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)

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)

True story: Holding Hands with Evil (pt. 3)

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 and Two 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 THREE

Outside the FBI trailer, the subdivision had devolved into a circus. Not only was the press there in full force, but so were the crazies—one woman stood on the sidewalk, speaking in tongues, trying to get guidance as to Nicole’s whereabouts directly from God. Above her the Black Hawk helicopter of one agency or another buzzed back and forth over the houses. Young assumed it was looking for Nicole but no one seemed to be communicating with the pilot, so he was never sure who had summoned it or what good it was doing.

Young tried to tune these distractions out, to concentrate on finding Nicole. But he knew that too much time had passed, that the chances of finding her alive were dimming by the minute. He turned his attention to the neighbors. Detective Johnson took Young to the home of one of them, a man identified by locals as being a loner, a strange individual viewed with suspicion even before this incident. The man lived directly opposite where Nicole and her friends had been playing.

Young and Johnson knocked on the front door. It was opened by a man in his 40s, visibly nervous. Young already knew that the man lived there with his mother, and that she was away on vacation. The man was clearly anxious, and Young noticed that he kept twitching, making involuntary movements that heightened the appearance of nervousness. Reluctantly, the man let them into his house and Young immediately noticed memorabilia from the Vietnam War. They asked him some initial questions, wondering if he had noticed the activity in the neighborhood. The man said he wasn’t sure what was going on, only that there were a lot of people around. Young asked if he’d heard the garage band practicing the previous evening. “No,” the man said. “I sure didn’t.” Given that the mini-concert was directly across the street, it seemed like an odd response. Young asked more directly about Nicole, and he and Detective Johnson noticed the man’s body movements increase. Young needed to know what caused the twitching, so he simply asked. The man admitted that he was on anti-psychotic medication, and it affected his muscles.

That was the clincher for Young, but he had one more idea. He turned to the man and asked: “How would you like a free security check?”

“Security check?”

“Sure,” Young said. “Let us check your home’s entry points and see how secure your house is from burglars.”

The man agreed, grateful for the free advice. And after perusing his home, Young confirmed his suspicions. He turned to Detective Johnson and said: “He’s not our man, let’s go.”

On the front steps Detective Johnson demanded an explanation. Surely, he pointed out, the guy fit the classic profile of the child abductor? He was in his 40s, lived with his mother, was seen as a weirdo, and was visibly shaken by their questions about Nicole. Not to mention that he admitted to being psychotic.

Young explained his reasoning. “Whoever did this, assuming it’s a kidnapping, has managed to cover his tracks. This guy, on the other hand, doesn’t drive, doesn’t even have a car. And being psychotic, he doesn’t have the capacity to hide such a momentous crime for very long. For an hour or two maybe, but not for this long. We would have seen some sign of her. Maybe even seen her there. It’s not him.”

“You are sure of that?”

“Yes,” Young said. He smiled ruefully and decided to let Johnson in on a secret. For some reason, researchers had found a strange correlation between sex assaults and the services.

“We don’t read too much into it,” Young cautioned him, “it’s a statistical correlation and nothing more. But when a marine or army serviceman commits a sex assault it’s usually against a woman. An adult woman. But when a former airman or navy serviceman commits one, it’s more likely to be against a child.” Young held up a hand. “I can’t explain it, but that’s what we’ve seen.”

“That guy’s Vietnam memorabilia.” Johnson nodded. “He was in the Army.”

(to be continued on October 21)

True story: Holding Hands with Evil (pt. 2)

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. Part One is 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 TWO

Less than a day after seven-year old Nicole Benton went missing, Harris County detectives called in the FBI. On the afternoon of March 24, 1995, Special Agents Mark Young and Gary Steger were dispatched to a small subdivision about thirty miles north-west of Houston.

When they arrived, they found absolute chaos.

Deputies from the Harris County sheriff’s office had swarmed the area as soon as they received word that little Nicole Benton was missing. Also on scene were dozens of neighbors who had put together search teams, some led by deputies and some working in smaller groups on their own. Police and civilians alike milled on the sidewalks or wandered and down the road. The agents had no trouble reading their faces: urgency, desperation, and fear.

Young slowed as he turned onto Bullis Gap Drive and headed toward a police trailer that Harris County detectives set up near the missing girl’s house. It would serve as their command post. He parked the car, and without a word he and Steger headed to the trailer where he shook hands with Detective J.R. Johnson. Johnson thanked them for coming so fast, a welcome that came as a relief to Young because he had found, more than once, his presence resented by local law enforcement. Even when they needed him, they saw him as an interloper sticking his nose into a local matter, looking to grab the glory. But as he knew, and as Detective Johnson obviously realized, when a child goes missing there is simply no time for petty turf wars. Agent Young and Detective Johnson had but one mission: find Nicole.

Inside the trailer, Young asked for a quick, but detailed, account of what police knew.

“She was at a neighbor’s house,” Johnson told them. “It was her dad’s birthday and they were having a party there. Buddy Benton is his name. Anyway, he’s a musician and his band set up in the neighbor’s garage and they were playing for the party-goers. It’s a pretty domestic picture, Agent Young. Some of the neighbors were cooking out and half a dozen kids, including Nicole, were playing in the front yard of the house.”

“Could her dad see where she was playing?” Young asked.

“Yeah,” Johnson said. “The kids were well within sight of the garage.”

Dusk fell on the gathering, and at some point Nicole had disappeared. No one saw her walk away, and no one saw her with anyone else. One minute she was in full view of her father and friends, the next she was gone.

It was a familiar story to Young and he moved to study a map of the area. He saw that the neat rows of houses that made up the Ranch Country subdivision sat on flat farmland, sandwiched between Highway 290 to the south and a patch of dense woodland to the north. Teams of searchers, Johnson said, had already gone in both directions, some thinking Nicole had wandered to the main road and others afraid she had gotten lost in the woods.

From the door of the trailer, Special Agent Young watched the groups of people standing around or setting off with sticks and bullhorns. Such disorganized and desperate searches, he knew, were not the best way to find Nicole. Rather, they reflected the fear that every resident felt for her safety, the urge to act on their part a natural one born from fear and outrage—one of their own was missing, and someone had violated their peaceful community.

But despite all their efforts, there was no sign of Nicole and, assuming this was an abduction, there were also no leads on a suspect.

Young made a note of the timeline—Nicole had disappeared on Thursday evening, and it was now Friday afternoon. Although he wasn’t about to say so, Young knew that time was not on their side. Also working against him was the chaos that Young had found upon arriving. Normally, he liked to coordinate the civilian search teams and the police canvas, have them organized in tandem so that information and planning ran through a single “choke point.” It was the only way to ensure that every angle was covered, every witness interviewed, and all possible hiding places uncovered.

He began to organize the chaos, wanting to establish a detailed timeline of events, to get a list of those who had been with or seen Nicole in the hour before she vanished. That meant talking to everyone who had been at the party and in particular her family and close friends. One of the men Young respected most, Special Agent Larry Angram, had taught him that those closest to the victim usually know the most. He had used the analogy of a stone thrown into the pond. “Sure,” he’d said, “it makes a lot of ripples. But where are you going to find the stone? In the middle, not at the edges.”

Special Agent Steger focused on Nicole’s parents, each of them taking and passing a polygraph. Agents in the field like Young and Steger found polygraph examinations to be immensely helpful during investigations. Although the results of the exams have never been deemed reliable enough to be allowed into court, information gleaned by the examiners had proved historically accurate, accurate enough to help investigators focus on certain suspects and exclude others. And in this case, they were quickly able to exclude the family members as suspects.

Working from the command post, Young asked to speak to Nicole’s eight-year-old sister, who had been one of those playing in the front yard. In his experience, children could be invaluable witnesses, giving unfiltered, honest recollections of what they had seen and heard, usually without the sophistication to fabricate time-wasting lies or color their answers with what they might think the interviewer wants to hear.

The little girl told Young about a bracelet she made for their father’s birthday, a charm with his name on it. A woman who lived nearby helped her make it, she said. Nicole was upset when she saw the bracelet, because she wanted to do something similar for her father. Young mentioned that some people thought Nicole might have stormed off towards the main road, but her sister said that was impossible. To get to the main road, she said, Nicole would have had to walk a long way down a dark stretch of sidewalk. And Nicole, she assured Young, was much too afraid of the dark to do that. This information, the words of an eight-year-old, would prove to be the most accurate and informative that Young would get from any witness.

(To be continued on October 19)

Finally! Cold case show to air on 48 Hours

To interrupt one true crime story for another. The cold case I tried in April will (finally) air this Saturday at 10PM EST, 9PM local time, on CBS's 48 Hours show.

Here is a preview clip. And yes, that's me on the horse.

True story: Holding Hands with Evil (pt.1)

What follows is a true story. I wrote it following interviews with 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.

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


PART ONE

March, 1995 – The man walked to the kitchen and dropped his empty beer can into the trash. He counted five others below it, all drained since he’d gotten home from work two hours ago. As he stood there, the sound of an electric guitar caught his ear and he went to the window and looked out, trying to find its source. A drum roll strengthened the music and he listened for a minute. Then, as quickly as the instruments had started, both died away and the man wondered if a band was playing nearby. He decided to have a look.

The man went out of his front door and turned right, heading down the sidewalk towards the music. Definitely live, he could hear the instruments cutting in and out, and although he wasn’t a musician he easily recognized the sounds of a jam session. As he moved along the sidewalk a warm spring breeze cleared his head a little but his legs felt heavy, his step unsteady. Hardly surprising: his five foot four frame and 120 pounds were still not used to heavy drinking.

But his eyes worked fine. He could see a pretty girl headed right towards him, her head down, not looking where she was going.

Very pretty, in blue jeans, a black and white blouse, and the cutest little Mary Jane shoes.

He spoke a soft greeting, not wanting to startle her, and she looked up. She was surprised but not frightened. She’d come from a party, she said, and that was her dad playing in the band. Oh, said the man. I play in a band. Your dad plays the guitar?

So do I. Would you like to see it?

Her “yes” was shy, but the fact that she said it and started walking with him told the man she was interested in him. Sexually. Why else would she go to his house with him? No other reason.

Inside, he told her that his guitar was in the bedroom. Would she still like to see it? Good. But he could see in her eyes that she was not so sure now, although she followed him through the kitchen and down the hallway.

In the doorway to his bedroom the man felt her stiffen. He knew that she was looking around for a guitar and didn’t see one. But then she wouldn’t, his was safely tucked away in its case. It wasn’t about the guitar, they both knew that. He took her hand and drew her into the room, and read the confusion on her face as he began to undress her. She stood, frozen still, so he kept going. Only when he tried to take off her panties did she resist, and the fight in her shocked him. She defied his commands, she pushed him away and cried, her voice growing louder and louder.

It was then that the man knew he’d made a mistake, that he’d misjudged her. She didn’t want to play like that after all.

And she’d tell on him, for sure.

The man stood behind her and wrapped his left arm around her neck. He pulled her closer and tightened his grip, determined that she be quiet, that she tell no one what he had done, what he was. He held her like that until the noises stopped and she no longer moved. When it was done, he released her and laid her gently on the bed. Excited still, the man quickly removed her panties and lay on top of her, finally able to do what he couldn’t when she was alive.

(To be continued on October 17.)