Parents at Woodridge Elementary School were restless and on edge. Unfounded rumors and half-truths fed into the gaping maw of their fears. They were afraid that Rick would come on campus and hurt their children. They wanted him to be denied access to the school.
Principal Linda Schlather addressed the PTO to inform them about the law and reassure them about the security of the school. Rick is a parent, she told them, and as such has, by law, the right to be at the school as long as he does not violate any school policies.
“Safety is always our concern,” she said. “We know who he is and we will be vigilant.” She added that the desire of the faculty and the staff was that the McFarland boys have as normal a time as possible when they were in the school.
On January 11, Sergeant Wedding reviewed a stack of accumulated phone messages. One call was from Jim Tutt, who described himself as the stepson of Gil Medellin, who lived out in rural southeast Bexar County on South W.W. White Road. Tutt said his stepfather had seen a Suburban matching the description of the one police had recovered, driving up and down by his house four or five times on the night before Thanksgiving.
Around 7:30 at night, the neighbor who faced the McFarlands’ backyard was home alone with her 6-year-old daughter. Her husband was out at a gymnastics class with their two older children. The phone rang. When she answered her ears were filled with the nastiest and vilest sexual suggestions she ever heard. Her first thought was of Rick, but she was not certain. The next day at Carrie Miller’s house, she listened to a previously recorded message from Rick on their voicemail. Then she knew—the obscene caller was Rick. The purity he had sworn to Promise Keepers was now dust in the wind.
Kirsten Slaughter told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “It’s horrible going through this moment-by-moment, every day. It is the focus of our lives, and sometimes it’s overwhelming. My daughter can’t sleep. I was incapacitated during Christmas. I still have a shred of hope that Sue is alive. But probably not.”
Ann Carr complained to the reporter that her family had to go through Rick’s attorney to communicate with Sue’s three boys. “We believe they are in a very stressed situation, and it’s been made difficult for us to see them. That’s been hard on all of us.”
In that same January 12 article, Terrell Hills Police Chief Larry Semander was quoted as well. “We have no way of knowing specifically what happened to her, but it would appear that she didn’t leave of her own accord.”
Meanwhile, Rick avoided Sue’s family, held police and press at arm’s length and made no effort to solve the mystery of his wife’s disappearance.
Rick dropped William and James off at the corner near the Miller home and drove off with Timmy in his car on the afternoon of January 12. The two boys stayed at that house for hours. At 5, the Millers needed to take Wesley to his basketball game and sent the boys home. In minutes, they were back. The door was locked, they said, and they could not get in.
Carrie tried to reach Rick by his cell phone. When that didn’t work, she sent the boys up to Karen Hardeman’s house. There they played on the trampoline until dark, then moved inside and sat down at the PlayStation. Karen continued the quest for Rick. When she reached him, Rick said, “William knows the code to get in.”
“They are hungry, Rick.”
“There’s dinner in the refrigerator. Or it’s probably still sitting out on the porch where the church left it.”
“I’ll keep them here until they can be supervised at home,” Karen said.
“I’ll be home by eight,” Rick promised.
Karen fed the boys along with her children. They watched TV, played some video games. Eight o’clock came and went. At 8:40, Karen called Rick again. He told her he was at the grocery store in the check-out line and would be home in a few minutes.
It was a school night and not only did Karen want William and James to get settled in for the night, she had two children of her own to worry about. She and her husband loaded up the car with the two McFarland boys and their son and daughter and drove the short distance to 351 Arcadia.
Karen’s family waited outside in the car while she went inside with the boys. The house was pitch black but when she flipped on a light switch, she was appalled at what she saw—boxes and papers were everywhere, dirty dishes piled on every surface. It looked as if the cops had torn it apart while searching, and all these weeks later, Rick had put nothing away.
On top of that, the cat was locked in the bathroom wailing for freedom and food. After taking care of his cat and bringing in the casserole from the front porch, William said, “We’ll be fine. You can go now.”
“I’m not leaving you here alone. You two go upstairs and take a bath.”
“We took baths yesterday,” William objected.
Karen insisted they needed another one tonight. James went upstairs, but William stayed on the first floor trying to get Karen out of the house.
Finally, between 9:30 and 10, Rick rambled home with Timmy. He thanked Karen for her help, but left the impression that he thought it had been unnecessary in the extreme.
Karen told a friend the story of her experience that night. Soon, it was all over the neighborhood. Someone—and every person in the neighborhood who was asked pointed the finger at someone else—knew it was time to take action. That person called CPS to report the neglect of the boys. The caller didn’t think the urgency of the situation was being appreciated by the person at the other end until she said that she thought there was a danger of a hostage situation and that the father was supposed to be on medication, but was not taking it. The caller could almost hear the red flags hoisting to the top of the pole.
When Karen heard that CPS was called in, she said, “If they find me with a knife in the back, you know who did it.”