Trailed, p.27
Trailed, page 27
I just spent a couple of hours on Stony Man. Good name. Great views. I even saw a black bear—first time I ever saw a bear in the wild. I was very surprised to see one so close to the lodge. Do black bears ever attack people?
I helped a girl change a flat tire in the parking lot. She wasn’t too bad looking, and was a fellow New Englander. I think she’s staying in the lodge, so maybe later . . .
I ate at the lodge restaurant. I’m usually a vegetarian, but there wasn’t much on the menu and I was really hungry so I had the turkey dinner. Great food. The blackberry ice cream was good too. I’m sure I’ll work it off tomorrow.
5/29/99
I got up early, grabbed a quick breakfast and did the White Oak Canyon Trail. I see why you liked it so much. Apparently there hasn’t been much rain this year so the falls were kind of low. I got some pictures I’ll send you. I hiked all the way to the bottom where the trail ended. I must have actually left the park because when I turned around two Park Service guys tried to charge me an entrance fee again! I went round and round with them and finally they let me back in.
The hike back up was definitely a workout. I saw a lot more people on the way up. Some people have no business going outdoors. A lot of foreigners, too. I got off the trail to light a bowl, but I could still see the trail and a pool beneath one of the falls. It’s amazing the things people will do when they think nobody is looking! This would have been a great trail to bring my dog on and I was feeling very sorry that I left her with the ex. She would have really liked it. The bitch is probably going to keep her cooped up inside all weekend.
I am starving! I missed lunch and they don’t start serving dinner until after 5:00 p.m. I hope a Powerbar will tide me over. A fat lady that worked at the Lodge was wearing a button that said “Take back the Trails”, which had something to do with that thing you told me about that happened a couple of years ago. I asked her where it happened, because I thought it would be cool to go and check it out, but she acted like she didn’t know. Yeah, right. That’s probably the most important thing that ever happened in the Park, and she works here but doesn’t know where it happened. Give me a break!
Dinner was good but I had a run in with that girl whose tire I changed yesterday. I saw her going to take a walk after dinner so I asked her if she wanted company. She got all nasty. She said she already had a partner and wasn’t looking for another one. Fuck her. Where was her partner when she needed help yesterday? That’s so typical of women that they can be so nice when they need something from you and then turn around and hurt you after they get it. I almost lost it. I wanted to scream and hurt her back but there were too many people around so I just left. I don’t know why shit like this always happens to me. I just want to explode. Does this make sense? If I find her car I’m going to key it up good. Maybe she’ll learn not to treat people like they are nothing. I saw her again later on and just stared at her. She acted like she didn’t notice but I know it creeped her out. I just wanted to scare her and ruin her night.
5/30/99
I went back out to the top of Stony Man last night to light up so I could mellow out some. There was a full moon and I tried taking a picture for you, but I don’t think it will come out because my camera has an automatic flash. I probably looked silly trying to take it. Hopefully the other pictures will come out.
At breakfast I saw the fat lady again. She didn’t say anything to me but I could hear her talking about me behind my back. I just pretended that I didn’t hear her.
I’m going to take a little time on the drive and then head home. I can see why you like this place so much. It’s just like you said, not spectacular but special. I can definitely see myself coming back here. It’s not really that far out of my way and it’s definitely worth it. Gotta go now.
Later,
Mike
German enclosed a series of photographs, including one he had taken of himself at Whiteoak Canyon.
Rice responded a week later, offering dating advice and counseling calm, saying he’d learned the hard way after assaulting Malbasha:
Hey Mike,
Good to hear from you . . . Shenandoah has got to be one of the wimpiest Natl. Parks. It gets more wilderness like more south. But you can always look in the valley and see lights of civilization at night. There are a couple of places me + my friends could take you still that are cool (one or two). These friends have been going to W.V. and this Hemlock Wildn. Area near Carlisle Pa. Described it as the total non–Skyline Drive experience. So you can get a sense how that park is kind of like Central Park for Wash D.C. It gets so back when the trees turn color. Last few years its been too dry or too wet for good tree changes. We have to hook up and do some things, start at Shenandoah then work our way to (over a period of time) the Canadian Rockies. I still think I’ll get a better deal with the gov. You mentioned the Black Bear. Its probably the same one I ran into twice. It seemed young then 2 yrs ago. I doubt there are many there. I hear Black Bears are more aggressive than others like Griz and Brown. But the one I saw had no intention of checking me out. Back to the real nuesance, people. You know the stuck-ups are going to stay at Skyland. You are lucky to have gotten a room tho. They do exactly what you did, hardly anything. I hate that dining room experience tho they used to have Buckwheat Pancakes. All I can say about that girl’s attitude is it was a front. She didn’t have a companion, and that was her way to keep it so. Don’t let it bother you, that’s why I never ask so you are one step closer than I’d ever be. My dad has gotten lucky up there finding a friend so its not women in general. My advise is ask to join for coffee or a meal before going for the Home Run of a walk in the woods. It might take a few meetings. To me its not even worth it, so stay alone. Usually I am too exhausted from cycling and would be a bore. So I eat and light up, what more to ask for. That fat lady probably did not know where the killings happened. Keeping an eye out and remembering faces is most likely her job. Your question to her gave her meaning and purpose in her life. Keep your cool dude. Don’t go off and scare some chick for revenge. That’s what I was doing, tho she didn’t make me angry. It was a lifelong dose of talking behind my back like the fat lady did to you that set me off. I ended up with Abduction (attempted) with intent to rape for throwing a soda can at her and making remarks about her breasts. That girl with the tire is just in protection mode. How quick the mind can think. The only way Ive got in free to the park is coming in the middle of the night. To get back in you need a receipt. That 10$ or so is for seven days I think. My dad used to get a Golden Eagle Pass and give it to me. Any Natl Park/Mon. in the country for a year. The bottom of White Oak trail is a popular hike up into the park, maybe those guys were legit. We have a great place between two of the falls to hang out along the water. It’s a tiny fall with a pool but nobody will see you pretty much from the trail. That water is always really cold. They are doing lots of construction this summer up there. I have no idea where on the drive or what attractions will be tied up. I’d still think there are better places in the east to go. My friends love Smoky Mountain Natl. down South. That’s really crowded too. Maybe a wilderness area or Natl Forest will do better for hiking, camping, and bike riding. My situation is crawling but maybe the next letter I’ll let you know more whats going to happen . . .
Keep on Growing,
Darrell
Rice concluded the letter with a quick sketch of a marijuana leaf and Kilroy, the iconic graffiti face first made popular by World War II troops and later by science fiction writers.
The correspondence between these two men continued for three years and totaled more than thirty letters. In each of his, German attempted to make inroads on any possible confession. He wrote in one that Cary Stayner confessed to the Yosemite killings, then reflected on how similar the two sets of crimes seemed. He asked again and again where, exactly, the Shenandoah murders took place. He raged against women. In response, Rice advocated for finding peace in nature, in the beauty of the stars. He offered tips on meditation. He asked McCarthy if he might be able to send a couple copies of Club, an adult magazine akin to Penthouse. German wrote back that he could send some raunchier stuff—maybe some BDSM or hard-core rough stuff, but Rice politely declined, explaining that that had never been his thing.
In November 1999, German visited Rice in prison, still posing as Mike McCarthy. He told Rice he was planning on going back up to Shenandoah to see if he could try again to find the murder scene. “You might think I’m too weird about it,” he admitted to Rice, “but I just thought it would be cool to camp there, you know. Smoke a bowl and get karmic there. I just think that would be neat.”
Rice said he didn’t understand what seemed neat about it. News of the murder had really rattled him and his friends. As far as he was concerned, the only thing to be had from that section of the park were nightmares. He advised German not to go up asking about the murders: he said when he’d posed the same question after attacking Malbasha that he’d immediately become a suspect. Getting nowhere on that subject, German tried circling back to the story of Cary Stayner. He spoke at length about the story of Steven Stayner, Cary’s younger brother who had been kidnapped and held as a sexual hostage for years. Rice said he couldn’t understand why that would make Cary murder three women: after all, the bad stuff had happened to Steven, not Cary. German disagreed: Somebody just says or does something on the highway, he offered, and you just kind of snap. Rice told him he needed discipline and self-control. He suggested German try yoga. It’s just stretching, objected German. Try meditating in the park, Rice offered instead. “Hear all the sounds. Try to hear everything. Close your eyes and hear the wind,” Darrell said. German replied that he had heard of a park in the desert where the wind blows and nothing decomposes. Bodies just mummify there. Rice said that sounded weird—and a little gross. By the end of the visit, they’d still gotten nowhere.
After that interaction, the FBI took more extreme measures. In June 2000, the agency concocted a new scenario. Mike McCarthy, they determined, would commit a similar crime to the murder of Julie and Lollie and also in Shenandoah National Park. To make the story believable, they fabricated issues of the Washington Post with what appeared to be legitimate news stories detailing the murder of two unidentified women and a forest fire believed to have been perpetrated by their killer in an attempt to destroy evidence of the crime. Mike McCarthy sent Rice the clippings, along with an ominous assertion that he had to flee the country. The Richmond FBI then enlisted the agency’s Sensitive Operations and Support Group with the task of obtaining a postcard from Copenhagen, Denmark, and creating a postage cancellation stamp that would make it appear as if the card had been addressed and sent from there. On the postcard, McCarthy alludes again to the crimes and his responsibility for them.
After he got that postcard, it would take Rice nine months to reply to the undercover agent. When he did, he explained that he was “worried and dismayed” about McCarthy’s actions—that they ate at him and left him unsure about how to respond to his friend. McCarthy responded, “Simply retaliating when pushed is natural, and must be accepted.” The agent cited the Oklahoma City bombings as the other end of the spectrum—a case where multiple innocent people, including children, were killed. “But fate has a hand, and people die everyday. That’s just the way of the world.” He concluded his letter by again alluding to the Shenandoah case and saying he hoped they would have more time to discuss it again.
The epistolary relationship between German and Rice continued up until the latter’s indictment in 2002. German never succeeded in getting Rice to say anything at all that would connect him to the murders. But Deirdre Enright was right: he did do a fantastic job of persuading Rice that the two of them had become bosom friends. When she found the McCarthy undercover file in the storage shed, she told Rice that Mike McCarthy was actually Mike German, an undercover FBI agent. Rice vehemently disagreed. She showed him some of the documentation surrounding the sting.
“Darrell was crushed,” Deirdre told me. “It was one of the only times I ever saw him visibly emotional about the investigation.” I get it. By the time I’d read these letters, I was still doing my best to maintain a healthy skepticism about Darrell Rice’s innocence. But the four years of interactions made it hard. Rice was never angry, never resentful, never anything but reflective, warm, and kind. That doesn’t prove someone’s innocence, of course, but for the first time in this project, my heart really went out to him.
As far as Mike German is concerned, any negative emotional or legal impacts of his undercover work are just part and parcel of the job: “Most experienced undercover agents I knew recognized that our techniques were extraordinarily intrusive and could easily be used to entrap the innocent,” writes German in Disrupt, Discredit, and Divide. “We weren’t shy about acknowledging the deceitful nature of the work. One undercover school instructor liked to start each class by saying, ‘Our job is to establish deep, trusting relationships and then betray them, and if that makes you uncomfortable, leave now.’ ”
What he doesn’t say is why none of these highly honed tactics worked with Rice. I wrote German and asked him that question; his personal assistant responded and said that as much as he’d like to, German just couldn’t discuss the case.
23
On Tuesday, June 25, 2002, an interstate all-points bulletin was issued for Richard Marc Evonitz, a thirty-eight-year-old white male from Columbia, South Carolina. A day earlier, he had kidnapped fifteen-year-old Kara Robinson. The day before that, she’d woken up after spending the night at her friend Heather’s house in West Columbia, a small commuter suburb not far from the state capital. It was hot that day, even by South Carolina standards, and the two young women had planned on spending the afternoon at a nearby lake. Heather’s mom had asked Heather to water the flowers before they left, and Kara said she’d do it while Heather took a shower. Hose in hand, Robinson watched as a green Trans Am slowly rolled past the house. A few minutes later, it returned and parked at the base of the driveway. Robinson’s first thought was that it must be a friend of Heather’s mom. The man who got out of the vehicle looked like he was in his late thirties or early forties. He was heavyset, with a goatee, and he carried a disheveled stack of magazines. The man, Marc Evonitz, asked if there was someone in the house he could speak with. Robinson told him she was just visiting. Her friend, she said, was inside showering. Evonitz asked if Heather’s parents were home. Robinson said no, they were at work. Evonitz said he had some free magazines to leave for them and made a show of shuffling them around. From the stack, he pulled a small handgun. He shoved the barrel of the gun against Robinson’s neck. Why don’t you get in the car? he said, calm and polite. Robinson resisted. Why don’t you come with me? Evonitz insisted again. He led her to the Trans Am and opened the driver’s-side door. In the backseat was a large plastic storage bin. He told Robinson to get in. Then he shut the lid and began to drive.
Inside the storage tub, Robinson knew any detail could be the one that would save her life. She memorized the model number on the plastic lid; she made a mental map of each stop and turn. She felt the car accelerate on a straightaway and knew they must be on the interstate, headed out of the city. Eventually, the car exited the highway and stopped in a wooded area. Evonitz stepped out of the car and opened the tub. He bound and gagged the teen and then drove on.
Next, at Evonitz’s apartment, he ordered her to follow him into a bedroom, where he instructed her to lie on the bed. He left the room and returned a few minutes later with a notebook and a pen, then proceeded to interview her.
What was her name? Hair color? Age?
When was her last period? Had she had sex before? Given oral sex?
Received it?
Had she smoked marijuana? Did she like it?
Then he explained the rules. When he removed the gag, she absolutely should not scream. He’d want her to talk dirty and would give her a list of words to use. He pulled a sheet of paper from the notebook and commenced to write. He removed the gag and asked her to read the words and phrases aloud, then wondered if she had any questions. She said no. He left and fetched her a bottle of Gatorade, told her to drink up and stay hydrated. He raped her repeatedly, then forced her to shower. He brought her back to the living room and put on a Kirstie Alley movie for her to watch. He continued to assault her, sometimes using a vibrator, sometimes dressing her in a satin eye cover or different lingerie. Once the movie was over, he brought her back to the bedroom. He handcuffed Robinson and attached the restraints to a C-clamp on his headboard. He tied one of her legs to the footboard with a leather restraint. He gave her a couple of pills, told her it would help with her anxiety. Then he joined her in bed, where they watched the evening news. Afterward, he read a book. She dozed off around 3:30 a.m. When she woke up, Evonitz was asleep and snoring loudly. Kara managed to unscrew the C-clamp with her teeth and undo the leg restraint. She grabbed her T-shirt and shorts. She pushed aside an open closet door and vacuum that were blocking the front door. She unbolted it, and then she ran like hell.
Once outside, Robinson flagged down a car moving through the parking lot. Two men were driving—a father and son, she hoped. She told them she’d been kidnapped. She pointed to which apartment, and then she told them she needed to get to the police. Roll, she remembers the younger man saying to the older.
As soon as Evonitz heard the door open, he knew he was in trouble. He didn’t try to race after Robinson. Instead, he grabbed the keys to his wife’s Ford Escort, a bag full of his favorite porn videos, and several pairs of women’s panties. He drove to the nearest Wal-Mart and spent $583 on a combined TV/VCR unit, a copy of American Pie 2, and new socks, boxer shorts, khaki pants, and men’s vitamins. He next went to the pharmacy and bought razors, blond hair dye, caffeine pills, and a bottle of Tums. He refilled his Viagra prescription. Next, he stopped by a B. Dalton bookstore and bought a few books. He called one of his sisters, asking her to meet him at a nearby McDonald’s. There, he told her he was in trouble—that the police were after him. She agreed to rent a room at a neighboring Days Inn under her name. Once inside the room, he shaved off his beard and mustache, and then the two went out to dinner. The next morning, he decided to make a run for Florida, his former home and where another of his sisters lived. While on the road, he called her—told her he’d done something terrible. I hurt a girl, he said. She asked if there were others. More than he could remember, he admitted. His sister asked how long this had been going on. A long time, he said.
