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Speaker 4: Plus, you are now listening to True Murder The most
Speaker 4: Shocking Killers in True Crime History and the authors that
Speaker 4: have written about him Gaesy Bundy Dahmer The Nightstalker VTK
Speaker 4: Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking
Speaker 4: and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with
Speaker 4: your host, journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 5: Good evening. In the early hours of March twenty second,
Speaker 5: nineteen eighty nine, two friends, career criminals with violent felony convictions,
Speaker 5: drove around the eastern Kansas City area in a stolen car,
Speaker 5: committing a series of crimes. The weather was mild for
Speaker 5: late March in Kansas City. The sky was clear, and
Speaker 5: there was the pale remnant of a full moon that
Speaker 5: bore the dubious name of Death Moon, the last full
Speaker 5: moon of winter. A little before seven am, fifteen year
Speaker 5: old Anne Harrison walked to the end of her driveway
Speaker 5: on Kansas City's east side to wait for the bus
Speaker 5: to take her to Raytown South High School. Ten minutes later,
Speaker 5: she disappeared, but no one saw what happened, As if
Speaker 5: waiting for her return, her belongings were still stacked carefully
Speaker 5: by the side of the Road. By the Side of
Speaker 5: the Road is the true crime story of the kidnapping, rape,
Speaker 5: and murder of Anne Harrison and the long journey forced
Speaker 5: upon her family who had to wait nearly three decades
Speaker 5: to see her killers brought to final justice. The book
Speaker 5: they were featuring this evening is By the Side of
Speaker 5: the Road, The True Story of the abduction and Murder
Speaker 5: of Anne Harrison, with my special guest, Victim Wright's advocate
Speaker 5: and author, Marla Bernard. Welcome to the program, and thank
Speaker 5: you so much for this interview. Marla Bernard.
Speaker 6: Thank you for having me Dan, it's a pleasure to
Speaker 6: be here.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
Speaker 5: Thank you for this extraordinary book, By the Side of
Speaker 5: the Road. Let's talk about right away about this suburb,
Speaker 5: Raytown in Kansas City, Missouri and Annie Harrison. Tell us
Speaker 5: your connection to the Harrison family, and tell us about
Speaker 5: Annie Harrison, who had just turned fifteen years old and
Speaker 5: her family, Bob and Janelle.
Speaker 6: Graytown, Missouri, is a small suburb of Kansas City. In
Speaker 6: nineteen eighty nine, it was a very very quiet, low
Speaker 6: crime area. It was one of those Midwestern cities that
Speaker 6: you would choose to live in want to raise a family,
Speaker 6: great community, excellent school district. And again it's on the
Speaker 6: east side of Kansas City, very close to where Bob
Speaker 6: and Janelle Harrison and Harrison's parents lived and still live
Speaker 6: in the community. I have had the pleasure privilege of
Speaker 6: knowing the Harrisons for approximately thirty years. I was reserved
Speaker 6: police sergeant for Kansas City, Missouri, and my husband was
Speaker 6: a homicide sergeant for almost thirty years for Kansas City
Speaker 6: and worked with Bob when he started out as a
Speaker 6: reserve police officer. So we have had an association with
Speaker 6: them for many, many years. And Harrison was a very shy,
Speaker 6: very sensitive girl. She would go out after a rainstorm
Speaker 6: and rescue worms off the sidewalk. She rescued animals, she
Speaker 6: loved pets. At the time of the incident, she I
Speaker 6: had just turned fifteen years old and was very sports minded.
Speaker 6: She loved sports. She was an honor student. She played
Speaker 6: the flute in the band at Greytown South High School.
Speaker 6: Just a very very sweet, innocent young lady who was
Speaker 6: always highly spoken of by family, friends, teachers, the community.
Speaker 5: Tell us what happens on that faithful day, March twenty second,
Speaker 5: around seven am and was.
Speaker 6: Getting ready for school. Her mom reminded her on an
Speaker 6: intercom that they had in Anne's room, they had a
Speaker 6: basement bedroom set up for her, and she let her
Speaker 6: mother know that she was heading out to school. Walked
Speaker 6: out her front door a little after seven am, walked
Speaker 6: down her driveway about sixty five feet from the front door,
Speaker 6: set down her books and her purse and her flute,
Speaker 6: and was standing there waiting for the school bus. And
Speaker 6: the next thing her mother knew, Janelle Harrison knew the
Speaker 6: school bus was honking for Anne, and she was gone.
Speaker 6: She had just mysteriously vanished, if you will. What actually
Speaker 6: had occurred in the course of the events was that
Speaker 6: two individuals who had been stealing parts from vehicles had
Speaker 6: been out cruising all night, drinking and browsing, and they
Speaker 6: saw Anne standing at the curb by the side of
Speaker 6: the road, and they abducted her within a matter of moments.
Speaker 5: Let's get back to this abduction and you talk about
Speaker 5: the reaction from her mother. She seems to have just disappeared.
Speaker 5: She runs next door to see if she possibly was there,
Speaker 5: maybe in the backyard, maybe went back in the home.
Speaker 5: So she calls her husband and he speeds home from work,
Speaker 5: and you say she also calls the Kansas City Police
Speaker 5: Department as well to report missing. What else happens In
Speaker 5: terms of a call to her husband, Janelle called Bob.
Speaker 6: He responded immediately. He also notified his brother, Paul Harrison,
Speaker 6: was a captain with the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department.
Speaker 6: At that time. Helicopters were up almost instantly. People were
Speaker 6: putting out flyers. And worked at the grocery store in
Speaker 6: Raytown near their home. She had a little part time job.
Speaker 6: They were putting flyers out. The people at Arrowheads Stadium
Speaker 6: here in Kansas City, or football team they were printing
Speaker 6: off flyers. They had notified the trucking agencies here. They
Speaker 6: had truckers out looking for her. It was a very
Speaker 6: very active response to try and find her. A lot
Speaker 6: of times she'll see on cases, not so much since
Speaker 6: Amber alerts, but prior to that. In this time frame,
Speaker 6: departments would stand back and say, you know, is she
Speaker 6: a runaway? Should we wait twenty forty twenty or forty
Speaker 6: eight hours to see whether or not she might have
Speaker 6: just decided to leave home for what they didn't have
Speaker 6: an explanation for at that time, and did not fit
Speaker 6: any of the criteria for that, and fortunately they were
Speaker 6: able to mobilize very quickly, but to no avail. It
Speaker 6: was as though she clearly had just vanished.
Speaker 5: Now you introduced Sergeant Troy Cole, and he's a homicide unit,
Speaker 5: but he hears about an abandoned car, stolen car Amanti Carlo,
Speaker 5: and he's an experienced homicide detective who had investigated worked
Speaker 5: on with the serial killer on the serial killer case
Speaker 5: of Robert Burdella, who they called the Kansas City butcher.
Speaker 5: So how do police proceed because there are witnesses that
Speaker 5: have seen the vehicle and do have some recollection of
Speaker 5: the perpetrators tell us about some of the witnesses claims.
Speaker 6: Witnesses called in, they got an immediate response from people.
Speaker 6: The closest description was a Chevrolet vehicle but was reported
Speaker 6: to be brown in color, and as it ended up,
Speaker 6: it was a blue car that was found when the officers.
Speaker 6: Within about thirty six hours, there was a report of
Speaker 6: an abandoned vehicle and when officers, when the officer responded
Speaker 6: to take the report, it was on a blue Monte Carlo.
Speaker 6: They were able to identify the owner. When that car
Speaker 6: was stolen. There were actually two vehicles stolen from the
Speaker 6: same location, a white car and this blue Monte Carlo.
Speaker 6: They recovered the Monte Carlo notified the owner of the vehicle.
Speaker 6: She responded with her boyfriend and as luck would have it,
Speaker 6: there was a problem with the vehicle that it leaked annafreeze.
Speaker 6: They had brought an extra gallon to put into the vehicle.
Speaker 6: When the gentleman the boyfriend went to put the remaining
Speaker 6: anna freeze in the trunk of the car, they opened
Speaker 6: the trunk and found that they did not have an
Speaker 6: abandoned stolen vehicle, but what they had was an active
Speaker 6: crime scene. Anne Harrison was in the trunk of that vehicle.
Speaker 6: That's when Troy Cole got notified. He was what they
Speaker 6: call the floor sergeant in homicide that evening take calls.
Speaker 6: When they determined that they did have a homicide scene,
Speaker 6: they called in what's known as the Murder Squad. That
Speaker 6: was a newly developed program in Kansas City. A captain
Speaker 6: named Gary van Buskirk developed it and they worked generally days,
Speaker 6: but they are on twenty four hour call when they
Speaker 6: have victim and no suspects, and that specialized squad comes
Speaker 6: in and takes over the case and works that case
Speaker 6: until it is solved. And so it passed from Sergeant
Speaker 6: Troy cole to who was a seasoned, seasoned sergeant and
Speaker 6: got the case prepared to hand off to Pete Edlind
Speaker 6: who was the sergeant on call at that time. He
Speaker 6: and his squad the murder Squad, and it's aptly named
Speaker 6: because that's what they dealt with, was just murders where
Speaker 6: there's you know, no suspect, not a lot of information,
Speaker 6: and they literally work it from the ground up.
Speaker 5: Regarding information. What is the condition that they find Anne
Speaker 5: Harrison and what did they find from the medical examiner's
Speaker 5: exam the autopsy, what was in terms of the wounds
Speaker 5: rendered and had.
Speaker 6: Been stabbed a total of ten times. She had been
Speaker 6: stabbed in the neck, in the chest area, and was
Speaker 6: just she was in a fetal position in the trunk
Speaker 6: of the vehicle when they found her. She was partially clothed.
Speaker 6: She had her clothing was kind of like I say,
Speaker 6: partially removed. It appeared that she had tried to dress
Speaker 6: herself or had dressed herself with clothing that was inside out.
Speaker 6: A shoe sock were not on. She based on what
Speaker 6: the medical examiner did determined she had remained conscious for
Speaker 6: about fifteen minutes after she was stabbed and lived for
Speaker 6: approximately two hours after she was so brutally stabbed and
Speaker 6: then just left in the trunk of the car.
Speaker 5: After this autopsy, there is the Buick Riviera, the second
Speaker 5: car that they found which was stolen at the same time,
Speaker 5: and the similarities in some of the things that the
Speaker 5: thieves did to make sure that they grabbed these cars
Speaker 5: and use them and were able to steal them, including
Speaker 5: prie marks on the door, the car radio gone, the
Speaker 5: astra gone, the dome light removed, and the bulb removed,
Speaker 5: so very similar things were done with both vehicles the
Speaker 5: police noticed. Then there was a March twenty six homicide
Speaker 5: unit is Grand View police report a high speed chase
Speaker 5: that they have to abandon because it was out of
Speaker 5: their jurisdiction because it was traffic light or something. But anyway,
Speaker 5: that witnesses had also seen a couple of black meals
Speaker 5: and other witness testimony regarding the stolen vehicle tell us about.
Speaker 6: That there were actually two car chases well multiple attempts
Speaker 6: to identify car thiefs, if you will. The first incident
Speaker 6: was early in the morning, about three o'clock in the
Speaker 6: morning on the morning that Anne was abducted. The Lease
Speaker 6: Summit Police department, which is also another suburb of Kansas City,
Speaker 6: and it actually for the location where this occurred, at
Speaker 6: Kansas City and Lea Summit and Raytown kind of join up.
Speaker 6: At the highway. Police officer in Lee's Summit noticed a
Speaker 6: vehicle with a tail light out and attempted to stop
Speaker 6: that vehicle just for a tail light and ended up
Speaker 6: getting into a high speed car chase with the driver.
Speaker 6: There were two black mails in the vehicle, and once
Speaker 6: they reached the city limits of Lease's Summit where it
Speaker 6: connected into Kansas City, Missouri, he had to suspend the chase.
Speaker 6: There was no probable cause for him to continue trying
Speaker 6: to stop that vehicle because it was just an attempt
Speaker 6: to stop for equipment. That's all the reasoning he had
Speaker 6: to be able to do that. So there was car
Speaker 6: chase number one. Unbeknownst to that officer at the time,
Speaker 6: the car was stolen and it was occupied by what
Speaker 6: would then become the two primary suspects in the case.
Speaker 6: After Anne was abducted and murdered, the Grand View police
Speaker 6: department yet another suburb, and they just kind of surround
Speaker 6: Kansas City, if you will, had found that there was
Speaker 6: a vehicle that had been stolen, and they attempted to
Speaker 6: stop the individuals got into a car chase. The individuals
Speaker 6: abandoned the vehicle took off on foot, and what they
Speaker 6: determined was that that vehicle had been stolen at the
Speaker 6: same location that the vehicle that Anne was in had
Speaker 6: been stolen at approximately the same time, and the mo
Speaker 6: for the individual that or individuals that stole that matched
Speaker 6: the way that the blue Monte Carlo had been broken into. Again,
Speaker 6: they had pry the driver's side door lock, pulled the
Speaker 6: dome light, pulled the radio, broken into the steering column
Speaker 6: in the same method that a number of other vehicles
Speaker 6: in that same time frame had been broken into. What
Speaker 6: they determined was that apparently these individuals were looking for
Speaker 6: t tops that they could sell at a local chop
Speaker 6: shop that provided drugs and or money for those items.
Speaker 6: But there were patterns that the auto theft unit and
Speaker 6: the homicide unit and the Grand View officers who were
Speaker 6: working the stolen vehicles could see that there was a
Speaker 6: pattern in these that appeared to be the same perpetrator
Speaker 6: or perpetrators doing them because it was so consistent in
Speaker 6: the manner in which they broke into those vehicles and stolen.
Speaker 5: One of the perpetrators, with their focus on car thieves,
Speaker 5: was a person one of these perpetrators that they brought
Speaker 5: in for questioning. But he wasn't very cooperative at all,
Speaker 5: not wanting to give up air samples, not wanting to
Speaker 5: sign a miranda without an attorney, so he was not cooperative.
Speaker 5: This is in May correct. Now the tip line is
Speaker 5: very very active, and of course they've got to run
Speaker 5: down any lead. Whether it's promising or not, they don't know.
Speaker 5: But in June twenty first anonymous tip came in. What
Speaker 5: does that anonymous tipster say and who does he name
Speaker 5: as the perpetrators? What is the incredible murderous tale he tells?
Speaker 5: And who is he?
Speaker 6: The caller had information that the police had not released
Speaker 6: to the public. He called up and told a tale
Speaker 6: of a friend that he had been with, who in
Speaker 6: the course of a conversation, said that he was involved
Speaker 6: in the abduction and subsequent murder, rape and murder of
Speaker 6: a girl. He called Annie Annie Harris. Again, he had
Speaker 6: details that had not been released. He told of two
Speaker 6: individuals that he knew that the one individual he referred
Speaker 6: to as Roger, which the call taker was trying to
Speaker 6: get all this information down and they were looking to
Speaker 6: see what information they had available. Very astute call taker
Speaker 6: was wise enough to keep this gentleman on the line
Speaker 6: and contact the murder squad. One of the detectives got
Speaker 6: him on the line and he agreed giving some cursory
Speaker 6: in or information, but probably one of the best leads
Speaker 6: they'd had so far, agreed to come in the next
Speaker 6: day and meet with detectives. That gentleman his name was
Speaker 6: Correne Hurley. He was very adamant that he knew Roger Nunley,
Speaker 6: a known carthief who had been brought in along with
Speaker 6: a lot of other individuals who had been brought in
Speaker 6: for questioning because he fit the mo had been in
Speaker 6: the area. So that the detectives began connecting the dots
Speaker 6: with these individuals. Kareem Hurley was very forthcoming with details
Speaker 6: that Nunley had shared. He also knew the other occupant
Speaker 6: of the vehicle, the other suspect, whose name was Michael Taylor,
Speaker 6: and knew that he knew Roderick or Roger Nunley very
Speaker 6: well and said he will not be forthcoming. He will
Speaker 6: be a tough nut to crack. You need to talk
Speaker 6: to Michael Taylor first and see if you can get
Speaker 6: information from him related to this case. Both Kareem Hurley
Speaker 6: and Roderick Nunley had been suspects in other murder cases,
Speaker 6: one where they were both suspects, and one particular murder case,
Speaker 6: so detectives knew that they had someone who had some
Speaker 6: inside information on Nunley and Taylor. Roderick Nunley and Michael Taylor.
Speaker 6: Roderick Nunley was out on bail for another crime that
Speaker 6: he had committed, had jumped bail and officers were aggressively
Speaker 6: looking for him, but he was able to elude them
Speaker 6: for a few more weeks. Michael Taylor was incarcerated and
Speaker 6: in prison being held on some other charges, and so
Speaker 6: it made it a little easier for detectives to go
Speaker 6: and conduct the first interview with the first of the
Speaker 6: two suspects.
Speaker 5: Oh, you're right about that interview with this Taylor. How
Speaker 5: much of that his story differs from what Kareem Hurley
Speaker 5: testified to.
Speaker 6: Taylor and Hurley were very consistent about the events that
Speaker 6: occurred with the crime up to the point where Taylor
Speaker 6: states that no, he did not rape and Harrison. It
Speaker 6: was rody Rick Nunley who grabbed her and pulled her
Speaker 6: into the vehicle and subsequently raped her and murdered Anne
Speaker 6: or struck the first blows if you will, decided to
Speaker 6: stab her. But overall, the facts of the case were
Speaker 6: pretty consistent about where she was standing she was pulled
Speaker 6: into the vehicle, that they went to Nunley's mother's home,
Speaker 6: where she was forced to crawl on her hands and
Speaker 6: knees into the basement of that home where she was
Speaker 6: raped and then forced to crawl back to the vehicle,
Speaker 6: placed in the trunk and murdered. So they were pretty
Speaker 6: consistent with that. But about that point is when the
Speaker 6: finger pointing between Nunley and Taylor occurred. Kareem Hurley knew
Speaker 6: Roderick Nunley well enough, and other witnesses other acquaintances would
Speaker 6: stay when you were in a vehicle with Roderick Nuneley,
Speaker 6: he always insisted on driving the vehicle. Always he would
Speaker 6: not ride with anyone else. He had to be in
Speaker 6: charge of operating that motor vehicle. And that was what
Speaker 6: Nunley insisted on that he was the one driving the
Speaker 6: motor vehicle. They were. The original intent was to grab
Speaker 6: Ann's belongings just to rob her, when Michael Taylor jumped
Speaker 6: out of the car and elected to abduct Anne instead,
Speaker 6: and they did not take any of the belongings, So
Speaker 6: he was the one that pulled Anne into the vehicle,
Speaker 6: whereas he being Taylor states that it was Nunley who
Speaker 6: pulled her into the vehicle. So that's where some of
Speaker 6: the inconsistencies are. But overall, the timeline, the location, most
Speaker 6: of the events that took place, where they took place.
Speaker 6: These were all things that Kareem Hurley knew where the
Speaker 6: actual attack on and occurred, and those things were substantiated
Speaker 6: by both Nunley and Taylor. It was just who did
Speaker 6: what first that was conflicting in their statements.
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Speaker 5: enforcement has these two perpetrators, They have an incredible amount
Speaker 5: of evidence. They have testimony from three people to connect
Speaker 5: the dots to know who exactly did what despite the
Speaker 5: conflicting testimony of these two perpetrators. Now with the courts,
Speaker 5: how did the prosecutor proceed in this case?
Speaker 6: They had irrefutable DNA evidence, they had witnesses, they had
Speaker 6: the confessions from both of the killers, and when they
Speaker 6: went to trial, the prosecutors and Jackson Canny, Missouri, were
Speaker 6: going to seek the death penalty for these two individuals
Speaker 6: based on the felony burder. She was abducted and murdered
Speaker 6: in the course of committing another crime, which was so
Speaker 6: you had kidnapping, you had rape, you had assault, and
Speaker 6: of course ultimately murder. It was the decision of the
Speaker 6: defense attorneys, or their recommendation to Taylor and Nunley, that
Speaker 6: they go for a bench trial in lieu of a
Speaker 6: jury trial. They thought that perhaps they stood a better
Speaker 6: chance of avoiding the death penalty, and the judge who
Speaker 6: heard their case had conducted bench trials previously and had
Speaker 6: not meted out the death penalty, had elected to sentence
Speaker 6: the individuals to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Speaker 6: So that was the direction that the case took, and
Speaker 6: it was up to the judge at that time to
Speaker 6: determine whether or not Taylor and Nuneley would be given
Speaker 6: the death penalty, and as a turn out in this
Speaker 6: particular case, both individuals were sentenced by the judge to
Speaker 6: be executed in the state of Missouri who had and
Speaker 6: still has the death penalty.
Speaker 5: I don't know the order of this when it happened,
Speaker 5: but there was some rough justice meeted out to Michael
Speaker 5: Taylor in prison.
Speaker 6: Wasn't there When the detectives went to meet with Michael
Speaker 6: Taylor in prison before he gave his interview, he asked
Speaker 6: to be able to call his family. He wanted to
Speaker 6: speak to his mother, and I believe he was only
Speaker 6: able to speak with his sister who had told him, Michael,
Speaker 6: if you're guilty, if you did this, you need to
Speaker 6: tell them what happened, and at that point he did.
Speaker 6: He was interviewed by the detective's videotaped at the prison
Speaker 6: because again he was incarcerated at the time that Kareem
Speaker 6: Hurley called the Tips hotline. They took his statement and
Speaker 6: in correctional facilities. Nothing is secret. Nothing happens that inmates
Speaker 6: don't find out about figure out pretty quickly. And I'm
Speaker 6: assuming I don't know this the details as they transpired,
Speaker 6: how it got communicated, but I'm assuming when corrections officers
Speaker 6: went to get Taylor to take him to be interviewed,
Speaker 6: some fairly astute prisoners were able to put together that
Speaker 6: Taylor was being interviewed for a murder case involving this
Speaker 6: murder and murder rape abduction in Kansas City. After he
Speaker 6: was interviewed and agreed to submit blood and hair samples,
Speaker 6: Taylor was going to be sent back to his cell,
Speaker 6: and at the request of the detectives and the corrections officers,
Speaker 6: it was determined that they discretion being the better part
Speaker 6: of valor, he should be put in solitary confinement just
Speaker 6: for his own protection. However, the prison was under instructions
Speaker 6: that no prisoner could be placed in solitary confinement without
Speaker 6: permission of the warden. They were not able to reach him.
Speaker 6: This was on a weekend, so they were not able
Speaker 6: to get in contact with him, so they put Taylor
Speaker 6: back in the general population. There is I guess you
Speaker 6: could say some honor amongst thieves or at least a hierarchy.
Speaker 6: Pedophiles rapists are not highly thought of, shall we say,
Speaker 6: in prison Taylor because of the fact that he abducted
Speaker 6: and murdered or was you know, had confessed to abducting
Speaker 6: and murdering this little girl, was attacked in the prison
Speaker 6: by other inmates and actually was forcibly raped by other
Speaker 6: inmates and required medical care and eighty stitches in the
Speaker 6: prison infirmary. So he got his what I described as
Speaker 6: his first taste of justice for Anne and had to
Speaker 6: experience a little of what he had put a through.
Speaker 6: So it was sort of a reckoning that the universe
Speaker 6: kind of descended upon him, if you will, and he
Speaker 6: was he was attacked in the prison.
Speaker 5: Let's get back to the trial itself, well, not a trial,
Speaker 5: but the sentencing and the sentencing phase of that trial
Speaker 5: as well. February nineteen ninety one, Taylor took the stand
Speaker 5: twelve days after that, admitted to first degree murder, rape, kidnapping,
Speaker 5: and armed criminal action. And he was questioned the same
Speaker 5: as Nunley, and he pled guilty, asked if he was
Speaker 5: understood the proceedings, and he agreed, and he's aware that
Speaker 5: there was a risk of the death penalty, and basically
Speaker 5: he knew that there could be no appeal, there could
Speaker 5: be a good possibility or a possibility of the death penalty,
Speaker 5: and he took their chances rather than have a jury,
Speaker 5: and they were sentenced to death, both of them. Now,
Speaker 5: what happens with the appeal process, we're talking about nineteen
Speaker 5: ninety one, when what happens in the appeal process tell
Speaker 5: us about some of the events along the way.
Speaker 6: During the sentencing phase, the judge had already prepared his
Speaker 6: documents for his ruling and was going to announced that ruling.
Speaker 6: They were going to take a break break for lunch,
Speaker 6: and then he would come back and announce his ruling.
Speaker 6: The judge went to lunch and was observed having an
Speaker 6: alcoholic drink with lunch. When they came back, he needed
Speaker 6: out the sentence, handed down the death penalty sentence to
Speaker 6: both Roderick Nunley and Michael Taylor, but by virtue of
Speaker 6: the fact that he had been observed having a drink,
Speaker 6: it laid the groundwork for the first of many appeals
Speaker 6: that Taylor and Nunley had. They wanted to be heard
Speaker 6: in front of a new judge, and they were granted
Speaker 6: that appeal and they were heard. Their case was heard
Speaker 6: by a new judge that was appointed, and it was
Speaker 6: quite a lengthy process to find a judge, get to
Speaker 6: get a judge appointed, that there were no conflicts, no
Speaker 6: potential conflicts related to the case, so that it was
Speaker 6: going to be heard fairly and could be ruled upon,
Speaker 6: and that occurred several times. There were a number of
Speaker 6: judges during the appeals that the case was heard again
Speaker 6: and again again. This was the sentencing process, not the
Speaker 6: entire case, but the sentencing process of the case. And
Speaker 6: on every one of those appeals, the judges upheld the
Speaker 6: original ruling, and over the course of the next twenty
Speaker 6: four years, because the original case occurred two years after
Speaker 6: Anne's murder, there was an appeals process that not only
Speaker 6: went to the Missouri Supreme Court, but went to the
Speaker 6: United States Supreme Court for each of those individuals.
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Speaker 5: Along the way. When I mentioned this torturous journey for
Speaker 5: the Harrisons and anyone involved with this case, including all
Speaker 5: the detectives, the first scheduled execution day was for Taylor Taylor.
Speaker 5: Michael Taylor was February two thousand and six. In this book,
Speaker 5: you talk about the execution process. We've read about it
Speaker 5: before and heard about it before, but maybe not in
Speaker 5: the kinds of personal detail that you conveyed. But tell
Speaker 5: us about this first time, first scheduled execution, and then
Speaker 5: the process for those people that are to witness the execution,
Speaker 5: including the Harrisons.
Speaker 6: The first execution date was scheduled for Michael Taylor. The
Speaker 6: process for the witnesses for the state, which I wrote
Speaker 6: about for Taylor's first process of going through the preparations
Speaker 6: for execution, you get a letter from the state. They
Speaker 6: give you instructions when to appear, what to bring, what
Speaker 6: not to bring, which was pretty spart You were at
Speaker 6: that time allowed a pen and a pad of paper
Speaker 6: to go in. When you arrived at the prison, you
Speaker 6: were greeted at the front gate by corrections officers. They
Speaker 6: checked your vehicle, they radioed, they sent you to another gate.
Speaker 6: You were brought in escorted by corrections officials. They had
Speaker 6: the various groups segregated so that witnesses for the state
Speaker 6: would be brought in at a certain time. Family witnesses
Speaker 6: for the execution would be brought in separately and kept
Speaker 6: apart from those individuals, and the media and any protesters
Speaker 6: were kept outside on yet another side of the prison.
Speaker 6: They were isolated away so that there was no potential
Speaker 6: for any conflicts, if you will, or disturbances. The individuals
Speaker 6: were walked through, there was a sign in process, you
Speaker 6: were searched, you went through a metal detector, you had
Speaker 6: to lock up all your belongings which had been searched,
Speaker 6: and you were escorted through the facility. And having been
Speaker 6: in law enforcement, to me, it was very much the
Speaker 6: process in which I would have handled a prisoner, someone
Speaker 6: that I had under arrest for for whatever reason. And
Speaker 6: again these are the witnesses. But you are in a
Speaker 6: correctional facility. You're escorted down a long corridor. There was
Speaker 6: someone behind two way class who slid out a little
Speaker 6: drawer and you put your identification in. They it was
Speaker 6: very quiet. There was no talking except to give you
Speaker 6: an instruction on providing your identification or where to go stand.
Speaker 6: And you were walked through and taken into a small
Speaker 6: cinder block room with some tables and chairs, and you
Speaker 6: sat there and waited. You did not get a lot
Speaker 6: of information the prison. The corrections officers were not allowed
Speaker 6: to talk to you except to give you an instruction.
Speaker 6: So it was very quiet, it was stressful, it was somber,
Speaker 6: and you waited for someone to come in and say
Speaker 6: it's now eight. You arrived at six o'clock, it is
Speaker 6: now eight o'clock. Here's what's going to happen at ten o'clock.
Speaker 6: Executions are conducted at just about one minute after midnight.
Speaker 6: They do them in the early morning so that if
Speaker 6: there is a stay and an appeal that needs to
Speaker 6: go through, they have still have within that twenty four
Speaker 6: hour period the opportunity to proceed with the execution or
Speaker 6: to stop the execution based on a stay. So it
Speaker 6: was very start and stop. People would walk into the room,
Speaker 6: they would look at you, talk amongst themselves, people from
Speaker 6: the prison. We got down to the wire with Taylor's
Speaker 6: potential execution, and someone from the prison came in said,
Speaker 6: there is an appeal that the Missouri Supreme Court was
Speaker 6: going to hear the case and there would be no execution,
Speaker 6: and you were escorted back to your vehicle and just
Speaker 6: send away, pending the next step in the process if
Speaker 6: there was an appeal, if there would be a determination
Speaker 6: that the Supreme Court would overrule the death penalty sentence
Speaker 6: and say now we're going to give them life in prison,
Speaker 6: or so it was just a waiting gain and this
Speaker 6: occurred over and over and over with between the two individuals.
Speaker 5: You're right that Roderick Nunneley was belligerent before he was
Speaker 5: sentenced to prison, but behind bars he continued with that.
Speaker 5: And then when he thought that not much could go
Speaker 5: on in his case, he had permission to visit the
Speaker 5: library for information for his appeal, and he attacked with
Speaker 5: a homemade knife one of the unit managers in prison.
Speaker 5: So this is two thousand and six, you talk about
Speaker 5: twenty and ten, he went through the same procedure again,
Speaker 5: for it was scheduled for execution and would be as
Speaker 5: you write, another four years to two thousand and fourteen
Speaker 5: to finally the Harrisons and the witness and the detective.
Speaker 5: One of the detectives was present at this execution. Tell
Speaker 5: us about this eventual execution two thousand and fourteen.
Speaker 6: The execution process is not in any way, shape or
Speaker 6: form what you would see in portrait in movies like
Speaker 6: Dead Men Walking or The Green Mile. The individual who's
Speaker 6: being executed cannot see the witnesses or the family. You're
Speaker 6: taken in. You are escorted into a room with chairs
Speaker 6: and risers, so that the witnesses for the state or
Speaker 6: witnesses for the family on the other side. You're in
Speaker 6: a room with it's The lights are turned down, so
Speaker 6: it's fairly dark in the room. There is a set
Speaker 6: of windows in front of you with curtains. At the
Speaker 6: appointed time the curtain opens, you are able to see
Speaker 6: the individual who is on a journey. It's very quiet.
Speaker 6: You cannot see the other individuals who are in the
Speaker 6: room with the individual being executed. It's a very sterile environment.
Speaker 6: It is not unlike a surgical suite, although you don't
Speaker 6: have overhead lights or whatever. They are again on a
Speaker 6: journey covered from toes to chin with a white sheet.
Speaker 6: It's a very peaceful process. There is not a lot
Speaker 6: of noise. In Taylor's case. You could see in the distance,
Speaker 6: if you will, another set of windows on the other
Speaker 6: side of the room, where the other witnesses would be.
Speaker 6: He turned his head away from us or to the left.
Speaker 6: To his left appeared as though his lips were moving,
Speaker 6: turned his head back to where he was looking at
Speaker 6: the ceiling. You waited a couple of minutes. You could
Speaker 6: barely tell that he was possibly breathing. The curtains closed,
Speaker 6: the curtain reopened, and a few minutes later, and you
Speaker 6: were told by one of the prison officials in the
Speaker 6: room that And it wasn't said directly to the people there.
Speaker 6: It was just announced that the individual was deceased at
Speaker 6: twelve o eight am, and they read the date. Curtains
Speaker 6: closed again, and that was it. It was understandably in the
Speaker 6: state of Missouri, the method that is used for execution
Speaker 6: is not unlike the same method that people who elect
Speaker 6: to end their own lives at Doctor Kavorkian, I think
Speaker 6: probably is the best description that I can give people
Speaker 6: who are not familiar with the process. Your administered pentobarbital,
Speaker 6: which if you were a cancer victim or had some
Speaker 6: other disease and elected to end your life in a
Speaker 6: right to die situation a country or in the United
Speaker 6: States a couple of states that allow that it's administered
Speaker 6: exactly the same way, where they find that there are
Speaker 6: cases where someone potentially has had difficulty that the individual
Speaker 6: being executed. Statistics show that those individuals had been lifelong
Speaker 6: iv drug users, and so their veins are very fragile
Speaker 6: to begin with, so any potential IVY hospitalization medical procedure
Speaker 6: could have resulted in in the same type of problems
Speaker 6: a blood claw, it collapsed, fain that they possibly would
Speaker 6: experience going through that process. But again, it was very quiet,
Speaker 6: it was very sterile, and it was very dignified, which
Speaker 6: is so counterintuitive to what Anne experienced, which was so violent,
Speaker 6: so horrific, so painful and cruel and brutal. The trying
Speaker 6: to imagine the difference between the two situations, these individuals
Speaker 6: were allowed to die with dignity, whereas Anne was not.
Speaker 5: You talk about closure for the Harrisons, and you write
Speaker 5: that they said that this is the only form of
Speaker 5: closure that they could receive, then they would gladly take it.
Speaker 5: So again really puts in perspective of what they mean
Speaker 5: by closure and what it meant to them to be
Speaker 5: able to witness the execution for the murder of their daughter.
Speaker 5: You talk about evil as an afterword in this book,
Speaker 5: and we didn't get into a lot of the details
Speaker 5: that came up from these two perpetrators that were trying
Speaker 5: to blame each other for the crime, but in the
Speaker 5: process they gave horrendous, ghastly details of their behavior that night,
Speaker 5: such as a Nunley asking Taylor to go into the
Speaker 5: home and get a knife and get two knives, a
Speaker 5: butcher knife and another serrated knife. Details like he said
Speaker 5: to one said to the other that when they were
Speaker 5: doing the rape that she was too tight and so
Speaker 5: he needed some grease. And so one of them went
Speaker 5: gladly and went and got some hair gel grease, some
Speaker 5: TCP grease to help out this and enable this rapist.
Speaker 5: You talk about evil in your afterword. Tell us what
Speaker 5: you had to say.
Speaker 6: I think that it's very difficult for any individual, any
Speaker 6: reason reasonably minded individual to wrap their head around events
Speaker 6: that took place such as in Anne's case, and there
Speaker 6: is I think Shakespeare said it best that there are
Speaker 6: no devils in hell. They walk amongst us, and there's
Speaker 6: no there's no way to say why these things have
Speaker 6: happened to good people. I think that in order to
Speaker 6: measure goodness kindness in this world, there has to be
Speaker 6: something to compare it to, and that would be evil.
Speaker 6: You you can't put your hands around around it. Evil clear,
Speaker 6: there's no color to it. There's I call it colorless, formless,
Speaker 6: but without evil, there's no good. It's hard to measure
Speaker 6: measure goodness. I compared it to piece of glass. Then
Speaker 6: piece of glass, if you can't see it, you walk
Speaker 6: up to it, try to walk through it. There's no warning,
Speaker 6: and like that, it can shatter and cause. This causes
Speaker 6: a great amount of pain. I talked about evil being
Speaker 6: a four letter word, but then there are also four
Speaker 6: letter words that I think we take comfort in, and
Speaker 6: that's love and hope, heal, and I think with the
Speaker 6: execution of Taylor and Nunley, that allowed the Harrisons and
Speaker 6: their daughters and their extended family and our community an
Speaker 6: opportunity to heal. I don't thank you. I know that
Speaker 6: you don't ever get over it. So to talk about
Speaker 6: form of closure, it's a resolution. It gave them the
Speaker 6: opportunity to close a chapter in their lives, to not
Speaker 6: have to deal with the appeals, not to have to
Speaker 6: deal with facing these individuals in court time and time
Speaker 6: again as they did. It is less justice and more retribution,
Speaker 6: But I think it did give them the opportunity to heal,
Speaker 6: and gave our community who really rallied around this family,
Speaker 6: and to this day people remember where they were, where
Speaker 6: they when they heard that Anne was missing. It's kind
Speaker 6: of hate to liken it to the enormity of remembering
Speaker 6: where you were when John Kennedy was assassinated, but on
Speaker 6: a small scale in our community, people really do remember
Speaker 6: this case, and that was one of the reasons why
Speaker 6: I wanted to write the book, to give people an
Speaker 6: opportunity to talk about it, know the end, the outcome,
Speaker 6: the finality of it, and to heal.
Speaker 5: I want to thank you so much Marla Bernard for
Speaker 5: coming on and talking about your book By the Side
Speaker 5: of the Road, The True Story of the Abduction and
Speaker 5: Murder of Ann Harrison for those that might want to
Speaker 5: take a look at this and more information and about
Speaker 5: your other book. Is there a website and do you
Speaker 5: do any social media?
Speaker 6: I am on Facebook as Marla Bernard. I also have
Speaker 6: a website. It's the pen name that I use for
Speaker 6: some of my creative writing. It's called scarletinkwell dot com
Speaker 6: and it's one word scarlet with two t's ink weell
Speaker 6: dot com.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much, Marla Bernard. By the Side of
Speaker 5: the Road, The True story of the abduction and murder
Speaker 5: of Ann Harrison. Thank you so much. You have a
Speaker 5: great evening and good night.
Speaker 6: Thank you.