Murdered Innocents (15 page)

 

 

“Michael, you know man,” Detective Lara calmly stated, “we don’t want to sit here and jump your shit.” He positioned the pictures of the girls in front of Scott again. “Look at these girls. That is it for them, that is it. For what?”

“For twelve dollars or fourteen dollars, something like that,” Scott quietly said.

“Was it worth it?”

“Not for four lives.”

After four hours of discussion, Michael Scott made his first admission of responsibility in the deaths of Eliza Thomas, Amy Ayers, Sarah Harbison, and Jennifer Harbison.

“I’m trying to recall the information, guys . . .” Scott said as he began to cry softly.

Lara leaned in closer. He stood up and walked around the table. The detective leaned on the table and looked down at the young man.

Detective Hardesty quietly asked, “Whose idea was it?”

“Maurice’s,” came the reply. “I remember Reese saying something about needing money.”

One of the detectives asked who was in the car.

“Me, Robert, Maurice, and . . . Forrest?”

All of a sudden, Scott acted as if the information had finally surfaced. It was all coming back to him. “I understand what has happened to me now.

“Maurice and Robert went through the front door. I don’t remember any gunfire. They weren’t in there for more than fifteen or twenty minutes,” he seemed to recall.

He did not place himself inside the yogurt shop. “Was I at the wheel? It’s possible I was at the wheel.” He claimed he did not see Pierce’s gun.

Scott said that he stayed in the car and Pierce and Springsteen came out of the store. “I kind of remember him (Pierce) saying, ‘We got what we came for.’

“‘You didn’t rob the place, did you?’ [I asked.] And I think he said, yes, he did.

“Why would I sit on it all this time?” Scott asked the detectives. “Why would I keep it to myself?” The detectives did not answer.

Scott continued with his story. “They didn’t tell anything they did inside. I know they love to brag.” Scott crushed the Dr Pepper can in his hand.

 

 

Scott sniffled. “It’s beginning to come back.” But he wanted one thing made clear for the detectives. “I didn’t do this.”

Scott talked about how the plan originally hatched. He claimed Pierce may have told him at school that he wanted to steal some money.

Scott placed his hands on his forehead as he spoke about his friend and roommate, Robert Springsteen. “I was never far without Robert. And I know I was drunk that day.”

Scott talked about how Pierce drove the LTD around the shopping center where the yogurt shop was located. He claimed that Pierce and Springsteen were casing the joint, but he was only along for the ride.

“I think Robert and Maurice had gone in earlier to buy yogurt. I think I was with them.” Scott recalled going into the yogurt shop earlier in the day. “I remember eating and buying yogurt. A multiflavored one. I think Robert got something, but Maurice didn’t.”

“Which one of these girls was there?” Lara asked.

“Eliza may have been.”

Scott said later that night they drove around to the back alley behind the Hillside Center stores until they came up to the only other pair of double doors near the north side. “I think they just looked at each other and said, ‘That one.’

“Ohhh!” Scott exclaimed as if surprised. “It had a door open. The back door was open. The back door was propped open. Metal door? It was all the way open.”

Scott seemed to end many of his sentences with an upward lilt in his voice, as if he were asking a question.

Detective Hardesty attempted to clear the air. “Mike, I’m not trying to put . . . I’m not suggesting this, trying to put this in your mind. All right?”

Scott nodded and continued with his story. He claimed Pierce told him, “‘Stay here and keep an eye out. Watch the car. Keep the car running.’ Just sitting in the car, looking around, okay, what the fuck’s going on?”

Scott returned his attention to the officers. “Y’all made a bunch of memories trigger. I don’t remember a gun going off. I remember them going in, staying a short while, coming back out. I’m making sure there’s nobody around.

“They run back out, got in, [and said,] ‘We got what we needed, let’s get out of here.’” They took off. “I don’t remember if after that was done whether we went back into the mall or we went somewhere else. No, actually we drove back to the mall.”

Scott asked for a bathroom and cigarette break. Before he left, however, he looked up at the two detectives. “Gentlemen, I’m sorry I lied to you. I didn’t intentionally lie to you. I guess at the time I was threatened and I was scared.”

“You don’t have anything to be scared about,” Hardesty comforted him.

The three men stood up and left the room.

 

 

Ten minutes later, Scott returned to the interview room by himself. Five minutes after that, Hardesty returned and handed Scott a large slice of pizza on a paper plate. Scott only took one bite. Lara brought in another Dr Pepper for Scott.

Three minutes later, Lara also brought in a cell phone. He handed it to Scott. He needed to call his wife to let her know he planned on being at the police station for a while. He left a message on her voice mail: “Evidently I’ve got more information about this than I thought I did.”

Lara and Hardesty returned to the room. Scott told them he could not eat his pizza “because I could have done something to stop it.”

“What you can do now,” Hardesty countered, “is you can put these little girls to rest and put their families’ hearts at ease, finally, after eight years.

“Maurice was kind of the leader in that little group?”

“Yeah. More or less. He had the car. I was just a quiet guy along for the ride.”

“What a ride,” Hardesty surmised.

“We drove from the mall over there. I remember bits and pieces. At the time that this happened, I think I was terrified, and I was threatened.”

“Who threatened you?”

“I think Maurice did. [He said,] ‘You open your mouth and I’ll kill you,’ or ‘You better keep your mouth shut.’ Or he threatened bodily harm or death to me.”

Hardesty asked about the back doors. “The door’s propped partially open. I find that pretty hard to believe you didn’t hear any shots.”

“That’s striking me as odd too,” Scott agreed.

Hardesty again moved the photos of the girls directly in Scott’s line of sight.

“What were Maurice and Robert’s attitudes like when they got back to the car?”

“Robert was kind of distant. Maurice was more interested in getting away than anyone else. He didn’t make the tires squeal. No. He just drove off. He didn’t haul ass.”

Hardesty asked Scott about a second gun.

“I think Maurice asked Robert if he was packing one.”

“What did Robert say?”

“He said, ‘Yes.’”

“Did you go in that shop with them?”

Scott said he did not. “I was not inside the shop at the time of the murders.” As he denied being inside, he nervously grabbed his T-shirt and placed his Dr Pepper soda can directly on top of the photo of one of the girls.

Hardesty removed the can.

 

 

“I’m scared,” Scott said to the detectives. “I mean, guys, I’m scared. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.”

Lara scooted up in his chair so that he was only inches away from Michael Scott. “Did you go inside that shop?”

Scott muttered something unintelligible.

“What you need to do is stop minimizing your involvement. We know you were involved. We knew that before you even came over here. Don’t make yourself look any more ignorant by telling us these little things. We know already.”

It was the first time the officers directly implicated Michael Scott in the yogurt shop murders during the interview.

“I didn’t go inside when this happened.”

Hardesty moved his chair toward Scott so he was only inches away from the young man. Scott said that he drove the car away from the scene once Maurice and Robert exited the building. He also stated he did not know if what he had said was the truth.

“This is not that difficult for you to remember,” Lara told him.

“Actually, yes, it is. [I (b)]lacked it out for seven years.”

“Is it possible you were inside?”

“It’s possible,” Scott acknowledged for the first time. His story would no longer be that of the innocent bystander who had no idea they were going to rob the yogurt shop, much less kill everyone inside. “But I did not shoot anyone.”

Lara and Hardesty got up from their chairs, and without saying a word to Scott, they left the room. As the detectives left, Scott yelled out after them, “Do y’all think I did it?” After he received no reply, he buried his face in his hands.

Two minutes later, Lara popped his head in and asked Scott if he wanted a smoke.

 

 

Detective Hardesty and Scott returned to the interview room.

“You mentioned something about ‘no witnesses,’” Hardesty posited.

“I think Maurice said, ‘No witnesses,’” Scott replied.

Hardesty changed his tactics with Scott. He played the other boys off him. “You know what kind of shitheads they are. They haven’t changed. Instead of being scared about what’s going to happen to you, let’s try this. Get fucking pissed off at them because you should be.”

“I am,” an animated Scott declared. “They both ganged up against me and said that I have gone in there and got the money and pulled the trigger.”

“Get fucking mad at them. That shit they’re talking on you. Doesn’t that piss you off?”

“Yeah, it does.”

“Well, fuck them. Do something about it.”

Scott sat silent.

“Just tell me what fucking happened,” Hardesty laid it out.

“We parked out behind. They went inside. They did what they needed to do. We came back and drove off.”

“‘We came back.’ You said, ‘We came back.’”

“I didn’t go inside.”

“They came back. Is that what you meant?”

“They came back and we drove off.”

“Well, fuck it. Just tell me what happened,” declared a frustrated Hardesty.

Scott claimed he was supposed to honk the car horn if someone appeared in the back alley. “They went inside. Fifteen or twenty minutes later, they came back out. They jogged up to the car. They weren’t in a real big hurry.” Again Scott said that they drove to the mall and back to the food court.

“Where the fuck did you go?”

Scott did not respond.

 

 

Detective Lara returned to the interview room. Scott and Hardesty resumed their conversation.

“I’m pissed off because these two guys have ganged up on me,” Scott lamented.

“Well, fuckin’ A. Do something about it.”

“I didn’t shoot anybody.” Scott absentmindedly held his half-eaten slice of pizza. Lara told him to put it down. He tried to calm Scott down. Hardesty got up and left the room.

“Mike, I want a step-by-step process of what went down,” said Lara.

“I know Forrest was there at some time.” It was the first time Scott definitely pegged Forrest Welborn at the crime scene. He then said they cased the joint.

“I went in and I got a yogurt. I had a cup.” Springsteen ordered first. Then Scott. Pierce waited outside in the car.

Again Scott had changed his story. His storytelling became choppy.

They checked out the store. They left and returned to the mall. After they left the mall, they drank heavily. Pierce had a gun. They cruised the Creekside and Rockwood areas. They looked at apartments. They drove around anywhere, from thirty to forty-five minutes. They drove on Anderson Lane and could see the yogurt shop.

“We didn’t actually drive through the parking lot until right before it happened. We stayed on Anderson.” They turned right, off Anderson Lane, into the shopping center parking lot and drove behind into the alley. He described the scene as they pulled up behind the yogurt shop.

“I think I see an open door.”

Loud music emanated from the car stereo. They slowed the car down near the open back door. The front of the car faced Anderson Lane. They sat in the car for a few minutes before they entered.

“I think Maurice asked Robert, ‘Are you packing?’”

Springsteen exited the passenger side of the automobile. Pierce exited the driver side. Scott stayed in the car. The two boys walked toward the back door. Scott watched them in the mirror as they went inside. He saw the door close, but not all the way.