Brilliant white-sand beaches grace the Alabama seashore resort town of Orange Beach. It sits on a jutting peninsula where turquoise waters lap the sand with gentle waves.
Although a small city of only 5,500 residents, it has experienced record growth in the last decade. In March of each year, the population swells with the addition of a steadily growing influx of spring breakers. The 2006 Surf & Turf Jet Ski event scheduled to begin on Friday added to the charged atmosphere in the resort town that week.
Officer Jason Whitlock of the Orange Beach Police Department traveled the roads with Reserve Officer Stephen Jerkins. They received the AMBER Alert notice and the known details of the murder in the middle of their shift on Thursday, March 23. Whitlock didn’t know if he was looking for three children accompanied by a woman who shot her husband, or for a kidnapper with four victims. He did, however, know the precise vehicle he sought, including its license plate number.
Near the end of the shift, Whitlock and Jerkins spotted a vehicle matching the description of the Winkler mini-van traveling westbound on Perdido Beach Boulevard. The driver made an illegal U-turn right in front of them, and they realized it bore the right license plate number. Whitlock followed it while Jerkins called in for back-up. Whitlock could not determine the presence of the children, nor could he tell with any certainty if the driver was the only adult inside.
At 7:30 P.M., Officers Woodruff, Beaman and Long responded to the call for back-up and three marked police cars with flashing blue lights joined Whitlock and Jerkins. Whitlock pulled the mini-van over in the parking lot of the Winn-Dixie grocery store and they approached it with drawn guns. One officer knocked on the window and Mary rolled it down. The officers screamed at her, “Get out of the van! Get out of the van!”
At the sound of raised voices, the two K-9 dogs on the scene barked and strained at their leashes. The three frightened little girls burst into tears. The officers shouted again, ordering Mary to step out of her vehicle, hold her hands up in the air and walk backwards toward them.
She complied with hesitation, as if fearful she would do the wrong thing. Her flip-flops slapped the pavement as she approached the officers in her pink sweat suit. Whitlock snapped handcuffs on Mary’s wrists and Officer Travis Long put her in the back of his patrol car. He recited Miranda warnings. As Mary listened, she demonstrated no signs of distress. In fact, she appeared relieved.
While Long secured Mary, Whitlock approached the Sienna van with caution and saw the three girls—they were alone. He tried to comfort and calm them.
Allie said, “Our daddy is in the hospital. A bad man had robbed us in our house and hit our daddy. And Mommy and us ran from the man.” Then she added, “Mommy took a gun to protect us from the bad man.”
Patricia repeated the same story. Long unfastened the restraining buckles on the seat belts of the two littlest girls, speaking to them in a soft, soothing voice and removed all three from the mini-van, placing them in the back seat of a patrol car.
In another police vehicle, Officer Long asked Mary if she had any relatives in the area who could take care of the children while she went to the police station for questioning. She said she did not, but gave him the names and telephone numbers of her in-laws in Huntingdon, Tennessee. Throughout the conversation, Mary never asked why he detained her. She never mentioned a thing about her husband. There were no signs of sadness or dread. Long found her lack of emotion odd as he transported her to the city jail.
Lieutenant Investigator Steve Brown arrived on the scene and gave the authorization to detain Mary, and Whitlock and Jerkins climbed back into their patrol car. Whitlock looked back at Mary and saw her blank stare—a face devoid of emotion. He thought Mary appeared exhausted and maybe even relieved that her flight was now over. When he drove off to transport her to the city jail, Mary lay down in the back seat and immediately fell asleep. She did not say a word along the way. Of the $500 she had when she left home, just $123 remained.
Learning that the girls had been on their way to the Waffle House for dinner when the van was stopped, the officers took them to McDonald’s to eat. Afterwards, at the station house, they gave the children stuffed animals to cuddle. Officers’ wives came in and kept the children busy watching movies and playing games.
Informed that Mary was in the custody of the Orange Beach police, Corporal Stan Stabler, agent with the Alabama Bureau of Investigation, arrived at the police station around 10 P.M. First, he spoke with 8-year-old Patricia and 6-year-old Allie.
Patricia told him that she heard a loud noise and went to her parents’ bedroom. “I thought Daddy fell and knocked over the night stand.” She saw her father lying face down on the floor and heard him say, “Call 9-1-1.”
As Stabler was leaving the room, Patricia stopped him and asked his name, saying that she wanted to put him on “my list of people I talk to.” Stabler stifled the surge of emotion he felt, and promised to return a little later and help her with the spelling.