CHAPTER 8
Murky Waters
Taylor wanted all the teeth removed from the heads of Ivan, Annette and Selina. This would make their remains harder to identify, if ever found. Dawn recalled, “Justin reached into the bag and got the three heads out and put them on a towel. I had to hold the people’s heads while he tried to knock the teeth out of the upper and lower jaws with a chisel and hammer. I didn’t think about anything while this was going on. It took at least thirty minutes for the whole process to take place.”
They put the teeth and jawbones in plastic bags and the battered heads were packaged separately. In fact, Ivan’s, Annette’s and Selina’s remains were intermixed to further confuse identification, or at least that was Taylor’s thoughts on the matter.
On Thursday, August 3, the Children of Thunder drove toward the Delta with a personal watercraft in tow and nine duffel bags full of body parts. The bags also contained stepping-stones from the yard at Saddlewood to add weight to the contents. Dawn said they just hauled the duffel bags out of the garage in full daylight and placed them in back of Justin’s pickup. To anyone on Saddlewood Court who saw them, it would look as if they were going camping. The craft they were towing added to that illusion.
The three of them rode in Justin’s pickup truck, eastward to Highway 4, northeast on 160, and to the approaches of the Antioch Bridge over the wide San Joaquin River. They paid the toll taker $2 and proceeded across the bridge. Far below them the meandering waterways spread out like a three-dimensional map.
They drove up Highway 160 on the levee road paralleling the Sacramento River. Chinese workers had built the levees as far back as the 1870s. Before commercial fishing was outlawed in the 1950s, local residents known as “river rats” could make up to $1,000 a week netting catfish. Now it was the haunt of sports fishermen.
The Helzer brothers and Dawn turned east on Highway 12 and crossed the rich farmland of Andrus Island, to the North Fork of the Mokelumne River. They didn’t know it at the time, but they were in the heartland of the great epidemic of the 1830s, where entire villages of Native Americans died. Then it had been a grisly scene of death and decay. It was about to become such a place once again.
The trio turned south on a small levee road that led to the marina of Korth’s Pirate’s Lair. Korth’s Pirate’s Lair was an oasis of tall trees and green water in the midst of the rich farmland. The Children of Thunder scouted a section of road nearby on a levee, where it came down to the water’s edge. It seemed like a good spot to transfer the body bags to the personal watercraft, so they drove back to launch the rental.
Not many people were there at the boat ramp that time of day. Most had left early to go boating, and wouldn’t be back until later. The trio drove the trailer down the ramp into the water, unhooked the watercraft and then drove the trailer back up to dry land. No bags were placed on the rental at this time.
Dawn drove Justin’s pickup to the designated spot on the levee road as Justin and Taylor rode there on the watercraft. They pulled the rental up close to the bank and Taylor got off. He transferred two duffel bags with body parts onto it. The bags were placed on either side on the running boards. Then Taylor and Justin took off north, up the Mokelumne River as Dawn waited on the bank with the rest of the body parts.
She didn’t see exactly where the Helzer brothers took the duffel bags to be deposited in the water. All she knew was that they were gone for about thirty minutes before they came back for the next load of bags. This routine went on through bag number eight, as Dawn sat in the pickup and read the book The Four Agreements, which Taylor had told her to read.
Before each trip, Justin plunged a knife several times into the bags. Dawn had come up with this idea. She said later, “There needed to be holes in the bags because gases would build up inside of them. If they weren’t slashed, they might not sink.”
It took almost all afternoon out on the Delta to get rid of the bags. While houseboats slowly glided by with vacationers, and water-skiers churned up wakes, Taylor and Justin went about their grisly business. Apparently no one was around when they deposited the bags into the murky waters of the Mokelumne River.
Taylor said he was tired and ordered Dawn to go with Justin to release the ninth bag. Taylor got off the personal watercraft and Dawn climbed on with Justin. Since Justin was tired from running the craft all afternoon, he let Dawn drive it. As they went up the river, to a secluded spot, Justin dropped the last bag into the water. Dawn noticed that it took about a minute to sink. The water here was fairly opaque and nothing could be seen a few inches below its surface. The current, though not swift, was constantly moving, and undoubtedly moved the bag along as it sank.
After they had deposited all the bags, the Children of Thunder drove the watercraft and the pickup back to Korth’s Pirate’s Lair, and hooked it up to Justin’s pickup. Taylor drove down the road and stopped at a bar because he had to use the rest room. After using the rest room, he and Dawn had a shot of tequila at the bar. They drove down the road a few more miles and stopped at a restaurant, where all three had dinner. Later, they all washed out the bed of the pickup truck.
Clear back in April 2000, Jessyka Chompff had invited Taylor to “Reggae on the River.” It was a festival of reggae bands and alternative bands, up in the coastal redwoods along the Eel River. Taylor looked forward to going. He not only liked the music, he planned to sell a lot of ecstasy there. Since the Stinemans’ checks had not yet been deposited into Selina Bishop’s Cal Fed account, he felt that he could get away for a few days.
In the back of Chompff’s mind, she was always worried that Taylor would “flake out.” As she said later, “The tickets were pretty expensive and we had four of them—one for me, one for Alex, one for Taylor and one for a guy named Jamie. In late June, Taylor had called me and said he was involved in something that was taking all of his time. He said he saw circumstances that might make him unable to go. Then he said, ‘I’m working on something big.’”
As Chompff said later, “I assumed it was something that had to do with drugs.”
In late July, her concern that Taylor would just flake out became more prevalent. He was irritable and vacillating in conversations with her on the phone about whether he would make it or not. She knew that even under the best of circumstances Taylor was not someone you could count on. August arrived and Taylor was still telling her he wasn’t sure if he could make it to “Reggae on the River.” He didn’t tell her the reason he wasn’t sure that he could make it was because he was involved in murder and financial fraud.
Taylor and Chompff made tentative plans to leave on the morning of Thursday, August 3, but that fell through. The time was pushed ahead to noon on the August 3, but even that was too optimistic. Taylor, Justin and Dawn had barely left Saddlewood Court with the rental watercraft by that hour, heading for the Delta.
Jessyka borrowed a tent from Taylor’s parents, because he said he was too busy to pick it up. What was even more frustrating for Chompff was the fact that Taylor said he didn’t want her or anyone else to visit him at the Saddlewood residence. She assumed it was because of a big drug deal he was planning, but still it made the coordination for “Reggae on the River” difficult.
Noon of August 3 came and went, and there was still no Taylor. Finally, at one o’clock, he called her on a cell phone and said that he would not meet them until 3:30
P.M. That target time passed and there was no Taylor. Now Chompff was very worried that Taylor would not show up at all.
Late that afternoon, a very frazzled-sounding Taylor phoned Chompff and said he would be at her house at 7:00 P.M. By now, Chompff was sure that Taylor would flake out. She and her husband had already spent $1,500 for tickets and camping preparations for the event, and she was not happy with Taylor.
More cell phone calls went back and forth between her and Taylor all evening long on August 3. She knew ahead of time if he was calling because she had caller ID on her phone that displayed his cell phone number.
Chompff recalled, “He said he was going to make it. He definitely wanted to go. It was nearly midnight when he finally showed up at our house.”
While Alex and Jessyka sat around drinking coffee, Taylor was totally wound up and couldn’t sit still or shut up. “He was agitated,” she said. “Agitated and extremely tired.”
Chompff admitted later that she didn’t pay much attention to Taylor when he arrived after midnight. She said, “I was frustrated with him. He was wound up like he’d been to a nightclub. Like he’d been up, all day and night. Flighty and edgy, like he’d been to a rave. He looked hot and tired.”
Finally, around 1:00 A.M., Friday, August 4, Taylor crashed and fell asleep in their home. It was about 7:30 A.M. when everyone was finally packed up and ready to go. It was about a two-hundred-mile drive up to “Reggae on the River.” Alex and Jessyka drove in their truck, while Taylor and Jamie went in Taylor’s Saturn. Even though the Chompffs were supposed to lead the way—because they had been to “Reggae on the River” before, and Taylor hadn’t—Taylor would often zoom in front of them to take the lead. It only added to their frustrations.
Their trek took them up through Santa Rosa, Hopland, Ukiah and eventually through the small town of Laytonville. It was indeed ironic that Taylor was traveling through the same town of his victim James Gamble. Highway 101 was not all freeway, and in many places it curved and twisted over the hills and through the forests. Chompff said, “Taylor was driving badly and dangerously. There were lots of logging trucks on the road. At times it looked like he would run off the road. He was supposed to be following us, but he would pull ahead and then fall back. It was disturbing to watch him drive.”
When they finally arrived at “Reggae on the River,” near Piercy, everyone was frazzled. Since the Chompffs had been there before, Jessyka went with Alex to stake out a campsite. Despite the Chompffs’ knowledge of the area, and camping in general, Taylor once again had to be in control. He found one excuse after another why the Chompffs’ designated sites were not adequate. He kept wanting to move the tent to another location. To Jessyka’s eyes, the areas he was trying to pick were worse. By now, she had had enough of Taylor. She snapped at him and he blew up.
“You’re a manipulative bitch!” he yelled back, and continued to berate her in a loud voice.
“Taylor, we’re all the same!” she countered.
And Alex said, “Hey, calm down, man.”
Jessyka said later, “It was really embarrassing. There were all these other people around and he was making a scene.”
Taylor stalked off, but came back later and apologized. For him, this gesture was a big deal. Normally, he thought of himself of incapable of doing wrong. Why apologize when he was already perfect?
Even though he apologized, it soon became apparent that Taylor was not part of the group. He listened to music with Alex and Jamie for only about ten minutes on Friday night, and then in Jessyka’s words, he “went to do his own thing.” She supposed his “own thing” was selling drugs.
Alex and Jessyka and Jamie saw Taylor in camp for a while on Saturday morning, but he slept all of Saturday afternoon while they hiked around the area. Even on Saturday night, Taylor kept to himself, and Jessyka once again assumed he was selling drugs at the event.
By Sunday morning, August 6, Taylor wanted to leave. Alex and Jessyka were determined to stay until Monday, having already invested so much money and time in preparation for the event. Even Jamie wanted to stay, but somehow Taylor convinced him to leave on Sunday. They packed up their belongings and were gone by 11:00 A.M. on Sunday, August 6.
While Taylor was at “Reggae on the River,” Justin and Dawn had been busy in the Concord area. On Thursday, Dawn helped Taylor pack a suitcase with marijuana, ecstasy, meth and mushrooms for his trip to “Reggae on the River.” Taylor gave instructions to her and Justin to get rid of all evidence connected to Selina and the Stinemans.
On Taylor’s orders, Dawn and Justin were to dump the Stinemans’ van in a run-down neighborhood of Oakland. His thoughts were that it would be stolen if they left it there. Dawn drove the van, and as she did, she threw the Stinemans’ credit cards out the window, hoping that someone would find them and illegally use them. If this individual was later caught, it was assumed the incident would confuse the police.
The Stinemans’ van was driven to Martin Luther King Way in Oakland and parked. To make it even more appetizing, they rolled the windows down, left the radio playing and a key in the ignition. Justin drove Dawn back to Concord in his pickup.
After their foray to Oakland, Dawn picked up Selina’s vehicle at Park ’n Shop and drove it to Petaluma. Justin followed her in his pickup. Dawn parked Selina’s car in a metered parking lot in that town and left the keys in the vehicle. On Taylor’s instructions, she also left Ivan’s wedding ring in the car on the front passenger seat. This was supposed to confuse the police into wondering why Ivan’s wedding ring was in Selina’s car. It was hoped they might even conjecture that he’d run away with Selina.
On the way back from Petaluma, Justin and Dawn dropped by Debra McClanahan’s apartment to pick up a steam cleaner. To Debra’s eyes, Justin did not look stressed, but she gave him a back rub anyway. Dawn was a little more agitated, and with good reason. She admitted later, “I couldn’t get the smell of the Saddlewood house out of my nose. I didn’t want to go back there.” Even though she didn’t say it at the time, the smell she was referring to was the smell of death.
Dawn read some newspapers in front of McClanahan for about a half hour and ate some spaghetti before she and Justin left to go back to Saddlewood Court. This was unusual. Debra had never seen Dawn read a newspaper before.
There was still plenty to take care of at Saddlewood Court. Selina’s blood had stained the family room’s carpet and kitchen area. The carpet in particular was troublesome. Dawn tried cleaning it with the steam cleaner, but it wasn’t doing a very good job. Even though Dawn and Justin used household cleaners on the stains, they still wouldn’t come out of the carpet, leaving it with a pink stain. Dawn and Justin finally decided they needed professional carpet cleaners to help.
Rebecca Clark worked for Bay Area Carpet Cleaning, and she received a phone call from someone named Justin in Concord. He said that he’d just moved into a house and had an accident. “I cut myself,” he told her, “and got blood on the rug.” He wanted to know if they could clean blood out of a carpet. Clark said that they could, but that she couldn’t guarantee that it would be as good as new after the cleaning. Justin talked to her for about six minutes and she remembered him being friendly on the phone. He even cracked a joke. Justin made an appointment with her for Tuesday, August 8.
Apparently, later on, Justin became concerned about the length of time until August 8. He phoned Prestige Cleaning, on Sunday, August 6, and said that he needed an emergency carpet cleaning. Ed McCulloch was in church that Sunday morning and received a page about the request. The page indicated that someone needed carpet cleaning immediately because a roommate had a bloody nose and it made a mess on the carpet. Since McCulloch had to teach Sunday school that day, he passed the message on to his son-in-law, Tyler Douglass.
Douglass was also at church, but he contacted Justin and said that an emergency carpet cleaning would be very expensive on a Sunday and that he wasn’t certain that he could find a technician to do the job.
Justin answered that the cost was no problem, and that Douglass should try and get a technician. Then Justin added that his roommate had left the carpet a mess.
Douglass couldn’t find a tech for Sunday, but scheduled one for Monday afternoon. Justin seemed to be okay with this at first, but then Douglass received a message later that Justin had found someone else to do the job on Sunday, and to cancel the Monday appointment.
In fact, Justin contacted Chem Way Cleaning, of Alameda, and spoke to Haji Balal. Justin said he wanted a carpet cleaned on Sunday, and since Balal had a tech in the area already, this was possible. Balal set it up with his tech to get two blowers and antimicrobial solution. The antimicrobial solution was to retard mildew and make the odor go away.
While Justin was making all the appointments with carpet cleaners, Dawn had been busy as well. She visited Debra McClanahan again and they went to Applebee’s for lunch. Then on Saturday night, she called McClanahan and lied, saying that some people had found out about drugs being at Saddlewood Court. She wanted to store them at Debra’s place.
Concerned about illegal drugs being in her apartment, but still loyal because Taylor was involved, Debra agreed that Dawn could bring them over for safekeeping. When Dawn arrived, she carried in a box containing water pipes. She also had a suitcase that rolled on wheels. Dawn didn’t show Debra the contents of the suitcase. Instead, she went into Debra’s bedroom and locked the door behind her. From what Debra recalled, “I heard the safe being moved off the shelf.”
The safe was indeed moved and being stuffed with illegal items from Saddlewood. In the safe, Dawn had placed various drugs, drug paraphernalia, victims’ identification, rings from the victims, knives and a pistol. When she came out of the room, she told McClanahan, “Now the safe is full. If the authorities ever ask you any questions about us, get rid of the safe.”
Debra later said, “At that moment, I thought, ‘Oh, shit!’”
Dawn also told Debra she had a wheelchair that needed to be stored at the apartment. She didn’t say why she had a wheelchair, and McClanahan didn’t ask. They initially placed the wheelchair in the living room, but then they stored it in Debra’s daughter’s room.
Dawn did not immediately go back to Saddlewood after the items were at McClanahan’s. She said later, “I spent every moment I could away from the house. I just wanted to get away from it because three people had been killed there.”
On Sunday, August 6, Dawn picked up a copy of the Contra Costa Times newspaper. Debra was with her and curious about this because Dawn had never shown any interest in newspapers, local or otherwise. A short while later, Dawn videotaped a segment of the news on television. The segment was about the murder of Jennifer Villarin and James Gamble. There was also news about the disappearance of Selina Bishop.
After this newscast, Dawn said she prayed. She later recalled, “I prayed to be guided by God. I thought maybe I didn’t understand what Taylor was saying. That’s why the plan wasn’t working out.”
On Sunday afternoon, Justin phoned Dawn at Debra’s and told her to come home to Saddlewood. He said that the carpets were being cleaned. When Dawn arrived at Saddlewood, Balal and his wife had already spread an agent called Natural 2 on the carpets. The agent’s bubbles pushed dirt out of the carpet, and when it dried, all of it could be vacuumed up later. The process went on for awhile, and Dawn and Justin ate in the kitchen while the solution worked.
One stain in the hallway was particularly problematic. To Balal’s eyes, it looked like a red Kool-Aid stain. “Did you spill Kool-Aid there?” he asked Justin.
“Yeah,” Justin replied. “We spilled Kool-Aid.”
A short time later, Dawn and Justin went to the movies. When they returned, Justin paid Balal $500 for the cleaning and gave him a $20 tip. Since the carpets were still wet, two industrial blowers were hooked up and kept running to dry out the carpets.
Dawn said later of Justin’s demeanor that weekend while Taylor was gone, “Justin changed to be more outgoing. He spent more time with me. He was involved.”
In the late afternoon, Taylor returned from “Reggae on the River.” All that was needed now was for the two checks totaling $100,000 to clear. Then they could collect the money and make their escape from the area.
Around this time, next-door neighbor Kaye Shaman discovered something very odd in her yard. She was on the side of her house near the garden hose that Justin had used when she saw what looked like a bit of bloody flesh. “It looked like a bloody blob,” she said later. She wondered how it had gotten there, but then surmised that a bird of prey may have dropped it. There were a lot of hawks and even eagles in the area.
Ivan and Annette Stineman’s daughter Nancy Hall had tried calling her parents on August 1 and 2, to no avail. Normally they would tell her if they were planning to go out of town. Even worse, there was no tape in the answering machine to let her leave a message, and the phone rang continuously.
On August 3, she went to her parents’ house on Frayne Lane because she wanted to have lunch with them, but also just to check up to see how they were doing. One of her main thoughts was to get their answering machine working properly again. Nancy arrived at their house at 11:15 A.M. as she went up the walk, she noticed that their Lumina van was gone, but a license plate was lying in the driveway. That seemed odd—so did the fact that there were several newspapers piled up around the front door. Nancy looked at the dates on the Contra Costa Times newspapers and they were dated from July 30 to August 3. There was also a Terminix receipt halfway under the doormat and it was dated August 1.
Once Nancy entered the house, she noticed a pan of moldy food on the counter. That was not like her mother at all, who always kept a spotless house. After seeing this, Nancy’s thoughts turned to the two cats that her parents owned. Usually they stayed in the garage if her parents were gone for a few days. Food and water was left in there for them. Nancy searched the garage and couldn’t find the cats anywhere. She went upstairs, opened the bathroom door and discovered a horrible surprise. One of the cats, Tooey, was frantic. It had no food or water, and had messed all over the bathroom.
“It was so pathetic!” she cried later. “I couldn’t even tell it was Tooey at first.”
Scared by what she discovered, because she knew her parents would never treat their cats this way, she went out and talked to one of the neighbors about where her parents might have gone. The neighbor had no idea.
This was so unlike her parents. Nancy recalled that “when my parents went on vacation, they would leave me a list of things. Mom would say, ‘Now you remember this.’”
Very worried by now, Nancy phoned the Concord Police Department (CPD) and reported her elderly parents as missing.
Patrol Officer Mark Evans responded to a missing persons call on August 3 to Frayne Lane. He spoke with Nancy Hall outside of her parents’ home and he also noticed several newspapers stacked at the front door and a license plate in the driveway.
As he went into the kitchen, she showed him the pan of moldy food and said her mother wouldn’t allow something like that in the kitchen. As he and Nancy walked through the living room, she found a broken watchband in between the cushions of the recliner that her father often used. Nancy knew that the watchband belonged to her father. He always wore that watch.
Looking elsewhere, Patrol Officer Evans discounted robbery, since several expensive items in plain sight had not been disturbed. Evans went down the street a ways and talked with neighbor Clint Carter.
Nancy called her sister, Judy, in southern California and said, “I think we have missing parents.” Then she spoke about the cats, the moldy food in the pan and a book with the quilted covers. The book with quilted covers was always taken along by her parents when they went on trips.
Judy recalled, “I tried to come up with answers. I couldn’t think of any. I must have called my parents’ house a hundred times that week. There was no answering machine. The phone just rang and rang.”
Not far away on Saddlewood Court, a resident on the court named Steven Swantkoski had noticed something odd back on August 4. He had been awakened very early by his daughter who lived in Antioch. Her apartment complex had caught fire and she wanted him to come over there. He threw on his clothes, and as he pulled out into the roadway, he was surprised to see a man and woman in a white pickup truck talking. He looked at his watch and it was four-twenty in the morning. The people were most likely Justin and Dawn.
Swantkoski spent nearly two hours in Antioch before returning to Concord with his daughter and some of her belongings. He and his daughter arrived back at Saddlewood Court a little after 8:00 A.M. He didn’t pay any more attention to the pickup truck, but his daughter spotted it. She noticed that on the back of it was a trailer that held a personal watercraft. The craft had bright colors and the words “Rent me” on the side.
Later that day, Detective Inskip interviewed Julia Bernbaum about Selina Bishop. Bernbaum told Inskip that Selina’s boyfriend, Jordan, was from Concord. She also told Inskip that Selina had provided Jordan with a key to her apartment. Bernbaum said that Jordan was “secretive.”
The lead investigator in the Marin County case was Detective Steve Nash. He had been with the Marin County Sheriff’s Office since 1979 and investigated over two thousand violent crimes. He’d taken a post-identification technician course, blood spatter course and attended FBI-conducted fingerprint courses. He also received training from the Los Angeles Police Department Threat/Stalking Unit and was an instructor for the Marin County Sheriff’s Office.
Detective Nash was trying to piece together not only clues from Selina’s apartment, but information that other detectives were giving him as well. He learned from employees at the Two Bird Café that Selina’s boyfriend was “concerned about revealing his true identity.” Even they knew that Jordan was not his real name. One of them said that recently Selina had tried to take his photograph, and he had destroyed the film.
Detective Inskip told Nash that a pager was located at the Two Bird Café and reputedly it had been given to her by Jordan. When Detective Nash obtained the pager, he noted the area code was 925 (Contra Costa County) and the prefix was 597 (Concord). Jordan was supposed to live somewhere in Concord.
Nash had a theory at this point. He said later, “I personally viewed the photographs of Jennifer Villarin and Selina Bishop. I also personally viewed the body of Jennifer Villarin. I believe that there is a very strong resemblance between Jennifer Villarin and Selina Bishop. I believe this would be especially true during the time of darkness when the murders occurred.”
An all points bulletin (APB) was spread nationwide for Selina Bishop as a missing person. Detective Nash obtained Selina’s journal and noted numerous references to Jordan and his drug dealing, his use of meth and his use of an alias.
On August 5, Detective Nash was able to obtain from Verizon Wireless information concerning a cell phone with a 925 area code that supposedly belonged to a Denise Anderson on Mayfair Avenue in Concord. The account had been activated in June 2000.
Detective Nash sent Detective Sergeant Barry Heying to Denise Anderson’s address. He discovered that Denise Anderson had a different cell phone and knew nothing about Selina Bishop, Jordan or anything else concerning the case. One name was of particular interest, though. A name “Sky Anderson” was somehow linked to the cell phone. People in Marin County had heard that Jordan had a female roommate named Star. It was not too far a leap from “Star” to “Sky.”
On August 6, Nash received an approved search warrant to obtain telephone records for a particular number. Nash compiled a list of numbers that were connected to that cell phone number. He noted that the same last name of Helzer popped up twice. It was Helzer who had a 925 area code. Further search showed that the Helzer in question was one Justin Helzer of Saddlewood Court, Concord. There was no direct link to Selina Bishop or Jennifer Villarin, but this was interesting.
Detective Nash requested a driver’s license record from the DMV on Justin Helzer. He learned that Justin Helzer owned a 1995 white Nissan pickup. The Soladays said that a white Nissan pickup had been used to help Selina Bishop move into her apartment.
An automated firearms system check showed that Justin Helzer had purchased a 9mm Beretta semiautomatic pistol in May 2000. This was a real eye-opener. Detective Nash knew that both Jennifer Villarin and James Gamble had been killed by 9mm bullets that probably came from a Beretta pistol or one of its knockoffs.
Detective Nash had Detective Lisa Lellis, of the Marin County Sheriff’s Office, contact Lieutenant Norvell, of the CPD, to see what information could be found on Justin Helzer. What turned up, instead, was some data on a Glenn Taylor Helzer—a man who owned a 1998 Saturn sedan.
Odd bits and pieces of things kept surfacing now. Nothing to make a puzzle complete, but always intriguing. One of these incidents concerned Rodney Todd, who ran a computer business in Oakland, on Martin Luther King Way. He became aware of a Chevy Lumina van parked near his business on Friday, August 4. The windows of the van were down and the radio was playing. He said later, “It struck me as awkward. This was not a safe neighborhood to do something like that.” Todd didn’t phone it into the police, but he noted how long the van had been there.
It wasn’t until a couple of days later that Officer Tim Shaffer, of the Oakland Police Department (OPD), noticed the same van on the 400 block of Martin Luther King Way at around 8:49 A.M. on August 6. There was just something about the van that looked wrong to him. It was nosed out from the curb a little too far and at an odd angle. He decided to investigate.
Once he approached the vehicle, he noticed a seat belt dangling out one of the doors. The windows were rolled down as well. The strangest facts of all were that there was a key in the ignition turned to ACC, the radio was playing and there was another set of keys lying on the dashboard in plain sight.
With all of these strange occurrences, Shaffer thought, This is a stolen vehicle.
He ran the plates and a missing persons report came up. The report concerned an elderly couple from Concord named the Stinemans. Officer Shaffer notified the CPD about what he had just discovered.
When the van was found in Oakland, Nancy Hall recalled, “I felt like the walls were coming down on me. My world was collapsing. It got worse each day. You didn’t think it could get worse. But it did get worse.”
That same day, Officer Nancy Vedder, of the Concord Police Department, went to the Stinemans’ residence and found a notepad that mentioned the name Taylor Helzer on it. It also mentioned that Taylor had worked for Dean Witter. She found this on top of a desk in the master bedroom in plain sight. Written on the paper was “Check with Taylor.” (Some have speculated that when Taylor and Justin invaded the Stinemans’ home on July 30, Ivan was able to leave this one small note as a clue as to their whereabouts. Whether the note was meant to be discovered by the police or Nancy Hall is not known.)
This bit of information possibly connecting the missing Stinemans and the Marin County murders was enticing. Detective Nash had Detectives Inskip and Heying drive by Saddlewood Court in Concord on a surveillance run. They noticed a dark Saturn and a white Nissan pickup in the driveway. Nash then had Detective Fred Marziano get photographs from the DMV of Glenn Taylor Helzer and Justin Alan Helzer. Taylor’s photograph was shown to Selina’s friend and coworker at the Two Bird Café, Karen. Karen said that she was 75 percent sure the man in the photo was Jordan. She had a hard time telling, because Taylor (aka Jordan) had stuck out his tongue when the photo was taken.
Sergeant Birch, of the MCSO, contacted Rico LaFranchi and showed him a photograph. Rico positively identified the man in the photo as Selina’s boyfriend, Jordan.
Detectives Nash and Lellis contacted Mike Small, of Red Hills Towing in San Rafael, about something that had occurred three weeks before. Selina had locked the keys inside her car at the Two Bird Café. When Mike Small showed up to help her, she was sitting in a dark-colored Saturn.
The surveillance team that kept passing Saddlewood Court noticed a young man get into a white Nissan pickup and drive away on the night of August 6. He returned after fifteen minutes.
Even later that night, the same man came out again and was gone for thirty minutes before returning. He must have been very distracted, however. He apparently did not put the pickup in park or set the parking brake. After he had gone back into the residence, the pickup rolled down the driveway and into the street.
In the early-morning hours of August 7, 2000, Detective Nash requested a search warrant for the Helzer residence on Saddlewood Court in Concord. Nash wrote that it was approximately 1:00 A.M. on August 7, 2000, and that Selina Bishop was still a missing person. She had failed to report to work at the Two Bird Café on August 4, and no one had seen her since August 2. On that date, a person who knew her had seen Selina at the Red Hill Shopping Center in San Anselmo. Selina has been wearing a light-colored blouse and dark-colored pants.
Detective Nash went on to write that he believed Jennifer Villarin and James Gamble had been killed by a gun firing 9 mm copper-jacketed ammunition. Nash believed that Justin Helzer owned a 9 mm Beretta that was capable of firing 9 mm copper-jacketed bullets.
Nash noted that in Selina Bishop’s journal, she had written of having difficulties with her boyfriend Jordan who happened to live in Concord. At 10:00 A.M. on August 3, Selina’s fellow-employee at the Two Bird Café, Kabrina Feickert, had received a phone call from Jordan. He was extremely upset and agitated about Selina. Detective Nash wrote on the document that he believed Jordan was in fact Glenn Taylor Helzer. He also believed that Taylor Helzer would have access to his brother’s 9 mm Beretta semi-automatic.
Nash drew out a request for the search and seizure of any clothing that might belong to Selina Bishop, any items that would account for her whereabouts, and the 9 mm Beretta and ammunition. His request stated that the search warrant was to help in finding the location and safety of Selina Bishop.