Authors: Beverly Simcic
I
was anxious and distraught and didn’t sleep well. I awoke early the next day to
go look for Chris.
T
he next morning I went directly to the leasing office.
I told the manager that I had to find my friend that I had previously been
living with. He looked at the records and noted that we had arrived there
together, and readily gave me her apartment number. I was correct in my
assumption that Chris had nestled herself closer to the other side of the
complex, and I started walking towards her apartment immediately.
Her
drapes were drawn shut and the air conditioner was off, which I found strange,
because it was at least 99 degrees in the shade. I banged on the door and no
one answered. As I was leaving the area, I noticed Fred ambling along the
pathway from the other apartments, and I ducked into one of the laundry rooms.
Why was he lurking around again? Did he lurk around everywhere? Why was he
over at this end of the complex? I was scared and I felt that he was looking
for me, watching for me; he knew I was going to try and warn Chris.
The
next day I went over there again, this time her drapes were wide open and I
could see inside the apartment. I saw her keys on the coffee table, her bike was
parked in the corner of the living room, and when I smashed my nose against the
window I noticed that the bottom part of the bed that was exposed was stripped
of all bedding. It was stripped down to the bare mattress. There was no
comforter or sheets, and I thought she was probably out at the laundry room,
but then I didn’t understand why her big ring of keys was laying on the coffee
table. I was confused, but thought, well, maybe she kept a separate key in her
pocket or something like that. I knew she had to be somewhere close by because
her bike was there. She traveled by bike if she left the complex.
One
more important thought here: Chris was not domestically inclined, I knew that,
and I didn’t think she was actually washing sheets or bedding. I thought it was
strange the bed was stripped of all bedding—I didn’t get it.
As I
descended the steps from her balcony, there was Fred. My heart fluttered and
skipped when I saw him standing there. He was silent, waiting for me to say
something.
“So
Fred, I’m looking for Chris, have you seen her?” I tried to be casual and
friendly, but he was odd and suspicious acting. I felt it. Those words came
choking out of me, I was lucky not to have choked
on
them. It was
difficult even looking at him. I stood there frozen like ice afraid to move in
either direction, feeling like he would grab me and throw me to the ground.
“No,
I haven’t seen her around,” He said slowly. “Well Fred, she must be around here
somewhere because her bike is here. I’m going to walk around and look in the
laundry rooms.”
He
nodded his head back and forth to tell me no, then he walked away coldly.
He
knew I was looking to warn her. He was guarding her place is what I thought.
He was going to try and steer me away from her so I couldn’t warn her.
I
walked all over and she was not in any of the laundry rooms. It was dusk and
time for me to lock myself in. I did not venture out after dark, and I now knew
that I would have to pay for another week because my rent was up. I couldn’t
leave without talking with her first.
The
next day I was back over at her apartment and the drapes were now closed. So
she’s home now I thought, and I banged and banged on the door, but no answer.
Then I wondered how she could be in there without the air conditioner on. It still
wasn’t running, it was off, and I panicked and ran to the rental office. I told
the manager that I had been over to her apartment several times and now I was
very worried about her.
Again,
I locked myself in my apartment and didn’t sleep well. Early the next morning, two
police detectives were hammering my door.
D
etectives Don Gibbs and Harry Green stepped through my
doorway the afternoon of Friday, June 25, 1982.
This
was probably about Fred. He had done something and they had heard something
from someone about my story and wanted more information—even though I hadn’t
told one solitary person about him attempting to rob me, this was my first and
only thought.
When
one of them said, “Why don’t you take a seat?” I suddenly felt faint. Why do I
have to take a seat if this is about Fred robbing someone or about some other
accident that happened in the complex, or who knows what, but why do I have
to—why do I have to
take a seat
kept repeating in my ears. I didn’t want
to take a seat, and I didn’t want to hear what they had to say and my hands
started shaking and my knees felt like they weren’t there anymore, and I didn’t
want to face this encounter right now.
I
reluctantly sat on the sofa.
One
of them stepped closer to me and said, “Did you come here from Pittsburgh with Christine
Casilio?”
So
this
was
about Chris, and then I was relieved because I knew it was that
she had crashed her bike out on the road or beat someone up or what else—maybe
she got caught shoplifting, but why would she be doing
that
? I had
fifteen thoughts all at once, and I knew that something had happened to her,
but that it couldn’t be serious.
“Yes,
Chris is my friend. We lived together here in this apartment until about a week
or so ago, and then she moved out and got her own place. I’ve been worried
about her because I haven’t seen her around; I’ve been over there to her new
place, but couldn’t find her—what’s wrong?”
I
knew they weren’t there to tell me she was fine; I knew there was something
really wrong. I knew she had been hurt.
One
of them said, “We found Christine deceased in her apartment this afternoon.”
My
head was already in my hands, and I think my tanned face turned white and
blank, and now they both walked over to me and gently encouraged me to sit back
in my chair and try to relax. I could feel my breathing picking up, and I
tried to pretend this wasn’t happening to me. Chris couldn’t be dead, she’s not
dead, it was definitely a big mistake and I wasn’t going to cry because it was
not true—
it was not true
. “It can’t be Chris,” my voice squeaked.
“Where is she? Where did you find her? I was just over there and she was there
in her apartment.” I knew it wasn’t her they were talking about because I knew
she was just in and out of her apartment doing laundry or shopping. I knew
this.
“It
is her.” The detective said gently, pulling out a note pad out of his pocket.
“The maintenance man was standing on the porch and he smelled a strong odor by
her door.”
“Why
didn’t I smell anything? I was just standing over there on her patio yesterday
and didn’t smell anything, so how could he smell something? I don’t understand
how he could smell something when I smelled nothing.”
He
wrote in his notebook and then added, “I don’t have the answer to that, and I’m
sorry Miss.”
I
told them how I had been back and forth over there looking for her, and how the
drapes were open, then they were closed, and that’s how I knew she was around
the complex somewhere because I saw her bike in the apartment and her ring of
keys was on the coffee table in the living room.
“Miss,
the body is badly decomposed, and we believe she’s been dead in that apartment
for at least a week, possibly eight days, and the air conditioning had been
shut down.”
“So,
when I looked through the window and through the open drapes, she was dead in
there already? I was looking at her dead but she wasn’t there?” I was confusing
myself at this point, and probably confusing the hell out of them.
“She
was dead in the bathroom.” He kept writing down what I was saying, I felt like
I was rambling now….
“Miss,
why don’t you relax and let us tell you what happened, and then you can tell us
everything you know?” Green said calmly. They were both calm and cool, like
this was their job every single day. I reached over and turned the air
conditioner up to blasting as high as it would go—I was sweaty and tired all of
a sudden, but I knew this was a big mistake. It wasn’t Chris in that
apartment—absolutely not her.
Green
told the story. “The maintenance man opened the apartment because of the odor
and upon opening the door he knew there was a dead body in there; the smell was
overwhelming. She was nude from the waist down with her bra on and her jacket
was yanked up over her head. The tub was filled with water. The bottom part of
her body was not in the tub. Her head was submerged in the bathtub water. The
comforter from the bed was also submerged in the tub water. The body was in
advanced stages of decomposition with maggots.”
I
couldn’t speak. There was no possible way to envision Chris like that, no way.
“Why
don’t you come with us and walk over there, the coroner is on his way now, and
you can see for yourself when they bring her out.”
I
gasped, “See what? I don’t want to see anything like that.”
Green
put his arm around me and offered me solace, “You won’t
see
anything;
sorry, I just meant that you would be able to see that it is her apartment.”
I
decided to go with them, as I still knew this was not Chris in that apartment.
They had the wrong apartment and I knew it, but the mention of the comforter
being in the tub made me think about the bed being stripped of all bedding when
I had peered through the window a few days earlier.
The
continuous thought of the drapes opening and closing was planted in my mind,
and this thought would never leave me. The killer was coming and going in there
while she was rotting. Was it the maintenance man? Was it Fred? Those were
the only thoughts I had at this moment, and I quickly blocked them out because
I still knew that Chris was not dead.
As
the three of us walked towards the other side of the complex, the smell was
starting to surround us. The closer we got to her apartment, the worse it got,
until I could hardly stand it. It was a smell I had never experienced and will
never,
ever
forget—it burns itself in your memory. A person may never
smell a dead body in their life, but if they do, they will never forget it. I
had heard this and knew right then it was true because it was so horrific, so
awful that I covered my face with both hands the closer we came to the
apartment.
The
black bag was being carried out the doorway and down the steps. There were a
dozen or so people milling around the area and I just stood there numb from the
hideousness of it. The scene that Detective Green had described to me was
playing in my head now, over and over again. I saw her lying on the bathroom
floor slumped over the tub. I must have swayed because Gibbs grabbed me by the
armpit to steady me. Then they both walked me over to sit down on the laundry
room bench. Gibbs pulled coins out of his pocket and bought me a Coke, and I
just sat there sipping on it, gratefully.
They
walked me back to my apartment so we could sit in the air conditioning and
finish the questioning. I still could not cry because I knew this wasn’t really
happening to me. What the hell was I doing here? What the hell was happening
to me right now? I wanted to be Dorothy and click my heels together and be back
in Pittsburgh with my family—right now.
I
gave them everything I knew. Fred had tried to rob me, and I was trying to find
Chris to warn her about it. I also mentioned that photographs that she had in
her possession and told them that it was a bulging envelope full of them and
they should be in her apartment, and if they weren’t there that it meant Fred
had done it, because I didn’t believe Chris would ever give up something that
someone had given her, and if they weren’t there it meant that Fred had taken
them after he did away with her. They told me that her apartment was clean and
tidy and they hadn’t found any photographs.
I
told them she had a lot of jewelry and that she wore it on her person all the
time. They told me there was no jewelry found in the apartment at all—none. So
then I knew Fred had robbed and killed her, I knew it.
I
also mentioned that I overheard a conversation between Chris and her boyfriend,
Marty, back in Pittsburgh, and that he was supposed to come out to Vegas, but
that she had moved out before I knew anything more about that. They said they
would follow up on all the information I’d given them.
When
they left, I felt like I was alone and going to die. I called home and I called
my son’s father, Rick, who was in Seattle performing. I don’t know why I called
him; I just wanted someone to talk to, someone I knew. My mother was distraught
and told me to hurry up and get out of there as fast as I could. Rick said the
same thing. I got off the phone and called for flight reservations. Either
there were no available flights for the weekend or I didn’t have the available
funds to purchase the ticket price, I don’t remember to this day. I made the
reservation to fly out Monday morning, June 28.