--Chapter 3 continued--

Hal had been interviewed before, back at the beginning. Now Moore and the other investigators wanted to question him again.

They doubted that Hal had anything to do with the murders. But as long as they were going over everything in the case, it made sense to give Hal a second look.

They also wanted to talk to as many people as possible who had known Jo and Michelle and Christe. Both for their purposes and the FBI's, they needed to understand the trio's emotional state at the time of the vacation. Would the awful experiences of the past several years -- the allegations Michelle had made against her uncle John, the bitter split in the family over who was telling the truth -- have left Jo and the girls more suspicious of people and therefore more reluctant to get on a boat with a stranger? Or would those experiences have made them more likely to trust a fresh, new face? The more they understood about the Rogers women, the easier it might be to figure exactly how they had died and who had killed them.

NOTHING TO HIDE: Taking a break in the milking parlor, Hal Rogers scratches the ear of his dog, Gnat. When the detectives came to the farm in January 1991, determined to learn if he might be the killer, Hal looked them straight in the eye and calmly answered all of their questions.

Cummings and Geoghegan made the trip late that January, accompanied by Jim Ramey, the FBI agent who had sat in on the review. They flew into Fort Wayne, Ind., just across the state line from Van Wert County. As their plane made its descent, Geoghegan -- a Florida boy, through and through -- looked out the window and asked why there was so much sand on the fields below.

Cummings and Ramey laughed.

"That's snow, dummy."

The three of them had not told Hal they were coming. They wanted to show up unannounced, so he would have no chance to prepare and so they could see the unrehearsed reaction on his face when they arrived. To maximize the possibility of surprise, they decided to fly up on Sunday, Jan. 27, because that was the day the New York Giants were playing the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXV in Tampa Stadium. If Hal had anything to do with the murders, and was worried about detectives coming up from Florida, they figured that Super Bowl Sunday -- when half the law enforcement officers in Tampa Bay would be working some sort of detail or out watching the game -- would be a day when he would almost certainly not expect any visitors carrying badges.

That Sunday afternoon, when Cummings and Geoghegan and Ramey stepped off the plane in Fort Wayne, they drove straight to the farm. When they got there, Hal was in the house, asleep on the couch. He came to the door, saw them and calmly said hello.

"Come on in," he said, inviting them into the living room as though they were neighbors from down the road.

They interviewed him there in the house. As they asked their questions, they saw, all around them, signs that this was a man paralyzed with grief and denial. Michelle's and Christe's bedrooms were clean and tidy, exactly as they had left them before the trip to Florida; it was as though the girls were going to walk back in at any moment. A year and a half had passed, but Hal had not been able to bring himself to put away their belongings. The rest of the place was a wreck. Clothes were scattered everywhere, the bathroom was beyond redemption, the litter box for the cats did not appear to have been emptied for weeks. It was not a home anymore, but a place where someone wandered through what was left of his life.

The investigators felt for Hal, but did not hold back. He sat in a recliner, they pulled up chairs and surrounded him. They took turns firing away with their questions. They tried to catch him in contradictions, tried to stump him, did their best to throw him off. They even tried to get a rise out of him.

"Did you kill them?" they asked.

Hal shook his head and said no, he did not. He was not defensive, did not appear nervous, just looked them straight in the eye and answered their questions.

He talked about how much he missed Jo and the girls, especially Christe. His little girl, he called her. He said he appreciated all their efforts to catch the killer, but wasn't sure that knowing who had done this would help him. It was hard enough that they were gone, he said. Wouldn't it just be that much worse if the police caught someone and he was forced to learn all the gruesome details of how it had happened?

Though he did not shirk questions that touched on his feelings, Hal made no attempt to solicit their sympathy. As usual, he underplayed his pain.

"I have good days and bad days," he told them. "I try to keep busy."

Several hours later, when the investigators left the farm, they had learned nothing that would cast suspicion on Hal. To begin with, he didn't appear to have the opportunity or motive to arrange the murders. Although his wife and daughters had been covered by life insurance policies, the money Hal had received -- Cummings recalls that it was just under $70,000, but Hal believes it was closer to $100,000 -- was hardly enough incentive to kill one's entire family. After their years in law enforcement, the detectives thought they knew enough to tell when someone was lying or putting on a show. Geoghegan said he would have bet a month's salary that Hal was clean.

The three investigators stayed in Ohio for 10 days. They interviewed more than 70 people. They talked to Hal two more times. They talked to Jo's co-workers, to Michelle's and Christe's friends, to their teachers, to the counselors who had worked with Michelle after she told the police about her uncle, to neighbors who knew Hal and the rest of the family. They even drove to the prison in Lima, Ohio, where John Rogers was incarcerated, and interviewed him.

By the time they had packed their bags and were ready to leave, they were convinced that neither Hal nor John was involved in the murders, that the killer, or killers, was not from Van Wert County.

Whoever they were after, he was somewhere in Florida.

* * * * *

Before they left, the investigators made a trip to the little cemetery where Jo and Michelle and Christe were buried. They wanted to view the graves themselves, so they could know as much as possible about the Rogers family and so they would remember.

So when they were back at their desks and frustrated and beyond exhaustion and not sure what to do next, they would think of this place and keep going.

They arrived at the cemetery to find it blanketed in a freshly fallen layer of snow. It covered the ground and lay in thin ridges along the tops of the headstones. There were still no stones marking the Rogers graves, but the detectives knew where to look. Hal had told them about the copper markers in the ground. He had also told them that Christe's friends, remembering how much she had loved teddy bears, had left a collection of the stuffed animals on her grave.

The investigators walked down the rows, their breaths forming tiny clouds, the snow crunching under their shoes, until they reached the place where the three women were buried. But they could not see anything. The graves were hidden in the snow.

BLANKET OF WHITE: At the snow-covered cemetery where Jo and Michelle and Christe were buried, the detectives dug with their bare hands until they found the markers for the women's graves.

They got onto their knees and dug through the snow with their bare hands until they uncovered the markers and the bears. Then they stood up and held still for a moment, saying nothing. They looked at the graves and looked at the fields around them and looked at the church across the street where Michelle and Christe had prayed and sung and gone to Sunday school and learned about sin and forgiveness and the glories of eternal life.

When they had seen enough, they drove away.

* * * * *

The rumors about Hal were flourishing.

Ever since the case began, Van Wert County residents had been whispering about him, saying he was strange, noting public, wondering if he might have had something to do with the murders of his wife and daughters. Now, after the visit by the investigators from Florida, the gossip took on new life. People were talking about all the time the detectives had spent in Ohio and all the questions they'd asked about Hal and his family. They had even more to talk about a few weeks later, when a reporter from the Tampa Tribune came to Van Wert and started making some inquiries of his own.

One day the reporter showed up at Hal's door. He told Hal he had heard about the investigators' visit and was working on a story about what it meant.

Hal talked to the man for only a few moments before he understood what was happening. Then he told him to get out.

"If he walked in today," says Hal, "I'd poke him clear into yesterday. I should have shot the son of a bitch when he was here."

The Tribune printed the reporter's article late that April on the front page. The story was long, brimming with detail and driven by an unmistakable point of view. It said that the police investigation had shifted back to Ohio and the Rogers family. It described Hal as "a hot-tempered, distant man who hid his eyes behind dark glasses." It talked about how Hal had posted his brother John's bond in the rape case and about the questions raised by the bond. It talked about how Hal had failed to put headstones on his family's graves. Over and over, it quoted people who described Hal as cold, bizarre, distant.

"I don't have any idea what goes on behind those eyes," the Rev. Gary Luderman, the pastor who had delivered the eulogy at the funeral, was quoted as saying from his new post at a church in Niagara Falls. "They look dead. Everything about him is so controlled, so withdrawn. I just don't know what goes on inside that man. I've never experienced anyone like him."

SMALL TOWN WHISPERS: In early 1991, after the detectives flew up from Florida to ask more questions about the Rogers family, another round of rumors about Hal Rogers spread through the county seat of Van Wert and the surrounding farms and villages.

The story did not say so out loud, but the point was clear enough:

Hal Rogers was suspect number one.

* * * * *

The word from Quantico was not good.

That spring of 1991, after Sgt. Moore and his team shared everything they knew about the case and everything they had learned in Ohio with the FBI's behavioral science unit, the profilers came back with some disturbing conclusions.

According to the FBI profile, the murderer was probably a serial killer. The profile predicted that the killer would turn out to be a white man, possibly between age 30 and 40, of above average intelligence. He was probably neat and meticulous, with strong social skills, affluent enough to own a boat, well hidden behind a persona of respectability. Given the relative difficulties of controlling three victims, the profile said the killer may have been helped by someone else. But if so, the killer would have psychologically dominated this other person.

The profile laid out a chilling description of how the murders had most likely taken place. It said the killer enjoyed the suffering of others and fantasized about such an attack for a long time before carrying it out. He planned the murders carefully, then chose the Rogers women as his specific targets after meeting them shortly after they arrived in Tampa.

He charmed them, arranged to meet them at the boat ramp, took them out in his boat, then turned on them with a weapon of some sort. He had used the weapon, along with the women's fear of water and their unfamiliarity with the bay, to isolate them and keep them under control until they were tied and gagged. Though he had covered the women's mouths with duct tape, he had left their eyes uncovered so they could see what was happening and so he could enjoy the fear in their eyes. Once they were tied, he probably raped them, weighted them down and pushed them into the water alive, one by one.

The Rogers attack was probably not his first, the profile said, because such predators usually require experience before they are confident enough to approach more than one victim at a time. And because nearly two years had gone by without his being caught, he probably felt confident enough to kill again. Only this time, the profile said, he was likely to have learned from his mistakes in the Rogers case and be more successful at concealing the bodies. Given his confidence, he would probably keep killing until arrested.

One more thing:

The killer owned a boat and knew the area well, both on land and water. He almost certainly lived somewhere around Tampa Bay.

When they delivered their profile, the FBI agents had a piece of advice for Moore.

Use the media, they said. Tell the newspapers and the TV and radio stations what you know and what you're looking for, and then they will tell the public, and then the public will be on your side, helping you search for this man. Because he won't be easy to find, they said. He doesn't look like a monster. He probably appears harmless, has a job, shows every sign of being a responsible, law-abiding citizen.

Moore was listening. Up to now, he had always seen the news media as a necessary evil. Don't tell them anything, he would instruct detectives, unless absolutely necessary. Now the FBI was suggesting the opposite approach.

As it happened, Moore was already thinking a great deal about the media. Specifically, he was worried about the Tampa Tribune article suggesting that Hal Rogers was the prime suspect in the murders. Normally, Moore didn't waste much time poring over what newspapers wrote. But this article was disastrous. If the Tribune was suggesting to its readers that the killer was probably someone in Ohio, then people who lived in Tampa would not be on the lookout for suspects in their back yards.

If the team was going to get the tip it needed to break open this case, the Tribune story -- and all its damaging points about Hal -- had to be countered.

Moore decided to ask Hal to take a lie detector test.

Like the investigators who had traveled to Ohio, Moore had already concluded that Hal had no connection to the homicides. But the sergeant wanted something to back it up, something tangible that he could wave in front of the media so they would believe it and move on. He asked Hal to submit to a polygraph, knowing full well Hal would pass it.

The polygraph, in other words, was not requested to further the investigation. It was requested to redirect the media's coverage of the investigation.

Hal agreed to the test, took it in mid-May and passed.

A week later, Moore called a press conference -- the first of his career -- to talk about the FBI profile, to ask for the public's help, and to state loudly that Hal Rogers was not a suspect, that in fact Hal had taken a lie detector test.

"Mr. Rogers is a victim in this case," Moore said.

HIDDEN AGENDA: When he held his first press conference in May 1991, Sgt. Moore was not just dispensing information on the Rogers case. He was delivering a message to the killer.

Sitting before a room full of microphones and cameras and reporters, the sergeant laid everything out, step by step. He shared the FBI's chilling conclusions. He said that the killer was not from Ohio, but probably from Florida, living nearby. Again and again, he talked about how much his team needed help from anyone with information about the case.

For all his openness, Moore had a hidden agenda. He was not just talking to the press or the public. He was delivering a personal message to the killer.

As he spoke that day, Moore hoped that the man they were after was watching. Because as the second anniversary of the murders approached, he did not want this person to feel too safe. Moore wanted him to know -- wanted him to look into his face and see for himself -- that he and the other detectives were not discouraged and never giving up. Sooner or later, they would track him down.

Staring straight into the cameras, the sergeant announced that the honeymoon was over for the killer.

"We're going to hunt him down until we find him."

* * * * *

That summer, as she drove down her street, Jo Ann Steffey often thought of her neighbor with the blue and white boat.

It had been so long since she had passed along her suspicions to the deputy in her accounting class. Afterward, she had kept watching the house, waiting for a police cruiser to show up in the man's driveway. More than a year had gone by. But she had seen nothing.

Steffey tried to put it out of her mind. Just because she had not seen any officers at the man's house did not mean they hadn't checked him out, she told herself. They must have done their homework. They must have interviewed him and decided he wasn't the one.

Thinking this way made Steffey feel better. She hoped her neighbor had been investigated. But if he hadn't been, she didn't know what to tell the police anymore.

Because the man was no longer her neighbor.

He and his wife and their little girl had moved out months ago with hardly a word to anyone. Didn't say why they were leaving or where they were going. Just packed up a trailer one day and drove away. No one seemed to know their whereabouts, not even the real estate agent trying to sell their house.

They were gone.

<< Return to Chapter 1

To read Chapters 4-7 of Angels & Demons, please visit the St. Petersburg Times web site.