Caught in the Act Read online

  Suddenly, there was a rustling sound deep in the woods at the back of the property.

  The West Hanover Township in Dauphin County was a quiet suburb just northeast of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Interstate 81 bisected Manor Drive, where the Ewalts lived. Their home was well within earshot of the highway, and on quiet nights they could hear the drone of diesel engines rolling east toward Allentown or south toward Interstate 83. The traffic noise would sometimes herd deer and other animals toward their property.

  She didn’t see what was actually moving out of the shadows, even as it emerged from the woods behind the house. This predator had two legs, and was cloaked entirely in black. As the dark figure approached Darlene, a large knife that had been concealed earlier was now in a gloved hand. He was almost upon her before she finally became aware of his presence, and she was taken by complete surprise by the sight before her.

  “Who are you?” Darlene asked.

  On the other end of the line, Chet didn’t know who Darlene was talking to, but he was chilled by the sudden change in her voice. What he didn’t know was that a stranger, dressed like a ninja, was on the hunt and stalking her as his prey.

  The patio floor beneath Darlene’s feet was a cement slab that sat flush on the ground. It was ringed by a wooden fence, like the kind around a horse corral. It had an open-ended walk-in. And that’s just what the stranger did. He caught her and stabbed her repeatedly and viciously in the neck and torso. She began losing consciousness almost immediately.

  “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my . . .” she said a moment later.

  Those were the last words that Chet Gerhart heard Darlene Ewalt say before the phone went silent. He kept calling her name. The longer he stayed on the line without getting a response, the louder he screamed into the phone. But still she did not answer him. He knew something was wrong; he listened and heard nothing on the other end of the open line. He wanted to believe that her husband or her son would be able to work out whatever the problem was among themselves, but another part of him felt that Darlene was in serious trouble. A family emergency of some kind could have abruptly diverted her attention from their conversation, Chet thought, but either way, he could not just forget it and go to bed. Finally, he raced upstairs and woke his wife.

  “Something’s happened,” he told her as she rose with a start.

  “What?” Pat asked, squinting from the bright overhead light of the previously darkened bedroom. “What’s happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Chet said, sounding confused. “But Darlene’s not responding. We’ve got to go there. We’ve got to go now.”

  Pat paused, but only briefly, taken aback by the unfamiliar anxiety in her husband’s voice. “Okay, just give me a minute to get dressed.”

  “Hurry, Pat.” As Chet waited for his wife to get ready, he told her what happened and tried calling Darlene from the bedroom phone.

  “The line’s busy,” he announced with a mixture of hope and dread.

  “Maybe she’s trying to call you back.”

  “They have call-waiting. It would go to voice mail. The phone’s off the hook. Come on. Let’s go.”

  They sped over to the Ewalts. The Gerharts had called the police, but since they were already on the way to Darlene’s house, they were told to go check out the situation and call them back. It was a fifteen-minute drive, which they made in ten. As Chet drove, Pat continually tried the Ewalts’ number on her cell phone, getting a busy signal each time.

  “Keep trying,” Chet told her.

  Consumed by their own thoughts, they didn’t speak. Besides the sound of Pat’s dialing, the car was otherwise silent. Even the radio was turned off.

  Upon arriving at the Manor Drive address where their friends lived, the Gerharts proceeded around to the back of the house. Chet was walking quickly, ahead of his wife. He knew that Darlene had been outside on her patio while they were talking earlier. He had been trying not to think about the possible reasons she would have dropped the phone so suddenly in an obvious state of panic, but he never expected to discover what he did when he approached the patio. Right up until that moment, he still wanted to believe that everything was okay, even though he’d felt compelled to wake up his wife in the middle of the night and drive as fast as he could to get there.

  A light was on in the adjoining kitchen, and in the yellow glow it cast outside, the Gerharts quickly spotted Darlene, seated on a chair near the sliding doors, slumped backward and not moving.

  The discovery sent both of the Gerharts reeling. Chet tried to pull himself together as well as comfort his wife.

  “Stop,” Chet told his wife, turning and gripping her by the shoulders. “Wait here.” But Pat didn’t have to get any closer. From where she was standing, she could see that her friend’s eyes were open and that she was dead. She could see the injuries to Darlene’s neck and the blood that was soaked into her clothing and pooled all around the chair, and it just looked like a wet shadow. Pat didn’t hear herself when she began to scream, because she had already been screaming in her head.

  “Oh my God, Chet! Darlene’s dead! What are we gonna do?”

  “All right . . . Pat . . .”

  “Where’s Todd? Oh my God. Where’s Todd? We have to get out of here!”

  “Pat. . . . We’ll call 911.”

  “Yeah, yeah, okay.”

  “Where’s your phone, Pat?”

  “I left it in the car.”

  “It’s okay,” Chet said calmly, trying to counterbalance his wife’s rising panic. “Let’s go get it. Come on. I’m right beside you.”

  As they went back around to the front of the house, they both experienced the same abject feeling of terror that the killer might still be lurking somewhere nearby, and they feared they would fall prey next. They called for help inside the car with the doors locked, and neither one stepped outside again until the first police cruiser arrived.

  A phalanx of law enforcement arrived within minutes of the second 911 call. As uniformed officers and detectives swarmed the Ewalt home, the Gerharts were questioned at the scene and then escorted to the local police precinct to provide additional written statements. It was immediately confirmed that Darlene was, indeed, dead. As police swarmed inside, they did not know what they would find: more victims or the killer.

  In the couple’s upstairs bedroom, which directly overlooked the back patio where Darlene’s body was found, her husband, Todd, was awakened by a sudden commotion as his door slammed open. A heavy sleeper, he was roused instantly by voices coming out of the darkness, screaming at him to put his hands up. In and around the doorway, Todd saw shadowy figures shining flashlights at him. It was too surreal to believe, and all Todd could think initially was that his son and some of his buddies were having some fun at his expense. Then he saw that the figures had guns, drawn and pointed at him, and he realized that it was no joke.

  “Is there anyone else at home?” demanded one of the police officers.

  Todd responded, “My son and my wife live here with me. My wife’s around here somewhere and my son, Nick, is probably asleep in the basement.”

  At which the officer said, “We looked in the basement and didn’t see anyone.”

  In return, Todd said, “Well look again. Nick is six feet three and 270 pounds. You couldn’t miss him. Where’s my wife?”

  Downstairs, their grown son, Nick, was indeed in the basement apartment, asleep in bed, just as Todd had said. When the police located him, he was ordered out of his bed and onto the floor. As Todd was taken downstairs, he repeatedly asked what was happening and where his wife was, but no one would answer him. When he got to the kitchen he saw his son, who was also cuffed, but no Darlene. When he spotted his wife’s purse on the table, along with her car keys and cell phone, he really started to worry. He knew she had to be home because she wouldn’t go anywhere without her phone. Without saying anything to him, one of the officers removed his handcuffs and led him to the adjoining dining room while Nick remained
in the kitchen and was questioned separately.

  It was then that Todd was told Darlene had been killed. At that very moment, he heard the sound of screaming coming from the kitchen. It was his son, who had also just been informed about his mother’s death. Later on, after being held at the police station, Nick was finally able to use his cell phone to call his sister and break the awful news about their mother. Sadly, Darlene’s mother, Thelma, had to learn of her daughter’s gruesome murder by way of the horrifying images of the family’s home surrounded by yellow crime scene tape that were splayed all over the local news stations early that morning.

  For Todd, the nightmare that was unfolding became a living hell when he realized that the police were looking at him—not as a victim, but a suspect in his wife’s violent murder. In police parlance, Todd Ewalt was considered a person of interest in the homicide investigation.

  It was not something they hinted at gently. They made it quite clear that they thought he’d killed Darlene, despite the lack of any evidence whatsoever, including a murder weapon.

  When Todd was asked what had happened outside, he said he didn’t know. He told them he was asleep and hadn’t heard anything. No one believed him. They did not think that a mysterious killer walked out of the woods, slashed Darlene Ewalt to death and then just left. As any experienced homicide detective will attest, it just doesn’t happen that way. Almost all murders involve people who are well acquainted, and the particularly gruesome nature of this attack led investigators to suspect that Darlene’s murder had been a crime of passion.

  At that time, motive was the only thing the police had to go on. The facts of the case would bear themselves out in the end. They knew that the forty-two-year-old wife and mother had been killed while on the phone with another man, and that her husband, asleep beside a window mere feet from the crime, claimed not to have heard a thing.

  To try to get Todd Ewalt to talk, they had to get him out of the house and into the police station. In that environment, he might feel obligated to tell them more, maybe even confess. They questioned him for hours that night and then again the next day, inquiring about his relationship with Darlene, asking him pointedly what the sore points were in their marriage. They knew that money was a frequent source of friction with any couple, and their line of questioning led him to admit that paying all the bills on time had sometimes been an issue between them in the past. But the detectives knew this already, having checked into the Ewalts’ personal finances, and they told him as much. At one point, one of the detectives looked Todd straight in the eyes and said, “You killed your wife because you were having financial problems.”

  Todd was shocked by the bold accusation, and he thought maybe they were trying to gauge his reaction to determine if he was lying.

  He was scrutinized. The police listened carefully to his responses, taking notes and looking for discrepancies in his words as well as his behavior, trying to interpret the subtleties of his body language, the cast of his eyes and the pitch of his voice.

  Forced to defend himself, Todd denied killing his wife and informed the investigator that things were actually going well for them financially at that time, having steady work and sufficient savings. That’s when police told him that Darlene had been planning on leaving him and that this had angered him into killing her. Todd insisted that wasn’t true, and he voluntarily took a lie detector test.

  Todd was confident that this test would prove once and for all that he had nothing to do with his wife’s murder, and then the police could concentrate their efforts on finding her real killer. When the results came back, however, the police informed Todd that he had failed the test. He could not believe it, especially since he was never actually shown the failed results. He thought it was a tactic to get him to talk and say something incriminating.

  “No way,” he told them. “It can’t be. How can I fail if I didn’t do it?”

  “You tell us.”

  “I don’t have an explanation.”

  At that point, Todd refused to answer any further questions without an attorney present. Although he knew that doing so might make him look like a person with something to hide, someone who was guilty, he felt that the police seemed intent on making him out to be a murderer, and he didn’t have any other choice.

  Although Todd was never formally charged with Darlene’s murder, the questions would continue, often and thoroughly, in the days following.

  Chapter 2

  DESTINY

  It’s difficult for me to recall a time when Kevin and I weren’t together. I always knew we were meant to be together, even if other people didn’t. We both grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts, and although I won’t say we were from “different sides of the track,” we were from completely different sides of the town. And a couple of years apart.

  I was born Jean Hathaway Gilpatric on August 13, 1960, and my family’s modest stucco bungalow-style home was in the Meriam Hill section of town, surrounded by much larger and more beautiful Victorian homes. It was an idyllic setting in many respects. Lexington is an old and historic Colonial town, the site of the first battle of the American Revolution. As schoolchildren, we were taught about the battles of Lexington and Concord and Paul Revere’s famous “midnight ride” on April 18-19, 1775. Today, on the third Monday of each April, many faithfully observe Patriot’s Day to commemorate the events of that day, even though most people might identify this regional day of observance with the Boston Marathon or the Red Sox home opener at Fenway Park. Certainly, there is still a strong sense of community there, and I share fond memories with family and friends of gathering on Christmas Eve for our carol stroll. This activity may sound somewhat antiquated to some, but it was a rejuvenating and peaceful experience to walk through the streets of Meriam Hill, songbooks in hand. In my memories, it always seemed to be snowing. My fingers and toes would be numb from the cold, but it didn’t matter—there was such a powerful human connection that occurred. It’s hard to find such spirituality and goodwill at any other time of the year. Try going around in a small group ringing doorbells in July and singing on someone’s front porch, and see what kind of reception you get.

  I was the youngest of four siblings, and there was such an age gap between me and them that not only was I the baby of the family, but sometimes I almost felt like an only child. My sister, Jill, was the closest to my age, and we were eight years apart. The difference in age just lent itself naturally to me being bothersome, especially to her. I would follow Jill around everywhere, so much so that she and her friends started calling me Flea.

  My brothers, Bill and Peter, and I were divided by a gulf of fourteen and fifteen years, respectively. They were on the cusp of leaving the house and going off on their own when I was growing up. Since I was essentially the only one left at home, the bond I had with my parents, especially my dad, was very strong. By all accounts, I was a tomboy. Right up through my teenage years, all you had to do was look up and you would probably find me perched in a tree somewhere.

  My dad, William Henry Gilpatric Jr., was a dentist, a quiet, gentle man whom people admired and respected. His patients had a fondness for him that still exists after all this time. I continue to run into people I haven’t seen in years who tell me that my father had been their dentist and how much they’d liked him. He was only five feet four, but standing across the tennis court at the receiving end of his serve, no one would believe it came from a man his size. The unassuming dignity in which he lived his life may have been due in part to his having fought in World War II and being among those fortunate enough to have returned unscathed, at least physically. He would never talk about his time overseas, but he kept a collection of journals while he was there that were later sent home to my mother, several years after the war had ended. I found them an utterly fascinating glimpse into history from the perspective of one soldier but with the echoing voices of hundreds of thousands. Thinking about it now, perhaps this was the ember fueling the fire in me to document my experiences
in my own personal war of sorts.

  When I was a little girl, I worshipped the ground my father walked on. But I was only eleven when he was diagnosed with cancer, and I did not fully comprehend how sick he was as he battled the disease for three years before succumbing. I remember the day he passed vividly. It was August 10, 1974, three days before my fourteenth birthday. I was at summer camp when I was suddenly called home with the tragic news. I was devastated, of course, but I was also very angry. As the baby of the family, I was sheltered and protected from the onslaught of life’s cruel realities. So although my mother had tried to protect me from the agonizing pain the rest of my family was experiencing, the cold hard fact that my father had been dying before my eyes had somehow eluded me. I was mad at my mother for lying to me, but I was upset with myself for not knowing. How could I not have seen his suffering while he sat quietly in the lawn chair watching as I did flips past him, practicing my gymnastics?

  Adjusting to teenage life is difficult enough, but doing so while suffering the loss of the most significant person in one’s life seriously compounds the ever-constant struggles of these formative years. Of course, my father’s death affected everyone in the family. My mother’s days of bridge club and volunteer work were suddenly over; after being a stay-at-home mom and raising four children, she was suddenly thrust back into the working world. I became a latchkey kid, a somewhat new phenomenon at the time. I was left to supervise myself during the after-school hours until my mother got home at dinnertime.

  Our house was close to the center of town, which was bisected by a run of old buildings. We lived directly adjacent to a dilapidated printing press, which made up part of what had been dubbed “Blood Alley.” If anything, the gruesome name seemed to accurately represent the path of life-altering recklessness that many Lexington teenagers would wind up taking, myself included, and as a result, I was constantly involved in the sort of mischief that ran a little too close to the illicit side. It was probably my first glimpse into the reality of how close the dividing line is between the cozy world of suburbia, where I grew up, and the things that exist on the fringe, the things that our parents wanted to keep us away from when they told us to be home at night before the streetlights came on. Somehow, though, I managed to navigate through those difficult years unscathed. Kevin McDonough had everything to do with that.