Empty Promises

either youngster sexually. And his recall of the actual killings was somewhat dreamlike. He insisted that, after the murders, he didn’t remember killing them. “I asked my daddy if I could go and look for them while they were lost,” he said, “but he wouldn’t let me.”
    Phelan and Hume had asked Gillespie to question Grant about the death of Carole Adele Erickson. They gave him pertinent details of that homicide and Gillespie said to the suspect: “Can you recall any like incidents? I will only mention three items—a girl, a riverbank, and a shoestring.”
    Grant responded with three questions: “Was she stabbed in the back? Was it at night? Did she have long, dark hair?”
    And then he began to cry. When he was calmer, Jim Phelan took over the questioning, and it led to Grant’s finally giving a statement on the Erickson case. His queries and Grant’s answers echoed in the courtroom, the tape amplified by microphones.
    “Do you recall a girl walking along a riverbank somewhere around Christmas?”
    “I was walking behind her. I saw her walking along the river. She had on blue jeans, a green jacket, some sort of leather tie-on shoes. I followed her for ten or twelve feet. Then I walked up behind her and thrusted [sic] the knife into her back. I untied the shoelaces and put them around her neck. I dragged her on her back and pulled her by her hands into the bushes—the stickers. Then I heard a couple on the bridge and I was afraid they’d see me, so I ran.”
    When Jim Phelan asked him if he had tried to rape the dying girl, Grant began to cry and answered over and over: “I don’t know … I don’t know … God, I wish I did.”
    “Was she a pretty girl?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did you remove her coat … her sweater?”
    “I’m not sure.”
    “Do you remember her pants? Did you do anything to her?”
    “I don’t know. I can see her. She’s lying on her back. Her shoes are off and one [sleeve] of her coat is off.”
    “Gary, did you do anything to her sexually?”
    “I didn’t.”
    “Did you want to?”
    “I suppose I wanted to, but I don’t remember doing anything sexual or touching her clothes in any way.”
    After his confession to yet a third murder, Gillespie spoke with Gary once more. As they talked, suddenly the gaunt teenager put his head in his hands and murmured in horror, “My God! There’s another one!”
    The jurors and spectators flinched—as if they were hearing the confession firsthand and not on a tape that was months old.
    It was as if Gary Grant had buried the murders so deep in his subconscious that he really did not remember them until the investigators asked him to focus on them. And they, of course, had no idea that he was connected to either the Erickson or Zulauf cases when they began to question him about the two little boys.
    In truth, they were as shocked as Grant seemed to be when he moved on to describe what had happened to Joann Zulauf. At that point, Wally Hume had put in a call to Detective George Helland, who joined them outside the polygrapher’s office.
    The interview that followed was also taped, with Grant’s permission, and lasted nearly two hours. Grant had difficulty remembering just when the Zulauf killing occurred. He said he didn’t know if it had happened two months or two years before.
    Once again the defendant’s voice bounced off the courtroom walls as he responded to George Helland’s questions.
    “It was in a green time of year because there were leaves on the trees and foliage,” Grant said, trying to come up with the month he killed Joann Zulauf. “I came down into a woods and I saw her ahead of me. She didn’t see me…. I had a rock or whatever, and I hit her in the back of the head. She fell down. She started to say something and I choked her until she was dead.”
    “Gary,” Helland said, “if we are going to believe you, we’ll have to have more particulars—more details.”
    “I want it to come out,” Grant said, his voice choked with sobs. “I did something wrong, I want it to come out. I can’t hold it inside me anymore.”
    “Did you remove her clothing?”
    “I don’t know—I don’t know whether I did or not.” Here an incredulous tone came into the defendant’s voice on the tape. “Up until I saw her in front of me on the path, I don’t remember anything else. I just remember being on the trail and the sun seemed to be out—sort of cloudish, maybe somewhere around three or four in the