Last Dance, Last Chance

his judge friend had seen two girls hitchhiking on Monday; other witnesses had seen a similar pair on the following Wednesday. Were they the same girls? Despite requests for information, the girls allegedly seen on Wednesday were never located.
    One possibility to set the time of death was identifying the stomach contents of the victims. Gael had eaten salad for her last meal, and Tina a hamburger. Tracing back along the probable path the victims had taken to Moclips, detectives contacted employees at the popular Colonial West Restaurant and Burgess Motel on Perry Avenue running north out of Hoquiam. The day staff recalled that two teenage girls with backpacks had eaten lunch there on Monday.
    One of the young women had cashed a large-denomination bill to pay for their lunch of a salad and a hamburger.
    “They were sitting on that big log across the road,” a resident at the Broken Arrow Trailer Park just down the road recalled. “They looked like they were resting. Then they were picked up by a man in a green 1964 Ford or Chevy.”
    William Batten drove such a car, but there were lots of green Fords and Chevrolets. The witness didn’t have a license number or a detailed description of the driver. He had had no reason to be suspicious of him.
    Sumpter learned that Batten had gotten himself into some familiar trouble in Kitsap County two years earlier. In October, he’d been found guilty on three counts of second-degree assault involving three young children. Free on bail after the conviction, he’d been released to undergo treatment at a mental health clinic in Grays Harbor County. His wife was still with him, but her children had been removed from the Battens’ custody.
    It is not the expected progression for a man who victimizes children to turn to attacking adults—but in the world of the sadist, nothing is truly predictable.
    By Sunday night, Sumpter and his crew had gathered voluminous circumstantial evidence that pointed strongly to William Batten. They had learned that Batten was employed at the Saginaw Shake Mill, but that he had not worked during the week of April 14 until Friday, April 18, the day the bodies were found.
    District Court Judge L. Thomas Parker issued a search warrant for the trailer where William Batten lived with his wife and for the adjoining apartment complex where relatives lived. The probable cause request also listed certain vehicles Batten had access to.
    At 7:00 A.M. , Lieutenant Clevenger, Sergeant Bob Baldarson, Detectives Nick Johnson and Veryl Hutchinson, Deputies Tom Hranac and Dan Crisp, Sergeant Larry Deason, and FBI agents Shepp and Wick arrived at the apartment complex where the Battens’ 35-foot trailer was parked. They were armed with the search warrant.
    Clevenger searched the trailer; the other investigators searched the relatives’ apartment, grounds, and garbage cans. During his search Clevenger found a pair of stained men’s jockey shorts (which the FBI lab later determined to have probable human blood and semen stains, although the garment had been washed and it was impossible to say positively what blood type the stains were). He found a jackknife atop a television set and, in the second right-hand kitchen drawer, a 10-inch blade, which had been ground down to a sharp edge on one side. A chunk of steel had been knocked off the blade. The suspect’s wife said the knife had not been used in six months—but Clevenger noted that there was paper towel residue clinging to the blade, which appeared to have been left there very recently, as though the knife had been wiped free of some substance. He did not find the missing earring or Gaelisa’s glasses.
    The knife matched exactly the type of weapon used in the double murders. Just as important in evidentiary value were some items of men’s clothing found soaking in a washer full of cold water in the apartment house next door. Clevenger retrieved a pair of brown men’s slacks and a green shirt. Dried, and sent to the FBI lab, they proved to be heavily stained with human blood. Again, the washing process made determination of blood type impossible.
    William Batten was at work at the shake mill while the search was carried out; his wife was very cooperative with the investigators. Thinking back to the Monday night when the crime had probably occurred, Batten’s wife recalled that he had been extremely upset and nervous, but she thought that was because he’d just quit smoking.
    She said that she had asked him