An old MacBook Pro was dug out from under the car’s front seat. Pastori and his IT pals were dissecting it every which way but Sunday.
McGee was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, kidnapping, and a dozen other offenses with regard to Leal and Nance, kidnapping and assault with regard to Mary Louise. Vermont was waiting in the wings with Gower. Deciding what to do about Pomerleau. Quebec was in line with Violette and Bastien. The upside to homicide: no statute of limitations.
McGee was interrogated daily, mostly by Barrow and Rodas. Slidell was on administrative leave, routine in any officer-involved shooting. He watched via remote hookup, smoldering, jotting notes so fiercely that his pencil lead often snapped and went flying.
Tinker—who had been discharged from Mercy and was recovering nicely—and Slidell gave differing accounts of the incident. Both versions and witness statements agreed on core facts.
Tinker had been at the home of Verlene Wryznyk, Slidell’s former girlfriend and Tinker’s flavor of the month. Tinker wanted to tango, Verlene didn’t. She asked him to leave, he wouldn’t. Frustrated, Verlene called someone she trusted.
Slidell stormed in breathing fire. Hoping to neutralize Skinny long enough to allow him to cool down, Tinker drew his weapon. The two struggled and the gun discharged. Tinker caught a bullet in the shoulder.
Slidell visited me at the MCME a week after McGee’s arrest. God knows why, but he felt compelled to share the true story. After demanding stick-a-needle-in-my-eye confidentiality, he told me that Tinker had shown up drunk and become aggressive, and Verlene had capped him.
I told Slidell he was a sap for taking the hit. Got “Eeyuh” for an answer. Clearly, Skinny was not over Verlene.
McGee waived her right to counsel, even when she was assured that efforts would be made to secure a female attorney. Barrow and Rodas nearly wet themselves with joy.
Along with Slidell, I observed most of the questioning. Throughout, McGee was cool and distant. But her eyes were empty as glass, never connecting with anything or anyone in the room.
McGee admitted to stealing Kim Hamilton’s identity. Talked freely of the girl with whom she’d been imprisoned. With whom she’d whispered, naked in the dark.
In 1998, Alice Kimberly Hamilton and four older teens made a clandestine trip from their hometown of Detroit to Toronto for a night of Canadian fun. At that time no passport was required to transit the border, so she carried a birth certificate in one shoe.
The secret trip turned deadly when Hamilton’s path crossed that of Pomerleau or Catts/Menard. McGee didn’t know why either would have traveled to Ontario. I suspected we never would.
Hoping to keep the sole link to her life out of the hands of her captors, Hamilton hid the birth certificate behind a cell wall, in a gap between the wood and cement. McGee listened to Hamilton’s hushed secret, stored the information for possible future advantage.
Hamilton lasted only nineteen months in captivity. McGee had no idea what happened to her body. She was sixteen years old at the time of her death.
Once freed and in therapy, McGee pressed for a visit to the house on de Sébastopol. When Lindahl finally agreed, she went to the basement and dug out Hamilton’s carefully concealed ID.
The document proved useful sooner than McGee could have anticipated. After storming from the Kezerian home in the summer of 2006, she spent a week on the streets and eventually hooked up with a group of girls from the University of Vermont. Drunk or stoned, they offered her a ride south. Passports were still unnecessary for vehicular crossings, so McGee entered the States using Hamilton’s birth certificate.