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Murder in
Paradise
Late 1980 saw us on the way to Palmyra Atoll. It was the most wonderful
experience to arrive in that absolutely pristine, tropical environment
after the previous winter up in Canada. The island has never had
permanent residents for any great period, and is subsequently pretty
unspoiled.
When we arrived, we found, in a hut on the island, a carefully bundled
set of newspaper clippings of a saga that had unfolded on the island
several years prior. They told the story of a cruising couple who had
been murdered on the island and their boat stolen. The stolen boat
showed up in Hawaii a few months later. It was recognized and reported.
The couple was arrested. Because the bodies were never recovered, the
FBI decided to charge them only with the theft of the vessel in the
hopes that something may turn up in the future that would make a murder
charge more likely to succeed. The story had apparently captured the
publics' imagination and was well reported in the press in Hawaii and
some of the West coast of the US.
From that point on, on our daily outings on the island, every bone we
saw prompted comments like "I bet that's an arm bone" or "a rib for
sure".
One evening, early in '81, I was reading in a hammock strung between
two palm trees and Sharon was out foraging for interesting flotsam. I
heard the crashing thru the bush as she came running towards me. She
held out her collecting bag with the comment, 'Guess what I found'. She
reached in and pulled out a human skull, complete with gold dental
work. "Better come quickly before the tide comes in, and see the rest
of it" she urged. We raced back to the site, and there on the sand,
just above the previous high tide mark, was an aluminum box, on its'
side, with the lid lying just next to it, and a piece of wire, clearly
used to tie it closed lying there too. Spilling from the box was a
collection of human bones, a wristwatch and a cigarette lighter. One
look, and it was crystal clear what we were observing. I remember
clearly the feeling as the realization set in that this story we had
read on those clippings was in fact true in the worst way possible. The
skull I now held in my hand was that of a fellow cruiser. We really
were stunned. The scene we were looking at left no doubt whatsoever as
to what had happened there.
We collected up everything and made our way somberly back to Moya. Once
aboard, we debated what to do. Moya had no electrical system to speak
of. I had however, packed a motorcycle battery aboard, and had made a
solar panel from solar cells, with the intention of installing it
later. I also had a cb radio stashed away somewhere. I set to work
assembling all this that night, and had it up and running the next
morning. We scrounged some old wiring from one of the sheds on the
island (ex war huts) and strung an antenna. We could hear the Hawaiian
AM radio stations at night, so my hope was that maybe they would be
able to hear us on this 27mhz AM rig. It would be a long shot - but
worth the effort. That evening, just as the airwaves started to pick
up, I fired up the rig and selected channel 9, and transmitted a call
to the Hawaii coast guard. The air was full of traffic - I was hearing
people from all over the States. (This was the heyday of cb radio). To
my astonishment, on my second call, I heard faintly in there, a
response from the Hawaii Coast Guard. With great difficulty, I managed
to get a brief message thru regarding our find. They asked me to stand
by, and a short time later, came back asking for my location. They then
switched to a directional antenna, cleared the channel for emergency
traffic, and it was almost like talking on a telephone. They were
pretty insistent on one issue, I was to put the remains on the shore
and not keep them on the boat. I tried hard to convince them that they
would be safer aboard away from the attentions of the rats and other
critters ashore, but they were adamant. We made plans to make contact
the following evening before signing off. As soon as we did sign off, I
was bombarded by calls from people who had been listening in. I
switched off and we settled down for supper. As was our habit, we
turned on the portable radio during supper, and the news came on. We
were astonished to hear the last item on the newscast - a short recap
of the story of the couple who had gone missing, followed by the news
that it was suspected that one of their remains might have been
recovered on the atoll. The last sentence sent a chill thru us both -
"The suspected perpetrator, is at present believed to be an escapee".
Suddenly the FBIs' insistence regarding keeping the remains ashore made
sense. This guy absolutely needed to get down there to get rid of that
evidence. It surely would be his ticket to the gallows. He was an
escapee with over 50 previous convictions. We slept with one ear open
for an engine of any type. I had the shotgun loaded and next to me at
night.
We spent the next week trying to come up with ways to get the bones
back to Hawaii for analysis. The atoll is so remote as to be very
difficult to get to. In the end, agents flew down to Christmas Island
and had a meteorologist from the University of Hawaii fly them up to
Palmyra. He kept a light plane on Christmas Island and a small remote
weather station on Palmyra, and had kept the old wartime runway clear
enough to land his light plane on. We did some clearing for them before
they arrived too. Their visit was a great event for us, as we had been
all but alone on the island for months. We spent a day showing them the
site and searching for more bones we may have missed, and the next day
fishing together. The remains were subsequently positively identified
as those of the missing woman. We had noticed the inside of the box was
charred, and there was what appeared to be a char mark on the skull.
Apparently, what the FBI ultimately were able to ascertain, was that
this criminal had shot the woman, then cut the body up with a chain
saw, put it in the aluminum box, poured in gasoline, and set it alight.
Then apparently, he retrieved the oxy-acetylene set from the boat and
tried to reduce the body further. Then he put the lid on the box (which
had a rubber seal on it), bound it closed tightly with wire, attached a
weight, and dropped it in the lagoon. The depth in the location where
he dropped it is about 100 ft. The decomposition must have created some
gasses and made the box buoyant. It would have moved over the years as
the tide ebbed and flowed until finally the wire parted and it was
freed of its' anchor weight. That is when it floated up and was blown
ashore. Sharon just happened to be in that area at that exact time to
find it. The next tide would likely have washed it away - or at least
scattered and buried the bones. It was actually the gold dental work
gleaming in the sun that caught her eye.
The FBI agents had asked us if we would be prepared to be present at
the trials to describe exactly what the scene looked like when we found
it, to the jury. We, of course, were happy to oblige. They asked us to
call each time we arrived at a new island on our travels, so they would
know where to find us when the time came. This led to a rather
enchanted trip around the world. They would phone ahead to our next
port each time and notify the local police. They would ask them to
report back when we arrived. Of course when we arrived at these small,
far away, islands, there would be great interest in hearing what this
was all about. We would frequently be invited to supper with the local
police chief, and would be looked after well during our stay. We
subsequently were flown back to the USA to give evidence in both the
trials years later, from South Africa, it turned out. The guy was found
guilty on all counts and was sentenced to life; the gal was able to
employ a suitable defense and secured a not guilty verdict for her
involvement. The story of her trial is recounted in the book by one of
her lawyers, Vincent Bugliose, 'And the Sea will tell'. A TV movie was
also made of the book. (The same name).
That little adventure had some repercussions for me in the following
years.
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