TEN

Dropping the Net

At 9:45 on the morning of January 4, Citrus County sheriff’s detectives wheeled past the Marion County correctional facility west of Ocala and turned south into the MCSO parking lot. Jerry Thompson led Sergeant Mike Joyner, and Investigators Mike Imperial and Dick Martin through the operations center’s rear entrance and into the conference room.

An easel held a large map of the South Daytona area; the map was dotted with red and yellow stickers. On the corkboard lining one wall, three large color blowups of Wuornos, Moore, and Greene stared out into the room. Two large Florida maps were pinpointed with the locations of body and vehicle recovery sites. Next to these was a chart featuring enlarged photographs of the victims and accompanying details. A pattern chart detailing similarities among the homicides rested on another easel standing in a far corner of the room.

Binegar stood and shook hands with Joyner, Imperial, and Martin before Thompson introduced his three partners to the others. Along with Binegar, Munster, and David Taylor, four other MCSO investigators were now aboard—Don Chapman, John Tilley, Eddie Leady, and Art King. An FDLE agent, Lee Schneider, flipped open his notebook. “Since Steve requested that we not get into Volusia County with radios on this thing, we’ll provide cellular phones and beepers for this operation. We’ll also have personnel.”

“Whoever you bring along,” said Binegar, “they’ve got to have some seasoning. We need investigators on this, people who know what they’re into.”

“No problem,” said Schneider.

“Sergeant Joyner and Investigator Martin are from our street-crimes unit,” Thompson said. “They do the Bad Boy things. Working undercover on our drug surveillance.”

Thompson’s remark was unnecessary. One look at the detectives’ beards and long hair was enough to identify their kind of beat. Munster smiled. “There’s no way any son of a bitch in those Daytona bars is going to make you two. This is perfect.”

“You think we look like shit now? Wait till you catch our act over there.” Joyner combed his fingers through his red whiskers and scowled.

The next day the crew traveled to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, where Horzepa, Kelley, and Ehrhart were waiting. A total of thirty officers from six agencies was now involved in the operation.

Ehrhart had made arrangements at the Pirate’s Cove motel for a set of rooms to be used as a command post. Located on the beach, the pink, three-story tourist facility was just across the bridge east of Port Orange. Adding a bizarre bit of theatricality to the hunt, a ten-foot painted statue of a buccaneer leered over the entrance to the motel.

“It’s far enough away from Harbor Oaks not to attract attention but still close enough,” Ehrhart said. “We put two or three cellular phones inside the command post and pagers in one room. The rest of us will be spread through other rooms. Since we know Moore had something to do with housecleaning for the motels around here, we don’t tell anybody anything. I’m sure they know we’re police officers but not why we’re there.”

“You know these damned phones FDLE brought over? They’re all 813 area code for over in Tampa,” groused Thompson. “We’ve got to dial up long distance every time we use them to make a goddamned call! I sure as hell hope Schneider has some good people coming in on this.”

Surveillance began at two o’clock on the afternoon of January 5, Horzepa and Mike imperial were teamed in one car, a confiscated 280 ZX. Don Chapman and Eddie Leady cruised the Port Orange streets in a rental car brought over from Ocala. Mike Joyner and Dick Martin, posing as a couple of Georgia drug dealers down for a score, hit the bars along Ridgewood Avenue. At eight that evening another shift began with Jimmy Pinner joining Horzepa, and Art King and Tom Tittle relieving Chapman and Leady. Joyner and Martin continued on until two the next morning, when surveillance was shut down for the night. There were no sightings.

On the next day’s shift, Mike Imperial called in at 10:40 with a tip from a bartender at a joint called Our Place. The woman identified Moore and Wuornos from a photo pack, saying the two had been in her bar the day before. Martin joined Imperial at the Ridgewood Avenue location and hung out the rest of the day waiting to see if the suspects showed up. The women were no-shows.