Betty’s death defied deconstruction. Her witnesses defined her unambiguously. I reluctantly bought their consensus. I wanted to accumulate odd bits of data and credit Betty with a bold streak or a secret mental life. I did not want to form her in my mother’s image or remake her as anything but who she was. I only wanted proof that she’d lived more. I wanted it for her sake.
The dead-end metaphysic blitzed my shot at my mother’s killer. We never approached a live suspect.
We had a live suspect now. We had knowledge and a shot at provability.
5
10:20A.M. Thursday, 11/20/97:
THE CALIFORNIA MEN’S COLONY AT SAN LUIS OBISP0. SERGEANT BILL STONER REPRESENTING SHERIFF’S HOMICIDE. DETECTIVE GARY WALKER REPRESENTING EL MONTE PD. THE SUSPECT: INMATE ROBERT LEROY POLETE JR. PRISON #B84688.
The interview was held in a small administration office. A window overlooked the prison yard. Bill Stoner sat at a desk. Inmate Polete sat in a chair directly in front of him. Gary Walker sat to the side of the desk and faced Inmate Polete diagonally.
Bill Stoner’s first impression of Inmate Polete:
“He looked soft. He was about thirty pounds heavier than his ’73 arrest statistics. He had a paunch, and his body wasn’t toned. His hair had receded in front. He looked like a blond surfer kid who didn’t take care of himself as he got older. He didn’t look in any way menacing.”
Stoner and Walker identified themselves. They said they were investigating a 1973 murder. Inmate Polete was a suspect then. They read Inmate Polete his Miranda rights.
Inmate Polete waived his right to have a lawyer present. He said he knew the murder they meant. He took a polygraph test in ’73 and passed it. The test guy asked him some questions about this woman’s murder.
Stoner said he did not pass the test. The result was “inconclusive.”
Inmate Polete explained. He said the cops asked questions about the other cases before he took the test. The cops asked him about the murder. He got scared and confused. He said, “Yes, I did it,” out of fear and frustration.
Koury and Meyers had not stated that he made a flat-out admission. They said he got right to the brink and retreated.
‘My dad’s got heart trouble. This would really kill him.”
Inmate Polete insisted that he did pass the test. Stoner told him that he did not.
Detective Walker asked Inmate Polete to describe his life in 1973. Inmate Polete said he worked in his dad’s print shop. They lived behind the shop. Him, his dad, his mom, and his kid brother.
He went to Sierra Vista High School. He played the cymbals and the sousaphone in the school band. He went to the Pentecostal Church at Five Points in El Monte and dated the minister’s daughter. He worked at C&R Printing part-time.
Bill Stoner’s second impression of Inmate Polete:
“He was getting agitated, because he knew we weren’t going to just go away. He came off more and more juvenile emotionally. He had a 17-year-Old personality and attitude stuck in the body of a 42-year-old man.”
Inmate Polete said his DNA was on file with the state. It would prove he did not kill that woman. He was very emphatic.
Inmate Polete said he only did two crimes total. He was trying to reach out. He thought no one cared about him.
Stoner asked him which two crimes he meant. Inmate Polete said the Bakersfield thing and that thing with the woman who stabbed him. The women did not understand. He just wanted to be held and loved.
Stoner contradicted him. Stoner told him that he sodomized a teenage girl on 3/8/73. The assault occurred in Baldwin Park. The victim identified him.
Inmate Polete denied the assault. He said someone else copped out to that case.
No one else copped out to that case.
Stoner read from a Baldwin Park PD report. It was dated 3/20/73. A Baldwin Park PD detective stated:
Robert Leroy Polete admitted the kidnap/rape of 3/8/73. Robert Leroy Polete admitted two other attempted abductions. The dates: 2/16/72 and 3/13/73. He wasn’t tried for the crimes.
Stoner asked Inmate Polete to explain the report. Inmate Polete said he did not commit those crimes. He could not explain the report.