A Mother Carries On

Through the last days of December, Joe barely had time to shop for Christmas presents. He was running all over town, between the South Side and downtown, and across town to the hospitals, getting as many facts about this case as he could. He was working overtime to draw some kind of preliminary conclusion. All he knew was that two young boys had mysteriously died. In a case like this, the mother would of course be suspect, if only because she had been the last one to see both children alive. But there was no physical evidence. The doctors were diligently pursuing theories about heart arrhythmia, and the medical examiner had ordered more laboratory tests. But Joe needed something more, and both he and Dr. Graham were having sinking thoughts about the little girl, Stacy, who was still living with her mother. If Ellen had done it, how much time did they have?

One of the first people he interviewed was Ellen’s neighbor, Todd Andrews, who lived in Apartment 503. Todd was the medical student who had come to Ellen’s aid and tried to revive Steven with CPR. It wasn’t a long interview. In short order, Todd corroborated Ellen’s version of events. He also told the detective that the Boehm children always appeared to be happy when he saw them with their mother. Yes, it was just as Ellen had said, she had come knocking on his door shortly after noontime, panicked because her son wasn’t breathing. He attempted artificial respiration, but it didn’t work.

Joe then found the manager of Riverbend Apartments. It was meant to be a nuts-and-bolts, fact-checking interview, but it would be more than that. Karen Grimes, Sergeant Burgoon would be pleased to learn, was one of the last people to see Steven alive. She, too, was pleased to see Sergeant Burgoon because she wanted to unburden herself of something that was troubling her.

A woman in her late thirties who lived across the river in Illinois, Karen was sweet on children, and when she bumped into Ellen and Steven in the hallway on the morning of September 25th, she tried to strike up a conversation with the four-year-old.

“Hey, there,” she said, “I hear you had a birthday.”

Steven merely looked back at her, not responding.

“What did you get? Did you have a cake?”

Steven nodded.

Karen noticed that Steven seemed a little tired, and she didn’t press him any more.

Ellen jumped in with an explanation. “He’s feeling a little ill. He got some shots at the doctor. That’s why I’m staying home with him.”

They parted in the hall, and Karen went back to her office. She told Joe that it was only about forty minutes later that Karen saw the ambulance pull up in front of the building, and she experienced an eerie sensation that the call was for little Steven.

Burgoon hadn’t gained much from the anecdote, but he perked up as she mentioned the hair dryer incident. Karen had heard about it from the building custodian, who had overheard another tenant mentioning it to Ellen’s mother one day in the play yard. Still, it was just a random incident, chalked up as just another of the many unpredictable dangers that children face growing up. If Karen spent any of her time wondering about Ellen, it was only to consider how sad it must have been for her to lose her son, David. In fact, Karen had been somewhat stunned by Ellen’s cavalier attitude following David’s death. She just didn’t seem to take it the way one would expect. She didn’t seem to care.

How could anyone know what it was like for Ellen? How could she judge a mother’s behavior, given the enormous tragedy of the loss of a child? And, otherwise, Karen had little trouble with Ellen as a tenant, except that Ellen had bounced so many rent checks in the past that she was no longer permitted to pay her rent with a personal check.

On that Monday, when the ambulance pulled up, and Karen saw that it was for Steven, she immediately offered to help, and she wasn’t the only one. Pauline Sumokowski, who would help out later by picking Stacy up after school, chimed in with Karen in offering to pick up Ellen’s mother and take her to the hospital. The point they were trying to make was that Ellen should be free to ride in the ambulance with Steven.

“No,” Ellen said flatly, “I’ll get my mother.”

So much for a thank-you, they thought.

“What’s the name of the custodian?” Joe asked.

“Caroline Fenton,” Karen said.

He jotted down the name. He would catch up to her later. First he wanted to verify this hair dryer incident through hospital records.

At Cardinal Glennon, Wayne Munkel of the Social Services Department, could find no record of Stacy ever having been treated at that hospital prior to Steven’s death. Mr. Munkel suggested to Sergeant Burgoon that Dr. Tony Scalzo, the physician attending Steven at the time, might be of some help.

Sergeant Burgoon couldn’t verify the hair dryer incident through Dr. Scalzo, but the doctor was quite familiar with the medical investigation surrounding Steven’s death. He had remained in contact with Dr. Graham, the medical examiner. Besides telling Sergeant Burgoon who at St. Louis University Hospital had conducted the toxicology tests, all with negative results, he also informed the detective that Ellen and her daughter were scheduled to undergo a battery of cardiac testing between December 19th and December 21st. The testing, he said, was to establish whether the two dead boys could have been susceptible to a condition known as “Prolonged QT Syndrome.” This condition was prevalent in males, and could result in sudden death. Dr. Burt Brumberg at Cardinal Glennon would conduct the tests. Dr. Scalzo assured Joe that the results of the tests would be made available to him as soon as they were completed.

Ellen had told Sergeant Burgoon that her husband had taken an EKG at the time they were living on Wyoming. Now Burgoon also knew that doctors at Cardinal Glennon were trying to obtain the results of that test to determine what they could about Paul’s heart.

This was beginning to feel like a white-collar investigation. Joe hadn’t pried any slug out of a wall, or found a body dumped by the roadside. He had a little boy’s corpse, and there wasn’t a mark on it. To boot, he was interviewing doctors. Even the neighbor was a medical student. At least next he could canvass the life insurance agents. Perhaps here he would find some firmer ground.

The next few days were spent on the phone. He confirmed through State Farm Insurance that Ellen had obtained a policy on Steven’s life in the amount of $50,000. William Reed was the local agent, and the effective date of the coverage was August 22, 1989. Joe was told claim No. 68-13-0654 had been paid.

Tom Massey at United of Mutual, a subsidiary of Mutual of Omaha, verified that Ellen Boehm had insured her son’s life for $12,000. He said the policies had been purchased by mail on September 6, 1989. Joe jotted down the policy numbers and the name of the beneficiary, which was Ellen Boehm, and then dialed the number of the Shelter Insurance Company. Sam Bevell, an agent for the company, said he had written two policies for Ellen Boehm in late August 1989, and that he had sent them in a couple of weeks later, on September 11th. The amount of the policy was $30,000. There were two beneficiaries, Ellen and her mother, Catherine Booker.

A brief phone call to Arthur Andersen’s benefits department established that Ellen had received a $5,000 death benefit from the company’s life carrier, Aetna.

By now Joe had determined that Ellen had carried $97,000 in life insurance on Steven. He also knew that she had insured Stacy’s life for the same amount. One of Ellen’s children had suddenly died without explanation within a month of the purchase of all that insurance. The other, it appeared, had had a brush with death. When Joe checked with the Gebken-Benz Mortuary regarding David’s funeral arrangements, he learned another troubling fact: Ellen had never paid the bill, even though she had received $5,000 from the policy at Andersen.

It was time to talk to the grandmother, Catherine Booker. Joe, along with another detective, George Bender, arranged to see Ellen’s mother at two o’clock on December 19th, at her daughter’s apartment.

The sixty-five-year-old widow was cooperative, and related pretty much the same story they both knew about Steven’s death. Catherine said she saw Steven early on the morning of September 25th, when Ellen brought him to her apartment building at approximately 8:30. Typically, she said, Ellen would pick her up in the morning and take her to Ellen’s apartment. Because Catherine didn’t have a phone, Ellen had driven to her apartment on Miami to tell her that Steven was too sick to go to school, and that she was staying home with him.

Catherine told the detectives that prior to that, she had seen her grandson on the previous Friday, which was his birthday, when she gave him some toy cars.

The next thing she knew, Ellen showed up at her apartment and said that Steven had been taken to Cardinal Glennon. Catherine said she hurriedly changed clothes and took a cab to the hospital, where she met her daughter. The grandmother had no idea what had killed Steven, but she speculated that the immunizations he had received over the weekend may have had something to do with it. She also said she knew that Ellen and Stacy were scheduled for some tests at the hospital on December 21st.

The men thanked her for her time and left.

In the last few days of December, another medical loop was closed. Dr. Graham had obtained a copy of an EKG performed on David when he was admitted to Children’s Hospital. It suggested no abnormalities. When Steven was admitted to Children’s Hospital in April 1988, suffering a seizure, doctors there didn’t administer an EKG, but they did when he was admitted to Cardinal Glennon the day he died. Dr. Brumberg had found the results to be normal. There was no evidence of Prolonged QT Syndrome. On December 27th, Dr. Brumberg advised Sergeant Burgoon the results of tests conducted on Ellen and her daughter showed no evidence of abnormality.

Joe closed out the remaining days of the year preparing a report for his superiors. It was to be more than a fat stack of papers that would wind up on a desk for review. No, Lieutenant Colonel James Hackett, the deputy chief of the investigative bureau, and Captain Robert Bauman would want a full briefing in the fourth-floor conference room. The veteran detective knew that he lacked physical evidence, but the circumstances in this case certainly pointed ominously to foul play. He wanted to look into the hair dryer incident. He wanted to know so much more about this woman, Ellen Kay Booker Boehm. Had she killed her boys for the insurance money? How had she done it? Had anyone else been involved?

Just as he expected, Colonel Hackett wanted a full briefing. Word spread through the section that he was summoning detectives from other sections to attend the session, now scheduled for the morning of January 2nd. Right up to the day before he was to submit his report, Joe nagged himself with the details. What had he overlooked?

What was it about Ellen’s scattershot style in buying the insurance? Were there other policies? Why had she stopped at $97,000 for each child? Was there double indemnity on Stacy, who had had a near-fatal accident?

He enlisted the help of Thomas Wiber, a fellow homicide detective, and the two of them called as many insurance companies as they could find. They were canvassing to learn if Ellen had bought more than she had told them about.

When they dialed the number of the Gerber Insurance Company, they were connected to Barbara Gregg.

“Yes,” she said, “that application was made on August 29th, 1989, for $20,000 life insurance on Ellen B. and $3,000 on each of the children, Stacy B. and Steven B.”

When asked if the claim had been paid on Steven, Ms. Gregg explained that the policies were held in abeyance, due to a question about Steven’s health. She cited the incident of hypoglycemia in April 1988. But she added that both policies were, in fact, issued. The date was October 18th, 1989.

Ellen had applied for these policies by mail. When she got the letter of notification back for Steven, he was already dead and buried.