Murdered Innocents (17 page)

Merrill, like Hardesty had done earlier in the day, calmly placed a hand on Michael Scott.

“Is there any kind of tape or recording of what happened in there?” Scott wanted to know.

“I wish there was. It would certainly help.”

“It would, wouldn’t it?”

“The only tape recording is in your head.”

Scott spoke to Merrill about Amy Ayers. He said he did not look at her when he shot her. He handed the gun to Maurice, who shot the next girl. Scott said he nearly vomited, but he kept his control.

“I could have run off and picked up a phone. But I didn’t. That makes me just as guilty as they are.”

“You need to stand up and be a man,” Merrill stated.

“I’m trying to be. I never talked about any of this stuff to anybody. What’s gonna happen to me?”

“I don’t know,” Merrill replied. The detective compared Scott to a female victim of a sex crime. He wanted to let Scott feel as if he, too, had been victimized by the other boys.

“I’d love to whack myself in the head until it all pours out,” Scott lamented.

“Let’s not do that.” Merrill laughed.

“What I would really like to do is go back and see the facility. This may be the biggest thing that opens up the door for me. This may allow me to remember everything that happened. Because I’ve never been there since then.”

Merrill considered his request but placed it on the back burner.

Scott spoke more about shooting Amy. “Robert said, ‘Don’t be a pussy, man. Do it.’ I remember the girl screaming, ‘We’re dying. Please don’t kill me.’”

“What are you going to tell your wife?” Merrill asked.

“I don’t know. I’m not going to tell her anything. I can’t.”

“Why?”

After a ten-second pause, Scott, dumbfounded, stated, “I think I killed somebody. At the time, I was a follower. Now I’m a doer. Well, I’m an idle doer right now,” he said with a sardonic sense of humor. “I don’t want to go to prison.”

“Do you think you deserve to go?”

“No. Well, yeah. I shot somebody.”

“Somebody’s dead.”

“It’s kind of one of those—I shot somebody, I deserve to go to prison. But I didn’t do it of my own free will.”

Merrill asked him if Meredith Skipper, Scott’s girlfriend from Helotes in 1991, was his type.

“Hell no,” Scott exclaimed. “She was fucking nuts. A psychopath.”

“Well, back then, that was right up your alley,” Merrill added with a touch of his own sense of humor.

Merrill switched gears on Scott. “Do you ever beat your wife?”

“My wife would kick my ass.”

 

 

Scott and Merrill stood up. Both men retrieved their business cards and exchanged them.

 

 

Scott and Merrill continued to chat. “And say—you were there,” Merrill reiterated.

“Yes, I was there.”

“You participated.”

“I participated.”

“And you shot and you left.”

“I shot and I left.”

Another smoke break was in order.

 

 

Scott returned to the interview room yet again. Eight minutes later, Merrill walked into the room. They spoke of heading over to the old yogurt shop location. Merrill asked Scott if he could videotape their excursion. Scott agreed. He also requested the use of a telephone to call his wife so he could let her know he was still out. Merrill retrieved a phone and Scott called his wife.

“Neen,” he called her by her nickname, “I know more about this case than I thought I knew.” The couple spoke for almost five minutes. His wife was suffering from a migraine headache. A calm Scott let Merrill know she was not happy and that she was afraid.

 

 

Merrill moved his seat back and stood up. He started to leave the room when Scott told him, “I want to make right what’s been done wrong.”

“I want you to too. And a lot of other people do,” Merrill responded.

“Everybody in the city of Austin.”

“Well, I don’t really care so much for them—”

“As for the parents,” Scott interjected.

Merrill left the room.

 

 

Merrill returned to the interview room.

Scott spoke about his life after the yogurt shop murders. “I stayed in Austin for a long time. I worked odd jobs. Several jobs. Then I went to Dallas. I was a bum. I bummed off my friends. I stayed there for six to eight months. From there, I went to Evansville, Indiana.

“Wanderlust. Traveling.

“And I was a janitor. I worked for Hasgos Janitorial. There for maybe six months. Then I moved back to Dallas. Back to my friend’s house for four months. Then I come back to Austin. Stayed with Mom for a while. Worked for Knobby Lobby for one year.”

He talked about finding his own place in Austin and meeting his future wife.

“After Knobby Lobby, I worked at Fantasy Tattoos. I was a floor manager. Sorry, Singapore John’s World Famous Tattoo Arcade. Fantasy Tattoos is in San Antonio. I worked for Catering by Rosemary.”

Merrill and Scott seemed to be killing time.

“I’ve got a kid cheerleading tonight,” Merrill told Scott. “It’s her first night. I wanted to watch. And I can’t.”

Scott and Merrill laughed. They were very comfortable with one another. Finally the two men left the room and headed over to the Hillside Center.

 

 

Merrill, Agent Chuck Meyer, and Scott piled into a car and drove to Anderson Lane. There they met Doug Young, an APD Crime Scene Unit officer who had a video camera. The intention was to videotape Scott as he recalled what happened the night of the murders. According to Merrill, Scott began to remember certain specific details about the crime. For no specific reason, however, no videotape was shot of the walk-through or recollections made by Scott. Merrill elected not to have Young shoot the footage. When asked later why he did not pursue the videotaping, Merrill replied, “I just didn’t.”

The four men remained on-site for forty-five minutes to an hour.

 

 

Scott and Merrill returned to the interview room. Over twelve hours had elapsed since Scott first appeared at the police station.

“I need to go home,” Scott informed Merrill as he placed a blanket around his narrow shoulders.

“Did we beat you, slap you, kick you?” Merrill asked.

“No,” came the quick, easy reply from Scott.

 

 

Scott continued to speak about the night of the murders. He claimed he did not go into the bathroom at the yogurt shop, just the back doors. They took a right, walked around the corner, and saw Pierce in the car “munching on a yogurt.” Scott also ate some yogurt, got back in the car, and returned to the mall. They sat at their table. Pierce and Springsteen walked around a bit. The movie theater crowd let out—not a big crowd. “Kids with their parents.”

According to Scott, the boys walked outside, got into the LTD, and drove around the block again. They turned into the Hillside Center. They drove around back and pulled up in the alley about fifty feet from the back door. They got out of the car. Pierce walked inside first. Then Springsteen. Then Scott.

“I guess I’m big, mean, and tall enough—and ugly-looking—that no one would come near me.”

He stated that there was one girl in the back. Cleaning. She made a noise. She screamed and said, “Hey, what are you doing back here?” Amy and Sarah sat up in the front of the store in one of the restaurant’s booths. Jennifer was in the back. “She run for the front. She got to the door but did not make it out the door.” All four girls were eventually moved to the back of the store. Scott went to the front of the store. He said he noticed “keys in the door.”

“I heard, ‘Get their clothes off,’ Pierce said either to Springsteen or the girls. I’m watching at first and then [I] pick something up and start tying. I tie two sets of hands, two feets, two sets of feets. And I’m like, ‘What am I doing?’

“Maurice heads to the register. Can’t get the money. Girls say no. I hear a firearm go off. I don’t know who is shot. Maurice loses his temper and shoots the other one.

“Gun is handed to me. ‘No. This is wrong, man. This is wrong.’

“‘Do it or you’re next,’ Springsteen said to Scott. ‘You’re a pussy, man, do it.’”

Scott again admitted that he shot Amy Ayers.

Sarah Harbison was still alive.

Pierce grabbed things to burn. Heard two more shots. Scott thought Sarah got yanked around and hit. He said the last gunshot sounded different.

Scott described leaving the shop and heading to the car. He claimed Welborn slid over to the passenger side. Scott ran back to the car. Springsteen and Pierce jogged back.

“My next absolutely conscious memory is getting home and taking a shower.” Scott said that he “smoked a bowl or a half a joint later on. I lied in the tub and turned the shower on. Crawling into my bedroom.”

 

 

“I would like to go home and get some sleep and talk in the morning into a tape recorder,” Scott said to Merrill.

One minute later, Texas Ranger Sal Abreo entered the room. He got Scott to talk about the sequence of the shootings. Scott claimed he was not exactly sure who died in which order. He believed it to be Eliza Thomas, then Jennifer Harbison, then Amy Ayers, then Sarah Harbison, then Amy Ayers again. He also claimed that he thought Springsteen shot Sarah.

 

 

Merrill informed Scott that he would not send him home with a tape recorder. They did, however, agree to meet again the following day at 10:00
A.M.

“You probably feel like we’ve beaten the hell out of you.” Merrill sympathized with Scott. “You’re beaten up, and so are we.”

“Hurt my mind emotionally, but not physically.”

“It took a lot of courage, though, for you to come forward like that,” replied Abreo.

“What else can I do, guys? Either tell the truth or . . .”

“Keep it all inside,” Merrill offered.

“Yeah.”

“That eight-hundred-pound gorilla on your back,” Abreo added.

“She’s getting lighter. She ain’t gone yet,” said Merrill. “Maybe you can get a better night’s sleep than you have in eight-and-a-half years.”

 

 

All three men left the room.

 

Michael Scott returned to the interview room. He sat down in his chair and wrapped himself up in a blanket. Five minutes later, Robert Merrill walked in.

“How’s your wife?” Merrill wondered.

“You don’t want to go there.”

“Did she yell and scream at you last night?”

“Yeah. She did. She wasn’t pissed at me. She was pissed at y’all.”

Merrill asked Scott to visualize what happened the night of the murders.

“I dug myself in a hole yesterday in this room and I don’t know how to get out of it.”

“You dug a hole when you all talked about doing a robbery.”

“I think I lied to y’all yesterday. And I’m not sure if I lied to y’all or not. I don’t know if this is real or not, or if this is what I convinced myself of at the time. Or if I’ve convinced myself of it now. I need help. I need memory clues.”

Scott began to tell an even different story. He claimed he did go in, but he did not shoot anyone. When he returned to the car, Forrest Welborn was gone. “I think he got out and run off. I don’t think Forrest did anything. I think he was just the watchman and he run off.”

Scott continued with his new version. “I think I remember is Robert did show me a gun. At the condo. One time, before this happened. It was laying on his bed and [he said] ‘Look what I got.’ That’s the only gun I remember him showing me. It was almost like a James Bond gun. That little thing that James Bond carried around.

“I have a mild aversion to guns. Guns are cool and great and all, but the only thing they’re made to do is kill.”

Merrill asked Scott if he remembered much about the girls.

“The only face that really sticks in my mind is that . . . is that pale-skinned girl.” He referred to Jennifer Harbison. “The one with lots of makeup on and real dark, kind of scraggly curly hair.”

Merrill asked if Scott recalled what he wore that night.

“Probably wore blue jeans, T-shirt, and denim jacket. Hair was just starting to get long. I wore a bandana a lot.” He also wore a dark blue trench coat, which came down to his ankles. The coat had a hood.

“What I told y’all yesterday is the truth, but not the whole truth. I would like to go through hypnotic regression. I’m not sure if I’m a killer.

“I’m sure y’all are frustrated with me and just want to send me to the grand jury and let them send me to the sharks.

“I’m not going to do it, but I have thought about running. But that’s not right. I want to get this big King Kong monkey off my back.”

Scott continued to speak about how he changed after December 6, 1991.

“I’m a natural leader when I want to be. But I have to want to be.”

“Are they gonna tell us you were the leader?” asked Detective Merrill.

“No. Because I didn’t plan it.”

“If you were going to sentence yourself to time in prison, what would you do?”

“Being as that I was involved, I probably deserve life.”

Scott continued to struggle with his confession. “There’s something inside blocking me from doing this.”

“It’s fear, is what it is,” suggested Merrill.

Scott asked for his first smoke break of the day.

 

 

Merrill returned to the room with a plush, comfortable chair. He placed it against the back wall, where Scott had been seated throughout the interview. One minute later, Scott entered the room and sat down in the comfortable chair.

He talked about what happened immediately after the murders.

He mentioned something about a long bridge at Loop 360 and Barton Creek. As he recalled the memory, he sat back in his new chair, closed his eyes, and wrapped himself in the blanket.

Scott spoke at length.

The young man stated Welborn was not in the car. He had asked Springsteen, “‘Where’s Forrest?’ ‘I don’t know. He probably run off.’” The guys then hopped into the car and drove to the 360 Bridge, also known as the Pennybacker Bridge, over the Colorado River, also known as Lake Austin. “I think Robert threw his gun.”

Scott began to visualize the crime scene. He said that he tied up Amy and Sarah. Springsteen tied up Eliza and Jennifer. He said, “I don’t think I choked her,” referring to Amy Ayers. It was the first time Scott admitted to choking the girl.

 

 

Scott continued to talk. Again his conversation was erratic as he jumped from one topic to the next. He acted as if he were Pierce when he said, “‘Where the fuck is the rest of the money? Where is it?’ Apparently, he is screaming it.”

Scott spoke of another bridge. “I remember pulling off the side of the road, a bridge. On a tall bridge. Really tall. I’m looking down at the trees. A creek. There’s no water in it. A dry creek. I see white rock. I remember getting out and throwing up.”

Scott scattered back to the story inside the yogurt shop. “I can’t remember faces. I can’t even remember your name right now,” he told Merrill.

“That’s okay,” Merrill responded, “because sometimes I forget yours too. I can sit here and talk to you for hours and half the time I can’t remember your name.”

“Bob?” Scott questioned.

“Yeah. That’s it.”

On that note, Scott asked for another smoke break.

 

 

Scott returned to the interview room. Ten minutes later, Merrill and Detective Ron Lara entered the room. Six minutes later, Merrill got up to retrieve a yearbook. He returned six minutes later without it.

Finally Scott spoke with the officers again. He recalled the murders themselves. While the girls cried, he said, Springsteen ordered him to the back room. He described the girls as “laying down completely when we were tying them up.”

Scott switched gears and spoke of the fire.

“I think I set the fire.” He implicated himself for the first time. “At one time, I was a firebug.”

 

 

In an unorthodox move, Merrill whipped out a gun from his back right pocket and thrust it into Michael Scott’s hand. It was the .22 revolver that Maurice Pierce had been arrested with eight years earlier. The detective attempted to get Scott to remember what it felt like to hold the gun in his hand. What it felt like to pull the trigger. Scott held the gun in the proper shooting manner for a couple of minutes, but he did not say anything. Merrill removed the gun from Scott’s hand, held it upside in his own hand, and moved behind the young man. He quickly poked his right index finger into the back of Scott’s head for a split second.

“Is this the gun?” Merrill demanded.

Scott froze up momentarily and did not speak.

Merrill just as quickly walked back in front of Scott and showed him the gun.

“Does this look like the gun you’ve seen before?”

“It looks like the gun I’ve seen before. But I’m not positive.”

“Is that the gun you shot somebody with, Mike?”

“I don’t—”

“Is that the gun you walked up behind somebody with and shot in the head? Is that the one? Talk to me, Mike.”

“Yes.”

“You did that, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We just opened some of those doors, haven’t we, Mike?”

“Not really.”

Merrill then asked Scott to stand up on one of the plastic chairs. He wanted Scott to imagine standing over the girls as he shot them in the back of the head. After two minutes of standing, Scott sat back down. Merrill immediately got back in his face.

“Quit being a pussy and tell me what you did! Stand up, Mike. Be a man here. We’ve got questions to answer.”

“I’m trying to answer them.”

“Answer them.”

“I’m scared I killed somebody and don’t fucking know it.”

“I ain’t buying that shit at all.”

“I know you don’t.”

“Did you set the fire, Mike?”

“Yes, sir.”

 

 

Merrill reminded Scott, “You’re not under arrest. Here’s the door. If you want to leave—leave. If you don’t want to find out what happened, you don’t want to finish it, hit the door. Get out of here. All you have to do is get up and walk.”

“I want to remember,” Scott replied. He started to cry.

“I don’t believe you now, Mike.”

“You’re telling me that I fucking killed four girls,” Scott said as he cried louder.

“You were involved in the murder of the four girls in the commission of a robbery. Is that correct, or not?”

“I helped,” he said. He paused, considered what he just said, and added, “I was telling y’all what y’all wanted to know.”

“I ain’t buying that at all, Mike.”

“I’m not buying it myself.”

Merrill stood and left the room. Five minutes later, Scott got up and left also.

 

 

Scott returned to the room, followed by ATF agent Chuck Meyer, who did not stay long. Twelve minutes later, Merrill and Abreo entered the room. The two men sat on either side of Scott as they faced him. There was a direct, open pathway for Scott to leave the room.

Scott continued to talk about the shooting. “I only shot the gun once. And I didn’t want it anymore.”

“I understand that,” replied Merrill. “And you know what, Mike? I believe that. I always believed that.”

“You scared the shit out of me.”

“I meant to scare the shit out of you. Trigger points. If I could hang from the ceiling upside down and puke red ink, I’d do it just to trigger a memory for you. I’ll get down on my hands and knees and pray with you. I’ll stand in the chair and look down with you. I scared the hell out of you and I know it.”

Calmer, Scott continued to fill in more details of the crime. “I remember a can of Zippo fluid. Out of Maurice’s car. Maurice had a Zippo lighter. I was given the can to take in with me. ‘Hold on to this.’” Pierce allegedly gave the can of lighter fluid to Scott. “Because it was laying down in the backseat. He said, ‘Bring the Zippo fluid.’ I pick it up. We went inside. The girls are gotten together.

“I . . . I piled it on top of them? I piled it up. I spread all that stuff all over it. I light it. I see Rob coming down the hallway. I was heading for the door.

“At least one of the guns is gotten rid of.”

“Where?” asked Abreo.

“It was on a bridge. A real tall bridge. I get sick.”

“Were all the girls dead?”

“Yes. By that time, all the girls are dead.

“I smell paper, I smell paint, I smell cotton burning. I set them on fire.” Scott began to cry. “I set them on fire.”

“What was the reason for the fire?”

“To destroy evidence.”

“Who all had lighters to light the fire?”

“Maurice and I. He had one too.”

“What does the fire sound like?”

“Like a fire. Like a fire started by an accelerant.
Whoooosh!
I remember I staggered out. I was sick. I was sick.”

“What else happened to those girls before the fire was set?” Merrill asked.

“They made me rape one of them. I had sex with her.”

“Was she already dead?”

“I don’t know whether she was alive or dead.”

“Why did they stop screaming?” Abreo inquired.

“They’re gagged. But I don’t remember with what.”

“Were the little girls squirming around when y’all were raping them?”

“Yes.”

“Was that the same girl that Rob raped? Was that the same one they made you have sex with?”

“Yes,” Scott answered as he shifted his legs in his chair. “It was another one.”

“Did you come inside of her?”

“I don’t remember.”

Scott recalled how the bodies were positioned. “Two. I keep seeing two laying down and one laying like this.” He pointed his fingers in the universal symbol for “peace.” He crossed the peace signs over each other at forty-five-degree angles. The peace signs appeared to resemble the legs of the victims.

“And the other one is what?”

“Is . . . is . . . is laying on top. When I . . . when I shot—no. He told me to pile them up and burn them.”

“Who told you that? Who’s the son of a bitch that told you that, Michael?”

“Maurice did. I pulled one on top of the other. I threw all the stuff on them.” Scott said he squirted the lighter fluid. “I lit the fire. I remember seeing the smoke and the nasty smell. I ran out.

“I want them to fucking go to prison for what they made me do.”

Scott skipped around back to the gun. “I didn’t see which one was thrown. I was too busy puking my guts out.”

He recalled shooting the gun.

“Yes. I shot. White light. This is what I saw. I shot, white light. Revulsion. I don’t want this anymore.”

“When you raped this girl,” Abreo asked, “when you had sex with her, was it from the front, the back?”

“From the front.”

“Did you have a hard time getting an erection and maintaining it?”

“Yes.”

“How many times had you tried to rape that girl?”

“Twice.”

“Were you angry at her?”

“No, I was angry at Robert and Maurice.”

“Was she crying, Michael? Was she saying anything?”

“She could not. She was gagged.”

“What did she have in her mouth?”

“I remember white. A bra?”

“Is that what it is or not?” interjected Merrill. Scott did not answer.

“You’re having a hard time maintaining an erection to do what you need to do,” Abreo recounted, “because those other guys won’t get off your back. Those other bastards won’t leave you alone. Is the girl you raped the same one that you shot?”