Empty Promises: And Other True Cases

The most dramatic aspect of Gary Grant's trial was the admission of lengthy taped interviews between Jim Phelan, George Helland, and the suspect. Grant had been informed that his statement was being recorded, but during pretrial hearings, Marshall and Anderson had fought to have these tapes excluded. In a surprising reversal, the defense attorneys themselves introduced the tapes. It was a calculated risk on their part; they wanted to present the defendant as emotionally disturbed but still, Marshall told the jury, "a human being."

  The courtroom was hushed as the tapes played for over three hours. Most people never actually hear what goes on during a police interrogation and certainly this jury never had. Hearing the recorded voices of the detectives and the defendant somehow had more power and immediacy for the jury than what was actually going on in front of them in the courtroom.

  Wally Hume told the jury that he and Jim Phelan had waited while polygraphist Dewey Gillespie talked with Grant, preparing him for the polygraph. But Gillespie told them that Grant had pulled back and blurted that he didn't want to take the test at all. He would rather tell them what had really happened than be hooked up to all the leads and wires.

  "Detective Gillespie walked to the door," Hume recalled. "He said, 'I think this is your man.' "

  In his expanded statement on the tape, Grant began his story of the events of April 20 exactly as he originally had told Gillespie. This time, however, he added more to his story.

  Gary Grant's voice on the tape explained that after he shopped for shoes, he had somehow found himself on a wooded trail. He began following two small boys, five or six years old. Because he ducked behind trees and foliage, the children were totally unaware that he was behind them. When they came to a "level area," Grant recalled that one of the boys stopped to examine something on the ground while the other walked on ahead. Grant stepped out from the tall brush and told the boy to take off his clothes. The child started to cry and refused. At that point, Grant said he pulled out his knife and the little boy obeyed him, removing his clothes down to his undershorts.

  Then Grant said, "I thrusted [sic] my knife into him."

  The other boy, who had gone on ahead, doubled back on the trail and saw his friend lying on the ground. Grant said he pulled a cord out of his pocket and wrapped it around the second boy's throat until he was dead. Grant's voice shook as he admitted that he had stripped the boy's clothes from his body. He also recalled hitting "the lighter-haired boy in the face."

  He then told of throwing the knife away, walking along the river, falling in, and calling home for a ride. Everything was the same, except that, when he was first questioned, he had completely left out his deadly encounter with Scott and Brad. He insisted that he had no memory of interfering with either youngster sexually. And his recall of the actual killings was somewhat dreamlike. He insisted that, after the murders, he didn't remember killing them. "I asked my daddy if I could go and look for them while they were lost," he said, "but he wouldn't let me."

  Phelan and Hume had asked Gillespie to question Grant about the death of Carole Adele Erickson. They gave him pertinent details of that homicide and Gillespie said to the suspect: "Can you recall any like incidents? I will only mention three items— a girl, a riverbank, and a shoestring."

  Grant responded with three questions: "Was she stabbed in the back? Was it at night? Did she have long, dark hair?"

  And then he began to cry. When he was calmer, Jim Phelan took over the questioning, and it led to Grant's finally giving a statement on the Erickson case. His queries and Grant's answers echoed in the courtroom, the tape amplified by microphones.

  "Do you recall a girl walking along a riverbank somewhere around Christmas?"

  "I was walking behind her. I saw her walking along the river. She had on blue jeans, a green jacket, some sort of leather tie-on shoes. I followed her for ten or twelve feet. Then I walked up behind her and thrusted [sic] the knife into her back. I untied the shoelaces and put them around her neck. I dragged her on her back and pulled her by her hands into the bushes— the stickers. Then I heard a couple on the bridge and I was afraid they'd see me, so I ran."

  When Jim Phelan asked him if he had tried to rape the dying girl, Grant began to cry and answered over and over: "I don't know… I don't know… God, I wish I did."

  "Was she a pretty girl?"

  "Yes."

  "Did you remove her coat… her sweater?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "Do you remember her pants? Did you do anything to her?"

  "I don't know. I can see her. She's lying on her back. Her shoes are off and one [sleeve] of her coat is off."

  "Gary, did you do anything to her sexually?"

  "I didn't."

  "Did you want to?"

  "I suppose I wanted to, but I don't remember doing anything sexual or touching her clothes in any way."

  After his confession to yet a third murder, Gillespie spoke with Gary once more. As they talked, suddenly the gaunt teenager put his head in his hands and murmured in horror, "My God! There's another one!"

  The jurors and spectators flinched— as if they were hearing the confession firsthand and not on a tape that was months old.

  It was as if Gary Grant had buried the murders so deep in his subconscious that he really did not remember them until the investigators asked him to focus on them. And they, of course, had no idea that he was connected to either the Erickson or Zulauf cases when they began to question him about the two little boys.

  In truth, they were as shocked as Grant seemed to be when he moved on to describe what had happened to Joann Zulauf. At that point, Wally Hume had put in a call to Detective George Helland, who joined them outside the polygrapher's office.

  The interview that followed was also taped, with Grant's permission, and lasted nearly two hours. Grant had difficulty remembering just when the Zulauf killing occurred. He said he didn't know if it had happened two months or two years before.

  Once again the defendant's voice bounced off the courtroom walls as he responded to George Helland's questions.

  "It was in a green time of year because there were leaves on the trees and foliage," Grant said, trying to come up with the month he killed Joann Zulauf. "I came down into a woods and I saw her ahead of me. She didn't see me.… I had a rock or whatever, and I hit her in the back of the head. She fell down. She started to say something and I choked her until she was dead."

  "Gary," Helland said, "if we are going to believe you, we'll have to have more particulars— more details."

  "I want it to come out," Grant said, his voice choked with sobs. "I did something wrong, I want it to come out. I can't hold it inside me anymore."

  "Did you remove her clothing?"

  "I don't know— I don't know whether I did or not." Here an incredulous tone came into the defendant's voice on the tape. "Up until I saw her in front of me on the path, I don't remember anything else. I just remember being on the trail and the sun seemed to be out— sort of cloudish, maybe somewhere around three or four in the afternoon."

  Grant responded to Helland's questions, recalling that the girl was small, with shoulder-length curly reddish brown hair. He said she was wearing an army jacket and blue jeans. His voice became breathier and more tearful as he described the scene. "When she hit the ground and I grabbed her, she swung around on me. She saw me then. I just used my hand on her throat. She was on her knees. Her back arched and she beat me with her hands and arms, but I kept choking her until she was quiet."

  Again, Gary Grant said he could not remember any sexual approach to his victim. "It's like the two little kids— I come to one point and then, Bam! I'm at another point. That's just it. I don't know what I've done. Like I heard about the little kids and I wanted to go and look for them… but then when I do remember, I see up to one point and no further."

  The prosecutors tied up their case by introducing into evidence Gary Grant's tennis shoes and the moulages taken at the death site of the two small boys. They matched, right down to the sma
ll nicks and scratches that had come with wear.

  A girl who had once dated Grant testified that he had given her a present for her birthday, which was two weeks after Joann Zulauf's murder. She said he had presented her with a used woman's wristwatch. "It was made of white metal, and the brand name was Lucien Perreaux." She testified that she used to tease him by asking him why he didn't get paid more for the work he did, since he never seemed to have any money. "When he gave me the watch, he said, 'See, I do get paid for the things I do.' "

  As Nick Marshall and James Anderson began their defense, it became apparent that they would make no attempt to deny their client's guilt in the homicides but would, rather, strive to show that Gary Grant was desperately ill— a stunted, warped personality who possessed Jekyll and Hyde characteristics. Gary Grant could be a gentle, accommodating friend who displayed no violence at all, but he could also be possessed by a terrible "unconscious rage."

  Friends testified regarding the "good" side of Grant's personality, and two psychiatrists gave some insight into the tremendous anger that sometimes gripped him.

  Psychiatrist Dr. Robert Anderson labeled the killings "senseless" and said they might have made sense only if the victims represented hated persons from the defendant's past. He speculated that "Grant may have had no more control over the personality who committed the murders than we do over our dreams at night."

  Dr. George Harris classified Grant as "emotionally ill." Both psychiatrists testified that Grant considered sex "dirty and shameful." Through interviews with friends and relatives, the psychiatrists learned of a background riddled with violence. Grant's navy career was short-lived; he could not adjust to what he considered harsh treatment of fellow recruits by superior officers and was discharged as "unfit for service."

  Relatives described Gary Grant as a quiet child who was very disturbed by family fights. Often he was pushed to the breaking point by domestic altercations. The "good" Gary was reduced to tears by the death of a pet kitten and a lizard, which he tried to nurse back to health with tender care. At the mention of the death of the lizard, the defendant's eyes filled with tears as he sat in the courtroom. It was hard to see him as an obsessed killer.

  After weeks in trial, the time had come for summations by both the prosecution and the defense. Special Prosecutor Edmund P. Allen faced the jury and calmly related the sequence of events in all four murders. The soft-spoken prosecutor recalled pertinent parts of Grant's confessions and said, "We have an answer for everything. The only real issue in this case is whether or not to invoke the death penalty. I submit, if ever— if ever— an appropriate case existed for the death penalty, this is it."

  Nick Marshall rose to plead for Gary Grant's life. The red-haired former FBI agent was most accomplished at legal rhetoric. He was one of the more persuasive attorneys around.

  "You will recall," he began, "that I warned you the evidence in this case would make you cringe— that your emotions would be right there in your throat. I will not offer you facts; I will offer you perceptions. I offer you no magic, but I appeal to you as human beings. Four lives have been lost; nothing will bring them back. Now another life hangs in the balance. It is in your hands. You've heard the statements. Nine pages. Six pages. Three pages. In human misery, hopelessness and despair…

  "You have heard that Gary Grant was gripped with unconscious rage, that he had no more control over his actions than you do over a dream at night. These crimes were not thought out or premeditated, because he was emotionally ill."

  The Grant jury retired at 5:00 P.M. on Monday, August 23. Almost forty-eight hours later, and after eighteen hours of steady deliberation, the jurors sent word that they had reached a verdict. They found Gary Grant guilty of murder in the first degree on all four counts. They did not, however, recommend the death penalty. Instead, they recommended that on each count, Gary Grant was to serve a minimum of thirteen years and eight months and a maximum of his natural life. Judge Soukup ruled that the four sentences were to run consecutively.

  * * *

  Almost three decades later, Gary Grant still resides in the Washington State Prison at Walla Walla. His parents have died, and he has little connection to the world outside. He is fifty and his first parole hearing will be in 2048. At that time, should he still be alive, he will be ninety-eight years old.

  Carole Adele Erickson would be fifty now. Joann Zulauf would be forty-seven. Scott Andrews and Brad Lyons would be thirty-five.

  Three decades later, we are still a long way from understanding the psychopathology of the sexual predator. We know only that they are desperately dangerous and almost impossible to rehabilitate. Gary Grant and Arnold Brown both seemed to be gentle people. Their actions and demeanor instilled trust in the people they met. The only promises they ever kept were to the animals they loved so devotedly. When it came to human beings, they were the animals.

  The Stockholm Syndrome

  There is a time-worn belief among lay people that murder will out— that all homicides will eventually be solved and that killers will eventually be prosecuted and found guilty. That is perhaps a comforting thought, but it isn't true.

  Two bizarre and inexplicable deaths in an isolated forest in Oregon were almost written off as accidental. It was only through the efforts of some of Oregon's top criminal investigators and prosecutors that the killer was found and convicted.

  The investigation began with a paucity of physical evidence, a witness who had been brainwashed, and two deaths that certainly appeared to be tragic accidents. But when it was over, a team from the Oregon attorney general's office uncovered a story of horror and violence that made even the most experienced detective's flesh crawl.

  Until the Patty Hearst kidnapping, the mass suicides of Reverend Jim Jones's followers in Guyana, and, more recently, the cult deaths in Waco and southern California, people thought of brainwashing as something that happened only in Korean or Vietnamese prison camps. It's easy to be smug and confident in the safety of one's own living room or at a cocktail party and say, "I could never be programmed to do something like that. There are just some things I would never do."

  But the mind is an incredibly complex entity and, given the right circumstances, virtually any mind will crack and begin to believe that black is white, that wrong is right, and that reality no longer has any validity. Brainwashing can take place in an hour or over many days. It is a strategy used in many hostage situations. When ordinary people are held prisoner in banks or planes, some of them will eventually begin to think their captors are good and kind people simply because they haven't killed them. When their plans are interrupted, captives move from outrage to fear to passivity and finally to a belief that their captors must possess at least a few tender places in their hearts. When they survive, many hostages feel they owe their lives to the bank robbers or skyjackers. This curious phenomenon is known as the Stockholm Syndrome.

  For brainwashing to occur, a human being must be exposed to four basic elements:

  1. A severe traumatic shock

  2. Isolation— being taken away from the people and surroundings where the person feels secure

  3. Programming— hearing what the mind controller wants the subject to believe, over and over and over and over

  4. The promise of a reward— often the subject's very life

  When all four of these components come into play, the stage is set. Every one of these elements is vital in unraveling the story of Robin* and Hank Marcus* and their seemingly benign meeting with a stranger in the woods.

  It was Thursday, July 22, 1976, when Robin and Hank set out from their home in Canby, Oregon, for a camping trip along the Clackamas River near the foothills of Oregon's majestic Mount Hood. The trip was to be a celebration of their first wedding anniversary. Robin was only sixteen, her husband five years older, but they were so much in love that her family didn't object when their beautiful raven-haired daughter wanted to marry. They knew Hank loved Robin and would take care of her. The young couple's
happy first year of marriage showed everyone that their decision had been the right one. The trip into Oregon's idyllic wilderness would be like a second honeymoon for the couple.

  Hank and Robin lived on a shoestring. They had only sixty dollars to spend on their trip; that immediately eliminated motels and restaurants. They would have to sleep out under the trees or in their car and cook over a campfire. At first they planned to leave Rusty, their collie, with Robin's grandmother, but she was ill. They certainly couldn't afford to put him in a boarding kennel, so they decided to take him along.

  A sense of fatalism would run through all of Robin's eventual recollection of the events of that bizarre weekend. Call it karma, destiny, or what you will. If they had made even some small decisions differently that weekend, Robin's and Hank's lives might have gone on without incident for another fifty years.

  Robin initially wanted to go to the Oregon coast, where she and Hank had spent their honeymoon, but Hank chose Austin Hot Springs in the Oregon mountains instead. He wanted to teach her how to fish; it was one of his passions, so she finally capitulated. That made him happy, and they could always go to the coast another time.