Dying for Daddy by Carlton Smith

Author:Carlton Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504047609
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2017-07-22T04:00:00+00:00

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA

January, 1995

Twenty-six

Whether it was because of Reiber’s conclusion that homicide could not be excluded as the cause of Ashley’s death, or because of Prodan’s interest in the case, or Deputy District Attorney Shakely’s pot-stirring, or for some other reason, by early December of 1994 the wheels of the Sacramento Sheriff’s Department finally began to turn in the Barron matter.

Shakely had given the Barron files to her boss, John O’Mara, the District Attorney’s top homicide prosecutor, and asked what he thought.

“She asked me what I think and I said it looks like he’s killing these people,” O’Mara later told the Sacramento Bee.

O’Mara called the Sheriff’s Department homicide unit, and asked the supervisor there, Lt. Gabriele Bender, to assign two investigators to the case. But the two investigators O’Mara requested were unavailable.

Meanwhile, as a result of a reorganization in the Sheriff’s Department, the investigation of suspected child homicide cases involving family members was transferred from the homicide unit to the child abuse unit. As a result, and likely due to Shakely and O’Mara’s prodding, the three files involving Irene, Jeremy, and Ashley, which primarily consisted of the autopsy reports, the initial police “casualty” reports, the photographs taken of Irene on the bed, and the scene diagram from Ashley’s death, were routed to child abuse unit supervisor Lt. Lena Maddux.

Maddux looked over the files, which were, after all, pretty skimpy. In early January she called in one of her investigators, Maryl Lee Cranford, and gave her the three files.

“I have this case from homicide,” Maddux told Cranford. “There are three deaths, all a year apart. There’s no cause of death. The Coroner’s Office couldn’t say they were homicides, just that it looks suspicious. See what you can do with this.”

Cranford was 42 years old and a veteran detective. She had joined the Sacramento Sheriff’s Department in the early 1970s as the result of a dare.

Like the Pagets, Cranford had grown up as the child of an Air Force serviceman, who had been stationed at McClellan Air Force Base near Sacramento. In one of the many coincidences that kept cropping up in the Barron case, it’s quite likely that Cranford’s father at one time might have crossed paths in the Air Force with Jack Paget; both were stationed during the same years at McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma, Washington.

After graduating from high school in Sacramento in 1970, Cranford had gone to work as a restaurant hostess, then a clerk in a flooring company. In early 1972 she obtained a job as a clerk-typist for the California Highway Patrol. It was Cranford’s job to key in stolen vehicle reports. She had no real interest in law enforcement at the time; it was just another job.

“I was a hippie girl,” she recalled.

At the end of 1972, the Sacramento Sheriff’s Department advertised for female deputy applicants. Today, it’s difficult to recall the days when women in law enforcement were regarded as something of a bold experiment, but that’s how things were in the early 1970s. Two of Cranford’s coworkers at the Highway Patrol saw the advertisement and decided to apply.

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