washington, she holds a Ph.D. in Humane Letters from Willamette University. She lives near Seattle, and comments and questions can be posted on her website at www.annrules.com. Confidential e-mail should go to
[email protected].
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Books by Ann Rule
In the Still of the Night
Too Late to Say Goodbye
Green River, Running Red
Every Breath You Take
Heart Full of Lies
. . .And Never Let Her Go
Bitter Harvest
Dead by Sunset
Everything She Ever Wanted
If You Really Loved Me
The Stranger Beside Me
Possession
Small Sacrifices
Ann Rule’s Crime Files
Vol. 15: Don’t Look Behind You and Other True Cases
Vol. 14: But I Trusted You and Other True Cases
Vol. 13: Mortal Danger and Other True Cases
Vol. 12: Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder and Other True Cases
Vol. 11: No Regrets and Other True Cases
Vol. 10: Worth More Dead and Other True Cases
Vol. 9: Kiss Me, Kill Me and Other True Cases
Vol. 8: Last Dance, Last Chance and Other True Cases
Vol. 7: Empty Promises and Other True Cases
Vol. 6: A Rage to Kill and Other True Cases
Vol. 5: The End of the Dream and Other True Cases
Vol. 4: In the Name of Love and Other True Cases
Vol. 3: A Fever in the Heart and Other True Cases
Vol. 2: You Belong to Me and Other True Cases
Vol. 1: A Rose for Her Grave and Other True Cases
Without Pity: Ann Rule’s Most Dangerous Killers
The 1-5 Killer
The Want-Ad Killer
Lust Killer
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The names of some individuals have been changed. Such names are indicated by an asterisk (*) the first time each appears in the narrative.
Copyright © 2012 by Ann Rule
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ISBN 978-1-4516-4828-7
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Ann Rule, Fatal Friends, Deadly Neighbors and Other True Cases
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