Don't Look Behind You Read online

  As the sisters drove as fast as they legally could on the I-5 freeway back to the courthouse, Rosemary reminded Gypsy (whom she still calls Jacqueline) again that they couldn’t fall apart—no matter what the verdict was.

  But the next phone call obviated the need for that. Renee Ray Curtiss had just been convicted of first-degree murder!

  When Dawn Farina called Gypsy, she told her that the prosecution team and the detectives were holding a meeting on the tenth floor of the courthouse, and they were waiting for Joe’s two daughters to join them.

  Ben Benson had observed Renee closely as the jury was polled. One by one, they had all said “guilty.” She seemed to be stunned, and then her jaw set stoically. Perhaps she had really expected to return to her home and celebrate her acquittal. But she wasn’t going home at all; she was going directly to jail.

  After Gypsy and Rosemary parked in the courthouse’s rear parking lot, they saw Cassie, Renee’s sister, and “the old biddy cheer squad” coming out of the courthouse, most of them looking either dejected or angry. It was a tense moment; the air was full of electricity.

  Gypsy didn’t fall apart, but she could not resist shouting at Cassie, “Your sister got just what she deserved!”

  If it hadn’t been so serious, it might have been comical—a bunch of women well over fifty preparing to have what looked like a gang war. Cassie headed for Gypsy and she seemed to be very close to a physical attack on her when one of Renee’s supporters grabbed Cassie by the arm, shouting, “No! Don’t do that!”

  And it was over as soon as it had begun.

  Judge Kitty-Ann van Doorninck set Nick Notaro’s sentencing for April 4, and Renee’s for April 24.

  Renee lost another privilege on April 16—one that paled in the face of what might lie ahead. The Washington State insurance commissioner, Mike Kriedler, sent her a form letter telling her that her insurance agent’s license had been revoked.

  “This order is based on the following: You have been found guilty of Murder in the First Degree, a Class A. Felony, on April 1, 2009. Revocation is therefore appropriate under RCW 48.17.530 (1)(g).”

  It may have been a “whatever” moment for Renee. Where she was going, she wouldn’t be able to sell insurance anyway.

  Epilogue

  When Nick Notaro appeared for sentencing on April 4, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. The future he had pictured in Arkansas no longer existed for him. Maybe it never had; he had a warrant waiting for him on sex charges there.

  On April 24, Judge Kitty-Ann van Doorninck’s courtroom was packed with spectators and media who waited to observe Renee Curtiss’s sentencing. Sergeant Ben Benson got there too late to find a seat, and he stood in the back of the room with Denny Wood and his lieutenant, Brent Bomkamp.

  Judge van Doorninck is admired for her grasp of the law and for her honesty, but she can also be crisp. She speaks her mind. As she sentenced Renee Curtiss to life in prison, she told the convicted woman that she was “appalled” that Renee had never showed one iota of remorse throughout her entire trial.

  Detectives often go above and beyond their basic duties to their departments and the victims as they work unpaid overtime and sleepless nights. They cannot help but be involved in the lives of survivors and of the victims themselves. Still, standing at the back of the crowded courtroom, Ben Benson was surprised when Judge van Doorninck singled him out. She said that the case just ended had finally come to a successful conclusion “thanks to Detective Sergeant Ben Benson.”

  It was exceedingly rare for a judge to do that, and it was something Benson would never forget.

  Joe Tarricone’s remains had lain in the morgue for a very long time, and now they were released to his family for burial. There was no question that his seven children wanted his last resting place to be in Albuquerque, where they’d had happier days.

  “My dad was buried three times,” Gypsy Tarricone remembers wryly. “First—where his murderers put him, and second because of a mix-up in Albuquerque. My mom wanted to be buried at the Sunset cemetery, but that is such a boring place. I know it sounds strange to say it but the ‘hip’ cemetery is Mount Calvary. It’s full of life and there’s always something happening there. Families come for holidays, or just to visit. You see people you know.

  “On Christmas Eve, there are luminarias, hundreds, maybe thousands of them. They’re little paper bags with sand in the bottom and a candle in each. They light up the whole cemetery, and the paths are full of people. We knew my father would want to be at Mount Calvary.”

  And she was right. After thirty years in a hidden grave, Joe Tarricone, who always loved a party, belonged at Mount Calvary.

  “Rose, Claire, Aldo, Joey, me, Gina, Rosemary, and Dean were all there at 10 a.m. on May 2, 2009, for my dad’s graveside military services, all of us carrying flags,” Gypsy says.

  “And then we realized that they had put our father in the wrong grave. I had some choice sailor’s words to say about that, but my sister Claire said, ‘Let’s just go ahead with it. They can move him later.’”

  And so they did. At last, Joe Tarricone rests easy at Mount Calvary Cemetery where his family visits often.

  Henry Lewis passed away fifteen days after Renee was sentenced to life in prison. He died without leaving a will. For the first time, Renee Curtiss was, technically, a wealthy widow—something she might have been striving for since she was in her twenties. None of the older men she’d lived with had married her. And now she fought to inherit Henry’s estate. She wouldn’t be able to use much money at the time, since she was in prison, and prisoners’ accounts had limits, but both she and Nick planned to appeal their verdicts and sentences to the Washington State Court of Appeals and she would need money for attorneys.

  Gypsy Tarricone supported Henry’s grown children in their efforts to receive the estate their father had worked for his whole life. In the end, they prevailed. As it turned out, the Lewis family was granted everything. “We were all happy with that decision,” Gypsy says.

  Renee Curtiss’s appeals challenged the admission of her taped confession, comments on her right to remain silent, and the alleged admission of improper opinion testimony. She also claimed she had been the victim of prosecutorial misconduct and an ineffective defense attorney, and insisted that the evidence introduced hadn’t been sufficient to cause her to be found guilty and also accused the State of “crowd manipulation” to influence the jury.

  On May 6, 2011, the Washington State Court of Appeals denied all of her claims and affirmed her conviction.

  Nick Notaro, who had a substantial rap sheet going into his trial, fared no better. On that same day in May, the court of appeals also denied his request for a new trial. Nick may be handling being behind bars better than his sister; he had done quite well settling into prison life easily in his earlier incarcerations.

  Renee, however, who is used to the finer things in life, has had to face a major adjustment.

  The Tarricone family does not feel sorry for her. They still miss their dad. But they have some serenity in knowing that he is, finally, in Mount Calvary Cemetery, with its glowing luminarias and the laughter of happy family celebrations—while his killers face the rest of their lives behind bars.

  Once again, Ben Benson has proven—as so many dedicated law enforcement officers have all over America—that getting away with murder isn’t nearly as simple as it may look. With old-fashioned, dogged detective work and space-age forensic technology, scores of murderers have found they aren’t as smart as they thought they were.

  TOO LATE FOR THE FAIR

  Readers often ask me, “Where do you get the cases you write about?” I hear about intriguing cases from many sources, including detectives, relatives of homicide victims, the rare victim who has managed to stay alive, my readers, the Internet, email, snail mail, newspapers, radio, and television news. Out of the some four thousand suggestions I receive each year, I can choose only five to seven cases at the most. I have some books that featur
e only one case. Books like this one—my Crime Files—give me an opportunity to write about several felony cases. Still, there is no way one woman could write all the mysteries that occur in America.

  My criteria in selecting cases are quite simple: if I am fascinated by what happened and I want to know more, I assume my readers will, too. Every once in a while, homicide cases choose me—not just by tugging on my sleeve, but by figuratively blocking my path so effectively that I have to write them! The story of Joann Ellen Cooper Morrison Hansen is one of those. Each time I looked at it and turned away to write something that seemed easier, I was contacted, reminded, and persuaded to return to it, by a number of people who didn’t even know one another at the time. It happened only a five-minute walk from my home in the little town of Des Moines, Washington, where I lived off and on for about twenty years.

  And yet I was unaware of this tragic mystery.

  In 2010, I heard from two people whose feelings about this case had become obsessions. My first email came from a man who had gone to school with my older son. Only weeks later, it was another email that cemented what I had to do. Kathleen Huget’s message sounded a lot like many I receive from strangers who write that they have unearthed an amazing story that should be a book—but they are wary about telling me the details through the Internet or over the phone.

  Frankly, sometimes my response to these people I don’t know ends up with my getting trapped by delusional personalities, or those who think they have discovered “a sure bestseller and a movie, too.” There are usually a dozen reasons why they are wrong. Kathleen Huget was extremely cautious about approaching me until she knew she could trust me to be discreet, and I was just as cautious about meeting her in person. Considering the genre in which I write, that isn’t unusual. I fear that if I met every stranger who contacts me, I would be opening a Pandora’s box of problems. And I’ve guessed wrong a number of times.

  But somehow I felt a kinship with Kathleen Huget, and this time I was right. Rather than opening Pandora’s box I was opening a “hope chest” for many people who have sought to unveil fifty years of lies and bring some kind of peace to a beautiful young woman named Joann.

  Chapter One

  Kathleen Huget and her husband, Jeff, live in a gated community on a hill east of Kent, Washington. They belong to an elite country club, and they live comfortably. Kathleen was once a flight attendant and Jeff was a varsity football player at the University of Washington. They found each other when they were in their middle years, they’re very happily married, and they share interests but allow each other to follow separate paths when it comes to hobbies.

  Kathleen is an attractive woman with startling blue eyes, wildly spiky blond hair, and a flair for fashion. Her main profession is as an interior designer—but she’s not afraid to get her hands dirty or tackle physical labor. She is also a frustrated detective. When she attended Eastern Washington University in Cheney, she took a number of courses in criminal justice and law. Her internship was with the Spokane County public defender, where her boss was Dick Cease. Cease spent twenty-four years as the public defender, serving as the first head of that office, which was created in 1970. Kathleen did a lot of background checks and research, and she felt she might have found her niche. But her life changed and went in another direction.

  Her curiosity, however, did not.

  I don’t think she would disagree with me when I say she is also something of a psychic, or, more properly, a sensitive. All of us have the capability to listen to other voices in other rooms when there is actually no one there—but most of us don’t want to tap into that or open ourselves up to ghostlike entities who have secrets to tell.

  Kathleen Huget has a friend who is a Realtor, who has called upon Kathleen a few times to clean out houses where the owners have left abruptly. To make a house appealing to prospective buyers, someone has to sort through what is valuable, what can be donated to charities, and what is ready for a trip to the dump.

  In the late summer of 2009, Kathleen—with Jeff’s help—agreed to clean up a house in the Kent Valley so that it could go on the market. She had no idea who had lived there, but she was told that the owner had committed suicide on the property. She would have discovered that soon enough by herself; the double garage still had pipes, tubes, and other paraphernalia that had been used to direct carbon monoxide into a vehicle with no ventilation.

  As she worked from room to room, she also found a book titled Final Exit. The author is Derek Humphry, who started the Hemlock Society, which supported an individual’s rights to choose his own time and means of death. When the book was published in 1991, critics were shocked at the number of “recipes” for suicide it held.

  In the copy Kathleen held, she saw that someone had used a yellow highlighter to underline several methods Humphry suggested: death by suffocation with a plastic bag, death by barbiturates—after first complaining to a physician that one could not sleep and asking for much milder sleeping pills to allay suspicion and then hoarding them—and, finally, asphyxiation with carbon monoxide using car exhaust.

  The third solution was obviously the one the late homeowner had used.

  Being in an empty house where a suicide had occurred didn’t bother Kathleen Huget, but she was curious about the things that had been left behind. When the draft from an open door blew in, dozens of yellow notepad pages, tacked to every wall, fluttered. They were mostly reminders, scrawled words that she figured someone whose memory was faltering had written.

  A man had lived here only weeks before; from the notes, she felt it might be someone who was in poor health and feared his mind was failing him, someone who had given up all hope.

  The house where she spent her few weeks working was a nice house, a yellow rambler that was neither modest nor ostentatious. Other than the uninspired and neglected landscaping, the exterior belied the condition of the interior. The lawn and shrubs were neat enough, and there were several sheds and outbuildings at the rear of the home. The house was 1,490 square feet with three bedrooms and two and a half baths, built on a fifth of an acre.

  But the inside of the house on 14th NE in Auburn was bleak. As Kathleen worked her way from room to room, the things she found were either well used or strange—or both. She realized that the man who had died here had purchased almost everything from thrift stores. Although the house itself was well built and upscale, she thought that the occupant must have fallen on hard times. That happened to a lot of people.

  She had no idea that his estate was worth $5 million!

  There were no signs that a woman had lived there; it was definitely a bachelor’s pad, with no feminine touches to soften its rough edges.

  The yellow notes were mostly prosaic: “I must be sure and stay hydrated,” and “60 Minutes—Sunday, Channel 7, 7 o’clock.”

  A few seemed to reflect his state of mind: “I have had my share of trouble and sadness—Man has a [sic] astounding ability to survive lifes [sic] unhappyiness [sic].”

  However, one was puzzling; it seemed to be a quote that the dead man had copied.

  “Ty: ‘I won’t stop until I find her bones!’”

  What on earth, Kathleen wondered, was that about?

  Kathleen Huget learned the name of the dead man: Robert Hansen. A common surname—my mother’s maiden name—and also the name of a television reporter who became interested in the story hidden behind the story: Chris Hansen.

  Someone had been to the house in Auburn before Kathleen, and they had removed personal papers and anything that might have been of value. She learned that Bob Hansen hadn’t been ill or incapacitated. In fact, he’d routinely walked the banks of the Green River for miles every day, picking up cans, bottles, and other garbage that marred the peacefulness of the river that had recently become infamous due to the murders committed there by the Green River Killer.

  She wondered what might have caused the desperate depression that led to Hansen’s suicide on August 4.

  Being inside the
yellow house too long could become oppressive, but the weather was nice and Kathleen began to meet neighbors as she carried garbage containers and donation bags out to her SUV. They were all quite open to talking about their late neighbor, although opinions differed.

  Hansen’s male neighbors spoke of him as being a good guy—a man’s man—but the women who lived nearby didn’t seem nearly as taken with him. Apparently he had seen females as second-class citizens.

  The days passed, and Kathleen felt a presence in the house. It wasn’t that someone was actually there, at least not any living entity. If she believed ghosts could harm her, she might have been afraid. She felt that someone was asking her for help, and another presence wanted her to go away.

  “I was never frightened,” she remembers. “But I felt a residue of rage, the sense that someone or something hated my going through the house. I actually found myself speaking out loud a few times, saying, ‘I’m not afraid of you! You don’t scare me, and you can’t hurt me!’”

  Edgar Smith,* the next-door neighbor, told her that he had found his neighbor’s body.

  “We had a kind of signal system,” he said. “When he got up in the morning, he’d come outside and blow this horn he had. It was from an old car he had once, and it went, Ooga! Ooga! When I heard that horn go off, I knew he was all right. He wasn’t that young anymore, and, of course, he lived all alone.

  “This one morning—August 4—I didn’t hear the horn. I looked over at his garage and the windows looked like they were fogged over with smoke,” Edgar recalled. “I knew instantly what had happened.”

  His neighbor had been dead of carbon monoxide poisoning for several hours.

  When she began cleaning out the house on Green River Road, Kathleen Huget had no idea of its history and knew nothing about the former owner’s life. She and her husband, Jeff, knew the attorney who was representing the estate of the dead man because they belonged to the same country club, but of course he was not at liberty to discuss his late client’s affairs, and the Hugets knew better than to ask.