It was like a horror movie...but it was real

(Vlivertarian begins a new feature about how I got my best stories.)

I was at home, enjoying an evening with my wife and three daughters when the phone rang. My colleague, a real bulldog journalist named C.J. Schexnayder, was on the line.

(C.J. was a grinder, a hardass, a natural and I respected and liked him. A dying breed like myself, on the dawn of the internet era and the dusk of journalism. I told him we were like Crash Davis, the legendary catcher from Bull Durham, who were finishing their careers in the twilight.)

Our conversation started one of the most horrific evenings of reporting I have experienced.

He told me an assistant county coroner named Richard Ebel called looking for me. He was a great guy and a great source and we were friendly because I covered his sons when they played baseball in my hometown of Barstow.

Richie and Dino were pretty tough and Dino went on to play, coach and manage in the Dodgers and Angels organizations. (See more details on Dino below.) I also loved the marinara sauce he served at the family restaurant, La Scala.

Ebel was a smart, likeable guy. A former police detective and long-time coroner, conversations with him could be made into movies.

Anyway, Ebel told C.J. that there is an unheard of case where this married couple might have raped and molested a corpse. Worse, the corpse had been a 4-year-old girl a few hours earlier.

Even today, it makes my skin crawl.

Ebel, the pragmatist knew something had to be done to expose this and he knew who to call. Me. When I asked to talk to Ebel, C.J. said he didn't want to waste time talking to me. It was late, we worked for five morning dailies, and I needed to hustle because we were up to or past deadline for print.

C.J. said all he knew was the mom's name and that she lived on a certain block in a nearby city called Adelanto. It was a small but growing city or about 8,000 then and the dead girl's family lived in the newer south side of the city.

It was pretty late. It was very dark. And it was freezing cold.

Despite all that, my intrepid and enchanting wifey, Michelle, a pro in her own right, decided she would drive so I could navigate. We jumped into some day-worn clothes, jumped in the minivan, and sped over the 15 miles to the street in question.

I had no idea where the exact house was. As Michelle drove - creeped - up and down the block, my reporter's instincts kicked in. We were told the mom should be home with her other kids and family. It was about 11 by then so the streets on a weeknight would be pretty deserted and quiet in this new, peaceful neighborhood.

I was looking for some action, lights, lots of cars, maybe some cops.

There it was, about the third house from a cross street. A black couple walking stiffly to a car, zombie-like. We knew the little girl was black. This was the place.

Now, would anyone else be home and if they were, would they be in the mood to talk to a nosey reporter a few minutes before midnight on the day their youngest daughter died from a freak illness and was then molested in repose?

I expected the answer to all those to be, "NO!"

I was happy to be wrong. And then, it was all I could do to stop myself from tearing up as this proud, suffering woman told me the story of her day.

The first surprise was that I was at the right house. Experience and attention paid off.

When I asked Kathleen Jones, 36, if she was willing to talk she opened the door wider and said, "I've been praying to God that someone like you would come and help me tell my story. Please come in."

I immediately noticed all the Christian-based decor in the home. As devastated as she was, she was gracious, offered me coffee or water, and asked me to sit down. I couldn't help but think about our three little healthy girls at home, the youngest not much older than Robyn, whose little body died, was raped and molested, was autopsied and now laid in some dark, frigid drawer in a dark frigid room.

I looked at the ornate cross behind Kathleen, and pondered the indifference of fate and the two adults who committed an unimaginable crime.

But as my profession would have it, I had to put my personal thoughts and emotions aside. To help this woman I had to be the best I could be at performing my job. I took a deep breath and asked my first question.

Every time I ever worked on a story I knew would have significant impact, I always worry about how to make sure I can relay that importance, emotion, impact.

I am the reader's five senses, and I need to put them in my shoes, right now, and make them feel some of what I was feeling and especially what Kathleen Jones was feeling.

I swallowed, loudly, and made my first statement and asked my standard first question in a "victim interview."

First, I told Kathleen that if I asked a question she didn't want to answer, just tell me and we can move on. I'm writing a story. Her daughter just died.

Then I always ask, before I get started, is there anything you want to say first.

And that brave women, tears running off her checks in such steady and volume and quantity, took a deep, halting breath, brought both hands to her twisted face and said, "I am glad it is over because it was the longest day from Hell."

Even writing this today, 13 years later, I still get a tightness in my throat. I knew I had my hook and after getting a few more details, I put my notepad away, asked if there was anything we could do for her, and she reached out, grabbed my hands, bowed her head and quietly said, "God, please help this man tell our story."

I thanked her, stumbled out into the dark, dank, icy night, and thought how perfectly the setting suited the scene.

I wrote the story on the drive back, the editors and C.J. added a few graphs and we made it to print. There were followups as we got more details and time to digest them.

Weeks later, when Kathleen was contacted by the story-stealing L.A. Times and other national media, she didn't grant an interview. "Mr. Lovato told the story and that's the best it could be told," she told one of her relatives. I am proud of stuff like that.

On top of all the other indignities, Robyn's corpse, being evidence and all, had to wait to be buried. Finally, when the funeral came around, I knew I had to cover it.

Sitting in the back of a large church, I was one of the few white faces in a sea of black ones. I was raised next to two black families and they became an extension of our family in the rural little desert town I grew up in. One of the things I admire most about black folks is their willingness to show their emotion. They don't give a good goddam. When they are happy, they express. And when their hearts are broken, the vent with each other, in public, without embarrassment and unapologetically. They also dress to the gills to pay their respects.

Again, I was hoping just to get a good nugget to hang my story on, fearing that my writing might fall short.

And then the pastor started his eulogy.

"Most of us have to work a lifetime to get there," he said, beaming from his pulpit. "But Robyn was a special child of God and He gave her a shortcut to Heaven."

Besides some laws that were modified based on stories C.J. and I wrote as followups, I won a couple more statewide awards for spot news and investigative reporting.

To this day I believe those accolades should go to Kathleen and a pastor whose name has faded from my memory.

Now, at the age of 56, I know I am special and that God is still working on me, chipping off my rough edges and finding good uses for me.

But that pastor knew. He had that spiritual insight to know that through Robyn's immense suffering - her Passion - she helped protect the bodies of other Californians who really did deserve much better than Robyn got.

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The first story is filed below.

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[Dino Ebel is still a bench coach for the Los Angeles Angels. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dino_Ebel) I'd be shocked if he doesn't soon manage a major League Club. Most believe either he or the NFL Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott hit the longest home run at BHS upper field. The centerfield fence is about 500 feet from home plate.]

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Sexual assault on 4-year-old's corpse leads to arrest of two

Los Angeles Daily News | 2/15/03 | VINCE LOVATO and C.J. SCHEXNAYDER

Posted on 2/17/2003, 5:50:36 PM

ADELANTO -- Two employees of a company hired to transport corpses for the San Bernardino County Coroner's Office were arrested Friday afternoon, accused of sexually assaulting the body of a 4-year-old Adelanto girl.

Donald Luis Cooper Jr., 32, and Chaunee Marie Helm, 30, both of Hesperia and employees of All-County Transportation, were arrested on suspicion of mutilation of human remains, a felony.

Robyn Gillette, 4, suffered a seizure Wednesday night and died at Victor Valley Community Hospital in Victorville.

On Friday night the girl's mother, Kathleen Jones, 36, of Adelanto, said the day she learned what happened to her daughter, "was the longest day from hell."

"She was a loving child, always hugging and kissing, always smiling," the mother said. "She had the greatest little personality. She was happy all the time, always singing and dancing."

Jones said San Bernardino County sheriff's investigators told her the man was caught on videotape sexually assaulting her child's body in the morgue. The woman, she was told, acted as a lookout.

Sheriff's department spokeswoman Cindy Beavers said mutilation was the charge because the assault occurred after the child died, and not because there had been any other injury to the body.

San Bernardino County Coroner Brian McCormick described the incident as "horrendous and tragic."

"What has been described constitutes the grossest violation of trust and decency imaginable," he said in a written statement. "Our hearts go out to the family and we share their anger."

The county immediately suspended its use of the company pending a review of the case. All transportation of bodies will be conducted by coroner's officials. Officials with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department said they also used the company to transport bodies and they were looking into any possible improprieties as well.

According to the family, the girl suffered a seizure Wednesday night and had stopped breathing. She was taken by paramedics to Victor Valley Community Hospital and died at 9:22 p.m. Her body was transported to the Coroner's morgue for a postmortem examination.

After the examination, the girl's body was taken to the Inland Eye and Tissue Bank so her corneas could be harvested. At 7:50 p.m. a technician performing the operation noticed the child had suffered a sexual assault and notified the on-duty coroner and a pathologist.

After confirming that the child had been assaulted, coroner's officials contacted the Sheriff's Department.

Investigators with the department's homicide and crimes against children details interviewed the girl's family and were able to determine the assault did not occur at her home. Jones said her five other children were put in the custody of Child Protective Services for more than 12 hours Wednesday during the investigation.

Jones said paramedics had to take Robyn's pajamas off to treat her when they arrived and there was no evidence of sexual assault at that time.

Investigators then interviewed Coroner's Office personnel and county employees and determined none were suspects in the assault. They then focused on the employees of All-County Transportation, Beavers said.

The two were arrested at 4:30 p.m Friday at the Budget Inn Motel in Victorville.

#necromancy #necrophilia #morgue #journalism #investigativereporting #molest #molestation #rape