Here A Quack...There A Quack
The Mark Drake Story
By
Bonnie M. Wells
"The Ladies" was another story I wrote for The Washington County News paper. It appeared in my 'On The Wild Side' column on April 19th, 1991.
It was just a small, insignificant story about "three ducks" that my daughter and I watched one rainy afternoon in "Belpre, Ohio." We'd gotten quite a chuckle from the three who "appeared to be on a shopping spree," as they waddled around a "boat" that was displayed on a used car lot..... We laughed as we thought of the charming commercials that could be created from the ducks...... "Not all our customer's are quackers!" Christina quipped, only to be matched by my own...."You don't have to be quackers to know a great boat when you see one!"
I'd seen the same three ducks around town on many occasions and noted that...."the trio always travels together." From a large mud puddle on Fifth Street all the way across town and to their "home" territory of "Civitan Park," the three were always together.
When Jenifer McCrady disappeared from Belpre, Ohio on September 19th, 1996, I'd already started looking back through those old 1991 stories. It had begun with the murder of Sheree Petry in May of 96. I was beginning to think that someone was converting my stories to outdoor drama's that were costing innocent people their lives. I knew the idea sounded insane..... it was insane. Anyone who could do such a thing had to have something pretty bad wrong with him. At least that's how I felt about the matter.
The Ladies had been published April 19th......that was the nineteenth day of the fourth month from the beginning of the year: Jenifer McCrady disappeared on the 19th of September....that was the nineteenth day of the fourth month from the end of the year: Perhaps it was a coincidence, but it seemed peculiar none the less.
If one drove to the end of Fifth Street and looked to their right, they were looking directly at the McCrady "home," which was located just past the "duck" pond off of Lee Street:
Jenifer's vehicle had been abandoned at Civitan Park's 'boat' ramp area, and she reportedly had several thousand dollars with her when she left home. Gossip and speculation was that she had gone "on a shopping spree." Of course, I don't think anyone who knew the girl believed that she had taken the money and gone shopping. I didn't believe it for one minute. I wasn't even convinced that it was she who had removed the money from her home.....but then, that was just my opinion.
When Jenifer was found wrapped in a sleeping bag that had 'ducks' on it, I was absolutely convinced that someone was acting out my stories. Although they had added a few twists and turns that were certainly not in the original stories.
Within a few days of the discovery of Jenifer's body, her husband was arrested for her murder. I was shocked...stunned. He had been Trooper Of The Year for the district in 1995. How could something like this happen? And why would he have been sitting around reading old, back issues of a news paper that went out of business more than three years earlier? Where would he have gotten the old papers? I couldn't answer any of the questions. None of it made any sense to me.
"Okay......now listen...I got this theory," I told my friend Sindee as we drove around the area trying to make sense out of Jenifer McCrady's murder.
I've been telling Detective Winstanley that we are up for another play/strike on Lee.....especially Terri Lee (Roach.) Jenifer's middle name was Lea...same as Lee....and she lived just off Lee Street....so, if I'm right, this is simply a "Lee/Lea" strike and is not a "Terri Lee" strike. There has to be at least one more strike.....direct strike on "Terri/Terry Lee," and there has to be another strike on "duck"!"
Sindee was sharp. She "got my drift" quicker than anyone I'd ever tried to teach how to read "smoke signals from a psychopath" (which may damned well be the title of my next book!!! provided I ever get Pure Coincidence finished, that is!!)
Sindee took a drag from her cigarette and looked at me long and hard ...."Duck, huh?" She finally answered. "Okay, duck it is, but you're going to have to explain this one to me."
No problem. Given adequate time, I could explain my reasoning....but not in ten words or less. That's not how the mind of a serial killer works. I was tracking a serial killer and I was absolutely convinced that he was tracking me! We were just running around and around in circles. Only problem was, the circle was getting smaller and I didn't like that. He was coming ever closer to me and mine. I didn't like that at all, and there was no one here to turn to for help. They all seemed to think I was the crazy one!
I explained to Sindee that I'd warned Winstanley (as well as Belpre PD's Officer Dave Garvey) that "Belpre had a strike coming....another Belpre woman.
It would be strike three for Belpre....Marie Blough in the month of September 1986, ...Terri Roach on July 3rd, 1990.....and now Jenifer McCrady in September.
If I had it figured correctly, (July 3rd) was another strike date and this time, in an effort to show me that the strike was connected to Jenifer McCrady's murder, the only "connection" the killer could use would be the word "duck."
It was also the only thing we only had two of, and I knew we had to have a trio on each thing.
We had the "Lee" trio, the "Belpre Ladies" trio, and Jackie McCrady actually completed the "Cop" trio.....Ray Clark, Jill Bohl and Jackie McCrady .... only one of the trio had been allowed to live, if you called spending the rest of your life in prison living!!....but no one noticed.
"Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water......Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after." My little stories were not the only thing that had gotten stuck in the twisted mind of a killer .... if I was right. If I was crazy, and Jackie McCrady really did kill his wife, then the "story" would go no further.
"What are you talking about now?" Sindee giggled when I recited the old childhood nursery rhyme. "Your brain is like a dozen computers all working at once, and I'll be damned if I can figure out how you know which piece of information goes where."
FBI Profiler John Douglas said you had to "get inside the killer's head" if you wanted to catch him.....and God knew I wanted to catch this guy before he killed the three women (or any one of them) that had been his original targets....me, my daughter and my sister. I was beginning to suspect that I'd already seen the "symbolic murder" of my sister Patty Fulton with the murders of "Patsy" Sparks and Kimberly "Fulton." Still, in 1996, I didn't have much to support that theory. But that would all change.
"He's running things forward and backward, Sindee. It's his way of scrambling things so no one will notice except me, and he's already laid the foundation (he and a couple of wonderful cops who helped him!!!) to discredit me as a nut. It's his way of torturing me. He can't reach out and destroy me as he wants to because the game would be over and I'd be dead and he'd be sitting in prison. So he scrambles things, knowing all the while that I will see them. It's sort of a challenge......you know....can you figure out what I'll do next and to whom? I was working overtime trying to do just that. Jack and Jill went up the hill (to fetch a pail of water), Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came tumbling after:
Jill Bohl (bowl, pail...close enough) was a military cop. She was shot with her own .357 magnum and bled to death from the injury. There was no blood at the scene where she was found. A set of tire tracks were plainly visible leading up to the body, and yet Jill's car was found 2.2 miles away from her dead body. Her death was deemed a suicide.... I continued to say.... "the kid was murdered." {2008 note: Her family believes she was murdered also.}
Jenifer McCrady was buried on a "hill." (Which I told cops long before that other so called psychic stuck her fat ass into this picture.) Whoever shot Jenifer with a .357 magnum and buried her.... "went up the hill." Now, according to the nursery rhyme, Jack had to fall down and break his crown. Seems to me that's exactly what happened. He'd been "crowned" Trooper Of The Year. He fell down all right, and his "kingdom" crashed all around him. But, the nursery rhyme didn't say that Jack had "pushed" Jill.....it just said he'd "take the fall." And so he did.
"Well, we have a few months to play with," I told Sindee. "We shouldn't see the "duck" pan-out until July 3rd, and since that date is past for this year, we'd better watch for the Terri Lee strike and catch the duck next summer. Heck, with a lot of luck maybe it will be a "double play," and we can set that trio aside because it will be finished," I mused. "Perhaps," she replied.
October 16th, 1996 the husband of my friend Diane was accused of breaking into a woman's house and attacking her! The woman claimed that she had been receiving obscene phone calls from Terry for several years. She said he always told her that they had met at a yard sale in Little Hocking and that he was coming over to her house and they were going to take a shower together and then he had plans for her that were pretty nasty!
"Oh hell," I moaned when Diane called me and asked for my help in getting her husband out of the Athens County jail! "Why had I missed it? I knew Terry Lee was up for play, what was wrong with me? Too many computers running at once, I suppose!
This story is told in greater detail as a story clip from unit 14. For here and now, I will just say that I knew from the word go that it was not Diane's husband Terry who had been in the woman's house.
He didn't go to yard sales, he was not a pervert or a sex offender, and he was disabled to the point that he could not have done what the victim claimed he did.
And in the meantime, I'd seen Wild Bill meeting with a woman who fit the description of the victim, a woman driving the same kind of vehicle the victim drove........and I had a real good idea of what was being pulled.
It was not going to work, and it didn't matter to me what Officer Garvey said! I figured he'd best save his strength and energy to use against Jackie McCrady and leave me and my friends alone! Yeah, I could be a mouthy little bitch when provoked.....but he knew that. They all knew that. They also knew I'd not lie, not fight unfairly and would be a worthy opponent to those who did.
July 3rd, 1997
The news paper said that Mark "Drake" had gone to a local nightclub with some friends, borrowed one of those friend's white Pontiac Grand-Am and went to visit some other friends who lived beside the Ohio "River" by the Memorial Bridge.
It also said he laid down on their couch and fell asleep and then died!
According to the autopsy report, he died of acute alcohol poisoning. Apparently his two friends who lived in the trailer where he died had gone out for dinner and found him dead when they came back. At which time they panicked and buried his dead body under neath their own trailer!
Sounded like a bunch of intelligent people to me! Still, something didn't feel just right.
The Grand-Am had been abandoned in Belpre, which was on the other side of the river from the place he'd supposedly died.
No one ever explained who drove the car there, or why. I found that odd.
Drake had a history of drinking...but friends said he was not drunk when he borrowed the car and they said he was supposed to come back to the club and get the girl who owned the car.
Didn't sound to me like he planned on getting drunk and passing out while at his friend's home.
I wondered why he went to the house in the first place. Why had he been enjoying himself with friends at a nightclub, and suddenly decided to borrow a car and take off across town? Something didn't sound just right to me.
I'd never been inside the nightclub where Drake and his friends were that night, but I'd run surveillance on Christina and one of her friends one night so they could go there and listen to a band that was playing.
Wild Bill had been hot on their heels for awhile at that time. They were having difficulty in losing him long enough to go anywhere. The girls came and told me what was going on so Sindee and I piled into my T-Bird and went looking for Wild Bill.
As soon as I'd diverted his attention from my daughter to me, the girls made a dash out of town and over to the Parkersburg nightclub. I'd warned them that it would not take him very long to figure out what I'd done so they should keep an eye out for him. I was right. They hadn't been at the club much more than half an hour and he headed their direction. I stayed with him, and watched as he parked his car on the front row, got out and went into the club.
I was not dressed to go "bar hopping," and was quite relieved to see Christina's car coming from the rear parking lot within seconds after Wild Bill entered the front door. She and her friend had seen him come in and they dashed out the back door!
They went to an all night restaurant and later headed home. I was relieved. I would not go home as long as my daughter was out and that man was following her, because he had been "in the neighborhood" way too many times when people disappeared. I wasn't taking any chances.
Some sources said that Mark Drake had seen someone he recognized in the club that night and had gone to meet this person somewhere. Other's said he went to his friends house to drink with them. That didn't make much sense to me.....leave a bar and go somewhere to drink? Did people do that? I didn't know. I'd never been a "drinker," but I knew a few people who were so I went to them for some input on the alcohol poisoning subject.
I soon had a consensus among the "experts" that I spoke with. None of them seemed to believe that a person who was accustomed to drinking on a regular basis could die as quickly as Drake had died of acute alcohol poisoning.
They seemed to believe that it was the non-drinker's who needed to fear this because their bodies were not accustomed to the booze. I didn't know, and to be honest it didn't even matter to me. Hell, I didn't even care that Drake was reportedly a homosexual. If the man died on his own......then he died. That happens.....to all of us, sooner or later.
What his sexual preference was while he was alive was also his own business, and I remained neither pro nor con on the subject. The only thing I was interested in was the date of 7-03, the emphasis on "water," which I'd seen in the little nursery rhyme, and of course the name Drake......which meant male "duck!" These were the things that I was interested in....that and determining if his death fit into my predicted drama.
I thought about Daniel Fulton.....the two year old son of Kimberly Fulton. Kimberly and Daniel's deaths had been called an accident in the beginning. Then an autopsy revealed that both were dead when their trailer was set on fire. Those close to the pair insisted that Daniel had been smothered to death, probably with a pillow from his own bed. It was extremely hard to accept the fact that no matter how one looked at it, we had a cold blooded killer walking our streets.
"We have one more test to run, and then I'm closing the book on this case," I told Sindee.
I don't think the case will fit into the "2.2 mile test," but we shall see."
I drove to where the Grand-Am had been left and zeroed out the mile counter....up Main and across the bridge. "This is the same horseshoe pattern we found in the McCrady case," I mused as I turned into the trailer park and drove around the loop and up to the front of the spot where the trailer sat that Mark Drake had been buried under.
"I'll be damned," I said as I looked down at the mileage...."It's 2.2 miles. What the heck? How can this be?"
I re-checked the mileage three times that night. It was correct.
"Okay, now we all know coincidence does occur, right? We also know that I am psychic, right? I've never worked natural death occurrences, but there is a first time for everything. Everyone involved in the Drake case was satisfied with the results of the legitimate investigation, so.... that was enough. I quit. I accepted it too.
The 2.2, water, duck, 7-03 which reminded me of Terri/Terry Lee, it was all coincidence and nothing more. End of story. Case closed."
"Do you really believe that Drake died on his own?" Sindee asked as we made our way toward Taco Belle in South Parkersburg.
"Don't start that nonsense with me," I warned.
"I told you last night that the case is closed!
Now we are going out to dinner and when we're finished we may make a trip to WalMart or do something that is fun for a change....." I continued.
Sindee smiled. Irritated the hell out of me when she did that.
"Well," she said, "since we're going to be over that way, I don't suppose we could just sort of drive past where Mark Drake was living with his parents at the time of his death,...could we?"
I glanced to my right before answering her....
"What the ...." I reached for the rear view mirror.....
"Wild Bill is sitting back there on the Honda motor cycle. He was in such a trance that I'm not sure he saw us drive past him!" I said.
Sindee adjusted the outside rear view mirror on her side and we both continued to watch him until he pulled out and turned left.
He was headed back to Belpre. He had not seen my car!
We continued on to the restaurant and took a seat by the window where we could talk and yet keep an eye on the traffic. We were the "traffic watchin'est" people I ever saw!
Within five minutes of our arrival Wild Bill pulled the cycle in behind a bush across the street from where we sat.
"Pretend we didn't see that," I mumbled as Sindee snickered. "Didn't see us, huh? Went the other way, huh? Oh yeah, case closed, dead and buried!"
He sat tight for about five minutes then backed the cycle out just enough to get turned and cut across the parking lot and out onto Broadway Avenue and disappeared.
"Eat, woman....eat, we gotta go! We have to go back there where he was sitting and see what's there!" I urged.
Sindee gathered the remainder of her food and papers and we headed for the trash can and the door.
But, before we went to the area he'd been sitting in, we were going to look up the address of Mark Drake's parents. Sindee looked through an old phone book as I drove. I didn't need the book though because the news paper had listed Drake's parent's address as where he was living at the time of his death.
We located the address quickly, drove past, no vibes, nothing.....I continued on and turned down the next street. When I came out to the main drag, I was sitting within sight of where Wild Bill had been sitting! We cut across the street and turned right and came to the exact spot where he'd been. Something weird about this. He didn't know anyone over in this area, did he? Oh who knows who he knows? I was going home...or shopping....or something. This case was closed.
"I wonder where 1100 Eleventh Avenue is?" Sindee asked.
"I don't know.....why do you ask?" I answered.
"Because that's where the phone book says Mark Drake lived," she replied.
"Well, we'll just drive up there and see where it is. We don't have anything else to do."
I did just fine until I located the address that Sindee had given me, and then Sindee got to see something that most of the world has waited all their lives to see ..... me rendered speechless!
I brought the T-Bird to a screeching halt and stared at the building before us.
"What? What are you seeing? What's going on? Bonnie....talk to me, what's wrong?" Sindee was becoming alarmed.
I shook my head and the pieces of puzzle snapped into place. I really was like a computer!
How many times had I sat right there .... how many times had I waited in the truck while Wild Bill went into the doctors office for his back therapy?
I raised my eyes to the apartments overhead and around the office building, and somehow I recovered my senses enough to explain to Sindee what was wrong with me.
"I believe it was the summer of 1993....
Wild Bill came down home one day and told Mike and me this big story.
He said he'd been working in his garden, minding his own business.....as usual, when this dark haired young man came walking across his property and began a conversation with him.
He said at first he thought nothing of it. He said the guy lived in a nearby apartment, and began to make advances toward him! He said the guy told him that if he'd come over to his apartment he'd prepare him an excellent meal and that he could take care of all his sexual needs!!!
I was shocked! Wild Bill said he couldn't believe that a man would do something like that! Neither could I. What was this old world coming to?
Of course he'd already told me the story of how a man had once tried to pick him up at a road side rest area as he was headed for Virginia one time .....
And he'd told me the story about how he tried to pick up a woman one night and was about ready to climb into the back seat with another woman, when he happened to notice the hands of the "woman" driving the car!
He said those were not women's hands and he ran!
Yes, sir, I'll just bet he did.
I'd wondered even then if he'd been bragging about homosexual encounters he'd had.
Didn't matter to me. I wasn't interested in his sex life.
But now I wondered...... Did he mean the apartments close to his house....or was he talking about apartments close to his doctor?
Had the dark haired man approached him.....or was it the other way around?
Did he meet him in the garden......or was that in the doctor's office, or even the doctor's office parking lot on one of the trips that I was not with him?
Is that why it took him nearly twice as long to go to the doctor by himself as it did when I went with him?
I'd asked this question before, but all I got was his anger. Now I really wondered. Was he bragging to me ....telling me where he'd been and who he'd been with? Could he have possibly been talking about Mark Drake?
"Mark was a chef in a pretty nice restaurant, Sindee..... I'll bet he could prepare a nice meal for a guest." "If he was gay, which we've been told by several people that he was ....."
Sindee sat motionless and silent as she contemplated the still unspoken thoughts that raced through both our minds.
"He was a young man, Bonnie. He was a chef. He had dark hair, and he lived in an apartment close to Wild Bill's doctor at the time that you were told the story. This case is not closed Bonnie." she finally stated.
We sat there for a long time that night. We didn't talk much .... just sat and stared at that building, each lost in their own thoughts. Each knowing those thoughts would never mean anything to anyone except the two of us. Knowing there was never going to be an answer to any of the questions.
"He tried to smother Bonnie Hickman with a pillow from his own bed. He almost killed her. She said she heard me go by and blow my horn and she silently prayed for me to come and help her as she lost conscienceness.
She was on the floor when the paramedics got there, and she was dying. She had managed to dial 911 before he ripped the phone from her hand and slammed the receiver down.
Thank God the dispatcher traced the call and sent help.
They took her out in an ambulance that night, and he'd mouthed the entire time about how it was her own damned fault that he had to try to kill her!
He didn't even deny that he was trying to kill the girl!
He told the cop and the paramedics that she had failed to perform all the chores that he'd left on her "list" for the day!
Never mind that she had worked that day and that she had suffered an asthma attack and came home only to discover he'd hid her medication so she could only take it when he said she could! All of that was irrelevant.
That had been the night that Belpre P.D. Sgt. Bradley Harper had advised Wild Bill to stop talking because "if she dies, you may be charged with attempted murder."
He should have been charged with attempted murder right then and there. If she died he should have been charged with murder........premediated.....calculated.....cold blooded.....murder!
And if I'd had any idea that Bonnie was being brutalized by that bastard and that he was trying to kill her, Sgt. Harper would have had someone that he could have charged with something that night because I would have put that little T-Bird right through the side of his house and drove it right over top of his worthless body and locked up the brakes when I hit his ass!
He was charged with domestic violence that night, but all that did was provide him with excuses for bruises and cuts that he later showed Bonnie and her son's. We'd just found Roda Snyder murdered.....and I'd been expecting something that would justify marks on his stinking body just like when Terri Roach was brutally murdered.
Mark Drake is dead:
The two men who panicked and buried him are in prison. Not for murder, but for something about mistreating or mishandling a dead body:
The domestic violence charges were dropped against Wild Bill so he went on to conquer new worlds and new women:
Bonnie has a new boyfriend. I "interviewed him." Asked a million questions.......but especially ...had he ever hit a woman for any reason?
People named Bonnie were usually not easy to get along with! If a guy was prone to throwing a punch, he was bound to nail us sooner or later!
He assured me that he had never hit a woman and never would because his mother would kick his ass royally if he ever did.
I told him to tell his mother to call me. We'd make a pact....if she missed him, I nail him about right!
I think the guy actually likes me. I liked him. He's good to Bonnie and he's good to her boys.
I'm crazy over those boys. They remind me of my three brothers and every time I look at them I get angry at Wild Bill all over again:
But he has a new woman now.....a "real woman," whatever the hell that is:
Sgt. Harper is no longer a cop. I hear he drives a truck now days: Some of those truckers are tough little cookies.....I know because my sister drives a rig today!
There is nothing the two Martin girls can't do....or haven't already done!
We have another drama brewing, another murder fast approaching.....but no one listens, no one cares:
I'm still writing.....to cops, to the FBI, to congressmen and senators, to lawyers and doctors, to the President of the United States of America! and to the world....because they say the pen is mightier than the sword .... we shall see. Meanwhile, this case is closed. All trio aspects played out.....a new game begins.
Since I began "looking into our unsolved murder cases" in this area, I have read and studied dozens of books. Many of which were written by former FBI Profilers.
This is a group of people that I have a great deal of admiration and respect for.
I can only imagine how demanding their job is and how much pressure they must put upon themselves as they work to identify serial offenders.
In honor of these people, and the job they have done thus far, I will be adding a few comments from various books, to "story clips" from my book, and will list the books and the authors so anyone interested can obtain their own copies.
Dark Dreams
Sexual Violence, Homicide And The Criminal Mind
Written by Roy Hazelwood w/Stephen G. Michaud:
"The most resourceful, destructive, and elusive of all deviant offenders is the ritualistic sexual sadist."
"The sexual sadist is a meticulous planner, spending inordinate amounts of time inside his own head. He may devote months or even years imagining his intended crime, turning it over in his mind, playing with it, as one might examine a prism in a sunbeam, studying all the different ways it refracts the light."
"This talent for planning is an important reason why police agencies try to learn whether a sexual sadist is responsible for any crime under investigation."
"Sexual sadists are sexually voracious, indiscriminate, capable in many instances of coupling with humans of either sex or any age, as well as animals and inanimate objects as the opportunity presents itself."
"The vast majority of sexual sadists in our study - twenty-nine out of thirty - were whites of European descent."
"the key to" (one sexual sadists) "success was patient and obsessive planning. In some cases he invested up to two years in preparation before carrying out an assault."
"These offenders also tended to come from middle-class or higher families."
"The fact that some of the most heinous offenders operating in North America had no arrest history is a strong testament to their planning and intelligence."
"Thirteen" (of the study group) "were married and fifteen were fathers. Nine of them committed incest with their children.
One of the men in the survey, Gerald Gallego, is believed responsible for ten murders. In addition to his crimes against strangers, Gallego reportedly forced himself on his daughter from her childhood well into her teens. On one occasion he allegedly assaulted her anally as a birthday present! Another time he is said to have sexually assaulted both his daughter and a female friend who was visiting."
(Some of the study group)"had a history of voyeurism, obscene phone calls and exhibitionism."
"The longer a sexual offender fantasizes prior to committing his crimes, the more specific his desired victim's characteristics will be."
"As a result of the great amount of time" (the ritualistic criminal) "spends in fantasizing, this imaginative offender develops highly specific selection standards for his victims."
"He may seek out an aberrant, albeit noncriminal, sexual experience even as he is committing rapes and murders."
"The sexual offender is never fully inactive. He may not be acting out against a specific victim, but he will be making plans, selecting new targets, acting out against other victims, or gathering materials. He is never dormant."
"Like most law enforcement officers, I tend to title my more intriguing cases."
Note: I couldn't resist this last one! I had to chuckle to myself when I read this because in this area I have been made to feel that I am stupid, crazy and a foolish woman because I gave my cases and the victims titles!
And I shall end this page with a quote from the Bible...."Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools."
B.M.W.
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Back To Pure Coincidence / Homepage This Page Posted: 14 January 2003 / 2008 // BMW
Note: Originally Sindee was referred to as 'Mysde' on this page. Her actual name is Cynthia Davis. When I began remodeling my web site in 2007, I decided to change many of the nicknames to actual names. In the beginning, I tried to hide people's identity so that Wild Bill would not know who they were. Over the years I have realized this was wasted effort because he already knew each and every person in this nightmare long before I ever heard of most of them.
