Manhunt

[POLICE SCANNERS]

Carol:

The police scanners in TV23’s newsroom blasted at full volume. We couldn’t chance missing anything.

A search warrant. An arrest. Or – oh god - another attack.

We, like everybody else, were transfixed by what happened to this 44-year-old woman. We didn’t know Phyllis’ name yet. Police don’t release rape victims’ names to the press unless they have permission from the survivor.

So Phyllis remained a nameless, faceless mystery – except for what happened to her.

Some of us were mesmerized by the sensational nature of the crime. Mark Williamson was the anchor at TV23.

Mark:
There was this woman in Akron, Ohio that was, I don’t even what the word for it is…brutalized as an object of a vicious human being who hated women.

Carol:

As a young reporter, I struggled with what happened to this woman. I was still dealing with my own trauma – you know, that thing I don’t like to talk about out loud. Would never talk about out loud in any newsroom.

Mark:

When you came in to work in that newsroom and before that, it was all men. They smoked. They were crude. They were crass. They were terrible.

Carol:

And, at times, I tried to match them. I was crude. Tough. Morally challenged. I wanted to fit in. Be one of the boys. To prove I was up to the task – that what happened to me – would not have happened had I only been – smarter, tougher, cruder – just like them.

It never worked – professionally. I still had to do stuff I hated – like the weather and traffic reports. And – from the outside – some viewers judged me, not for my work, but for what I looked like. Suddenly I started to receive marriage proposals. WAKR’s general manager warned me a man thought I was his wife and to “be careful.” Viewers would call in to complain I dressed provocatively.

An article in the Akron Beacon Journal read, in part: “…Carol Costello [is] the woman most likely to make men drool on the remote control during the evening news in Northeast Ohio.”

It all made me doubt my abilities. And, worse – blame myself for everything.

Luckily, I had a champion: my boss at WAKR, Larry States. He trusted me to cover hard news too – that’s what people in the news biz call stories about the economy, severe weather, and crime.

I respected Larry. I did not want to let him down.

So, I sucked it up. I occasionally played weather girl and routinely did traffic reports for WAKR radio. In-between I did what I thought would fuel my reporting career: I answered the phones in the newsroom hoping for a news-laden tip.

Carol:

Hi this is Carol Costello/WAKR/TV23. Can I help you?


Caller:

I have some information on who attacked that lady.

Carol:

I’m listening.

Caller:

It’s a guy I know. He’s a doper. Prone to violence.

Carol:

What’s his name?

Caller:

Phil.

Carol:

How do you know this?

Caller:

Listen, I just know okay? I would’ve called the cops, but I can’t get through. You tell ‘em okay? I just want to help that lady.

[DIAL TONE]

Carol:

There were a lot of calls like that.

I’m reading from the police logs now. Here’s one from Everett, "Saw a guy hitchhiking that resembled the suspect." Another one from Charice – she claimed the suspect plays the numbers at the Carry-Out Corner Store. Here’s another one - from an anonymous caller: "Overheard a customer talking to Mickey. He saw the suspect yesterday."

They all sounded so pointless.

But there was something about the caller who mentioned Phil that made me pause. Or maybe I was too green to discount it, or maybe I just wanted to help, because I actually called the Akron Police Department and shared the information.

I came across my name in a police report from 1984. I’m ooking at it now - the entry says, “from Carol at WAKR.”

Akron police took every call seriously. They set up a special hotline and assigned someone to log every call that came in. And there were hundreds of them.

What detectives really needed, though, was to find the house where Phyllis had been attacked. They needed physical evidence – fingerprints, carpet fibers, the knife, witnesses.

Again – Phyllis’ powers of observation fueled the search.

The Freedom Flyer.

That black eagle on a house 2 streets over and a block away – that bright blue house Phyllis had glimpsed as she sat on the back porch – was critical. But not easy to find.

Police couldn’t put Phyllis in a car and drive her around – she couldn’t see.

More than 200,000 people lived in Akron in 1984.

There were no satellite images on Google Maps to pour through. Police had to physically go street by street. They drew graphs, took pictures but still…

Delores:
It would just be like a needle in a haystack and that's what it was, you know?

Carol:

Delores, was a Summit County Sheriff's Deputy in 1984.

Delores:
Each precinct had their own mission on trying to find this house, and what was across the street from it and stuff. But it was just constant, all hours on that. I don't think there's been nothing like it since.

Carol:

It was as if the entire city had mobilized into a giant crime-fighting army.

The outreach was overwhelming, but not nearly enough.

Because an incredibly dangerous man was still out there – somewhere.

I’m Carol Costello. This is Blind Rage: Episode 6: MANHUNT

Carol:

Detective Chis Contos and his partner sifted through hundreds of tips that had come through the switchboard.

Contos:

Public is the greatest thing. They're like detectives for us.

Carol:

They’d been briefed on what their fellow detectives and the cops on the street had gathered the night before. It was a lot to sort through – and they had to do it at record speed because the community – and media – pressure to snag a strong lead was intense.

Contos:

We made a plan to concentrate on this case and canvass the area, go to house to house, talk to all the witnesses.

Carol:

There was one tip – out of hundreds of tips - that intrigued them. It was from someone who worked in a neighborhood bar.

Carol:

Why was this bar of particular interest? Why did they believe this woman when she said that there was someone suspicious in the bar? Why did that stick out?

Contos:

Well, probably his description. Now this is a neighborhood bar. The guy has never been in there before. He was nervous, walking, pacing back and forth. He actually stopped somebody in the bar and said, are you going downtown? And the guy said, no, I'm going East, which is the opposite direction from there. And, he was just pacing back and forth. I mean, he was very nervous.

Carol:

And it was near where the car was dropped off.

Contos:

Yes. Probably about two, three blocks away if you go straight across.

Carol:

Contos and his partner wasted no time. They drove to the bar, called The 1286. Asked for a woman who called in a tip about the attack.

Contos:

She said, I'm the manager. And there was a bartender there, there was a Pepsi driver and there was also, Chili Mo.

Carol:

Ah…Chili Mo. I want you to remember that name.

Carol:

Chili mo was a patron?

Contos:

Yeah.

Carol:

A regular patron.

Contos:

Yeah.

Carol:

And just like the old sitcom, Cheers, The 1286 was a place where everybody knew your name. Especially Chili Mo. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

All of them – the manager, the bartender and Chili Mo – noticed the stranger who tore into the bar. He carried a gym bag. He was agitated. He took his hat off and put it back on 2 or 3 times. At one point he opened the gym bag – it made a metallic, clanking sound as he rummaged through it.

He calmed himself down, not with booze, but with – orange juice. He ordered 2 glasses at roughly 3:56 – 40 minutes after police responded to Phyllis’ burned -out car.

Then he made his way to a payphone – he made 2 calls. One of those calls would be his second mistake.

Carol:

And then, the bartender tells you the guy called a cab.

Carol:

That’s right. He called a cab.

Contos:

And to me, that was a greatest thing happened right there for us. The dumbest thing for him.

Carol:

Why was it the greatest thing for you that he called a cab?

Contos:

A cab drops you off someplace and you have an idea, and we could follow the trace, the description. I called my lieutenant. I said, “lieutenant could you call the cab company and find out where he was dropped off?”

Carol:

Done and done. The cab company told detectives a man named Ronald or Arnold had called for a ride.

Initially he wanted to go a Trailways bus station five miles away, but he suddenly changed his mind. The man who called himself, Ronald or Arnold, said he noticed a “friend” and wanted to be dropped off, like, now. Then he changed his tune again and asked, “Where’s the liquor store?”

The cabbie, a tad confused, obliged. He told Ronald or whatever his name was he owed him $2.15.

Ronald handed the cabbie two 1-dollar bills, a dime and five pennies. Hadn’t Phyllis’s attacker swiped some change from the ashtray before he torched the car?

Carol:

Contos walked outside. He knew this neighborhood – like it was his own.

Here’s Emily Pelphry.

Emily:

I know a number of detectives from Akron, and they not only know the street names, but they know the people on those streets. They know how people live day to day, what the stomping grounds are. They're so ingrained in the environment, that it's almost like Akron as itself is its own individual. So the fact that he was able to say, "I know this area. Let me just look around. Let me see if something looks different than it usually does." It’s that relationship that the detectives or the officers have with the city that I think is so important.

Carol:

Contos looked around. And then something dawned on him.

Contos:

I don't know, something hit me. I don’t know, it just hit me – go to the parole office.

Carol:

So just based on what the cab driver told you of where he got off, you decided, “Oh, I'll just check into the federal office to see if he went there?”

Contos:

Yeah, yeah.

Carol:

Why didn’t this “Ronald” guy go to the Trailways bus station and get the hell out of town? Why did he ask to be dropped off after a four minute ride at a liquor store when he was just in a bar and he’d ordered orange juice? Why? Maybe because he needed to go someplace else – like the parole office that was right around the corner from where he was dropped off.

Contos was making inferences and, to be clear, his snap decision was big.

Voice of the Court:

The adult parole office secretary was asked if she recalled any subject coming into the office around 4pm on the afternoon of March 20th.

Carol:

She said yes. His name was Sammie. Sammie Herring.

Voice of the Court:

She noted that Mr. Herring signed in on the roster at 4pm, but he came in at 4:10pm.

Carol:

There was a reason Sammie inaccurately signed in at 4:00 – the parole officer did not see anyone after 4. But, on the 20th that officer, Mr. Rhoades made an exception.

Sammie told Mr. Rhoades about his dream to become a professional boxer in the 185-pound class. In fact, he had his gym bag with him so he could work out later.

Ah – the gym bag.

The receptionist told Contos that Herring left his gym bag near the front desk instead of bringing it into Mr. Rhoades’ office – as is required.

Contos:

The gym bag.

Carol:

The gym bag.

Contos:

When he brought the gym bag in, well according to her, she said, he left it in the outer seating area, lobby or whatever. And then he signed in, and then he went to see Mr. Rhodes. And, Mr. Rhodes said, “Go get your gym bag.” Because they have a right to search these people. When they come in, they can search everything, for their safety too. This guy could have a gun and shoot his parole officer. But Sammy had been told twice, three times maybe, to go get the back and bring it in there.

Carol:

And each time, Herring refused to get his gym bag. It remained in the lobby while he and his parole officer talked about why Sammie hadn’t applied for a job.

But that gym bag – and Herring’s refusal to bring it into Mr. Rhoades’ office and possibly undergo a search – intrigued Contos.

It gave him a lead. A name. Samuel Herring.

Carol:

Had it not been for the gym bag, would you have like put that on your list, but not really felt it was important to check out Samuel Herring further?

Contos:

No. When he came in there, and he came late and similar description, I think, I thought, I mean, he's better than anybody we had, and, I think from then on.

Carol:

Contos didn’t know the extent of Herring’s record, but he knew it wasn’t clean.

Still, he had to connect Herring to the bar.

It’s one thing for 3 people to notice an agitated guy in a bar – it’s another thing for them to identify him in a police line-up or photo array.

Contos:

Well, the barmaid was good. And she gave us a physical description and everybody brought up the thing about the bag, the bag. Chili Mo, he's a black man, and black people do better in describing other black people than a white person. They were all interviewed. And the bartender gave us a description. It's all similar. And it's described pretty close to Sammy Herring. Well, we didn't know Sammy Herring, to the person who did the crime.

Carol:

So, but you couldn't arrest Sammy Herring at that point obviously? So…

Contos:

No.

Carol:

But you had a strong suspicion?

Contos:

Right.

Carol:

Next Week: A Suspect