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The Murder Book: A True Crime Podcast
Each week, The Murder Book will present unsolved cases, missing persons, notorious crimes, controversial cases, and serial killers, exploring details of the crime scenes and the murderer's childhood. Some episodes are translated into Spanish as well. The podcast is produced and hosted by Kiara Coyle.
The Murder Book: A True Crime Podcast
The Unraveling of Jeffrey Gorton Part III
Murder has a way of revealing secrets, and the investigation into Margarette Eby's brutal killing peels back layers of deception surrounding the prime suspect, Jeffrey Gorton.
Detective Dave King follows the old Flint police adage: "If you got a case on the come, you gotta write it till it's done." His investigation begins with Eby's list of lovers and the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death—no forced entry until the bedroom, suggesting she knew her killer. As King dives deeper into Eby's life, he uncovers a complex woman: strong-willed, brilliant, and unconventional, who had previously reported an intruder in her bedroom just weeks before her murder.
Meanwhile, we meet Jeffrey Gorton through the eyes of Brenda Fleming, who encounters him at a local bowling alley. Their relationship blossoms into what appears to be a perfect marriage. Jeff is generous, surprising Brenda with thoughtful gifts, such as an expensive bedroom suite, on their honeymoon. He becomes the ideal family man, coaching his children's teams, participating enthusiastically in family gatherings, and organizing spectacular Fourth of July fireworks displays. His only quirk seems to be his constant nervous movements—rocking and nail-biting that never stops.
Yet beneath this carefully constructed façade lies a troubled past. Through his high school friend, Joe Contreras, and his first girlfriend, Dawn Theerback, we discover a different Jeff—one who desperately tried to escape responsibility when Dawn became pregnant at 16, even joining the Navy to get away. Dawn's heartbreaking diary entries reveal her desperate pursuit of Jeff and his eventual reluctant acceptance of fatherhood and marriage.
The FBI's behavioral science unit, including famed profiler John Douglas (the inspiration for characters in "Silence of the Lambs"), provides a chilling psychological portrait of Eby's killer that begins to align with aspects of Gorton's personality and background. When Detective King receives a crucial tip connecting Gorton to Eby through a mutual acquaintance, the parallel narratives converge into a shocking revelation about the man behind the façade of the perfect husband.
Listen now to discover how this meticulous investigation unravels the complex web of secrets surrounding Jeffrey Gorton and the murder of Margarette Eby.
Welcome to the Murder Book. I'm your host, kiara, and this is part three of the Murderer, jeffrey Corton. Let's begin. Old-time Flint cops had a saying if you got a case on the come, you gotta write it till it's done. Write it till it's done, and King wrote this one. For the next few weeks the days would start with the meeting at 8.30 am to see where they stood and what the base plan of attack was. He had rarely go home before 11 pm.
Speaker 1:The catch, who got on well with the local media, was the point man for the press. He was politically savvy. His role was also to keep the local politicians at bay. Every social circle was the very highest in Flint. Lloyd Rose, the head of the Buick border division, was a friend, and so were many of the local luminaries, and they wanted to know what was being done to solve the crime. Every day they would come to the station, have a stack of messages from media folks who wanted to know the latest. The media appetite in this case was just insatiable. Tv reporters and Flint Journal reporters worked the case hard too, and the catch and King often found themselves chasing angles they saw on TV or read in the paper, many of them dead ends or flat out wrong.
Speaker 1:A week after Abby's murder, one of her students, pamela Custison, reported a terrifying encounter. Pam had taken her dog to an obedience class and when she returned to her car, a man who had been hiding in the backseat put pruning shears to her neck and told her to drive off. He told her he would cut off her ear and mail it to her parents if she didn't cooperate. And he told her he had killed Margaret Ebby and would kill her too if she didn't do as said. At some point, driving down I-75, the woman's dog bit the man and he told her to pull over on the shoulder so he could kill her dog. She pulled over the man, dragged the dog out of the car and Costasen accelerated away. The dog then broke free of the man and chased after the car. She stopped, let the dog in and they took off, leaving the man on the side of the road holding his shears. The FBI and Flint PD investigated but didn't make an arrest and couldn't conclusively link her abductor to Evie's killer.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile King and the catch started at the beginning with known friends and associates. Smith and Hyde were soon cleared, but you have to be blind not to see the clues aiming at someone who might be a lover or friend or, if not either of those, at least part of her social circle. For one thing, there was no sign of a forced entry Until you got to the bedroom. There were no signs of disturbance in the house. Did she invite her killer into her room? Disturbance in the house? Did she invite her killer into her room, thinking one thing was going to happen and then finding out something else entirely was about to take place? For another, there was that list of men's names in her bedroom. Anne King said quote I had a hunch what that list was going to be. End, quote. His hunch was right.
Speaker 1:It soon became clear that it was a chronological list of Abby's sexual liaisons, beginning with her deceased husband. Some of the men were even married to friends of hers and many of them still lived in the area. Was Abby hassling one of her ex-lovers? Was someone desperate to break off a relationship? Was there some spouse mad enough at having found out about an affair that she went over to Abby's for a confrontation, lost control and killed her in a rage? A story in the Detroit News seemed to give credence that it was someone she knew. The page one headline read Slain, prof Feared for Life, and in it Margaret Strouble, one of the rare co-workers who had also become a friend, said Avey had told her over a recent breakfast at the gatehouse that she had suffered repeated breakings.
Speaker 1:Her home was burglarized just weeks after she moved to Flint in 1981, and thieves hit her two more times and once when she was at home that previous January. One time they grabbed her purse, which was later found on the grounds of the estate. Another time they met off with a cassette player. More ominously, strobel told the reporter Abby had awakened one night the month before her death to see a man standing there. She had screamed and the man had fled. Evie had not reported the incident to police and Strobel thought the reason was that the man was someone Evie knew and didn't want to get into legal trouble. Strobel said melodramatically quote I lived in her shoes all through the month of October. I told my husband four times in October that she would not live through another month, through November, end quote. Yet Straubel's account was in contrast to a quote later in the story when she recounted Abby's response to a suggestion that she move, and she quoted Abby as saying quote I grew up in Detroit. This is safe here. God is my umbrella. Nothing bad will come to me. End quote.
Speaker 1:Police and Evie's other friends discounted Straubel's comments. The friends in particular told they thought she was just relishing her chance for five minutes in the spotlight a bit too much. Moreover, what they knew but the reporter didn't was that Straubel had had a falling out with Abby. She had been a paid employee of the back festival quit and then gotten banned when Abby refused to rehire her. When she asked for her job back Later, she accused Evie of keeping her out of a master's program at UM. Eventually they had patched up their differences, but things had remained strained. Yet struggle story jived with Lynn Reimer's report of someone coming into the gatehouse one night years earlier and going through their underwear drawers and with no sign of a forced entry and no sign of a struggle. Perhaps a person she knew had come to kill her. Perhaps the same man she had shooed from her room the month before or who had been there at the night. Lynn came home late from Patty McGee's.
Speaker 1:The list of lovers was extremely promising but was, after weeks of legwork and initial interviews and follow-up interviews, of no ultimate consequence. It did keep King in a higher circle of folks that he normally traveled while on homicide investigations. One was a dean at the University of Michigan in Flint. One was a former Detroit cop with an affinity for jazz who later moved to Flint and opened a book and music store. He had met Abbie in 1983 while trying to organize a three-day jazz festival in the city. They shared a passion for Miles Davis and Anita Baker and had had a one-night stand following one of their community meetings. One was a tenured professor of history at UM's Ann Arbor campus, the husband of one of Abby's friends. He was the only one on the list who denied an involvement with her.
Speaker 1:But King had more than just a name on a list. He had found a packet of erotic letters the historian had written using scalable funds on his Apple computer to describe different things he wanted to do with the music professor in Flint. And King said I have those letters and he was like oh, those huh. So according to King, what his impression overall was? That he was impressed by their brilliance and convinced by their alibis. So they couldn't develop anything. The lovers described Avery as strong-willed, even demanding. Someone who seemed to immerse herself in the relationship, then just as quickly ended and won herself in. The relationship then just as quickly ended and won.
Speaker 1:One early suspect was a woman, a Detroit psychologist and lesbian, named Carol Primo, with whom Abby had once had a serious affair after Stewart's death in 1979. Abby had broken off the affair about the time she moved to Iowa, leaving the psychologist very angry and upset. But they had remained friends and continued a non-sexual relationship until Abby's death. Primo told King that she had met Abby soon after Abby's husband had died in April of 1975, a particularly traumatic death because it had happened during sex. She told him of Abby's mood swings, that she could be happy and childlike or angry and shrew-like. She told him Ebi was extremely well-liked by her friends and equally disliked by colleagues at the school. Ebi was open enough in those freewheeling mid-1970s to even go on a vacation with the psychologist to the Canary Islands, accompanied by Abby's daughter Lynn. There Abby had turned the psychologist on to her first taste of marijuana and even talked her into smuggling a small amount of hashish back into the United States.
Speaker 1:Abby could be reckless, always driving fast, almost always leaving her doors unlocked, often walking around nude in her uncurtained gatehouse. When asked about such things, evie would reply that God would protect her. What Primo told King resonated with what Straubel had told the news. About a week before her death, evie had shown up unannounced at Primo's and told her that she was very upset and that she had a recent intruder, that she was worried someone was trying to kill her. King would dismiss the psychologist as a suspect. Later he would say there was speculation over Flint that Margaret Abby was a, a wild ass lesbian into all sorts of wild ass stuff. But I didn't find any evidence of that. Margaret Abbey lived in a different world, a very liberal world. This was just a dalliance she tried after her husband died. From seeing the list of men it seemed clear women were not her preference. End quote.
Speaker 1:King was beginning to feel as if he now knew Margaret Abbey. He found himself growing to like her. She had a frankness he admired. He admired her spunk to her sense of self. She was a very complicated woman, driven to succeed, eccentric, pushy. She didn't behave the way women were expected to behave in that place and time. A strong family man. He liked that she had clearly loved her children and her grandchild, that there was so much evidence of her family in her life, and he got a big kick out of this anecdote he came across when she had a deposit to make at the local bank. She didn't do what you normally do. She was definitely not a person to stand in line. Stand in line.
Speaker 1:Margaret Eby, who traveled in the same social circles as King, would go straight to the bank president's office with her check and deposit slip and leave it for him. They cleared the lovers. They cleared the family. Eby's children submitted to fingerprinting and temporary status as suspects until the results came back that none of them matched the bloody print in the bathroom. They cleared her colleagues at the college too, though. They confirmed that AV could be abrasive, even demeaning, and was particularly disliked by the clerical staff.
Speaker 1:They investigated a mentally ill man who claimed his thoughts were controlled by a machine at the Mott estate. He would first been caught on the grounds of the estate four years earlier but had escaped from Flint police. In the ensuing car chase he crashed into a car and killed a woman. But they clear him of killing Abby woman, but they clear him of killing Abby King, and the catch move on to the various and numerous mod employees. Compounding the problem was the laxness of security at the mod estate. A large key ring was kept in plain sight in the main building. If you needed a key or wanted one, you just took the ring. The caretaker was a retired cop with a reputation for toughness when he was on the force, and he and Abby had argued frequently over the years. But he was cleared. So were the others.
Speaker 1:The end of the investigation quickly went nowhere too. Could it have been a stranger then? Was it time to move on to the third category of possible suspects? All the contractors and subcontractors, their employees, the various visitors to the estate around the time of the murder? That was surely a headache, waiting for an already overworked apartment, but no, it wouldn't need to come to that. It wasn't a stranger after all.
Speaker 1:A month and a half after Abby's death came word from the feds that King's suspicions were correct. It was a friend, or at least an acquaintance, said a team of FBI profilers. King and the catch just had not found out which one. Yet the FBI report came along about the time King had started focusing in on someone whose name had not shown up on Abby's list of friends, who hasn't been a Mott employee but who knew Abby well enough to visit her at her office and at the school swimming pool.
Speaker 1:Just before Christmas, three of the FBI's favorite profilers gave the Flint police a detailed profile of Margaret Abby's killer. To work with the Flint PD not playing territorial games with this case had asked the FBI back in November if its behavior science experts could lend a hand. The FBI team included Jim Harrington, the Bureau's Michigan Coordinator of the Behavior Sciences Unit, william Hackmeyer from the FBI's headquarters in Quantico, virginia, and John Douglas, also of Quantico and internationally recognized as the FBI's leading profiler. Douglas was the inspiration for the profiler in Thomas Harris's famous novel the Silence of the Lamb, and he's also the inspiration for one of the main characters in the Netflix show Mindhunters. Douglas and Hackmeyer flew to Michigan and held meetings over a two-day period with King the Catch, harrington and John Morley, the head of Flint's FBI office, before coming up with the profile.
Speaker 1:It wasn't just some vague description the psychological equivalent of saying to look out for someone of medium height, medium weight and sandy hair. This had detail and lots of it. The profile said that the killer had known Evie and was in her home on more than one occasion prior to the night of her killing. He was experiencing financial and job-related stress. Before the killing and after it had undergone a major personality change. The killer was drinking and may also have indulged in light drugs before going to her home to talk to her. Once in her home he realized he wasn't welcome. He may not have intended to kill her, but he may have acted out of anger and frustration, his inhibitions lowered by the alcohol. After the killing he went to a local bar to establish an alibi. He wanted to leave town but needed to wait until after the body was found, two days later, probably watching media reports to see when the discovery had been made. After the body was found he became withdrawn and nervous. He underwent his personality change, growing very rigid. He likely began feeling remorse and may have confided in someone what he had done or giving hints of it.
Speaker 1:After profiler's meetings with Flint police, the catch, told the Flint Journal. Quote. The meetings went extremely well. Some initial findings and suspicions were confirmed. End quote. If a recent high-profile case in Michigan was any clue, the Flint cops, abby's family, her wide circle of friends, the community at large, all could be assured, said the feds, that this profile would help move this case along, and probably dramatically. The year before, said the feds, another profile done by Harrington of another serial killer in Michigan had cracked a chain of unsolved murders wide open.
Speaker 1:It was 1985, and there was a serial rapist and killer of teenage boys and loose in the metropolitan Detroit. Kenneth Myers, who was 14 years old, was kidnapped on July 16, 1984, from a parking lot near his home in Ferndale in Detroit near Northside. Two days later his body was found in Hines Park in the westland portion of Greenbelt Park along the Rouge River that ran for 40 miles from Northville in far western Wayne County to Dearborn near the Henry Ford estate. To Dearborn, near the Henry Ford estate. Sean Moore, 13, was abducted on August 31, 1985, while riding his bike in Green Oak west of the Detroit urban area. His body was found 13 days later in the woods near a cabin outside Gladwin, a small town at the south end of Michigan's vast tourist area of lakes, beaches and woods known as Up North. Other boys had reported being kidnapped and sexually assaulted.
Speaker 1:Moore's abduction resonated particularly hard with one Redford teen who had been kidnapped from the Livonia Mall and assaulted in June of 1984. Who had been kidnapped from the Livonia Mall and assaulted in June of 1984. The kidnapper had driven home to Heinz Park, made him drink two beers, performed oral sex on him. His assailant then released him unarmed after warning him that if he told anyone he would come back for him and kill him and the members of the family. The boy kept quiet about the assault until the widespread publicity generated by the discovery of Moore's body the boy told her mother, who convinced him to call the police. The boy was so fearful of his attacker that it took Livonia police hours to convince him that if it was okay they would protect him, that he finally gave a detailed description of his assailant.
Speaker 1:On September 10, police in Brighton, the nearest city to Green Oak, grilled Ronald Bailey for 12 hours, but he was released after witnesses to Moore's abduction failed to pick him up out of a line-up. On September 12, an arrest warrant was issued for Bailey, but he had flown to Florida the day before. Fbi agents got a tip. He was in a trailer park in Ocala in central Florida, but as they were about to serve it, he fled into the dense, snake-infested woods nearby. He spent two days hiding in the woods before he was captured without incident seven miles away and returned to Michigan.
Speaker 1:Bailey was a 26-year-old who looked more like 16. He was neatly groomed, with sandy hair, cut on the long side and parted in the middle. Hidden by his boy-next-door exterior was a troubled past and a tortured present. When he was 13, he assaulted an eight-year-old and received counseling. In 1976, he had been charged with a kidnapping, sexual assault and attempted murder of a young boy and was committed to the Northville State Hospital. Three years later doctors at the psychiatric institution said that Bailey was ready to rejoin society. Later one of Bailey's psychiatrists at Northville, jose Tombo, was fired for allegedly having sexual relations with patients. Allegedly having sexual relations with patients, it was alleged, but never proven, that Tombo had sexually abused Bailey numerous times. Bailey moved to Florida from 1980 to 1983, where he was charged twice with contributing to the delinquency of minors by furnishing them with alcohol. By furnishing them with alcohol.
Speaker 1:In September of 1986, bailey was convicted of Moore's murder. At his second murder trial in Wayne County in November, bailey, as part of his insanity defense, took the stand and in graphic testimony admitted to having kidnapped at least 15 boys in Michigan and Florida for companionship and friendship. He said that they were his friends and he said I'm a good, caring person, but I have some bad problems. He told a stunt courtroom that he killed Kenny Myers and he said quote I will be the last person he would ever have sex with. I didn't want him to have normal sex with anyone else. He was so good looking. I was a little sexually excited because I knew he was dead end quote. After the mood of sexual excitement passed, bailey said he cried because his friend was dead. On November 20th 1986, less than two weeks after Margaret Abbey's rape and death in Flint, bailey was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Speaker 1:Gene Harrington's profile was just about a perfect match for Ronald Bailey. Harrington not so modestly claimed his profile to have fit Bailey to an accuracy of more than 90%. Another law enforcement official said the profile was so thorough it contained everything about him except his name. A month later the FBI would trumpet Bailey's arrest and conviction as proof of the science behind the profiling and trumpet Harrington as one of their stars. And John Douglas told the Flint media, quote I feel we can quite easily paint a portrait of the killer. The feds had taken aim and wrote to Margaret Eby's murderer. In the early days of their investigation.
Speaker 1:Dave King stopped by Eby's office at the University of Michigan Flint campus. He went through the stuff on top of her desk, looked through its drawers, rummaged through her file cabinet, looked at the photos and arts and ends of decoration that go into personalizing one's office space. The list of lovers from Abby's home was a good start, but he wanted more to work with. If nothing else, her office would at least give him more of a feel for who she was. He wasn't there long before Ray Roth, an associate professor in the school's music department and one of Abby's colleagues, walked in. It was one of those small world, isn't it things? Roth had been the band director at Flint Southwestern when King went to school there and the professor remembered the name and the face. King went to school there and the professor remembered the name and the face.
Speaker 1:And Ross said one of your classmates was in town visiting Margaret just before she died, and he was not that like passing a tip. He was more like chatting with an old acquaintance about mutual friends. No-transcript. To say he and Stone went back a long way was to put it mildly. They have grown up in the same neighborhood and knew each other as far back as King could remember, though they have gone their different ways after high school. They have gone to school together from kindergarten right on up. They went to Longfellow, a neighborhood K-9 school, then had ridden the bus together to Southwestern High for three years. Everybody else called him Chuck. For some reason King has always called him Charlie Roth and King talked a bit about Stone, and then King went back to his work.
Speaker 1:Soon after, though, that casual conversation became anything else. King got a call on the Ebby case from a tipster, and he implored please don't tell anyone I'm calling, and went on to say that he thought the police ought to take a good look at his nephew, that he might have been involved in Ebby's murder. His nephew had been in town for two weeks and he had had some contact with Margaret Abby, and his nephew was strange too, very strange, so much so that when he asked his uncle if he could stay with him while he was in town, his aunt put her foot down and said no. Some friends of his at the college ended up finding him someplace to stay. His nephew's name Chuck Stone. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1:It was Friday, november 21st, two weeks to the day after Margaret Abbey's murder. Brenda Fleming couldn't wait for her afternoon shift to end at the medical lab, where she worked as an office assistant, receiving specimens and routing them to the appropriate lab people to work on them. She and her co-worker were heading a few blocks over to the Nightingale Bowling Alley in Burton, outside of Flint, where her favorite local band In the Red was playing. The band performed top 40 covers and some of its own stuff and a kick-butt female lead singer who got that place hopping, separated it from the herd of cover bands on the weekend bar and launched circuit around town. They got off on time no last-minute specimens to worry about and hurried over to the bowling alley, ordered drinks and sat back to listen to the band.
Speaker 1:Almost immediately Brenda caught a good-looking younger guy glancing her way. That guy's staring at me, said Brenda. She was short and chubby but cute too Cuter when she laughed her frequent laugh and her face lit up. But she wasn't the type guys usually stare at. Minutes after she entered a room, the young man was playing a bar game called quarter bounce with his friends, the object being to bounce a quarter into a glass of beer. Between bounces and sips of his beer, he kept looking at her. Finally, near closing time, he walked over and asked her if he could have the last dance. She was happy to oblige.
Speaker 1:After the dance they talked. The guy, jeff Gordon was young, younger than she thought she was 29, he was 24. The five years difference, though, took some of the pressure off in the game of singles meet. Brenda felt herself relaxing a bit when he told her his age Too young to be a prospect for anything more than a nice guy to talk to and dance with. They seemed to hit it off and he asked before leaving are you going to be here next week? And Brenda said no, my sister's coming in from out of town for Thanksgiving and will be busy all weekend. The Friday after Thanksgiving, brenda and her co-worker returned to the Nightingale. Jeff was there waiting for her and Brenda said and we have been friends ever since, emphasizing the word friends she enjoyed his banter, his sense of humor, the case. He felt, the ease that he felt with her and she with him.
Speaker 1:Brenda was the youngest of three sisters, the daughter of Flint. Her father worked the line at GM his whole adult life, churning out Buicks by the thousands. Her mother had an office job with the company. Growing up, brenda always worked. She cleaned houses, sold makeup, worked in a furniture store and a pharmacy, went to tech school, then started her career as a medical assistant. The Flemings were uncomplicated folks elevated to middle-class status by union pay and the overtime that often rolled in during Flynn's heyday. There was usually a nice car in the driveway and even a summer coming up north. The family didn't pay much attention to current events. World affairs and the latest news were of little interest.
Speaker 1:Less than a month after that second meeting, brenda and Jeff were close enough that she brought him to Christmas dinner at her brother-in-law Dan Loga's house in suburban Grand Blanc. Though the family naturally thought something was up, what with Brenda bringing a guy she just met to the family Christmas dinner to her, just meant to the family Christmas dinner to her. She said that they were still friends and she thought he was too young for her, but he kept on pursuing her. To Jeff's surprise, brenda's mom had bought him a gift, so he wouldn't feel bad being the only one not having something to open. He seemed stunned at the generosity and pleasantly taken aback by the common rothery and loud by-play that accompanied a Fleming family dinner. Brenda would later learn that his family wasn't much for presents, not much for family celebrations, not much for loudness and laughter and laughter.
Speaker 1:Dan, who had met Brenda when she was in the fifth grade and he a tenth grader, had followed her sister home from school one day, regarded the young sister a bit wistfully. He was young, unmarried, good-looking, no obligations. He has the world by the garnets, and that was what Danny thought. Jeff was a charmer and Brenda wasn't necessarily someone used to being charmed or pursued. She liked it and she found herself liking Jeff more and more. On New Year's Eve they met again at the Nightingale which was decorated for the big night. There were flowers at each table. Jeff grabbed a badge and presented them to her.
Speaker 1:The circus was coming to town and at some point Brenda mentioned it would be nice to go Next thing. You know, there's Jeff's tickets in hand. That was the way he was. She said Anything I ever wanted I got. It wasn't a relationship I have to work at. It didn't hurt either that he thought she was sexy. He wanted her with a passion that was flattering.
Speaker 1:It wasn't long before everyone, brenda included, considered them an item. He was no longer just a friend. His age had not mattered one whit. Soon they were living together in Brenda's mobile home. Jeff was happy to have settled down, happy to stop hanging out in the bars so much with the guys after work, where it wasn't unusual for them to pound down 10 or 12 beers in the night. They were sure enough of their relationship that, though they were not married, they bought a house together on a large lot on Tuscola Road in Vienna, north of Flint. They bought it for $36,000, closing the deal on February 25, 1988. That was another plus to the guy. He was young and fun, but serious too and doing well in the family business, able to qualify for a mortgage, smart enough to know that renting had not. Been interested in looking at houses, brenda had picked it out on her own and decided that it was one up for them and he had agreed sign unseen.
Speaker 1:In February of 1989, jeff was the best man at her brother Greg's wedding. It was a simple affair with the justice of the peace. At the reception at Greg's and Jeff's parents' marriage house next door to the family's sprinkler business, brenda cut the bouquet. After the good-natured cheers and hussars from the crowd, jeff sent a big smile on his face Go get a calendar, because it was time, he said, to get married themselves. She got a calendar. They started flipping through the months and they settled in on September 22, 1990 for the wedding day.
Speaker 1:On Swedish Day in October of 1989, jeff had a surprise. It was a holiday and Jeff was big on holidays. He took Brenda's hand casually and while talking to her, directing her attention, he slipped an engagement ring on her hand. He had picked it out and got it on her hand without her knowing. Her friends threw her a bachelorette party and hired a male stripper. One of the gifts was a pair of white lace G-string underpants. One of her friends at the party was Marcy, a co-worker at the medical lab, and in the small world that Flint could be, she had known Jeff before she knew Brenda. The small world that Flint could be, she had known Jeff before she knew Brenda. Brenda confided in her that Jeff had told her he had been in a little trouble when he was in the Navy in Florida. The manager of his trailer park had accused him of window peeping, but he and the manager had worked it out and the police had not been involved. Like others, marcy thought Jeff was very smart involved. Like others, marcy thought Jeff was very smart. One thing that stood out was that he couldn't stand still. He was always swaying At the wedding reception at a halt down the road from the family business.
Speaker 1:Brenda's brother-in-law, dan, was struck by the contrast between Brenda's family and Jeff's. Brenda's side of the family was loud, gregarious, full of noise and laughter and joy. Them's wife, son and daughter were all in the wedding party. Brenda's sister was made of honor. Brenda's clan was in general came dressed to the nines in general. Came dressed to the nines tuxedos, gowns, the works. Gordon's family refused to wear a tux and came in a business suit. Jeff's parents, lawrence and Shirley, kept to themselves at the reception they didn't seem to Dan to be having much fun ate their dinner and left early. They just disappeared. Dan remembers thinking then of them and being reinforced in their belief over the years that Jeff's mother, a small woman, was dominated by his father. When not with him, shirley was intelligent, generally quiet but nonetheless a good conversationalist. When Lawrence was there, silence. She bent to his will and that was it.
Speaker 1:Jeff and Brenda's honeymoon was as traditional as Jeff could make it. He wanted everything just right. He took her to the Oaks Hotel in Niagara Falls where he sprang a surprise on her what she thought was just going to be a two-day stay there. Fall was a busy season for the sprinkler business and he couldn't spare much time away from work. It was a five-day honeymoon instead. That surprise was so he could cover up another surprise, which needed the extra days.
Speaker 1:For generations, flint area residents wanted something special in the way a furniture shop, at a store called Peerless. It said something about you if you have a peerless dining room set or or peerless bedroom suite. Over Labor Day, brenda and Jeff had window shopped at the store. It was closed but there was a top-line bedroom suite in the showroom window and Brenda had pointed it out. Isn't that cool? She had said. But it was $3,000, and who in the world could afford that much? Jeff, that's who, as Brenda found out when they returned to Flint and Buffalo. Well, they were gone. Peerless had delivered the suite and his dad had coordinated his schedule so he could be there to let the delivery crew in. When Brenda walked into the bedroom there it was the exact one she had pointed out and she had not even been sure he had been paying attention. They have only been window shopping. But that's the kind of guy Jeff was Always full of surprises, always considerate. They didn't wait long to see if the bed was comfortable, as comfortable as it looked. That's the kind of guy Jeff was too Interested in sex, interested in Brenda. A few months later she was pregnant. The first child, wally, was born on October 18, 1991. Jenny was born May 6, 1994. Jeff was in the delivery room for both births.
Speaker 1:Jeff grew close to Brenda's family. He was the master of ceremonies at the annual fireworks show at the family cabin in Jersey, outside of Clare, the city that denotes the demarcation between the farmland of central Michigan and the tourist mecca of up north. The cabin was a retreat her parents had owned for 35 years and each summer her siblings, in-laws, nieces and nephews flocked there to see if Jeff could top last year's show. Fourth of July seemed to last a month. Gordon would collect $20 a head from members of the extended family and go to Indiana to buy as much cool stuff as he could. Fourth of July was the big day, of course, but for days before and after there would be fireworks going off at the cabin. Father's Day was also a big deal in Brenda's family. Different family members would host it each year and 60 or more would show up for a full day of eating and drinking and shooting the ball. Jeff loved the day, would happily man the video and film away, and each year, either after Thanksgiving or near Christmas, 14 or so members of the extended Fleming clan would go to Midland Valley Plaza in Central Michigan for a weekend getaway, playing in the pool, going out for dinner, and Jeff was always included.
Speaker 1:Jeff was active in church and at school. He rarely drank rum and coke once in a while, or beer. He would never smoke cigarettes. They'd join once in a while if someone offered, but that was about it. He helped his kids with their homework. When Brenda's best friend got divorced and was wracked with depression and stress, jeff was there for her, offering a shoulder to cry on and lots of good advice. He would help Brenda plan showers for his girlfriends, or I should say for her girlfriend's. He was a good husband and a good father. It was a good marriage, though he had confided in his best man at the wedding, kevin Bosch, an old friend from high school, that it bugged him that Brenda wasn't much for cleaning house or cooking. You see, jeff was a compulsive knick-knack. He was always picking up after her.
Speaker 1:If there was one thing after Jeff that Brenda could have changed, she would have done it in a heartbeat. Jeff was so nervous it would drive you crazy. If you let it, he didn't like to sit crazy. If you let it. He didn't like to sit At family functions. You would never see him sitting, he would always be standing or pacing. And if he did sit, he rocked, and standing or sitting, he bit his nails. Brenda would say that he rocked 24-7 and he bit his nails 24-7. She said, quote we would watch TV at night and he would rock and he would bite his nails, end quote. She got used to it. It wasn't so big a deal that she couldn't ignore it. No one's perfect that she couldn't ignore it. No one's perfect. Brenda wasn't the first woman Jeff had charmed. She wasn't the first woman to bear his child. She wasn't the first woman to think he had strange habits worth overlooking. There was the girl he had met at Roller World in 1981, dawn Dawn Theerback. He charmed the heck out of her too, got her pregnant in her sophomore year in high school and did the right thing and married her.
Speaker 1:Gordon's 1980 high school yearbook credited him as being one of the outstanding players who contributed to the chess club's third place finish in the regional tournament. In a seventh place finish at the state tournament he was the number two man on the team and his best buddy, john Contreras, was number three. A photo in the 1981 yearbook, the year he graduated. Coincidentally, he attended Flint Southwestern, the same school as Dave King, gabby Alford and Charlie Stone, and it shows Jeff leaning over a typewriter and it says Jeff Gordon, expert typist, keeps his eraser closed at hand. That was the caption.
Speaker 1:Contreras met Jeff in the ninth grade when they both tried out for and made the freshman football team. Neither of them played much, neither were what you would call in with in crowd. Jeff had hoverball acne. The in crowd Jeff had hoverball acne. Just an excruciating complexion that make him very, very self-conscious Quiet by nature. He was extra quiet when it came to girls.
Speaker 1:Jeff had many acquaintances, few close friends. He had good connections for obtaining pot and beer, which made some of the acquaintances act as if they liked him more than they really did. Joe, though, was a legitimate best friend, and Jeff spent a lot of time at his house. Once Jeff confided in Joe that he felt jealous at how warm and close Joe's family was. Jeff's parents impressed Joe as being cold and aloof, anything but warm. Jeff got to be friends with Joe's younger sister, nora, and Nora never let boys in her bedroom, but Jeff was the exception. He would come in and they would talk. Nora never said anything to Joe about it, but one time, after Jeff had been in visiting, she couldn't find a pair of black and white underwear.
Speaker 1:Jeff had a crush on a girl named Tina. Their junior year she and some other friends attended one of their chess matches and Jeff was supposed to drive them all out for pizza after. When it came time to pile in the car, tina got in the backseat between Joe and Greg instead of in the front with Jeff. Jeff got so mad he took her straight home instead of stopping for pizza. Later that night she committed suicide by overdosing on drugs. No one blamed Jeff. They thought it was just a coincidence. Still, if they have gone out for pizza, who knows? Most of the kids they knew smoked pot and drank frequently. Jeff less so than most of them and a lot less than Joe.
Speaker 1:Jeff didn't study much and used to impress his friends by pulling down A's and B's. Anyway. Jeff also ran track briefly but decided he would rather have gas money and spending money than a leather sweater. So he quit sports to work part-time. His dad Stern, old-fashioned taskmaster, was much happier having his son work than waste time playing sports. In 1978 and in 1979, Jeff worked as a stock boy at Sears. In 1980, he helped his dad in the new company business installing lawn sprinklers, and in 1980 and 81, he was a stock boy at the Big C Market in Flint.
Speaker 1:Two months before he graduated Jeff met Dawn Lee and Thierback at Roller World. Dawn was there with Dawn Gag, her best friend since they were eight or nine. Gag knew Jeff from hanging around the rink and had something of a crush on him. She introduced him to her friend. Jeff wasn't Don Theerbeck's type. He had bad acne, seemed kind of geeky. But he was charming, paid her a lot of attention and basically swept her off her feet. She didn't just think he was smart, she thought he was brilliant. Part of it was that he was 18 and a senior and she was just a 16-year-old sophomore at Ainsworth High and he had a cool teal and white 1974 Buick Regal II. Figuratively and literally she was swept off her feet and by June she was pregnant. The first few attempts at sex she would later recount. Jeff had not been able to get an erection but finally in the parking lot of the Genesee Valley Mall they succeeded. From then on they had sex on a daily basis. He would park down the street from her house in Flint. Wait for her father to leave for work, then they would have sex before going to school. Work, then they will have sex before going to school.
Speaker 1:Gorton and Contreras were both accepted for the fall term at UM-Flint after graduating from Southwestern. Jeff signed up for introductory anthropology, college rhetoric, us history since 1987, and he was a graduate of the University of Michigan, math and Computer Use 1. 13 credits in all. In August, shortly after Don returned home from summer Bible camp, he broke up with her and in September he started school. But on October 23rd both Jeff and Joe had withdrawn from school and on October 30th they enlisted in the Navy, signing up in a buddy program that would allow them to go to basic training together.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile, panicking over her advancing pregnancy, dawn was frantically trying to get back together with Jeff. She left him notes, she called him, she begged and pleaded. She would later acknowledge that she had continually hounded him on her mission to get married. Her junior year of high school, dawn kept a diary in a daily planner, her entries for December of 1981 and January of 1982, printed in the tiniest cramped letters, maybe an eighth of an inch high. Show a frantic lovesick girl Somber, december 27,. She wrote I don't know if Jeff had to work or not. I haven't talked to him since yesterday. I do miss him a lot. Hopefully I will get to see him tomorrow. Jeff never called me today.
Speaker 1:Monday she had an appointment with her pediatrician. Jeff came home from work early and they were together from 5 to 10 pm. She told Jeff she hated the baby but admitted in her diary that she was lying. It's her way, she said, of not getting attached. She seemed to be thinking of giving the baby up when it was born. Tuesday she called Jeff who promised to call her back, but he didn't. So Don went to see him at work. He told her again that he would call. Again. He didn't. She was scared and he was out partying with Greg and Randy. Wednesday Jeff came by an hour later than she was expecting and they went to a friend's so Jeff could work on his car. They had a big fight when he dropped her off because he didn't want to see her on New Year's. It really does hurt to know that I can get to spend the New Year with the father of my child. I really do miss him. It never works out my way. She wrote. Thursday New Year's Eve Her parents had a party. Everyone having fun made her feel extra lonely. At midnight she held Jeff's bracelet and picture and had a dance. It was so lonely and the worst New Year's ever.
Speaker 1:Saturday, january 2nd, she went to see Jeff at work. They had had a talk and she concluded quote I don't think he believes that it's his baby. End quote. If she couldn't get Jeff back, she wrote she was going to give up the baby because it's not right to have just one parent. And then she wrote, maybe after day. It went on. She really did love him. She didn't call. Sorry, he didn't call. He didn't stop by. She went to his work. She called him at home. She kept track of when he got in. She stayed up calling him until he got in, no matter the hour If he got in late.
Speaker 1:She wrote that he told her they had not been partying or that he would only have one joint On his day off. She went over and woke him him up, demanding answers for why he didn't come by the day before. So he promised they have not been partying, they were just playing cards. And she wrote we promised each other to talk things over. I also made him a bet that he couldn't go without partying for two days. One day he promised to come over the next day at 2 pm for three hours. She wrote that it wasn't enough. They had so much to make up for. So the next day she called first thing and asked him to come over earlier. He said he would try. He showed up at 2 10 smelling of pot and she blew up. She apologized and he accepted and she wrote we were just holding each other. It was terrific.
Speaker 1:January 11, don went to the doctor. She had gained 10 pounds After. Jeff came by and he held her and told her he cared about her. And Don wrote she wished every day could be like that. Jeff had been awfully friendly lately and maybe he was changing his mind about marrying her, but she doubted it.
Speaker 1:January 13, she was going to drive over to his house in the morning but the car had a flat and dad got her crying. So she called Jeff and asked him to come by. He said he would at noon, but didn't. She called at 1 pm. He was shoveling snow and said he would call back. He didn't. He did stop over, though. Later Don came to the door crying and he wanted to know what was wrong. He left at 2.30 am. To know what was wrong. He left at 2.30 am. Everything's perfect, she wrote. Everything is solved.
Speaker 1:The 14th she decided Jeff didn't care. After all, his brother was saying mean stuff about her and she worried. Jeff believed it. It seemed like it would be an eternity before she could see him. She saw him the next day. He said he would come over from 1 to 5, but he got there at 1.50. He wanted to feel the baby kick. He promised to call that night but never did. Was he out partying with Joe? She's going to insist the next day that he stay with her till he goes to work.
Speaker 1:Sunday, the 17th she called Jeff in the morning but he had already left for work. He called her at 7.30 pm. It greatly shocked me, she wrote. It must mean that he cares a little about me. Monday her car battery wouldn't turn over. She called him crying. She said she didn't want to be trapped in the house and he said he wouldn't come over and they had a fight. She called him before he left for work and apologized, though she told her diary she knew she wasn't wrong. Tuesday Jeff said he would come over because she missed him so much but he never show up. So she went looking for him and found him at Joe's. He said he would call at 9 30 am. She was in night school and had her final in history and then hurry home. But he never called.
Speaker 1:Thursday, the 21st, her birth classes started. Jeff went with her. The class started at six. They showed movies until 8 and then handed out gift bags. Then they went to Playland South but she couldn't go in because the last time they were there was when she told Jeff she was going to have an abortion, so it's going to hurt too much to go back in again. Jeff understood and took her for an ice cream instead. And then they had an argument about the next day, when Don said they were supposed to go out with Joe and Michelle and then Jeff had to go to Big C to get some money from a friend and she wrote I do love him. And tonight he proved that he cares about me. It was perfect. According to Don, victory occurred on February 22, 1982. Today she says they finally got back together as boyfriend and girlfriend and parked in a car near the Humane Society in Flint he promised to marry her. The two of them drove to her house to break the news to her mom. On the 28th, corton and Contreras left for Detroit. They officially began their tour of duty the next day and they arrived in Florida on March 2nd.
Speaker 1:Don would tell friends that Jeff joined the Navy because Flint was going through one of his periodic downturns, where not any good jobs to be had for a high school graduate. But Gorton told his friends another story. When he joined the Navy he had no intention of marrying her. He was getting the hell out because John was knocked up and he didn't think the baby was his. Hell, they had been broken up. When she gave him the news. What kind of crap was that? She was putting the pressure on, putting the pressure on putting the pressure on. It was a crazy time, he would say years later. I was trying to get away from a kid. She was pregnant and trying to make me think it was mine. I told her I didn't think it was mine.
Speaker 1:On March 28th the son, jeffrey same pronunciation as the dad, but with a different spelling was born in Flint. Jeff had promised to go and write but hardly ever did. On May 14th Dawn, little Jeffrey and her mother all flew to Orlando for the weekend and met with Jeff. Whatever they said worked. Jeff finished basic training on June 11th, flew to Orlando for the weekend and met with Jeff. Whatever they said worked. Jeff finished basic training on June 11th, flew to Flint and they were married on June 12th. Greg DeDolf was the best man, however. It had come about that they were man and wife. Dawn was about the happiest person on earth. She was desperately in love and she had landed her man, who was the father of her child. That she knew for a fact. She didn't stay happy for long.
Speaker 1:The day after their marriage Jeff started training at the Navy's Great Lakes Training Facility in Chicago. Dawn and little Jeff moved to Chicago too. Things went downhill fast. After his day of training was over, he would stay out who knew where till all hours In July, saying she was lonely in Illinois. Don returned to Flint for two weeks. Jeff didn't seem the least upset to see her go.
Speaker 1:By September all was seemingly well again. Jeff was transferred back to Orlando accompanied by his family and began training in the nuclear program at the Orlando Naval Base. The last day in Chicago had been odd, though. Jeff had rented a U-Haul and they had packed their stuff, but the last night in Chicago, jeff said he had pulled guard duty and would be gone all night, which struck Don as odd since he had never had guard duty in his summer of training. He rolled in like around 7 or 8 am and they got in the car and headed to Florida.
Speaker 1:Once in Florida, living in a trailer park, she began to feel lonely again. Jeff was gone all the time. Things were nice at Christmas, though, with her family down to spend the holidays with them. They all managed to get out of Orlando for a few days, traveling down the West Coast to stay a couple of nights at her aunt's house in the Naples-Vormeyers area. All in all, things were going well. Jeff's training at the nuclear power school was going well. His skin was clearing up, and the Navy regiment had taken off a few pounds and trimmed him up. In high school he smoked a little pot, drank a little beer. Now, though, he was Mr Clean, a non-smoker, non-drinker, non-drug user. He was quiet, didn't argue or raise his voice with Don. The only thing that made him mad was a mess around the house. He liked things ship-shaped a pretty good trade for a guy in the Navy. Their life was good looking. Thank you for listening to the Murder Book. Have a great week. Their life was good looking. Thank you for listening to the Murder Book. Have a great week.
