Pressed further for details about the actual murder, Jesperson explained to investigators how he “either strangled [her] with his hands or ‘my normal way,’ pushing my fist down into [her] throat.” He claimed not to have beaten her, but after he stopped at the off-ramp on the way to the Blueberry, unsure if she was still alive, he “held his hands on her [throat] for a good five minutes . . . to make sure she was dead.” All of this was consistent with the versions he had given me over the years of discussing the case.
Wilcox’s autopsy reported remarkable inconsistencies with the narrative Jesperson gave to police and me. Additionally, in a report I was able to obtain about Julie Winningham’s murder, as told by Jesperson after he was arrested and charged, “The victim [Winningham] was duct-taped around the face and mouth and was beaten about her torso.” Here we have, nevertheless, another signature of Jesperson’s: binding and taping up his victims, beating them about their bodies and face. He told me, “I duct-taped my Turlock victim’s hands and then tore that tape off, thinking I was going to leave fingerprints behind.”
The autopsy mentioned nothing about Cynthia Wilcox’s wrists having ever been bound.
“Yes, I have to admit to you that I did do this to all of them,” he told me in 2015, after denying binding any of his victims all the years we talked. “I lied to you.”
Between 1992, when Wilcox was found, and 1995 (when Happy Face, still out killing, started communicating with newspapers and police via letters, detailing several of his crimes), her case was ruled an overdose and closed. Her autopsy report, furthermore, proves she had more than toxic amounts of opiates, methadone, and benzodiazepines (“benzos” on the street, tranquilizers) in her system. Toxic levels of morphine/heroin come in at .10 to 1.0; Cynthia’s morphine blood level was .27.
“There is a dense infestation of maggots, particularly about the head and neck,” reported the autopsy. Her brain had been eaten by “three generations” of maggots. Fly ova was present. All of which—in addition to evidence backing up a report of her last being seen during the early morning hours of August 27, 1992—gave investigators a time frame for when Cynthia Wilcox died: one week before she was found, putting her death on or around August 27 (the same day Jesperson was in Turlock). Confusing matters ever more, Cynthia Wilcox was last seen by her husband, who had searched for his wife all that night and into the next morning, after dropping her off, at the same Turlock southbound rest area (where Jesperson met his victim) at 1:30 A.M., just hours before Jesperson arrived.
Jesperson logged himself being at the Blueberry Hill Café on August 1, 1992, almost a full month before she went missing. Fuel and ATM receipts, however, along with additional entries in his log, place him driving through Turlock on August 27. He knew this area well and traveled through it routinely during that entire year.
“There is no obvious trauma to the nose, lips, or neck, although decomposition and maggot infestation could obscure minor (emphasis mine) bruises or abrasions,” claimed Wilcox’s autopsy report. She had no rib fractures (Wilcox weighed one hundred pounds at autopsy [twenty pounds of water weight evaporated from decomposition]; Jesperson 275). All of her jewelry was accounted for: two gold necklaces, earring, watch, and wedding ring. She was menstruating at the time of her death and the coroner found a tampon with “pink bloodstaining” inside her vagina. There was “no external or internal evidence of vaginal trauma.” She did have a few soft bruises on her right shin and thigh, but “no other” blunt-force injuries. No trauma to her head, chest, or abdomen. What’s more, and perhaps most important to me, after her neck was “removed as a block,” the coroner found “no soft tissue hemorrhages. Serial sectioning of the paraspinous musculature [that area of muscle around the neck we use to turn and hold up our head] was also negative for hemorrhage.” Significantly, there was “no trauma to the carotid sheaths [that area to the left of your throat] . . . the cartilages and”—the most important factor leading me to believe there is no way she could have been strangled by Jesperson—“hyoid bone are intact. . . .”
Jesperson could not strangle a woman by placing his massive hands around her neck (twice, with one of those for “a good five minutes”) and not bruise or crack her hyoid bone, on top of leaving no other signs of trauma to any of her neck muscles. Impossible for a man of his size and strength, especially taking into account he was in the beginning stages of his murder spree and not yet an experienced killer.
According to her autopsy, Wilcox had not been strangled. Shot. Stabbed. Drowned. Raped. Assaulted. Or murdered by any means.
It had taken me four-plus years, but I was confident Jesperson was being straight with me; he’d had nothing to do with the death of the woman he had always known as Cynthia Lynn Rose (her maiden and online name), but whose full name when she died was Cynthia Lynn Wilcox. If proven, this was beyond momentous. Not only did it mean a serial killer had not murdered a victim he’d been accountable for (he’d said he’d killed a blond prostitute and had always believed that Cynthia Lynn [Rose] Wilcox was that person); but the woman Jesperson had murdered could (and should) still be buried in back of the Blueberry Hill Café.
As I was about to celebrate the find, my voice of reason, Ken Robinson, called. He’d found more, he said. Going through interviews with former Jesperson coworkers and Jesperson’s bank and ATM records, Ken could not wrap his mind around the fact that Jesperson, near the exact time Cynthia Wilcox went missing, in the exact Turlock location, passed through within hours of the same time and had not killed her. What were the chances a serial killer was at the same rest area where a woman went missing, that same woman was later found dead (where the serial killer had said he’d left her), and he was not responsible? Ken could not overlook these facts.
“Well—” I started to say.
“Zero chance, Phelps,” Ken interrupted.
“But . . .”
“No, listen. I have much more. You say Cynthia Wilcox wasn’t murdered—that the autopsy says she overdosed, but I am having issues with that, too.”
Ken had found an aerial photo from the 1960s of the Blueberry Hill Café. He sent it to me. He asked me to send the photo to Jesperson so he could show us where he’d dumped his Turlock victim. This was important. If he drew an X on the same spot (which we were certain of) where Wilcox had been found, regardless of the maps Jesperson drew for me and investigators, it would indicate that Jesperson had killed her.
I got it back from Jesperson weeks later. He was angry I’d sent him a photo from the 1960s. The entire setup was different from the 1992 café. Still, he sketched in where he might have dumped his victim. Looking at it, I shook my head.
Shit.
37
BABY DOLL
“Your every new journey is your new window opening to
new ideas.”
—Mehmet Murat ildan