PROLOGUE
December 14th, 1993
Nikki Murray crouched low in the thicket of mulberry bushes and literally willed herself not to breath. She could hear him lumbering through the brush, snapping branches as he stepped on them and swatting limbs of trees from his path.
Her heart was pounding so hard she feared he might hear it. Her clothes were torn from the thick underbrush which had grabbed at her as she ran headlong into the dense woods along the banks of the Hiawassee River.
Her wrists were throbbing from the tight restraints that bound them together, cutting off the flow of blood. She wanted desperately to loosen them but she dared not move for fear he would be able to hear her and there was no way she was going back with him again. She would either escape or she would make her stand right here. She had no intention of ever being his victim again.
“Where are you?” He whispered in a sing-song voice. “Come out, come out wherever you are! I just want to play with you.”
At the sound of his voice her stomach churned with disgust and fear mixed with a dose of nausea. How had she gotten into this mess anyway?
Today had been a day like any other one. She had gotten up and left for school like most days. As she drove toward the school down Wolfe Creek Road her car had started making a strange gurgling sound and then suddenly there was a spray of steam from under the hood so thick she couldn’t see the road in front of her. She had to pull over and without even turning off the ignition; she shoved the car into park and rushed from the car as if it might blow up.
Standing at the edge of the road several hundred yards away as she watched the steam billow from under the hood, she had the sudden sickening feeling that she had left her cell phone in the car along with her purse and her books.
There was no way that she was going back to the car while it was overheating like that. It might explode and no one would even be able to find enough body parts to identify.
She need not have worried because almost as if on cue the car gave one last cough and spat one last cloud of steam and then gave up the ghost.
“That’s just great!” She said out loud. Here she was three miles from the school and no car. She had been late three times this semester. One more time would mean in-school suspension for a week. Not to mention the grief she would get from her parents if that happened. She had to get to school on time.
“I’ll just get my phone and call Dad.” She thought. If he hasn’t left for work, he can pick me up and drop me off at the school.
She headed toward the car cautiously as if it might still explode at any moment even though it had all but stopped steaming. She wished now that she had listened to her dad when he had told her to take it to the dealer and have them look at it. She had been in such a hurry to get to the dance committee meeting that she had put it off till tomorrow, which was now today. One day too late again; it was the story of her young life.
She reached hurriedly into the car and grabbed her purse and ran back a few yards just in case the car was delayed in blowing up.
She scrounged around the bag that was big enough to be a back pack until she found her phone. She flipped it open and started to dial when she realized there were no lights on the phone. It was off. She pressed the power button and waited a few seconds. Nothing happened. She pressed the button again. Still nothing happened. She sighed when she realized that she had left it off the charger and let the battery die again.
She was forever doing that with both the cell phone and the phone in her bedroom. Then she would grab the phone from the living room or her parent’s room. At one time she had three dead phones beside her bed.
Her parents were always giving her grief about being irresponsible. What did they expect from her anyway? She was only 17 for God’s sake. Irresponsibility was part of the job description. Parents could be such a pain in the ass. Especially when they were right and this time they were.
Shaking her head, she tossed the phone back into her purse and headed to the car for her books. There was nothing left to do but hoof it to a house and call AAA to tow her car and then her dad to pick her up. She remembered that there was a house just about half a mile down the road so after locking up the car she headed off down the road in search of a phone.
Half a mile turned out to be closer to a mile and by the time she could see the house in the distance, she was winded and sweaty. “I am so out of shape I am pathetic.” She thought. Thank God she gave up smoking after a few tries. If she was this winded now, just think how bad it would be if she were a smoker.
When she turned into the driveway of the house she felt a twinge of relief. She would knock on the door, explain her situation and ask them to use the phone to call for a ride.
She looked at the house for signs of life. There were none. Still, she climbed the three steps to the porch and knocked on the grimy screen door that was badly in need of a paint job as was the rest of the house.
“Hello. Anybody home?” She called out. She listened with an ear cocked as if that made the sense of hearing more acute. She heard nothing. She called again. “Hello? Is anyone here?” She turned her head the other way, cocking the other ear and still she heard nothing.
As she turned her head she thought she saw the curtains in the front window move slightly. She turned her head back suddenly to try and get another look. The curtains were still. It must have been her imagination.
Nikki slowly turned to leave, realizing that she would have to walk a little further for a ride. As she brought her head around she ran right into what felt like a brick wall. She screamed. Then the wall screamed.
He wasn’t really a living wall but he was as big as a wall and hard as a brick so it felt like she had hit a wall. In truth, he had an angelic smile like those sweet Downs Syndrome men and women at the Sunshine Hill Home. After he screamed, he smiled. Suddenly Nikki realized that he thought she was playing. She breathed a sigh of relief.
She was visibly shaken but she felt better now because she realized that he was just a harmless man who had a diminished brain but she bet his heart was as big as he was.
“I need to use the phone. I have to call for a ride.” She said in a voice that she tried hard to not sound like she was talking down to him. She had read somewhere that those unfortunate people did not like to be talked down to. They wanted to be treated as any other person would want to be treated.
He just stared at her with a huge grin on his face. It was unnerving to look at but she desperately needed a ride and she needed a phone for that.
“Do You Have A Phone?” She asked slower and louder, pantomiming putting a phone to her ear. So much for her being non-condescending. “I Need To Use A Phone.” Each word was punctuated for emphasis.
He just grinned with the joy of a baby who was enjoying the games his mother played with him. Nikki was uneasy and did not like to be stared at. This was totally creepy. “Maybe I should just go now.” She said as she tried to go around him to reach the porch steps. As she crossed next to him, she felt a hand snake around her bicep as strong as a steel vise.
“I’ll let you use the phone. Just don’t tell my Mom.” He said looking down at the ground as if he were defying the devil himself.
“I promise I won’t tell.” She said, relieved. He let go of her arm and shuffled to the door and opened it. He stepped aside to let her enter first. She slid past him with her back against the door frame, never taking her eyes off him.
He entered behind her and pointed down the hall. “The phone is down there. I have to go check on the dog.” He turned left and disappeared through a door that looked as if it led to the back of the house, most likely the kitchen.
Nikki cautiously walked down the hallway to the end. There in the center of the aisle was a small table with a rotary phone that looked like it must be a hundred years old. Nikki wasn’t at all sure how long phones had been invented but she felt sure that this must have been one of the original models invented by Mr. Bell.
She picked up the receiver and started dialing the number of her dad’s cell phone. After the last digit click-clicked back to its place on the dial she put the phone to her ear. There was no dial tone.
“That’s just great!” She muttered to herself. She slowly put the receiver down on the cradle. Suddenly there was a hand placing a cloth over her mouth and nose. Her first reaction was to breathe deep thinking she could hold her breath. Almost immediately she began to gag as the smell and an awful burning in her lungs took over.
She felt as if someone were inside her and ripping the flesh of her lungs away with his bare hands. She tried to shake her head violently as if that might knock his hand loose but the grip was unbreakable. She took another deep breath and the acrid taste nearly made her retch. The last thing she was conscious of as darkness closed in on her was that she wanted her daddy.
That had been early this morning, or had it been yesterday? Time had no meaning to her anymore. Days or hours did not matter. She was free now, well almost and there was no way that she was going back to that place. She would die fighting before she would let that monster touch her again. She heard him coming and she huddled closer to the ground curling into a ball. Maybe if she was very quiet he would go away.
There was the snap of a twig less than a foot from her and she suddenly seemed paralyzed. Her eyes were wild with terror. She dared not breathe! Her heart nearly beat so loud that it sounded as if someone were banging a drum in her ears.
After what seemed like an eternity the footsteps started again and faded somewhere behind her. After a few minutes she gasped for air as quietly as she could. She grabbed all the air she could and held her breath again. She was going to make it! She was going to get out alive. She could not wait to rush into her daddy’s arms and let him wrap them around her. She always felt safe in her daddy’s arms.
“There you are!” It was that same voice. “I thought you had run off.” The fingers around the back of her neck were digging into her. The pain was shooting into her head and she felt her brain was going to pop out of her head. “Can we play now?”
“No!” She wailed in agony. “It is not supposed to be this way! Daddy, help me!” She tried to pull away but the hand holding her neck would not let go. Instead it gripped tighter sending another spasm to her brain. She did not know how much more of this she could take.
With one swift jerk she was on her tip toes trying to ease the pressure on her neck from the vise like grip. She had reached the end of her tolerance threshold and she could feel the blackness coming again. She was about to pass out. At least in the blackness she did not have to think of the horrible things happening to her. With a sigh of resignation she succumbed to the darkness once more.
Branston Reilly stood before the jury box at the twelve men and women and two alternates that he had just related his version of the story to. He could see in their eyes that he had them right where he wanted them.
Juror number seven, Mary Mathers, had tears flowing freely down her face. She was not even trying to hide them. Now was the time to throw his best punch and knock this child killing scum out for the count.
He dramatically turned and pointed at Randy Cantrell sitting behind the defendant’s table. He paused for effect, shook his head and faked trying to swallow a lump in his throat.
Looking up, Reilly continued, in a whisper. “During a routine traffic stop the defendant had her cell phone and also her purse in his car. He claimed…” There was a disbelieving smirk on his face now. “…to have found it on the side of the road. However, he could not verify where he was during the four-day period Nikki was missing.”
Reilly wound up for the finale. He walked from one end of the jury box to the other and stopped in front of juror number five. Dan McCoig had a daughter Allie, the same age as Nikki Murray; they went to the same church, were on the same cheerleading squad and had sung in the same choir. His son Brad had even dated Nikki on and off.
McCoig was the jury foreman and if Reilly could get him to convict, he was sure that this would be a slam dunk.
“Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I submit to you that this young man, former boyfriend of Nikki Murray, felt scorned and rejected by the object of his desires. She told him that she did not love him and she wanted to date other boys.
“The defendant did then, with malice aforethought kidnap, rape, sodomize and murder this same object of his desire and then threw her lifeless body into the woods for the scavengers to feast on.
“It was four days later that her badly decomposed body was found, by a group of boy scouts that had volunteered to help search for her. No one in the entire state has seen so vicious and brutal a crime; certainly not the little town of Etowah. Never before have we seen so heinous an act as this!” Reilly paused as he turned to look at the defendant. He again pointed a finger at Cantrell.
“Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, you must find the defendant guilty of this crime. We must lock this man away for the rest of his life so that he can never harm another of our children again!” Reilly strode away from the jury box and sat at the prosecutors table. He was exhausted. He pulled a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wiped at his brow as the judge gave the instructions to the jury. Now was the time to wait.
Once the jury had been removed to deliberate the verdict it was time for a drink. Since McMinn County was a dry county, the only place he could find a drink was his office in the basement of the courthouse. That was where he headed.
Just as Reilly came down the stairs to the basement and headed down the hallway toward his office, he heard a call from the floor above. Turning around, he looked up the stairwell at his second chair, Melissa Elrod who was frantically waving him back up the stairs.
“The verdict is in!” She said excitedly. Reilly looked at his watch. Barely fifteen minutes had passed since he had seen the jury leave the court room. That had to be a record. He smiled and headed back up the stairs.
Inside the courtroom, the tension was mounting. There were reporters from as far away as Atlanta and even CNN had a reporter there. This case had been brutal and sensational. It was the kind of case careers were made with. Reilly was confident that the jury would go his way. He walked down the short aisle, through the swinging gate and took his place beside Melissa.
There was a hush as the bailiffs brought Randy Cantrell back into the courtroom. His feet and hands were both shackled and then a chain connected the two shackles together as an extra measure of caution.
Once the judge was seated, the Jury was brought back in. After the last one was seated, he proceeded.
“Have you reached a verdict?” He asked the foreman.
“We have your honor.” McCoig said as he stood up. He handed the verdict slip to the bailiff who walked it over to the judge. Judge Rodgers read the verdict and passed it back to the bailiff. The bailiff returned the verdict slip to the foreman.
“The defendant will rise.” The judge ordered. Cantrell and his attorney stood and faced the jury as McCoig entered the verdict into the court record.
“We the jury, find the defendant, James Randall Cantrell, guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree.....”
Cantrell’s shoulders slumped. His mother cried out in agony, and pandemonium broke out as reporters raced for the doors and the bank of phones just outside the courthouse.
Three weeks later Randy was sentenced by the judge to life in prison without possibility of parole. Even though he was only seventeen, Cantrell was tried as an adult and he was sentenced as an adult. Now there were two lives lost forever.
December 14th, 1993
Nikki Murray crouched low in the thicket of mulberry bushes and literally willed herself not to breath. She could hear him lumbering through the brush, snapping branches as he stepped on them and swatting limbs of trees from his path.
Her heart was pounding so hard she feared he might hear it. Her clothes were torn from the thick underbrush which had grabbed at her as she ran headlong into the dense woods along the banks of the Hiawassee River.
Her wrists were throbbing from the tight restraints that bound them together, cutting off the flow of blood. She wanted desperately to loosen them but she dared not move for fear he would be able to hear her and there was no way she was going back with him again. She would either escape or she would make her stand right here. She had no intention of ever being his victim again.
“Where are you?” He whispered in a sing-song voice. “Come out, come out wherever you are! I just want to play with you.”
At the sound of his voice her stomach churned with disgust and fear mixed with a dose of nausea. How had she gotten into this mess anyway?
Today had been a day like any other one. She had gotten up and left for school like most days. As she drove toward the school down Wolfe Creek Road her car had started making a strange gurgling sound and then suddenly there was a spray of steam from under the hood so thick she couldn’t see the road in front of her. She had to pull over and without even turning off the ignition; she shoved the car into park and rushed from the car as if it might blow up.
Standing at the edge of the road several hundred yards away as she watched the steam billow from under the hood, she had the sudden sickening feeling that she had left her cell phone in the car along with her purse and her books.
There was no way that she was going back to the car while it was overheating like that. It might explode and no one would even be able to find enough body parts to identify.
She need not have worried because almost as if on cue the car gave one last cough and spat one last cloud of steam and then gave up the ghost.
“That’s just great!” She said out loud. Here she was three miles from the school and no car. She had been late three times this semester. One more time would mean in-school suspension for a week. Not to mention the grief she would get from her parents if that happened. She had to get to school on time.
“I’ll just get my phone and call Dad.” She thought. If he hasn’t left for work, he can pick me up and drop me off at the school.
She headed toward the car cautiously as if it might still explode at any moment even though it had all but stopped steaming. She wished now that she had listened to her dad when he had told her to take it to the dealer and have them look at it. She had been in such a hurry to get to the dance committee meeting that she had put it off till tomorrow, which was now today. One day too late again; it was the story of her young life.
She reached hurriedly into the car and grabbed her purse and ran back a few yards just in case the car was delayed in blowing up.
She scrounged around the bag that was big enough to be a back pack until she found her phone. She flipped it open and started to dial when she realized there were no lights on the phone. It was off. She pressed the power button and waited a few seconds. Nothing happened. She pressed the button again. Still nothing happened. She sighed when she realized that she had left it off the charger and let the battery die again.
She was forever doing that with both the cell phone and the phone in her bedroom. Then she would grab the phone from the living room or her parent’s room. At one time she had three dead phones beside her bed.
Her parents were always giving her grief about being irresponsible. What did they expect from her anyway? She was only 17 for God’s sake. Irresponsibility was part of the job description. Parents could be such a pain in the ass. Especially when they were right and this time they were.
Shaking her head, she tossed the phone back into her purse and headed to the car for her books. There was nothing left to do but hoof it to a house and call AAA to tow her car and then her dad to pick her up. She remembered that there was a house just about half a mile down the road so after locking up the car she headed off down the road in search of a phone.
Half a mile turned out to be closer to a mile and by the time she could see the house in the distance, she was winded and sweaty. “I am so out of shape I am pathetic.” She thought. Thank God she gave up smoking after a few tries. If she was this winded now, just think how bad it would be if she were a smoker.
When she turned into the driveway of the house she felt a twinge of relief. She would knock on the door, explain her situation and ask them to use the phone to call for a ride.
She looked at the house for signs of life. There were none. Still, she climbed the three steps to the porch and knocked on the grimy screen door that was badly in need of a paint job as was the rest of the house.
“Hello. Anybody home?” She called out. She listened with an ear cocked as if that made the sense of hearing more acute. She heard nothing. She called again. “Hello? Is anyone here?” She turned her head the other way, cocking the other ear and still she heard nothing.
As she turned her head she thought she saw the curtains in the front window move slightly. She turned her head back suddenly to try and get another look. The curtains were still. It must have been her imagination.
Nikki slowly turned to leave, realizing that she would have to walk a little further for a ride. As she brought her head around she ran right into what felt like a brick wall. She screamed. Then the wall screamed.
He wasn’t really a living wall but he was as big as a wall and hard as a brick so it felt like she had hit a wall. In truth, he had an angelic smile like those sweet Downs Syndrome men and women at the Sunshine Hill Home. After he screamed, he smiled. Suddenly Nikki realized that he thought she was playing. She breathed a sigh of relief.
She was visibly shaken but she felt better now because she realized that he was just a harmless man who had a diminished brain but she bet his heart was as big as he was.
“I need to use the phone. I have to call for a ride.” She said in a voice that she tried hard to not sound like she was talking down to him. She had read somewhere that those unfortunate people did not like to be talked down to. They wanted to be treated as any other person would want to be treated.
He just stared at her with a huge grin on his face. It was unnerving to look at but she desperately needed a ride and she needed a phone for that.
“Do You Have A Phone?” She asked slower and louder, pantomiming putting a phone to her ear. So much for her being non-condescending. “I Need To Use A Phone.” Each word was punctuated for emphasis.
He just grinned with the joy of a baby who was enjoying the games his mother played with him. Nikki was uneasy and did not like to be stared at. This was totally creepy. “Maybe I should just go now.” She said as she tried to go around him to reach the porch steps. As she crossed next to him, she felt a hand snake around her bicep as strong as a steel vise.
“I’ll let you use the phone. Just don’t tell my Mom.” He said looking down at the ground as if he were defying the devil himself.
“I promise I won’t tell.” She said, relieved. He let go of her arm and shuffled to the door and opened it. He stepped aside to let her enter first. She slid past him with her back against the door frame, never taking her eyes off him.
He entered behind her and pointed down the hall. “The phone is down there. I have to go check on the dog.” He turned left and disappeared through a door that looked as if it led to the back of the house, most likely the kitchen.
Nikki cautiously walked down the hallway to the end. There in the center of the aisle was a small table with a rotary phone that looked like it must be a hundred years old. Nikki wasn’t at all sure how long phones had been invented but she felt sure that this must have been one of the original models invented by Mr. Bell.
She picked up the receiver and started dialing the number of her dad’s cell phone. After the last digit click-clicked back to its place on the dial she put the phone to her ear. There was no dial tone.
“That’s just great!” She muttered to herself. She slowly put the receiver down on the cradle. Suddenly there was a hand placing a cloth over her mouth and nose. Her first reaction was to breathe deep thinking she could hold her breath. Almost immediately she began to gag as the smell and an awful burning in her lungs took over.
She felt as if someone were inside her and ripping the flesh of her lungs away with his bare hands. She tried to shake her head violently as if that might knock his hand loose but the grip was unbreakable. She took another deep breath and the acrid taste nearly made her retch. The last thing she was conscious of as darkness closed in on her was that she wanted her daddy.
That had been early this morning, or had it been yesterday? Time had no meaning to her anymore. Days or hours did not matter. She was free now, well almost and there was no way that she was going back to that place. She would die fighting before she would let that monster touch her again. She heard him coming and she huddled closer to the ground curling into a ball. Maybe if she was very quiet he would go away.
There was the snap of a twig less than a foot from her and she suddenly seemed paralyzed. Her eyes were wild with terror. She dared not breathe! Her heart nearly beat so loud that it sounded as if someone were banging a drum in her ears.
After what seemed like an eternity the footsteps started again and faded somewhere behind her. After a few minutes she gasped for air as quietly as she could. She grabbed all the air she could and held her breath again. She was going to make it! She was going to get out alive. She could not wait to rush into her daddy’s arms and let him wrap them around her. She always felt safe in her daddy’s arms.
“There you are!” It was that same voice. “I thought you had run off.” The fingers around the back of her neck were digging into her. The pain was shooting into her head and she felt her brain was going to pop out of her head. “Can we play now?”
“No!” She wailed in agony. “It is not supposed to be this way! Daddy, help me!” She tried to pull away but the hand holding her neck would not let go. Instead it gripped tighter sending another spasm to her brain. She did not know how much more of this she could take.
With one swift jerk she was on her tip toes trying to ease the pressure on her neck from the vise like grip. She had reached the end of her tolerance threshold and she could feel the blackness coming again. She was about to pass out. At least in the blackness she did not have to think of the horrible things happening to her. With a sigh of resignation she succumbed to the darkness once more.
Branston Reilly stood before the jury box at the twelve men and women and two alternates that he had just related his version of the story to. He could see in their eyes that he had them right where he wanted them.
Juror number seven, Mary Mathers, had tears flowing freely down her face. She was not even trying to hide them. Now was the time to throw his best punch and knock this child killing scum out for the count.
He dramatically turned and pointed at Randy Cantrell sitting behind the defendant’s table. He paused for effect, shook his head and faked trying to swallow a lump in his throat.
Looking up, Reilly continued, in a whisper. “During a routine traffic stop the defendant had her cell phone and also her purse in his car. He claimed…” There was a disbelieving smirk on his face now. “…to have found it on the side of the road. However, he could not verify where he was during the four-day period Nikki was missing.”
Reilly wound up for the finale. He walked from one end of the jury box to the other and stopped in front of juror number five. Dan McCoig had a daughter Allie, the same age as Nikki Murray; they went to the same church, were on the same cheerleading squad and had sung in the same choir. His son Brad had even dated Nikki on and off.
McCoig was the jury foreman and if Reilly could get him to convict, he was sure that this would be a slam dunk.
“Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I submit to you that this young man, former boyfriend of Nikki Murray, felt scorned and rejected by the object of his desires. She told him that she did not love him and she wanted to date other boys.
“The defendant did then, with malice aforethought kidnap, rape, sodomize and murder this same object of his desire and then threw her lifeless body into the woods for the scavengers to feast on.
“It was four days later that her badly decomposed body was found, by a group of boy scouts that had volunteered to help search for her. No one in the entire state has seen so vicious and brutal a crime; certainly not the little town of Etowah. Never before have we seen so heinous an act as this!” Reilly paused as he turned to look at the defendant. He again pointed a finger at Cantrell.
“Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, you must find the defendant guilty of this crime. We must lock this man away for the rest of his life so that he can never harm another of our children again!” Reilly strode away from the jury box and sat at the prosecutors table. He was exhausted. He pulled a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wiped at his brow as the judge gave the instructions to the jury. Now was the time to wait.
Once the jury had been removed to deliberate the verdict it was time for a drink. Since McMinn County was a dry county, the only place he could find a drink was his office in the basement of the courthouse. That was where he headed.
Just as Reilly came down the stairs to the basement and headed down the hallway toward his office, he heard a call from the floor above. Turning around, he looked up the stairwell at his second chair, Melissa Elrod who was frantically waving him back up the stairs.
“The verdict is in!” She said excitedly. Reilly looked at his watch. Barely fifteen minutes had passed since he had seen the jury leave the court room. That had to be a record. He smiled and headed back up the stairs.
Inside the courtroom, the tension was mounting. There were reporters from as far away as Atlanta and even CNN had a reporter there. This case had been brutal and sensational. It was the kind of case careers were made with. Reilly was confident that the jury would go his way. He walked down the short aisle, through the swinging gate and took his place beside Melissa.
There was a hush as the bailiffs brought Randy Cantrell back into the courtroom. His feet and hands were both shackled and then a chain connected the two shackles together as an extra measure of caution.
Once the judge was seated, the Jury was brought back in. After the last one was seated, he proceeded.
“Have you reached a verdict?” He asked the foreman.
“We have your honor.” McCoig said as he stood up. He handed the verdict slip to the bailiff who walked it over to the judge. Judge Rodgers read the verdict and passed it back to the bailiff. The bailiff returned the verdict slip to the foreman.
“The defendant will rise.” The judge ordered. Cantrell and his attorney stood and faced the jury as McCoig entered the verdict into the court record.
“We the jury, find the defendant, James Randall Cantrell, guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree.....”
Cantrell’s shoulders slumped. His mother cried out in agony, and pandemonium broke out as reporters raced for the doors and the bank of phones just outside the courthouse.
Three weeks later Randy was sentenced by the judge to life in prison without possibility of parole. Even though he was only seventeen, Cantrell was tried as an adult and he was sentenced as an adult. Now there were two lives lost forever.
