“I think what they saw was enough, Ken. They interviewed scores of people. Cynthia’s husband. Those girls. The methadone clinic people.”
“Okay, here’s why he didn’t kill her. The autopsy report not showing strangulation. Cynthia had toxic levels of drugs in her system. Police saying Jesperson’s case does not match Cynthia’s death. Police say the location of Jesperson’s victim does not match Cynthia’s location. And he said the picture he was shown of Cynthia did not match his victim.”
There was a lot more, Ken added, but for the sake of our conversation, he kept it brief, sticking to major points.
I asked: “How do you explain the timing of the methadone? She got her methadone after the eight A.M. window closed. Jesperson, we know from the logs and fuel receipts, was well on his way by then, dropping that meat delivery and out of the state.”
“I don’t buy this,” Ken said of the methadone report. “I don’t feel she showed up for the methadone later—I don’t think she ever showed up.”
The report was not as detailed in this regard as we would have liked; yet, that being said, the director of the Stanislaus County Heroin Treatment Center, where Wilcox received her daily methadone, claimed she “received her daily dose on [August 27, 1992] and did not return after that date.” The problem they had was that no one wrote down the time. Moreover, the initial entry for that date showed she “missed” her 6:30 to 8:00 A.M. dose, but then the entry was crossed out, indicating she’d been given the dose after hours.
“I look at that,” I told Ken, “as a simple, undeniable fact. They said she was there on August twenty-seven, after eight A.M. They have no reason or motive to fudge that.”
We moved on. I asked Ken for his reasons backing up that Jesperson killed Wilcox. What was he basing his opinion on?
“Cynthia went missing the same time of night, on the same day Jesperson was in the area, probably within a two-hour window. He was not only just in the area, but he admits to stopping in the Turlock rest stop. He was in the same rest stop on the same night a girl was reported missing from this rest stop. After stopping at the Turlock rest stop, he killed a woman who got into his truck and then dumped her behind the Blueberry Hill Café. Cynthia was found behind the Blueberry, next to a shack by a tree. He has said he stepped on the head or throat of the victim after she was dead. Cynthia’s jaw was fractured after death. Jesperson described his Turlock victim as a petite, white, maybe one hundred pounds, red top, with short hair above her shoulders, and a prostitute. Cynthia was a petite female, white (despite the picture we have), one hundred pounds, red top, with short hair above her shoulders—and a prostitute! The hair colors described don’t match, I know. Neither do the blue jeans/skirt. I realize Cynthia may have looked Hispanic. Still, no other bodies were found behind the Blueberry Hill Café, despite Jesperson dumping a victim there, and despite a police search in this same area for evidence. Just Cynthia Wilcox.”
To me, undeniable evidence that Keith Jesperson did not kill Cynthia Lynn (Rose) Wilcox can be found in the autopsy report—because she overdosed. What’s more, she showed up for her methadone maintenance long after Happy Face was out of the area. Anything beyond those two facts, in my opinion, is speculation.
*
BACK A FEW DAYS after Visiting Jesperson, I made a call I’d not felt the need to make in at least twenty years. A constant knot, my stomach muscles were perpetually clenched, tightened, and stressed. I called my doctor and he told me to up my Lexapro intake by .5 mils. I didn’t. I also recognized (and felt guilty) that over the course of the past few months my Mass routine had fallen off. When I did go, I sat and stared at the stained-glass windows, statues, Stations of the Cross along the sidewalls, and took in nothing presented at the altar. My faith was nearly gone. I felt like a shell, a body walking through the motions of life, no soul. My anxiety was back at full throttle. I was torn, broken. I cried when no one was around for no particular reason I could discern. I’d never felt so profoundly different, so sad, so lost. I was desperate to find out why.
40
AS MUCH AS I EVER COULD
“Although an act of help done timely might be small in
nature, it is truly larger than the world itself.”
—Thiruvalluvar
A GOAL OF MINE WAS TO CONVINCE JESPERSON TO DO EVERYTHING in his power to help identify his Florida Jane Doe. This kept me going. I believed he knew more than he’d shared all these years. So behind Jesperson’s back, I’d initiated a dialogue with PBSO FIS Paul Moody, while explaining to Jesperson I didn’t have much time presently to devote to his cases and agenda. Without promising anything, Moody said Jesperson would “not likely” be prosecuted under the death penalty if he helped identify Jane. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), lead agency in the case, was not looking to reopen the investigation; they, like me, wanted to bring Jane home to her family, giving a name and place of final rest to a box of bones and a skull sitting on a shelf inside a brick building in Okaloosa County. All this time, Jane had been floating in the universe, a nameless murder victim, her legacy and memory a twenty-year phantom. It was time for her to be at peace.
“They are not interested in prosecuting you,” I told Jesperson one afternoon.
“That’s all bullshit. No. Not helping.”
Back in 2012, Jesperson wrote to Thomas Phelan, explaining that he’d received a letter from the FDLE indicating they wanted his help identifying Jane Doe (Florida). Jesperson told Phelan his “instinct” was to ignore the request. No matter what they promised, Florida could haul him back into court and charge him with the death penalty, especially if Jane’s family pushed the case after she was identified.
In his first letter to Jesperson, dated June 22, 2012, Special Agent (SA) Dennis Haley, of the FDLE, asked about Jane, basing his questions on an interview Jesperson had given on February 17, 1996, to SA Glen Barberree, then FDLE lead detective in Jane’s case. In that letter, Haley said, “Florida has declined to seek any prosecution against you because you are already doing multiple life sentences.” From there, the SA outlined what the FDLE “knew” about the case.