Empty Promises

Acknowledgments
    Sometimes I tell myself that I can turn in a perfect manuscript the first time out, but I know I’m just whistling into the wind. Empty Promises needed far more talent and expertise than I possess. The skill of editors, the canny knowledge of detectives, the brilliance of prosecutors, lawyers and judges all combine to make a book. And always, always, there are the victims’ families who are willing to share their stories with me.
    I thank my publisher, Judith Curr, and my very encouraging editor, Mitchell Ivers—who had some editing assistance from Amanda Ayers and Emily Heckman—as we put together the many cases in Empty Promises. No writer can manage without an able production staff and I was lucky to have Donna O’Neill and Penny Haynes. As he always does, Paolo Pepe designed a cover that embodies the essence of my book.
    My literary agents, Joan and Joe Foley, have been with me for three decades and we are like family now.
    I’d also like to thank my theatrical agent, Ron Bernstein.
    My all-time first reader, Gerry Brittingham Hay, somehow managed to read my manuscript in planes, trains and automobiles as she headed east for a family wedding. Gerry read the end of the book as she drove up to the church!
    For the Empty Promises book-length feature, I am indebted to Lt. J.W.B. Taylor and Detectives Greg Mains and Mike Faddis of the Redmond Police Department. They solved an unsolvable case with the help of Detectives Lon Shultz, Brian Tuskan, Anne Malins, Rob Bunn, Glenn Rotton, and Detective Secretary Sandy Glynn, who transcribed a tower of notes and tape recordings. Officers Christine Penwell and Kristi Roze and Victims’ Advocate Linda Webb were vital to the probe. The Redmond crew was headed by Commander Chuck Krieble and Commander Gail Marsh.
    King County Senior Deputy Prosecutors Marilyn Brenneman, Hank Corscadden, and Kristin Richardson took on a murder case that few prosecutors would have attempted—and won. Val Epperson kept all their files in order, a gargantuan job. I also admire King County Superior Court Judge Anthony P. Wartnik for his ability and calm as he oversaw a trial with inflammatory possibilities. And thanks as well to his very helpful assistants, Pam Roark and Barbara Tsuchida, and to King County Court Deputies Andre Tuttle and Richard Clements.
    I especially appreciated Judy and Jerry Hagel’s kindness as they shared memories of their daughter with me, and I admire their courage and commitment.
    Without exaggerating, I have interviewed thousands of detectives in my life, and they have taught me a great deal and have shared their feelings and their philosophies with me to the point that I sometimes feel a little like a detective myself. My gratitude for the cases in Empty Promises goes to Don Cameron, Wally Hume, the late Don Dashnea, Arnold Hubner, Jim Byrnes, John Boatman, Walt Stout, Terry Murphy, John Nordlund, Mike Tando, Danny Melton, Gary Fowler, George Marberg, William Dougherty, George Vasil and Darryl Stuver.
    Many thanks to former Oregon Attorney General Bob Hamilton, Kent and Kim Smith, Bob Grau, C.N. “Nick” Marshall, Trilby Jordan, Ila Birkland, and to my own office staff: Leslie, Mike and Don.

Foreword
    Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe that, over the last three decades, I have researched and written about more than 1,400 actual felony cases. Most of them dealt with homicide, but many were also about sexual predators, arsonists, bank robbers, and con artists. As I leaf through some of the fact-detective magazines for which I was a correspondent early in my career, I come across cases that once captured my attention for weeks, or even months, and I’m back in a kind of true-crime time tunnel. How many times I sat on hard benches in a stuffy courtroom, and how many hours I spent interviewing detectives or friends and families of victims.
    Each case comes back to me as though it is my first. Out of those 1,400 cases, there are probably 300 whose stories might well have happened yesterday; I can recall every detail. Initially, some seemed almost impossible to solve, and others involved human aberration that still shocks me. Sadly, the way humans respond to their needs, wants, desires, and compulsions has not changed, although in many cases it would be fortunate for society if they did.
    While I was working on the older cases in this book, I was also writing about and attending the trials of two recent cases that came to court. With an intense