On her return, Lyle presented Linda with organized stacks of Pamela Watts’s correctional files, which they hoped would offer insights into her personality. Mounds of yellowed brittle paper and forms, including transcripts from the trial convicting her of forgery, lay in neatly arranged piles.
The timeline displayed on the white dry erase murder board was different than most. It didn’t span a few hours or days but crossed into the territory of years and the unsolved. Some pivotal event had made Pamela angry enough to blame and then possibly kill her families.
Linda paced before the board discussing Pamela’s check forgery conviction with Lyle and Amy. “The files provide the case number for Pamela’s crime. By Minnesota law, if a check forgery is over five hundred dollars, the crime is a felony, and the forger faces up to five years in prison.”
“Didn’t you say Pamela Watts was convicted of forging ten thousand dollars in checks?” Amy asked, pointing a pencil toward the board.
“Yes, and it involved a single check.” Linda directed her finger at the name William Gunderson. “Court documents indicate Pamela befriended a Mr. Gunderson, an elderly gentleman in his eighties, who was her neighbor. She gained his confidence and trust by doing grocery shopping and cleaning for him. He gave her a key, and she was able to obtain a blank check from his home, which she made payable to herself for ten thousand dollars.”
“She would’ve had to forge his name,” Lyle said, clasping hands behind his head.
“Which she did, and quite well.” Linda handed out copies of Gunderson’s real signature and Pamela’s forged check. “The forgery of Gunderson’s signature was nearly identical. She forged Gregory Hansen’s signature on the final bank withdrawal she made of $150,000, and that of every other pastor she embezzled from.”
Amy examined the documents and returned to her notes. “Pamela Watts didn’t serve anywhere near the maximum sentence.”
“No, she got three years. She was nineteen, and the jury felt she was young enough to redeem herself. She only served eighteen months in Shakopee, getting time off for good behavior. In fact, Pamela Watts was listed as a model prisoner.”
“Did the court records ever indicate why she forged Mr. Gunderson’s check? Was there an accomplice?” Lyle asked.
Linda pulled the court file. “Her attorney claimed Pamela got involved with the wrong crowd. But counsel had difficulty finding these friends, and they may never have existed.” The air reeked of sulfur, an odor Linda disliked as it gave her a headache. Detective Morris must be dieting again and having hard boiled eggs for lunch.
Lyle leaned on a desk, arms crossed. “Her crime wasn’t well conceived. She forged one check, and Gunderson caught her.”
“But Pamela bided her time, helping her neighbor for months before she stole anything. She had the patience to commit a serious crime. However, she completely misjudged that Gunderson would not press charges and back down just because she was a teenager. And she insisted that Gunderson had wanted her to have the money.” Linda clasped her hands behind her head. “She said on the stand it was all a misunderstanding. Mr. Gunderson might have been old, but he was no dummy. The money Pamela took was a substantial amount for him, and his attorney asked for the maximum sentence.”
The phone on Amy’s desk jangled; and after a moment’s hesitation, she answered the call.
Linda continued to speak. “It’s fortunate for us that Pamela got caught because, as a convicted felon, she and her aliases were in the NCIC database. So she turned to embezzling, which takes longer to detect, especially if you’re good at it. She always left town whenever congregations began to suspect her.”
“Literally absconding with the church funds.” Lyle stretched his arms above his head. “Any possibility of interviewing Mr. Gunderson?”
“Long gone. Died in 1986 at the age of ninety-two.”
“We have a good idea of her MO—preying on the vulnerable.” Lyle waved an open hand toward the murder board. “I can’t help but believe her anger at being abandoned as an infant is the real motive here.”
Linda crinkled her nose, still smelling the intense odor of hard boiled eggs. “I’m torn about that theory. She had a loving family—parents who adopted her, and later two beautiful children and a handsome husband. Yet she threw it all away in an inconceivable manner.”
“I have always believed—and I think you do, too—that money truly is at the root of all evil. We’ve both seen murder committed for far less.”
Linda acknowledged Lyle’s statement with a shake of her head and glanced toward Amy, who was rapidly scribbling on a legal pad. “I keep returning to the reason she became this amoral being. I can’t dismiss the idea that discovering you were left by your mother or father, to die for all we know, evolved into a relentless rage. Sister Monica disagrees, but I’m not convinced.”
Amy dropped the receiver into the cradle of her phone. “Sorry to interrupt, but that was the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Investigations. I have disturbing news.”