That meeting George set up in July between Gail and Donna, the fax explained, had not been a disaster, after all, as George had been led to believe by Gail. Gail had stood in that hotel room and witnessed for herself the adoring glances George had given “the other woman”; Gail knew right there where his heart belonged.
According to the fax, Gail’s biggest problems were that she “watched too much TV” and “read too many books.” This behavior made Gail antisocial and unable to connect with anybody besides George. She couldn’t function without him.
As the fax focused on why George never moved out of his house, it almost got to the point where Donna came out and identified herself:
You should have gotten your own place.... Then she could have moved up there . . . and the three of you would have been together. . . .
The writer said “three”? Meaning a child, too?
You knew you wanted very much to be with this other woman and . . . your unborn child,
the fax claimed, and went on to say that a “real man” would never turn his back on his unborn child and the sick mother.
The writer went on to say Gail had told her about “the other woman” and now she—the fax author—knew why George had been so enamored with her:
Now I see why this woman is so admired by you.
She called the other woman “very diplomatic and businesslike” and “smart.”
Apparently, according to the fax, there had been times when George had fallen asleep after having sex with Gail while muttering the words:
“I love you, my Donna. . . .”
This idea of mumbling Donna’s name and terms of endearment and affection for her had been going on since George had moved back home.
Most interesting, the author of the fax claimed to have told Gail to go to a herbal store and pick up a certain concoction of herbs and then put them into George’s drink at night before he went to sleep. Then, as he was falling asleep, she should ask him questions, sort of like giving him an injection of Sodium Pentothal, the so-called truth serum.
Gail did it, the mad faxer claimed. And,
You know what
—
it worked.
She listed some of the questions Gail had purportedly asked George while he was asleep and under the influence of the herbal “true serum” remedy.
Interestingly, George supposedly was able to reply to these questions, in great detail at times, while sleeping or nodding off to sleep:
Did he wish to still be in Florida?
Yes
.
Was he glad to see Donna when she visited him in New Mexico unannounced?
Yes
.
Was George glad to see Donna in New Mexico?
I missed her so much.
Was George happy with his present job?
Not really. But it paid the bills.
Did you make love to Donna on New Year’s Eve (1998–99) ?
Twice.
How did George feel about being home after leaving Florida?
Sad
.
Why did George like talking to Donna so much?
I sleep better
.
Was the reason he called Donna in Florida so much because he wanted to?
Yes
.
These mock questions and answers went on and on for an entire page. Thirty in all. It was silly, ridiculous, and desperate.
After that, the fax became all about Gail. She wasn’t pretty enough, according to the fax author. She didn’t take care of herself. She didn’t believe she could live without George. There was page after page of demeaning comments and snide remarks focused on Gail. Then the fax abruptly took a U-turn and went back into Gail and George’s sex life.
The fax author claimed that Gail hated having sex with George, that the positions George chose to perform on his wife “hurt her,” but she didn’t want to tell him. On top of that, Gail supposedly hated the new sexual tricks that George tried on her sexually after he returned to living with her. Those new sexual maneuvers were supposedly taught to him by Donna.
Heading toward the final three to four pages, the “friend” concentrated on the baby. She said Gail (with some money that her mother had given her) had hired someone to look into the validity of Donna’s pregnancy claim. She said, since Gail and Dora and Emily had spent all summer telling George that Donna was not pregnant, Gail decided to find out for herself and looked into it in more detail with the help of several professional people.
And you know what,
the faxer said,
the reports came one by one. . . .
Yes, George, you are going to have a little girl!
The proof, she said, was in numerous written documents, including sonogram reports, doctors’ papers, lab reports, consultant reports, copies of insurance claims, legal documents, and so on.
Then there was a long explanation regarding the problems associated with the pregnancy, along with some guilt tossed in at the end of the rant, asking George why he didn’t feel sorry for Donna and his little girl.
Finally, a page later, the supposedly anonymous source posited:
Do you know if this woman loses the baby it will be . . .
your
fault.
At the very end of the fax, the last line gave the writer’s agenda entirely away:
If you really care at all for your little girl, you better do something fast.
58
I
T TAKES ONLY ONE
card at the bottom of a house of cards to topple the entire deck. That ace of spades, in this case, had a name: Todd Franklin, Sybil’s old flame, the father of one of her two kids.
On Monday, November 29, 1999, Detective John Meiers, Detective Sergeant James A’Hearn, and Special Agent William O’Leary interviewed Todd Franklin in Florida. He had given them a rundown of the murder from Sybil’s point of view. Now the team was meeting with Okaloosa County investigators to discuss how to go about locating Sybil and her co-conspirators. OCSD detective James A’Hearn gave a briefing regarding the information they had, how they had obtained it, and how they were going to bring down Donna’s house of cards. The main focus of this meeting was that rented green Malibu. If they could locate the car, a key piece of evidence would be in hand, and, depending on who was driving it, a key player in custody. By now, they had the name Patrick (but Todd was not certain of Patrick’s last name), along with Donna Trapani and Sybil Padgett.
The first thing the team did was station a few investigators outside Helen Padgett’s house to watch for Sybil. They hung out all morning, but they failed to locate Sybil or the green Malibu. Back at the Walton County Sheriff ’s Office (WCSO) later that morning, an alternate plan was hatched.
An investigator working for Walton County popped into the room, where the team was talking, and said, “I have a last name—Alexander. This might be who we’re looking for. He’s Sybil’s boyfriend, claims my source.”
And just like that, things started coming together.
Two investigators drove out to Patrick’s mother’s house.
No one was home, so they headed over to where she worked.
After pulling Patrick’s mother aside, one of the investigators said, “We have a warrant for your son, ma’am, and need to know where he’s at.”
“I don’t know . . . ,” she said nervously, “but when I—I get off work, I can go looking for him and then bring him to the sheriff ’s department.”
Leaving that building, investigators drove into DeFuniak Springs. As one report noted,
Continued to look for the rental car.
“Let’s try Sybil’s mother’s house,” one of them said.
Helen Padgett told investigators her daughter was home.
As they pulled up to the house, there was that now-infamous green Malibu parked outside.
They parked next to it and got out.
That broken taillight told the story.
Sybil answered the door. She had a look of despair on her face. This was it—the game was over.
“Sybil,” OCSO lieutenant Grady Anderson said, “we need to talk.” Anderson showed Sybil a summons.
As Anderson stood on the stoop talking with Sybil, Helen Padgett and Sybil’s brother arrived.
Helen looked distressed. Frantic. She knew what was happening. She had foreseen it all. “Sybil, we’ll watch the kids.... Go,” Helen said.
Sybil and Lieutenant Anderson walked toward his cruiser. “Listen,” Anderson said, “we have some investigators here in town from Michigan and they’re investigating a homicide. They need to talk to you, Sybil. You going to be okay with that?”
Sybil looked at the ground. Her shoulders slumped. “I understand,” she said. “I’d like to talk to them.”
Anderson drove Sybil to the “Old Stuckey’s Building” on Highway 90 in DeFuniak.
The OCSD team was waiting there. Anderson made the introductions.
“Would you be willing to come with us to the Ramada Inn on Okaloosa Island and talk with us?” James A’Hearn asked.
“Yeah . . . ,” Sybil said; then she turned to Anderson. “Would you come, too? I don’t know these detectives.”
“Certainly,” Anderson said.
They Mirandized Sybil and she agreed to talk and answer questions about the Michigan homicide (without a lawyer present).
This is never a good idea if you’re a murder suspect.
Sybil Padgett talked for quite some time about her relationship with Donna Trapani and how she had met Donna through a job at CCHH.
After a time Sybil seemed comfortable with the investigators. From the questions they asked, it was not hard to tell that they had a source fingering Sybil in the murder. She was caught. After taking a deep breath and a long pull from a cigarette, Sybil said, “Look, Donna asked me to find someone to kill Gail Fulton.”
Sybil paused.
“Me and Patrick . . .”
“Patrick who?” one of them asked.
“. . . Alexander, my boyfriend. We went up to Lake Orion, Michigan, and we went to where she worked at the library.”
Sybil talked them through meeting Kevin Ouellette and how she introduced Kevin to Donna and how the plan came together inside Donna’s bedroom, with Donna directing it all.
They sat for over an hour and she talked through everything. Then the OCSO took Sybil Padgett into custody and booked her.
Patrick sat inside the WCSO nervously awaiting the arrival of Detective Chris Wundrach and Sergeant James A’Hearn. By now, Patrick knew the end was near. He had spoken to several OCSO investigators about his rights. Talking to them, Patrick understood the bottom line: The more he helped, the better off he’d be in the end.
For the next few hours, Patrick talked about the entire plot to murder Gail—and the most important aspect of the interview for the team cracking this case became, with the exception of a few minor details, Patrick’s story was identical to Sybil’s.
“You know where we can find Kevin Ouellette?” investigators asked Patrick.
He shrugged. “No. He’s driving a truck now, I think.”
On December 1, 1999, two investigators located the company in Alabama that Kevin Ouellette had been working for since he had murdered Gail and left Florida.
“He’s on the road,” said Kevin’s boss. “Headed for Branford, Connecticut.”
Kevin’s boss explained that the truck Kevin was hauling had a GPS satellite and the company could find out where he was, at any given time.
Both investigators made arrangements to head out to Connecticut, where Kevin would be dropping his load and making the trip back to Alabama, unaware of a warrant for his arrest on murder charges and a hunt for his truck was under way.
With that tile in place, the final domino sat at home in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, deciding how to go about convincing George Fulton to come back to her. Donna Trapani was going about her business, oblivious to the fact that sheriffs from Walton County and investigators from Michigan were gearing up to take her in—and, boy, would she ever have a story to tell when they interviewed her.
59
H
E HAD LIVED
with Donna for the past few months. Brad Adams (pseudonym) had paid Donna $200 cash each month to help her with the rent. He knew nothing about Gail’s murder, save for a day when Donna approached him with a question. It was “the first week of November,” Brad recalled.
Donna popped into Brad’s room and asked, “Can I use your computer?”
“Sure,” Brad said. “What’s up?”
“I’m looking for info on the Internet about my bookkeeper being charged with murdering his wife.”
The investigators were hovering around Donna’s place, following her, looking for the right opportunity to begin questioning her. One of the questions they asked Donna’s boarder was if Donna had ever mentioned to him that she was terminally ill or pregnant. Brad had lived with her. He would have known.
“No,” Brad said to both questions. “I didn’t know that.”
Two detectives watched Donna’s home on December 1, 1999, beginning near six in the morning. Donna believed she had surrounded herself with a coterie of people who, when the walls tumbled down around them, would protect and preserve her role in Gail Fulton’s murder. She thought she wielded power. She thought she had control over anybody under her grasp. But, wow, was she ever misleading herself!
After not seeing much movement near the house, one of the detectives, Steve Pearson, got out and peered in through a garage window to see if there was a vehicle around.
Donna’s Lincoln Town Car was parked inside.
So Pearson and his partner, Detective John Meiers, knocked on Donna’s door.