Chapter Four

Tim Hennis was foraging through the cabinet for peanut butter for his sandwich. The television news blared from the living room, his wife, Angela, leaning forward from the couch in anticipation.

The twenty-seven-year-old Army sergeant had his lunch break timed just right. In an hour and a half, he could make the 20-minute drive home from Fort Bragg, get some lunch, spend time with Angela and their baby daughter Kristina, now two and a half months, and make 1 o’clock formation at work.

Today, Angela was fired up about the midday news. She’d heard bulletins throughout the morning promoting a big break in that awful murder case she’d been reading about for three days.

“Hey, Buddy, come look at this.”

The two called each other “Buddy,” starting right after they got married. Tim said something Angela didn’t like and she responded with a finger-wagging lecture, “Hey look, Buddy, don’t you tell me …”

“Hey, Buddy, don’t you tell me …”

Back and forth it went, until the argument ended in a fit of laughter. From then on, they called each other “Buddy,” a name that by May 15, 1985, they had managed to stretch a few syllables.

Angela was expecting to hear that the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department had solved the case. Jack Watts was starting to feel like maybe he was about to. Patrick Cone remembered the man he saw walking in the Eastburn driveway well enough to put together a composite. Cone even complained at first that the jaw-line was not square enough, the eyes not droopy enough, and the nose not flared enough. The eyes and nose were fixed to his satisfaction, but the jawline still bothered him. Watts was ecstatic that Cone could harp on such detail.

Tim and Angela Hennis listened as the news anchor read a public announcement from the sheriff’s department:

“… They are looking for a white male who came to the Eastburn residence last Tuesday, May 7, 1985, in the early evening and picked up a white English setter bird dog with liver spots. The dog’s name is Dixie. It is believed that this man also owns a Spitz dog. It is believed this person was driving a small white Chevrolet Chevette automobile. We would request this person come forward …”

Tim Hennis dropped his sandwich and turned pale.

“God, Buddy, they’re looking for you,” Angela finally said. “We’ve got to call down there.”

Hennis, a parachute rigger, called his boss and told him he would be late coming back from lunch. Then he called the sheriff’s department and said he was on his way.

The dog had seemed like such a good idea. Ever since the baby had been born, Snowball had been jealous, yapping constantly in the backyard and running wild in the house.

Angela saw an ad for an English setter in the Beeline-Grab Bragg. As a boy, Tim had an English setter he adored. He remembered how good Ginger was with kids. His dad would take Ginger on hunting trips and she’d rustle up pheasants. Tim wanted a dog like that for Kristina.

Angela called and left a message with the babysitter. When Katie Eastburn called back, Tim answered. Katie told him that, yes, the dog was good with children. They were getting rid of Dixie because the family was moving to England. They wanted to find a home soon.

“I’ll come tonight if it’s all right,” Tim said.

“Yeah, that’ll be good, because the children will be in bed.”

Hennis took down directions to the house. Katie told him she’d leave her porch light on. Hennis went to the first house with a porch light, discovered it was the wrong one, and continued until he found the Eastburn home.

Katie apologized for the way the house looked, saying she’d just gotten the children to bed so they wouldn’t be awake when Dixie left them.

Hennis looked around. Typical for someone living with small children, he thought. Things were scattered about the floor, over and above the mother’s best efforts.

They sat in the dining room and talked. She said her husband was out of town and would soon return for the move to England. They weren’t sure the dog could survive the quarantine. She would rather find a good home for her than put her through that, even though the kids would miss her terribly.

“I really don’t want any money for Dixie,” she said. “That would be like selling a member of the family. I just put that in the ad to keep the cranks away. I figure if someone is willing to pay for a dog, they will more likely give it a good home.”

Dixie was stretched out in the doorway between the dining room and living room. Hennis went over and scratched her head. “That’s a good girl.”

He liked Dixie. But he wasn’t sure Snowball would. They agreed to get in touch later in the week to see how the dogs were getting along.

Before leaving, Hennis used her bathroom, the first door on the left down the hall. Then he took the dog chain he’d brought with him, hooked it to Dixie’s collar, and went out the carport door. Kathryn Eastburn followed him out and waved good-bye.

Tim and Angela put their baby in their Chevette and headed downtown. In Fort Bragg, the memorial service for Katie and the girls was getting ready to begin at the Pope Air Force Base chapel. About 200 friends, family and military would attend the half-hour service. A friend of Gary’s would read from the book of Job. Watts wanted to go, but he needed to keep working the case. As he returned from lunch, Tim and Angela Hennis and their baby were sitting in the waiting room. Watts’s jaw dropped.

My God, he’s a dead ringer for Cone’s composite, he thought. A blond, hulking, six-foot-four soldier sat before him, complete with mustache, sleepy eyes, and flared nose, just as Patrick Cone had insisted the day before.

“Is he a suspect?” Angela asked after introductions.

“No, he’s not,” Watts answered. “We just want to find out what information he has. He was one of the last people to see Mrs. Eastburn alive, and maybe he saw or heard something that will help us. Also, we’d like to get some physical samples from him for elimination purposes.”

Watts escorted Hennis to his office, leaving Angela behind. Then he read Tim his Miranda rights and asked him to sign a waiver saying he didn’t want a lawyer present.

“Before I do this, I need to know if I am a suspect,” Tim said.

“It’s like I told you. You are not a suspect. We just need to talk to you because you were one of the last people to see Mrs. Eastburn alive.”

Okay then, Hennis said, why am I waiving my rights? Just a routine procedure, Watts said. He measured Hennis’s body language, his folded arms, the way he distanced himself from him. Watts thought him to be hostile.

During breaks in the questioning, Hennis joined Angela and Kristina in the waiting room. Newspaper and television reporters with cameras had learned the man with the dog had come forward. “Did you know Mrs. Eastburn?” one asked. “Are you under arrest?” Hennis tried to ignore them, but they kept asking. He said no comment and retreated to Watts’s office.

Watts used these breaks to put together a photo lineup. He needed a photo of Hennis. “Bet he’s got a record,” Watts said to himself. He looked in the department’s mug shot file and found a two-year-old mug of Hennis stemming from a bounced check. So he spends money he doesn’t have, Watts thought. He found photos of five other blond males with mustaches to fill out the lineup.

Then he took Hennis’s statement, an account of his actions from May 9 to May 12. Hennis talked as Watts clumsily typed along.

Hennis said he had dropped his wife off at Selma, 90 minutes away, on Thursday, May 9, so she could be with her parents for Mother’s Day weekend. He said that because he had CQ duty on Friday and Sunday night, they would not be together anyway. CQ duty was a 24-hour shift at the barracks when somebody had to be in “charge of quarters” in case a supervisor was needed in the middle of the night.

Hennis said he returned to Fayetteville without Angela and went to bed early, shortly after the woman who had given him the dog called to see if Dixie was working out. A normal workday on Friday, Hennis recalled, then CQ duty that night. He cleaned up around the house on Saturday, then CQ duty on Sunday. He picked up Angela on Monday.

Home alone the night of the murders, Watts thought. He asked Hennis if he would mind going upstairs to the jail, where a nurse would take hair and blood samples. Hennis said sure. The television cameras followed.

Upon entering the jail, they passed a sign that said “No weapons beyond this point.”

“I don’t think I’m supposed to have this up here,” Hennis said, pulling a folding buck knife from his pocket. Watts kept the knife, and marched Hennis to the nurse’s station, past prisoners in orange jumpsuits. He asked Hennis to give physical samples he thought would match those found inside 367 Summer Hill. Not only were there hair, blood, and fingerprints found at the house, but during the autopsy a medical examiner in Chapel Hill had retrieved a semen sample with a “large number of spermatozoa intact.”

Hennis completed the standard “rape kit.” He combed and pulled his head and pubic hairs. He spat a sample of saliva. He allowed blood to be drawn.

Hennis asked again if he were a suspect and Watts said no. The detective was stalling Hennis until an SBI fingerprint expert could drive 65 miles from Raleigh to get his fingerprints.

While Hennis was being detained by Watts, Robert Bittle and the SBI’s Joel Morris brought Patrick Cone downtown to see the photo lineup. If Cone made a hit, Watts could lay to rest the whole MacDonald copycat theory picking up steam throughout the community. Sheriff Ottis Jones could make political hay. This wasn’t a botched Army investigation like the MacDonald case, he would say, but the work of detectives with the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department.

“Can you identify any of those pictures?” Bittle asked Cone inside Morris’s car.

Cone knew whoever he fingered would be branded a triple murderer and stand trial for his life. He didn’t know it was going to be this hard. It had been dark that night. He had passed him briefly. Why had he gotten involved?

He remembered telling his dad how he had volunteered to become an eyewitness. “Son,” his father said, “you’re gonna regret the day you ever got involved in that case.”

Cone looked at the six pictures. Then he stared out the window and prayed. The pictures again. Out the window. He prayed harder.

This went on for quite some time. Finally, Cone made his choice.

“Number five has his nose, but it’s number two.”

Bittle asked him to cover the foreheads of the suspects as if they were wearing a toboggan cap.

Number two again, Cone said.

“I’m certain that’s the man.” He was looking at a photo of Tim Hennis.

Morris cruised through the law enforcement center’s parking lot. Bittle asked Cone if he recognized any of the cars.

“That’s it over there,” he said, pointing to Hennis’s Chevette.

Bittle raced inside, called Watts, and blurted, “We’ve got a hit.” Cone knew he had pleased the officers. They took him home and thanked him again for his time.

Watts labored through the rest of his interview with Tim Hennis, triple murderer. Ricky Navarro of the SBI in Raleigh finally arrived and took his fingerprints. Watts said he was finished and showed Hennis outside, six hours after he had waived his rights.

“Get that camera out of my face,” Hennis growled as he and Angela pushed Kristina’s stroller across the lot. Hennis covered his face. A reporter asked Watts if this was a suspect and Watts’s answer changed to “no comment.”

He showed Hennis to his car, the white Chevette that Cone had spotted, and watched while he folded up Kristina’s stroller and put it in the back. Then Watts bid Hennis a cordial good-bye.

Tim climbed in and drove off. What a weird one, Hennis thought. He was angry and felt like he and Angela had not been treated well. He couldn’t wait to get home and call his father.

“You wouldn’t believe what happened. We got a dog from a lady and she was murdered,” he told Bob Hennis in Boca Raton, Florida. Tim said he’d given Watts everything he could about the lady.

“Hey, the whole thing will blow over,” Bob told him. He and his wife, Marylou, went to bed thinking little of it.

Tim and Angela didn’t bother watching the 11 o’clock news, where they would’ve seen themselves shielding from the camera, trying to get Kristina out of there. The anchor said he wasn’t a suspect.

They went to bed, trying to put the experience behind them.

Across town, at the district attorney’s office, three parties were invited to a law enforcement skull session. The Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department, represented by Sheriff Jones, Watts, and others, wanted to arrest Tim Hennis immediately and announce the case had been solved. The department had been unusually eager for an arrest to get this unsolved crime out of the newspaper.

The district attorney’s office was represented by William VanStory IV, the assistant who would get the case. His recommendation was to wait. The SBI’s senior agent in Fayetteville joined VanStory’s vote.

Sheriff Jones prevailed, though. As the county sheriff, he arrested who he wanted. If the guy’s a murderer, he argued, why not get him off the streets before sunrise?

After the arrest, the prosecutors could do what they wanted with the case. Sheriff Jones would have done his job by then.

Watts got warrants from a magistrate and, at 1 A.M., he and Ottis Jones drove to Lombardy Drive, backed by a half dozen other deputies and SBI agents.

“Somebody’s beating on our damn door,” Angela said, trying to rouse her husband. Tim awoke, irritated and undressed. He’d been sound asleep.

“Who’s there?” he growled.

“This is the police. We have a warrant for your arrest. Come on out. Open the door.”

Tim ran back to his bedroom and put on an orange Nike T-shirt and Levi’s. When he opened the door, the cops had their guns drawn. Angela burst into tears.

“Get my dad on the phone. Quick,” Tim told her. Angela dialed, then handed Tim the phone.

“Mom, you better get Dad. They’re arresting me.”