Monday, October 31, 2011

True story: Holding Hands with Evil ( final part)

What follows is a true story. I wrote it following interviews with murderer Eric Nenno and Mark Young, and after reviewing newspaper accounts of the case. All names and information are public record. What is different is the perspective: of the killer, and the man who caught him. All previous parts are below.

PLEASE NOTE: while not unduly graphic in description, this is the story of the murder of a young girl. Do not read this if the subject matter is disturbing to you.


PART EIGHT

Throughout the confession, Young remained true to his personal pledge to do everything in his power to remain professional. He remained calm and spoke only when necessary. He directed the conversation and helped the suspect along where necessary, but he wanted the suspect, not the interviewer, to do the talking. Twelve years later, Eric Nenno himself remembered how calmly Mark Young got to the truth.

I found Special Agent Young to be exceptionally adept at his interrogation techniques. He was both insightful and thorough in his approach to gaining truthful responses. Instead of dwelling on a specific detail for a lengthy time, he would change the topic and revisit the question later on, often from a slightly different angle or line of reasoning.

Young’s professionalism in these situations was crucial, it was the mask he put on when dealing with the worst of society. He wore it to protect his own psyche and also because he found that getting people to open up, particularly when they were faced with their own evil deeds, started when they began to trust him. And Young knew from experience that trust came quicker when he treated his suspect decently. He didn’t shout, browbeat, or threaten them. As Nenno remembered:

After taking a polygraph test, I returned to the interview room and gave Special Agent Young and Detective Johnson a verbal confession. Detective Johnson entered the information into a laptop computer as Special Agent Young assisted me with collecting and organizing my thoughts and words into a coherent statement. Even at this point, knowing that I was confessing to a particularly horrendous crime, Special Agent Young maintained an unbiased, professional attitude toward me. He did not raise his voice nor make any disrespectful comments during the process of getting my confession uploaded, and later printed out for me to sign and initial.

Testimony was presented at my capital murder trial in JAN 96 by various HCSD [Harris County Sheriff’s Department] personnel in their respective capacities and involvement with the case. Unlike several other witnesses, Special Agent Young did not rely on a printed file for his responses to the prosecutor’s inquiries or cross-examination by defense counsel. He replied in an articulate, astute, and concise manner, revealing his confidence and depth of knowledge of every aspect encompassing the investigation.

####

On October 28, 2008, thirteen years after killing Nicole Benton, and less than one month after writing in glowing terms about the man who had helped seal his fate, Eric Charles Nenno was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas.


THE END

Friday, October 28, 2011

True story: Holding Hands with Evil (pt. 7)

What follows is a true story. I wrote it following interviews with murderer Eric Nenno and Mark Young, and after reviewing newspaper accounts of the case. All names and information are public record. What is different is the perspective: of the killer, and the man who caught him. Parts One through Six are below.

PLEASE NOTE: while not unduly graphic in description, this is the story of the murder of a young girl. Do not read this if the subject matter is disturbing to you.


PART SEVEN

Young reached the bottom of the ladder and looked at Nenno. What to do with his suspect now? Young read his compliant posture and decided that Nenno had done the hard part, telling them where to find the body, and now it was time for him to answer some of the other questions. He and Detective Johnson took Nenno back to the command post and, once they were inside, Young removed his handcuffs. Nenno remained in a slumped, defeated posture. Oddly, he kept his arms rigid behind him as if he knew he should be in handcuffs, wanted to be restrained. Gently, Young put his hands on Nenno’s arms and guided them forward.

Young directed Nenno to sit down at a small table, and took the chair opposite Nenno. Johnson sat to one side, opening a laptop computer to take down any statement their suspect made.

Young wanted to bring Nenno out of the stupor into which he appeared to have sunken, so he began asking about his military service, his work history, and his home life. Nenno was a salesman for a plumbing supply company and lived in his sister’s house. She was in the military, currently stationed overseas, and Nenno lived there with her son, his 18-year-old nephew, Wes Chamness.

Finally Young said: “Eric, we need to talk about how Nicole ended up in your attic.”

Nenno fell silent, slumped so far down in his chair that his nose almost touched the table. This, of course, was the key moment. If it was going to happen at all, the confession would have to come now. Even though they could likely gather enough evidence to convict Nenno, Young was determined to find out exactly what happened. He stood and walked around the table, taking his chair and putting it next to Nenno. He sat down and took Nenno’s left hand in his, and then began to slowly rub the man’s back with his other hand.

Nenno started talking. He had been outside the night Nicole’s father was practicing with his band. He had walked along the sidewalk when he noticed Nicole walking away from the party, towards him. He stopped her, being as friendly as he could be, and engaged her in conversation. She told him that her father was in a band, and played guitar. He had laughed and said what a coincidence that was, because he, too, was in a band, and like her daddy he played the guitar.

Almost as soon as they got inside his house, Nenno said, Nicole realized something was wrong. She resisted. Nenno said he was unable to force himself on her, to rape her while she was alive. In a calm, steady voice, he told Young how he had killed Nicole in his bedroom, and then raped her.

Young continued to sit beside Nenno, holding his hand, rubbing his back. As difficult as it was to touch this man, it was working and so Young willed himself to keep doing it. As if under a spell, Nenno continued to talk in his quiet but clear voice. Nenno would later claim: “I knew I was to be arrested anyway, so there was no point in resisting or withholding anything which might help Nicole Benton’s family.”

Young, however, remembers that Nenno sounded like a young boy confessing a naughty deed to a parent, and contrary to his purported flash of decency, Young’s impression remained that Nenno was not sorry for the deed, just sorry that he had been caught.

It struck Young forcefully, and backed up what he already knew about these types of crimes, that within ten minutes of walking away from the neighbor’s yard, within ten minutes of being in full view of her father and friends, Nicole Benton was dead.

Nenno told Young and Johnson about the dilemma he faced once she was dead—what to do with her body. He wanted to take her out of the house, drive her somewhere, but he was afraid to do so with all the activity in the neighborhood. And he couldn’t leave her in the main house and risk his nephew coming home and finding her. His solution was to carry her to the garage and stash her body in the attic, behind the boxes. As it turns out, there was one admission that Nenno would leave out of his confession. A physical examination of Nicole would show that after being dumped in the attic, Nenno returned and raped her multiple times over the next few days.

As forthcoming as Nenno was during his confession, as freely as he related his horrendous crime, he remained absolutely inscrutable on one small point. Nicole was found naked, so Young asked what he did with her clothes. For no reason Young could fathom, either then or thinking about it later, Nenno refused to say. Young pressed, asking the question several different ways but Nenno simply wouldn’t tell him. A search of the house would later locate them, hidden in a filing cabinet in his den. In the same filing cabinet investigators found Nenno’s stash of pornography, not especially extensive but very revealing: young models, purportedly aged eighteen or older, but all dressed as little children.

Young testified at Eric Nenno’s trial and on January 18, 1996, Nenno was found guilty of the sexual assault and murder of Nicole Benton. On February 1, 1996, the jury sentenced him to death and after the judge entered the sentence Nenno was transported in leg irons to death row.


(Final installment to appear on 10/31)

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Jury trial - just ended. Me tired.

I just finished a jury trial, and I'm exhausted as usual. But a quick "Thank you" to the jurors who worked very hard on the case, and were kind enough to stay behind and talk to me. I always learn something when I talk to jurors and I was gob-smacked by how thoughtful and downright smart these people were.

Congrats, too, to attorney David Frank who obtained a not-guilty verdict for his client. I know David and his colleagues Matt and Ciara worked as hard on the case as we did.

We shall meet again, good sir.

True story: Holding Hands with Evil (pt. 6)

What follows is a true story. I wrote it following interviews with murderer Eric Nenno and Mark Young, and after reviewing newspaper accounts of the case. All names and information are public record. What is different is the perspective: of the killer, and the man who caught him. Parts One through Five are below.

PLEASE NOTE: while not unduly graphic in description, this is the story of the murder of a young girl. Do not read this if the subject matter is disturbing to you.


PART SIX

They went in and Young turned to Nenno. “Where is she?”

Nenno looked at the floor, and his right arm slowly raised upwards, a finger pointing to the attic right above them. He didn’t say a word. Young nodded at Johnson who reached for the trap door above them, pulling the cord and unfolding the wooden step ladder. Johnson climbed the rungs and disappeared into the attic. A minute later he descended the stairs shaking his head.

“Eric, she’s not there,” said Young.

Nenno wouldn’t look him in the eye. “Maybe I saw her there in my dreams,” he said.

“Then in your dreams, Eric,” Young pressed. “In your dreams, where would she be?”

Nenno once again pointed upwards while keeping his eyes firmly on the concrete floor. This time he spoke: “Behind the boxes. Further back, behind the boxes.”

Young cuffed Nenno with his hands behind his back and left him with several deputies who had joined them at the scene. He climbed the ladder to look for himself. The attic was cold and dark inside but he was able to see the length of it either side of him. He looked to his left, towards the house and made out a low stack of boxes. Steeling himself, he walked to the boxes, looked behind them, and his heart sank. Nicole Benton lay on the floor, her legs splayed out, naked and deathly pale. Underneath her hips and legs was a large sheet of plastic wrap. He knew she was dead. He knew it from the way she looked and from the way he had found her. But on the off-chance, just in case there might possibly be a flutter of life left in her, Young bent down and gently laid his fingers against her skin. She was as cold as ice.

An experienced professional who had seen more than his share of dead bodies, adult and child, finding a body always provoked powerful and basic of emotions in Young: helplessness, anger, revenge, and deep, deep sadness. But, as always, he willed them away, intent on maintaining his professionalism. He now worked for her, for Nicole Benton. He would make sure every investigative step was perfect and precise, locking every possible piece of evidence into place to make sure her killer never did this to another human being.

Young, the father of two daughters, gritted his teeth and left Nicole where she lay. He knew that a team of experts would soon arrive to analyze the crime scene, take photographs and samples, makes maps and charts. He hated leaving her like this, naked and vulnerable, but he had no choice. She was gone, the real Nicole, and what remained needed to be turned into evidence. Once the crime scene experts were done, and not before, little Nicole could be reunited with her grieving parents for their final good-bye.

Young slowly descended the ladder. Part of him wanted to think of his own little girls, one just a few years older than Nicole, and part of him wanted to choke the life from the monster who stood there in handcuffs. But Agent Young did what he always did in these cases, he set those feelings aside, he shut off every part of his mind except the part that was running the investigation. After all, there was a lot still to figure out. They had found the body and Eric Nenno had implicated himself, but they didn’t know the full story. They didn’t know how or when she had died. And, of most interest to Young, why she had died.

(To be continued on 10/28)

Monday, October 24, 2011

True story: Holding Hands with Evil (pt. 5)

What follows is a true story. I wrote it following interviews with murderer Eric Nenno and Mark Young, and after reviewing newspaper accounts of the case. All names and information are public record. What is different is the perspective: of the killer, and the man who caught him. Parts One through Four are below.

PLEASE NOTE: while not unduly graphic in description, this is the story of the murder of a young girl. Do not read this if the subject matter is disturbing to you.


PART FIVE

Earlier in their interview, Special Agent Young had asked Eric Nenno if he would sign a consent-to-search form, allowing officers into his house. Nenno agreed to the request and several deputies were dispatched to see what they could find.

With Nenno’s written statement in hand, the next step was obvious to Young.

“Eric, would you mind taking a polygraph exam?” he asked. “We’ve had the family and several neighbors take one.”

Nenno hesitated. Slowly, haltingly, he said he had “concerns,” and he was afraid that one concern in particular might skew the results.

“Our polygraph technicians are pretty good at dealing with outliers,” Young reassured him. “What are you worried about, exactly?”

Nenno told him that he had thoughts, fantasies, and one recurring fantasy that might interfere with the polygraph. It was about his ex-girlfriend and her daughter. He often imagined that he and his ex would have sex in front of the ten-year-old girl. It was for her education, Nenno added hurriedly, it would help her develop a healthy knowledge and understanding of sex. In fact, Nenno would later write this:

At the initial interview with Special Agent Young and Detective Johnson, I was at first unconcerned with their questioning. But as they broadened the topics to include any sexual interest or predilection I might have toward underage women and girls, I started to be deceptive and evasive in my answers. I do not know if they had intuitively perceived some suspicions; had reservations as a result of my body language, responses, etc.; or if they were just being thorough in their investigation. Their interview began to unlock some of the realization that I had been involved in an actual crime.

Young again reassured Nenno that the polygrapher would not let that fantasy mess up the test, and after a minute’s thought Nenno went into the small room at the back of the trailer. He would later admit that he only took the test because he thought it would look suspicious to back out. He also believed that if they asked him any tough questions, he would be able to bluff his way through them. The door closed behind Nenno and Young sat outside, waiting.

Time ticked by. Young checked his watch. It was taking a long time, longer than usual, he thought. His impatience was checked when the deputies who had been searching Nenno’s house reported in. No sign of Nicole, one officer said, but in Nenno’s bedroom they found a pair of binoculars on a credenza.

“And?” asked Young.

“And from his bedroom window,” the deputy said, “you can see the house where she was playing.”

A few minutes later the door to the polygraph room opened and Young saw Nenno slumped over in the chair, his body language telling of a man utterly defeated. Nenno stood slowly and walked towards Young and Johnson. For several minutes, no one said a word and then Nenno blurted out: “I flunked it, didn’t I?”

“I don’t know,” said Young. “Did you?”

Young and Johnson conferred with the examiner. Without being specific, Nenno had suggested during the polygraph that Nicole might still be at his house somewhere, so Young asked Nenno if he would accompany them over there. He agreed.

They left the trailer and walked to Young’s FBI car, Young intentionally leaving Nenno unhandcuffed. Young held the front passenger door open for Nenno and then took the wheel. Johnson stationed himself directly behind their suspect, and they drove the two blocks to Nenno’s house. They walked down the short driveway to the garage, which stood open.


(To be continued on 10/26)

Friday, October 21, 2011

True story: Holding Hands with Evil (pt. 4)

What follows is a true story. I wrote it following interviews with murderer Eric Nenno and Mark Young, and after reviewing newspaper accounts of the case. All names and information are public record. What is different is the perspective: of the killer, and the man who caught him. Parts One, Two and Three are below.

PLEASE NOTE: while not unduly graphic in description, this is the story of the murder of a young girl. Do not read this if the subject matter is disturbing to you.


PART FOUR

By Saturday evening, Young was frustrated. They had ruled out the family’s involvement and also excluded the neighborhood weirdo. This one, anyway. And while excluding suspects was essential to this kind of investigation, no case was solved until a suspect was ruled in. They hadn’t managed to do that, and time was ticking by.

In the command post, Young received a page. There was one neighbor who had not been properly interviewed, and he’d just been located. Harris County deputies had interviewed the man, Eric Nenno, briefly at his house and were now bringing him to the trailer.

When he arrived, Young and Johnson stood to greet him. Young studied the man. He was short, perhaps not quite five-and-a-half feet tall, and slight of build. Barely 120 pounds, Young thought. In his early 30s, he had red hair and a red beard, and carried himself like a man afraid of the world. This guy was no threat to an adult, that much was sure. But a child? That’s what Young needed to know. As they moved into the trailer and, for no particular reason, he asked: “Just curious—were you in the service?”

“Yes,” Nenno replied. “I was a ventilation and plumbing systems technician. In the Navy.”

Young knew not to place any serious weight on the response, but he felt Johnson stiffen beside him.

They moved into the trailer and sat down, and Young asked Nenno if he knew what was going on. Nenno was subdued, speaking clearly but quietly. He would be unable to help them, he said, but yes, he knew what was going on. He’d even helped in one of the many searches.

Young watched the man carefully, his sole objective to figure out whether he needed to spend more time talking to Nenno or dismiss him from the investigation and concentrate on someone else. Not that there was anyone else right now.

“So you live here,” Young said casually, “do you have any insights on this thing? I’m an outsider and am always looking for help from someone who knows the neighborhood. Any thoughts on what happened?”

“Yes.” Nenno looked up at him. “She was raped and murdered.”

Young tried to hide his surprise. He had encountered the gamut of responses to that question, many of them odd. But never before had anyone answered it so specifically and definitively. Before Young could respond, a Harris County Detective clattered into the trailer, unaware that an interview was taking place. The interruption destroyed the moment and once the detective had apologetically backed out, Young knew he had to get them back to that moment.

He started slowly, not wanting to frighten Nenno back into his shell. He handed Nenno a pen and paper and asked him to reconstruct his Thursday. Young sat and watched as he wrote.

This was a technique Young had used before, and with some success. It was based on a theory developed by a former Israeli police lieutenant named Avinoam Sapir, called Scientific Content Analysis (SCAN). A former polygrapher, Sapir posited that information could be gleaned not just from a person’s verbal responses and bodily reactions to questions, but from the text of a written statement itself. His theory was that at least ninety percent of statements made by people are truthful, and that even when they are untruthful most people do not attempt to lie directly. Rather, they hedge, omit crucial facts, feign forgetfulness, and pretend ignorance. Sapir reasoned that liars are reluctant to commit themselves to their deceptions, especially when they are in writing. Instead, they tend to use conversational tricks to avoid or skirt around damaging admissions. When avoiding the truth in written statements, a person would take a similar circuitous route around the truth, or simply leave gaps.

When Nenno finished, Young took the statement and quickly read through it, scanning Nenno’s account of the day. Young used the description of the morning hours as his baseline, his point of comparison, because he knew that those hours were essentially irrelevant to the investigation and gave Nenno no cause to be deceptive. Young quickly saw that Nenno’s statement contained impressive detail for every moment of the day, right up until the hour that Nicole went missing. At that point, the statement was terse, devoid of real information. If nothing else, this vagueness meant that he needed to spend more time with Mr. Nenno.

And time was of the essence, so Young had made sure that more was happening than just their conversation. While they talked, he had Nenno’s background examined, his criminal history checked. This check would reveal one previous accusation against Nenno. A young girl had been having problems with her bicycle and Nenno offered to help. While doing so, Nenno had fondled the girl, who then ran away. For some reason, nothing ever came of it. Earlier in the interview, Young had asked Nenno if he would sign a consent-to-search form, allowing officers into his house. Nenno agreed to the request and several deputies were dispatched to see what they could find.

With Nenno’s written statement in hand, the next step was obvious to Young.

(To be continued on 10/24)