Janette
Fisher married Alvin Lee Roberson on Aug 14, 1971. She was just shy
of her sixteenth birthday. They had been married eleven years and had
two children when she was murdered.
Most of the time she had coming to
her was stolen. None of us are promised tomorrow, I guess we all understand that, at least at some point. I just don’t think she was
even there
yet.
That place where you realize there’s only so much time.
She was at
that age where time means little because it seems like there’s so
much of it spread out in front of you like the limitless
possibilities of an open highway.
Where
did the time go that day, January 19, 1983? There’s an awful lot of
it unaccounted for, as far as I’m concerned.
Gene Johnson—I
know this store better than you!—said that, at one point, Officer Finkbeiner told him he was the last person to
see Janette alive, except for the killer. I didn’t believe that
when I spoke to him, but after having talked to Blanche and Jan and
Elke and Karl and Flossie, it may well have been the case, based on
the times they were all there.
No
other customers I spoke to saw Janette later that day, though there very well could be sommeone who did, and I just never found them. Since all of
the employee interviews remain redacted, we have no way of knowing
the last time any of them saw her.
The
autopsy report says Janette was last seen at 1:25, but where did that
information come from? I always assumed it was from a receipt, because
it’s a pretty specific time. The newest entry into the MSP
computer system in recent years lists the time of the
crime occurring as between 1:40 and 3:50.
That's a fairly tight window. So if you're still hanging in there with me, and you remember the All Quiet on the Western Front post, go back with those exact times in your head - those couple hours - and revisit the points I suggested you be looking at.
Anyone who wasn't working that day. Anyone whose behavior that day, or in the days aftererward, felt...off.
Anyone disposing of clothing or other items that, looking back, might not seem...kosher.
Things for Reed City citizens to consider are the fact that during that timeframe, kids would be coming home from school. The same timeframe during which the killer would have been trying to get out of the store, undetected, and home or elsewhere to possibly change clothes. Did you see any family or friends or neighbors doing anything odd? Disposing of anything?
Sweatily shoving anything into one of the many dumpsters behind businesses around Chestnut and Upton? Those sorts of things. Something else to consider is the fact that the items could have been hidden somewhere for disposal, later. Might not have happened that day.
If you knew someone who was not working, or off work at the time, where were they and what were they doing during those couple of key hours?
Now...
Let’s
take the 3:50 time as the time Janette was found, because it does seem
to correlate with what Mr. and Mrs. Kooiker said about having come
straight from school letting out. What went on in that
basement—around her body—from 3:50 when the report says she was
found, until the first dispatch at 4:06, according to Gary McGhee’s
EMT report?
The Reed City Finkbeiner/Primeau report says they arrived
at 4:04, which would tend to corrolate if Raymond Haight called the State Post to have them dispached, as he insisted, right before EMTs were dispached.
But ten
minutes is a long time to wait before calling police. If that time of
3:50 is accurate, that’s 14 minutes (or so, as it's approximate) before the report says Officers
Finkbeiner and Primeau got there.
What were the employees and
customers in the store doing for those 14 minutes? Tom Hawkins, Elke,
David Engels, John Engels, Flossie, Angie… what’s going on
before—according to Raymond Haight—David Engels calls the Osceola
County Sheriff’s Department and says there’s been a murder in the
basement, because that’s when everyone starts arriving.
The Osceola
County deputies are running out of the Sheriff’s Department, soon after, the
EMTs are hopping into the ambulance, and it’s 4:06 when the EMTs arrive and Officer
Finkbeiner is standing at the front door sending potential witnesses
on their way.
What was going on for those 10 to 14 minutes before the
wagons had circled?
Go
stand in the center of your living room for ten minutes and see how
much time that feels like. Run outside, down your driveway, stop,
count to sixty, and then run back inside. How long did that take? Get
a firm grasp on how long that much time is, and then ask yourself what
you think might have been happening for that long, prior to anyone
calling police. Also, keep in mind that there are three law
enforcement entities, city, county, and state police all within two
minutes or less from Gambles.
Literally.
What
were the employees doing? The list Detective Pratt gave of the
individuals he learned “through further investigation” had been
around the area of the body “some more than once” isn’t that
long. So what were they
doing in those ten minutes? This would have been after Angie ran up
the stairs panting, pointing back down toward the stairs so that
Flossie had to scream for John Engels, who came barreling down from
the second floor, taking them two at a time.
Where
was David Engels when John ran down those stairs from wherever he was
eating lunch?
Flossie didn’t call David Engels, she called John
Engels.
Where was Thomas Hawkins? Elke? It appears Bonnie Engels
had gone home before the body was discovered, or at some point before
Detective Pratt got there, because there is no mention of her being
there when the body was found.
As
far as I can tell, nobody remembers seeing Janette after around 11:30
when Janette met Gene Johnson at the center of the store and asked if
she could help him. Every time a customer went looking for her in the
pet department after that, she wasn’t there. Karl brings the
gerbils in around 10 or 11. No Janette. Maybe this is when she was
gone, having responded to the call from the school like she told
Flossie. But she comes back and has her encounter with Gene Johnson
at 11:30 or thereabouts.
Last he sees her, she heads downstairs.
Around noon, Blanche goes down there looking for her “Ick,” no
Janette.
Next, Jan and Venus go there around 2:00, certainly could have been a bit after, until sometime
before four o’clock, no Janette.
Elke was there right around that
time, even though Blanche doesn’t remember crossing paths with her,
despite Elke saying she was up and down those stairs three or four
times, continually asking the female clerk where Janette was, and
being told she’s probably at lunch. Everyone kept telling customers
Janette was probably
at lunch.
Was
being an employee at Gambles so relaxed that break time was an hour,
two hours… or more?
Karl alleges the store manager told him Janette
was probably at lunch when he was there the first time with those
gerbils. Angie apparently told Elke the same thing when she returned
with them the second time. It certainly doesn’t seem like anyone
knew where Janette was at any time that afternoon, except for Gene
Johnson.
One of the newspaper articles at the time mentioned that they were looking into the possibility of someone hiding in the basement before the attack but said, “There is no evidence to suggest it.”
Still, there is the possibility that the perp came down there while Janette was gone, and hid back there until she came back. Carrie Bevard, who was at the Buckboard Bar that day, next door, said she recalled one of the police who came to search there saying they believed she'd been killed sometime after she returned.
Having been down here, I can say there would certainly be areas in the back room where someone could have easily hidden to await her arrival. We know someone was coming in and making her uncomfortable in the days/weeks leading up to the murder.
She also allegedly received obscene calls.
Someone could have been stalking her.
Maybe that someone escalated from merely visiting the store and "making her uncomfortable" by walking into the backroom, where only employees were allowed, to making calls. Sure would be an interesting coincidence if the two aren't related.
Then, we must consider the blood that Gary McGhee
walked through on the way through the pet department, which he only
noticed when he came out of the back room after having attended to
Janette.
Nobody else saw it. Nobody.
Blanche, Jan, Venus, Elke… all of those ladies down there in that
final couple of hours during the crucial 1:40-3:50 time period. None
of them saw it. Both Jan and Venus, as well as Elke claim to have
been there for a considerable amount of time looking at the fish, and
that’s the general area Gary McGhee describes it as being.
There couldn’t
have been much time between when Jan and Venus left, and Elke returned
with those gerbils, and from then on she was there. The report verifies she was there when Janette was found.
Yet, all of those people walking around looking at those fish
tanks right where that spot of blood is and nobody, not
one of them
saw it?
If the time of death, according to the death certificate and news reports from the time period, was between 2 and 3pm, Janette almost had to be back there when some of these women were walking around in the department. Perhaps the killer had incapacitated her, but became stuck back there when customers came in and he hadn't yet made his escape. It's certainly a possibility, and more than one of the women mentioned an eerie feeling while there.
So
many questions; not nearly enough answers, and I’ll admit, that
blood bothers me. So I got back with Gary McGhee one more time and
asked him if it was big enough that someone else should have seen it.
“To
my recollection it was about 6 ft. outside the doorway. It really
wasn't a ‘puddle’ of blood per se; it actually was a spot of WET
blood. I would say about the size of a slice of bread but no bigger.
As I said, I did not see it when I went in the room, but noticed it
when I left. I was not looking at the floor when I went in there. I
do not remember seeing any footprints in it, but there was a chance
that I had stepped in it and that was why my boots were taken. It
was my ‘assumption’ then (and always has been) that the initial
assault took place where the blood was located and that she walked or
was dragged/moved to where she was found. I can’t explain why no
one else saw the blood.”
The only other possibility I can think of is that the blood got there after she was found, and that would constitute some sort of transference from the blood in the back room to where McGhee saw it. He did not describe it as a shoe print, though. He saw wet blood.
“I
know this store better than you!”
Is it possible that’s the last
thing anyone said to Janette, aside from the killer, if they
exchanged words? God I hope not. It sounded like a bit of an abrupt
exchange, and by all accounts Janette was rather shy. Gene was
joking, but even if she took it as such, I’d like to think
something kinder, softer, maybe less off-putting was the last thing
someone said to her before a monster viciously took her from this
Earth.
According
to Gene, after that, Janette said she had something to take care of
downstairs,
Down she went, and he never saw her again.
Did anyone
else?
The
killer did. That much we know.
...to be continued...
