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“No, no,” Wylie said turning the flashlight toward the man, “I’m glad you’re here. We need...” And that’s when she recognized him. It was Jackson Henley, the man who murdered her family. The man who took Becky.
37
August 2000
Things were moving fast. Agent Santos got the call that the search and rescue dog got a hit right on the edge of the Henley property. Thankfully, it wasn’t a body. But a bloody rag with Becky Allen’s scent on it was bad enough.
While she waited to hear if their request for a search warrant was approved, she discovered a few more unsettling details about Jackson Henley. He was part of the ground offensive that liberated Kuwait during Operation Desert Sabre, but beyond this, his military record was marred by several run-ins with his superiors. Jackson Henley did not like to follow orders, liked to drink, and to harass his female soldier counterparts.
One woman reported that Henley, along with a group of other male soldiers, mentally and sexually harassed her to the point of a near breakdown. Another woman accused him of false imprisonment after he purportedly refused to let her leave after the two spent a night together. The charges were eventually dropped, but it appeared that even as a young soldier, Henley liked to keep his girlfriends all to himself.
There was more, most dealing with his apparent battle with alcohol, and in 1992, Jackson came home to Blake County a shell of the person he was before he left.
Santos knew that one bloody cloth didn’t mean that Jackson Henley was guilty of anything, but it didn’t look good. They couldn’t even be sure that it was Becky’s blood. She may have touched or held the rag in her hands, transferring her scent to it, but the blood could belong to someone else.
It took precious minutes trying to secure a search warrant for the Henley property. A piece of evidence on the edge of a property didn’t mean that a judge would automatically grant a search. Still, Jackson’s skittish behavior and his past legal issues went a long way in getting the judge to agree to sign off on the warrant. They were good to go.
Now all they could do was hope that it wasn’t too late for Becky.
Santos pulled up to the Henley property and her nose was immediately assaulted with the noxious smell of burning rubber. Now why would anyone be burning anything on a hot day like this? she wondered. Sheriff Butler had the same thought. When Santos stepped from her car, Butler was shaking his head and coming toward her.
“Son of a bitch is burning something,” Butler said, his face flushed with anger. “I should have made him talk to me yesterday.”
“Well, we’re going to talk to him now,” Santos said. “But first we have to find him. We’ll serve the warrant and talk to Mrs. Henley, and then you head toward the burn pile and try to make sure he’s not trying to torch any evidence.”
“Be careful,” Butler said. “If Jackson is in the house and drunk, he can be pretty unpredictable.”
“Got it,” Santos said as she and two other deputies approached the house. She saw movement behind the heavy curtains that covered the window. “See that?” Santos asked. The deputy leading the way nodded and her hand moved to her sidearm. On high alert, they picked their way up the broken steps to the front porch.
Santos rapped on the door and identified herself as law enforcement. “Mrs. Henley,” she called out, “we have a warrant to search your property. Please open the door.”
The door opened a crack, and a rheumy blue eye looked back at them. “What’s going on?” June Henley asked.
“Ma’am, I’m Detective Camila Santos of the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation, and we have a warrant to search your premises and the adjoining property. Please open the door.” Santos and the other officers waited tensely as June decided what to do.
Detective Levi Robbins was interviewing known sex offenders in the area when he learned two pieces of information that led to the end of his career in law enforcement and a civil lawsuit against the Blake County Sheriff’s Department.
The first was that the body of sixteen-year-old Ethan Doyle had been found buried in a feed bunk in his family’s barn.
“Don’t leave town,” Levi told the scumbag he was questioning.
Levi jumped into his cruiser and headed toward the Doyle farm.That poor family, Levi thought. The only consolation was that Ethan hadn’t been the one to kill his parents and kidnap Becky. But that didn’t change the fact that three-fourths of the Doyle family had been wiped out, and a thirteen-year-old girl was still missing.
Levi’s mind was buzzing with questions when the second piece of information reached him. The state police had worked quickly and were able to trace the number tied to the cruel calls that were made to the Allen family. Tied to the caller who claimed to be Ethan Doyle. The Cutter residence.
Levi’s gut told him to find Brock Cutter. Goddamn Cutter. He had fed them the information that Ethan was homicidal—wanted to kill his parents, that Ethan had something going with the Allen girl. It was all a load of bullshit. So, what did he do? Go to the scene or go after Cutter? Just as he was going to turn off onto the road that led to the Doyle home, Levi decided to go straight toward the Cutter farm. He was going to get some answers.
In the distance, Levi saw a vehicle approaching at a high rate of speed. He tapped his brake and locked eyes with the driver. Cutter. Levi slammed on his brakes, his tires screeching across the pavement, leaving a wake of acrid smoke and skid marks. He made a sharp U-turn, flipped on his lights and sirens, and pressed on the gas.
In front of him, Cutter was speeding up. What the hell? Levi thought.
Levi floored it, and the cruiser screamed forward until he was just behind Cutter’s truck. Why wouldn’t the kid just pull over? Cutter made a quick right onto a gravel road and Levi nearly missed the turn. “Son of a bitch,” Levi cried out as his car nearly went off the road and into a cornfield. He wrenched the steering wheel to the left, and the car straightened out. Still Cutter sped forward. Dust billowed and enveloped both vehicles in a gray cloud. He couldn’t see what was in front of him, beside him, behind him. Chalky dust covered the windshield.
He needed to slow down, but it was too late. The cruiser slammed into the back of Brock Cutter’s truck. The crunch of metal filled his ears and Levi felt his legs snap, felt his torso strain against the strap of the seat belt. He howled in pain, felt his stomach lurch as the car spun round and round until it came to a stop. When Levi opened his eyes, the cruiser’s front was smashed, pinning his legs beneath the steering wheel. Strangely, he didn’t feel much pain, just a heavy pressure on his chest.
He cautiously turned his neck from left to right. At least his neck worked. Next, he tried his toes. He thought they were moving. He wasn’t sure. Slowly the dust cloud around him settled and gradually the world outside the car came into focus. In the bright beam of his headlights, he saw it. Cutter’s truck was nearly split in half by a telephone pole. And there was Brock Cutter, half hanging out of the driver’s side door, knuckles scraping the gravel road, a gaping wound at his neck. He wasn’t moving. How could he? There was so much blood.
Levi closed his eyes. He’d only wanted answers. Only wanted to find out what happened to the Doyles, to that little girl. It was the right thing to go after Brock Cutter, wasn’t it? He was only doing his job.
