WAKE ME WITH THE MORNING’S LIGHT

Chapter 20

“She looked back at us from the door, and I had a last impression of that beautiful, haunted face, the startled eyes, and the drawn mouth. Then she was gone.”

—The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905) 

The philosophy of search for truth is the study of reality—

That which seeks to understand the nature of truth and the ways to discover it is concerned with discovering what is real and permanent rather than what is fleeting or illusory.

Thus, it is the investigator’s duty to fervently seek truth, yet without temptation, corruption, or dereliction of duty.

For example, the Illinois State Police was founded on the motto of “Integrity, Service, and Pride.”

And the ATF, “professionalism, honesty, integrity, accountability, ethical behavior, and excellence.”

On January 17th, 1993, Illinois State Police Special Agent Kenneth Kedzior and Alcohol, Tabaco, and Firearms Investigator Gary Smith, have converged on the small, downstate town to bestow these virtues upon the home of David Haynes to gather information concerning the deaths of Donna Tompkins and her daughter Justine.  

The interview began at 12:55 pm in a two-story limestone apartment building on North 2nd Avenue, just a half-block from the David W. O’Brien Public Safety Building—inhabited by the police department on the south end and fire on the north—named in honor of an assistant police chief and 2-year veteran on the force who was shot and killed in 1923 by an Army deserter armed with two .30-caliber, ten-shot Lugers, who had been wanted on bank and train robbery charges—the corner lot adorned by bare limbed maple trees which fill out generously in the summer sun about a green lawn, now dried and yellowed, buried beneath a half foot of snow.

That half block to the south, seated across a kitchen table in a crowded apartment, stuffy with furnace-dried air, David told investigators that Donna and Justine were really close to him, stating that Donna was his right hand and knew him very well. Adding that just last Friday, January 8th, Donna had thrown her arms around him and given him a hug, saying she loved him.

David responded to the officer’s raised brow and hastily-scribbling by explaining that Donna had done so after he had helped her with a tax question she had.

Investigators asked David to pause right there and back up a bit, asking when and how he had first met Donna before her becoming his secretary at the National Bank of Canton.

David stated that he had actually met Donna at the Community Bank the first day he’d found a job in Canton. He said he was fresh out of law school, stating in his markedly hurried pace of speech, “I didn’t have a dime in my pocket. And when I first met Donna, I knew right away that she was the cutest girl in town!”

David told investigators that after the Community Bank closed, Donna came to him and asked if he would hire her and that she’d been his right hand since. He said that Donna tried to be very professional, disciplined, and had morals. And that she was due for a raise, but for some reason, he hadn’t given it to her yet. But that she had received a year-end bonus that Friday she’d returned from Connecticut, which would have been New Year’s Day.

“Donna was always worried about money,” David said. “I was always on her mind.”

He and Donna didn’t really socialize outside of the bank, David claimed, before recanting, “Well, maybe every once in a while—but seeing that she was, well, we were both married, you know, we didn’t want to be ‘too’ close,” adding that his wife was a little jealous of Donna.

He said that Donna was under a lot of pressure with her marriage.

“And after her mother died, soon after is when she’d told me she was going to get a divorce—and I had no doubt the marriage was over.” 

“But Jon, no, he didn’t want that. He was resisting, trying to get her back. Yes,” David said, “there’d been real financial problems for them. That, and the pressure of living on the farm, but I really think it was the death of her mother—well, she’d decided life is just too short, and that is not how she wanted to live.”

ATF Investigator Gary Smith asked David if he knew of anyone that Donna had been dating.

David said that she’d not been in a hurry to get involved with anyone until her divorce was over—but that he knew she’d been dating Terry Haynes, “no relation,” he said.

And that a guy named Rod Franciscovich had picked her up at the airport when she returned from Connecticut.      

“I guess you could say she and Rod were seeing each other, dating—Donna told me he wasn’t putting any pressure on her and that he was a nice guy.” 

Investigator Smith then asked David where he had been Tuesday night, January 12th, after work. And David said that he and his wife were going to throw a birthday party for his father and youngest son but that his father could not make it because of the icy roads—adding that he had told Donna about the party but failed to invite her. 

“No,” he said. He’d received no calls from anyone that night.         

“Can you explain to us the circumstances leading up to the discovery of the fire at Donna’s residence,” asked Investigator Smith.

And David began by saying, “Tuesday night is when the fire started.”       

“Wait, what…” was the look in the two officer’s eyes that met, along with that grimace accompanying a fierce bite of the tongue, as they let David continue uninterrupted.  

So, David went through the morning’s series of events once more, stating, “It was not like Donna to arrive late. She was always punctual,” he said. “Everyone was panicking because she had not arrived with the ATM drop—the bags of cash.”

And that when he called her house, the answering machine picked up, and Donna’s voice sounded distorted and slow.  

“Like the machine was melting,” he said, stating that the fire was probably already going. 

“Wait,” said Special Agent Kedzior, “are you giving us an account of Tuesday morning or Wednesday morning,” he asked, somewhat confused.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, let me remind you: the fire was discovered by David on the morning of Wednesday, January 13th, 1993.

“Wednesday,” said David. “After we called the YMCA to see if Donna had dropped off Justine at daycare yet, and she hadn’t—my first thought was the divorce.”

David turned to Sargent Ayers and said, “The only thing that I can think of is that maybe when I tried to call Donna from the bank, the answering machine set off some kind of booby-trap.”

“It was then,” David stated, “I’d decided to go to her house to check on her. I told my boss Max Scott where I was going and why—I jumped in my truck around 9 9:15—and drove over there. And when I was pulling into the driveway, I saw a lady coming out of Pauline Newcomb’s apartment. No, I didn’t recognize her,” he said, “she was 30, 40 years old. I parked behind Donna’s car, a Bonneville, which was in the garage—yes, the garage door was up. And that’s when I saw Justine’s car seat in the back. I walked over to her apartment, opened the storm door, and knocked hard. I tried to look around the curtain but couldn’t see anything—the door was large, with big glass. I guess since there was so much smoke, I couldn’t see anything. But I checked the door, and it was locked and shut solid. I tried to look in another window, but I still could not see anything. That’s when I went around to Pauline’s and told her I was looking for Donna. But she said she didn’t know where Donna was. I asked her if she had a key to the apartment—I think before I called the police—but Pauline could not find one. I then called the police and told them what was going on, and that’s when we heard three knocks coming from the wall adjoining Donna’s apartment—like someone needed help—I’d thought maybe she’d fallen. And I saw a tiny puff of powder of plaster coming out of the wall—and I immediately thought maybe they’d had been overcome by gas—but what do I know—I don’t know a whole lot about gas ‘or’ fire,” David volunteered.

He stated he ran back to the door and beat on it to no response, and that that is when he spotted an air conditioner in a window on the side of the house. He said he took his gloved hands and pulled out the unit. That smoke began pouring out of the window—that he panicked and believed he tore a piece of metal off the frame of the screen door and may have broken a hole in the door’s glass with the metal. He said he reached in with his left hand to unlock the door but could not feel the deadbolt. So, he removed his hand, took off his glove, and tried again.

Holding up his left index finger for the investigators, “I burned my fingerprint off,” he said. “But it’s better now.”

Special Agent Kedzior noted in his pad that David’s index finger appeared fine and that he could not detect any burn damage.

David stated he stepped inside a little bit but could not see anything due to the thick smoke. But just off to the left, about 12 to 14 feet away against the wall, there was a bright orange ball.  

“It had to be 3 to 4 feet tall,” said David. “And then a fireball shot right toward me—once the air got to it—and I could feel it burn my face—my hair, and coat, so I got the hell out of there. I had it on my mind that I could get them out—Donna and Justine, but—” He stated that he had never been to Donna’s apartment before nor seen inside, “So I really didn’t want to go inside,” he said. “But bedrooms are always in the back of a house—which would be the east side of Donna’s, by the garage, so I broke the south window and yelled inside.”

He said he had pulled a screen out and could see a bed.

“I reached in, but I could not feel anyone.” 

David said that he figured that he was near the end of the bed, so he decided to break out another window just to the right before reaching in again.

“The smoke was getting bad,” he said, “I was creating a draft. And a guy from upstairs came down and broke out one of Pauline’s windows, and I asked him what in the hell he was doing—he was making the fire worse.”  

David said that his boss Max Scott then arrived and that he believed that Max had told the police, who had arrived out front, to call the fire department.

“Max told me after I’d left the bank that he had given Donna another call but said the phone just rang and rang and that the machine never picked up. And when the fire department finally arrived, I felt like they were not really doing much. I even asked them to give me an asbestos jacket and some air. Hell, if they weren’t gonna do nothing, I told them I’d go in.” David said he tried to give the fireman a layout of the apartment, saying he thought there were two people inside and that “If Donna and Justine are in the room with the glowing dome, then they are already dead. Investigator Smith asked David if the bank was holding the house in a trust, and David said it was, adding, “And we keys—but I don’t think we have one to Donna’s apartment. Well, I don’t know—maybe I do. And after a brief pause, David continued, stating, “If foul play was involved, I sure hope that I didn’t destroy any evidence.”

“What do you suspect happened?” asked Agent Kedzior.

“I don’t know; I suppose I have no reason to suspect anything,” he said.

As the interview was coming to a close, and the officers were gathering their notes and thanking David for his help, when David interrupted, saying, “I just want to clarify something I’d told the Fire Marshall the other day—”

“Ted Anderson...?” asked investigator Smith.

“Yeah, I told him that Donna did not smoke,” said David, “but I’ve since found out that she does—well, did smoke.”

And around 2:30 in the afternoon, as the officers put on their gloves and made their way back out into the brisk air, David added, “Yeah, my brother’s house up in Monmouth caught fire back in ’92.”

The two officers made eyes across the roof of the car.

Investigator Smith and Special Agent Kedzior met with David again the following day—

In reference to the keys to Donna’s apartment, David removed four keys from the trust file in his office and, while handing them over, stated, “I am not sure if any of these will work, but that’s what I have.”

But the officers took a look, handed the keys back to David, and left the bank.

Due to the circumstances surrounding the fire and previous information furnished by David Haynes, investigators felt it was necessary to re-interview the trust officer, feeling some of the information he had provided during his initial interviews seemed utterly impossible to have occurred as he had described.

So, on the following evening, January 21st, Canton Police Sargent heading up the investigation, David Ayers, called David Haynes up on the phone and asked if he would mind coming up to the police department to answer a few more questions. David agreed, and as he arrived at the station to speak with Sgt. Ayers and State Fire Marshall Ted Anderson, Special Agent Kenneth Kedzior, and ATF Investigator Gary Smith made their way out the back door for the Haynes’s apartment to speak to his wife, Sarah, alone—the art of investigative questioning.

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s keep in mind some of the tools of investigative questioning, shall we?

UNDERSTAND BODY LANGUAGE 

ASK SIMPLE QUESTIONS

DON’T SHOW ALL YOUR CARDS

CREATE A KINDRED BOND WITH YOUR SUBJECT 

KEEP WITNESS INTERVIEWS ON-TOPIC AND DIRECT 

CREATE THE ILLUSION OF TRUST 

DON’T GIVE UP TOO SOON

And never forget,

THE POWER OF COMFORT AND CIVILITY.

At 6:15 pm, within a small interview room inside the bowels of the single-story, midcentury limestone building that sat atop a slope of land on the corner of 1st and East Spruce, the interview began as David stated, “I know what you’re thinking, but I was not involved—”

“In what...?” asked Sargent Ayers.

“The fire at Donnas,” said David before again explaining, yet once again, the circumstances which led him to go to Donna’s apartment in the first place and what he did once he had arrived.

David’s story remained similar to what it had been told three times prior, yet a few new details had emerged. Some elements that investigators knew had happened had been left out, and David could not remember others they felt were invaluable and unforgettable. 

David had first stated that he could not remember if he had a glove on when he broke the window in the door and reached in to unlock the deadbolt but now stated that when doing so, he had lost his glove. And suddenly fails to recall feeling any heat nor seeing any flames or smoke when he’d previously claimed to have endured upon first entering the front door. But he does remember looking in through the crack in the curtain, and officers noted that if David had truthfully done so, he should have seen the fire burning inside.

When questioned again if he had observed any fire just inside the door, he said, “No, I only took two steps in.”

“Was this after you removed the air conditioner from the window?” he was asked.

“It was,” said David, again describing the smoke that rolled out the window. “Very heavy, in columns, two differently colored columns, pointing at one of the chairs in the interview room, continuing, “One was that color—I’d never seen anything like it,” he said.   

Fire Marshall Anderson then asked, “Tell me again, what happened when you first opened the front door.”

“Well, I walked in and could see an orange glow across the room,” said David.

“All right,” said Anderson, “what I’d like to know, given what you told me about the columns of smoke rolling out the window—I need to tell you that smoke in a house fire stays the relatively constant height throughout the residence—and the air-conditioner, well it was no more than 24 inches off the—from the floor. The way I see it, David, can I call you Dave? The way you describe things, Dave, the moment you opened the door, you should have been knocked over by a cloud of smoke or blown out from a backdraft. And you would have at least had to have been on your knees to see this ‘so-called’ glowing red dome. There would have had to have been less smoke,” he said, standing, throwing up a hand. “Look, I’ve been doing this for a long time, trust me, less smoke, or I have to say, you did not actually walk into the house. Did you, Dave?”

“I guess, said David, “I suppose maybe I didn’t actually enter the apartment—”

“So, you didn’t actually walk into the house,” asked Anderson. “Tell me, is there anything else you did or didn’t do...?”

“No,” said David, “of course not,” he reiterated, as Fire Marshall Anderson looked deep into his eyes, believing that David had just realized he was caught changing his story—and that this was something David clearly did not want to do.

Honesty and truthfulness are not the same thing; it is said. Being honest means not telling lies. Being truthful means actively making known ‘all’ the full truth of a matter. Lawyers must be honest, but they do not have to be truthful.

Was David Haynes one such lawyer...?

Honest, yet not truthful?

In addition, studies have long shown that when reading or hearing a story, people seek to identify the causal and motivational forces that drive the interactions of characters and link events, thereby achieving explanatory coherence—in other words, the tendency to bend the facts to fit a convenient and preferred narrative.

And police detectives have a long history of forcing fabrications to become truth—a round peg in a square hole.

Was Fire Marshall Anderson one such investigator...? 

The State Fire Marshall’s motto: “To train like its real.”

Why?

Because the State Fire Marshall is primarily responsible for fire training, teaching, and thus mastering every aspect of the nature of combustion and prevention.

“This fire was intentionally set,” said Anderson, attempting to surprise David. “We know that flammable liquids had been poured inside the apartment and intentionally set on fire,” he said, careful not to make any mention as to where the liquids were poured. “Do you know what I’m talking about, Dave?”

“I don’t know anything about that,” said David. “`No, nothing about any flammable liquids or how the fire started; I told you everything I know and everything I saw—everything happened as I explained, I told you—

“Did you set the fire, Dave?”

“Of course not! No, of course, I didn’t set the fire.”

“Dave, it is in our opinion that you are not telling the truth about what you ‘did’ or ‘saw’ that morning. And also, Dave,” Anderson taking a seat, yet soothing closer to the now quite flustered interviewee, “what’s this you told the insurance investigator something about if we find a fingerprint on the deadbolt, it’s yours…? None of this adds up, Dave!”

“Look, that’s what happened. I opened the door and—everything I told you is true,” said David, as Sargent Ayers noted a rash breaking out from David’s neck to his forehead as Anderson drilled him. Believing that though David did not want to retract a false statement, what he was claiming was utterly ridiculous.

“It’s no big deal,” said Anderson, “just admit it. I didn’t go down this way, did it, Dave? I mean, it is impossible, can’t you see? It’s impossible, Dave—I don’t understand why you will not just save yourself some trouble and tell us the truth...?” 

Anderson then took an exacerbated breath and dropped his hands to his side. He shook his head and then gathered his notes in frustration.

As he stood and exited the room, and once the door clicked shut, David turned to Sargent Ayers and said, “The only thing that I can think of is that maybe when I tried to call Donna from the bank, the answering machine set off some kind of booby-trap. Or maybe when I walked in, I kicked over a container with accelerant in it.”

Ayers noted that at no time had anyone mentioned the word “accelerant,” only “flammable liquid.” Nor was there any mention of accelerants being poured “just inside the door.”

At 7:05 pm, David asked if he could use the restroom and get a cup of coffee, and certainly let his heart rate slow.

And at 8:05 pm, David reentered the room, a bit calmed, where Special Agent Kenneth Kedzior—who had just returned from speaking with Sarah Haynes, unbeknownst to David’s knowledge—had joined Sargent Ayers.

When Agent Kedzior informed David that Anderson had left for the evening, Sargent Ayers noticed that the rash from David’s neck had all but disappeared as he took a relieved breath and settled in his chair.

“I just wanna say I didn’t do this,” said David. “I wasn’t involved; I didn’t set the fire—I didn’t kill Donna. I didn’t kill Justine. I know you don’t really believe that do you...?”

The officers remained silent.

“Look, I know you don’t really believe that; I know you’re just doing your jobs,” said David repeating continuously that he wanted to help solve the case in any way he could, reiterating, “I know you don’t really believe I did anything wrong—you’re just doing your jobs!”

“How did you know that Justine’s bed was located along the east side of the house,” asked Agent Kedzior.

“I mean, I didn’t,” said David, “It’s just that I’d been in the apartment about one month before they moved in—”

“You were never in the residence while Donna and Justine were living there?”

“Never,” said David. “Look, how much longer is this going to take? I need to call my wife.”

And at 9:42 pm, David used the restroom again, got a fresh cup of coffee, called his wife Sarah, and learned from her that Special Agent Kenneth Kedzior had been there interviewing her.

“I just wanna say, I didn’t do this,” said David. “I wasn’t involved; I didn’t set the fire—I didn’t kill Donna. I didn’t kill Justine. I know you don’t really believe that do you...?”

As David returned to the interview room, now irritated, he noticed that Sargent Ayers had been replaced by ATF agent Gary Smith, “what game is this,” he asked himself.

Agent Kedzior reinstated the interview at 9:51, as David immediately began to deny any involvement once again with the fire or the deaths of Donna and Justine.

“Look, I know you’re just doing your jobs,” he said. “There is no way you actually believe I’d do something like this. I mean, I really want to help you guys, and I will do anything I can. I’d love to help solve this and find out who did this. I’ll do anything I can to get to the bottom of it. I mean, I want to solve this, figure out who did it, you know what I mean? Anything I can do, just let me know. I’d be more than happy to help. I mean, I’m sure I can help. I’m an observant guy—I’m usually pretty aware of everything going on around me—for example, on Tuesday, I noticed that Donna was in a bad mood. She even snapped at my boss Max Scott—was really disrespectful to Max. And then later that day, Donna came to me complaining about Joanne calling into work—Joanne, she was sick that day, so that meant extra duties for Donna. She was going to miss a dentist appointment or something—” David continued, repeatedly attempting to convince the officers of his desire to help with the investigation.

The investigators were getting no further with David, and the interview concluded at 10:48 pm.

So how did our investigators do? 

It was concluded that the information and details David had provided did not conform with the circumstances found and revealed by the fire scene, as all the investigators who worked the actual fire scene had agreed that his account of what he saw and how simply could not have occurred as explained. 

And as David exited the room, Sargent Ayers approached to thank him, asking him, within the confinement of a firm handshake, if he’d be willing to submit to a polygraph examination conducted by the Illinois State Police.

“Um, I, I don’t; I think I am not really interested in doing that—no, I don’t want to do that,” said David. “at least not until I speak with some people—I can’t promise you that.”

And at 11:10 pm, David exited the David W. O’Brien Public Safety Building, climbed into his mustard yellow Toyota pickup that cranked over slowly in the bitter chill of the night, and drove the half-block home to his awaiting wife, Sarah, and their two young children, who lied asleep soundly and peacefully, safe in their beds, prayers still aloft in the furnace-dried air:

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

May God guard me through the night.

And wake me with the morning’s light.

Amen. 

*