Grabenstein, of course, knew nothing of Robert Lee Yates Jr. or his ownership of a 1988 Chevrolet van. The detective made note of the prostitute’s uneasy feelings about the van’s driver, but there were also similar hunches about the drivers of big rigs, compact two-seaters, luxury cars, and grungy trailers. If you’re a detective, you make note of them all and track down as many as you can. First on the detectives’ agenda was a trip to Tacoma to track down Jennifer Joseph’s boyfriend, Marlin, who, according to Yolanda Cary, searched Spokane’s streets before returning brokenhearted to Tacoma.
“I’m not her pimp, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Marlin told detectives when they contacted him in Tacoma, Washington. “I met her at a party in Tacoma about two to four months ago. I’ve been to her house, and I’ve met her dad and her brother. Her father told me that she needed to get someone to take care of her, and he jokingly told me that she would drive him crazy.
“Once we got to Spokane from Tacoma,” he said, “we checked into the Red Top Motel, where we paid one hundred ninety per week. Anyway, she would leave the motel at about three in the afternoon to work for some escort service. I don’t know exactly where she went, or what she did, and I never took her there. I don’t really know my way around Spokane at all.”
Joseph’s boyfriend last saw her on Saturday afternoon, August 16, 1997, at about 3:00 P.M. “As usual, she left the motel in a cab,” he said. “She was wearing long black pants, a gray silk blouse with long sleeves and a zipper or buttons in front, and black velvet dress shoes. No, I don’t know what kind of underwear she had on. Her hair was curled and just below the shoulder in length. I think her hair was worn down and not pulled back.”
“The only jewelry he recalled that she would have been wearing,” reported Grabenstein, “was a cross necklace. He didn’t recall her wearing any rings. Later that night, the victim called him at the motel.”
“It was about nine P.M.,” recalled her boyfriend. “She called me and told me that she would be home at about midnight. Other than asking me what I was going to cook for dinner, there was nothing else discussed.”
Marlin did discuss loaning money to a fellow named Swan, but that discussion didn’t involve Jennifer. Mr. Swan needed a loan and requested money from Jennifer’s boyfriend. Marlin didn’t have the cash on him, but he assured Swan that once Jennifer got home around midnight, there would be money available. When Jennifer failed to come home, the loan became irrelevant; Marlin became increasingly concerned.
“I started asking other girls if anyone had seen her,” he told detectives. “One girl said she saw Jennifer getting into what she thought was a white Porsche, and that was about ten-thirty P.M. She said that the guy driving was white and in his midthirties or early forties. I guess he’d been driving around the area for a while—you know, kinda cruisin’, waving at the girls, and that sort of thing. I don’t know her name, but I can describe her—a white female, twenty-four or twenty-five years old, with blond hair, and she’s a little heavyset. I think she was staying at the same motel and she seemed to go down the steps in the northwest corner of the complex to an area in back of the west side of the motel. Whatever her name is, she was the only one who seemed to know anything at all.
“I remained in Spokane for seventy-two hours after she disappeared and made several attempts to locate her. I called her father’s house twice in the following days to find out if she had gone home.”
Disconsolately he returned to Tacoma, assuming that she may have taken up with someone else or would possibly return home at a later time. “It had crossed my mind,” he admitted, “that she might be dead. The reason I didn’t make a missing persons report was because this wasn’t the first time that she had disappeared for up to two days at a time since I’d known her.”
Joseph was neither a drug addict nor a recreational user, but the only time she had ever vanished for two days at a time was when she had experimented with crack. “I know she hadn’t had any drugs for at least thirty days because I was with her during that time and she was drug free.
“I brought her belongings home with me,” he tearfully told detectives, “hoping that Jennifer would show up and everything would be fine. When I heard that she had been found dead, I could not even look at them, so I gave them to a friend of mine to keep safe. I knew someone would come looking for them sooner or later.”
His first indication that Joseph was dead came via telephone from Spokane on August 27, the day following her body’s discovery in the alfalfa field. “I heard that a dead girl had been found in a place with a lot of rubbers and that the cops were asking if anyone knew any features that might help them identify the victim.” He had the caller relay to authorities the description of Jennifer’s distinctive tattoo of two roses. His fears were confirmed when he read the subsequent article in the Sunday Tacoma News Tribune that identified the victim, along with funeral arrangements.
“He turned over four containers of personal belongings that belonged to the victim,” reported Grabenstein. “These articles were noted to contain at least two purses, several pairs of shoes, a CD folder, and numerous clothes. The articles were transported back to Spokane for further examination.”
Marlin directed the detectives to his car, and he had no objection to his vehicle being thoroughly searched for evidence. He also willingly provided blood samples. “He was most cooperative,” recalled Detective Grabenstein, “and was honestly devastated by the victim’s death.”
“He was initially reluctant to take a polygraph test,” recalled Detective Fred Ruetsch, “because his parents told him it wasn’t a good idea due to his nervous personality. After a short discussion with both Detective Grabenstein and me concerning the workings of a polygraph, he agreed to accompany us to the Tacoma Police Station, where we turned him over to Detective Larry Miller.” Miller administered a polygraph examination and concluded that the young man was being truthful when he said he was not involved in the death of Jennifer Joseph.
“What never made sense to us,” later commented Sergeant Walker, “was that Joseph’s ‘escort representative’ and her boyfriend didn’t seem to know each other. Here was Joseph living with one fellow, yet obviously associated with D.D.’s escort enterprise, and the two men claimed to not have any interaction at all.”
That conundrum was the least of law enforcement’s worries. It was almost sixty days since the discovery of Joseph and Hernandez. Police prayed for a breakthrough, and on September 15, they had their first ray of hope.
September 15, 1997
A potential breakthrough offered instant encouragement—Spokane police temporarily detained a man held for an unrelated violation and impounded his car. Not only did his vehicle match one of those on “the list,” but in his possession were two handguns: a Raven Arms .25 and a Jennings. 22 automatic. “The calibers of these weapons,” said Detective Ruetsch, “were perfectly consistent with those used in the homicides of Jennifer Joseph and Heather Hernandez.”
Ruetsch, accompanied by Detective John Miller, drove to Garland Towing, where the suspect’s car was impounded. “It was an older Chevrolet Camaro that had been recently spray-painted black,” recalled Ruetsch. “The chrome had not been taped over very carefully, and the rust and the vinyl top were also spray-painted to include lots of overspray on the taillights and brake lights.” Most important, there was no antenna visible on the car. “There was also what appeared to be a bloodstained bedspread wadded up on the backseat.”
Later that afternoon, Ruetsch and Grabenstein interviewed the passenger riding in the car at the time of the driver’s arrest. “She stated that both firearms belonged to her, and she willingly gave permission to have the weapons test fired to assist our homicide investigation.”
Fred