Evil Season (26 page)

He paid as long as he could. After he fled Tallahassee, he lived in Brandon for five years. He stayed there until 2001. His job at Regis was very stressful, a demanding job. He was their “master stylist” and their “highest moneymaker.”

He cut the hair of the biggest clientele, and a lot was expected of him. So he went back to Tallahassee and worked at the Seminole Barber Shop, where work was easier. He wasn't in Tallahassee for long before he got arrested for some “little stuff” he did. Trespassing. He was scrounging one day for metal to supply his welding habit. He was near Florida State University and saw some metal scrap he liked. He picked that up and was in the process of checking the Dumpster for anything else interesting when the cops showed up and arrested him for being on some company's property.

There had been another trespassing arrest, something about being on a roof, Grant noted. Murphy told the story. He was just trying to help the guy clean his roof. Cops were called.

Grant thought that was pretty interesting and wanted to hear about some of the other good deeds Murphy might have done while in his Good Samaritan phase.

“I'd rake a lawn, pick up garbage, stuff like that.”

“Was there an event in your life that led to you becoming a Good Samaritan?”

Murphy said no, it was just “spiritual awakening.” It was also around that time, he volunteered, that he'd spent about four months in jail on trespassing and burglary charges.

Grant asked what he had burgled. The actual items had slipped Murphy's mind, but it was probably just some garbage or “some metal shit.” Supplies for his art.

Grant asked if, maybe, Murphy had ever gone through somebody's
house
in search of supplies for his art. Murphy agreed that could've happened.

Murphy admitted that his art was suffering during those days. Not only did he lack supplies, but equipment as well. He had gotten rid of his welding equipment. He was collecting equipment and supplies for his art. That might have been why he was going through a house.

“You did four months in Tallahassee?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Probation or anything?”

“One-year administrative probation. I had to let them know when I moved. I also had to go to counseling,” Murphy said.

“Mental-health counseling?”

“Yeah.” Murphy found the counseling unfulfilling. So much so, that in retrospect he wished he had served an extra couple of months in jail and skipped the counseling. First he went down south; then he started counseling. He liked the guy—White, Waite, he forgot his name. But nothing ever happened. His counselor never made a diagnosis; he never said Murphy was okay.

(Grant came to learn that when Murphy lived in Tallahassee, he'd received mental-health treatment from a provider known as Personal Growth and Behavioral Health, Inc. His counselor was Dorothy Hahn. Later, while on probation, Murphy received mental-health counseling from Michael White.)

“Did they try to put you on meds?” Detective Opitz interjected.

“No,” Murphy said.

At the time he was living in a “a place near the water, Port of Tampa. Stayed there for a few months.” It was a little house, to begin with, and had been walled up into a duplex. He had a little red car, a Geo Metro, and still worked sometimes at Regis, cutting hair.

After that, he moved in with Dave Gallant, a guy he'd met in a bookstore, Barnes & Noble, Brandon Town Center. They had a common interest in books and started talking.

“He told me his story and about his mental—not mental, spiritual—stuff that he had an interest in, and he said he had all of these books I should see. He invited me.”

The detective noted the Freudian slip.

The bookstore guy told Murphy he had people in and out of his house all the time, renting space, cheaper than what he was paying, so Murphy moved in with him.

Murphy was still being the Good Samaritan. A large reason he moved was because he could tell this guy needed the rent money. Normally, Murphy wouldn't have gone for such an arrangement.

“I don't do well living with guys. I'd rather it be a woman, you know?” was how he put it. “I might be in jail with 'em, but I don't like living with 'em.”

Grant asked if the man he was living with was into the alien thing.

“Yeah,” Murphy replied, “which I thought was interesting, but it's not something I'm following, certainly.”

He only stayed for a month or so. Grant asked if anything “happened, or kind of felt uncomfortable.” Murphy said no. He just “preferred women.”

Grant asked if he preferred living with a woman to living alone. Murphy said he did. He didn't mind living alone, but he really enjoyed being married—both times.

He admitted to regrets regarding his first wife. He sent her home to her mom so he could screw around. Looking back, he wished he'd been married longer to her.

After living with Gallant, Murphy moved down to Inglewood Drive, in the town of Gibsonton, where he lived for three months.

“It was a shit hole little trailer I found for rent in the newspaper.” Rent: $100 a week. There were some positives: “It was peaceful, and right on a little creek. You could see the creek right outside your window.”

The landlord lived next door. Murphy worked just a little bit, just enough to get by. Cutting hair was “getting old.” So it was a stressful time. He was a middle-aged man thinking about changing careers.

Murphy decided he couldn't afford the car anymore, so he gave it back to Dean. He used it for the last time to see his kids and visit his brother. When the visit was over, Dean and Alane drove him back home. Dean had told police that they drove Brutus back on a Thursday. Murphy said that sounded about right—although he was just guessing. “I don't know what day it is right now,” Murphy quipped.

For the first two months of 2004, Murphy lived in an apartment on Shade Avenue in Sarasota. He answered an ad in the paper. It was okay, but Murphy didn't make any friends there. He didn't have a chance because of the rate of turnover, in and out, in and out, like a revolving door. The owner was a
strong
woman. The super was an old Spanish guy. The landlady didn't trust the super, he remembered that. There was drama over getting Murphy's toilet fixed.

Police were familiar with the Shade Avenue address. Cops were called to that location many times. There had been many calls even during the time Murphy was living there, but Murphy's name hadn't come up in any of them.

“Remember a guy named Albert Sanchez?” Grant asked, referring to the Shade Avenue superintendent who was arrested for stealing rent money.

“I remember an Albert.”

“Guy says you cooked dinner for him,” Grant said. The detective sounded nonchalant, but he was actually eager to discuss the meat that Murphy had cooked during January 2004.

“Well, I'd be cooking and I'd give him some. I don't cook good.”

“He said you were a good cook.”

“He'd smell it and say, ‘Umm-umm, something smells good!'” Murphy laughed. “I only had a hot plate, but once I boiled pork.”

“Boiled pork?”

“Yeah.”

If Murphy was aware of the reason for the food questions, he didn't let on—and Grant moved off the subject.

“He said that you gave him a gift,” Grant said.

“A knife. I gave him a knife,” Murphy said, looking pleased that he'd remembered.

“That's an unusual gift,” Grant commented.

“Yeah, well, there's nothing wrong with it,” Murphy said, sounding defensive.

Detective Opitz chimed in. “What kind of a knife was it, Elton?”

“It had a curved edge on it, and I don't know what you would call it. . . .”

“Do you remember when you gave Albert the knife?” Grant asked.

“Sometime in January. Third, fourth week in January.”

“Why a knife?”

“Oh, I was just cleaning house. I started getting rid of everything I knew.”

“Did you get rid of the knife before or after getting rid of the car?”

“After.”

Opitz asked, “Where were you planning on moving to?”

“I was going to go to California eventually,” Murphy replied. “Actually, I had Oregon in mind, but I was going to spend some time in California first.”

He had a license to cut hair in Oregon. He flew out west and got it sometime in the late 1990s, when he was living with Jane.

“We talked to her,” Grant acknowledged. “She said she called you once and you said that you'd quit Regis and had become a day trader.”

“Yeah, I did that for a while.”

 

 

They took a break. Murphy was allowed to use the restroom. His right ankle cuff was loosened after he complained it had been digging into his anklebone since he was transported.

Opitz returned the questioning to when Murphy got rid of the red car. What day had he arrived?

Murphy didn't remember what day exactly, but it wasn't a Monday because that was the only day Dean's restaurant was closed. The place had been open for business when he got there.

What were Dean and his wife doing when Murphy arrived with the red car?

“Dean was in the restaurant when I got there,” Murphy recalled. After a brief visit they left. He didn't even stay a day. He asked Dean right off to drive him back; soon thereafter he did.

At the time of Murphy's Houston arrest, he had been in possession of prescription bottles with a Bradenton man's name on them. Grant asked if Murphy knew that guy, and the prisoner shook his head no. He didn't know how he came into possession of those bottles. Prescriptions were for a Craig Hoffman. Murphy didn't know the guy. After a moment he decided that he did remember picking up those bottles. He'd found them by the side of the road when riding his bicycle.

“What kind of prescription was it?” Opitz asked.

“There was Valium and Tylenol 3.”

Grant said Murphy must have realized the seriousness of the crime for which he was being interrogated. He didn't have to worry about talking about prescription bottles.

“Did you take any of the pills?” Grant asked.

“Yeah, well, I had never tried Valium in my life, and I wanted to try them for the heck of it. And, to be honest, I tried them and they didn't make me feel good, so I just held on to them. I thought somebody else might want them, or I might try them again someday when I was stressed out.”

“When did you find the bottles?”

“February.” Not long before he was arrested in Houston, and that was February 25. He had decided to leave Florida only a few days before that.

“It was just time to go, man,” Murphy explained. “I was gearing up for getting rid of all my stuff.”

Opitz asked, “What'd you do with all of your artwork and stuff ?”

“I just kept giving it away. I threw a bunch of it away.” A lot of it ended up at a flea market in Bradenton, but there were two flea markets: the Wagon Wheel and the Big Top—and he didn't remember which one.

“What do you remember?”

“It was the one with the red barn. I gave it to a woman named Ann something. Ann Marie, maybe.” He was just there and she was smiling at him, and he thought this looked like a good home for his stuff.

Grant asked what sort of stuff she sold. Murphy said she sold freaky stuff. Gothic. He told her his name was Brutus, no last name, and the stuff was hers. She'd probably never see him again and that was cool because he didn't want any money.

Grant produced Murphy's business card and asked him about it. Murphy said he'd had them printed himself—not many, fifty maybe—just to give out to people who might be interested in his artwork. He didn't hand out many and ended up throwing most of them away.

Still, Grant noted, Murphy was making an effort to sell his art, which meant he was going to places where selling art was possible, such as flea markets and galleries.

Murphy said he didn't go to any galleries—just flea markets. And he didn't sell any art—just gave it away. To Ann Marie, and to some other chick at the flea market near Gibsonton and Ruskin. That was the place where he handed out about twenty business cards and threw the rest on the floor.

Grant asked if he remembered any of the people to whom he gave a card. Murphy said no, except he gave a few to his coworkers at Regis.

He added, “I never called on a single art gallery to try to sell my work.” Then he took it back and said he did go into one gallery, in a mall on Route 41, next to the food court. He never did show his stuff to the lady in there, just told her he was leaving town and looking to get rid of some stuff. She wasn't interested. She only wanted local artists. This was Sarasota and he said he was from Bradenton.

Grant asked about Murphy's bicycle. What became of it?

Murphy said it was falling apart, the chain kept jumping, so he threw it in a Dumpster.

“How did you get to Houston?”

“Hitchhiked.”

“But—”

“I'm not going to elaborate, but I did indeed hitchhike.” All right, he was at one point in a bus station, where he stole a bag and a bus ticket. “I went to a lot of places,” Murphy added.

Grant thanked Murphy for being so honest. Grant said Murphy struck him as a “pretty honest guy,” a guy who told the truth until he got to something that might hurt him and then he “kind of backed off.”

Murphy nodded his agreement. He admitted that he didn't like to talk about the thefts he'd committed, and there were “more than one of them.” When he was on the road, he tended to swipe things along the way. He stole a backpack at a bus station and then filled it with other stuff he stole.