The Snake and the Spider

  “They have two suspects in custody. One seems to be working with the authorities. He’s the man who led the sheriff’s deputies to the bodies. But both men will face murder charges. You can be sure of that, Mr. Barber.”

  Ron thanked the man for his work on the case.

  “Well, it wasn’t easy,” Byrd said. “Took a lot of time and, as you know, a lot of money.” Byrd cleared his throat. “Of course, we didn’t want it to end like this. But at least you know the truth, now.”

  “Yes.” Ron had the strange feeling that someone else was talking for him and that none of this was really happening to him.

  “By the way, the story will be on the eleven o’clock news tonight,” Byrd said. “Sheriff’s going to read a press release.”

  And so by 10:50 that night, the Barbers and Bouchers and Faye’s parents had gathered in front of the television set. As it turned out, the story was one of the first on the newscast that night. They watched, their eyes wide in horror, as Detective Ziegler explained to reporters that they had found the skeletal remains of two people, believed to be the Michigan teenagers who had been missing in Daytona Beach for the past four months.

  At the mention of the word skeletal, Faye gasped and put a hand over her mouth. None of them had thought about what the elements might have done to their sons since their bodies had been disposed of that past summer.

  Roy stared blankly at the television set and reached for Faye’s hand. He listened to the story, took in the details, and paid careful attention to everything that was said. But when it was over he still had the unusual feeling he was listening to a story about someone else’s sons.

  Marian began crying and turned away from the screen, burying her head in Ron’s shoulder. Even though there were no pictures of the scene or of the boys’ remains, she could no longer watch.

  At the end of the story, the newscaster said that although details of the boys’ deaths had been given to authorities, they were not yet available to the public. Immediately, Ron stood up and dialed James Byrd’s number. The investigator was still in his office.

  “I understand the sheriff has the details about what happened to the boys,” he said. “We want to know everything they do. As soon as possible. Can you have them call us or give us a number so we can call them.”

  “Well, uh,” Byrd said. “I can tell you this much. The boys were robbed before they were killed. But that’s about it. Anything more and you’ll have to call the sheriff’s department yourself.”

  Ron was beginning to feel annoyed. After all, they had paid this man more than sixty thousand dollars to find their sons. Now, even though he had gotten the job done, there was no reason why he couldn’t cooperate and help them find the information they needed.

  “What are you trying to say?” Ron asked.

  “Well, officially speaking the investigation is over, Mr. Barber. You’ll probably have a lot more questions as this thing goes through the legal system. And starting now those questions will have to go through the proper channels.”

  Ron was speechless. In a voice that after so much bad news finally had no emotion left, he thanked the investigator and hung up the phone.

  That evening they discussed their next move, agreeing that Faye would be the one to initiate contact with the authorities. But for the most part, there was no sobbing or screaming or crying that evening.

  Instead, there was a terrible emptiness—as if everything that had happened that day, the information from Byrd and the newscast on television, had never really happened. They were in shock, each trying to adjust to the idea that their sons had been found.

  The problem was, until they could actually identify the boys none of what was happening seemed real. Each of them had spent their life savings so that they could get their sons back. Dead or alive, there had always been the hope that somehow they would see their boys again.

  But now, all that was left were some skeletal remains. What all of them had really wanted was to see their sons’ faces, feel the flesh of their arms, the warmth of their bodies—everything that had always been their sons.

  But no investigation and no amount of money would ever bring them back now. They had bones and belts and blankets. But their boys were gone forever.

  EARLY ON THE MORNING OF DECEMBER 13 A SPECIAL crime scene unit from the Florida Department of Criminal Law Enforcement flew into Daytona Beach from Tallahassee. The team, led by Dr. Dan Morse, a forensic scientist from Florida State University, included Daytona Beach Police officer Mikelson, sheriff’s deputies Joe Deemer and Murray Ziegler, and sheriff’s captain Howard McBride. Present also were a representative from the Halifax Fire Department and two additional forensics scientists from the FDLE.

  And of course, the group included Bob Brown, who had every right to continue on with the investigation until positive identification could be made on the remains. And after all the work he’d done on the case, the others were more than willing to have him along.

  In all, there were eight people in three vehicles who converged on the scene first thing that Wednesday morning. The process was painstakingly slow. Bones from the two bodies were found over an area of forty square feet. At first this caused the investigators to wonder if they weren’t perhaps dealing with more than two bodies.

  But within the first few minutes of the search, Dr. Dan Morse quickly figured out what had happened. In his opinion, as the boys’ bodies had lain on the blanket side by side slowly decomposing, animals had moved in and dragged away their various body parts.

  Bob was sickened by the thought of animals eating the dead flesh of the missing teenagers. He tried to push the thoughts from his head. Working under the assumption that Dr. Morse’s theory was correct, they began scanning the ground like surgeons searching for minuscule blood vessels.

  They used screened devices and sifted surface soil, rinsing what remained so that they could reclaim even the smallest bones. Working with this process, they found finger and feet bones, wrist and ankle bones. The larger bones were easier to see, but in order to find them some of the brush had to be cut back.

  While several men continued with the search, others were assigned the job of photographing the bones and the place where the bodies originally had lain. Apparently they had been placed under a blanket and although they were not buried, their bodies had made a slight depression in the ground. Pictures were taken of that area also to prove that although the bones were found scattered across an area that was forty square feet, they had at one time been placed side by side under a blanket.

  As each bone was found, it was numbered and registered into a log that detailed every bit of evidence collected from the scene. The entries read something like this:

  10:07 A.M. Left femur. Found seven feet, six inches north of the central location.

  10:08 A.M. Right seventh rib. Found two feet, three inches west of central location.

  And on it went, the central location being the spot where the depressions left by the bodies were found in the ground. In addition to the bones they collected two blankets and several items of clothing including two pairs of blue jeans and two T-shirts.

  Finally, just before sunset that evening, the tired crew packed up the evidence they had collected and left the scene. The skulls, teeth, and other skeletal remains of the victims were sent to the crime lab headquarters in Tallahassee where they would be restructured and analyzed in attempt to determine numerous details including the cause of death.

  By that time Michigan State Police had already sent both boys’ dental charts to the crime lab in Tallahassee so that identification could be made immediately.

  The Barbers and Bouchers knew that there was a possibility the remains were not those of their sons. But on Thursday afternoon when they took the call from a technician at the crime lab, they were not surprised at the news.

  The dental records had been compared with the teeth found at the scene. Confirmation had been made. The bodies were those of Dary
l Barber and Jim Boucher.

  MORE THAN ONE WEEK LATER, SPIDER SMITH WAS SITTING in his cell doing little more than existing. He still had not been assigned a new attorney and he had not been in contact with anyone regarding the missing boys. He had no idea if Snake had indeed told the truth about what had happened or even if he had talked at all. It was possible, he guessed, that Snake hadn’t said anything to the detectives and that they were merely playing a waiting game with him, trying to force him to talk.

  Well, Spider wasn’t talking. As far as he was concerned there was no reason to tell anyone what happened. All that talk about the electric chair was, in Spider’s opinion, little more than a scare tactic. After all he’d been sitting here eight days and no one had said anything about the death penalty.

  Of course, by then Spider had been officially charged in the deaths of both boys. But that in itself did not worry Spider terribly. As long as Snake hadn’t said much to the detectives there was no way they could prove he was guilty of murder.

  Spider had spent long, lonely hours thinking about his good friend, Snake, and how likely it was that he would talk about this problem they shared. And after a great deal of time spent worrying about the issue, Spider decided Snake probably wouldn’t say anything at all. But it bothered him that there had been no way to find out what really had been said in the interview room that afternoon.

  And by Friday, December 22, Spider’s need to know had grown so great that he finally asked a bailiff for a newspaper. Didn’t matter how old it was, he just needed a paper. Perhaps if Snake had talked, he would find a story there with the details.

  The bailiff grabbed an old copy of The Tampa Tribune dated December 15 and tossed it to Spider. Spider flipped through the paper, convinced he would find nothing. But then, at the top of page 2-B, he saw this headline: “Information from Suspect Led to Bodies of Boys.”

  Spider began reading the article in terror.

  It spanned the width of the page and detailed how John Cox, Jr., alias “Snake,” had led investigators to the remains of two Michigan teenagers. Then it told how Cox had informed the police of what had happened to the boys, all of which had led to the arrest of Earl “Spider” Smith, who was currently sitting in Volusia County Jail, where he was being held without bail.

  When Spider finished reading the article, he read it again. With each word, Spider’s fear diminished and his anger grew—until finally he wadded the paper up in a tight ball and threw it at the wall.

  “That’s a buncha bull!” he shouted. At which time the bailiff reentered the room and asked Spider if there was a problem.

  “You bet, man!” he screamed. His eyes were wide and he looked more than a little wild. The bailiff stepped back a bit.

  “What’s the problem, Smith?” he asked calmly. He had been watching over Spider for weeks and had never seen him get this angry.

  “I’ll tell you what the problem is. I want to talk to one of the detectives,” Spider shouted. “You know who I mean? The guys working on this murder thing I’m caught up in. It’s time they know the real story about what happened.”

  The bailiff assured Spider that he would do his best, and then Spider began to pace. He paced his cell for nearly two hours until the bailiff returned, this time with news that Deputy Joe Deemer was waiting for him in the interview room.

  “Good thing,” Spider muttered as the bailiff led him away. “It’s about time someone laid the facts out on the table. Time to tell the truth like it is, man.”

  CHAPTER 39

  The idea that Spider suddenly wanted to talk came as something of a surprise to sheriff’s deputy Joe Deemer. Even though he hadn’t played the largest role in solving the case, he had been involved enough to know that Spider had been given numerous chances to talk and each time had backed down and told only bits and pieces. But this was the first time Spider had asked to be interviewed. Ziegler was out on another case and Bob Brown was back at his Orlando office. Since Deemer was very familiar with the case, he was more than happy to make the trip to county jail to hear what Spider wanted to say.

  “Heard you wanna talk,” Deemer said when Spider was ushered into the interview room. He was a laid-back detective in his late forties with a southern accent and a reputation for handling the nuts and bolts of a case. Nothing fancy. He was also perhaps the least intimidating officer at the sheriff’s office, and in this case Deemer had a feeling his personality was going to work in his favor.

  “You’re darn right,” Spider said angrily.

  “Well, first I’m gonna have to read you your rights, Mr. Smith. Seein’ as how you no longer have an attorney.”

  “Listen, you can read me whatever you want but when you’re done I’ve got something to say, man. I mean it.”

  Deemer nodded casually and then read Spider his rights. “The part I want you to pay particular attention to is the fact that this conversation is gonna be recorded, Mr. Smith. You understand that?”

  “Someone better record it. About time we got the truth out in this whole mess,” Spider snarled.

  “All right, just so you understand that anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You can bet on it.”

  “I understand.”

  “And you don’t want to wait until you get another public defender?”

  “No!” Spider shouted. “I wanna talk now, man! Right now!”

  “Okay. Have it your way. Mr. Smith, as of right now this conversation is being tape-recorded.” “I understand.”

  “All right, then. Why don’t you tell me what you know.”

  Spider leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “The whole thing, the whole night was like some kind of friggin’ nightmare, man,” Spider said.

  And then, in vivid detail, Spider recounted that nightmare with a kind of clarity that shed an altogether different light on what happened that August night. And this time Deemer was fairly certain there was nothing at all that seemed shady or untrue about the story.

  According to Smith, he had been prowling the Daytona Beach area near the boardwalk the evening of August 12, 1978, when he spotted the two Michigan teenagers. He approached them and smoked a few marijuana joints while talking to them about parties in the area. He tried to sell them about an ounce of pot, but both boys chose not to smoke any on the beach.

  After a little while, according to Spider, he made up a story that there was a big party going on at the Days Inn down the street.

  “It’s open. Most of the guys are pretty cool about newcomers, you know?” Spider had said.

  Then Jim and Daryl had asked Spider where exactly the party was and Spider had offered to take the boys there personally. After getting into the red-and-black Chevy Nova with the boys, Spider had made another suggestion.

  “Hey,” Spider had said, “I’ve got a buddy of mine not too far from here. What do you say we pick him up and take him to the party, too?”

  Spider stopped the story here and paused a moment. He had committed himself now and he wanted to be sure to tell the entire truth. Exactly as it had happened. He assured Deemer that the buddy of his was none other than the hospitable Snake Cox himself. Spider continued the story from there.

  At that point, Spider said, he led the boys to McDonald’s where they met up with Snake Cox. Since Spider was determined to be completely honest, he told Deemer the truth about the meeting. He had gone up to Snake and told him about a couple of pigeons in the car outside.

  The pigeons, Spider had told Snake, looked to be wealthy and extremely naive.

  “Okay,” Snake had said. “Let’s go get ’em.”

  So Snake followed Spider and the two men climbed into the boys’ car. After that they headed down the street and stopped for gas at a station near the corner of Atlantic and Broadway. During that time both Snake and Spider had noticed that Daryl had what appeared to be a wad of twenty-dollar bills in his wallet. Shortly after leaving the gas station, Snake suggested they stop by
his trailer for some “party goods.”

  Jim had been worried about taking the side trip. “It’s getting late,” he had said. “How long will the party go?”

  And Snake had assured him that the night was early and the party would last for hours yet. The boys agreed and drove to the trailer so Snake could get the goods. After a short while he returned with a paper bag, and once inside the car he pulled from the bag a .25-caliber automatic blue-steel pistol, which he handed to Spider. Snake kept a .38 caliber pistol for himself.

  At this point in the story Spider racked his brains to remember which of them had pulled a gun on the boys first, but he simply couldn’t recall.

  “All I can say is one of us, maybe both of us, pulled our guns, on those boys, man,” Spider told Deemer.

  Jim and Daryl had been scared to death and they had followed Snake’s directions, driving the car onto Highway 92.

  “Now do what I tell you and no one’ll get hurt,” Snake had said. “Just keep driving.”

  The boys obeyed and when they reached a dark area they were told to pull off the road. They turned onto Indian Lake Road and drove for half a mile before Snake ordered them to stop the car. There, both boys were robbed of their wallets while Snake and Spider held guns to their heads. Snake moved away from the boys approximately one car length and motioned for Spider to follow him.

  “Listen, man,” Snake had said. “They know our names, they know where we live, they know where we hang out. We got no choice, man. We gotta kill ’em.”

  Spider, seeing no reason to object, took one boy by the arm and Snake took the other. It was pitch-dark but they forced the boys at gunpoint further down the road. The ground, as it is in much of central Florida, was muddy and in some places the mud was quite deep. As they walked, one of Jim’s shoes got stuck in this mud and came off his foot.

  “Hey, man, I lost my shoe,” Jim had said. He was terrified but he was trying desperately to be brave.