I STRUGGLED WITH GOING behind Jesperson’s back. Cops are funny. I place them in two categories: down-to-earth and professional; guarded and by brass tacks. The latter are hard to deal with, not by any fault of their own. They’re good people and loyal. I respect that. My anguish in going to Moody and Haley, two cops I trusted more than most I’d worked with, was not rooted in disappointing Jesperson over deceiving him. It was based on the anxiety I felt not being true to the journalistic screed I’d signed up for, a dilemma that brought me even more inner conflict.
After talking one day to Moody, a guy who made me feel like what I had to say mattered and my help was appreciated and productive, I sat in my office staring at a photograph of the dirty, tattered, and torn floral-patterned dress they’d found Jane Doe Florida’s remains melted into. To look at what was left of this poor young woman, just a small lock of her hair on a skull sitting on the floor of the woods, unrecognizable (she’d not been found for three months), it occurred to me that my obligation was to Jane and her family. Not Jesperson. Not Moody. Not the FDLE. What if someone had information about my sister-in-law’s murder that could help her case?
Screw journalistic integrity to a serial killer, I thought. I want this girl to have a headstone, a name. I want her family to know where she is and what happened. She was loved by someone. She deserves to rest.
Her family deserved answers. Any way I could get them. I needed to do whatever I could to make sure Jesperson manned up. Didn’t matter what anybody else—or the freakin’ academic, bow tie–wearing journalism police—thought. This was about Jane Doe, a victim, and her family. Lying to a murderer was part of the game.
I spoke to Moody soon after, asking him if there was more I could be doing. How could I help move this along?
“Well, we were hoping, at some point, Jesperson would draw a portrait of what he remembers Jane looking like,” Moody said. “We’ve been trying to get that from him.”
“I can get it done.”
Next time I spoke to Jesperson, I told him to do whatever Florida asked. “Draw that fucking picture of her and do it as soon as possible. End of story. If not, I will never answer another phone call from you.”
“I trust you, Phelps. I do. They’ve been pushing me on this. Moody wants a sketch or a painting. I’ve been putting it off.”
“You’re an artist. Do it.”
*
KEN ROBINSON AND I spoke. We’d become close friends. I’m not one to keep “pals.” I have acquaintances, sure, but no “best buddy,” nothing like that. My cameraman on Dark Minds, Peter Heap, and I became best “mates.” But Peter lives in Australia. With Ken, I could share theories and ideas, and Ken would always be honest to a fault with me. Plus, all that law enforcement experience Ken brought to the table—access to that doesn’t hurt in my line of work. If I needed to find someone, maybe certain information about someone, I’d give it to Ken and he’d come back with details I could’ve never uncovered on my own.
Last time we chatted about Jane, Ken mentioned an idea. He explained: “I’ve been searching databases for missing women that fit the Jane Doe profile. I’ve come up with several candidates.”
These would be actual photographs and narratives from the Doe Network and other online resources missing people are put into. With a few good matches from Ken, I could stick in a few placebo girls I knew weren’t connected to Jane and send Jesperson a photo lineup.
“Send those girls to me,” I told Ken.
“One of these girls, Ylenia Carrisi, her story, her look, match up pretty well with what we know about Jane from Jesperson and those reports,” Ken explained. I could hear in Ken’s voice a modicum of hope. He was excited about Ylenia. I’d not heard Ken sound like this before. He had something.
“No shit. You found one?” That name: Carrisi. I’d heard it somewhere before.
“Yeah, but there’s one anomaly I’ll have to explain. Still, all else fits nearly perfect—including the damn dress she was wearing and where she was heading.”
42
JANE DOE, FLORIDA
“For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought.”
—Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene
SHE WANTED TO KNOW WHERE HE WAS HEADING.
“North,” he said.
“Where, exactly, north?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet.”
It was August 1994. The exact date is in question, but it had to be between August 7, after Jesperson left Waterbury, Connecticut, at 6:45 A.M. (according to his log), and August 15, the next entry he listed, putting him heading north out of Tampa. My guess—and Dennis Haley agrees—is somewhere near August 10, plus or minus a few days. Jesperson told me he’d driven from Waterbury back to Spokane, then back into the South. The dates line up with his memory.
In Tampa, Jesperson dropped off a load of Kaiser Aluminum coils. According to him, after making the Tampa delivery, he parked at the 76 Truck Stop on U.S. 301, outside downtown Tampa. There were two separate areas for parking: to the south, a traditional lot with diagonal, overnight spaces; to the north, a fuel island with slotted spaces; beyond that, showers and a convenience-type store with a restaurant. He parked in one of the designated eighteen-wheeler spaces to the south. His plan was to call dispatch in Spokane and get his next pickup.
Jane Doe stood by the 76 Truck Stop door into the store, talking to a security guard. Later, Jesperson mentioned “karma” and “fate” being at play here as they crossed paths, a familiar situation in his opportunistic victim-selection process.
In her right hand, Jane gripped a metal trolley (a device similar to a handcart). It had a long handle and two small wheels. A piece of carry-on luggage was bungeed to the trolley, and she pulled it along wherever she went. She had an RCA boom box. Jane was a pretty girl, approximately five-four, petite, about 110 pounds, “brown-black hair . . . with bleached streaks,” running past her shoulders. She wore a “Windbreaker jacket, a long dress imprinted with large patches of brown and greens, as well as [a] floral pattern.” Hemmed at the ankles, the dress had “groups of buttons . . . arranged in a decorative rosette pattern.” Jesperson thought: Late twenties, early thirties. The medical examiner’s report (the least accurate, according to investigators) indicated forties, maybe thirty-five to fifty-five. In addition, “She smelled,” Jesperson told me. “I wasn’t really interested in giving anybody a ride—especially someone that reeked so badly.”
After Jane asked, he pointed to his new truck, a 1992 blue Peterbilt monster of a machine, #2392, with a forty-eight-inch sleeper cabin, forty-inch bed, where he spent most of his time.
In one of his eleventh-hour admissions to me after Les died, Jesperson said he kept a length of rope and a roll of duct tape inside the sleeper cabin. “To strap things down and plug up holes in tarps.”
“What else?”
“To bind the hands, mouth, and feet of my victims, Phelps. It’s true.”
This had been something he hadn’t wanted to admit to me. Up until then, he’d said the press and police played up this portion of his story.
“That’s my truck right there,” Jesperson told Jane. “But I’m not leaving right now. Won’t be for another hour and a half to two hours. I have to find out first where I’m headed.”
After their brief conversation, he walked into the truck stop and called dispatch. “The boss isn’t in yet,” the operator in Spokane told him.