A Poisoned Passion Page 2

  When directly asked if he believed that Wendi had murdered Mike, Marshall said, “It looks real bad when someone moves a body.”

  Palmer asked Marshall if he believed that Wendi could have transported Mike from the clinic and dumped him into the water without help. “She can pick me up, and he was my size. She didn’t have to move him very far to get him in there. Yeah, it’s possible she could do it.”

  At the end of the interview, Marshall asked if he could speak to his sister. McGuire and Palmer exchanged a glance and nodded. “Just make sure you leave the door open a crack,” McGuire instructed.

  The two investigators empathized with their fellow law enforcement officer. No doubt about it, Marshall was in an awkward position. He had done his duty and reported the information about his sister to authorities. But here in the police station, he was balking at answering any other questions. His family loyalty now seemed to be stronger than his promise to uphold the law. Palmer and McGuire felt sorry for him then—but not for long.

  In another room, Wendi waited. She yelled at Marshall when he entered. “How could you?”

  Marshall held out his arms in the universal sign of entreaty. “Wendi,” he said.

  “How could you turn me in? I am your sister.”

  “What you did is what you did.”

  “How could you?”

  “You need to settle down, Wendi,” Marshall said.

  Wendi continued to rant at him about family, loyalty and her innocent desire to protect her parents. Marshall brushed her off. “Here’s what’s going to happen. They’re going to book you in, and, at some point, take you to the county jail. The kids will be taken care of, so you don’t have to worry about them. What do you need us to do with the clinic and everything?”

  Wendi ignored his questions and lit into another tirade. After ten minutes, Marshall gave up and left the room.

  At the moment, McGuire and Palmer had no body and were not ready to make the legal assumption that the missing Air Force staff sergeant, Michael Severance, had died as the result of homicide. They did have all they needed, however, to charge her with a different felony. McGuire had heard her admit that she’d disposed of the body of a man who’d died under suspicious circumstances. Both of the investigators had heard the corroborating testimony from Marshall.

  Palmer went to his office in the Texas Department of Public Safety building out on the Loop and prepared an affidavit for an arrest warrant on a tampering with evidence charge, a third-degree felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The affidavit claimed that the deceased body was evidence or contained evidence. When Wendi Davidson transported and concealed the body, she’d prevented investigators from having access to it.

  He presented the document to Judge Eddie Howard, Justice of the Peace, Precinct 4, and swore to its honesty and accuracy. Howard signed the warrant and set bond for $500,000. Sergeant Palmer arrested her at 11:31 P.M. and turned over her custody to San Angelo Police Department Officer David Kahn, who transferred her to the Tom Green County Jail.

  Palmer called Terrell Sheen and told him about the recent developments in the missing persons investigation of Michael Severance. He informed the property owner that officers had secured the area of the pond on Sheen’s 7777 Ranch on Sutton Road. Sheen agreed to meet with Palmer at the location the following morning to grant his permission for a search of the property.

  Palmer went home to get a few hours of sleep before he had to relieve the officers securing the ranch overnight. At 5:30 the next morning, he went through the gate at 7777 Ranch, drove down the one-lane caliche road through fields where cattle roamed, and parked next to a barn.

  He was joined at the pond by Investigator McGuire. Together, they awaited the arrival of the others. The scrubby land, filled with prickly pear cactus and stunted trees, came to life around them with the rising of the sun. Bird song filled the air and a breeze blew through leaves, churning up dust. Palmer videotaped the area.

  At 9, people began to arrive at the gate. The first two were San Angelo Police Department evidence technician Rosalind Hinds, and ranch owner Terrell Sheen. Fifteen minutes later, they were joined by United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations Special Agents Greg McCormick and Arch Harner and their evidence tech Julie Lecea. Soon after, Terrell Sheen signed a consent-to-search form and Hinds videotaped and photographed the ranch entrance, the one-lane road and the pond.

  Around 10, another influx of officers arrived: Sergeant David Jones with the special crimes division of the Texas Department of Public Safety, investigators from the Tom Green County Sheriff’s Office and the San Angelo Police Department along with the state trooper dive team. In half an hour, the underwater crew was ready to explore the depths of the pond in their search for the missing Michael Severance.

  THREE

  As the sun beat down on the shade-starved ranch, the officers from four different law enforcement agencies gathered around the stock pond as the divers took turns exploring the murky water for the body and any other evidence. Palmer watched for a couple of hours before setting out to find ranch hand Jose Romero. Jose lived in a trailer house northeast of the pond. Palmer questioned him in Spanish. Jose readily admitted to seeing either Wendi or her distinctive red Camaro on the property on more than one occasion.

  Just after 2 P.M., the dive team made a discovery: a body submerged in the water near the wire fence that transected the middle of the pond—it was on the far side of the fence away from the dock. Attempts to videotape the evidence with an underwater camera failed.

  Palmer, McGuire, evidence tech Hinds and the dive team took a boat out to the spot where the body was located. Above its location, Hinds took the temperature of the water six inches deep. She dutifully recorded 52 degrees Fahrenheit.

  The body was weighted down by a variety of objects. The divers detached a cinder block, tire rim, brake drum and boat anchor fastened to the body with baling wire and plastic ties. The body floated up toward the surface, back first. As it emerged, Palmer noted that it was definitely the remains of a white male wearing maroon boxer shorts with injuries on the back consistent with stab wounds. It resembled the photographs he’d seen of Michael Severance—the cold water had preserved the body well.

  Palmer and McGuire helped guide the body, still encumbered with other weights, over to the bank of the pond. Palmer handed a new unwrapped white sheet to the dive team. The divers slipped it under the body and used it to lift Michael out of the water.

  A rock was still attached to the neck with baling wire and plastic ties. Another cinder block was tied to the left ankle with a plastic tie and monofilament line. Palmer saw additional groups of injuries on the abdomen and chest that also appeared to have been made by a sharp object. Before leaving the water, the divers secured all of the items they’d removed from the submerged body and then detached the items still connected and secured them as evidence, placing them inside a body bag.

  The moment Terrell Sheen learned a body was found, he called Lloyd Davidson. Lloyd called Judy, then tore away from his job site without a word of explanation to anyone.

  Judge Eddie Howard arrived on the scene and pronounced the victim deceased just before 4 P.M. The body went into another bag and, with the objects, was transported to the Lubbock County Medical Examiner’s Office.

  Before leaving the area around the pond, Rosalind Hinds secured other possible evidence—sections of rope, boat oars, fishing line, a fillet knife, a brick with string attached and pieces of rust from the aluminum boat. She then went with Ranger Palmer to the nearby barn.

  Pulling open the door, they were greeted by a noise that sounded like old bones jostling in a pile of dried leaves. The meaning of that distinctive grating was clear: rattlesnakes. Palmer and Hinds stood still; awareness of peril tightened their muscles and made their breathing shallow. They knew the slightest movement could agitate a snake into striking. They relaxed when they spotted the wooden enclosure over to one side. They knew why the vip
ers were in the barn. It was almost time for the Jaycee’s 47th Rattlesnake Round-Up in Sweetwater, Texas, just 70 miles due north of San Angelo.

  The enclosure held dozens of captive snakes. Jose Romero was a snake hunter. From October to March, like folks all over West Texas, he smoked the rattlers out of their dens and gathered them up for the annual event. In days, he’d move his haul out of the barn and transport them up to the big event.

  When he arrived with the 30,000 others who visited the town of 11,000 for the festival, he’d take his snakes to the Nolan County Coliseum, where they’d be weighed to determine the amount of money he’d get paid. The first 1,500 pounds to arrive earned top dollar—anywhere from $3 to $10 per pound, depending on the year. The rest of the squirming mass went for fifty cents a pound. A lot of the hunters got in town days before the event to get at the head of the line for the larger pay-out.

  After the weigh-in, the vipers were pitched into an above-ground pit with thousands of others. Standing amongst them was a man protected by boots and chaps, and carrying tongs. He’d shuffle the live snakes aside and pluck out the occasional dead one.

  From there, the snakes moved to the milking pit where a team extracted venom for use by scientists developing treatments for blood clots and tumors. Then they were decapitated, skinned, beer-battered and fried. Craftsmen used their heads, hides and rattles for hat bands, key chains and other souvenirs.

  At the moment, though, they were just a live squirming, stinking mass of rippling flesh whose tails created an ominous crescendo as the grand finale for today’s grisly work—the recovery of a body that had spent seven weeks underwater. Before leaving the outbuilding, Hinds took possession of an unopened package of plastic ties as well as a container of ties and a pair of fencing pliers. Sergeant Mabe took custody of the aluminum boat. Just before 7 that evening, the job was done and everyone headed out the gate and toward the highway.

  They knew Wendi had disposed of her husband’s body—but how did Michael Severance die? All options were open until the completion of the autopsy report in Lubbock. Suicide, accident or homicide—all had to be considered. If the medical examiner found signs of foul play, the investigators had no doubt that their prime suspect was 26-year-old veterinarian Wendi Mae Davidson.

  FOUR

  Judy Elliott was born on November 23, 1953, and grew up in Mertzon, a town of 800, southwest of San Angelo in the adjacent county of Irion, graduating from Mertzon High School. She was a real daddy’s girl. Her older sister, Yvonne—known in the family as Cissy—and her brother Darrell always knew she was their father’s favorite.

  Lloyd Davidson was a few months older, born on March 14, 1953. Neither one of them has ever stepped outside of the state. They’ve spent their lives in West Texas, a place filled with cowboys, loners and folks seeking escape from the mainstream. A land where brown is a more common color than green. It has two saving graces. The first is that it is not all flat. Around San Angelo, the rolling hills soften the harshness of the environment and entice your exploration beyond the next rise. The second is the sky. It is enormous. In some parts of the country, it is confined to a vast empty space right above your head. Out here, though, it fills the field of vision, covering like a huge dome of blue, arching up from the ground and curving overhead, encapsulating the world.

  San Angelo itself feels like an outpost in the middle of nowhere. Driving northwest from Kerrville, the beauty of the Texas Hill Country fades in the rear-view mirror as you pass through miles and miles of nothing. That void encircles the city like a moat, cutting it off from the rest of the world.

  The closest city of comparable size is Abilene and it’s ninety miles away. And this is not the Abilene of song. That one is in Kansas. Lots of people love living in Abilene, Texas, but no one ever wrote lyrics calling it “the prettiest little town” they’d “ever seen.”

  San Angelo does have some pleasant features in the midst of its drabness. The Concho River runs through it, the waters giving the promise of life. The downtown area is charming with its western architecture and eclectic shops. And the people are kind to strangers and more than willing to lend a helping hand.

  In this frontier environment, Judy and Lloyd met and married in 1974. They moved out to their ranch north of San Angelo where they have lived ever since. Lloyd didn’t believe in credit cards or mortgages. He built their home with his own hands, using the money they’d saved for that purpose. Their house sat an eighth of a mile from the road, just over a little hump in the driveway.

  Judy was 23 and Lloyd 24 when their first child, Wendi Mae, was born on July 23, 1978. The next year, they welcomed their second child, Marshall Anthony, to the family on September 10. Two new residents in a decade of growth in San Angelo and the surrounding Tom Green County—the population increased by nearly 20 percent between 1970 and 1980.

  Before the children were born, Judy worked as a secretary at Angelo State University. In her earlier thirties, Judy became a full-time homemaker after a diagnosis of lupus took her out of the workplace and put her on Social Security Disability.

  While the kids grew up, Lloyd worked at the Levi Strauss factory. The ranch where they raised Wendi and Marshall was secluded and the family centered their life there. Neither Judy nor Lloyd was involved in a church or any social organizations. They had few friends and pretty much kept to themselves by choice.

  There were frequent visits to Judy’s parents’ home when Wendi and Marshall were little. Judy’s sister Cissy had a trailer there for a while, but then her father built a house for her with Lloyd’s help. Holidays were a cherished gathering time at the Elliot home. On Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day weekends, they all gathered to grill all day, swim in the pool and listen to music from the juke box on the back patio.

  When Judy’s father died in 1987, her mother Jessie Mae was devastated, and too distraught to do anything to hold the extended family together. For a while, family gatherings moved to Lloyd and Judy’s house, but they weren’t too keen on hosting these events. In time, the get-togethers ended, and contact diminished and nearly disappeared. At home, Judy focused on the children, and Lloyd on building an outdoor aviary and creating an exotic bird business. He started with pigeons, parakeets and cockatiels, and expanded from there.

  The Davidson place was always home to a menagerie of animals. Wendi got her first dog when she was 3 years old. She named him Licky Candlestick. Wendi’s best friend at Grape Creek Elementary, Stacey McGinley, visited on occasion. But for the most part, the family maintained their unit of four against the world. The kids, as a result, spent a lot of time exploring their immediate environment. They performed acts of kindness for the wildlife they encountered, rescuing a bird with a broken wing or nursing a baby raccoon whose mother had been killed by a car or other mishap. Wendi was only 7 years old when she first expressed her desire to be a veterinarian when she grew up.

  Neither she nor her brother Marshall had any serious childhood injuries or illnesses. Wendi’s only trip to the hospital was for a routine tonsillectomy. The two children grew quite close. While both of them were still at Grape Creek Elementary School, Marshall came home one day with ripped clothing and scratches on his face and arms. He told Wendi that a classmate had beaten him with an old tree root. The next day in school, Wendi tracked down the boy in the cafeteria. She got in his face and screamed threats at him and warned him to leave her little brother alone.

  Wendi’s love of animals grew when she attended Water Valley High School. She excelled in her animal science class as well as all of the rest of her agricultural studies. Charlie Fleming, her retired vocational Ag teacher said, “She was one of the best students I ever had. A smart, sweet kid.” Charlie kept up with Wendi’s progress long after her graduation from high school, taking great pride in his former student’s accomplishments.

  Both Lloyd and Judy were active in the school’s agricultural program when their children were at Water Valley High. They helped out at the school, enthusiastically support
ed every fundraiser and volunteered to help students at shows. “Anything I asked them to do, they did,” Charlie said.

  Wendi showed goats at the Tom Green County, San Angelo and Odessa Stock Shows. It was a good way to raise scholarship money for college. She was very involved in Future Farmers of America, where she became the club’s treasurer when she was a senior. That same year, her younger brother Marshall was also an officer in the group, serving as sentinel.

  Wendi also took part in cheerleading, basketball and volleyball. In twelfth grade, she received All Star Honorable Mention for her role as a Police Officer in a one-act play, The Tell Tale Heart. The list of extracurricular activities on her college application was quite impressive.

  Because of poor social skills—an inability to relate to others and to understand the impact her actions and words had on those around her—she had a difficult time with peer relationships, particularly with other girls. She was not popular at school. In fact, the other cheerleaders did not seem to like her at all. Her negative experiences with these girls soured her on people a bit.

  Her best friend, Chris Collier, was a boy. She dated him for a while when she was 16, but they weren’t interested in each other in that way and drifted back into a comfortable friendship. Wendi didn’t have any serious high school romances. Chris remained a constant presence in her life throughout high school. They had a mutual love for animals and once worked together to untangle a deer that had gotten caught in a barbed wire fence. Beneath her yearbook picture, Wendi wrote that her lifelong career ambition was to be a veterinarian.

  She worked hard and got good grades—a combination that stirred up jealousy in others. Wendi had no patience for those who lacked her drive to excel. In academics, Wendi kicked off her first year at the high school by earning Outstanding Achievement awards in Geometry, Ag Science and Honors American History, as well as induction into the National Honor Society. But she was not happy when graduation rolled around. Despite her efforts, she did not graduate as valedictorian. She came in second place as salutatorian.