Last Dance, Last Chance

thought they were about 15 or 16. They had told him they were headed for Moclips or Taholah. He had asked them if they minded if he drove to Moclips via Pacific Beach—and that, he said, was fine with them.
    He wrote that he had pointed out some campsites to them, but they weren’t interested, and he’d assumed that they were planning to meet someone in the area. If that part of his statement was true, Tina and Gaelisa may have only pretended that they were going to meet someone as a protective, discouraging ploy with Batten.
    According to Batten, he dropped the two young women off in Moclips, and they walked away. Then he went to the mobile home that he shared with his wife.
    He wrote that he was nervous because he’d been laid up after an accident at work and because his mental health counselor had moved away, and he couldn’t relate well to his new one.
    That Monday night, he said, he told his wife he was going for a walk and invited her to come along. “She asked me to wait and she’d come with me—but I was too nervous. So I left.”
    He said he’d left, telling her he’d be gone an hour and a half to two hours.
    Because it was chilly, he’d put on a pair of coveralls over his shirt and pants; he wrote that he headed first for a tavern and then changed his mind and walked out toward Moclips River. When he got out to the end of the tracks, he said he’d seen a campfire burning near the driftwood huts. He expected to find some of the “beach kids,” or at least someone to talk to.
    The investigators had never found any indication that the victims had built a fire on the beach.
    Batten wrote that he had walked close enough to the fire to recognize the same girls he’d given a ride to. He joined them, and they talked.
    As always, in a homicide situation, only the suspect’s statement can be given. The victim has no voice at all, and Batten’s version of what occurred demanded scrutiny.
    He recalled that he had told the girls he was married and told them his wife’s name. He insisted that they had invited him inside the hut because the spray was up and it was cold. He then wrote that the girls had attempted to seduce him (a common fantasy in confessional statements) and that they had taken off their clothes.
    Since Tina and Gaelisa had been bound before an attempt was made to remove their clothing, this statement had to be a blatant lie.
    Batten’s fantasy confession continued: he wrote that he started to leave, and the girls threatened to tell his wife that he had been intimate with them even though he had not. He said he had then been forced to tie them up with some twine he found in his jumpsuit pocket.
    He said that he had tried to leave again, but the girls had laughed at him and said they could holler for help and say that he tried to rape them and that their bound hands would be proof. So then he’d been forced to cut gags from a shirt.
    He admitted that he had gagged Tina and then Gael, when he heard a scream. As he turned around, the knife still in his hand had “just happened” to stick into Tina.
    And then he had panicked because he thought he had killed her, so he had to do the same to Gael, or she would tell on him. He stabbed each of the victims several times and had turned to leave when Tina made a sound. It was then that he’d turned around and stabbed her in the back.
    He said he had become nauseated then and had thrown up in the river. Then he had headed home to get advice from his wife about what he should do, but she hadn’t been there. So he had washed his hands, wiped off the knife, and put it back in the drawer. By the time his wife returned, he’d been too “shook up” to talk.
    For almost four days, the victims had lain undiscovered. He denied that he had returned to the beach after he left on Monday night.
    Batten was taken back to the Grays Harbor County Jail and charged with two counts of first-degree murder. Judge Parker set his bail at $2,000,000 and appointed a local law firm to defend him, as he had no funds for an attorney.
    Sheriff Sumpter was concerned that the suspect might attempt suicide, and even thought a lynching attempt might be mobilized against him. He kept an around-the-clock watch on Batten in his high-security cell, both with a special guard and with closed-circuit TV.
    On April 29, William Batten pleaded not guilty to the murders before Superior Court Judge John Schumacher. At that time, he was denied bail.
    On June 3, Batten appeared before