6 Return

Three days went by before Rick Buckner and another detective arrived to take me back to Washington. At first Buckner treated me like a decent guy for turning myself in. He went to great lengths to tell me that the justice system wasn’t as harsh as I thought, that I might be able to serve my time and still have a bit of life outside of prison after twenty or thirty years.

My mind was on another tangent. I thought about those Happy Face letters and my letter to Brad. If I could just get him to burn it, the cops wouldn’t have anything on me except Julie, and no way that was first-degree murder. I would be spared a lengthy prison sentence. I could fish with my kids someday or take them for hikes. But if the cops saw my letter, I might never get out.

I barely listened as Buckner changed his tone and talked about being my enforcer. He tried to get me to admit to other crimes, but I didn’t bite. His style was to talk down to me, to patronize me with goo-goo talk like I was his little son. He told me about the badasses he’d had in the same handcuffs I was wearing, like I should be honored.

“Westley Allan Dodd once wore those cuffs,” he said.⁷ When he mentioned being Dodd’s detective, I remembered being in Portland at the time Dodd was caught. I thought, If you knew what I’ve done, man, you’d faint. But I kept quiet. My court-appointed attorney in Arizona had told me to shut up till I had a chance to confer with a lawyer up in Clark County, Washington.

 

The two detectives drove me to the Tucson airport in a Cadillac. For some reason airport security ordered them to remove my cuffs before we boarded the plane. We had a two-hour lay-over in Phoenix before we were scheduled to catch a nonstop ride to Portland. I sat in the empty plane under airport security guard while Buckner and the other detective got out and stretched their legs. I thought about making a move but gave it up fast. I just wanted to go back home and get it over with. I was resigned to the idea that I was going to prison no matter what. So why make a fuss?

 

On the Phoenix-Portland leg Buckner didn’t bother to cuff me. He acted friendly and told me that I might get off with five to ten years because of the nature of the offense. It looked like he believed my lie that the killing resulted from an argument. That would make it manslaughter or second-degree murder. Maybe a five-to-ten-year sentence—out in three or four years with good behavior.

I couldn’t stop thinking about my letter to Brad. It wasn’t bad enough that I’d admitted to being a serial killer, but now the forensic guys could compare the handwriting to the Happy Face letters and verify my confession. I decided to call him the first chance I got. Brad and I had our problems while we were growing up, but I knew I could trust him. After Dad he was the smartest of all the Jespersons. He once lent me fifty thousand dollars on a truck-leasing deal that didn’t work out. When we were little, he helped the other kids to tease me, but he grew up to be an okay guy.

At Portland International Airport I was surprised that no film crews met us. I thought there might be coverage because of the notoriety. But to the press I wasn’t a big-time story. Just another sleazebag sex-murderer.

I absorbed every detail of the car ride across the Columbia River to Vancouver and the Clark County jail. As we drove up the interstate, I missed being in my own semi, maybe my purple Pete or that umber-and-bronze Freightliner that Dad and I drove. I was just a passenger now and someone else was in control. I never liked that. It gave me an uncomfortable feeling, like the time I got a ride with a drunk and he played chicken with the telephone poles and I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see the pole that would finally kill us. Sitting in the Clark County police car, I closed my eyes again, but even with my eyes closed I could feel all the familiar bumps and potholes that I knew so well from driving truck. It made me want to grab the wheel.

As we passed other drivers, they stared as though to say, “There goes a no-good murdering son of a bitch.” I tried to look the other way so they couldn’t see my face. I felt they knew all about me.

 

At the Clark County jail they put me in the rape pod, C-1. I heard that the newspapers already had convicted me, but—of what? I tried to remember how Washington executed killers. Electric chair? Gas chamber? They hanged Westley Dodd. I thought, My God, can they hang a guy six-foot-six?

 

They finally let me call Brad. I told him to be sure to destroy my letter. His response was so shocking that I thought I’d heard wrong. He repeated that Dad made him turn the letter over to the Selah police.

I was stunned. I guessed it was more important to suck up to his cop pals than it was to save his brother’s life. He said Dad’s reasoning was that he could go to jail for withholding evidence. I told him it wouldn’t be evidence if he destroyed it. I was his big brother, slept in the same room with him. He should have done what I said. I wonder if he has any regrets over that.

 

Back in my cell I was pissed at myself for getting into this situation. My fifteen-year-old son Jason and fourteen-year-old daughter Melissa visited me through glass, and it only made things worse. The phone connection was bad and the guards rushed me away before we really started talking.

I cried as they led me off. I felt sorry that my kids had to see me this way. I couldn’t even tell them I loved them. I had a feeling I wouldn’t see them again.