Rope Burns

Pleasanton has always been a haven for dreamers. It must have seemed like paradise to the few Yanquis drifting into the area after the Gold Rush. Certainly, it must have seemed that way to Charles Garthwaite who made the arduous trek from the eastern states in 1849 to become part of the wild rush to pan for gold in the Sierra foothills. After years of enduring the icy streams and rugged conditions, he decided to settle in the more hospitable climate of Amador Valley where Don Augustine Bernal had his rancho. Of all the places in California he could have chosen, he chose Pleasanton.

By the middle of the twentieth century, there were many more like him—people who could have moved anywhere in California, but chose Pleasanton. For instance, the Samson family, a clan of tightly knit Filipino Americans who lived near the racetrack that Don Bernal’s sons had built in 1858, not far away from where Charles Garthwaite had chosen his last spot to repose in the San Augustine Cemetery. The Samsons were a family of go-getters who truly believed in the American Dream. They had a pleasant single-story home on a quiet court, with tidy lawn and neat landscaping. The father, Daniel, had instilled in his children the benefits of a good education, and mother Christina had nourished them with love. Both were proud of son Vincent, who was turning into a well-spoken and handsome young man, and daughter Nichole. But there was an especially soft spot in their hearts for the baby of the family, Vanessa.

Vanessa or ’Nessa, as friends and family called her, was a delightful young woman with a ready smile and friendly brown eyes. She had absorbed the easygoing suburban lifestyle of Pleasanton, as well as a belief in its work ethic. But she knew how to have fun as well and was often seen at football games on Friday nights cheering the home team. She always found time to make leis of candy for friends and family at Christmastime, join high school clubs, attend school activities. In short, she was immensely popular. There was a combination of the fun-loving and the studious in ’Nessa.

Her parish priest, Father Daniel Davidson, knew her as “an extremely happy child. She enjoyed group activities and social events. Vanessa never seemed to have the problems many teenagers go through. She was always upbeat and positive. She seemed remarkably well balanced for someone so young.”

When Vanessa worked on the high school yearbook, it was stressful for all the staff, designing layouts and collating all the material. But staffer Kelly Amick remembered, “I was pretty involved in school activities and when I’d get stressed out, I’d turn around and Vanessa would be there smiling and saying, ‘Need help?’ ”

Vanessa Samson had developed the maturity to deal with the stress and craziness of the yearbook project and still keep up her grades. As her senior year drew to an end, she was captured forever on the yearbook pages she had helped to create: she appears beautiful and elegant in a senior prom photo, hair done up, wearing a spaghetti-strap gown, white elbow-length gloves and a big smile. Of that smile, her friend Rob Smith said, “For me the most striking feature was her smile. It said a lot. She was caring and very lovable. She had a love for life, friends and family and she wasn’t afraid to show it. Vanessa was a very strong person who spoke her mind.”

When she graduated from Pleasanton’s Amador Valley High School in 1993, she went on to obtain a higher education in business at nearby Ohlone College in Fremont. There she became secretary of the Filipino Americans Student Association. Once again she garnered accolades for her hard work and always having an open ear to everyone else’s problems.

After college she landed a job with S.C.J. Insurance Company in Pleasanton, one of the many new offices in the business park along Hacienda Road. Shirley Lapp, president of the company, said, “I know it’s a cliché, but Vanessa was like the girl next door.”

Even though ’Nessa still lived at home, her one big dream was to buy a car so that she didn’t have to walk the three quarters of a mile to work. Not that she minded the exercise. The pretty young woman weighed 120 pounds and was in good shape.

Her normal route to work was a pleasant walk east on Singletree Way to Dorman Road and then on West Las Positas Boulevard. It wound through a combination of suburban homes and a small business district. On December 2, 1997, she left home as usual about 7:00 A.M. and her mother remembered, “ ’Nessa poked her head through a door to say good-bye.” She wore a three-quarter-length black nylon jacket, blue jeans and white tennis shoes. She was carrying a green Jansport canvas backpack and red Safeway nylon bag containing her lunch. It was a foggy morning in Pleasanton, as so many days were around there in early December. Just as she approached Singletree Way and Kern Court at 7:30 A.M., a dark green minivan came driving slowly down the street. The driver, a dark-haired woman, seemed to be eyeing her.

According to the Alameda County Grand Jury Indictment and Michaud’s confession, on the morning of December 2, 1997, one day after a warrant for their arrest was issued in Reno, James Daveggio and Michelle Michaud were up early cruising Pleasanton for a new victim. Michaud was at the wheel and Daveggio remained tensed in the back, ready to spring at a moment’s notice. Unlike the time with Juanita Rodriguez, Michaud was fully aware of what was about to happen. At seventy-thirty they were driving in Daveggio’s old neighborhood near Clovewood Drive when they spotted Vanessa Lei Samson walking to work. Michaud moved the van forward, coming to a halt right beside the startled young woman. Daveggio was out the door in a heartbeat, grabbing Samson, who managed to get off one piercing scream before his large hand covered her mouth and his bulky 220-pound body dragged her into the van. She was no match for him as he threw her to the floor and gagged her. He slammed the door shut and Michaud slowly pulled away so as not to attract attention.

As Michaud drove toward Interstate 580 and entered that roadway, Daveggio was in a hurry. He lost no time in tying Vanessa Samson with the ropes, pulling her clothes aside and taking his own clothes off before climbing atop her. Then he satisfied himself in a manner that no sex with Michaud, or any other unbound woman, ever could. The abduction /torture van was living up to his wildest expectations.

Michaud motored east on Interstate 580 while Daveggio continued raping and sexually torturing his helpless victim. Michaud drove twenty-five miles to Tracy, where she pulled off the freeway to get gasoline. No one at the gas station knew anything was amiss in the darkened interior of the van. As they drove north, Daveggio used the curling iron with duct tape attached to torment Vanessa Samson, who was tied so securely to the floor by the ropes that she could do nothing to evade his depredations. This torment was visited on his trussed-up victim almost all the way to South Sacramento where they stopped to cash Michaud’s $538 welfare check at about 10:00 A.M. at DBA Check Mart. Tanya Chinn handled the transaction, and in the process didn’t notice anything unusual or suspicious in Michaud’s actions or manners.

It was at this point that they decided to continue their journey up to Lake Tahoe. Michaud needed to show up for her court date concerning the bad checks she had attempted to cash at the Horizon Casino. They had become so bold now that it didn’t even faze them to take a kidnapped victim right to the very doorsteps of where Michaud was wanted by the law. They deduced that if they had been able to secret Juanita Rodriguez right through an inspection station on the California border, then why couldn’t they pull this off as well? Methamphetamines and arrogance were clouding their senses to an extreme.

Daveggio continued to molest Vanessa Samson all the way up the twisting mountain road of Highway 50. With the ball gag in her mouth and the rope restraints in place, Samson was helpless against all his sexual torments.

The trio arrived at the Sundowner Motel at about 11:30 A.M. It was a small, inexpensive motel that the manager, Mukesh Patel, had made more presentable over the last year by adding a hot tub and improving the grounds. Mr. Patel saw the green minivan drive up and a heavyset man with close-cropped hair come into the office. The man signed the registration form and paid for room 5. Mr. Patel didn’t know how many were in his party. But it didn’t matter since the room was just a single set price no matter how many people stayed. The customer named James Daveggio made a few innocuous comments and then drove the van over to room 5. The bulk of the van blocked Mr. Patel’s view as to whether any more people got out of the van.

He did notice a little bit later when he went out to work on the hot tub, which needed repairs, that a woman with long dark hair got into the van and drove away for ten or fifteen minutes. She then returned and went into the room. He paid her scant attention. As far as he was concerned, they were just a couple more customers who had driven up from Sacramento. They probably needed a nap in the room after driving up from the Valley far below.

But the customers weren’t taking a nap. They were both turning their attentions on the bound and helpless Vanessa Samson. It was then that the sexual torture began in earnest. They both assaulted her at the same time in the room, and according to some comments that Michaud later told another woman, the curling irons were freely used on their unfortunate victim in the rectal area. The evidence would show that they both wielded the curling irons at the same time. One up her rectum, the other against her buttocks. With the ball gag in her mouth, Samson’s screams could not be heard. What torments she suffered at the Sundowner, God only knows. But her suffering was about to come to an end.

Tiring of their “sport” at last, Daveggio and Michaud quietly conferred about what to do with their victim. Later Michaud would contend that she didn’t know what was about to happen; she thought Samson would just be let off by the side of the road like Juanita Rodriguez. But by that point Michaud was trying to save her own skin and her comments were self-serving. Even she would admit later in a slip of the tongue, “I knew things would be different this time.”

By late afternoon they had decided they would kill Vanessa and dump her body in an isolated area. But they told Vanessa another story. Michaud promised they would let her go once they were outside the city if she behaved. Convinced of her impending release, Vanessa Samson weakly cooperated, though Michaud thought the unfortunate woman was “half dead” by this point. She was quietly hustled out of the Sundowner Motel and back into the van. Mr. Patel, the manager, never noticed anything out of the ordinary.

Just about the time the sun was going down on that cold December day, Michaud drove as Daveggio sat in the back of the van with Samson. Somewhere near the summit of Luther Pass on Route 89, Michaud stopped the van and Daveggio suddenly picked up a length of black rope and twisted it around Samson’s neck. He pulled on one end while Michaud pulled on the other, in a pact to murder their victim in tandem, just the way they had sexually tortured her. Vanessa Samson couldn’t have struggled for long against all their strength. She died about five miles from the spot where Jaycee Lee Dugard had been kidnapped six years before.

Daveggio and Michaud drove over the mountain on Highway 88 to a remote section of Hope Valley known as Crater Wash, in Alpine County. They dumped Vanessa Samson’s body down into the icy ravine and hoped that the next snowstorm would cover her beneath a blanket of white. Or if they were lucky, animals would eat the flesh and scatter the bones. People disappeared in the Sierra wilderness like this all the time, only to be found as skeletons the following spring, if they were found at all.

But there was a reckoning in the wind now, even as they dumped the body into the snow-covered creekbed in isolated Hope Valley. They were arrogant and had evaded the law for so long that they now became extremely foolish. They went back to the Sundowner and cleaned it up as best they could. Instead of fleeing the area, Daveggio instructed Michaud to drive to the Lakeside Inn at South Lake Tahoe. It was an act of brazen audacity that bordered on madness. For this was the one area that law enforcement agents thought they might show up, hoping that Michaud would actually arrive for her court hearing the next day concerning the bad checks at the Horizon Casino. It was a long shot—but with these two one never knew. The law enforcement officials were right. Michelle Michaud intended to keep her court date at the Douglas County Courthouse right across the street from the Lakeside Inn.

Even though Michaud would later confess to what happened to Vanessa Samson, Daveggio to this day claims he has never killed anyone.