Bad Girls Read online

  I’m not going to turn out like my mom, Jennifer wrote in her journal on January 22, 2001.

  As each day passed and the prison kept that revolving door well greased for Kathy—with charges ranging from shoplifting to driving without and/or with an invalid license (several times), registration and insurance, possession of a controlled substance, unlawfully carrying a weapon, assault on a family member, theft, DUI (several times), prostitution, and on and on—Jen was determined not to turn out like the woman who never raised her.

  When Jen’s father, Jerry Jones, would try to persuade Kathy to return to the house after another round of ripping and running (hanging out with the crowd, drugging and drinking), which took her away for weeks or months at a time, Jen wondered why her father would go to such desperate lengths. Did they really need Kathy in order to live their lives? Jerry wasn’t a candidate for Father of the Year, by any means. However, he was doing the best he could with what were four children—all girls—and an absent wife. As the story went (and we should take these anecdotes here with the Jones family as just that: their version of the truth), in order to watch the children whenever Kathy decided to end up in jail or head off on a bender, Jerry had to quit his job as an oilman. He took on being a local handyman, Jen told a reporter, where he would fix doors and windows and do odd jobs for locals. He even started to clear rocks from fields for neighbors and businesses to earn extra money. He supposedly hunted for family food (deer and other game) and brought home produce from his parents’ garden.

  Family looked on from the sidelines, helping where they could—worried, of course, about the children. But it wasn’t easy.

  “Everyone except Jerry tried to keep Kathy away,” said one family source.

  None of this was quite enough to replace for Jen what she lacked most: a female figure to give her that maternal advice and guidance as she needed it, someone to discipline her the way she needed punishing. Jerry had his hands full with these kids (two of whom weren’t his by blood). He couldn’t keep tabs on all of them all of the time; and the older they got, the more freedom they wanted and were allowed. So before Jen had even celebrated her seventeenth birthday, she’d given in and tried dope—the same poison that had buried its claws deep into her mother. On February 5, 2001, Jen wrote about the experience and how much she enjoyed it, calling the night out “a blast.” She said she had “tried weed” for the “first time” and “got high.” It “felt OK.” It took her out of the moment, allowed her to forget about her shitty life. She even joked about how high she got: I couldn’t stand. Then I couldn’t hold my eyelids up.

  There was a touch of uncertainty in this particular entry, as if Jen felt guilty about giving in and stepping over to the other side, which she had sometimes claimed she wanted no part of. It was a strong feeling, a magnetic pull. Not so much experiencing shame, but Jen was “disappointed” in her behavior and ultimately for being so weak. She expected more out of herself in one respect; yet, in another entry, she wrote how she reasoned: As long as I feel good, I don’t care. She talked about how one boy wanted her “for the sex.” She wrote, I care, but then I don’t.

  On February 5, 2001, Jen did not come home. But (like her mom might have done) she did return the following day. Jerry Jones was furious at his daughter for staying out all night without calling. He felt Jen slipping from his grasp. In all of Jerry’s anger and frustration to control a child who was well on her way to becoming uncontrollable, Jerry—without realizing it or wanting to—said the wrong thing.

  It started as Jerry gave Jen the silent treatment on the day she returned. This was his way of showing Jennifer how upset he was.

  Jen’s response (in her journal) was rather emphatic : I don’t want to hear his voice anyway.

  She then wrote how disgusted she felt after finding pictures in her father’s high-school diploma, which she had come upon by mistake inside Jerry’s nightstand. And he doesn’t want to lose me, she added, not going into detail about what had made her think so differently about her father.

  Finally Jerry broke his silence that day and spoke to Jen, preaching perhaps the wrong message, at the wrong time: “I’m about to not care if you come back anymore!”

  CHAPTER 5

  BRIAN BOETZ WAS not the typical small-town detective you’d expect to find in a relatively unknown Texas town like Mineral Wells. When he was a boy, Boetz did not necessarily receive a “calling” to become a cop. His uncle had been a sheriff in Deming, New Mexico. Anytime Boetz heard his uncle talk about “the job,” Boetz’s ears perked up.

  “I’m not saying he talked me into becoming a police officer,” Boetz told me, “but anytime he talked about it, the stories piqued my interest.”

  It sounded thrilling and adventurous, which is one reason why lots of young boys are attracted to the game of cops and robbers. There’s a certain hubristic sense of self in heeding what is a call at a young age to become a lawman. You want to do good in the world, sure; but you also feel the need to feed a certain part of the ego that thrives on outdoing yourself or having the spotlight on you. For Brian Boetz, though, that was never part of it. He wasn’t so much interested in the limelight as he was with figuring out puzzles.

  There was no doubt, he said, that once he decided to take the test and become a cop, “From day one, I knew I wanted to be involved with criminal investigations. When I started in Mineral Wells in 1995, I knew that I wanted to be an investigator.”

  It took Boetz five years of patrol work, learning the ropes, paying his dues, before he took the detective’s test and earned a position as an investigator in the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) of the MWPD. It’s fair to say this is a coveted spot—that is, considering there are only four investigatory positions to go around in the MWPD, within a force of twenty-eight sworn officers, including the chief.

  The worst cases to get handed, Boetz said, were “sexual assaults involving children. And we have our fair share of them.”

  One of the most gruesome murders Boetz ever investigated took place inside a small convenience store.

  “We get there and the female clerk was nearly decapitated. The killer used a machete. And you know, all for a little over a hundred dollars out of the cash register.”

  Cops like Boetz will agree that it’s those types of brutally senseless cases that have become the norm in police work. On average, about two-thirds of murders are easily solvable. In 2004, for example, there were approximately sixteen thousand murders in the United States, about one-third of which went cold, or unsolved. For a police department the size of Mineral Wells, however, there was rarely ever an actual “caper” to dig into as an investigator.

  But here it was, May 5, 2004, and Detective Boetz found himself involved in what appeared to be a whodunit. It was that blood on the wall that bothered Boetz most as he and Captain Mike McAllester surveyed the homestead of Bob Dow’s mother—plus, the idea that Bob Dow was killed at such close range.

  He knew his killer, Boetz thought. “That was clear to us almost immediately.”

  The scene screamed of such a personal crime.

  Before long, realizing there wasn’t much to do inside the bedroom where Bob Dow had been slain, Boetz, who was now the supervising officer at the scene, looked on as crime scene investigators (CSIs) tagged evidence inside the home with little yellow placards (markers). It wasn’t about looking for that one hair or cigarette butt, maybe a bullet casing left behind by the killer. Evidence like that would help, obviously. However, most homicide scenes did not reveal that sort of Hollywood-type evidence, at least not at first blush. The job was not like CSI or Law & Order. Those TV dramas tried hard to get it right, and sometimes they did. But investigating the type of homicide the MWPD was looking at on this night was more about putting the pieces together, step-by-step, analyzing what evidence they uncovered, putting boots to the ground, and taking the case to the street.

  “It’s whatever evidence inside the house we thought, as we looked around and studied the cri
me scene,” Boetz explained, “that was pertinent (or maybe not) to the crime.”

  Boetz and his team walked around and studied the place, especially inside the room where the murder, clearly, had occurred. They looked for subtle hints of what happened. Was it a home invasion? Was the murder a consequence of a burglary gone wrong? Revenge? A love affair? An unpaid debt? A bad drug deal? All of those were possibilities, Boetz knew; each of these would have to be explored on some level. Then again, the evidence, as each piece was collected and analyzed, would determine if the murder actually had occurred in the bedroom, and if the shooter left behind anything to place him or her at the scene.

  A smart, well-schooled investigator did two things in this situation: He left every option open and investigated the case until he was absolutely certain he had his man.

  McAllester called the district attorney (DA), Ira Mercer, and asked him if he could get over to the scene ASAP.

  “I’ll be there in a few,” Mercer said.

  It was smart to have the theoretical prosecuting DA at the scene, directing traffic, so to speak, watching over the processing of the scene. It was a good way to head off any future problems. This type of murder was not common in Mineral Wells, and policies and procedures were in place to make certain a thorough, flawless investigation ensued.

  Not long after Ira Mercer arrived, Judge Bobby Hart walked through the door. A passerby would think there was a party going on at the house, for every law enforcement official in town wanted in on what was sure to be the town’s most sensational murder case in some years. But that wasn’t the purpose of the judge’s visit. Hart was there to pronounce the victim dead and order an immediate autopsy or not.

  Again, procedure. Dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.

  After McAllester brought the DA and judge up to speed, he told Boetz he was taking off. Richard and Kathy Cruz were still outside, waiting. McAllester had spoken to them briefly and gotten some information, but he needed to get the couple down to the MWPD so they could be officially interviewed.

  “I’m told,” McAllester explained to Boetz, “that they have something.” Richard and Kathy Cruz thought they knew who the potential shooter might be.

  “All right, I’ll finish up here and get down there as soon as I can,” Boetz said.

  With McAllester gone, Detective Boetz focused on the computer desk and PC in the living room. Computers, cell phones, BlackBerries, iPads—electronic devices of all kinds that people use on a daily basis—are what detectives seek first and foremost beyond the most obvious clues. Those electronic gadgets and machines can tell a lot about a person and the final movements of their lives, and often leave behind a trail to follow.

  Boetz first focused on several photos of females he found on the computer. After studying them closely and going back into the bedroom where the murder had occurred, he saw that there might be a connection.

  The corners of the photos that were torn off the walls inside the suspected murder room displayed partial images that seemed to match the corners of the photos on the computer. The setting was certainly the same. The context of each photo taken from the wall matched some of the photos of several girls on the computer.

  “It was obvious,” Boetz said. And the more he studied this, “[I] realized the pictures were of the same people.”

  They had faces now to those missing pictures ripped from the walls in the bedroom. And yet, was it significant, or just another dead end? Did the person who killed Bob Dow remove the pictures? Were they photos of the murderer? There could be, after all, a simple explanation to the missing photos, or a thousand different reasons why they had been ripped off the wall.

  “These [images on the computer] were certainly people of interest that we wanted to find and interview,” Boetz said.

  In the photos that Boetz found on the PC in the living room, most of the girls were young. They were partying in a lot of the shots. What was also clear was that they were willing participants. It looked as though they were having fun mucking around, kissing each other, and kissing an older man, who appeared to be partying with them.

  Bob Dow?

  It was.

  There was booze and weed and harder drugs being used in the photos. One photo depicted one female having oral sex with another female, one of her breasts exposed. Boetz couldn’t really make out the faces. Digging deeper into the computer, Boetz discovered girls who appeared to range in age from their young teens (minors) to adults in their forties, drinking alcohol, popping pills, smoking weed, meth, and even crack cocaine. As he searched deeper into the PC, he uncovered videos. Shocking, raunchy videos. Triple X. Lots of the girls were having sex and showing off their naked bodies. Some were giving oral sex to an older man and to each other. There were mock snuff films of girls pretending to kill one another with knives and guns. Some were extremely graphic. Some were tame. Others were obviously made under drunken circumstances, which the parties involved would probably like to forget. Still, the films were certainly made inside the house, with what appeared to be a dozen or more different girls—some of whom seemed to be underage.

  In total, Boetz and the MWPD would uncover some six hundred photos and videotapes of young girls and women doing all sorts of Girls Gone Wild antics, including illegal things—some sexual, some not. A number that later came out was in the thousands. Clear throughout was that only one man showed up in the photos and videos and appeared to be behind the camera most of the time, directing the girls.

  Bob Dow.

  “He was the one filming, and he was the one calling the shots,” said a law enforcement source. “He was the man behind the camera and sometimes not just behind the camera.”

  Best thing here for Brian Boetz was to get all of these photos and videotapes tagged and bagged. Then Boetz needed to head over to the MWPD and see how McAllester was making out with the Cruzes. Maybe begin there. Get some of these photos (the more respectable ones, anyway) out into the community and start asking around to see if anyone knew the girls. The Cruzes had led the MWPD to the crime scene. There was a good chance Kathy Cruz and her husband knew a lot more—and maybe even knew some of the girls in the photos.

  CHAPTER 6

  SHE STOOD WITH her arms by her side. She wore a black tank top. A tattoo of a sad sun dotted the side of her bicep, a way for the world to see and understand how she felt inside. The first time Audrey Sawyer saw Bobbi Jo Smith, Audrey thought the tank top–wearing, tattooed young girl was a “little boy.” Bobbi had cropped hair, cut in a crew cut of sorts, dyed white gold, streaks of brown and black shaved tight into the sides. Bobbi sported one of those genetically lean, petite bodies. She sometimes wore baggy jeans, a chain wallet, black boots, a spiked leather wristband, and a belt to match. Bobbi had a bump in her step. She cared about the way she looked and carried herself. Bobbi was a lesbian and damn proud of it. Not in a GLAAD-like way, marching in parades and waving rainbow flags, but rather flaunting herself in front of other women and putting the package out there on the market. One friend later recalled Bobbi’s eyes and how charming and yet gloomy they seemed, as if she’d had her share of bad luck, rough times, and had managed to survive by will alone. Several people, one prosecutor, and the murder victim, Bob Dow, called Bobbi “a chick magnet.” One of Bobbi’s strengths, which she didn’t have to work hard at, was a penchant for making friends with girls, regardless of their sexuality. Bobbi was likeable in so many ways: easygoing and easy to get along with. Yet, if you didn’t know Bobbi and didn’t take the time to get to know Bobbi, you might misunderstand this young woman and make snap judgments about her.

  “Once I got to know her, I realized that she wasn’t at all like people had tried to make her out to be,” a good friend of Bobbi’s told me, recalling the moment they became friends, which was months after they first met. “Bobbi never tried to clear up what people said about her, because in her mind she felt like she didn’t have to defend lies. I used to tell her that I saw greatness in her, and that she had the potentia
l to be great. When I told her that, it was hard for Bobbi to see what I did, because she lacked the self-esteem to understand that she had that greatness within. I would remind her of this all the time. Not everyone has it, but Bobbi does. And anyone being honest with themselves that truly knows Bobbi will agree.”

  Holding Bobbi back during that period when she first met Audrey was a voracious appetite she’d developed for drinking and drugging. Beyond anything else, partying was Bobbi’s life, her true passion. She hadn’t known anything different for quite a while. Getting high, Bobbi was hooked on that feeling of slipping away from all of the pain of the past. The drugs and booze deadened that emotional ache she felt, like nothing else ever had.

  Still, that same friend explained, “Even when she was at her worst, I’d witness Bobbi give her last, whatever it was—even when she didn’t have her last to give. And the thing is, Bobbi would give it to the very person that talked about her behind her back—her enemies. She used to always tell me how she never wanted to become like the people who cursed her and made fun of her and hated on her.”

  Bobbi had an uncanny knack for turning “nothing into something, or a bad situation into something positive and good,” added her friend. “For example, someone I once knew wanted to have cards made. You know, like thank-you cards.” Bobbi was known for her artwork. She had the touch. “And there was this girl who originally made up the cards, but she charged an arm and a leg for what looked like what a grade-school kid might have done. I told Bobbi about it. How this girl was overcharged for crappy work. Bobbi redid all of my friend’s artwork for free. And you see, that’s who Bobbi is. She’s loyal. She’s real. She’ll say things how they are. She’ll speak the truth even if it hurts her. She won’t ever argue. She’ll always try to defuse a bad situation. And that’s what some people don’t like about her.”