A meticulously organized garage with labeled drawers for every type of nail and screw. A quiet family man who never raised his voice. A loyal employee of the family sprinkler business. This was the Jeffrey Gordon that everyone thought they knew – until police discovered what he'd been hiding between his mattress and box spring.
When DNA technology finally connected Gordon to the brutal murders of Margaret Eby and Nancy Ludwig, investigators expected to find evidence of his crimes. What they discovered instead was a trophy collection so vast it would take weeks to catalog: approximately 1,200 pieces of women's underwear, many labeled with names, dates, and locations, hidden throughout his home, garage, and even behind his chimney. The man who appeared to be a model husband and father had been living a double life for decades as a voyeur and predator.
The search revealed not just physical trophies but homemade videos filmed from hidden cameras in bathrooms, spliced together with movie scenes depicting sexual assault. Gordon had compiled his disturbing obsessions while maintaining his public persona as a quiet chess champion who helped his children with homework and attended church regularly. His own family seemed blind to the red flags – though his brothers privately referred to him as "the panty sniffer," they never reported his concerning behavior.
Most troubling were the accounts from neighbors and acquaintances who had encountered Gordon's darker side years earlier. Multiple women reported finding him peeping in windows or discovering him in their homes, but when they informed his family, they were asked not to involve police. Despite previous imprisonment in Florida for similar offenses, Gordon had been protected by a wall of silence that allowed his behavior to escalate to murder.
The Jeffrey Gordon case exposes how predators hide in plain sight, and how communities can enable their behavior through denial and silence. Listen as we unravel the investigation that finally brought him to justice and the shocking discoveries that revealed the true extent of his crimes. What other secrets might still be hidden in those meticulously labeled containers?
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Murder Book.
I'm your host, chiara, and thisis part 14 of Jeffrey Gordon's
Deadly Secret.
Let's begin.
Mike Odedesco was consideredRomulus PD Warren's wizard.
His specialty was drafting themon a computer template, knowing
(00:22):
how best to describe the chainof events and evidence that
would readily win approval ofprosecutors and judges.
While other Romulus officersworked surveillance and state
police gathered evidence andbackground information on Gordon
, ondenshko corrected warrants.
The day and night before theday of the arrest he was en
(00:45):
route to the Bahamas for thestart of a long-planned vacation
which Snyder saw no reason tocancel or delay.
After all, the warrants wouldbe a slam dunk.
Snyder was used to faxing outthe Densko requests to Wayne
County prosecutors and havingthem readily approved, and then
(01:07):
faxing them to judges who signedthem just as readily.
With Snyder, larson and Kilhornconducting a series of
interviews.
It failed to malign act todeliver Oddejensko warrants to
Bush's office.
Petrite, who is the trialdivision chief, would be the one
(01:30):
to sign off on them.
To him and Bush, a Milianaksurvivor was part of the problem
.
If they had questions, the leadinvestigators Larson and
Kilborn were the ones theywanted to ask them of.
And where were they Doinginterviews?
Unavailable, the Flint PD senta detective over, but
(01:57):
immediately it was clear he hadbeen kept out of the loop too
and couldn't answer anyquestions.
Second, what was a cop fromWayne County doing there?
And third, what Odejengo mightor might not be good at?
And the way he did things inWayne County were irrelevant in
Genesee County.
Number four, there was, thistime, pressure that wasn't
(02:21):
helping anyone.
Pressure that wasn't helpinganyone.
So Bush says.
Well, my first concern was thatthe state police was very
anxious to have a pressconference.
I wasn't so interested inhaving a press conference as I
wasn't positioning theinvestigation so we didn't have
issues that would relate tosuppression of evidence.
(02:44):
I wasn't going to allow wouldrelate to suppression of
evidence.
I wasn't going to allow my caseto get hijacked so someone
could be on TV for a minute or30 seconds.
End quote State police brasshad hoped for a noon press
conference, which made no senseto anyone except those well up
the chain of command.
(03:04):
It made no sense to Kilbourne orLarson, who had taken their
time getting their ducks in arow before heading out to get
Gordon.
It made no sense to Snyder.
It certainly made no sense toBush being a politician and
being that this was the biggestcase in decades.
He wasn't about to pass up apress conference but there was
(03:27):
no way they could have won thatsoon.
He got a pushback to three andBonnet says that Bush delayed
the press conference until thenbecause he wanted to take it
over.
He tried to control it.
Bush says he had it delayedbecause he didn't understand why
(03:48):
the state police were in such ahurry for such an old case.
In his opinion, they needed toget organized and then have a
press conference.
As it was, they still held itbefore warrants were even issued
, much less executed, and hesaid the idea we had made press
(04:10):
statements before we executedsearch warrants was something
that bemoaned Bush.
The press conference was heldacross the street from the
courthouse in the City Hall, thestreet from the courthouse in
the City Hall office of MayorWoodrow Stanley, and according
to Bush it was a strange placeto be.
(04:30):
He remembers walking andthinking that there was more
brass in that room that he hadever seen in his life and that
he was standing there in a blackT-shirt and blue jeans and
going on TV.
Bush asked that no mention ofDNA be made.
He says it was a tacticalrequest.
A search warrant would allowthem to get a mouth swab from
(04:54):
Gordon and that would make anymatch to the Ebi murder
conclusive.
Bonnet and others say it was atactical decision, all right,
believing that Bush wanted tocontrol the release of
information over the coming daysand keep his name in as many
headlines as possible.
(05:14):
He wanted to steal the thunderand Bush said that, according to
Bush, this was, you know, apile of bull.
And in addition to it beinggood tactics, he wanted to avoid
(05:37):
mentioning DNA because theprosecution is prohibited by law
from disclosing any results oftests until they get into court,
because it's unethical.
The Flint and Detroit media werethere in swarms Photographers,
reporters with notebooks, radioguys with mics, tv trucks up
(05:58):
front with their antennas raised.
High Politicians and policebrass filled a large podium.
Even Charles Barna, jeff Nye'sboss, had been summoned, wearing
his white lab uniform to add tothe visuals.
And Bush said quote the statepolice had invested $10 million
(06:24):
in a crime lab.
When I look at the guy behindme in the lab coat, I knew he
wasn't there to run tests at themayor's office.
He was there to show the publicthe $10 million was well spent.
He was show and tell end quoteBush took some satisfaction from
noting an absence of nationalTV media.
(06:44):
Saying afterward on one hand,convicting him on Channel 4
doesn't meet our goal of takingthis character off the street,
on the other hand, bush wouldsay that he knew national.
He had been on national.
If they had let him, he couldhave used his contacts at CNN
and other places In order tomake it a national story.
(07:07):
You got to do a lot ofmessaging and he didn't have any
time to work with magic, whichhe usually did.
In response to the inevitablequestion about DNA, instead of
giving the answer, bush hadrequested that details be kept
to a minimum pending arraignment.
(07:29):
Bonnet says that heaccidentally, on purpose, let it
slip that DNA was a factor.
If Bush would have had a gun,he would have shot me, he says.
And then he says, quote if hewould have shot me, I didn't
care.
What was he going to do to me?
(07:49):
End quote.
Before, during and after thepress conference, neither Larson
, kilborn, snyder nor Melianakattended.
Petridis worked on the Warrens.
His staff wasn't about toaccept Angensko's template work.
They were going to start overfrom scratch and do them their
(08:12):
way.
They wanted a lot of backgroundinformation who was Gordon.
How and why did his name comeup?
When?
And according to Bush, he says,quote we needed to know what
kind of evidence they hadcollected.
End quote.
To this day, some policebelieve Petrides slows things
(08:35):
down on orders from Bush, thatBush was going to pay them back
for keeping him out of the loopby keeping them out in the cold.
Literally him out of the loopby keeping them out in the cold.
Literally Keep them waitingoutside the house in the cold
and winter.
February, as a short day gaveway to a long night.
Petrides, a Flint native andNotre Dame law school grad,
(08:57):
joined the prosecutor's officein 1979, and prior to the
Gordon's case.
The biggest case he had work onwas using racketeering laws to
break up the Spanish CobraStreet gang.
After Bush dismissed the policefrom the meeting they were
holding during the break andmoving, he told Petridis that
the Eby case was breaking wideopen and assigned it to him, and
(09:21):
assistant prosecutor DavidNewblood assigned it to him and
assistant prosecutor DavidNewblood.
Where Bush was angry, petridis'emotion was excitement he
didn't know any other word forit Coming out of the blue.
They have their man and theyhad had rumors over the years
and suddenly boom, it's areality and the feeling was
(09:48):
almost like mission controlwaiting for blast off.
According to Petridis, if theday seemed to drag for the cops
waiting to go into Gordon'shouse, it seemed to fly for
Petridis, a surge of adrenalinerushing the hours by Whilst
Gordon was arrested.
They had 48 hours to charge him,but the real need for speed was
to get search warrants executedfor his house, his parents'
(10:14):
house and the family business.
Newblatt was in charge ofdrawing up the arrest warrants
and Petrides of writing thesearch warrants and petritis of
writing the search warrants.
The information on Nogent'swarrants was useful, but they
were not about to delegate thewriting of warrants to some cop
(10:34):
from another county they havenever met.
They needed to confirm hisinformation with Alford and
state police.
They needed updates on Gordon'sinterrogation, with the final
word being he had not confessedand had asked for an attorney.
The search warrants were morecomplicated than an arrest
(10:56):
warrant.
They needed to figure out whatkind of information they might
need and where to find itTypecard records, for example,
of the day Ebi died, invoicessent to the Mott estate.
Could they link Gorton to theestate?
(11:18):
Petritis, one of the lastAmericans without a cell phone,
needed to keep Bush apprised ofdevelopments.
As the press conferenceapproached and after, he used an
old-fashioned landline.
And meanwhile Snyder was fumingAt a deli across the street
from the Flint Post during onebreak in a very long day.
He had been warned about Bushand they were telling him that
(11:41):
this guy is going to be aproblem.
And as the day went on he gotmadder and madder.
He called San Andres on thenext tell to warn him the search
warrants might be delayed.
And he even said quote, youwon't believe what's going on
down there or down here.
And San Andres said well, dan,we don't need them because this
(12:07):
is a robberless case too.
We will get our own warrants.
So Snyder told Bonnet, if itwent on much longer, that he
would go to the state attorneygeneral if he had to, or to the
Wayne County prosecutor.
They had a house they needed tosecure and the press was
starting to show up at theGordon residence and at police
(12:30):
posts.
And Snyder said quote, weshould have had them by noon.
We were sitting and sitting andsitting end.
Quote, petrides says anyallegation of a deliberate
slowdown was preposterous.
He said, quote, I'm leavingproof of that.
I was there when Art got thecall and shortly after we
(12:52):
started churning out thewarrants there were several
hours of work to do and it tookseveral hours to do it.
If anything there was pressurefrom Art to get it done fast.
Anything there was pressurefrom Art to get it done fast.
Bush says that part of theperception by the cops that
things went too slowly is theirexuberance over the DNA results.
(13:13):
But he says it was simplenaivete by the police that the
DNA results and the DNA resultsalone would mean a quick warrant
.
They thought DNA was enough andhe can't blame them for that,
because any traffic cop wouldthink that that you get someone
(13:36):
on radar and that's it.
It's cut and dried Working inanother dick at the task force
investigators.
But he also said the followingquote but a prosecutor looking
at DNA alone would be mypractice.
I knew from my own experiencethat DNA of styrofoam cups and
(13:59):
napkins doesn't always turn intogold.
We needed other evidence.
We wanted to prove he was atthat guest house.
We needed to execute searchwarrants at the family business
and the patient's home anddrawing all that up took time,
(14:22):
end quote.
Ultimately, nye's writtenreport made the difference.
Bush got it and called him backto question him about the
sample and he asked Knight ifthe sample was adequate and how
close it is.
And Knight said that it wasbarely close enough.
And so he said in horseshoesclothes is good enough and in
(14:46):
getting this warrant that'sgoing to be good enough too.
So Bush gave his go ahead.
Petrides wanted 68th DistrictCourt Judge Michael McEra, one
of Flynn's best judges, to signthe warrants, and the judge
agreed to do so and stay at theoffice past its normal departure
(15:07):
time of 5 pm if necessary.
Macara got the paperwork about7, read it, got sworn statements
in his courtroom from Elfordand state police trooper Dennis
Diggs attesting to the accuracyof the information claimed in
the warrants, and about 7.45 pmsigned them.
(15:29):
Erford by then had left thetask force to take the job of
captain of the Grand BlackPolice, but out of courtesy for
his past work, kilburn had askedhim if he wanted to help out.
He would set surveillance awhile, then help out with the
Warrens.
Finally, long after nightfall,melianne called Snyder to say
(15:52):
the Warrens were done and he wason the way with them.
They could go in the house.
While awaiting Warrens, halsettodrove over to Don Hemingway's.
They would need to talk toGordon's first wife, especially
since she has been in Floridawith him.
When he first ran afoul of thelaw she wasn't home, but her son
(16:16):
, jeffrey, was, so Houtzettotalked to him briefly, gave him
a business card and left.
Half an hour later Don calledback back and she and Jeffrey
were picked up and driven to theFlint post.
She recounted to Settle and DanSnyder her background with Jeff
, his arrest, their separationand divorce.
She said she had not kept incontact with him and that
(16:39):
Jeffrey had not seen his fathersince he was about two years old
.
The Gortons had paid childsupport and if there were any
issues in that regard she talkedto Brenda, not Jeff.
She told police that bothbefore and after she married
Jeff she had almost nointeraction with his parents.
(16:59):
They were very private, shesaid and kept to themselves.
While Don was being interviewed,brenda was briefly visiting the
Tuscola Roadhouse, thenfollowing state police, to the
Flint Post.
Just after she got there, aboutfour, mike Larson came out to
the small lobby, introducedhimself, said he would be busy
(17:23):
for a bit and asked her to waitthere for a few minutes till he
could come back and get her.
She sat down and she wasrocking back and forth and she
just kept saying to herself whyam I here for?
Why am I here?
For An ex-smoker?
She probably had never wantedor needed a cigarette more.
(17:43):
She went over to the desksurgeon and asked if she could
borrow a smoke.
Sympathetically, he said hedidn't smoke but would ask
around.
He came back a minute laterwith a cigarette and matches.
The post, like all Michigangovernment buildings, is
smoke-free, so she went outside.
She came back in, sat down,resuming her rocking.
(18:05):
There was a teenager sittingnear her on one of the few lobby
chairs.
She had barely registered hispresence, assumed he was there
on other business.
At one point he leaned towardher and said you must be Brenda.
And she turned and said who areyou?
And as she was saying it, sheknew that it was who he was and
(18:29):
he said I'm Jeff Jr.
So they stood up and gave eachother a big hug, though they
lived in the same metropolitanarea and one of the reasons
Brenda needed to work part-timewas to pay the child support
that had recently ended on JeffJr's 18th birthday.
They had never met.
Jeff Jr had sent his dad a prompicture and an invitation to
(18:52):
his graduation but had neverheard back.
And she said oh my God, youjust.
You look just like my son.
And she pulled pictures of herkids out of her wallet to show
Jeff.
His half-sister andhalf-brother.
Larson came out, finally, andled her back to the interview
(19:12):
room.
She asked if she could call hersister-in-law, jeff's sister
Sarah and her husband Greg, wholived just a block away from
their house on Tuscola, andLarson said no.
Snyder led the interview.
Brenda wanted to know what washappening and he said he would
(19:33):
tell her in a bit, but that heneeded to ask some questions.
And he led her through a briefhistory of the relationship
where they had met and a bar.
What kind of guy was he?
She said he was a good husband,a good father.
He worked long hours in thesummer.
In the winter he was unemployedand put the kids on the school
(19:54):
bus, picked them up after school, helped them with their
homework every day, went tochurch on Sunday, kept the house
clean while she worked.
Did he have a temper?
The answer was no.
He had never raised his voicein all their years of marriage.
One time, while pushing a carstuck in the snow in their
driveway, he swore what wastheir relationship like with her
(20:18):
in-laws?
She said that the only contactshe ever had with his parents
was on Christmas Eve.
Despite the fact they allworked together and lived near
each other, they hardly ever saweach other outside of the
context of water pipes.
Brenda could only recall twotimes in their entire marriage,
(20:38):
including holidays, that Jeff'sparents had even been in the
house.
Did they have a lot of friends?
She said she did.
She was outgoing.
But Jeff was quiet, didn't havemany friends.
He had not talked to his bestfriend, kevin Bosch, a buddy of
(21:02):
his from high school and thebest man at their wedding in at
least two years.
Snyder asked Brenda if Jeff gotalong with her family.
She said absolutely.
Everyone thought the world ofhim.
Did Jeff have any kinky habits?
She said well, he did like herto wear nylons to work so he
could rub her feet when she gothome.
He liked the feel of the nylonswhen he massaged her.
(21:25):
In a follow-up interview withLarson nearly two weeks later,
brenda would come clean and shehad first caught him with nylons
in their bed just a few daysbefore their son was born.
Jeff said he had been out to agirly bar with Bosh and a
stripper had dropped them ontheir table.
(21:46):
Then, three or four years ago,she had found a pair of canny
hoes tucked between the boxsprings and the mattress and she
had confronted him.
He admitted to having had afetish for women's clothes since
he was a kid and had been toldin counseling it was something
you were born with and had beentold in counseling it was
something you were born with.
(22:07):
She had made him promise not tolet the kids see him worrying
such things and she had been sodisgusted she had taken to
sleeping on the couch a lot.
Another question that they askedwas did she know about an
incident at a Pamida store?
The answer no.
(22:28):
Did she know Jeff had gotten introuble in Florida?
The answer no.
Did she know Margaret Ebby orNancy Ludwig?
The answer, once again, no andno.
Not only didn't she know them,she had never even heard of them
.
In fact she thought they wereasking about a woman with the
(22:48):
last name of A Evie.
Snyder was disbelieving becauseshe had never heard of Margaret
Evie.
It certainly seemed hard tobelieve given that Brenda had
been living in Flint in 1986 andthe murder had been the biggest
thing to hit town since theinternal combustion engine.
With a knowing irony, today sheexplained her lack of knowledge.
(23:10):
She said, quote I'm not a newsperson.
We were not raised to watch thenews or read the paper.
We couldn't care less about thenews.
In our family we go on with ourlives and when the news hits us
in the face we deal with it.
It hit her square in the facethen.
(23:32):
It wasn't until mention of themodest state that some of it
finally came back to her.
Every Mother's Day the Mottestate was a big public to-do,
and the previous Mother's DayBrenda had gone there with her
sister-in-law, sarah, and Jeff'smother.
Jeff's sister had pointed outthe gatehouse and told her about
(23:53):
the mysterious murder of LongAgo.
It was the first and only timeBrenda had heard about it.
So she asked again what didthis have to do with her husband
?
And Snyder said we think he didit and it didn't register.
So she just said yeah, right,what are you telling me?
(24:15):
And they repeated we think Jeffkilled Margaret, ebby and Nancy
Ludwig.
She wanted to tell them theywere nuts.
Her husband had not done anysuch thing.
She was on the verge of losingit.
So she asked can I speak toJeff?
They said of course no and sayI'm sorry.
(24:39):
She asked Snyder if he wouldcall her pastor Doc Klein.
He did.
It would turn out he was notyet back from getting a tooth
pulled and Snyder left a messageon the machine.
Brenda asked if he would callher sister.
Neither did, and a few minuteslater Dan Laga's wife showed up
(25:01):
and let Brenda out of the post.
They drove to their mother'shouse.
In the meantime Brenda's pastorhad gone to work and was there,
as was Dan.
Dan had been laying somehardwood flooring down at his
house when his wife had calledand said something horrible was
up.
But he had no idea what.
(25:22):
Her mother, fearing the worstand not wanting to hear it, had
gone upstairs and literally puther head under the covers.
So Brenda said get to the pointabout Jeff.
He has been arrested for aterrible, terrible thing.
But she couldn't say the word.
(25:42):
So Patty leaned in toward Danand whispered murder and he was
in shock and he said what didyou just tell me?
And she repeated it.
He went downstairs he couldn'tfind words to tell his
mother-in-law what had happened.
He said it was serious and theywould be back.
And then he and Brenda droveover to the house in Tuscola to
(26:04):
see what the police were up tothere.
So Dan heard on the news thename Margaret Ebby and he heard
the other name, nancy Ludwig.
Then kept abreast of the news.
He read the papers.
He immediately recalled themurder at the airport.
(26:24):
He remembered seeing storiesabout the reward and the
composite drawing.
And he remembered, too, readingabout the car he had been seen
in the Hilton parking lot andsaying to his wife quote Jeff's
(26:48):
got a gold Monte Carlo.
End quote.
And then, of course, thinkingnothing more about it.
It was just an item of interest, it was somehow a coincidence.
End quote, the dinner.
And the friend said yeah, Iknow.
And she said you know.
And the friend said yeah, I sawit on the TV news.
(27:19):
Jeff wouldn't be arraigned tillthe next day and that's when
his name would be officiallyreleased.
But leaks had sprung from thetime he was picked up, flowing
from any number of sources totrusted reporters and from there
(27:44):
to by word of mouth to justabout everyone in Flint.
Kitty Knapp, one of theGordon's neighbors who was
(28:04):
shocked when she heard the newsracing through the neighborhood.
They had been friends a dozenyears.
Jeff and Brenda had been attheir daughter's wedding.
He was always doing things withthe kids and she said, quote I
can't say anything bad about theman.
(28:26):
I have never seen the man losehis temper.
I have never heard the manswear, he's just been a good guy
.
Her husband, elsewhere, said,quote he doesn't do much talking
(28:47):
and he doesn't do much smiling.
End quote.
We'll be right back.
When Melianak called to say hewas on the way with the warrants
, there was all the cops at thehouse needed.
They didn't wait for thewarrant to physically arrive at
(29:09):
the scene.
They went in St Andrew, brandon, melania, snyder, state Trooper
Jaime Corona.
Before they were done, another10 state troopers would arrive
to help out, including GalvinSmith, the fingerprint
specialist, who had helped breakthe case open.
At 8.10 pm, just as officerswere setting up in Gorton's
(29:31):
house, larson did a oral swap ofGorton vigorously rubbing a
cotton swap back and forthagainst the lining of his cheek.
Nice results might very wellnot stand up in court, but they
wouldn't need to.
This swap would either clearGorton or nail his hide to the
wall.
(29:51):
At the house they set up thecommand center in the kitchen
where they would photograph andlock whatever they came across
that was of interest.
A tow truck came and hauled theMonte Carlo back to the Flint
post, where technicians would gothrough it looking for
bloodstains and bits of hair.
Nothing of every interior valuewas ever found.
(30:13):
Meanwhile, snyder andBrandemille took the master
bedroom, which was rather smalland cramped.
First thing Snyder did wasraise up a corner of the top
mattress.
It was a hair-raising moment,literally one that sent chills
through Brandemille.
There, on Jeff's side of thebed, were a bunch of women's
(30:33):
undergarments bras, pantyhose,panties the comfort zone of a
psychotic.
According to Brandemille, flintcops had been looking for a
trophy keeper since 1986.
Romulus cops had been lookingfor one since Lutwick had been
found in 1991 with her luggageand belongings missing.
(30:57):
Were these trophies of othermurders?
They found a church flyer andin it was a picture of the
Gordon family.
Brenda Mill opened a drawer inthe nightstand on Jeff's side of
the bed and it was filled withundergarments.
On Jeff's side of the bed, andit was filled with undergarments
(31:18):
.
The bed was in the corner of theroom, just far enough from the
wall to allow a largeentertainment center to be fit
in, with a narrow pathwaybetween it and the bed.
Near the entertainment centerwas a small closet with several
shelves built in and a ladderthat connected to a small entry
portal into the attic above.
They would send someone upthere later.
(31:39):
Opposite the entertainmentcenter was a large walking
closet, both its doors coveredwith mirrors to give the room an
illusion of space.
Brenda Mill looked in theentertainment center, saw a
video camera aiming out into theroom toward the mirror doors
opposite and a VCR In the closet.
(32:01):
His wife's clothes were jammedon hangers on the pole that ran
its length.
Boxes were stacked on andbehind each other, filling up
all the available space.
Some held household appliancessuch as mixers and coffee pots
extras gathered over the years.
There was a plastic storage tubtoo.
They pull it out and open itand inside were bundles of
(32:27):
underwear, some with names andstreet addresses attached, and
for them that was jackpot.
Rummaging through the underwear, brandemille found a videotape
and popped it into the VCR.
He and Snyder saw enough in afew minutes to convince them
this was their guy and that hewas one sick puppy.
(32:48):
Not that they needed muchconvincing on each count.
The opening scene was a spy campthat has been hidden near
ground level, to the front andleft of a toilet Past the toilet
had.
On an opposite wall is a window.
It is daylight out.
There's a plant that danglesdown from a pot beneath the
(33:12):
window and then at the beginningnothing happens.
But then there's a woman in afancy long dress that walks in,
puts down her underpants, holdsher dress in one hand, squats
like 8 to 10 inches above thetoilet seat and defecates.
(33:32):
She wipes herself, flushes thetoilet and leaves.
Seconds later a younger womanin a blue dress walks in, sits
down and urinates.
Then there's a scene two, a longshot zoomed in on a neighbor
(33:55):
cutting her lawn on a ridingmower.
Dressed in blue shorts and abathing suit top, back and forth
, she goes as the camera followsher for several minutes.
And then there was this seats,in rapid order.
There was bits from America'sFunniest Home Videos maybe.
(34:16):
There's an old lady that getsoff a bus and her pants slip
down, revealing her underwear.
There's another woman that isdancing Her skirt slips down and
it reveals the cheeks of herbutt.
Then there's a woman that getsout of a car.
The car takes off, her dress iscaught in the door and rips off
(34:38):
, revealing her underwear.
So there's this montage ofseveral bits of movies followed
quickly, none lasting more thana few seconds, including a love
scene with a man holding a womanfrom behind as they fall on a
bed and there's even a rapescene home video.
There is perhaps the Gordon'shouse and there is a Christmas
(35:02):
tree in the corner, brightly lit, adults and kids and presents
filled the front room.
The camera zooms in on a womanin a chair, knees slightly apart
, and the focus is on her crotch.
Then pan to tree, pan back towoman, zoom in on her crotch.
(35:24):
Scene from a movie.
There's a young man that holdsa woman and she says please, let
me go.
There's a young man that holdsa woman and she says please, let
me go.
There's a long silent pause.
Perhaps he will, but then hethrows her on the bed, grips her
hands over her head with onehand, rips off her underwear
with the other hand, rapes herwhile she cries and when he
(35:47):
finishes she says so how was it?
Then there was a playlist shoesource ad-up of a woman's foot
and an empty shoe.
Then a few seconds from a LexPantyhose ad.
Then there's a scene from HomeImprovement where Tim Allen is
driving a car.
His wife is changing clothes inthe back seat Lying down you
(36:11):
could see her legs visible abovethe front seat and Tim Allen
turns his head around to sneak apeek.
And then there's more moviescenes cut to Sharon Stone
getting raped in an elevator,cut to the voyeur in body double
window peeping on MelanieGriffith.
Then there's a hijacker thatjumps up, puts his gun to the
(36:34):
head of a female flightattendant and drags her into the
cockpit.
So this is what is in thatvideo.
Now, meanwhile, zeddy hadfinished writing up reports on
Don and Brenda at the Flint Postand joined the search of the
house.
Romulus had the bedroom, so heand fellow trooper Eric
(36:55):
Schroeder took the large metalstorage shed out back of the
garage and in it were 15 or 30large containers.
They thought they would struckgo-to, but it was just Halloween
and Christmas decorations andother harmless stuff.
Next was the garage and thefirst thing that struck them was
(37:17):
the absolute meticulousness.
Everything was just so Toolshanging on nails, labels on
everything.
They had opened up a drawer ata workbench and see labels for
finishing nails, for long nails,for medium nails, for short
nails, for washers of one size,washers for another, for screws
(37:40):
of one sort or another, for nutsand bolts.
A place for everything andeverything in its place and
labeled in a neat hand.
They did strike gold in thegarage because among the storage
boxes were four, five large 18gallon hinged top, plastic
rubber band containers andpolice.
(38:02):
When they pried off the lids,they found that when what had
been placed, there was an almostunimaginable assortment of
every conceivable size, colorand type of women's undergarment
.
Many of them were labeled inthe same neat hand tag with bits
(38:23):
of paper detailing names, dates, location.
One of the smaller troopersclimbed up into the attic
through the bedroom closet,popping open the small square in
the closet ceiling, and servedas the entryway.
There were two by ten boardscovering the rafters and blown
insulation.
(38:44):
He lifted up the boards andprodded the insulation from
nothing.
At some point Brenda returned tothe house with her
brother-in-law, dan Loga, whohad a video camera of his own In
the kitchen.
Brenda denied at first knowinganything about the undergarments
in the bedroom.
Finally, though, she admittedto knowing her husband had a
(39:04):
fetish.
They had been hoping to find afew items of Ludwig's clothing,
but instead they found 700 or800 items a cataloging and
processing nightmare.
San Andre was thrilled it wasthe Michigan State Police and
not Romulus, in charge ofshooting the photos and entering
all that stuff, item by item,into a computer database.
(39:26):
They will be busy for days.
And Reese, who executed thesearch at Gordon's parents'
house on Linden Road in Flint,ended up spending a week logging
all of Jeff's trophies into acomputer and he even said, quote
I never thought I would gettired of looking at women's
(39:48):
underwear, but let me tell you Igot tired of looking at it.
End quote.
That was in the end of itWorried that they have missed
something.
Police returned months later andBrenda voluntarily let them do
another search.
They spent more time in theattic this time found hidden
behind the chimney a spot theyhad missed the first time, a
(40:16):
spot they had missed the firsttime.
Hundreds more articles bring inthe total haul to somewhere
around 1,200 items in all.
They had collect and catalogother stuff, too mundane items
that showed their suspectedserial killer lived a life not
always too dissimilar from theirown.
He shopped at Sears with aSears Premier card.
He belonged to the BonusSavings Club.
(40:37):
At Farmer Jack he had a GeneseeDistrict Library card.
His family health coverage wasthrough Health Plus of Michigan,
he had a credit card for Lowe'sHome Improvement Warehouse and
he liked fireworks enough tohave a membership card for
fireworkscom.
Finally, early in the morning,their long day over.
(40:59):
The police headed back to theFlint Post.
At some point earlier someonehad been sent out to a party
store before it closed to pickup some beer.
Too tired to move, too elatednot to celebrate Malianak, and
Brandemille violated one ofMichigan's drinking laws.
They broke out a six-pack andhad a cup of beers each in a car
(41:21):
in the parking lot of the statepolice post, and then they made
the long drive back down I-75.
Hours earlier, about 4.25 pm,police called gordon's parents,
lawrence and shirley, but theywere not home.
About 6 10 pm sergeant reevesand sergeant mike davis went in
(41:43):
person and found them there.
This time the officers toldthem their son had been arrested
.
Reeves said that gordon'smother was badly shaken and
seemed surprised, but that oddly, the father seemed to take it
in stride as if it didn't comeas that much of a shock.
They wanted to interview theparents separately, but Mrs
(42:05):
Gordon insisted on staying withher husband and so a joint
interview was conducted in thekitchen.
They said they had foundedBuckler Automatic Lawn Sprinkler
Company in 1980 and had beencontractors for the Mott estate
since 1982.
Before founding the company,lawrence had worked for another
company at the estate.
He chose the name Buckler, hetold them, because there was an
(42:29):
established irrigation supplycompany called Buckner and he
thought it might help if peoplethought his new company was the
old established one.
As for Jeff's trouble in Florida, they professed remarkable
ignorance.
They knew he had gotten somesort of trouble and they had
sent him money, reportedly about$5,000, to pay his legal fees.
(42:51):
And they knew he had gone toprison.
But they claimed they had noidea what it was or about what
he had done or been charged with.
Jeff they said had kept itquiet.
What they didn't tell policewas that one of Jeff's
grandmothers had spoken at hissentencing in Florida on his
(43:13):
behalf and surely had heard thecharges recounted, the litany of
assaults and B&Es Hard toimagine she had not told his
parents or that they have notasked her.
The Courtons also say theynever observed a suspected
abnormal behavior by Jeff andhad never received any
complaints from clients.
Mr Gordon remembered seeingMargaret Abbey around the estate
(43:35):
and one time she asked the guyson one of his crews to help her
unload her car.
He didn't know her, had onlysaid hi to her once, didn't find
her attractive At 6.45, mrsGordon told them she felt as if
she was about to be sick andasked if she could go outside.
At 7.10, Mr Gorin authorized asearch of the house, but Mrs
(43:58):
Gorin refused.
She told them she had been onthe phone to the Flint Post and
was mad they would not let hertalk to her son or see him.
At 7.35, their daughter, debbieRoss, and one of their other
sons, greg, and his wife Sarah,arrive and police allow them in.
At 7.50, the Gortons were tolda search warrant for the house
(44:31):
and business next door had beensigned and a few minutes later
Reeves and four other officerssearched the house and the
business in the presence of MrsGordon.
There were several largestorage buildings on the
property and six officerssearched those.
As Mr Gordon and Greg looked on, they contained nothing of
value.
Mrs Gordon kept the companybooks, including in items taken
from the house were eight filecards showing work done on the
modest date since Buckler wasfounded, cards showing work done
(44:55):
on the modest date sinceBuckler was funded and W-2 forms
and timesheets for allemployees.
In addition to the modest date,the company did the sprinkler
work for all the McDonald's,burger Kings and Taco Bells in
the Flint area.
Jeff may have been a foreman inthe family business, but his W-2
forms would show that if hewere ever to get rich it would
be by inheritance or the lottery, not from his labors.
(45:17):
His base pay in 1997 was$12,160.
It was the same in 1998.
Counting overtime and a modestbonus, he made nearly $23,000 a
year.
In 1991, he made $10 an hour.
Thanks to overtime, generally12 to 14 hours a week.
(45:38):
He took home $375 to $385 aweek.
Some other things caught thecop's eyes and were confiscated.
There were 10 porno magazines.
Later company employees wouldtell police that at least some
of Jeff's brothers, usuallybehind his back, referred to him
as the panty sniffer.
(45:58):
Brian Gorton felt like he hadbeen hit in the stomach.
When he heard a news accountlate Friday afternoon that his
younger brother had beenarrested for the murder at the
Amada estate at the Amada State,he was willing to talk.
When State Police SergeantDaniel Pecrue and Trooper Jason
Teddy knocked on the door of hisFlint house just after 5 pm, he
(46:20):
invited them in and over thenext hour and a half told them
that Jeff had always been thegood son, then had been a heavy
drinker and committed suicideand the other brothers had their
weaknesses, but Jeff had alwaysdone the right thing.
He was the eighth student atSouthwestern.
He had been the star chessplayer.
(46:40):
He didn't abuse drugs, rarelydrank, never raised his voice
with his wife and kids.
In nearly 40 years Brian hadnever seen him lose his temper.
He would never own a gun,didn't like to hunt, seemed a
gentle soul.
Occasionally Buckler would getassignments that took a crew or
two out of the Flint area,particularly jobs for McDonald's
(47:04):
and the Proclaim chain oflaundry centers.
It was pretty common if a crewwas out of town or on an
overnight assignment to go outhitting the bars at night or
find a topless joint.
He remembered being in theDetroit area in November of 2000
and the four Gordon brothersall going out to a topless bar.
Jeff always had an eye for thewomen and would make comments
(47:28):
about women he would see, butaccording to Brian he always
seemed to prefer classy womenwho were dressed up.
He knew Jeff had been introuble in Florida for window
peeping.
He thought and he said that asfar as he could remember the
last time he had seen Jeff otherthan at work had been the
previous 4th of July.
(47:49):
Except for his younger brother,greg, jeff wasn't very close to
any of his family DetectiveGonzalez and Sergeant Alan Ock
went to Steve Gordon's house innearby Linden and he said Jeff
had been in some kind of troublein Florida involving a woman,
but didn't know any detailsother than that he had gone to
(48:09):
jail.
He said Jeff was known for hismeticulousness but added that he
was always a little perverted.
And when asked to explain,steve said that Jeff and his
buddy Kevin Bosch used to alwaysgo to topless bars together but
that he thought Jeff hadsettled down since.
He was shocked at the chargesagainst Jeff, of course, but
(48:32):
said that several years earliera customer had complained that
Jeff had gone through a movementstressor drawers, a charge Jeff
denied, was remarried and wasafraid that in all the hubbutt
(48:56):
over Jeff her kids would findout that their dad had died as a
suicide and not of accidentalcauses.
Eventually she agreed to meetwith Larson at her house.
She had married Dan a yearafter the Ebi murder and
divorced him 10 years later.
Just after the divorce he hadgone out to his company van and
turned on the air compressor.
She was well familiar with theAbby case because at the time
(49:19):
she and Dan had been living justtwo blocks away and the murder
had creeped her out.
Jeff's immediate family claimedto be in the dark about his past
, but Tammy knew all about it.
She knew he had spent time inprison in Florida for stealing a
woman's clothing and had alwaysconsidered him a pervert.
(49:40):
She said Dan used to come homefrom work and tell her about
Jeff's antics, that he wouldfollow women while on the job
and would be so obsessed by themthat he would miss turns on the
road.
Obsessed by them that he wouldmiss turns on the road.
She told Larson there waslittle love in the Gordon family
.
She did stay in touch withGriff's wife, sarah, by phone
(50:02):
but since her divorce Mr and MrsGordon had no contact
whatsoever with her kids, theirgrandkids, who then were 16 and
18.
Who then were 16 and 18.
She told Larson that Sarah hadtalked to her quite a lot about
the news.
Mrs Gordon had asked Sarah tovisit Jeff at jail but Sarah had
(50:22):
told her she would quit thefamily business or they could
fire her because she would gosee him.
Tammy also told Larson that inthe past Sarah had asked her not
to tell Brenda Gordon anythingabout her husband's troubled
past, that Jeff had asked her torelay this message to her.
Tammy and others had kept Jeff'spast a secret from Brenda, who
(50:46):
they said she was a very nicewoman and she said that she was
aware of at least one complaintfiled against Jeff during his
employment at Buckler.
She said Sarah had told hersome women had called to say
that Jeff had been going throughsome boxes in her house but
(51:06):
that she didn't know if anyonehad ever followed up on the
complaint or if Jeff had beendisciplined.
Greg and Sarah Gorton's formernext-door neighbor, laurie
Tafoya, also found it hard tobelieve.
The family had little or noinkling of Jeff's dark side.
After hearing the news ofJeff's arrest she called the
(51:30):
Flint PD and they referred herto the state police.
Rest.
She called the Flint PD andthey referred her to the state
police.
She told Greg Kilbourne thatshe had numerous run-ins with
Jeff from 1986 to 1989,beginning with when her daughter
had seen Jeff peeping inthrough her bedroom window one
morning when she was gettingready for school.
She screamed and mom camerunning.
(51:50):
Lori didn't see Jeff herself,but she went next door to tell
Greg about what his brother hadbeen doing.
Greg said he would settle itand asked her not to call police
.
The next incident occurred at abirthday party for Greg and
Sarah's daughter.
After the Gortons had moved toanother house less than a mile
away, lori drove her threedaughters to the house.
(52:14):
Jeff was there and shortlyafter they arrived Jeff said he
had to leave to pick up hisgirlfriend Brenda.
Laura then realized she hadforgotten the birthday present.
She drove back home to get it.
Jeff's Monte Carlo was in herdriveway.
She entered and found Jeff inthe rear of the house in the
(52:37):
laundry room looking for.
It.
Looks like sorry.
It looks like he was scaredhalf to death in the process.
He closed the door and as sheapproached and held it shut
while she and her daughterstried to force it open,
screaming at him all the while.
So again she told Greg that hetold her that he would take care
(53:00):
of it and to please not callthe police.
So in April of 1988, lori movedto another house just three
blocks from Greg and Sarah andnot long after that she saw
someone peeping into herbathroom window about 5.30 in
the morning.
But because of the distortionsin the glass she couldn't
(53:20):
identify who it was.
But she was sure it was Jeff.
So she called Flint police.
They came out, followedfootprints from the window to
the parking lot of a nearbybusiness In 1989, she was
looking out a window one nightwhen suddenly Jeff came face to
face with her.
She ran out, turned on a decklight.
(53:42):
He froze in his tracks, thentook off running to the same
nearby parking lot and got intohis Monte Carlo.
She found a cement block he hadplaced under her window to give
him a better view.
She called Flint police butthey said her brief look at the
peeping Tom in the dark was notenough to make an arrest.
(54:04):
In 1990, she purchased a bigblack dog and for the first few
weeks it would bark hystericallyduring the early morning hours,
frantic, as if someone was inthe yard.
And after a while his barkingstopped and Jeff was never seen.
There again were a lot ofundergarments, including a long
(54:38):
white slip, a long black slipwith a matching chemise, a red
teddy, a red wool dress and aroyal blue dress.
Another of Greg and Sarah'sformer neighbors the name was
Tony Trombley told of differentseries of encounters with Jeff
in the summer of 1996.
She had rented a room from hercousin next door to Greg and
(55:00):
Sarah Gordon.
It still freaked her out morethan 15 years later when she
recounted for police how shewould come home one day and
discovered that Jeff wassomething more than the quiet,
gentle guy who had been stoppingby lately to engage her in
conversation, that he was also aguy capable of sneaking in her
(55:22):
house to leave her a bouquet offlowers and a note and, while he
was at it, completely cleaningthe house, including washing the
laundry, folding it and puttingit away.
She had ordered him to stayaway.
She bought a padlock for herbedroom.
(55:43):
She came home one day to findthe padlock broken off and she
would move away soon after.
Broken off and she would moveaway soon after.
Thank you for listening to theMurder Book.
Have a day, a great week.
Welcome to the Murder Book.
I'm your host, chiara, and thisis part 14 of Jeffrey Gordon's
Deadly Secret.
Let's begin.
Mike Odedesco was consideredRomulus PD Warren's wizard.
His specialty was drafting themon a computer template, knowing
(00:22):
how best to describe the chainof events and evidence that
would readily win approval ofprosecutors and judges.
While other Romulus officersworked surveillance and state
police gathered evidence andbackground information on Gordon
, ondenshko corrected warrants.
The day and night before theday of the arrest he was en
(00:45):
route to the Bahamas for thestart of a long-planned vacation
which Snyder saw no reason tocancel or delay.
After all, the warrants wouldbe a slam dunk.
Snyder was used to faxing outthe Densko requests to Wayne
County prosecutors and havingthem readily approved, and then
(01:07):
faxing them to judges who signedthem just as readily.
With Snyder, larson and Kilhornconducting a series of
interviews.
It failed to malign act todeliver Oddejensko warrants to
Bush's office.
Petrite, who is the trialdivision chief, would be the one
(01:30):
to sign off on them.
To him and Bush, a Milianaksurvivor was part of the problem
.
If they had questions, the leadinvestigators Larson and
Kilborn were the ones theywanted to ask them of.
And where were they Doinginterviews?
Unavailable, the Flint PD senta detective over, but
(01:57):
immediately it was clear he hadbeen kept out of the loop too
and couldn't answer anyquestions.
Second, what was a cop fromWayne County doing there?
And third, what Odejengo mightor might not be good at?
And the way he did things inWayne County were irrelevant in
Genesee County.
Number four, there was, thistime, pressure that wasn't
(02:21):
helping anyone.
Pressure that wasn't helpinganyone.
So Bush says.
Well, my first concern was thatthe state police was very
anxious to have a pressconference.
I wasn't so interested inhaving a press conference as I
wasn't positioning theinvestigation so we didn't have
issues that would relate tosuppression of evidence.
(02:44):
I wasn't going to allow wouldrelate to suppression of
evidence.
I wasn't going to allow my caseto get hijacked so someone
could be on TV for a minute or30 seconds.
End quote State police brasshad hoped for a noon press
conference, which made no senseto anyone except those well up
the chain of command.
(03:04):
It made no sense to Kilbourne orLarson, who had taken their
time getting their ducks in arow before heading out to get
Gordon.
It made no sense to Snyder.
It certainly made no sense toBush being a politician and
being that this was the biggestcase in decades.
He wasn't about to pass up apress conference but there was
(03:27):
no way they could have won thatsoon.
He got a pushback to three andBonnet says that Bush delayed
the press conference until thenbecause he wanted to take it
over.
He tried to control it.
Bush says he had it delayedbecause he didn't understand why
(03:48):
the state police were in such ahurry for such an old case.
In his opinion, they needed toget organized and then have a
press conference.
As it was, they still held itbefore warrants were even issued
, much less executed, and hesaid the idea we had made press
(04:10):
statements before we executedsearch warrants was something
that bemoaned Bush.
The press conference was heldacross the street from the
courthouse in the City Hall, thestreet from the courthouse in
the City Hall office of MayorWoodrow Stanley, and according
to Bush it was a strange placeto be.
(04:30):
He remembers walking andthinking that there was more
brass in that room that he hadever seen in his life and that
he was standing there in a blackT-shirt and blue jeans and
going on TV.
Bush asked that no mention ofDNA be made.
He says it was a tacticalrequest.
A search warrant would allowthem to get a mouth swab from
(04:54):
Gordon and that would make anymatch to the Ebi murder
conclusive.
Bonnet and others say it was atactical decision, all right,
believing that Bush wanted tocontrol the release of
information over the coming daysand keep his name in as many
headlines as possible.
(05:14):
He wanted to steal the thunderand Bush said that, according to
Bush, this was, you know, apile of bull.
And in addition to it beinggood tactics, he wanted to avoid
(05:37):
mentioning DNA because theprosecution is prohibited by law
from disclosing any results oftests until they get into court,
because it's unethical.
The Flint and Detroit media werethere in swarms Photographers,
reporters with notebooks, radioguys with mics, tv trucks up
(05:58):
front with their antennas raised.
High Politicians and policebrass filled a large podium.
Even Charles Barna, jeff Nye'sboss, had been summoned, wearing
his white lab uniform to add tothe visuals.
And Bush said quote the statepolice had invested $10 million
(06:24):
in a crime lab.
When I look at the guy behindme in the lab coat, I knew he
wasn't there to run tests at themayor's office.
He was there to show the publicthe $10 million was well spent.
He was show and tell end quoteBush took some satisfaction from
noting an absence of nationalTV media.
(06:44):
Saying afterward on one hand,convicting him on Channel 4
doesn't meet our goal of takingthis character off the street,
on the other hand, bush wouldsay that he knew national.
He had been on national.
If they had let him, he couldhave used his contacts at CNN
and other places In order tomake it a national story.
(07:07):
You got to do a lot ofmessaging and he didn't have any
time to work with magic, whichhe usually did.
In response to the inevitablequestion about DNA, instead of
giving the answer, bush hadrequested that details be kept
to a minimum pending arraignment.
(07:29):
Bonnet says that heaccidentally, on purpose, let it
slip that DNA was a factor.
If Bush would have had a gun,he would have shot me, he says.
And then he says, quote if hewould have shot me, I didn't
care.
What was he going to do to me?
(07:49):
End quote.
Before, during and after thepress conference, neither Larson
, kilborn, snyder nor Melianakattended.
Petridis worked on the Warrens.
His staff wasn't about toaccept Angensko's template work.
They were going to start overfrom scratch and do them their
(08:12):
way.
They wanted a lot of backgroundinformation who was Gordon.
How and why did his name comeup?
When?
And according to Bush, he says,quote we needed to know what
kind of evidence they hadcollected.
End quote.
To this day, some policebelieve Petrides slows things
(08:35):
down on orders from Bush, thatBush was going to pay them back
for keeping him out of the loopby keeping them out in the cold.
Literally him out of the loopby keeping them out in the cold.
Literally Keep them waitingoutside the house in the cold
and winter.
February, as a short day gaveway to a long night.
Petrides, a Flint native andNotre Dame law school grad,
(08:57):
joined the prosecutor's officein 1979, and prior to the
Gordon's case.
The biggest case he had work onwas using racketeering laws to
break up the Spanish CobraStreet gang.
After Bush dismissed the policefrom the meeting they were
holding during the break andmoving, he told Petridis that
the Eby case was breaking wideopen and assigned it to him, and
(09:21):
assistant prosecutor DavidNewblood assigned it to him and
assistant prosecutor DavidNewblood.
Where Bush was angry, petridis'emotion was excitement he
didn't know any other word forit Coming out of the blue.
They have their man and theyhad had rumors over the years
and suddenly boom, it's areality and the feeling was
(09:48):
almost like mission controlwaiting for blast off.
According to Petridis, if theday seemed to drag for the cops
waiting to go into Gordon'shouse, it seemed to fly for
Petridis, a surge of adrenalinerushing the hours by Whilst
Gordon was arrested.
They had 48 hours to charge him,but the real need for speed was
to get search warrants executedfor his house, his parents'
(10:14):
house and the family business.
Newblatt was in charge ofdrawing up the arrest warrants
and Petrides of writing thesearch warrants and petritis of
writing the search warrants.
The information on Nogent'swarrants was useful, but they
were not about to delegate thewriting of warrants to some cop
(10:34):
from another county they havenever met.
They needed to confirm hisinformation with Alford and
state police.
They needed updates on Gordon'sinterrogation, with the final
word being he had not confessedand had asked for an attorney.
The search warrants were morecomplicated than an arrest
(10:56):
warrant.
They needed to figure out whatkind of information they might
need and where to find itTypecard records, for example,
of the day Ebi died, invoicessent to the Mott estate.
Could they link Gorton to theestate?
(11:18):
Petritis, one of the lastAmericans without a cell phone,
needed to keep Bush apprised ofdevelopments.
As the press conferenceapproached and after, he used an
old-fashioned landline.
And meanwhile Snyder was fumingAt a deli across the street
from the Flint Post during onebreak in a very long day.
He had been warned about Bushand they were telling him that
(11:41):
this guy is going to be aproblem.
And as the day went on he gotmadder and madder.
He called San Andres on thenext tell to warn him the search
warrants might be delayed.
And he even said quote, youwon't believe what's going on
down there or down here.
And San Andres said well, dan,we don't need them because this
(12:07):
is a robberless case too.
We will get our own warrants.
So Snyder told Bonnet, if itwent on much longer, that he
would go to the state attorneygeneral if he had to, or to the
Wayne County prosecutor.
They had a house they needed tosecure and the press was
starting to show up at theGordon residence and at police
(12:30):
posts.
And Snyder said quote, weshould have had them by noon.
We were sitting and sitting andsitting end.
Quote, petrides says anyallegation of a deliberate
slowdown was preposterous.
He said, quote, I'm leavingproof of that.
I was there when Art got thecall and shortly after we
(12:52):
started churning out thewarrants there were several
hours of work to do and it tookseveral hours to do it.
If anything there was pressurefrom Art to get it done fast.
Anything there was pressurefrom Art to get it done fast.
Bush says that part of theperception by the cops that
things went too slowly is theirexuberance over the DNA results.
(13:13):
But he says it was simplenaivete by the police that the
DNA results and the DNA resultsalone would mean a quick warrant
.
They thought DNA was enough andhe can't blame them for that,
because any traffic cop wouldthink that that you get someone
(13:36):
on radar and that's it.
It's cut and dried Working inanother dick at the task force
investigators.
But he also said the followingquote but a prosecutor looking
at DNA alone would be mypractice.
I knew from my own experiencethat DNA of styrofoam cups and
(13:59):
napkins doesn't always turn intogold.
We needed other evidence.
We wanted to prove he was atthat guest house.
We needed to execute searchwarrants at the family business
and the patient's home anddrawing all that up took time,
(14:22):
end quote.
Ultimately, nye's writtenreport made the difference.
Bush got it and called him backto question him about the
sample and he asked Knight ifthe sample was adequate and how
close it is.
And Knight said that it wasbarely close enough.
And so he said in horseshoesclothes is good enough and in
(14:46):
getting this warrant that'sgoing to be good enough too.
So Bush gave his go ahead.
Petrides wanted 68th DistrictCourt Judge Michael McEra, one
of Flynn's best judges, to signthe warrants, and the judge
agreed to do so and stay at theoffice past its normal departure
(15:07):
time of 5 pm if necessary.
Macara got the paperwork about7, read it, got sworn statements
in his courtroom from Elfordand state police trooper Dennis
Diggs attesting to the accuracyof the information claimed in
the warrants, and about 7.45 pmsigned them.
(15:29):
Erford by then had left thetask force to take the job of
captain of the Grand BlackPolice, but out of courtesy for
his past work, kilburn had askedhim if he wanted to help out.
He would set surveillance awhile, then help out with the
Warrens.
Finally, long after nightfall,melianne called Snyder to say
(15:52):
the Warrens were done and he wason the way with them.
They could go in the house.
While awaiting Warrens, halsettodrove over to Don Hemingway's.
They would need to talk toGordon's first wife, especially
since she has been in Floridawith him.
When he first ran afoul of thelaw she wasn't home, but her son
(16:16):
, jeffrey, was, so Houtzettotalked to him briefly, gave him
a business card and left.
Half an hour later Don calledback back and she and Jeffrey
were picked up and driven to theFlint post.
She recounted to Settle and DanSnyder her background with Jeff
, his arrest, their separationand divorce.
She said she had not kept incontact with him and that
(16:39):
Jeffrey had not seen his fathersince he was about two years old
.
The Gortons had paid childsupport and if there were any
issues in that regard she talkedto Brenda, not Jeff.
She told police that bothbefore and after she married
Jeff she had almost nointeraction with his parents.
(16:59):
They were very private, shesaid and kept to themselves.
While Don was being interviewed,brenda was briefly visiting the
Tuscola Roadhouse, thenfollowing state police, to the
Flint Post.
Just after she got there, aboutfour, mike Larson came out to
the small lobby, introducedhimself, said he would be busy
(17:23):
for a bit and asked her to waitthere for a few minutes till he
could come back and get her.
She sat down and she wasrocking back and forth and she
just kept saying to herself whyam I here for?
Why am I here?
For An ex-smoker?
She probably had never wantedor needed a cigarette more.
(17:43):
She went over to the desksurgeon and asked if she could
borrow a smoke.
Sympathetically, he said hedidn't smoke but would ask
around.
He came back a minute laterwith a cigarette and matches.
The post, like all Michigangovernment buildings, is
smoke-free, so she went outside.
She came back in, sat down,resuming her rocking.
(18:05):
There was a teenager sittingnear her on one of the few lobby
chairs.
She had barely registered hispresence, assumed he was there
on other business.
At one point he leaned towardher and said you must be Brenda.
And she turned and said who areyou?
And as she was saying it, sheknew that it was who he was and
(18:29):
he said I'm Jeff Jr.
So they stood up and gave eachother a big hug, though they
lived in the same metropolitanarea and one of the reasons
Brenda needed to work part-timewas to pay the child support
that had recently ended on JeffJr's 18th birthday.
They had never met.
Jeff Jr had sent his dad a prompicture and an invitation to
(18:52):
his graduation but had neverheard back.
And she said oh my God, youjust.
You look just like my son.
And she pulled pictures of herkids out of her wallet to show
Jeff.
His half-sister andhalf-brother.
Larson came out, finally, andled her back to the interview
(19:12):
room.
She asked if she could call hersister-in-law, jeff's sister
Sarah and her husband Greg, wholived just a block away from
their house on Tuscola, andLarson said no.
Snyder led the interview.
Brenda wanted to know what washappening and he said he would
(19:33):
tell her in a bit, but that heneeded to ask some questions.
And he led her through a briefhistory of the relationship
where they had met and a bar.
What kind of guy was he?
She said he was a good husband,a good father.
He worked long hours in thesummer.
In the winter he was unemployedand put the kids on the school
(19:54):
bus, picked them up after school, helped them with their
homework every day, went tochurch on Sunday, kept the house
clean while she worked.
Did he have a temper?
The answer was no.
He had never raised his voicein all their years of marriage.
One time, while pushing a carstuck in the snow in their
driveway, he swore what wastheir relationship like with her
(20:18):
in-laws?
She said that the only contactshe ever had with his parents
was on Christmas Eve.
Despite the fact they allworked together and lived near
each other, they hardly ever saweach other outside of the
context of water pipes.
Brenda could only recall twotimes in their entire marriage,
(20:38):
including holidays, that Jeff'sparents had even been in the
house.
Did they have a lot of friends?
She said she did.
She was outgoing.
But Jeff was quiet, didn't havemany friends.
He had not talked to his bestfriend, kevin Bosch, a buddy of
(21:02):
his from high school and thebest man at their wedding in at
least two years.
Snyder asked Brenda if Jeff gotalong with her family.
She said absolutely.
Everyone thought the world ofhim.
Did Jeff have any kinky habits?
She said well, he did like herto wear nylons to work so he
could rub her feet when she gothome.
He liked the feel of the nylonswhen he massaged her.
(21:25):
In a follow-up interview withLarson nearly two weeks later,
brenda would come clean and shehad first caught him with nylons
in their bed just a few daysbefore their son was born.
Jeff said he had been out to agirly bar with Bosh and a
stripper had dropped them ontheir table.
(21:46):
Then, three or four years ago,she had found a pair of canny
hoes tucked between the boxsprings and the mattress and she
had confronted him.
He admitted to having had afetish for women's clothes since
he was a kid and had been toldin counseling it was something
you were born with and had beentold in counseling it was
something you were born with.
(22:07):
She had made him promise not tolet the kids see him worrying
such things and she had been sodisgusted she had taken to
sleeping on the couch a lot.
Another question that they askedwas did she know about an
incident at a Pamida store?
The answer no.
(22:28):
Did she know Jeff had gotten introuble in Florida?
The answer no.
Did she know Margaret Ebby orNancy Ludwig?
The answer, once again, no andno.
Not only didn't she know them,she had never even heard of them
.
In fact she thought they wereasking about a woman with the
(22:48):
last name of A Evie.
Snyder was disbelieving becauseshe had never heard of Margaret
Evie.
It certainly seemed hard tobelieve given that Brenda had
been living in Flint in 1986 andthe murder had been the biggest
thing to hit town since theinternal combustion engine.
With a knowing irony, today sheexplained her lack of knowledge.
(23:10):
She said, quote I'm not a newsperson.
We were not raised to watch thenews or read the paper.
We couldn't care less about thenews.
In our family we go on with ourlives and when the news hits us
in the face we deal with it.
It hit her square in the facethen.
(23:32):
It wasn't until mention of themodest state that some of it
finally came back to her.
Every Mother's Day the Mottestate was a big public to-do,
and the previous Mother's DayBrenda had gone there with her
sister-in-law, sarah, and Jeff'smother.
Jeff's sister had pointed outthe gatehouse and told her about
(23:53):
the mysterious murder of LongAgo.
It was the first and only timeBrenda had heard about it.
So she asked again what didthis have to do with her husband
?
And Snyder said we think he didit and it didn't register.
So she just said yeah, right,what are you telling me?
(24:15):
And they repeated we think Jeffkilled Margaret, ebby and Nancy
Ludwig.
She wanted to tell them theywere nuts.
Her husband had not done anysuch thing.
She was on the verge of losingit.
So she asked can I speak toJeff?
They said of course no and sayI'm sorry.
(24:39):
She asked Snyder if he wouldcall her pastor Doc Klein.
He did.
It would turn out he was notyet back from getting a tooth
pulled and Snyder left a messageon the machine.
Brenda asked if he would callher sister.
Neither did, and a few minuteslater Dan Laga's wife showed up
(25:01):
and let Brenda out of the post.
They drove to their mother'shouse.
In the meantime Brenda's pastorhad gone to work and was there,
as was Dan.
Dan had been laying somehardwood flooring down at his
house when his wife had calledand said something horrible was
up.
But he had no idea what.
(25:22):
Her mother, fearing the worstand not wanting to hear it, had
gone upstairs and literally puther head under the covers.
So Brenda said get to the pointabout Jeff.
He has been arrested for aterrible, terrible thing.
But she couldn't say the word.
(25:42):
So Patty leaned in toward Danand whispered murder and he was
in shock and he said what didyou just tell me?
And she repeated it.
He went downstairs he couldn'tfind words to tell his
mother-in-law what had happened.
He said it was serious and theywould be back.
And then he and Brenda droveover to the house in Tuscola to
(26:04):
see what the police were up tothere.
So Dan heard on the news thename Margaret Ebby and he heard
the other name, nancy Ludwig.
Then kept abreast of the news.
He read the papers.
He immediately recalled themurder at the airport.
(26:24):
He remembered seeing storiesabout the reward and the
composite drawing.
And he remembered, too, readingabout the car he had been seen
in the Hilton parking lot andsaying to his wife quote Jeff's
(26:48):
got a gold Monte Carlo.
End quote.
And then, of course, thinkingnothing more about it.
It was just an item of interest, it was somehow a coincidence.
End quote, the dinner.
And the friend said yeah, Iknow.
And she said you know.
And the friend said yeah, I sawit on the TV news.
(27:19):
Jeff wouldn't be arraigned tillthe next day and that's when
his name would be officiallyreleased.
But leaks had sprung from thetime he was picked up, flowing
from any number of sources totrusted reporters and from there
(27:44):
to by word of mouth to justabout everyone in Flint.
Kitty Knapp, one of theGordon's neighbors who was
(28:04):
shocked when she heard the newsracing through the neighborhood.
They had been friends a dozenyears.
Jeff and Brenda had been attheir daughter's wedding.
He was always doing things withthe kids and she said, quote I
can't say anything bad about theman.
(28:26):
I have never seen the man losehis temper.
I have never heard the manswear, he's just been a good guy
.
Her husband, elsewhere, said,quote he doesn't do much talking
(28:47):
and he doesn't do much smiling.
End quote.
We'll be right back.
When Melianak called to say hewas on the way with the warrants
, there was all the cops at thehouse needed.
They didn't wait for thewarrant to physically arrive at
(29:09):
the scene.
They went in St Andrew, brandon, melania, snyder, state Trooper
Jaime Corona.
Before they were done, another10 state troopers would arrive
to help out, including GalvinSmith, the fingerprint
specialist, who had helped breakthe case open.
At 8.10 pm, just as officerswere setting up in Gorton's
(29:31):
house, larson did a oral swap ofGorton vigorously rubbing a
cotton swap back and forthagainst the lining of his cheek.
Nice results might very wellnot stand up in court, but they
wouldn't need to.
This swap would either clearGorton or nail his hide to the
wall.
(29:51):
At the house they set up thecommand center in the kitchen
where they would photograph andlock whatever they came across
that was of interest.
A tow truck came and hauled theMonte Carlo back to the Flint
post, where technicians would gothrough it looking for
bloodstains and bits of hair.
Nothing of every interior valuewas ever found.
(30:13):
Meanwhile, snyder andBrandemille took the master
bedroom, which was rather smalland cramped.
First thing Snyder did wasraise up a corner of the top
mattress.
It was a hair-raising moment,literally one that sent chills
through Brandemille.
There, on Jeff's side of thebed, were a bunch of women's
(30:33):
undergarments bras, pantyhose,panties the comfort zone of a
psychotic.
According to Brandemille, flintcops had been looking for a
trophy keeper since 1986.
Romulus cops had been lookingfor one since Lutwick had been
found in 1991 with her luggageand belongings missing.
(30:57):
Were these trophies of othermurders?
They found a church flyer andin it was a picture of the
Gordon family.
Brenda Mill opened a drawer inthe nightstand on Jeff's side of
the bed and it was filled withundergarments.
On Jeff's side of the bed, andit was filled with undergarments
(31:18):
.
The bed was in the corner of theroom, just far enough from the
wall to allow a largeentertainment center to be fit
in, with a narrow pathwaybetween it and the bed.
Near the entertainment centerwas a small closet with several
shelves built in and a ladderthat connected to a small entry
portal into the attic above.
They would send someone upthere later.
(31:39):
Opposite the entertainmentcenter was a large walking
closet, both its doors coveredwith mirrors to give the room an
illusion of space.
Brenda Mill looked in theentertainment center, saw a
video camera aiming out into theroom toward the mirror doors
opposite and a VCR In the closet.
(32:01):
His wife's clothes were jammedon hangers on the pole that ran
its length.
Boxes were stacked on andbehind each other, filling up
all the available space.
Some held household appliancessuch as mixers and coffee pots
extras gathered over the years.
There was a plastic storage tubtoo.
They pull it out and open itand inside were bundles of
(32:27):
underwear, some with names andstreet addresses attached, and
for them that was jackpot.
Rummaging through the underwear, brandemille found a videotape
and popped it into the VCR.
He and Snyder saw enough in afew minutes to convince them
this was their guy and that hewas one sick puppy.
(32:48):
Not that they needed muchconvincing on each count.
The opening scene was a spy campthat has been hidden near
ground level, to the front andleft of a toilet Past the toilet
had.
On an opposite wall is a window.
It is daylight out.
There's a plant that danglesdown from a pot beneath the
(33:12):
window and then at the beginningnothing happens.
But then there's a woman in afancy long dress that walks in,
puts down her underpants, holdsher dress in one hand, squats
like 8 to 10 inches above thetoilet seat and defecates.
(33:32):
She wipes herself, flushes thetoilet and leaves.
Seconds later a younger womanin a blue dress walks in, sits
down and urinates.
Then there's a scene two, a longshot zoomed in on a neighbor
(33:55):
cutting her lawn on a ridingmower.
Dressed in blue shorts and abathing suit top, back and forth
, she goes as the camera followsher for several minutes.
And then there was this seats,in rapid order.
There was bits from America'sFunniest Home Videos maybe.
(34:16):
There's an old lady that getsoff a bus and her pants slip
down, revealing her underwear.
There's another woman that isdancing Her skirt slips down and
it reveals the cheeks of herbutt.
Then there's a woman that getsout of a car.
The car takes off, her dress iscaught in the door and rips off
(34:38):
, revealing her underwear.
So there's this montage ofseveral bits of movies followed
quickly, none lasting more thana few seconds, including a love
scene with a man holding a womanfrom behind as they fall on a
bed and there's even a rapescene home video.
There is perhaps the Gordon'shouse and there is a Christmas
(35:02):
tree in the corner, brightly lit, adults and kids and presents
filled the front room.
The camera zooms in on a womanin a chair, knees slightly apart
, and the focus is on her crotch.
Then pan to tree, pan back towoman, zoom in on her crotch.
(35:24):
Scene from a movie.
There's a young man that holdsa woman and she says please, let
me go.
There's a young man that holdsa woman and she says please, let
me go.
There's a long silent pause.
Perhaps he will, but then hethrows her on the bed, grips her
hands over her head with onehand, rips off her underwear
with the other hand, rapes herwhile she cries and when he
(35:47):
finishes she says so how was it?
Then there was a playlist shoesource ad-up of a woman's foot
and an empty shoe.
Then a few seconds from a LexPantyhose ad.
Then there's a scene from HomeImprovement where Tim Allen is
driving a car.
His wife is changing clothes inthe back seat Lying down you
(36:11):
could see her legs visible abovethe front seat and Tim Allen
turns his head around to sneak apeek.
And then there's more moviescenes cut to Sharon Stone
getting raped in an elevator,cut to the voyeur in body double
window peeping on MelanieGriffith.
Then there's a hijacker thatjumps up, puts his gun to the
(36:34):
head of a female flightattendant and drags her into the
cockpit.
So this is what is in thatvideo.
Now, meanwhile, zeddy hadfinished writing up reports on
Don and Brenda at the Flint Postand joined the search of the
house.
Romulus had the bedroom, so heand fellow trooper Eric
(36:55):
Schroeder took the large metalstorage shed out back of the
garage and in it were 15 or 30large containers.
They thought they would struckgo-to, but it was just Halloween
and Christmas decorations andother harmless stuff.
Next was the garage and thefirst thing that struck them was
(37:17):
the absolute meticulousness.
Everything was just so Toolshanging on nails, labels on
everything.
They had opened up a drawer ata workbench and see labels for
finishing nails, for long nails,for medium nails, for short
nails, for washers of one size,washers for another, for screws
(37:40):
of one sort or another, for nutsand bolts.
A place for everything andeverything in its place and
labeled in a neat hand.
They did strike gold in thegarage because among the storage
boxes were four, five large 18gallon hinged top, plastic
rubber band containers andpolice.
(38:02):
When they pried off the lids,they found that when what had
been placed, there was an almostunimaginable assortment of
every conceivable size, colorand type of women's undergarment
.
Many of them were labeled inthe same neat hand tag with bits
(38:23):
of paper detailing names, dates, location.
One of the smaller troopersclimbed up into the attic
through the bedroom closet,popping open the small square in
the closet ceiling, and servedas the entryway.
There were two by ten boardscovering the rafters and blown
insulation.
(38:44):
He lifted up the boards andprodded the insulation from
nothing.
At some point Brenda returned tothe house with her
brother-in-law, dan Loga, whohad a video camera of his own In
the kitchen.
Brenda denied at first knowinganything about the undergarments
in the bedroom.
Finally, though, she admittedto knowing her husband had a
(39:04):
fetish.
They had been hoping to find afew items of Ludwig's clothing,
but instead they found 700 or800 items a cataloging and
processing nightmare.
San Andre was thrilled it wasthe Michigan State Police and
not Romulus, in charge ofshooting the photos and entering
all that stuff, item by item,into a computer database.
(39:26):
They will be busy for days.
And Reese, who executed thesearch at Gordon's parents'
house on Linden Road in Flint,ended up spending a week logging
all of Jeff's trophies into acomputer and he even said, quote
I never thought I would gettired of looking at women's
(39:48):
underwear, but let me tell you Igot tired of looking at it.
End quote.
That was in the end of itWorried that they have missed
something.
Police returned months later andBrenda voluntarily let them do
another search.
They spent more time in theattic this time found hidden
behind the chimney a spot theyhad missed the first time, a
(40:16):
spot they had missed the firsttime.
Hundreds more articles bring inthe total haul to somewhere
around 1,200 items in all.
They had collect and catalogother stuff, too mundane items
that showed their suspectedserial killer lived a life not
always too dissimilar from theirown.
He shopped at Sears with aSears Premier card.
He belonged to the BonusSavings Club.
(40:37):
At Farmer Jack he had a GeneseeDistrict Library card.
His family health coverage wasthrough Health Plus of Michigan,
he had a credit card for Lowe'sHome Improvement Warehouse and
he liked fireworks enough tohave a membership card for
fireworkscom.
Finally, early in the morning,their long day over.
(40:59):
The police headed back to theFlint Post.
At some point earlier someonehad been sent out to a party
store before it closed to pickup some beer.
Too tired to move, too elatednot to celebrate Malianak, and
Brandemille violated one ofMichigan's drinking laws.
They broke out a six-pack andhad a cup of beers each in a car
(41:21):
in the parking lot of the statepolice post, and then they made
the long drive back down I-75.
Hours earlier, about 4.25 pm,police called gordon's parents,
lawrence and shirley, but theywere not home.
About 6 10 pm sergeant reevesand sergeant mike davis went in
(41:43):
person and found them there.
This time the officers toldthem their son had been arrested
.
Reeves said that gordon'smother was badly shaken and
seemed surprised, but that oddly, the father seemed to take it
in stride as if it didn't comeas that much of a shock.
They wanted to interview theparents separately, but Mrs
(42:05):
Gordon insisted on staying withher husband and so a joint
interview was conducted in thekitchen.
They said they had foundedBuckler Automatic Lawn Sprinkler
Company in 1980 and had beencontractors for the Mott estate
since 1982.
Before founding the company,lawrence had worked for another
company at the estate.
He chose the name Buckler, hetold them, because there was an
(42:29):
established irrigation supplycompany called Buckner and he
thought it might help if peoplethought his new company was the
old established one.
As for Jeff's trouble in Florida, they professed remarkable
ignorance.
They knew he had gotten somesort of trouble and they had
sent him money, reportedly about$5,000, to pay his legal fees.
(42:51):
And they knew he had gone toprison.
But they claimed they had noidea what it was or about what
he had done or been charged with.
Jeff they said had kept itquiet.
What they didn't tell policewas that one of Jeff's
grandmothers had spoken at hissentencing in Florida on his
(43:13):
behalf and surely had heard thecharges recounted, the litany of
assaults and B&Es Hard toimagine she had not told his
parents or that they have notasked her.
The Courtons also say theynever observed a suspected
abnormal behavior by Jeff andhad never received any
complaints from clients.
Mr Gordon remembered seeingMargaret Abbey around the estate
(43:35):
and one time she asked the guyson one of his crews to help her
unload her car.
He didn't know her, had onlysaid hi to her once, didn't find
her attractive At 6.45, mrsGordon told them she felt as if
she was about to be sick andasked if she could go outside.
At 7.10, Mr Gorin authorized asearch of the house, but Mrs
(43:58):
Gorin refused.
She told them she had been onthe phone to the Flint Post and
was mad they would not let hertalk to her son or see him.
At 7.35, their daughter, debbieRoss, and one of their other
sons, greg, and his wife Sarah,arrive and police allow them in.
At 7.50, the Gortons were tolda search warrant for the house
(44:31):
and business next door had beensigned and a few minutes later
Reeves and four other officerssearched the house and the
business in the presence of MrsGordon.
There were several largestorage buildings on the
property and six officerssearched those.
As Mr Gordon and Greg looked on, they contained nothing of
value.
Mrs Gordon kept the companybooks, including in items taken
from the house were eight filecards showing work done on the
modest date since Buckler wasfounded, cards showing work done
(44:55):
on the modest date sinceBuckler was funded and W-2 forms
and timesheets for allemployees.
In addition to the modest date,the company did the sprinkler
work for all the McDonald's,burger Kings and Taco Bells in
the Flint area.
Jeff may have been a foreman inthe family business, but his W-2
forms would show that if hewere ever to get rich it would
be by inheritance or the lottery, not from his labors.
(45:17):
His base pay in 1997 was$12,160.
It was the same in 1998.
Counting overtime and a modestbonus, he made nearly $23,000 a
year.
In 1991, he made $10 an hour.
Thanks to overtime, generally12 to 14 hours a week.
(45:38):
He took home $375 to $385 aweek.
Some other things caught thecop's eyes and were confiscated.
There were 10 porno magazines.
Later company employees wouldtell police that at least some
of Jeff's brothers, usuallybehind his back, referred to him
as the panty sniffer.
(45:58):
Brian Gorton felt like he hadbeen hit in the stomach.
When he heard a news accountlate Friday afternoon that his
younger brother had beenarrested for the murder at the
Amada estate at the Amada State,he was willing to talk.
When State Police SergeantDaniel Pecrue and Trooper Jason
Teddy knocked on the door of hisFlint house just after 5 pm, he
(46:20):
invited them in and over thenext hour and a half told them
that Jeff had always been thegood son, then had been a heavy
drinker and committed suicideand the other brothers had their
weaknesses, but Jeff had alwaysdone the right thing.
He was the eighth student atSouthwestern.
He had been the star chessplayer.
(46:40):
He didn't abuse drugs, rarelydrank, never raised his voice
with his wife and kids.
In nearly 40 years Brian hadnever seen him lose his temper.
He would never own a gun,didn't like to hunt, seemed a
gentle soul.
Occasionally Buckler would getassignments that took a crew or
two out of the Flint area,particularly jobs for McDonald's
(47:04):
and the Proclaim chain oflaundry centers.
It was pretty common if a crewwas out of town or on an
overnight assignment to go outhitting the bars at night or
find a topless joint.
He remembered being in theDetroit area in November of 2000
and the four Gordon brothersall going out to a topless bar.
Jeff always had an eye for thewomen and would make comments
(47:28):
about women he would see, butaccording to Brian he always
seemed to prefer classy womenwho were dressed up.
He knew Jeff had been introuble in Florida for window
peeping.
He thought and he said that asfar as he could remember the
last time he had seen Jeff otherthan at work had been the
previous 4th of July.
(47:49):
Except for his younger brother,greg, jeff wasn't very close to
any of his family DetectiveGonzalez and Sergeant Alan Ock
went to Steve Gordon's house innearby Linden and he said Jeff
had been in some kind of troublein Florida involving a woman,
but didn't know any detailsother than that he had gone to
(48:09):
jail.
He said Jeff was known for hismeticulousness but added that he
was always a little perverted.
And when asked to explain,steve said that Jeff and his
buddy Kevin Bosch used to alwaysgo to topless bars together but
that he thought Jeff hadsettled down since.
He was shocked at the chargesagainst Jeff, of course, but
(48:32):
said that several years earliera customer had complained that
Jeff had gone through a movementstressor drawers, a charge Jeff
denied, was remarried and wasafraid that in all the hubbutt
(48:56):
over Jeff her kids would findout that their dad had died as a
suicide and not of accidentalcauses.
Eventually she agreed to meetwith Larson at her house.
She had married Dan a yearafter the Ebi murder and
divorced him 10 years later.
Just after the divorce he hadgone out to his company van and
turned on the air compressor.
She was well familiar with theAbby case because at the time
(49:19):
she and Dan had been living justtwo blocks away and the murder
had creeped her out.
Jeff's immediate family claimedto be in the dark about his past
, but Tammy knew all about it.
She knew he had spent time inprison in Florida for stealing a
woman's clothing and had alwaysconsidered him a pervert.
(49:40):
She said Dan used to come homefrom work and tell her about
Jeff's antics, that he wouldfollow women while on the job
and would be so obsessed by themthat he would miss turns on the
road.
Obsessed by them that he wouldmiss turns on the road.
She told Larson there waslittle love in the Gordon family
.
She did stay in touch withGriff's wife, sarah, by phone
(50:02):
but since her divorce Mr and MrsGordon had no contact
whatsoever with her kids, theirgrandkids, who then were 16 and
18.
Who then were 16 and 18.
She told Larson that Sarah hadtalked to her quite a lot about
the news.
Mrs Gordon had asked Sarah tovisit Jeff at jail but Sarah had
(50:22):
told her she would quit thefamily business or they could
fire her because she would gosee him.
Tammy also told Larson that inthe past Sarah had asked her not
to tell Brenda Gordon anythingabout her husband's troubled
past, that Jeff had asked her torelay this message to her.
Tammy and others had kept Jeff'spast a secret from Brenda, who
(50:46):
they said she was a very nicewoman and she said that she was
aware of at least one complaintfiled against Jeff during his
employment at Buckler.
She said Sarah had told hersome women had called to say
that Jeff had been going throughsome boxes in her house but
(51:06):
that she didn't know if anyonehad ever followed up on the
complaint or if Jeff had beendisciplined.
Greg and Sarah Gorton's formernext-door neighbor, laurie
Tafoya, also found it hard tobelieve.
The family had little or noinkling of Jeff's dark side.
After hearing the news ofJeff's arrest she called the
(51:30):
Flint PD and they referred herto the state police.
Rest.
She called the Flint PD andthey referred her to the state
police.
She told Greg Kilbourne thatshe had numerous run-ins with
Jeff from 1986 to 1989,beginning with when her daughter
had seen Jeff peeping inthrough her bedroom window one
morning when she was gettingready for school.
She screamed and mom camerunning.
(51:50):
Lori didn't see Jeff herself,but she went next door to tell
Greg about what his brother hadbeen doing.
Greg said he would settle itand asked her not to call police
.
The next incident occurred at abirthday party for Greg and
Sarah's daughter.
After the Gortons had moved toanother house less than a mile
away, lori drove her threedaughters to the house.
(52:14):
Jeff was there and shortlyafter they arrived Jeff said he
had to leave to pick up hisgirlfriend Brenda.
Laura then realized she hadforgotten the birthday present.
She drove back home to get it.
Jeff's Monte Carlo was in herdriveway.
She entered and found Jeff inthe rear of the house in the
(52:37):
laundry room looking for.
It.
Looks like sorry.
It looks like he was scaredhalf to death in the process.
He closed the door and as sheapproached and held it shut
while she and her daughterstried to force it open,
screaming at him all the while.
So again she told Greg that hetold her that he would take care
(53:00):
of it and to please not callthe police.
So in April of 1988, lori movedto another house just three
blocks from Greg and Sarah andnot long after that she saw
someone peeping into herbathroom window about 5.30 in
the morning.
But because of the distortionsin the glass she couldn't
(53:20):
identify who it was.
But she was sure it was Jeff.
So she called Flint police.
They came out, followedfootprints from the window to
the parking lot of a nearbybusiness In 1989, she was
looking out a window one nightwhen suddenly Jeff came face to
face with her.
She ran out, turned on a decklight.
(53:42):
He froze in his tracks, thentook off running to the same
nearby parking lot and got intohis Monte Carlo.
She found a cement block he hadplaced under her window to give
him a better view.
She called Flint police butthey said her brief look at the
peeping Tom in the dark was notenough to make an arrest.
(54:04):
In 1990, she purchased a bigblack dog and for the first few
weeks it would bark hystericallyduring the early morning hours,
frantic, as if someone was inthe yard.
And after a while his barkingstopped and Jeff was never seen.
There again were a lot ofundergarments, including a long
(54:38):
white slip, a long black slipwith a matching chemise, a red
teddy, a red wool dress and aroyal blue dress.
Another of Greg and Sarah'sformer neighbors the name was
Tony Trombley told of differentseries of encounters with Jeff
in the summer of 1996.
She had rented a room from hercousin next door to Greg and
(55:00):
Sarah Gordon.
It still freaked her out morethan 15 years later when she
recounted for police how shewould come home one day and
discovered that Jeff wassomething more than the quiet,
gentle guy who had been stoppingby lately to engage her in
conversation, that he was also aguy capable of sneaking in her
(55:22):
house to leave her a bouquet offlowers and a note and, while he
was at it, completely cleaningthe house, including washing the
laundry, folding it and puttingit away.
She had ordered him to stayaway.
She bought a padlock for herbedroom.
(55:43):
She came home one day to findthe padlock broken off and she
would move away soon after.
Broken off and she would moveaway soon after.
Thank you for listening to theMurder Book.
Have a day, a great week.
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