Last Dance, Last Chance

Jacque and next by Tuohmy’s brother—who had realized that something was wrong—the sheriff’s patrol units had converged in the Kent area, blocking every road leading from town. They were looking for the Jacques’ Ford station wagon, and their radios were alive with chatter as they kept in touch.
    Reserve officers Kent and French first observed the vehicle on Sweeney Road near Wilderness Corner, and they immediately put that information on the air. Detective Sergeant Dave Urban had been taking a report from the defendant’s brother when the call crackled over his radio. He immediately drove to the area where the car had been sighted and spotted it on the road ahead of him. Urban followed the Ford station wagon for three miles, coming up close and then dropping back for fear he would be spotted by Denny Tuohmy. It was when the two vehicles eased onto the Benson Road and Kent-Kangley intersection that he knew he had to move. The fugitive was forcing his captive into a more heavily populated area.
    “I turned on my siren, but there was no response,” Urban recalled. “Then I pulled alongside it with my bubble lights going and the siren blowing—but Mrs. Jacque just speeded up. I then proceeded to force the car off to the shoulder of the road. My car was parked diagonally in front of the Jacque vehicle and I left by the driver’s door, crouching low with my revolver out, and moved around the back of my car. I motioned to Mrs. Jacque to get out. Then Kent and French pulled in behind the station wagon and came up on the passenger side, where they pulled Tuohmy out.”
    The powerful rifle was lying on the seat between Pat Jacque and Denny Tuohmy. It was turned over to Sheriff’s Sergeant John McGowan and Detective George Helland. Helland found that it was loaded with five shells in the magazine and one in the firing chamber.
    Pat Jacque went home to comfort her children and count her blessings. Denny Tuohmy was taken at once to King County Sheriff’s headquarters in the downtown Seattle courthouse building. There, Lieutenant Leonard Givens advised him of his rights under Miranda.
    He was the prime suspect in the murder of Gladys Bodine, but no one yet knew everything Denny Tuohmy had done during the previous 30 hours. There were big gaps in time between Thursday evening and his capture late Friday night.
    The investigators noted that he did not smell of alcohol and didn’t appear to be under the influence of drugs.
    Denny Tuohmy’s state of mind as he sat in the interview room would become very important. Lieutenant Givens recalled that he had found Tuohmy “calm and lucid.”
    He said he was hungry, and he sipped coffee and ate sandwiches provided by the jail kitchen as he talked to Givens and Detective Ted Forrester.
    Tuohmy had expressly asked that Ted Forrester be present as he was interrogated. Forrester had spoken to Tuohmy several months earlier when he was investigating reports of some minor family fights. Now, Tuohmy looked upon him as a friend; the presence of the easygoing, kind detective put him at ease. And Forrester was a man who really cared about people—although, admittedly, killers were not on the top of his list.
    Despite the Miranda warnings, Tuohmy seemed anxious to talk to the two detectives. Maybe he needed to ease his conscience. Maybe he relished the attention. Or, as he would claim much later, maybe he was mentally ill and didn’t understand the consequences of what he had done.
    As he spoke, Givens and Forrester thought it was a miracle, indeed, that Pat Jacque had survived her ordeal without being injured or killed.
    Later, Tuohmy signed his confession. He prefaced his unburdening by telling them how he had tried to get back with Cherie. He felt that other people were deliberately trying to break up their relationship, and he had gone to talk with her and with her mother, Gladys, on the morning of December 19. He believed that Cherie was living there, but realized she had lied to him. She had moved away to be free of him.
    Cherie had already left to get her hair done when Denny got to her mother’s house in Kent very early in the morning, long before it was light out.
    “On December 19,” Denny Tuohmy’s statement began, “I walked and ran down to Gladys Bodine’s. I went to see Cherie Mullins. Gladys came to the door in a robe and said, ‘Hi, Denny,’ and I said, ‘Hi, Gladys.’ I asked her if she had some coffee, and she went to the kitchen to warm some up. She