Justice Perverted by Derek J. Sherwood

Author:Derek J. Sherwood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2018-05-29T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

* * *

Riding in Cars with Boys

“As soon as we came back from, each night after we came back from riding around, we’d make notes.”

“Do you remember the specific dates you rode around with Kevin?”

“I could name a few for you.”—Steve Groff

After the witnesses called by the defense intended to discredit Kevin and paint him as an “untruthful person” finished testifying, Heinly called Steve Groff to the stand. Groff, at first glance, was an unusual choice for a character witness. A 17-year-old friend of Rick’s cousin, Joe Eckman, Groff told Heinly he attended McCaskey High School. He classified himself under oath as a “straight A” student who had never met or worked for Rick before being hired as a private detective to aid Rick’s defense.1

Groff explained he, Eckman, and another friend, Willie Bise, attempted to get the truth out of Kevin by riding around with him in Rick’s father’s car for the past three months, roughly since the preliminary hearings.

“We asked him about the things that were supposed to be done between himself and Rick,” the boy explained to Heinly.

“Prior to the past three months, did you know him [Kevin]?”

“No sir.”2

There was no great plan. The boys simply started looking out for Kevin during their travels and then attempted to befriend him with the offer of a car ride and teenage adventures.

“We asked him if he wanted to ride around, Kevin and his friends.” Together, they had “ridden around” about 15 times, and Groff had realized Kevin had several different versions of events he had presented to the police.

Specifically, on the evening of November 24, 1975, around 8 o’clock, while Groff and Burkey were alone in the car and the others were outside “messing around,” Kevin told the following complete version of events to Groff: “He said, when he first explained to me how he got the job at Richard’s garage, he said one day they went up to the garage to get some rocks, up to the other garage…. It’s about half a block from Reynolds Junior High School in a little garage called the Black Hole, and he said that he went up there one day to get some rocks and that Richard had a small place cleared for him…. He ripped down his pants and pulled up his shirt and started rubbing his whiskers on his chest.”3

After this, Groff said, “[Rick] rubbed him down with Bismoline powder and then, he said, he blew him. And he also said that Richard had a small black shaving kit with shaving cream and stuff like that and he thought Richard had a razor blade in there.”4

Kevin was also confused, according to Groff, about the presence and type of a razor blade allegedly used to threaten him. “Sometimes he would say it was a razor blade, a small razor blade that you stick in a shaver, and other times he would say it was a straight razor.”5

The location of this razor changed position as well. “He’d say, ah, that when

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.