Widening the Net

During the third week of January, the team was winding up the investigation. They still had to interview the pediatricians who had seen Steven shortly before his death. They had to run down the record of prescription drug purchases for Steven and Stacy. They wanted to interview William Pratt at Andersen, as well as his wife, Elizabeth. Lisa Schneider was on their list, too, because Deanne had mentioned her as the manicurist that both women had used. They also wanted to talk to Todd Andrews again. The last time anyone had talked to him was on December 8th, when Sergeant Burgoon interviewed him at his apartment.

Detectives Cordia and Jones had honed their approach to Mr. Andrews this time, because he was a key witness at the scene, and they sorely needed any shred of hard evidence.

He did have some fresh details to add. When Ellen knocked on his door, sometime around noon on September 25, 1989, he had been studying for exams. When Ellen led him to the boy, he remembered that Steven was lying face up on the couch. He was pale. His lips and hands were blue. The skin was warm and moist to the touch, but he was not breathing and there was no pulse.

Mr. Andrews further recalled that the boy was wearing some kind of pants, but no shirt, and he believed he was lying on a blanket. As he commenced CPR, he discovered a large amount of fluid in the lungs, and noted that there was never any spontaneous movement from the boy during all the time he worked on him.

Ellen, he said, sat on the end of the couch and appeared to be emotionally flat. She placed her hand on her son’s ankle once or twice, but the moves seemed to be perfunctory. Mr. Andrews did not come away from the experience with the impression that Ellen was ever really engaged in the scene. Later, after the ambulance arrived and the EMS workers had transferred Steven to the stretcher, he made mental note of the fact that Ellen wasn’t going to accompany her son to the hospital. She said she was going to pick up her mother.

When he had returned to his apartment, he began to think that he’d better go to the hospital himself. So he raced out and headed to Cardinal Glennon, and when he arrived, he was met by the hospital staff. To his surprise, Ellen wasn’t there yet, so he began to provide some answers to the doctors in the emergency room. About ten minutes after he arrived, Ellen showed up, and hugged Steven and appeared sad.

On several occasions since, Mr. Andrews said he had talked with Ellen as they would come and go at the apartment building. Ellen would bring up the topic of the coroner’s findings, which were still pending, but to him it always seemed odd that she discussed her son’s death so matter-of-factly.

Lisa Schneider told Detectives Cordia and Jones that Ellen was a quiet customer, but that she did talk about wrestling a lot, and in fact supposedly dated some of the men on the circuit. She said Ellen once told her about a trip she had taken to Florida with a wrestler, but Ms. Schneider said she didn’t believe her.

Ellen had also talked about the deaths of her two sons, but she seemed extremely cavalier about the tragedies, and on one occasion made a strange remark indicating that all she had to do now was get rid of some toys.

When Detectives Waggoner and Wiber interviewed William Pratt, they learned that he had had very limited contact with Ellen from the time he had transferred to St. Louis from Europe, but when his wife called him at the office, Ellen often answered the phone.

Because Ellen had lost David, Mr. Pratt’s wife was sympathetic and the two women became friendly. The following May, Ellen was invited to his house for a birthday party in his honor. In August, Ellen had been invited to another party at his house, where others from work attended, including Jeffrey Stark.

When asked about any connection between Mr. Stark and Ellen, Mr. Pratt said there was none, that Jeff had been invited because they worked together, and not as a companion for Ellen.

When asked if Ellen had ever mentioned insurance, Mr. Pratt said that he recalled in August 1989, she had mentioned taking insurance out on David—shortly before he died—but was never paid a claim. Later, though he couldn’t remember exactly when, Ellen had mentioned that she had about $100,000 worth of insurance on Steven and that she would be getting that amount paid to her soon.

Mr. Pratt also said that he and his wife had discussed whether they believed Ellen was capable of hurting her own children, and they couldn’t believe she was—unless she was a psychopath.

Elizabeth Pratt was reluctant at first to talk to the detectives. Then, at her husband’s request, Detective Wiber opted to interview her on the phone.

Mrs. Pratt said that she believed Ellen was a good and kind person, and said she understood Ellen was a hard worker at the office. The Pratts had entrusted their own daughter to Ellen, she said, on several occasions when Ellen would babysit.

When Detective Wiber asked whether Ellen still baby-sat for her, Mrs. Pratt said that she no longer asked Ellen to do it. Mrs. Pratt told the detective that if Ellen had anything to do with her sons’ deaths, she would have to be a schizophrenic, because she had never seen any side of Ellen that would be capable of harming anyone.

Since the investigation had begun, Ellen had called Mrs. Pratt and admitted that she was in love with Jeffrey Stark, but also said that her love was unrequited. Mrs. Pratt was emphatic in stating that Jeff and Ellen had never dated.

So far what Mrs. Pratt had said amounted to corroboration of facts the team knew already. Not until a few days later, on January 22nd, when Mrs. Pratt called Homicide, would they uncover another facet of Ellen’s traumatic story.

Ellen had called her over the weekend, crying and carrying on. Ellen told Elizabeth that if anyone was responsible for the boys’ deaths, it was her mother, Catherine Booker. Ellen said her mother was a mean person, who had once been fired from a job as a nurse’s aide for violence against a patient. Mrs. Pratt told Detective Wiber that Ellen and her mother didn’t have a good relationship, and that perhaps the police should investigate Mrs. Booker.

Deanne Bond knew this about Ellen, too. Ellen referred to her mother as “the old bitch,” and appeared to hate her, stating that the woman was trying to run her life. Deanne had spoken up for Mrs. Booker. “She does take care of your children. For nothing. You don’t have to pay for sitting. She’s right there, if you want to go out of town.”

But Ellen wasn’t swayed, and in all the time Deanne knew her, Ellen never had a kind word to say about her mother.

In the waning days of January, it seemed that Ellen had a clear shot at walking away from the investigation, possibly by even moving to Florida soon, unless they could come up with something—and quickly.

Medical evidence continued to dribble in.

On January 23rd, Dr. James Grant at Children’s Hospital’s cardiology department reported to Sergeant Burgoon that he had sent a frozen sample of Steven’s urine to the Yale Medical School to be tested for MCAD Deficiency. Dr. Grant explained what he had been looking for: If there was a deficiency that results in the accumulation of fat in the liver, it was possible for a sick person to develop a toxic by-product as the fat builds up. This could cause the heart to stop.

“The results were negative.”

It was another dead-end report that would be copied and sent to Dr. Graham.

In the first week of February, Dr. Brumberg, the cardiologist at Cardinal Glennon who had tested Ellen and Stacy for Prolonged QT Syndrome in December, finding no evidence of it, had placed a heart monitor on Stacy. This was being done, he said, only as a precaution. The results of the test showed that the girl’s heart was normal.

On February 7th, Dr. Brumberg also said that Dr. Martin Eswara, a genetic specialist at the hospital, had obtained urine samples from Ellen and her daughter. These samples had been sent to the University of North Carolina for testing, and Joe would be notified immediately upon receipt of the findings.

“Okay,” was all Joe could say.

Lieutenant Colonel Hackett suggested the next move. It would turn out to be a brilliant one, though its value would not become immediately evident.

They would call the local agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and request the assistance of another of Joe’s long-time associates.

His name was James A. Wright, an FBI Supervisory Special Agent. Agent Wright had been with the bureau for more than twenty years, and the last five had been at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, where he was assigned to work mostly on violent personal crime. He was a bit of a celebrity among his colleagues, because he had advised novelist Thomas Harris on the writing of The Silence of the Lambs.

Agent Wright and Sergeant Burgoon were not strangers to violent crime, whether it was homicide, fugitive cases, kidnappings or sex crimes, and when Agent Wright was briefed on the case in St. Louis, he agreed to come out and take a look. A date was set: February 21st.