Wasted (22 page)

 

 

Detective Carter walked back into interview room one. With his blue eyes cold and hard, he stared at empty-eyed Justin Thomas.

“We know what happened—how you wrapped her in the comforter, put her in her Jeep.... It’s time for you to tell Detective Gilchrest and myself your side of the story.”

Thomas shifted in his chair, as if withdrawing. “I guess I’d better have a lawyer,” he said, calmly.

The interview was over. Carter and Gilchrest exited the room and left Thomas there by himself.

“Regina’s life was like tragedy here and tragedy there. And she liked these people who had tragedy in their lives, like Marilyn Monroe and Madonna. Then what happened? Her life ended in a way that we will never forget, no matter how hard we try,” said Anita Morales.

She and her friends laid flowers at Regina’s door and lit Mexican votive candles.

 

 

Texas Ranger Rocky Wardlow and APD detective John Hunt obtained a consent to search a 1993 Jeep, 1995 Texas license number KCD 33S, registered to Mary C./Kenneth D. LeBlanc. The Jeep was located at the home of Justin Thomas on Whirlaway Drive in Travis County, Texas.

Kenneth D. LeBlanc and Kimberley Alex LeBlanc signed the consent in similar, sloping-to-the-right-scrawls. Cathy LeBlanc signed in an upright cursive that looked almost like printing.

 

 

At nine minutes past midnight on the sixth of July, Texas Ranger Rocky Wardlow and APD detective John Hunt received a consent to search Kim LeBlanc’s apartment on Southway Drive, Apartment 118, Austin, Texas.

Ken, Cathy, and Kim LeBlanc signed the consent, then Kim turned over her apartment key to Wardlow.

 

 

Carter, Gilchrest, Wardlow, Hunt, and Reveles all conferred. Wardlow and Carter then went to Carter’s office to type out a probable-cause affidavit, and Carter phoned and woke Municipal Court Judge Phil Sanders.

“Could you review a PC for us?” said Carter.

“If you come over to my house,” replied Sanders, groggy from sleep.

Carter and Wardlow immediately left for the Sanders residence, where the Judge met them in his bathrobe, at the front door.

Sanders read the affidavit, which said, in part, that “numerous witnesses, who were friends or neighbors of Regina Hartwell, told investigators that an argument occurred on or about the 28th of June at Regina Hartwell’s apartment. The argument was said to be between Regina Hartwell and her former girlfriend Kim LeBlanc. The same witnesses identified Justin Thomas as being the current boyfriend of Kim LeBlanc.

“Kim LeBlanc advised police officers that her boyfriend, Justin Thomas, arrived at her apartment in Regina’s Jeep. Justin Thomas told Kim that he had stabbed Regina with a knife that he had kept in a box.”

Judge Sanders asked the officers a few questions and approved the warrant of arrest for Justin Thomas for first-degree felony murder with a $100,000 bond. It was 1:45 in the morning.

Approximately fifteen minutes later, Carter and Wardlow were back at APD headquarters. Carter, Wardlow, Gilchrest, and Deputy Nelson then walked into the interview room where Justin Thomas sat. “You are being charged with murder, and we have a warrant for your arrest.”

Thomas did not react. He simply stood, and the four officers walked him to booking.

As Wardlow booked Thomas, he noticed the gaping wound in the webbing of Thomas’s right hand. Thomas’s clothes were confiscated and sent to the DPS Crime Lab. Thomas was placed in a jail cell.

 

 

Kim LeBlanc went to Whataburger with her parents.

Jim Thomas and his sister Bonnie were at work creating wood cabinets when their boss brought a phone to Jim. “It’s your son . . . from a correctional institution.”

“I’ve been arrested for murder,” said Justin.

Jim’s face went pale, and his knees buckled.

The hurt on her brother’s face pained her so, Bonnie’s heart fell to her feet.

Jim simply went back to his saw, went back to work, and wept.

Jim Thomas, Bonnie’s big brother, the sweet, strong, silent man who never showed any emotion, who didn’t know how to express himself, cried. He wondered what had gone wrong with his one and only child.

 

 

“J. R.,” Bonnie Thomas stood at work with a phone to her ear, “the police are probably gonna come to search the house.”

J. R. was at the Whirlaway home, recuperating from poison oak.

“You tell them that it’s not your property and that you can’t give nobody permission to search it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “There’s a black car pulling up. Yes, sir,” Bonnie heard her son say.

Then the phone went dead. Bonnie stood there listening to a dial tone. There was nothing to do but hang up and rout some more wood.

 

 

A few minutes later, Bonnie was called back to the phone. She wiped her brow of sawdust.

“There’s cops all over the place,” J. R. panted. “Man, I’m scared. Can you, uncle Jim, somebody come home?”

Bonnie was out the door.

 

 

J. R. was sitting under a tree when Bonnie drove up in her full-sized Dodge Ram truck. This was the second time she’d driven up to the Thomas dream home to find the yard filled with police cars. This was getting old real fast, but Bonnie was polite. She walked up to Ranger Wardlow.

Wardlow looked at Bonnie with her gray hair, blue eyes, tattoos, and tanned, firm legs. She almost always wore shorts in the summertime. She lit a Parliament 100 cigarette. “Can I come with you?” she said.

“Yes,” he answered politely.

Bonnie respected him. “What are you looking for?”

“Just a few certain items. When we see them, we’ll know them, and we’ll be on our way,” Wardlow responded. He eyed everything as he walked.

Several men were loading Kim’s Jeep onto a DPS wrecker.

“Do you mind if we look in your truck?” he said.

Bonnie obliged, and officers quickly confiscated a bright, shiny, new piece of chain found in the bed of her truck. There was a locked padlock on the chain.

“Who’d you get the chain from?” said Wardlow.

“Justin,” said Bonnie, in her slow drawl.

“When’d you get it? Why do you have it? How’d you use it? And is it used?”

“Yeah,” she said, puffing softly on her cigarette. “My brother’s truck broke down, and we had to use the chain to tow it to the shop. After we towed it in, we threw the chain in the back of my truck.”

Bonnie followed Wardlow into the house as several other officers scooped up three-quarters of a row of shoes lining the garage wall of the house. A pair of Regina’s boots was with them. One-hundred fifty dollar boots, Bonnie had estimated. Wardlow pointed to a new thirty-gallon trash can, and it was gone—taken into custody.

Bonnie dropped her cigarette to the ground and walked upstairs with the Texas Ranger. They walked into Jim’s bedroom. Piles of clothes were on the floor.

“Whose clothes are these?” he asked.

Bonnie pointed them out. “Justin’s. Kim’s. Jim’s.” The clothes were just as Justin and Kim had left them two days earlier as they had prepared their laundry for their departure from Austin and the Jim Thomas house.

Wardlow took Justin’s and Kim’s clothes into possession. He left Jim’s neat like he would have wanted. Wardlow was always polite and neat.

A deputy sheriff walked up to Wardlow. He whispered into his ear. “Drug paraphernalia. Turn the search warrant over to me.”

Wardlow backed his body away from the deputy. “No. We came here to get what we came to get. We’re gonna get it, and then be on our way.”

“I can have some black-and-whites out here in fifteen minutes,” said the deputy.

“No,” replied Wardlow, again. “I got what I came for, and I don’t want to bother these folks anymore.”

“Turn the search warrant over to me,” said the deputy, his moustache twitching.

Wardlow looked the deputy straight in the face. “I said ‘no’.” And Wardlow walked out of the room.

He left the Whirlaway home neat as a pin. He took with him a 1993 Jeep Sahara, a tow chain, trash can, a bayonet-type knife, and a silver-and-black-handled, single-edge knife, both found under the house on stilts, a pair of black, men’s lace-up boots, one pair of black, men’s Reeboks, one pair of men’s White Force tennis shoes, a green, nylon bag containing some of Kim’s and Justin’s clothing, a red duffel bag full of Kim’s clothes, a brown-leather billfold with a silver chain, a green canvas duffel bag, a silver lighter, some cigarette butts, and Kim’s black leather backpack purse, which was much like Regina’s favorite purse.

The purse had been found in one of the bedrooms. In the purse were a receipt from the Heritage Inn, several ATM receipts, an ATM card with Regina Hartwell’s name on it, a Builders Square receipt, Kim’s Texas driver’s license, and Kim’s fake Kentucky driver’s license in the name of Kim Derrick, which stated she was over twenty-one.

 

 

Ken and Cathy LeBlanc tried to stir Kim from her sleep. “The police want to talk to you again.”

They picked her up and tried to dress her. They tried to get her out into the sun on that Thursday, July 6. It was a cloudy morning, a clear afternoon. The high was only 87 degrees, but Kim LeBlanc passed out in the heat. She fell on the concrete and skinned her knee.

That’s all she remembered of that day.

But she did return to APD headquarters. “How did Justin get from your apartment to Regina’s?”

She wasn’t really sure—he might have walked to a friend’s and gotten a ride from there.

 

 

The Regina Hartwell murder investigative team rode nonstop throughout the city for the next twenty-four hours.

Around three, 3:30 p.m., on the day Justin Thomas was incarcerated, the day Kim LeBlanc fell and scraped her knee, Dukes met Wardlow at LeBlanc’s South Austin apartment and searched it with the DPS Crime Lab.

Kim’s multicolored, childlike panties were found in the bathroom and photographed laying just in front of the commode. Traces of blood were also found in the bathroom. It was on tissue paper in the trash can by the toilet. The blood matched the DNA of Justin Thomas. The toilet-paper holder was empty.

Blood was also found on the floor, on towels, and on an Acuvue contact-lens case.

 

 

Pam Carson glanced at the parking lot at Carla Reid’s and Anita Morales’s apartment and wondered why Kim’s car wasn’t there. If Regina were missing, as Carla had told her when she’d phoned Pam at 10:30 that night at work—“Regina’s still missing, and we need you to talk to the police, missing persons, tonight”—then Regina’s little partner in crime should have been gathered with everyone else, worrying like everyone else.

Carson was furious with Hartwell for making everyone worry so.
I’m gonna chew Regina out when I see her and get her away from Kim and Justin,
she thought as she had driven up Interstate 35 from San Antonio.

It was close to midnight as she knocked on Carla’s and Anita’s door. Kelli Grand answered it. She was holding a glass of red wine, as was Carla. Anita was holding her usual rum and coke.

“Where’s Kim?” said Pam.

“She’s down at the station talking to the police. Go make yourself a drink.”

“Call Fran in Houston,” said Carson. “I have her number in the car.”

“We’ll do that,” said Morales. “But first, make yourself a drink.”

“Call—”

“We’ll do that later. Are you finished making that drink?”

Pam Carson fixed herself a White Russian and noticed that everyone was scribbling notes.

“Sit quietly and listen,” said Reid. “Regina’s Jeep was found in Bastrop. It was burned to a crisp. There was the body of a 5’2” Caucasian woman found in the backseat, unrecognizable. It was Regina.”

Pam rushed out the door and vomited over the wrought-iron railing. Carla walked out and wrapped her arms around her.

 

 

The following morning, Cathy LeBlanc spoke with APD’s Detective Dukes. She recalled talking to Regina Hartwell on the Wednesday before the murder. Regina had told Cathy, the woman she called Mom, about the morning fight with Kim and Justin. Cathy also told Dukes that she was going to take Kim to Houston for drug rehab. She was trying to save her one and only child.

 

 

Mark Hartwell drove from Houston to Austin—Dukes had also spoken with him that morning. He was on his way to Austin to identify the burnt, black body of his one and only natural daughter. His brother Joel Hartwell, a law-enforcement officer in Harris County, rode with him. Joel Hartwell hadn’t seen his niece in a year.

Mark Hartwell had in hand Regina’s dental records from ages five through thirteen. They showed that he had taken his daughter to dentist appointment after dentist appointment, that she’d missed a few, and that she’d been recommended for orthodontia. The records showed where her permanent retainer fit in her mouth, the one that had survived the flames set by Justin Thomas.

 

 

At 2:30 p.m., Mark Hartwell turned over to APD his dead daughter’s dental records. Detective Carter and Texas Ranger Wardlow sat with Mark and Joel Hartwell while Detective Gilchrest transported the records to the Travis County Medical Examiner’s office, just a few blocks away.

Within fifteen minutes, Gilchrest returned, and he and Carter stood alone in an adjoining office. “Dr. Bayardo confirmed it,” said Gilchrest. “It’s Regina Hartwell.”

Carter turned away; it was time to advise Mark Hartwell that his daughter was truly deceased.

Mark Hartwell was devastated.

However, Regina’s father composed himself. The officers and Hartwell brothers discussed sending Regina’s remains to Houston, and Carter and Wardlow put Hartwell in contact with the Bastrop County morgue that held his daughter’s body.

“I want to see Regina’s apartment,” said Hartwell.

“There are no police holds on it,” replied Carter.

Mark Hartwell dialed the Château office number and spoke with the apartment manager. Shock splashed over his face as he and the manager proceeded to argue. Hartwell turned to Carter. “She won’t let me into Regina’s apartment.”

Wardlow reached for the phone. “All police holds have been dropped,” he told the manager. Wardlow listened, and confusion covered his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

Carter got on the phone. The Château manager shouted, “Mr. Hartwell cannot take anything from that apartment until he shows a will or paperwork!”

“He is the sole next of kin,” said Carter.

“I’m liable,” she yelled, “for Regina’s belongings! Others have more right to that property than he does!”

“Let me remind you,” said Carter, calmly, “you just said you were responsible for the property. Therefore, the property better not be disposed of without Mr. Hartwell’s knowledge.”

“Are you threatening me?” screamed the manager. “You better not be threatening me!”

Joel Hartwell took the phone, talked at length with the manager, and finally came to an agreement.

 

 

Jeremy Barnes watched Mark Hartwell, the father he’d heard so much about. He had to reconcile the images in his mind. From what Jeremy had understood from Regina, Mark Hartwell hadn’t paid much attention to his daughter like Jeremy thought a parent should.

But right then, Mark Hartwell looked like he was about to burst into tears. Hartwell stared at the yellow police tape that still marked off his daughter’s apartment as they walked into Brad Wilson’s apartment. They needed to use the phone.

To Jeremy, though, Mark Hartwell seemed surprisingly obsessed at the moment with Regina’s money—the money in the bank, the insurance on the Jeep, the insurance on the tires.

Barnes passed it off. It was just a strong man acting maturely, taking care of business, and, most of all, trying to keep his mind off of his daughter’s death. Mark Hartwell was just a big, ole country hick, just a guy, and Jeremy Barnes liked him.

Mark let Jeremy go into Regina’s apartment and take any thing he wanted to remember his friend. Jeremy took the Wile E. Coyote pen he’d given Reg for her twenty-fifth birthday, and he took his best friend’s favorite shorts—a pair of too-big yellow Gap shorts. They made him smile.

 

 

Detective Carter and other members of the investigative team spread out across the capital city—Builders Square to question the manager about the receipt in Kim LeBlanc’s purse, First Interstate Bank to check the ATM receipts in Kim LeBlanc’s purse, convenience stores and grocery stores to check the video surveillance tapes of the ATM withdrawals in Kim LeBlanc’s purse, and the Heritage Inn to check the receipt in the purse.

Detective Carter also fielded anonymous pay-phone calls from Hartwell’s friends, all of whom stated they would be killed if they identified themselves. They gave Carter details of the murder, and more.

 

 

Kelli Grand phoned APD. “Kim’s behind the whole thing,” she said. “She knew she was going to get lots of money if Regina died. Kim had to have been there and told Justin to kill Regina. Regina would never let Justin in her apartment by himself. Kim and Justin were inseparable.”

“Do you have any personal knowledge of Kim being present or having any part in planning the murder?” said Detective Gilchrest.