Under the Wheels of Justice

By Margo Macartney

This is story is about justice gone wrong-a justice even the presiding judge found lacking, though he did nothing to

change it. The victim's survivors found no satisfaction, and even one of the prosecutors railed against the result, which

has remained untouched for twenty-three years. The system ran off the rails, and the results wer

• Language: English
• Publisher: Margaret L. Macartney
• Release date: Apr 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9798886808254

Book preview

The Crime

Chapter One

August 1, 1996

Willcox, AZ

Deslie was a bubbly girl of eighteen, just three months out of high school. She and her best friend, Analie, had graduated in May of 1996 and taken jobs as waitresses. They’d been best friends since seventh grade, and felt they were poised on the edge of adult life.

The two girls rented a house together in Willcox, Arizona, a small town 85 miles east of Tucson. It was an ordinary three-bedroom home on an ordinary street, lined on both sides with modest homes. The neighborhood could have been in any small, not very prosperous town in America. The front yards were yellow and dry with close cropped weeds, but would slowly revive to green with the summer monsoon rains.

The two worked at a local diner that had been converted from an old railway car. It was touted as a tourist attraction in Willcox, which otherwise had little to offer visitors. In 1996, it was a one-horse town with only a few motels, one of which had recently hosted a gruesome murder. Other motels were boarded up. Willcox was known in some circles as a place to score meth. Other than that, it was essentially a farming community with a population of primarily lower middle-class working people—hard-working, churchgoing Christians.

The house the girls rented had been built as a two bedroom, but an extra bedroom had been added later, accessible only by a separate entrance in the back of the house. The living room, dining room, and kitchen were in the front of the house, and a hallway led from the living room to the other two bedrooms and a bathroom. The hall came to a dead end, with no outside exit.

The realtor, Patti, had rented the home to the two girls without the kind of scrutiny one might expect for a couple of recent high school graduates with so little time or experience in the workforce. But Willcox was a small town, and it’s possible that the realtor knew Deslie’s mom, Marcia—or at least knew that she worked for the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office. There had to be a hint of security somewhere in the transaction.

What Patti did do was take meticulous care in the process of renting the house. She insisted on a written lease with a specific clause limiting residency to Deslie and Analie. No other persons were to occupy the house. Patti was no fool—she’d just restored the house to a livable condition after a bunch of young men had wrecked it. So with this new set of renters, she took extra pains to ensure that would not happen again. The terms and conditions were in writing and both girls signed the agreement.

The girls had known the house was empty because Deslie’s twenty-two-year-old boyfriend, Cody, had been one of the young men who had rented—and wrecked—it. Maybe the girls got their jobs in order to make themselves eligible to rent the house, particularly since they quit these jobs right after they moved in.

Still, all of this seemed like a series of pretty ordinary events in the lives of young people at the beginning of their adult lives.

Cody, as mentioned above, had been one of the guys who had trashed the house. After the eviction, the other guys left Willcox, but Cody stayed. The realtor sat him down and told him that he was never to live in that house again.

Okay, he said, compliantly. And he moved into a trailer.

But when the girls moved into the house in those first few days of August, Cody moved right in with them. Analie’s boyfriend, Paul, moved in as well. Cody and Deslie shared one bedroom, Analie had the other bedroom, and Paul took the outside room with the separate entrance.

At that time Cody was working as a mechanic in an auto shop in Willcox. Paul, who was saving up for college, had a job at the local market. Their salaries covered the costs of the household, and the girls didn’t really need to work, so they quit their jobs.

All this time, Patti had assumed her due diligence was complete with the preparation of the lease and the lecture to Cody. In the weeks after the girls moved in, Patti did nothing to ensure that they followed the lease conditions, and she did not stop by to check up on them or the house. Whether she knew of the romance between Cody and Deslie is anybody’s guess.

Analie was a mousy-looking girl with light brown hair. In contrast to her effusive best friend Deslie, she was quiet, reserved, and thoughtful. During this time, Analie seemed to live in Deslie’s shadow, to the point of being an acolyte. She followed Deslie around and never disagreed with her. She seemed a leaf in the wind.

Deslie called the shots for everyone, including Cody, more often than not. But underneath her outgoing personality lay a troubled girl. She loved gangs, and in the past had either been in one or pretended to be. For Deslie, truth and fiction had blurry lines. She said what she said one moment, and the next moment would offer up something completely different. She made up stories, with or without cause, because it suited her. She and Analie felt grown up living away from parents and family. They didn’t think having Cody and Paul live with them was a problem. Neither had ever signed a contract before—they did not know what it meant. They just signed and got on with their lives.

When you’re eighteen, what’s important is getting what you want when you want it.

Chapter Two

Jefferson Cody, known as Cody, was a native of Willcox. He had the body of a football linebacker, standing six foot four inches and weighing close to three hundred pounds. He had graduated from Willcox High School four years before the girls.

Cody’s father was an officer of some rank with the Arizona Department of Public Safety. He was respected in Willcox. It was rumored that Cody and his dad had not spoken for months, perhaps years. Sgt. Mitchell apparently did not approve of what Cody was doing with his life.

For some time after high school, Cody lived in Tucson with his grandmother. Although he had never been arrested there, he had gotten involved in some gang-like activity with his friends. Whether Deslie was with him in this is not known. Also not known is whether Cody and his friends were part of an actual gang, or were what people call gang wannabees. Regardless, their activities during this time were noteworthy: they would beat people up for no reason, damage property, and steal.¹

1. This information came from pretrial interviews.

When he moved to Willcox, he got a job as a dispatcher for the Willcox Police Department, while maintaining social ties to his buddies in Tucson. One morning during his stint as a dispatcher, officers arrived to open the office and found the door kicked in. Then they discovered that the vending machine inside had been broken into and the money removed. The officers examined the evidence and concluded that it had been an inside job. The Police Chief announced that everyone in the department would be subject to a polygraph examination, and that their continued employment depended on passing it. Cody refused to take the polygraph, and was either fired or quit.

His next job was as an auto mechanic.

Deslie and Cody had been a couple on and off for three years, and maintained a somewhat volatile relationship. Cody was said to be extremely jealous, and Deslie enjoyed flirting with other guys. She was cute, lively, and charming, with dark curls and an inviting figure. It was said she enjoyed making Cody jealous.

Once during Cody’s stint with the Police Department, Cody went into a public rage and threatened to kill a guy after learning he had molested Deslie when she was fifteen. The guy claimed he thought she was eighteen at the time, and had gone to prison for the offense. There was an officer with Cody when he went into this rage, and he managed to back him down from the tantrum and drive him back to the station. Then he told Cody to settle down and leave it alone, but Cody was still in a rage. He got in his car to try to find the guy.

According to those who knew Cody, this kind of behavior was not out of character. Deslie also had a temper—so high drama was a staple in that relationship.

Chapter Three

August 7, 1996

Benson, AZ

Around this time, eighteen-year-old Justin was living in Benson, Arizona, just over thirty-seven miles from Willcox. He had been going to Benson High School, and was out for the summer.

Justin was a bit off-beat—quite different from most of his peers. He had been an artist his entire life. As a toddler, he had made pictures, masks, and costumes. As he grew older, he developed a love of poetry and reading. He began to write poems himself. These talents bloomed in high school, which turned out to be the most stable time of his life.

His parents divorced when he was five years old, after his mother accused his father of molesting her daughter from a previous marriage. This girl was seven years older than Justin. The mother had planned to take custody of Justin, but according to her, the father threatened to kill her if another man ever tried to raise his son. She let him have custody, so Justin had been raised primarily by his father.

Richard, the father, was a blue collar worker who travelled for his job, and over the years Justin was shuffled around a lot. Sometimes he would be with his dad and some girlfriend, sometimes with his mom and stepfather, and other times with his grandparents. He became accustomed to sleeping on couches or in cars, and to being the new kid in school.

Richard did not want an artist or a poet for a son. He wanted his son to be a man. He wanted his son to play football, basketball, baseball… not draw pictures. Justin tried his best to keep a balance between respecting his father and continuing to follow his own instincts. Still, he suffered from anxiety and depression, which he covered up with good manners and a quirky sense of humor.

Justin learned to make life wherever he landed. He was not one to fuss about things, nor did he feel sorry for himself. Like most kids, he thought everyone lived the way he did—it’s what he knew. He did not visit friends at their homes, so he didn’t know any other lifestyle. He said that as a child, he was confused about how the people in his life fit together. He was described by adults as a thoughtful and talented kid. He said he just worked around things best he could.

After the divorce, his mother moved to Maryland, eventually remarried, and raised her daughter there. From time to time Justin came to live with them, but he had a difficult relationship with his stepfather. When he was in his early teens, they enrolled him in Americorps. He didn’t like it. He did not fit in and he eventually broke enough rules that he was asked to leave.

Justin’s father seemed unaware of Justin’s anxiety and depression. Additionally, Justin was plagued by certain learning disabilities which also went unnoticed by the father. His mother was aware of them and tried to get professional help when he was with her. But with her working, and the stepfather working, nobody had time to take him to appointments. Despite their good intentions, Justin received no help.

As he moved into his teens, his depression became more pronounced, manifesting itself in endless procrastination. He became self critical and dark, and his artwork and poems reflected it. He also reasoned that if he had been a different person, he would not have been so rejected by his parents. He felt the divorce was his fault. Justin was one of the nation’s latchkey kids who came home from school—wherever home was—to an empty house. He didn’t mind the empty house, because he could draw or write or do homework in peace. What he did mind was the sound of his dad’s truck on the gravel driveway when he came home from work, and the subsequent barrage of criticism, yelling, and abuse. He says his dad wasn’t physically abusive, though when he was young he got whacked a few times. That stopped once Justin got older, but the yelling continued.

Justin hated the loud noise, and was afraid of the anger underneath the shouting. Unconsciously he developed a defense system. He sat very still, and with no effort from him, he would find himself transported out of his body to an observer, floating in the top of the room somewhere, usually in a corner. He couldn’t make this happen, and it didn’t happen all the time. It happened when it happened, and he was removed from the perceived danger.

When Justin was in his mid-teens, his father moved them to Benson, a town just over forty-seven miles southeast of Tucson. At Benson High School, Justin began to make some friends, and he got much-needed approval from his teachers. Specifically, his English teacher loved his creativity and claimed him as one of her favorite students. It was during this time that he found an old child’s doll that he named his Gutter Doll. He carved and painted and drew onto Gutter Doll, creating what by anyone’s standards was a bizarre presentation. There were cuts and blood and condemning words scrawled over the doll’s body. Justin said it was a self-portrait. It expressed his dark side, which was starting to come out in other of his works of art and poetry. He put his dark side where he could see it.

In high school he developed an interest in history, philosophy, and religion. While he did not become religious, he was fascinated by the variety of religions, the way they shape societies, and how their teachings affect people’s attitudes and behavior. He specifically focused on Wicca, a spiritual practice based in nature.

Justin was becoming an intellectual and an artist. He worked on building up his vocabulary. He was enjoying high school, and he began to enjoy a social life.

But life at home was still unpredictable, and the situation with his father became a test when he said they were moving.