Bitter Harvest: A Woman's Fury, a Mother's Sacrifice (45 page)

Greg Burnetta has left the Prairie Village Police Department and works for federal law enforcement in Kansas City.

Detective Gary Baker has also left the Prairie Village Police Department. He now works as an investigator for the public defender’s office.

Detective Rod Smith is still working for the Prairie Village Police Department. He will remember the Debora Green case, as will his fellow investigators, for the rest of his life.

Jeff Hudson is still the Fire Marshal for the Shawnee, Kansas, Fire Department.

Paul Morrison was reelected as district attorney of Johnson County in the 1996 elections.

Ellen Ryan is still practicing domestic law in Kansas City, Missouri—a field which she finds “more dangerous today than criminal law,” given the emotions that divorce can unleash.

Debora Green did not write to me after our visits in mid-March, 1997. Reportedly, she is increasingly sorry that she pleaded no contest and is seeking a new trial—one that could cost her her life.

In what I knew would be my last visit to 7517 Canterbury Court, I took photographs to help me remember the street and the trees that had once surrounded the house where Mike, Debora, Tim, Lissa, and Kelly had lived. I knew that the lot where that house once stood would never again be a homesite. It had long since been leveled and planted in grass. And the neighbors on either side purchased it from Mike Farrar in 1997. Still, it was hard to forget the lives that had been lost and the hopes that had been buried there.

Then I saw two small creatures scampering across the grass—a wild rabbit and a squirrel. They seemed unafraid, and that somehow made me feel better. I could hear the noise of a lawn mower several lots away, and the
thunk, thunk
of boys shooting baskets. Although nothing would ever be the same again, life on Canterbury Court had not ended for everyone.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

W
hen I arrived in Kansas City in January of 1996, I was a complete stranger. I soon found that Kansas and Missouri are friendly states indeed.

Many people helped me in my efforts to unravel the puzzle that is Debora Green. Some were instrumental in convicting her. Others, I know, will not agree with my conclusions—yet I hope that, whenever I could, I gave them a voice.

I would like to thank everyone who spoke with me about their areas of expertise and/or their personal connections to this tragic story: Johnson County District Attorney Paul Morrison; Assistant District Attorney Rick Guinn; Terry Issa, Morrison’s assistant; court reporter Kris Waggoner; Jeff Hudson, Shawnee, Kansas, Fire Marshal; Charles Grover, chief of police of Prairie Village, Detectives Rod Smith and Gary Baker; Ellen Ryan; Joan Jones; Dr. Debora Green; Gordon Purdy; Dr. Michael Farrar; Dr. Jeanne Hermens; Celeste Walker; Tony Rizzo and James Fussell of the
Kansas City Star;
Andy Hoffman of the
Olathe Daily News;
Dave Kaup, Marc Lorber, Nancy Glick, Janna Pettet, Illinois Prairie Library, Metamora, Illinois, Luis Wells, and the rest of the staff of the Topeka Correctional Institute.

Ruth Adams of the Flutterby, Carla Redburn, Ann Slegel, Karen Metcalf, Cary L. Swofford, Sue Jones, Janice Mccollum, Linda Meierhoffer, and Kay Waldo, and Kelly Waldo Dillman all helped immeasurably to make me feel at home in Kansas City and its environs.

As always, I thank my first reader, Gerry Brittingham, my friend and fellow author Donna Anders, Marni Campbell, Mike Rule, my office manager, and Leslie Rule, my photographer and audio-video specialist (who took time out from writing her own book to help). The rest of my family pitched in often: Laura, Andy, Kevin, Matt, Rebecca, Bruce, Machel, and Luke, Nancy, and Lucas Fiorante.

I have been blessed with what, albeit arguably, may be the best editorial team in the publishing world: Fred Hills, Burton Beals, and Hilary Black. Thank you, Fred, for your calm head in the midst of what seemed chaos at the moment, and thank you again, Burton, for the gentle green ink with which you deftly marked up my pages. Hilary, bless you for the nights you stayed overtime to piece together all the pages. And, thank you, Dolores and Joanne, my expert typesetters!

Joan and Joe Foley took a chance on me more than twenty years ago, and I still appreciate you both as agents and friends. Mary Alice Kier and Anna Cottle, I’m grateful that you storm the gates of Hollywood so that I won’t have to.

Finally, because I wrote this book while my hill was sliding away in a continuous, frightening sea of mud, I thank my contractor, Martin Woodcock, for conquering one catastrophe after another and allowing me to keep my eyes on my computer and Puget Sound. I felt so confident that I hardly ever had to look over my shoulder at the mud creeping down the slope behind me. One day soon, I am confident that I will no longer have mud on my shoes, knees, elbows, and earlobes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A
nn Rule is a former Seattle policewoman and the author of eleven
New York Times
national bestsellers, including
Small Sacrifices, The Stranger Beside Me, Possession,If You Really Loved Me, Everything She Ever Wanted, A Rose for Her Grave, You Belong to Me, A Fever in the Heart
, and
Dead by Sunset
. She has testified before U.S. Senate Judiciary Committees, and presented seminars to scores of law enforcement agencies, including the FBI Academy. She served on the U.S. Justice Department task force which set up VI-CAP (the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program), now in place at FBI headquarters to track and trap serial killers. She lives near Seattle, Washington.