CHAPTER 32
September 1986,
Houston Police Department—Homicide Division,
1200 Travis Street,
Houston, Texas.
Seventeen years earlier, John Swaim, Boyd Smith, Jim Ramsey, and Bill Steins began the arduous task of trying to find Laurie Tremblay’s killer. Between the four detectives they had decades of police work under their collective belts. Unfortunately, their many years of service could never fully prepare them for the unenviable task of having to inform Laurie’s mother of her daughter’s death.
Swaim then began the tedious search for Laurie’s killer. It was determined from speaking to Katherine Tremblay that Laurie left the house at approximately 6:30 A.M. She would usually walk the half-mile trek to South Dairy Ashford Road and West Ella Drive to catch Metro Bus #53, which would take her in the vicinity of the Hope Center. Metro #53 usually arrived at the bus stop and left with its passengers at 6:41 A.M. every weekday.
Sergeant Swaim had his time frame within which to work. It only lasted for eleven minutes. Swaim’s men first appeared at the bus stop to scour the area for clues. They were looking for various items that were determined to be missing from Laurie’s person, including a writing tablet, a notebook, and her lunch. They found nothing.
Sergeant Swaim’s men also searched Metro #53’s route, but again they found nothing. The officers stopped by several businesses that lined Dairy Ashford Road and asked if anyone had seen Laurie Tremblay on the day of her abduction and murder. No one recognized the young girl from a photo they proffered.
Sergeant Swaim’s team also conducted a thorough search of the Whittfield Apartments, where Laurie lived, and interviewed several residents of the complex, but to no avail. Still no clues.
In the following days Swaim had an officer return to the bus stop at exactly 6:30 A.M. to interview other bus riders who took the same route as Laurie. They also spoke with the bus driver of Metro #53. Nothing. No one remembered seeing Laurie that day.
A determined Sergeant Swaim continued the investigation by tracking down the trashman responsible for the Dumpster behind Ninfa’s, sending officers to the Hope Center to examine the contents of her locker, and interviewing several of her classmates. All proved fruitless.
It appeared as if absolutely no one saw what happened to Laurie Tremblay that day. There also wasn’t any evidence pointing to jilted boyfriends or people who may have had ill feelings toward Laurie.
By October 1, 1986, Swaim directed his men to plaster flyers up around Ninfa’s, near the Metro bus stop, and up and down Dairy Ashford Road. The flyers had Laurie’s picture, the Houston Police Department Homicide Division hotline number, the telephone number for Crime Stoppers, and a plea to call in with information. It is considered a bad sign when the flyers go up because that usually means detectives don’t have a clue.
The flyers did not help. The Homicide Division received numerous tips, which had to be worked on one by one, but none of them led to anything specific or even helpful.
Swaim was flabbergasted. “Nothing is missing and it doesn’t appear that she was sexually assaulted,” he informed the Houston Chronicle. “We don’t have any leads or motive in this one. It’s scary.”
* * *
Katherine Tremblay was still in shock. She could not believe that she had to make plans to have her daughter’s body shipped in a coffin on a plane to Michigan to be buried. As she ventured forward, she also expressed her dismay and anger toward the investigation into her daughter’s death.
“It’s like a blind alley,” she stated two days after Laurie’s murder. “I’m angry, but I have to leave. I have to take care of my daughter. I have to lay her to rest.”
The police department was not the only organization with which Katherine Tremblay was frustrated. The Houston Independent School District and their bus service, or lack thereof, was also in her sights. She claimed that HISD refused to pick her daughter up and shuttle her to the Hope Center. As a result, Laurie was forced to use the City of Houston Metro Bus Service. She claimed that had it not been for this fact, Laurie would not have been walking toward the Metro bus stop, would not have been abducted, and would not have been murdered. She was prepared to file a lawsuit against HISD.
“It’s just that I have to do something,” declared the distraught mother. “I’m considering suing the school district—not for the money, but for the other children. I don’t want them to have to go through the same thing.”
Katherine Tremblay was disgusted by what she felt was disingenuous treatment from school officials the year prior. “Last year, she had to walk two miles to catch her bus. When I complained, the head of transportation said a lot of kids have to walk a lot farther.”
The HISD, however, defended its position. They claimed that Laurie was not qualified for bus service and they were not at fault. “At the time of her death she was not a member of HISD,” stated spokesman Claude Cunningham. He added that Laurie had indeed been a student in HISD at one time, until her mother requested that she be transferred to Hope Center, where she began school on September 2, 1986. “She had been one of our students and was in the process of reassignment,” Cunningham declared. He added that “once her reassignment procedures had been completed, which included testing and district committee approval, then she would have been eligible for HISD bus services. Unfortunately, she had not yet completed all of the procedures.” Laurie had successfully completed her testing; however, she was set to have a hearing for the district approval the same week she was murdered.
Katherine Tremblay did not wind up pursuing the lawsuit against HISD.
* * *
Laurie Tremblay’s case started to turn cold. Sergeant Swaim and his team had no luck during the ensuing months. At one time they did have a suspect. Swaim’s partner, Boyd Smith, played in a band and believed that the garrote used on Laurie Tremblay’s neck might have been a guitar string. This conclusion led Swaim and Smith to suspect that the killer may have been younger, possibly even someone near Laurie’s age.
Indeed, they actively pursued one of Laurie’s classmates, who also owned a guitar. The student had given Laurie rides before and had visited her apartment, without Katherine Tremblay’s knowledge. The young man also drove a car with red carpet similar to a piece of red fabric found in Laurie’s shirt pocket.
Swaim and Smith brought the young man in for questioning and grilled him extensively. Swaim believed the kid was somewhat unusual, but, alas, nothing came of it.
* * *
By January 1987, Katherine Tremblay had just about given up hope that the Houston Police Department detectives were going to be able to solve her daughter’s murder. She decided it was time to actively participate.
A divorced woman of modest means, Tremblay offered a $2,000 reward for any information that might lead to the whereabouts of her daughter’s killer. The money came from Laurie’s ninety-four-year-old grandfather. It was his life savings. He had originally given it all to Katherine so she could buy a tombstone for her daughter. Crime Stoppers also offered up some additional money. In addition, Tremblay used $3,000 of her own money to have flyers printed up with the reward information.
“If I can at least know what happened to her,” Katherine pleaded, “who killed her and why, then maybe I can accept it someday. Then maybe I won’t feel so lost.”
Tremblay had not done well during the nearly four months since her daughter’s murder. “All I have left are the nightmares,” she tearfully described. “I see her being strangled. I see her dying. I see myself losing the only thing that ever really mattered to me. And I know I’ll never have her back.”
She hoped that the reward money would entice someone to come forward and help her regain a little bit of what she had lost.
Over time the grassroots efforts proved unsuccessful—not reward money, not feet pounding the pavement, nothing. To Swaim and Smith’s dismay, they were forced to call it a day on the Laurie Tremblay murder.
“We didn’t have any new clues,” the lead sergeant recalled. “We had worked the clues we did have. We had no information. We covered every base possible.”
But a cold case never completely goes cold. Otherwise, they would throw them out. “At that point we never put cases away. They’re just still in an uncleared case. If some information comes in, we’ll work on it.”
It would take more than seventeen years for that information to come in.