Cruel Death by M. William Phelps Read Free Book Online Page A

anything else. She was “obsessed” with not only the Coach handbag she kept most of her jewelry in, but diamonds were what she wanted. This was something, no doubt, she had learned from her mom, who was also a jewelry fanatic, according to several sources. So much so, Detective Scott Bernal told the author, “that when we went into the Graces’ home to talk to them, there were these glass jewelry cases all over, like the ones you’d see in a jewelry store.”
    Then there was Erika’s closet full of Hooters clothing and memorabilia, which Erika obsessed over.
    “She had quite a collection,” BJ remarked. “She probably had over one hundred, maybe over two hundred, [Hooters clothing items].”
    Erika had a fetish, no doubt about it, which included a proclivity for anything with the Hooters trademark symbol on it. And it would be that desire to acquire as much Hooters merchandise as she could, and likely boredom on BJ’s part after being expelled from his lifelong dream of being a SEAL, that would soon send Erika and BJ out on the town at night to indulge in what had become their new hobby after moving outside Altoona.
    Burglary.
    It was such a high for BJ to break into a store and steal, Erika later told Detective Scott Bernal, that he generally got an erection from it and masturbated afterward.
    “He just didn’t want to have sex with me after a while,” she said. “Maybe once a month. But this [stealing] began to get him off.”

Part II
    Snakes, Crocodiles, Drugs, Murder

9
    Pill Snorter
    It was near noon when Erika and BJ Sifrit left for Ocean City, Maryland, on Saturday, May 25, 2002, from their apartment outside Altoona, Pennsylvania. Erika had just finished a nail-grooming appointment at the local salon, and she and BJ took off in their Jeep Cherokee immediately after. It was a bit odd that Erika and BJ had a Jeep Cherokee—because they also drove an Audi. Cookie and Mitch Grace drove an Audi and a Jeep Cherokee. As much as Erika had said later that she despised her parents’ storybook marriage and close friendship, she was certainly doing her best to mimic every little nuance of it.
    That Saturday had been a summerlike morning. From the moment the sun rose, it was hot and sticky. As Erika strolled out of the nail salon into the waiting Jeep, she caught a glare from the sun against her already heavily tanned face. She and BJ were ready now to head south-east, toward Ocean City.
    To drink.
    And drug.
    And do whatever else had given them that thrill both had been chasing lately by breaking into Hooters restaurants and retail stores of all types—a thrill, however, that the burglaries just weren’t satisfying anymore.
    Erika had some Xanax and Valium on her. She still had several hundred pills left over from a gross of about three hundred that she said she had purchased in South America. It was a good thing. Erika was into snorting Xanax these days. Just popping a few pills with a beer wasn’t doing it anymore.
    “We bought them in Chile,” Erika later told Scott Bernal. “They were like ninety for a dollar. . . . My doctor at home had gotten word from my mother that my husband and his . . . friends had taken all of what my doctor prescribed me, so he refused to prescribe me anymore.”
    She’d packed the pills in her Coach purse before they left the apartment that morning. Erika was crazy about her purse, not to mention the jewelry inside it that she had collected and usually kept with her wherever she went. Jewelry and the finer things in life had made the difference to Erika: Some said she relished in gloating over what others couldn’t afford. She got off on the fact that she had it and others didn’t.
    “Stop and get some beer,” Erika told BJ as they headed out of town on the freeway.
    “Yeah,” BJ said excitedly. BJ was drinking more these days. Any chance he could, really. Stuffing that dream of his deeper down into an abyss of alcohol and criminal behavior.
    They stopped at a gas