Evil Season (22 page)

“Dean and I drove him,” she said. The detectives wanted to know where she dropped him off, and she wasn't sure. They all looked at a map together. It didn't help. She thought it might have been on Fruitville Road or Bee Ridge Road.

“Did he say he was camping in the woods?”

No. He gave her the impression he had a room somewhere in Sarasota.

When they dropped him off, he told her he was going to be on the move, but he didn't tell her where he was headed. He gave her the impression that the less she knew about his whereabouts and activities, the better off she would be.

He had to be where the gods wanted him to be. If he wasn't, there was going to be
hell
to pay. By that time Alane allowed Murphy's words to flow in one ear and out the other.

She said that he sometimes cut her hair. He would come over with a box that had his cutting tools in it. He cut everyone's hair, except for Dean's.

Had her brother-in-law mentioned anything about his job history in Sarasota?

“Yes,” she replied. “He said he had worked for an older lady who had an art gallery in Sarasota. He said she had adult children.”

“Anytime, recently—that you know of—did he give anybody a camera? There is a camera that we are trying to locate.”

“No.”

“Not as a gift or in lieu of payment, or anything like that?”

“Nope.”

 

 

The investigators next interviewed Dean Murphy.

What was the oddest thing about Brutus? His coolness. Chilliness. He didn't seem upset when either of their parents died.

Had there been occasions when Dean gave his brother a ride to Sarasota? Yes, he'd dropped him off near Fruitville Road, in an office complex parking lot near apartments.

There was a time when he seemed normal most of the time and stupid at others. But, as time passed, the stupid part of him was taking over. The doctor said he was bipolar.

What about his plate art?

Dean said it looked like a first grader had painted the plates. There was a time when his brother was a guy with artistic talent, but it had eroded, along with his mental state.

When Brutus owed his brother money, Dean gave him a job at the restaurant so he could work it off. Since January 2004, Dean hadn't seen his brother, although he did get a letter from him in jail. Brutus wrote about his plan: get a van and sell painted plates on the road. He said he already had the van.

Detective DelValle asked if Brutus had any items in storage anywhere. Dean said he didn't believe his brother had possessions, or close friends. Or even acquaintances. His mental problems had isolated him.

“Did he have any barber tools with him?”

Dean, who still didn't know what all of this was about, became particularly uncomfortable when the questions were about sharp tools. Dean said, “It was common for him to carry his haircutting tools with him. He kept them in a bag. I cut hair, too. We each have our own tools. I don't remember what the bag looked like.”

“Your brother violent?”

“Never known him to be. No, I don't believe he is.”

Dean described Brutus's delusions: the aliens, the followers, the big payday right around the corner. The deterioration came after he broke up with his wife, and his two teenaged children lived with their mother.

“That shook him up,” Dean said.

DelValle and Opitz wondered what religious stew had resulted in Brutus's peculiar beliefs. Dean said they had grown up Baptist, but his brother was influenced by Seventh-Day Adventists while in the navy. He stayed at a religious halfway house after he was released from jail. The investigators didn't hear anything odd in that mix.

Opitz asked, “When your brother is acting like God, does he ever make sacrifices or hurt any animals?”

Dean was firm: “No.” His mind was briefly invaded with an image of someone slitting a lamb's throat on a stone altar. Again, like the questions about tools, the fact that the investigators asked the question made Dean uneasy.

“Brutus was wacky, but he was great with computers. He could even build computers. Anytime he was in the vicinity of a computer, there was a chance he used it. He was athletic, too. He ran and took vitamins, enjoyed lifting weights.”

They asked Dean about his parents. Dean said his dad was an alcoholic, but there'd been no abuse problems in the house. (On this point, Dean disagreed with Brutus, who recalled his father pointing a shotgun at his mother.)

Were there any abuse issues with any of his brother's ex-wives? No, not that Dean knew of.

Weapons? Dean said his brother might have owned a small-caliber pistol at some point, but he suspected it was long gone. He didn't collect guns or knives or anything like that.

Dean never knew his brother to be a consumer of pornography, although he supposed he looked at
Playboy
every now and again. Every guy did.

On their way out the detectives were stopped by Alane Solomon, who said she had reconsidered something she'd said earlier. Looking back at it, she did not think Murphy had ever borrowed or used any of hers or Dean's computers. She was 99 percent sure that Murphy never used their computers, especially not during his most recent visits.

 

 

After they had spoken with Dean and Alane, the investigators interviewed Howard Solomon, who'd owned the land around Solomon's Castle for the past thirty-two years. Solomon said he'd known Brutus and Dean since they were teenagers—and he'd never had problems with Brutus.

Solomon demonstrated a remarkably open mind. He thought Murphy had some artistic talent; and if he wanted to believe in aliens, that was okay. Solomon had a lot of friends who were artists, and Brutus was no stranger than a lot of them.

Solomon showed the investigators two of Brutus's metal sculptures that were nearby. Solomon had once owned five of his sculptures, but Murphy had bought three of them back.

“I tried to mentor him, and I believe he admired me,” Solomon said. They were not chummy, however. “If you put all of our conversations together for the past four years, they would sum up to less than an hour.”

What was Solomon working on now?

The sculptor said he was working on an art display that would be in Naples, Florida. No, he had no art contacts in Sarasota and had never displayed his art there.

“I haven't had a show of any kind since the 1970s,” Solomon said, “and that was in St. Petersburg.”

 

 

Finished at Solomon's Castle, DelValle and Opitz took off in search of Murphy's Geo Metro. Investigators had not ruled out the idea that Murphy was still driving the Geo at the time of the murder.

The cops located Tory Fenimore in Altoona, Florida. Fenimore said that she bought the Geo from Dean Murphy on February 1.

“Go ahead and process the vehicle,” she said, signing a form, but she'd appreciate it if they could finish up quickly because she needed to get to work.

Criminalist James Tutsock was sent to Altoona to do the processing. DelValle and Opitz spoke to Fenimore and her sister Karrie Bootsma, who said that they first remembered seeing the Geo on Dean Murphy's property on January 24. Fenimore said she bought the car to save money on gas, but she hadn't driven it much. She vacuumed it out good before driving it. There was a knife in the trunk and a box cutter under the driver's seat, which weren't hers.

“All right if we take the trunk liner with us?” DelValle asked.

“Sure,” Fenimore said.

“If we need to take the whole car back to Sarasota, would that be okay?”

“Okay, but I would need it back by October.”

“We don't need to take it today, but there's a chance we might later.”

 

 

Though the DNA identification of the killer was irrefutable evidence that Elton Brutus Murphy had been present at the killing of Joyce Wishart, SPD detectives were not satisfied.

All they needed was one juror who was skeptical of DNA technology, the possibility of contamination, and there went their case. If possible, they wanted to tie their suspect with the crime in another way, verify the scientific with something jurors could more easily grasp.

Taking one of the plates that Murphy had painted his art on, Detectives Jack Carter and Ken Halpin went around on July 31, 2004, to Sarasota's galleries to see if anyone recognized Murphy or his art.

A man named Louis DiVita said he remembered receiving a visit from an artist who behaved oddly in his mannerisms and who didn't have a portfolio. The guy was five-eleven and thin. The detectives showed him a photo of Murphy, but DiVita couldn't identify it. Bill Bowers, DiVita's coworker at the Plum Door Art Gallery, said the photo of Murphy “looked familiar, but he couldn't be sure.” Everyone else was pretty certain they'd never seen him before.

 

 

Detective Carter was also in charge of pursuing Murphy's credit records to see if he could find any links with Sarasota. He learned that Murphy only had one credit card that was still functional—and it hadn't been used in more than two years.

Carter also canvassed local motels, places where Murphy might have stayed while he was in town during January. Comfort Inn, Quality Inn, Residence Inn, Sleep Inn, Courtyard Marriott, Knight's Inn, Springhill Suites, and so on. The detective always checked under Murphy's real name, as well as under all three of Murphy's known aliases: Moore, Marks, and Dupuis. No luck.

It turned out that one of Murphy's assumed names belonged to a real person: Edward Alan Dupuis, who was in the National Guard. His girlfriend, Nancy, had had her bag stolen from a bus station in Lake Charles on January 25, 2004. She verified that the bag contained car keys, two books, and a Bible—all items found in Murphy's possession when he was arrested in Houston.

 

 

Later that day Detectives Rick Lewis and Jack Carter followed up on an incident report from the Manatee County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) from the end of January 2004. The manager at Great Clips on Clark Road claimed that Murphy might have worked there at that time. They spoke with Candia Roberts, who said Murphy worked at her other store at South Tuttle, but his employment only lasted a couple of days. She recalled that Murphy had presented an active barber's license and that she had interviewed him twice before hiring him. During one of those interviews Murphy claimed that he had previously worked at the Great Clips in Tampa, but the location had gone out of business. Roberts tried but was unable to verify that portion of his work history.

“I remember he rode his bicycle to work,” Roberts recalled. She found his job application, which listed his address as Shade Avenue.

She remembered telling him he should try the Great Clips in Bradenton. He only worked for a couple of days and his manager was Amanda Noack.

 

 

On August 2, 2004, Detectives Woods and DeNiro canvassed Palm Avenue with various photos of Elton Murphy in their hands. The owner of a hair salon, Ana Molinari, said she recognized the man in the photo. He came to her place maybe a month after the murder.

He'd asked for her by name, but she lied and said, “Ana wasn't in.” The guy was suspicious and she didn't want to have anything to do with him.

The man said that God had sent him; he was the Chosen One. Everything he did, he did because God told him to do it. God had spoken to him when he was asleep and had told him to go to her salon on South Palm Avenue.

He said he lived at the Salvation Army. Molinari was so upset by the visit that she called the police. By the time the officer arrived, though, the man had already departed down the street on foot.

She described the man as being in his late thirties, about six-one. She told Detective DeNiro that she had a good memory for faces and she was certain the man in the photograph was the guy. He said his name at one point.

“Robert or Cody,” she thought he said. “He wasn't right. He scared me,” she concluded.

Meanwhile, Detectives DelValle and Opitz spoke to Detective Wendy Davis-Zarvis, who had investigated Murphy after he was fired from his last job. She gave the investigators the address where Murphy had been staying at the time.

“He was tall and thin,” Davis-Zarvis said. “Reminded me of a beach bum. He was smart but lazy—eccentric, like most artists are.”

The detectives returned to Sarasota and visited the rooming house on Shade Avenue. The owner, Kit Barker, was away. In her absence Daniel Walker managed the property. He allowed police to photograph and search the room where Murphy had stayed.

“I don't know if you're going to find anything useful,” Walker said. “Several tenants have come and gone since Murphy was here.”