Chapter 257

Monday I was glad to be headed to KCC. I was driving and Patti was riding with me. Patti had returned late; she had been on an out of town trip with Kate again. Patti was pumping me for every little detail of the Frost Borough attack.

There had been a renewed discussion at the breakfast table this morning about the weekend adventures. We had brain-stormed for two hours last night. Jenny and I came up with a corporate statement in case anyone showed up with questions. I knew that sooner or later some would come knocking on our doors.

Vicky and Ching Lee, as our public relations spokes persons, were going to send the statement to all JBG security sites and hold a video conference at 7 AM with all the directors - just to CYA.

Caroline Breeze had become a hot topic in Mountain County. Frost Borough was the county seat as well as a college town. It was an off year election cycle. That election was less than 15 days away. The Frost Borough local media went berserk with the kidnapping and rape of Caroline Breeze.

The sheriff was trying to ride the coattails of her rescue to reelection and was taking credit for a lot of things that happened there, and that was fine with me. Going into the final weeks to reelection the sheriff was a couple points ahead of his opponent in the polls before Friday night's abduction of Caroline and now had a double digit lead.

The real problem was his opponent's last ditch efforts were making waves. He was shaking trees and rattling the leaves to see what might fall out. The under-dogs sometimes do desperate things. The other thing the sheriff's opponent was harping on in the local media was he knew the Johnson boys and there was no way they should have died.

I found out later, Murphy Cox was the local handyman grounds keeper; that kind of thing. That explained the porch full of tools that I selected from and all of the people that knew him were skeptical of the charges laid against him.

This fight had the potential to get nasty very quickly, especially if any of the details of my interrogation became public knowledge.

I learned from the 6 AM news report stated that Murphy Cox was to be charged with the kidnapping and rape of Caroline and the kidnapping, rape and the murder of Sonya Deerfield last November - complete details would be released at the 11 am press conference given by the Mountain County Prosecutor's office.

Courtney was sending me every scrap of newspaper print that was appearing and recording all the local newscasts. She had been posting them for me on the JBG server so I could look at them.

So far there had been no mention of any legal representation for Murphy or any statements from any lawyers that might be consul for him, but I knew there had to be a state or county attorney appointed by now.

As for Dean Skaggs he had called College Chancellor Howard Nobles - they were old friends – apparently heaping praise for the fast action and the return of Caroline alive.

As I figured Howard Nobles and Bob Jackson were in my office as soon as the fresh pot of coffee was being made. I knew they were both itching to ask questions.

Seeing that it was between shift changes with all the day shift had checked in and the night shift ready to check out, there was no better time to gave a joint briefing to both about the weekend in case reporters showed up asking questions here.

"May I have your attention please: All of you know that I am part owner of JBG and we supply security to other colleges? Saturday morning an advance team including myself was flying to Michigan and then on to Minnesota to evaluate the security needs for two new potential clients," I said.

"I received an in-flight call from our Frost Borough security office indicated that they had a missing student. I decided to divert our flight to Frost Borough to assist in the investigation," I added and then continued.

A preliminary investigation had been under way before the Security Director made the call to the senior management team. In that investigation she questioned all of the fellow students that had been with the missing student in question. She determined that she needed help.

This is what had played out the night before: There had been a group of eight students. First they went to the football game, and two off campus bars. That investigation revealed that the girl, Caroline Breeze became separated from the group at the second bar when she informed one of her friends that she had met a friend whom was going to return her to campus. It was clear she did not make it," I said.

"Using further investigative techniques we later determined she was possibly being held in a house outside of town. When we arrived on the scene there was one suspect in the house that was detained while the security team searched for the girl. We uncovered her bloody clothes and ID card in a day bed but no girl was found at the premises." I said.