Lost Girls Read online

  Highest Praise for Caitlin Rother

  LOST GIRLS

  “Rother is one of the best storytellers going in the true crime genre today. Written with the verve, pacing, and characterizations of a detective novel ... Lost Girls should be on every true crime fan’s bookshelf.”

  —Steve Jackson

  “A gripping account of the chilling disappearances of two San Diego area schoolgirls ... a nuanced inside look at the two police investigations. A must-read.”

  —Sue Russell

  “Rother is at her best when she boldly dissects how a boy with psychological problems formed into a man indifferent to his monstrous acts toward two young girls.”

  —Katherine Ramsland

  “A frank and riveting look at the life and mind of San Diego rapist and killer John Gardner.”

  —Diane Fanning

  DEAD RECKONING

  “We’ve finally found the next Ann Rule! Caitlin Rother writes with heart and suspense. Dead Reckoning is a chilling read by a writer at the top of her game.”

  —Gregg Olsen

  “Well researched and a quick, engrossing read, this should be popular with true crime readers, especially the Ann Rule crowd.”

  —Library Journal, Starred Review

  “Rother’s investigative journalist’s tenacity and eye for detail ... set this book above most in the genre. This was one of those true crime tales that gave me chills, and that’s not easy to do.”

  —Steve Jackson

  “With this headline-grabbing case of multiple murder, Rother skillfully tells a breathless tale of unthinkable events that no true crime fan should miss.”

  —Katherine Ramsland

  “Rother digs deep into the story of this horrible murder—unearthing never-before-told details of the crime, the investigation and the twisted mind of the man who set it all into motion.”

  —Susan Leibowitz, producer of Dateline’s “The Last Voyage”

  “Gripping ... Rother gives readers compelling insight into an unthinkable American nightmare. The book is frank and frightening, and it sizzles.”

  —Aphrodite Jones

  “Impressively reported in a forthright narrative ... a pitch-perfect study of avarice, compulsion and pure California illusion.”

  —Ron Franscell

  “Gripping, brutal, riveting—once again, Rother delivers a thrilling account of murder and mayhem.”

  —M. William Phelps

  “A true-crime triumph ... Rother solidifies her star status.”

  —The San Diego Union-Tribune

  “Rother is at her best... . This gruesome story is fast-paced and will grip any lover of the true crime genre.”

  —North County Times

  “A mesmerizing story.”

  —Orange Coast Magazine

  POISONED LOVE

  “A true-crime thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat.”

  —Aphrodite Jones

  “A gripping and chilling book. A tawdry and twisted story of sex and drugs, deception and murder. And here’s the scariest part—it’s all true.”

  —Tom Murray, producer for Court TV’s “Pretty Poison”

  “Absorbing and impeccably researched ... a classic California noir story of passion and betrayal and death, with a beautiful, scheming adulteress at the center of the web.”

  —John Taylor

  “With integrity, class and skill, Rother weaves this complex story seamlessly in the page-turning fashion of a suspenseful novel.”

  —M. William Phelps

  “Chilling ... Rother paints a portrait of the culture that raised Kristin, hired her, was lured by her beauty, and now must share in the dire consequences.”

  —Kevin Barry, producer for Oxygen Network’s The Kristin Rossum Story

  “A lively and immaculately researched book.”

  —Carol Ann Davis

  “A devastating portrait ... an unwavering look at how one young woman fantasized herself into murder.”

  —The San Diego Union-Tribune

  “A page-turner.”

  —San Diego Metropolitan

  “A gripping account.”

  —San Diego Magazine

  “An absorbing page-turner, driven by well-drawn characters and a dynamic investigation.”

  —

  “A concise and riveting account of one of the most challenging but fascinating investigations of my police career.”

  —Laurie Agnew, San Diego Police Department homicide detective

  “A riveting and detailed view of a cold, calculated homicide romantically staged as a suicide. I couldn’t put it down.”

  —Bob Petrachek, Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory examiner

  BODY PARTS

  “A must read ... well-written, extremely intense; a book that I could not put down.”

  —Kim Cantrell, True Crime Book Reviews

  “Excellent, well researched, well written.”

  —Don Bauder, San Diego Reader

  “Page-turning excitement and blood curdling terror ... riveting, fast-paced, and sure to keep you up at night.”

  —M. William Phelps

  “Rother paints every page with all the violent colors of a malignant sociopath’s fever. This kind of frightening and fascinating glimpse into a killer’s mind is rare.”

  —Ron Franscell

  “A superior study of the formation of a serial killer and his lost and lonely victims.”

  —Carol Anne Davis

  “Shocking, chilling, fast-paced ... a book crime aficionados will be loath to put down.”

  —Simon Read

  Also by Caitlin Rother

  *Poisoned Love

  My Life, Deleted (By Scott and Joan Bolzan

  and Caitlin Rother)

  *Dead Reckoning

  Where Hope Begins/Deadly Devotion

  (By Alysia Sofios with Caitlin Rother)

  *Body Parts

  Twisted Triangle (By Caitlin Rother with John Hess)

  Naked Addiction

  *Available from Kensington Publishing Corp.

  and Pinnacle Books

  LOST GIRLS

  Caitlin Rother

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Highest Praise for Caitlin Rother

  Also by Caitlin Rother

  Title Page

  CAST OF PRIMARY CHARACTERS

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue: A FIVE-HOUR CONVERSATION WITH JOHN GARDNER

  Author’s Note and Acknowledgments

  Copyright Page

  Notes

  CAST OF PRIMARY CHARACTERS

  Investigators:r />
  Sheriff Bill Gore; Lieutenant Dennis Brugos; Sergeant Don Parker; Sergeant Dave Brown; Detectives Mark Palmer, Pat O’Brien and Scott Enyeart; Jan Caldwell; Escondido police lieutenant Bob Benton; Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory examiner Bob Petrachek; California Department of Justice Special Agents Tyler Burtis and Sonja Ramos; FBI Supervisory Special Agent Alex Horan; and forensic anthropologist Madeleine Hinkes

  Defense attorneys:

  William Halsey, Deputy Public Defenders Michael Popkins and Mel Epley

  District Attorney’s Office:

  District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and Deputy District Attorney Kristen Spieler

  John Gardner’s family:

  Mother Cathy Osborn, half sisters Shannon and Sarina; father “Dirty John” or “DJ” Gardner; stepfathers Dan and Kevin; aunt Cynthia; grandmother Linda; stepmother Deanna Gardner, half sisters Mona* and Melissa*

  Gardner’s ex-girlfriends:

  Jennifer “Jenni” Tripp, Patricia Walker*, Donna Hale (mother of his twin sons), and Jariah Baker

  Chelsea King’s family:

  Brent, Kelly and Tyler King

  Amber Dubois’s family:

  Mother Carrie McGonigle, mom’s boyfriend Dave Cave, half sister Allison; father Maurice “Moe” Dubois and his partner, Rebecca Smith; and grandmother Sheila Welch

  To the memories of Chelsea King, Amber Dubois

  and all the other girls and boys who have been lost

  to sexual predators. By shedding light on these dark events,

  I can only hope that this book will help prevent

  similar tragedies in the future.

  Chapter 1

  John Gardner’s mother was worried. The bipolar mood swings, erratic behavior and suicidal impulses that had periodically plagued her thirty-year-old son since he was a child were not only back but worse than she’d ever seen them.

  When Cathy Osborn left her condo for her psychiatric nursing job the morning of February 25, 2010, John was asleep on the futon in her home office, where he stayed when he visited. Cathy called his cell phone and texted him numerous times throughout the day to see how he was doing, but she got no response. When he didn’t answer his phone, something was usually up.

  That evening after work, John was still missing in action, so she decided to combine her usual run with a search for her wayward son, an unemployed electrician and unmarried father of twin sons. Having completed fifteen full marathons, as well as fifteen half marathons, Cathy routinely jogged five to seven miles around Lake Hodges in nearby Rancho Bernardo Community Park. But she was so worried about John and his well-being that she didn’t really feel like doing the full route.

  She jogged about a mile through the neighborhood, turned at the white railing off Duenda Road, and started down the narrow path that widened as it left the residential area and fed into the vast, beautiful open space of the San Dieguito River Valley. Depending on the time of day, sometimes she couldn’t see another soul for miles in any direction. It was so peaceful out there, far away from the stresses of the city. So isolated. So still. And so deadly quiet.

  But her nerves were on edge that evening as she ran along the sandy trail at dusk. She jerked to an abrupt halt, startled to see a snake off to the right. Once she realized it had no head and posed no danger, she continued heading toward the slate blue of the lake up ahead, hoping to find John in one of his usual haunts. He’d told her that he liked to sit on the benchlike boulders that were positioned along the trails, posted with informational placards about the Kumeyaay Indians and the natural wildlife habitat. Knowing his two favorites overlooked a waterfall and the lake, she kept her eyes peeled for discarded beer cans and cigarette butts. But she saw no sign of him.

  This is the wrong spot, or he’s been here and he’s just not drinking beer or smoking cigarettes, she thought.

  Cathy had spent nearly three decades managing her son’s medical and psychological treatment, ferrying him to countless doctors and therapists who had prescribed more than a dozen medications. Starting at age four, John had begun with Ritalin for his attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). As he grew older, his behavioral problems became more complicated. As a teenager, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but he had experienced so many side effects to the drugs that he’d stopped taking them in high school. He had been on and off them ever since. Mostly off.

  John also had a history of psychiatric hospitalizations, and by now, Cathy was very familiar with the danger signs that he was reaching a crisis point. In the last couple of months, he had totaled two cars, running one into a pole and the other into a cement barrier. So on February 8, she had driven him to the walk-in psychiatric clinic at the county hospital in Riverside, where both of them hoped he would be admitted as an inpatient. But even after John told the psychiatrist he might qualify as a “5150”—someone who is in danger of hurting himself or others—the doctor said he didn’t think such treatment was necessary. He simply gave John some more pills and sent him on his way. Five days later, John went on a suicidal binge of methamphetamine and other illicit drugs, which landed him in the emergency room.

  All of this made for a complicatedly close relationship between John and his mother. Things had escalated recently after he’d started using methamphetamine and increasing his drinking. The crazier he acted, the crazier Cathy’s own emotional roller coaster became. If she didn’t watch over him, she feared he would go right back to the same druggie friends he partied with during his nearly fatal binge, a pattern she’d seen over the past eighteen months. Or worse yet, he’d be successful and actually kill himself.

  John had been “living” at his grandmother Linda Osborn’s house in Riverside County since January, going back and forth to his mom’s condo in Rancho Bernardo, a San Diego suburb, an hour south. But because Linda had also been admitted to the same hospital as John, Cathy decided on February 19 to take him home with her for a few days. Clearly, he was in no state of mind to be left to his own devices at his grandmother’s, or in the care of his aunt Cynthia, who had her own emotional problems.

  “It’s time for you to get some more intense treatment,” Cathy told him.

  John agreed, saying he’d been trying to get help, but not succeeding. “I need you to help me because I can’t seem to get it done on my own,” he said.

  He claimed that he’d already tried to find a mental-health or drug addiction facility in San Diego or Riverside County that would take him, but he would try again. As soon as he was feeling better on February 20, she gave him a list of phone numbers, then listened from the kitchen while he made the calls.

  Cathy felt John’s mental-health issues should take precedence over his substance abuse, but he was convinced that he needed to go to drug rehab first. In the end, though, it didn’t matter because no place would take him. Either they had no room, or as soon as he told them he’d committed a felony and was a registered sex offender, they said they couldn’t treat him.

  With every rejection, John’s anger mounted. He cussed and paced around her living room with frustration, and it was all Cathy could do to try to soothe him so he could make the next call.

  “It’s the same old thing,” he groused. “I can’t get any help.”

  “We’re going to keep trying,” Cathy said.

  John made more calls the next couple of days with no luck, growing so discouraged that he finally gave up. She tried calling a few places herself, but they wouldn’t talk to anyone but the adult who needed to be admitted.

  Meanwhile, John was complaining about the side effects of his new medications: Effexor, an antidepressant, and Lamictal, an antiseizure medication for his mania. He said he felt mentally revved up and wasn’t sleeping, which didn’t surprise Cathy; he’d been pacing back and forth in her condo, flushed in the face, and taking her dog on walks around the lake for five hours at a time. Poor Hallie, a ten-year-old beagle-shepherd mix, was so exhausted that Cathy and her husband finally told John to give the pooch a rest.

 
Cathy decided not to push him too hard to make more calls because she’d already seen some improvement with the new meds. But on the evening of February 23, he showed her a rash on his stomach, chest and arms. Given his persistent manic symptoms, she agreed he should stop taking the pills until she could follow up with the doctor. After his grandmother was hospitalized again, she and John drove the two hours north to Los Angeles County to see her. They didn’t get back until after one in the morning, on February 25, so Cathy never got to make that call.

  While she was still out looking for her son on the trails that evening, he finally called her back, around five-thirty. “I’m on my way home,” he said. “I should be there in a little bit.”

  John had spent five years in state prison after pleading guilty to committing forcible lewd acts and false imprisonment on a thirteen-year-old girl, who lived next door. Although he initially denied any wrongdoing, he finally admitted to his family that he’d hit the girl, but he still insisted he’d “never touched her sexually.” Bolstered by a concurring recommendation from the psychiatrist who had originally diagnosed John as bipolar, Cathy pleaded with the court for mental-health treatment and probation. She’d always thought the girl next door was troubled and had an unconsummated crush on her son, so she believed his story. However, the request for probation was rejected, and even after he signed the plea deal, John’s entire family believed that he’d been wrongfully prosecuted and inadequately represented by his attorney.

  During John’s time in prison, he had a psychotic break and was sent to a state mental facility. At the time, he told Cathy about some of the paranoid, homicidal and delusional thoughts that were going through his mind. But this time was different. This time, he’d been shielding her from the worst of it. This time, he didn’t tell her about the compulsions that had been driving his recent behavior, so she had no clue that he was following through on his violent urges during those walks around the lake.