Too Pretty To Live Read online

  Too Pretty To Live

  The Catfishing Murders of East Tennessee

  Dennis Brooks

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 2016 by Dennis Brooks

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For more information, email [email protected]

  First Diversion Books edition February 2016

  ISBN: 978-1-68230-198-2

  Dedicated to the victims of violent crime and those who fight for them every day.

  1

  The largest cities in the United States can average a homicide a day. Such frequency can make them hardly newsworthy, killings rendered into brief asides in the local papers and evening broadcasts.

  On the opposite end of the spectrum are the small towns that seemingly materialize from a Norman Rockwell painting.

  Mountain City is one of those towns. It is the lightly populated county seat of Johnson County at the northeastern tip of Tennessee. Around 18,000 people live there in a small community nestled between the mountains that border Virginia and North Carolina. It’s a place that recalls the quaint hometowns of past generations. People know one another, and as for the strangers who wander in, residents cheerfully make them feel welcome.

  And the vast majority clutch their Christian faith close in their daily existence. Hardly a single living room lacks decor of a religious variety.

  For most of my adult life, my main interaction with the town was as a high school football referee. Always gracious and generous, the people of Mountain City were the most welcoming of any location in our region. A piping hot dinner always awaited us after games, and words of gratitude were always provided, rather than the jeers and boos rendered elsewhere. It was a long drive up the valley, but no one ever griped. The people were too pleasant for complaining.

  However, my day job involves dealing with unpleasant people. I’m a prosecuting attorney for the state of Tennessee. Thieves, drug dealers, drunk drivers, and violent offenders occupy the dockets of my four-county district.

  In seventeen years on the job, I’ve seen a lot of bad things. I have prosecuted over a dozen people for murder with solid results. Most of those crimes occurred in Johnson City, two counties over from Mountain City but almost a world apart. More urban and home to a large university, my home county of Washington has more drug activity and more violent crime, murder included.

  Every few years, if even that often, Mountain City experiences a homicide case. It’s usually a couple of men in an argument that went awry, or a domestic situation that spiraled too far out of control. Either way, killings are rare. The criminal dockets are light. On the other end of the state, Memphis has over 100 prosecuting attorneys. Mountain City has one.

  But on January 31, 2012, Mountain City had a high-profile mess on its hands. A young couple killed in their home, before daybreak, for no apparent reason at all. The mother, clothed in her pajamas and dead from a bullet through her head, passed away while clutching her infant in her arms. The father was found on his bed with a bullet wound to his face and his neck sliced from one end to the other.

  And it was all over nothing.

  Folks in big cities may not believe it, but the Internet is alive and well in rural America. People in small towns far away from shopping malls have smart phones. They have laptops. They have e-mail accounts. And they love Facebook.

  Isolated people perhaps become more dependent on and addicted to social media than their big city counterparts. An online existence can become their only significant source of interaction with the outside world.

  Unlike any murder case I had ever seen, this Mountain City matter featured social media gone awry. Its massive volume of written communications and complex legal issues had required that the case get extra attention. Hence my involvement.

  I’m in my mid forties. For a prosecutor with plenty of miles left, I’ve compiled results of which I am proud. One double murderer on death row. Around twenty jury convictions for murder. I’ve done this kind of thing long enough that on my first meeting with the family of a homicide victim, I know what they’re going to say before they say it. No matter what, I know they have a deep-rooted fear that the killer will get away with the crime, and inevitably will be in their presence as they check out at the grocery store, laughing it up, taunting them with the darkest memory of their lives.

  I have learned another fact over the years. No matter how solid the case is, all murder trials present challenges. They last multiple days, and they almost always present enormous pressure.

  Yet this Mountain City matter was especially challenging. In this case, I prosecuted people for murders where they had not participated in the act of killing. I prosecuted people who acted with others who, come to find out, were fictitious people. I prosecuted accused people who had not the slightest violent blemish on their criminal records.

  And in this case, our prosecution team convicted them all. This is our story.

  2

  The defense attorney, hair perfectly coiffed, clothed in a form-fitting designer suit with cufflinks, sauntered to the podium to question potential jurors. His client sat behind him. She was his opposite—an utterly forgettable young woman with dark-rimmed eyeglasses, a homely white blouse covering a tall and gangly frame. Being shy, her face revealed a state of mind that she was ready to dig a hole in the courtroom floor and escape.

  She was on trial for two counts of first degree murder, killings that, even by the state’s proof, were committed without her even being present.

  “When you look at my client, what one word would you use to describe her?” asked the attorney.

  “Scared,” answered the first juror.

  “Ordinary,” said another.

  “Worried,” said a third.

  Other jurors echoed those descriptions.

  I couldn’t fault those labels. These jurors did not know the woman. They were describing their first impressions.

  As I sat at the prosecution table, my mind wandered to what words I would use to describe her. “Vengeful,” “manipulative,” “devious,” “hateful,” “unusual,” “pathetic,” “lonely,” “helpless,” and arguably “insane.”

  She was the most unusual person that I had ever encountered. For the past two years, I had invested a large portion of my life into getting her charged and brought to this moment. As a prosecuting attorney for two killings, I had staked my reputation on the notion that this woman should be imprisoned for the rest of her life. Yet I was prosecuting a case that had neither a blueprint nor field manual for how I was to proceed toward my goal. I was writing the guidebook as I went.

  She was all of those one-word labels and maybe more. I knew her better than anyone. I knew her motivations, her schemes, and her desires. My job was to present what I knew in such a way that twelve jurors agreed with my labels. My theory of prosecution, however, held within it a premise so unusual, so insane, that I often doubted my ability to pull it off.

  This one woman had conjured up a fake identity as a federal agent, tricking three people into going along with her childish game against girls for whom she possessed a fierce jealousy. Her game had led to two killings that our trial judge later reflected were the most “bizarre” and “senseless” killings he’d ever heard in his forty years in the criminal justice system.

  3

  It began with a phone call. It was an ordinary fall day in 2012 at my office in Elizabethton, Tennessee, the hometown of the Dallas Cowboys’ Jason Witten and the Overmou
ntain Men who fought the British at King’s Mountain. The day winding down, I picked up the phone to answer a call from my junior cohort Matt Roark. I was a fourteen-year veteran as an Assistant District Attorney General for the First Judicial District, and Matt was a far younger one. “Can I come talk to you?” he asked.

  I always liked giving Matt advice. When I was his age, I wore the older attorneys out seeking their guidance. Matt was one of our only newer attorneys who would do the same. I saw a lot of myself in him. He, like I, was green in experience but bountiful in exuberance.

  I had no idea what he wanted.

  An hour later, Matt came marching up the steps to my office with a banker’s box full of stuff. Papers. CDs. DVDs. “Can you help me with this,” he said. “With what?” I asked. “The Potter case,” he replied.

  Oh.

  I was no stranger to working murder cases. I had my first within three years of graduating law school, and several trials and a death penalty conviction later, I had proven myself worthy of such cases. There is nothing like the exhilaration of a jury quietly filing into the jury box, the judgment being written on a paper that is slowly read by the foreman. The joy, or should I say relief, of a victim’s family as they tearfully hug the prosecutor who fought for their loved one.

  I had enough murder cases pending. I knew I didn’t need another.

  “What do you want me to do with it?” I asked. The look on Matt’s eyes answered me better than whatever came from his mouth at that point. He had made a complete copy of the case file. I saw a lot of paper, but what really had me curious was that tall stack of recordable media. A single DVD could only contain two minutes of recorded conversation, or it could contain an encyclopedia of information.

  I wondered which extreme applied.

  “Well, I’ll look at it,” I said. My wife for years had complained of me taking on more than my share. Yet here I was, never having the better sense to turn down a new challenge.

  With a relieved look, Matt left the box with me, and minutes later, I headed home with my new possessions.

  I had heard about the Potter case when a man and woman had been discovered dead in their home in early 2012. The local media went nuts, showing the family portrait again and again until it was ingrained in everyone’s memories. The twist that engaged everyone’s interest was the fact that the woman was found shot in the head and her infant son—still alive—remained in her arms until they were discovered. Then two men were arrested, and the story was that the victims had unfriended one of the men’s daughters on Facebook. The media had made it sound like the unfriending was the motivation for the killing, which is a nice hook, true or not. Soon the story was picked up by national media outlets, which was probably a first for tiny ole’ Johnson County.

  But then, as all sensational stories around here go, the attention waned away. What remained were legal headaches and lengthy delays, which was the status of the case at this point, a little less than one year after the men were charged. Matt briefly explained to me that the men’s attorneys had filed suppression motions that were coming up soon, and he hinted that the legal issues were weighty. If so, the case was certainly too much for any single prosecutor to handle amidst his or her regular caseload.

  So I agreed to help.

  I stuck the box in my car and headed home with a growing curiosity about the case. Certainly a home invasion killing would be something that I’d find rewarding to work. But why in the world would these people have done this? Most of our homicides are like most others around the country—drug deals gone bad and overblown domestic situations. Obviously this matter would be different, but surely the media had it wrong when it said this was over a social media unfriending. What an unusual reason to kill a person. Or two.

  I had no idea how unusual, or how crazy, the case really was.

  4

  Jenelle Potter liked dogs. Cute dogs, fuzzy dogs, long-legged dogs, floppy-eared dogs, and, in particular, bulldogs.

  She was the little girl who never grew up. Born in 1982 as the second of two children, Jenelle was extremely protected and shielded by her parents, Marvin and Barbara Potter. Jenelle grew up on the outskirts of Philadelphia, and by the time she was an adult, her parents picked up their lives as well as Jenelle and moved to Mountain City, Tennessee, in 2004, to better tend to Barbara’s elderly mother.

  Barbara Potter had power of attorney for her mother, and since Marvin (known better as “Buddy”) had relatives in the area, it made sense that they would migrate to Johnson County. Yet the Potters likely never felt that it was home. Instead of the more urban existence of their previous residence, Mountain City had a mere three grocery stores and a Dollar General. That was the extent of the commercial choices for the Potters. While Johnson County featured some nice outdoor opportunities—from beautiful Watauga Lake positioned within the tree-filled mountains to three days’ worth of hiking on the Appalachian Trail cutting through the county—the Potters likely perceived themselves as having too many physical ailments for such activity. More leisurely locations did not exist in the county. No movie theater. No mall. Choosing to avoid the small couple of banks in Mountain City, the Potters chose to hold their accounts at the bank in Boone, North Carolina, approximately a thirty-minute drive away, a larger town that featured Appalachian State University. Trips to Boone were likely a real treat compared to the uneventful dullness of their new home.

  Buddy had been a Marine, and he was one of those types that liked to remind the world of the fact. He wore the ball caps to prove that status. He had a wall at home with all his military pictures, medals, and decorations prominently displayed. He signed up for the service at age eighteen, secretly signing his papers and not telling his family back in Pennsylvania until he was at boot camp in Parris Island, South Carolina. His family disapproved. Yet Buddy was proud to wear the uniform, and he served in the Vietnam War. Following that, he suffered a debilitating back injury at work, which resulted in his collecting disability. Barbara helped out by getting a job while in Pennsylvania, but by the time they moved to Tennessee, neither Buddy nor Barbara were working. They settled into a quaint, ranch-style brick home on Hospital Road, just a few minutes from downtown Mountain City.

  Jenelle was the Potters’ second child. The first, Christie, moved out of the home after getting a two-year associate’s degree. Christie’s relationship with the other three was strained. Jenelle, six years younger than Christie, was born with an auditory disability. Jenelle was classified into special education classes as soon as she entered kindergarten, and she remained at that status until she walked across the stage to receive her diploma at Kenneth High School in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.

  Upon her becoming an adult, Jenelle began receiving a social security disability check due to her many issues. She was a diabetic and had anxiety issues. She had continued auditory handicaps that affected her ability to clearly hear communications. She stood nearly six feet tall. Socially awkward, Jenelle clung to her parents far beyond the age when most children seek to break their bonds. Her voice had a meek, almost squeaky sound. Even as a grown woman, her closest friends were probably the stuffed animals that filled her bedroom.

  However, as Jenelle grew into adulthood, the Internet had become a greater communication medium for everyone—even in rural areas. For Jenelle, the tether to computerized communication became particularly strong. She talked on Internet chat rooms. She had an active Myspace page. As the Internet developed further, Jenelle jumped into Facebook with gusto. It was her way of reconnecting with old acquaintances and making new ones. And for posting pictures of cute puppies.

  When Jenelle went out, her parents usually accompanied her. Her social graces were not honed. Locals were taken aback when she tried to hug them or talk as if she already knew them. They politely returned the attention. Soon they invariably received a Facebook friend request from Jenelle. And often, that Facebook association spelled trouble as others found her eventual statements and actions to be off-putting. Thus o
nline conflicts began.

  Years later, when Buddy Potter visited Sheriff Mike Reece at his office, reciting yet another online conflagration involving his youngest daughter, Sheriff Reece suggested Marvin throw the computer into Watauga Lake. The combination of a computer and Jenelle was leading to too many problems. Buddy dismissed the advice, replying, “Sheriff, my daughter stays at the house all the time, and that computer is all she has.”

  Buddy should have taken the Sheriff’s advice.

  5

  Billy Clay Payne was born July 10, 1975. His sister Tracy followed a couple years later. They were typical Johnson County kids. Bill grew up to work at one of the only plants in Mountain City—Parkdale Mills, a factory that produced thread. He began working there after finishing high school, and he never left. Tracy worked various jobs, from a position at the local pharmacy to working in the bakery at Food Country. Bill fathered one son, Justin, while in his twenties.

  Bill worked hard, and he lived life equally hard. He was a social guy, getting together with family or friends on his time off. They’d all drink, dance, and sing along to recorded music. One video survived Bill’s passing—Bill and friends singing along to Johnny Cash’s “Dirty Old Egg Sucking Dog.” Bill knew how to enjoy himself, and he was no stranger to the opposite sex, playing loose up into his thirties. He also knew how to pop a pill or two. Like with many Johnson Countians of his age, painkillers were a popular recreational drug. While on no law enforcement agency’s radar as any kind of drug dealer, Bill used and exchanged pills with his circle of friends. By the time he got into his late thirties, Bill began seeking treatment for opiate usage, getting a prescription for buprenorphine, also known as Suboxone, to quell the desire for narcotics. His son Justin had moved to Florida with Justin’s mother, making it difficult for Bill to assume a fatherly role in the boy’s life.