Part 21 (1/2)

”Those cards and that notebook were amazing,” John Ba.s.s recollects. ”Ward had everything indexed, cross-referenced, and organized. He would have made a perfect file clerk.”

The next topics were ritual and MO.

”Ritual,” Roy said, ”is that part of s.e.xual crime that is committed to enhance the psychos.e.xual enjoyment of the offender. It is the signature of a crime that a criminal investigative a.n.a.lyst looks for to link cases to one individual. The ritual remains relatively static over time.

”MO,” he went on, ”evolves over time as the offender matures and gains experience in committing similar crimes. The primary functions of an MO are to protect the identify of the offender, ensure control of the victim, and facilitate his escape.”

Roy ill.u.s.trated his points with a case from his files.

”A man breaks into a home, captures the husband and wife, and takes the wife out of the room and has her change into panty hose and high heels,” Hazelwood recounted.

”Breaking into the house was MO. Tying up the husband was MO. Having the woman change into panty hose and high heels prior to the a.s.sault would be ritual.”

Van Pelt's next objective was to establish with Hazelwood the behavioral links between the kidnap-rape of Laura Grant, to which Ward already had confessed, and Nikia Gilbreath's abduction-murder.

The district attorney produced an easel chart which listed on one side various features and factors of the Gilbreath case, and on the other, corresponding features and facts of the Grant case.

Examples of parallel MO, Roy testified, included the fact that no males were present at the early-morning hours of the abductions and that women with children were targeted. The presence of the kids, he explained, made their mothers more cautious, and easier to control, at least initially.

Comparable instances of ritual, Roy said, included the obvious importance of lingerie in both cases, as well as the fact that both victims were taken from their homes and driven to a second location. In both cases, that decision heightened his risk of capture, but was absolutely essential to playing out his ritual.

On cross-examination, court-appointed defense attorney Chris Townley, by reputation an able and dogged advocate, showed Hazelwood no deference.

Mocking Roy's list of case similarities, Townley archly suggested that since both women lived in Georgia and neither had gray hair, those similarities might have been included in his a.n.a.lysis, too.

Hazelwood allowed politely that yes, these were similarities, too.

Townley also established that possessing an item, such as a woman's purse, does not make a man a fetis.h.i.+st.

”It depends on why he has the purse,” Hazelwood answered.

Nor does the identification of multiple paraphilias in a defendant's character prove him guilty, Townley a.s.serted.

Hazelwood agreed again.

Townley chipped away where he could in his cross-examination, but he could not unravel the broad and distinct picture Ralph Van Pelt and Roy Hazelwood had created of Ray Ward as a troubled, deviant killer.

”Hazelwood was an excellent witness, and that helped us a lot,” says the former prosecutor.

Ward's jury deliberated only briefly before voting him guilty of capital murder. In the ensuing penalty phase of the trial, members of the panel would be surprised to see Roy take the stand once again-this time as a defense witness.

Based on the detailed information provided by Laura Grant, Roy believed Ward was an essentially nonviolent power rea.s.surance rapist. Chris Townley wanted the jury to hear Hazelwood's description of such an offender, and then make the jump in their own minds to the Gilbreath case. As they deliberated whether Ward should be executed, Townley hoped they'd consider that Ray Ward probably had not kidnapped Nikia Gilbreath with the intent of killing her. The asphyxiation had been a ghastly, tragic mistake.

With Ralph Van Pelt's and the FBI's approval, Roy agreed to testify as a defense witness.

”In the Laura Grant case, what type of offender would you be looking for?” Townley asked.

”I would cla.s.sify that rapist as a power rea.s.surance rapist,” Roy replied, and then he briefly explained his typology.

”So,” said Townley, ”he is not trying to inflict physical pain, or trying to subject someone to physical abuse?”

”No. In the Laura Grant case, you would have seen a beating, possible cigarette burns, that type of thing.”

What about the odd incident with the Christmas tree, the defense attorney asked.

”In my opinion,” Roy answered, ”he was trying to reinforce with her the fact that he is a nice guy. You'll recall that he dropped her off a block from her house, asked for her phone number and that sort of thing. He was trying to reinforce in her mind that he was a nice guy.”

Townley also explored with Hazelwood what is known about the root causes of fetis.h.i.+sm.

”The most prevalent and accepted theory,” Roy said, ”is that at some point very early in their lives fetis.h.i.+sts come into contact with a particular object at the same time they are being s.e.xually aroused.”

At that moment, he went on, the object is believed to somehow become ”imprinted” and henceforth is always a.s.sociated by the fetis.h.i.+st with s.e.x gratification.

In one example from the professional literature, Roy told of a large number of Englishmen who developed rubber gas mask fetishes. Research indicated that as boys during World War II, these males had been forced to wear gas masks during the German air raids, occasions when their protective mothers also held them tight to their bosoms. The experience may have s.e.xually excited the boys, imprinting the rubber gas masks on their libidos.

Roy agreed with Townley that the fetis.h.i.+stic impulse can be very, very strong.

”For example,” he said, ”fetis.h.i.+sts know the consequences of an illegal act, there's no question about that. But that consideration is overcome by the desire for that gratification of breaking into the house and stealing a pair of panties.”

”Somehow they end up doing it anyhow?” asked Townley.

”Yes,” said Roy.

Apparently, this added objective information about Ray Ward did nothing to sway the jury in his favor. On July 12, 1991, the panel voted the death penalty for him.

They did so without ever hearing Roy's most interesting contribution to the case, his speculative reconstruction of how the Gilbreath murder in fact took place.

Hazelwood believed Mrs. Gilbreath was a carefully selected victim, probably chosen when Ward helped drill the water well for the Gilbreaths.

He knew also from long experience with such offenders that Ward no doubt had fantasized a great deal about Nikia Gilbreath before committing the actual crime.

Ward's intent probably was for Nikia Gilbreath to bring to life his lingerie fetish fantasy, just as Laura Grant had been forced to do at knifepoint. Murder, however, was not on Ward's mind. Women's underwear was.

Roy surmised that Ward surveilled the Gilbreath household, and knew its rhythms. The tire tracks suggested he parked his vehicle that Thursday morning, where Nikia's mother later found the Gilbreath Cutla.s.s partially hidden on the old logging road. He then walked the half mile to the Gilbreaths'.

Ward would have watched the house from cover, knowing from his previous reconnaissance that Joe left via the back door each day at 6:30. Once Nikia's husband had rumbled away in his pickup, Ray Ward walked into the house through the back door.

Had Ward knocked on the front door, Hazelwood pointed out, Mrs. Gilbreath would have automatically pulled on a robe before opening the door.

He encountered Mrs. Gilbreath not in her bed, but on the couch in the living room, where she'd gone back to sleep after fixing Joe lunch that morning. The telephone cord was probably the first thing handy with which to bind her, and it was taken directly from the wall near the sofa.

Ward may have gained her compliance by threatening to harm the sleeping Amber. That would explain the lack of defensive wounds. The bruises discovered on her back, plus the broken ribs she also suffered from behind, most likely were caused by the 245-pound offender digging his knees into her as he hog-tied Nikia, wrist and ankle, with the blue cord, on the sofa.

Roy guessed Ward then covered Mrs. Gilbreath with the nylon bedspread and carried her out the front door to the family car, where he likely put her in the trunk. He then returned to the front porch and pulled the balky outer door closed over the new carpet, hoping to create the appearance that Mrs. Gilbreath had driven somewhere with Amber in the car.

Nikia Gilbreath, whose first concern would have been to protect Amber, probably remained silent while still in the house. Once safely away where Amber was no longer threatened, however, Nikia very likely started screaming and resisting as best she could. Everyone said Nikia was a fighter.