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Speaker 5: You are now listening to true Murder the most shocking
Speaker 5: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 5: written about them. Geese, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every
Speaker 5: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 5: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 5: journalist and author Dan.
Speaker 2: Zufanski, Good Evening. The Wheels of Justice turned slowly but
Speaker 2: grind exceedingly fine. Renee Fair knew that Gregory Hauser killed
Speaker 2: her sister, Cheryl. There was not a single doubt in
Speaker 2: her mind. Yet for twenty seven years, Hauser walked free,
Speaker 2: but Renee wouldn't rest until he was convict did for murder.
Speaker 2: The Wheels of Justice is equal parts the story of
Speaker 2: a monstrous killer, a harrowing look at domestic violence, and
Speaker 2: an inspirational story of a family that wouldn't quit until
Speaker 2: justice prevailed. The book that we're featuring this evening is
Speaker 2: The Wheels of Justice, the true story of a twenty
Speaker 2: seven year battle to convict my sister's killer, with my
Speaker 2: special guest, attorney and author, Renee Fair. Welcome to the program,
Speaker 2: and thank you so much for this interview.
Speaker 6: Renee Fair, Hi, Dan, and good evening, and thank you
Speaker 6: for having me on your show. This evening.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for this incredible story, The Wheels
Speaker 2: of Justice, a very personal story for you and your
Speaker 2: family especially. Let's talk about your early life that you
Speaker 2: do in the book. In Farmer City, Illinois, a small town, Illinois,
Speaker 2: two thousand population, you say, and tell us about this
Speaker 2: life with your three sisters and your mom and dad.
Speaker 2: Tell us how life was and what it was like,
Speaker 2: and tell us a little bit about your family.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so I am the third or yes, the third
Speaker 6: of four girls Victor and Philis fair or parents. My dad,
Speaker 6: go figure was a farmer in Farmer City, Illinois, and
Speaker 6: my mother was a nurse. She'd started out being a
Speaker 6: pediatric nurse and then when we moved to Farmer City,
Speaker 6: became a nurse in the local nursing home. You have
Speaker 6: to remember this was back in the late eighties early nineties,
Speaker 6: and we didn't have you know, on a good day,
Speaker 6: if we juggled the antennagist right, we got three stations
Speaker 6: for TV, no video games or anything like that. And
Speaker 6: my dad farmed and had four girls, so he's still
Speaker 6: expected us to be outside and do chores and work
Speaker 6: with him. And that's what we loved. We loved being
Speaker 6: outside and playing on the farm. Cheryl was the oldest,
Speaker 6: probably a very stereotypical firstborn. She was a little quiet
Speaker 6: and shy, very compliant, very sweet. I like to say
Speaker 6: that if you believe in angels on earth, Cheryl was
Speaker 6: probably one of those, and that became evident early in
Speaker 6: her life. She was the biggest animal lover that ever existed.
Speaker 6: And there was not a pet or an animal that
Speaker 6: was found on the farm. You know, a bird that
Speaker 6: fell out of a nest, or a ground squirrel, or
Speaker 6: even a raccoon that fell out of a tree that
Speaker 6: she couldn't adopt and nurse back to health and make
Speaker 6: into one of our family pets.
Speaker 2: And you talk about what she decided to do. She
Speaker 2: was a senior in high school when someone took an
Speaker 2: interest from the neighboring town of Mansfield. But where were
Speaker 2: she was your older sister? Tell us about this meeting
Speaker 2: that your sister had while she was a senior in
Speaker 2: high school. Who did you meet?
Speaker 6: Yeah, so she was the oldest we were. Cheryl and
Speaker 6: my second sister, Lisa were two years apart, and then
Speaker 6: Lisa and I were just eighteen months apart. And then
Speaker 6: my younger sister, Julie was three years younger than me,
Speaker 6: and you know, Cheryl, being the oldest, was kind of
Speaker 6: the leader of all of us, and she didn't really
Speaker 6: take an interest in boys or boys didn't take an
Speaker 6: interest in her until she got into high school and
Speaker 6: she was a senior in high school. Is a small town,
Speaker 6: Mansfield wasn't even smaller town. The schools had consolidated, so
Speaker 6: we went to junior high. You went to your own
Speaker 6: towns for grade school, and then junior high everybody went
Speaker 6: to Mansfield, and then when you went to your four
Speaker 6: years of high school, everybody came to Farmer City. So
Speaker 6: Greg would have been maybe two years out of Cheryl
Speaker 6: and in high school, so they would have met perhaps
Speaker 6: in junior high, but definitely by the time they get
Speaker 6: to high school they've met. And classes back then were,
Speaker 6: you know, from sixty to seventy five eighty people, so
Speaker 6: you know, I think that's a pretty small high school class.
Speaker 6: So everybody knows everybody, not only within your class, but
Speaker 6: within the high school. And you know, we first became
Speaker 6: knowledgeable of Greg because Cheryl started to date him her
Speaker 6: senior year in high school and he started to come
Speaker 6: around the house and you know, to my sisters and
Speaker 6: I that was fun. We had, you know, not experienced
Speaker 6: boys and not been exposed to them, and you're pretty
Speaker 6: secluded out in the country and you know, you're not driving,
Speaker 6: and all the neighbors that were you know, up and
Speaker 6: down our road were little girls. We all, they were
Speaker 6: all little girls in the neighborhood and we played together,
Speaker 6: but just had not had a lot of exposure to boys.
Speaker 6: So it was fun because when Gregs started to come
Speaker 6: around and pay attention to Cheryl, he had you know,
Speaker 6: guy friends that came around too, and so Lisa and
Speaker 6: I thought that was you know, really fun and interesting.
Speaker 6: And we were getting older and so we were taking
Speaker 6: an interest in in older boys who you know, would
Speaker 6: take an interest in us. And with Cheryl, you know,
Speaker 6: I think that because you know, all she was such
Speaker 6: a sweet person and she wanted to she was going
Speaker 6: to go on to be a nurse, and there's no
Speaker 6: surprise in that. I mean, she was your typical caregiver,
Speaker 6: your fixer, you know, an enabler in essence, and she
Speaker 6: did go to nursing school to nurse babies. So not
Speaker 6: only did she want to do that, but she wanted
Speaker 6: to get married and have babies of her own. And
Speaker 6: I mean that's what she wanted to do because she
Speaker 6: loved babies, baby animals and baby human beings. And so
Speaker 6: when Greg took an interest in her, it was a
Speaker 6: big deal. And I think that was her I finally
Speaker 6: found somebody, and now I'm going to live out the
Speaker 6: rest of my dream. I'll go to college and then
Speaker 6: I'll get married and have my own babies.
Speaker 2: Right. What was Greg's background and where was his career headed?
Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he was older than me, so I didn't really
Speaker 6: know him growing up until he encountered Cheryl. I know
Speaker 6: that he was born and raised in Mansfield. It's a
Speaker 6: town of eight hundred. His dad owned and ran the
Speaker 6: local FS station. It was a gas station, farm service,
Speaker 6: gas station, you know, on a pretty prevalent corner in Mansfield.
Speaker 6: And Greg, well, his mother was the local avon lady.
Speaker 6: I remember that. And Greg was going to from as
Speaker 6: far back as I remember, get out of high school,
Speaker 6: go to a local junior college, become a diesel mechanic,
Speaker 6: and be a mechanic, not just an auto mechanic like
Speaker 6: his father, but work on you know, diesel equipment. Either
Speaker 6: farm equipment or trucks, and he went on to work
Speaker 6: on trucks. He was kind of a to me, a
Speaker 6: stereotypical in a sense bad guy or tough guy. He
Speaker 6: liked fast cars. He had a gold trans am that
Speaker 6: he set around in and would drive into the house.
Speaker 6: He liked big trucks, had a truck that he you know,
Speaker 6: entered in mud bog races, and you know, did things
Speaker 6: like that. So definitely, you know, back then I would
Speaker 6: have said, you know, he was he was cool.
Speaker 2: What was the behavior? I know that Again, you mentioned
Speaker 2: that you didn't really have experience around boys, and you
Speaker 2: were younger than your sister, but you did see some
Speaker 2: behavior that was at least looking back, you might have questioned,
Speaker 2: and so, what was some of the things that you
Speaker 2: noticed in terms of how he spoke about your sister
Speaker 2: in front of his other sisters or your other sisters.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I remember it, and I remember talking to
Speaker 6: my sister Lisa about it. Where you know, you don't
Speaker 6: know what you don't know, and you didn't get taught
Speaker 6: healthy versus unhealthy relationship shifts and health class back in
Speaker 6: the late eighties early nineties, and we hadn't been exposed,
Speaker 6: so you know, you don't know what you don't know.
Speaker 6: Greg comes around and he's kind of cool, and he's
Speaker 6: got fast cars, and he's dating our sister, and we
Speaker 6: think that's neat and he's trying to, I think, win
Speaker 6: us over because he takes time to pay attention to
Speaker 6: us and tease us or interact with us a bit.
Speaker 6: But as we started to all interact more, a lot
Speaker 6: of his teasing and fun and interaction was at Cheryl's expense.
Speaker 6: So you know, he he teased her, you know, to
Speaker 6: the point where you would see that hurt look in
Speaker 6: her eyes, you know, but he didn't stop, or he'd
Speaker 6: tickle her until she cried. You're sitting there going, oh,
Speaker 6: that must just be how it is. You know, we
Speaker 6: don't know any different, But we don't really like that
Speaker 6: because you see the hurt in your sister's eyes. There
Speaker 6: was it didn't matter how long she spent getting ready
Speaker 6: or putting. She wasn't a big makeup person, but if
Speaker 6: she was going out for a date or something, she
Speaker 6: put on makeup and we would help her put on makeup,
Speaker 6: and he always found a flaw in it or criticized
Speaker 6: her or told her she looked stupid. With makeup on.
Speaker 6: I mean it just and that again we saw the
Speaker 6: hurt in her and then we're sitting there going, well,
Speaker 6: that's not nice, you know, but maybe that's how that's
Speaker 6: how it is. And as time went on, it got
Speaker 6: to the point where we would even have the conversation of, look,
Speaker 6: I don't know that I really like this guy, but
Speaker 6: if our sister chooses him, we're not. Who are we
Speaker 6: to interfere in her relationship? And so we're going to
Speaker 6: love our sister and we're going to support our sister, right, Yeah,
Speaker 6: it really I think that one of the biggest turning
Speaker 6: events for me was finding out that a cat that
Speaker 6: I had who went missing that we searched for forever
Speaker 6: and ever, and finally another friend of Greg's was there
Speaker 6: and said, stop searching for the cat. The cat is dead.
Speaker 6: Greg shot it and threw it in the pasture. I'm like,
Speaker 6: what are you kidding me? Yeah, walked on his car
Speaker 6: and he didn't like that, you know, and that was
Speaker 6: just okay, that's not okay. You don't you don't kill
Speaker 6: somebody's pet because it walked across your car, and you know,
Speaker 6: you just didn't even know. I just didn't even know
Speaker 6: how to how to take that.
Speaker 2: You say, despite all of these things, but your sister,
Speaker 2: after high school, she became engaged to Greg, and you said,
Speaker 2: it was really your only real boyfriend she ever had.
Speaker 2: She finished her nurses training and she graduated and they married.
Speaker 2: She graduated in May and they married in June in
Speaker 2: Farmer City. They rented a little house and their first son, Brandon,
Speaker 2: was born nine months after and they lived pretty close
Speaker 2: to Lisa, so she got to see the boys quite often.
Speaker 2: What were you doing at this time and where was
Speaker 2: your career headed?
Speaker 6: Yeah, So once I graduated from high school, I went
Speaker 6: to Illinois Wesleyan University. And from the time I was
Speaker 6: in high school I had declared, for really an unknown reason,
Speaker 6: I was going to a lawyer. I didn't have anybody
Speaker 6: in the family, but that's what I wanted to do.
Speaker 6: I liked to solve problems. I was good at solving problems,
Speaker 6: and to me, that's what you did for a profession
Speaker 6: if that were the characteristics. So I went to Wesleyan
Speaker 6: and was pretty persistent even back then, wanted to get
Speaker 6: on with my career. It was expensive. Law school was expensive.
Speaker 6: So I set forth the schedule and was able to
Speaker 6: graduate from Illinois Wesleyan in three years and then start
Speaker 6: law school and Saint Louis and so, you know, I
Speaker 6: was pretty pretty dedicated and driven and on a career
Speaker 6: path where you know, I leave to go to college,
Speaker 6: I leave to go to law school. Law school takes
Speaker 6: me to Florida because I follow my boyfriend at the
Speaker 6: time ends up being my first husband to Florida. And
Speaker 6: so while we're close, were extremely close family. And I
Speaker 6: was the only one who moved away, you know, whoever
Speaker 6: really left, and that was always hard. But we've remained
Speaker 6: really close. And you know, as Cheryl was, go ahead.
Speaker 2: You talk about being close while you were away, and
Speaker 2: your sister is married, she's having children, she's had her
Speaker 2: firstborn and a couple of years later had her next
Speaker 2: born or three years later. Pardon me, what are the
Speaker 2: kinds of conversations you're long distance, you're not around, so
Speaker 2: you're close to your sisters Lisa and Julie. What are
Speaker 2: the kinds of conversations you're having regarding your sister's relationship
Speaker 2: with Greg.
Speaker 6: You know, then it was it was all about you know,
Speaker 6: Cheryl and the boys, her babies. You know, she's the
Speaker 6: first one to get married, and she's the first one
Speaker 6: who had kids. And so when I talked to, you know,
Speaker 6: my mom, it's, hey, have you seen Cheryl and the boys?
Speaker 6: What have they been up to? When I talked to Lisa,
Speaker 6: we talked a little bit personally, but it was always
Speaker 6: you know, what have you done with Cheryl and the boys?
Speaker 6: And have you seen them lately? Because that was you know,
Speaker 6: that was the focus. That was fun. And she was
Speaker 6: the first that had gotten married and was going to
Speaker 6: go on to live this fairy tale life and live
Speaker 6: out her dream, and she would send me. I felt
Speaker 6: bad because we were a close family, and that meant
Speaker 6: we celebrated you know, birthdays and holidays and Labor Day
Speaker 6: and Memorial Day and fourth and everything, you know, together
Speaker 6: usually met We got together at my mom and dad's
Speaker 6: house and everybody came over and we ate and we
Speaker 6: played outside, and they took pictures, and any of those
Speaker 6: events usually had a phone call during it or after
Speaker 6: it so that I could catch up on what happened.
Speaker 6: And then, I mean I had stacks of pictures that
Speaker 6: you know, Cheryl would send to me. Back then there
Speaker 6: was no email or texts, and so she literally would
Speaker 6: get photos developed and send them to me with a
Speaker 6: handwritten note of you know, it was the oldest birthday
Speaker 6: and we had it at Grandma's and here's the pictures
Speaker 6: and we had a pignotta in here. They are looking
Speaker 6: like they're going to kill each other with the bat.
Speaker 6: It was those fun events that I missed out on,
Speaker 6: but I never felt like I missed out on them
Speaker 6: because they were so good about, you know, keeping me
Speaker 6: included as best they could, even though I lived eighteen
Speaker 6: hundred miles away.
Speaker 2: Your mother was diagnosed with cancer at some point, and
Speaker 2: you say that the conversations that you and Cheryl had
Speaker 2: never really hinted at anything there being any kind of problem,
Speaker 2: let alone this incredible abuse that you was enduring. So
Speaker 2: what changed and why when your mother was diagnosed with cancer?
Speaker 2: What was the change for Cheryl?
Speaker 6: You know, it's my opinion, but I think that was
Speaker 6: a big change and a big event for her. I
Speaker 6: think that Cheryl knew that if she was ever going
Speaker 6: to leave Greg and be able to live on her
Speaker 6: own and away from him, that she needed my mom.
Speaker 6: You know, she needed my mom to be there. She
Speaker 6: needed my mom for you know, moral support, and she
Speaker 6: needed my mom's help with the boys because she worked,
Speaker 6: and so I think that is one of the instrumental
Speaker 6: things in Cheryl's decision to finally leave Greg. And it
Speaker 6: ends up the cancer diagnosis was a misdiagnosis, so again,
Speaker 6: you know, a blessing in disguise. But that was before
Speaker 6: that was in the summer, and by July Cheryl has
Speaker 6: called me around the fourth of July and asked me
Speaker 6: for an attorney referral, which wasn't unusual. I was now
Speaker 6: a year out of law school and the family would
Speaker 6: call and ask me legal questions for them, you know,
Speaker 6: not so much for themselves, but for other people or
Speaker 6: friends or other family. And she called and asked for
Speaker 6: if I could help her find a divorce attorney in Champagne, Illinois.
Speaker 6: And I'm like, yeah, sure, you know, because it wasn't unusual.
Speaker 6: And I asked her, like I normally would, well who's
Speaker 6: it for? And she said, with a bit of a
Speaker 6: pause me, And I was stunned, floored, because I mean,
Speaker 6: we're Catholic, we don't get divorced. And my family had
Speaker 6: been divorced and she had three kids, and to me,
Speaker 6: you have three kids, you can't get divorced, you know,
Speaker 6: we had. I had no idea of anything that she
Speaker 6: was going through. Hindsight's twenty twenty and I look back
Speaker 6: and signs now that I'm much more educated too. With
Speaker 6: domestic violence. There were signs there, but we didn't know.
Speaker 6: We didn't know what was happening, and she was very
Speaker 6: very secretive about it. And so you know, it starts.
Speaker 6: The terrifying part of the story starts, you know, with
Speaker 6: that call and referral and me telling her you can't
Speaker 6: get divorced. I told her that, I said, I might
Speaker 6: help you find atturning, but you have to go to
Speaker 6: counselor first. Have you been to a counselor? And she
Speaker 6: was such a compliant, non confrontational person. You know, she
Speaker 6: didn't even say, you know, Renee, you have no idea
Speaker 6: what I'm going through. You have to help me get
Speaker 6: out of this. She just said, Okay, I've been to counseling,
Speaker 6: but we haven't been together. I guess we can try
Speaker 6: going to marriage counseling. And so she did. I mean,
Speaker 6: she helped her find a counselor and she went off
Speaker 6: the marriage counseling. And you know, I can remember being
Speaker 6: very proud of myself because she's now going to go
Speaker 6: to marriage counseling and she's going to fix their marriage
Speaker 6: and it's all going to be fine, and she's going
Speaker 6: to continue her little fairy tale life raising her three boys.
Speaker 6: And it wasn't too long after that I hear Cheryl
Speaker 6: tells me, Oh, they've been going to counseling. They're going
Speaker 6: to take a little trip to Peoria. They're going to
Speaker 6: take the boys and stay in a hotel and they're
Speaker 6: going to swim and go to the zoo. And I thought, Oh,
Speaker 6: that's so awesome. They've fixed it. They've worked this out.
Speaker 6: And then I called Lisa and I'm like, hey, Cheryl went,
Speaker 6: you know, to Purit for the weekend. Did they have
Speaker 6: a good time? And I'll never forget she said, Renee,
Speaker 6: she came back with hickeys all over her neck. I'm like, ah, what, yes,
Speaker 6: And that was just another like major moment in my
Speaker 6: life of oh my god, he's just her like she's
Speaker 6: like he's a dog and she's a piece of property
Speaker 6: or something. And that wasn't Cheryl. Cheryl was a professional.
Speaker 6: She was a nurse. She was self conscious enough. You know,
Speaker 6: she was married, she had children. I'm sure she would
Speaker 6: have been horrified. I'm sure she was horrified and embarrassed
Speaker 6: by that. But that's you know, that's when again things
Speaker 6: changed for me. And I called her back and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 6: well I've got this guy where he's really good. And
Speaker 6: her biggest concern was is he going to be good
Speaker 6: with custody? Because if I leave Greg, he's going to
Speaker 6: fight me to the bitter end for custody. And nothing
Speaker 6: was more important than her babies. And by now she
Speaker 6: has three of them, and she's like, I can't I
Speaker 6: can't lose my babies. There's nothing more important to me
Speaker 6: than those kids. So you know, now she's got a
Speaker 6: good divorce attorney and she tells him she wants to
Speaker 6: leave him. And you know, it's really from that moment
Speaker 6: on from early in July until October fifth, where everything
Speaker 6: just was escalated and almost like some horror film because
Speaker 6: he's not going to lose control, there's just no way.
Speaker 6: He He is so angry with her that he ends
Speaker 6: up filing for a divorce first and then begs her
Speaker 6: to stay, you know, and it's like, well you just filed,
Speaker 6: but it was all, you know, and then she starts
Speaker 6: to confide just little bits and pieces in us. And
Speaker 6: that's when we really, you know, little by little, start
Speaker 6: to realize that she's been living in a secret hell.
Speaker 6: And now we're seeing it play out because now it's
Speaker 6: not behind closed doors. It's happening in other places. And
Speaker 6: Cheryl's letting us in.
Speaker 2: To counter her attempts to get custody of the children,
Speaker 2: and he threatens that he will get custody of the
Speaker 2: children himself. What are some of the things he does,
Speaker 2: you say, the dirty tricks that he does to try
Speaker 2: to attempt to get some leverage in this custody case.
Speaker 6: You know, one of the first things. I think there
Speaker 6: were probably multiple well I know there are multiple altercations
Speaker 6: in the marriage, but now we're at this point, there's altercations,
Speaker 6: and she's decided, you know, if she's really going to
Speaker 6: do this. I had coached her on you know, here,
Speaker 6: I am a young lawyer, but I've learned one thing,
Speaker 6: and that is, if you're going to go into a
Speaker 6: custody battle, you better document it all, you know, And
Speaker 6: so I had coached her on that. Get a notebook,
Speaker 6: I don't care what it is, and write it down,
Speaker 6: write it all down, just keep track of it because someday,
Speaker 6: if you have to testify it or comes up, it's
Speaker 6: going to be really important. And again, very dutifully, she
Speaker 6: picked up her kindergartens spider Man notebook and started taking
Speaker 6: notes in it, dating it and taking notes. And she's
Speaker 6: a nurse, and so you read this, and you know,
Speaker 6: I call it her journal. It's really not a diary,
Speaker 6: and it's written a lot like you know, she's documenting
Speaker 6: a case, you know, in the hospital, or document patients care.
Speaker 6: And she even uses some of the same symbols and stuff.
Speaker 6: But she's she's because she is a nurse. I think
Speaker 6: she's able to be very factually detailed and she's very graphic,
Speaker 6: but it's unemotional that she just documents everything. So she
Speaker 6: has started to document all of this and so now
Speaker 6: she's telling me a bits and pieces. But in hindsight,
Speaker 6: I've been able to read the entire journal. And he
Speaker 6: knew the kids were her soft spot, and so he
Speaker 6: just kept telling her, you know, you're a bad mother.
Speaker 6: Every time they get a bruise or a cut or
Speaker 6: a scratch, I'm taking a picture. I'm going to tell
Speaker 6: everybody you've abused your children, that you're abusive I'm gonna
Speaker 6: tell people that you're using drugs. An accused her of
Speaker 6: drug abuse. You know, I'm going to tell people you're
Speaker 6: having an affair. It was just I think, in my mind,
Speaker 6: in hindsight, I think everything that he was doing he
Speaker 6: accused her of and said she was doing. And so
Speaker 6: she was always on the defensive, and it was always about,
Speaker 6: oh my god, I can't you know. This child's falling down.
Speaker 6: He's got a bruise on his face. He takes a
Speaker 6: picture of it. She's like, you know, he just fell.
Speaker 6: He's three years old and he's rambunctious and he fell,
Speaker 6: you know. But she was always on the defensive and
Speaker 6: just trying to be perfect and starting to run around
Speaker 6: and go, Okay, he's saying I use drugs. I'm going
Speaker 6: to go have a drug test and you know, find
Speaker 6: out that I don't use drugs, and he says I'm
Speaker 6: doing this and I'm going to prove him wrong. And
Speaker 6: it just was continually escalating with to the point where
Speaker 6: there's altercations, the cops are called. There's a battery charge
Speaker 6: against him, but he files the first motion for a
Speaker 6: restraining order because she fought back right, and he gets
Speaker 6: the first restraining order. It's like here, he is always
Speaker 6: kind of one step ahead of her. But then there's
Speaker 6: there's more abuse, and and she goes and gets a
Speaker 6: restraining order, and then there's you know, more abuse, and
Speaker 6: the judge enters a mutual restraining order. Buddy says, Okay,
Speaker 6: I'm going to leave the kids in the house, but
Speaker 6: both of you and you will rotate in and out
Speaker 6: out of the house every three and a half days.
Speaker 6: Very different back then, they wouldn't do that today. But
Speaker 6: now you've got the same people living in the same
Speaker 6: home with the same access you know, in and out
Speaker 6: of the house. And then you know, so and while
Speaker 6: all this is happening, she's she's calling me. She's given
Speaker 6: me permission to talk to her attorney so I can
Speaker 6: try and you know, cut through some of the legal
Speaker 6: jargon or help him help her. Because she also didn't have,
Speaker 6: you know, any money, and I wanted to save her
Speaker 6: money if I could help, you know, say, fees and expenses.
Speaker 6: So it was just it was very intense where she's
Speaker 6: calling me, and then she's also leaning a lot on
Speaker 6: my mother, and my mother's calling me, you know, so
Speaker 6: oftentimes it would be you know, a call from Cheryl
Speaker 6: and a call from my mother, and it was almost
Speaker 6: the same story. Cheryl would never ask for help, but
Speaker 6: she's telling me these things that I'm trying to help her.
Speaker 6: And then my mother would call and say, did you
Speaker 6: talk to Cheryl today? Do you know what happened to
Speaker 6: her today? And what he's doing? And you know what
Speaker 6: can we do about this? And we've got to make
Speaker 6: him stop. This is awful. You know, bad things are
Speaker 6: going to happen. And that just takes that escalation path
Speaker 6: up to the point of I like to say there
Speaker 6: was an altercation where now I refer to it as
Speaker 6: the first time he tried to kill her. She he's
Speaker 6: in the home, he's got the children, her smallest one
Speaker 6: have has asthma, and he calls and says, you know,
Speaker 6: he's coughing. He probably should come by on your way
Speaker 6: home from work and check on him. She's like, well, no,
Speaker 6: I really shouldn't. I'm it's not my turn to be
Speaker 6: in the house. Oh it's okay. I promise, it's okay.
Speaker 6: You can come in the house. She calls a couple
Speaker 6: of times. I'm gonna I'm not going to get off
Speaker 6: on time. I'm going to be too late. I shouldn't come.
Speaker 6: He begs her to come. So she ends up stopping
Speaker 6: by and the lights are off, but she walks in
Speaker 6: the house and he you know, she doesn't even know
Speaker 6: that anybody's really there, and he comes up behind her
Speaker 6: and gets her into the bedroom where he has already
Speaker 6: tied yellow rope to the head of the bed, to
Speaker 6: the headboard, and you know, ends up tying her up
Speaker 6: on the bed and sexually assaulting her. And you know,
Speaker 6: the the kids are there, all three of them are there.
Speaker 6: She was allowed at one point early or to soul
Speaker 6: a child and put him back in bed, but they're
Speaker 6: they're you know, this is a small house. There are
Speaker 6: just a few feet one door, you know, down in
Speaker 6: another bedroom. So that she writes of that, and in
Speaker 6: in her journal she actually says, you know, I've always
Speaker 6: been able to talk him down and talk him out
Speaker 6: of it, but I saw the look in his eyes
Speaker 6: and I knew it could really kill me. And so
Speaker 6: to me, that was the first time where she really was.
Speaker 6: She always thought she could handle him, and she would
Speaker 6: say that to me, I can handle him, I can
Speaker 6: I can handle it. I can deal with this. But
Speaker 6: I think she really this time gets scared. She has
Speaker 6: managed to get away, he grabs her. You know, it's
Speaker 6: like a horror movie. She's trying to run to the
Speaker 6: door and he's grabbing her jacket and stuff and gets
Speaker 6: her and bends her over the back of the couch
Speaker 6: and has a piece of paper and he's written on there,
Speaker 6: I consented to have sex that consensual sex with you.
Speaker 6: And he wants her to sign this paper and she's like,
Speaker 6: I'm not signing it. I'm not signing anything. And they're
Speaker 6: fighting to get away. She finally gets out a front
Speaker 6: door and doesn't get in her car, which is sitting
Speaker 6: in the driveway. I think she's just too terrified. And
Speaker 6: she runs like a quarter mile down the road to
Speaker 6: the neighbor's house and bangs on the door and they
Speaker 6: open it and let her in, and the cops are called.
Speaker 6: And now he's arrested again and this time charged with
Speaker 6: aggravated criminal sexual assault. You know, so again this case
Speaker 6: is really escalated. But I could remember calling her like
Speaker 6: the next day and hearing this all from her, hearing
Speaker 6: this from my mother and saying, but Cheryl, I know
Speaker 6: that was awful, but sometimes bad things have to happen.
Speaker 6: Before something good can happen. And I'm sorry, but with
Speaker 6: that having happened, you are not going to lose custody
Speaker 6: to your kids. This is it. He's done himself in
Speaker 6: and that was her biggest fear. So to me, this
Speaker 6: was okay, he's now shown himself. She doesn't have to
Speaker 6: worry about custody, so she was. She's pretty thrilled with that.
Speaker 6: Then she goes at her attorney's requests to get an
Speaker 6: emergency order, you know, of custody. This guy's trying to
Speaker 6: kill her. He shouldn't have custody of the kids. And
Speaker 6: so there is a hearing which ends up being super
Speaker 6: instrumental because they put her on the stand and she
Speaker 6: testifies to that night, you know, very immediately after it happens,
Speaker 6: and goes through everything personally about what he tried to
Speaker 6: do to her and her injuries and how terrified she
Speaker 6: was of him, and that hearing happens, and the judge
Speaker 6: at the end of it grants her temporary custody, sole
Speaker 6: and exclusive cussy of the children in the home and
Speaker 6: only awarded him supervised visitation, so he didn't even have
Speaker 6: just standard visitation. He had to be with another member
Speaker 6: of Department Children Family Services to visit the children. So again,
Speaker 6: Cheryl and I are pretty elated with you know, now
Speaker 6: this has happened, and we're it looks like she's things
Speaker 6: are going to fall in place. And she started to
Speaker 6: get a little bit i'd almost say cocky because she
Speaker 6: was proud of herself. She didn't know that she could
Speaker 6: get through this. It was awful. And now she's kind
Speaker 6: of got the upper hand because she's got cussy of
Speaker 6: the kids and you know, he's that's she's going to
Speaker 6: win on that point. She's going to get the kids.
Speaker 6: And you know, now we know right when you're trying
Speaker 6: to get away, that's probably the time when you're in
Speaker 6: the most danger. But she started making plans for the
Speaker 6: future and you know, getting very excited, started packing his
Speaker 6: things and putting him in in an area of the house,
Speaker 6: and started even delivering, you know, having his mother come
Speaker 6: pick up some things of his. She started to I
Speaker 6: need another car because I my car does a good,
Speaker 6: good gas mileage, and I'm afraid I won't be able
Speaker 6: to afford it on my own, So she was looking
Speaker 6: for that. She knew she couldn't afford the house, so
Speaker 6: she was looking for an apartment. She had gone to
Speaker 6: a local furniture store and put a bed on layaway
Speaker 6: because it was super important to her not to sleep
Speaker 6: in that same marital bed. She wanted a new bed.
Speaker 6: You know, Halloween is coming up, and she's ordered the
Speaker 6: kids Halloween costumes and she's really starting. I'm starting to
Speaker 6: see my old Cheryl back where there's a little sparkle
Speaker 6: in her eye again and a little spunk, and I
Speaker 6: think she sees light at the end of the tunnel, right.
Speaker 2: It looks like that Gregis realizes though, that these charges
Speaker 2: that are coming up, this trial and pending could land
Speaker 2: him in prison and without the custody of his boys
Speaker 2: as well. Let's use this as an opportunity, Renee to
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Speaker 2: hire now, Renee, we were just talking about the lead
Speaker 2: up to this incredible murder let's talk about what happens
Speaker 2: just before this October fifth, nineteen ninety leading up to this,
Speaker 2: tell us what happens and how you hear about it.
Speaker 6: So, you know, Cheryl and I have had our little celebration.
Speaker 6: She's making her plans to go forward. My mom's a
Speaker 6: little bit relieved to up to that point. I mean,
Speaker 6: I'm like, gosh, she's going to kill her, and my
Speaker 6: mom thought, you know, he's going to kill her. And
Speaker 6: then when he did try, we're like, oh my god,
Speaker 6: he was really going to kill her. But we're feeling
Speaker 6: a little bit of relief. But he's not gonna you know,
Speaker 6: he's not going to let this go. He'd already told
Speaker 6: her if I can't have you, no one else can.
Speaker 6: He'd made, you know, very specific threats to her. So
Speaker 6: I'm now thinking though that there's a bit of a reprieve,
Speaker 6: and my parents are too. But October fifth, I'm in
Speaker 6: Florida working for a law firm. I remember specifically the
Speaker 6: case I was working on, and I just hung up
Speaker 6: the telephone and you know, felt somebody looking at me
Speaker 6: and looked up in my doorway and there was my husband,
Speaker 6: he was standing there, and for him I'm like, what
Speaker 6: in the world, because that was very out of place, right,
Speaker 6: he didn't belong in my doorway and shorts and a
Speaker 6: T shirt during the middle of the morning. And I
Speaker 6: could tell that he had, you know, like tears. I
Speaker 6: dried tears on his face. And I looked at him,
Speaker 6: and I mean, my initial reaction was I I screamed.
Speaker 6: I screamed he killed her, didn't he? I knew he
Speaker 6: was going to kill her. I told you he was
Speaker 6: going to kill her. He killed her, didn't he? And
Speaker 6: he just looked at me and shook his head. Yes. So,
Speaker 6: And he hadn't even said anything. He just appeared and
Speaker 6: I gathered my things and ran out of there. And
Speaker 6: you know, back then, we didn't have cell phones, and
Speaker 6: so I'm like, you know what happened. He's like, Lisa
Speaker 6: called me, they found Cheryl dead. We've got to go home,
Speaker 6: pack our stuff and get to Illinois. And you know,
Speaker 6: right then, I'm trying to, okay, trying to figure out
Speaker 6: the details. He doesn't know many of the details. I
Speaker 6: have an hour drive from where he picked me up
Speaker 6: back to where we live, and I'm like, what about
Speaker 6: the boys? Who has the boys? Does my mom and dad, know,
Speaker 6: I had fifty thousand questions, and the poor guy, you know,
Speaker 6: a shell shock to hear and then had to drive
Speaker 6: an hour to come pick me up and take me back,
Speaker 6: and you know, we're trying to figure out how we're
Speaker 6: going to get plane tickets that day back to Illinois,
Speaker 6: and I had just gotten out of law school and
Speaker 6: worried about the costs and all of that. But we
Speaker 6: when I get back to our condo, I call my
Speaker 6: sister and the first thing was where are the boys?
Speaker 6: And she said, you know, Jackie has them, that's the neighbor.
Speaker 6: And I'm like, okay, you gotta go get them. You
Speaker 6: got to go get the boys and hide the boys.
Speaker 6: I don't know what's happening, what's going on, but we've
Speaker 6: got to keep them safe. And I'm thinking in my mind,
Speaker 6: you know, Greg may have taken them from the scene
Speaker 6: or not, and we need to make sure that they're safe.
Speaker 6: Because I then find out that that morning, Cheryl didn't
Speaker 6: show up for work. She was a nurse, She was
Speaker 6: supposed to be there for her shift change. She was
Speaker 6: always you know, timely and didn't ever not show up.
Speaker 6: And the nurses that she worked with, you know, she
Speaker 6: can find a little bits and pieces in a lot
Speaker 6: of different people, but not a lot in everybody or
Speaker 6: any one person. And when she didn't show, one of
Speaker 6: the ladies got so concerned that she called Cheryl's house
Speaker 6: and nobody answered, and so that concerned her, you know,
Speaker 6: even more. She hung up, called back and let it
Speaker 6: ring again, and this time a child answered, and she
Speaker 6: recognized it as being Cheryl's oldest, so he would have
Speaker 6: been six, And she asked, you know, where's your mommy.
Speaker 6: He said, I don't know, and she said, well, put
Speaker 6: down the phone, go look for your mommy. Find your mommy.
Speaker 6: Neither bring her back to the phone or come back
Speaker 6: to the phone and tell me where she's at. And
Speaker 6: so he was gone for what she says, seemed like forever.
Speaker 6: I'm sure it wasn't that long. But he came back
Speaker 6: to the phone and almost he was almost proud. He says,
Speaker 6: I found my mommy. She's asleep in the garage with
Speaker 6: a rope around her net. And immediately the nurse kept
Speaker 6: him on the phone and then had another nurse dial
Speaker 6: nine one one. Now. That night, interestingly enough, Greg had
Speaker 6: stayed overnight with his grandparents, who lived about you know,
Speaker 6: a block or two little blocks in Mansfield, away from
Speaker 6: his parents, where he'd been staying. He later testifies in
Speaker 6: a deposition that he hasn't stayed with his grandparents since
Speaker 6: he was like eleven, so now he's stayed overnight with
Speaker 6: his elderly grandparents who are hard of hearing. And that morning,
Speaker 6: he was on vacation because it's fall, and he's a
Speaker 6: big hunter and he always goes hunting, but he took
Speaker 6: the vacation, he didn't go, and he and his grandfather
Speaker 6: go to the firehouse where he's a volunteer fireman and
Speaker 6: a volunteer EMT And at six am, you know, they're
Speaker 6: there at the firehouse washing his personal vehicle because it
Speaker 6: has mud on it. And he's there and takes the
Speaker 6: call that comes in that there is an emergency at
Speaker 6: this presidence, which he recognizes as his residence, and so
Speaker 6: he is in an emergency vehicle and one of the
Speaker 6: first people to respond to the scene. The guy that's
Speaker 6: with him wasn't driving. Greg was driving, and he recalls
Speaker 6: very clearly having to tell Greg when they're speeding out
Speaker 6: of town towards their house, you know, shift the truck.
Speaker 6: You don't have it in the right year. You got
Speaker 6: to put it in the right year, you know. And
Speaker 6: they get out there, and as soon as he puts
Speaker 6: his feet on the ground. Now mind you, there's no
Speaker 6: call that has been made that says something's happened to
Speaker 6: Cheryl or a female is unresponsive or anything. And there's
Speaker 6: three little boys that live in the house and one
Speaker 6: has asthma, and Greg puts his feet on the ground
Speaker 6: and wants to know what she did, now, you know,
Speaker 6: And so people at the scene who have now you know,
Speaker 6: the neighbor is there too, he's the EMT. He knows
Speaker 6: prior stuff. And they are like Keick being Greg away.
Speaker 6: And they run in the house through a garage and
Speaker 6: don't find Cheryl, but bring the boys out and don't
Speaker 6: realize until like a second attempt into the house that
Speaker 6: she's in the garage. And there was a rope or
Speaker 6: a metal pipe over rafters in an opening in the
Speaker 6: garage where he used to hang in dress deer and
Speaker 6: there was a nylon rope there. And at first they
Speaker 6: don't see anything, and there's a ladder there, but then
Speaker 6: there's Cheryl, you know, with her rear end on the
Speaker 6: floor but her torso suspended about six inches from the
Speaker 6: ground with the rope rapperal tight three times around her neck.
Speaker 6: You know of looks like, you know, there's a ladder.
Speaker 6: Did she commit suicide? What happened? But she's laying on
Speaker 6: the ground, you know, And so the county cops had come,
Speaker 6: but they Gregg's family was involved with the county police force,
Speaker 6: and so Illinois State Police had been called in for
Speaker 6: the crime scene. So, you know, this investigation starts. And
Speaker 6: to me and the others who knew the story of
Speaker 6: what Cheryl had been going through, there was there was
Speaker 6: no question in the beginning. We never questioned any of it.
Speaker 6: Of course, he was going to be arrested for her murder,
Speaker 6: right but that didn't happen right away.
Speaker 2: What was one of the things, what was one of
Speaker 2: the important things that was found on the floor in
Speaker 2: the pool area behind the door leading to the garage.
Speaker 6: Well, there were a couple pieces of evidence that to
Speaker 6: me were just really tailtale, and one of them was
Speaker 6: behind the door from the house to the garage. A
Speaker 6: used condom was found, so that was collected as evidence.
Speaker 6: You know, Greg later tried to allege that oh, yeah,
Speaker 6: she just you know, was having sex with people and
Speaker 6: would leave those lay around, even though she had three boys.
Speaker 6: I mean, it was just to me that it was absurd.
Speaker 6: And the other piece of evidence they found was a
Speaker 6: tip of a rober glove and the wraps of rope
Speaker 6: around her neck, but yet she didn't have rubber gloves on.
Speaker 6: And then another little piece was found under the ladder.
Speaker 6: Another tip of the rubber glove was found under the ladder,
Speaker 6: And so with just you know, those few little pieces
Speaker 6: of evidence, I'm like, oh my god, you should arrest him.
Speaker 6: He's he's killed her this time. I mean, we all
Speaker 6: know he tried to kill her a few weeks ago,
Speaker 6: and this time he was successful.
Speaker 2: Sure, but.
Speaker 6: You know, now we're a few weeks out and no
Speaker 6: charges have been filed, and we're primarily worried about the
Speaker 6: kids and trying to get custody of them. And in Illinois,
Speaker 6: at that time, even though Greg had had Cheryl had
Speaker 6: been awarded custody, the final divorce decree had not been signed,
Speaker 6: so they were not divorced, and a living parent was.
Speaker 6: You know, they were like little pieces of property. They
Speaker 6: just automatically reverted to him because she's now dead, and
Speaker 6: at that time, in Illinois, grandparents didn't have what we
Speaker 6: call standing, which is really the right to bring a
Speaker 6: suit if a parent was alive. You know, it was
Speaker 6: presumed in Illinois that the parents should have custody, not
Speaker 6: a grandparent. And so we took the kids, We hit
Speaker 6: the kids out, and we went to court and it
Speaker 6: was the same judge that had been involved in everything.
Speaker 6: And you know, you have to know that this guy
Speaker 6: has now listened to her testimony and he probably has
Speaker 6: a pretty good suspicion too of what happened, and he
Speaker 6: just does award custody, temporary custody under shelter care. Hearing
Speaker 6: to my parents, so we have temporary custody of the kids.
Speaker 6: So there's so much going on. We're trying to protect children,
Speaker 6: were trying to grieve, We're trying to bury my sister.
Speaker 6: He's not been arrested. We're terrified of him. We personally
Speaker 6: were afraid of him. We knew he had killed her, like,
Speaker 6: oh my god, my parents were afraid of him. So
Speaker 6: they're just all these dynamics going on. It was again
Speaker 6: just intense and crazy. We'd live that, you know, a
Speaker 6: few weeks from I'm leaving him. So he tries to
Speaker 6: kill her, so he kills her of intensity, and now
Speaker 6: it seems like it's starting all over again, and this
Speaker 6: time we're afraid for the children, were afraid for ourselves.
Speaker 6: So it was just crazy. And that aggravated criminal sexual
Speaker 6: assault case was pending and it was supposed to be
Speaker 6: going to trial, and I had told the state's attorney,
Speaker 6: I'm like, well, you know, if you're not going to
Speaker 6: charge him with murder, you got to take this to trial.
Speaker 6: I mean, we know he did this. You can't let
Speaker 6: that go. And so he did take that to trial.
Speaker 6: There was a lot of publicity on it. It got
Speaker 6: moved to a different county. There was a lot of
Speaker 6: arguments over whether the jury should be told by the
Speaker 6: victim isn't at her trial. You know, well, of course
Speaker 6: you need to tell them she's dead. She can't be there.
Speaker 6: She just you know, you think, well, she doesn't want
Speaker 6: to cooperate, she doesn't want to pursue the charges, so
Speaker 6: she doesn't show up. No, she can't show up. She's dead.
Speaker 6: So finally the jury has read a statement that says
Speaker 6: she's deceased, but nothing else. That trial lasts a week
Speaker 6: and he was acquitted. He was acquitted of that. Those
Speaker 6: aggravated criminal sexual assault charges. And I think that's another
Speaker 6: instrumental part to me because I think the state, the
Speaker 6: state's attorney was devastated. I'm sure he was. I was devastated.
Speaker 6: How could that have happened? How could the jury let
Speaker 6: him go? And back then we you know, I don't
Speaker 6: ever remember. I don't think we ever talked to the
Speaker 6: jury or pulled the jury. I don't know anything. But
Speaker 6: I think that kind of played into the length of
Speaker 6: time because the state's attorney would say to me, Renee,
Speaker 6: there's no murder. There's no statute of limitations on murder.
Speaker 6: Meaning if we don't arrest him in a year or
Speaker 6: five years or ten years, it doesn't matter. You can
Speaker 6: always be arrested for murder, you know, no matter how
Speaker 6: much time goes by. And that's he would say, you know,
Speaker 6: we believe other people are involved or know something, and
Speaker 6: they're going to break and they're going to that's going
Speaker 6: to make the case, and that's when something's going to happen.
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Speaker 2: But Jesus has an opportunity to stop for a second
Speaker 2: for these messages. Now you talked about you thought that
Speaker 2: something was bound to happen. Roger Simpsons, state's attorney says,
Speaker 2: there's bound somebody's bound to say something somebody's about there's
Speaker 2: something could possibly happen. Now, let's fast forward to how
Speaker 2: many years it took and the different people involved tell
Speaker 2: us fast forward to the events precipitating and a change
Speaker 2: in the status of this case.
Speaker 6: So you know, we always wanted him to be arrested,
Speaker 6: but again primary concern is cut. So the boys filed
Speaker 6: the civil wrongful death case to gain custody. Ultimately did
Speaker 6: get custody of the boys. My parents would go every
Speaker 6: year to the state's attorney and you know, anything new
Speaker 6: in the case, anything going to happen. Same old story,
Speaker 6: same old story. Now Roger Simpson has retired and his
Speaker 6: assistant takes over for a while, and then a young
Speaker 6: woman challenges him the assistant, and becomes state's attorney. The
Speaker 6: interesting thing is this young woman, whose name is Dana Rhodes,
Speaker 6: was a senior in Illinois State University when Cheryl was killed,
Speaker 6: and she had had aspirations to go to law school
Speaker 6: and to be a state's attorney and even maybe a
Speaker 6: judge in that county. She'd had family that had done
Speaker 6: that and she wanted to follow in those footsteps. And
Speaker 6: she remembered standing in her kitchen home on break and
Speaker 6: her parents talking about Cheryl's murder or Cheryl's death, and
Speaker 6: she remembers her parents saying that poor girl didn't commit suicide,
Speaker 6: because Hawser's always said she committed suicide. You know, she
Speaker 6: was murdered. And Dana vowed at that time that if
Speaker 6: she ever did become state's attorney in that county and
Speaker 6: this case was still pending, she would solve it. She
Speaker 6: would take it to trial. And that's what she did.
Speaker 6: She became state's attorney. Unknown to us, she picked that
Speaker 6: case back up and started literally going through the file
Speaker 6: and dusting it off and working with the Illinois State
Speaker 6: Police and really getting the case ready to go to
Speaker 6: be charged and go to trial. We don't know any
Speaker 6: of this until she comes to me and says that
Speaker 6: she has picked the case back up and she needs
Speaker 6: DNA evidence from the boys, And I'm like, what, we're
Speaker 6: really the far along and why would you need their
Speaker 6: DNA evidence. Well, there's a spot of blood that's been
Speaker 6: found on her nightgown and we can't match now any
Speaker 6: DNA to anybody, you know, So who's to her? That
Speaker 6: was the reasonable doubt that could be raised in the case.
Speaker 6: And she really wanted to nail that down, zip that
Speaker 6: up before she went to trial so she didn't have
Speaker 6: to worry about them saying the killer still out there,
Speaker 6: here's the blood, you know, and raising that reasonable doubt.
Speaker 6: And so then I'm left to call the boys, who
Speaker 6: are you know, now in their late twenties and who
Speaker 6: have never been told that we think their dad killed
Speaker 6: their mom because you can't tell them that, and then
Speaker 6: put them in a car and say have a good visit,
Speaker 6: because they were still having to visit him because he'd
Speaker 6: never been arrested or convicted and she we worked on that.
Speaker 6: We've all started to get involved. I dusted out my
Speaker 6: files again. Dana literally made a personal trip to my
Speaker 6: home and picked up everything I had saved and including
Speaker 6: boxes from Cheryl's divorce attorney who had passed away, and
Speaker 6: as the guy's wife had given all the files to
Speaker 6: my parents. And now I'm re engaged and we're gonna
Speaker 6: I think it's going to happen. It was terrifying. I
Speaker 6: had conversations with my sisters on should we do this?
Speaker 6: Is it worth it? Can my parents take this? What
Speaker 6: if we go to trial and he's acquitted again, is
Speaker 6: it worth it? Can we take it? You know, all
Speaker 6: these different emotions going through you and all these years,
Speaker 6: and it was what my mom had lived for and
Speaker 6: justice for her daughter, you know, and to see that,
Speaker 6: and she's now in her eighties and she didn't think
Speaker 6: she would ever see that. And so while they were afraid,
Speaker 6: they were we were all in. The whole family was in,
Speaker 6: and we're going to support the state's attorney and go
Speaker 6: forward with this. So by July of twenty seventeen, Greg
Speaker 6: had been arrested in I think it was twenty sixteen,
Speaker 6: and the case went to trial, almost twenty seven years
Speaker 6: to the date after her death, went to trial and
Speaker 6: he was finally convicted.
Speaker 2: Let's go backwards a little bit to this incredible trial, though.
Speaker 2: The one thing you find out many things in this
Speaker 2: and one of the crucial things is we talked about
Speaker 2: this DNA and the reason for the boys being tested.
Speaker 2: And you also say that one of the boys was
Speaker 2: vehement that he did not want to participate and he
Speaker 2: was going to get an attorney, so this is a
Speaker 2: disturbing event for him to consider. But there was also
Speaker 2: a person named Walt Rhor tell us about Walt Rohor
Speaker 2: and what Elizabeth and what Elizabeth finds out and her
Speaker 2: boss about his role in this.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so back then the DNA evidence wasn't near as
Speaker 6: sophisticated as it is now, and they tested the DNA
Speaker 6: from the condom inside outside and there was just certain
Speaker 6: probability that you couldn't exclude either one of them. You know,
Speaker 6: it wasn't extremely conclusive. But now the DNA has changed,
Speaker 6: when Dana and Elizabeth are ready to take this case
Speaker 6: to trial again and they've sent it back into the
Speaker 6: crime lab, and now we know that the DNA on
Speaker 6: the inside is his and on the outside it's hers.
Speaker 6: So that was another instrumental piece of evidence in the
Speaker 6: trial is that it's not all circumstantial. You have physical
Speaker 6: evidence now that connects him to the scene. And so
Speaker 6: this starts to come out about this DNA evidence. And
Speaker 6: when we were trying to figure out the DNA from
Speaker 6: the blood stain on the nightgown, there were lots of
Speaker 6: people who were requested to provide blood samples that had
Speaker 6: been around her because it could have been the boys,
Speaker 6: it could have been my father, it could have been
Speaker 6: other male friends. And we had asked them, and people
Speaker 6: were very cooperative, and everybody was excluded. Walt Rohrer, who
Speaker 6: had been in Muhammad, which is a neighboring town of
Speaker 6: Pharmacity of Mansfield on the fire department, but new Greg
Speaker 6: and new Cheryl and was a friend of Cheryl's, came
Speaker 6: forward to Elizabeth and was concerned that his DNA might
Speaker 6: be discovered. He didn't understand DNA and he was concerned,
Speaker 6: and so he approached Elizabeth and confessed to her that
Speaker 6: he had had a sexual encounter with Cheryl once that
Speaker 6: he was consoling her, and you know, one thing led
Speaker 6: to another and it went, you know, to the point
Speaker 6: where they had a sexual encounter, and he was concerned
Speaker 6: that perhaps they would find his DNA and he didn't
Speaker 6: want to be accused of her murder. And so here
Speaker 6: we find out that I was adamant, way back when
Speaker 6: Greg had been accusing her of having an affair, that
Speaker 6: there's no way she had an affair because when would
Speaker 6: she have time. I mean, she's working, she's got three boys,
Speaker 6: and she's fighting him off on all these different things.
Speaker 6: So we kind of had that to face. It was
Speaker 6: a little shocking at first, but then you know, I
Speaker 6: had moments where I thought, well, good for her. I
Speaker 6: hope she had a one sexual encounter that wasn't just
Speaker 6: a flat rate, because so many of them that were
Speaker 6: chronicled in her journal were just it was nothing that rape. Yeah,
Speaker 6: so that was an interesting fact that came came out
Speaker 6: in the trial. But he, you know, he did testify
Speaker 6: and the jury didn't it wasn't his DNA. His DNA
Speaker 6: didn't match the spot on the nightgown or you know,
Speaker 6: in the condom or outside the condom or anything else.
Speaker 6: So he was never never a suspect in the case.
Speaker 6: Felt I felt bad for him, though we didn't really
Speaker 6: know him, and I always wanted to talk to him.
Speaker 6: I did afterwards sent him a thank you note because
Speaker 6: I know from her notes and some notes that I
Speaker 6: found later that he he listened to her, and I
Speaker 6: think he did provide her with a lot of empathy
Speaker 6: and compassion and showed that to her. And up until
Speaker 6: the book was released, I had had out on my
Speaker 6: list and I wanted to talk to him. But Walt
Speaker 6: has since passed away, so I will never get that opportunity, right.
Speaker 2: So tell us about the sentence and tell us about
Speaker 2: his behavior. What did he act like throughout?
Speaker 6: You know, he did not he plied the fifth, He
Speaker 6: did not take the stand. I watched him intently during
Speaker 6: the trial because I wanted to see him and what
Speaker 6: he did. He wrote notes, occasionally, he had little smirks
Speaker 6: on his face. Occasionally there were really graphic photos and
Speaker 6: we got into the forensic expert testimony, and I just
Speaker 6: I wanted to see what he would do, you know,
Speaker 6: what look would be on his face looking at those
Speaker 6: or would he look at them? He had no problem
Speaker 6: staring right at the big screen where those pictures were
Speaker 6: being displayed, without any look on his face, just nothing,
Speaker 6: And that always just was I don't know, I don't
Speaker 6: even know how to describe that, but how can you
Speaker 6: do that to somebodey and then you know have had
Speaker 6: their three children with them and have no emotion. But
Speaker 6: there was nothing. And when he was convicted, there was
Speaker 6: really nothing, nothing from him. They led him away, put
Speaker 6: him in the policeman outside sentencing hearing was scheduled. That
Speaker 6: was fascinating because you get the call witnesses for sentencing
Speaker 6: and we got to read impact statements and prior girlfriends
Speaker 6: came kind of out of the woodwork and testified at
Speaker 6: a sentencing hearing as to their subsequent relationships with him
Speaker 6: and their abuse, the abuse they suffered at his hands
Speaker 6: and subsequent relationships. It was really I mean again, I
Speaker 6: felt terrible for these women, but yet thankful that they
Speaker 6: came and testified on our behalf. And again he has
Speaker 6: no emotion during any of this. My mom, who was
Speaker 6: eighty eighty years old, read her own impact statement right
Speaker 6: there to the judge and just talked to him. It
Speaker 6: was amazing. She did an incredible job. And then at
Speaker 6: the end of it, she held up a big photograph
Speaker 6: of my sister and her nurse's outfit and you know,
Speaker 6: he just nothing, nothing from him. But the judge was
Speaker 6: incredible and just very you could tell he put so
Speaker 6: much time and attention and thought into every word he
Speaker 6: said during the entire trial and all of his motions
Speaker 6: and his final ruling for the sentencing. He had to
Speaker 6: be sentenced under the guidelines that were in place back then,
Speaker 6: so they were not near as strict as they would
Speaker 6: be today. But he calculated all the time that he
Speaker 6: had already served and that he might get for you know,
Speaker 6: good behavior and all these various credits that he could
Speaker 6: get against his sentence, and he sentenced him it was
Speaker 6: actually four years ago yesterday, the sixth of September, to
Speaker 6: fifty four years in prison. And he explained that he
Speaker 6: came up with those fifty four years because with all
Speaker 6: the credits that he could possibly get, he would spend
Speaker 6: he would have to spend at least twenty seven years
Speaker 6: behind bars, and the judge thought it was important that
Speaker 6: he spent one year behind bars for every year he'd
Speaker 6: walked free since he killed her. And it's just an amazing,
Speaker 6: an amazing end to the long story. And I think
Speaker 6: it was with that sentencing that these weights that we
Speaker 6: didn't even realize. I didn't realize that we're sitting on
Speaker 6: my shoulders just just lifted. And my sisters and I
Speaker 6: look back and we say often that you know, that
Speaker 6: sentence added ten years to my mom and dad's life.
Speaker 6: And my mom has even said to me recently, it
Speaker 6: used to be that there wasn't a day that went
Speaker 6: by that she didn't think about Cheryl and have tears
Speaker 6: for Cheryl. And now some days go by and she
Speaker 6: doesn't even think about her. Wow, and it you know,
Speaker 6: it's not because she's forgotten about her. It's just because
Speaker 6: it doesn't weigh on her like it used to. And
Speaker 6: you don't realize, we didn't realize how impactful it all
Speaker 6: was until it wasn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you capture that all that personal journey keeping
Speaker 2: some of the information back from your parents because you
Speaker 2: didn't want to give them false hope. I want to
Speaker 2: thank you very much, Renee Fair for coming on and
Speaker 2: talking about the Wheels of Justice, the true story of
Speaker 2: a twenty seven year battle to convict my sister's killer.
Speaker 2: I know that Brian Whitney helped out with this book,
Speaker 2: and I know it's a wild Blue Press release. Is
Speaker 2: there a Facebook page for this and was there any
Speaker 2: website people might find out more about this book.
Speaker 6: Yes, while Blue Press has information under the Wheels of Justice,
Speaker 6: I have a website Renee Fair dot com for Fair
Speaker 6: Advocacy and Consultation. I do some advocacy for domestic violence
Speaker 6: against domestic violence, and I have a Facebook business page
Speaker 6: Underfair Advocacy and Consultation. There's all kinds of information out there.
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you so much, Renee Fair. The Wheels of Justice,
Speaker 2: the true story of a twenty seven year battle to
Speaker 2: convict my sister's killer. It's been a pleasure. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much for thee You have a great evening.
Speaker 6: Good night, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Bye, thank you bye.
Speaker 6: Wait.
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